Defeat Your Addictions HACKS!

in #addiction8 years ago (edited)

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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Thanks for this topic, @kaylinart!

I think this addiction experience is familiar to everyone. There is another interesting point of view on the nature of addiction. In the ancient texts that we know as the Vedas, describes the subtle structure of man. What in your article you call the term "primal brain", there is called "manas". And what you call "decision-making part of the brain" is called in the Vedic psychology, the term "buddhi".

Buddhi is the highest (rational) part of the psyche that allows us to set goals and to live consciously. Conscious life (or a life filled with meaning) is a purposeful life. Thanks buddhi, we are able to set goals and ask the question: "Whether it is useful or useless?" That is, does it help in achieving my goal?

Manas is the lower, animal nature. Manas is the emotional part of the psyche. The Manas is allocated two functions, to take the pleasant and reject the unpleasant.

So the whole drama of human life lies in the fact that within man is constantly a struggle of manas and buddhi. This conflict is "pleasant, but useless" vs "unpleasant, but useful". And depending on what part of the psyche is stronger, the man is either progressing or deteriorating. If manas is stronger than the buddhi, the person slowly but surely turning into an animal. If buddhi is stronger, the person more and more manifests himself as a spiritual being.

All the difference between man and animal, according to Vedic philosophy, that the animal has not developed buddhi. So the animal cannot put any life goals, can't voluntarily limit themselves in food, sex and sleep. But a human can do it all. And the more developed buddhi, the higher power and humanity has this personality. The more developed buddhi, the less a person has all kinds of addictions.

The first rule in the development of buddhi, according to the Vedic conception is to communicate with those who already have developed buddhi. And the second important rule is to limit yourself to food. In other words, if a person is able to control his diet, he will be able to control his manas.

And the most important thing - to truly beat addiction is possible only through replacing it for something more pleasant and more useful. In other words, to wean the manas ("primal brain") to enjoy low quality but tasty food, you should give it more tasty, but high quality food. The person who had the food prepared for the king, will naturally abandon low-grade food.

Wow thank you so much for this!
I didn't know this stuff! It's great to learn something new.

You definitely have to replace with something more pleasant and useful. When I stopped eating fast food, I switched to very natural high vitamin foods, So it works very well :)

Too much vitamins will damage your body too. Everything in moderation :)

True I am careful!

Very interesting omfedor!
Enjoyed reading your reply. The human mind is somewhere you can get lost in forever trying to figure things out....why try send humans to Mars when you can unlock more information from our minds with those kinds of investments .
Good luck buddhi!

:)

Oh, yeah! Totally agree! A human cannot understand himself, what is the point to go to Mars or to the Moon? After all, there we will face the same problems that we have created here because of our ignorance. Isn't it better to know yourself and build a happy life here on Earth? :)

Also I feel it's important to expand our knowledge into space. Because humans cannot inhabit the earth forever. The sun will expand too much, Or we'll be wiped out by a massive asteroid.

Agreed :) But I'm also interested in Astronomy as well! I think we need more scientists to study even more about our brains, The ocean and the skies.

Interesting article. It's a very complex issue that I think you can go into more detail in your next post.
I have to say, The Big Bang Theory would get me to stop any addiction if I had to watch it every time I indulged in a vice. Such a crap show!
Cheers for the article though!
CC

Hahaha I like it alright, But yeah It could be more accurate. There are definitely better shows out there. Maybe you should try using it as a punishment for your self Muahhahaah

Wow @kaylinart, I always enjoy your posts and this one definately touches on a subject that I am interested in. I guess the real addiction is to the endorphins and so I try and get those from other things as well. For example if I don't do some physical excercise after Steeming (can we use this as a new verb now) all day I get nervous. Gotta have those endorphins!

Hehehe yes! We can use it as a verb! and it sounds great!
I'm the EXACT same way, Becoming self employed as an artist has been hard because I'm used to doing physical labor, Exercise is definitely a good addiction!

Speaking of physical labour you might be suprised at what my "day job" is.
https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@kus-knee/can-an-old-entrepreneurial-dog-learn-new-crypto-tricks-part-two
It was raining so hard here today that I got to stay home and work on my next blog post!

Wow that is crazy! I'm definetly going to look at your post. I think the hardest job for me was loading boxes for UPS

Having people around you is priceless! Although hard at times..

Another great post!

Hahah exactly! People can influence each other really easily.
Thank you!!

Always good to get help with an addiction if needed. It's not a sign of weakness, it's a means of success.

EXACTLY! Especially if you kick the addiction for good! It's gotta help.

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