Pain and Pleasure Often Blend Into Each Other

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

In a sexual encounter where you're also easure and somehow that adds to the pleasure, i muc your nervous science s much as t aat the havent got people and the scanner. There hav been a amrit tat people actually having sex with each other and pleasure sencasyit oers. But, but the intuition is right, which i sometimes pain can become an accelerate of pleasure.

We go to movies that make us cry, or scream, or gag. We poke at sores, eat spicy foods, immerse ourselves in hot baths, run marathons. Some of us even seek out pain and humiliation in sexual role-play. Why do we so often seek out physical pain and emotional turmoil? Where do these seemingly perverse appetites come from? In his latest book, The Sweet Spot: The Pleasures of Suffering and the Search for Meaning, Bloom aims to understand how people find meaning in their lives, and, moreover, to explore what he calls, “the sweet spot” — the proper balance between pleasure and suffering. As one of the world’s leading psychologists, drawing on groundbreaking findings from psychology and brain science, Bloom shows how the right kind of suffering sets the stage for enhanced pleasure.