3 WAYS TO AVOID DOPAMINE CRASH – how to live a fulfilling life
Are you trapped in this loop of feeling unfulfilled in a modern world of abundance? In today's digital age, dopamine deficits can hijack your well-being. But fear not, because in this video, I'll reveal 3 powerful strategies to break free from the dopamine trap and discover a path to long-lasting fulfillment.
So it's pretty easy to feel a lack of fulfillment in modern life when you feel like you're just doing the same old stuff day in day out. Our society raises us to think that if we achieve certain things and act a certain way, we’ll find fulfillment automatically. But the truth is the relation between unfulfillment in the modern age of abundance, dopamine deficit, and Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs involves a complex mixture of psychological, neurological and socio-cultural factors.
Assuming all of your basic needs are met– you've got a job at least and there's no clear threat to your survival. What is next? Where do I go from here? Or is my life now for the next 30 to 50 years just day in day out doing the same work, doing more or less of the same stuff each and every day– until society says, now you are too old so stay at home.
Go retire and start a hobby that's compatible with arthritis?!
We surely need to find fulfilment in our day-to-day lives, every single day before reaching old age and retirement. And these were exactly the thoughts I was having recently– trying to find fulfillment in my life despite being fairly productive.
So you turn to social media to see what great things other people are up to and it is just so much noise and distraction that grab endlessly for your attention.
Most of the time you are drowning in the noise– turning numb from scrolling, hooked on binge watching, and over-consuming. In the modern age, the abundance of information and entertainment can lead to distortions in the brain's reward pathways and you feel bad in the end.
But why does it feel so good until it feels bad?
They found in neuroscience that pleasure and pain are co-located in our brain which means– the same part of our brain that processes pain also processes pleasure. Our brain wants to always maintain a balance between the two opposites which is called homeostasis, and it will work very hard to restore this balance if there is too much pain or too much pleasure– according to Dr. Lembke, author of "Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence."
Indulging on Social Media
For example, if I have a new computer game and I play it obsessively over and over again because I find it so amazing, after a certain round it just doesn't feel so enjoyable anymore and doesn't have that edge anymore.
Excessive exposure to one certain stimuli, such as constant engagement with social media, can lead to desensitization of dopamine receptors, contributing to a dopamine deficit. Dopamine deficit occurs if you over-indulge in certain activities. To recharge it, let's say, you need to quit these activities, cold turkey or not, and let your dopamine baseline rebuild– which got me also rethinking about the meaning of "Digital Minimalism" or "Dopamine Detox."
What is Dopamine?
Dopamine is a brain chemical that encourages motivation and drive– it is a driver for humans to seek things.
It controls your desire for pleasure and rewards but also important for movement. Dopamine interestingly encourages you to move and when you DO move, you release more dopamine– kind of like a fly wheel, so you better keep moving!
Dopamine fluctuations can totally change your perception on the successes, fulfillments and qualities of your life.
There is no such thing really as a dopamine hit because we each have, let's say, a limited reserve that move up and down. Our brain has a dopamine baseline which means if I experience high peaks of dopamine above my baseline, it does not mean I will feel even better afterwards, quite the contrary. The bigger the high, the bigger the drop in some sense that because so much dopamine has been released, there is a deficit afterwards that drops below my dopamine baseline and I will feel unmotivated and down.
You could get very short term boosts from chocolate, cold water therapy, sex, exercise and smoking nicotine. Remember, movement is also very important for healthy dopamine levels– doing exercise you love, can pump up your dopamine 2 times higher.
It is most often the reason behind why most ambitious high-achievers who work hard, do all the sports, go out socialize, basically check off everything on the list and look superhuman from the outside, claim to have burn out or lost their joy. They spike their dopamine through so many different activities throughout the week, throughout the years that this chronic high has wrecked their dopamine threshold giving out this sense of burn out and exhaustion. I will go through 3 easy ways towards the end of this video to avoid exactly this!
Maslow's Hierarchy– Self-Actualization: the Last Step
When I look at my life it kind of falls into this three-part narrative. I had a stable childhood and lots of studying and this kind of world where everything was laid out before me, I knew exactly what would come the next year. Into my 20s, I got to a point where I needed to explore and found myself working from job to job moving around different cities.
Obviously there's progression but there's no grand change or evolution that is immediately obvious aside from slightly bigger salaries or new titles. And at a certain point, even those "carrots on the stick" or external motivators do not work anymore and you reach a plateau– a void in your soul, mind, burnout– whatever you want to call it. You begin to question your purpose. And so the third part of the narrative is then the desire to figure out what you really want to do, and fulfilling that void which is bringing you down. It feels like a reset and taking many steps backwards for you to continue proceeding forwards– which I must say, can be an absolutely daunting process.
I came across the idea of self-actualization by Abraham Maslow the American psychologist who is famous for Maslow's hierarchy of needs which he introduced in his 1943 paper– A Theory of Human Motivation.
Self-actualization sits right at the very peak of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. So we need to have food and water then we need to have safety then we need to have love and relationships then we need to make sure that we feel a sense of esteem and pride in our work and we need to make sure that we feel valued in the community in which we exist. And then right at the very top we can finally pursue a sense of fulfilment in everything that we do. And that bit is self-actualization. Self-actualization is achieving one's full potential, including or I would even say "by means of" creative activities.
It is right at the top– it's the end destination, once we've done all of these other things in our life. Maybe it is even the reason why the Creator Economy is booming in the western world because all of the needs below have been met. And that means that it does feel exactly like that, like a destination to be reached, like we will somehow feel fulfilment once we have achieved our goals and climbed that pyramid.
You may have gone to all the right schools, worked your butt off, collected fancy job titles and checked off almost every box on the list. But how come–are you feeling completely the opposite of self-fulfilment?? What was missing? I needed to investigate further.
In the modern age of abundance, individuals may have their basic physiological and safety needs met but still struggle with higher-level needs. The pursuit of self-actualization and fulfillment may be impacted by factors such as social comparison, external pressures, and the constant exposure to curated lifestyles on social media.
Optimize Your Dopamine
Highly alert but with a calm state of mind is the sweet spot where you want to be for maximum performance. And we all want to enjoy and pursue things and activities which we love.
So how do we keep then a healthy level of optimal dopamine– continue to live with high motivation, desire and enjoy our lives??
1. Only when you Create or Take Action– can you be fulfilled
As we looked at earlier– action or movement is crucial to healthy dopamine release and essential towards fulfillment. I would like to say that only through creation or being a creator, can we reach the top of Maslow's pyramid of self-actualization and self-fulfillment. If you are always on the sideline in the shadows consuming, consuming and watching how everyone else is changing their lives and living it up– you will never feel fulfilled. Whatever it may be– whether it is writing a blog, creating a YouTube channel, joining an online course, to starting your own c business, you need to be in motion and take action. I always go out for a daily walk no matter how the weather is and I get an instant boost. It is the easiest thing you can do to immediately change your brain chemical– just get up from your sofa and go.
You can have peak dopamine once in a while from a great workout but don't aim for it everyday, all day, every time. It will down the road reduce your overall motivation massively and lead you even to depression. Aim to stay away from "too high or too low for too long" as a rule for healthy, dynamic dopamine levels.
2. Enjoy the Journey and the Efforts You Put in
In a study, scientists looked at a group of children that loved to draw. They started to give rewards to these children after they drew something. After a while when they removed the rewards, these children who intrinsically loved to draw before, stopped drawing– didn't want to draw anymore. The high they got from the reward at the end killed the joy they used to enjoy in the act and process of drawing.
It means be cautious when you find yourself doing something only because you are after the money, status, or whatever temptation at the end.
The reward which comes at the end of the activity, which creates a dopamine peak, reduces the dopamine release that would happen normally during the activity had there been no reward.
And over time you feel inevitably less and less joy from that activity. Being goal-oriented is for sure good, but enjoy the journey as they always say amongst entrepreneurs. You cannot control the outcome of your efforts but you have control over your output– so stay focused on your output!
I have so many friends that took jobs after studying only for the money and status perks and believe me– they were so miserable the entire time, spewing so much negativity, and could only continue with lots of alcohol during after hours and ultimately spend a lot of money on therapy to completely reset their careers and finally find something they love. The few that didn't manage to take the leap are mostly on anti-depressants and live day to day like zombies. Now we don't want that!
Access the internal rewards from the efforts and activity which you do– this way you access dopamine during the process and have more energy, higher performance. Learn to spike dopamine from the effort and the challenges not the final reward. Don't do something just for the reward, just because you want the money.
3. Express and Share with Close Ones
Talking about what you love, journaling, making gratitude lists, visualizing what you love and want– will increase your overall dopamine level.
Which is why they say visualisation and affirmations are so effective. Read our next article: HOW TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE IN ONE YEAR.
Your close social connections– the people that have your back no matter what, or what I also refer to as "Bonds" from our 5Bs for True Wealth– Being around them releases oxytocins in your brain which help release more dopamine. I also started One-to-One Coaching Sessions for those of you who want to go deeper in the topics we discuss here or for people who struggle with implementing the above 3 ways towards fulfillment and taking action to change their lives.