Dopamine on purpose

Choose intentionally.

Let’s talk about dopamine. Dopamine is our motivation neurotransmitter and it seeks reward and pleasure. 

We get hits of dopamine from eating sugar, social media likes, checking social media, checking email, thinking about pleasurable things/people, or finishing tasks, just to name a few things.

Because our actions can be driven almost unconsciously by our desire for dopamine hits, we want to start being more aware of where we get our dopamine on purpose. OR decide that we need less dopamine overall. 

So here’s how we can think about this. Our human brains can be rewarded in many ways. Mostly, the way our brains were designed was to be rewarded initially by things that would keep us alive, which is a very good idea.

So we are rewarded by things like accomplishment, by comfort, by food, by sex, by conserving energy.  When we were just starting to develop as humans, those were some of the things that drove us to stay alive, versus just staying in the cave, being afraid, and not going anywhere. We had dopamine driving our reward system, so we would go and seek things out.

We want to become aware of where we’re focusing our dopamine seeking. If we’re focused on getting dopamine from food, for example, we’ll be thinking about the next snack, our next meal, going to the grocery store, going to Starbucks, going to dinner, etc. However, this likely leads to a negative result of being overweight or having disordered eating.

Recently, I’ve been getting dopamine from learning through online courses, reading self-help books, and creating more in my business. I get dopamine from doing hard things—things that I “don’t feel like” doing, but I do them anyway because it serves me to do them. 

We can get dopamine from taking a walk, from completing a task (even just a small one), from seeing a clean floor after vacuuming, from singing, from creating, from anything that rewards us with some pleasure. 

When we become more aware of where our dopamine is focused, we can take better care of ourselves.

We get to decide, “I’m now going to spend more time doing these things that contribute to the life that I want and the results I want in my life.” Instead of unconsciously choosing other things that may produce negative results. 

Your turn: Where are you directing your dopamine? Where are you directing your desire? Where are you currently getting the most rewards? Where do you want to be getting rewards from on purpose? What pleasurable things would you like to create for yourself to experience and enjoy consciously?

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