{"id":36026,"date":"2018-07-09T20:10:54","date_gmt":"2018-07-09T17:10:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeadvancer.com\/?p=36026"},"modified":"2018-07-09T20:10:54","modified_gmt":"2018-07-09T17:10:54","slug":"dopamine-function","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeadvancer.com\/dopamine-function\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Boost Your Dopamine Function to Beat Your Fears, Anxiety and Depression"},"content":{"rendered":"

For years I have battled against various phobias<\/a>. I have researched many treatments but none have proven to be successful. This is why, when I happened to stumble across a study that associated dopamine function with fear, I was suddenly interested.<\/h2>\n

I\u2019ll tell you why. A few decades ago I had a night phobia. It was the worst of the phobias I had ever experienced. With a night phobia, you can\u2019t escape. It might be daytime but you know the night is always coming. It was worse in the winter as the nights were longer.<\/p>\n

Despite this, even in the summer, I would be anxious<\/a>, anticipating the winter months. The worse time for me was when the clocks went back. I felt cheated losing that hour so quickly. The only way I could have some semblance of control was to see the sky gradually grow darker. Missing the daylight change from light to dark would immediately induce a panic attack.<\/p>\n

Then one afternoon I went with friends to watch a film. When we entered the cinema it was light outside. The film we went to see was Robocop. My sort of movie. It was fantastic. I had never seen anything like it before. I was literally buzzing when we left the cinema.<\/p>\n

I couldn\u2019t stop talking about it. We walked outside and the night had fallen. Normally I would have felt intense fear<\/a> and panic<\/a> as I had not witnessed the light change to night time. However, because I was feeling such a \u2018high\u2019 from the film I felt no fear. From that night my phobia vanished<\/strong>. But I never knew why.<\/p>\n

Dopamine function and fear<\/h3>\n

It has taken me 30 years to find this study about dopamine function and fear. I realised that in my case, the overpowering flood of dopamine stopped me from feeling afraid<\/strong>. But how and why does that affect fear?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all to do with how we learn and unlearn fear. Researchers at the RIKEN Center for Brain Science<\/strong> discovered there\u2019s a circuit in the brain that\u2019s essential when it comes to unlearning fear. They determined that dopamine also plays a vital role in these circuits.<\/p>\n

So how do we learn to fear in the first place? It\u2019s all to do with conditioning.<\/h3>\n

It is well established that both people and animals are able to form conditioned responses. Think of Pavlov\u2019s dogs and the ringing bell. Pavlov\u2019s dogs would salivate whenever he entered the room as they had associated him with food.<\/p>\n

Pavlov would then ring a bell whenever he gave the dogs\u2019 food. They then associated the bell with food and would salivate when they heard it ring. This is conditioning.<\/p>\n

The same is true of a conditioned response to fear<\/a>. For example, imagine a person falls into a swimming pool and nearly drowns. Their conditioned response to water is to feel fear. However, after a time they begin to have many pleasant experiences in the water.<\/p>\n

They realise that when they are in water nothing bad happens. Their fear lessens over time and they dissociate from the fearful event. This is the fear of extinction.<\/p>\n

The problems start when fear extinction does not happen normally. This is what leads to phobias<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Fear extinction and dopamine function<\/h3>\n

Researchers at RIKEN used rats to examine fear of extinction and dopamine function.<\/p>\n

They determined that for fear to be eliminated, the rats would have to be able to know when a likely fearful event does not happen. There are particular dopamine neurons situated in parts of the brain<\/a> that are active when expected unpleasant fearful events do not occur. These dopamine neurons are located in a region of the brain known as the VTA.<\/p>\n

Rats were conditioned to associate a sound with a negative, fearful association, such as a mild electric shock. The negative association was then successfully removed using fear extinction. The rats no longer feared the sound.<\/p>\n

However, when the team deliberately inhibited the VTA dopamine neurons and played the sounds the rats became fearful again.<\/p>\n

It appeared that VTA dopamine activity is vital for unlearning fear.<\/p>\n

\u201cPharmacologically targeting the dopamine system will likely be an effective therapy for psychiatric conditions such as anxiety disorders,\u201d said study lead author Joshua Johansen.<\/p>\n

There are many ways in which you can increase your dopamine function.<\/h3>\n

Here are seven of them:<\/p>\n

1. Increase your intake of Tyrosine<\/h4>\n

Tyrosine is an amino acid that helps produce dopamine. Therefore it is essential to have enough of this protein in our bodies. You can buy supplements but there are many foods that contain it:<\/p>\n