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Brain-Based Transformational Solutions

Is Santa Claus Coming to Town?

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I was standing in the kitchen waiting for the coffee to be ready while mulling over the implications of delayed gratification. But what came to mind was being a child and waiting for Christmas—more particularly, Christmas presents! The weeks leading up involved lots of thinking and dreaming about what I wanted; it was hard to choose from so many possibilities. Then there were the lists, written and rewritten. And once the die was cast, wondering what I would actually get and picturing opening those colorful wrapped packages.

Reminders were everywhere, stoking the imagination: Christmas carols on the radio and in stores, decorations inside and outside houses and other buildings, sending and receiving cards, Christmas trees, sugar cookies and other holiday treats.

Christmas was on December 25th every year; nothing I could do about that. And I would get what I got on that date; nothing I could do about that, either. Until the big day arrived, I was full of eager expectation, aka anticipation. Unlike with the concept of delayed gratification, there was no self-control involved, since I had little to no control over the contours of the holiday.

OK, I have to amend one of those statements. Theoretically, I had some control in that I was supposedly more likely to get what I wanted if I was “nice” than if I was naughty. According to the well-known song:

He’s making a list,
He’s checking it twice,
He’s gonna find out who’s naughty or nice

He being Santa Claus, of course. I don’t recall paying a price for not being “nice,” even though that word was probably not in my vocabulary. In any case, we could look at Christmas presents as rewards for good behavior, which is the way we use them now to get the brain to pay attention to what we want it to pay attention to.

No Stanford Marshmallow Experimenters Need Apply

Kiyohito Iigaya, the lead author of the paper published last year in Science Advances on the brain regions associated with anticipation (mentioned in this blog post) says:

Anticipation can probably drive us to prepare better for actual reward consumption so that we can get the most out of it. It’s also healthy—good for our mental health—to have something to look forward to. The reward is not physically here yet, but the brain somehow manages to create it in our mind.

When I hit upon a really good reward for myself, delaying getting it or consuming it is an entirely enjoyable experience that doesn’t involve any amount of self-control whatsoever. This makes sense because, other than the hippocampus—which is more or less keeping track of who we are—the brain regions involved in self-control and anticipation are not the same. (However, it also makes sense to me that having an ability to make use of anticipation might have a spillover effect on impulse control. Something to explore down the road.)

Double Your Pleasure (Redux)

All of this is to say that anticipation is not the same thing as delayed gratification. Although it’s possible the two concepts have become entangled for some, it’s important to recognize they are entirely different.

Anticipation amps up the potential pleasure of a future reward now, while delayed gratification (and self-control) minimize the potential pleasure of a future reward now. So if you want to develop your anticipation skills, focus on the pleasure, not on the delay.

Two experiments you can run (often—not just once):

  1. Think about any situations from the past when you experienced anticipation. Maybe they were like my Christmas example in which I didn’t have control over when I would receive the thing I wanted. That doesn’t matter because the point of the exercise is to recognize the feeling and the experience.
  2. Play with creating anticipation incrementally by waiting to do or get or consume something you want. During that time, think about the thing you want. Imagine doing or getting or consuming it. Focus on the pleasure you expect to feel. You can start with a few minutes and work up to hours or days.

Rewards are an essential component of lasting, significant behavior change. But rewards don’t work if you are unable to anticipate them. A bonus result from these experiments may be that you learn more about what you really derive pleasure from, which will give you good information about future rewards as you develop your anticipation skills.

I’ll leave you with this video of Melissa Hughes, author of Happy Hour with Einstein even though it features that Carly Simon song I hate (however, it was interesting to learn that Simon wrote it about Cat Stevens).

This is the fourth and “final” post on the topic of anticipation.

More Is Definitely More

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In April, I abruptly decided to re-start my strength training program. It turned into a series of intentions with a nearly perfect reward structure that includes craving, anticipation, and more-ness, for lack of a better word. I’d like to say it was all on-purpose, but some of it was accidental.

My initial intention was to complete three sessions a week for three weeks, and to get a reward for doing precisely that. If I failed to get three sessions in during any of those weeks, my three week period would start over. I don’t watch much TV, but I recently discovered a show I liked that was cancelled but had 10 seasons on DVD. So I set the season one DVD as my reward. The whole thing was more an experiment than anything else.

Craving

It turned out I really wanted that first DVD! One day when I felt I might be better off not exercising, I considered the possibility of having to start the three weeks over, thus delaying the reward, and decided I wasn’t willing to take that chance. I ended up doing fine, which was informative and gratifying.

I also really like how I feel when I’m doing strength training, and I began to crave that sense of energy and wellbeing, which started paying dividends in other areas.

When I got the first reward, it was more enjoyable than I expected. That’s what’s known technically as a reward prediction error, and it releases even more dopamine.

Anticipation

I look forward to tracking my progress each session, to completing another series of exercises, and to getting closer to my reward. During my second three-week period, I saw that the season two DVD might not be available on the day I completed the 9th session. I could have ordered it then to be “safe,” and put it away until I’d earned it. I have enough willpower to resist. But I realized I would miss out on the anticipation—and that would have felt like a deprivation.

Right now, I’ve finished watching season one and am awaiting the arrival of season two, which I’m really anticipating due to the cliffhanger ending of the last episode!

When you enjoy anticipation, the waiting provides a cascade of feel-good neurochemicals. Of course, while I’m anticipating receipt of the second season, I’ve begun working toward the third.

More

Well, obviously I want all the seasons of this TV show. The best case scenario is that I complete 30 consecutive weeks of three sessions per week, so that’s what I’m aiming for. (Since I recently hit my 1,000th consecutive day of walking, this new intention seems more doable than it might have previously.) I doubt I will become habituated to this reward because there’s always something new going on in the show. Each season is different. Plus I don’t binge-watch the episodes but enjoy one or two at a time.

And there’s more involved in the strength training as I move up to heavier weights and more reps. There’s even more in being able to get (by which I mean righteously justify the purchase of) the next set of weights. And of course, there’s more in continuing to feel better and have more energy.

The Alternate Route

I could watch this show on Netflix, if I still had Netflix, whenever I want to. But that isn’t even remotely appealing to me. By connecting the show with something I want to do and having to wait to enjoy it until I’ve completed the actions, ordered the DVD, and collected it from my mailbox, it has a much bigger impact than it would if all I had to do was turn on the TV. [fyi, I can state this as a fact because I’ve had both experiences, and there’s no contest.] And since I am collecting the DVDs, I’ll not only be able to watch them in the future, I’ll also be reminded of what I achieved in order to earn them. That reinforces the sense of accomplishment and personal agency

Some Unexpected Outcomes

I said I don’t watch much TV, but since undertaking this experiment I don’t watch any TV at all.

The two physical activities I haven’t been able to engage in during the past 5+ years of multiple heart conditions are hiking and dancing. Last year, just before Covid restrictions were put into place, I set up a program to see if I could get myself into shape to hike. But hiking was not in the cards last year, and without that to look forward to, I let the program slide.

Dancing is something I used to do in between sets of strength training exercises, before and after classes, or just spontaneously whenever. Every time I tried it the past few years, I immediately got out of breath, so I stopped trying. But now…I can dance!  And it occurs to me that the dancing might be a better means of getting in shape for hiking than anything else.

I see that I’m getting different rewards for different aspects of this program, which makes it more interesting and compelling to my brain.

Motivation

I actually enjoy strength training, appreciate the increase in vitality and wellbeing I get from it, and understand and value the benefits (mental, physical, and emotional). There are a lot of good reasons to do it. But it’s anticipation of the rewards that increases the likelihood I’ll continue with this program instead of letting other things get in the way.

Dopamine is not just about reward anticipation; it fuels the goal-directed behavior needed to gain that reward; dopamine “binds” the value of a reward to the resulting work. —Robert Sapolsky

And that makes all the difference in the world!

Coming up next: an investigation into learning how to anticipate.

Double Your Pleasure…
by Waiting for It

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The most interesting and frustrating encounters I have with people tend to be based on their reaction to the implications of the brain’s reward system. Regardless of anyone’s individual attitude about it, though, the reward system is a biological fact. So we can either learn how to use it or we can let it use us.

It’s true that some personality types have an easier time with rewards than others. But in addition to that, let’s face it: Homo sapiens is a jaded lot these days. When we can get what we want when we want it—and do so regularly—waiting any amount of time for something can feel painful, like deprivation. We expect, and even require, immediate gratification.

In Behave, the Biology of Humans at our Best and Worst, Stanford’s Robert Sapolsky talks about the conundrum we’re in as a result of having access to stimulation of the brain’s reward circuitry, some of which is “at least a thousandfold higher” than anything previous humans experienced. Sure that includes drugs like fentanyl and cocaine, but it also includes processed sugar, which wasn’t readily available until the 18th Century.

An emptiness comes from this combination of over-the-top non-natural sources of reward and the inevitability of habituation; this is because unnaturally strong explosions of synthetic experience and sensation and pleasure evoke unnaturally strong degrees of habituation. This has two consequences. First, soon we barely notice the fleeting whispers of pleasure caused by leaves in autumn, or by the lingering glance of the right person, or by the promise of reward following a difficult, worthy task [emphasis mine]. And the other consequence is that we eventually habituate to even those artificial deluges of intensity. If we were designed by engineers, as we consumed more, we’d desire less. But our frequent human tragedy is that the more we consume, the hungrier we get. More and faster and stronger.

The Molecule of More

Well, the brain has been referred to as an insatiable wanting machine, and dopamine—the primary agent of the brain’s reward system—isn’t called “the molecule of more” for nothing.

I’ve written and talked a lot about rewards and dopamine already, including the important role of craving in creating desirable habits or pursuing juicy desired outcomes. But it appears there’s a state to be mastered before craving can be put into play. That state is anticipation.

While craving is a powerful desire for something, anticipation is the condition of looking forward to it, especially with eagerness. Without the ability to anticipate, a craving will take you directly and immediately to the object or sensation. You will experience pleasure, but pleasure (aka liking) neurochemicals fade quickly, and then you’re right back to wanting.

For the record, I hate that Carly Simon song, but as long as I can remember I’ve enjoyed anticipation: going to the beach, strawberry shortcake with real whipped cream, the next issue of a particular magazine, a picnic in the backyard, beginning—and finishing—a new piece of writing. When scientists talk about the pleasure evoked by anticipation, I totally get it. As Thomas Hardy wrote in The Return of the Native:

Pleasure not known beforehand is half-wasted; to anticipate it is to double it.

So it surprised me to discover that anticipation can have either neutral or even negative connotations for others. But it’s entirely logical that if you don’t enjoy anticipation, you will probably have a hard time delaying gratification. Sapolsky says that once your brain figures out what it gets rewarded for, dopamine is less about reward than about its anticipation.

The Utility of Anticipation

Temporal discounting suggests that rewards are more attractive when they are imminent as opposed to when they are delayed. But this is not always the case. If you were the recipient of an Easter basket or bag of Halloween candy as a child, did you consume the contents quickly or did you moderate your consumption and delay gratification?

A paper published just last year in Science Advances describes a function called anticipatory utility, which counteracts temporal discounting:

An influential alternative idea in behavioral economics is that people enjoy, or savor, the moments leading up to reward. That is, people experience a positive utility, referred to as the utility of anticipation, which endows with value the time spent waiting for a reward. Anticipatory utility is different from the well-studied expected value of the future reward (i.e., a discounted value of the reward) in standard decision and reinforcement learning theory, where the latter’s utility arises solely from reward and not from its anticipation. Crucially, in the theory of anticipatory utility, the two separate utilities (i.e., anticipation and reward) are added together to construct the total value [emphasis mine]. The added value of anticipatory utility naturally explains why people occasionally prefer to delay reward (e.g., because we can enjoy the anticipation of eating a cake until tomorrow by saving it now), as well as a host of other human behaviors such as information-seeking and addiction.

The paper is a report of cutting-edge research conducted to test how the brain dynamically constructs anticipatory utility. Three different brain regions appear to be involved:

  1. the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), which tracks the value of anticipatory utility
  2. the dopaminergic midbrain (DA), which enhances anticipation
  3. the hippocampus, which mediates the functional coupling of the vmPFC and the DA

Researchers suggest that the vmPFC and DA link reward information to the utility of anticipation, while a strong conceptual tie between the hippocampus, memory, and future imagination supports a suggestion from behavioral economics that the utility of anticipation relates to a vivid imagination of future reward [emphasis mine].

And that brings us smack into the arena of personality and personal operating systems. It explains why I find anticipation to be enjoyable and am therefore able to use future rewards effectively to alter my behavior. It’s not a skill I’ve developed. I’m just wired that way!

Coming up next: (1) my personal example of successfully employing and enjoying anticipation; (2) an investigation into learning how to anticipate.

The Pleasure of Beauty

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The brain takes pleasure in beauty; therefore, it finds beauty rewarding.

No matter where our brain finds beauty—in the natural world, a face or body, a song or work of art, a mathematical equation, or a perfect slice of tiramisu—it responds by activating the same neurological processes. Dopamine signals that a stimulus is rewarding and initiates the motivation and the muscle movements we need to move toward it. Mu-opiod and cannabinoid receptors then work together to produce the experience of pleasure.

We may have our own theories about why we like and take pleasure in some things and not in others. But all our aesthetic experiences are rooted in these processes that take place deep inside the brain.

Although we’re consciously aware of only a tiny fraction of them, our brain processes around 11,000,000 bits of information at a time, most of which are related to vision. The objects in our visual field, whether we’re aware of them or not, have an effect on us. As John Medina says in Brain Rules:

Visual processing doesn’t just assist in the perception of our world. It dominates the perception of our world.

But while it’s often said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, it’s much more accurate to say that beauty is in the brain of the beholder. Consider a few of the many things we can’t see that we can experience as beautiful, such as:

  • passages of music
  • scents and aromas: oranges, jasmine, fresh baked cookies
  • birds singing in the morning
  • the warmth of the sun on your skin
  • an embrace
  • laughter
  • rain (the scent, the sound, and the feeling of it)

When an epileptic seizure left painter John Bramblitt legally blind, he learned new ways to carry on with his work.

When you break it down the eyes really only do two things for a painter; they allow you to know your placement on a canvas, and they allow you to determine color. … Basically what I do is replace everything that the eyes would do for a sighted artist with the sense of touch.

The result:

Pleasures are more than simple reflexive reactions to desirable things. —Anjan Chaterjee

Many of our aesthetic preferences—including preferences for sugar, for faces and bodies, and for places in nature—developed during the Pleistocene era. The things we experience as beautiful today connect us not only with each other but also with all of our human ancestors.

Our hard-wired aesthetic preferences are an excellent example of how unconscious processes in the brain operating outside our awareness affect us on a daily basis. We think we’re unique in our preferences and beliefs and in the actions we think we’re choosing to take. Because we don’t understand how and why they developed, we come up with explanations that are bound to miss the mark—and can even lead to strife rather than to cooperation.

However, because we find beautiful things pleasant, they activate the reward system in our brain. The purpose of the reward system is to help us learn and remember things, places, people, and experiences that will contribute to our survival. This makes me hopeful. In our modern splintered world in which humans are continually engaged in various forms of brinksmanship, anything that can help us see ourselves as ultimately part of the same species might yet contribute to our ability to survive.

Aesthetics refers to our appreciation of what is beautiful. Neuroaesthetics is the study of the cognitive (mental) and affective (emotional) processes that underlie aesthetic experiences from a combined neurobiological, psychological, and evolutionary perspective.

Craving

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If craving were a person, he or she would definitely be from the wrong side of the tracks. Probably tattooed. Maybe a smoker. Definitely a drinker. A little bit slutty. A silver-tongued devil capable of talking you into doing all kinds of things against your better judgment. Someone your parents would have warned you—in the strongest terms—not to hang around with.

You try to stay away—to be good. But craving is just too hard to resist. Eventually you give in, and it feels so good in the moment, but you always end up hating yourself the next morning. You really want to break up with craving, but you can’t.

At least that’s the perspective many people appear to have about craving. Craving is associated with wanting things that are “bad” (unhealthy, illegal, dangerous, or excessive) or with being out of control. The logical result of this view of craving is to attempt to squash it, eliminate it, beat it in to submission: to conquer it.

What Is Craving?

The best definition of craving I’ve come across is a strong wanting of what promises enjoyment or pleasure.

Essentially, craving is wanting or desiring something. Wanting is driven by dopamine in your brain. But the neurons that respond to dopamine are interspersed with neurons that respond to opioid and cannabinoid neurons that provide the experience of pleasure (liking). In a sense, the brain likes to want, which is why, according to psychologist and neuroscientist Kent Berridge, “we are hardwired to be insatiable wanting machines.”

So even if you could do it, it makes no sense to try to break up with craving. Your life would be so much less enjoyable. But you can minimize your cravings for some things by cultivating cravings for other things.

We often think of desire and the objects of our desire as inseparable. We think it is the indulgence itself—the luscious ice cream, the rush of nicotine, or the flood of coins from a slot machine—that motivates us. To a greater extent, however, it is the expectation of these rewards, the luxurious anticipation of them, that fires up our brains and compels us to dig in, take a drag, or place another bet. —Chris Berdik, Mind over Mind

The unconscious part of your brain (System 1) is always looking for—expecting, craving—the next reward. Untrained, it will go for the most immediate, readily available source of pleasure. Craving is persistent and hard to resist. So applying willpower to avoid indulging in that pleasure, whatever it may be, is an ineffective strategy.

Rejigger Your Pleasure Experiences

“Pleasure is a potent driver of behavior,” as Anjan Chaterjee says in The Aesthetic Brain. But:

Our cognitive systems can reach down into our pleasure centers and rejigger our pleasure experiences.

Rejiggering our pleasure experiences is an essential component of long-term behavior change. You can’t stop your brain from craving, but you can redirect its path from one pleasurable or rewarding object to another. You can only train it to respond to a different reward, however, if it actually craves that reward.

Yes, craving sometimes goes too far in the pursuit of pleasure. Makes you want things you don’t want to want and do things you don’t want to do, at least after you’ve done them. But craving also drives you to take action to get what you want. Craving motivates you to learn and create and expand…to modify your behavior…to effect change in the world…to experience beauty. Craving is frequently misunderstood—but definitely worth the effort to get to know.

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