ALPHABETICAL BRAIN™ VOCABULARY HUMANIST FAMILY BRAIN STUDY DETAILS ABOUT YOUR PLEASURE CIRCUIT #14 September 1, 2020 WHAT IS YOUR PLEASURE CIRCUIT? AND WHY IS IT SO IMPORTANT? The evolutionary purpose of your pleasure circuit is to produce emotional pleasure and rewards of all kinds. Your "practice of happiness" (instead of "pursuit") can motivate you to strengthen your resilience and endurance in the face of uncertainty or dangerous challenges. Hostile conditions during hundreds of thousands of years of evolution shaped our human emotional system (endocrine system) to automatically protect individuals from aggressive threats as they strove to thrive and create safe zones for survival and comfortable living. Your pleasure circuit, which originates in your amygdala when the dopamine neurotransmitter is activated to produce strong feelings of pleasurable anticipation, motivates you to achieve your goals. It's activation causes the activation of many other essential hormones and neurontransmitters that impact your behavior in various ways. The pleasure circuit is shown in the following diagram: The new scientific ideas about how you can successfully manage your pleasure circuit are more easily accessible now than at any other time in human history. With the foundation brain knowledge emphasized on this website, all of the self-help books and articles based upon scientific studies can provide you with practical as well as technical knowledge. Unfortunately, many heavily advertised brain training programs have not been proven to be very successful. Other parts of this website emphasize the importance of learning to use scientific humanistic thinking to decide which sources of information are best for you. Your inalienable instinctual curiosity can be the guide to how you use your emotional energy as you seek daily pleasure in your life. You can create a healthy homeostasis (sustainable emotional balance) in your life. You can do it by yourself, with help from your friends and secular brain scientists and science journalists. In fact, you can get off the hedonic treadmill of addictive cravings and endless pleasure-seeking through trivial pursuits. You can assert your natural ability to overcome pain and suffering and seek the pleasure by collaborating with others. Using your personal mental force (brainpower) you will be able to create daily plans to motivate yourself and your family and friends to achieve more happy humanistic altruistic objectives by seeking new knowledge. Printable PDF Form DETAILS ABOUT THE PLEASURE CIRCUIT (for your own editing and memory consolidation) RECOMMENDATION: You can re-read this summary according to a reinforcement schedule, such as a few hours later and a few days later and then several times in the next week or two. This strategy can help you take advantage of the power of the spaced-repetition method of memorization. Such deep introspection can strengthen your willpower and change your adaptive self-identity to increase your self-esteem. REMEMBER ALWAYS: You are your adaptable memory! instantly go to: FACT CHECKER ABOUT YOUR PLEASURE CIRCUIT #14 or instantly return to: BRAIN FLASH CARD #14 YOUR PLEASURE CIRCUIT or instantly return to: LIST OF THE 15 BRAIN FLASH CARDS produced by Infinite Interactive Ideas™