[Japanese Translation] Don't be misled by your current brain [Bangtan for sleepless nights]

[Update: 2025/8/1] Added "Bonus: From Tae to sleepless ARMY"

Article shared on Instagram Stories

This is an article that Namjoon shared a part of on his Instagram Story on January 17, 2025. I found the full text after searching for it, so I translated it and posted it on X, but I'll leave it here on note as well.
If you have already read it, please skip from the table of contents to the bottom!

Note

I apologize, but as this is amateur work, I cannot guarantee the quality💦
When quoting, please include a link to this article.
*Some line breaks have been added for readability.

Heo Jee-won's Mind Counseling Room:
Please don't be misled by your current brain

JoongAng Ilbo Input 2025.01.17 00:40 Heo Jee-won, Professor of Psychology, Korea University

Everyone wants to be happy, but there is nothing more difficult than this.
This is because the brain itself is an organ optimized for predicting and detecting danger. It was not created to enjoy happiness in the first place.
That is precisely why we must desperately and intentionally feel happiness. This is the beginning and the conclusion of today's story.

Throughout all culture and history, the six basic emotions that humanity feels in common are joy, sadness, anger, surprise, disgust, and fear. There is only one positive emotion: joy.
Negative emotions are so strong that it is difficult for us to be happy unless something extraordinary happens. We can easily become sad over small things and easily fall into self-loathing.
For a brain that constantly keeps threats and negative things in mind to survive, fun and positive things are not prioritized. Since 30 years ago, when psychologist John T. Cacioppo, the founder of social neuroscience, revealed the "brain pattern of repeatedly placing great weight on negative information" through EEG research, numerous studies have repeatedly proven this.

Therefore, please do not be misled by your current brain. That "friend" called the brain is an organ that has been tense, vigilant, and focused on surviving for 7 million years.
No matter how difficult your current situation is, you can forge your own path in a more evolved and sophisticated way.
There are two methods you should try today: "savoring" and "finding joy."

Please savor the moment. It will be difficult at first, but let's make it a habit.
While "just experiencing" something and "understanding and appreciating its meaning" are tasks processed by different areas of the brain, when you try to perform these separate tasks together continuously, new connections are created in the brain.
Different neurons that originally operated separately are unknowingly packaged together and begin to work as a team. It is a team that "has an experience + savors and feels gratitude."

If the side of the fire is warm, savor it. If the warmth of the rice is pleasant, if the weather is clear, don't miss it and savor it. If you were able to spend a safe day thanks to someone, savor it and be grateful.
In that way, even if it's just a few minutes a day, you can enter into meditation within your daily life, be grateful, organize your mind, and accumulate inner strength.

You might dismiss it as just savoring, or a mental victory, but the position of neurotransmitters in the brain is clear.
According to a study published in Nature last month, when we experience something fun, "dopamine that makes us anticipate the future and take risks" competes to be released in our brains. Just imagining that the concentration of these neurotransmitters gradually increases every moment you are grateful and happy makes it impossible not to savor it.

Secondly, find some fun and joy in your life. Clinical psychologist Albert Ellis (1913–2007), also known as the father of cognitive behavioral therapy, cites the "belief that happiness will come without doing anything" as one of the most irrational thoughts of humans.
That is as ridiculous as a YouTube channel where the number of subscribers increases without uploading any content, foreign language ability that becomes fluent without studying, or a restaurant where customers flock without cooking any food.

You must decide and discover your own happiness yourself. Discover yourself by saying, "I liked things like this," from your favorite music, someone's voice, hobbies that take time, physical activities, or the plump cheek contours of a child beside you. All of those are small and cute devices to overcome the emptiness and despair of our lives.

If you are asked if you have to live even to that extent, the answer is "Yes." That is because it is life. Because we are all limited humans who feel anxious about illness, disaster, poverty, and isolation, and if we are unlucky, we might fall under the blade at some moment.
Life is truly high-difficulty, and if you don't live while finding fleeting pleasures, you will end up looking at your life through an irrational and distorted lens of depression and anxiety, and eventually, it will become unbearable. If left alone, the brain will surrender itself to waves of negative emotions and thoughts, and arrive at a hell of helplessness.
Therefore, do not leave it entirely to the direction the brain wants to go.

On nights when I can't sleep, I quietly think about how many other people besides me are unable to sleep due to their own depression or anxiety. Sometimes, I feel connected to people whose names I don't even know through endless sadness.
"Because we are all human, life is truly hard for everyone," I mutter, then I close the door of repetitive memories, savor the feeling of the futon touching my arms, and discover new joy in the familiar sound of my family's breathing.
And so, once again, I live in this moment, which is neither the past nor the future.

Heo Jee-won, Professor of Psychology, Korea University

Impressions

This is such a touching piece of writing... I feel these are words that offer comfort, filled with deep insight and kindness.
It is well understood that people are vulnerable to negative emotions. Jin also mentioned this aspect of people before.

Training your brain to calm down when it's prone to lamenting and to cultivate neurons for the 'happiness team' might be a task, but if BTS wishes for 'ARMY to be happy,' let's give it a try (*´艸｀)
I think just knowing in advance that 'the brain is prone to focusing on negative things' makes it easier to find the strength to hold back.

By the way, I feel like a 'Savoring BTS + The world is nothing but gratitude' team has been forming in my brain lately. What kind of teams are being born in your heads?

BTS on sleepless nights

Reading this article, I suddenly remembered Jungkook's Weverse comment.
I'm sure they have sleepless nights too. I hope they have many peaceful nights.

Jungkook's Weverse comment

Yoongi's 'I hope you have a comfortable night'

Another association game: BTS you want to see on a sleepless night.
This is the video where Yoongi starts to say 'Have a fun night' and corrects himself to 'I hope you have a comfortable night.' It hits hard when he speaks in that low, mumbling voice...!

At the beginning, he says his hair isn't dry yet, and I almost went crazy thinking, 'Did you just get out of the bath!?' (/ω＼)

Good night

Namjoon, thank you for sharing such a good article!
May BTS and ARMY have brains that are prone to remembering happiness and get peaceful sleep.

By the way, I'm the type who accidentally watches 'RUN BTS' on nights when I can't sleep, and as expected, I can't fall asleep and end up returning to the sea of the internet. Go to sleep.

Bonus: From V to ARMY who can't sleep