I'm done thinking about dopamine

I think other stories might serve me better

I think I need a break from the whole neurotransmitter thing. I don’t mean that I want to do a dopamine fast. I mean that I want to move away from thinking about my experiences through the framework of brain chemistry.

This framing has gotten increasingly popular in the last ten or fifteen years. For instance, dopamine, as one journalist put it, “has become a cultural catch-all, shorthand for focus, yearning, and joy.” It’s a classic millennial joke to talk about the dopamine rush from canceling plans and everybody knows that you can have oxytocin on tap when you hug a puppy. But I’ve come to feel like thinking about my personal experiences in these terms is doing me a disservice.

Science vs. stories about science

Hold on, you say: neurotransmitters are science! Of course they are. From what I gather, the science of neurotransmitters is robust and relatively settled (to the extent that science is ever “settled”). What I’ve grown wary of is the story that we as laypeople tell using these concepts. And surely these are two different things.

I’m absolutely calling out myself here. I can’t pretend to know much about neurotransmitters. I’ve no illusion of explanatory depth about this; I know my understanding of them is stylized and reductive. Here’s what I could tell you—call it Neurotransmitters for Dummies, by a Dummy:

Neurotransmitters are different “feel-good chemicals” in your brain that are released in different circumstances. Dopamine, a notable example, is a reward chemical, released in response to things like achieving goals. But many bad things can “hijack” our “dopamine reward centers,” like apps on our phone, video games, and junk food. Oxytocin is another; it’s the “love chemical,” meant for bonding, and it releases when you, for instance, give someone you love a hug. Endorphins primarily come from exercise, and their main function is to make you not shoot your husband.¹ Serotonin is, uh, another one of the neurotransmitters, which, um, also makes you feel good in certain circumstances, presumably.

And that’s about it for my neurotransmitter knowledge. This is suspiciously low-resolution. Frankly, I’m not sure it’s much better than, say, the concept of humors. In fact, I could probably replace times when I would use the word “dopamine” with “yellow bile” and nothing about the meaning would change. Like: “All this red blood got me in my Sanguine era,” or: “Ugh I need to stop doomscrolling, these headlines got me full of black bile :’(”

Notwithstanding my dim grasp of these concepts, the prevalence of these terms in our culture has, over time, gotten me to increasingly use these ideas to explain my experiences to myself. If I need a hug, I might think about how I’m craving a little oxytocin. Or I might think about excess screen time as a dopamine habit. But the more I think about this framing, the less I think it’s serving me.

I oxytocin you so much, my dear

My first issue with this framework is how it encourages you to think about human experience and emotion in terms of physiological processes.

Consider, for instance, Love. Love may be the most beautiful, wonderful thing in the world. I’d argue it’s even sacred.

Or is it just oxytocin? From Reddit: