Is it normal for a person to "feel" less as they get older?

I remember experiencing the world much more vividly when I was a little boy.

I would step outside on an autumn evening and feel joy as the cool breeze rustled the leaves and caressed my skin. In the summers, I would listen to the orchestra of insects buzzing around me. I would waddle out of the cold swimming pool and the most wonderful shiver would cascade out of me as I peed in the bathroom. In the winters, I would get mesmerized by the simple sound of my boots crunching the snow under me.

These were not experiences that I actively sought out. They just happened. I did not need to stop to smell the figurative roses, the roses themselves would stop me in my tracks.

As I got older, I started feeling less and less and thinking more and more.

I’ve tried meditation, recreation, vacation, resignation, and medication. Some of these things have helped but I am still left wondering… is this a side effect of getting older? Or is there something wrong with me?

ablackcatstail,
@ablackcatstail@lemmy.goblackcat.com avatar

I am no doctor but I remember hearing one of the warning signs of depression can be the absence of feeling. It is certainly one of mine.

foggy,

‘emotiinal blunting’

NotSpez,

For everyone wondering whether or not they’re depressed, there is a tool doctors use called the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), broadly available online as a PDF. If you score high talk to your doctor about it. Take good care of yourselves fellow lemmings.

Additionally, mindfulness sometimes gets a bad rep but it’s an awesome way to reconnect with your ‘feeling’ side. There are many apps, I found one that really works for me and it’s awesome.

dingus,

Ehh…I disagree with this if we are specifically talking about what the OP is referring to.

When you’re a child, everything is new, making all of it exciting. For example…as a child, OP had only experienced winter a few times. As an adult, they’ve experienced countless winters. It becomes routine instead of new and so it fades into the background. And with adult obligations to worry about, we don’t have that worry free child mind that can drift off like that. It’s just part of getting older.

OP, sometimes it’s worth making a conscious decision to stop and take a moment to notice and experience your surroundings. There’s a thunderstorm outside? Grab a warm cup of coffee and just try to watch and listen for a moment. If possible, open a window (that won’t let rain in) or sit outside under an awning and just take in all of your senses. Go out for a walk without any music and without using your phone. Try to look at the trees and birds around you and take it in. Smell the air…has the grass been recently cut? Has it rained recently? Is there mud around? Is someone nearby grilling some food? Are there leaves on the ground? Try stepping on one. Do they crunch or are they soft and wet?

As a child, everything is new. As an adult, it’s routine and boring. But you can still manage to capture a small bit of this feeling back if you actively decide to stop from time to time and consciously try to take in your surroundings for a moment. Stop and try to feel all of your senses.

You can never make these feelings new again, but sometimes I find some satisfaction in watching and listening to the world around me.

slackassassin,

Both perspectives are true and effort is the key in either case.

Not everyone is destined to lose appreciation for the moment, regardless of “newness”.

Nor is everyone so easily adept at willing it to be so.

But engaged awareness, to your point, is a helpful consideration to be sure!

What a great tool to reach for!

jandar_fett,

Photography helped me with this, and I know not everyone is creative, but editing photos personally helped me find some wonder. You can do so much with perspective and change an image into something completely different with just the right modifications… Anyway. The world is shifty and we have all been in it too long and are Hella jaded. You just have to find novel things, even if it is harder for our brains to view that way, we can even trick our brains by doing mundane things in a new way. Like for instance instead of shaving in the shower or bathroom, go outside into nature, bring a mirror and shave there. I remember Michio Kaku saying something like this and the added bonus is it will make your life feel longer too, since it is adding novelty, your brain doesn’t just go into autopilot.

RickRussell_CA,
@RickRussell_CA@kbin.social avatar

Part of it is looking back through rose-colored glasses. Sure, there was joy, but there was that time you stubbed your toe and you got so emotionally disregulated that you cried for an hour, or the time your parents put the wrong color socks on you and you screamed a bad word at them and refused to leave the house, or... etc.

You learned to regulate your emotions. That's mostly a good thing, but it also means that you learn to control yourself in the moment, and you don't tend to lose yourself in joy like you did as a child.

And that's OK. I enjoy things differently now, than I did then. Back then, when I played with a toy car, it gave me great joy but if something broke, or things didn't go my way, I also suffered uncontrollable anger and frustration. Today, when I take my TRX-4 trail truck out on the trails, I feel a different kind of joy that is mixed with intellectual understanding of the engineering of the machine, an appreciation of the beauty of the natural world that I didn't have as a child, etc. And if something breaks, it's not an emotional thing any more. I know I can fix it, I have the ability and the desire.

Heck, it's enjoyable to break things, take them apart, and fix them again. That certainly wasn't true when I was 6.

platysalty,

And if something breaks, it's not an emotional thing any more. I know I can fix it, I have the ability and the desire.

Fixing stuff breaking is honestly half the fun. Weird love hate thing.

RickRussell_CA,
@RickRussell_CA@kbin.social avatar

Exactly. Break something, and the fun stops for now, but TIME FOR AN UPGRADE!

platysalty,

Geez, let everyone know my MO why don't you.

1draw4u,

I recently read that in a neurotypical human being, the succession of two experiences only has a big impact on brain activity for the first experience, while the second makes a smaller spike. In psychotic patients on the other hand, the impression makes two equally large spikes both times. In the experiment, the experience was hearing a ballpoint pen click. So maybe being dulled to former experience is important for the brain to function properly, just a side effect of our natural brain filter.

MothBookkeeper,

That’s sad, but comforting in a way.

kender242,
@kender242@lemmy.world avatar

The prefrontal lobe is the part of your brain responsible for saying “hush”

i.e. that’s not a novel idea/stimulus anymore

jandar_fett,

This makes a lot of sense to me. I am trying to link it to survival and evolution, but can’t pin anything down off the top of my head. I’m going to continue mulling it over though.

SlowNoPoPo,

Do shrooms that feeling will come right back

UnverifiedAPK,

Reach ego death and that feeling will go away forever.

doom_and_gloom,
@doom_and_gloom@lemmy.ml avatar

Not always true. But usually worth a shot.

systemglitch,

Even that wears off youngling.

z500,
@z500@startrek.website avatar

For me it was gay sex that did it

Llewellyn,
@Llewellyn@lemmy.ml avatar

Oh you

Notyou,

I was going to suggest that, but wanted to see if any other people would. It has helped me anecdotally, and many other people. There are studies being done at universities that prove psilocybin help with mental and behavior issues.

Obviously don’t just take my word for it. Look into it. Have a trip sitter or someone experienced that can talk you through your thoughts if you need it.

SlowNoPoPo,

yeah, as long as you treat the experience with the respect it deserves it’s beneficial, people get into trouble with it when they mix it with other drugs or just take it with no considerations

karce,
@karce@wizanons.dev avatar

100% agree with this. Ever since getting into shrooms the world has become so much more alive and I feel far better about life in general. I run a community for magic and mysticism if anyone is interested called !magic which focuses on this type of discussion. Anyone is welcome to join the discussion or ask questions.

zabadoh,

If you read up on how our brains age, it’s basically pruning neuron branches. While this is a good thing up to a point, the pruning process continues well past our brains’ peak performance because evolution is done with you at that point, I.e. you had your kids by then.

theguardian.com/…/brain-tree-why-we-replenish-onl…

stephywephy88,

Everything felt wondrous to me after I got out of an abusive marriage bruised but alive. It’s not that I feel more, but the realization that I am able to feel at all amplifies the intensity of my positive feelings. Do you feel like you’re trapped in a rut at all? Or maybe you’ve convinced yourself that all the best moments have already past? Sending positive vibes to you!

SynopticVision,

That’s exactly why we do drugs

Drop_All_Users,

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/b597c5df-07a1-4d38-adca-b2caee146e32.png

dditty,

'cause ya never know when your gonna go!

systemglitch,

Things can’t be fresh and new(ish) experiences forever. Welcome to entropy of the mind. However, there are always more fresh experiences out there for you to marvel at, you just have to find them.

hare_ware,

Anhedonia?

DestroyerOfWorlds,
@DestroyerOfWorlds@lemmy.world avatar

Getting to the point in life where you realize how the sausage is made, packaged, marketed, distributed, sold, cooked, consumed, digested, defecated, flushed, mixed with other waste, and either separated into solids and liquids or dumped into the ocean will do that to you.

can,

You have more experiences, true, but some things can help you feel like you’re experiencing them for the first time. Any experience with psychedelics?

luthis,

Psychedelics made me realise i had forgotten the novelty of childhood. If i had never tried them, maybe id never have realised…

toastio,

Psychedelics have helped me to retain those feelings long after the trip has ended (some indefinitely, at least at time of writing this). I never appreciated a cool breeze until one of those experiences (I always wanted to cover up and shield myself from it before). Now, whenever I feel a cold wind or cool breeze, I appreciate it so much more because of that past experience.

Zarxrax,

It’s kind of the opposite for me. Like many people said, when you are young, every experience mostly feels new. However, when everything feels new to you, there’s really nothing special about it. For me, I always embraced the familiar. I look back at my memories of family vacations with disappointment, because as everyone else was wanting to go and do fun things, I was complaining about how I would rather be watching TV or playing my gameboy. Now as an adult, I understand how precious our experiences can be. I look out at a mountain and I appreciate the beauty of it. I think about the history that has taken place around it. I think about how other people might have experienced it. I get so much more from it than I ever would have as a child.

UdeRecife,
@UdeRecife@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

Same here. It simply comes from within. Everything now is so special because I’m aware how fleeting everything is.

Thanks for your comment. It resonated a lot with my experience.

HobbitFoot,

Yeah, it is normal, but it also sounds like depression.

CeruleanRuin,
@CeruleanRuin@lemmy.one avatar

I can only speak from personal experience, but I feel much the same way you do. However, novelty still does it for me. And I think that’s the explanation for the gradual drop-off. When you’re young, everything is new. By the time you’re older, you’ve seen it all, and so those little spikes of novelty are few and far between.

Ranjeliq,
@Ranjeliq@programming.dev avatar

I understand what you mean, I have the same feeling - everything is a but less vivid now.

I am no expert, but my guess that is happening because you have much more experience with the world now. As we age, the number of things that will be completely new to us becomes smaller and smaller. We just have more experience, and even if we haven’t seen/felt/heard something particular, chances are, that your brain still won’t be completely surprised - it will be able to find some experiences that you have which are close to that new thing.

But when you are a kid - there is a whole world of things you didn’t experience at all or didn’t experience enough to understand fully. That’s why everything was so vivid - there was a lot of “truly” new experiences.

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