Wheelz1985
Ready to roll out.
- Mar 19, 2020
- 39
Recieved this from "StoicReflections". (check em out)
Dopamine
(4 minute read)
I bet you enjoy scrolling through social media, playing video games, or watching videos on the internet.
You can probably do it for hours on end without breaking concentration.
But do you ever wonder why it's so hard to get yourself to read, exercise, study, or work on your side business?
You know these things will bring you benefits in the long run, but it's really hard to get yourself to do them.
Why do some people seem so productive? How do they have no problem exercising, learning, and getting things done on a regular basis?
Are they simply born with more motivation?
Nope.
It's all about dopamine.
The molecule that gives you desire to get up and do things. Dopamine is the chemical inside your brains reward center. It's what gets released when you do something that feels good. It's what makes things addictive.
Your brain develops priorities based on how much dopamine its expecting to get.
If an activity releases little dopamine, you won't be very motivated to do it.
If an activity releases a lot of dopamine, you'll have more than enough willpower for it.
The thing is, your brain doesn't care if what you're doing is good for you. It doesn't care if you're being productive or keeping healthy. It doesn't even care if you feel like crap right after the fact.
It just wants more of that sweet sweet dopamine. It wants to feel good, now.
Junk food, cigarettes, and drugs release high amounts of dopamine, but there's one thing that provides even more.
The highest dopamine release happens when you get rewarded randomly. Think about slot machines. You can lose 90% of the time, but the 10% when you win, it feels so damn good.
Alright, gambling might not be your thing. But what else is similar to slot-machines in terms of random dopamine rewards?
Smartphones.
Browsing Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, and even porn gives you extreme amounts of dopamine. You receive random notifications throughout the day that are impossible to ignore.
You can tap, scroll, and watch for hours, even if most of the content is not that great. Why? Just like slot machines, as long as 10% of the time you find something captivating, your brain will task your thumbs with continuously scrolling for the next interesting post, the next hit of dopamine.
You essentially have a slot machine in your pocket. But rather than spending money, you instead give up motivation and willpower.
Dopamine tolerance
Just like alcohol, someone who rarely drinks will start feeling the effects a lot faster, and with fewer drinks than someone who drinks often.
Same with dopamine.
When your brain is used to being rewarded (for nothing) all the time, it becomes extremely difficult to have enough willpower to do something hard. Even though, for example, you really want to start that business, or learn to code. The rewards are not instant enough.
Your tolerance is too damn high.
You need dopamine right now.
You're a dopamine addict.
It's not necessarily a bad thing though. You can actually use dopamine as a tool to motivate you to achieve your goals.
But first, you need to give your tolerance a break, and put your brain back into balance.
How?
3 Day Dopamine Detox
Choose a 3 day block where you will avoid all high-dopamine activities. 3 full days where you'll let your dopamine receptors recover.
That means no internet, phone, computer, music, junk food, video games, Netflix, or whatever else is flooding your brain with dopamine. You know what that is for you.
You are, however, allowed to meditate, write, walk, read, and exercise. Anything but instant dopamine activities.
You're going to remove all sources of external pleasure for 3 days.
Sound hard? It's supposed to be.
It's going to suck. Thats the point.
If you want results, this is what it takes.
Dopamine detoxing works by making you so bored that difficult tasks are now rewarding.
Just know that when you feel yourself dying of boredom, it's working. That's when your dopamine receptors are recovering from the unnaturally high dopamine that has been flooding your brain.
Think of it this way:
If you were used to driving to work every day, the idea of taking the bus would pain you to think about. But imagine if you had to walk to work every day because you couldn't afford a car, nor a bus pass. Taking the bus would now be a luxury.
That's a dopamine detox in a nutshell. It starves you of all the pleasure you usually get and in turn makes those delayed-reward tasks more desirable.
Dopamine as a tool
After you reset your tolerance with a dopamine detox, you can start using dopamine as a tool to achieve your goals.
You don't have to give up high dopamine activities forever. In fact, you shouldn't. You should use dopamine as a reward for completing things that give you long term benefits.
At the end of each day, if you've completed some form of delayed-reward (low-dopamine) work, allow yourself some dopamine. Your brain will soon associate the hard work with rewards.
For each hour of low-dopamine work in your day, you can reward yourself with 15 minutes of high-dopamine activities.
After an 8 hour day of low-dopamine work, for example, you can reward yourself with 2 hours of high-dopamine activities.
The key here is to make sure it's at the end of the day. Giving yourself too much dopamine too early is a quick way to lose motivation for the rest of the day.
Give it a try. You'll be amazed how you naturally start doing things that have longer term rewards. Exercising, learning, and working on your goals will be easier than ever before.
Things to Remember
Do not reward yourself for nothing.
Flooding your brain with dopamine is an easy way to give up all your motivation, and willpower.
It's not very hard to make doing difficult things easier. But when your brain is used to too much dopamine all the time, you won't have the willpower for working on something that doesn't release as much of it.
Take a tolerance break, have a dopamine detox.
Dopamine is a double-edged sword.
Understand the risks of flooding your brain with dopamine. But also remember how to use dopamine as a tool for getting hard things done.
Remember, all humans are dopamine addicts. But it's up to you to decide if you're going to get it from things that don't benefit you, or if instead you'll use it as a tool for working on your long term goals.
Dopamine
(4 minute read)
I bet you enjoy scrolling through social media, playing video games, or watching videos on the internet.
You can probably do it for hours on end without breaking concentration.
But do you ever wonder why it's so hard to get yourself to read, exercise, study, or work on your side business?
You know these things will bring you benefits in the long run, but it's really hard to get yourself to do them.
Why do some people seem so productive? How do they have no problem exercising, learning, and getting things done on a regular basis?
Are they simply born with more motivation?
Nope.
It's all about dopamine.
The molecule that gives you desire to get up and do things. Dopamine is the chemical inside your brains reward center. It's what gets released when you do something that feels good. It's what makes things addictive.
Your brain develops priorities based on how much dopamine its expecting to get.
If an activity releases little dopamine, you won't be very motivated to do it.
If an activity releases a lot of dopamine, you'll have more than enough willpower for it.
The thing is, your brain doesn't care if what you're doing is good for you. It doesn't care if you're being productive or keeping healthy. It doesn't even care if you feel like crap right after the fact.
It just wants more of that sweet sweet dopamine. It wants to feel good, now.
Junk food, cigarettes, and drugs release high amounts of dopamine, but there's one thing that provides even more.
The highest dopamine release happens when you get rewarded randomly. Think about slot machines. You can lose 90% of the time, but the 10% when you win, it feels so damn good.
Alright, gambling might not be your thing. But what else is similar to slot-machines in terms of random dopamine rewards?
Smartphones.
Browsing Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, and even porn gives you extreme amounts of dopamine. You receive random notifications throughout the day that are impossible to ignore.
You can tap, scroll, and watch for hours, even if most of the content is not that great. Why? Just like slot machines, as long as 10% of the time you find something captivating, your brain will task your thumbs with continuously scrolling for the next interesting post, the next hit of dopamine.
You essentially have a slot machine in your pocket. But rather than spending money, you instead give up motivation and willpower.
Dopamine tolerance
Just like alcohol, someone who rarely drinks will start feeling the effects a lot faster, and with fewer drinks than someone who drinks often.
Same with dopamine.
When your brain is used to being rewarded (for nothing) all the time, it becomes extremely difficult to have enough willpower to do something hard. Even though, for example, you really want to start that business, or learn to code. The rewards are not instant enough.
Your tolerance is too damn high.
You need dopamine right now.
You're a dopamine addict.
It's not necessarily a bad thing though. You can actually use dopamine as a tool to motivate you to achieve your goals.
But first, you need to give your tolerance a break, and put your brain back into balance.
How?
3 Day Dopamine Detox
Choose a 3 day block where you will avoid all high-dopamine activities. 3 full days where you'll let your dopamine receptors recover.
That means no internet, phone, computer, music, junk food, video games, Netflix, or whatever else is flooding your brain with dopamine. You know what that is for you.
You are, however, allowed to meditate, write, walk, read, and exercise. Anything but instant dopamine activities.
You're going to remove all sources of external pleasure for 3 days.
Sound hard? It's supposed to be.
It's going to suck. Thats the point.
If you want results, this is what it takes.
Dopamine detoxing works by making you so bored that difficult tasks are now rewarding.
Just know that when you feel yourself dying of boredom, it's working. That's when your dopamine receptors are recovering from the unnaturally high dopamine that has been flooding your brain.
Think of it this way:
If you were used to driving to work every day, the idea of taking the bus would pain you to think about. But imagine if you had to walk to work every day because you couldn't afford a car, nor a bus pass. Taking the bus would now be a luxury.
That's a dopamine detox in a nutshell. It starves you of all the pleasure you usually get and in turn makes those delayed-reward tasks more desirable.
Dopamine as a tool
After you reset your tolerance with a dopamine detox, you can start using dopamine as a tool to achieve your goals.
You don't have to give up high dopamine activities forever. In fact, you shouldn't. You should use dopamine as a reward for completing things that give you long term benefits.
At the end of each day, if you've completed some form of delayed-reward (low-dopamine) work, allow yourself some dopamine. Your brain will soon associate the hard work with rewards.
For each hour of low-dopamine work in your day, you can reward yourself with 15 minutes of high-dopamine activities.
After an 8 hour day of low-dopamine work, for example, you can reward yourself with 2 hours of high-dopamine activities.
The key here is to make sure it's at the end of the day. Giving yourself too much dopamine too early is a quick way to lose motivation for the rest of the day.
Give it a try. You'll be amazed how you naturally start doing things that have longer term rewards. Exercising, learning, and working on your goals will be easier than ever before.
Things to Remember
Do not reward yourself for nothing.
Flooding your brain with dopamine is an easy way to give up all your motivation, and willpower.
It's not very hard to make doing difficult things easier. But when your brain is used to too much dopamine all the time, you won't have the willpower for working on something that doesn't release as much of it.
Take a tolerance break, have a dopamine detox.
Dopamine is a double-edged sword.
Understand the risks of flooding your brain with dopamine. But also remember how to use dopamine as a tool for getting hard things done.
Remember, all humans are dopamine addicts. But it's up to you to decide if you're going to get it from things that don't benefit you, or if instead you'll use it as a tool for working on your long term goals.
