Cake over Keto: Episode 21 - Desperately Seeking Dopamine.
Welcome to Season 3!
What’s it like when your brain lacks dopamine? Pretty crap to be honest. Nothing feels exciting. It takes effort to find joy in things, because it’s all BORRRINNGG.
The most mundane of tasks, like getting out of bed and having a wash have no appeal.
So it makes sense we try to find Dopamine, and it can be by any means necessary.
With ADHD, we might learn that constantly moving, whether that’s fidgeting and not being able to sit still…or needing to exercise, gives us a hit. Even though we may well be knackered, it’s worth the effort to get it. It can also look like constantly scrolling on our phones, changing hobbies and interests time and time again, starting new projects, businesses, changing jobs (or not being able to keep them), spending (too much), doing multiple things at once and the focus of this episode - eating.
What is it about eating carbs, that everyone seems to have an opinion about? That they just can’t keep to themselves? Are you eating again? Surely you’re not still hungry? Are you sure you should be having that? OMG I could never eat that.
Food is amazing at helping us get some much needed dopamine. It’s colours, textures, smells and flavours can all press our buttons…But our culture shames anyone using food, especially carbs for anything else other than fuel (oh and it must be a ‘healthy’ fuel).
So we get can get caught up in ‘I shouldn’t eat / have eaten that’ ‘I need to stop eating so much junk’. Shaming others or self depreciation does NOT help in this situation.
Neurodivergent folk can have complicated and often difficult relationships with food because dopamine, one way or another, often drives a big part of the show. And the world we live in seems to have a huge problem with folk doing their own thing when it comes to eating.
Our brains are incredibly resourceful. I think it’s super smart that our brains learned food = dopamine. Sure, we probably don’t want food as our only source, but we don’t need to go cold turkey and not eat anything fun or delicious whilst we try to find other ways to get it.
In this episode, Mel explains why Dopamine is essential - WHAT it does and WHY it can affect our eating. And it’s not just about dopamine seeking behaviours, we also need to understand the folk who struggle with dopamine hypersensitivity.
Better understanding = less shame and more compassion, an ideal recipe for living an easier life.
To note: as I mentioned in this episode, I am definitely simplifying the differences that exist in neurodivergent brains. I have not mentioned genes, epigenetics or structural and developmental differences in the brain. And when I say lacking dopamine, what I really mean is lacking available and active dopamine. Neurodivergent brains can have ‘normal’ dopamine levels but there are alterations in its reuptake and breakdown. But hey, lets not get all caught up in this (I’m starting to get bored) but I hope you get the gist and my explanations make some sense and resonate with you. Thanks for listening.
Resources
Here are the nuggets from the pick n mix:
Reminders, reminders, reminders. Now I’m not a fan of rules but I am all for supportive structure. If you regularly forget to eat and you don’t feel great because of that, you’re going to need some alarms. Multiple alarms. Probably 3 or 4 for the meal you struggle with most. Set them on your phone, maybe with an image of something eating, or in whatever way is going to help prompt you to go eat when you need to. You might find visual lists of your same or safe snacks and meals that you're into at the moment on a kitchen cupboard, fridge or your phone helpful too.
What can make eating more appealing or easier? There are no rules here. If you need to eat standing up, or moving around do that. Play some music, put on a video on your phone, use your favourite plate, bowl and cutlery. Body double for accountability, even if they aren’t eating, although it often helps if they are.
Make a dopamine toolkit with activities that make you happy - mine are spending time with my husband, painting my house with lively colours, wearing bright colours, watching Brooklyn 99 (there’s a new series out on Netflix), playing with my dogs, doing jigsaws, getting in the sun, going roller skating - just discovered this one!
Focus on safety. What helps you to reduce anxiety or decompress? Is it eating beige and brown coloured foods? Eating alone or in silence? Not having your foods touch? The lights not being too bright, playing your favourite song on repeat, wearing headphones or a hat? What would need to happen for you to rebuild your body trust and do what you need to do, despite what others say…basically how can you begin to throw out the neurotypical rule book?
