Seeking a Life More Worth Living

For Matt, depression started when he was 35 years old. It got to the point where he couldn’t find the will to get out of bed. Everything just felt like a huge hassle. Simple things like putting on his shoes – or even finding them – became too much effort for him. 

Over six years Matt had not responded to more than 60 hours of therapy. Eight different anti-depression drugs offered no relief. As an engineer with a Masters degree, Matt had to quit his job because he couldn’t be productive. He complained of discomfort he couldn’t explain. He often had to leave work due to panic attacks and feelings of dread, like everything was falling apart.  

Matt reported to his therapist: “Nothing makes me smile, and nothing seems like it is worth doing. It’s like drowning. Except you can see everyone around you breathing.” The therapist rated him an alarming 39 out of 60 on the Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale.[1] 

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a prevalent, seriously disabling condition. Worldwide, the lifetime prevalence of MDD is 16%, meaning that 1.1 billion people experience serious depression at some point in their lives.[2] About 20% of depressed patients are patients like Matt who are no better even after antidepressants and years of treatment.

Hope from Neuroscience?

Over the last 20 years, new technology has allowed neuroscientists to identify brain systems that affect motivations and emotions. Affective neuroscience refers to the study of the neural mechanisms of emotion – that is, how the biology of our brains causes the emotions that we feel. Technological breakthroughs allow scientists to see brain systems within living humans with a clarity that was unimaginable a decade ago.[3] 

After long discussions with his doctor, Matt elected experimental deep brain stimulation of his “seeking system” – a neural network that runs between the prefrontal cortex and the ventral striatum. Jaak Panksepp, one of the parents of the affective neuroscience field, described the seeking system this way:  

“These circuits appear to be major contributors to our feelings of engagement and excitement as we seek the material resources needed for bodily survival, and also when we pursue the cognitive interests that bring positive existential meaning into our lives…”[4] 

Of course, our behaviors emerge from different brain systems -- as well as our environment and our genetics.[5] But many neuroscientists believe that the seeking system is the “circuit” or “network” that is responsible for our innate desire to experiment, learn from our environments, and seek meaning. When we follow these urges of our seeking system, it releases dopamine— a neurotransmitter linked to motivation and pleasure.[6] When it is activated, the seeking system produces a positive, invigorated feeling of anticipation that translates to enthusiasm, excitement and zest. 

Matt’s seeking system seemed deactivated. Depression – an unmotivated state accompanied by feelings of dysphoria – is the kind of problem that a deactivated seeking system produces. But recent research showed how electrical stimulation of the seeking system (in humans and in other mammals) promptly evokes energized exploratory behaviors.[7] Research also showed that depletion of dopamine (the transmitter for the seeking system) produces life-threatening reduction in self-care.[8] 

So, Matt and six other patients elected to have electrodes implanted which stimulated their seeking systems with a tiny current.[9]  

Electrical stimulation of the seeking system helped. Matt found life was more worth living, and his depression levels dropped from 39 to 12. For the first time in years he could actively think about what he wanted to do with his life.

Six out of seven of the patients experienced 50% reductions in depression scores. Of course, most of us are fortunate enough to not suffer clinical depression. But the seeking system still may offer ways for many of us to stave off minor depressive symptoms and get more living out of life.  

Positive Psychology and the Seeking System

Starting in the 1900s, the field of psychology focused on ways to help distressed people, like Matt, become normal. You might say that, as a discipline, psychology was built for people who could not fit into society. Starting in the 1980s, pioneers like Alice Isen, Martin Seligman, and Barbara Fredrickson helped open up a new branch of psychology.[10] The goal of positive psychology was to help normal people thrive.

How does the seeking system connect to positive psychology? We still are at the early edge of knowledge about how our brains work. But it looks like the seeking system can be activated, resulting in spikes of dopamine and feelings of zest.[11] This can help many people, because when the seeking system is stimulated, it creates emotions which help depressed people get more living out of life.

In Alive at Work, I focus on ways that any of us can trigger our seeking systems – non-medically. Three of these triggers are self- expression, experimentation, and personalizing purpose.[12] The evidence suggests that many of us can activate our own seeking systems to increase zest and improve our engagement with life.

Self-Expression. If we look at our widespread social obsession with Instagram, Facebook, and the like, we start to see how sticky and interesting activities become when they start with self-expression. Philosophers have been telling us for millennia that people have an innate drive to show others who they really are.

We have a deep desire to use our unique skills and perspectives to make our own decisions about how to live. And when we are prompted to think about our best traits, and what makes us unique, our seeking systems are activated. Janine Dutcher, a psychology professor at University of California, Los Angeles, used fMRI studies to show that when people reflect on their unique values and traits, their seeking systems light up.[13] The result is we feel more enthusiastic, excited, and motivated to do more.

In one of my own studies, tech company WiPro asked new hires to write down and share stories about times they were at their best. So, the first day of work highlighted their best selves.[14] Results showed that newcomers onboarded this way made customers happier, and were less likely to quit. In a different study at Harvard’s Kennedy school, individuals who received a “best self report” prior to joining their team performed better on a 7-day team simulation. At both Make-A-Wish and Novant Health, leaders encouraged employees to create their own job titles that featured their unique contributions, which made individuals less likely to experience burnout.[15]

Experimentation. A second way to activate our seeking systems is to create experimental “safe zones” in our lives and work that includes play and supportive social bonding. Experimenting with new activities prompts us to use our curiosity. For example, my wife Alison and I join Fiction classes or figure drawing classes to explore and learn together. Experimenting with new classes lights us up, and we leave the sessions feeling refreshed and stimulated. It feels like we are digging into rich soil. As Brad Staats says in his new book: “Never Stop Learning.”

Learning and play also are important in organizational life. As the world changes faster, firms compete better when they normalize experimentation. Experimental safe zones create intrinsic motivation, which is much more powerful than extrinsic motivation because it unleashes creativity. When we frame a new task as a performance situation, it triggers anxiety and we become less willing to persist than people who frame the same task as a learning situation and trigger curiosity. Thinking about work as a platform for learning is the way to ignite our seeking systems and make work feel more like real life.

Purpose. The feeling of purpose ignites when we can see the cause and effect of our actions. How our inputs affect others and the environment. The result is more positive emotions and greater enthusiasm. For example, when fundraisers met a scholarship student who thanked them for the money they raised, they became more persistent and made a lot more calls, and a lot more money, on their shifts.[16] That’s because we are more motivated and perseverant when we are thinking about why we are doing something (e.g. losing weight to become healthy) instead of what we are doing (e.g. eating a salad). 

Take Candice Billups, for example. She has worked for over thirty years as a janitor at a Comprehensive Cancer Center. On the one hand, Billups could focus on the repetition of mopping floors and refilling soap dispensers. However, Billups interprets her work in a different way. She says, “I am basically there for the patients . . . my relationship with the families is really important to me . . . I see myself as a positive force at the Cancer Center.” Billups focuses on the why of the work in a way that is meaningful to her (helping patients through a difficult time) rather than her repetitive physical tasks. Of course, both are true—but we have latitude to focus on one story or the other.

Billups’ story affects her emotions and behaviors. She invests in getting to know patients and their families to understand their needs. She brings a positive attitude to help them smile even in the tough circumstances. Billups says she humanizes the hospital for patients: “You have to understand that when they come here they are very sick. They don’t want come to an environment where everybody is frowning and pouting, and there is a fighting amongst each other. So I try and always, always have a smile.”

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Self-expression, experimentation, and a sense of purpose. These are switches that light up our seeking systems and make life feel like it is more worth living. It’s like putting a plug into a live socket. While some early evidence suggests that electro-stimulation of the seeking system can help patients with major depressive disorders, it appears many of us can use non-medical interventions to help us thrive and get more living out of life.  

[1] Montgomery SA, Asberg M. 1979. A new depression scale designed to be sensitive to change. British Journal of Psychiatry 134: 382-389.

[2] Kupfer DJ, Frank E, Phillips ML (2012): Major depressive disorder: New clinical, neurobiological, and treatment perspectives. Lancet 379: 1045–1055.

[3] Panksepp, J., Wright, J. S., D?br?ssy, M. D., Schlaepfer, T. E., & Coenen, V. A. 2014. Affective Neuroscience Strategies for Understanding and Treating Depression: From Preclinical Models to Three Novel Therapeutics. Clinical Psychological Science 2: 472- 494.

[4] p. 144, Panksepp, J. 2005. Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions. Oxford University Press: Oxford.

[5] Robert M. Sapolsky. 2018. Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst. Vintage.

[6] M. J. Koepp et al., “Evidence for Striatal Dopamine Release During a Videogame,” Nature , 393 (1998): 266–268.

[7] Wright, J. S. & Panksepp, J., 2012. An Evolutionary Framework to Understand Foraging, Wanting, and Desire: The Neuropsychology of the SEEKING System. Neuropsychoanalysis, 14: 5-75; also see Coenen, V. A., Schlaepfer, T. E., Maedler, B., & Panksepp, J. (2011). Cross-species affective functions of the medial forebrain bundle: Implications for the treatment of affective pain and depression in humans. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 35: 1971–1981.

[8] Koob, G. F., & Volkow, N. D. (2010). Neurocircuitry of addiction. Neuropsychopharmacology, 35, 217–238.

[9] Schlaepfer, T. E., Bewernick, B., Kayser, S., M?dler, B., & Coenen, V. A. (2013). Rapid effects of deep brain stimulation for treatment resistant depression. Biological Psychiatry, 73, 1204–1212. Naturally, Matt is not his real name, and other details were changed for anonymity.

[10] Fredrickson, B. L., 2001. The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. American Psychologist, 56: 218-226.

[11] Robinson, D. L., Zitzman, D. L., & Williams, S. K. (2011). Mesolimbic dopamine transients in motivated behaviors: Focus on maternal behavior. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 2: 23.

[12] Cable, D. M. 2018. Alive at work: The Neuroscience of Helping Your People Love What They Do . Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

[13] Dutcher , J. M., Creswell, J. D., Pacilio, L. E., Harris, P. R., Klein, W. M. P., Levine, J. M., Bower, J. E., Muscatell, K. A., & Eisenberger, N. I. 2016.   Self-Affirmation Activates the Ventral Striatum: A Possible Reward-Related Mechanism for Self-Affirmation. Psychological Science, 1–12.

[14] Cable, D. M., Gino, F. & Staats, B. 2013. Breaking them in or eliciting their best? Reframing socialization around newcomers’ authentic self-expression. Administrative Science Quarterly, 58: 1-36.

[15] Grant, A., Berg, J., & Cable, D. M. 2014. Job Titles as Identity Badges: How Self-Reflective Titles can Reduce Emotional Exhaustion. Academy of Management Journal, 57, 1201-1225.

[16] A. M. Grant and D. A. Hofmann, 2011. “Outsourcing Inspiration: The Performance Effects of Ideological Messages from Leaders and Beneficiaries,” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 116.