Too Much Technology May be Having a Negative Impact

Do you crave one excitement after the other throughout your day?

If so, you might want to consider your brain’s pleasure centers. To keep cravings in check, it’s very important to be sure your pleasure centers are healthy and balanced.

Clinical neuroscientist, board-certified psychiatrist, New York Times bestselling author and brain imaging expert, Dr. Daniel G. Amen, believes that too much technology may be having a negative effect on our relationships and our bodies.

It has to do with the way that constant stimulation of technology impacts the brain. Deep within your brain are large structures called the basal ganglia. They are involved in pleasure and motivation. When the basal ganglia are healthy, we feel happy and motivated. When they work too hard, we can be anxious or overly driven. When they are low in activity, we may feel low or unmotivated.

But here’s the concern. The brain’s pleasure centers run on a chemical dopamine, which is the same chemical cocaine stimulates and the main chemical of new love! Whenever a little bit of dopamine is released, we feel pleasure. However, if dopamine is released too often or too strongly, we become desensitized to it and it takes more and more excitement to get the same response.

In the book Thrilled to Death by respected psychologist Dr. Archibald Hart, he suggests the evolution of technology in our society is wearing out our brain’s pleasure centers. Dr. Amen is concerned that as a society, we have released massive amounts of technology on the population with virtually no study on what it all does to developing brains or to our families.

“We need to be more careful. Find natural sources of pleasure, such as nature, a great conversation and long, loving eye contact,” Dr. Amen says.

Here are three ways to help balance your brain’s pleasure centers:

  1. Use relaxation techniques to calm this part of the brain.
  2. Engage in activities that give you motivation without putting you in overdrive.
  3. Use supplements such as vitamin B6, magnesium and N-Acetyl-L-Cysteine (NAC) known to calm anxiety and support balance in your pleasure centers.
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