Hacking the dopamine cycle

This post is for anyone who ends up scrolling or resorting to another bad habit instead of working when the work is too stressful, boring, or much. Im going to explain whats going on in your head when you do that (in context to procrastinating a task), and how to hack the cycle in order to get things done without feeling like shit doing it.

High achievers, perfectionists, and highly motivated people struggle with procrastination. Sounds like a lie, but it isn’t, because procrastination comes from a source of discomfort that comes from caring too much. 

1. Source of discomfort: a task that is high stakes, effort, or emotionally loaded.

->a source of discomfort causes stress; causing the release of cortisol which induces a fight or flight response. This lowers the efficiency of the prefrontal cortex which thinks long term and makes mature decisions. Hence, the goal for the brain shifts from achievement to relief.

2. Dopamine is released. 

->Dopamine is a reward chemical. It causes the body to move towards a reward. The conditions spotted by the brain for it to be released are: opportunity (you need to solve a problem eg. relieve stress, or your state can be improved), a way to do it (your brain expects that a certain action will cause relief/improvement/success), progress towards the goal is spotted or guaranteed (when the action is committed). 

->In the caveman age, dopamine is what motivated our ancestors to seek food and shelter, and improve living conditions. It was released when an opportunity to improve, a way to improve, and evident progress when the way was pursued were seen. It kept us going and building until the reward was attained.

->Today, this cycle is hijacked. During high stress levels caused by deadlines and high meaning work, dopamine is released because the brain sees an opportunity (relieve stress), a way to do it (the habit), and predictable rewards (you’re in constant anticipation of the next reel being more interesting with that being the reward as something you have experienced before, the next bet yielding more money with that being the reward as something you have experienced before, or well some sort of relief- again, something you have experienced before, making the habit a tried and tested approach.)

3. During the activity, dopamine levels remain high to keep you motivated until the reward is attained. They also remain high when consistent rewards are seen when an action is committed. 

->You could scroll endlessly, and you’ll keep getting rewarded (an interesting post or video) and you’ll still be promised more. 

4. But when you finally stop, dopamine levels crash lower than baseline ones because of overstimulation for empty rewards. Add that with guilt, and moods lower. You’re even less motivated than before to do the job. 

To hack this cycle, you need to:

• lower your initial stress levels caused by cortisol, so less dopamine is released- so your brain isnt screaming “THIS. DO IT NOW.” for a certain action because it no longer sees stress. For this: movement, slow breathing, or stepping away for 2 to 3 minutes helps.
• Then, doing tiny tasks, to begin with, release small dopamine pulses. Eg. promise yourself you’ll open a document or work for 5 minutes and then do it. You restore motivation where there was none because the task was mammoth.
•  Further break down the mammoth task into smaller tasks, and SPECIFIC tasks. Consistent achievement of these tasks supplies dopamine steadily, it will keep you going, and it will make the task more manageable.
• Avoid dopamine spikes before work eg. heavy scrolling; these lead to dopamine crashes when you think you’ve wasted time.
• Allow mild discomfort without escape. Cortisol rises, then stabilizes, your brain will learn that when dopamine begins to attach to progress and not escape.

TLDR; Dopamine is released when stress levels caused by a difficult task are high. Dopamine is what causes you to go out and seek the ‘reward’ given by a bad habit like scrolling which acts as relieving in the moment- something your brain really thought it needed and left you no choice in pursuing. But after, your dopamine levels crash because of the empty reward and your moods lower, making it more difficult to work. To overcome this cycle: first regulate your body’s stress levels, do tiny tasks to keep up dopamine levels with rewards, break down big tasks into specific small ones to reduce static friction (and lower baseline dopamine level needed to pursue the task), avoid dopamine spikes before work, and allow mild discomfort while working to build tolerance.

Note: My key here is, if you ever have a huge task thats stressful or overwhelming. Break it down. Like any massive calculus math problem, cut it into tiny pieces and solve each piece at a time. That is how you solve big problems. Key: Divide the big problem into a hundred tiny problems, and solve 1 tiny problem at a time; to solve 1 big problem.