How The Brain Experiences Pleasure — Even The Kind That Makes Us Feel Guilty

Short Wave

NPR

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4.7 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 15 April 2024

⏱️ 17 minutes

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Summary

We've all been there: You sit down for one episode of a reality TV show, and six hours later you're sitting guiltily on the couch, blinking the screen-induced crust off your eyeballs.

Okay. Maybe you haven't been there like our team has. But it's likely you have at least one guilty pleasure, whether it's playing video games, reading romance novels or getting swept into obscure corners of TikTok. It turns out that experiencing – and studying – pleasure is not as straightforward as it might seem. And yet, pleasure is quite literally key to the survival of humanity. So today on the show, we explore the pleasure cycle: What it is, where it lives in the brain and how to have a healthier relationship with the things that make us feel good.

Want more on the brain? Email us the neuroscience you want us to talk about at [email protected]! (Also please email us if you would like to gush about any of the books you've been loving — romantasy or otherwise!)

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is my voice. It can tell you a lot about me and I'm not changing it for anyone.
0:08.0	In NPR's Black Stories, Black Truths, you'll find a collection of NPR episodes centered on the Black experience.
0:17.0	Search NPR Black Truths, wherever you get podcasts.
0:27.0	You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. Hey Shortwaivers, Emily Kwong here with producer Rachel Carlson.
0:32.0	What's up Rachel?
0:33.2	Hey Emily, so a few weeks ago, do you remember the field trip we went on to this bookstore?
0:38.2	Yes. We went to ripped bodice.
0:40.3	For anyone who doesn't know, it's the store that's basically devoted entirely to romance novels.
0:45.0	But this isn't like your mom's fabio book store. It's like romance novels across all different kinds of genre and storytelling it's really cool.
0:53.6	Recently I kind of entered that world like I got sucked into this whirlpool
0:58.6	that's called Book Talk which if you don't know is basically lots of Tik-Tockers reviewing books and a lot of the time they're kind of spicy.
1:08.0	Like what? What have you been reading?
1:10.0	So I started reading these romance fantasy books about dragons and they were so fun Emily.
1:16.6	Like so fun.
1:18.1	But I felt really embarrassed about how much joy they were bringing me.
1:22.0	It's kind of like I didn't even want to be enjoying them.
1:24.4	Oh, that's kind of sad.
1:26.1	It was kind of sad and I was really frustrated with myself A, for liking the books in the first place,
1:30.9	but then B, for being frustrated that I like them, like not allowing
1:35.2	myself to just enjoy them.
1:36.8	Yeah, this is like a guilty pleasure for you.
1:40.0	And pretty much immediately I was like, I need a better excuse to think about all of these
	...

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