January 9th, 2022
3 minute read
We’ve all been there, that typical social media loom, where you’re constantly switching between tabs, refreshing your feed, waiting for a video to play, for someone to like your tweet - anything. You’re sort of just waiting to be entertained.
But when it's time to actually apply yourself, it’s extremely difficult, borderline painful to do so. I’m sure everyone can relate to this problem, but why is this happening to us?
As many of you know, dopamine is the chemical that is released when we experience pleasure, it's often known as the ‘feel-good’ chemical. But thats not exactly true. Dopamine is actually the ‘motivating chemical’, it's the chemical that's released when you feel like you’re about to be rewarded. So when you check that next reply, that notification or that next hour of TikTok, what you’re actually looking for is to be rewarded or to feel something pleasurable.
So that feeling in your brain when a notification pops up is a squirt of dopamine that is motivating you to click it. In other words, dopamine is what controls your motivation.
It's not all your fault however, we live in a society that is designed to make our surroundings as pleasurable as humanly possible, hyper-stimulation, and it's starting to become unhealthy. Overstimulation in our day-to-day lives is the core root of your inability to focus (unless you’ve been diagnosed with ADHD).
I remember the last time I was in the mountains with friends, I didn’t have much phone signal and the only thing there was to do was talk and figure out the best time to eat my nutrient bars during our 8 hour hike. However, one thing stood out to me, I still found those things enjoyable, I never found the need to seek my next dopamine hit. Rewind to Lockdown 2 last January, and my life was a different story. I was stuck inside, spending so much time between my 2 screens that my baseline of dopamine and stimulation was so high that the more ‘boring’ things became arduous to do in comparison.
So my question is, if we’re able to find a way to genuinely enjoy the things that makes our lives better, then what are we doing? All it took for me to realise this was a simple trip to the mountains.
I want to challenge you all, over the next few weeks or months to really think about how much stimuli you want to invite into your life. What is actually adding value to your life? and can you limit yourself further by swapping them with less stimulating activities to do such as:
Going for a walk in nature
Talking to a friend
Reading a book
Cooking a meal
Once again, thank you for reading
Once again, thank you for reading. In case you didn't know, I now have a newsletter called Over-Sharing Sundays where I send out blog snippets, book/podcast insights and my weekly thoughts. Click here to subscribe: https://www.getrevue.co/profile/shuaybcodes?via=twitter-profile-webview