Tag Archives: dopamine

Dopamine and happiness

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We call it magick or the praxis of tantrik yoga…

“…adventure, love, prosperity, prestige…anything we aspire to at all…is really just the currency we use to buy the four things that really matter:

Dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins.

Realizing that even that kiss that melts your heart… only melts it because those four fairy godmothers waved their magic wands and turned your brain into a freakin princess.

But if our brain hits us with a really shitty exchange rate, if suddenly winning that Academy Award only buys us a day’s ration of serotonin, then how the hell are we supposed to stock up for our whole lives?

What can I do to get more joy out of everything I’m presented with, big or small?

How does anyone do that?

I guess there begins one’s lifelong quest for God, psychedelic drugs, transcendental meditation, or whatever the hell else you need to do to bring true value to the external pleasures of the world.

Anything that promises, not pleasure, but perspective.

There’s a good case to be made that those are the things worth seeking first, before even love and success.

Because watching my little boy flood his brain with happiness because he found a cool stick on the lawn is all the evidence I need that “how you experience” is so much more important than “what you experience.”

– excerpted from a really great 3 minute read, here:

Roadrunner: An inspiring but haunting documentary

Dopamine fasting

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Profile of man with symbol neurons in brain. Thinking like stars, the cosmos inside human, background night sky

Everyone has dopamine in their brains as a neurotransmitter. It gives you the desire to pursue pleasure and feelings of reward and happiness. Apparently, video games and scrolling social media, (and cocaine) flood the brain with abnormal amounts of it, and you can build up a “tolerance” which requires you to play more games and do more scrolling.

And some folks are now engaging in “dopamine fasting”, which can bring down your tolerance. This enhances focus and gets emotions on an even keel. Here’s a very interesting article about it.

Activities that flood our brains with the feel-good-reward neurotransmitter dopamine are:

scrolling on social media
playing video games
listening to music
watching TV
eating junk food
playing on our phones

… basically anything that doesn’t take a lot of work. Reading, learning something new, and math puzzles are things we’d rather not do because they are hard. But in the end they give us healthier levels of dopamine, AND they ward off dementia (along with exercise). I know I’m personally happier when I’m giving my brain a work out.

Sunlight exposure also activates our dopamine receptors, and any type of light activates dopamine release in our eyes! That’s why we stay hypnotized by our screens.

This video gives some great information about dopamine, and how to balance it’s levels in your brain: