1: Ever eaten every French fry in the bag, even though we knew from the first bite they weren’t very good?
Me, too.
Turns out chasing pleasure isn’t always the key to feeling good.
“That’s not a moralistic perspective; it’s a neurobiological one,” Rachel Barr writes in How to Make Your Brain Your Best Friend: A Neuroscientist’s Guide to a Healthier, Happier Life.
“To understand why, let’s go beyond the surface of pleasure,” she suggests.
The science shows there is a difference between wanting something and liking it.
“Pleasure isn’t as straightforward as it seems,” Rachel writes.
Why? Because “there’s a dual system at play: Wanting and Liking, each governed by different neural circuits and chemical processes.”
Neuroscientist Kent Berridge has dedicated several decades to studying the brain’s reward systems.
“Knowing that dopamine plays a role in reward seeking,” Rachel writes, he “decided to test its limits. He genetically modified rats to turbocharge their dopamine levels.
“The expectation,” she shares, “was that with their dopamine on overdrive, these rats would transform into pleasure-seeking machines, savoring every food pellet in sight and showing more enjoyment—like licking their lips—while doing so.”
But that’s not what happened.
Yes,” Rachel writes, “the rats were more determined to get food, demonstrating an increase in the ‘wanting’ aspect of reward.
“But surprisingly, their actual enjoyment, the ‘liking’ part, didn’t follow suit.
“They wanted more, chasing food with relentless focus, she observes, “but their satisfaction didn’t match their desire. . .
“Despite their chemically supercharged brains,” Rachel notes, “they didn’t show any more signs of pleasure than their unmodified cage mates.”
2: This discovery helps to decipher the mystery of human desire.
“It explains why we can yearn for things—be they food, shopping, or even social media scrolls,” Rachel writes, “without finding lasting satisfaction in them.”
One clear example involves addiction. “Over time,” she notes, “addicts continue craving despite deriving less and less gratification.”
We assume desire and pleasure work the same. We believe anything that provides us with dopamine will also delight us.
But it doesn’t. “Dopamine is simply there to guide us toward things that might feel good,” Rachel explains. “It’s evolution’s boldest trick: threading our brains with circuits and chemistry designed for pleasure-seeking, but cleverly disguising them as paths to pleasure-feeling.”
This misperception served our ancestors well, leading them to seek rare and essential resources.
“In the modern age, with our supermarkets and fast-food restaurants, it’s considerably less helpful,” she observes.
3: So, if we can’t depend on dopamine to point us toward delight, where do we find it?
“The secret, of course, is that it’s often hidden in plain sight,” Rachel writes.
We begin by defining what delight is.
Author, poet, and professional delight-seeker Ross Gay spent a full year writing an essay every day about something that delighted him.
In The Book of Delights, he writes that delight “often comes from acknowledging small, joyful experiences, suggesting that noticing and appreciating these moments is crucial.”
He connects delight with curiosity, showing how the spontaneity of these moments is one ingredient that makes them so delightful.
Ross also emphasizes that delightful experiences are often shared with others.
Rachel summarizes some of the key elements of delight:
- Enjoyment: “Quite simply, delight feels good,” Rachel writes.
- Attention to the present: “Given the spontaneous nature of delight, finding it requires a presence of mind, paying attention to the current moment,” she notes.
- Reflection and gratitude: “Gratitude is often about recognizing and valuing what can easily be taken for granted,” Rachel observes. “Similarly, delight typically finds its place in the otherwise mundane moments of everyday life.”
- Connectedness: “Delight tethers us to something,” she writes, “whether it’s to ourselves, to others, to animals, or to the world we inhabit.”
More tomorrow!
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Reflection: Am I chasing rewards or experiences that give me little real enjoyment, and how often do I confuse desire with genuine delight?
Action: Pause this week to notice the difference between wanting and liking—then seek out delight in small, present moments, especially those shared with others.
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