Sea dipping increases dopamine almost as much as Cocaine and lasts for as much as 3 hours
Sea dipping increases dopamine almost as much as Cocaine and lasts for as much as 3 hours
When we met the word he used to describe his life was stagnant.
He had everything that he’d dared to want for his life and was grateful for it but something was missing.
The more he thought about it the more annoyed with himself he became.
That’s a pretty confusing place to be in when nothing is missing but it feels like everything is, like a sort of existential crisis.
We looked at his life and I pointed out some simple science behind what might be happening.
When dopamine goes up there is a corresponding dip that is experienced by the brain as pain and by our thoughts as a drive to repeat the dopamine rewarding behaviour.
Too many of these without balance and the dopamine reservoir runs dry.
Those things that bought reward no longer do and the baseline (mood) drops too.
Everything feels stagnant and boring.
We made some adjustments.
Took a look at some of those dopamine loops, sugar, phone, micro-managing, booze, workouts, back to back meetings, slack, email.
We bought up the baseline (higher than ever before) and restored the reward pathway so good stuff felt good again.
Our brain 🧠 or our thoughts at least tend to look at our feeling and jump to a corresponding conclusions that matches the magnitude of the feeling.
I’m anxious so the world is ending,
They look annoyed there must be something wrong with me, I’m stressed I must need a life overhaul, I can’t stop looking at my phone I must be weak or broken.
We all at once feel stuck and like EVERYTHING must be wrong.
We are a chemistry set. If we aren’t feeling the way we want to feel and performing the way we want to perform then that chemistry set is out of balance somehow.
That doesn’t mean the outside world doesn’t need to change, but it does mean the interventions need to be far less radical than we tend to think.
But when the chemistry is out of balance nothing seems like the right solution.
When the balance is restored we often move rapidly in the direction we are inspired to.
My point is, John wasn’t as lost as he thought and the chance are you aren’t either…