Saturday, December 17, 2022

Dopamine, Our Pleasure Neurotransmitter! Friend or Foe?

Did you know that when we experience pleasure of one kind or another, our brain chemicals impact our limbic system including the hypothalamus, hippocampus, amygdala, & nucleus accumbens, in particular, and ventral striatum, which are connected to the neurotransmitter dopamine and the brain’s natural opiate, endorphin. Once the body associates a pleasure with those chemicals, it wants more! And more. And more. Let’s use chocolate as an example. Often the mere thought or seeing chocolate produces a release of dopamine in the brain. Then when we taste it, opiates (endorphins) are released further binding our behavior to chocolate eating! Once we eat the chocolate our dopamine level begins to drop. The ANTICIPATION of the pleasure drives the dopamine more so than the actual consumption! Now we have entered dopamine lack which often leaves us feeling deprived and we reach for more chocolate to drive the dopamine back up. It’s cyclic and chocolate is simply an example, as anything pleasurable can send our dopamine levels into overdrive, including other foods, alcohol, sex, shop lifting, work, exercise, dare devil activities, drugs, etc. A similar experience happens with cortisol and sugar. This can be the beginning of an addiction or a craving around a substance or activity that drives anxiousness. Anxiousness is very uncomfortable, but tapping can help. How? By often finding the source event or memories driving the pleasure and tapping on those. Many ask why would I want to rid myself of pleasure! You wouldn’t but perhaps letting go of the excess behaviors might feel like a good idea. And it is, as it often then leaves us more satisfied with less of something (like calories, alcohol, etc.). Questions? Thoughts? Comments? Sherrie Rice Smith Certified EFT Practitioner EFTforChristians.com Author of EFT for Christians 5 Book Series

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