The Dopamine overdose

Bijenti Irengbam *

What is Dopamine detox exactly ? One of my neighbourhood boys and his friends are all into likes, they do some of the strangest things just to get a like. This particular boy climbed out of the 1st floor window, walked along the ledge at morning and climbed on top of the roof. For what ? To get the best Facebook or Instagram post !This is called Dopamine meet social Media.

Dopamine is a reward and pleasure chemical that our brains release when we do something exciting or enjoyable. But modern life is saturated with stimuli that trigger Dopamine. Dopamine is released every time we receive something on our phones. It could be a text from a loved one, a “like” on Facebook, or a bit of breaking news we find interesting.

Dopamine feels good, so we keep checking our phones, hoping to get a little hit of it. This means our brains are awash in Dopamine all the time, and that we progressively need ever-larger doses of Dopamine to feel happy. What’s A Bad Habit ? To me, everything we do that doesn’t have a positive return is a bad habit. Some- times, it’s what we don’t do that’s the bad habit. For example, I consider laziness a bad habit.

We all know that a lot of our behavior is bad. It doesn’t require a genius to understand that eating junk food, smoking, drinking alcohol, complaining, playing mobile games, browsing social media, lashing out at people, are bad things. Life is hard. We experience setbacks, stress, and hurt all the time. Thinking is a fact of life. But if our thoughts become stuck in a loop of worry and negativity, we may be overthinking.

Overthinking, sometimes called rumination, is the process of repetitive negative thinking. And our natural reaction is to escape our challenges. When we’re faced with a challenge, it’s not often easy to find humor in the situation. But humor can be just what we need to balance the situation and boost our morale. I love it when I’m able to find something funny in the midst of a stressful situation.

Few years ago, while going through Kolkata airport , I was trying to remove my watch. As I attempted to take it off, the watch slipped out of my hand. I grabbed for it and accidentally smacked across the floor.

Nervously, I turned to the Airport Security and said, Time flies, doesn’t it ? People are lovers of the social and the humorous, and the soul of their humor is manifest in their social gatherings, tales, civil and religious celebrations.

In today’s world, amidst all of the depressing news and the negative climate, I think it is good for a person to have at least one laugh, giggle, or smile every day. It has often been said that Ancient Egyptians believed the world was created out of laughter. They did, in fact, regard humor as something holy.

It is said that young children laugh as much as 100 to 200 times a day, compared to a large majority of adults who only get zero to several daily laughs. Yet laughter is good not only for the body but also for the soul and spirit. We all experience difficult times throughout our lifetime.

In today’s world where distractions are everywhere, Dopamine detox is to make ourself a schedule. The point of it is to fill our day with good habits and make this DAY a habit. To understand addiction we must first understand Dopamine, the chemical, sometimes referred to as the “feelgood” hormone.

Dopamine motivates us to do things we think will bring pleasure. Addiction is complex, and science is still uncovering why it affects some people more than others. Habits make us feel safe.

Judgments of those who are different than us make us feel protected. Even though we can’t be directly addicted to Dopamine, we can get addicted to any activity that releases it. As the brain’s major reward and pleasure neurotransmitter, it’s what drives us to seek pizza when we’re hungry. That adolescents are more likely to demonstrate addiction-like symptoms with their cell phone use than other age groups.

Enjoyable activities, from watching Netflix to gambling, switch on the brain’s “reward pathway,” flooding the brain with the feelgood chemical messenger dopamine. Receiving more Dopamine will never be enough to satisfy us because the thres- hold constantly increases.

Any Dopamine-producing activity can lead to “behavioral addiction,” when a person feels compelled to engage in a behavior to the point that it hurts their health, work, or relationships. Drug and alcohol abusers struggle to give up addictions that hurt their bodies and tear apart families and friendships. And many of us have unhealthy excess weight that we could lose if only we would eat right and exercise more.

So why don’t we do it ? Habits are a learning mechanism. All we have to do is repeat something and get rewarded for it, and we’re learning a habit.

Habits are our brain’s way of increasing its efficiency. Our brain turns daily actions and behaviors into habits, so we would do them automatically and without too much thought. Crises can bring out the best in people, just as they can bring out the worst in people. Firefighters, for instance, show great courage by putting themselves at risk as they rush into burning buildings to save total strangers.

If we reflect deeply upon our own experiences, we can find many times we may have been in a difficult situation but eventually grew stronger from it, or in the end it worked out better than we thought it would.

This is the nature of trials; they are opportunities for advancement. One of the most terrifying aspects of our lives is how much of it is outside of our control. When we are faced with the uncertainty that comes when something transformative happens, it can feel as though everything is falling apart.

We no longer recognize our life; the things that we were once familiar are now foreign and we ourself may have changed. When we view our problems as larger than life, while ignoring the positive aspects, it’s only natural that negative emotions will follow. We are more consumed by the realities of suffering than the search for happiness.

How small acts of kindness every day make genuine differences in the lives of others. A neglected plant gets a little extra water. Sometimes people come into your life and we know right away that they were meant to be there, to serve some sort of purpose, teach us a lesson, or to help us to figure out who you are or who you want to become.

We never know who these people may be possibly friend, neighbor, cowor- ker, longlost friend. Without these small tests, whatever they may be, life would be like a smoothly paved, straight, flat road to nowhere. Prayer or Meditation can heal wounds, bridge gaps, and transform even the most challenging situations into opportunities for growth and understanding.

The world around us influences everything, inclu- ding how we feel. What we see, what we read, whom we talk to along the way—it’s all absorbed. Like the saying,”what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Many people also feel other powerful emotions and reactions that may be confusing and scary.

Staying positive is only a small part in getting through the difficult times, but it’s an important part. Stress expressed as anxiety and pressure is a natural response to the change of culture and surroundings.

When the going gets tough, the tough gets going. These words are very true. Sometimes, when we face adversity, instead of becoming discouraged, we decide to work harder. While Dopamine is commonly associated with positive emotions and reward, its role in mood regulation is more complex.

Imbalances in Dopamine levels have been implicated in various mood disorders, including depression and bipolar disorder. Both low and high Dopamine levels can contribute to mood dysregu- lation. Breaking habits is hard. We all know this, whether we’ve failed our latest diet so most of us have to seek happiness in other ways. Tragically, some people turn to drugs or alcohol.

I have stopped bargaining with vegetable and fruit vendors. A few money more is not going to break me, but it might help the seller daughter’s school fees, the extra money might bring a big smile to her face.

She is toiling much harder for a living than I am. If you are ALIVE today and HEALTHY, you are more blessed than the MILLIONS of people of the world. Life may be crazy, but we can still find happiness in this crazy world.

Our happiness is dependent on how we approach life and the world around us.