I guess the challenge lies in educating others that when you boil it right down, we are all addicted to dopamine and it's up to us where we choose to source it.
I think a good general rule is, the easier it was to source, the worse it is for you...
100%. The harder you work the greater the fulfillment. i was listening to Rich Roll yesterday and he said "action inspires passion, not the other way around". And whilst I already understood that if you don't know what your passion is you should just keep moving until you figure it out, I thought that was a great quote to remember. You just have to keep doing shit, hard or otherwise, and do it because you believe it's the right thing to do at the time, the rest will look after itself.
Amen! We all seek out ways to soothe ourselves and to not feel the uncomfortable feelings.
The best post I've seen on the internet this year was someone posting about a ADHD diagnosis and it said, "I just found out there is nothing wrong with me".
Yeah, for sure. And the better we get at doing so in a healthy manner the better everything will be.
I think the key is in education and understating. I shouldn't be educating myself about this at 34 when so many neural pathways are so deeply ingrained. A lot of undoing and redeveloping can be avoided purely through earlier intervention.
Hindsight is always a lovely thing to ponder, but if I knew 20 years ago what I know now, or been half of it, I think it could have impacted a lot of the poor decisions I made. Not that I'm bitter, what's done is done, I just hope we can take what we know and help younger people avoid some of what we've had to endure, or at least reduce the severity of it.
There's a few theories. The main is that someone with people with ADHD have an underdeveloped frontal lobe, anywhere from 1-40% under developed, which is why different people take different amounts of medication.
I read that if one parent had ADHD the child has a 50% chance of having it too. My mum thinks she probably has it because she shows a lot of the same traits as I do but is from an era where they didn't really know anything about it.
Gabor Mate believes it's a combination of that and environmental factors. So that and the fact that it can't be diagnosed in the early years of life, resulting in parents not knowing that their kid has different emotional needs to a neaurotypical kid, and not being able to adjust their parenting style accordingly.
My reply to Clare was more a general statement around all people needing dopamine to self soothe. By nature, whatever we stumble across fiurst that soothes us is what we are going to go back to again and again, particularly if it's easily accessible.
So what I meant was, and purely as an example, if a kid isn't taught that exercising will soothe them in the same way sweet food will, they will always go for the sweet food, because it's so much easier. All I was ever taught is too much sweat food is bad for you. Exercise is good for your physical health. Real generic shit.
So in my case, even in my early to mid 20's, I had no idea that I was self soothing with drugs and alcohol. I never made the connection. I would train, lose weight, get healthy, but still have massive weekends then wonder why I was miserable. I just reckon that message needs ot get sent a lot earlier than it is.
Yep, so many people are stuck in that cycle. Starve themself and exercise heaps for 3-4 days, then fall into a heap and turn to their coping mechanism of choice. Then they retry again month later and get the same results feeling worse and worse about themselves each time for failing
Yep, that's why even if you have a slightly unhealthy coping mechanism that you are able to manage, like sweet food or a couple of beers here and there, you're better off drip feeding them to yourself rather than putting pressure eon yourself to abstain completely. Too much pressure and change too quick. If having dessert every night helps you maintain a more healthy lifestyle, is it really that bad for you?
Everyone is addicted to dopamine
Great point.
I guess the challenge lies in educating others that when you boil it right down, we are all addicted to dopamine and it's up to us where we choose to source it.
I think a good general rule is, the easier it was to source, the worse it is for you...
Excellent rule and the opposite is also true... the greater the struggle... the greater the reward!
100%. The harder you work the greater the fulfillment. i was listening to Rich Roll yesterday and he said "action inspires passion, not the other way around". And whilst I already understood that if you don't know what your passion is you should just keep moving until you figure it out, I thought that was a great quote to remember. You just have to keep doing shit, hard or otherwise, and do it because you believe it's the right thing to do at the time, the rest will look after itself.
Wise words
Amen! We all seek out ways to soothe ourselves and to not feel the uncomfortable feelings.
The best post I've seen on the internet this year was someone posting about a ADHD diagnosis and it said, "I just found out there is nothing wrong with me".
Yeah, for sure. And the better we get at doing so in a healthy manner the better everything will be.
I think the key is in education and understating. I shouldn't be educating myself about this at 34 when so many neural pathways are so deeply ingrained. A lot of undoing and redeveloping can be avoided purely through earlier intervention.
Hindsight is always a lovely thing to ponder, but if I knew 20 years ago what I know now, or been half of it, I think it could have impacted a lot of the poor decisions I made. Not that I'm bitter, what's done is done, I just hope we can take what we know and help younger people avoid some of what we've had to endure, or at least reduce the severity of it.
So is ADHD genetic or just the engraining of certain neural pathways?
There's a few theories. The main is that someone with people with ADHD have an underdeveloped frontal lobe, anywhere from 1-40% under developed, which is why different people take different amounts of medication.
I read that if one parent had ADHD the child has a 50% chance of having it too. My mum thinks she probably has it because she shows a lot of the same traits as I do but is from an era where they didn't really know anything about it.
Gabor Mate believes it's a combination of that and environmental factors. So that and the fact that it can't be diagnosed in the early years of life, resulting in parents not knowing that their kid has different emotional needs to a neaurotypical kid, and not being able to adjust their parenting style accordingly.
My reply to Clare was more a general statement around all people needing dopamine to self soothe. By nature, whatever we stumble across fiurst that soothes us is what we are going to go back to again and again, particularly if it's easily accessible.
So what I meant was, and purely as an example, if a kid isn't taught that exercising will soothe them in the same way sweet food will, they will always go for the sweet food, because it's so much easier. All I was ever taught is too much sweat food is bad for you. Exercise is good for your physical health. Real generic shit.
So in my case, even in my early to mid 20's, I had no idea that I was self soothing with drugs and alcohol. I never made the connection. I would train, lose weight, get healthy, but still have massive weekends then wonder why I was miserable. I just reckon that message needs ot get sent a lot earlier than it is.
Yep, so many people are stuck in that cycle. Starve themself and exercise heaps for 3-4 days, then fall into a heap and turn to their coping mechanism of choice. Then they retry again month later and get the same results feeling worse and worse about themselves each time for failing
Yep, that's why even if you have a slightly unhealthy coping mechanism that you are able to manage, like sweet food or a couple of beers here and there, you're better off drip feeding them to yourself rather than putting pressure eon yourself to abstain completely. Too much pressure and change too quick. If having dessert every night helps you maintain a more healthy lifestyle, is it really that bad for you?