Yin and Yang
I never used to be a big fan of hot tubs. Sure, they feel nice at first. You lower yourself gingerly into the steam and feel the pin pricks up and down your body. There is the initial period of near pain (quite relevantly, as it turns out) as you adjust to the sudden heat, and then, after the initial shock has passed, there is the deep “ahhh” as your muscles relax and settle you down into comfort.
The problem for me has always been that the comfort never lasts. After a few minutes of contentment, I start to get hot (go figure). At first there is a transition; a blurry phase shift where the signals of pleasure are still strong enough that I am not sure I detect the less pleasant signals of overheating. But then, slowly but surely, the warmth will be metamorphosed into discomfort. Mild, as far as pain goes, but all the more vexing given the aftertaste of departed bliss. This seeming inevitability always made me feel as though hot tubs weren’t worth the effort.
This paradigm was broken when I got a cold plunge.
Getting too hot? No problem — douse yourself in icy water for a spell, then hop back in. Boom. Pleasure restored. Actually, scratch that — pleasure transformed. The reward of a tepid, room-temperature transition into the embracing heat of the tub pales in comparison to the sheer bliss you experience when you go from freezing to warm. The relaxation is so intense in those moments that I often feel as though if I’m not careful, I’ll drift off to sleep.
This experiment replicates every time it’s performed. And in fact, if you go back and forth between the two enough, a whole new dimension of hot tub pleasure emerges. At a certain point, even a thirty minute dip in the heat (normally intolerable) sings a clear, pure tune of happiness.
The cold plunge, in other words, unlocks the hot tub’s true potential.
Why should that be the case? It seems, after all, near-on paradoxical… pain seems to be the opposite of pleasure, so why should it, in this case, be synergistic to it? It’s easy to understand that contrast helps define pleasure by pointing to what it’s not. But enhancing it? Prolonging it? Evolving it? This is strange.
Emerging science sheds some light on the mystery. As it turns out, pain and pleasure are much more intimately (and curiously) related than our intuition suggests.
Opponent process theory, introduced by Richard Solomon in the 70s, is a first purchase point. Solomon proposed that the nervous system acts like a thermostat, restoring equilibrium when we are physiologically off kilter. It might be best thought of as a system of inhibition and excitation; when one input or state persists too long, our bodies attempt to self-regulate, inhibiting or exciting an opposite state in order to bring us back to a set point.
There are two interesting caveats. The first is that our nervous system often overshoots, generating an opposing response that can be more extreme than the original stimulus. This may well explain my experience of heightened pleasure in the hot tub after exposure to icy water.
The second is that with repeated exposure to extreme stimuli, our bodies often realize long-term adaptations — either through habituation (diminished response) or sensitization (intensified response). In other words, opponent processing itself can shift over time. Thrill-seekers who regularly perform adrenaline-spiking stunts, for example, are more likely to experience excitement than fear as their nervous system recalibrates to the stimulus.
It should be clear how this relates to the perplexing, dynamic nature of experienced pleasure and pain.
Although opponent processing was originally more hypothesis than theory, in the decades since the neurological evidence for the shared pathways for pain and pleasure modulation has been stacking up, highlighting possible mechanisms for the dance of pain-pleasure balance. Tellingly, from this research it seems to be the case that there are few ways of destroying pain without numbing pleasure as well.
The takeaway for our purposes is thus: pleasure will often turn to pain all on its own, i.e., without any change in stimulus (my experience in the hot tub). In the same vein, pain can give way to pleasure all on its own, too. Myriad examples come to mind, like a runner’s high or eating spicy food.
The nature of the regulating forces is such that (1) pain can enhance pleasure by amplifying a response to a pleasurable stimulus, (2) adaptations over time may permanently shift the experience of a repeated stimulus (for better or for worse).
Clear enough? Beautiful.
So, how does this relate to building a good life in the modern world?
For one, it informs decision making about well-being. Even if you do your very best to avoid pain, it will find you all the same as pleasurable states are autonomously regulated. Along the same vein, if you can cajole yourself into doing something painful (cold plunge, where you at?), you may well be heightening your potential for a pleasurable rebound.
For another, it evidences that the most pleasurable sort of lives will be architected by those who have mastered their impulses towards pleasure-seeking and pain-avoidance, using them to their own advantage. It’s almost as if the virtue is a mean between two extremes (more on virtue ethics coming soon).
In the modern world, however, this balance is especially difficult to strike. Our near-on supernatural ability to avoid pain and easily find pleasure has skewed our equilibrium. As such, it’s a safe bet that the pain-avoiding capacities of modernity have increased the overall pain and reduced the overall pleasure per capita. We get poorer as we get richer.
More to come on this topic. I believe to truly cash in on this finding, one must learn a pure, deep acceptance of pain; the art of peace amongst the flames.
In the meantime, it’s enough to consider that the next time you are tempted to reach for pleasure or step out of the way of pain, the intertwined nature of the two will in time punish the ignorant.
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