Pain Vs Pleasure…

The secret to productivity might well be finding the balance to pain and pleasure. Dr Anna Lembke the author of Dopamine Nation explains how pain and pleasure are located in the same part of the brain.

As they are located in the same place we need to keep a balance eg. not too much pleasure and not too much pain. We call this balanced status homeostasis and a deviation from this leads to stress.

Today we are overloaded with so many pleasurable experiences we can overload on these. As an example if you went to a fancy restaurant every night a plain bowl of rice would never be appealing again. Dr Lembke says that once we say yes to pleasure we need to know how to say no to withdraw to equilibrium. However what can happen is a gremlin in our brain persuades us to have just one more hit, and before we know it we have tipped over into pain. If you imagine dopamine in a jar it about tilting it for fun and then resetting it so that it is level again.

The solution to remaining motivated and not being distracted by instant pleasure, is to try and have a dopamine detox. Phones and social media can be put out of sight for a whole day, reducing caffeine, gaming and even TV. Learning to be bored again is a good way to reset your pleasure hits. Lembke talks about the strength of rehabilitated addicts, their fresh eyes on the world give them a new take on some of the mundane in life, perceiving it as new pleasure.

Thinking about a difficult task you have to do today and then a small pleasure reward afterwards will be a good balance.

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