Today’s rising rates of depression and anxiety among all ages of people may be a result of our brains’ messengers getting hooked on pleasurable activities. This is especially true in the Covid-19 Era where more and more people are spending an extreme amount of hours at home in pursuit of video games.
Dr. Anna Lembke, a psychiatrist and professor at Stanford University, gives us this essay adapted from her new book: “Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence.” Dopamine is the brain’s chemical that functions as a neurotransmitter associated with pleasure and reward. In the past 75 years, it has been discovered, however, that pain and pleasure are processed in the same part of the brain. This makes it necessary for the brain to try to keep both extreme feelings in balance. Lembke states “…pleasure is usually followed by a feeling of hangover or comedown. If we can wait long enough, that feeling passes and neutrality is restored. But there’s a natural tendency to counteract it by going back to the source of pleasure for another dose.”
Lembke continues, “If we keep up this pattern for hours every day, over weeks or months, the brain’s set-point for pleasure changes.” Lembke also explains that now the games must be continued “not to feel pleasure but just to feel normal.” Indeed, as soon as we stop, we feel the same withdrawal symptoms as felt from any addiction: irritability, anxiety, insomnia, dysphoria (not happy with your state in life), and craving one’s existing mental preoccupation. In addition to addictive substances such as sugars and opioids, in the past 20 years, a new class of electronic addictions has moved “front and center.” Amongst them are the flashing lights and celebrating sounds of tweeting, texting, online shopping, gambling, and surfing the web. The Global Burden of Disease study showed the number of new depression cases world-wide increased 50% between 1990 and 2017, with the highest increase taking place in areas of greater wealth, such as North America.
When treating a depressed patient with an electronic gaming addiction, Lembke asked the person to take a one-month break from his addicted behavior in order to reset his dopamine balance. After doing so, this young man was actually able to feel better in the long-run, much better than he had felt in the earlier short-term. He could go back to playing his video games, without negative effects, through following his own set-rules:
1. Strictly limiting his playtime to no more than two days weekly for only two hours daily. *The time in-between sessions allowed for the brain’s dopamine balance to be restored.
2. He also found it necessary to avoid video games that were too powerful to stop playing them easily.
3. He designated one laptop for school and a separate one for gaming.
4. He used human connection (a potent source of dopamine restoration) by playing only with friends and not strangers.
While most of our seniors living in Sun City, Huntley, do not play video games regularly, our essayist summarizes the fact that “just about all of us have a digital drug of choice, and it probably involves using a smartphone – the equivalent of the hypodermic needle for a wired generation.” She continues, “Reducing phone use is notoriously difficult, because at first it causes the brain’s pleasure-pain balance to tilt to the side of pain, making us feel restless and cranky.” Let’s try to control this preoccupied craving so we can live in the present and enjoy life’s unexpected rewards!
