Satisfaction Sensation Seeking, Novelty, and the Science of Finding True Fulfillment

by Berns, Gregory

• ISBN13: 9780805081312
• ISBN10: 0805081313
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-08-08
• Publisher: Holt Paperbacks

Summary

In a riveting narrative look at the brain and the power of novelty to satisfy it, Dr. Gregory Berns plumbs the lessons of fields as diverse as neuroscience, economics, and evolutionary psychology to find answers to the fundamental question of how we can find a more satisfying way to think and live.Berns bridges the gap between everyday experience and cutting-edge research (much of it his own) by guiding the reader through the labs and hospitals where the science of how and why the brain is satisfied is being developed. We join him as he follows ultramarathoners across the Sierra Nevadas, enters a suburban S&M club to explore the deeper connection between pleasure and pain, partakes of a truly transporting meal, and ultimately returns home to face the challenge of incorporating novelty into a long-term relationship.In a narrative as riveting as its insights are trenchant, Satisfaction proposes nothing less than a new way of understanding the choices we make and the feelings we have about our lives. By its conclusion, this truly inspiring book will convince you that the more complicated and even downright challenging a life you pursue, the more likely it is that you will be satisfied.

Author Biography

Gregory Berns, M.D., Ph.D., is an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Emory University. Profiled twice in the Science section of The New York Times, Berns and his research have been featured in media as diverse as O, The Oprah Magazine; Forbes; Nature; Money; New Scientist; Psychology Today; Self; Reader’s Digest; International Herald Tribune; and on CNN, NPR, and the BBC. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with his wife and children.

Table of Contents

Preface	xi
1 The Slave in the Brain	1	(17)
2 For the Love of Money	18	(29)
3 Puzzling Gratifications	47	(24)
4 The Sushi Problem	71	(28)
5 The Electric Pleasuredome	99	(21)
6 It Hurts So Good	120	(26)
7 Running High	146	(29)
8 Iceland: The Experience	175	(35)
9 Sex, Love, and the Crucible of Satisfaction	210	(33)
Epilogue	243	(4)
Notes	247	(24)
Acknowledgments	271	(4)
Index	275

Excerpts

There is no reason to think that the pleasures of sex would be completely spared the fate of the hedonic treadmill. Familiarity leads to boredom, and with it the incessant reduction of all pleasures that can threaten the sexual glue binding many couples together. While novelty is a sure-fire way of creating great experiences, the belief that matrimonial harmony depends on stability, fidelity, and constancy stands in direct opposition to this. As in everything related to satisfaction, and perhaps also relationships, the tension between what is predictable and safe versus what is novel and dangerous, is constantly being played out.

Satisfaction—that state of blessed contentment, mystical enlightenment, tranquility, a sense of something beyond your own existence—is ephemeral at best. Everything I have encountered inside the lab and out in the world suggests that satisfaction is not the same as either pleasure or happiness, and that searching for happiness will not necessarily lead to satisfaction. It is in the quest for satisfaction that you find it; within any quest you encounter novelty and your brain changes as a result. Novelty can take you far, but like everything, it too is subject to habituation, and the risks associated with pursuing novelty for its own sake may be substantial. How, for example, can you incorporate it into a long-term relationship?

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Excerpted from Satisfaction: The Science of Finding True Fulfillment by Gregory Berns
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.