Imagine a medical treatment that lowers blood pressure, decreases heart disease and cancer risk, boosts immune function and blocks pain—a treatment that's safe, inexpensive and readily available and whose main side effect is that it makes you feel good. It's not a new miracle drug. These and other benefits appear to come from pleasure itself. And this pleasure prescription is filled in the internal pharmacy of the brain.
Many people think that to promote health, they must undertake strict weight-loss diets, adopt punishing exercise programs, avoid salt, shun cholesterol and follow all sorts of arduous, pleasure-denying regimens. Fortunately, scientific evidence now suggests that for most people, doing what is pleasurable—from sensual delights to selfless pleasures, from optimism to laughter—actually pays off twice: in immediate enjoyment and better health.
So, taking a siesta, playing with a pet, looking at nature, smelling a sweet scent, laughing at a funny movie, getting a massage, soaking up the heat of a sauna, taking a vacation, passionately pursuing a hobby, sipping a glass of wine, listening to your favorite music, helping someone in need, thinking optimistically, practicing gratitude and scores of other healthy pleasures may measurably improve the health of employees and their families.
In designing behavioral interventions, we can align with intrinsic motivation and leverage human capacities for health that favor us and program us to seek and benefit from pleasurable experiences.