Moods of Happiness and Unhappiness
I was viewing a lecture today in the Plant-Based Certification program I’m in, and something struck me that I have contemplated off and on since embarking upon my plant-based diet way of life. What hit me once again in the pit of my stomach (and I might add, in my symbolic pocketbook of economic sense) is the fact that the road to changing your diet by eating animal-free foods might just be a little bit costlier than I imagined.
Dr. Lisle, a Clinical Psychologist, speaks in the lecture about the motivational triad of pleasure, pain, and energy conservation that act like a guidance system to keep creatures of all kinds (including humans) on track with their primary goals in life – namely survival and reproduction. Because we tend to seek pleasure, while avoiding pain, and at the same time seek to do this while exerting the least amount of energy, we can easily become trapped in a vicious cycle from which escape is difficult, if not impossible. There is a secondary guidance system we have that can short-circuit the triad of pleasure, pain, and energy conservation, which he calls the moods of happiness. We need to stay in the normal zone between the moods of happiness and unhappiness, as nature intended, but our bad dietary habits elevate us to what he calls the Enhanced Pleasure Quotient Zone artificially. When we get used to this for a time, we may fall back into the normal zone, but then quickly fall to the subnormal zone which serves to reinforce our tainted biological and neurological processes and keeps us entrenched in our bad dietary behaviors.
We see only a residual image of this invisible, self-reinforcing loop in things like chemical dependency, smoking, drug use, or alcohol abuse. Those things interfere with the normal way we were designed to operate, setting off neurological chemical changes that are in opposition to our basic instincts. We also observe this trap with eating disorders that can lead to obesity, and escaping from that deleterious rail-road track, which we’ve probably all been on at one point or another, can be a strenuous physical and emotional mountain climb, containing some personal financial uncertainties along the way.
Escaping the Trap
Dr. Lisle goes on to give a few possible ways to escape from this closed circle of causality that can lead to further health degradation and even early death if not dealt with. He says our very nerves (related to pleasure centers) can become accustomed to operating based on a certain way of eating (in regard to high fat, refined sugar, and animal-protein heavy diets) and will resist any attempt we can make to get back on track. This is a formidable challenge, even if one is fortunate enough to obtain and act upon the knowledge of eating a whole foods, plant-based diet when in the normal zone, even briefly.
There are several ways in which you can break out of this rut, he says, and reset your neurological function to get back into the healthy zone. One way to do this is to make yourself hungry (re-sensitize your glucose cell receptors by not eating for a day), and also reset the neurological components that are needed in the interplay of biological factors. Or you can try a juice fast for several days, which may also serve the same purpose. In extreme cases you may need to lock yourself up and get treatment. He recommends several clinics that specialize in this.
The water and juice fasts are nice, simple, and economically viable solutions that just about anyone can do. It just requires your own determination, self-discipline, and belief in effectiveness of this course of action based on the knowledge you have gained from a trustworthy source.
The third and perhaps most extreme way of dealing with your problem that Dr. Lisle gives, presents quite a different quandary in regard to economic feasibility.
Economic Dilemma and Equilibrium for Health
The resource centers that exist to help people who can’t heal themselves aren’t exactly free, you see, at least not in most cases. In fact, I wonder about the majority of people without the financial resources to go the extreme route. How do they escape the imprisonment of their neurological and biochemical malfunction?
I guess it’s just water and juice fasts for them, apparently. Good luck with that, Charlie!
Maybe it’s just me, but I think we need to make these clinical services available to EVERYONE, and not just people who represent the minority in relation to socio-economic stratification. After all, why should health be dependent only upon one’s ability to afford the right kind of treatment? Don’t we have enough of that already in today’s healthcare paradigm?
Thankfully, people are generally more determined to change than we give them credit for, and this is particularly true when they realize that something they are doing has serious negative health outcomes, or when they exhaust all other options.
Therefore, the water and juice regimen will probably be sufficient to win the day for most people.
Anyway, I don’t disagree with anything that Dr. Lisle said in his lecture, and actually found it quite informative if not revelatory.
I’m thankful that I was able to flip the switch on the track I was on by changing to a plant-based diet, and I hope you can all do the same, regardless of your station in life.
May we all achieve an economically fair and equitable plant-based equilibrium together!
You can watch Dr. Lisle’s presentation on The Pleasure Trap below.
