Happy thoughts may dampen cravings

[Richi]

Happy thoughts may dampen cravings
June 29 2008 | Ewen Callaway - New Scientist


Want to quit smoking? Next time the urge to light up strikes, think of snow-capped peaks instead of the fleeting pleasure of a white cigarette. That's the conclusion of a new brain study which shows that thinking happy thoughts could help dampen cravings.

Mauricio Delgado, a cognitive neuroscientist at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey, and his colleague Elizabeth Phelps of New York University measured the brain activity of 15 volunteers as they played a simple game.

The researchers told their subjects to associate blue cards with a real $4 payoff, and yellow cards with nothing. To control for potential biases, they swapped the colour assignments for half the volunteers.

Before either a yellow or blue card flashed onto a computer screen, the volunteers received an instruction to either concentrate on their prize or instead on some calming, natural object – a blue ocean, for instance.
Delgado's team measured how excited volunteers were by attaching an electrode to each volunteer's finger, as increased excitement changes the electrical behaviour of the skin, possibly because of changes in sweat levels. When there was not $4 up for grabs, volunteers stayed perfectly calm no matter what they were thinking.

Sweaty palms

But with the flash of a blue card and money on the line, volunteers who thought about the cash showed more excitement than those who pictured the sea, the sky or some other succour. The same trend held for the volunteers told to link yellow cards to cash.

Under an fMRI scanner, thoughts of clouds and oceans slightly lowered activity in the brain's reward centre – the striatum – compared to thoughts of money, but only when the card promised a payoff.

Phelps, for one, isn't surprised. Whether it's a child ignoring the smell of cookies baking or a former smoker fighting the itch to light up at a bar, we all fight our impulses. "Anybody who's functioning well in the world is doing it," she says.

Holding back

If drug addicts, gambling addicts or alcoholics are worse at ignoring their cravings than others, cognitive control might help them kick their habit, Delgado says. Yet promise of a high will be harder to temper than the chance to win a few bucks.

Brian Knutson, a neuroscientist at Stanford University in California, notes that in the study, as well as in real life, people can't totally subvert their brains' whims. "If it were so easy to do, then why do we eat the chocolate cake when we're on a diet, why do we smoke crack cocaine when we see a pipe?" he says.

But Delgado says that making addicts think about more precious things could make the technique even more powerful. "The cocaine addict might not care about fluffy clouds, but they'll really care about thinking about their family or loved ones," he says.

Journal reference: Nature Neuroscience, DOI: 10.1038/nn.2141

[mickenator]

It will be interesting to see if it works for addicts especially when they are in a full blown withdrawl as the urge to scoe can be so overwhelming that you will let nothing get in your way. If any more info comes up about this and its effects on addicts it would be interesting to see the results.

[moda00]

I think this is interesting, but you have a good point mickenator. While the study's findings are clear, this doesn't immediately transfer to addiction cravings, necessarily. Since addiction, in many cases, has a very real physiological basis (not that the psychological basis isn't just as real, just that it isn't the sole component) it seems it may be a bit more complex than what this article makes out. I don't doubt that the brain is more complex than we are aware, and that positive thinking and cognitive control can cause changes, but it seems something like this may be helpful if combined with other treatments to address the other components of addiction. That, or implemented later on, after an addict has some clean time using whatever treatment program they are using- ie. to help promote sustained recovery, rather than be the catalyst for getting sober and into early recovery? Any other thoughts?

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valid point

[Richi]

I think you're absolutely right moda, cognitive control is simply one part of what is usually an arsenal of treatments that help cure an addiction.

As the article points out, "thoughts of clouds and oceans slightly lowered activity in the brain's reward centre", which seems to imply that this is not overly effective.

The techniques outline in this article could just be one more small step that helps push someone over the edge and out of their addiction.