The Science Of Chasing Happiness

In Class 3 of this 7-part Meditation & Mindfulness Series, we look at the science of chasing happiness. How the neural pathway that we think is happiness is in fact the pathway of desire/wanting/craving. And when we learn how to use this pathway responsibly we can in fact feel more satisfaction and contentment.

Transcript

Over 2,

500 years ago,

The Buddha said something to the effect of,

Chasing your desires,

Expecting to have your desires fulfilled and bring you happiness,

Is like drinking salt water,

Expecting to quench your thirst.

That you will simply become thirstier.

So chasing your desires,

You will simply have more desires and you will never find the happiness that you're seeking.

And when we look at the wealthiest countries in the world,

Where we have an abundance of material goods,

Comforts,

Of pleasures,

Of just readily available things,

Anything that we can think of,

Any desire that we have,

Can basically be fulfilled.

We also have the highest rates of suicide,

Of depression,

Of anxiety,

Of physical pain,

Which doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.

How can the wealthiest countries in the world have so much misery?

But it's because we are abusing another one of our survival pathways.

And so for today's class,

We're going to talk about the motivation reward pathway.

This is the pathway that we think is bringing us happiness.

And like we discussed two weeks ago with the stress response,

And last week with the default mode network,

The mind-wandering part of our brain,

Those systems are backfiring on us in the 21st century,

And so is the motivation reward pathway backfiring on us.

And so it's helpful to always take this in context to understand how these systems evolved.

If you consider our ancestors,

They're out one day and they're searching for for watering holes,

They're looking for new water sources.

In their quest to go and find water,

Their brain,

Their motivation reward pathway,

Releases dopamine to give them the focus,

The energy,

The motivation,

The drive to go and find water,

And to also leave the safety and the comfort of the camp to go and find something that they need to survive.

So it helps them stay on track,

Gives them motivation to overcome the obstacles,

To climb the hills,

To keep going.

They need water.

And when they finally get to that point and they find the watering hole and they're all excited and they're jumping around,

Yay we found the water,

At that point the dopamine tapers off because they've got the reward.

Now the next day,

Let's say they're going back to the same watering hole,

They're not entirely sure if they can remember the way and they're not sure if it's still the good watering hole,

Are there any crocodiles or is there any reason why it's maybe not going to be there today.

So that little bit of uncertainty,

A little bit of dopamine.

But then the third,

The fourth,

The fifth day,

No more dopamine because you know this watering hole now.

You've got the reward.

You needed water.

Now go find new water sources.

Now go find new food sources.

Now go find new things that you can make tools out of.

Now go find new mates that you can procreate with and pass on your lineage.

Now go find new caves.

It is a seek and find and seek and find and seek and find pathway.

It is not a seek and find and be satisfied pathway.

A seek and find and be happy pathway.

It is meant to give us the motivation,

The focus,

The energy,

The drive to go and get a reward that will help us survive.

But in the 21st century we have hijacked this pathway and it works in some very different ways for us.

I'll give you just a common example.

21st century we're out on the hunt for a new outfit and we get in our car and we're getting that little dopamine.

You know the dopamine is rising because we're on the hunt.

We want to go get a new outfit for some big event that's coming up and you get to the mall and you're in the stores and you're looking and you're looking for something and let's say you don't find anything and you feel that disappointment and it is disappointment.

It's dopamine disappointment.

You're not finding anything and you're starting to crash and that's the point where you can turn to your friends and you say let's go to the food court.

Let's get some let's get a Cinnabon.

Let's get some french fries.

Let's get something that can basically take my dopamine back up.

I don't like this feeling.

But then let's say in that last moment another friend says but look at this dress.

Did you see this dress,

Merida?

No I didn't.

That looks beautiful.

So you go in the dressing room and you're trying on the dress and it's a beautiful dress.

Now we have a little bit between our other animals,

Lizards,

Worms that all have this motivation reward pathway.

There is a little bit of a we have a bonus part to this pathway.

Our prefrontal cortex is a part of it.

It can subjectively add qualities onto the object that the object doesn't have,

Ramping up our dopamine,

Making it a more highly anticipated reward.

So I'm in the dressing room and we're looking at it and we're looking at ourselves and and we're saying to ourselves oh my god I look amazing in this dress.

This is amazing.

I'm gonna wear this dress to the party and I'm gonna be so confident and I'm gonna feel so good and everyone's just gonna think I'm such a great person because of this dress.

Like these are the qualities that we are putting on this dress.

And then we we decide of course we're gonna get the dress.

This is an amazing dress.

We go out to the cashier.

The moment we hand over our credit card our dopamine levels start to drop off because we've got the reward.

We've got the dress.

And it's why we then go out one door and go right into another store and we keep doing this.

We're on the hunt and we want to keep getting that dopamine level or dopamine levels back up again.

It's why we're doing this with online shopping.

Just click click click and we keep shopping and putting things in the cart and it's so easy for us to do to be on the hunt.

Not because we necessarily want or need any of these objects but because we're engaging a system that is a seek and find system that is a wanting system not a liking system.

So even when the boxes arrived you just been doing on all this online shopping and you know how we often forget what it is that we've even bought right?

We're just so caught up in the moment and then we forget about it.

So the boxes arrives it's arrives and it's kind of a surprise oh what's in the box?

You pull it out oh yes that's right this ad machine I forgot that this was the ad machine that was gonna finally give me the six-pack abs.

Doesn't matter that there's five older versions of this ad machine in the garage this is the new one it's the new technology and this motivation reward pathway loves novelty loves new things and of course I imputed on this machine that with this ad machine I was finally gonna want also to do the sit-ups that I would finally have that's the six-pack abs that I would feel so good about myself when I have the six-pack abs.

And so we get the machine out and maybe we try it a couple times and we think oh yeah that's not too bad again a little novelty a little newness we put it to the side let's not let's pace ourselves right and then a couple weeks go by and we realize I'm not using the machine I might as well go put it in the garage with all the other things and you look around at all the things that you have in your garage and you think who bought all this junk?

You did because you did it with a wanting system not a liking system.

And the Tibetans have a great saying for desire desire puts feathers on things that makes things look prettier than they really are our prefrontal cortex imputing all these qualities on all of these objects that they don't actually have so when you're looking around the garage at all this junk take a look on the floor and all the feathers that have fallen off it's why you could walk into your your closet filled with clothes and genuinely say to yourself I have nothing to wear who bought all these outfits?

Just look on the ground again all the feathers are there it's a wanting system it's not a liking system and because we impute all these qualities on these objects amping up our wanting we end up with all this junk that we don't even like and not to mention that of course all the credit card debt that we rack up with this all just the disappointment of all of this stuff that we have that was supposed to make us happy because that's what we told ourself not making us happy and we can see this when when people buy new houses and the realtor often will take the the couple to a house that's just a little out of their price range I know you can't really afford this one but I just wanted you to see this house they understand this pathway because they're in the house and they're looking around and like wow this house is amazing wow this house is fantastic of course it is you were expecting something in your price range and now she's taking you somewhere else and in all of this you're looking at the house and you're imagining yourself if this was my house I'd be so happy in this house I would I would never be stressed again I'd never be upset again I'd never want for anything else again if I could just have this house and and the wanting becomes so great because we imagine ourselves in the house eternally happily ever after this is a magic house and I have to have this house so we start negotiating with ourselves what can I do to afford the payment so I'll give up my coffee at Starbucks each day I'll give up my gym membership I'll give up my I won't go shopping for six months for ten years I won't go on holiday I won't see my therapist anymore because I'm not gonna be stressed anymore I'm not gonna be upset this is a magic house this house is gonna completely transform and change who I am it's gonna take away all my cares all my worries and I'm never gonna want for anything again we're putting feathers all over the house we're imputing qualities on the house that the house does not have and after we're in the house for a while and it's still a lovely house we can still love the house in fact in this situation we can still like the house it can be lovely but the feathers do start to fall off because now we're starting to feel stressed again we're starting to have worries again about whether we can make the payments we're starting to wish that we could have our Starbucks coffee each day or maybe go talk to our therapist about what's going on but we can't do any of those things anymore because we gave all those things up because we believed the house was going to fundamentally change who I was imputing qualities on the house that it doesn't have and thereby being disappointed once again I thought this was gonna do it and it didn't and this is what we're doing all the time with the system when we when we kill ourselves to get the next promotion the next job title the next bonus or pay raise and we'll ignore our family ignore our friends ignore our health not eating properly maybe drinking too much not getting enough sleep because we have told ourselves if I can just get that next promotion if I can just get that bonus and have that little bit extra money in the bank then I'll feel like it's enough then I'll be satisfied then I'll feel good about who I am but then we get there and it feels good in the beginning of course it does but then it starts to taper off again it's not a seek and find and be satisfied system we get the dopamine wears off and we're like oh I still kind of feel like the same person I've just got a new title I've got a little bit more money in the bank in the bank but actually it's not quite enough I actually need a little bit more because we're trying to find satisfaction by quenching our thirst with salt water it doesn't quench our thirst we just want more it's never enough and the other challenge for us with this pathway is that the rewards that we're getting I mean the reward is meant to be yeah you found water you found food you found caves you found things that needed that that you needed first for survival so there was a certain like yay I really got something that we needed but in all of these situations assuming you already had a house assuming you already had a job they're not really fulfilling any need for you whatsoever and even worse the expectation that we put on these things of how we think they're going to make us feel and the fact that they cannot make us feel this way creates just even bigger disappointment for us because we keep trying and trying and trying you're trying for you know I'll get a new partner I'll get a new job I'll move I'll get a new house we're trying to do all of these things thinking that in some way these changes on the external world are going to change how we feel on the inside but all it does is leave us feeling more disappointed more dissatisfied more unhappy and when we even take this out to new technology cell phones social media news email texting gambling Netflix YouTube drugs but we'll actually just stick with the phone just all of those things that we can get it that we have access to on our phone our little lizard brains just can't handle that because there's no real effort that's needed for that we just reach for the phone and we get that anticipation of the reward because at one time those things all had a big reward for us I mean the first time that we got a text it's like it's amazing the first time we got an email this is amazing or the first time we did go on social media oh my god this is amazing all these people are on here that I that I haven't seen for years and and they're liking my posts and they're commenting and it's feeling really good and I'm liking theirs and I'm commenting and if we're getting these big boosts of dopamine and it feels really good but then we keep going back to these things trying to get that high the original high and it never meets that expectation I mean even every now and then we'll go on and there will be some exciting news and we get that high from the exciting news but we're not satisfied we just keep going we keep looking for more and more we got that good news now I want more I gotta feed the beast it's a wanting machine or wanting pathway it's not a liking pathway it's a wanting pathway if we're on social media and we're just scrolling and scrolling and scrolling seeking and finding seeking and finding wanting wanting wanting but not finding anything that's really making us feel that good so the disappointment just gets greater and greater and greater and in fact every one of these things any time you you have an immediate short-term spike in dopamine without any effort up front and we did a video or sorry we did a class and there's a video on YouTube I think was three or four months ago about this about the pleasure and pain that any time you have a short-term reward no effort had to be put out whatsoever what happens is you will you will experience at some point you will experience pain equal to the high and we could think about it just like a drug addict they get they have their baseline dopamine they do the drugs whoo big spike just oh you go on social media there's something interesting you get a spike let's say you were tagged in a post or you got all these likes or comments or something and you get that spike but then that spike has to come back down and it doesn't just come down to your baseline where you were before it drops below and you feel really bad and that is how that is that is the fact of how the system works if you get a short-term spike without any effort whatsoever you short-term spike and dopamine feeling pleasurable I would argue and I'll and we'll discuss this a little later it actually doesn't feel that good if you really look at it but it feels better than a kick in the butt in the gut it feels better than the dopamine disappointment relatively speaking I'll give it that but when you have that spike you have to crash and this is inevitably what always happens and just like the drug addict that just keeps going back keeps going back it's not even giving them happiness anymore because the baseline keeps getting moved they're just looking to feel normal and they're doing behavior that they don't it's not making them happy but they can't stop it's a wanting behavior it's a wanting pathway it's not a liking pathway and this is today where kids particularly young kids spending so much time on their phones on social media they're not happy their rates of anxiety and depression are rising as well and suicide young boys the amount of time they're spending with pornography it's a wanting system and they just keep wanting and looking and searching and searching there's no satisfaction and there's no beneficial reward in any of these systems for us in social media in getting likes online that's not teaching us how to be social to interact with others right just by getting the most amount of likes when I think of all the influencers how miserable their lives are and they are because some of them will finally come forth and say it was all a lie it is a lie every moment of their day they're trying to think about how can I make this look more exciting more fun to get more likes it's a wanting system it's not a liking system it's not a satisfaction system and again young boys through pornography not learning how to go out and interact with women not or young men going out to be with women and think of what their expectations are after looking at all this pornography it's not realistic for the world and it's bringing them a lot of pain and suffering and unhappiness the news for all of us like that's an addiction you know we need the outrageous headline even when the story doesn't match and we just keep seeking and seeking and seeking seeking and finding but never finding satisfaction it's a wanting system it is not a liking system and no matter what anything that we experience in the world that is pleasurable will eventually turn to pain the best massage in the world first hour it's amazing maybe the second hour oh so good fifth six the seventh hour get me off this table this is miserable don't touch me anymore that the best piece of chocolate cake in the world the first bite oh heaven the first whole piece oh my god delightful a second piece for me still okay so right the fifth the sixth the seventh piece we're ready to throw up get that thing away from me so whatever is external from us even something pleasurable something we do enjoy it itself cannot give us continuous happiness and the more we consume it the those returns diminish to the point where it becomes painful and this relates in that we are looking at things in the external world to try and make us happy and these things cannot do this not with the pathway that we are working with and yet we need this pathway we wouldn't do anything without this pathway so we need the motivation reward pathway let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater but we do want need to understand how it works and like and I just referenced the video from or the class from a few months ago and I'll put a link in the description box in fact I'll link it to the the last at the end of this video if you are willing to put some effort in up front you know what we might call pain but it's not really pain it's just some effort up front the same way if you get that initial spike of dopamine the pain is gonna follow if you do it in the reverse order put the effort in up front you will get the pleasurable feeling in the end not in a big spike but in a nice kind of a better arc and you will also have done something that was good for you so when we do things like instead of going on social media for 20 minutes meditating that requires effort it's not painful but it does require effort and then we get the good feeling we get the dopamine after the men actually it starts to rise maybe middle of meditation we're definitely not getting it in anticipation which is one of the reasons it makes it so hard for us to go and do things like meditation we don't get that reward or we don't get the anticipation of dopamine driving us to go do it doesn't see it as a survival benefit and yet in the 21st century it is absolutely survival for us today wasn't 100 years ago or 200 years ago it is today so when you put down your phone and you go and meditate you get the good feeling afterwards not in a big spike way but in a nice kind of a nice pleasant like I've accomplished something kind of way you get that motivation feeling plus you've done something that's good for you and if you're willing to instead of get home and crash on the sofa and watch Netflix instead go to the gym for an hour put some effort into something you'll get the good feeling afterwards you'll feel better plus you did something that was good for you something that really is a reward that if you're willing to take the time to go in the kitchen make a salad instead of have pizza delivered get that initial spike that you would get from the pizza the initial dopamine spike and then the pain that follows instead to say I'm going to go and do something that's good for me you get the good feeling afterwards plus you did something that was good for you so we do need to understand that this is a that when we use this pathway responsibly we actually feel better and we are doing things that are helping us genuinely helping us to survive meditation eating better exercise going for more walks going outside instead of going on social media going and meeting friends for dinner catching up with some friends in person not virtually and we feel better we know this is scientifically proven we've got to flip the way we're using it and it doesn't mean that we can't enjoy short-term pleasures that we can't enjoy the latte we can't enjoy the massage yeah and the the good conditions when they arise that the piece of chocolate cake of course we do but we understand it's a short-term temporary blip feels good don't deny it we're not trying to deny ourselves anything here but understanding getting my latte is not going to change who I am getting the massage is not going to change who I am it's a nice pleasurable experience and it's a temporary experience it comes and it goes it's impermanent and when we understand that and stop putting our expectations on on the latte the chocolate cake the shopping experience the new job title the getting the new house all these things understanding there's nothing wrong with wanting a new house if you can afford it it's nothing wrong with wanting to make more money there's nothing wrong with wanting to grow and and get the new job title push yourself a little bit nothing wrong with any of those things but we've got to be careful about putting the feathers on those things imagining that in some way if I can just get to this next thing then I'll be happy forever because those things cannot do it for you and we do have this tendency to impute qualities on these external events goals objects that they don't have and then it just leads to more disappointment because we kill ourselves trying to get there and then we're disappointed because it didn't fundamentally change who we are it didn't complete us make us eternally happy the way we expected it to so we can enjoy the journey enjoy the working hard if it's something that you do want to do but you don't have to ignore your family your friends your health over it because that's not healthy that's not wise it doesn't mean you can't work a few late nights but to really have balance in it if you really understand this next job title isn't gonna change my life it's gonna be something different but it's not gonna change who I am so we can keep the things that are important to us our health our mental stability our emotional stability our family our friends we can keep all of that in check we can make sure we don't lose those things along the way pursuing a goal that isn't going to deliver what we think it's going to deliver so in order to be able to be more aware of the system aside from the fact that just having this class we've brought more awareness to what's really happening we do need to bring a lot of mindfulness to this we need to be more aware of what's happening in our day-to-day experience because a lot of the time this is just happening at kind of an unconscious level our thoughts are just wandering we know we talked about that last week the mind wandering just going out into the future oh if I can just get over there I'll be so happy if I can just get that latte I'll be so happy if I can just get that promotion I'll be so happy and that it pulls on the wanting system and we're just let along without even realizing what's happening and not even realizing it doesn't feel good I could remember the first time that I was shopping after being aware of the system and starting to find a lot of things and I could feel this like craving inside of me this chasing this wanting and I thought this doesn't even feel good but I was in the frenzy of it I could feel the frenzy that as I was finding more and more things the hunt and it was like get more get more get more and I thought this feels awful I don't like this feeling at all so we do have to be really mindful of that feeling and as I said I've said for the last two weeks I think I hopefully I'm always saying but in this series you don't notice the thoughts so much but you notice the feeling you notice that queeling inside and in this sense in this specific in this a situation it's the craving the craving for the object the experience the event whatever it is that we're imagining we're we're going after in the future whatever it is that we're chasing so bringing in our mindfulness practices breathing into it creating space for the energy usually a craving depending upon what it is if you're giving up cigarettes that craving could last a few minutes you're giving up drugs it could last a little bit longer but usually for the cravings that most of us are experiencing it's probably 60 90 seconds just breathing into it creating some space allowing allowing that that that the dopamine levels to come back down not in a crashing way but in a more moderate way like oh wow I was really swept up in that for a moment so breathing into it maybe you were about to click next episode on Netflix that you were searching on YouTube and you're like wow let me breathe let me pull myself out of the wanting so bringing our mindfulness practice into it to be into this to be aware of what's happening and to pull ourselves out of the wanting it will never end and we never end up happy this is what we have got to see it's what's happening it's just whether we're seeing it or not and then we're gonna bring in our first of five mantras today are mindful mantras and all of the mantras are based on the default mode network on the ways in which we think in the default mode network and the first mantra is peace is not chasing and what we're looking at here is that chasing pieces not wanting pieces not craving you can change that that word if you want to I like chasing because again it denotes that part of the default mode network we're going out into the future where we're imagining ourselves in the future getting this goal and we're so happy or we just imagine ourselves somewhere other than where we are now putting all the feathers on it future me that is always so happy future me that has no stress has no worries has no concerns imagining ourselves in the future chasing that image of ourselves a future me that's happy peace is not chasing and I I put it in this way because I want to show you what it is that is stopping you from being peaceful it's not that we're trying to add things on we're trying to take things away peace is our natural state it is our true nature but we keep chasing and resisting and comparing and judging and narrating and because we spend so much time in that's in those ways of thinking we don't experience the peace we know that peace is being present pieces accepting pieces is here and now but what is stopping you from being present from being here and now the chasing and that's what we're gonna look at this week and as you're doing the mantra and I'm gonna show you in a moment a way to count the mantras on your hand as you were saying the mantra in your meditation peace is not chasing if any thoughts arise around this that are validating or any thoughts about chasing wanting craving and you can see for yourself wow I was killing myself to get that job promotion I got the job and after a while it was like yeah didn't quite do it like I thought it was going to or that next partner that next big house or the next big holiday you're not that there was even probably some excitement and happiness around those things but it's like man it didn't really complete me the way I thought man I do have five ab machines in the garage why do I keep buying them when I'm clearly not liking them or using them looking for evidence in your own life to see if this is true or not because that is the only way that you will make change is if you see for yourself it's not making me happy the way I'm telling myself it's making me happy and you might even notice in the meditation that you're at some point your mind is just is is chasing the end of the meditation and you notice that you're thinking oh this isn't peaceful either right and you feel it real time yeah I'm already telling myself what am I gonna do when we're done with this meditation what am I gonna do later tonight and I'm chasing I'm craving I'm wanting doesn't feel good so you want to see that evidence for yourself and because we will have said the meditation we will have said the mantra probably 50 or 60 times in the meditation it will be more in the forefront of your mind you'll notice maybe tomorrow you're standing in line and you notice your mind chasing wanting to just get to the next thing just chasing the next moment that little bit of dopamine can all get there get the reward of getting to the next moment of getting out of this moment and you'll notice it peace is not check and you'll think oh peace is not chasing this isn't this doesn't feel good and you'll breathe and come back bringing your mind back into your body and without that pull to the next moment you'll feel more peaceful nothing will have changed you didn't just walk out of the line then and say forget it I don't want this anymore whatever I you know whatever is in your cart everything's still the same it's just that you're not chasing you're more present you're happier and you might even do the mantra while you're standing there and and doing the the count on your hands so let's talk about that and there's a couple reasons for doing the count on your hands first of all and I want you to use your left hand to do the count because I want to engage the right hemisphere of our brain remember the right hemisphere of our brain is more seeing the whole picture connecting the dots mindfulness it's a much more holistic hemisphere in our brain we want both hemispheres of our brain but we need more balance to the right side and when you are counting on your fingers you are also engaging of course the motor cortex in the right hemisphere of your brain so we're bringing in another neural neural network along with the saying the mantra the prefrontal cortex part of the motivation reward pathway so it's connecting more parts of your brain and the more bright more parts that we can have involved the more likely you are to remember this first bring together the top of your thumb and the top of your pinky this is the first count and you'll silently say to yourself peace is not chasing and then go to the middle piece is not chasing the crease piece is not chasing and then just go to the top of the next finger middle crease top the next finger middle crease top the next finger middle the crease stop start again at the top of our pinky and as you say it's wonderful inhale and exhale for each mantra for each count piece is not chasing pieces not chasing pieces not chasing it's actually quite relaxing to say it because we spend so much time in chasing mode and we keep saying it and off there one again and you keep bringing yourself back you are pointing yourself in the ways and one of the ways that you are most taking yourself out of the present moment so it keeps pulling you back it's really showing you where your mind is going what is preventing you from knowing peace and we will start the meditation the same way we'll do the deep breathing the body scan the inquiry questions and then we'll bring in the mantra we'll do five or six rounds of the mantra so again probably around 60 times saying the words and then we'll let the mantra go and for the last few minutes we'll just have our attention on the breath and I think you'll find by that stage it's really much simpler to keep your attention on your breath because you've been using the mantra as a guardrail to keep raining your mind and to keep raining your mind in really showing you where your mind is going and then by the time you let the mantra go and you've been saying something that's true to yourself finally you've just feel that sense of peace and it's much easier to keep your attention on the breath

Reviews

Awesome TYVM 💗

The dopamine pathway is so key to our moment-to-moment behahavioral functioning. I feel I have been putting in effort to arrive at the reward of a better understanding of this critical part of our neurobiology. Thank you for sharing your insights that move me along my understanding - especially about the favored effort-then-reward path that avoids the painful addictive cycle. ☮️🤍🙏