neuroscience is changing my life
My mindset has changed and everything else has followed
I’ve been writing a research paper, and while researching, I came across something called the dopamine threshold. I had been researching how neurotransmitters work for a big part of this paper, but this dopamine threshold has completely changed my mindset. It has even gone as far as to convince me to write this blog instead of scrolling on social media.
In this research paper, I compared the 21st-century consumerism style to the habits of people in the Victorian era, which led me to come across some interesting results…
First, dopamine as we all know is the neurotransmitter that rewards us for doing what we deem good by making us feel like we are enjoying it. The dopamine threshold is just how much dopamine we need to feel like we are enjoying something. Dopamine thresholds are critical because it is the difference between you being able to enjoy “mundane” tasks or have your daily “chores” being painstaking to do.
In this paper, I compared the dopamine threshold of people in the Victorian era and people in the 21st century, and I found some interesting things. Victorians had their forms of entertainment and leisure, and unlike now, their entertainment wasn’t made to be constant dopamine hits. They enjoyed simple activities like socialising with their friends or reading. Nowadays, with our constant dopamine designed with the infinite scroll systems and much more, our forms of entertainment give us much higher amounts of dopamine, and it’s not just social media. Our entertainment media, like movies, have improved, and we no longer need to delay dopamine or go outside of our houses.
It’s probably the dopamine threshold that is reducing our attention spans because we aren’t waiting for something “interesting”, we are just waiting to get our dopamine hit, which nowadays it’s easy and fast to get.
The problem with this is that it creates a world in which we only have enough patience to enjoy scrolling, which in the long term creates depressive and unmotivated states of mind. The thing with the dopamine threshold, though, is that we can lower it.
I have done it myself. I have spent the last 3 years reducing my screen time by 6+ hours, and knowing this, I can finally see how much my dopamine threshold has impacted my life. I realised when I was cleaning that I could do something that used to be gruelling and enjoy it to an extent. I now need nowhere as much dopamine to feel good, and it has changed my life.
So the big question is, how do we reduce our dopamine thresholds?
Consume less content—especially content specifically designed to give us dopamine hits. When I say this I’m particularly speaking of social media because as we know, it is very well designed for constant dopamine.
This process took me 2–3 years, but I am sure for the more disciplined it could take a year. Simply reduce how much you consume content and slowly your dopamine threshold lowers.
It has not been just this aspect of neuroscience that has made me choose to create this blog instead of consuming content on social media, but also the aspect of releasing the right neurotransmitters. As we have seen, knowing the power of dopamine levels affects how we enjoy something, but it is not just dopamine we can use.
There are multiple well-known neurotransmitters that with science we have discovered how to stimulate them. You will find that most of what the media of productivity and self-improvement has said revolves around stimulating the right neurotransmitters. Having to be a self-motivated person, each day I have my emotions and motivations change drastically. Using this, I have learnt how to control them.
I will search (usually on ChatGPT), what neurotransmitter is responsible for… being more motivated for example, or will make me want to do work… and then I search up how I can release that particular neurotransmitter. These things are the same/extremely similar to what self-improvement culture tells us to do.
Ice baths, cold showers, exercise, meditation, reflection, and techniques like the Pomodoro timer all stimulate hormones and neurotransmitters that make us feel relaxed, fulfilled, rewarded, inspired, happy, and productive.
The only thing left for us is: find the balance of creation and consumption. Despite having greatly lowered my dopamine threshold, I don’t know how it will work by completely removing consumerism yet. Constantly creating things is taxing on the brain. But the only reason I choose creation is because it’s the opposite side, right? It’s not just creation that is an alternative for consumption, you don’t need to be a factory always pumping out goods. Comment what your alternatives to consuming are…
Thanks for reading, and stay curious!
