The Happiness Paradox
Hi there!
Welcome back to the MoodiNews. Every Thursday, we discuss a variety of matters related to mental health and self-improvement.
(I apologize for not posting last week—my first draft of this post turned out to be way too long and I needed extra time to break it down into a few different discussions!)
I’m so glad you’re here.
This week, we will be exploring THE HAPPINESS PARADOX! YAY!
In my last post, I reviewed some of the reasons why it’s unrealistic to feel happy all the time.
Today, we will discuss one more reason—this time, from a biological perspective—as to why happiness so often evades us.
It turns out that, in the brain, there is a specific neurochemical that’s responsible for the physiological experience of pleasure. It’s called Dopamine. We therefore need to understand how Dopamine works in order to understand how happiness is experienced.
Dopamine is a neuromodulator (i.e., a chemical that modulates brain states) that creates feelings of pleasure in the brain when we anticipate a positive reward.
We also get dopamine from attaining things (i.e., accomplishing goals or making unexpected, positive discoveries)—but we tend to get the most dopamine (naturally, anyway) from thinking that something good is about to happen, JUST BEFORE it occurs.
(Anytime that we anticipate that something good is about to happen, we are therefore going to experience the upswing of a ‘happy’ feeling state.)
However, because of the way that Dopamine is regulated in the brain, the experience of being happy (i.e., experiencing dopaminergic pleasure) turns out to be a bit of a paradox:
1) Because Dopamine levels are highest JUST BEFORE a pleasurable event takes place, by the time we actually receive the thing that we have been seeking, we will have already experienced most of the pleasure that that thing will ever bring us.
(People falsely assume that obtaining what they want in life will make them happy—but that is incorrect. Dopamine is not about having, it’s about pursuing, so we will always get the biggest surge of Dopamine just before we get what we want, not after.)
2) After a positive reward is received and Dopamine is released, Dopamine levels will inevitably drop again soon afterward—and usually BELOW the baseline level that we were at before the pleasurable event even took place. This compensatory action is how the brain rebalances itself, but it makes the experience of happiness extremely impermanent (and eternally insatiable, since the most pleasurable moments never last, leave us feeling temporarily worse, and then generate a strong desire for more).
(We see this all the time when people win big awards, get married, graduate school, etc. There is often a lot of excitement and fervor around the anticipation of these major life events, but less enjoyment either during or immediately following the actual experience. Interestingly, in the absence of future pursuits to trigger more dopamine in the wake of a major accomplishment, feelings of loss, exhaustion, or disillusionment are more likely to surface post-achievement than happiness is.)
Remember: Dopamine is highest RIGHT BEFORE we anticipate the attainment of something positive—but once that pursuit is over, any residual feelings of happiness will be short lived.
In other words, happiness is very fleeting.
In summation, the Happiness Paradox highlights the fact that we are neurologically hard-wired to perpetually chase happiness, but only rarely—and temporarily—achieve it in abundant amounts.
(This biological feature is adaptive because it rewards discovery and pursuit, which helped us evolve as a species. However, it also guarantees—or, perhaps, necessitates—that happiness remain an elusive experience, since the function of dopamine is to reward the repetition of survival behaviors (like scavenging, mating, etc.), without causing satiation to the point of inducing an unproductive, pleasure coma.)
But do not despair!
It is possible to experience a pleasant mood on a consistent basis—and probably elevate your overall levels of happiness above what they currently are—despite the reality of this Happiness Paradox.
Next week, we will explore the secret to feeling happier, more often, despite the constraints of our neurobiology.
See you then!