What is Dopamine? Explained.

What is Dopamine? Or as it is widely known, “The pleasure hormone”.

Have you ever wondered why you feel a rush of excitement when you are about to eat your favourite pizza, or why it is so hard to stop scrolling through social media?

The answer is a tiny powerful chemical called Dopamine.

What is Dopamine exactly?

Think of Dopamine as a mail carrier for your brain. It is a “neurotransmitter”, which carries important messages between your brain and your cells.

It is known as the pleasure hormone but it is more about motivation and anticipation.

The reward system

Your brain will release a spike of Dopamine when you do something good for your survival. Like eating a healthy meal or finishing a challenging project.

The result of the spike makes us happy, and our brain will store that information and make us want to do it again.

Focus and Learning

Dopamine is present in the brain when you are learning a new skill.

When you need to concentrate, it helps your brain pick out what is important and ignore distractions. If your dopamine levels are too low, it can be hard to stay focused, which is why it is linked to ADHD.

When learning something new, your brain releases this hormone making you feel proud.

Can you have too much Dopamine?

Yes.

Because dopamine encourages repetition, it can sometimes lead us toward behaviours that do not truly support us, such as overeating unhealthy foods, gambling, or endlessly scrolling on our phones.

These activities can cause spikes that can make your brain’s reward system less sensitive over time and can lead to addiction.

So how can we have a health relationship with dopamine?

There are ways we can detox our dopamine levels and reset our brain.

Learn more in the next in our blog series- How to boost dopamine naturally in everyday life

Listen to my podcast episode on Dopamine on my YouTube channel