What makes us unhappy?

[Music] in the year 1975 an experiment was carried out at the university  at the university of washington an experiment that revolutionized   neuroscience in this experiment people were asked  people were asked to enter into a new   a neuroimaging machine to perform  some tasks to remember some things to see something   to think about a thing i

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to perform a task  task what the researchers saw is   that thanks to some altercations that took place  with the machine is that when the person   was not doing anything yet the experimenters had not  experimenters had not asked him   to remind himself of things or that he was  thinking about one thing or another simply   the person was there waiting for the task to begin  to start his task when the people   were doing nothing their brain activity  was displaying an enormous amount of activity [Sound] and notice until the year 1975 it was thought that  when we're not doing anything when we're not   we are engaged in the execution of a task  our brain separates what was waiting for it from the   researchers have observed there was that when the  person was waiting for the machine to come to the   that was not running anything, their brain was not performing any kind of activity, so this was   this because it came to be thought that the brain as they themselves said had a life of its own had a life of its own   that it did not cease our brain is constantly processing information we are constantly   involved in a mental state that goes from one place to another

  from one place to another however the characteristic   of this state and what surprised the researchers is that when you ask the  researchers is that when you ask   a person in that state that you're doing what  that you tell yourself anything and because we have the feeling   that we're not doing anything in that state  because because they're very fleeting thoughts are   memories that come and go imaginations a lot of inner dialogue sense bodily sensations that   pass in a very fast way that is to say it is not that  we start to think about something that we do that   would be to perform a task but we enter into a kind of state activity in which  kind of state activity in which we leave   that our brain that our body simply does that it deploys its mental states we let   the mind is then said to wander and then what is observed  wander and then what was observed is that in   this wandering when the mind is left to its own free will we have  free will we have a lot of activity this   it was already very well known in the east for example  in the buddhist world it is called the monkey mind   why because they imagined those mental states  like a monkey that we can get an idea of a monkey mind

   monkey that doesn't stop going back and forth I have with a lot of activity that is very fast in its   that doesn't concentrate on one thing only  so that's what the Buddhists used to call it

   that monkey mind is a wandering a mental bustle is how it has been translated in the more technical language

   this has been said for thousands of years but only until the  thousands of years but it was only until the year 1975 that the   science was not able to see with neuroimaging techniques  that really our mental state when we are   let our mind go at its will to wander or wander we have a great  wander we have a very high activity

   but we only need to go eastward in here  for we have St

Theresa of Jesus to whom we have   called this state the madwoman of the house william  james called it the stream of consciousness like   a river that is constantly generating mental states that are thoughts that are thoughts that are thoughts that are thoughts that are thoughts that are thoughts that are thoughts that are thoughts

  mental states that are thoughts that are   I remember that are planning that are emotions that are sensations and above all very very very very very much   dialogue and all that, the important thing is that all of that  occurs spontaneously that is to say that we   when we stop and do nothing and let our mind be what we see is that  our mind to be what we see is what we project

   all those sensations thoughts images and emotions  and emotions i

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arise in our body   we don't call it that's why it has been called  intimate life the private life of the brain today   today what the Asians Buddhism called the mind of the monkey  the mind of the monkey st

thérèse called the madwoman of   the house or william james called the stream of consciousness in neuroscience  consciousness in neuroscience it is called the net   the default neural network i

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the neuronal network  the number of brain areas that form a neural network

   circuit that is activated by default that is why this activity in neuroscience is also  activity in neuroscience is also called the default neural   basal activity the one that we have by base the one that we have by default  the one that we have by default the activity that is spontaneous   in our brain and why the default neural network is so important  default neural network is so important in neuroscience because it is   because it has so many clinical implications  the first one is that the more activity that we have   network by default i

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the more brain activity the more noise  the more brain noise the more brain activity   we have when we are not doing anything the greater is the feeling of unhappiness this was published in the   year 2011 in science magazine with an article  that was very controversial and very famous and it's called   a wandering mind is an unhappy mind in this study what they  study what they were doing is they were asking me to   a large number of people throughout the day what were they doing at the  were doing at the time and how they were feeling

   through statistical analysis they came to the conclusion  the conclusion that what they were most dissatisfied with   and feeling of unhappiness is to have a wandering mind

  a wandering mind that is to say to be in that state   of daydreaming where you are in many places and in none  in none in particular where the mind goes from one place to another

   the contents of the default network are mostly a lot of memories  contents of the default network are mostly a lot of memories   we bring back memories sometimes of autobiographical episodes very far away in our life others   very close and that come spontaneously many memories plannings there is a lot of activation in   the more imaginative areas but most of all the most  above all the big part of it is inner dialogues   and the important thing is that the part of the brain  part of the brain that is activated is more the listening part of us

   we're listening to ourselves it's thought that approximately 80% of that activity is   a self-referential inner dialogue i

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me  narrated my own story me as the protagonist   speaking in first person the default network  that has been studied so much not in the world of the   neuroscience and what implications it might have then  at the evolutionary level and um it has been very important   because you see it allows us to build the idea  of the self is a network in which it's activating   our own memories our planning is a dialogue in which we are always the   protagonist and that generates our idea  of the self but it's also true that if that has   had an evolutionary role and it has its function, what has been  what has been seen is that nowadays that presence   the activity of the default network is excessive  it is thought that we spend approximately 47 per   percent of our waking time in that state

  of doing nothing in a state in which we are in a state in which we are   everywhere but in the present 47% of the day considering that we  day considering that we work 50 percent of the time   percent of our waking time is a lot of time  time but what has been seen is that at the end of the day, we   weekends that percentage can reach up to  75 percent and this is what it tells us because   that many times we don't have a control over our own mind, we haven't developed some   attitudes that allow us to cultivate our own hobbies  our own hobbies that if we are left with nothing to do   we do not know what to do because this has had many repercussions especially in the educational world

   I don't know I don't know what we are educated without learning how to be with ourselves

  to know how to be with ourselves a study   that was very very striking that was also published  in the magazine science he had as a subject to study   what happens when people stay with  ourselves if we get put into a   room where we don't have a cell phone where there is no TV where we don't have a book we don't have anything that   to do and we're asked to just sit there and what we've been  sitting there and what has been seen is that in people   that gives them a great sense of discomfort and a great sense of  great burden was being given to the volunteers that were   were given the option that if they felt very overwhelmed that they would feel a great sense of   some type of stimulation they could give themselves electric shocks  shocks that produced pain 67 percent of them   of men would rather suffer pain than be  we do not know how to be alone we do not know how to be alone we do not know how to be alone we do not know how to be alone   we do not know how to have a calm mind we do not know how to be in the  we resort to a state of daydreaming   and brain wandering constantly and this is one of the great explanations, not one of the most important ones

   strongest explanations that we have today to explain  why people feel so dissatisfied in   that percentage it therefore correlates with the  amount of neural network activity per   default that we have the default neural network  is nowadays one of the topics of research   in neuroscience, there are many, many laboratories in the world  laboratories in the world which are dedicated only to the   to studying that and the networks and the parts of the brain  that make up that network by default are the cortex   prefrontal cortex are the cingulate cortex are the parts that are  most involved in memory temporal areas is   the precuneus are the sensations of the body are the listening areas  listening areas i

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we're remembering   we are planning and above all we are constantly  we are constantly listening to ourselves   that also has some clinical implications and it has been seen that the more active people are, the more they are   of the default network are more likely to develop  they are more likely to develop Alzheimer's disease   or progress to Alzheimer's disease in the early stages of neurodegenerative  early stages of the neurodegenerative disease

   but above all what has been seen and what concerns  to what is the neuroscience of well-being is that   we spend a large part of our time in a state  that's more of a dreaming state than it is a state of   in which our mind wanders wanders in memories imaginations  memories imaginations sensations and dialogues   although it is true that it has a role for the  the consolidation of our self-image and of   our own memory what is more important is to take into account that this state of not living in that   present that this state of mental divagation is the greatest source of unhappiness  is the greatest source of unhappiness today

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