Now the ego acts as mediator and tries to find balance between meeting the demands of the id, the superego as well as the real world. For example your ego might say, “I will have sex only in a committed relationship and always practice safe sex.” Your id however, screams, “Sex! Now!” and you superego commands, “Sex? Don’t even think about it.”

The Pain Pleasure Principle Explained…

So…  the pain pleasure principle basically states that everything action we take in life is because we’re either avoiding pain or moving toward pleasure. If you’re continuing a habit or behavior that you don’t like, it’s because you’re linking more pain to stopping habit, than you are to continuing it. Such as individuals who continue to smoke despite knowing all of the unhealthy side effects.

On the other hand, if there’s something you’re not doing that you want to do, it’s because you link more pain to doing it than not doing it. For instance, you may want to start exercising to get in shape, but the pain of engaging in uncomfortable workouts every week is greater than the discomfort of staying in your current state of health.

Although we may deny this and make excuses as to why we are procrastinating or why you don’t really want to change, the truth is that you KNOW that making the change will pay off and be much more beneficial than staying stuck in old patterns.

Titaniumsuccess.com explains that there are 6 rules to understanding the pain pleasure principle which include:

1. All Decisions Made by Human Beings are to Avoid Pain or Gain Pleasure. I mean think about it. Why do you brush your teeth? Why would a woman spend precious time applying makeup before going out? Why would someone go to the gym every day? All of these actions can be sliced down to an individual trying to attain pleasure and/or avoid the pain that an action is going to bring. It’s all pain and pleasure.

2. People Will do Much More to Avoid Pain than they Will to Gain Pleasure.  Studies have demonstrated time and time again that people will do much more to avoid short term pain than they will to gain short term pleasure. For example, an individual would rather stay complacent in a dead end job instead of endure the discomfort of starting over at a new company. As you can see, avoiding a certain amount of immediate pain wins over gaining immediate pleasure every time.

3. Perception IS Reality. It’s the perception of pain and pleasure, not actual pain and pleasure that drives people. Since we don’t really ever know for sure what the future will hold, our preconscious brain, specifically the prefrontal cortex within the frontal lobe of our brain, is constantly making assumptions and judgements about the future. It’s this perception of future pain and pleasure that drives our actions. Unfortunately, it turns out that our perceptions are often very flawed, especially when it comes to things that are a bit more complex than running away from a predator or falling from heights.

4. Pain and Pleasure are Modulated by Time. Not only are we trying to avoid what we perceive to be painful and get what we perceive to be pleasurable, but timing also matters. The closer something is to this moment, the more pain or pleasure we attach to it. Therefore, pain tomorrow is not as powerful of a force as pain today. Pain in a decade is absolutely far less motivating (or demotivating) that pain a week from now. This is precisely why most human beings have such a hard time saving money even though you can receive interest and free money by delaying spending, or why some individuals struggle to remain consistent with healthy eating and lifestyle habits in order to avoid developing chronic health conditions in the long term.

   As time goes on, our perception of pain and pleasure changes. Every decision you make results in at least one or more of the following: short term pain, long term pain, short term pleasure or long term pleasure. Short term always wins over long term unless there is a substantial amount of pain or pleasure associated with the long term avoidance of pain or gain of pleasure involved. Pain, or the level of perceived pleasure decreases with time.

5. Emotions always beat logic when thinking of the pain pleasure principle.  When thinking of making a decision based on gaining pleasure or avoiding pain, there is also an emotional aspect to the decision as well as a logical or more intellectual aspect to it. How many times have you looked at some ice cream sitting in front of you and had the ice cream even though you knew intellectually that you should not have the ice cream? We have all been there. Logically, you shouldn’t have the ice cream but emotionally, you want the ice cream. What wins? Intellect or emotions?

   An ounce of emotion wins over an ounce or two of logic every time. The pain or pleasure related to our emotions are hard-wired in our brains to be much stronger because it’s the primitive part of our brain that tells us to act rather than think ahead to the future. 

6. Survival vs Desire in the Pain Pleasure Principle. Finally, anytime our survival response is triggered, everything else essentially shuts down. This concept can be explained by thinking that pain and pleasure can be further broken down into things that are hard-wired for survival and things that are mere wants. It’s easy then, to understand, that if something triggers a survival response, such as running away from a predator, it is going to override just about every other desire in that moment. When most people hear this principle, however they assume that the survival instinct is naturally going to be the one that is trying to avoid pain but that isn’t necessarily the case.

   The desire to consume sugar or other addictive foods is the perfect example of something that is absolutely hard-wired. If you love cookies and someone puts a cookie in front of you, you are instinctually driven to eat the cookie. Now, many times, we are able to use enough logic and future pain to stop ourselves but over 50% of the US population loses that battle several times per day! You are hard wired to eat sugar to stay alive and while processed foods are only 100 years old, our genetics are over 100,000 years old! From a survival perspective, the more calories, the better. Your brain thinks eating the cookie means survival and not eating it means death! 

Now that you know a little bit more about the pain pleasure principle and how complex it can be, let’s take a look at how it causes resistance and procrastination in our lives.