Part 1: Recap

Core idea: Feeling bad leads to giving in, and dropping guilt makes you stronger.

Ironic Phenomenon:  Frightening cigarette warnings can make smokers crave a cigarette; economics can make people shop.

Analysis: the mechanism below leads to the ironic phenomenon

(1) Constraint behavior leads to stress/feelbad

(2) Stress/feeling bad activates the brain’s reward system; most common used strategies for dealing with stress are eating, drinking, shopping, watching television, surfing the Web, and playing video games

(3) Brain want to protect our mood and point toward whatever it thinks will make us happy.

(4) Our body executives the strategies mentioned in (2)

(5) Giving up behavioral constriction

The explanation above breaks down the ironic phenomenon. It sounds illogical but it is utterly human.

Part2: My Thoughts & Key Points

·“Your brain isn’t just motivated to protect your life – it wants to protect your mood, too … your brain is going to point you toward whatever it thinks will make you happy.” This statement does not match evolutionism. Based on evolutionism, the result of evolution is to do what is good for our survival but not what “make you happy”. The features of happiness do not lead to higher chance to survive.

·Effective stress-relief strategy: exercising or playing sport, praying or attending a religious service, reading, listening to music, spending time with friends or family, getting a message, going outside for a walk, meditating or doing yoga, and spending time with a creative hobby.

·Feelingis not reliable. This chapter takes yoga as an example. The subject knew that yoga would make her feel relaxed and refreshed, but whenever she thought about going to a yoga class, it seems like too much trouble. When she was tempted to skip a yoga class, she listened to the memo to remind herself, knowing that she could not trust her impulses when she was stressed. I have the exact same feeling in running.

·Terror-managementtheory: human beings are naturally terrified when we think about our own deaths. It is out of our conscious awareness. This terror creates an immediate need to do something to counter our feeling of powerlessness. The most common implication of this theory is warnings on cigarette packages can increase a smoker’s urge to light up. Base on the same logic, A dieter would like to eat more if he was warned by serious disease.

·What-the-helleffect: a cycle of indulgence, regret, and greater indulgence. Stress leads to indulgence; indulgence leads to guilt; guilt leads to bigger stress; stress causes even bigger indulgence. The essence of what-the-hell effect is same as ironic phenomenon explains at the beginning. We may think that guilt motivates us to correct our mistakes, but it is just one more way that feeling bad leads to giving in. The cycle can happen with any willpower challenge and once you step in, it can seem like there is no way out except to keep going.

·Self-forgivenessis associated with more motivation and better self-control. It is an effective way to break out the what-the-hell effect.

·Unrealisticoptimism is a good strategy for feeling better but not a good strategy for change. The decision to change is the ultimate in instant gratification – you get all the good feelings before anything has been done. The effort of actually making the change cannot compare to the rush of imagining that you will change.The high we get from imagining our own extreme makeovers is a difficult drug to quit. As we face our first setbacks, the initial feeling will be replaced with disappointment and frustration. Consequently, the terrible feeling leads to the next imagination. So, we are trapped in another circle.

·Both feeling good and feeling bad are traps in some ways.

·Aphilosophy question: if imagination keeps us feeling good again and again, we can consider we feel better in a long term. If this is the case, why unrealistic optimism cannot be considered as a good strategy to have a better life? Perhaps, the ultimate question I have is what is a “good life”.