I have become addicted to Steemit over the last couple weeks; I think this needs to be addressed! Haha, This clearly isn't a bad addiction, But it is funny. I've gotten to the point I take my laptop to my friend's house, So I can create articles and read posts while I'm away from home. (There doesn't appear to be an apple app yet)
This is probably an addiction I won't want to try to remove from my life, But it is something we should think about.
What are some of your addictions? Do you feel chained to them?
Do you think addiction is bad or good for our well-being?
Where did it come from?
Most of the behaviors portrayed by people are have an evolutionary origin. Back in the days when we used to live in caves, our brains came up with a precise system that allowed it to determine which behavior was good for our survival, and which practice was not so good for the propagation of the species. Addiction is an evolutionary trait that spans thousands of years.
How Does Addiction Work?
Well, the primal part of your brain has is programmed to identify things that make it happy. There are very few things that make the brain happy. Food is a good example. Your primal brain makes note of everywhere you go to get food and stores it. When you go to a McDonald’s and grab a happy meal, the fatty, delicious treat sends endorphins-the happy chemical flowing through your primal brain. So the brain thinks McDonald equals food which in turn equals happiness.
With that idea firmly entrenched in your mind, you are bound to repeat the process. Go to McDonald’s, grab a happy meal, the brain releases endorphins. Repeat over and over. Before you know it, you have a food addiction.
That’s the general process of every addiction in the world. The primal brain finds an activity it likes to do, and one that results in the release of happy chemicals in the body and it repeats them, over and over.
It doesn’t matter if the behavior is detrimental to your health, like smoking for instance. If the brain notes that the action causes lots of endorphins to flow through your body, it will regularly direct you to dive into that behavior. And it has a clever way of making sure nothing gets in the way.
The newer part of our brain responsible for making decisions gets kicked to the curb when the primal brain takes control. Yeah, that’s right, when you get addicted to something, the decision-making part of your brain is locked out of the room. It has zero control.
That’s why you might have an urgent report due tomorrow, but once you come across a new episode of The Big Bang Theory, you forget about the report. You come up with all sorts of excuses to keep yourself from doing the report, and watch The Big Bang Theory instead.
The good thing is you can teach yourself to stop succumbing to your primal brain. You can learn to stop an addiction dead in its tracks. All it takes is practice and determination to beat any addiction in the world. People have overcome addiction to heroin in a single day. You can also overcome your addiction.
Tips to overcoming an Addiction
- Decide if you actually want to change or not
If you have no interest in changing, you won't get there. This needs to be a decision that you make.
- Set yourself up for success,
Remove the addiction from you life, And try to avoid those who can make you relapse. Rearrange your environment, If you are addicted to fast food, Stock up on food you like at home. At first allow yourself TV dinners, and then maybe cut those out too eventually.
- Have people around you help you
Also remind yourself why you are quitting in the first place, With some addictions it's not good to quit cold turkey, So do research and figure out the least painful way to accomplish your goal!
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