Don’t get happy, get satisfaction
Emory psychiatrist’s book explores the
neuroscience of fulfillment
What do gourmet meals, ultramarathons, kinky
sex, and crossword puzzles have in common?
The answer to this twisted riddle may be the
key to what most people are searching for,
according to Emory psychiatrist Gregory Berns.
In his new book, Satisfaction: The Science of
Finding True Fulfillment, Berns explores the
effects of various human behaviors on the
brain, with some surprising conclusions.
Most of us operate on the assumption that
we’re in pursuit of happiness, a feeling of
pleasure and contentment. But Berns draws a
critical distinction between happiness and
satisfaction.
“Happiness and pleasure are passive emotions
that come from things that happen to you,” he
says. “Our notion of happiness is by and large
due to genetics and luck. But satisfaction is a
positive emotion you experience because of
things you make happen yourself.”
The two main ingredients of a satisfying
experience, according to Berns, are novelty—the
unexpected—and challenge, or what has been
called “good stress.” Although running a
hundred-mile ultramarathon may sound like hell
on earth to some of us, such demanding,
unpredictable activities require a level of
focused attention and engagement that taps into
the reward system of the brain. That’s
different from the pleasure system, Berns says.
New or surprising stimuli, Berns found,
release the feel-good neurotransmitter dopamine
in an area at the top of the brain stem called
the striatum. Dopamine, according to
Satisfaction, is what gives us our sense of
purpose and causes us to commit to a particular
course of action over another, from an act as
deliberate as kicking a ball to one as
absentminded as scratching your nose or
glancing up from a book. It’s also where
motivation comes from.
“Motivation and commitment are two facets of
the same process, with dopamine acting as the
catalyst that begins the process,” Berns
writes.
The other neural piece of the satisfaction
pie is cortisol, the hormone that’s released in
response to stress. Cortisol has gotten a bad
rap from researchers because of its association
with the sort of high-level stress that can
lead to heart disease and high blood pressure.
But Berns suggests that cortisol has a bright
side, particularly when combined with dopamine.
“A lot of people say cortisol is bad for the
brain, but in my opinion, they haven’t looked
at the positive effects,” he says. “If you give
people cortisol, they become giddy. It has
mood-elevating qualities.”
So how to extract this winning combination
from humdrum everyday existence? It’s not as
hard as you might think, Berns says. Varied
physical exercise, a special meal, finishing a
crossword puzzle—all can provide the little
jolts of brain-chemistry delight that produce a
feeling of satisfaction.
Berns describes sharing a lunch of roast
duck, cold champagne, and freshly baked
chocolate torte with a master chef: “A
satisfying dining experience,” he writes, “goes
beyond mere sustenance. It transcends taste,
too, for even with the best ingredients, you
need something else—something novel.”
Berns’ idea for his book originally was a
more academic research study of the
neuroscience of satisfaction. But as he was
developing the proposal, a colleague, Charles
Raison of Emory’s psychiatry department,
suggested he try writing it in first person. He
did, and it worked: literary agents loved his
droll, conversational style. The result is an
enjoyable read accessible to a wide audience,
which has garnered a positive response in media
outlets from Oprah magazine to Wired.
“I was endeavoring to write for the educated
lay person,” Berns says.
But the use of first-person also adds a
layer of depth and narrative flow that gives
readers a window onto how the search for
satisfaction deeply affected a real person:
Berns himself. In the final chapter, he tackles
the challenge of finding novelty and
satisfaction in long-term relationships,
including his own marriage. While one might
assume that the need for romantic novelty means
infidelity and multiple sex partners, Berns
comes to the conclusion that you don’t need new
people to find newness in relationships. In
fact, long-term, committed relationships may be
our best source of novelty and satisfaction—as
he and his wife of fifteen years discovered.
“No source of novelty can exceed that
created between people who truly, deeply trust
each other,” Berns writes. “The freedom and
trust to do novel things in a natural way makes
sex creative and complex.”
For Berns, neuroscientific research evolved
into a kind of intense personal quest. As he
wrote the book, he says, he found he was
“trying to build a philosophy based on
biology.”
The philosophy: “Stop pursuing happiness,”
Berns says. “Pursue satisfaction, in terms of
trying, learning, and doing new things.”—P.P.P.