Habit Change
Whether you’re really stuck in some destructive addictions, or wanting to release some old patterns that are no longer serving you, we’d like to offer you an insight into the power of natural medicine for habit change.
(If you want to read more about addiction, go to the members area of this site, as last month’s feature article was all about this).
The human brain loves and craves routine. There is a lot of programming that you may not even be aware of, that your brain cues up every day. Triggers to think of certain things at certain times. The one we’ve come across the most frequently in the clinic is pouring a drink after work or with dinner. It’s one habit that the brain’s reward centre is encouraging you to keep, because you release the chemical dopamine when you get a reward.
There are different ways to support habit change naturally, depending on the entrenchment of the habit (how attached you are to it, emotionally and chemically); the support you have to change it, and often, what it’s stopping you from feeling (i.e. distraction from more painful or difficult emotions).
Unhealthy habits have been on the rise, and despite your best intentions and efforts, sometimes the chemical communication “highways” laid down by your brain are going to need some chemical “B-roads” to be constructed to help you make healthier choices.
Let’s get a bit more technical than this though, as you’re here to learn, and we love to help with that.
From the perspective of human survival (always a good place to start), Dopamine allows us to pay attention to the critical clues that will help meet our survival needs for essentials such as shelter, food, and human connection. Dopamine “shuffles” the importance of messages received by the brain, and processes those with higher perceived importance for survival. So why, then, would it also keep you going back for more of something that was going to harm you, such as alcohol, smoking, drugs, sugar, risky behaviours, phone addiction and more?
Basically, it’s a short-term “hit” chemical, that responds to learned “hits” from certain substances or behaviours. It’s working more on what is going to make you feel good right now than what is good for you long term. Tricky right, because it’s a powerful player due to it’s role in primal survival.
Does this mean that your habits are too hard to shift, and you should just give up now? You know that we’re not going to conclude with that. While consciously trying to put strategies in place to change your habits is of primary importance (and we coach people frequently on this), so also is changing the biochemistry in your brain, so that the dopamine has less influence, and self-regulation is more easily possible for you.
How do you change the biochemistry of your brain? Actually, you’re already doing it, by just eating, drinking, taking medications, getting stressed, not getting enough sleep, etc, which is why taking a holistic approach (diet, lifestyle, meds, history etc) is so important.
We’d love to talk with you about this (because we only work on individualised, not systemised approaches), but here is one fascinating chemical that has a role to play as a starter:
Tyrosine. This amino acid is a building block nutrient for dopamine, and can help to bring balance. Foods such as almonds, bananas, avocados, eggs, fish, chicken and dark chocolate are high in Tyrosine.
We also love working with N-Acetyl-Cysteine, in a monitored way, for more serious habits.
If you have a habit you’d like to change, pop us an email: ask@healhealth.co.nz - we’d love to help you change your habits to healthy ones!
