02 Aug There are four independent brain circuits that influence our lasting well-being (DALAI LAMA, DESMOND TUTU, DOUGLAS ABRAMS)
There are four independent brain circuits that influence our lasting well-being
Richard Davidson, the neuroscientist with whom I had lunch in San Francisco, has drawn together the neuroimaging research into a unified theory of the happy brain. I was so fascinated by what he was saying that I could not pay attention to my spring rolls, and those spring rolls were really good, at least on the physical level. There are four independent brain circuits that influence our lasting well-being, Davidson explained.
The first is “our ability to maintain positive states.” It makes sense that the ability to maintain positive states or positive emotions would directly impact one’s ability to experience happiness. These two great spiritual leaders were saying that the fastest way to this state is to start with love and compassion.
The second circuit is responsible for “our ability to recover from negative states.” What was most fascinating to me was that these circuits were totally independent. One could be good at maintaining positive states but easily fall into an abyss of a negative state from which one had a hard time recovering. That explained a lot in my life.
The third circuit, also independent but essential to the others, is “our ability to focus and avoid mind-wandering.” This of course was the circuit that so much of meditation exists to develop. Whether it was focusing on one’s breath, or a mantra, or the analytic meditation that the Dalai Lama did each morning, this ability to focus one’s attention was fundamental.
The fourth and final circuit is “our ability to be generous.” That was amazing to me: that we had an entire brain circuit, one of four, devoted to generosity. It is no wonder that our brains feel so good when we help others or are helped by others, or even witness others being helped, which Ekman had described as the elevation that is one dimension of joy. There was strong and compelling research that we come factory equipped for cooperation, compassion, and generosity.
John Bargh, one of the world’s leading experts on the science of the unconscious, describes it as one of three innate (and often unconscious) goals: to survive, to reproduce, and to cooperate. In lab experiments where eighteen-month-old children were shown dolls facing each other, they were more cooperative than those who were shown dolls who were facing away from each other. This unconscious prime, which can be turned on or off, Bargh argues, is one interesting example that cooperation is a deep evolutionary drive that exists from our earliest development.
Perhaps more sobering, it has also hardwired us to cooperate with and be kind to those who look like our caregivers, who presumably kept us safe. We are more wary of others who look different: these are the unconscious roots of prejudice. Our empathy does not seem to extend to those who are outside our “group,” which is perhaps why the Archbishop and the Dalai Lama are constantly reminding us that we are, in fact, one group—humanity. Nonetheless, the ability and desire to cooperate and to be generous to others is there in our neural circuits, and it can be harnessed personally, socially, and globally.
THE BOOK OF JOY
DALAI LAMA
DESMOND TUTU
DOUGLAS ABRAMS
