From Numbness to Presence: How Mindfulness Can Help Clients with Anhedonia

Discover how mindfulness can help clients reconnect with pleasure and emotion through simple, evidence-based practices.

In today’s fast-paced and emotionally taxing world, many people find themselves going through the motions—experiencing life as flat, muted, or disconnected. For clients struggling with anhedonia, this numbness can feel all-consuming, stripping joy from once-meaningful moments and making even simple pleasures feel inaccessible.

"It’s not about making people happy, it’s about restoring access to the fullness of their present moment experience." ~ Michael Apollo MHSc, RP

By understanding the lived experience of anhedonia, we can begin to explore how mindfulness practices—especially those grounded in awareness, reflection, and sensory engagement—can offer a path back to emotional connection and vitality.

In this article, we’ll explore how anhedonia—the loss of interest or pleasure—can silently shape people’s emotional lives, and how mindfulness offers a practical and compassionate way to reconnect with what it means to feel. Through simple, research-informed practices, we’ll introduce tools you can use immediately—to support yourself and those you work with on the path back to presence and emotional vitality. 

In addition, we will explore the neuroscience, strategies, and step-by-step practices behind two evidence-informed tools: the Pleasant and Unpleasant Events Calendars. You can learn more in our workshop with Michael Apollo MHSc, RP, Supporting Clients with Anhedonia: Mindfulness Tools to Reconnect with Pleasure and Emotion.

Contents:

1. What is Anhedonia and Why It Matters?
2. The Hidden Power of Everyday Moments
3. Introducing the Pleasant & Unpleasant Events Calendars: A Mindfulness-Based Path Back to Feeling
4. Practical Applications for Clinicians and Coaches

What is Anhedonia and Why It Matters?

Anhedonia is more than just feeling “down” or unmotivated—it’s the diminished ability to experience pleasure or emotional resonance. For many clients, it shows up as a persistent sense of flatness, disconnection, or going through life on autopilot. The moments that once sparked joy—a shared laugh, a walk in nature, the taste of a favorite food—no longer register in the same way, or at all. It’s more than just a lack of enjoyment. It’s a disconnection from emotional vitality itself—the highs, the lows, the full range of being alive.

It’s a core symptom of depression and burnout, but it also appears in trauma, chronic stress, and even in high-functioning individuals navigating emotional overwhelm. And yet, it often goes unrecognized—by clients and practitioners alike.

When we don’t name or understand anhedonia, it’s easy to misinterpret it as a failure of effort or attitude. But in reality, it’s a signal for care and reconnection, not a personal failing.

From a neuroscience perspective, research shows that anhedonia is linked to disruptions in the brain’s reward system, particularly in the dopamine pathways responsible for motivation, pleasure, and reinforcement. These disruptions can blunt emotional responsiveness and decrease the capacity to feel joy, meaning even everyday positive experiences may go unnoticed or feel emotionally neutral.

As practitioners, recognizing anhedonia is crucial. Left unaddressed, it can quietly undermine progress in therapy or coaching, stalling momentum and deepening a client’s sense of isolation. But when brought into awareness—and met with mindfulness-based tools—anhedonia becomes not just a challenge, but an invitation to reconnect with the subtle, powerful experience of being alive.

The Hidden Power of Everyday Moments: A Mindfulness-Based Path Back to Feeling

When clients are caught in the grip of anhedonia, the idea of feeling better can seem abstract or even impossible. That’s why reconnecting with the small, everyday moments—rather than waiting for big breakthroughs—is such a powerful and accessible entry point to healing.

Mindfulness helps clients notice and linger in these experiences, gently reawakening the senses and disrupting emotional numbness. Over time, this practice can retune the brain’s reward system, allowing positive experiences to register more fully.

By tracking these moments, we also begin to counteract the brain’s natural negativity bias, shifting attention from what’s wrong to what’s real, and possibly even nourishing.

In the next section, we’ll introduce two simple tools that help clients do just that—one moment at a time.

Introducing the Pleasant & Unpleasant Events Calendars: A Mindfulness-Based Path Back to Feeling

The Pleasant and Unpleasant Events Calendars are two simple yet powerful tools drawn from mindfulness-based cognitive approaches. They help clients reconnect with emotional experience by bringing awareness to daily moments—both uplifting and difficult.

Each calendar invites a daily reflection:

• The Pleasant Events Calendar helps clients notice and savor small positive experiences, tuning into how these moments feel in the body, mind, and emotions.
• The Unpleasant Events Calendar builds emotional resilience by tracking minor challenges and becoming curious about one’s reactions—without judgment or avoidance.

Together, these tools offer a balanced and grounded approach to reconnecting with emotional life. They support clients in developing mindful awareness across the spectrum of experience—not just chasing the positive, but learning from the unpleasant as well.

Each practice only takes a few minutes a day but can yield profound shifts in awareness, presence, and emotional engagement. And when facilitated with care, they create space for clients to reflect, regulate, and re-enter their lives more fully.

Practical Applications for Clinicians and Coaches

While the Pleasant and Unpleasant Events Calendars are simple in design, their impact lies in how they’re introduced and explored. For clinicians, coaches, and facilitators, these tools offer a unique way to help clients reconnect with feeling in a safe, structured, and accessible way.

Here are a few ways you can begin working with them:

1. Invite clients to track one event per day, ideally at the end of the day (e.g., before bed). Just one specific event is enough—what matters is the awareness it sparks.

2. Start with pleasant experiences. This helps clients reconnect with moments of ease or enjoyment, even if faint. Once this foundation is in place for a week or so, shift into exploring unpleasant experiences.

3. Use the calendars as prompts for reflection, not performance. The goal isn’t to “find the best answers” but to deepen self-awareness:

• What did you notice in your body?
• What thoughts did you notice?
• What feelings or emotions came up?
• Were you aware of this moment as it happened—or only in hindsight?
• What thoughts are present about this experience as you reflect on the above prompts?

What makes this practice so effective is how it builds mindfulness into daily life, without needing to sit on a cushion. Over time, clients learn not just to notice, but to stay with their experience—pleasant or unpleasant—with a little more space, insight, and self-kindness.

When we unpack our experience with curiosity, we start to see clearly. And from that space, we can respond with more choice.

Practices like the Pleasant and Unpleasant Events Calendars remind us that meaningful change doesn't require dramatic breakthroughs. It often begins with something far simpler: noticing. Mindfulness doesn’t promise constant joy—it offers us access to the full range of feeling, and the space to meet it with kindness. Anhedonia may be a common challenge in modern life, but it’s not a dead end. With curiosity, consistency, and the right tools, we can help clients reconnect with what it means to feel—and to truly be alive.

Interested in learning more? Gain deeper insights into supporting anhedonia with our comprehensive resources. Access the full Step-by-Step Facilitation Guide for the Pleasant and Unpleasant Events Calendars with clients and three high-definition video lessons with professional transcripts and calendar worksheets—all designed to enhance your understanding of supporting anhedonia with mindfulness.

Explore these resources in our on-demand workshop: Supporting Clients with Anhedonia: Mindfulness Tools to Reconnect with Pleasure and Emotion.

Feel free to share this post with friends, family, or colleagues. Thanks for your ongoing interest and support!

 Michael Apollo MHSc RP, is a registered clinician, mindfulness educator, and Founder of the Mindful Institute. With over 15 years of experience, he specializes in practical, evidence-based mindfulness training for helping professionals. Formerly Director of Mindfulness Programs at the University of Toronto, Michael has collaborated with organizations like the World Health Organization, the UK NHS, and the Canadian Parliament to support mental well-being and resilience in diverse settings.

References:

Britton, W. B., Shahar, B., Szepsenwol, O., & Jacobs, W. J. (2012). Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy improves emotional reactivity to social stress: Results from a randomized controlled trial. Behavior Therapy, 43(2), 365–380. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beth.2011.08.006

Garland, E. L., Hanley, A., Farb, N. A., & Froeliger, B. (2015). State mindfulness during meditation predicts enhanced cognitive reappraisal. Mindfulness, 6(2), 234–242. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-013-0250-6

Hölzel, B. K., Carmody, J., Vangel, M., Congleton, C., Yerramsetti, S. M., Gard, T., & Lazar, S. W. (2011). Mindfulness practice leads to increases in regional brain gray matter density. Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, 191(1), 36–43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pscychresns.2010.08.006

Keng, S.-L., Smoski, M. J., & Robins, C. J. (2011). Effects of mindfulness on psychological health: A review of empirical studies. Clinical Psychology Review, 31(6), 1041–1056. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2011.04.006. 

Kiken, L. G., Garland, E. L., Bluth, K., Palsson, O. S., & Gaylord, S. A. (2017). From a state to a trait: Trajectories of state mindfulness in meditation during intervention predict changes in trait mindfulness.Personality and Individual Differences, 81, 41–46. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2014.12.044. 

Disclaimer

The content in our blogs is not intended to substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your health provider with any questions you may have regarding your mental health.