What you need to know about anhedonia and how to recover from it

Most people can easily identify moments that bring them joy, like a beautiful sunset, receiving a gift, a heartfelt hug, enjoying intimacy or diving into a swimming pool on a hot day. But for people living with anhedonia, these experiences elicit little or no sense of pleasure.

Psychologist Faith Nyoike says that anhedonia is the inability to experience pleasure from activities that would normally be enjoyable. People with anhedonia can partake in activities, but they don’t feel them at all.

Anhedonia is linked to disruptions in the brain's reward pathways that involve dopamine, a neurotransmitter that brings about motivation, pleasure, and reward. The brain of a person with anhedonia does not secrete dopamine properly, so whatever experience they are going through is not enjoyable.

As a result, activities that once brought satisfaction start to feel meaningless or emotionally empty. Eventually, they stop engaging in them altogether because the expected reward never arrives.

Faith notes that the condition can be confused with depression since both involve diminished emotional wellbeing. However, while depression involves prolonged sadness, hopelessness, and low energy, anhedonia specifically affects the brain's ability to experience pleasure.

While it is linked with depression, she says that it is a distinct condition that can affect how people experience everyday life. A person with anhedonia is also sad, but its defining feature is the persistent absence of enjoyment.

"When someone is sad, there are still things that can lift their mood. You might feel better after talking to a friend or eating ice cream. With anhedonia, nothing seems to change,” she says.

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Some of the causes of anhedonia are that it is a symptom of other mental health conditions, prolonged depression, unresolved trauma, and substance use disorders. Certain neurological conditions and illnesses, such as brain injuries and tumours, can also affect areas of the brain involved in pleasure and reward.

Those who have experienced abuse or neglect and were never celebrated or encouraged are likely to grow up without positive reinforcement or experiences that stimulate pleasure and reward.

Long-term stress and burnout can contribute to depression, which in turn affects the brain's reward system.

"Burnout can lead to depression, which can prevent people from enjoying life's pleasures. Post-traumatic stress disorder can contribute, especially when trauma is closely tied to a person's identity and way of seeing the world," Faith explains.

One of the most common signs of anhedonia is withdrawal from activities and relationships.

"It is mostly behavioural. You become isolated, uninvolved in things, focused only on survival, sticking to routines, and limiting contact with others," she says.

Unlike someone experiencing a temporary low mood, a person with anhedonia comes to be accustomed to the condition and cannot actively resist the isolation it creates.

Faith warns that anhedonia can also become part of a person’s identity. They may not see anything wrong with withdrawing from social activities because they no longer expect enjoyment from them, but they will still continue to function in daily life.

"They can still go to work, attend school, and fulfil responsibilities because of duty and obligation. But there is an underlying emptiness, flatness, and disconnection from the enjoyable side of life," she says.

She shares that there are two forms of anhedonia: social and physical. Social anhedonia affects a person's enjoyment of relationships and social interactions. Such a person withdraws from friends, family, and social gatherings because they no longer find these experiences rewarding.

Physical anhedonia, on the other hand, affects pleasure that comes through the senses. Activities such as listening to music, enjoying food, appreciating scents, exercising, or experiencing physical intimacy will no longer produce positive feelings.

Faith recognises that diagnosing anhedonia can be challenging as it comes with depression or other mental health conditions. Initially it presents as sadness or depression. In some cases, therapists notice that their clients don’t get enjoyment when engaging in activities they previously loved, being around loved ones, taking trips they once dreamt of, or receiving treatment for depression.

Anhedonia can put strain on relationships since emotional withdrawal leaves loved ones feeling rejected or confused. The inability to enjoy anything can alienate them from the world. Moreover, people with anhedonia are usually misunderstood as grumpy, unkind, lazy, or unmotivated, for they don’t understand what they are experiencing. She encourages family and friends to respond with patience.

"People with anhedonia do not fully understand what is happening to them, so they pull away. Loved ones should support them and be present without being overwhelming," she advises.

Therapy plays a crucial role by helping them feel understood and supported. Through therapy, she notes, they can slowly be encouraged to pursue meaningful activities and maintain social connections to prevent further isolation, but pleasurable feelings may take time.

For those struggling day-to-day, she recommends establishing routines and focusing on activities that spark even small amounts of interest and curiosity without pushing too far beyond their comfort zone.

She says that recovery from anhedonia is possible, but it depends on the person and the underlying causes. One of the earliest signs of improvement is feeling anticipation.

"A person with anhedonia does not look forward to anything. Progress starts when they start anticipating something again, when they are looking forward to something in the future," she says.

That sense of expectation, however small, can mean that the brain's capacity for pleasure and connection is coming back.