Re-Air: Dopamine and the Brain (One Of Your Most UNDERRATED Super-Powers)

Dopamine is a POWERFUL force within the brain. Do You want to learn how to use it to your advantage? Then Listen up! You DO NOT want to miss this episode (again).

Enjoy!!!!

Transcript

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Welcome to the authentic life connection podcast. I'm your host, Seth Lusk. I'm a master certified life coach, author, personal trainer and nutrition specialist. For over a decade, I've been helping people with their dreams and goals for their life and health. I spent many years watching people get frustrated with their journey in life and giving up on taking actions towards their goals. So I dug in deep to find answers to why so many of us face this same frustration and struggle in life. So in this podcast, we're gonna dive in deep on topics surrounding what it means to consistently live a fulfilling and authentic life, where you are unstoppable and taking action towards your dreams and goals. So the only question is, are you ready to start living your most authentic and fulfilling life once and for all? Then let's get started. Shall we? Hey, everyone, welcome back to the podcast. For those of you listening in for the first time. Welcome, welcome. You picked a fascinating episode to listen in on this week. I say that every week, and I mean it every week. If you have not listened to last week's episode, I would recommend either before or after this episode, going back and listening, because it does give a little bit more context to what we're going to be talking about today. So last week, I talked with you all about what is motivating your brain, and the reasons why our brain kind of has these specific motivations. And today, what I want to talk about kind of builds on that. So the brain has specific desires, and goals and kind of objectives that it thinks is going to sort of keep us alive and safe. And that's its main objective, because it wants to stay alive and safe. It's the biological organ. So the brain does this in a specific way. And I want to kind of spend the time today to talk about how the brain actually goes about accomplishing that, you know, driving us to do these things to fulfill its urges. And the reason why is because if you remember what I talked about last week, is that I talked with you all about using your brain for you instead of it using you for it. And one of the ways that we can do that is through understanding the system that is in place by the brain to motivate us to drive us to seek reward. And so what we're going to talk about today is basically dopamine, dopamine and the brain's reward system. So what is dopamine? I think that's really important for us to establish, first of all, is what is dopamine? And why is it so important to pay attention to so dopamine is basically a neurotransmitter. And what that means is that it helps to signal our central nervous system and our brain and parts of our body to do certain things. There are many different neurotransmitters that we have available in our body to accomplish this task. But dopamine is the one that we use that provides us with the feeling of motivation of drive of ambition. Without dopamine, we would be feeling basically apathetic and depressed. One thing though, that I want to say here is dopamine isn't the pleasure hormone that many people think that it is. There are other hormones that help us to feel the sensation of pleasure such as oxytocin, serotonin, things like this that help us to feel happy, and pleasure in life. But what dopamine does, what the science points to, and why dopamine is so important for us to understand is that dopamine regulates motivational salience. So that might be a big word for you. Let me explain. Motivational salience is basically a cognitive process, and it's a form of attention that motivates or propels our behavior toward or away from a particular object, perceived event or outcome. So motivational salience regulates the intensity of behaviors that facilitate basically the attainment of a particular goal, or the resistance to taking action towards a particular goal. It regulates the amount of time and energy that an individual is willing to expend to attain a particular goal and the amount of risk that an individual is willing to accept while working to attain the particular goal. So dopamine basically regulates all of this, okay? It is the neurotransmitter that is responsible for driving us to want to seek behaviors that we perceive as being advantageous to our survival. This is a brilliant system that our brain has in place here. And then when we seek out these behaviors and we get certain results, then we also have the reward of those behaviors. For years, and the brain basically created this dopamine system, this reward system, in order to drive us towards those behaviors, instead of, you know, 1000s of years ago, hiding in the cave, trying to stay safe, and then just slowly starving to death, and slowly dying, because we're too afraid to get out there and hunt our food, build ourselves shelter, or do whatever it is that would, you know, increase our chances of survival and, you know, producing offspring, and then them surviving. So dopamine was basically that that neurotransmitter that drove us to get out there and go after these behaviors, even though there might be a certain amount of risk, it was kind of like the hormone that would be like, yeah, there's a little bit of risk here. But it's worth it, it's worth it, because you'll get this reward on the other side. So dopamine is that is that neurotransmitter, that hormone that drives us to do this. Another interesting thing about dopamine that I found fascinating and doing my research about it, is that it also inhibits the release of norepinephrine, which if you don't know what norepinephrine is, it's the neurotransmitter or hormone that is responsible for stimulating the fight or flight response. Why this is so interesting is because basically, when we are going out there, and we're doing things that are uncertain in order to create certain results, our central nervous system, when we are in uncertainty, the brain wants us to go into fight or flight because the brain is always looking, it's got its negativity bias, it's always looking for something is wrong. And so without dopamine, without it being there without, you know, being able to suppress this norepinephrine, every time something semi uncertain would come up, we would slip into this fight or flight response. And that is very undesirable, if we want to be able to take consistent action or behavior towards a desired goal. Because if we're constantly slipping into fight or flight response, which most of us are actually doing, every time, we recognize a little bit of uncertainty, a little bit of unfamiliarity, a little bit of discomfort, a little bit of possible danger, then we just run away, or we're gonna go into all our battle mode, which is also not going to help us in certain situations. So we want to be able to stay, you know, in that state of having a calm level, head that we're able to analyze data, we're able to look at what we want, we're able to make conscious decisions about how we're going to take actions forward towards the desired goal. And this is where dopamine and the suppression of norepinephrine helps us. Another reason why this is very interesting, is because for a lot of people, and I know a lot of my audience is in this position. I know I've been in this position before, a lot of us who have experienced trauma in our formative years, you know, this could be emotional or physical abuse, this could be, you know, parents divorcing, this could be a lot of emotional trauma surrounding things, just life falling apart around, you know, maybe you lost your home, maybe your house burned up in a fire, maybe your, you know, parents gave you up for adoption, you know, so many different things that could happen in our formative years, maybe both of your parents died, you know, things that can cause these trauma experiences as for us in our formative years, and we create these stories about life where we're fearful of life. And then the longer we live in these stories, our central nervous system becomes more and more dysregulated. And people with these dysregulated central nervous systems, when we grow up, we tend to go into fight or flight response a lot easier, and a lot more frequently than the majority of people when we face adversity when we face, you know, challenges in life when we face uncertainty. And these same people that have these dysregulated central nervous systems are going to be very motivated to seek out behaviors that stimulate dopamine. And the reason why is because dopamine gets us out of that fight or flight response, which is very uncomfortable for us. And so we will seek out behaviors that sort of relax the central nervous system and get us out of that fight or flight response. But the problem is, is that most of us are letting our brains decide those behaviors for us. And we're doing it in resistance to our life, we're doing it to escape our life, we're doing it to numb out of our life. And this is where a lot of addictive behavior stems from, because we're not consciously choosing where we want to get our dopamine from in a way that builds a life that we want to be in all parts of it. And instead, we seek out that dopamine in a way to escape our life and to feel that that constant pleasure and comfort right now, instead of that steady stream of reward that comes from seeking out dopamine and behaviors that will create a life that we actually want. So, yeah, originally, the purpose of dopamine, let's talk about that because we have this powerful system, and a lot of you out there who are struggling with addictive behaviors or, you know, have this this sort of trauma response and this dysregulated central nervous system and you find yourself in these behaviors where it's almost like you're doing things against your own will eating against your own will drinking against your own will, you know, you maybe you feel compelled to not eat against your own will, because you're so afraid of gaining weight or you feel compelled to exercise almost against your own will even though your body is telling you, hey, you need to take a break, things are falling apart here. Or maybe you feel compelled to work all of the time. And it's, you know, your relationships are falling apart in life, but you just can't stop doing and you don't understand why more than likely it has to do with the fact that you have allowed your dopamine response, to latch on to something in order to escape a life that you feel unsafe or uncertain. And so talking about this, this dopamine response is really important to understanding it. So yeah, originally, the purpose of dopamine dopamine was that the brain use dopamine to drive us to do things that it perceives will increase our chances of survival. And like I said, this is a really, really intelligent design and strategy for the brain. But here's the issue 1000s of years 1000s upon 1000s upon 1000s of years later, after this whole system was created, survival is not just the goal anymore, it's not just about surviving. But so many of you out there are stuck in that survival mode, because you're letting this dopamine system run you versus you running it. So you're stuck in this like survival mode of life instead of thriving. The goal now is to be thriving and building the life that we want. We're not in danger of dying all the time. We don't have dinosaurs chasing us around, we have cures for a lot of the diseases, we have food available to us, we have shelter, we have community, we don't have this danger of if a certain social group doesn't accept us, we're gonna get cast out. And we're not gonna have food, shelter or ability to protect ourselves, we have all of those needs taken care of. And now we're in this position in life, where we're wanting to build lives with intention that we want, not just trying to survive anymore. But that dopamine response, if we don't understand it, and take the steering wheel of it, it's going to steer us to keep trying to just focus on the survival things, the survival behaviors in life. And this also becomes especially problematic with all of the unnatural, manmade concentrated sources of stimulation for this reward drive. And I'm talking about things like alcohol, and super processed foods that we have today that have our central nervous systems and our brains so confused, and so dysregulated as far as what it should focus on, for its for its reward. And so we have these concentrated rewards. You know, we have drugs, we have pornography, we have shopping available everywhere, we have social media, all of these different things that are lighting up the centers of our brain, that's like yes, connection, that's a great way to survive. Yes, food, that's a great way to survive, yes, getting things that's a great way to survive, yes, sex, that's a great way to dress survive, all of these things in the brain doesn't understand that, you know, that we don't need to latch on to these things obsessively to the point where it becomes an over behavior, because we have the needs met. And now what we're trying to do is build a life that we actually want. And so we feel at the effect of this dopamine drive. And we feel at the effect of these behaviors, like they're running us in our life, and we have no control over them. So the key is when it comes to our brain's use of dopamine, and how it motivates us is to find this balance. We don't want to let our dopamine levels get too low, and then we end up apathetic and depressed and we don't do anything. And this is the equivalent of 1000s and 1000s of years ago, just staying inside the cave and letting ourselves slowly die because you know, what's the point just, there's no bloody lame, you know, there's nothing out there. That's important for me that that I want to do. So I'm just gonna stay in the cave and die. And so we don't want our dopamine levels to get too low. But we also don't want them overloaded to the point in a specific area, where we focus that dopamine in one specific area, and then we started exhibiting addictive behavior patterns where we feel like we're almost doing things against our own will. And this is where so many of us are in our life. Often we have trained our brains to focus in on one particular area of life for our reward. And then it seems like we can't help ourselves, but to just constantly be running to that for reward reward, whether it be food, sex, alcohol, drugs, pornography, Instagram, shopping, you know, work, even exercise, so many different things that can become these addictive behavior patterns. And it's keeping us from being able to create the life that we actually want to be living. So, yeah, our brains, our brain has this reward system. And we can get reward from a lot of different areas in life. The biggest places that we can get reward from are things like food, alcohol, sex TV, Yeah, social media work shopping. And basically these these stem from the rewards of if we look at basically the reward of comfort, the reward of conserving energy, the reward of achievement, the reward of food, these are like the main drives of the brain. And all of these things kind of play into the idea of that the motivation of connection with other human beings for safety. So that the problem is that anytime one area of life becomes too big of a focus for our dopamine response, then the reward on the other side actually comes with a net consequence that will have a quote unquote, negative effect on your life. So when we look at something like food, when we become over focused on food as our source of dopamine, we start to see the negative effects of things like uncontrollable weight gain, or weight gain and loss, weight gain and loss, you know, the yo yoing back and forth, we have metabolic disorders, diabetes, also, eating disorders stem from this. And I know that maybe sounds counterintuitive, but not just I'm not just talking about binge eating, but of things like bulimia or things like anorexia, or things like, you know, being obsessive over only eating the right foods. And if you can't, you just like give up on it, you just eat whatever. So eating disorders stem from this too, because our brain tries to counteract the feeling of feeling out of control with our eating habits. And that putting us in that panic mode. And then our dopamine comes, becomes fixated on the reward of trying to control the food intake, so that we can achieve another reward of either being weight loss of being weight loss or having this body image that we're going to reach towards. And so again, this is where the dopamine then becomes fixated on that being the reward, and it becomes overly fixated on weight loss, overly fixated on body image, and then we develop eating disorders. So our it's not just when we talk about the reward of food and our dopamine response, it can also go in the opposite direction, where we try and overly control food to try and receive that reward of weight loss, or getting to that perfect body quote, unquote, that we see other people having and getting rewarded for. So and then when our brain becomes too focused on this being our source of dopamine, the control of food, then we also end up with a net negative consequence. On the other side, you know, we we start developing, you know, dysfunction in our health and other ways. By being having too low body fat percentage, we started losing muscle mass, we start losing bone density, bone density, people die from eating disorders. So then we can move on, we can look at alcohol. When our brain starts looking at alcohol too. We're too focused on alcohol. And we over drink, we start having the negative effect of hangovers alcoholism, we end up with nutrient deficiencies, because alcohol actually damages our digestive tract to the point that we can't absorb certain nutrients. And it damages our liver to the point that we can't create certain digestive enzymes to be able to absorb certain nutrients, we end up with fatty liver disease, there are so many things that happen when our brain over focuses on alcohol as being our source of pleasure and dopamine reward. When it comes to work, you know, oftentimes we see work as being this noble thing. But when our brain becomes too focused on work as being our source of reward, we end up in distress, we end up having dysregulated sleep, we end up not nurturing important relationships in our life. And this, all of these and so many more end up having a net negative Conte consequence on our life. Also, it can start affecting the way we eat, and how much we drink because we may end up taking up drinking to try and de stress from the distress of overly focusing on work. So this all of this happens when we start to over focus or dopamine or award drive in specific areas. And also a shopping. The net negative consequence can be going into debt hoarding, in order to have room for everything and you know, then our whole entire lives become so chaotic and disorganized to find space for everything that we can't stop buying. With sex, we have STDs, or the inability to have a steady committed relationship that we feel like we want with someone because we can't stop trying to have sex with other people. When it comes to television, you know, when we become overly focused on television, other responsibilities get neglected, we end up feeling depressed, we end up feeling a lack of energy, we had ended up with poor fitness because we're laying around all the time. With social media, we can end up in distress, we can end up in a mode where we're in too much comparison. And then we don't even know what we want out of our life anymore. And we're just so busy looking out there for social media to tell us what we should be doing and want out of life. And so there's no authenticity. There's loss of time, where a person wants to accomplish other tax tasks, but they're so busy scrolling through social media, you know, and with exercise, we can over focus on exercise and it puts distress In the body, we end up with overuse injuries, fatigue and other health issues from over exercising my friends, anywhere that our dopamine reward system over focuses, it will end up having a net negative consequence on the other side. So not only does this create a net negative result for us when our dopamine reward drive is to focus on one area, but also we have to remember this. Dopamine is not an unlimited resource, there's only so much of it to go around. And when we are using it all up in one area, not only does that one area end up creating a net negative consequences, we don't even actually have the reward that we're looking for, we have the short term, short term pleasure, reward, but then after that, it's all net negative consequence. So not only do we have that, but then we're also using all of our dopamine up in that area of life. And then we look around for the other areas that other areas of life where we want to be taking action, so that we can create the life we want. And we don't have any dopamine left to motivate us to take that action, we're lacking the drive that we want to have, because all of our dopamine is being focused in this one area disproportionately in life. And so we just feel like, oh, no, I'm just the kind of person that just loves to exercise, I just love to work, I just love to eat, I just love to drink, I just love to social media, I just love to have sex, you know, that's just who I am. And what we're not realizing is that what's happening is we've just trained our dopamine system to focus so much in one area that we don't have any dopamine left to drive us to feel motivated in the other areas of life where we want to feel motivated, all of its being spent somewhere else. And that somewhere else ends up having a net negative consequence for us. So the truth is, what we want here is balance. This is an area of life, my friends, where it's a great example, to see that either or thinking is going to get you into trouble. Anywhere that dopamine is being used to motivate us, even if it's something that originally can be a behavior that is helping us to create a life we want. When it gets out of balance. And there's too much of our dopamine reward system focusing on this area of life, it will start creating a net negative result on the other side. And this is how things like work, something that we can use to really create a life that we want, can become something very destructive and even addictive in life, exercise and food to both of these are things that can be used to really nourish and strengthen our bodies. When it comes to food, food is something needed to nourish the body. And same with exercise, it's needed to keep it healthy and alive. But all around us, we're seeing the effects of these foods, these ultra highly processed foods that are highly concentrated, and that, you know, go in there and hit our dopamine response in such an unnatural way. And our brain doesn't know how to account for this. So it believes that this food is the most important thing in life. And if we leave this out of our conscious awareness, that what ends up happening is that very thing that was originally a way to survive and nourish our body become something that is now creating disease and death in our body, as well as many other dysfunctions in our lives, you know, not being able to do things that we want, because we keep gaining weight and gaining weight and gaining weight. And then it becomes hard for us to move around and do the things in life that are important for us that we actually want to be doing. And we're just like, oh, well, no, see, I just see that. I'm just someone that really loves food. And so I guess this is my life. And we just let that story run our life. We don't even think anymore about what we want out of life because we just feel so at the effect of this dopamine drive, we don't even see we created that drive. And that, that we're letting it control our life. I see so many of my clients struggling to feel like they have authority and intention with their eating habits. So many people feeling out of control, and like they're almost eating against their own will. And a big part of this is their dopamine reward drive being too focused on food. So we want balance here. We want enough of the dopamine to drive us and motivate motivate us towards behaviors that create a life we want such as eating a nourishing meal. But we don't want it to the point where we're so over focused on food, that we're just eating ultra high processed foods all of the time to get that pleasure hit that immediate pleasure hit of the food. And then on the other side of it, guess what we don't have that nourished, energized, healthy body, what we have is a body that is tired and gaining weight and falling apart. And the digestive system is tired and falling apart. And it's like hey, man, take a break on the F and food already. But we can't because we've we've trained our brains to focus our dopamine drive on food, and we're not taking responsibility for that dopamine drive. We're not bringing it into our conscious awareness. And we're just letting ourselves be at the effect of that drive. So we want to keep this in our conscious awareness so that we don't become too dope. been focused in one area of life, that could actually benefit us if we have that balance with it. And then that area becomes an expense to other areas of life. So what I want to say here is when it comes to us partaking in any of these manmade unnatural forms of dopamine stimulation, so basically any product out there that is designed to create a particular amount of pleasure for you, we want to bring keep this in our conscious awareness, I'm talking about things like foods, ultra processed foods and in the world. And so so many of us don't even actually see what real food is anymore, because so many processed foods are out there. When we say eat whole real foods, a lot of us don't even know what that actually means. This is why I spend a lot of time working with my clients on that, and deciding with intention, what foods they want to eat to nourish their body and what they actually want to call food. So many of us are like, Oh, no, I didn't want to teach my kids to have an unhealthy relationship with food. So I just eat cake whenever I want to, because I don't want them to develop an eating disorder. But that is an eating disorder. You know, having having the addiction to ultra processed foods and not being able to only eat the amounts of it that actually serve your body and allow you to show up in your life in an empowered way where you get to do the things you want to in life, and you're not at the effect of food, that is an eating disorder, my friends, and teaching that to your kids is not doing them any benefit. And so I've had so many of my clients in the past, when I tell them, you know, cut out the cut off the desserts, cut out the processed sugar, they didn't want to teach my kids that I didn't want them to have body image issues. And I'm like you already are teaching them to have body image issues. Because you're teaching them not to choose for it with intention, the foods that will nourish their body and the amounts of it that will nourish their body and help them to be able to show up in their life in a way that they want to create a life that they want instead of being at the effect of addicted to food, and overly focused on food. And it can even be overly focused on trying to control your eating habits because they are out of control. That is what you're teaching your kids, they're you're not teaching them to have a healthy relationship with food and healthy relationship with their body, you're teaching them to have an out of control relationship with food and body that you have. And I want to be I want that to be clear here. We want balance. That's what we want to pass down to our kids. That's what we want to teach ourselves to do. So what anytime we have these manmade unnatural, concentrated forms of dopamine when it comes to food, alcohol, porn, movies, television, social media, we want to be consciously aware of the effect of this and what it has in our brain and in our life, how much of our focus is going towards it? Is it coming at the expense of other areas of our life that we want to be focused on? Is it coming at the expense of our health? Is it coming at the expense of being able to show up for life in other ways that we want to show up, these concentrated sources of dopamine stimulation are going to trick your brain into believing that these sources of reward are the most important thing in life, even if they start having a net negative consequence on the other side, even if we know on some conscious level, that there are other things that are more important, like the brain will trick you into believing because it believes because it's tricked by these manmade concentrated sources. This is why I always tell people cut out the processed foods for a while and see how differently you look at life. See how differently you should you show up for yourself. See how differently your brain can focus on things when you cut out those processed foods. And you allow your brain to feel the steady reward stream of eating foods that actually nourish your body eating whole, real nutritious foods that nourish your body and see how your relationship with food changes. See how your relationship with life changes. See how your brains focus and ability to concentrate on things that are important for you changes. Because these concentrated manmade sources like the double chocolate cake with a white chocolate, four layered molten gooey cake with ice cream, you know, oh my god, the brain is going to be like that. Who did you taste that? Did you feel that that feeling of reward on you. Because your brain associates this, this reward of food as being life giving, it doesn't understand food is not scarce anymore. It doesn't understand. We don't need to be ultra focused on food. We have enough nutritious food around us we're not going to die of starvation. So we need to be mindful when we take part and these ultra processed these ultra concentrated forms of pleasure. It's not that we can't have them in our life. But you will get what you might want to cut them out of your life for a while until you can get your relationship with them under control and put them into context and then bring them back into your life in conscious awareness. So that when you take part in them, you understand your brain is going to feel that that instant gratification of eating the cake of having the alcoholic drink of watching the movie of scrolling through social media and it's going to try and convince you hey this is life itself folk As here, screw all of that out there, you don't need to go to the gym, you don't need to write that paper, you don't need to send that email, you don't need to make that sales call, you don't need to, you know, start working on that book, you don't need to go over there and write this, you don't need to go do that that was important for you. This right here is life itself, your brain will trick you into believing that if you don't keep it in your conscious awareness, that when you take part in these concentrated forms of pleasure, your brain will try to drive you to overly focus on these things. Because it's so dysregulated, our dopamine response, and the brain does not have a way to account for that yet, it has not evolved a biological system to account for that overstimulation of dopamine, we've only had these things available to us for maybe the last 100 years or so. And the brain does not evolve physically that fast, it takes 1000s upon 1000s of years for a physical evolution to occur in the brain. So the brain is not capable of keeping up with these concentrated forms of pleasure that we have in life. And so it is our responsibility to keep that in our conscious awareness. If we are going to partake in these ultra processed Ultra Concentrated sources of dopamine stimulation, it is our responsibility to understand that this is what will happen and decide for ourselves what we're going to do about it, and how we're going to keep that in our conscious awareness and make conscious decisions about how we're going to drive our dopamine system towards the things we want to be doing that will create the life we want. You know, you know, when I first started doing this podcast, my brain used to kick and scream. And it will try and convince me to look at something else. Some other more concentrated form of pleasure, or reward or immediate gratification, maybe food, maybe going out for drinks with friends, maybe playing a game, maybe watching some sort of video, maybe scrolling through social media, my brain would always be like, Oh, but you know, sitting down for an hour and recording that podcast, that's, that's gonna take some work. You know, that's, that's hard. That's, you know, yeah, maybe there's a little bit of reward on the other side. But look at look at this stuff over here. You could just scroll through social media and get a reward right now. You could go eat that cake in the refrigerator and get a reward right now. You could you know, go have sex and get a reward right now you could, you know, go have drinks with your friends and get a hit a huge pleasure hit of reward right now. Like, why would you go through, and my brain would try and convince me that these things were more important. And it would do so with so much intensity, so much driver for you know, oh, but look, this reward is available, it's right there, you can get that reward right now, instead of going and recording the podcast, and spending the time to to get the long term reward that I would get from sitting down and recording the podcast. And what would happen is, if I gave into these things, there was no reward on the other side, I'd go out, you know, oh, I can record the podcast another time, I'm gonna go out and have drinks with friends, then I wake up the next day with a hangover, and then I'm tired. And then I'm like, Oh, I still don't feel like recording the podcast, what am I going to do now, maybe I'll just go eat some food, you know, in the cycle of being stuck in that immediate pleasure hit. And not doing sitting down and writing the outline and getting ready to record the podcast, I will get stuck. And then I felt like I had no motivation to get up and get on my laptop and write the outline and record the podcast because I've used up all of my dopamine on going out for drinks, going to get food, going to have sex, going to scroll through social media going to watch some show or some movie on Netflix. And then I had no dopamine left to drive me to do the thing that would actually create a sustainable, long lasting reward on the other side, where when I sit down and I write the outline, I get a great podcast episode because I spent time on it. I thought about it, I outlined it, I put with intention what I wanted in it. And then I get a great recording, which brings a larger audience and that helps more people and then more people reach out for me for help one on one, and I get to coach more people. And I get, I get the extended long term reward of reaching out and helping more and more people and then getting to work with them and then helping even more and then maybe they go tell other people and I get the reward of them reaching out to me for help. So the it's like the reward system just keeps going and going and going and to get the steady stream of reward, reward reward and dopamine, but it's not this Ultra Concentrated, you know it there is a net positive effect. On the other side, I get more contribution, more abundance in life, more financial stability, more of spreading my core values into the world and life around to me. And when I choose this instead of the intense, immediate pleasure hit that's followed by a net negative consequence. And instead what I get is I get that slow, steady, rewarding dopamine response that is consistent that keeps pulling me forward instead of that huge pleasure hit and then and then a huge pleasure hitting. You know, like, going out in gorging on that food and then afterwards I'm like, Why did I eat that I'm so stuffed and oh my god. Now I don't feel like doing this and my stomach is so full and I'm gaining weight and instead I get to show up for the things that I want. Put in the work and feel driven towards it because I know on the other side If I'm living into my core values, and on the other side is a reward that is sustainable, and that's going to pull me into other behaviors that are going to create more rewards in life instead of on the other side, me being stuck without, you know, I have the immediate pleasure, but then there's no reward, there's the net negative consequence on the other side. This is what it looks like when we plan out and choose where we get our dopamine from, is that we get this long term, slow, steady reward in life that keeps building and building and building. And it's constantly moving us forward and forward and increasing and expanding our lives. And my friends, this is one of the biggest levers that we can move and reshaping our lives and creating a life in a way that we truly desire to be showing up is to deliberately focus where we are choosing to get our dopamine from so many people out there walking around and talking about these drives is this, just something that is a fact that is happening to them in life, like, Oh, I'm just someone that loves eating, or I just, you know, I can't lose weight, because they just love eating, and you know, I'm gonna love my body anyways, and just keep gaining the weight, because I'm just someone who loves to eat, and I can't do anything about it. Or I'm just someone who loves watching TV on the weekend. So I don't exercise and I'm gonna let my body fall apart, because that's just the person that I am in self love. And we talk about this, like, these are just facts about us. And then we dismiss our dreams to actually get up off the couch to actually do something about our eating habits and create the life we want. And we just convinced ourselves of the story that we don't have any bigger goals or dreams of that, that we're more interested in focusing on the immediate pleasure hit that we can have right now. And the the negative consequence of it coming at the expense of our real and actual dreams that we just shove in a dark corner and try and close the closet door on it, forget that we have them. So many of you out there are doing this, and letting your brain trick you into believing that this is just how your life is. And this is just you trying to enjoy life. But you have a huge choice here, my friends, you get to choose where your dopamine is spent, and what drives your reward center. It's not something that just happens to you. It's not just something that you're born with, and you're stuck with. And one of the biggest ways that we get to choose this is what we do when we feel bored. What we do when we feel bored, teaches our brain what to look towards, for its source of dopamine. And it trains the reward system to focus on that thing. And so many people when they're bored, they're immediately looking for an escape route, when boredom is actually a very powerful opportunity. And instead, we look for an escape route because the brain is telling us, you know, oh, but this over here would be so much easier, when boredom is an opportunity for us to actually lean in and see that what's what's happening here is that the brain is trying to tell us there's something about life that we don't like. And then we have these huge dreams, these huge goals for life that we could be living into. And our Mote our dream our brain could be motivating us towards taking the action and actually getting the sustainable long term reward of of taking action towards these goals and dreams. But we don't. And said so many of us run to alcohol, or food or social media, or porn or TV or shopping or socializing, when we feel bored to try and escape live. And we're just like, oh, and as someone who loves social media, that's me self love, or I'm just someone who loves food or alcohol. You know, I'm gonna resist that because they just want to love myself. And then we're sitting in this life convincing ourselves that we don't have any dreams or goals. And every time we feel bored, we just run to one of these for a pleasure hit to, you know, kind of numb out that feeling of the fact that we're living a life that we don't want to be living, when what we have is the opportunity to be in that boredom and let those real dreams and desires come up. And then choose to take actions that will bring those desires into our life and get the long term lasting, sustainable reward of driving are dopamine towards that, towards those things towards a balance of these things in their life, creating the life that we want, instead of feeling at the effect of an overly focused dopamine response. And my friends, you do have this huge opportunity at your disposal regularly, stop wasting your boredom. I know that sounds crazy, but you're wasting your boredom. And then therefore wasting your dopamine on cheap, quick fixes of temporary pleasure. And then convincing yourself that that's just what you want in life. That's just what you love. And you're stating it like it's a fact like that's just what you're stuck with. Better get used to it. Learn how to enjoy life with those pleasure hits, that you're just, that's who you are. And you're treating it like it's a fact like you have no say in the matter. Like you didn't actually create that dopamine response, which you did. Now you did it without awareness, and I want to teach you how to do it with awareness with intention. And if you're someone who believes that you just don't have big dreams or goals, I'm here to tell you that that's bullshit. That's an excuse. This is your brain telling you a story and you're letting yourself believe it. I have yet to speak with anyone who has claimed that they do not have big dreams or goals and they have not been able to really listen to them, and lean in and find that way in their story to allow them to see the cracked door. That when they open it, and they lean in look, they let Oh, wow, I forgot, I forgot to have that dream, I forgot to actually have that goal. I convinced myself that was impossible. And so I shoved it in this dark corner back here and closed the door on it, so that I wouldn't have to think about it. And meanwhile, that's what I've been like out here trying to numb out away from is because I'm trying to forget the fact that I have this dream or goal over here, it's there. You just trained yourself to hide from them, reject them, and ignore them and dismiss those dreams or goals. And so you become practiced in doing that. And then seeking immediate gratification. And an overly focused dopamine response on something like food, alcohol, sex, porn, television, social media, shopping, whatever it might be exercising, working, whatever it is, and trying to ignore those goals, those dreams in your life, instead of creating a plan to take action towards those goals and create that consistent steady stream of reward and dopamine in your life. And if you I can show you how to do this, if you don't believe me, I will show you what your dreams and goals are, and not show you in a way where I'm going to tell you what there are, what they are, I'm going to show you how you can find them for yourself and be like, Ah, I remember now, I'm not going to tell you what your your dreams and goals are. I'm going to help you to remember that they've been there the entire time. And you've just trained yourself to forget about them, and then numb out to kind of numb out the pain of forgetting about them not living into your potential. I dare you to let me show you. I dare you. So yeah, my friends, boredom. Boredom is such a wasted opportunity when it comes to redirecting this drive of the dopamine reward system. But also another way we can do this is allowing urges to just be there. And being with the emotions of the urges and learning from them. And listening to them, instead of following the urge. This is another great way to reprogram the dopamine drive. So many of you out there, just like when an urge comes up, you're like, Oh, I've got to get into it. And look, there's that urge. Again, this is just me remember, I just loved the food and I love the alcohol and I love the television and and I just love the shop and and I can't stop it. So I just got to do it. There's the urge again, and I can't resist it anymore. You know, you're stuck in this story of life where you believe this is this is how your life is. And I'm here to show you all this is is an urge. All it is is your dopamine response, being trained in one area, and you can retrain it, it's not the kind of person you are, it's not something you have to resist for the rest of your life. You just have to allow yourself to understand what you truly want out of life. So you can redirect that dopamine response to taking action towards those things. Instead of being hyper focused on these immediate pleasures over here, that you're hoping you can just keep numbing out of life until eventually you're you're dead. And you'll be like, Oh, well, I hit all the pleasure, I hit all the little pleasure waves I could on the way I didn't do anything that I actually wanted to do with my life. But don't worry, I felt pleasure the whole way through. And meanwhile, you're having all these net negative consequences on the other side of not being in control of your weight, not being able to get out and do the activities that you want not feeling like you're in control of your life, not feeling like you can get up and do the things that are important for you because you're tired, overfed, gaining weight and your body is falling apart, and your brain won't focus just because and you're you're convincing yourself, Oh, I'm just one of these people doesn't have a focus brain. And you're not even seeing the fact that the reason your brain won't focus on the things you think you want it to is because it's too busy being overly focused on these things over here that you've trained it to look for all the time to numb yourself out of your life. And so many of you out there getting ADHD diagnosis is because you want something to be wrong with you to explain to you why oh, well, this is just me, you know, gotta keep doing this, you know, I'm an ADHD, you're not just can't help it, I gotta keep going into the field and everything because that's how my brain works. And you won't even look at the fact that you have power to reprogram that brain. And I'm not here to say that ADHD isn't a real thing. And that some people might not want to take medication for a while while they get it under control. But I believe that ADHD is a symptom of people allowing their dopamine response to run them instead of them running it. So while you're taking that medication, because you quote unquote, have ADHD, why don't you let me train you on how to retrain that dopamine system. So you're not stuck with that ADHD for the rest of your life. I think ADHD is a symptom, not a diagnosis. It is a symptom of a much bigger problem. But that's that's a story for another time. So when it comes to these dopamine responses, we have power here we have power to use this we have power to make a conscious choice of where, where we want to focus our dopamine but the first step is bring it into your conscious awareness that you are being driven by your dopamine reward system, and you're being driven by it being too strongly focused in one area of your life. And this is creating the dysfunction you see in your life, the lack of concentration, the lack of motivation and other areas of life, your life where you want it. The inability to feel like you have control over certain habits and your life and you just feel like oh, well, I'm just someone who loves this, you know, and you feel like I just have to, I have to deal with that, you know, if you feel this in your life, this is because your dopamine system is being trained in one area of life. And it's overly focused. So bringing that into your conscious awareness, accepting that this is what is going on in your life, and you have power over it. So you might be wondering how you will know if your dopamine is too focused in one area of your life, I told you some ways to show it, one of the biggest ways you will know is again, you will have the net negative consequence. On the other side, you will also notice a lack of motivation and being able to do something that you actually want to do, because it's important for you, but you don't feel as intensely immediately rewarded by that. So you feel like you just don't have the motivation to do it. Because you'd rather eat or drink or whatever. And you're like, Oh, well, I'm just someone who doesn't like doing that I like eating, I like drinking more. This is why this means that your dopamine response is overly focused on these things over here, it's not that you're just someone that it's that your dopamine response has been trained by you unintentionally, it's been trained by you unintentionally, to be overly focused on these things over here, and it can be retrained. And it's not about resistance for the rest of your life. It's not about shame or guilt, there is an empowered process and being able to do that. So recognizing that this is going on. And that you will you will be able to see that you have this overly focused dopamine response because of the net negative consequence. And because you will notice that you're lacking motivation in other areas of life of your life where you want it to be, but you're just like, oh, maybe I'm not that kind of person. That's another huge sign that your dopamine is overly focused in one area, you're overly focused on the immediate reward, that will have a net negative consequence. On the other side, even though part of you knows I actually want to be doing this over here. And you might say something like, oh, I should be doing this over here. And this is why I do authenticity coaching, is because I teach people these things that you're over here saying, oh, I should be doing this. It's not that you should be doing it. Let's figure out maybe maybe why you want to be doing it, why that's important for you. Why are you instead allowing your dopamine drive to pull you over here and away from that? Why are we not creating excitement towards this thing over here that you want to be doing that would actually have an extended long term sustainable reward for your life, and stead of focusing on this thing over here, that's actually having a net negative consequence in your life? So yeah, that's another way to recognize it. And if you don't see the net negative consequence, if you don't see the lack of motivation in other areas, another way you can try and find out whether or not you're overly focused, is just try going without the thing for a week in question. And if do you experience withdrawal from it, because if you do, then my friends, your dopamine response is definitely over focused in that area of life. If you can't go a week without snacking between meals, because you just obsess over it, and you're like, Oh, my God, this is hard. That is a sure sign your dopamine response is overly focused in one area. I know so many of you believe, Oh, I've got a snack because I've got to keep my blood sugar up, my friends. No, the human body was able to survive for 1000s and 1000s of years going days without eating. And to be healthy. Our body is not designed to be constantly snacking on food to keep our blood glucose up, we have stored fat for a reason. And when we're constantly training our body to snack because we've got to, quote unquote, keep our blood sugar up. We're training our body to be overly focused on that blood sugar for energy when we've got all this fat storage here that it can't access because guess what, we're constantly shoving food in our mouth to keep the blood glucose up. And the body has to keep dealing with that blood glucose and can't get to the fat. That's why you feel dizzy and fatigued and tired and tired when your blood sugar drops. It's not because you need blood sugar. It's because you've overly trained your body to focus on that blood sugar. And it doesn't know how to get its energy from the fact that you've been storing all this time because you keep snacking. So my friends. Yes, this is another sure sign that your brain is overly focused on food for its dopamine response for its reward. DR is if you're one of these people that you just can't go without snacking, you know, oh, I've got my blood sugar. I gotta keep my blood sugar up so I can focus. I hear people saying this all the time. And I'm just like, when when I hear people say this, like, I'm sure the look on my face is one of like, I can't even I'm trying to think of how to describe my face. It's probably like one words, if you could read a sign on my forehead, it's probably saying something like, really? That's the story you're believing. Okay, well, do you want help with this or not? Because that's kind of what I feel when I hear people say, Oh, no, I've got to keep my blood sugar up. So I can concentrate and have energy. And I'm like, you have a problem here. You have a problem. If you're depending on that blood sugar for all of your energy, you have a huge problem because you have all of this stored energy on your body that you're unable to access because you're focusing on that. So anyways, I digress here. So yeah, if you can't see a net negative consequence on the other side if you don't notice your lack of motivation in other areas, another way for you to notice whether or not your dopamine responses to driven in one area is try going without it for a week. See what happens if you experience withdrawal from it, such as low blood sugar and feeling like you're gonna pass out my friends, that is a sure sign your dopamine response is too focused in one area. If you can't go without social media for a week, then my friends that is a sure sign you are overly focused on social media. If you can't go without drinking alcohol for a week, my friends, that is a sure sign that you are overly focused. And I don't mean just go without it. But I mean, they go without it without experiencing withdrawal symptoms. If you experience withdrawal symptoms, it doesn't matter if you can go without it for a week, if you can resist it for a week, if you're experiencing withdrawal system, I'm sorry, if you are experiencing withdrawal symptoms, then this is a sure sign that your dopamine response is too focused in one area. Withdrawal from something means that your dopamine drive is to focus on one area of reward in life. All right, my friends, this is something that you really want to pay attention to. If you're wanting to make big changes in your life and start living a life where you are in charge, and you're creating it in a way that you want. Being in the driver's seat of this dopamine reward drive is one of your most powerful tools. This is one of the biggest ways that you can use your brain as a tool for you one of many, but it's one of the biggest, because it strengthens your mind and your awareness of your own power life by being in the driver's seat of this tool. It's something that I pay attention to regularly in my life. It's not just something I teach people to do, I pay I pay attention to it in my life. And it has had a massive impact on where my life is heading now versus where it was heading five years ago, focusing on alcohol and food and socializing with friends and partying and just trying to have fun and distract myself with TV and movies, my life was heading in a totally different direction than where it's heading now. And it's because I focus on where I'm wanting to get my dopamine from, and focusing on balancing it out into areas of my all areas of my life, that I want to keep in check to create that whole picture of life that I'm wanting that I'm choosing with intention, because I'm excited about it. And I'm motivated to take the energy and put it towards actions to create this life. Because I'm not wasting my dopamine on these cheap hits of immediate temporary pleasure that have a net negative consequence on the other side, and said, I have all of my dopamine at my disposal to choose in my life where I'm going to put it to steer my life in a direction where I actually want to go in accordance to my true values and sensitivities in life, my truest and biggest desires of fulfilling my biggest potential. And I want that for each and every one of you. I want you each and every one of you to have that steering wheel in your life. I want you all to see your fullest potential in life and not just see it but realize that you have power and motivation and excitement available to you to steer your life towards that potential and stay in that journey of actualizing. It unstoppably you have that power at your disposal, you just taught yourself to not see it. So the question is, where do you want to be getting your dopamine from? That's the big question. How do you want to balance it? How are you going to plan it out in your life to create the life that you truly want? What does that life you truly want even look like so that you can plan it out? Where do you want to be getting that drive from that will completely change your life and to the direction of a life that you are excited about being in all parts of not needing to numb out of think about it. And I'm here for you when you're ready to get started and taking action towards this change. Alright, that's all I have for you guys today. So I'm going to leave it here. It's time to rise and thrive. My friends rise and thrive. And I'm here for you when you're ready. I'll talk with you again here next week. Challenge. Thank you for joining us today. I hope you enjoyed the content of this podcast. If you did, please subscribe so that you're one of the first people to know when I released a new episode each week. If you have any questions or if you have interest in learning more about the coaching that I do with my clients one on one, then just head over to my website at WWW dot life coach seth.com that's www dot life coach seth.com there you're going to have the ability to reach out to me for questions that you might have or to book your free discovery call with me to discuss what one on one coaching with me might be like for you. You can also check out and order your copy of my book to get a taste of what I'm all about as a person and as a coach. I'm so happy that you joined us today and I hope to have you here again next week. So until then, let authenticity be the guide to your most unstoppable and fulfilling journey of life.