Explain Nation: Why we feel bad after we feel good


"The product looks so good and it’s so cheap. What’s the catch?!"

We have become so suspicious of good things and good feelings. I have even heard of a woman who nearly panicked in the middle of a proposal from her boyfriend.

This can be a plausible explanation for all that:

Our mammal ancestors lived among herds to stay safe. Once in a while, a toddler mammal would stray into the open for some nice sunshine and a taste of freedom. In a little while, the hormone cortisol would give him a bad feeling that he couldn’t explain. He would be compelled to hurry back to the herd. In the presence of trusted ones, the brain chemical oxytocin would give him a feeling of comfort and bliss.

Why is cortisol such a wet blanket? Well, its job order is to make animals, including humans, survive. Without it, we will feel too secure until a lion snatches us for lunch.

The survival instinct made our forefathers see cultural systems of rewards and punishment as concepts so natural. They saw nothing strange when told stealing other people’s harvest would send them to jail, and eating too much would bring them to hell. They were biologically conditioned to understand that too much pleasure comes with a penalty.

It has been the pattern over many generations. Before the government was invented in Mesopotamia, people who didn't share meat were ostracized. When governments came into being, laws limited human enjoyments. Before and during the time of governments, spiritual belief was always there to remind people that deities are watching to make sure we don't get too carried away by anything delightful.

In the present day, many of us don’t want to always feel too happy in the office. We know that when too happy, we may be taken advantage of. How many times have you heard colleagues say “let’s seek his approval when he’s in a good mood”?

I will confess, there have been many times when I bought things from vendors who made me laugh. Of course, the things I bought were either ridiculously overpriced or totally useless.

If ice cream, chocolates, and pastries existed in prehistoric times, they wouldn’t be considered “guilty pleasures.” That’s because sugar was the best nutrition at a time when people were nomadic hunters. Their bodies needed the fuel. Glucose also was (and still is) the main nutritional requirement of the brain. Now that we are sedentary and aware that sugar has unhealthy consequences, a rich chocolate bar melting on our tongue may leave a bad taste in the mouth.

Evolutionary scientists theorize that things originally didn’t have any taste, color, and smell. In the process of natural selection, the brain codified substances using taste, hue, and aroma. All that was good for us were made to taste good, and the toxic ones, bitter and foul-smelling. A million years from now, if we are still sedentary, we may find sugar and carbs yucky!

Dr. Loretta Graziano Breuning, the founder of the Inner Mammal Insititute, explained that even today, the feel-good hormones metabolize quickly while the feel-bad ones last longer. It was necessary to keep animals and humans in a perpetual alert mode because life then was harsh. There were a million ways to die. Sadly, the bias for danger has not yet changed. Up to now, many have the tendency to sabotage their own happiness.

I wrote this article to help you understand your sudden fear or bad feeling. While there may be an evolutionary reason for it, there may not be a real and present danger anymore. We deserve to enjoy our happiness and good feeling if it is not at other people’s expense.

In times of epidemics, however, when authorities cannot protect us, staying safe is still the best!


Read:

Five Ways Feeling Good Can Be Bad For You by Kim M. Newman on the Greater Good Magazine website

Moral Origins: The Evolution of Virtue, Altruism and Shame by Christopher Boem

Tame Your Anxiety: Rewiring Your Brain For Happiness by Loretta Graziano Breuning, PhD

The Science of Positivity: Stop Negative Thought Patterns by Changing Your Brain Chemistry by Loretta Graziano Breuning, PhD

Why We Feel: The Science of Human Emotions by Victor S. Johnston




 

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