How's Your Dopamine?
Healthy practices for restoring dopamine balance
What is Dopamine?
Dopamine is a neurotransmitter in the brain that plays a vital role in how we feel pleasure, motivation, and satisfaction. It's often called the "feel-good" chemical because it’s involved in reward and happiness.
Dopamine helps control pleasure, motivation, mood, and even movement. It also helps with learning, memory, and attention.
Do we have too much or not enough?
The answer to this question is more complicated than just picking a side.
The dopamine pathways in our brains are constantly being stimulated as we simply live our lives in the modern world. Social media, video games, sugary / processed foods, shopping, binge watching shows, gambling, notifications - the list goes on and on.
This constant stimulation can lead to desensitization to the otherwise common and healthy ways of increasing dopamine - such as exercising or spending time with loved ones.
This causes us to feel bored, restless, and unsatisfied. It causes a lack of motivation, low energy, a craving for instant gratification, and an inability to feel pleasure.
Sound familiar?
What do we do?
To recover from this desensitization, we have to…
Detox - The first step is to identify the bad habits we see occurring in our lives and cut them out. This could be scrolling endlessly on social media, shopping online, constantly keeping up with the news, playing video games, etc. Whatever it is for you, plan to take a break from it for a set period of time. Maybe you decide to give it up for the rest of 2024?
Identify & Engage in Meaningful Activities - This is the fun part! You get to identify and incorporate fun, life-giving activities into your day to day to increase dopamine in a healthy way. These might be things you are already doing, but you won’t notice that “feel good” feeling until you detox.
Evaluate - At some point, you will want to decide if and when you want to reincorporate the activities you detoxed from back into your life. If you do, consider setting some guidelines around what that will look like.
Can my healthy dopamine activities cause desensitization?
Whether it's something often viewed negatively, like social media, or something seen positively, like exercise, both can lead to desensitization if done excessively.
The key to healthy dopamine levels is balance and moderation. Engaging in activities in a healthy, sustainable way boosts dopamine and improves mood, but overindulging in short-term pleasures can result in desensitization or dopamine fatigue. Prioritizing activities that offer long-term satisfaction and fulfillment, rather than quick fixes, supports a healthier dopamine response.
In summary, too much of a good thing can become a bad thing. Variety is best!
What kinds of healthy activities boost dopamine?
It is time to make your own personalized dopamine menu! This is a list of meaningful, dopamine boosting activities to pick and choose from (variety!). Here are some ideas to get you started…
Taking a long unplugged walk
Reading a book in the sunshine
Napping
Set small goals (pages to read, meals to cook) & celebrating them!
Eating / making a healthy meal
Planning out your day / week
Going for a bike ride
Doing something kind for someone else
Listening to your favorite artist or album
Spending unplugged, quality time with loved ones
Making a to-do list with the small things & checking them off
Deep breathing
Playing a game or doing a puzzle (bonus points if you do it with others!)
Stretching
Practicing gratitude
Taking a cold shower / cold plunge
Setting a timer to accomplish a task
Making a matcha or coffee
Learning something new
Cuddling your pets
Engaging in your favorite creative hobby - coloring, writing, playing an instrument, etc.
What are you adding to your dopamine menu?
Take care,
Caroline