When We Suffer We Seek Pleasure, Not Happiness!
Dr, Gabor Mate suggests that addiction is something that we use to escape pain in the moment but we regret almost instantly but we repeat over and over again no matter how bad it makes us feel.
We are in pain and so we seek dopamine boosting activities however, the problem as Dr. Lustig explains the more we boost our levels of dopamine. Chronic over activity of certain neurons will kill the cell. So what does the brain do?
There are nature sources of dopamine and synthetic sources of dopamine. It is the synthetic sources of dopamine that can really get ourselves into trouble.
Synthetic sources are sugar, caffeine, social media, drugs, alcohol, and porn.
To get the same level of dopamine we need more intense levels of dopamine. So what one brownie did for us before we now need two, what 1 hit of cocaine did for us before, we now need 2 hit, what romantic porn did for us before, we now need hard core porn.
Which can lead to over dosing, and relationship and legal troubles.
There is also a balancing factor! The higher our levels of dopamine are the lower our levels of serotonin which is the brain chemical of happiness. So the lower and lower we push our serotonin levels seeking pleasure. The more dopamine we need.
So as you can see how easy it can be to become addicted to these dopamine boosting activities. We need dopamine to survive! If you have ever felt to lazy to get out of bed, or do house work. This is because of a lack of dopamine. (That is for another discussion)
But we are here addressing “How To Build A Happy Life” and you must understand how to have a balance of dopamine and serotonin.
