When I first began writing about the emotional brain for my book, Why Good Sex Matters, I approached it through the lens of sexuality because sex, desire, and pleasure are vivid reflections of our inner emotional life. Over time, I’ve come to see that how we experience pleasure, handle stress, and connect to others all arise from the same emotional architecture. Our struggles with joy, motivation, or intimacy are the canary in the coal mine—our brain’s way of signaling imbalance.

Today, that imbalance has become almost universal. We are living through what I’ve come to call the Traumademic—a convergence of chronic societal distress and the personal wounds, losses, and fears that this prolonged crisis has only made worse. Many people speak of feeling “revved up” yet emotionally numb, pulled between anger, anxiety, despair, and exhaustion. To understand why, we need to look beneath the surface of the brain/mind’s newer evolutionary operating systems—the top brain/mind (Neocortex), responsible for our executive systems, and the mid-level brain/mind, our learning and habit-making equipment, to the ancient emotional “basement” level of the mind/brain.

The Traumademic: When Collective Crisis Collides and Inflames Personal Pain

The last few years have brought a constant undercurrent of uncertainty—pandemics, social fractures, and economic worry. The Traumademic represents the merging of social upheaval with our private stress and trauma histories. Our FEAR circuits stay activated, our RAGE defenses flare, and our PANIC/GRIEF/SADNESS system—wired to preserve connection—keeps sounding alarms as we feel more isolated than ever.

None of this means we’re broken. These are ancient survival systems doing exactly what they were designed to do: protect us. The problem lies in their chronic activation. Emotional regulation begins not with judgment but with awareness of what is out of whack, so we can take steps to rebalance the core emotions.

The Brain’s Basement: The Seven Core Emotional Systems

The late neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp mapped seven core emotional systems in the deep subcortical brain: SEEKING, FEAR, RAGE, PANIC/GRIEF/SADNESS, LUST, CARE, and PLAY. These are not metaphors—they are hard‑wired neural circuits found across mammals. They produce the primal feelings that shape every choice, relationship, and behavior, forming the emotional “operating system” for human life. Imbalances of the core emotions can hijack the brain/mind and result in

You can think of these as the primary colors of emotion—basic patterns of energy and motivation that combine to create the full spectrum of human feeling. When in healthy balance, they help us navigate the world, connect with others, and pursue what we need for survival and meaning. When they fall out of balance—through trauma, chronic stress, or emotional neglect—we lose access to vitality, pleasure, and a sense of safety.

SEEKING: Restoring the Drive to Engage

The SEEKING system, fueled by dopamine (and too often hijacked by how we use our devices), motivates exploration and purpose—it’s the brain’s engine for curiosity, learning, and progress. When life feels unpredictable or overwhelming, dopamine production drops, and we lose energy, focus, and enthusiasm. Others swing the opposite way, staying endlessly busy, chasing distraction after distraction, but never satisfied.

Both extremes signal dysregulation. True SEEKING feels like guided curiosity, not hypervigilance. Rebuilding it starts small: setting meaningful goals, pursuing novelty with purpose, or reconnecting to creative practice. Each moment of healthy engagement tells the brain, “You’re safe to move forward.”

Defensive Systems on Overload: FEAR, RAGE, and PANIC/GRIEF/SADNESS

The defensive circuits evolved to save our lives. FEAR prepares the body to flee danger. RAGE defends boundaries. PANIC/GRIEF/SADNESS is wired to connect us to others to avoid the pain of separation. It signals the need for comfort and bonding. Yet in an era of isolation and loss, this system can dominate, pulling many into cycles of loneliness and despair.

 But in the Traumademic, these circuits rarely shut off. Continuous alarm signals flood the nervous system, keeping cortisol high and pleasure low.

Chronic FEAR erodes sleep and concentration. Overactive RAGE appears as road rage, online outrage, or rigid self‑criticism. Prolonged PANIC/GRIEF/SADNESS can slide into despair or clinical depression. The way back isn’t suppression but recalibration—slowing breath, noticing physical tension, reconnecting with the present. Even short moments of grounded awareness interrupt the brain’s defensive cascade.

The Healing Triad: CARE, PLAY, and Connection

If the defensive emotions keep us alive, the social emotions help us live well. The CARE system—powered by oxytocin and endogenous opioids—creates feelings of warmth, empathy, and belonging. It’s what allows both nurturance of others and self‑soothing. When we lose access to self-CARE, we often become overly attuned to others’ needs but unable to comfort ourselves.

PLAY, meanwhile, revitalizes the nervous system. Its laughter, movement, and spontaneity counteract the contraction of fear. Play teaches flexibility and trust. Yet adults frequently suppress it, believing it to be frivolous or unproductive. The safety required for PLAY to emerge signals deep regulation. Moments of humor or shared joy rewire the stress response more effectively than constant vigilance ever could.

Connection, through CARE and PLAY, restores psychological safety—reminding the brain that it no longer needs to defend itself at every turn.

LUST Reimagined: The Energy of Aliveness

LUST, too often reduced to sexuality, is at its core a drive for vitality and connection—the urge to merge with life itself. Balanced LUST energy fuels creativity, intimacy, and a sense of embodied presence. When it’s suppressed through fear, shame, or exhaustion, our world feels colorless; when it dominates, it becomes compulsive.

Reawakening LUST is less about eroticism and more about embodiment: movement, affection, music, art. Reconnecting with the body communicates to the emotional brain that pleasure and safety can coexist. It reignites the will to live fully rather than merely cope.

Emotional Regulation as Dynamic Balance

Emotional regulation begins with awareness. When these core emotional systems are out of whack, they can hijack our cognitive processes and decision-making in ways that can lead to substance abuse, psychological disorders, relationship disasters, self-sabotage, and even result in one of the most dangerous addictions of all–revenge addiction, as recently documented.

Regulation is not emotional control—it’s fluidity. The goal is to let all the core systems work together instead of allowing one to dominate. When SEEKING, CARE, and PLAY are active, they naturally calm FEAR, RAGE, and PANIC/GRIEF/SADNESS. Practices like rhythmic breathing, soothing touch, mindful movement, and supportive relationships act as tuning forks for the nervous system, shifting us from a state of defense to one of balance.

In a state of balance, we can feel fear without panic, anger without destruction, grieve without collapse. The emotional brain reclaims its natural rhythm—protection and connection working hand in hand.

From Survival to Thrival

The capacity for pleasure, curiosity, and joy is the hallmark of a balanced emotional brain. When our core systems regain harmony, SEEKING restores motivation, CARE deepens empathy, PLAY invites creativity, and even the defensive emotions operate in proportion. We stop living on high alert and start living with purpose.

The Traumademic has revealed how deeply interconnected we are—biologically and socially. Emotional regulation is not a solo project; we regulate best in connection. Shared laughter, compassion, and even quiet presence with another nervous system help reset our own.

Pleasure and play are not distractions from crisis; they’re signs of recovery. They tell us the canary is singing again, and the emotional brain has found its way home.

The post The Emotional Brain in the Time of Collective Crisis: Rebalancing core emotions to relieve stress and heal collective trauma appeared first on Nan Wise.

In my last post, inspired by the Netflix documentary about Phil Stutz, author of The Tools, I wrote about how harnessing attention on new ways of “being,” (being your most social self), rather than “doing” (certain things to get desired results), in conjunction with practicing radical acceptance, can greatly enhance our capacity for happiness.

The challenge for most is how to practice radical acceptance of what is, when what is, is painful

Tolerating feelings (especially the hard ones) can be a pathway to pleasure

Understanding the symbiotic relationship between pain and pleasure can help us tolerate and embrace all of our emotions. This is key to enhancing our capacity to experience pleasures in the moment and happiness over the long haul.

The relationship between pain and pleasure

Much of our understanding of what enables us to experience pleasure counterintuitively comes from the more abundant research into pain. When we investigate the brain correlates of pleasure more closely, we discover that the pathways for pleasure and pain are closely intertwined.

This interdependent relationship between pleasure and pain is part of our survival network. We are designed to feel them both viscerally. Pleasure and pain, interconnected in the brain, function as signals that get our attention, prompting us to approach things to fulfill our needs as well as to avoid potential harm. When these signals get disrupted, we feel depressed, vulnerable, anxious, and out of sorts—all symptoms of anhedonia, which is the inability to feel satisfying pleasure. When we avoid our painful feelings, we can end up becoming emotionally blunted, with little capacity for joy.

All mammals have built-in pain pathways designed to pick up on painful stimuli and respond by releasing pain-relieving chemicals. These built-in pain inhibitory mechanisms stimulate brain regions that release key internal opioids (endorphins and enkephalins) that make us feel good. Pain functions as survival information, with its own direct line to the brain signaling us to fight, flee or freeze. These wired-in pain-relief mechanisms are the source of our internally produced pleasure chemicals.

In my research on genital stimulation and orgasm, both activated the “pain circuits.” This observed activation of the pain-pleasure pathway provides clear evidence of the biological roots of the pain-relieving effects of genital stimulation. Indeed, this is one way our internal opioids help regulate pain in childbirth when certain neurochemicals are released to buffer what might otherwise be even more painful.

Our culture shapes us to avoid pain at all costs

Further exacerbating this connection between pain and pleasure is our difficulty with tolerating any measure of negative feelings. At the first sign of pain, we take an aspirin. At the first sign of emotional discomfort, we may be encouraged to take an antidepressant. In fact, as a culture, we are told not to feel too much of anything! Ironically, this attitude about pain and discomfort points to a profound misconception about how we experience pleasure.

In the popular book, Big Feelings, author Liz Foddlein proposes that we embrace the pain of anxiety associated with uncertainty, and, in so doing, transform it into an energizing part of the adventure of life.

When we avoid pain, we are also learning to avoid pleasure. We shut down emotionally as well as physically. For example, though we may lose a pet and mourn the loss, most people eventually want the pleasure of another pet. Those people whose intolerance for pain is too much will avoid these feelings entirely by refusing to get another pet.

Paying attention to sensations in our body is a route to reversing anhedonia

If you are trapped in pleasure-seeking mode all the time and trying to avoid discomfort or emotional pain, the result will be that your experience of pleasure will also be diluted and numbed. In other words, we need to feel both pain and pleasure to keep our brain and body in balance. The avoidance of feeling pain or pleasure is strikingly obvious when clients first show up for therapy and seem disconnected from the awareness of the sensations in their bodies. It is hard to get them to even respond to the simple question, “What are you noticing in your body as we discuss this issue?” Their blank stares in reaction to my query speak volumes.

My life’s work has taught me that the ability to notice, experience, and tolerate the sensations in the body that accompany the thoughts in the mind is critical to empowering wholeness and well-being. We dwell so much in our (often negative) thoughts and interpretations, strivings, and expectations that we register very little of what is actually happening in the body. When we do attend to our body, we often get caught up in wanting it to be different instead of appreciating what is. When signals from the body are interrupted, the result is that there is no result. No response, no stirring of the imagination. No tingling, no desire. This is the state many of my clients find themselves in, having lost their capacity for pleasure.

How do we get back on the path to pleasure? We need a road map.

In her bestselling book Dopamine Nation, Anna Lembke offers one. “Immerse yourself in the life you’ve been given, stop running away from whatever it is you’re avoiding, turn and face it. Now walk toward it.”

And we need tools, too. In my book, Why Good Sex Matters, I explain how learning about our core emotions, identifying sensations in the body, and consciously experiencing them more fully in the moment with curiosity, tolerance, and self-love can increase the frequency of pleasurable feelings that are good for us and make our lives happier, more balanced, and more enjoyable.

It is a helpful cure for anhedonia, and what a great map for moving beyond the victimhood of the past and into an empowered and exciting present time wherein healthy pleasure is a possibility.

References

Wise, N. J., Frangos, E., & Komisaruk, B. R. (2017). Brain activity unique to orgasm in women: An fMRI analysis. The journal of sexual medicine, 14(11), 1380-1391.

Wise, N. (2020). Why Good Sex Matters: Understanding the Neuroscience of Pleasure for a Smarter, Happier, and More Purpose-filled Life. Houghton Mifflin.

Lembke, A. (2021). Dopamine nation: Finding balance in the age of indulgence. Penguin.

The post Neuroscience Hacks: The Healing Power of Pleasure appeared first on Nan Wise.

What Are the Core Emotions?

We humans, just like other mammals, are born with emotional operating systems or “instincts” that are hard-wired into the evolutionarily oldest parts of the brain, what I affectionately call the “brain’s basement.”

How Do We Know About These Systems?

The late neuroscientist Dr. Jaak Panksepp, through decades of meticulous experimental work, established that all mammals have seven distinct circuits buried in the deep, ancient parts of the brain—which, when experimentally stimulated, evoke specific emotions (responses that get us to move into the world) to meet our needs. These core emotional systems—SEEKING, FEAR, RAGE, PANIC/GRIEF, LUST, CARE, and PLAY—serve as the “primary colors” of our basic emotions, which, in concert with the higher brain regions, drive our emotional lives.

A Very Brief Introduction to The Core Emotions

The predominant system is called the SEEKING system (as it is designed to motivate us to find that which we need). As such, it also helps to regulate the other systems, which fall into two categories that are about ensuring our survival: the defensive emotions (FEAR, ANGER, PANIC/GRIEF) and the social emotions (LUST, CARE, and PLAY). Together these seven core emotional states are wired into our human DNA.

SEEKING = Motivation

To survive, we must automatically seek what we need. This is true of food, air, water, safety, love, companionship, and sex. Pleasure is embedded into these basic survival needs. As such, the experience of SEEKING can be highly pleasurable under the right conditions. However, when we get stuck in the SEEKING system, which is powered by dopamine, we can start looking for the right things in all the wrong places! We get hijacked. Sound familiar?

The Defensive Systems

FEAR = Scared

We are born with an innate fear response designed to protect us from danger. All vertebrates have evolutionarily encoded the ability to recognize external threats that reliably cause pain or predict danger. For humans, our FEAR system is relatively flexible. Other than being innately afraid of pain and evolutionarily based tendencies such as fear of heights, snakes, and spiders, we learn to fear other things through our experience. But what is clear is that all mammals are exquisitely wired to quickly and robustly learn to respond to a vast array of stimuli that predict dangerous stuff —stuff we indeed come to FEAR.

RAGE = Angry

A balanced RAGE system is associated with appropriately being able to de‐ fend against threats. It also allows us to take appropriate stands when angered that are constructive and facilitates the resolution of conflicts.

An overactive RAGE system can cause a hair-trigger temper and high hostility levels, compromising our ability to enjoy life. An underactive RAGE system can interfere with our ability to set boundaries and stand up for our needs.

PANIC/GRIEF = Anxious/Sad

This system contributes to protecting our “life-sustaining social bonds” and is built into our brains to protect us by keeping us close to significant relationships and resources that are critical to physical survival and emotional “thrival.” Built in to keep us connected to others—essential for a social animal—this system gets triggered when we lose a loved one. It is the source of our grief and the neural substrate of heartbreak.

The Social Emotions

CARE = Love

Powered by our own internal opioids, a balanced CARE system is associated with feelings of well-being and security in relationships. Those with balanced CARE systems will have at least one or two close, reliable sources of support and regularly engage in social activities. They can love those closest to them without needing to control them. They are also in touch with the capacity to self-love and practice self-care.

An overactive CARE system typically shows up as an inability to comfort yourself because you are overly attuned to others. When this system is underactive, it can hamper the ability to nurture or form lasting social bonds.

PLAY = Joy

PLAY is the joyful occupation of all young mammals (and some other lucky critters, too). Play is how we learn to explore and experiment with ourselves, each other, and the world and learn how to socialize. The PLAY system tends to be highly developed in the young but begins to ebb for many adults.

A balanced PLAY system is indicated by an adult who has a good sense of humor, continues to know how to relax and have fun, how to amuse oneself, has hobbies or interests, and otherwise enjoys the zany aspects of life.

When PLAY is overactive in adults, it can manifest as the refusal to engage in mature adult behaviors—the perpetual Peter Pans.

The PLAY system can only be expressed when the person feels safe, whether it be an adult or a child.

LUST = The Urge to Merge

Mother nature has enduringly wired all animals with a primary urge to merge. On one level, it appears to be about the survival of the species, but it goes deeper. Our sexuality creates connections that enhance our relationships and bond us deeply.

When the LUST system is in balance, we experience a desire for sex and satisfaction when we have it. We feel comfortable with our desire level and are open to exploring ways to experience pleasure. An overactive LUST system typically shows up as some form of out-of-control, compulsive, inappropriate, or harmful sexual behavior. An underactive LUST system usually shows up as a lack of sexual desire.

In Conclusion

Balancing SEEKING + CARE + PLAY + LUST = Big fun in and out of the bedroom

The ability to experience pleasure is not a luxury. It is a necessity for a well-balanced emotional brain. Forget about the sex drive. Focus on getting back your pleasure drive. This is the first step to reclaiming a life worth living and loving. Stay tuned for more about why core emotions matter and how to balance them.

The post Lost Your Sex Drive? Not Sexually Satisfied? (Here’s what you need to know about core emotions) appeared first on Nan Wise.