Have you ever noticed that even when something good happens, it doesn’t hit the way it used to?
You land the promotion. You buy the new gadget. You finally go on that trip you’ve dreamt about. And then…instead of lasting joy, it feels like just…another thing.
Well, there’s a name for this. It’s called emotional inflation. And if you’re wondering if this phenomenon is similar to financial inflation—when the value of money decreases and you need more of it to buy the same goods—you’d be correct.
With emotional inflation, the value of your positive experiences decreases, and you need more, bigger, faster, shinier things to feel the same level of satisfaction you once got from something small.
In this piece, we explore how to tell if you might be experiencing emotional inflation, then I share a practical technique you can use to start to turn things around today.
For a deeper dive, as always, you can listen to the latest episode of Mental Health Bites here or on Apple Podcasts. You can also find more short clips and helpful tips at my YouTube channel. Now, let’s dive in.
The Science Behind Emotional Inflation
If you constantly need “the next thing” to feel excited, if you experience a sense of restlessness or boredom during enjoyable activities, if you feel like your gratitude practices don’t stick anymore, or if you compare your wins to others and quickly dismiss your own you might be experiencing emotional inflation.
The good news is that the problem isn’t that you’re ungrateful or broken, rather your nervous system is simply running on overdrive.
Hedonic adaptation tells us that after a peak experience, our emotional system naturally resets to baseline. However, over time, that baseline can slowly shift. On top of that, constant overstimulation from social media scrolling, dopamine-chasing entertainment, and comparison culture desensitizes our brain’s reward pathways.
Think about how a new iPhone is hyped up like a life-changing event but within weeks, most people barely notice what’s in their hand. Or consider celebrities who live in excess who constantly upgrade their cars, homes, vacations all the while talking openly about their struggle with emptiness.
The result of all of this is that small joys don’t “register” the way they once did. The good news is that this adaptation works both ways; we can recalibrate and rediscover pleasure in simpler experiences.
Your Antidote: The Small Joy Reset
Here’s a practice I like to call the Small Joy Reset. It’s designed to recalibrate your brain so that ordinary pleasures feel meaningful again.
Step 1: Subtract before you add.
Pick one overstimulating input to cut back on for a week, maybe late-night TikTok scrolling, constant news alerts, or that third cup of coffee. When you remove that constant stimulation, your brain starts to regain sensitivity to smaller rewards.
Step 2: Micro-dose joy.
Every day, choose one small activity you enjoy. It might be a five-minute walk, your favorite tea, listening to one song with your full attention. The trick is not to multitask. Just do that one thing, and savor it. Research on savoring and mindfulness shows this rewires your reward circuits to respond to smaller, more accessible pleasures.
Step 3: Name it, claim it.
After each small joy, take 30 seconds to label the experience out loud or in writing. For example:
“That five-minute walk gave me energy. I felt calm when I listened to that song.”
Neuroscience tells us that labeling enhances encoding; it literally makes the brain remember and register the experience more deeply. Over time, this reset makes the “small joys” start to feel big again. And that’s the antidote to emotional inflation.
Joy Can Be Relearned
You can teach your brain to find richness in everyday life.
So, if you’ve been feeling like nothing is enough anymore, know that you’re not alone. Emotional inflation is a real phenomenon in our fast-paced, overstimulated culture, but with intentional resets, you can reclaim the joy in simple things.
If this piece resonated with you, I’d love for you to share it with someone who might need to hear it.
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About me:
Dr. Judy Ho, Ph. D., ABPP, ABPdN is a triple board certified and licensed Clinical and Forensic Neuropsychologist, a tenured Associate Professor at Pepperdine University, television and podcast host, and author of Stop Self-Sabotage. An avid researcher and a two-time recipient of the National Institute of Mental Health Services Research Award, Dr. Judy maintains a private practice where she specializes in comprehensive neuropsychological evaluations and expert witness work. She is often called on by the media as an expert psychologist and is also a sought after public speaker for universities, businesses, and organizations.
Dr. Judy received her bachelor’s degrees in Psychology and Business Administration from UC Berkeley, and her masters and doctorate from SDSU/UCSD Joint Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology. She completed a National Institute of Mental Health sponsored fellowship at UCLA’s Semel Institute.
