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4hodmt10y50

I went to school. That's a clear example of "repeated stressful challenges", and it did not produce any satisfaction or happiness.

12 Does hormetism work? Opponent process theory.

by [anonymous]

25th Feb 2015

1 min read

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To the fun theory, hedonic treadmill sequences.

http://gettingstronger.org/hormesis/

TL;DR stoicism with science.

Key idea: OPT, Opponent Process Theory: http://gettingstronger.org/2010/05/opponent-process-theory/

Research, PDF: http://gettingstronger.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Solomon-Opponent-Process-1980.pdf

From the article:

"In hedonic reversal, a stimulus that initially causes a pleasant or unpleasant response does not just dissipate or fade away, as Irvine describes, but rather the initial feeling leads to an opposite secondary emotion or sensation. Remarkably, the secondary reaction is often deeper or longer lasting than the initial reaction. And what is more, when the stimulus is repeated many times, the initial response becomes weaker and the secondary response becomes stronger and lasts longer."

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[-]RomeoStevens10y60

So repeated stressful challenges (that are small enough to successfully navigate) can lead to long lasting satisfaction and happiness, while repeated low level dopamine spikes (say from browsing the net) can lead to long lasting malaise and apathy. Seems about right.

What about counter examples though?

[-][anonymous]10y80

Certainly there must be counter-examples, if life was as easy as "do things that suck and you will be happy" we would have figured it out long ago. For example the vast majority of people in history had no chance to avoid doing things that suck, so they were very happy? Plenty of people in poorer places, militaries, worse factories, boy scout camps, whatevers, could only shower in cold water, did they all learn to enjoy it?

I would suggest that the body has only a limited capacity to generate opponent processes. If everything in your life is cozy, do things that suck. If you already have to do things that suck, probably you are using that potential already.

Right now there are probably soldiers in the waist deep cold mud who blow a donkey for a hot shower. Their opponent process capacity is probably all used up. But for super-comfortable middle class first worlders, a cold one is a good idea, they have untapped opponent process capacity.

I know only one aspect of it. Intermittent fasting. No food for 14 hours and I a feel very weird. I would say, I am hungry. Yet for a lot of people in history of they had food in the last 24 hours that was not a bad day. 40 or 50, and they were indeed hungry. But 14? They would just consider that working up a good appetite.

My point is, if I stick to it, I expect the opponent process to kick in, because probably there is enough capacity to make IF fun. There is probably not enogh OP capacity to make serious starvation fun.

[-]RomeoStevens10y60

Well "that are small enough to successfully navigate" seems important. Trying to lift something that is too heavy for you to actually lift does not generate much of an opponent process, but repeatedly practicing with one you can (just barely) does.

[-]4hodmt10y50

I went to school. That's a clear example of "repeated stressful challenges", and it did not produce any satisfaction or happiness.

[-]MrMind10y40

In general we should acknowledge that long and short term responses to stimulus are not linear. That they are not linear in magnitude we already knew, the article suggests they are not linear even in the 'utilons' generated.

I would though be wary that this is a general case. It's a good thing to investigate if and where a stimulus/reponse chain is linear, it's a bad thing to presuppose that's never the case.

[-]Richard_Kennaway10y40

Is this an example? Exposure to peanuts can substantially reduce the chance of becoming allergic to peanuts, according to a recent finding. News report, paper on "Randomized Trial of Peanut Consumption in Infants at Risk for Peanut Allergy".

[-]NancyLebovitz10y30

I think it's complicated-- what kinds of challenge are good for people, and how do you judge how much challenge of a particular type is good, and for whom?

So far as I know, being low on sleep is bad for people. Um, except that sometimes modest amounts of sleep deprivation (like an all-nighter, I think) can raise energy. Again, vague impression, but some missed sleep can work as a useful reset for some people with depression, or set off mania for people with bipolar.

[-]27chaos10y30

My sole complaint about this post is that I feel the idea, as applied to psychology, is a couple orders of magnitude more amazing than the post suggests. My initial reaction on seeing this post was "Huh, neat. Upvote." Now that it's had more time to stew in my brain, I'm starting to imagine lots and lots of potential implications this theory has for improving the productivity and happiness of my daily life.

[-][anonymous]10y20

Go on please, the website only says a couple of potential applications.

[-]Anomylous10y20

I have read that blog some, and have tried the cold-showers thing. It's great - in the summertime. Winter came around and I kind of fell off the wagon.

In other applications, hormesis is probably why I don't have issues with stage fright anymore.

[-]Vaniver10y10

The primary challenge I've had with taking hormetic approaches is that it looks very dose-dependent, but there's not much guidance in how to find the right dose. We know that taking cold showers that are too cold is a bad idea that leaves you worse off than taking warm showers. But what's too cold? How cold is the water that comes straight out of my cold water tap?

So if you grab your thermometer and check how your body temperature changes based on the temperature of your shower, you can find the sweet spot. But that's a more complicated plan than just "take cold showers!"

[-]Lumifer10y30

We know that taking cold showers that are too cold is a bad idea that leaves you worse off than taking warm showers.

We do?

I've always interpreted the idea of cold showers (in this context) as brief but intensely cold, preferably preceded or followed by hot showers. It's the same idea as running out of a sauna, rolling in the snow, then running back in (highly recommended, by the way).

[-]Vaniver10y10

I thought I had come across an article on this on Getting Stronger, but I'm having difficulty finding it at present. The main thing I'm seeing now is this comment:

The key here is adaptation: It’s dangerous and silly to expose yourself to water or air temperatures beyond your adaptive range.

[-]Lumifer10y10

There are probably two different things going on here.

One is staying cold for a fairly long time (many minutes, hours?) at the around-shivering levels, which your link seems to be talking about. The main effects would involve hormonal adaptation, brown fat, etc.

Two is a cold shock -- very cold, but very briefly (seconds, maybe a minute or two) -- the response to which is likely quite different, mostly vascular and with a different set of hormones.

Also, I expect the "adaptive range" of humans with respect to environmental temperatures to be pretty huge :-)

[-]Vaniver10y10

Yes, cold shock is only one component of the benefit of cold showers, but there's still ways to do cold shock wrong--my impression is that it's a bad idea to dunk your head in cold water under most conditions, which rarely makes it into any recommendation for cold showers (and only sometimes makes it into discussions of saunas).

Also, I expect the "adaptive range" of humans with respect to environmental temperatures to be pretty huge :-)

That's not what he means by that; he means that specific person's range. If someone is unused to immersing themselves in 10 degree water, they probably shouldn't start there, but work to it gradually. What should an optimal ramp look like? That's the advice I want to see.

[-]Lumifer10y10

my impression is that it's a bad idea to dunk your head in cold water under most conditions

Hmm, any links? I could see this leading to headaches/migraines in susceptible people, but otherwise why not?

What should an optimal ramp look like?

What would you optimize for?

[-]Vaniver10y10

Hmm, any links? I could see this leading to headaches/migraines in susceptible people, but otherwise why not?

...otherwise? If it's giving you a headache, that seems like a good reason to suspect damage. I have mostly seen anecdotal reports; headaches for showering, and this person claims that their Finnish friends recommend against submerging their head during a jump into the lake during the sauna. (Perhaps some Finns here could chime in?)

What would you optimize for?

Beneficial health impact?

[-]Lumifer10y10

...otherwise?

Otherwise in the sense of if you know you're susceptible, don't do it, but otherwise -- if you know you don't get headaches from that -- are there any other reasons to avoid?

Beneficial health impact?

Quantified as what? When you are optimizing things, it's useful to have a numeric value that you're trying to maximize (or minimize).

[-]Vaniver10y10

Quantified as what? When you are optimizing things, it's useful to have a numeric value that you're trying to maximize (or minimize).

Sure, but I doubt that the optimal ramp for brown adipose tissue activation is that much different from the optimal ramp for mood / energy adjustment, or the optimal ramp for immune strength, or so on, and by optimizing for one of those things rather than none of those things you give yourself enough of a feedback loop to prevent ramps that are harmful overall.

[-]Lumifer10y10

I would find it difficult to optimize in the short-term for mood due to noise and confounders, and pretty much impossible to optimize for immune strength since I have no easy way to measure it.

In my experience ramps are not needed at all, so I would expect that even for people who would like one it would take time on the order of a couple of weeks which is way too short to optimize for something that you can't easily measure directly.

[-]27chaos10y00

Out of curiosity, does anyone here have any good information on the idea of nuclear hormesis? The idea that exposure to very low level radiation can be healthy has attracted a few scattered studies, most of which seem to suggest it has potential, but to my knowledge no rigorous follow up studies have ever been done due to ethical concerns.

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