Dopamine

The neurotransmitter that controls every single action of human beings

How many of you, reading this, need that early morning tea or coffee before you speak to anyone in the morning?

Or how many of you reading this need to scroll social media right before you sleep and the moment you wake up?

Or for smokers who are not able to get that first drag of the cigarette in the morning?

Or people with a ‘sweet tooth’ who are just not able to control their cravings for sweets and junk food?

We know these habits are bad for us, so why do we keep doing them?

The answer to these addictions can be better understood by understanding the neurotransmitter called dopamine.

Most of us have heard about dopamine, but not many actually know that it controls almost every decision we make in our lives.

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that communicates between nerve cells in the brain and is linked to mood, motivation, sleep, and many other functions in the body! 

I learned everything about the neurotransmitter dopamine from Dr Anna Lembke in her book Dopamine Nation.

Dopamine plays a bigger role in the motivation of the reward than the actual reward. 

The feeling before that sip of coffee

The feeling right before that Instagram swipe

The feeling before eating that delicious dessert

The feeling before lighting that cigarette

Dopamine is released right before these acts, so it is the anticipation and the knowledge that these acts are going to take place that keeps your brain calm.

This is why you probably felt frustrated when your phone battery had died, so you had to wait for it to charge before you could scroll through social media, you were deprived of the instant dopamine hit expectation.

Or your morning coffee has run out, so you have to place an order to get the coffee instantly to ensure that your morning dose of dopamine is fulfilled.

The science of how dopamine actually works:

The feelings of pain and pleasure are balanced on overlapping parts of the brain via an opposite process mechanism like a see-saw as explained by Dr Lembke.

Activities that tilt the balance toward the “pain'“ side of the brain

• Exercising

• Eating Healthy

• Taking up challenging tasks at work or in your personal life

Activities that tilt the balance toward the “pleasure'“ side of the brain:

• Scrolling endlessly on social media

• Eating junk and sweet food

• Substance abuse, pornography

• Buying unnecessary items or shopping excessively

Don’t get me wrong- many pleasurable activities should be done, lest we become soulless humans. But the human brain works on scientific facts, which we cannot ignore.

Pleasurable activities release what is called cheap dopamine.

Cheap dopamine is the type of dopamine that can be easily achieved, but needs immediate replenishment.

As we do more cheap dopamine-releasing activities, the see-saw of our brain starts tipping towards the pleasure side of the brain.

It’s all fun and games at the start.

During that time of doing that pleasure activity, an opposite act is taking place; what Dr Lembke defines as 'gremlins', building up on the other side of the see-saw. 

So every time we engage in a pleasurable activity, the weight on the see-saw gets heavier and heavier on the other side, slowly balancing the see-saw.

The more we take part in cheap dopamine activities, the bigger and faster the gremlins grow on the other end, tipping the balance toward the painful side of the see-saw.

Source: Dopamine Nation- Anna Lembke

Now the gremlins on the other side of the see-saw of our brain have titled the see-saw completely on the pain side with continuous exposure to pleasure activities.

We now need more and more of that pleasure activity to feel incrementally better to rebalance the see-saw from the part that gremlins have titled towards the pain side of the brain.

Hence, a smoker can’t just stop at one cigarette anymore; the junk food eater isn't satisfied with that small packet of chips; the perennial social media scroller isn't content with only five minutes of scrolling.

They now need much more of that activity to feel better.

With repeated exposure to the pleasure activity, we need more and more of that pleasure activity to feel better or else we will feel extremely annoyed if we are deprived of the pleasure because the gremlins on the pain side of our brain have ensured that we need more of the drug to feel better.

This explains how you get addicted to any cheap activity because of dopamine.

This is how humans crave more addictive substances once they get hooked on them, due to the see-saw effect of dopamine in their brains.

As you get older, because of your past habits, you will find it tougher to take up healthy activities like working out, exercising, or tackling challenging tasks because the balance of your brain itself has tilted so much that is going to get harder to rebalance it.

Try to convince an older person to get to working out, eating healthy or quit smoking. It’s not going to be easy.

The more dopamine a drug releases and the faster it releases it, the more addictive the drug becomes!

Some items on the high cheap dopamine list 

Chocolate- 55%

Sex- 100%

Nicotine- 150%

Cocaine- 225%

Amphetamine- 1000%

The above table highlights the most addictive substances by the rate of dopamine they release.

Triggering cheap dopamine in today’s world is super easy- you can drink, smoke, watch adult content, eat sugary foods, gamble in stocks, and scroll endlessly on social media.

Most easily accessible activities release cheap dopamine and this is a tool which companies can also use to get you addicted to a product.

Too much exposure to cheap dopamine-inducing activities can alter the brain and cause the formation of 'hippocampal tattoos' which can change our brain structure towards motivation for our entire lives.

BUT FEAR NOT.

To tip the scales of excess dopamine and maintain what is called 'homeostasis' or 'equilibrium' for easier understanding, we need to counterbalance by doing activities that challenge us and release dopamine in a much more gradual and sustained manner!

• Doing a workout

• Taking up challenging tasks at work

• Eating healthy food

• Facing that problem that you have been running away from

All these activities help to release dopamine in a sustained manner and make you feel better.

This explains how after you ace a difficult exam, complete a difficult task at work, do a workout, or do any activity that challenges you- dopamine release tends to be gradual and at a much higher rate that sustains for longer.

You feel awesome after doing that hard task.

Let’s look at the see-saw now- we feel more fulfilled because we have counterbalanced the excessive cheap dopamine activities with hard activities that release dopamine in a more slow sustained manner.

There is a reason why you feel much better for longer when you do that 1 hour gym session rather than sitting on your couch, munching fries, and getting validated by the 10 other folks around you who are doing the same thing.

Hopefully, you have gotten a fair understanding of how dopamine works.

We have to maintain balance in our lives by moving between the activities of pain and pleasure if we want to harness the motivation and feeling of satisfaction that dopamine gives us.

We will get more addicted to cheap activities if we do not have painful activities to counterbalance the see-saw.

I have used these theoretical explanations and put them into practice in my life.

I will pick out the addictive substance that I consume which triggers the release of dopamine- Coffee.

While coffee is awesome and has tremendous benefits, there is no denying that it is an additive psychoactive substance that releases dopamine in our brains.

Coffee also stimulates the release of dopamine as we learnt in the start of the blog post.

Next time someone tells you to wait to speak to them until they have that first sip of morning coffee or tea, it’s the dopamine hit that needs to be fulfilled in their brain before they speak to you.

I can share from personal experience that when I quit coffee abruptly, I encountered some unwelcome effects.

On the third day without any caffeine, I felt down, experienced a severe headache, and had little desire to engage with others. Despite sufficient sleep, I still felt tired, and my gym performance declined by at least 10%.

This is because the of the balance act to the see-saw of my brain.

If you are a regular consumer and stop consuming caffeine, whether from coffee or other sources like tea, you may experience withdrawal symptoms.

These can manifest as irritability, headaches, agitation, a depressed mood, and fatigue.

The intensity of these symptoms is typically highest in the first few days after quitting caffeine but gradually diminishes over about one week.

Which explains why I graduated from a single cup of coffee per day to five cups per day. After those three cups, beyond a certain point, I wasn't as satisfied as I would have been when I first started the habit.

As I abstained from coffee for over a month, a mammoth task for me, my baseline levels of dopamine cravings came down substantially.

Absistence from the drug over time reduced my dependency on it.

I have a disciplined routine of three cups a day now and often go on a 'dopamine detox' from coffee from time to time.

Dopamine can lead you down a path of addiction, so carefully choose what you consume.

Coffee has tremendous benefits but it is an addictive psychoactive substance.

The addiction can worsen with the substances and habits I mentioned above, which do you no good.

In my professional life:

I suspect that investing in boring mutual funds for the long term or holding onto a stock for many years through lull periods requires one to alter their brain's response to dopamine. We now know that leaning into the discomfort of dopamine for the right activities leads to long-term sustainable rewards.

Trading in and out of stocks could possibly lead to the release of cheap dopamine, making you want more and more.

A study done in 2012 showed how dopamine released in professional equity market traders dictated returns that the traders generated. 

Traders who had a history of taking on excessive risk and traders who were too conservative in taking risks were the traders who had the worst results. 

Those traders who were somewhere in the middle, the ones who were able to balance the risk efficiently were the ones who did the best. The study highlights dopamine's role in accurately assessing risk and reward in trading.

Conclusion:

Understanding which activities dictate the release of cheap and slow-releasing dopamine in our bodies is crucial in determining whether we are addicted to something and whether we need abstinence or painful activites to counterbalance the see-saw of our brains.

With an understanding of dopamine, now you know why you may lack motivation to do certain difficult tasks as you age but fear not, this can be reversed.

These insights have had a tremendous positive impact on my life.