Dopamine

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Violence and Originality for friendship

Guest Post!

…keep reading…

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Learning new ideas and concepts releases Dopamine, the “feel good” neurotransmitter/messenger.  I find this theory consistent with my personal experience as I am studying for the boards.  The new concepts, when I grasp them and link them to things I already know, do seem to bring a tiny packet of fell goodness.  So, as I study, i really try to capitalize on this mechanism of feel-goodness.  Maybe I can get addicted to learning.  That would be a great addiction.  I think in some ways, I already am.

Using Dopamine in enhancing our everyday life and getting addicted on life:  Creative expressions can cause release of Dopamine – proven by both science and by our everyday observations of living our life.

Gustave Flaubert, of Madame Bovary, famously said:

Be regular and orderly in your life that you may be violent and original in your work.

To me, this fits.  I find I don’t need to lead a wild and dangerous life.  I don’t need external thrills.  I get my Dopamine from being able to be violent and original in my thoughts and ideas – Quite the thrill.  The regularity and order I try to effect gives me the time and space to be just that – violent and original.

The most cutting truths live in works where the artist is violent and original.    Flaubert, of Madame Bovary, said, “be regular and orderly in your life so that you may be violent and original in your work. “. He is fiercely unapologetic in the way he worked.  I like that.  Be violent and original in one’s work, all the while freeing one’s mind to achieve that end by being regular, mundane, and orderly in one’s life.  The creative juices that thusly pulsates in the artist’s veins more than makes up for the seemingly boring and orderly exterior.

Questions:  What role has learning played in your “feel good” self?  What helps you be violent and original in a way that is friendly to Me?  How do you channel your ferocity in the most friendly way?  How has the boredom otherwise affected your quality of life?  Please comment and tell us your story.

Self-Care Tip:   Be violent and original in a way that is friendly to Me

 

Dr. Chin Tang is in his last year of psychiatry residency training, on his way to Fellowship in psychopharmacology through University of California, Irvine.  He is happily married with much adored children.

Dr. Tang says he likes being my friend because in so doing, he is more “emancipated to be as weird and eccentric” as he is, by nature, meant to be.  Dr. Tang really knows how to make a girl feel great.  Thank you, Dr. Tang! 🙂  Keep on.

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Work Hard If You Think You’re Worth It

Road Trip!

Image by -Snugg- via Flickr

Self-Care Tip #144 – Work hard if you think you’re worth it.

On the last day of our family road-trip, thinking about self-care and I don’t know where to go with that!  In the past when I thought about road trips, I’d sooth myself with visions of ice-cream stops, cheese puffs, and other expected and unexpected delicious treats to enjoy and bribe the kids with.  However, I’m taking care of myself these days, (hard work!) which subsequently results in me taking better care of my kids, …my family.  They had a nap, which was nice but now they are awake, refreshed and talking.  A lot.  So close to my head in fact that it feels like I have headphones on.  Volume adjuster not currently functioning.  Oh where are the bags of junk food!? (Disclaimer:  No offense intended to my kids.)

But old habits die hard, so I imagine this one will hold on at least as long as our road-trip.  In the mean time, without inserting needles into my eyeballs, I am thinking instead about self-care.  Thankful, despite gritted teeth and ringing ears, that I will lose the baby-fat before I forget that I was any different before the babies.  The memory is already distorted a bit by the fact that I have thrown away any clothes I used to wear and haven’t allowed any pictures of me below my shoulders to pass before my eyes in years.  I’m a happy frog in a Jacuzzi getting hotter and hotter and have to find a way out before I get eaten by someone French.  (Disclaimer:  No offense intended to the French.)

Thankful also about the ripple effect to my kids.  I’m gifting them a healthy me (because I will succeed), to offer them and theirs in their future.  I’m gifting them better odds that they won’t be in my same position in time.
I’m gifting my husband as well with the hope he continues to voice that I am around to care for him when he is dyeing.  Whenever that is.  (That is a gift if it ever happens!  He can be a real baby when he’s sick.)  (Disclaimer:  No offense intended to my husband.)

And I haven’t forgotten about you either.  You will have me indefinitely to chirp on and on about self-care.  It really is the holidays!

It’s a good thing I’m belted in because I might start levitating. OH!  I just remembered I have ear-plugs in my purse!  Yes!

Ah.  That’s better.  I know I’m working hard for good reasons.  And all the reasons start and end with “Me.”

Question:  Why are you working so hard for yourself?  What has been the hardest thing for you on your self-friendship journey?  Please tell me your story.

 

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When Self-Care Gives Pleasure, You Will Be Friendlier To Yourself

Self-Care Tip #128 – Connect pleasure with self-care.  Be a friend to yourself.

There’s a reason we have bad habits in our life.  It’s not only the loops, the neurological grooves in our brain, it’s also that they bring pleasure!  It’s not so unbelievable understanding obesity, drugs, addictions, poor sleep hygiene, inactivity, whatever it is when we think about the amazing effect that dopamine has on our pleasure center!  Ah.  Say, “Dopamine!”

Our real question with ourselves should be why we so often expect ourselves to do “good” things if they don’t give us pleasure?  How do we expect to stop over-eating if the substitute we offer our biological selves is suffering?  How do we expect to exercise, if we’d rather poke needles into our eye-balls than jog a mile?

We’re smart people, we have knowledge and we know what to do.  But, knowledge isn’t the answer always.  The “language of the heart” is dopamine, is feeling good.  How can we link what we want to do with ourselves objectively with feeling good.  It would be nice to pair up our dopamine with friendly habits and not those that are self-destructive.

How to do that might be worth some effort figuring out.  Figure it out individually if we want it to succeed.  The reason for the discussion here is not to give directions, but simply to draw attention to our need to find our own feel-good buttons and how we can wire them up to self-friendly behaviors.

I’m struggling through this also.  I hope to share this awareness with my kids before they move out, so I better get busy!  Can’t do that too well until I do it well for myself.

Today when I went on a mommy-date with my daughter, instead of taking her to Starbucks, we went and bought Bendaroos.  That was all I could come up with in the 10 minute date we had allotted for something feel-good.  Maybe she’ll develop shopping addiction instead of food addiction.  Time will tell, but I hope she got out of it the pleasure of creating shapes with Bendaroos instead.  Hopefully when she get’s creative, dopamine squirts out in her brain like a geyser.

Now, to get back to me…?  huh.

You can read a related post here.

Question:  How are you linking self-care with pleasure in your life?

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