Coaching Call Sneak Peek! - Dopamine

This is episode 259 of the Empowered Team podcast. Welcome to the Empowered Team podcast where we explore how to optimize your performance in career, sport and life. And now your host, executive coach and life strategist, Kari Schneider. All right, everybody, welcome to our first coaching call of the month. And we're in one of these situations where I think everybody at this point has heard of dopamine, but maybe you haven't. So first question is, hands up if you've heard of dopamine. You can pop a thumbs up if you're not in there. Hands up. Yeah. Okay.

Yep.

Okay. Peter, Nadia, Andrew's popping in. And how about. Have you heard of doom scrolling? Has anyone heard of doom scrolling? Hands up if you've heard of doom scrolling. There's smiles there. You probably figure out what it is if you haven't heard of doom scrolling. Okay, how about this one? And this time put your hand up and hold it up if this is the case for you. Have you ever eaten a whole bag of chips when you only really wanted a few? Oh, double hands up. Here we go. That's the way everybody. All right, great. How about this one? Has anyone ever eaten or. Sorry, clicked onto Facebook just to check one friend's post because you got an email notification and 20 minutes later found yourself down the rabbit hole. Anyone happen to have that happen? Yep. Okay, how about this one? Has anyone created something that took several hours, days, weeks, months or even years to complete? Hands up. Absolutely. Absolutely. This could be a project, it could be a university degree, it could be all sorts of things. All of these have to do with dopamine. So welcome to this call on dopamine and I acknowledge you for being here because this is going to be a really, really powerful experience. Because when we learn how to harness dopamine, then we can do incredible thinking, incredible planning, and incredible creating and execution. How many of us love to execute? Yes. And I don't mean kill people, I mean actually get stuff done. Awesome. Ok, good. And at the same time, we also know that it is part of what has us go down that spiral of the doom scrolling, of the overeating, of the over consuming of whatever it is that you are doing that's beyond what you want to do. So what I call this is doing something against your own will. We all have something or multiple things that we're doing against our own will because it's something that we don't actually want to do. Am I right? Absolutely. Okay, so I'm going to give you a quick definition of what it is, it's a neurotransmitter, and it's responsible for releasing this chemical, this dopamine. So that's what it is, is this neurotransmitter. But it's only released when we experience pleasure. But there's a little more to it. You think of those tags that you put on your emails or different things on your computer, you tag something well every time you experience pleasure, dopamine is responsible for tagging all of the things around that experience. Could be a person, could be a smell, could be music, could be the time of day, could be the environment, could be what you just ate last. Could be so many things. And all of those things together get tagged when you experience something really pleasurable. Tag, tag, tag, tag, tag. And that is what dopamine is doing. So here are a couple of dopamine myths before we really get into how to harness this, how to tame it, and how to direct it. That is the two things we want to do today. We want to take dopamine and tame it so it is not working against us, and we want to direct it. So it is working for us. Because when it is working for us, it is so freaking powerful. That is when we get the most incredible things done in our lives, because it takes that grit and that perseverance and it is that dope that keeps us going to the next step. The next step, the next step, the next step. And that's what we want to harness. Ok, so it is referred to as the molecule of More by a researcher named Daniel Lieberman, and he has actually written a book called the Molecule of More, so you can always check that one out. It is also called the motivation molecule. A lot of people think it's the pleasure, it's the source of pleasure, but it's not the source of pleasure. That's a myth. It doesn't cause pleasure. It's released when we have pleasure. Okay, so here's another couple of myths. Has anyone heard of a dopamine detox? Has anyone heard of that? There are people talking about doing dopamine detoxes, but the thing about dopamine is that you can't actually not have dopamine. So this is how it works. Anything within my arm's reach, all of you. Anything within my arm's reach is called my peripersonal space. Anything outside my arm's reach is my extra personal space. Anything that's outside my arm's reach in my extra personal space, that is going to be something that I want and If I want that, that's going to be where dopamine comes in as soon as I get it into my peripersonal space. Dopamine drops as soon as I have it. No more dopamine because I have it. Has anyone noticed that it's not about the most wonderful pleasure of that first bite of the most amazing chocolate cake. It's about the anticipation of it. We might be able to be in the now, in that moment and enjoy it, but a lot of us are focusing on that future of wanting it, and that's in our extra personal spaces before we actually have it. So when you look at a phone, this seems like it's in our space. So dopamine should go down, but it doesn't. It goes up. Because what we're looking at is beyond our reach. We want to scroll to another thing to see the next thing that we might miss. We want to look more and look more. Or there might be another email that I'm getting. There might be another thing that I'm getting. So this is still beyond our peripersonal space because to our brain, we don't have what's here until we see the next thing. So see the next thing. See the next thing. Does that make sense? Okay, is everybody getting a little bit of an inkling or an understanding of how it works? Okay, so we're not really. It's not the. It's not the dopamine that causes an addiction, but it is definitely involved in addiction. It's certain patterns in our brain that change with addiction. So there's not really an ability to have a dopamine detox because as soon as we want to go have a glass of water, dopamine is going to be involved. So we can't cut off dopamine completely. If we cut off one habit, it's still going to be there. So. What I wanted to share with you is just a little example because I think it'll resonate with you on experiences that you are having with other things. So I have a sweet tooth and a few of you here know that about me. And some of you also know that this is Sweet Free September. So often I invite people in on Sweet Free September to do it with us. This year I didn't, because I had some other priorities going on. So I didn't have the time to get that out, to get invites out. But every September and every March, I go sweet free. And I do it for multiple reasons. I do it for health reasons. I do it for primarily resetting my brain. But there are these amazing side effects that are getting your taste buds reset. In 30 days you'll have a new taste palette. It's a wonderful side effect. Yeah. Paul and Maeve are in on it too. Maeve was a reluctant yes, but it was on her own accord. She was like, yeah, I'll do it. Here I go. So maeve as an 11 year old is on Sweet Free September. But I think it's hardest on Paul and me. Maybe, probably me, maybe Maeve, I don't know. So it's Sweet Free September. So I am in it right now. I'm in this dopamine deprived state. Even though I've done this for years and do it primarily for becoming a master over my brain, dopamine is really, really involved now. Years ago, I love sweets so much. This one particular sweet, I love lots of sweets. So don't think that this is the be all end all to me. But this particular one, I had zero control over zero. Chocolate covered almonds, milk chocolate covered almonds. So if somebody had milk chocolate covered almonds around, guess what I was doing? I was popping milk chocolate covered almonds in and would I have one or two? No. Would I have three or four? I'd probably finish the bowl or whatever was out. And so I, you know, as a young adult, I would be doing my grocery shopping and discovered this wonderful place called Bulk Barn. And at Bulk Barn you could buy all kinds of things in bulk. And so away I went and scooped out my a reasonable amount of chocolate covered almonds. That could last a couple of weeks, maybe two weeks, maybe even three if they were just used on occasion. And yet I would find that in that day I would have consumed that whole bag of freaking chocolate covered almonds. Can anyone relate? Uh huh. Maybe it's not chocolate covered almonds for you, but it's something we can all relate. It's something. So I would go and make, I'd go, I'd feel sick, it feel awful, it feels so horrible. And so I'd be like, okay, I'm not buying these things, they're terrible. Then I made the mistake because I am in the health and wellness and physiology and all these things to check the nutrition label. Well, you get about eight of these suckers and you are looking at over 300 calories right there with just eight of them, never mind a bag of them. So no wonder I would feel so sick. So then I would not touch them, not want them. And then maybe months would go by and I wouldn't have chocolate covered almonds but then there would be some little event and I'd figure, oh well, I haven't had chocolate covered almonds in a while and I think I'll pick some up because people are coming over, I can put them out, I'll just have a couple. Do you think they made it to the event? No, again, they'd all get consumed. So it got to the point where I had an understanding that I couldn't have chocolate covered almonds in my house at all. I could not be exposed to them because I had zero willpower around them. Now it's not willpower. If I cut every one of you open, am I going to find a little box that contains the amount of willpower that you have? No, no, it's not willpower. It is that for me. I got such pleasure out of chocolate covered almonds that then I would get a dopamine response. And what happens with our primal desire? It says, hey, you know, this is really good. You are starting to feel sick. But you know what, you might be starving in two days and you might need this. So keep consuming it because it is really, really good. No, really, you might starve in three days. So keep having some more. Go, go have some more. And that is what dopamine is doing because it is designed to keep us pursuing something even if we don't want to, so that we can survive, so that we can get to whatever that thing is and do really well. And pleasure supposed to cue our brain that it's something good for us to survive with. Well, you know, back in the survival days there were no chocolate covered almonds that our brains had to deal with. But now we have chocolate covered almonds, don't we? Ok, so there's my chocolate covered almonds. Now the cutting them out of my house is not the thing that had me overcome. Chocolate covered almonds. I'll tell you more about that in a moment. It's something else that really made the difference. Because now if I have chocolate covered almonds around, especially milk chocolate covered almonds, I don't want to touch them, I want nothing to do with them. In fact, I likely won't even have one. And if I do, I'm like ugh. Yech. And that's basically a 180. Would you say? Now there's probably something in your life, whether it's the doom scrolling, whether it's a certain food, there's probably some behavior in your life that you want a 180 on it because you feel like you're doing something against Your own will. Hypnotherapy says Andrew. Hypnotherapy can be a fantastic way. Yes, that's a fantastic source. Okay, so the example that I gave you pointed to specifically dopamine involved in the limbic brain. And that means it's a desire circuit of dopamine. There are two main circuits of dopamine. There's a desire circuit and there's a break circuit. And the breaking is involved in your prefrontal cortex, the most recent and highly intelligent part of your brain. The desire circuit is part of your limbic system, which is your more primal and older part of your brain. So we all have this, but for each of us, we have a different thing going on. Yeah. Reina says, I found out that dark chocolate covered almonds are better. Right. But to that milk chocolate, high intensity flavor, dark chocolate were ewy at the time, they were like nothing. Okay, so there are two things that we want to do. Number one, we want to tame dopamine. And number two, we want to direct dopamine. The areas that we want to tame dopamine are the areas that we are doing something that is against our own will. It is something we know we don't want to do, and we are doing it anyway. That is where we want to tame dopamine. And I am going to give you some steps to do that in a moment. Where we want to direct dopamine is where we want to have something in our lives or develop something or create something that we don't have right now or get something done that we don't have right now. So an example of this is last year when we, it was our first season coming here to this camp and I didn't know how to get the riding lawnmower going. And there was a massive amount of mowing that needed to be done. And after finally getting it started, I had to navigate figuring out the hills, figuring out the all the in between the trees, figuring out the soft spots where the rocks were, all of this stuff. And I wasn't planning on doing this. This is the last thing I wanted to do is mow an area that I was forced to mow as a teenager with a push mower. Not my cup of tea. Last year I vowed that by this year we were going to have somebody in for the whole summer and they were going to be doing the work of any of the maintenance, any of the mowing, things like that that needed to be done. Well, the labor shortage and the supply chain has proven to be a very big challenge. Not only that, we got so flooded this spring that the grass was thigh high because of A, the flooding, but B, I came here late, somebody graduated, it was a priority. And so when I came here late, the neighbors were fantastic. There was a couple areas that they mowed and they weed whacked for us, but there's this huge expanse that they couldn't because of the flooding. And not only that, the flooding had brought all sorts of wood and different things in because of the water that brought it in. So not only did I not want to mow, I couldn't find anybody to mow. It was a massively daunting task, but I had to find a way to do it. So this is another example of where we can harness and direct dopamine to do something that, yes, we want to get done, but then we also don't want to do it. So it's the flip side of doing something against our will. Now we want to do it, but we're doing some, we're not doing the thing we actually want to do. See the opposite. So that's where we want to direct dopamine because it will create the focus, it will create the perseverance, the planning, the learning whatever needs to happen in order for you to get to that next level. And most of us want that in some area. All of us are trying to expand in some form. Am I right? Everybody? Yes. Nods. We're trying to expand somewhere, maybe our relationships, maybe our career, next level. Maybe it's a book we're trying to write, maybe we're trying to learn a new thing. Whatever it is, we're growing in some capacity. And this is where dopamine in our back pocket will do wonders. Ok, so what we're going to do is we're going to go quickly into a couple of groups and we'll probably do. Two or three groups. And when we go into those groups, here's what you're going to share. You're going to write this down right now. The area, one or two areas where you know you are doing something against your will. And it follows that exact type of pattern that I've just described. Where you don't want to do it, you keep going, you keep going on the chocolate covered almonds, you keep going on the chips, you keep going on the doom scrolling whatever it is. Yeah, no problem. Nadia. I know if you can't get into a group, but just listen in. If I put you in a group, just listen in. And then the second thing is the flip side, the thing you are going for the thing that you want. So you are looking for two things, two areas of your life. When you get into your group, you are going to spend a minute sharing what the one is, and then the other person will share that thing that you are doing against your will, and the other person will share the same thing. And then you'll go back to the first person and you'll share the thing that you want. Actually, we'll come back after that and we'll share again.

Okay, there you go.

Yeah. What's your thing? What's your one thing or two things that you're doing against your own will?

Overeating.

Overeating. So get really specific. Is there one thing you keep going back to?

Whatever's available.

Okay. So is it, for instance, does it happen at every meal or is it usually only at dinner or is it usually at lunch? Like, is there a time. Dinner. Okay. Awesome.

Yeah. I can't. I don't. If I try to have breakfast, like, I'm not hungry. So even if you give me breakfast, chances are I won't eat most of it. Lunch is pretty much the same thing. And for some reason, dinner, keep going. I could just eat five people, which is ridiculous.

And you know, you know you're full, you know you want to stop, and yet you go for another bite. You go for another bite. Kind of like my.

Absolutely. Yeah, exactly. And then I. And then I could relate where you say, and then you feel awful. Same thing. Like, you know, I'll feel awful. And you know, and then by the time you digest, you're not even fully digested most of the time when you go to bed, so it affects your sleep. And like last night, last night, I have to admit, I overate. I ate all good stuff, though, but I just ate too much of it and I slept like hell. And then at one point, I just got up, it was 1:30am and drove home.

Yeah. Yeah. And you're upset and you're annoyed and all of the things. Now here's a question for you. When you were back in, when you were a kid, did. Did you have big family dinners? Did you have small family dinners? Did you enjoy dinner? What was. What was it like when you were a kid?

Hated dinner.

They were small.

It was just my mom, my dad, my sister, and myself, we weren't allowed to talk at the table, so. And when we were sitting there, we. You know, my dad would always be bitching about something and yelling about something, so I made it a point to stay at school to do extracurricular activities, most of which were sports, so that I would miss the supper with the family. And when I got home, I would just grab the plate and eat it in my room by myself.

Okay, so you wouldn't enjoy the food, you would just eat it quickly or would you enjoy it by yourself?

No, it was just scoff it down, slap it down.

Okay. Is there a time at some point where you did start to enjoy dinners at all.

But, you know, certain financial freedom and started to eat at really nice high end restaurants? I started appreciating the three, four hour meal.

Yeah?

Yeah.

And what was that like?

They were still overeating because, I mean, it was so good that, you know, you just want to finish your plate and then some.

Okay.

And then I have this bad habit of I like variety, so I don't just order one thing, I order many things.

Try this, try that, try this.

You got it.

And before, before you, you know, before you're about to order all the different things, what would be the. What would be the dialogue before that? Is it in your head? Like, is it. Oh, I don't. I want to try that too. Oh, I want to. I don't want to.

Before I actually got there, I'd have the dialogue of, okay, well, you know what? Tonight you're gonna behave. You're not gonna over order, you're not gonna waste, you're not gonna stuff yourself, you know, you're not gonna eat your intolerances. You're gonna be okay. Then once I get there, it's like all hell breaks loose and screw the intolerances and everything else that goes with it. All that beautiful conversation I was having in my head just goes to hell.

And is it, is it one of those things where it's like, oh, well, just, just this one night?

Oh, yeah, of course. Okay. Okay. That's like that, that's like, oh, yeah, I'll start dieting only on Monday.

Yeah.

So.

And then it's out of punishment instead of out of love for yourself.

Exactly.

Right. Okay, cool. Okay, I'm gonna bring everybody else back in. That's awesome. Cool. Share.

Thank you. Okay.

Okay. And here come the rest of the rebels. Okay, awesome. The rebel showed up. Okay, pop in the chat. What you discovered about yourself by hearing someone else. What did you discover about yourself by hearing someone else and their thing? Pop it in the chat. Or you can unmute yourself. We've got some typing going on here.

There we go.

Okay. So much in common. So struggling with the same issues. What else? Did anyone notice any empathy towards the Other person and you realize like they might be struggling, but they might be beating themselves up for it and you feel some empathy for them and yet you won't give that for yourself. Anyone notice that one? Okay. Gretchen says, it's not just me. And Andrew says, yeah, lots of empathy and understanding, lots of similarities. Okay, so everybody's noticing that this is happening for other people. Now, if you can say in one word, one word, what's your thing? What's your thing that you decided to share? Is it mine? If I had one word, it'd be two words. It'd be chocolate covered almonds. Three words, I guess. So you could say, yeah. So one says overeating, eating past 7pm Social media work. Okay, very good, very good. Doing things that are against your own will work until 4am so it's going to be typically around those areas where we've gotten some feedback that we've gotten pleasure. Pleasure, Pleasure. Okay, so I'm going to show you this. Remember there's the circumstance chocolate covered almonds in the house. The thought is, I love chocolate covered almonds. The thought causes a feeling. The feeling is strong desire. We're going to call that an urge. Strong desire.

An urge.

Okay. And the action is eat a lot of freaking chocolate covered almonds. The result is feeling awful from loving on those chocolate covered almonds. Remember the thought, I love chocolate covered almonds. Feeling awful from loving on the chocolate covered almonds instead of myself. Ok, so there is the whole sequence of events. So now we are going to break this down, but before we do that, we're going to share one other thing and we're going to share the thing that you want to direct your dopamine towards. If you want more focus, more motivation, more planning, thinking, clarity, creativity, connection with other humans, then what area do you want to direct that dopamine towards? Remember too that one of the reasons we're so sucked into social media is because we get a dopamine hit with a social interaction. Every time we have a connection, we get a dopamine hit. So much so that different companies, different apps will not put regular showings or display the likes or the feedback. They won't display it regularly so that you keep checking because it's not giving you the answer that you want to get. So you keep looking back. Yeah, so Peter puts in a great thing and we're going to address this in a moment. Does it still count as dopamine when the overindulging is trying to fulfill old models from dad, mom and validation, dad, mom, validation etc. So Nadia and I, she didn't go into one of your rooms. We spoke when you were in your rooms. And this is one of the things I started asking. I said, oh, when did you find this start to occur? What was it like back when you were a kid? What was it like back then? What was it like when that shifted? And that's what we started to explore is to look back, where did the first pleasure or not pleasure come from? A specific behavior. And when we can figure that out, when we can understand what our thoughts about it are, what our thoughts are about that thing now that are subconscious that we're not aware of. Because remember, dopamine set you a bunch of markers. Markers. So there's still tags in your brain that are telling your brain that this situation, this environment, this smell, this person, this time of day, this time of year all signify to have an urge because of all those tags. So just the fact that it's dinner time can give you the urge for something. Just the fact that it's November can have you wanting, or October having, wanting a pumpkin spice latte. Because we got enough of those markers for that particular season. So there could be a lot of reasons why you're going to go for the thing and a lot of markers in the brain. But the more we can become aware of it, the more we can have the ability to change it. So what we're going to do now is we're going to split up into your groups again. You may get a different person and you're going to share the thing you want to go for, the thing that you're actually reaching for. Maybe it's more sales on a, on a sales call. Maybe it is a greater amount of connections socially. Maybe it is a ideal eating plan for your day. Whatever it is, go for that thing. What's the one thing or maybe two things that you're going to share within one minute to your partner in your group. So here we go. And Nadia, you're back with me. Ha ha ha. I guess this is recorded. So I should stop being evil.

Yeah, you should. I don't like, for the, for the record, pumpkin, latte, spice, whatever you said would be bothered.

Okay, me neither.

Me neither. Couldn't be bothered. Okay, what's your. What I would like? Well, I mean I'm really doing, I'm doing really well in the, in the 12 to 8 fasting. Yeah. Like although I overeat yesterday, like at 8 o' clock I was done already, so. But because I ate so much, it Took forever to digest. But what I really want, basically it's just to like eat when I'm hungry because I realize I'm not, I'm not hungry that often. Like even at night when I get bored and you know that I'm bored. Even at night when I get bored and I want to eat. Not hungry, I'm just bored. Yeah, you know, I'm just like really bored or stressed or whatever. So I just, basically I just want to eat when I'm hungry and stop when I'm done. When I'm full.

Yeah.

Now when I'm done, when I'm simple as that sounds really simple, but it's a little bit more, it's a little more complex.

So when you, let's just go back to that. You said you, you're staying within the window, which is 12 to 8, which is pretty cool. So huge kudos there. Now oftentimes for many people, when the deadline is looming, so that deadline of oh my gosh, 8 o' clock is coming. I can't eat after 8 o'. Clock. Oh my gosh, I have to eat now. Is there any sort of apprehension about not being able to eat after eight?

You make me laugh because at the very beginning when I decide, okay, you know you're going to do this, you're, you're disciplined, you're a focused person. You, you know, you could do this. You've done it before, what's the problem now you're getting lazy. At the beginning I had that, okay, it's almost eight. Let me see if I can't squeeze in some, you know, lactose free yogurt with blueberries or something, you know. And then I realized it's like 8:07 and I didn't have it because time just flew and I'm like, I don't really want it. So. So yeah, I would say that it kind of shifted though. It was like that at the beginning, but I never really, I thought it, but I can't really say that I really acted on it. Like I really, like I ever really acted on it, but I thought it.

Okay, absolutely. Sometimes it's as simple as the reward from the food and you just want more of the same reward. And one of the keys we are going to go over in just this next step is going to be being with the emotion that you are feeling. And sometimes that emotion is just the feeling of the urge. That urge, it is going to be so freaking powerful. Sometimes it is going to be a quick, easy fix. Like, ok, my brain didn't get to register fullness because I ate too much in too short of a span of time, then it might be something as simple as eating a couple bites and waiting two minutes. And eating a couple bites and waiting two minutes. There's research on children with obesity, and they call it something like the turtle study. And this research had kids take a certain number of bites and then they had to have a bite as slowly as possible. And that helps those kids with their body composition. It might just be a simple physiological thing. If you're not into that mind space of, oh, I got to eat as much as I can before the deadline. But if you're actually in the mind space of enjoying your food, wanting to have a good meal but not having too much, then you may just not be getting the physiological responses. But if you know that you're full and you're going for the next thing, then it's going to be a combination of the dopamine and the thought. The dopamine and the thought. Those two things are going to be your keys, the dopamine and the thought. So we'll go into that right away here.

I also started buying apples. For some reason, they kind of curb any thoughts that I may have of wanting to overeat or splurge on food kind of thing. So I started buying apples. So far, it works.

Is it. Is it because you had such a profound impact with apples in Fiji?

Did I? Oh, yeah, sure.

That's all we had. We had apples and we had. Oh, yes.

Maybe. Maybe unconscious, like, all we had to.

Eat were apples and pears.

And funny enough, in pg, remember, we were so hungry, we would like. I was even eating the apple core. Like, me too. Most of us are doing.

I still have that habit. Me too. I came home, I'm like, paul, look what I do now. I eat the whole car. He'd have the apple car. I'm like, give me that.

Exactly. So I haven't. I have. I've still adopted that principle of might as well eat the whole thing. But, yeah, I don't know. I just got into these apples.

Oh, my gosh. Okay. Well, the great thing actually, nutritionally about the apple is that it's full of water, it's full of fiber, and it is going to be filling because of the water and the fiber and relative. A whole apple doesn't have as much sugar as, say, something else. So it's a fantastic option. Especially there's research that shows when you have it about 15 or 20 minutes before your meal, you have that apple 15 to 20 minutes before your meal, you're less likely to over consume.

Wow. And I didn't even know all that before I started getting into these apples. Well, there you go.

And that's bang on. So that is awesome. I'm going to bring everybody in here. So we got about. Yeah, they'll be coming back in in just less than a minute. Yeah. That is fantastic. I think that's a great choice. And if you're timing that apple, you can start having your little apple right before you're going to have your meal about 20 minutes before and it starts. There's a number of processes that it starts, but one of them is the feeling of fullness in your stomach before you actually start the meal. So it's really powerful.

That's great.

Welcome back. Oh, we got the Keeners. The rule followers are back right away.

We got Gretchen and Paul in the.

Room and everyone else is going to get cut off and thrown back in the room. And 14 seconds. And 3, 2, 1. Here we go. Welcome back, everybody. OK, what did you learn? We're a lot alike. What's that? We're a lot alike. A lot alike. Overworkers. I put the overworkers together by accident. I swear these pairings were random. I did not plan to pair you the way it went.

So.

To be more adult. Be more adult. Okay, so we had two overworkers put together and another two overworkers put together. Oh, wait, maybe we had three pairs of overworkers. I think everybody's an overworker in here. What the heck? Okay, what else we got? Be more adult. We decided to be kind to ourselves. Very powerful. And Andrew says, I couldn't agree more. We're a lot alike, despite being different. And so the cool thing about this is that that fallacy, getting over, that fallacy of feeling like we're not that we're alone in what we're doing and we start either blaming ourselves and then that just makes the situation worse. All right, so I'm going to give you the four steps that we're going to use to tame our dopamine. And this is to deal with the thing that you do not want to be doing. So here's number one, identify the out of control urges. We just did. Step number one, not now, but the previous share that you did. You identify the thing that you do against your own will. And the reason that I'm using the words against your own will is so that you really hear it. It's not what you want to do. And you would never have somebody do something to or something to someone else against their will. You wouldn't do something against someone else's.

Will.

But we're doing something to ourselves against our own will. So that's number one, identify the out of control urges and that's all they are is an urgent Number two, change the story. This seems like an innocent thought. I love chocolate covered almonds, but I could have made a story about it and I did at the time. Oh, chocolate covered almonds are one of my favorite sweets. The best ones you can find in this area over here. But I love to buy these ones sometimes because they have a thicker layer of chocolate on the outside and the other ones that come with a little bit of salt on them can be really good as well. I could go on and on in my story about chocolate covered almonds, but guess when my story started to change is when I actually looked at that nutrition label and I went, wtf? The amount of protein, fat, carbs, sugar, calories that I'm getting in here would cover two freaking meals for my tiny body or more with the amount that I was eating. So I started to go, what the heck? And it wasn't doing much of anything for me other than making me sick. So I started to change this story. So your step number two is change the story. Because there is a story there, there is a thought there about something that you like about whatever you're doing and the story might be, oh, I can't wait to check on so. And so I really like to keep up with what they're doing and I'd like to see if you're scrolling along the thing for the overworkers, the taskers, it's oh, I'm just going to get this done and my wife will love it and my husband will love it if I do this. If I just get this done, the house will be clean, it will be nice and tidy and to Peter's point, guess where that comes from. That story has been pervasive for years and it started as a kid, guaranteed. We think it is who we are now. But that program, that foundation of that program was laid years ago, sometimes decades ago. I have to be the good kid. I have to do these things. I am bad if I don't. So change the story is number two. And I changed the story completely about the chocolate covered almonds. It's like, what am I doing? I don't want this, I don't want to feel like this. But more importantly, I couldn't understand why my brain couldn't control what my actions were doing. Only in more recent years do I understand this sequence of events because that story or those multiple thoughts. But if we just pick one and I just picked one. I love chocolate covered almonds. Fill in the blank for whatever it is for you or however you say it. And that's going to create the feeling as soon as you start thinking it. But really when I think I love chocolate covered almonds, but I think of those kind of chocolate covered almonds, I can't even. It doesn't align at all. I want nothing to do with them, nothing to do with them. But it started with cutting them out of the house. Then I reintroduced them back in and guess what? Same urges, same problem, same actions. And then I cut them out of the house. But then when I did what I'm doing now and I do this twice a year, I just basically eliminate sweets. So here's what's happening. September 1st, I've done this for several years, two months a year don't eat sweets. So you would think that September 1st, this year should be way easier than the other years. And it was, it's like I didn't even, it's like, ok, now I take proactive steps. Well, when I would normally have, listen to this. When I normally have Almost every day, four or five dark, as in 70% plus chocolate covered almonds after lunch they are in the house all the time. They are consumed every day. But I'll have four of them, might even have six of them if I want. And if I don't want, I don't even have them. But they're 70% dark chocolate and I only have a few of them and I have them almost every day. So that's in my house. But I get proactive and I go, you know what, ok, I know I'm going to want my chocolate covered almonds. So I'm going to make sure that I have extra nuts because I always have nuts in the house. And I'm going to make sure that I make those sugar free, flour free little muffins that we make. And I'm going to make sure that I've got just some extra almond butter in the house if I want something like that with fruit. So I've got my go tos as replacements for a dark chocolate piece of chocolate.

I would have.

Or dark chocolate covered almond or what else do I eat? Or my granola, I'll have my homemade granola. I freaking love my homemade granola. But those are the things that, or if somebody baked cookies, we love cookies. Or if there's ice cream from the summer, an ice cream bar. We love some sweets in the summer, so I get proactive. So September 1st rolls around. Awesome. No problem. Got my things in place. Done this how many times before? No big deal. September 2nd rolls around again, no problem. Away we go. Just rolling along. We have a few different options. September 3rd rolls around. What day is September 3rd, everybody? What day was that, anyone? Was it Saturday? Was it Sunday? Wednesday? No, it wasn't Wednesday. It was Saturday. Okay, September 4th rolls around.

Here we are.

September 4th was different. September 4th, I had urges like crazy. So some of you have been describing things like, oh, I'm overeating a particular meal, and I didn't want to overeat a particular me. But why? Why am I overeating this particular meal? Is it breakfast? Is it lunch? No, it's always dinner. Well, guess what happened for me. Guess what happened on Sunday, September 4th. Maeve and Paul left, and I'm alone. Dun, dun, dun, dun. Paul's typing something now. Punkin doesn't count anymore. He's right here. Just saying. Okay, Maeve, Paul and Punkin left, and I'm with Pepper, the other dog. Let's get clear. Okay, now we know, and things are much different. And now what's happening? So here are all of the tags. I pointed them out earlier to you. The tag comes along. Breakfast, normal. I don't eat sweets at breakfast. I don't even have starchy carbs at breakfast. That's normal for me. Lunch comes along and I almost always have a salad. A nice full salad. Awesome. But after I eat my salad, guess what I have? I have some nuts. And after I eat some nuts, guess what I have Some dark chocolate covered almonds that maybe are four or five of them, and all of a sudden they're not there. But the fact that I ate my salad and the fact that I ate some nuts, all of a sudden I have this urge to have something that is not in here at all. And I want that thing so badly. But there are sweets in this house still. But I want them. Any one of them. Give them to me. That's how hard that urge feels. I got to do it. I got to do it. I got to do it.

I got to have it.

Everybody relate. It's intense. It's an urge. And what happens initially, and this is what I'm in over the last couple days, what happens initially is that, okay, I got to find something to replace that. If that's not there, well, what am I going to have? I'll have a look for some. Some Ryvita crackers. I'll have a rice cake with almond butter on it. And now I've had about three or four things because I still have this urge for the one thing that I really want. Because I keep taking action on the urge. But you don't have to take action on the urge. So this is step three. Allow the urge. It is going to feel awful. It is going to feel like you are getting into an ice bath and it is miserable and you don't want to be there. Allow the urge. That is step three. Be with it. If there is one mental strength that going sweet free in September has done year after year for me. Now I have so much massive mental and emotional power over my choices because I am tackling something that is really hard. But what made it harder was all of a sudden I feel more emotional pull. Because guess what the extra tag was for eating sweets, feeling lonely, missing my loved ones. Because guess what I tackled all those other time of day. The previous meal, the temperature, the place, the location, having other things in the house. I tackled all those tags, but I didn't tackle the tag that dopamine put on my brain for being alone without the people I want to be with. So all of a sudden, the urge came up big and strong like a big wave, because there was another tag for eating sweets that I wasn't prepared for. So trust me when I say you're going to dominate something, you're going to be crushing it. And then one day, and I'm telling you, I've been dominating this for years, then one day something's going to be different. What is it? There is a tag on my brain that somehow when dopamine got dropped when I had some pleasure when I was lonely, so I ate something when I was lonely sometime in my life, who knows when and when they left? And I am sweet free, all of a sudden, that urge was way more powerful. Even though September 1st was all fine, September 2nd was all fine, September 3rd was all fine. And boom, in comes September 4th. And boom, in comes September 5th. Well, guess what? September 5th. Is that today? No, yesterday. September 6th. Today. So much easier. Why? Because it's a full workday. Hmm. There's another lovely dopamine drop there because that feels good. Get this thing done. Oh, I love that. Why do I love it? Because somebody told me it was an awesome thing to do back in the day to get things done. Be productive, don't be lazy. And so, boom, get that hit and away we go. So step One is identify exactly what it is. Step two, change the story. I am not gonna be Sweets's bitch. Sweets, Sweets, bitch. I'm not gonna do something against my own will, even if my own brain is telling me to, because I'm gonna listen to this part of my brain. So here's the messed up part of it. Dopamine is responsible for the massive amount of urge that I have. And it's also responsible for the massive amount of control I'm demonstrating. Go figure. Because every day that I go through without having sweets, when I said I would, I get another pleasure of going, yeah, baby, you freaking got this. So not only am I getting that dopamine desire circuit, but I've also got that dopamine break circuit. So to tame this baby, you've got identify exactly what it is. Change the story. The story about the chocolate covered almonds is that I am not going to overeat that crap. It is not even remotely who I am. It is not aligned with me. I don't want that. And I love sweets at the same time. So what's my alternative? And that's where I started to try on dark, dark chocolate covered almonds. This started with like 50% dark chocolate covered almonds. First I was like, this is okay. Will I overeat these? So I tested it. Can I have them in the house? I could have them in the house. And I never overate dark chocolate covered almonds once. But then it got to the point where my story changed again. And I was like, you know what? These 50% dark chocolate covered almonds, they are okay, but I am not going to eat them if I don't really love them and they are not actually somewhat good for me. So my story changed again. Now I don't even have dark chocolate covered almonds unless they are 70% dark or more. They might have a little sea salt in them. Yum yum. So I changed my story. Right now I am in that position of okay, I just went through two days of looking and searching for a replacement snack until I finally get to the point where, okay, that's enough. I'm not going to keep filling in something else because most of us will do that replacement, but that won't be the long term fix. So to tame it, identify the out of control urge. Two, change the story. Three, allow the urge be with it. It's going to be miserable and then it's not. Then it's going to be fine. It's going to be like nothing. And then step number four, and this is the most important step of all. Everybody ready? Most important step of all. Repeat as long as it takes. There is a reason why I do sweet free September every year. And it is because September comes before Thanksgiving, Halloween, Christmas, New Year's. I do it every year so that I can get better and better at this. Because every year it still challenges me in some way. If it wasn't a challenge, I wouldn't care. But I do it because I still am challenged by it. And I know I grow every time. And we don't just do it in September, we do it in September and March, because March precedes Easter and the summer. All of the things. Ok, next one. Same exact thing. But now you're going for the desire, the thing you want. You're going for directing your dopamine for the motivation. So, number one, this is almost the same, except there's one or one and a half extra steps. Identify the thing you want to do or you want to get done or that you want to accomplish. The result that you're trying to achieve. Change the story. Same step two. Now go back to that lawnmower thing I was facing. I don't know how big that space is, but a couple acres or more of hip height grass. I can't see what's in the grass. There are landmines everywhere of logs, of things that have floated around. And I'm trying to mow it with this little Husqvarna riding mower that was pushing through the grass. I'd have to get out front and move the stuff. So my story was just pissed off, didn't want to be doing it, wanted to hire somebody, couldn't find anybody. Forcing myself to do it. So I changed my story. Here's how my story changed. I'm just going to try and get this one part done and I really want to get this done. And if I can't find somebody else to do it, I'm willing to do it. So here's step three, and this is the most important part on this one. Commit to the smallest and easiest step. Commit to the smallest and easiest step. Guess what the smallest and easiest step was for me with that mowing, Filling the mower with gas and making sure it started. Yeah, Andrew. Getting on it. I didn't even. The smallest and easiest step for me to start that process. It was so daunting. I was here, basically. I was doing the work alone. I was with Maeve and the dogs. It was so daunting that the easiest step for me was to fill the mower with gas and see if the sucker would start. And that's all I was going to try and do. That's it. Because I knew I might be facing a task with just getting it to start. So all I needed to do was get gas in it, make sure, see if it would start, and it didn't start for a while. And then it did. But that's all I committed to doing. Oh, starting the mower. I'm not mowing today. I'm starting the mower. I got my gloves, I got my earplugs, but I'm not mowing. I'm starting the bloody mower. That's it. The smallest and easiest thing you can commit to. I've done the same thing with another task that I didn't want to be doing, but I knew had to get done to keep the timeline going, trying to find help to do it. Painting. Oh, I'm going to prep the space. Prep the space. I'm not going to paint this wall. I'm not going to paint this room. I'm going to prep the space. That's step three. Start with the smallest and easiest step. And step four. Maybe this is more important. But you have to do step three first in order for this to happen. You have to celebrate that step. You have to celebrate that step that is going to give you the pleasure, to give you the dopamine markers to take the next step. If you don't celebrate that particular step, you are going to have to start from square one and go again. And it is going to be a struggle. But if you celebrate that one easiest step. So easy. And you celebrate it like I prepped my food this morning. Celebrate.

Yay.

Awesome. Here's how some of us in this room celebrate it. You write it down and you put a check mark behind it. That's your little mini celebration. And you put a star beside it. Yay. That's a freaking sticker on it. But you have to celebrate that wee little step because if you don't, you won't get the dopamine marker to go to the next one. Because as soon as you get the dopamine marker on that, it is called the molecule of more for a reason. It is called the motivation molecule for a reason. Because it is the thing that has a sniff out water when there is none to be found. It is the thing that has us take the next step when there's no reason to believe that we can. So when you celebrate that you took one little action, you will take the next action. But if you don't celebrate it. Dopamine doesn't get marked in your brain. It won't happen. So you've got to celebrate in that step. You guys are jerks. Okay, step five. Repeat for as long as it takes to get the thing you want. So awesome. Now there's one little part I have. A little star, a little asterisk in there. When you commit to the smallest, easiest step, it might be a replacement initially, before you have enough mental and habitual strength, that step might be a replacement instead of complete elimination. If you're trying to eliminate something. So what you noticed in the example that I gave you with sweets, I'm not trying to eliminate those calories. If I eliminate those calories that I have with dark chocolate covered almonds and a small dessert, or say my small amount of granola that I have, if I eliminate those calories, I'm going to be a bloody toothpick and I don't want that. So I need the same amount of calories coming in. But it's got to be different things. So it might be half of a grapefruit, it might be a small little sugar free muffin that I made. It might be whatever. So initially it might be a replacement when you take that small and easy step. But if you're looking to have your brain eliminate something in the long run, then your replacement is the in between step before eliminating. But still on this, your steps for directing that motivation molecule are identify the thing we want to do, change the story, commit to the smallest and easiest step and celebrate that step and do it again. Beautiful. Beautiful. Okay, before we do our last little thing, just to anchor this in, are there any things that are coming up for you? Anything that, anything that you want to ask questions on in particular for the thing that you are either going towards or stopping? You can pop your hand up or pop it in the chat. I don't see, I don't see any hands. No, I can't see everybody in one spot. Everybody's got this dialed in. You can go toward one thing and away from another at the same time. Absolutely. Usually you want to make the steps small and as easy as possible. And you don't want it to be more than a couple of things because your brain is going to go 1, 2, 3, many, and then just default back to the rituals that you've created in your life. So you can go toward one thing and away from another thing. And you're just going to have to be really conscious of it. And the biggest thing, though is make it so bloody Easy. So easy. Easy as possible. Easy steps. What we tend to do is we tend to swing the pendulum. If we've done. If I had so many chocolate covered almonds, well, then they're cut off. I'm never having them again. And maybe that's the right choice for a span of time. But to really master something is that chocolate. And trust me, I'm just used. I'm beating chocolate covered almonds to death here. But chocolate covered almonds are the thing. You bet, Nadia. Chocolate covered almonds are just the example. They're just replace it with whatever else. But the true mastery comes in when chocolate covered almonds can be in the room. I can sniff them, somebody can eat them, and I don't care. I don't even want them. That's the difference between mastering something or if I might even choose to have one. At some point, I might want one and it's okay, and I'm going to have one. Maybe I'll have two and be fine. Doesn't matter. But they're not a thing for me anymore because my brain has mastered that particular thing in my life. And that could be work, it could be alcohol, it could be anything. So any other questions before we just do a quick breathing exercise and anchor this in? Okay, we're going to do two different breathing exercises, and I'm just giving these to you as a physical way to help support what we just developed. So if you want to do the taming of the dopamine, what we typically want to do is slow everything down so that we're not just looking and searching and trying to have the thing. And if we want to do directing of that dopamine, sometimes we want to amp things up a little bit. And keep in mind, I'm just going to bring this out here. Dopamine is the cousin when it comes to neurotransmitters and hormonal responses. Dopamine is testosterone's cousin. Estrogen is serotonin's cousin. They tend to work in conjunction with each other. If you notice that there's mood swings sometimes there may be another thing going on hormonally as well. Dopamine. If we want to pull back and tame some dopamine, I want you to get into your parasympathetic nervous system a little more to do that. We'll do some slow breathing. But what's even better, especially when you're dealing with something that's nagging at your brain, you have this major urge. Then when we slow it down and switch between your left Brain and your right brain and go back and forth. Then we can often manage that urge way better. So this is how we're going to do, actually, I'm going to do this second so that we can end on a calmer note since it's evening time. So to direct the dopamine and go for the thing you want to do, it's going to be a 2 to 1 breathing ratio. It's going to be in for two counts, out for one. So it's a fairly fast breathing. And we're going to do that in through the nose and out through the mouth and in through the nose and out through the mouth. And when you go in through the nose, you're almost going to take two notice. I turn away from my computer so I don't spit all over it because I've done that a fair bit. That's going to be how we're going to breathe initially. That's to bring ourselves into a physical state to direct our dopamine. Let's try this. We're just going to do this for a few seconds. Get ready. Okay. Breathe. Okay. Now if you did that quickly enough with a sharp enough out breath, it would have elevated your state, elevated your respiration rate, elevated your heart rate. Did everybody notice that? Okay. Andrew points to a 2 to 1 breathing from Dr. Huberman. His is a little bit different. It's a different tempo of breathing, meaning it goes. The long exhale brings you into parasympathetic. The short fast exhale and the fast inhale brings you into sympathetic. Yes, it's a two to one, a two inhale, but it's a long, slow exhale. And the second inspiration is a finishing inspiration. What we're going to do on this last one is going to bring you into parasympathetic. So it's going to bring you down and get you to focus. So if you need to manage an urge, this is the one to use. If you need to tame your dopamine, this is the one to use. We're going to go like this. A little bit of Hang 10 here. The thumb is going to go towards one nostril. The pinky is going to go to the other nostril and we're going to breathe in on one side. Switch and exhale. Inhale. Switch and exhale. Inhale, Switch and exhale. Inhale, Switch and exhale. Inhale, Switch and exhale. Inhale, Switch and exhale. Now breathe just through your nose. Okay. What this one does is it forces slower breathing because we can only intake through one nostril, and then it also switches from one side of the brain to the other side of the brain while we're going from nostril to nostril. And then when we finally release that nostril and we breathe through both, it feels like we can take in so much more in that moment. So not only do we distract our brain, but we slow everything down into our parasympathetic nervous system. That's going to help you when you're in that highly intense urge state, to help you allow the urge and just let it pass without taking action on that urge. Okay everyone, beautiful work on dopamine on this call. So have a beautiful rest of your evening. Thank you so much for playing big and diving right in. Great work, everyone. Good night. If you enjoy listening to the Empowered Team Podcast, you'll love being on the Empowered Team. 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