Positive Psychology Column for 6-15-03 By Tom Muha, Ph.D. Finding Pleasure in all the Right Places Many people think that making yourself happy is simple - just have more pleasure in your life.  So millions of Americans try to find happiness by indulging in such bodily pleasures as drugs, alcohol, tobacco and food. The result, according to government statistics, is that every year 60,000 Americans die as a result of using illegal drugs, and well more than 100,000 die of alcohol related causes. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. More than 250,000 people in the US die of eating too much and exercising too little.  Before those quarter million succumb to their sedentary lifestyle they usually suffer terribly.  Diabetes, for example, is just one of the diseases closely associated with obesity and necessitates 80,000 amputations every year. The most common pleasure trap is tobacco, which causes 440,000 Americans to lose their lives every year, usually after long battles with cancer and other illnesses.  People whose primary method of achieving happiness is through bodily pleasure quickly find themselves trudging up what scientist’s call the “hedonic treadmill.” The problem is that the pleasures derived from the delights of physical sensation’s fade almost immediately after the substance being consumed disappears.  Within a short time the individual is once again craving the substance in order to get a good feeling again.  Making the problem worse is the fact that people become accustomed to a certain level of consumption and require increasingly larger doses to deliver the same amount of pleasure. Addiction occurs as the brain’s pleasure center comes to depend on the external substances and stops producing its own natural feel-good neurotransmitters.  That’s when the rebound effect comes into full force causing a person to suddenly slip into sadness soon after they stop indulging in their particular pleasure. Happy people, however, have learned to use the character strength of self-control to regulate their involvement in using bodily pleasures to create good feelings.  Just like your muscles, character strengths are built by regular exercise, and the more you use them the more powerful you become. Sometimes happy people make the choice to prohibit a pleasure completely by consciously redirecting their thoughts.  First they think of the long term consequences of their choices.  For example, they focus on the negative properties of tobacco, which they tell themselves will eventually bring them pain.  The second step is to think of other sources of pleasure, and to choose a healthy alternative. Having a picture of a healthy future brings them pleasure, and making good choices builds their self-image.  Unhappy people, in contrast, deny the agony of the ultimate outcome as a means of making poor choices in the present.  Their self-esteem sinks in the wake of the problems they create for themselves.  This often happens when people put on weight, for instance. The new science of happiness has found that there are four strategies that are effective for enhancing pleasures in a healthy way: spacing, surprise, savoring and mindfulness.  Understanding these psychological principles can provide powerful lessons for increasing your positive feelings. Spacing out the events that bring you pleasure keeps the experience fresh. Once a pleasure becomes a habit, it loses its ability to bring enjoyment. Having a large variety of pleasures from which you can choose makes it easier for  you to space them out, and makes it less likely you’ll become dependent on just one pleasure. Surprise is another element that greatly enhances pleasure.  You may come home to a spouse every night and fall into much the same routine.  Everybody knows that if you bring fresh flowers home occasionally it will produce a very positive change in the interaction.  Go to your schedule and make a note reminding yourself to do that. Savoring helps to overcome the tendency to be future-minded.  Thinking ahead, for instance, limits your ability to listen and empathize with what someone is saying now, depriving you of having a good connection to that person.  Mindfulness counters our mindless involvement in many of the activities in our lives by slowing down our thought process.  A racing mind is commonly associated with anxiety, a constant worry about what may go wrong.  A calm mind is better able to appreciate the positive aspects of the present moment. Scarfing down a bowl of ice cream is far less pleasurable than forcing yourself to wait 30 seconds between mouthfuls so you can savor the flavors.  You’ll also eat a lot less. Now go have a positively pleasurable day!   Tom Muha is a psychologist in Annapolis. He welcomes your comments and questions. To contact him call (443) 454-7274 or email him at tom@achievinghappiness.com.