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Blink 3 of 8 - The 5 AM Club
by Robin Sharma
Listen to the Intro
The Compass of Pleasure summary
David J. Linden
How Our Brains Make Fatty Foods, Orgasm, Exercise, Marijuana, Generosity, Vodka, Learning and Gambling Feel So Good
14 mins
What is The Compass of Pleasure about?
The Compass of Pleasure (2011) explains what seemingly different experiences, from taking heroin to giving to charity, from overeating to orgasm, have in common: their impact on our brain’s pleasure circuitry. These blinks reveal the way pleasurable experiences rewire our brains over time and explain the true nature of addiction.
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The Compass of Pleasure
summarized in 6 key ideas
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Key idea 1 of 6
Pleasurable experiences activate the brain’s medial forebrain pleasure circuit.
What’s your preferred source of pleasure? Whether it’s legal, illegal, something you can talk about at the dinner table or something taboo, pleasurable activities all share one thing in common. They activate the pleasure circuit in the medial forebrain. So although you might view an orgasm, eating a slice of chocolate cake or injecting heroin as rather different events, the science behind them is essentially the same.
The human brain contains several interconnected structures that allow us to feel pleasure. One of these structures is the ventral tegmental area (VTA). When we experience something pleasurable, the neurons in the VTA release dopamine to the amygdala. This is the part of the brain which controls our emotions.
Dopamine is also sent to the dorsal striatum, a structure that is responsible for learning habits. So when you eat a delicious slice of chocolate cake you’ll both enjoy it and want to eat it again – and again. Our attempts to repeatedly experience certain kinds of pleasure lead to habits and addictions.
In this way, our medial forebrain pleasure circuit is a strong influence on our behavior. Scientists have examined this relationship through studies where the pleasure circuit is deliberately stimulated.
One of these studies was highly controversial, and its findings have been contested to this day. It took place in the 1970s, at Tulane University, by Dr. Robert Galbraith Heath. He wanted to discover if a homosexual man could derive pleasure from heterosexual intercourse by electrically stimulating his pleasure circuit.
Heath implanted electrodes into the subject’s brain and claimed that later in the study, the subject had changed so much that he was able to ejaculate during intercourse with a woman in the lab. Heath also said that the subject even had a sexual relationship with a married woman after the experiment concluded.
Despite its limited scope, this study shows that direct electrical stimulation on the brain’s pleasure circuitry can be highly influential to short-term behavior.
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Best quote from The Compass of Pleasure
Theres a neural unity of virtue and vice – pleasure is our compass, no matter the path we take.
—David J. Linden
Who should read The Compass of Pleasure?
- Anyone curious about the influence of neurology on our daily lives
- Those interested in the mechanisms of addiction and how to undo them
- People seeking healthier sources of pleasure
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