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The full talk is in the Feifan series on Fanshu, a Chinese audiobook app; this page is only a summary.
What This Episode Is About
Have you been suffering from anhedonia today?
Nothing particularly awful has happened, yet you just can’t seem to feel happy?
A hobby you used to be passionate about now feels utterly bland?
You finally accomplish a small goal, only to feel empty?
One survey found that more than 1/4 of respondents experience this kind of “anhedonia”. It’s not simply a bad mood; it’s also one of the key predictors of developing depression and anxiety in the future.
This book reveals, from the perspectives of neuroscience and psychology, why it’s getting harder and harder for modern people to feel pleasure. Modern life gives us convenience, but it also disrupts the neurotransmitters and hormones in our brains, leaving them numb. Over time, it can feel as if pleasure has “disappeared.”
The book also offers 5 types of self-regulation techniques to help you reactivate the brain’s “pleasure receptors” and regain the ability to experience joy in ordinary life.
You’ll Hear
- Where pleasure and a sense of well-being come from, from a neuroscience perspective
- How modern life throws neurotransmitters out of balance and makes us unhappy
- Five approaches to repair neurotransmitter imbalances and regain pleasure and a sense of well-being
Quote of the Episode
When dopamine keeps spiking and has trouble coming back down, the brain gradually reduces its dopamine release. Over time, things that once made you happy start to feel utterly bland.
In the long run, 50% of human happiness is determined by genes and childhood experiences, 10% depends on our objective circumstances in the present, and the remaining 40% is entirely up to the ways we think and behave later in life.
Simply believing that “you can take control of your own happiness” can make a person’s sense of well-being 1/3 higher than that of someone who doesn’t believe it, while reducing their sense of suffering by 5 times.
Reduce instant gratification appropriately and learn to extend the feeling of anticipation, because anticipation itself is also an important part of pleasure.
About the Author
[UK] Tanith Carey Psychologist, bestselling author, and columnist. Her notable works include What’s My Child Thinking? and Taming Tiger Parents.
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