eli5: Why do we always get strong urge to be lazy if its better for the brain to be active

Question

I mean its so much better for the brain to be active working doing useful things stimulating your brain or working out, we all have a reward system and everytime we finish a task we feel a sense of accomplishment but everytime you should be doing something that you know will feel good in the end you just get this urge of doing nothing today and just relaxing,
shouldnt our brain be chasing this sense of accomplishment? Where does this feeling come from

In: 7156

Answer 1

There is a zone in your brain called the anterior singular cortex, this zone is a remain of our evolution and this zone basically command the 5 stuff needed for the human race to survive since they exist, those are the basic of our functioning. The 5 things we are craving for are (think like we are still 10 000 years in he past) :

-eating good food (the better the food, the moire chance to survive)

-reproduce (yeah a species need to reproduce to survive, that why we are obsessed by sex and that half the internet bandwidth is made of porn, specially in religious countries)

-our position in the social hierarchy (we want the big AUDI, the designer clothes, the diamond, to look like we are at the top, we want to be richer than rich because being at the top of the social hierarchy mean that you gonna have better food and better sex partner, so potentially better children)

-sharing information (that’s what we do on reddit), human race share information to survive (were is the good food, the good sexual partner, how to get to the top of social hierarchy, how to survive and else)

-rest / conservation of energy, no need to spend precious energy that can save you later, we are programmed to conserve it because life haven’t been like today in “rich” country

Note : even if those basic define the ideal of capitalism, human can be more subtle, so I don’t tell that ALL human are basic like this, I just tell it’s in our instinct to be like this, and after that some peoples stay just like this, other grow a more subtle and rich person

But those are the basic of human functioning, and resting to save the energy is one of them, it’s a basic of surviving