What is dopamine and how can it affect your business?

Every time you check your phone, you’re getting a little hit of dopamine. If, like I was, you’re checking it 130 times a day, that’s at least 130 hits of dopamine.

Dopamine isn’t a bad thing though. It’s key in human survival for all of these years. It helps us to do hard things, it’s all about fueling the anticipation of a reward.

Back in our primal days, dopamine would be released when we saw an animal to hunt, it would push us to hunt the animal in anticipation of a delicious meal.

But the thing about dopamine is that it takes time to replenish. Every time you get a little hit, it depletes, lower and lower.

So if you’re checking your phone, emails or laptop constantly, there’s no surprise you can feel low energy, no motivation, everything feels like effort.

You’ve used all your dopamine on quick little hits, instead of the things that matter like seeing your friends, walking in nature, cleaning your home, finding new aligned clients. These are all ways to get natural dopamine.

How it affects your morning routine

When you wake up, your dopamine reserves are at max capacity.

If you get up, make your bed, jump in the shower – congrats! You’ve maintained healthy levels of dopamine.

But, if you wake up, roll over and check WhatsApp, or worse, scroll on social media, you’re getting a big hit of dopamine and you’re setting up your brain for a day of trying to get to that same level again.

Think of it like a drug or alcohol addict, always trying to reach that insane high of the first time, but never getting there.

If you ever feel like some days you just get stuck in a scroll hole more than others, it’s helpful to look at whether you checked your phone early in the day.

Dopamine and your business

When you’re addicted to getting all those little hits of dopamine from your phone, it means you have lower energy and feel more depleted.

You could be eating all the right things and exercising, but if you’re spending hours on your phone, you’re never going to reach your full potential.

Plus, we all know business can be hard. There’s tricky situations and tough decisions, but what makes it easier? Numbing yourself with your phone.

Something I found when I was in my dopamine withdrawal was how easy it felt to pick up my phone when I felt any slight pang of negative emotion.

We’re subconsciously numbing ourselves and instead of doing it with alcohol or a line of something harder, we’re doing it with our phones instead.

Breaking the addiction

Imagine the day you break your addiction and you get your phone use under control.

You feel more aligned with your business, you can see where there are opportunities to make a greater impact. You can focus deeper and for longer periods and actually get all your work done before 6pm so you’re no longer replying to emails at 9pm.

Wouldn’t that be incredible? Well, I’m telling you now that it’s within your reach. I went from 7h average screen time to just 2h in three weeks, and the change in my life, business and relationships is insane.

So what can you do about it? How can you break your phone addiction and open your world up again?

The first step is to join the Slow Marketing Movement.