Did you know that the average American gets 58% of their calories from ultra-processed food and spends 8 hours per day watching TV or video, browsing social media, and playing video games?

Yes, pleasure today is big business. And almost all of it involves a straight trade of our time, money, and health for a carefully engineered, highly addictive dopamine hit.

But it doesn’t need to be this way. With this article, I’d like to share seven wholesome indulgences that helped me abandon the entire Instant Pleasure Industry and claim a more pleasurable life in the process.

1. Rest

It took me a long time to come to terms with this one, but my number one wholesome indulgence is the fine art of doing nothing.

Only in recent history has ‘working hard’ signaled pride rather than shame. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Back in the 1930s, prominent economists predicted huge productivity gains from technological progress would make relaxed, 15-hour workweeks the norm early in the 21st century.

The great technological progress happened, all right. But the great reduction in working hours… not so much. More importantly, our downtime has become almost just as hectic as our working hours.

Give yourself permission to stop striving, just for an hour a day

Despite our material abundance, Western society keeps us under pressure to constantly strive for more. Global competition, consumerism, and social media all preserve that nagging feeling that we’re always missing out or falling behind.

But perhaps the biggest problem is that we’re no longer resting properly when we get the chance. We’re still striving when we’re “resting,” always consuming something, especially media (often of the stressful kind).

If you only take away one thing from this article, let it be this: Take at least an hour a day to be properly idle (no staring at screens!). It’s an incredibly restorative privilege that many have access to, but all too few enjoy.

Formal meditation is optional. Otherwise, just get comfy and let your mind roam free, perhaps with some relaxing music in the background. If you can sync your rest with our natural early-afternoon energy dip, a spontaneous nap could add a restful cherry on top.

2. Active Rest (Preferably in Nature)

Light exercise offers a beautiful complement to the previous healthy indulgence: active rest. For athletes, active rest is a period of milder exercise to let their muscles recover. For the rest of us, it offers some space from our overwhelming digital worlds and frees our creativity.

All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking. — Friedrich Nietzsche

And here’s the best part: You can maintain lifelong healthy fitness levels through daily, deeply restorative active rest. Yes, that’s right. You can rest yourself fit!

Exercise should never be a chore

The human body evolved to move. Doing so should be fun and natural. Unfortunately, Western society has this totally backward, framing exercise as a sacrifice we need to make for avoiding obesity and other scary diseases.

Here’s the problem: Our urban jungles are not built for natural movement. Despite encouraging signs of change, far too many people still live in cities built for cars where outdoor exercise is stressful and dangerous.

This is far from the ideal where we’d all experience the restorative power of nature on a regular basis. Untouched nature is best, but a well-maintained local park is a solid urban alternative. So is gardening, either individually or communal.

So, take some time to explore the options for active rest in your area. And when you next move house, recognize that this is the perfect opportunity to position yourself in a location that keeps you fit and rested for life.

3. Wholesome Sensory Experiences

Our world is awash with unhealthy pleasures that shorten and dilute our lives. But if you look closely enough, there are many healthier alternatives.

Take food for example. Today, most food is a plastic-wrapped uniformity of added sugar, saturated fat, and excess salt. If this is your ultra-processed reality today, rediscovering whole food can be a genuine delight.

Mindful eating is about awareness. When you eat mindfully, you slow down, pay attention to the food you’re eating, and savor every bite. — Susan Albers

Yes, whole foods may not deliver the purpose-built addictive burst of instant pleasure we get from junk food, but it offers its own kind of sensory adventure. Any mindful eater can derive real joy from the rich and varied tastes and textures in skillfully combined whole-food meals. And accessing this healthy delight is much easier than you might think.

A beautiful rediscovery of everyday pleasures

Whole food is far from the only healthy sensory pleasure at our disposal. It only takes a little mindfulness to find and enjoy a whole lot more.

Next time you take a nice, hot shower, make a point of really being in the moment. Feel the perfectly heated water hit your skin and run down the length of your body. Enjoy the fragrance of your shampoo. Take in the wide range of sounds the water makes on the different surfaces. Appreciate the interesting patterns that form on the glass.

Similar experiences await when you feel the sun on your skin, smell the air after a fresh rainfall, or walk barefoot on grass or sand.

All it takes is a little awareness.

4. Creative Expression

The human experience is often too complex to express in words. That’s why we’ve come up with such a wide range of avenues for creative expression over the centuries.

Sadly, creative expression has become highly commercialized. It’s no longer about finding an outlet for the mysteries residing deep within our souls. It’s about money. Everything is filtered, autotuned, and edited to the point of totally unnatural perfection. Tragically, this creates the impression that your creation is not valuable if it’s imperfect.

What is perfection anyway? It’s the death of creativity. — Diane Keaton

Healthy creative expression doesn’t need to be perfect. Quite the opposite. It needs to be raw and natural. Authentic.

Discover who you really are when you let go

Everybody needs a creative outlet. I bet you know deep down which creative channel has your name on it. So, why do you ignore it? Maybe you tell yourself you don’t have time. Maybe all the perfectly manicured creations you see online convinced you that your creations will never be good enough. Maybe you’re just “not the creative type.”

Well, next time you have some unexplainable emotions swirling around inside you, don’t turn to junk food or junk media. Instead, see if you can let it out in a creative way. No one needs to see or hear the result. Just let go of all your culturally engrained inhibitions and see who emerges.

5. Make Someone Happy

For a species that gains so much happiness from making each other happy, we sure spread a surprisingly large amount of misery.

It’s time to break this crazy tendency. Be good to those close to you. Dish out some random acts of kindness and drop any expectation for reciprocity. The natural release of feel-good hormones makes this a lovely little indulgence regardless of whether the world ever recognizes your goodness.

The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up. — Mark Twain

There’s no need to go out of your way either. For example, you can start with the conversations you’re already having every day.

The precious gift of full, undivided attention

Life often pulls our minds in so many different directions that it seems impossible to be fully present in the moment. That’s just one of the reasons why giving someone your undivided attention is so powerful.

One of Oprah’s most famous insights is that we all want validation. If you want to spread lasting happiness, make sure your interactions convey a clear message: “I see you. I hear you. What you say matters.”

And you don’t need to become everyone’s sounding board either. Instead, recognize those moments when you can make a real difference by being fully present and learn to politely excuse yourself otherwise. Whatever you do, escape the black hole of diffuse attention living between these two options.

6. Inspiring Work

Yes, work can be an indulgence — and a healthy one too! The type of work I’m talking about is where we produce something useful seemingly without even trying. And this is only possible when we work on tasks that motivate us from somewhere deep within.

The best moments in our lives are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times . . . The best moments usually occur if a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Do you have something like that? I really hope so! Then, the next question is: Why aren’t you making more time for it? Well, there are many possible reasons. Maybe you think this work will never pay the bills. Maybe you think people won’t like what you produce.

But none of that matters. Simply see your inspiring work as a healthy indulgence meant for you and you alone. Drop any expectations and just start producing whatever your heart wants for half an hour every day.

The double joy of creative flow

Inspiring work is such a lovely indulgence because it brings happiness both during and after the activity. The flow state by itself is one of the peak human experiences. It’s enough reward all by itself.

But if you spend enough time working in the flow state, you get a beautiful bonus benefit: a tangible creation that makes you proud. It doesn’t need to mean anything to anyone else. In fact, if you work to try to win approval from the world, flow will likely elude you.

Do it as an indulgence. For you alone. See what happens.

7. Realistic Dreaming

We all daydream from time to time. Mostly, this is just fluff. Why? Because our day-to-day actions are totally misaligned with our dreams.

If your habits don’t line up with your dream, then you need to either change your habits or change your dream. — John C. Maxwell

Let’s take the example of the previous indulgence. If you dream of turning the work that truly inspires you into a career, but you never make time to practice it, your dreams are just fluff. On the other hand, if you make time for truly inspiring work every day, your dreams take on a whole new meaning.

Imagine your world after a decade of being your best self

Almost every great success story we see in the media is the result of years of doing tiny things right day after day. This slow process has zero glamour. Hence, it’s rarely acknowledged in all those envy-provoking stories.

If you want to give your dreams true meaning, make sure they are realistic extrapolations of your current habits. I like to call this the “4D mind,” meaning that realistic dreaming frees your experience from our three dimensions, allowing it to travel along the fourth: time.

If you can confidently project your current life trajectory into a beautiful future, you get to experience that future almost as if it has already become your reality. This is a wonderful healthy indulgence that often leads to further insights on optimizing your habits and priorities, thus making the realistic-dreaming experience even richer.

Rediscover Pleasure

I hope these seven healthy indulgences gave you some attractive alternatives to the shallow offerings from the Instant Pleasure Industry. The art of tapping genuine joy from things that bring lasting benefits to you and those you care about greatly enhances the experience of life.

At first, you might still miss the little dopamine hits from those carefully engineered addictions offered by the Instant Pleasure Industry. But don’t worry; this doesn’t last long. Hedonic adaptation will soon make your new healthy reality just as pleasurable as your old unhealthy one.

Finally, I’d like to offer a little actionable takeaway. Display these healthy indulgences somewhere you will see them every day. There’s no need to treat them like checklist items to tick off daily. Just make sure they stay in your awareness and see what happens.

Thanks for reading! May your days be filled with life’s healthiest pleasures!