How to win in life by understanding the relationship between dopamine and serotonin
A few days ago I came across this really interesting video proposing a ‘dopamine detox’ as a way of teaching yourself to ‘like doing hard things’, and I’m keen to try it out, especially to improve my concentration span and attention to exercise. It’s helped me make sense of a few convergent areas of thinking I’ve stumbled on over the last few years.
My probably, vastly over-simplified, account of how this so-called digital detox works is that we seek pleasure via dopamine-stimulating activities, but what actually makes us happy is serotonin-stimulating activities.
Dopamine activities can be addictive: e.g., drugs, alcohol, eating sugary stuff, TV, random Internet browsing, social media, compulsive sexual activity, video games.
Serotonin activities mostly can’t be unhealthily addictive: Walking, exercise, cooking, gardening, love-making, socialising, meditating, studying, reading books, making things, writing, giving or contributing to others.
Dopamine-based pleasure-seeking is usually solitary; serotonin-stimulating activity is or can be social.
A certain amount of dopamine-seeking behaviour is healthy, as some dopamine is vital for healthy appetite — but civilisation, at least in its capitalism-turbo-charged form, has greatly and excessively expanded our access to dopamine-inducing activities and substances, contributing to both epidemics of ill-health (diabetes, obesity and drug abuse) and social breakdown.
Civilisation helps build well-moderated serotonin levels, but decadence is about excessive dopamine stimulation.
As Robert Lustig (an American doctor who has warned about the dangers of excessive sugar consumption) observes:
In the last forty years, [US] government legislation and subsidies have promoted ever-available temptation (sugar, drugs, social media, porn) combined with constant stress (work, home, money, Internet), with the end result of an unprecedented epidemic of addiction, anxiety, depression, and chronic disease. And with the advent of neuromarketing, corporate America has successfully imprisoned us in an endless loop of desire and consumption from which there is no obvious escape.
I can’t recall the source, but I read a few years ago that since the 1970s, in many Western countries, people’s participation in healthy community-based activities, whether that’s a running club, a church, or a local charity, has dramatically declined. That’s the dangerous flip side to the ‘endless loop of desire and consumption’ seeking our time and money.
Some of Lustig’s work is summarised in this great infographic. He discusses his book, The Hacking of the American Mind, in a Lifehacker podcast interview.
The ‘dopamine detox’ proposed in the video means that for a single day, you forgo all the dopamine stuff and focus on the serotonin stuff.
Lustig summarises these as ‘connecting, contributing, coping [self-care: exercise, sleep, etc] and contributing’.
The video’s summary is NO to ‘Internet, phone & computer use, music, masturbation, junk food’, and YES to walking, meditating, reflecting and journalling.
Focus on these kinds of activities for a day, and forgoing all dopamine-seeking behaviour, the video suggests, to reset your dopamine sensitivity; and make you better able to resist the impulses that keep you away from doing things you know are good for you.
The video does not propose how often this dopamine detox should be done — but it seems there might be a solid biological foundation for the merits of the weekly Sabbath observed by observant Jews and Christians.
My own Buddhist practice advocates making daily practices of chanting, studying and supporting others; and I now have a better understanding of why I find self-moderation easier during those times when my Buddhist practice has been strongest.
Here’s that video again: ‘How I Tricked My Brain To Like Doing Hard Things (dopamine detox)’.
We live in a time when there’s a lot of ‘influencer’ bumpf floating around about how we can or should create the best lives possible. A lot of that bumpf comes from blind privilege. It ignores fundamental personal inequalities (such as disability) and social inequalities (whether or not you’re born into a prosperous family, community or society) that make creating a ‘good life’ a great deal easier for some than for others.
But there is also always a part of our destiny that is in our own hands, if we’re not prone to being ‘our own worst enemies’. Up against a social order in most countries that is stacked up to make life very hard for all too many people, it’s easy at times to succumb to the ‘dark [dopamine] side’.
But if we can resist, and as far as possible choose to pursue the serotonin-enhancing activities that help us build prosperous and healthy lives in community with others, we have a chance at becoming our own best friends.
There are important public policy implications here too. Governments should seek to support their citizens’ pursuit of serotonin-based activities and limit or ‘crowd out’ the dopamine-based activities.
In conclusion: To improve your chances of winning in life, as far as possible it seems we should base our happiness and success on healthy, social, serotonin-based activities, and carefully moderate or limit the amount of social dopamine-based pleasure-seeking we allow ourselves.
Hugging babies is very good too, but that’s oxytocin, I think, and I’ve not yet figured out exactly where that fits in. :)