Reflecting on past positive experiences can cognitively extend the positive phase of dopamine release and blunt the pain response associated with pursuit.

“I used to joke with my lab that when we'd publish a paper I would get really excited but I wouldn't allow myself to get too excited what I wanted to do instead and what I've still tried to do is try and extend the Arc of that positive experience as long as I possibly can simply by thinking back like oh that was really cool I really enjoy doing that work I really enjoyed the discovery I really enjoyed doing that with the people that I was working with at the time what a pleasure that was so you can extend pleasure without having to engage in the behavior over and over that's extending the Arc of that dopamine release as well it offsets some of the pain of not having that experience occur over and over and over again”