How often have you caught yourself thinking, “Well, I spent the whole weekend stuck in endless feeds, but didn’t do anything useful”? Don’t rush to blame yourself! Most likely, it’s all about your brain, which is used to playing around with dopamine. Alas, most modern people (and we, too) face this problem. beeline cloud – not an exception). Good news: it can be solved!
Why are some people so much more motivated by challenging tasks? And is there a way to turn difficult things into easy ones?
Chances are you can play video games every day. Or, for example, scroll through social networks. I also have no doubt that you can easily sit all day in front of a monitor screen.
Now try devoting an entire hour to studying… It sounds very tiring. What if you worked on your side project for an hour or two instead? Hm. It’s still boring.
Indeed, studying, exercising, developing a business or something similar will bring much more benefits in the long run than procrastination or solving primitive problems. But even knowing this, we still prefer TV, video games and social networks. [Да, здесь и я не исключение… Каюсь!].
However, you can immediately object to me: they say, it’s obvious why this happens. One lesson looks simple and does not require much effort, while the other looks complex and forces you to strain.
Neverthelesssome people have no problem studying regularly, playing sports, or working on side projects.
The conclusion that follows is that these people simply enjoy doing all these things. But then a new question arises: Why do some people enjoy taking on difficult tasks while others do not? Is there actually a way to turn difficult things into easy ones? Well, I suspect you will not refuse a detailed answer. Let’s dive into the topic headlong!
First of all, we should pay attention to dopamine, a neurotransmitter in the brain. Dopamine is often called “pleasure hormone”. But this is not true at all. What exactly does dopamine control? He forces us want something!
It is this desire that motivates us to get off the couch and go do something. However, it is still unknown for sure how strong the influence of dopamine on human behavior is. As an illustration, I will give a couple of interesting experiments that neurologists performed on rats.
Researchers implanted electrodes into the brains of rats and installed special levers in the cage. Every time the rat moved the lever, the scientists stimulated the area of its brain that controls the internal reward system. As a result, the rats developed such a strong need to pull the lever that they began to do it continuously. The rats refused to eat and sleep; they stubbornly continued to pull the lever until they collapsed from exhaustion.
And then the researchers blocked the release of dopamine. The rats became so lethargic that they did not even try to get up and drink water. They didn’t eat, didn’t mate, and didn’t want anything at all. It was clear that the rats had lost all will to live. When food was brought directly to their mouths, they ate readily, but they there was no desire go to food on your own.
It would seem that thirst and hunger prompt us to eat and drink, but the key role here is played by dopamine. Experiments with rats are, of course, an extreme case, but in ordinary life one can observe a similar effect of dopamine on people.
In fact, the brain forms priorities largely based on how much dopamine it expects to get from completing a task.
If a particular activity releases too little dopamine, a person will be less motivated to do it. Otherwise, you will be motivated to devote as much time to her as possible.
Any activity from which you expect a certain level of pleasure releases dopamine. Conversely, if you anticipate boring, unpleasant work, no dopamine will be released.
For example, before a delicious meal, your brain actively releases dopamine because you anticipate how good you will feel after and during the meal.
The brain doesn’t care that high levels of dopamine are harmful, the main thing is that there is as much of it as possible. So, when using some drugs, so much dopamine is released that it harms the body.
Conclusion: Dopamine can be released by absolutely any activity.
The greatest amount of dopamine is released when reward occurs suddenly. It’s like playing a slot machine: even if you lose, you expect that you are about to beat the ill-fated machine. And the whole question is when this will happen.
In today’s digitally saturated world, our brains are flooded with an unreasonable amount of dopamine every day without us even realizing it. Do you remember the example about social networks and games? All day long we wait for the moment of reward to arrive.
That’s why we constantly check our phone in the hope that a new reaction, or comment, or message has come (and eventually it does). We, like experimental rodents, pull the lever, trying once again to feel a noticeable dopamine “hit”. You may object: “So what, it doesn’t harm me in any way.” But this is a deep misconception.
There is such a term – homeostasis. In relation to the human body, it denotes the desire to maintain an internal balance of chemical and physical processes. When an imbalance occurs, the body begins to resist and try to return everything to the way it was.
For example, if it is cold outside and your body temperature drops, you will begin to involuntarily shiver as this allows you to generate some heat and warm yourself up. If it gets too hot and your body temperature rises, you sweat to get rid of the excess heat. The body strives to constantly maintain a body temperature of 37 degrees Celsius, regardless of the circumstances.
With dopamine everything is exactly the same. Your body tries to maintain homeostasis, so it also regulates the level of dopamine released. Having become accustomed to a constantly high level of dopamine, the body will consider this state a new norm, which must be strived for by all means.
This is the main problem: activities that do not bring enough dopamine become uninteresting to you, so you do not feel any attraction to them. Instead, boredom sets in and the desire to quit everything and go play. This is the reason why we start to get stuck on our phones or on the console instead of studying or working.
Due to similar reasons, it becomes difficult to lead a normal life. Tolerance to dopamine becomes so high that the daily routine begins to seem unbearably dreary and hopeless – there is not the slightest motivation to do anything.
A logical question arises: what to do if you have already fallen into a dopamine trap? The answer is simple: do a dopamine detox.
Here’s the recipe: set aside a day during which no “high dopamine” activities will occur. Only simple, quiet things that bring moderate pleasure. This way you can “cleanse” your dopamine receptors and begin to enjoy activities that just yesterday seemed like sheer boredom.
Avoid the Internet and any gadgets, such as a smartphone or computer, for the whole day. Don’t listen to music, don’t eat fast food. Remove all external sources of pleasure and… enjoy real boredom. Believe me, you will be terribly bored. However, only in the first hours. No one forbids you to walk, meditate, reflect on your life, make plans and write down new ideas on paper.
Too radical a plan, you might say. But if you need quick results, you will have to take drastic measures.
Why should this even work?
Let’s say you had lunch every day at the best restaurant in town. Luxurious, expensive meals have become the new norm. If you are given a bowl of rice instead, you will most likely refuse. Boiled rice looks too simple against the backdrop of a gourmet restaurant.
And if you suddenly find yourself on a desert island, without food and water, then even a bowl of rice and a glass of ordinary water will seem like manna from heaven in a couple of days.
This is exactly how dopamine detoxification works. You are deprived of all your usual pleasures, so after a while any activity begins to look attractive. Simply put, you get bored. And against the backdrop of doing nothing, any, even the most banal task, becomes a source of treasured dopamine.
If you can’t live even one day outside of your usual routine, try relaxing the detox rules.
Choose one day a week and during it completely abstain from any one activity that stimulates high dopamine production. Everything else can be done. The main thing is not to break down.
You’ll end up feeling a little bored, but that’s the point. Let the receptors recover from the constantly high levels of dopamine. Boredom will spur you to do something you don’t normally like to do. You may not get much joy from the task, but sitting on it will become much easier than usual.
But remember: this is only the first step towards change. First, from time to time you limit yourself to “cheap” sources of dopamine, and then little by little you learn, in principle, to resort to them as little as possible.
Try adding dopamine to useful tasks that you just can’t get around to. For example, after a good job, treat yourself to something bright and pleasant. This will benefit you greatly in the long run.
Start tracking all the “boring” activities, such as cleaning, studying, or exercising. If you try hard, you can reward yourself with something nice at the end of the day. Pay attention to the key words: “if you try” and “at the end of the day.”
If you first indulge yourself in “high-dopamine” activities, then later you will not want to work or study. There won’t be enough motivation.
For example, for one hour of boring but effective work, I reward myself with 15 minutes of “high-dopamine” rest at the end of the day. It turns out that for 8 productive hours of work I have 2 honestly deserved hours of pleasant and fun things to do. However, you can make up the proportion based on your own characteristics and preferences.
IMPORTANT: If you consider something harmful or seriously addictive as a reward, refuse such stimulation and choose another, harmless pastime.
As for me, Guilty Pleasure (pleasure mixed with guilt) evokes the Internet for me. I get lost in it and lose track of time. Without a clear system, it is impossible to control this “dependence”.
This is the only way I can make ordinary, everyday things interesting and exciting again.
We are all dependent on dopamine to one degree or another. And this is good, because dopamine motivates us to improve ourselves and achieve our goals.
But only you can decide how and where you will receive it.
The choice is always yours.
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