Our hormones have a big impact on our emotional state, causing both good and bad mood patterns.
Regulating your hormones significantly improves and balances your emotional health.
There are a lot of things that you are doing throughout the day that have an affect on your hormones. Without you even realising.
Dopamine is a hormone that has a massive effect on us. It’s the chemical messenger in your brain that creates feelings of pleasure and reward. Which motivates you to repeat a specific behaviour.
And modern day temptations are very effective at giving us cheap dopamine hits. They are designed to elicit this ‘feel good’ sensation. It’s at the crux of their design and marketing.
Junk food, Porn, Social media, Booze, Nicotine. All elicit these cheap dopamine hits. And these temporary feel goods are very effective.
They target your weakness and keep you coming back for more.
Alcohol for confidence.
Nicotine anxiety.
Social media for boredom.
Junk food for lethargy.
Porn for arousal.
These acute ‘feel goods’ are so common yet so dangerous. Because use of these cheap dopamine hits results in;
Excessive binge eating,
Poor relationships,
Chronic stress,
High blood pressure,
and poor health.
These cheap dopamine hits are killing you!
And without without discipline, it can be very hard to turn down these temptations because they are so effective and immediate. They offer instant gratification to a problem.
And when you start to depend on them, it’s harder to rid yourself of them.
So rather than going cold turkey – which is incredibly hard. Replace them with natural things that you natural dopamine hits.
Swapping them, so your brain doesn’t really notice.
Imagine yourself as Indiana Jones, in Raiders of the Lost Ark, in the tomb swapping that Golden Idol for a bag of sand.
(but much easier and without the tomb kicking off and trying to kill you).
Here are some easy ways to do that!
Eat a high protein diet.
Proteins are made up of smaller building blocks called amino acids. One amino acid, called tyrosine, plays a critical role in the production of dopamine!
Probiotics
The gut and brain are closely linked. Certain species of bacteria that live in your gut are also capable of producing dopamine.
Exercise
Exercise can boost dopamine levels in the brain. Improvements in mood can be seen after as little as 10 minutes of activity but tend to be highest after at least 20 minutes.
Quality sleep
After poor sleep the availability of dopamine receptors in their brains is dramatically reduced by the next morning.
Getting regular, high quality sleep helps keep your dopamine levels balanced. And help you feel more alert and high functioning during the day
Music
Listening to music is an enjoyable way to stimulate dopamine release in your brain.
Listening to music increases activity in the reward and pleasure areas of the brain, rich with dopamine receptors.
Sunlight
Periods of low sunshine exposure can lead to reduced levels of mood-boosting neurotransmitters. Including dopamine. Sunlight exposure can increase them.
Start swapping the unnatural for the natural and I promise you’ll start to feel better.