{"id":1155,"date":"2025-01-30T17:33:35","date_gmt":"2025-01-30T09:33:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jointings.org\/eng\/?p=1155"},"modified":"2025-01-31T20:44:06","modified_gmt":"2025-01-31T12:44:06","slug":"a-harvard-doctors-practices-dopamine-pump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jointings.org\/eng\/archives\/1155","title":{"rendered":"A Harvard Doctor’s Practices: Dopamine Pump"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u3010\u4e13\u680f\u3011| Columnists<\/a>>\u6559\u80b2\u8bf4<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

By George from SpoonFedStudy<\/p>\n

What I am about to tell you is a secret to how I\u2019ve structure my entire life. It’s a strategy I’ve been following for the past 20 years, and it served me well. As a Harvard doctor with three Ivy League degrees.I’ll share with you some of my most essential practices.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

First up, you are being set up to fail. Society’s underlying message is this: wake up, shut up. consume, trade your life, money and energy for quick hits of instant gratification. Giant corporations are spending billions of dollars to make you as mindless as possible. They\u2019re reaching to your brain, ripping out controls and plugging a direct line into your reward system. They say scroll, you ask how far. They say buy. you ask how much. That’s why your life stays the same, why you’re always broke, why you doom scroll into the night. You try your best to change these behaviors, but it’s not surprising why it doesn’t work. Because these things are all just symptoms of something far more problematic.<\/p>\n

\u201cHappy Meal\u201d Digital Diet<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n

Your brain is rotting. You’re feeding your brain what I call the \u201cHappy Meal\u201d digital diet: convenient, artificially processed packets of instant gratification. Eat McDonald’s all day, and what happens? You become a fat guy and died in my ER(Emergency Room<\/em>) from a heart attack.<\/p>\n

Give your brain the same mental fast food and what happens? You die in some distant future filled with regret.Your forgotten dreams littering your dark room like the empty syringes of some heroin addict.<\/p>\n

To start fixing this, you need to understand the difference between simple and complex dopamine. Take carbs, for instance. Simple carbs like sodas and candies get metabolized quickly with huge spikes and sugar in your bloodstream. Sure, it’s great for quick boosts of energy, but you end up crashing later, and in the long run suffer diabetes so advanced your leg gets amputated. Simple carbs give you high sugars with zero nutrients, but complex carbs like quinoa and whole grains, chock-full of nutrients that get slowly broken down with this gradually increase in blood sugar. You get an extended release nutrient capsule that gives you energy over time, even when you aren’t eating. That’s the secret to the entire sauce.<\/p>\n

Complex dopamine is like that too, the extended release type of dopamine you want, not the ultra-fast rapid onset, rapid decline version of simple dopamine. Because what does that sound like? Drugs, right? Each time you blast your face with another dose of Tik Tok, you take a hit of the juice, the most temporary of rewards. Hence why you always want more, why you never truly satisfied, why you withdraw when you stop.<\/p>\n

One-minute Test<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n

Only solution is to keep on scrolling to get more hits of that digital fentanyl. When you think of it this way, it\u2019s clear what you must do: get rid of all \u201dHappy Meals\u201d from you life. No one does fentanyl recreationally on the side. and lives an enviable life. To figure out if something is a \u201cHappy Meal\u201d, do what I call the one-minute test. How long does the joy from this activity actually last when you stop. If it’s only a minute or less, then clearly it\u2019s not worth your time.<\/p>\n

What is worth your time? Sustained release complex dopamine. This happens why you have a meaningful conversation, when you\u2019er out in nature, maybe when you have a breakthrough moment during a session of deep focus.<\/p>\n

Take working out, for example. Not only do you get a quick high in the moment, the positive effects of the workout carry forward into the future too, as you bran gets flooded with a soup of positive feel-good chemicals boosting your overall state and energy. Not to mention later when you check yourself out when no one\u2019s looking, you get another rush of feel-good chemicals. Or even later, when everyone\u2019s old as crap breaking their hips from sneezing, you carry forward like that 70-year-old old boss that you\u2019ve become.<\/p>\n

All these activities clearly pass the one-minute test. I\u2019ll let you in on a huge secret though, you can still partake in the pleasures of simple dopamine. In fact, you should. this secret is the first cheat code of life. You just have to convert it into complex dopamine first. Let me explain how.<\/p>\n

Convert Simple to Complex Dopamine<\/span><\/h3>\n

There\u2019s this annoying phone game I\u2019m addicted to. I used to waste hours every day playing it. instead of using willpower to not play, my rules was this: I can play, but I have play in the plank position, no exceptions. and like a switch, something amazing happened. not only do I play less, as the pain of the plank limits the amount of tie I can play. One, when I do play, it\u2019s guilt-free; and Two, I now plank a lot more. A lot more. I\u2019ve planked now over 1,000 hours of total time. 15 minutes a day, every day for the past 15 years adds up real fast.Even more weird is the fact I crave planking like Pavlov\u2019s dog. The mere thought of planking gives me an instantaneous boost of simple dopamine because the game is so strongly associated with the plank position.<\/p>\n

Even cooler is the fact that stopping the game is incredibly easy too. I\u2019m not telling myself \u201cJust one More Game\u201d to try and avoid the withdrawal, because my bran gets a natural bump in dopamine, the moment i realize my body from the pain of the plank. I\u2019m literally dying to stop playing. Hours later, my rear centers are still buzzing from the natural boost in energy and mood from such a high intensity exercise.<\/p>\n

And throughout the day, random spikes of dopamine keep on coming in: the felling pride from such an accomplishment, feeling good every time you get naked, never worrying about core strength, back pain, pr posture issues every again.<\/p>\n

The list goes on and on. I\u2019ve give you a few more examples of how to convert simple to complex dopamine.<\/p>\n

Take video games. Instead of playing Call of Duty<\/em> with 10-year-olds who say not very nice things about your mom, only play if your college buddies are on. Relish in the complex dopamine that comes from bonding with your buddies when you blast them in the face. want to drink more water, only have water at home. You only get to drink something else when you go out and intentionally celebrate something with a friend.<\/p>\n

Maybe Netflix is your problem. Instead offending a show, how about you fly watch if you\u2019er feating a healthy meal. The moment you finish your salad and start chewing a tasty donut, you stop watching.Speaking of which, this donut concept is actually the second cheat code. I call dopamine\u00a0 bridging. The idea is if you do find yourself stuck in a simple dopamine binge, you should always have a\u00a0 d figure of donut ready to escape with. Because this way, when one pool of dopamine ends (i.e Netflix), you have another pool of dopamine to look forward to(i.e the donut), minimizing the negative withdrawal you fell when stopping. This gives you something to look forward to, making the transition a lot easier.\u00a0 The trick is to pick a second pool of dopamine with a finite source. Donut is the perfect example, because after a few bites, that delicious circle of goodness is gone.<\/p>\n

An even more advanced trick is only give yourself permission, to start the second pool of dopamine when you start something productive. in other words, you cannot take the first bite until you start work. This way, the instantaneous gratification of the dot only comes when you start bing productive, incentivizing you to start as soon as possible. this is how you creatively kill procrastination.<\/p>\n

And when you start, a third pool of complex dopamine starts dripping pleasure into your reward centers. You feel good because, holy crap, you just skipped the most painful part of work: starting it. five minutes in, when you take your last bite, and the donut\u2019s smile dopamine ends, you don\u2019t care. you now have momentum. You\u2019re about to enter a flow state and enjoy the fourth pool, an almost infinite source of complex dopamine.<\/p>\n

See what just happened there. without a dopamine bridge, going from an exciting Netflix show to boringly sitting at a desk with nothing but work to look forward to is doomed to fail . This is what I call pointing cold turkey, which I\u2019m sure you know is incredibly painful. It\u2019s incredibly painful because you have\u2019t optimize your brain chemistry.<\/p>\n

Dopamine Pump<\/span><\/h3>\n

Remember those giant corporations. They don’t care. They want you addicted. They built their stuff so you never want to stop. That\u2019s the whole point. The consequence of all this is, of course, procrastination. Feeling crappy, looking for other ways to numb the pain. You only start when the guilt of not starting is worse than the withdrawal. But with the second cheat code, you break the system. An infinite simple dopamine source bridges to a finite simple dopamine source, which bridges to a finite complex dopamine source, which bridges to an infinite complex dopamine source.<\/p>\n

you are now ready for the final, most ultimate secret cheat code of them all: passive dopamine.<\/p>\n

The easiest way to make money in today\u2019s society is to trade time for money, whether that\u2019s $15 an hour or $ 300 an hour. The truly wealthy, though, they play a different game entirely. they divorce their time from money and build money-making machines instead. This is a concept of asset. Dopamine is no different. Most people trade their time for dopamine on a one-to-one scale. That\u2019s what you do when you watch Tick Tok videos. You\u2019re investing your time in inefficient, instantaneous gratification-type ventures. The moment you stop watching is the moment that dopamine stops coming in. Why not build a passive dopamine asset that continually pumps dopamine into your brain irrespective of what you do.<\/p>\n

I call this concept a dopamine pump. For example, I am a hip-hop dancer, but when I lived in Boston for residency, I started taking salsa and bachata lessons. Not only was it fun and open up new sources of dopamine I never would have imagined, instant new community, new friends to go out with,\u00a0 a sense of belonging, a skill to enjoy every Friday night with , which compounds as you get even better and make even more friends, a skill that made you feel good about yourself. Even your brain benefits.\u00a0 There\u2019s a 2003 New England Journal of Medicine study that looked at 11 different types of physical activity like cycling, golf swimming, tennis and found only dance lowered the risk of dementia.\u00a0 Get good enough, and you become recognized. you start teaching others\u00a0 and feel good when people start to look up to you. Even going to parties and weddings becomes completely different experience when everyone\u2019s fighting to dance with you. It\u2019s boosted my love life in ways you can\u2019t even imagine.\u00a0 Dancing is now part of my core identity. Something I\u2019m proud of and enjoy deeply. My life is infinitely richer because of it.<\/p>\n

The amount of complex dopamine that has been generated with this pump over the years has compounded to a ridiculous amount.\u00a0 You never come close to matching simply scrolling through TikTok. And that’s just one dopamine pump.\u00a0 Add a few more pumps, and your life becomes unrecognizable. Once you\u2019ve tasted it, the simple dopamine rushes society wants you to consume to get addicted to simply pales in comparison.<\/p>\n

With that said, building a pump can be hard. It\u2019s an investment. Just like it\u2019s easy to blow your next paycheck on a new pair of shoes rather than invest it wisely, we often make the same mistake with our dopamine. And then there\u2019s the insecurity trying something new. I almost didn’t even start dancing because someone told me I sucked at it.\u00a0 Luckily, if insecurity is what\u2019s holding you back, I\u2019ve already made a video addressing that very problem.<\/p>\n

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George from\u00a0SpoonFedStudy<\/a>, YouTuber & Registered Doctor<\/p>\n

George comes from Yale-trained doctor and popular YouTuber SpoonFedStudy, who calls it \u201cThe Clean Morning\u201d \u2013 aka, no junk and no dopamine from devices. He says it takes only 15 minutes to complete and works like a series of dominoes that lead from one to the next.<\/p>\n<\/address>\n

Edited by tiantian coffee and Wind<\/em><\/address>\n
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Ralated:<\/p>\n

Eat for Mental Health<\/a><\/span><\/h3>\n

More>><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/address>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u3010\u4e13\u680f\u3011| Columnists>\u6559\u80b2\u8bf4 By George from SpoonFedStudy What I am about to tell you is a secret to how I\u2019ve structure my entire life. It’s a strategy I’ve been following for the past 20 years, and it served me well. As a Harvard doctor with three Ivy League degrees.I’ll share with you some of my most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education-and-development"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jointings.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jointings.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jointings.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jointings.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jointings.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1155"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jointings.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1159,"href":"https:\/\/jointings.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1155\/revisions\/1159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jointings.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jointings.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jointings.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}