Dopamine - what is it?
Dopamine is a type of neurotransmitter. Your body makes it to send messages between nerve cells.
That's why it's sometimes called a chemical messenger.
It plays a role in how we feel pleasure. We LOVE it.
And what’s detoxing?
Detoxing is seen as abstaining from or ridding the body of toxic or unhealthy substances.
So ‘dopamine detoxing’ doesn’t make sense?
No, it doesn’t. What makes sense is where and how you get your dopamine.
‘Good’ and ‘natural’ ways include:
- Getting enough sleep.
- Listening to music.
- Eating healthfully.
- Exercise.
- Mindfulness and deep breathing
- Seeing friends
- Making love.
And here’s the problem
You can also release dopamine and get a feel-good effect when you:
- Snack on junk food
- Take drugs
- Drink alcohol
- Watch porn
- Get involved in too much social media
Your body can’t tell the difference. You just get a good blissed-out feeling.
Take drugs as an example. Drugs such as cocaine can cause a big, fast increase of dopamine in your brain. That satisfies your natural reward system in a big, big way.
But repeated drug use also raises the threshold for this kind of pleasure.
Put simply this means you need to take more to get the same high. Meanwhile, drugs make your body less able to produce dopamine naturally. This leads to emotional lows when you’re not high...
You crash and burn.
So you see, you don’t/can’t have a dopamine detox.
BUT YOU CAN CHOOSE HOW YOU GET YOUR DOPAMINE.
This is where Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and hypnosis can help
What we’re doing is helping you choose another way of getting your dopamine. A way that doesn’t cause you long-term damage.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy basically means changing the way you think, feel and act. Learning new ways to stimulate your dopamine. And hypnosis helps land the message at a deeper level.
Let’s take eating as an example
You only need so many calories to replace those you burn off during the day.
Any more and you’re ultimately adding to your body’s fat.
And usually, you’re overeating because you’re stressed, depressed, anxious, low in self-esteem and looking for a dopamine hit.
You hang around the fridge, eat room much chocolate, and get a pie at the petrol station before you get home. And then what?
That comfort munch has spiked your dopamine. But over time you need more - and more often.
But with CBT and hypnosis, you can learn to be a calmer version of yourself.
Happier to be you
You can be calm. And think your way out of the fridge, away from a line of coke or another hour on social media at 2am.
Basically, CBT and hypnosis drop the stresses and strains of life so all you need is more natural ways to get your dopamine. Go for a walk. Just sit and do nothing. Calm yourself. Or sit and read a book.
The pleasure is there waiting for you and you have to do very little to release it. Even just meditate.
In effect, you’re becoming your own best friend. You just need to find peace with yourself.
And I’ll help you get there.
Who am I?
I’m James Thomas. A Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapist. A one-time heavy drinker and over-eater (I got to over 20 stone). I learnt to be calm. My detox comes from cycling, swimming, practising for Grade 1 piano and reading.
I have rooms in Louth and Lincoln.
There’s a calmer version of you in there that can work perfectly well on natural dopamine. Together we can find it.
