why the 10th time you do something fun it doesn’t feel as good as the 1st time
In: Biology
What we call “fun” is just some activity that engages our brain, ideally one that also makes our body release chemicals that make us feel good.
When your brain is occupied, it means it is basically building new roads to send messages on. The more difficult and new the experience, the more new roads it needs.
When you brain experiences something new, it works overtime to try and find patterns, memorize and categorize that information. It builds new roads to help if it sees that task again in the future.
Humans (and other animals) evolved to enjoy this, especially when young, because humans with more experiences are better prepared to face a wide range of challenges in the future.
By the time you’re doing something a 10th time, or 1000th time, your brain probably already built the roads it needs and now no longer has to work very hard to engage with the task.
You experience that as low focus and low engagement.
This is part of why adrenaline-seekers start with something small, like riding a bike fast as a kid, and eventually end up doing huge things like jumping out of planes. The brain eventually stops reacting to the original experiences in the same way.
You can sometimes trick your brain into re-engaging with an experience by doing it in a new way.
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