Pleasure and Pain

The tech choices you make are having an impact on how your brain perceives pleasure and pain.

If you pursue lifestyle habits like excessive scrolling through social media or playing video games in  large amounts you may be triggering a quick and excessive dopamine release. This has been shown to upset the pain pleasure balance within the brain.

The pain pleasure balance is set up like a seesaw and when someone pursues quick pleasure rewards it ultimately tips the seesaw into the opposite direction leading to pain. When great effort, hardworking and patience is required to achieve a pleasurable goal or outcome, you will receive a slower release of dopamine, keeping the pain pleasure balance in check.

This is one reason why I often say “ We are what we repeat”. Repetition of thought, action, dietary choice, lighting environment, sleep habits and technology are all examples of what can drive the type of wiring that occurs in the brain. Rewards with little to no effort through many modern conveniences and activities are imbalancing the dopamine reward pathway in the brain. The end product is craving more to get less of the motivational high and ultimately tipping pleasure into pain. This pain may not always be physical but is often mental and emotional.

This is part of the underlying cause of the wider mental health epidemic we are suffering as a society this century. Regular chiropractic care has been shown in research published back in 1997 that it can help restore and maintain the dopamine  reward pathway.