Barb sent in this question: “Recently, I’ve heard you mention a healthy, gentle kind of dopamine. Can you say more about that, especially in connection with Bright Line Eating?”
People come to Bright Line Eating with an addictive relationship with food. These people have brains that are more affected by the ultra-processed food environment. Sugar, flour, foods that you buy in convenience stores and movie theaters—these hit the addictive centers of the brain with floods of dopamine, more than the brain can handle.
These floods of dopamine cause the receptors to downregulate. They thin out and become less responsive. Then the problem becomes that we need to keep eating that way to feel okay. If we stop, we start to feel depressed and desperate, we have cravings, and feel off. This is addiction.
Our Bright Line data shows that within eight weeks of starting the Boot Camp, people’s cravings subside significantly and the dopamine receptors start to heal. Then we want to avoid flooding those receptors with lots of dopamine. We should avoid watching pornography, for example, because that’s too much stimulation for the receptors. We want to avoid using cocaine, or going crazy doing one-click shopping, or going to casinos. Many things can flood the receptors.
This dopamine circuit, called the desire circuit, always wants more. It’s in the reward centers of the brain—the mesolimbic pathway that includes the ventral tegmental area and the nucleus accumbens. It ensures our survival because it’s about sex, food, protection, and safety. In past days, that part of the brain, for example, would tell us to go back to a stand of berry bushes if we needed food.
That’s the desire circuit—but there are other circuits in the brain that are dopamine dominant, particularly the control circuit. This is in the brain’s frontal cortex. This circuit is about planning, preparation, checklists, and calendars. It’s about setting up our environment in an orderly way.
I’m very dopaminergic, and I’ve set up my whole day to get dopamine rewards. Early in the morning, over breakfast, I open Wordle and solve the puzzle, and there’s a dopamine reward. Even the finger tapping of video games or screens releases dopamine.
As I go through the day, I get dopamine. I have calendar trackers, and I am still doing my decluttering challenge. I get dopamine when I turn to that task, and again when the timer goes off and I’m done. When I put laundry in the dryer, I get dopamine. When I fold the laundry and put it away, I get dopamine.
All of this, moving toward the state of the world that I want to create, is controlled by dopamine. It’s manageable and healthy. I didn’t have this when I was mired in my food addiction. I was not doing habit stacks, was sleeping all afternoon, and I was a mess. I felt like I wasn’t able to keep my head above water.
Now, I’m in a symbiotic relationship with controlled dopamine where I’m getting dopamine rewards and keeping my head way above water. I’ve gamified my day, with all the things I resist doing, like opening the mail, which I do when I’m decluttering.
Another aspect of dopamine is creativity. Creativity and inspiration are all about dopamine. Doing art, writing, and playing music can give you a dopamine reward.
Finally, dopamine is not the only happy chemical. Others include serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphin. There are many ways to use the “here and now chemicals” that are in a symbiotic relationship with dopamine to create a nourished and fulfilled brain, so you don’t have to turn to food.
If you use controlled dopamine to do your laundry, write down your food, and declutter, you get a dopamine reward. Then you can sit there and survey your surroundings at the end of a beautiful Bright day. The socks are in the sock drawer, the food is written down and committed, and you’ve eaten three Bright, beautiful meals. And you can let the here and now chemicals flood in and know that you’re safe, well, and Bright. Breathe in your peace, and feel secure knowing that you’ve built a brain that supports your new, Bright life.
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