Nação dopamina
dopamine is a neurotransmitter released in the brain to motivate you to achieve something. The body always tries to maintain homeostasis, so when you receive a dopamine boost, your body tries to counteract with some suffering, attempting to maintain homeostasis – opponent-process theory.
when you receive many stimuli originating from a dopamine source, your tolerance increases, so you need more doses than the first time to reach the same dopamine level. This causes dissatisfaction because you never receive the same amount of dopamine and the same feeling of happiness as the first time.
dopamine comes before achievement, as Spider-Man explains, "If you expect disappointment, then you can never truly be disappointed," because when you have a routine for receiving dopamine and that routine is broken before achieving the goal, your dopamine level decreases.
we are cacti in a tropical forest, we transform the elements of a simple world into something that is a dopamine bomb, we transform scarcity into abundance. Something that should be difficult to achieve now needs to be avoided.
dopamine detox has 8 steps that can be remembered using the first letter of DOPAMINE word:
- D - Data - is information about your addiction: what it is, when it occurs, simple data.
- O - Objective - is the goal of using the addiction, why do you use it? Fun? Pain? Depression? Anxiety? Anger? Fear? Social phobia?
- P - Problems - are the problems it causes. Health? Relationships?
- A - Abstinence - is a strategy to try to rebalance brain homeostasis. Dopamine detoxification.
- M - Mindfulness - is the act of diving deep into your brain, thinking about everything and tolerating boredom.
- I - Insight - is your reflection on what you have freed yourself from, how it has impacted your life, and how you realized it was harmful.
- N - New steps - are the next steps after freeing yourself, new hobbies, how to fill that "void".
- E - Experiment - is how you will deal with all of this after some time.
self-commitment involves creating obstacles between you and your addiction. There are three types of self-commitment: material, temporal, and meaningful.
material self-commitment involves avoiding addiction by using material things, such as locking your smartphone in a safe while working, removing all beer from your home, using only cash instead of cell phones, credit cards, etc.
temporal self-commitment involves setting limits on your addictions, such as using drugs only on weekends, drinking only on your birthday, using some instrument to measure time, etc.
meaningful self-commitment involves avoiding triggers related to your addiction, such as not seeing naked people, avoiding going to bars, etc.