It's All Dopamine

First off, why do YOU need to learn about dopamine AND how to use it to your benefit? Well because doing hard stuff becomes a cakewalk when you master the ways of using dopamine. Imagine working out giving you as much pleasure as drinking an Oreo-milkshake! (literally)

 

WARNING: The following post will give you many reasons to quit things you may love. You may even think: What? Why would I give that up? It doesn't do any harm.

 

PS: That's your brain making rationalizations and excuses to continue getting a continuous flow of dopamine from that particular source. (Yes, your brain is sneaky!)

 

2nd Warning: Do not read this unless you are ready to finally change your life and go through intense challenges!

 

Intro: What the hell is dopamine?

 

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter. An organic chemical inside your brain that interacts with your dopamine receptors (more on that later). In simple terms, it's what makes you feel pleasure.

 

Everything you do which your body feels improves it's chances of survival or reproduction releases dopamine. Among them, other dopamine triggers include pleasurable stimulus.

 

Part I: When You Were A Kid VS Now!

 

First off, you'll want to cut out two things. The first is humongous dopamine spikes (the only exception being orgasm through real life sex and personal achievement/success).

 

The second thing is any stuff that give a continuous flow of excessive dopamine. (I'm talking video games especially)

 

Doing this will help you achieve your dreams because things that give big dopamine spikes overstimulates your dopamine receptors. This makes everything else that gives you smaller dopamine spikes feel more boring, lethargic and hard to do.

 

Examples you'll understand: Remember when you were a kid and did a bunch of things that you'd think were boring now?

 

You could relate to at least 1 of the following: 1. Playing in the dirt. 2. Digging holes. 3. Playing with bugs. 4. Staring at plants. 5. Looking outside the car while it was driving and being BLOWN away at the scenery. 6. Climbing the monkey bars and being so bat-s@it excited you'd push other kids out of the way. 7. Building sandcastles. 8. Finding mushrooms. 9. Being super excited with that ball you'd bounce for hours. 10. Staring at fish in the pond for what seemed like hours. 11. Looking up in the sky at the clouds. 12. Going swimming and being super excited. 13. Going to the supermarket and being amazed at all the food. 14. Feeling the cold air from the freezers at the supermarket. 15. Going to the beach and looking at the waves.

 

You get the point. And now, this stuff would be very hard for some (or even most) of you to do in the same excitement and passion. Now, you'd be more likely to stare at your phone in the backseat (or front) than look outside at the breath-taking scenery. 

 

Why? Because staring at a screen with constant stimulus gives you more dopamine than looking at your surroundings. And so, you are more used to the bigger/continuous dopamine spikes of Pokemon Go than staring at the scenery.

 

But wait, what would happen if you stopped using the phone and forced yourself to stare at the scenery. Heres what will happen, you'll feel bored and have a strong craving to go back to using your phone. Stay with me here. This is the part 99% of people miss. If you would continue forcing yourself to stare at the scenery and do it no matter how boring it gets. Eventually in time, it would begin to feel less and less boring until it becomes as pleasurable as using your phone. But this will only happen if you can cut out all the dopamine nukes in your life.

 

Part II: Common Dopamine-Nukes in Modern society (Run For Your Life!):

 

Music: That music you listen to. Sounds that trigger the striatum, the brain's reward system, to release dopamine. You know that feeling, that chill you get hearing the best part of songs? That's a mother-load of dopamine being released. You always play it in the car so you (your brain) can keep getting a constant flow of dopamine) Do you listen to music doing homework or know anyone who does? That's because music gives you bonus dopamine so that homework will feel less boring. The solution is to force yourself to do homework without music until doing homework feels the same as with listening to music because your dopamine receptors will become less dull.

 

For me, at this point I've eliminated dopamine spikes to the point of not even feeling the urge to listen to music. In fact, I feel more pleasure weighing my food by the gram to calculate nutrition. (And you can feel the same way too!) By the way, guess which one I do more everyday? Simple answer, weighing my food.

 

Sugary foods: I'm talking Cinnabon, Cinnamon sticks. Candy. Cookies. Ice cream. Etc. Sugar gives your body lots of energy energy so it releases tons of dopamine. Cut it out and I promise you, eating that potato will eventually feel as good as eating ice-cream IF and only IF you do cut out all super sugary foods. How do I know for sure? Because I cut out all sugary foods and crackers give me as much pleasure as cookies and potatoes feel like devouring chocolate ice-cream. And that, my friends, is how you get your weight goals.

 

Video games: Most video games today are designed to pump you with so much dopamine that you keep playing. You finishing a traditional classic video game makes the dopamine stream abruptly lower. Why? Because the exact same scenario again and again will release less dopamine. (Just like listening to that song too many times makes it lamer. No, it's just giving you less dopamine because your brain is used to it) Now it's even worse for you to play video games because they don't end and they add variety every game so your brain will take much longer to become used to it. Games like Overwatch and League of legends never end, you just keep playing game after game with different characters every time. Cut them all out at once, especially Pokemon Go (which will never end because they will keep adding new Pokemon).

 

Digital entertainment: This includes TV, Youtube, TV series, Netflix, and movies. They give you big streams of dopamine that keep spiking until other things that are more important in your life become boring. Have you or anyone you know ever procrastinated on homework and compulsively watched Youtube instead? That's because Youtube gives you more dopamine than homework and your dopamine receptors have changed over time to watch Youtube instead of do homework. So quit youtube and cut out digital entertainment. Even movies are mostly dopamine pumping hyper-realities. And here's the kicker, watching motivational videos and videos to "learn" how to get it done is just to get more dopamine. Because even that gives more dopamine than just fucking doing it! The only solution is to cut out dopamine spiking technology stimulus out and replace it with what you know you need to do long enough until what you need to do feels as good as the technology stimulus because your dopamine receptors will become used to the lower levels of dopamine.

 

Part III: Making A Giant Leap In Your Pleasure, Success and Motivation

 

Don't just take a step in the right direction! Take a gigantic leap!

 

Now, it's your time to put whatever was written here into action to change your life. Cut out all the dopamine spikes written above and do whatever it takes. Endure those intense cravings. Imagine a gun pointed at your head and if you give into those cravings the bullet fires! (You can do it with a knife to your neck too).

 

This will make your dopamine receptors less dull over time and more receptive to lower levels of dopamine so doing things that are boring now will eventually feel not-boring if you can cut out big dopamine spikes.

Then, you keep doing the things you know you need to do but don't feel like doing long enough until your dopamine receptors become used to less dopamine and those things will feel good to do.

 

Conclusion: Dopamine is pleasure. Your brain craves more pleasure. You get too much pleasure and your brain adapts to feel like tons of pleasure is less pleasure then everything else becomes more boring. Cut those big pleasure spikes out and everything else becomes more pleasurable. Your dopamine receptors change to interact with less dopamine when you have too much and when you cut down on dopamine, your dopamine receptors change to interact with more dopamine. This makes boring stuff fun. Do boring things long enough and endure until it becomes pleasurable via dopamine receptors. And remember, think in terms of dopamine the next time you feel like not doing what you need to do!