Rebuilding Atrophied Desire (to win)

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zbigi
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Joined: Fri Oct 30, 2020 2:04 pm

Re: Rebuilding Atrophied Desire (to win)

Post by zbigi »

AxelHeyst wrote:
Tue Jan 25, 2022 4:50 pm
  • One way to describe the atrophied 'desire to win' I'm concerned about is 'noticing that I've become less mentally tough than I used to be'. I used to be mentally tough because I believed being mentally tough made a difference; after outcomes being either constant Lose or apparently random, I lost faith that mental toughness made any difference whatsoever. So I got mentally weaker.
I suspect the mental toughness varies and people are much mentally tougher for challenges where the outcome really matters for them. E.g. I can be pretty mentally tough about grinding through the jobs I hate because the outcome (more money) makes a huge difference to me. Whereas I am much less mentally tough about losing weight or doing hundreds of hours of fairly dull drawing exercises. I think it's because I don't really want their outcomes badly enough to suffer through necessary steps - I only want to want them. The first kind of challenge (making money to sustain oneself) plugs in right at the bottom of the Maslow pyramid, while the latter is basically a BS task to challenge oneself with when one has too much time on their hands. I feel like my internal motivation system is not fooled with this, and is saying "hey, if we're going to work for something that doesn't ultimately matter, then at least pick something easier".

Scott 2
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Joined: Sun Feb 12, 2012 10:34 pm

Re: Rebuilding Atrophied Desire (to win)

Post by Scott 2 »

Jupiter wrote:
Thu Jan 27, 2022 3:16 pm
I am interested in knowing if it was in part coming from a desire to not abandon what you got yourself into, event if it was dysfunctional.
I would not frame my motivations so kindly, but yes. I find knowing when to give up very difficult. Losing is fine, but I'm going to learn from it, and we're gonna go again. What's funny, is I have zero problems with not trying. I scope my commitments carefully, knowing that about myself.

I also feared leaving a sure thing for the unknown. Leaning into an "I never quit" attitude was far easier than facing my vulnerabilities.

Jupiter
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Joined: Fri Jan 21, 2022 11:45 am

Re: Rebuilding Atrophied Desire (to win)

Post by Jupiter »

Scott 2 wrote:
Fri Jan 28, 2022 10:40 pm
I find knowing when to give up very difficult. [...] I scope my commitments carefully, knowing that about myself. I also feared leaving a sure thing for the unknown. Leaning into an "I never quit" attitude was far easier than facing my vulnerabilities.
I like your message, because I share the same difficulty. When the desire to give up something in which I am deeply involved and that I wanted for myself at some point in life arise, I am not so sure whether I should retract or keep pushing. I value honoring my commitments, but I also want to protect myself from untenable situations.

In those times of doubt and discomfort, I become familiar with questions like "Is what I feel coming from a fear of failure?", "Am I not trying hard enough?" or "Am I really in the wrong spot, or am I just being difficult?" Since I know that giving up can be both hard and easy, I feel my motivations are so blurred, I am mystified, I cannot make a mindful decision. I would like to make sure that the itch I feel cannot be turned into a symptom of growth before abandoning anything, but I haven't found a way that systematically works.

Decision theory is very simple on paper, but in reality... Ooof!

AxelHeyst
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Re: Rebuilding Atrophied Desire (to win)

Post by AxelHeyst »

I just watched this video on the dopamine system, feel like it fits this thread best. The most interesting sections might be the ## Impact of rewards and ## Why do we have a dopamine system?


## Main Takeaways
* Dopamine is the currency of getting out there, being excited, being motivated, having drive to do things.
* You have a tank of dopamine that has a natural refresh rate. It isn't difficult to deplete the tank. Work hard play hard lifestyle (constant dopamine peaks) can significantly drop baseline dopamine levels.
* If you don't have dopamine available to 'spend' on an activity, you'll lack motivation for it. This is how previously pleasurable activities become not fun any more.
* Don't *chronically* spike dopamine at the beginning of activities (energy drinks, hyphae music, porn, stimulation, etc). Random spikes for occassional performance/enjoyment enhancement is fine.
* And don't chronically spike dopamine at the end of activities (with external rewards like money, candy, etc) if you can help it.
* Instead, try to develop the attitude that the struggle, friction, pursuit, effort is itself the reward, the point of the thing.
* Take cold showers.

## Some starting points
There is a baseline level of dopamine (tonic), and peaks of dopamine (phasic)

After a peak of dopamine, the amount of dopamine in the body will drop below baseline before recovering. (Referred to as tonic and phasic release of dopamine.)

Dopamine has to do with motivation, drive, and craving. How willing you are to lean into life and pursue things.

Dopamine is a neuromodulator. Changes the chances certain neurons will be active or inactive.

## Spatial Aspects
Two pathways for dopamine:
* mesocorticalimbic pathway. Controls motivation and drive. Classic reward pathway.
+ Substatia nidra. Mainly for movement.

The way dopamine is released can be local or broad (volumetric).

Local release influences neurons to dump vesicles which attach to the next neuron across the synapse, causing it to be mroe or less electrically active. This is the local release.

Also, dopamine can dump massive amounts, flooding many neurons at a time. This is the broad release.

I think local release is experienced as peaks, and volumetric release is experienced as baseline (??).

Many supplements boost both local and volumetric release, which doesn't make you feel way better because peak experience has to do with the delta between peaks and baseline. If you raise both, the delta might stay the same.

## Temporal aspect
Dopamine releasae is slow, g protein-couupled receptors. It's a cascade through neurons. Effects takes a while.

Dopamine has slow, very slow, or REALLY slow effects.

Dopamine co-stimulates glutamate, which makes you more excited/stoked.

When you feel lethargic or lazy, that's low dopamine state. When you're focused and excited, you've got dopamine in your system.

You experience of life has to do with your previous levels of dopamine. It's path dependent. If you go through some peaks and then come across something, you might be 'meh' about it and that's *because you just had some dopamine peaks*. If you hadn't had those peaks, you might be really interested in that thing.

Dopamine is like a currency of stoke. You spend it on things. Do you want to spend dopamine on instagram posts, or on sending it?

## Anecdote
He was given Thorazine while being treated for Giardia and he immediately got depressed, felt super bad, no motivation. Thorazine is a dopamine blocker. He told them to give him l-DOPA, and they did, and he immediately felt better.

## Controlling baselines and peaks
Different people have different baseline levels of dopamine. Also epinephrine (adrenaline) works with dopamine to control levels of stoke. Epinephrine is the main driver of energy, it wakes up various elements of our body. Epinephrine screams WAKE THE FUCK UP to the body. There's some intersting ways these compounds work together. A spike in epinephrine can result in too much fear, but if you have a spike in dopamine going with it that's going to flow more like excitement and you'll be more able to lean into the frightening experience.

### What activities increase dopamine?
* Chocolate increases above baseline 1.5x transiently.
* Sex (pursuit and act) 2x.
* Nicotene that is smoked 2.5x. very shortlived.
* Cocaine 2.5x.
* Meth 10x.
* Exercise (depends on how much you objectively enjoy exercise). 2x if you like exercise, 0x if you don't like exercise. Other activities have this subjective component, like hard work, studying, etc, that depend on how much you think you enjoy that activity. Super interesting!!
* Caffeine has a modest impact on dopamine. But regular consumption of caffeine increases upregulation of certain dopamine receptors. So caffeine makes you able to experience more of dopamines effects. AH!

### Why would we have a dopamine system?
Currency of foraging and seeking things. You need to be able to muster up the motivation to go out and seek things you need - food, water, shelter, etc, even though there might be dangers about (tigers, cold, storms, enemies).

When you find some berries or meat, you get a peak of dopamine, but then it drops below the previous baseline (it'll eventually go back up). It drops by an amount proportionate to how high the peak was.

There's a pool of dopamine that is synthesized, there's a tank of dopamine basically, and it takes a while to resynthesize the dopamine tank. This is why the baseline drops after a peak experience: the tank hits empty and so the baseline flow of dopamine is unable to continue, until the tank gets refilled.

**If you puruse the dopamine-inducing activity when you're in a state of depletion, you're going to be disappointed because there's no dopamine left to make it a pleasurable experience again. YOU NEED TO CHILL.**

Work hard play hard philosophy can lead to a steadily declining baseline of dopamine. The way you replenish the tank is to avoid dopaminogenic behaviors.

## optimal way to engage in dopaminogenic activities without dropping baseline
Intermittent release of dopamine. Don't expect peaks every time you engage in these activities. If you try to make everything be epic, soon nothing will.

The key to enjoying an activity is to make sure that the peak that occurs doesn't occur too often. It can't be predictable. Be like casinos: random peaks.

So sometimes people take energy drinks before a workout for performance enhancement or enjoyment enhancement. This is a recipe for dopamine depletion. Flip it. Only rarely and randomly take the dopamine enhancing supplements: this will optimize enjoyment of the activity.

A smartphone is a great tool for long term baseline dopamine depression, because there's so much in a phone that is dopaminogenic that it adds to incidental activities.

So the basic advice is: if you want to enjoy some activity, remove as many incidental/accessory dopamine enhancers from it as you can.

The exception is caffeine, because of the thing where it increases upregulation of dopamine receptors. Yerba mate might be the best, as it also has neuroprotective properties. Don't mix caffeine with MDMA, it causes neurotoxicity.

## how to boost dopamine healthily
Cold exposure. Getting into cold water always releases epinephrine, no matter how cold adapted you are, a big and immediate boost. But it also steadily boosts levels of dopamine, to about 3x, over about three hours, and it drops back to baseline slowly again. (this study was an hour of exposure).

## Impact of Rewards
Most people work hard in order to achieve some end goal. Doing something you don't like to do for some reward that comes after can make us less likely to do it in the future.

Kids who liked drawing were given a reward for drawing, and then the reward was rescinded. The kids mostly likely drawing less than before.

If you get a peak in dopamine from a reward it'll drop your baseline.

Dopamine controls our perception of time. If we do something for the reward at the end, we're extending the 'time bin' over which we experience the experience. And because the reward comes at the end, the dopamine peak comes just at the reward, and the dopamine pleasure becomes less and less associated with the actual activity while we're doing it.

Growth mindset: the pursuit/striving is what the focus is on, the pursuit and the struggle is what is seen as the 'good'/enjoyable thing. The focus is the effort itself. External rewards break this.

You want to associate dopamine release from the friction/challenge that you happen to be in. You totally break this if you are focused only on the goal at the end, and you cut yourself off from the performance enhancing effects of dopamine.

So the way to find pleasure in activities is to A) not layer in dopamine enhancers, and B) start to attach the feeling of friction and effort to an internally generated reward system. You can tell yourself that the effort part is the good part, and you start to be able to access dopamine rewards INSIDE the effort of the activity.

How do you do this? in moment when the effort and pain is highest, you tell yourself, because this is painful, it will evoke an increase in dopamine release later, but also that in that moment you are doing it by choice and because you love it.

As you do this more, it becomes reflexive for all activities. The deep seated belief that the effort is the reward.

The ability to access this pleasure from effort is the most powerful aspect of the dopamine mechanism.

tl;dr: Don't spike dopamine before *or after* engaging in effort. Don't spike yourself to get to the starting line, and don't be focused on any reward at the end. Do the thing, and let doing the thing be the thing.

### intermittent fasting
When we eat, we get dopamine release. Our perception of dopamine is heightened if we haven't had much dopamine. The longer the restriction, the greater the peak.

People can learn to enjoy the deprivation aspect of IF, by leaning into the effort of not eating, and it becomes about that rather than the spike of when you do finally eat. As you're fasting, you're telling yourself about the benefits of fasting, which is a way of enjoying the process of it during the activity itself.

## Things that reduce baseline dopamine
Melatonin.
Light exposure between 10p and 4am.

## Things that increase dopamine
PEA
Macuna Pruriens
Huperzine A
L-tyrosine
Social connection (oxytocin release is essential to stimulating the dopamine circuitry)

## The main takeaway:
Your previous levels of dopamine effect your current levels of dopamine, and your current levels of dopamine effect your future levels of dopamine.


## References
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmOF0crdyRU&t=1701s
2. Nature article on biology of dopamine: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41583-021-00455-7
3. Cold exposure and dopamine: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s004210050065

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