Healing and Hypnotherapy Volume - 3, issue 12, I June 2019 | Page 22

back this up.
Trying to be perfect overwhelms your brain with emotions and makes you feel
out of control.
Trying for the best, instead of good enough, brings too much emotional
ventromedial prefrontal activity into the decision-making process. In contrast,
recognising that good enough is good enough activates more dorsolateral
prefrontal areas, which helps you feel more in control…
As Swarthmore professor ‘Barry Schwartz’ said in an interview “Good enough
is almost always good enough.”
So when you make a decision, your brain feels you have control. And, as I’ve
talked about before, a feeling of control reduces stress. But here’s what’s
really fascinating: Deciding also boosts pleasure.
When we choose an activity it caused changes in attention circuits and in how
the participants felt about the action, and it increases, rewarding dopamine
activity.
Want proof? No problem. Let’s talk about cocaine.
You give 2 rats injections of cocaine. Rat A had to pull a lever first. Rat B
didn’t have to do anything. Any difference? Yup: rat A gets a bigger boost of
dopamine.
So they both got the same injections of cocaine at the same time, but rat A
had to actively press the lever, and rat B didn’t have to do anything. And you
guessed it — rat A released more dopamine in its nucleus accumbens. (The
accumbens nucleus, also known as the nucleus accumbens, is located in both hemispheres
of the brain in the basal forebrain and is considered part of the basal ganglia. The nucleus
accumbens is a major component of the brain's "reward circuit.”)
So what’s the lesson here? Next time you buy cocaine… woops,!!! :)) wrong
lesson.
Point is, when you make a decision on a goal and then achieve it, you
feel better than when good stuff just happens by chance.
And this answers the eternal  mystery of why dragging your butt to the gym
can be so hard.
If you go because you feel you have to or you should, well, it’s not really a
voluntary decision. Your brain doesn’t get the pleasure boost. It just feels
stress. And that’s no way to build a good exercise habit.
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