Welcome to Hot Tub Talks, a monthly whenever-I-feel-like-it newsletter inspired by the conversations I would have in a hot tub with my friends (you!)
Something about a tub always seems to elevate the convo from small talk to big talk. Maybe it’s the absence of phones, the dehydration, or the fact that you just have to sit in a circle and look at each other. There's no pressure to have a fully baked thought and you can just fire from the hip about topics that you probably would never otherwise sink your teeth into (life, death, whether or not Avril Lavigne has actually been deceased since 2003, etc.)
The intention of HTT is mostly a medium for me to process and think about ideas as they come into my life, and along the way I hope to inspire more meaningful conversations.
So lets talk - and next time we chat I'd love to hear what you think about...
DOPAMINE
I had a vague idea of what dopamine is, but this animated illustration from one of my favorite YouTube channels hit different in explaining the science and the social implications in a way that was equal parts scary, fascinating, and empowering.
Learning more about dopamine felt like understanding the scientific truth behind clichés like "nothing worth having is easy". Dopamine is the hormone that we evolved in order to make us want to go out and take on big challenges and do things necessary for survival (eat, drink, compete to survive and reproduce, etc.) It’s not the reward itself (“dopamine hit” is a misleading phrase), it’s the driving force that gets us to do hard things to get the reward. I’ve seen The Social Dilemma and acknowledged in theory that social media is not particularly good for us, but I’ve never heard it explained that when we bypass work to get reward, our brain produces less dopamine and the result is that rewards feel less good AND we feel less motivated.
I deleted TikTok from my phone a few months ago, but only after wrestling with my brain telling me that that I was getting good stuff from it (objectively hilarious videos, music recs, recipes, etc.) What kinda jabroni would I be to purposely shut off that easily accessible source of reliable goodness? After listening to this video (and this subsequent podcast), I’m feeling motivated to extend my break for at least a little longer. Even if I do get actual benefits from social media, getting a firehose of content that feels good for my short term well-being, is actually bad for my long-term well-being.
I'll admit that part of me feels like agreeing with this perspective is agreeing with a life-hacking fun-nazi yelling "Get off your damn phone!" from atop a high horse, but I also recognize that keeping tabs on our pain/pleasure balance is more practical than extreme. Our brains aren’t evolved to handle social media or the societal pressures to have fun all the time. It's not about becoming superhuman, it's just about applying a little bit of effort in the opposite direction of these incredibly strong forces we're interacting with on the daily to become a normal, happy human.
Some questions I'm still noodling on:
So how much "reward" is too much "reward"?? Feels weird to check myself that I might be having too much fun or pleasure in my life. Maybe it’s just about making sure I’m not only pursuing easy pleasures?
What are the little things I can do to help balance out my dopamine levels?
Embrace the mundane time with no stimulus (waiting in line, on the pooper, in the car) as little moments of practice
Seek out things that are hard (cold showers, backpacking trips, new skills)
Is regulating healthy dopamine levels worth my time and attention? How will I know if I’m doing it well and get motivation to keep up the healthy habits?
Thanks for reading, text me your favorite TikToks, and I’d love to know what you think in the comments.
Can’t get this song out of my head now,
Brandon
Love the thoughts. It speaks to me on finding and pursuing true satisfaction. Your post reminds me of something Ben Bergeron, renowned CrossFit coach and author of Chasing Excellence wrote about adversity:
“Humans naturally fear adversity, which is ironic because adversity is the one thing that makes us better. We have an instinctive fear of the one thing that is certain to lead to the results we crave. When we know this, the challenges, hardships, and struggles that might seemingly look like setbacks and things to avoid become anything but—they become defining moments that create the most dramatic changes and should be cherished and sought after, not feared and endured”.
The easy pleasure is short-term and a false illusion for the things that give us the most overall satisfaction, which by contrast tend to take time, energy, grit, and hard work to accomplish?
PS - don’t know how long the talk would last, but a cold tub talk would be an interesting combo of great ideas and tough things?
Daily, I acknowledge my dependency on stimulation, but I never have made the connection to dopamine or pleasure. It is a vicious cycle, anxious thoughts lead you to grab your phone to distract you, but the onslaught of content curated for you is often the cause of that very angst. I am going to try and be more intentional about my social media usage, set boundaries, limits, or take breaks from it altogether. I appreciate you writing about this, it is extremely relevant, and unfortunately, will be for the foreseeable future.