Sunday scribbles #13: Kickstarting my day, and something about this thing called dopamine.

This week I encounted a youtube video which made me think. The video is called "How overstimulation is ruining your life" by the youtube channel "Better Ideas". I have known this channel for longer, but I have never really dived into it. After watching this specific video though, it made me think about the wonderful topic of dopamine. I'm not the person to go too much into detail on the subject itself, but when googling the word you'll quickly find what it's about. This is also explained in the video, so for those of you who are interested in the subject, or interested in self-development and life improvement: go watch the video linked in the beginning of this post. Many of us know dopamine, or recognize the word, as a feel good chemical. From what I know this is true, but it's important to understand the other part of the equation, being that dopamine plays a role in the reward center of our brains. Briefly dopamine is the chemical that motivates us. It's the feeling you get when you see something you like or want, be it a notification on social media or a bag of chips, and makes you get it. So dopamine really is a good thing.. except in a world of supernormal stimuli.

In our society today, we have created an immens amount of exaggerated versions of a stimuli to which there is an existing response tendency, or any stimuli that elicits a response more strongly than the stimulus for which it evolved. To give you an example: it is possible to create artificial bird eggs which certain birds will prefer over their own eggs (thank you Wikipedia for these explanations of supernormal simuli). So, what's bad about those stimuli? Well, it creates a world where it is more difficult to stay focused on tasks which don't feel as rewarding as these newly invented things. If you have ever hung out with someone, and spent more time than you want on your phone for example, you may know what I am talking about. Things we used to do like socialize, work out, read a book, you name it, got less exciting because the reward system doesn't work as quickly as that of supernormal stimuli. I am lucky that I don't that much time on my phone, and I can put it away when I want to stay focused, but I have to admit that it can still be hard to do. When I am editing videos, or doing administration for my business, I notice that my phone is right next to me and it gets picked up way more often than it should. Now how do you approach this, how can you improve your focus during tasks like these which feel less rewarding in the short run? The answer is very simple: be bored more often.

Yes, you read that right: try to be bored more often. When diving into this subject I scrolled through some youtube videos of the same channel I mentioned, because I appreciate his point of view and the way he explains stuff. They aren't a replacement for reading books or articles on the subject, but they are a good reminder since they are short, yet very clear. The video I want to share something about now is called: "The procrastination cure you don't want to hear". In short: it says that in order to stay more focused on tasks at hand, you could try to add a moment boredom in your life. Which is quite funny because boredom is the thing that makes you indulge on supernormal stimuli as well. The problem is the solution. Imagine you have a summary to write for school and you notice yourself escaping the task by scrolling through social media, watching youtube videos or playing Candy Crush (no idea if it is still being played, but it's the first one I could think of). What would happen if you lock yourself up in your room for several hours where there are just your papers to summarize and a computer with Microsoft Word? Chances are you would not start typing right away. If I can recall my student past correctly, I would just stare at the ceiling. Staring at a ceiling can be quite entertaining, but not for several hours. Yes,there are people who would love to do nothing for several hours, and people who can, but that's not the point. The point is you would probably start to get bored by doing nothing. And what is the best alternative to espace that boredom? Doing the thing you first found to be boring, but now enjoy in a certain way, because it is more fun than doing nothing. Okay, it will not be as fun as playing a game, but when finished, the reward does feel better than the reward of your quick dopamine hits.

These views on dopamine, procrastination, boredom and focus made me think. This week I have taken a break from climbing and lifting weight in my home gym. Rest is often advised, so I tend to take a one-week break every now and then, allthough they are still too infrequent in my training schedule. It is during periods of rest that you grow, especially for muscles. When working out, you tear your muscles, only to let them recover and grow during the moment you are doing nothing, mainly during your sleep I assume. Because I find it hard to do nothing of physical activities, I got on our spinning bike every day to get my blood flowing. Whenever I do some spinning, I put on some entertaining or inspiring youtube video's so I don't get bored. Personally I find riding on a stationary bike really fucking boring. Wait, what? This is boring? That's exactly what I wanted to try! This brings me to a new habit I just started today: kickstarting my day. I have several goals in my life, but the main thing is to keep improving myself. When watching these videos, I yesterday turned off my television when riding this bike. Half an hour long I did nothing but ride a bike and stare at the walls of my garage. I quickly found that I started to think about the things I wanted to do after I got off, and I was happy to find that after I was done, I soon got behind my laptop and started doing my acounting. Now this isn't very crazy, but what is, is that I actually enjoyed it a little bit (no we're not there yet, but we're getting there).

So yes, I will be adding some boredom in my life. I came up with the idea to do this at the start of the day, because I was still searching for my own morning routine. I have tried out different stuff already, like meditating for half an hour for example. I quit a lot of these routines after a couple of months, which is fine. I do believe that you are constantly changing and that it is only by trying out stuff, you notice what you can and want to continue. Starting yesterday, my mornings will start off with immediately getting out of bed when my alarm goes and followed by fifteen minutes of riding on our stationary bike without any television or phone. Just riding this bike, nothing more, nothing less. After this I will do some stretching exercises and focus on lowering my heart rate. The routine will be finished off by a cold shower, after which I have a protein drink with extra nutrients. I've been showering cold since a month or five ago, but I haven't done this in the morning yet. Curious how that will work out. The only hot showers I'm taking right now are at the wellness with my girl, so I hope I'll be able to continue this habit during the winter (cold showers during summertime are quite easy). I strongly believe that creating a habit is one of the most important steps to take. So I will first create this habit, after which I will increase my time on the bike. The next step is to double the time to thirty minutes, after which we can see if we can improve to one hour.

Yesterday was the first day I started with my new morning routine, and I can already tell that it really kickstarted my day. It felt incredible! While writing this last sentence about how I am feeling (yes, I'm writing this shortly after the first day of this routine), I find myself getting a little teary-eyed because I'm feeling so excited. It's a feeling I've felt more often lately, and I just want to scream from the top of my lungs how wonderful life is. Working on yourself does feel exhausting from time to time, but boy, it is so worth it. What an amazing journey this is!