06/17/2026
Dopamine gets a bad rep.
We treat it like the villain, the thing making us crave too much and scroll too much. But it's not the enemy. It's just the brain's way of telling us something matters.
Psychiatrist Anna Lembke explains it through a simple image. Picture a seesaw. Pleasure on one side, pain on the other. Every time we feel good, it tips. Then it tips back to find balance again. That's not a flaw. That's the system doing exactly what it's supposed to do.
The real problem is we don't want to feel that tip back. So we reach for something else before our brain even gets the chance to do its job.
But the low isn't something to avoid. It's the part where we reset. If we let ourselves feel it instead of numbing it, the brain brings us back to balance on its own.
Instead we interrupt it. We feel the dip and reach for the phone, the snack, the next hit of something. So we crash again before we've even recovered from the last one.
Once I understood this, so much made sense. Dopamine isn't here to ruin us. It's here to guide and motivate us.
○ The work is learning to let the low happen, and trust the system to bring you back.
These are some of the tools I use in my one on one support, making sense of the habits and letting go of the things keeping us in the loop.
To learn more about how i might be able to support you in getting you out of the endless loop, check out my bio!!
