Anecdotal evidence is that you can hack the hedonic treadmill by having interests outside of work. If nothing in your life is more challenging than work, then all of your yardsticks will be based upon it.

If however you're comparing the relative pain of writing documentation to lifting a 40lbs bag of building materials, holding a position in yoga/martial arts class, running a half marathon, riding a century, hiking for six hours in a cold rain, then documentation really isn't so bad.