“Dopamine”

I was reading a psychology book recently that spoke about having fun and inserted the word “dopamine” repeatedly, which I tend to interpret as a psychology pop culture trend. To be frank, I feel rather bothered by reducing play and enjoyment to “dopamine” levels. We are so much more than dopamine. Love and life, play and joy is so much more than that. The Child in me, the Spirit, the Essence of me says we are so much more than that.

And yet, there is a way that I think acknowledging dopamine in the realm of fun and excitement can be helpful. For instance, I was considering seeing a movie this weekend, and was even thinking of doing so in the afternoon. Yet what I also thought about was how I’d feel leaving the movie theatre while it was still quite early in the day. I imagined feeling depressed, feeling somewhat apathetic toward the rest of my day. What that exciting movie would have given me is increase in dopamine, which would have caused me to feel pleasure. And naturally, the increase in dopamine, would fall back to baseline, or below baseline, causing a feeling of depression. And in that depression, I would feel more compelled to find some other stimulus to increase my dopamine levels in order to feel less depressed. And so on.

Here we can see the dangers of depending upon things outside ourselves to regulate our mood. And yet most people in Western society do this most of the time. We move from one thing to the next, and then back again, and again, to regulate our mood—to feel pleasure and less depressed. When we depend upon outside stimuli for mood regulation we become depressed, a depressed, apathetic people; addicted, disconnected, lonely, lost. This paints the picture a bit bleak, but is it so far from that? I too get lost in the currents of this addiction.

When I close my lap top, when I place my phone in another room, when I return to just being here and reconnecting to what’s inside me and what’s around me, the doors of my life open up again. I can breathe more deeply. I feel true pleasure. And I will not call this dopamine. It is Life. It is God. It is Beauty. It is Truth. Returning to Who I Am is far more than “neurotransmitters”. Let us not reduce our humanity, our divinity, to that. But, we can learn about ourselves and our behavior when acknowledging these factors. For this I am grateful.