Dopamine

Watching tv in the morning while getting ready for work? Listening to music when you get bored? Watch tv as soon as you get home from work? Watch tv to go to bed? Sleep with the tv on? Can’t have any amount of silence? Dopamine is mostly the culprit. Well, mismanagement of dopamine.

One aspect worth noting is that for some, not being able to sit in silence is related to being left with one’s thoughts. This sometimes stems from ACEs (adverse childhood experiences) that were never dealt with. As soon as it gets silent, those memories start coming back, so we look for noise to drown it out. The problem is it never goes away until we actually deal with it.

So why is it a big deal that we have tv on all the time? One reason is that if we are trying to sleep, the tv prevents us from going into REM sleep. Another is the brain needs more and more dopamine to reach balanced levels.

Dopamine was designed to be released in doses apropos to the stated goal. Too much or too little and things go bad.

A research study was done on rats and dopamine. They successfully muted or deactivated the part of the brain in the rat that produces dopamine. Then they put a piece of cheese about 6 inches in front of it. The rat starved to death. There was no system of pursuit in the rat. So we need dopamine to survive.

However, too much is just as bad. When we get hits of dopamine from things that cause us to produce massive amounts at once, it overloads our system. Things like TV (studies show that the brain is at its lowest functioning when watching tv and listening to college lectures), smart phones, alcohol, drugs, tobacco, chocolate (anything with lots of processed sugar), porn, the list goes on.

This is where homeostasis kicks in. Our body is meant to be in balance. So when our brain gets overloaded by dopamine because we turned the tv on, the synapses shut down and stop allowing dopamine to travel from neuron to neuron. The only medicine… is more dopamine. So when we turn the tv off, our brain says “NO! I need stimuli right now!!!” This is because your brain is mislead into thinking you are lacking dopamine all because it took in too much dopamine and your body’s attempt at homeostasis is sending mixed signals. This is the literal reason for addiction.

I’m not suggesting that tv is bad, that background noise is bad, that listening to music when you’re bored is bad. I’m only suggesting that if the intake of those things appears to be out of balance and there’s no possibility of silence without a disruption in your mental state, you may not be living your best life.

So what now? Dopamine fast. More on that later. But it is a thing. After that, we monitor our dopamine intake carefully to ensure we don’t overload. Knowing is one step closer to making it a possibility.

Stay Classy GP!

Grainger