{"id":30111,"date":"2023-01-13T05:24:42","date_gmt":"2023-01-13T13:24:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=30111"},"modified":"2023-01-13T05:24:42","modified_gmt":"2023-01-13T13:24:42","slug":"love-sex-creativity-politics-this-dopamine-is-amazing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/love-sex-creativity-politics-this-dopamine-is-amazing\/","title":{"rendered":"Love, Sex, Creativity, Politics \u2013 This dopamine is amazing!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lieberman and Long’s book the Molecule of More, how a single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity and will Determine the Fate of humans<\/em> be a very interesting book that I will surely keep on the very important reading materials. Dopamine “the pleasure molecule,” as dubbed by scientists in 1997 after Katheleen Montagu discovered it is a fantastic chemical that I didn’t know much about. The reason it was dubbed so pleasure “is exactly what people feel when dopamine is active in their brains.”[1]<\/a> Wow, what a great title for an excellent book; this is a must-read!\u00a0This was my thought and amazement when I saw the book’s title. I had heard of Dopamine but didn’t know much it was responsible for in my everyday life. I have chosen to share four intriguing ideas out of 8 in the blinkist.com summary.<\/p>\n

The first idea I found intriguing is that Dopamine is behind our falling in and out of love. I have always wondered how the English language determined “falling in love” love is such a good thing, yet when we have fallen in love, it is never true love but must be a dopamine-induced kind of love. When the dopamine rush subsides, some people separate and move on to the next lover, \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 while others fantasize about the thrill of a new romance. That’s because Dopamine always \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 demands newer, shinier, better things. Indeed, there’s evidence that people with naturally high dopamine activity have more sexual partners. They are more likely to cheat and less likely to marry.[2]<\/a>\u00a0It is interesting when the narrators here describe the discovery of Dopamine, tests on rats prove that “dopamine activity was at its highest when animals received tasty food. Scientists named the parts of the brain involved in this reaction the dopamine reward circuit.”[3]<\/a><\/p>\n

There is much more than appetite and delicious food or sexual arousal. Dopamine is the culprit behind much more. The second one is the effect of addictive drugs on Dopamine.\u00a0“Drugs like alcohol, cocaine, and opioids make the dopamine desire circuit fire like no natural trigger ever could.” [4]<\/a> This explains the challenges of drugs and opioid addiction that we see on the streets of our cities today. Since working with the Arizona Department of Corrections, I have had a new understanding of this challenge. “Governor Doug Ducey declared the epidemic a Public Health Emergency in 2017.”[5]<\/a>\u00a0As I speak to men who experience more rates of recidivism, it is clear that drugs became the common denominator causing some men to live in prison almost for life.\u00a0In 2020, 93,331 people in the U.S. died from an opioid overdose, 1,982 Arizonans.136,720 opioid prescriptions were administered in Arizona within the last month. Arizona currently ranks 12th<\/sup> in the nation for misusing and abusing prescription drugs and has the 12th<\/sup> highest drug overdose mortality rate, with more than 20 drug overdose deaths per 100,000 people.[6]<\/a><\/p>\n

This third idea was more intriguing than others. Dopamine can produce creative genius or psychiatric disease \u2013 or both. Artists, musicians, and writers tend to have brains rich in Dopamine. This allows them to think in new, unconventional ways \u2013 and to come up with connections no one’s ever thought of before. But the creative power of Dopamine has a flip side. People can experience hallucinations, delusions, or mania when dopamine activity gets out of hand. This is common for people who live with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.[7]<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0The stigma of mental health illness is much higher in East and Central Africa, where I lived before relocating to the United States two decades ago. The genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda has left the community with many challenges, including mental health. It is common to hide and stay locked away from the public instead of risking ridicule due to mental health challenges. Reading Lieberman’s great work, I can see some common mental health symptoms, yet I never knew exactly what it is. “People with schizophrenia are often convinced that they’re being followed or manipulated. How does Dopamine produce such fantastical beliefs?”[8]<\/a> The fourth idea that I found intriguing is the influence of Dopamine on political beliefs!\u00a0 Our dopamine levels can influence our political beliefs. Liberals often seek novelty; they crave progress. These are both qualities linked to Dopamine. On the other hand, Conservatives tend to be more concerned with the present. They are practical and novelty-averse. These qualities are driven by here-and-now chemicals, which we discussed earlier. One finding in support of this connection is that liberalism is linked to a slightly higher IQ. In one study, people who described themselves as “very liberal” registered an average IQ score of 106. And people who identified as conservatives displayed an average IQ of 95.[9]<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0The authors conclude with a great piece of advice that I found very crucial to all of us; this, I think, is what is lacking in most areas “The more active a person’s dopamine system, the more likely they are to be novelty-seeking, risk-taking, and curious. But too much Dopamine can stand in the way of our happiness. To live fully, we need to balance the future-oriented dopamine and the more present-oriented here-and-now brain chemicals. “[10]<\/a><\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> \u201cBlinkist,\u201d 2020, accessed January 13, 2023, https:\/\/www.blinkist.com\/en\/nc\/reader\/the-molecule-of-more-en.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Androuw Carrasco, MD, \u201cUnderstanding the Opioid Crisis in Arizona,\u201d General Health, Wellness Now, January 26, 2022, accessed January 13, 2023, https:\/\/blog.valleywisehealth.org\/understanding-the-opioid-crisis-in-arizona\/#:~:text=136%2C720%20opioid%20prescriptions%20were%20administered,overdose%20deaths%20per%20100%2C000%20people.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> \u201cBlinkist.Com.\u201d<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n

[9]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n

[10]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lieberman and Long’s book the Molecule of More, how a single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity and will Determine the Fate of humans be a very interesting book that I will surely keep on the very important reading materials. Dopamine “the pleasure molecule,” as dubbed by scientists in 1997 after Katheleen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":164,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2487,2160],"class_list":["post-30111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-lieberman-long-dlgp01","tag-liberman","cohort-dlgp01"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30111"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30113,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30111\/revisions\/30113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}