We wish we had the wisdom of the present when we were experiencing the past. If we knew what we know now, we could’ve made better decisions, we would be happier and we would’ve spared ourselves so much pain and suffering.
 
In some sense, we wish we had an intuitive and God like vision of how the future would pan out. By knowing what will happen we can ensure not only that we do only good things but also that only good things will happen to us. This regret is an expression of the need for control. We desire to live simultaneously in the past, present, and future. We want full control over how each frame of time will influence the other.
 

​We believe firmly that the adversity could have been prevented. We believe firmly that the suffering was needless. Our negative present is a perpetuation of the negative past. In our mind we conceptualize life as a math equation rooted in direct causality. However, the variables involved with experiencing life are mostly random.
 
The discouragement we tend to feel from not seeing the bigger picture is misplaced. We plague our minds with the thought that if only I had done a particular thing differently, I would be happier. We tend to hyper focus on the disadvantages we’re facing and attribute them to what we lack, what we were not given, what we didn’t know.
 
It is important to not get stuck into these wishful thought patterns which force us to live in a cycle of self-deprecation. Instead, when we experience a failure, we must respond with gratitude. We must be grateful that the failure triggered awareness in us. That it is teaching us how to attract the success we desire in the future.
 
If we were given direct insight into exactly how the future would unfold and the exact things we need to do in order to succeed, our life would be highly egocentric, and there would be no growth, no discoveries, no progress, and no creations.
 
Our lives are meant to be lived, we have to allow our minds space and encouragement for that experience. The desire to control all variables is what we are taught by our parents and teachers, and this is meant to help us refine our attentiveness and decision-making skills.
 
But with each failure we experience outside of these social teachings, in our personal and everyday lives, we must see these failures as a constant exercise. Life is challenging us, exercising our faculty for anticipation. Life is helping us refine our intuition. Experiencing failure means we are constantly being engaged and strengthening our intuitive flow.
 
We should make the most of our cards, and treat our failures as an exercise to help us build our strength.

Something about music allows for transcend deep thoughts of depression that allows for an individual to feel such a great amount of flow is it a small period of time. It isn’t one particular genre that makes individual feel this way, it’s much more about the overall melody and flow. Different flows of music speak to different people in their own unique way.  Yes music invokes a lot of nostalgia, it’s emotive and creates a space where we are able to process our emotions freely and intuitively. It kind of puts our emotions in auto pilot.

The beautiful thing about music is it stimulates pathways of serotonin that don’t require higher doses of medication. There is something about listening to music that stimulates pathways in unique and novel ways that can help individuals feel great job. The melodies, tonality, chord progressions, lyricism, and production of the music all interact with one another to stimulate different neurotransmitters in our brain as we are listening. Even recalling a particular song will stimulate that same pathway. The stimulation will vary from person to person however the emotion it invokes inside of us and the noticeable instantaneous shift in mood is experienced by everyone.

The music isn’t eliminating the negative emotions we experience, it’s rather translating and encoding these emotions into a full body, transformative experience, transcending long held beliefs and barriers that trigger us to repress, music translates the emotion for us intuitively, it bypasses language and our typical forms of expression, it is felt very deeply.

Have you noticed that your mood can completely change after listening to a particular song or genre? What do you think about how powerful music is?  Why do certain music beats relate more to certain age groups  and how other beats relates to other demographics differently?

​Dopamine regulates these functions of our brain. The experience of reward and motivation are associated with survival and regulated by the body’s release and re-uptake of dopamine neurotransmitters. 
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​Dopamine plays a role in addiction.
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The limbic system in the brain floods with dopamine and this causes the body to feel rewarded by encouraging current activity. It is not the dopamine itself creating the positive feeling, instead it is conditioning the body to believe that whatever you are doing is “rewarding” so you should continue doing it as a means towards survival.

The boost in dopamine is triggered by the drug ingested into the body and it conditions the body to look forward to ingesting the drug, creating this cycle of dependence.
Dopamine levels are self-regulated by the body through the processes of ”up-regulation” and “down-regulation”. The body never produces more dopamine, the levels are typically consistent at all times, the body works to ensure this. 

Some dopamine binds to the synapses in your brain and the rest is re-absorbed back into your body.
This mechanism  is regulated by either “up-regulation” in which more dopamine is binding to your synapses and less is being re-absorbed back into your body or by way of  “down-regulation” in which less dopamine is binding to the synapses in your brain and more is being re-absorbed into your body and recycled.

Certain drugs are classified as “Selective Dopamine Re-Uptake Inhibitors” because they increase the level at which dopamine is binding to the synapses in the brain by blocking the re-absorption of dopamine into the body to be recycled, this creates a flood.

The body has these mechanisms in place to maintain a balance of dopamine and receptor cell levels. Creating this balance, assuming the body has healthy levels of other vitamins and minerals and we aren’t taking drugs that interfere with this regulation, typically takes 4-8 weeks.

These means that addiction is something we can recover from if we take care of ourselves for 4-8 weeks.
Given the nature of our life and the world we live in that is easily said than done which is why addiction is a complex disorder that may require help from a medical professional. Perfect conditions are never guaranteed and so to help our own body to do its job in light of everything we may be going through, we may need guidance from a professional, but it is good to know how the processes our body goes through to keep us at a healthy functioning baseline.

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​The brain requires “precursors” in order to synthesize dopamine. These precursors can be found in the everyday food we eat. Dopamine does not go directly to our brain’s receptors. Instead the precursors needed by the body to produce dopamine can pass through the blood/brain barrier and then be converted effectively to produce the balance of dopamine the body needs in order to function effectually.
Foods or supplements containing the amino acids L-Tyrosine & L-Phenylalanine are associated with a boost in the body’s dopamine levels.

The body converts these amino acids into dopamine naturally.

We can find these amino acids in foods we consume regularly.

L-Tyrosine can be synthesized by the body using Phenylalanine and it is typically found in high protein food sources, such as spinach, eggs, turkey, almonds, avocados, bananas, and soy products. If you have an allergy to any of these, you can also purchase L-Tyrosine supplements.
Dopamine is an extremely important hormone the body works to regulate in order to contribute to our overall health and well-being. Very similar to serotonin, the body regulates very even levels naturally, the use of drugs or other substances may disrupt this and so abstinence for at least 4-8 weeks gives the body time to recuperate and keep us going.

It is always good to speak with a mental health professional if you do have concerns or wish to learn more. There are psychiatric disorders that interfere with these levels and so it’s good to consult with a psychiatrist so they may help you if you feel you are struggling. You are not alone, please feel free to speak with one of our mental health professionals below.