The Sweet Spot: why pain can be a pleasure

Julian Barnes and Ian McEwan are widely celebrated as two of the finest writers of their generation. Along with Salman Rushdie and Kazuo Ishiguro, they were included on Granta’s prescient Best Young British Novelists list in 1993 and have gone on to write some of the most memorab ...  Show more

In an increasingly digital world, hardly anyone relies on cash. $100 bills are essentially absent from global commerce. So how come the US Federal Reserve printed 752 million and 867.2 million of them last year? In this episode, bestselling investigative journalist and author Oli ...  Show more

Some people think humans are natural pleasure seekers. But not psychologist Paul Bloom. In his new book, “The Sweet Spot,” Paul says we’re pain seekers, too. Just think about all the uncomfortable things we do for fun — eating spicy food, climbing treacherous mountains, watching ...  Show more

There is nothing hotter than Puckerbutt Farm’s Carolina Reaper Hot Sauce... and author Leigh Cowart gargles it for FUN!!! Why do we sometimes get a happiness high from painful and scary things? And what if we want to experience the fun of discomfort and danger... but without the ...  Show more

Being shunned by a lover, a school or an employer hurts - but we're only just beginning to understand how real this pain is and what steps we can take to administer a bit of emotional first aid to stop the experience scarring us for good.Dr Laurie Santos talks to leading experts ...  Show more

Is there a good kind of suffering? Paul Bloom says, yes -- there is a kind of suffering that you choose. This voluntary suffering can reduce anxiety and make your life more meaningful. This episode explores that idea, along with: why we are hardwired to worry about bad things ...