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Why Is Excitement THE Existential Psychological Need?

Today I had an extremely important realization: I need excitement to live, to survive, to be effective, to enjoy my life. It’s as important to me as breathing, as fundamental as eating and drinking. Somehow I didn’t completely realize that fact. I focused too much on less existential things like fun, productivity, effectiveness, or purpose. Excitement is much more important than all of them together!

Symptoms Of Missing Excitement

It’s really disturbing what a lack of excitement affects me. Here are some of the effects insufficient excitement can have on me:

Difficulty getting out of bed.
Tiredness
Increased need for sleep
Sleeping way too long, but still feeling tired and without energy
Reduced level of fitness and energy
Increased susceptibility to diseases
Lack of motivation
Procrastination
Difficulty concentrating
Diminished productivity
Anhedonia: Inability to experience pleasure from activities formerly found enjoyable
Decreased libido
Continuously progressing reduction of self-control
Diffuse terrible feelings which appear spontaneously for no apparent reason
Feeling anxious for no apparent reason
Negative outlook on life and reality.
Urges to engage in addictive behavior, like playing games excessively or drug (ab)use
Feeling lonely, no matter how my social reality looks like
Feelings of helplessness
Depression
Burnout
Suicidal thoughts

Pretty scary, huh? Well, the lack of excitement seems to be the common theme that lies behind these problems of mine. It might look like a lack of excitement is the result of the symptoms above, but the symptoms only appear after I experienced an enduring lack of excitement in my life. At any time in my life in which I felt really excited I felt rather the opposite of those symptoms.

Why Is Excitement So Important?

I want to write a more thorough article on excitement, but first I would like you to come up with some ideas and answer the question form the title:

Why is excitement the existential psychological need?

Here, existential really means that you can’t exist for too long without at least some excitement. I assume that this is the case. Why? Think about it. There are some intriguing phenomena which might indicate that we really need some excitement for our survival (or at the very least for our good functioning). What are these? Got any ideas?

22
JUN

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Categories: Psychology

Tags: excitement, psychological needs, symptoms

About the Author

Michael Hrenka alias Mike Radivis is an aspiring personal development blogger and science fiction writer. He studied mathematics and physics at the University Tübingen, Germany. [ More info ]

Discussion

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Shanna June 22, 2011

If I had to guess, I would say the body requires eustress to balance distress. Both are states of arousal, but I’ll bet over time a biofeedback mechanism defaults further to distress hormones which has a dampening psychological effect which effectively nullifies the benefits rest and relaxation (not that any of us is probably decompressing as much as necessary for optimal health in today’s world). And if you’re not decompressing enough, excitement (eustress) become your only avenue for feel-good hormones.

Philosophically speaking, you could call it ‘life-affirming’. Excitement makes your whole experience of the world richer, takes you away from your mundane existence. To lack excitement is to be little better than dead.

I’m guessing. I look forward to your expanded article
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- Mike Radivis June 24, 2011
  
  Ah, eustress is a very good keyword, as it’s very much related to excitement. The idea that you rather need eustress to balance distress rather than relaxation is pretty interesting. At least it rings very true for me. Relaxation just tends to make me nervous.
  
  Feel-good hormones are also important. Often you hear about serotonin, but I think dopamine and norepinephrine deserve more attention, because they are more related to the positive stress, while serotonin makes happy but tired. I have experiences with the norephinephrine-dopamine-reuptake-inhibitor bupropion, which is the active substance in Wellbutrin. It really amplifies excitement dramatically. At least for an initial period of a few weeks. It’s also a relatively potent stimulant.
  
  That excitement makes you feel the world in a richer way is absolutely correct. When excited, everything feels better. One experience I had when taking bupropion was that suddenly I was totally amazed by the beauty of trees. Previously, I didn’t acknowledge it really so much. Seeing the world “with other eyes” is probably one of the main reasons why people use psychoactive substances. After all, the experiences induced by them can be rather exciting. There are theories that the use of psychoactive substances (especially alcohol) initiated the formation of modern civilization (perhaps because otherwise life in modern civilization isn’t exciting enough to compete with a free life in wilderness).
  (reply)
  - Arch June 25, 2011
    
    I am glad to see you exploring this aspect of being human. …… It is closely related to what we, in my ancient times, called addiction…….
    
    I think it is about confusing emotion with intelligent progress, while at the same time confusing intelligent progress with emotion.
    
    Arch
    (reply)
    - Mike Radivis June 27, 2011
      
      Hi Arch. Addiction is an interesting concept. I guess it’s mostly appropriate to say that addiction is the desperate pursuit of something that was able to cause excitement (regardless whether it still has this ability or not). Addiction is not the intelligent pursuit of excitement itself!
      
      Intelligent progress is not possible without consulting your emotions first. And without making any kind of progress it’s difficult to feel a lot of positive emotions (and perhaps it’s not really a good idea to feel too good about stagnation). There’s always the issue of balancing persistence and the search for creative alternatives.
      (reply)
Steven June 30, 2011

Lots of interesting thoughts being shared here on both the article and comments.

I think there are a lot of existential needs, so it is tough for me to say excitement is THE one. But now that you mention it I do consider excitement a very under-appreciated existential need.

What you call “excitement” is similar to what I would call “passion” or even “flow,” although “excitement” seems to cover a wider (and perhaps more subtle) range of potential feelings and attitudes.

I too like Shanna’s distinction between eustress and distress. The stress of social anxiety is very biochemically similar to the thrills of a rollercoaster, yet we tend to respond to these high states of arousal in completely different ways.

I wonder how much eustress and distress are based on how we frame a particular situation.

For example: approach anxiety. Many guys in the PUA community have a thing called “approach anxiety” – the anxiety of approaching a girl at a bar, etc. Some of the more skilled people in the community say they still FEEL this anxiety every time they approach a new person, but they think of it as motivation to act rather than an inhibitor. In other words, the second they feel that high state of arousal kicking in, they think of it as a sign to start interacting.

Similarly, there was a study I read last year about students reframing “Nervousness” to be a good thing, and they ended up scoring better on an exam. I wonder if this reframe also transformed distress to eustress.

Just some thoughts to ponder about. Great article Mike.
Steven recently posted..Sitters and Rovers: Healthy Risk-Taking
(reply)
- Shanna June 30, 2011
  
  I like your point about turning anxiety into a motivator. I think that’s an excellent point that perhaps many people don’t realize– anxiety doesn’t mean you should run away, do anything to avoid it. I think a lot of people do; a mindless, simplistic pain-avoidance reaction, that can easily be turned around once one is mindful of it.
  
  Similar to the pua, when I am waiting to perform, I simply centred myself and quietly read a book. Fretful, anxious thoughts and actions are a self-fulfilling prophecy, so it’s good to do your best to break that cycle.
  
  Framing is very important to your body deciding whether stimuli are eustress or distress. Compare coming down a roller coaster to falling out of a tree. Pain in particular is very susceptible to reframing. I got a piece of wire stuck right through my knee joint once, and it didn’t hurt at all until I saw all the exposed cartilage I experienced anxiety every day in the oilpatch, knowing that my performance not only reflect on me, but on all the present and future women in the patch. It’s important to note, though, that long-term eustress is no different than distress, physiologically speaking, and you will have to pay the piper eventually. It’s just a much more enjoyable trip to hell.
  (reply)
Steven June 30, 2011

I think the same can be said for other professional performers, athletes, musicians, etc. Many have seemed to master the art of transforming performance anxiety to a well of excitement.
Steven recently posted..Sitters and Rovers: Healthy Risk-Taking
(reply)
- Mike Radivis June 30, 2011
  
  Thanks for your awesome comments, Steven! Yeah, passion, excitement and flow are related concepts. I see passion as something like an ability to experience excitement in the long term. And the flow state doesn’t necessarily imply experiencing excitement – you can be rather calm while being in the flow.
  
  I really love your thoughts about framing and reframing. Turning anxiety and nervousness into positive excitement is really very clever. It also shows that you just need to confront yourself with a difficult situation to experience at least emotional arousal. Framing then determines whether the experience is evaluated as positive or negative. I want to learn more about the concept of reframing. It sounds astonishingly useful.
  (reply)
  - Arch December 26, 2011
    
    Meta,
    
    I wasn’t sure where to post this. It is an interesting conversation from the PaB group on SL. Thought it might have a few droplets of interest for you.
    
    To the Dreams Themselves
    http://wiki.playasbeing.org/Chat_Logs/2011/12/2011.12.24_2011_To_the_Dreams_Themselves
    
    Arch
    (reply)
    - Mike Radivis December 26, 2011
      
      Cool that you commented on this currently quite inactive blog, Arch. The idea in that chat log about a PhD defense reality show is phenomenal. It might be hard to make such an intellectual event popular, but it would make for some quite interesting YouTube videos for those who are really interested. There are a few thesis defense videos on YouTube, but wrapping a really exciting edutainment show around it would at least double the fun.
      (reply)
Abdel April 25, 2013

Why is excitement THE existential psychological need?

I believe the answer is quite simple.. Our purpose in life is to see, learn and experience new things as we progress, and excitement is like a sign we get every time we get to experience life and see different things in different ways.

Without excitement we do not feel progress because what we see around ourselves in our daily lives is simply not enough.
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