The Power of Pleasure: How Joy Sustains Us in Uncertain Times

When a crisis strikes the natural response is to drop everything and tend to the emergency at hand. This makes sense. It would be weird, not to mention extremely dangerous, if our response to realizing our house was on fire was to simply continue reading the book we are enjoying. But what happens when day-to-day life feels like a constant crisis? Do we just cut out all of the things we enjoy? Can you exist in a perpetual state of “dropping everything”? What does that look like?

I can tell you. Sometime around about 2017 I started removing almost all of the things I enjoyed from my life. I didn’t do it on purpose. I didn’t realize I was doing it at all, but due to a number of factors I was under a lot of stress. During that time I was constantly on edge, my fight or flight response was going full tilt all the time, and as a lifelong super sensitive over thinker I judged myself for even considering putting energy towards hobbies, indulgences, or anything that I didn’t see as productive or valuable to the world at large.

How did this work out? It just about broke my brain. By 2019 I was in a deep, dark depressive episode and completely burnt out. I spent my days hunched over my computer, struggling to string words together, and by about 2 PM every day my brain was done. My health, both mental and physical, suffered, I was barely writing anything new, I was avoiding emails constantly, I was losing touch with everybody, and barely had the bandwidth to handle day to day responsibilities let alone anything that might go wrong. I was a precarious house of cards ready to topple at any time.

The thing is, while hobbies may seem like fun, optional add-ons to our lives they can serve important roles in terms of keeping us happy and healthy. For example, two of my favorite hobbies, crochet and baking have been shown to help regulate the nervous system and reduce stress. But this is about more than just activities, it’s about the value of the pleasure we get from engaging in said activities.

Pleasure gives our world color and flavor, it allows us to enjoy our lives rather than merely existing. When we deem the things that bring us pleasure unimportant we inadvertently send ourselves the message that we are not worthy of more than basic survival. Earlier I described being burnt out with no bandwidth to handle life’s ups and downs and I think a part of that lack of resilience came from feeling like life was a constant slog that never let up. I was not allowing myself to engage in any practices that would allow me space to escape the slog and recharge, as it were. Consequently, I had no capacity to deal with anything.

I learned my lesson though, after spending a lot of time healing from that depressed and burnt out time in my life, when I recently felt some of the same stressors creeping back in, I made a commitment to resist going down that path again. This time I would continue making things, enjoying life, and engaging in pleasure. This kind of commitment to pleasure is not a new idea, adrienne maree brown’s 2019 book Pleasure Activism makes the case for pursuing pleasure while engaging with incredibly stressful issues far better than I ever could. Even my own book The Monster Under the Bed talks about this concept in relation to sexual pleasure while coping with depression. I’m well versed in the theory that there is value in prioritizing pleasure in the midst of strife, it was just the idea of actually applying that to myself that was new for me.

I was thinking about all of this one Sunday afternoon in February when my stress and anxiety were through the roof. I had planned to spend that very cold day inside crocheting and watching my favorite movies while my sweet senior pup snoozed beside me. The problem was my brain was going a mile a minute with all the worries that were plaguing me, all the stressful things coming up that week, and the long to-do list I had waiting for me. I decided to ease some of that stress by taking the easiest item off my to-do list: I would try out the new Camino Exhilarate cannabis gummy that the folks at Kiva sent me. Now, Exhilarate, available in regulated dispensaries in California and New York, and rolling out to other markets this year, is described as “designed to open both body and mind and get your spirits soaring” and its description mentions “amorous nights” none of which really lines up with “crocheting at home with my dog” but I figured it would be easy enough to try it and take some notes on my experience while I spent my quiet day at home.

Then something unexpected happened. A couple of hours later I noticed that the mile a minute swirling in my brain had quieted down. There wasn’t all that stuff telling me I shouldn’t take time to do things I enjoy. I was able to not only take that time but to actually enjoy it. It wasn’t a huge shift, it was just enough that I was able to engage with what I was doing without all the other unpleasant noise. It was great and it inspired me to make plans for other things that bring me joy: meeting up with friends, baking delicious treats, working on the writing project I keep pushing aside. It was like having the space to fully engage in pleasure reminded my brain that that was a thing we could do and suddenly I was on board with allowing myself to do it some more.

It’s not lost on me that the “amorous” Exhilarate gummy helped me fully engage in pleasure, even when it wasn’t sexual. That got me thinking about the Kinsey Institute’s Dual Control Model of Sexual Response. Typically used to discuss sexual desire¹, the Dual Control Model posits that our ability to engage sexually is determined by two systems in our brains: excitation (the “gas pedal”) and inhibition (the “brake”). These can vary wildly in sensitivity from person to person and the sensitivity of each can vary further depending on the context. So our brains may slam on the brakes in response to anything that might inhibit our desire (fear, discomfort, wanting to watch Ted Lasso instead) and that impulse can be even stronger when we are under stress. On the flip side, our brains may hit the accelerator in response to things that get us excited (a smell, a fantasy, a really good episode of Ted Lasso) and that impulse might be easier to come by if we are feeling safe and relaxed. While this model is used to talk about sexual response, I believe our brains can function this way in relation to all sorts of stimuli.

I had been having something of a Dual Control Model response to any pursuits of pleasure in my life. Any time I thought about doing anything that brought me joy, my brain hit the brakes HARD. It was happening on that stressful Sunday, sure but more than that, it was a constant feature of my life in the years when my health was suffering. Spurred on by an endless barrage of guilt-ridden thoughts and judgements I assumed other people would make about me indulging in frivolity “at a time like this” I allowed myself to keep that foot on the brakes for YEARS. The irony was, it’s not like I was super-productive as a result. As time went on my work suffered, my relationships withered, and my ability to show up for my community all but disappeared. Looking back, denying myself small pleasures led to denying myself almost all pleasure, resulting in seriously low self worth, constant anger and anxiety, and generally being the least functional version of myself. It was a dark place I never want to go back to and I wouldn’t recommend anyone else visit.

So even though it may feel like we are living in a constant ongoing crisis, I implore you: don’t abandon the things you enjoy. Hold onto what brings you pleasure. Notice when your brain slams on the breaks and find ways to steer yourself back to those sources of fulfillment and delight. And seriously, if you’re having a hard time with it, pop an Exhilarate gummy (If you can’t get your hands on Exhilarate, Camino’s other Wild Cherry gummy, Excite is more widely available and has a similar effect.), and let that help you get there. Because while it makes sense to drop everything in moments of acute crisis, when we’re in it for the long haul, the only way we survive is by maintaining our health, hope, and sanity, and that requires a more nuanced approach, one that allows time and space for joy. There is power in pleasure, don’t give it up.

Product Notes:
Thank you to the folks at Kiva Confections who provided the Camino samples and made this post possible. I sampled three Camino products all of which I enjoyed and each had different benefits that I think folks might be interested in. Here is the information on those products:

Camino Exhilarate Wild Cherry
5mg THC / 5mg CBG / 5mg CBC
This is the one I discussed in the post. For me half of one of these quieted my brain enough to allow me to engage in life instead of spiraling in panic.

Camino Sleep Midnight Blueberry
5mg THC / 1mg CBN
So effective at helping me sleep that I have been saving these for nights when I’m away from home because I’m currently caring for a senior dog and worry that he wouldn’t be able to wake me up if he needed me. I’m just saying, these get the job done.

Camino Recover Freshly Squeezed
5mg THC / 10mg CBG
This ended up being my favorite. Terrific for taking the edge off life as well as walking me back from the edge of a migraine, Recover has become a staple in my house.

While these specific items may not be available in your state (heck, my favorite one isn’t available in my state!), be sure to check Kiva’s site as they have a wide variety of different products and may have something else that fits the bill that is available to you.