Your Power Over Dopamine
Download as PPTX, PDF5 likes2,038 views
The document discusses the role of dopamine in human behavior, explaining how our brains reward us for actions that meet survival needs, often leading to harmful habits. It outlines three key factors that influence dopamine pathways: relief from threats, early life rewards, and social rewards, emphasizing the importance of rewiring these pathways through repetition and positive associations. The Inner Mammal Institute offers resources to help individuals retrain their brains to enhance happiness by boosting levels of serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin, and endorphins.
Your Power Over Dopamine
- 1. Your Power Over Dopamine Dr Loretta Breuning Inner Mammal Institute dopamine endorphi n oxytoci n serotonin
- 2. Me in 1969
- 3. Dopamine rewards you with a good feeling when you meet a survival need.
- 4. So why do we do things that are bad for survival to stimulate dopamine?
- 5. Here are 3 ways that the natural urge for dopamine leads to harmful habits
- 6. and 3 ways to build new, healthier dopamine- seeking habits.
- 7. #1 Relieving a threat boosts dopamine, so we seek things that relieved a threatened feeling for us before.
- 8. Our brain evolved to promote survival, not to make you feel good.
- 9. The brain rewards you with a good feeling when you do something good for your survival.
- 10. Escaping a threat is VERY good for survival, so it gets a big reward.
- 11. When there’s no real threat, escaping a threatened feeling gets a big reward.
- 12. Hunger is a big threat in the state of nature, and the brain rewards you with dopamine when you relieve hunger.
- 13. The good feeling flows before you reach the food.
- 14. It motivates steps toward rewards.
- 15. Small steps toward rewards stimulate dopamine as long as you see the reward getting closer.
- 16. escaping threat = dopamine finding food = dopamine threat = cortisol
- 17. If climbing a tree brought relief before, your brain gets wired to look for trees.
- 18. Relief is a dopamine surge that wires you to anticipate more relief in that way in the future.
- 19. When your belly is full, threat-relief seems especially rewarding
- 20. Relief: 1. effective problem-solving 2. distraction 3. unnatural rewards
- 21. #2 Our dopamine is controlled by neural pathways built from past experience.
- 22. Early experience builds the biggest pathways thanks to myelin.
- 24. Myelinated neurons are up to 100 times more efficient.
- 25. By the time you understand the survival consequences of your relief habit, it is already myelinated
- 26. Neurons connect when dopamine flows, which wires you to expect reward where you got it before.
- 27. The electricity in your brain flows like water in a storm, finding the paths of least resistance.
- 28. In adulthood, we use the pathways myelinated in youth without conscious intent.
- 29. Each brain sees the world through the lens of its adolescent rewards.
- 30. Dopamine motivates you to seek what brought relief in youth.
- 31. #3 Our brain cares about the survival of its genes.
- 32. It rewards you with dopamine when you do something good for the survival of your genes.
- 33. No conscious interest in your genes is necessary- for animals, teens, or us.
- 34. Natural selection built a brain that rewards risk-taking.
- 35. Something bad for your body can be good for the survival of your genes.
- 36. Social acceptance is good for your genes, so your brain rewards it even when not good for your body.
- 37. Social dominance is good for your genes, and your limbic brain rewards it.
- 38. The social rewards of your youth built pathways that turn on your reward expectations today.
- 39. In short: our brain defines survival in a quirky way, so we do quirky things to stimulate dopamine.
- 40. Dopamine pathways build from: 1. threat relief 2. early rewards 3. social rewards
- 41. How can we re-wire these pathways?
- 43. Seek a new reward repeatedly and a pathway will build.
- 44. It’s HARD
- 45. Conundrum #1 When you don’t expect a reward, you’re not motivated to repeat.
- 46. Conundrum #2 Your old pathway turns on effortlessly.
- 47. Conundrum #3 The new pathway looks dangerous.
- 48. Fortunately, small steps trigger dopamine, each time the reward appears closer.
- 49. Here are 3 ways to wire in a new self- soothing circuit.
- 50. • not kale • build on existing happy circuits • small steps repeated 1. Design a new self-soothing behavior with positive associations for you
- 51. 2. Build an exit ramp to get from old road to new one • Notice your urge for self-soothing by marking it with an awkward gesture • Consciously think: “I am looking for a way to feel good,” and then choose the new feel-good road • Expect a reward as you exit the old road
- 52. • accept your natural urge for rewards • consciously distinguish your new choice from your old reward circuits • remember your billions of extra neurons waiting to build new pathways 3. Distinguish real rewards from old pathways
- 53. Animals live with constant threat, but positive expectations about their next step trigger good feelings.
- 54. dopamine = the expectation of reward
- 55. An expectation is a real physical pathway
- 56. A reward is a real physical chemical
- 57. You can build a new reward pathway by feeding your brain new expectations repeatedly.
- 58. Your electricity will have a new place to flow.
- 59. On Day 46, design and build another new pathway
- 60. Focus on what you want rather than what you don’t want.
- 61. Habits of a Happy Brain Retrain your brain to boost your serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin and endorphin levels
- 62. books podcasts videos infographics training certification slide shows (incl this) 5-day Happy-Chemical Jumpstart all free except the books innermammalinstitute.org The Inner Mammal Institute has the resources you need to make peace with your inner mammal