In pursuit of happiness
Why some pain helps us feel pleasure:
by Brock Bastian
The idea that we can achieve happiness by maximising pleasure and
minimising pain is both intuitive and popular. The truth is, however,
very different. Pleasure alone cannot not make us happy.
Take Christina Onassis, the daughter of shipping tycoon Aristotle
Onassis. She inherited wealth beyond imagination and spent it on
extravagant pleasures in an attempt to alleviate her unhappiness. She
died at 37 and her biography, tellingly subtitled All the Pain Money Can
Buy, recounts a life full of mind-boggling extravagance that contributed
to her suffering.
Aldous
Huxley recognised the possibility that endless pleasure may actually
lead to dystopian societies in his 1932 novel 'Brave New World.'
Although the idea of endless pleasure seems idyllic, the reality is
often very different.
We need pain to provide a contrast for pleasure; without pain life
becomes dull, boring and downright undesirable. Like a chocoholic in a
chocolate shop, we soon forget what it was that made our desires so
desirable in the first place.
Emerging evidence suggests that pain may actually enhance the
pleasure and happiness we derive from life. As my colleagues and I
recently outlined in the journal Personality and Social Psychology
Review, pain promotes pleasure and keeps us connected to the world
around us.
Pain builds pleasure
An excellent example of h+ow pain may enhance pleasure is the
experience commonly referred to as "the runners high". After intense
physical exertion, runners experience a sense of euphoria that has been
linked to the production of opioids, a neurochemical that is also
released in response to pain.
Other work has shown that experiencing relief from pain not only
increases our feelings of happiness but also reduces our feelings of
sadness. Pain may not be a pleasurable experience itself, but it builds
our pleasure in ways that pleasure alone simply cannot achieve.
Pain may also make us feel more justified in rewarding ourselves with
pleasant experiences. Just think how many people indulge themselves a
little after a trip to the gym.
My colleagues and I tested this possibility by asking people to hold
their hand in a bucket of ice-water and then offered them the choice of
either a Caramello Koala or a florescent highlighter to take with them
as a gift.
Participants who did not experience any pain chose the highlighter
74% of the time. But those who had pain only chose it 40% of the time -
they were more likely to take the chocolate. Pain, it seems, can make
chocolate guilt-free!
Pain connects us to our world
People are constantly seeking new ways to clear their minds and
connect with their immediate experiences. Just think of the popularity
of mindfulness and mediation exercises, both of which aim to bring us in
touch with our direct experience of the world.
There
is good reason to believe pain may be effective in achieving this same
goal. Why? Because pain captures our attention.
Imagine dropping a large book on your toe mid conversation. Would you
finish the conversation or attend to your toe? Pain drags us into the
moment and after pain we are more alert and attuned to our sensory
environment - less caught up in our thoughts about yesterday or
tomorrow.
My colleagues and I recently tested whether this effect of pain may
also have some benefits. We asked people to eat a Tim Tam chocolate
biscuit after holding their hand in a bucket of ice-cold water for as
long as they could. We found that people who experienced pain before
eating the Tim Tam enjoyed it more than those who did not have pain.
In two follow-up studies, we showed that pain increases the intensity
of a range of different tastes and reduces people's threshold for
detecting different flavours. One reason people enjoyed the Tim Tam more
after pain was because it actually tasted better - the flavour they
experienced was more intense and they were more sensitive to it.
Cold beer always tastes better after a hard day's work. Stefan Lins/Flickr,
CC BY-NC
Pain bond us with others
Our findings shed light on why a Gatorade tastes so much better after
a long hard run, why a cold beer is more pleasant after a day of hard
labour, and why a hot chocolate is more enjoyable after coming in from
the cold.
Pain literally brings us in touch with our immediate sensory
experience of the world, allowing for the possibility that pleasures can
become more pleasant and more intense.
Anyone who has experienced a significant disaster will know that
these events bring people together. Consider the 55,000 volunteers who
helped clean up after the 2011 Brisbane floods or the sense of community
spirit that developed in New York in response to 911.
Painful ceremonies have been used throughout history to create
cooperation and cohesion within groups of people. A recent study
examining one such ritual - the kavadi in Mauritius - found that
participants who experienced pain were more likely to donate money to a
community cause, as were those who had simply observed the ceremony. The
experience of pain, or simply observing others in pain, made people more
generous.
Building on this work, my colleagues and I had people experience pain
in groups. Across three studies, again, participants either immersed
their hand in ice-water and held a squat position for as long as they
could, or ate very hot raw chilies.
We compared these experiences to a no-pain control condition and
found pain increased cooperation within the group. After sharing pain,
people felt more bonded together and were also more cooperative in an
economic game: they were more likely to take personal risks to benefit
the group as a whole.
A different side of pain
Pain is commonly associated with illness, injury or harm. Often we
don't see pain until it is associated with a problem and in these cases
pain may have few benefits at all. Yet, we also experience pain in a
range of common and healthy activities.
We all experience day-to-day pains. stupidmommy/Flickr, CC BY-NC
Consider the recent ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) ice-bucket
challenge. By dousing ourselves in ice water we were able to raise
unprecedented support for a good cause.
Understanding that pain can have a range of positive consequences is
not only important for better understanding pain, but may also help us
manage pain when it does become a problem. Framing pain as a positive,
rather than negative, increases neurochemical responses that help us
better manage pain.
(The author is an
ARC Future Fellow, School of Psychology at UNSW Australia and this
article was originally published in The Conversation) |