I’m about to launch my new membership training site, where you’ll learn to break that nasty cycle of procrastination and distraction… I’ll take you by the hand and lead you through the obstacles, so that you will stay the course… and reap the rewards.
Can you remember the first time you had a sip of beer? Not very nice. Your first cigarette? Your first glass of whiskey? Cognac? All pretty bad experiences, I bet. But today… You’re hooked on some of these. You like them. No, you love them. They give you a great rush and they relax you, and you don’t want to live without them.
You know they are bad for you, of course (and maybe some more than others).
So why is your brain telling you not to quit? (At least the emotional part of it?) Why does it feel so good?
I’m not going to tell you that I understand addiction. Nobody really does. But we have some good theories. And here is one.
Your brain has a reward system that releases dopamine (a neurotransmitter) when you do something that is good for you (see http://www.addictionscience.net/ASNreport01.htm for a more scientific treatise on this).
Drugs, like alcohol and tobacco, short-circuit the reward system of the brain. They directly push the buttons of the reward system, and so your brain gets a rush of dopamine. And you take a delight in doing whatever it was you were doing at the time you got rewarded — like sipping merlot or smoking a cigarette.
What does this mean for you?
For one thing, it means that if you do want to quit smoking, for example, that you accept and acknowledge that some parts of you are actually hard wired to sabotage your efforts. Your brain obviously wants you to do what it thinks is best for you — and that is to smoke. Now you’re a thinking, reflecting human being and you know it’s not good for you. But sorry, the reward system was there first. It develop long before the logical reasoning of your frontal lobes, which in evolutionary light can be seen as addendums to your brain. The reward system is deeper, lower down, and has a lot of say. It is there to keep you alive and kicking.
So you have to outsmart it.
How?
Next blog post, I’ll tell you how I did it.
Until then, let me know your thoughts, your feelings and your experiences. Use the comments box! I’m listening.
(If you haven’t already read Part 1, do so now before going on.)
There’s a common thread between most, if not all of the activities of “the good life.”
Can you see it?
They’re all about consumption. Maybe except golf (but maybe not…. think about it…)
They’re about consuming, and they all give instant but short-lived releases of dopamine in your brain. This gives a rush, a feeling of pleasure. To some degree, we all hunt this pleasure throughout our lives.
It’s natural to hunt the rush. Why? Simply put, we’re wired that way. The dopamine system of the brain is a reward system, it gives us that nice little rush when we do something that is good for survival.
Huh?
Let me qualify that. Your brain gives you the rush when you do something that would seemingly be good for survival, up until modern times.
Stop!
I’ll explain.
Why are all things that taste good bad for you?
Because we’ve taken the goodness out of the healthy things, and now just eat the goodness, and now devour the goodness and leave out the health.
Don’t forget… Sugar and its storage form in the body — fat — is energy. It’s what makes you tick. So sweet things — like fruits (!) — which also have vitamins and fiber — are good for you. Proteins are the building blocks of the body, and you get those from meat, and meat contains fat.
Fiber, vitamins, building blocks and energy. That’s what healthy food gives you. And it tastes good because it is healthy.
Unluckily for us, evolution would have it that we could taste the sugars and the fats, not the vitamins, fibers and proteins.
When somebody separated the energy sources (sugar and fat) from the rest of the food, and discovered that it sold really well… they struck gold.
Sugar became inexpensive because so much was produced. And every ready-made meal sold even better if sugar was added (because sugar also works as a flavor-intensifier, brining out more of the flavors that are already in the food).
Get this: Sugar is now so cheap that it is put in excessive amounts in animal food to bulk it up, and even cats and dogs are developing diabetes type 2 these days.
What happens when you put too much sugar in liquid? It becomes sticky, right?
What do you think happens when you have so much sugar in your blood that there’s not enough insulin to take it around to the cells to use as energy?
That’s right. It forms lumps and clog up your arteries.
Think about what this means: The energy our brain is hard wired to reward us for consuming, is now killing us because of excessive consumption.
What do you think about that? Use the Comments box and let me know what you feel. I’m listening.
Part 3 of this series will come in a few days. Thanks for reading!
Eat this: Fat, sugary foods that make your teeth water and give no resistance when you chew. Take this: Pleasure releasing, dopamine triggering substances that give instant satisfaction; nicotine, ethanol. Do this: Sweet, sweet lovin’. Bake in the sun, devouring a novel. No work. A lifelong holiday.
Five years ago, if someone asked me what “the good life” was, I would have mumbled something like that. Something about reading thick books in my sofa and gulping down merlot. I’d probably include a packet of Lucky Strikes every day and single malt whiskey in a jar. Then I’d added baking in the sun, preferably in Melbourne or some other relaxed city, consuming my thick book and smoking the Luckies. Then maybe strolling down to the video store, renting a dvd and watching it with my girlfriend in my arm, on our sofa. After the film, she and I could round off the perfect day. Then maybe another Lucky Strike.
Just writing about it makes me long for it. Long hot summer nights. Friends and laughter. No projects. No worries.
It could go on for weeks.
But could it be “the good life”?
Sure it sounds nice.
Maybe it could include golfing. I don’t golf, but I’ve tried pitch and put, and it was a lot of fun. Golfing seems nice — people do enjoy it a lot. Yes, the good life needs a bit of golfing.
Going for walks in the evening. Dining out. Cinemas, theaters. What a life! Massages, trips to Thailand, Spain and Italy.
I bet it would be quite relaxing.
But then what…
Could it go on forever?
Here’s what I think: After three months, I’d be bored to tears. After a year, I’d be fat, developing diabetes type 2, and have no energy left. After another year, I’d go swimming face down in the Andaman sea, and simply not bother to turn around when I went out of air.
