No.1 Neuroscientist NEW Research Explains Why Life, Work & Your Sex Life will eventually get Boring! (HOW TO STOP THIS HAPPENING) Dr. Tali Sharot

In this insightful discussion, Dr. Tali Sharot, a renowned neuroscientist and author, explores the concept of habituation – our brain's tendency to stop responding to stimuli that don't change, leading to decreased joy from constant elements in our lives, whether positive or negative. She highlights the importance of variety and novelty to counteract this effect, suggesting that introducing changes and taking breaks can reinvigorate our appreciation for relationships, work, and life experiences. Dr. Sharot also emphasizes the power of immediate rewards in motivating behavior change and the role of expectations in shaping our happiness. Despite recognizing the benefits of social media for information and connection, she cautions against its potential negative impact on mental health, advocating for personal experiments in living to determine what truly enhances individual well-being.

• Relationships require effort to stay fresh and engaging.
• Habituation can cause a decrease in appreciation and excitement over time.
• Taking breaks or introducing novelty can rekindle interest and appreciation.

"When people are away from their partner, their sexual desire for the partner goes up."

This quote emphasizes the importance of space and distance in maintaining desire within a relationship. It suggests that time apart can increase attraction and appreciation for one's partner.

• Habituation is a decrease in response to stimuli over time.
• Constant exposure to the same stimuli leads to a decrease in our brain's response.
• Habituation affects both positive and negative aspects of life, including comfort and social issues.

"When something is always in front of you, you stop attending to it."

This quote explains the concept of habituation, where constant exposure to something leads to a lack of attention and appreciation, whether it's a positive or negative stimulus.

• Novel experiences are essential for maintaining joy and interest.
• Changing aspects of one's job or responsibilities can keep employees motivated.
• Habituation is a fundamental phenomenon affecting various aspects of life.

"We don't respond to things that don't change."

Speaker B explains that the brain is wired to respond to changes, and without change, we become desensitized to our surroundings, which can lead to lack of motivation and creativity.

• Progress is a powerful motivator and can lead to increased happiness and satisfaction.
• Tracking progress can help maintain motivation and encourage continued improvement.
• Studies show that people enjoy activities more when they experience progression or learning.

"When people can actually see their progress, that is extremely motivating."

This quote highlights the motivational power of visible progress and suggests that monitoring and acknowledging advances can significantly enhance motivation and satisfaction.

• Habituation occurs not only in humans but in all living creatures.
• It's a survival mechanism that allows the brain to conserve resources for new stimuli.
• Habituation can affect sensory experiences like smell and taste, as well as emotional responses to repetitive stimuli.

"If you hear the same sound again and again and again and again, you're no longer conscious of it."

Speaker B provides an example of habituation with auditory stimuli, illustrating how repeated exposure to the same sound leads to it being tuned out by the brain.

• Introducing breaks or changes can enhance enjoyment of activities.
• Studies suggest that interruptions in music or massages can increase pleasure.
• Applying breaks in various contexts, such as podcasts or work routines, could potentially improve engagement.

"People actually end up enjoying a song more if there are breaks."

This quote from Speaker B indicates that interruptions in an enjoyable activity can prevent habituation and increase overall enjoyment, which is supported by empirical research.

• The peak of enjoyment during vacations occurs early on, suggesting the value of novelty.
• People tend to remember and value first experiences more.
• Shorter, more frequent vacations might provide more overall enjoyment due to the increase in novel experiences.

"The peak of enjoyment was 43 hours into the vacation."

Speaker B cites a study about vacation enjoyment, revealing that people experience the most joy early in their vacation, which supports the idea that novelty and change are key to maximizing pleasure.

• Time apart can increase desire and appreciation in relationships.
• Habituation affects intimate aspects of life, including sexual desire.
• Intermittent and incomplete satisfaction of desires can enhance pleasure.

"Pleasure results from incomplete and intermittent satisfaction of desires."

Speaker B refers to an economic theory that suggests that pleasure is maximized when desires are not fully or continuously satisfied, which can be applied to various aspects of life, including relationships.

• Speaker B's mission is to understand why people behave and feel the way they do.
• Combining neuroscience, psychology, and economics offers insights into human motives and needs.
• The goal is to improve our understanding of the human brain and make better life decisions.

"I'm trying to understand human behavior. Why do people do what they do? Why do they feel the way that they do?"

Speaker B outlines their professional mission, highlighting the interdisciplinary approach to understanding human behavior and the application of this knowledge to enhance decision-making and quality of life.

• Recognizing one's positive traits is as important as identifying areas for growth.
• Setting concrete goals and imagining them vividly can increase the likelihood of achievement.
• Awareness of personal cycles and patterns is crucial in adopting new habits and behaviors.

"What is already good about yourself... those are things that you can build on."

Speaker B emphasizes the importance of acknowledging one's strengths as a foundation for personal growth and development, suggesting a balanced approach to self-improvement.

• People value having choices as it gives them a sense of control and enjoyment.
• Choosing something leads to a higher appreciation for the item or experience than if it was chosen by someone else.
• Lack of choice, or agency, results in anxiety for humans and other animals.
• Too many options can be overwhelming, leading to decision fatigue and aversion.
• A balance between too many and no choices is optimal.

"Because it is well known that first, having a choice is really important for people's sense of control and for their enjoyment. And once they choose something, they like it better than if someone else chose for them."

This quote emphasizes the psychological importance of choice in human satisfaction and the increased enjoyment derived from personally chosen experiences or items.

• Taking breaks or having some distance occasionally helps maintain interest in relationships.
• Engaging in new activities together prevents habituation and keeps the relationship dynamic.
• Comfort habits can lead to monotony, which can sap the joy out of life.
• A balance between routine and novel activities is suggested for a healthy relationship.

"Okay, so just thinking about habituation related things, I would say two main things. One is breaks, meaning having some distance once in a while. Right?"

Speaker B suggests that breaks or occasional distance within a relationship can prevent habituation and maintain interest.

• There is no clear evidence of gender differences in the tendency to seek novelty or habituate.
• Anecdotal observations suggest that individuals with a propensity for exploration often pair with those who prefer familiarity.
• This dynamic may provide a balance that optimizes life experiences and pushes individuals and societies forward.

"And I don't necessarily think that it is a case that men are more explorative or more exploring. And this is not based on data. This is just my observation."

Speaker B clarifies that there is no data-driven evidence for gender differences in explorative behavior and that the observation is anecdotal.

• Reading books can reignite a joy for learning and bring new excitement to life.
• Reading involves imagination and visualization, which can be more engaging and personal than watching videos.
• Reading allows for self-paced exploration and can trigger personal associations and reflections.

"I think the difference between reading a book than watching a video is when you read a book, there's an extra mental activity that you're doing, which is you're imagining, you're visualizing, right."

Speaker B explains how reading stimulates the mind differently from watching videos, emphasizing the creative and introspective aspects of reading.

• Stress levels peak and happiness declines during midlife, with increased instances of depression and suicide.
• Midlife often involves multiple stressors, such as caring for children and elderly parents, and professional challenges.
• A lack of progression, routine, and reduced learning opportunities may contribute to the midlife crisis.
• Post-midlife happiness may increase due to changes in life circumstances and new learning opportunities.

"It is well known that stress peaks in your midlife and happiness goes down in your midlife."

This quote indicates that midlife is commonly associated with increased stress and decreased happiness, which is supported by research data.

• The hedonic treadmill concept suggests people return to a baseline level of happiness regardless of positive or negative events.
• New jobs can initially be overwhelming and stressful, potentially leading to early resignation.
• Adaptation to new environments is necessary for satisfaction, and time should be given before making judgments.

"So new things can bring us joy because they're different. However, at the same time... It takes them time, right? It takes them 43 hours to get to that peak joy."

Speaker B acknowledges the joy that new experiences can bring but points out the necessary adaptation period before peak enjoyment is reached.

• Employees need a balance of challenge and learning opportunities to stay motivated and engaged.
• Too much boredom or difficulty can lead to dissatisfaction.
• Variety in tasks can lead to more creative solutions and greater job satisfaction.
• Habituation rates are linked to creativity, with slower habituators often being more creative.

"There's a lot of studies about this that you want a situation where you're learning something, because if you're learning nothing, people are not engaged, right?"

Speaker B highlights the importance of learning and challenge in maintaining employee engagement and motivation.

• Habituation causes us to filter out repetitive information, which is often deemed as unimportant.
• Lack of habituation allows for a multitude of information to simmer in the mind, potentially leading to innovative connections and creative solutions.
• Creative solutions often arise from combining mundane pieces of information from different fields.
• Disabituation can be facilitated by changing environments, which can enhance creativity.
• Simple changes like working in different locations or altering physical activities can spur creative moments.

"And really, if you think about the most creative solutions that people come up with, it's usually they take something from one field, something really boring, unimportant, mundane. And that bit of mundane piece of information then solves a problem in this other completely different field."

This quote emphasizes the process of innovation where seemingly trivial information from one area can become a key to solving problems in another, distinct area.

• Changing environments can stimulate creativity.
• Studies suggest that even short-term changes in environment or activity can lead to increased creativity.
• Examples include working in a coffee shop instead of an office, or going for a run before sitting down to work.
• Personal anecdotes from the speaker illustrate how a change in physical surroundings led to breakthrough ideas.

"So if you were out walking, out running, and then you come back and you sit in your office for the next six minutes, you're going to be more creative."

This quote highlights research findings that a change in activity can boost creativity, even if for a brief period, which can be enough for significant insights.

• Humans are often unaware of their systematic errors and biases.
• Beliefs are frequently adopted due to repeated exposure rather than rational evaluation.
• The illusory truth effect increases belief in information that is heard repeatedly.
• Familiarity from repeated exposure leads to less cognitive effort and increased belief.
• Visual ease, such as reading text in larger fonts, can also make information seem more believable.

"You tell people something twice, they don't remember that they've heard it twice, and they're going to believe it way more than something that they just heard once."

This quote explains the illusory truth effect, where repeated exposure to information increases its perceived truthfulness, regardless of actual validity.

• Introducing variety and novelty can help individuals and teams avoid stagnation.
• Personal development plans for team members can promote continuous learning and intellectual growth.
• Learning something new, even if not directly related to one's role, can have beneficial effects.
• Consistency in unpleasant tasks can reduce negative feelings through habituation.

"But if you can take on, learn something new, induce variety into your day in that way, that is great."

This quote suggests that learning new things and adding variety to one's routine can trigger a learning mode, which is beneficial for personal growth and creativity.

• Social media can create unrealistic expectations and affect happiness through comparison.
• Expectations influence satisfaction with life experiences and can be based on personal aspirations or others' experiences.
• High expectations can lead to progress by signaling a need for change when reality falls short.
• The impact of societal factors on happiness can vary based on individual and collective expectations.

"So your expectations can be based on what you just expect for yourself and also what other people didn't."

This quote discusses how personal and observed experiences shape expectations, which in turn affect individual happiness and motivation for change.

• Immediate rewards can help bridge the gap between current actions and future goals.
• Providing or receiving immediate positive feedback can motivate individuals to pursue their goals.
• Emotional responses to actions can be used as immediate rewards to maintain motivation.

"So try to think about, I call it, like, bridge the temporal gap, because there is an action happening today and there's this goal in the future, but you have to bridge the temporal gap to try to think about, okay, what can I also get now?"

This quote advises on the importance of finding immediate rewards to motivate actions toward long-term goals, emphasizing the need to make the benefits of present actions tangible.

• Speaker A proposes a "discipline equation" consisting of three parts: the value of the goal (the "why"), the reward from pursuing the goal, and the cost of pursuing the goal.
• To maintain discipline, one should increase the value of the goal, enhance the enjoyment of the reward, and reduce the cost of pursuing the goal.
• Social pacts and financial pacts can be used to amplify the importance of the goal and thus, strengthen discipline.

"The start of the equation would be the why, like, however much I valued that Goal...plus the reward that I got from the pursuit of the Goal...and then minus the cost of the pursuit of the Goal."

This quote outlines the components of the discipline equation and emphasizes the balance between the value of the goal, the reward, and the cost.

• Present bias, or temporal discounting, is the tendency to value immediate events more than future ones.
• Immediate costs often hinder us from pursuing long-term goals.
• To overcome present bias, rewards can be brought closer in time, such as listening to a podcast while walking to the gym.

"And the problem is that the costs are often immediate...so you have to overcome those costs, as you're saying."

Speaker B highlights the challenge of immediate costs that need to be overcome to maintain discipline in pursuit of goals.

• Speaker A and Speaker B discuss how humans are fundamentally driven by incentives, which can vary widely and encompass a range of desires.
• Incentives are not just immediate but can also be future-oriented, thanks to our sophisticated brain functions.

"Just goes to show, I think fundamentally, that we're just driven by incentives."

This quote encapsulates the idea that incentives are the fundamental drivers of human behavior across various aspects of life.

• The conversation shifts to the importance of meaning in work and life.
• A loss of meaning can lead to dissatisfaction, even if other aspects of a job or situation are satisfactory.
• Meaning is often linked to the idea of making a valuable impact beyond oneself.

"But at the very heart of it was actually just an absence of meaning."

Speaker A shares a story illustrating how an absence of meaning was the core issue for an individual's dissatisfaction at work.

• The speakers discuss how aspirations and the concept of making an impact have evolved across generations.
• Younger generations, such as Gen Z and millennials, often express a desire to "change the world" but may lack specificity in their goals.
• This contrasts with older generations, who may have had more concrete career aspirations without explicitly aiming to change the world.

"I've noticed this trend. Gen Z and the younger millennials are the change the world generation."

Speaker A observes a generational trend where younger people express a broad desire to make a significant impact on the world.

• Risk habituation is the process by which people become accustomed to taking risks, which can lead to escalation of risk-taking behavior.
• While risk habituation can encourage exploration and trying new things, it can also lead to dangerous situations.
• Late-career athletes and construction workers are examples of individuals who might take greater risks as they become habituated.

"We see that risk habituates and it helps us explore different things."

Speaker B explains the concept of risk habituation and its dual potential for both positive exploration and negative consequences.

• Social media usage has been correlated with declines in mental health and well-being.
• Experiments have shown that taking a break from social media can lead to increased happiness and reduced anxiety.
• Despite acknowledging the negative effects of social media, many people return to it, possibly due to addiction or the value placed on information.

"Those people who quit for a month were happier. They were less anxious, less depressed, less sad."

Speaker B references a study demonstrating the positive effects of taking a break from social media on individuals' well-being.

• The speakers encourage listeners to experiment with changes in their lives to discover what truly brings joy and what may be causing underlying stress or unhappiness.
• Making small adjustments or taking breaks from certain activities, like social media, can provide insights into their effects on one's life.

"Experiment in living, because it's really hard to know what are the things that are really good in your life and what are the things that are not so good in lay life until you make some changes."

Speaker B suggests that experimenting with different aspects of life can help individuals understand what brings them joy and what does not.

• As a simple action that could improve listeners' lives, Speaker B suggests reaching out to someone to express love, which can have an immediate positive impact on one's feelings.

"How about people just now email, call, turn to someone and tell them they love them?"

Speaker B offers a straightforward and heartfelt suggestion that can positively affect both the sender and receiver of the message.