Welcome to Joy Lab!: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Joy Lab podcast, where we help you uncover and foster your most joyful self. Your hosts, Dr. Henry Emmons and Dr. Aimee Prasek, bring you the ideal mix of soulful and scientifically sound tools to spark your joy, even when it feels dark. When you're ready to experiment with more joy, combine this podcast with the full Joy Lab program over at JoyLab.coach.
Henry: Hello, I'm Henry Emmons and welcome to Joy Lab.
Aimee: And I am Aimee Prasek. So we are in our month of Equanimity, or balance is another word we've been using this month. And today we're talking about something that can keep us stuck in maybe an unbalanced state that might be hard to realize. And so I'm gonna explain it with a question for us to all kind of think through.
So when it comes to feeling in a rut or in a bad mood, [00:01:00] or when you're feeling stressed, do you focus more on making the negative emotions go away to feel better? Or do you focus on letting more positive emotions or nourishing experiences in to feel better? Answers? Answers can yell 'em out.
Henry, do you wanna answer?
Henry: Yes. I admit it. I, I focus more on the negative, trying to get rid of the negative emotions.
Aimee: Abso-, why did we create Joy Lab? So Henry and I could focus more on the positive with all of you. So if you also said focus more on negative emotions, wishing for those to leave, to get some relief, then you are in the majority of folks. Also the majority when it comes to mental health and how that's approached
and treated and researched right? The focus is nearly always on getting rid of negative emotions like sadness or anxiety, rather than focusing on what we can let in [00:02:00] to feel better. And there's some good reasons for that in healthcare, but we won't get into that right now. But I think what it does come down to is the realization that this is often not helpful.
It's kind of just what catches our attention first, this negative experience and what we've kind of always done, the status quo. But usual treatment for something like depression isn't super successful. It's about a 50% success rate with the usual meds and limited therapy. And then two years later, half of those folks who had success will have their depression return most likely. So I said it can be helpful in some ways how we approach it in healthcare. I mean, we need to deal with what's feeling bad, but we're certainly missing something here, when it comes to depression, which 20% of us will likely experience in our lifetime. So this matters.
I think we're also [00:03:00] missing, that far more, far more common state, sort of right under diagnosable depression that many of us languish in where we maybe don't feel bad enough, but we sure don't feel great or even good. And we're gonna talk about that state of minor depression in a, in a later episode. Um, so I'm kind of setting this up here.
In our last element we talked about Savoring, so seeing and soaking in the good stuff. What we're talking about today though is more about understanding if we're striking a balance of navigating the negative and letting in the good when we're not feeling well. And if we're not letting in the good, if we're not doing enough of that, how can we do it to help us get out of cycles of depression, anxiety, and chronic stress?
Henry: So when, when this topic came before us and started, I started to think about it, I came across a, [00:04:00] a study here that I thought was relevant. So I am gonna go out on a limb. As you know, Aimee, I am not nearly the research geek you are,
Aimee: You're
Henry: uh, but I'm gonna try to channel you for a minute, and I'm gonna try to get into this research, which is to me a little bit complex, but I think it it sheds some interesting light on what we're talking about here.
Aimee: Yeah. Let's do it.
Henry: So the study is about depression and learning styles. So first there are two hallmarks of depression. This, this is coming from me, not the study. Okay. The two hallmarks of depression, I think one is a low mood, which might be sad or down, or for some people it's just flat and we usually call that dysphoria.The other hallmark of depression is the inability to get pleasure from things that would normally give you pleasure.[00:05:00]
And that's called anhedonia. So all of the other symptoms of depression that we were so familiar with, things like changes in energy and sleep and appetite, really, they're all kind of secondary.
And those first two are the real core symptoms. So anhedonia, the loss of pleasure involves the dopamine system, and that's what the researchers were looking at in this study. Specifically they were looking at two key brain signals, which they called prediction error and expected value. And they wanted to see if, if they could predict how likely someone is to recover from depression based on these two things.
Okay, so prediction error means that what you thought was going to happen is not what actually happened. You, you've made a mistake in your [00:06:00] prediction.
And guess what? People who predict that the outcome will be worse than it actually is. In other words, those who are focused on the negative, are less likely to recover from depression.
So it gave them a good ability to predict who was gonna recover. The other factor, expected value is how the brain calculates the possible rewards from something you're gonna do, like let's say exercising or hanging out with a friend, or maybe even savoring a good meal like we talked about last month. So in other words, it's whether or not we expect to get good things from something that we are doing for our own good. Okay, we're gonna do something that we think is gonna be good for us. Do we expect it'll pay us back or not? So it turns out that when these are measured, the researchers can predict who is more [00:07:00] likely to recover from depression.
Aimee: Oh
Henry: Interesting. To me, the best predictor is whether or not we expect to get value from the things that we do for value.
Aimee: Wow.
Henry: That's a stronger predictor even than the, the prediction error.
Aimee: I thought it'd be the other way.
Henry: So did I. So as I understand it, then, the purpose of this research is to get better at personalizing treatment approaches.
And here's, here's how the researchers framed that. "By observing how each person responds to rewards and setbacks, we can open new pathways for designing treatments that match individual learning patterns." That's what they said.
Aimee: Hmm.
Henry: I read something deeper into this. Maybe it's not there, but this is what I see and that is this.
Before we get depressed, we might be able to reduce our risk. Or [00:08:00] improve our chances of recovering if we can change the way our brains work, and especially if we learn to create an expectation that when we do something positive or fun or pleasurable, it's going to be good.
Aimee: That is a great study. I
Aimee: I
Henry: love it Love it.
It is, yeah.
is.
Aimee: Yeah, the power of prediction and our expectations.So, kind of joking at the beginning, but it's true. This is the work we do at Joy Lab and Henry is one of my mentors, but, um, the work we do here is I'm also constantly reminding myself, joy. We're, we're, we're looking at cultivating more of the good stuff rather than focusing on rooting out all the bad stuff.
And so we do that work here at, Joy Lab. We work to change our brain. And to give more attention to bringing in the good because we really need it and clearly it really matters.I slammed healthcare at the [00:09:00] beginning, but there are new treatments integrating this. Things like augmented depression, therapy, positive CBT, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy does some of this.
So there are other avenues that are opening up, that are seeing the data, that's pretty clear that we're missing sort of this big half of how we approach depression, or at least we're not looking at it holistically.kind of maybe pivoting here. I think what is surprising is that many of us have this assumption that letting the good stuff in is always easy.
Like, it'll just happen if, if it's there, that us humans will see it. We'll take it in as if it's just this automatic response because it's so clearly good for us, and that's just not the
case. Right? So like, let's get into a little bit of that. But I want another belief that I think, we need to, we need to kind of bust, [00:10:00] is that if you aren't
an optimist or a relentlessly positive person, then well, that's the end of it for you. You can't change what you see or how you feel or what you think, and that's not true either. Again, why Joy Lab exists, and I know I've been there, so here are some reasons why letting in the positive may not be so easy.
Let's get into that. And we're gonna talk about avoidance first. Why would we not let in the good stuff, why would we avoid it? There are some formal terms for this, and I actually think they're kind of helpful. Uh, they are avoidance of positivity, AOP, and fear of positivity positivity, FOP. So avoidance of positivity describes when we actively avoid positive experiences, and we often do this because we believe happiness won't last.
Or that we don't deserve it. [00:11:00] And then fear of positivity is when we feel uncomfortable or have anxiety around feeling happy, which sounds kind of odd, but this is also a common experience. This can sometimes be related to a past negative experience that followed happiness. So if you resonate here, you're probably that person who is waiting for the next shoe to drop.
Like you don't wanna get your hopes up 'cause you know it'll come crashing down. That kind of, experience that fear. And there's also a psychological effect really related that I think is helpful to call out and it's something called the contrast effect. This is when we feel or sense something positive or happy, and then we contrast it
,immediately. With thoughts around it ending or its fragility. So we'll think, we'll see something good, we'll feel some happiness, and then immediately the contrast. This isn't gonna last. I shouldn't get my hopes up. It's all going to [00:12:00] come collapsing down. And it can really fuel that, that fear and avoidance of positivity.
The thing about contrasting here also is that the more dramatic, of course, negative contrast is kind of what burrows in our system, you know? So we're contrasting. It's not the happiness that we start to put more weight on, we, we see the negative. So we may want to protect ourselves from that contrast that we've thought up by not letting the good thing happen to us in the first place.
Like a little survival strategy, but completely unhelpful. So if something good spontaneously happens to us, we might even push it away, try to dampen it so you can see that fear or avoidance, but oftentimes as we're contrasting, we're just setting ourselves up for,I'm gonna block this, this defense of the positive.
So as we continue to do this, as we practice this, we do it enough times, we get really good at it, and it shuts [00:13:00] out a lot of positive
Henry: Yeah, so you know. When I hear what you just said, Aimee, I, it's just natural to, to think, that just makes no sense. Why would we want to keep ourselves from being happy? So it helps me to remember that when it comes to the psyche and when it comes to our emotional life, very often things don't make sense. It's, it's not rational. This part of our being is not rational. We are driven by these strange forces outside of our conscious control, and the rational mind doesn't, it tries, but it doesn't have control over all this.
So did you notice what I just said? Outside of our conscious control. That is exactly the point. In that moment, we're not conscious enough. [00:14:00] And we are then letting fear run things far more than we really want it to do for our own good.
So in Joy Lab, we're trying not to offer fixes to these inner problems. We are intentionally focusing on the good, which is a very different approach to it. It's not because we don't think problems exist. We're not being pollyannaish thinking that everything is, everything is good, and that's all that there is. Well, you could make a case for that, but rooting out each problem one by one is just way too hard.
It takes way too much effort, and I just think it's so much more efficient to raise our entire level of awareness, which is precisely how to deal with this fear of positivity. So when Aimee said that we tell ourselves that happiness won't last or that we push away the good stuff, I think she's [00:15:00] right and I think you're right, Aimee. This is, this is what happens, but it is only a small, fearful part of ourselves that's doing that. And there is a much bigger, much more courageous part of ourselves that is able to see what we are doing. This is what's really important. This is consciousness; that there's part of us that can see when we are doing this. And it also knows this is not true and that can hold our inner balance through all of this, we are, we contain multitudes, as the poet said, and one of our inner selves is able to observe and watch this without being all caught up in it. It takes some practice to be able to do this, to stay with this larger, healthier part of ourselves. But when we do, it's kind of magic.
'cause then we find out we [00:16:00] don't have to fix this part of ourselves that's scared because it just fades into the background as soon as we stopped feeding it. It was never real in the first place.
Aimee: Hmm.
Yeah, we can stop feeding it. I, I think the invitation to not root out every perceived problem is just completely liberating. Um. It's not just an invitation, like it's just not effective. You know, we're going beyond just an encouragement, an invitation to soak in the good. It's just the reality of how, we can care for our inner life, how we can move in the world, that we have to have that balance.
It gives us space to make forward progress, to look up and make some changes, rather than looking down constantly just mired in what we feel like isn't working. So we can feed something else. We do that here in Joy [00:17:00] Lab in the podcast and program. This whole episode is like, here's why we do Joy Lab. I don't mean to say it constantly, but like this is it.
We, we feed the, the feel good stuff here. We practice also getting through the negative emotions, not suppressing them, and we practice this in balance. I think that's so important. So check in, see if you're letting in enough good. And if not, you can rebalance the scales. That's the message. That's what we do here.
Stay with us, and we can do that nourishing work together. So, to close our time today, I wanna share some wisdom from Mary Oliver. This is from her poem. Don't hesitate. I'm gonna take kind of the beginning and the end. I'd encourage you though to go to your library or buy a Mary Oliver book to get all the good middles and all the good beginning and endings of all of her poems.
So here it is. "If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, [00:18:00] don't hesitate. Give into it. Whatever it is, don't be afraid of it's plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb."
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