The reason you don't feel pleasure.
Minute For Your Health #33
It takes 3 seconds, or 3 breaths, before your brain registers pleasure.
Do you ever wonder why things don’t feel as good in real life as you expected them to?
One of my favourite things in the world is to sit in a cafe, with a fantastic oat milk flat white (I know, I’m a millennial) and some sort of pastry - reading a book or working on something interesting.
Pre COVID I would plan dates like this with myself once a week or so and spend all week looking forward to that time.
But after my coffee and pastry were finished (often much quicker than I anticipated) I would feel a strange sense of:
Oh, that wasn’t as good as I expected.
And during a recent mindfulness training I suddenly realised why that might be - the teacher told us it takes 3 seconds, or 3 breaths, for our brain to truly register pleasure.
Because modern culture encourages us to constantly focus on more than one thing, our attention is never truly on the pleasurable thing for long enough for us to feel the pleasure.
The middle picture is me on a holiday in Italy - look at the pure joy on my face.
That’s not how I look at my dinner most days.
But on holiday we have the time and mind space to focus on what we are eating and experiencing. We give our brain those three breaths to register pleasure. Which is why ordinary things feel so much better on holiday.
Imagine you could recreate that holiday sense of pleasure in the ordinary in your every day? And it’s as simple as giving your brain 3 seconds, 3 breaths, to register pleasure.
In practice:
Instead of taking the first sip of your coffee whilst reading your emails, keep your laptop closed and enjoy the first sip until your brain has registered the pleasure of it.
Instead of walking past the beautiful views on your way to the shops, pause for 3 breaths and really look at what you are seeing.
Instead of eating your dinner whilst watching TV, take the time to see, smell and taste your first 2-3 bites completely. With all your attention.
Instead of giving your partner a fleeting goodbye kiss as you head out the door, make it 3 seconds, take the time to feel their closeness, to smell them, to appreciate them.
Summary:
To feel pleasure we need to allow our brain at least 3 seconds during which our attention is on the pleasurable thing to register that pleasure.
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Links and References:
Geschwind, N., Peeters, F., Drukker, M., van Os, J. and Wichers, M., 2011. Mindfulness training increases momentary positive emotions and reward experience in adults vulnerable to depression: a randomized controlled trial. Journal of consulting and clinical psychology, 79(5), p.618.
Vogel, E. and Mol, A. (2014). Enjoy your food: on losing weight and taking pleasure. Sociology of Health & Illness, [online] 36(2), pp.305–317. Available at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1467-9566.12116 [Accessed 23 Mar. 2021].
Ivtzan, I., Young, T., Martman, J., Jeffrey, A., Lomas, T., Hart, R. and Eiroa-Orosa, F.J. (2016). Integrating Mindfulness into Positive Psychology: a Randomised Controlled Trial of an Online Positive Mindfulness Program. Mindfulness, [online] 7(6), pp.1396–1407. Available at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12671-016-0581-1 [Accessed 23 Mar. 2021].
The Service Industries Journal. (2020). Exploring how mindfulness may enhance perceived value of travel experience. [online] Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02642069.2019.1600672 [Accessed 23 Mar. 2021].
Images from www.canva.com
Learn more about me at www.efiaskitchen.com