podcast

Hello. Welcome back. Glad you've joined me again today. We talked last week about your dopamine budget and why it's so important to manage it, what that has to do with your anxiety, how it influences your anxiety, that if you mismanage your dopamine budget, Your brain will default toward anxiety, and it will be harder to have access to your executive functions to be able to regulate your emotions in general, consciously. You'll just be stuck on your default mode. And that default mode will be tipped toward anxiety.
But I thought since we spent so much time last time talking about the different aspects and facts of the dopamine system and how it works and why we need to regulate it, and what happens when it goes out of balance, that maybe today we could talk about practice. Because it's one thing to understand how something works, and it's another thing to understand how to put it into practice. So I thought maybe today, I would just give a few examples of how I apply my knowledge about the dopamine system and how this helps me to deal with different scenarios that come up in my life. Just to give you a model of how you might be able to apply some of this knowledge in your life. It won't fit directly on your life, because your situation is different, but it might give you an idea of how to go about applying the knowledge about the dopamine system and how to put it to work for you to help you to regulate your emotions, and particularly to help you with your anxiety.
So the first example I thought I would give is the example of coming home from a trip and feeling that after trip low. So I live in Brazil, as I mentioned before. And usually once or twice a year, I get to go and visit the United States. I frequently perform with my ensemble, the Avery ensemble, and I often tack a trip onto the end of that to go visit family and friends. And when I come back from my visit to the U S I usually feel quite down. And I used to think that this meant that living Brazil was not for me and that I could never be happy here. And that this meant something global about my relationship with Brazil. Because when I would come back, I would feel so depressed compared to how I felt in the U S. And I just over and over again, felt that I needed to move back to the U S in order to feel as good as I felt on my trip. But since I become more wise about how the dopamine system works., I have been able to recognize that a trip, often triggers a lot of dopamine release. So instead of just being in my normal routine, I'm doing different things. And dopamine is triggered when we do new stuff. Anything that's new will trigger dopamine. If it doesn't trigger anxiety, it will also trigger dopamine. So shaking up my normal normal routine, getting to visit all of these friends and family, having them fight over my time and all trying to invite me over to dinner, to visit with me before I have to go back. So I'm getting a lot of attention from people that I love. And we talked about last time, how dopamine is really triggered by things that your brain feels will maximize your resources for the future. So things like getting a lot of attention from people, being popular for a little bit, getting to do new things. All of these things will really release a lot of dopamine. So I already know now, I already know to expect that when I go on these trips, I will feel a lot of dopamine release. And that when I come back, since I'll have to return to my normal everyday routine, I'm not doing different things anymore, it's not new and exciting anymore, and I don't have a whole bunch of family and friends trying to vye for my time, I'm just back to the routine of regular life, I'm not going to have those dopamine triggers anymore. And so I will feel that drop of dopamine. So we talked last time about how there's two different ways you can spend your dopamine. If you buy it on credit, or another words, if you have your pleasure first, your brain will have to press on the pain side after you have your pleasure. And the pain will be longer and stronger than the pleasure. So trips I already know are going to press on that pleasure side pretty strongly. And I'm going to basically be buying my dopamine on credit because I'm going to be having my pleasure first. And then when I come home, then my brain is going to press on the pain side to compensate. And so I'm going to have potentially more pain afterwards, than the enjoyment that I had on the trip. And that's just because of my dopamine system. So I already know to expect this. I don't give it a greater meaning than it deserves. I see it coming ahead of time. I don't assume that it means that my life is terrible, I need to change everything. I just know that that's the way dopamine works and that's what I need to expect. And I'm going to have to feel bad for a few days after I get home. When you already know to expect it, it's not as terrible when it comes, because you also know that in a few days, you're going to be feeling better. I have to give my brain time to replenish that pool of readily releasable dopamine that it has spent during my trip. I've been kind of spending more than normal on my trip. And so I'm going to have less for a while until my brain can replenish it. So that's another thing I know to expect. So I don't get all upset about the fact that I have this post trip depression.
Another thing that I have learned to manage and to expect and to put up with as just part of life and part of my dopamine system is that depression and sadness that comes after accomplishing a big goal. Musicians talk about having post concert depression, or post recital depression. Something that you work on for months, and you have been preparing for hours and hours and hours every day, over a period of many, many weeks and months, and then you have a concert and then afterwards you have this low. Well, any type of project that you work on really hard is something that is going to trigger dopamine. Dopamine is triggered in drive and in motivation. It's about helping us to work for things that we don't have. So I've come to realize that working hard for something, pushing for something, gives me dopamine. It feels good because I'm working for it. Dopamine comes in the work. But that when I accomplish whatever it is that I'm working for, whatever it is that I've planned for, that I will have a dopamine drop because the dopamine system will switch off once you obtain what it is that you're working for. Because dopamine is about wanting more than having. So dopamine keeps your, you going as long as you're working hard for whatever it is that you've got in sight. But then once you obtain it, Then the dopamine system will switch off.
I've seen this also in my son, who's a runner. He'll have a race and he'll feel just amazing and elated. And then the day after, maybe for a couple of days after, he'll feel depressed. And it's this dopamine phenomenon. On his race day, he's worked so hard. He's had so much dopamine going and adrenaline and everything to keep him going in the race, that he spends a lot of dopamine on that day. So the day after, he's not going to have as much to keep his baseline levels going.
Same thing when I do a big concert. I spend a lot on that day in that performance. It feels thrilling. It feels exciting. It's wonderful to accomplish such a thing like that. But then the day after I don't have that much dopamine in my budget to keep me going. And so my baseline levels are low. And so I'm going to feel, whoa, I'm going to feel kind of crappy. I'm going to, going to feel kind of bad for a few days afterwards.
And so I've learned rather than being alarmed about this to just be patient with the fact that I'm feeling low and let it be what it is and let my dopamine levels come back slowly.
I know people who've spent months and years even, planning a wedding and all of the details, the dancing, the food, the guests, the different uh, venues, all of the flowers. And the planning itself is an activity that will trigger dopamine. Whenever we're planning for something in the future, when we're working towards something in the future, it feels thrilling, thrilling and exciting because dopamine is there to keep us going. But we just have to be ready for the fact that after the wedding is going to feel a big dopamine drop because all of this planning has been realized and now the dopamine is over and that big thrill of the day is followed by the day after where you have very little dopamine in your budget and very little for your baseline. And it might continue to be low for quite a while, depending on how much dopamine you've spent over time.
So again, dopamine is about wanting, not about having, so it keeps us going as long as we're working for that future thing. But once we accomplish it, It leaves us. I feel like it's good for me to step back and observe that planning and working for something makes me feel excited, but already expect and know that as soon as I get that thing that I'm working for, dopamine will turn off.
It's not that I avoid big projects or big accomplishments because I want to avoid a dopamine rollercoaster. Because a lot of times I do these big projects because they're really important to me for other other reasons. I'm not doing them just so that I can feel dopamine, I'm doing them because they're important to me long-term. They're part of my values. They're part of my life goals. And so I don't stop doing these big projects that will put me on these dopamine roller coasters. But I know ahead of time that I'm going to have a big drop afterwards and I don't freak out when it comes. And I don't assume that it means that my life is terrible from here on out, or that I have to do some huge um, overarching change in my life. It just means that I'm going to have dopamine low for awhile.
Another thing that I try and do is something that Dr. Anne Lembke calls self binding that she talks about in her book Dopamine Nation that we mentioned last time. And she talks about how, of course dopamine is this feel good chemical that the more we spend it, the more diminishing returns we get. Because as we start to have to more and more of whatever it is that gives us pleasure, we will feel less of the pleasure. And we will get to where we're more and more tolerant of that pleasurable feeling so that we have to have more pleasure in order to feel anything. And we start to be more and more sensitive to pain. And we talked last time about how the, the brain gets weighted toward that pain side. When we compare it to a, a balance or a teeter-totter, we press on the pleasure and our brain has to press on pain and response. And if we overstimulate that pleasure circuit, then we'll get stuck on the pain side. So it's really important to manage how much pleasure we allow ourselves to feel in order to have the maximum amount of pleasure. A lot of people kind of learn this from experience as they get older, that it doesn't actually make you feel better to have more and more pleasure. But it's good to know it, to state, it to, to have it conscious in your brain so that you know how to use it and do it earlier than when you get old. And understand that it's important to not overspend your dopamine budget.
And so there are different things that I do to, um, make sure that I don't overspend my dopamine budget. Anything that I really enjoy that triggers dopamine, I am careful to not overdo it because it will start to become less pleasurable. So for example, I really love chocolate. But I don't allow myself to buy chocolate very often because I've noticed of course that if I buy chocolate, every week, if I eat chocolate every day, I start to enjoy it a lot less. And as we talked about last week, not only will I enjoy the chocolate less, but I'll start to enjoy everything less. Because as I'm withdrawing, every time I eat that chocolate, out of my dopamine budget, then I have less dopamine to spend on anything in my life. So I'm careful not to buy too much chocolate, for example. My husband and I, we've, we don't have a TV, by choice. If we want to watch a movie, we watch it on a computer, which is not a super big screen. And we have opted not to have a large screen because we know that if we have it, we'll watch it more often because it'll be more of a pleasurable activity. And then it will start to eat into our dopamine budget and we'll enjoy life less. So that's another way that we have opted to self bind. I've never gotten into video games. That's also by choice. Because I know that if I start, I will get very addicted and I don't want to have that drain on my dopamine budget. So, those are a couple of ways that I have opted to engage in self binding.
A lot of religious traditions have different prescriptions for self binding. And both Dr. Anna Lemke and. and. Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who's someone we have mentioned on other podcasts, have referred to the wisdom in these religious traditions that help people to self bind and not allow themselves a lot of certain types of pleasures. And how this actually is backed up by what we know today about how the brain works. And how this makes it so that we can have the maximum well, Wellbeing and the maximum amount of pleasure in our lives by not overspending our dopamine budget.
Now because of long COVID and being sick for so long and not having a ready solution for it, and I did a lot of research and reading, and I finally decided that one of the things that I needed to do to try and help my body to get better was to go off of sugar and gluten completely. Now I already felt like I ate pretty healthfully. I didn't feel by any means that I was addicted to sugar and gluten. But when I finally went off of these things, because my body, my health basically forced me to do something about it, it was really hard. I had serious withdrawals for about a month. I had many moments during that month when I would just be craving something sweet or craving some bread or something gluteny so badly that I would be almost shaking, walking back and forth in my house and just nervous and not able to deal with the craving. But because of my sickness and needing to get better, I stuck it out. There's nothing like being sick for three years to make you do something hard to try and get better. So I stuck it out. And I discovered that after that initial withdrawal period, it took me about a month, after that I didn't crave it anymore. I didn't need sugar. I didn't need gluten. It didn't call me anymore. I didn't have this intense desire for it. So my brain was able to recalibrate after that initial period of craving and withdrawal. So, I guess I was mildly addicted to sugar. I guess I had been using it to regulate my moods, sugar and gluten. I had been using different foods to help me to feel emotionally different ways. And when I stopped doing those, then there was a big withdrawal. Dr. Lembke talks about in her book, Dopamine Nation, that when you do try and break an addiction, the first step is always abstinence for at least three weeks. Sometimes longer if the addiction is a really serious one, a really strong one. But at least three weeks. And that this period of abstinence gives your brain a chance to reset, so that you're not stuck down on that pain side anymore. So that you can have, a, a healthy baseline level of dopamine to keep you going in your daily life so that you can just have basic daily pleasures again. But anyway, after this initial withdrawal period of abstinence, There then you can start to add back, whatever it is that you are abstaining from, with care in a way to not be addictive. But of course I, wasn't going to add sugar back into my diet. This was a permanent thing. I've been off it for two years now. But what I've noticed is that with these changes in my brain and in my perception, that things taste sweet to me now that didn't used to taste sweet to me. That I have just as much pleasure in sweet things. It's just that I'm more sensitive to sweetness. And I've also noticed that. You know, if, if everybody's eating some delicious dessert and I really just want to try it, I allow myself to have one taste. And I enjoy that one taste. And then I observe my dopamine wanting me to repeat, the way that it does, the way that our dopamine drives us to repeat whatever it is that's pleasurable, but I'm able to just observe that craving and not have it drive me. And I just watch it sort of surge and watch myself wanting to take another bite and then watch it fade and not needing to take another bite anymore. And that way, I feel like I'm able to get the maximum amount of pleasure out of whatever delicious thing that people are eating. Because I had that first bite, which is always the best one in terms of dopamine anyway. I just have to be able to exert that self-control to not repeat. And I know from experience that, you know, I've, I've eaten enough wonderful desserts in my life to know that even though dopamine drives me to take more and more of it , it doesn't get better and better. It gets less and less pleasurable. The more I eat of it, the less I'm sensitive to it, the less I feel it, and it doesn't feel satisfying. So having gone through this period of completely cleansing my brain from it's trigger, its sugar triggers, and then getting back into it afterwards and just occasionally, like maybe once every month or so having a bite of something sweet, I'm able to really intensely enjoy that one bite. And I feel like I get the maximum benefit dopamine wise out of whatever people are eating. So it can help you to change your diet, if that's something that you're thinking about doing, when you realize that your brain will adjust dopamine wise to your new regime after a period of time. And that you will not have less pleasure in eating. You will actually be more sensitive to whatever it is that you eat. And you just have to go through that initial abstinence and withdrawal period. And then your brain will adjust.
Another thing that my understanding about how the dopamine system works helps me to do is to want to engage in painful activities on purpose, because I already know that when I do something painful, my brain will press on the pleasure side in response. And so I will have dopamine in response. I will have pleasure if I engage in pain and that pleasure will be stronger than when I engage directly in a pleasurable activity. So for example, when I eat chocolate, which is inherently dopamine producing, the pleasure that it produces will be followed by pain, which will be longer and stronger. But if I do something painful, Then I'll have pleasure afterwards and it ends up being more durable than the pleasure that I could have from eating chocolate, for example. So some of the painful things that I do on purpose are exercise, different painful projects that I dread, especially writing projects. I really hate doing those things, but I do them. I force myself to do them on purpose, knowing that it will make me feel good. I have some cold water therapies. I'll talk more about cold water as a treatment for anxiety in the future. But cold water is another thing that I do on purpose, because I know that it will trigger dopamine response. Even piano practicing. Practicing the piano is often not inherently pleasurable. It's often just work. It's often a grind. But I make myself do it because my brain has already discovered that in working on it, that I will trigger dopamine in response, and it will feel good after a little bit. Even things like house cleaning and yard work can fall into this category of hard things that aren't inherently pleasant, but that will trigger dopamine once I get started in them.
Now, since we're in the Christmas season, this is a season where we have a lot of preparing and anticipation and planning and shopping, and we end up eating lots of sugar and chocolate. So it's a season where we are triggering a lot of dopamine, right, and all this anticipation and planning often, I think we all have experienced this, leads to that post-Christmas let down, you know? That the anticipation of opening the presents is actually more exciting than actually opening them. My husband was always keyed into this phenomenon and he was behind lobbying for our family to wait until evening to open the presents, for example, for the kids to be able to sustain that anticipation for as long as possible, because he, he noticed that it was the anticipation that was more enjoyable than the actual getting of the presents. The kids were not thrilled with that, for sure, as you can imagine. But in any case, and this dopamine that we feel as we plan and prepare and, and shop and anticipate Christmas. It, it is the prize. It is the excitement, is the actual preparation for Christmas. And when Christmas actually comes, then a lot of times we have this drop. But there is a way that we can be able to enjoy more of Christmas. Not just the anticipation of something, but actually enjoy what is in Christmas. And we're going to be talking next week, I hope you'll tune in, about cultivating a specific emotion, which is the emotion of awe, which is a wonderful feel- good emotion that does not diminish the more that you feel it. And the more that you engage in it, in fact, it actually gets more intense. The more that you feel it, it gets bigger. So cultivating this emotion, this emotion of awe can be an antidote to this Christmas rollercoaster of the, of the dopamine ups and then the let downs, as well as Christmas anxiety. I think maybe a lot of, especially moms, end up feeling a lot of anxiety in anticipation for Christmas because they don't know if they can get everything ready and they feel like they've got so much going on their shoulders. But this uh, emotion that we're going to be talking about next week, the emotion of awe, if you can learn how to cultivate that, that can be a fantastic antidote to Christmas anxiety as well. So if we can learn to cultivate what Dr. Lieberman calls the here and now circuits in our brains. He talks about how we have different, uh, feel good chemicals, different feel-good circuits. One of them is dopamine, of course, which has to do with wanting, not having. But we have another circuit, which he calls the here and now circuit. Which has various neurochemicals involved in that, including serotonin and others, that are about enjoying the present. And that we can learn to enjoy what we actually have, and then we can feel good even after um, the dopamine is not the main driver anymore. So we talked a couple of weeks ago about cultivating mindfulness. This is an episode where we explore a little bit more about how to exercise this here and now circuit in your brain. And how to learn how to really be in the present and be fully alive to the present and enjoy the present. So that's, that's an important thing to learn how to do.
But one of the big takeaways, I think for me, For learning about the dopamine system and how it works, is just learning to enjoy the ride. Knowing that being human is about having a dopamine budget, having different expenditures on that budget. Sometimes having exceptional expenditures where you spend a whole lot, which is going to be followed by a low. Having this dopamine budget is about feeling highs and lows and about accepting that when you have a low, then it means that you can have a high later. It means learning to be patient and tolerating those lows. Because as we learned last week, if we can't tolerate the lows that happen after a dopamine expenditure and we continue to try and push that pleasure system to its limit, then we will get diminishing returns and we will get to the point where we can't even feel pleasure, and we're only feeling pain. And we don't want to get there. So if we can learn to tolerate those temporary lows and allow our brains time two replenish the pool of readily releasable dopamine, and get enough in that budget again, so that we have something to spend, then we'll be okay pretty soon. So learning to tolerate the highs and the lows. To enjoy the ride. To see it for what it is as you go up, and as you go down. Having that mindful perspective where you are conscious of all of the feelings in your present, including the feeling of dopamine. Observing that you're feeling high or observing that you're feeling low. And just being aware of the mechanism behind it and why it is that you're feeling the way that you are right now.
For me, that's one of the big um, keys is that when I understand my dopamine system and I understand why I feel really good sometimes and why I feel really low sometimes, then it takes the anxiety out of it. Because I understand what's happening and I know what to expect, and I know what I need to do in order to feel better and know that it might take some time. Maybe I just need to feel patient for a little while. I need to avoid really pressing on that pleasure system for a little while so that I can build up my pool again of dopamine.
So I just wanted to share those couple of ideas with you today to give you some ideas of how this knowledge about the dopamine system might help you to regulate your emotions on a day to day, and after big accomplishments, after exciting trips, during the Christmas season, after the Christmas season. And I hope that you'll join me next week so that we can really get into looking at this particular emotion of awe that does not diminish the more that we engage in it . So, thanks for joining me today and hope to see you again next time.