9/17/2023 0 Comments Dopamine pain and pleasure(Obviously if you have a serious or substance addiction, you need to talk to a professional and may need medication to deal with this). But 30 days is a great length according to her. For some it’s much longer, and others less. And another 2 weeks to get used to not depending on this behaviour/substance. In Lembke’s experience it takes 2 weeks to reach the peak of pain, as your dopamine system rebalances. Problems - Why is this addiction a problem? What issues does it cause you or others?Ībstinence - This is where you stop using the substance or doing the behaviour for 30 days. Objective - What does the experience give you? The addiction, if you’re willing to call it taht, gives us something, otherwise we wouldn’t do it. She shared the easy to remember acronym to teach this: DOPAMINE.ĭata - What is it you’re exactly engaging in excessively? When? Where? How much? Lembke gives a formula and 30 day challenge that she uses with her clients as well as for herself. You won’t be surprised that mindfulness is part of the solution to help free us from our addictions, whatever they may be. But abstaining from whatever experience you’re excessively seeking, is the idea of the dopamine fast. Lembke calls it dopamine fasting, although some question that terminology. Without keeping these urges in check, they can get out of control. All these experiences release dopamine and urge us to repeat the behaviour. Addiction can be thought of as a spectrum, with mild to moderate addictions, such as our smartphones, to stronger addictions such as to drugs or alcohol. “The smartphone is the modern-day hypodermic needle, delivering digital dopamine 24/7 for a wired generation.” Too much pleasure - the gremlins will lean on the pain side to rebalance. You can think of them like gremlins, trying to bring us to balance (in science they call this drive towards balance, homeostasis). Our body rebalances us by then tipping towards pain. So all these pleasures that we can access so easily in our society, leads our balance to tip towards pleasure. And the tech companies spend billions of dollars to try and increase that dopamine hit you get as much as possible, so you keep using their services. You again reach for the phone for relief. And before long, you’re bored once again. We use digital media to distract us from our boredom or loneliness. When the ‘high’ of the drug comes to an end, the low can be incredibly painful.Ī weaker version of this happens to us when we use social media, do online shopping or binge Netflix. We know this for big pleasures like highly addictive drugs. Yet all this trying to insulate ourselves from pain seems only to have made our pain worse.” We’ll do almost anything to distract ourselves from ourselves. Some of us couch surf while binge-watching Netflix. And it seems where there is pleasure there will be pain. One of the key discoveries in science is that the same areas in our brain that processes pleasure, also processes pain. Amphetamines increase dopamine levels by as much as 1000%. Chocolate increases our dopamine level by about 50%. The amount of dopamine an experience gives us, can give us an idea of how addictive something may be. Mostly it seems to be about that sense of wanting. Dopamine gives us the feeling of wanting, craving and motivates us too. All these pleasurable experiences in our society release the neurotransmitter dopamine. One key driver is a chemical in our brain called dopamine. In such a world, where our brains are wired to want more, how do we prevent overconsumption? How do we learn to stop? How can we overcome addictions? And what causes these addictions in the first place? And, are they actual addictions? Beyond that we have access to alcohol, drugs…the list goes on.Īnd yet, more people than ever are suffering from pain, mental health issues and addiction in our society. Any information, entertainment, online chat, gambling, video games are all just a click away. For many of us reading this, anything you want in the world is just a click away. In fact, all our resources were scarce, and so we become wired to consume whenever we had the chance.įast forward to our modern world, and we are surrounded by abundance. They needed to eat whenever they could, as they didn’t know when the next meal was coming. Our ancestors lived in a world of scarcity. Here’s some interesting insights from the book. I’ve just finished reading a fascinating book called Dopamine Nation by Psychiatrist Anna Lembke.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |