I don't know who Alana Haim is, so maybe just write my whole comment off. But after COVID we moved from NYC to a town in the woods and I think it has saved my brain and body (I, too have Hashimotos... mine came on postpartum). Every day I go out walking--even briefly--and I feel the texture of the icy/muddy ground, not the concrete ground, and it settles the little animal inside me. I also try to read paper pages at night and that seems to help. Your thoughts dovetail with this piece about the whittling of art into distraction. https://substack.com/home/post/p-141676786 Both essays make me want to fight for the forest and for real thinking, especially so my kids have a baseline in their brain that doesn't feel like a fizzling wire.
I try to convince myself that moving out of the city into the woods won’t fix all my problems, but it seems that contrary evidence keeps creeping up on me 😁 I also feel al lot better walking or cycling on non-paved paths.
In a typical snobbish European way I refuse to call anything but espresso “coffee” which drives my wife crazy because I call her drinks by the main ingredient - milk.
Look, at the end of the day, marketers are just using a word we know and having positive rapport with - “coffee” - to sell sugary drinks and to help us not feel guilty about it. Observation is not criticism, I just think we need to have a sense of awareness around these things.
I haven't waded too deep into the dopamine discourse at this stage as for me it just became something else to obsess over, and obsessing over anything is the main thing I'm trying to do less of. I avoided caffeine and dairy for two years and have started to reintroduce it because I missed the experience of a coffee so much.
For me, it's the ritual that brings me joy. The walking my dog, the conversations with the people at the cafe, the slow sips as I walk amongst the trees and listen to something inspiring or thought-provoking. Or the coffee with a friend at a cafe- the chat, the atmosphere, the joy of being out. I use caffeine differently to how I did in the past- which was to create energy and give me a quick fix of something during my endlessly busy days. I don't believe it was ever the caffeine that was a problem for me, it was the intention behind its use. I fully enjoy my one milky coffee a day now and accept the consequences it may have on my health long-term.
If you're interested in the dopamine discourse and looking for a counter-narrative to the popular line of thinking, I highly recommend Jesse Meadow's work (Sluggish). She does some great deep-dives into the dopamine literature and provides some alternative views.
Please call the authorities — I went to a new coffee shop this morning that offered to pour a cream cheese foam over my cold brew and I said ABSOLUTELY!
You have me thinking about how clearly I recognize what my problems are and how I’ve done very little to manage them. I’m talking about you, Instagram…
Dopamine and desire are fascinating topics. The question is what are the dopamine hits that provide health and flourishing, mental or physical or otherwise. For me, it's the dopamine hit from writing and reading or from playing bridge or tennis or any vigorous physical activity. All of those activities leave me wanting to come back for more. I think this is a beneficial function of dopamine as long as the sources stay diverse.
I love sweet things so have to control my sugar. I drink coffee every morning and am not convinced (confirmation bias?) that it's bad for me.
And I'm not sure this qualifies as harmful or hurtful, but I sometimes will stay up late listening to and watching YouTube music videos of some favorites, like Fleetwood Mac and Natalie Merchant. One song leads to the desire to watch another. And soon an hour has passed.
There’s an excellent podcast episode on dopamine by neuroscientist Andrew Huberman that I recommend if you want to learn more about dopamine. But he makes a similar point to you in that dopamine is not inherently bad, it keeps us motivated. It becomes bad when overdone and oversaught (which isn’t infrequent)
I confess, from an early age my desire to control meant that my reaction to anything (like coffee or cigarettes) that I saw the adults in my life lament being "addicted to" meant my reaction was, why would I even try them. Hence probably one of the few persons among my college friends in the late sixties who didn't drink coffee, smoke anything or try any of the mind altering substances. For me, reading was always the source of dopamine--which then the need to start the next book could be a problem in terms of interfering with school work or job, so I tended to put guard rails around this as an adult. Food, never a big deal, but now with a very restrictive diet, it has become a focus to the pattern of my days. For example, I have watched how much pleasure I get in the 20 minutes it takes to make my mid-day salad, then how much pleasure I get in eating it slowly. But the need to take my blood sugar in 2 hours, and therefore shouldn't be tempted to eat anything else after I've had my very small square of dark chocolate at the end of the meal (another dopamine shot) means I consciously turn to doing something I enjoy (hopefully writing) that will replace any dip in dopamine. Just never thought about this process in these terms before, so thanks for the prompt.
As a first child, overachiever from a striving middle class Midwestern family, I learned quickly that dopamine came from achievement.
Blue ribbon? DING!
A+? DING
National recognition? DING!
As I navigate a new life in writing, I have to pull myself back from entering writing competitions and embrace the futility of using everything that goes on the page. It’s tough to recalibrate the dopamine receptors after a lifetime of accomplishment-based training. Perhaps this is joy.
This is very interesting. Having Major Depressive Disorder, it would seem like my dopamine hits are nonexistent or weak, or maybe I’m so overstimulated that I’m unable to take pleasure in anything because pleasure takes more dopamine than I am able to produce. My medications are supposedly addressing the issues of low seratonin levels and norepinephrine. Recently, I underwent treatment to stimulate my nerve cells to produce more dendrites to facilitate the chemical interactions in my brain. In considering all this, it becomes clear that the brain is very complex and I’m not sure of anything in relation to depression.
What am I giving up? I already gave up consuming a lot of diet soda and have been working on moderation. I’ve also added more exercise to try and help increase my strength and stamina in the one of the pleasurable activities I have, horseback riding. It’s not just the activity that gives me pleasure, it’s the companionship with the horse that makes me feel good. I wonder how that relates to the diminishing returns of dopamine creation.
Yes, I absolutely found your piece helpful. And, very importantly, I loved how you wrote it.
My main thought is that dopamine release is a biological fact. I guess even though it makesus feel good, it is neither good nor bad. Your point about the ubiquity of sources of dopamine and the impact of those, rather than little old dopamine just doing its thing, was something I knew…but your piece just threw a light on it.
So, seems to me that here on Substack we are all, or many many of us (not the massive players, maybe) are in a quandary. And maybe Substack, rather than being the evil genius behind this quandary they place us in and then watch us squirm and wring our hands and best our breasts, might be in some of that quandary space too. We all want our pieces to be read (mine is The Tarnished Gloriole, it’s free, and I publish in weekly instalments, please have a look, if you like it you may want to subscribe…I just say this everywhere all the time to anyone as I am my own agent, publicist etc), that’s why we’re here; and the push to use Notes to help with that gaining of readership brings the whole dopamine shtick into play. Big time, because it’s allied to our real work, the work we want to do, and want people to read. I think many of us hope and believe that they will somehow weave their algorithmic magic and lead people to our Stack and see our real work.
I gave up Instagram for exactly the reasons you set out in your piece…so many dopamine sources out there all day all night, at least there was one I could cut. But, the lure of Notes - and don’t get me wrong some of them are a joy to read, and the little red icon and the replies (mind you…I’m such an ordinary Joe that my reply numbers are like minuscule) are, as we know, just pure, uncut dopamine sources - is strong and look what happened, Notes replaced Instagram.
I think there is a way of balancing it out. Time limiting works a bit for me. Knowing exactly what is happening, as in the whole dopamine thing, is crucial. Finishing when I finish and not feeling I should rush back and add something else. And, I know this is a truism and is almost eye rolling in its banality (and believe me I eye roll with the best of them), to do other things. When I finish this I am going to garden, then I’m going to catch up on yesterday’s paper, then I have an appointment with Proust (who, while not everyone’s go to, is mine for all sorts of reasons, but in this context to help me rest on the page and be with something that deliberately slows me down…it can take a long time to get that pop of dopamine with him…and keep those levels meandering along in a different sort of stream).
Oh yes, and one more balancing option. I found your great piece via @Mike Sowden (I really like what he does) on Notes. I will restack it there because I really like it, but the important thing - to me - seems to be to reply here first, then it doesn’t become all caught up, in my mind, in the potential dopamine fest of Notes. If I’d read it, and then said all this as words just attached to the Restack and not written them to you, directly, here in reply to your piece, then part of me would have had my biological dopamine antennae all geared up by my own performance on the Restack.
Having Parkinson's disease has overhauled by relationship with dopamine, which I now require in synthetic form. Being mindful of the repercussions of draining my dopamine tank (movement problems, brain fog, anhedonia) I try to top it off with exercise, writing, and listening to music. But I also try my luck with fancy coffee, chocolate covered almonds, online shopping, people pleasing and hours of tv. It's a real "fuck around and find out" fiesta for my neurotransmitters....
I'm getting my dopamine hits from my ocean dips in the morning. The cold fires up those dopamine receptors for the rest of the day. As a result, I've quite the two different medications I was taking to see how I'm doing au natural. Still in early days, so not sure, but I want to see where my baseline is now.
I have slowly been cutting down on any packaged food for the past few years. Also have hashimoto's and also frequently medium to high anxiety (so decaf coffee here, for the ritual and taste. Milk only or black). Menopause has removed my "get away with it" crap food protective layer so sugar, chemicals and such are not worth it. I feel them all really quickly and it sucks. But I have also found creative ways to shape whole foods onto the textures I crave so I think that when I figure this out I will be healthier than I have ever been. Not there yet but damn, wish someone had mentioned menopause was this life altering.
I don't know who Alana Haim is, so maybe just write my whole comment off. But after COVID we moved from NYC to a town in the woods and I think it has saved my brain and body (I, too have Hashimotos... mine came on postpartum). Every day I go out walking--even briefly--and I feel the texture of the icy/muddy ground, not the concrete ground, and it settles the little animal inside me. I also try to read paper pages at night and that seems to help. Your thoughts dovetail with this piece about the whittling of art into distraction. https://substack.com/home/post/p-141676786 Both essays make me want to fight for the forest and for real thinking, especially so my kids have a baseline in their brain that doesn't feel like a fizzling wire.
I don’t know who Alana Haim is either. This is a great comment. I agree with it 100%. Not writing it off. :)
Thank you for this, Rebecca. I've just signed up for your writings. So glad to have found you!
Oh, that’s wonderful. Happy to have found you, too!
I try to convince myself that moving out of the city into the woods won’t fix all my problems, but it seems that contrary evidence keeps creeping up on me 😁 I also feel al lot better walking or cycling on non-paved paths.
In a typical snobbish European way I refuse to call anything but espresso “coffee” which drives my wife crazy because I call her drinks by the main ingredient - milk.
Look, at the end of the day, marketers are just using a word we know and having positive rapport with - “coffee” - to sell sugary drinks and to help us not feel guilty about it. Observation is not criticism, I just think we need to have a sense of awareness around these things.
I haven't waded too deep into the dopamine discourse at this stage as for me it just became something else to obsess over, and obsessing over anything is the main thing I'm trying to do less of. I avoided caffeine and dairy for two years and have started to reintroduce it because I missed the experience of a coffee so much.
For me, it's the ritual that brings me joy. The walking my dog, the conversations with the people at the cafe, the slow sips as I walk amongst the trees and listen to something inspiring or thought-provoking. Or the coffee with a friend at a cafe- the chat, the atmosphere, the joy of being out. I use caffeine differently to how I did in the past- which was to create energy and give me a quick fix of something during my endlessly busy days. I don't believe it was ever the caffeine that was a problem for me, it was the intention behind its use. I fully enjoy my one milky coffee a day now and accept the consequences it may have on my health long-term.
If you're interested in the dopamine discourse and looking for a counter-narrative to the popular line of thinking, I highly recommend Jesse Meadow's work (Sluggish). She does some great deep-dives into the dopamine literature and provides some alternative views.
Just want to second the recommendation of Jesse Meadow’s Sluggish newsletter.
Please call the authorities — I went to a new coffee shop this morning that offered to pour a cream cheese foam over my cold brew and I said ABSOLUTELY!
You have me thinking about how clearly I recognize what my problems are and how I’ve done very little to manage them. I’m talking about you, Instagram…
Dopamine and desire are fascinating topics. The question is what are the dopamine hits that provide health and flourishing, mental or physical or otherwise. For me, it's the dopamine hit from writing and reading or from playing bridge or tennis or any vigorous physical activity. All of those activities leave me wanting to come back for more. I think this is a beneficial function of dopamine as long as the sources stay diverse.
I love sweet things so have to control my sugar. I drink coffee every morning and am not convinced (confirmation bias?) that it's bad for me.
And I'm not sure this qualifies as harmful or hurtful, but I sometimes will stay up late listening to and watching YouTube music videos of some favorites, like Fleetwood Mac and Natalie Merchant. One song leads to the desire to watch another. And soon an hour has passed.
There’s an excellent podcast episode on dopamine by neuroscientist Andrew Huberman that I recommend if you want to learn more about dopamine. But he makes a similar point to you in that dopamine is not inherently bad, it keeps us motivated. It becomes bad when overdone and oversaught (which isn’t infrequent)
I'll check it out. Thanks Bianca.
There is indeed! Really got a ton out of that one too. 🙌🏻
David! Your YouTube habits sound like mine!!
Just one more.....
I confess, from an early age my desire to control meant that my reaction to anything (like coffee or cigarettes) that I saw the adults in my life lament being "addicted to" meant my reaction was, why would I even try them. Hence probably one of the few persons among my college friends in the late sixties who didn't drink coffee, smoke anything or try any of the mind altering substances. For me, reading was always the source of dopamine--which then the need to start the next book could be a problem in terms of interfering with school work or job, so I tended to put guard rails around this as an adult. Food, never a big deal, but now with a very restrictive diet, it has become a focus to the pattern of my days. For example, I have watched how much pleasure I get in the 20 minutes it takes to make my mid-day salad, then how much pleasure I get in eating it slowly. But the need to take my blood sugar in 2 hours, and therefore shouldn't be tempted to eat anything else after I've had my very small square of dark chocolate at the end of the meal (another dopamine shot) means I consciously turn to doing something I enjoy (hopefully writing) that will replace any dip in dopamine. Just never thought about this process in these terms before, so thanks for the prompt.
As a first child, overachiever from a striving middle class Midwestern family, I learned quickly that dopamine came from achievement.
Blue ribbon? DING!
A+? DING
National recognition? DING!
As I navigate a new life in writing, I have to pull myself back from entering writing competitions and embrace the futility of using everything that goes on the page. It’s tough to recalibrate the dopamine receptors after a lifetime of accomplishment-based training. Perhaps this is joy.
Now I am looking at my nice, cold, daily Coke suspiciously.
This is very interesting. Having Major Depressive Disorder, it would seem like my dopamine hits are nonexistent or weak, or maybe I’m so overstimulated that I’m unable to take pleasure in anything because pleasure takes more dopamine than I am able to produce. My medications are supposedly addressing the issues of low seratonin levels and norepinephrine. Recently, I underwent treatment to stimulate my nerve cells to produce more dendrites to facilitate the chemical interactions in my brain. In considering all this, it becomes clear that the brain is very complex and I’m not sure of anything in relation to depression.
What am I giving up? I already gave up consuming a lot of diet soda and have been working on moderation. I’ve also added more exercise to try and help increase my strength and stamina in the one of the pleasurable activities I have, horseback riding. It’s not just the activity that gives me pleasure, it’s the companionship with the horse that makes me feel good. I wonder how that relates to the diminishing returns of dopamine creation.
I'm a coffee drinker, haim fan, dopamine addict. The Substack Notes algorithm did its job bringing me here 😂
By no means your main point - but I'm glad you liked Licorice Pizza! I thought it was fun. Always happy to find a fellow enjoyer.
Yes, I absolutely found your piece helpful. And, very importantly, I loved how you wrote it.
My main thought is that dopamine release is a biological fact. I guess even though it makesus feel good, it is neither good nor bad. Your point about the ubiquity of sources of dopamine and the impact of those, rather than little old dopamine just doing its thing, was something I knew…but your piece just threw a light on it.
So, seems to me that here on Substack we are all, or many many of us (not the massive players, maybe) are in a quandary. And maybe Substack, rather than being the evil genius behind this quandary they place us in and then watch us squirm and wring our hands and best our breasts, might be in some of that quandary space too. We all want our pieces to be read (mine is The Tarnished Gloriole, it’s free, and I publish in weekly instalments, please have a look, if you like it you may want to subscribe…I just say this everywhere all the time to anyone as I am my own agent, publicist etc), that’s why we’re here; and the push to use Notes to help with that gaining of readership brings the whole dopamine shtick into play. Big time, because it’s allied to our real work, the work we want to do, and want people to read. I think many of us hope and believe that they will somehow weave their algorithmic magic and lead people to our Stack and see our real work.
I gave up Instagram for exactly the reasons you set out in your piece…so many dopamine sources out there all day all night, at least there was one I could cut. But, the lure of Notes - and don’t get me wrong some of them are a joy to read, and the little red icon and the replies (mind you…I’m such an ordinary Joe that my reply numbers are like minuscule) are, as we know, just pure, uncut dopamine sources - is strong and look what happened, Notes replaced Instagram.
I think there is a way of balancing it out. Time limiting works a bit for me. Knowing exactly what is happening, as in the whole dopamine thing, is crucial. Finishing when I finish and not feeling I should rush back and add something else. And, I know this is a truism and is almost eye rolling in its banality (and believe me I eye roll with the best of them), to do other things. When I finish this I am going to garden, then I’m going to catch up on yesterday’s paper, then I have an appointment with Proust (who, while not everyone’s go to, is mine for all sorts of reasons, but in this context to help me rest on the page and be with something that deliberately slows me down…it can take a long time to get that pop of dopamine with him…and keep those levels meandering along in a different sort of stream).
Oh yes, and one more balancing option. I found your great piece via @Mike Sowden (I really like what he does) on Notes. I will restack it there because I really like it, but the important thing - to me - seems to be to reply here first, then it doesn’t become all caught up, in my mind, in the potential dopamine fest of Notes. If I’d read it, and then said all this as words just attached to the Restack and not written them to you, directly, here in reply to your piece, then part of me would have had my biological dopamine antennae all geared up by my own performance on the Restack.
Thanks for such a great piece.
Excellent. Something I have been (semi-consistently) trying: thedispatches.substack.com/the-notebook-rule
Using it is like casting a spell that gets me back into real life.
Having Parkinson's disease has overhauled by relationship with dopamine, which I now require in synthetic form. Being mindful of the repercussions of draining my dopamine tank (movement problems, brain fog, anhedonia) I try to top it off with exercise, writing, and listening to music. But I also try my luck with fancy coffee, chocolate covered almonds, online shopping, people pleasing and hours of tv. It's a real "fuck around and find out" fiesta for my neurotransmitters....
I can’t look away from this post. The glue is dopamine…. Interesting.
I'm getting my dopamine hits from my ocean dips in the morning. The cold fires up those dopamine receptors for the rest of the day. As a result, I've quite the two different medications I was taking to see how I'm doing au natural. Still in early days, so not sure, but I want to see where my baseline is now.
I have slowly been cutting down on any packaged food for the past few years. Also have hashimoto's and also frequently medium to high anxiety (so decaf coffee here, for the ritual and taste. Milk only or black). Menopause has removed my "get away with it" crap food protective layer so sugar, chemicals and such are not worth it. I feel them all really quickly and it sucks. But I have also found creative ways to shape whole foods onto the textures I crave so I think that when I figure this out I will be healthier than I have ever been. Not there yet but damn, wish someone had mentioned menopause was this life altering.