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The good old days were awful, says CSUEB professor

Loretta Graziano Breuning

Loretta Graziano Breuning

  • July 26, 2011 5:46am

Professor Emerita of International Management Loretta Graziano Breuning wrote an article, "The good old days were awful; why the grass seems greener in other centuries," for Psychology Today in which she explains that thinking about the good old days triggers neurochemicals that makes one feel good.

“But if you had actually lived in the past, you would not have liked it.,” Breuning says in her article.  “You would have felt dirty all the time if you lived in the past. Without hot running water or toilet paper, you would have had that camping-trip feeling your whole life. Your food would have been laced with vermin droppings and your drinking water would bring intestinal worms.”

She explains that this is because the brain focuses on what you lack, and takes for granted what you have. “If you imagine people having them in the past, then the past seems better regardless of the facts.”

Visceral experience triggers more neurochemicals than historical facts on a page. For example, a neglected public rest room triggers more disgust than reading about the pit toilets, chamber pots and open sewers of the past, because you have real sensory experience of today's dirty bathroom. Today's suffering seems more intense than the suffering of the past because you feel it directly. People believe life is more stressful these days because they did not actually feel the stress of those days.

Breuning has worked in Africa as a United Nations Volunteer and began studying the mammalian social brain after lecturing worldwide on bribery prevention. She has written previous books, including Greaseless: How to Thrive without Bribes in Developing Countries and I, Mammal: Why Your Brain Links Status and Happiness.

Read an earlier blog post on Bruening's new book, "Mammal brain wired to seek status and happiness."

KL

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