Food noise gone, but so is my hobby noise

For what it's worth, Cafe owner here, so food and hobby stuff are extra tangled. The weird flatness hit me with recipe testing: I can portion out one bite of a new scone now, but the creative buzz is gone.

What helped a tiny bit was shrinking the ritual—one song on guitar, not a full practice; one scene of a movie, not Sunday night. I call it a “two-percent flicker” and track it like inventory. Sharp question: is the flatness worst at the start, or once you’re actually in it?

For me, starting is the flat part; once I’m 10 min in, some color comes back.

I’m in a similar spot — month 4, scale barely moving, and the flatness hit my woodworking. What helped a little was separating “hobby” from “reward.” I stopped trying to make guitar feel like it used to.

Instead I did 10 minutes of pure novelty: one new pedal setting, no scales, no improving. Same with cooking: one weird ingredient, tiny batch, no meal prep. About half the time it’s still meh, but I get a faint blip maybe 1 in 3.

Are you noticing it’s worse when you’re white-knuckling the plateau, or is it flat regardless?

I’m 9 months in and had a similar flat patch around month 3–4. What helped me was tracking “flicker” instead of fun: after guitar/cooking, I rated 0–5 how much I wanted to keep going.

Most were 2s, but a few 4s showed up when I changed one variable—new song, a recipe I’d never made, movie with subtitles and phone in another room. The reward bar wasn’t gone, it was just calibrated to a narrower band. Sharp q: are you doing the exact same version of the hobby?

Try one deliberately novel/awkward rep and see if any flicker appears.

Same flat patch around month 4. I kept 10-min guitar sessions; spark returned slow, no fireworks.

I had this around month 3–4 too. What surprised me was that it wasn’t the hobby itself—it was the anticipation that vanished. So forcing 20 min guitar felt like homework.

What helped was changing the wrapper: one new song I’d never tried instead of noodling, cooking one thing I’d never made and giving half away, movie at a theater instead of couch. The old rituals were built around a reward loop that isn’t firing the same way.

Are you noticing it’s worse for solo stuff vs. anything with another person? For me, social versions still got a small spark, and that gave me something to track besides weight.

Something I noticed: the flatness hit hardest on solo hobbies, not the ones with other people. Guitar alone = admin. Guitar with my neighbor for 20 min while our kids run wild = actually fun.

So now I schedule the social version and stop while I'm still a little bit into it, instead of grinding the full 45 min. Leaving it "unfinished" seems to keep the wanting alive for next time.

Same logic as the snack drawer — keep one square of chocolate, don't eat the whole bar. Does yours feel flat even when someone's doing it with you, or is it mostly the solo stuff?

The "neutral admin" thing is so real. One concrete thing helped me: I stopped rating the hobby while doing it and started rating my mood 30 minutes after.

Guitar felt like brushing my teeth in the moment, but my 30-min-later score was consistently +1 or +2. Cooking stayed flat, so I dropped the Sunday movie ritual for a walk-and-podcast instead. Are you still getting any anticipation hit before you start?

For me, that vanished first, which made it feel like the joy was gone when it was more the reward-noise. Single flat session = noise; give it a 10-day log before you write off the hobby.

late-night gamer here. the flatness hit my ranked matches too, which was weird because i always thought gaming was the reward.

what helped a little was not scheduling fun but changing the wrapper: fizzy water instead of my usual soda, one round with a friend on voice chat instead of solo grinding, and guitar before i log on instead of after. after gaming my brain is mush, so fun becomes admin.

are you doing hobbies before or after your main wind-down thing? that timing mattered more for me than the activity itself.

I’d separate anticipatory reward from consummatory reward. I log two numbers: before (wanting, 0–10) and

one thing I haven’t seen mentioned: is it more that you’ve lost the anticipation, the in-the-moment pleasure, or both? For me those split apart. Anticipation went first — I’d dread the setup of a hobby — but once I actually started, a tiny bit of warmth came back.

What helped was making the hobby almost absurdly small and sensory: one chord, one page, one smell (toasting spices), no timer, no “should enjoy this.” It didn’t bring the old hit back, but it kept the nerve alive. Also curious: does the flatness lift at all on days you’ve been outside or around people?

Wondering if it’s less motivation and more reward-volume turned down.

My guitar-practice spreadsheet flatlined too; the log doesn't care, but I do.

Mine felt like that too—kept guitar within reach and stopped expecting a hit. The spark came back slowly.

Week one here and this is my exact fear too — hope your guitar spark comes back soon!

I’d separate anticipatory hit from in-the-moment hit. For me, the flatness killed the looking forward part, not the doing.

So scheduling guitar like a meeting made it worse—no anticipation, just a task. What worked: leave instruments out, lower activation energy, and use a stupid-visible progress metric (one new riff per week, not 20 min x3).

Also swapped movie ritual from “event” to “background”—visually dense, no plot pressure. Sharp question: does the flatness hit before you start, during, or after? Optimize the broken stage only.

I tracked fun like a restock spreadsheet too. Flat patch passed; guitar’s less “meh” now, not every day tho.

I’m 5 months in and had that exact flat stretch. What cracked it for me was noticing I’d been using a tiny “finish line reward” to make hobbies feel worth it—podcast, coffee, snack. Once food noise left, that reward went quiet.

So I flipped it: I do the hobby before the reward, no timer, no “use the time well” goal. Ten minutes of guitar on the porch before coffee, even badly.

Took a few weeks, but the flicker came back. Sharp question: does it feel worse when you’re doing the hobby to check it off? That was my tell. Hang in there—34s are a win.

Man, the “neutral admin tasks” phrasing nails it. For me the flat patch wasn’t the hobby itself—it was missing the anticipation before it. What helped: pairing the old hobby with a tiny new variable.

Same guitar, but I learned one weird chord (Cadd9) or played along to a song I loved at 16. Cooking became “make the sauce differently” instead of the whole meal. The reward bar moved a notch, not a lot.

Sharp question: is it flat when you do guitar with someone else, or only solo? For me solo stuff stayed gray, but anything with a witness/feedback came back first. Might be worth testing that.

I track weekly averages for mood alongside weight, and my flat stretch came with fewer “novelty spikes” rather than less interest overall. Same hobby, tiny new variable: one unfamiliar spice when cooking, one different pedal setting on guitar, a movie at the theater instead of the couch.

It did not bring the old reward bar back, but it made the flatness less uniform. Curious—does yours feel more like missing the anticipation before something, or the afterglow once it is done?

Anhedonia is the word for it — blunted reward response, not depression, and it's worth tracking rather than muscling through. What helped me was logging one line a day: activity, 0–10 enjoyment, 0–10 drive-before.

Two weeks in, I could see the drive number recovering faster than enjoyment on physical stuff (walks, lifting) and slower on the sit-still stuff.

Sharp question: were cooking/guitar/movies anticipatory rewards for you, or in-the-moment ones? Mine were almost entirely anticipatory, which tracks with food noise being the same circuitry. That's why scheduling didn't work — the planning itself was the hit, and it's the planning that went quiet.

Try moving one to "in the moment": guitar in your hands before you decide if you want to, no set length. Low bar for a week, log it.