Dopamine’s Control on Compulsive Behavior and Cravings

February 15, 2008 |

A research has shown that dopamine causes euphoria or the feeling of being high. This hormone is considered the master molecule of addiction. The pleasure of dopamine has the power to form both healthy and unhealthy behaviors. Thus, its presence is a factor to consider in compulsive behavior or any sort of addiction .

With that dopamine’s control on addiction, why not exploit it to form good eating habits. You can form good behaviors by making what is good for you as enjoyable as possible. You don’t get hooked to a certain food if you don’t love the taste out of it. Eating spinach just because it is healthy when you hate it will not work. When you make healthy eating an enjoyable, taste-filled experience, you will want to do it again and again. Neurons and synapses will form new patterns. Red lights will trigger the desire for juicy watermelon. Hunger will shout, cantaloupes! The cravings for unhealthy foods will fade like a bad dream. No more cravings for fat, salt, sugar and chemicals, the body’s biochemistry is rebalanced to a clean bloodstream filled with vitamins, minerals, enzymes and natural fruit sugars. Its a sort of preconditioning your system to adapt with the new food.

Creating Healthy Triggers and Associations

We always tend to associate events or images to certain foods. These mental associations are the triggers for that food. Hot summer days can trigger the urge for ice cream. Campfires can trigger the urge for marshmallows. Baseball games trigger urges for hot dogs. Seeing a donut store can trigger an urge for coffee. The golden arches of McDonalds can trigger an urge for a hamburger.

Food triggers are worth millions. Every food company on earth hopes to brand there products to images and events that triggers, emotions, feelings, and memories that causes the urge to eat, buy or consume. The marketer’s dream is millions of consumers with subconsious triggers programmed, by the media. If you see the Golden Arches of MacDonald’s and your car makes an automatic turn to the checkout window, you may be one of them.

If we want to stop craving for unhealthy diet, create triggers for healthy foods you want to eat. Here is how to do it. Imagine a bright orange cantaloupe, packed with beta-carotene and enzymes, ready to nourish every cell, as good for you as it is low in calories. Imagine enjoying a plate of chilled cantaloupe slices, sensing peace and comfort coming over your body. See yourself relishing every bite and being joyful of God’s blessing. See your body being flooded with nutrients and making you feel so good, so alive. Feel the warmest, most comforting feeling and connect it with the taste of cantaloupe. See yourself after eating a plate of chilled cantaloupe slices. Savor the feeling of contentment. Now when you eat a cantaloupe, enjoy it to the fullest, relishing every moment. If you do, dopamine will help you to form the healthy triggers.
Be careful, some people have overused this trigger-creating technique and developed a serious cantaloupe addiction. We are thankful for the 12-step program, Cantaloupe Eaters Anonymous.

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