Shower time shall it be a cold shower? Get some healthy pai..
Added 2024-08-25 22:00:08 +0000 UTCShower time shall it be a cold shower?
Get some healthy pain
Good replacements for unhealthy fixations take full advantage of dopamine’s seesaw effect. Dopamine peaks can result in painful lows filled with cravings, but the reverse holds true as well: some initially painful experiences drive upswings in motivation and positive mood—minus the crash. The effect is called hormesis. Well-timed deprivation can do wonders for pleasure.
One example of hormesis is taking cold showers. More research is needed, but a few studies suggest the body responds to painfully cold water by upregulating feel-good molecules, including dopamine. These are modest natural rewards without a big comedown.
Kenneth Kishida, a Wake Forest neuroscientist who studies dopamine fluctuations, gets hormesis through camping trips. Not glamping, he clarified, but roughing it in state parks for several days. This involves cold showers, eating intermittently, and sleeping in a small tent. “It’s really hard, but I come back feeling refreshed,” he explains.
Camping entails exercise, another hormetic stress. When people addicted to methamphetamine cross-trained for an hour, three times per week, their dopamine receptors increased. Alexis, a 29-year-old health aide from Brooklyn, got hooked on phenylcyclohexyl piperidine, or PCP, to numb feelings of sadness after loved ones died. (Alexis requested to use her first name only for privacy reasons.) She joined a program run by Odyssey House called Run for Your Life, in which people recovering from substance addictions train for marathons in Central Park. “Exercise gives me energy,” Alexis says. “It’s adrenaline.”
Exercise is also shown to protect dopamine receptors as we age. Otherwise, they dip about 10% each decade.
So let’s find the art of suffering well and build our dopamine. How do you suffer that added benefit to your life?
Join me on p@treon link in socials to exercise together. Suffering loves company. Over 2 years worth of naked yoga and fitness to watch now
