Burnout...?

[yepimonfire]

ok so this is perhaps a weird question but nevertheless it fascinates me.

if a person does any particular activity that they enjoy doing, no matter how much they enjoy it, repeatedly for en extended period of time, they begin to lose interest in the activity or it becomes very boring to them. this LITERALLY happens with EVERYTHING. i may love pizza, but if i eat it 3 times a day for more then a couple of days, it will become very unappetizing to me and i will need a decent break from it before i find it pleasurable again. again, if i find a song i absolutely love, yet i listen to that song 5 times a day for several days, i will again find it boring, perhaps even irritating and need to take a break from it before i enjoy it again. the same thing even happens with sex or masturbation. if a person continuously masturbates or has sex multiple times a day, eventually it will become difficult for them to become aroused by anything, have an erection etc etc and they will need a couple days break.


any idea what causes this?

[DeterminedJuliet]

It sounds pretty human to me. 

Or, at least, I operate in a very similar way. As long as you still find things to enjoy, I don't think it's a huge problem, is it?

[yepimonfire]

It sounds pretty human to me.  

Or, at least, I operate in a very similar way. As long as you still find things to enjoy, I don't think it's a huge problem, is it?

the purpose for posting this is because i'm very curious as to what exactly happens scientifically in the brain/body to cause this.

things get boring and you have to take a break from them before they become interesting again. why?

[Pharaoh Cat]

Good question!  I don't know the mechanism but I can speculate as to the survival value that enabled the mechanism to proliferate.  Boredom with the same old thing would create a pressure toward novelty, and novelty often leads to unexpected opportunity, which opens up new niches for exploitation. 

Coupled with boredom would be the inability of many humans to sleep all day long.  When my cat gets bored, she goes to sleep.  She really seems capable of sleeping nearly 24 hours a day.  Many, if not most, humans can't do that.  So when we're bored, we're often faced with remaining bored or finding something new to do.  So maybe we explore some new part of the forest, or experiment with some new enhancement to spear technology, or practice some new acrobatic maneuver.

[Stevil]

The law of diminishing returns!

As a guess
With food, the body requires variety and lets you know this.
With regards to activities, I think we have a desire to learn and discover otherwise we get bored.
As I have said before, a god that knows everything would be incredibly bored.

[Crocoduck]

Move to a third world country where food is hard to get and then tell us if eating pizza three times a day sucks.

[Crocoduck]

Thank god for rice and beans or rice and what ever...