I am Addicted; Part 01

I was born in the 90s. As a 90s kid, I have witnessed the world without smartphone, internet, and ordering things online to the world we live in today. When this entire world digital transformation was happening in the backseat, it didn’t give us a lot of time to educate ourselves on how we would handle it. It all seemed positive at first because we were mainly optimistic about the fundamental changes, but believe it or not, it all came with a cost.

I have a long history of addictions starting from the first time I played a video game on the computer, to Facebook, to the privilege of download and watch thousands of hours of movies and shows, to access pornography and alcohol. I won’t lie if I get a wish to go back in time and change something. I would want to change my relationship with all the variable addictions I had till now. I believe everything would have been different; if I knew back then what I know now about the addiction and given a chance to go back in time and explain it to my younger self, my life would have been different or maybe not. That being said, unless our scientists figure out the ability to control the power of stars to fuel a time machine and discover the missing law of physics of time travel, my wish doesn’t make sense.

As human beings, we need three things to survive, food, water, and dopamine. We need dopamine because it’s this neurotransmitter chemical responsible for our motivation. Dopamine is responsible for motivating us to perform minor activities like getting up in the morning & getting a cup of coffee to more significant activities like working hard for promotion or exam, taking care of our family and friends. Without dopamine, you’ll not be able to get out of your bed and carry on with your day; instead, you would sit in your pajamas and do nothing. Not even crucial activities like eating or drinking, forget socializing, or mating with your partner.

Allow me to explain with an example; on a typical Monday morning when we are supposed to get up, get ourselves a cup of coffee, and go to work; we would require around 50 nanograms per decilitre of dopamine, which sits in the central part of our brain. How about our worse day? A day when we fake call our office about well being and just wanna lay in bed and do nothing. Even on the bad day, our brain needs a minimum of 40 nanograms per decilitre of dopamine. How about our best day? A day when we won the lottery and bought a beach house or got something we wanted for a long time. On our best day, the dopamine level in our brain reaches 100 nanograms per decilitre .

From this example, one can notice that from the worst day when we are in a survival mode to the best day of our life, the difference in our brain’s dopamine level is around 60 nanograms per decilitre . The 60 Nanogram difference of dopamine level motivates us to perform activities/tasks in our life; this is when we work hard on that report, exam, promotion, or encourages a mother to take care of the child and experience the child’s first walk.

To be continued in Part 02, stay tuned. Follow us on Instagram: lifeiskurukshetra