The Dopamine Effect: How to Find Balance In the Age of Indulgence
Things are moving faster than ever but they don’t have to. Here are my thoughts on the matter (along with some good old neuroscience to back me up)
Some people say that over-indulgence is a way to fill a void inside.
Others think that life is just too damn short to worry so “F*ck it, I’m going to enjoy life!”
And they do.
The first group leans more towards something the Buddha once said: “The root of all attachment is suffering.” And they often believe the only way to liberation is to free ourselves from all cravings and aversions.
The second group, on the other hand, leans more towards something Hunter S. Thompson said: “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a ride!”
I often find myself opting for the middle road. It’s somewhere between complete renunciation of all material things and utter hedonistic glory.
To say it’s an internal tug of war would be an understatement. However, it does keep me grounded, honest, and in good humor most of the time.
Today’s world
We live in a world today where we can pretty much have almost anything that we want.
Shops are open 24 hours a day.
We can find information at the click of a button.
We can learn new skills, discover new opportunities, create new income streams, and find new teachers in any given field all over the internet.
We can make new friends on social media.
We can reconnect with old friends there too.
We can buy something within our continent and receive it tomorrow.
We can even fly ourselves around the world in less than 24 hours too.
It’s beautiful but it’s also a lot.
It can even be overwhelming for some, especially in this competitive, comparative, I’m-only-going-to-show-the-best-parts-of-my-life kind of culture that we live in.
So, that brings me nicely onto dopamine. The chemical that Tiktok has masterfully tapped into. And the thing all companies in every field spend billions of dollars trying to hack and manipulate.
It’s also the thing that can bring us back into balance too (if we know how).
Dopamine
Ever since Arvid Carlsson discovered dopamine as an independent neurotransmitter in 1957 in his lab in Sweden, scientists, health professionals, and neuroscientists have spent decades trying to understand it.
Nowadays, we know that dopamine is a molecule that’s made in the brain and acts as a chemical messenger, communicating messages between nerve cells in the brain and the rest of the body. We also know that it’s made by our adrenal glands that are located on top of each kidney and that it acts as a hormone.
But not just any old hormone, it’s the “pleasure” hormone or the “feel-good” hormone because well… it makes us feel good. (Duh.)
What’s interesting to note here though is that dopamine belongs to the same family as epinephrine or adrenaline. And adrenaline is known to prime the body for action before action is needed.
*Keep this in mind as we move forward because it’s an important one to remember.
Before this family tie was discovered, dopamine was thought to be a chemical that was released after an activity.
It was considered to be the brain and body’s reward system, so to speak.
Now, although that is still true, it’s also been discovered to be released during and even before we do something. And this is key when looking into sustaining long-term health and happiness because it becomes our motivation or driving force for what we do. And not just the result of them.
So, suddenly it goes from giving us something as a reward to already being something within us and that’s massive.
How?
Dopamine is highly connected to motivation, satisfaction, and craving, so it inspires us to take action and enjoy taking action.
Now, why this is important is because eating chocolate and making love are delicious ways to feel dopamine flowing through our veins but so is the thought of both chocolate and making love.
And that’s what keeps us so motivated to want more of both.
Without this driving force, not a whole lot would happen. Take sloths, for example. Even they wake up and crawl their slothy asses down from their cozy tree to find a mate and have sex.
Do you see what I mean?
To sustain high levels of dopamine consistently, though, finding the sweet spot is key. It’s somewhere between the Buddha and Hunter S. Thompson.
Avoiding big spikes helps here.
“Don’t spike dopamine prior to engaging in effort, and don’t spike dopamine after engaging in effort. Learn to spike dopamine from effort itself” — Andrew Huberman
This has been one of the biggest breakthroughs in our understanding of dopamine as it helps to maintain a baseline of happiness and once the baseline is solid, dopamine can be released often.
Why?
When the outcome of events becomes less important than the process — everything changes.
When the process becomes the most important part of the journey the motivation to keep putting in the effort continues to build so the more energy there is to get things done. After all, if your only goal is to arrive — what happens after?
It’s likely that you’ll stop.
If you’re always arriving, on the other hand, there’s always a strong motivation to keep going.
So, this helps us to stay clear, focused, productive, energised, calm, happy, and connected, all of which boost energy and mood levels.
Now, back to adrenaline.
When we’re frightened, scared, aroused, or excited we get hit with an adrenaline rush. This often helps us to start doing something or continue doing it.
Think about starting a sports game, for example. A sportsperson gets a big rush of adrenaline before starting a match, going for a tackle during the match, and after the match if they win. They also get bursts of dopamine while training, preparing, and organising for the match days, weeks, and even months prior to it happening.
So, because dopamine and adrenaline belong to the same family, dopamine isn’t just the reward we get after we do something (like winning a game, for example) because it’s now been proven to happen before and during too.
Many people used to think we needed to do things to get a dopamine fix and thus experience joy and happiness. However, that’s been proven inaccurate, at least in terms of long-term happiness, anyway.
Don’t get me wrong, a massive surge of dopamine feels fantastic in the moment and it can sure make us feel happy and even elated. But it can quickly drop off and leave a lull after and that doesn’t feel so good.
A chocolate high or an orgasm are great examples here. So is MDMA. I love all three but it’s just as the old saying goes, “whatever goes up must come down.”
So, the real secret to sustaining true happiness (it seems) is to find joy in the process and then maintain it.
This also helps to celebrate the wins and consolidate the losses without much attachment or distraction. And then puts us right back to work again.
“Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s” — Baz Lurhmann
Dopamine is the currency of our time and there has never been an easier time to get a quick fix. Social media, Youtube, emails, messages, TV, shopping, pornography, gaming, gambling, drugs, and all the other myriad ways one can get high these days are all but a click away 24 hours a day.
It’s the “I want my feel-good moment RIGHT NOW!”
It’s the YES! way.
It’s on-trend right now.
The middle way, however, is all about consistency. It’s the slow and steady path that continues to feed happiness, pleasure, and connection over long periods of time.
It might not be as sexy or as intoxicating as the YES way but neuroscience proves that it’s key to sustaining long-term happiness, peace, and contentment. And that’s sexy!
So, what do you want? Do you want the quick fix or the slow burn?
Ultimately, which one you choose determines your next move.
Closing thoughts
Managing, regulating, and even sometimes limiting dopamine is key to finding balance in the age of indulgence because there’s so much that keeps the body and mind stimulated.
If the source of dopamine comes from within through mindfulness practices like meditation, breathwork, yoga, and dance and not through external stimulants like alcohol, social activities, sports, TV/Youtube videos, etc… then there’s a much better chance of maintaining balance.
And the older I get, the more I appreciate how special balance is.
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