Friday, November 9th
Nov. 9th, 2012 11:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexandraerinThe Daily Report
Sorry for the lack of contact yesterday. Kind of impulse, we ended up having a "get out of the house" day, which proved to be much needed... especially since we've been having a stretch of genuinely sunny (if chilly) days after so many dark gray ones.
I've been doing some personal research into brain chemistry and caffeine. I've long been aware of the basics of how caffeine interacts with adenosine receptors, but I had no real knowledge of its effects regarding dopamine, or the full spectrum of what dopamine does in the brain. Two salient facts that stand out to me are 1) dopamine is responsible for the brain's pleasure/reward mechanism, the feeling of satisfaction or accomplishment and 2) caffeine increases dopamine levels.
These strike me as important because in the past five years, my caffeine intake has been decreasing from thoroughly unhealthy levels to almost zero, and at the same time my motivation has just been trending sharply downhill. I have a harder time starting things, and an even harder time finishing them... and not because I hit an actual wall or burn out or write myself into a corner (all things that do happen), but because... no matter how much on an intellectual level I'm aware of the point of what I'm doing, I'm not feeling it.
Not as often and not as deeply as I felt it back when I was drinking two to three liters of caffeinated soda a day, anyway.
I went from having a lot of ambition, to understanding on an intellectual level that I need to be doing things and moving forward, but not feeling any actual need or urge driving me onwards.
So I've been looking into other ways to encourage dopamine production, and I have some new tools to do that. I don't expect to be setting the world on fire the way I was in my mid-twenties, but I think I should be able to catch a spark more often.
The State of the Me
Still doing okay.
Plans For Today
Got a chapter of Tales of MU to finish.
Sorry for the lack of contact yesterday. Kind of impulse, we ended up having a "get out of the house" day, which proved to be much needed... especially since we've been having a stretch of genuinely sunny (if chilly) days after so many dark gray ones.
I've been doing some personal research into brain chemistry and caffeine. I've long been aware of the basics of how caffeine interacts with adenosine receptors, but I had no real knowledge of its effects regarding dopamine, or the full spectrum of what dopamine does in the brain. Two salient facts that stand out to me are 1) dopamine is responsible for the brain's pleasure/reward mechanism, the feeling of satisfaction or accomplishment and 2) caffeine increases dopamine levels.
These strike me as important because in the past five years, my caffeine intake has been decreasing from thoroughly unhealthy levels to almost zero, and at the same time my motivation has just been trending sharply downhill. I have a harder time starting things, and an even harder time finishing them... and not because I hit an actual wall or burn out or write myself into a corner (all things that do happen), but because... no matter how much on an intellectual level I'm aware of the point of what I'm doing, I'm not feeling it.
Not as often and not as deeply as I felt it back when I was drinking two to three liters of caffeinated soda a day, anyway.
I went from having a lot of ambition, to understanding on an intellectual level that I need to be doing things and moving forward, but not feeling any actual need or urge driving me onwards.
So I've been looking into other ways to encourage dopamine production, and I have some new tools to do that. I don't expect to be setting the world on fire the way I was in my mid-twenties, but I think I should be able to catch a spark more often.
The State of the Me
Still doing okay.
Plans For Today
Got a chapter of Tales of MU to finish.