How to Enjoy the Hot Tub

I love reading. People who know me well can confirm that, I'm sure. Recently I started reading a book called The Upside of Irrationality (The unexpected benefits of defying logic at work and at home) by Dan Ariely and yesterday I stumbled on a - in my opinion - very interesting chapter entitled On Adaptation. The subtitle says Why We Get Used to Things (but Not All Things, and Not Always), which intrigued me right from the start, because I'm usually good at adapting. I tend to see myself as a pretty "flexible" person that doesn't have too much trouble adapting to new surroundings, new people, etc. So I was curious to find out if there was something new I could learn about adaptation and especially if it is always a good thing. 

After talking about physical adaptation, especially adaptation to pain, for a while, the author then comes to the subject of so-called hedonic adaptation which he describes as "the process of getting used to the places we live, our homes, our romantic partners, and almost everything else." He then goes on to describe how good we are at adapting to almost anything that we might experience in life, be it good or bad, pleasurable or emotionally painful. In the case of a pleasurable experience, like relaxing in a hot tub for example, the process of adaptation has a negative effect, because the amount of pleasure we derive from the experience decreases the longer we stay in the tub. In the case of annoying chores on the other hand, like grading homework or tests (yes, I'm a teacher :-)), the experience tends to become less annoying the longer you're at it (thank God for human adaptation abilities, right?).

So far this made perfect sense to me. But then came the punchline. As humans, we tend to mess with this adaptive ability we have in exactly the wrong way. When we're enjoying the hot tub, we think we need to stay in there as long as possible in order to get the most pleasure from the experience. When we're grading homework (I'm sure there are other examples for all the non-teachers out there), we tend to believe that it will be easier to endure if we take a break every now and then to do something pleasurable instead. Not so, says Ariely: "You may think that taking a break during an irritating or boring experience will be good for you, but a break actually decreases your ability to adapt, making the experience seem worse when you have to return to it. When cleaning your house or doing your taxes, the trick is to stick with it until you are done" (p. 179).
Mmh, so what about the hot tub? He's got good advice for his readers there too: "Similarly, if you don't want to take the plunge and get out of the hot tub to refresh your (or your romantic partner's) drink, consider the joy of returning to the hot water (not to mention that your friend will not realize that you are doing this to extend your own pleasure and consequently will highly appreciate your 'sacrifice' "
(p. 180f).

Sounds like something to think about. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to grading some tests... ;-)