Understanding how addictions work Pt 1

According to science, “Addiction is a chronic disease characterized by compulsive drug use and seeking despite the knowledge of its adverse effects.”, interesting while a bit terrifying at the same time.

Calling addiction a disease can be hilarious, but an utter truth that we fail to accept. But I still believe calling it a chronic disease is funny, but its effect is indeed chronic.

So let me refine it

“Addiction is a habit that makes us happy.”

This perspective may seem absurd, but don’t you play video games because they make you happy, or eat junk food because you feel good eating it?

But why do we feel like sh!t after doing those? Why does it hit our conscience so hard?

The reason is quite simple: addiction provides joy for just an instance.

So let me conclude it.

“Addiction is a habit that makes us happy for an instance ”

While this conclusion may seem very simple and unjustified, it isn’t

The science behind this is quite complex, but I will try my best to make it sound as simple as it can be

So most of you must have heard the name of Dopamine at least once in your life

People who don’t know about it yet, dopamine is a hormone in your brain responsible for motivation, movement, mood, and urges for pleasure and cravings. The most common misconception about dopamine is that having a high level of dopamine is bad and dangerous, but in reality, a high level of dopamine suggests that you’re highly motivated about something, and usually are in a good mood. But often, you will hear that dopamine is bad and that sort of thing. It surely isn’t about the level of dopamine you have, but how dopamine acts on certain things. But first, you have to understand how dopamine works.

Everybody has a baseline for dopamine release. When you eat something you like or play video games, your dopamine release peaks high,

but after the activity is done, your dopamine release drops below baseline, thus giving you a new, lower baseline while for, activities such as working out, walking in nature, journaling don’t reach peak high dopamine release but after the activity is done, firstly they don’t lose their dopamine release at an instant and secondly when their dopamine release comes to normal, it’s seen that it’s always higher than the baseline level they had at the start thus giving them a new higher baseline.

Now you all must be wondering, why does dopamine act so differently with just a change of activities? To understand that you have to know in how many ways dopamine acts and how they are released in different activities.

Dopamine has two circuital pathways to two different parts of the brain, not going into much detail, studies show that one pathway acts on the urge of drugs, lust, and cravings, while the other pathway reacts when we complete a hard workout, talk with someone we are attracted to or just solve a problem you were finding difficult to complete.

Now, to how many ways does dopamine get released, well dopamine gets released in two different ways: locally and volumetrically. As the name suggests, in locally the dopamine is slowly transmitted through neurons( brain cells), whereas in volumetric

, a large amount of dopamine is released like vomit in a very limited amount of time. Activities such as taking drugs, smoking weed, playing video games, and eating junk food, dopamine is released both locally and volumetrically. Due to this, our brain receives a large amount of dopamine in a very limited amount of time and thus fails to sustain it. Whereas with the other good activities we have been talking about, dopamine is released based on your purpose of doing that activity, either way, the brain, unlike the first case, can sustain the dopamine release for a much longer.

So the CTA after this information would be to

​Focus on reducing the wrong form of dopamine and

Increasing the right form of dopamine

Easier said than done, and so the next video would be on how you can actually implement these CTA’s

I hope that you learnt something valuable today. If you have any further doubts, you can drop a comment below, i will be happy to help you out, and anyone who would like to research further on this topic, them i will share the link to an article in the description of this video.

until then, AWAKEN THE VALOR WITHIN YOU. I will see you in the next one

Research papers :- Review on dopamine