Psychiatrist Prof. Dr. Nevzat Tarhan pointed out that today's people experience reward insatiability by chasing instant gratification and this leads to psychological obesity and said, "The weakness of the frontal lobes in the brain leads individuals to insatiability. If a person has developed their own internal discipline, they know where to stop." Describing insatiability as "the disease of modernism", Prof. Dr. Nevzat Tarhan emphasized that it is important for individuals to manage their pleasures.
Üsküdar University Rector, Psychiatrist Prof. Dr. Nevzat Tarhan emphasized that psychological obesity is one of the most important weaknesses of the age.
The person who cannot develop internal discipline does not know where to stop
Stating that the internal control mechanism in the brain of people who cannot stop themselves is not developed, Prof. Dr. Nevzat Tarhan said that if the individual has developed his/her internal discipline, he/she will know where to stop.
Stating that the frontal lobes are also the brake system of our brain, Prof. Dr. Nevzat Tarhan stated that the control mechanism works in people who develop their internal discipline and said the following:
"There is an internal and external control mechanism. If people have developed their internal discipline, they know where to stop. Since it is not developed, they cannot stop themselves. They eat more, they act without thinking about the end, they say the first thing that comes to their mind. They do the first thing they hear. They cannot filter it. The characteristic of our brain is that it produces emotions and thoughts. After generating them, it decides whether they are valid or invalid, appropriate or inappropriate, true or false, safe or unsafe, resolves that thought and moves on to another thought. When you cannot do this, you think for 15-20 minutes instead of 5 minutes. Or you do it without questioning the issue at all. Both are problematic. It's like driving a car, there is a certain speed limit, if you go beyond it, you drive dangerously. If you are below it, you will waste your time and energy. You need to go at a certain speed limit."
Insatiability, the disease of modernism
Prof. Dr. Nevzat Tarhan, who also mentioned the importance of pleasure control in people, stated that there are two types of pleasure, "short-term" and "medium and long-term" and said, "When you investigate the overweight in those with a body mass index above 40 or even 30, you need to ask the question 'Why does this person eat too much? When we ask, probably 70-80 percent of 100 obese cases are psychologically obese. In other words, they are insatiable. The pleasure center of the brain is impaired. For this reason, the weight of the person rises above a certain rate. Apart from conditions such as hormone disorders in obesity, there is a great deal of insatiability. This is the disease of modernism. People are psychologically obese. Socially and financially obese. This is like a cancer cell. A cancer cell is a narcissistic, greedy and insatiable cell. It wants to grow and grow and eventually it dies along with the person. If a person is psychologically insatiable, they are psychologically obese."
Those who delay gratification have higher emotional intelligence
"If something gives pleasure, it is good, if it does not give pleasure, it is bad. Modernism glorifies instant gratification with its short-term 'live in the moment' philosophy." Prof. Dr. Nevzat Tarhan said that people should aim for medium and long-term gratification, not short-term.
Giving an example of the 'Turkish Delight Test', one of the basic researches in emotional intelligence studies, Prof. Dr. Nevzat Tarhan said: "They take boxes of Turkish delight to the classroom of children in a kindergarten and say that they will give one Turkish delight to anyone who wants it at that moment; they say that they will give as many Turkish delights as they want to those who start waiting for 15 minutes. A group of children immediately take a Turkish delight. Another group of children waits for 15 minutes and gets more marshmallows. These children are then followed for 20 years. The children who wanted immediate gratification and the children who were able to delay gratification were analyzed. The emotional intelligence of children who are able to delay gratification is 20 percent higher, and these children have longer-term relationships with the opposite sex and are more successful. In other words, one must succeed in delaying gratification."
It is possible to manage pleasure!
Emphasizing that the feeling of delaying pleasure exists in humans, Prof. Dr. Nevzat Tarhan stated that people manage to delay pleasure in certain environments and conditions and said, "People who can use this feature are people who can manage pleasure and use it efficiently. So it's like investing right now. You have money in your hand right now, you can spend it in a day, but you wait for the appropriate time and place and make your investment at the appropriate time and place. Our pleasures are like that. If we do it in the right place, we take the right steps, we marry the right person. But if you have a fickle appetite, you get married and divorce after 6 months; then you want to marry someone else. This is like the marriages in the magazine culture. What happens to love? 'I fell in love and I'm getting married', love evaporates after 6 months. They ask 'why don't you get married', he says 'I didn't fall in love, why should I get married'. Modernism has confused love with eroticism. In fact, love is romance, and for love to be long-term, it needs to be nourished by romantic cooperation."
Pleasures should be given the right meaning
Underlining that we need to define our pleasures correctly and attribute the right meanings to them, Prof. Dr. Nevzat Tarhan said, "Pleasure is our engine, it drives us. I mean, imagine an automobile, the engine of the automobile activates itself. So what is the steering wheel? It steers it in the direction it will go. Our emotions and pleasures are also our engine. It drives us. But if the driver is inexperienced, you will hit a wall. So our logic is also the driver. It takes us where we are going. That's why the cooperation of mind and emotion, mind and heart is important. Those who pursue pleasure live only in their emotions. Those who think only of their intellect can sit in a car without an engine and be as skillful a driver as they want. In other words, if there is no love, emotion and excitement, driving is in vain. The important thing is to balance the two. This is what life is all about, being able to combine the engine of emotion with the steering wheel of reason."