Customer Reviews

Thrilled to Death: How the Endless Pursuit of Pleasure Is Leaving Us Numb

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Thrilled to Death
By Dr. Archibald D. Hart

Dr. Hart explains anhedonia as the reduced ability to experience
pleasure. The lack of the ability to experience pleasure affects every
aspect of our lives: sexuality, addictions, relationships,
spirituality... He shares how the fast paced lives we live and the
increasing numbers of electronic gadgets we use in our day to day
lives rob us of the ability to feel pleasure and cause us to feel numb
to everything except the most extreme pleasure eliciting activities.
Where as in the past anhedonia was only seen in clients with major
depression or other severe mental illnesses it is more and more common
to see it as the illness and not just a symptom.

Dr. Hart shows in several simple diagrams how the feeling of pleasure
is lost as anhedonia develops due to over stimulation and a flooding
of dopamines which raises the threshold barrier that enjoyment must
cross in order to reach the pleasure center of the brain, requiring
major pleasures which are commonly found in drugs and other addicting
behaviors to cross the high threshold. This brings to mind an often
quoted "law" stated in my family home the "law of diminishing returns"
which in simple terms is the fact that the first candy bar always
taste far better than the 2nd, 5th, 10th... I wonder if this could be
attributed to the pleasure center's threshold being raised by each
successive candy bar eaten. As more is learned about our brains and
how they work is discovered and researched it is becoming apparent
that the ability to feel pleasure and feelings of happiness with your
life are closely intertwined.

I found it useful and insightful that Dr. Hart included many self
tests: stress level, internet addiction, test for anhedonia, laughter,
anhedonia in children, multitasking addiction, emotional eating... To
help the reader gauge where they fall in needing to put the second
half of the book to use in their life where Dr. Hart gives seven steps
in the recovery process of being able to experience pleasure even in
life's smallest pleasure giving moments.

The seven steps are: 1. Seek the right form of pleasure 2. Recapture
the joy of little things 3. Control your adrenaline 4. Use humor to
enhance your happiness 5. Develop appreciation and gratitude 6. Master
relaxation and meditation 7. Make space for things that matter.

If you or someone you love has been experiencing a lack of feelings
towards things that used to give you pleasure or you find in general
you feel numb much of the time this is the book you are looking for
although you might not have known it. I especially think it would be a
helpful read for parents as they evaluate what is important in their
children's lives to keep and what to opt out of for the health of
their children and themselves.

This is an important book, by a distinguished scholar. Everyone should read this book. It is extremely well written, clear and easy to understand, despite the neuroscience. The message is convincing -- we are thrilling ourselves to death, wearing out the pleasure circuits in the brain with more and more stimulation, and ruining our potential for happiness for years to come, maybe forever. We need to get back to the little pleasures in life.

Ever feel overstimulated - like if the power went off and all the batteries ran out, it wouldn't be the worst thing? Then you can relate to the premise of Thrilled to Death:. Dr. Hart puts words to what nags at the back of the mind, that constant entertainment causes a general dulling of the ability to experience pleasure in kids and adults alike. The book's not preachy, but is scientifically supported. Now I finally know why Laura Ingalls could be thrilled by a corn cob doll when it takes a new episode of The Office to do the same for me. Have no fear, Dr. Hart doesn't leave us hanging, he gives suggestions on how to be able to enjoy the simple things once again.

Dr. Hart's book is brilliant on how we are abusing the pleasure center with all our multi-tasking. Every parent needs to read this book and see what is happening to our generation. He is years ahead of his time with his research and many books will follow this theory.

Thought provoking book that gets the reader to evaluate how as an individual and culture we are actually being thrilled to death. Due to overstimulation we are doing damage to the center of our brains that experience pleasure. Through prolonged overstimulation we will become dulled in our ability to experience pleasure. This makes sense as we can see that younger people have trouble not being bored with simple pleasures. Good practical application to everyday life. Hart is prophetic in his insight into the problems that we will experience as a culture. Good read with lots to ponder.

Thought provoking facts and answers that provide
wisdom and knowledge in dealing with our "thrill
seeking" and "pleasure pursuing," yet "empty" society
of today. A must read if you are desiring true
fulfillment and satisfaction in living.

I was profoundly disappointed in this book. I'm very interested in the idea of Anhedonia, and think that it is a major cultural issue that we need to be addressing in this age of ever-increasing media exposure. Dr. Hart's book, however, is terribly written. He makes the same points over and over again, and almost never provides any sort of references to support his claims. Everything he has to say in this book could be summed up in about 20 pages without losing anything. He must have waited until the night before his deadline, and stayed up all night drinking Rockstars and typing away, then given it to his editor who is either lazy, stupid, or nonexistent. If you're expecting an interesting, factually and scientifically grounded analysis of Anhedonia, DO NOT waste your money. If you want to hear some vague anecdotal "evidence" woven into pseudo-scientific conclusions, then this is the book for you.

I bought this book on a whim expecting an interesting analysis of human behavior and social commentary. What I got was essentially a big gossip magazine article. This book is written for the lay person who won't be bothered to read the whole book (each page's critical idea is summed up in one sentence and placed in a box in the middle of the page). There are absolutely no references to studies to back up the claims the author makes. He occasionally mentions that he is writing about a small percentage of individuals while repeating over and over that we are doomed to a life of anhedonia. His alarmist statements are followed by his attempting to sell you his personal guide to thwarting a life without pleasure. Pop psychology/junk science all around.

I heard about this book from a professor of mine, and of course was interested in a novel that would explore the excesses of modern life, seeing as just about everything today is excess. As I began reading the book I began to catch an underlying premise, and this was that your life will be miserable if you don't adopt a religion and conform to it completely.

Being a atheist, and believing that there is more to to be enjoyed in life than preparing for the afterlife, I found this advice useless. This would be a great book if you are a practicing Christian, in that it would reinforce your faith, but to those who don't place much in religion, and look to other outlets for happiness, this book is unreadable. I didn't make it half way.

As such, I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone, it is a very one sided look at society that takes the easy way out of every argument and offers nothing real in the way of solutions.