Dopamine is a chemical messenger that is better known as the pleasure hormone. How you feed this pleasure hormone will certainly impact your life. If dopamine is low it can steal your joy in such a way that you feel hopeless, uninterested, lost and unmotivated. Having an understanding of the process can lead you to make more positive decisions when you are looking for a healthy supply.
Unfortunately, the misunderstanding of this can drag a person deep into terrible addictions that will ultimately ruin them. Things like drugs, overspending, social media, alcohol, and pornographic desires are a few. When you get a high off of any of these toxic remedies, it increases your dopamine which in turn makes you crave it again when your levels begin to drop; and they'll always drop. Once you are actually addicted to whatever is giving you the high, is when the problems arise. You've officially established a bad habit.
When you have responsibilities that don't align with your addictive high, you can become quite bitter to them. Relationships that were once important, work ethic that once paid the bills, and motivation to keep leveling up can all be lost when you start to prioritize the wrong priorities. You'll convince yourself that the lost souls approving of your habits know better than those that actually care about you, because you want to believe that your poor decisions are acceptable
Recognizing the things that increase your dopamine but are actually harmful to your wellbeing is the first step to redirecting your chemical messages. These things will be obvious because you will notice that you are distracting yourself with them rather than doing something positive for your life. Feeling the dopamine low while trying to break addictions is extremely difficult for anyone. This is why it's crucial to establish new healthy habits before you try to quit. There are even dietary changes that can encourage increased dopamine levels while you heal.
Eventually, what gets you high will bring you down and you'll wonder why you sacrificed so much of yourself to keep that temporary feeling. Admit your toxic weaknesses to yourself and instead of feeling shame, feel enlightened to finally know better. Dopamine has a tolerance just like any other addiction. Your patterns of toxicity will increase the longer you believe that your addictions aren't a problem, and will become even harder to break.
Do yourself a favor and listen to the ones who care about you before they decide that they don't anymore.
There is plenty of research available online if you need help understanding dopamine better. Youtube has some amazing content to get you on track to be your best self. Settle for nothing less.
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