Table of contents:
- What is anhedonia?
- What are the types of anhedonia?
- 1. Social anhedonia
- 2. Physical anhedonia
- What are the causes of anhedonia?
Feelings of sadness often make you upset and not excited about the day. In fact, sometimes feelings of sadness drag on and end up making you feel unhappy. However, in fact there are health conditions that make you unable to feel happy even though you are not sad or upset. This unique condition is called anhedonia. What is anhedonia? Check out the following explanation.
What is anhedonia?
Anhedonia is a condition where you cannot feel pleasure in everything that is happening in your life. You lose interest in things that previously were attractive to you.
When you experience this condition, you may not be interested in doing activities that you previously enjoyed, even becoming a hobby. You also begin to lose interest in hanging out with friends, not be enthusiastic about work, and have no appetite for food.
Even reluctant and lazy to have sex with a partner. All the things that previously made you feel satisfied and happy with life, now turn into boring and stressful things.
Anhedonia is one of the main causes of depression, but not all depressed people develop this condition at first. Besides appearing in people who are depressed, this condition can also be experienced by sufferers of other mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, psychosis, and anorexia.
What are the types of anhedonia?
These problems are grouped into two types, namely social anhedonia and physical anhedonia.
1. Social anhedonia
If you experience social anhedonia, then you are less likely to like spending time with other people. Symptoms that may arise when experiencing this condition are:
- Have a feeling of wanting to channel negative feelings to yourself and others. You may do this through speech, gestures, and other actions.
- Finding it difficult to adjust to social settings is another symptom of social anhedonia.
- It has a feeling of being empty and flat, to the point that you can't feel any feelings
- Has a tendency to fake happy feelings such as pretending to be happy in front of other people when in social situations and conditions. When in fact you feel normal or don't even feel anything.
- Do not have the desire to hang out or spend time with friends and family, even though you normally enjoy doing it.
- Refuse invitations to attend events such as parties, concerts, or other activities. This is because the feelings of pleasure that you have disappear, so you feel that you will not get the benefit from doing these activities.
2. Physical anhedonia
Meanwhile, if you have physical anhedonia, you are less likely to get the physical tactile sensations that other people would normally feel, or the sensations you would feel under normal conditions.
Symptoms that may occur when experiencing this condition include:
- Not feeling any sensation when given a touch of affection by another, such as a hug or maybe a kiss. The feeling you have at that time tends to be empty or you don't feel anything.
- Not feeling pleasure and feeling happy when eating the food you like, even though you usually have the opposite taste.
- Not easily aroused or even interested in physical intercourse with your partner or other people.
- Experiencing ongoing health problems, such as falling sick frequently.
In fact, quoted from Medical News Today, Anhedonia, both social and physical, can also be a reason for people who experience it to do extreme activities such as sports.skydiving which triggers adrenaline.
What are the causes of anhedonia?
One of the causes of anhedonia is the use of drugs such as antidepressants and antipsychotics which are used to treat depression. Anhedonia is closely related to depression, but to experience it, you don't have to feel depressed or sad.
You can also experience this condition if you are traumatized by an event that stressed you out in the past. In addition, the experience of violence or rejection that you feel can also be a trigger for this condition.
If you have a disease that changes your quality of life or if you experience it eating disorder such as anorexia and bulimia, these conditions can also occur. In fact, if you have a disease that is not related to mental illness such as Parkinson's, diabetes, or coronary heart disease, you may experience this condition.
It can also occur if you have problems with the way your brain produces or responds to dopamine, a chemical in the brain that makes you feel good.
At that time, maybe your brain is overproducing dopamine, so it is possible that this overproduction interferes with your self-control over how you react and accept things that happen to you.
