March 24, 2026 • 21 mins
Your dopamine isn’t the enemy, but it might be running your life. When we live on constant stimulation, our phones, processed food, binge watching, shopping hauls, and even the rush of attention can start to feel like necessities instead of choices. I break down how artificial pleasure is engineered to hijack your dopamine reward system, why it creates a numbing effect, and how the crash that follows exposes the emotions we have been trying not to feel.
When you intentionally reduce indulgence and distractions, you don’t just notice hunger or restlessness, you hear your inner dialogue clearly. That “dopamine withdrawal” becomes useful data. It shows where your nervous system is dysregulated and what feelings you have been outsourcing to quick hits of relief. The goal is not to live joyless or to shame yourself for cravings. The goal is to reclaim your pleasure and rewire your brain toward what actually builds you up.
Listen now, then share this with a friend who feels stuck in overstimulation, and subscribe and leave a review so more people can find the tools. What’s the biggest dopamine trap you want to break first?
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Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (00:04):
Welcome to Islamic Life Coach School Podcast.
Apply tools that you learn inthis podcast and your life will
be unrecognizably successful.
Now your host, Dr.
Kamal Akar.
Hello, hello, hello everyone.
Peace and blessings be upon allof you.
Inshallah, today I want to talkto you about artificial pleasure
and how it's everywhere.
(00:24):
And I've talked about similartopics in the past, and this is
in the spirit of Ramadan passingbecause I love what Ramadan
Reset has to offer and I want tobe able to apply it for the rest
of the year.
So I want to emphasize how thedopamine spike as offered by the
highly engaging content of thephone, the processed food, and
(00:47):
all of that is hiding yourdysregulation.
If you pick up your phone andyou scroll for 30 seconds,
you've already consumed morenovelty than your grandmother
processed in a week.
Your life is not moreinteresting than hers, but now
the apps are designed to hijackyour dopamine loops in a way
(01:07):
that humankind has never seenbefore.
Every time you experience a highdopamine hit, especially around
the unpredictable cycles of thereward, the brain says maybe the
next hit will feel better thanbefore, and the cycle keeps your
mind hostage.
The dopamine withdrawal fromthese spikes shows you your
(01:30):
mismanaged mind, because thisdopamine withdrawal is an x-ray
when you're not overeating andover-scrolling or over
socializing or whatever yourdrug of choice is for your
brain, even if it is not anactual drug.
When you withdraw from it, youremotional life comes to the
forefront.
It comes into the spotlight.
(01:51):
Then you have to figure out away to deal with it.
And if you don't know that, thenyou go back to overdoing
whatever activity you areengaging in just to suppress it.
Withdrawal of dopamine brings tolight the painful emotions and
the discomfort that you have tolearn to deal with.
So let's say you eat a pint ofice cream every time you feel
anxious.
(02:12):
Then you have anxiety unless youeat the ice cream.
So when you decide you're notgonna eat the ice cream, then
you also have to have a way todeal with the anxiety, because
otherwise if it's not the icecream, it's gonna be cupcakes.
When you're looking forartificial pleasure, anything
related to a high dopamine hit,social media, shopping, Facebook
(02:33):
likes, even the dopamine hit ofa man's attention in a world
where a girl is brought up tocenter their entire existence
around men.
So yes, a male attention alsocreates a dopamine hit.
When girls are programmed tomeasure their worth with how
much they're worth to a man,that and any other activity that
(02:54):
creates a high dopamine hitcreates a numbing effect to the
underlying difficult emotion.
Then you get stuck in the cycleof immediate gratification and
unless you have the activity,you can't feel better.
This artificial pleasure is theshortcut your nervous system
gets addicted to because itfeels like winning the lottery.
This is very much manufactured,extremely concentrated, and
(03:18):
completely divorced from realgrowth.
So your brain is originallywired to like the potatoes grown
in the ground, but somebody in alab figured out how to slice
them very thin and fry them inoil and dust them with just the
right amount of chemicals tolight up your reward circuitry
like fireworks in the brain.
(03:40):
So when you stop eating thosepotato chips and try to enjoy
the potatoes without the extras,it doesn't taste as good.
So when you stop overeating,over scrolling, overworking,
over socializing, somethinguncomfortable is going to
happen, and that is your realemotional life that is coming
into the spotlight.
(04:01):
The loneliness that you mighthave been outrunning or the
exhaustion that you've beensilencing with the stimulation,
all of that is going to come upwhen dopamine withdrawal is
taking place.
This is an x-ray of yourmismanaged mind.
So artificial pleasure isengineered to overstimulate your
dopamine system.
It creates a shortcut, itbypasses effort, your meaning
(04:22):
making, the depth from yourlife.
Whenever you yourself choose togo through a dopamine detox
through Ramadan or anythingelse, when food constant
stimulation and indulgences arereduced, yes, hunger and thirst
surfaces, but what also surfacesis your inner dialogue, your
impatience, your fear.
(04:44):
When you cannot reach for foodor a stimulation at will, when
you intentionally reducedistractions, your system can no
longer rely on its usualemergency exit.
The fireworks are not there asmuch to rescue you, and that's
when you see what you've beenavoiding.
That way the cause of yourdysregulation reveals itself to
(05:06):
you when you're not hiding itwith one dopamine hit after
another.
So what we're trying to do isreduce these artificial dopamine
hits with a sustained pleasure.
Something that does feel good inthe body, but is not that
intense.
So a real human conversationgives your nervous system
warmth, connection throughoxytocin.
(05:29):
But when Netflix drops a wholeseason overnight and your brain
goes, Why do I have to talk toan actual person when I can
binge watch eight episodes andget a much larger feeling of
connection?
So we're trying to replaceartificial hits with intentional
pleasure that rewires andregulates your system at the
(05:51):
same time.
Or let's take the fashion world.
Your nervous system is supposedto feel pleasure from comfort,
from your identity, from barakain the way you express yourself.
But if fast fashion is givingyou a dopamine hit every time a
package arrives in the mail, allyour brain cares for is the
spike of the dopamine of theanticipation of the package, and
(06:14):
not so much about enjoying thecontent.
So if you want to enjoy what youbought, make your money's worth,
then you have to learn thatskill.
Because that skill does not havea very high dopamine reward.
To learn to enjoy what youbought, you would have to rely
on your meaning-making brain,what thoughts you give to what
(06:35):
you bought.
Artificial pleasure hijacks thenervous system, it numbs your
emotional discomfort, while thislevel of created natural
intentional pleasure rewires andregulates your system.
The problem is that thisintentional pleasure requires
work on your part.
It requires for you to build abank of thoughts that you can
(06:58):
use to drive a dopamine hit fromany external activities to a
meaning that you're making aboutwhat the activity was.
Meaning, let's say you have atendency to fall for all of the
sales in the shops and you findretail therapy very stress
relieving.
But you also want to be moreintentional about your
purchases.
Then this bracelet that you'vebeen wanting for quite some time
(07:21):
comes across your attentionagain and you want to purchase
it.
When you buy the bracelet toescape the discomfort created by
your mismanaged mind, then thedopamine hit is going to
artificially dampen the painthat you've been trying to
escape and it will create asense of immediate relief.
But the issue is that this mindis going to associate the object
(07:42):
with your pleasure.
It's going to associate thebracelet with your instant
happiness.
When in reality your thoughtsabout that bracelet are creating
your happiness.
When you buy the bracelet forartificial dopamine hit, the
fireworks, then you feel theinstant pleasure.
But you're also on your path ofreform.
You don't want to be engaging inso much shopping all the time,
(08:05):
so then immediately guilt ofindulging follows.
But the way you rewire this isthat you have to move on to
intentional pleasure, and youget to create that from the
object that is the same exactpiece of jewelry.
What you have to focus on isyour thoughts.
In this case, you think thatthis bracelet looks good on you.
It has this right tone of goldand it has the right precious
(08:29):
stones and it's the right priceand it fits your budget and it
looks great on your wrist.
All of these thoughts will bringyou joy.
The bracelet itself does notbring you joy.
If you're looking in the mirrorand you think to yourself, Wow
this bracelet exactly matches myaesthetic, this is a thought
that's going to bring youhappiness.
The bracelet itself is neutral.
(08:51):
The bracelet does not bringhappiness because if the
bracelet was the cause of yourhappiness, then the same
bracelet would cause happinessin everyone, but that's
obviously not the case.
This is you intentionallycultivating your joy through
this bracelet, throughintentionally creating thoughts
to enjoy your purchase.
(09:12):
This is also derived fromdopamine, but it does not feel
as intense as fireworks.
It's going to create more of asteady excitement in your body.
And that is the work.
You're going to have to rely onthis bank of thoughts to be able
to create the joy in your bodythat comes from this purchase,
which is the same bracelet.
(09:32):
One intention behind thepurchase of this bracelet is
that you're escaping discomfort,which is a subconscious
intention most of the time, andthe other one is that you're
creating joy intentionally inyour life.
It is the same materialisticitem.
This level of naturalintentional pleasure requires
participation.
It requires your attention.
(09:53):
It asks you to generateintentional thoughts instead of
escaping discomfort.
The same object can be anemotional band aid or an
intentional act of joy, and thedifference is not in the object,
it is in your thoughts about it.
What all of the acts ofimmediate gratification have in
common is that they bypassdepth.
(10:14):
They require no effort on yourpart, because they're designed
to speak to a version ofpleasure of you that is
chemically much louder and muchless fulfilling.
While artificial pleasure isfast, real pleasure is earned,
and the work ahead of you isthat if your nervous system is
addicted to fireworks, you'regoing to start to recognize the
(10:36):
beauty of the simple sparks.
This instant gratification loopof intense pleasure, when it
hijacks your nervous system, itcreates an overall net negative
effect in your life.
While it is still based on anaturally and beautifully
created reward system, it is notbeing used properly with instant
gratification.
(10:56):
The same dopamine system has thepotential to have you enjoy the
pleasures of life immensely andcreate a net positive result in
your life.
If you think of relaxation atthe beach, if it brings you
warmth, if it brings you joy,and you enjoy the sun and you
love burying your feet in thesand, you love the ocean wind
(11:16):
giving your whole nervous systema full body exhale, that's real
pleasure.
Your brain is working toregister safety, beauty, and
gratitude all at the same time.
Or if you enjoy sitting in yourliving room floor and playing
board games with your kids,nothing else is trying to
monetize your attention.
You have your inside jokes andbelly laughs and this feeling of
(11:39):
warmth and fullness inside ofyou.
This comes from your thoughtsthat you have about your
children, about this valuabletime that you're spending with
them.
Your mind is telling you you'reexactly where you're supposed to
be.
This meaning requiresintentional attention for the
joy to be extracted from thatmoment.
When you cultivate more and moreof these thoughts and raise your
(12:02):
bank account of these thoughts,it's going to rewire your reward
system to seek more intentionalpleasure.
Or if you enjoy a walk aroundthe block with your husband when
you're not rushing, or if you'recooking something simple in your
kitchen, and your nervous systemis used to translating that into
stability and belonging and loveonly if you've been able to give
(12:25):
that cooking the meaning ofbelonging.
Otherwise, your brain will stillopt for another more immediate
gratification activity.
Or your intentional pleasureactivity might be reading a book
in bed while you lose track oftime in the best way possible,
or studying for an exam andworking very hard to see the
(12:45):
fruits of your labor and drawingjoy from your hard work.
These are simple intentionalthoughts that will refill you.
Dopamine spike is addictive, butif you refine your thoughts
about the low dopamine activitythat you are still engaging in,
you are learning the skill ofself regulation.
(13:06):
And at first, this rewiring willfeel underwhelming because your
brain has been trained to expectfireworks.
But what feels boring is justyour nervous system
recalibrating.
This level of naturalintentional pleasure is slower
and steadier.
It comes from presence,connection, effort,
(13:26):
spirituality, meaning making.
And the real control point inall of this is your conscious
thought.
Both artificial and naturalpleasure pathways enter through
the same doorway, your nervoussystem, the dopamine reward
system.
And your point of control behindall of this is your conscious
thought.
The subconscious runs old loops.
(13:49):
The conscious mind interruptsthem.
When you eat to escape anxiety,the food is not the problem.
The instruction your mind isgiving you is the problem.
When your mind is telling youthat I cannot tolerate this
anxiety, therefore I must eat,that meaning making has to be
changed.
That is the point of yourcontrol, your conscious thought.
(14:10):
The work is to learn to send adifferent instruction.
Like this discomfort issurvivable.
This feeling is information forme.
I am able to generate joywithout escape.
The origin of the pleasure, thetarget of the pleasure, and the
translation of the pleasure allrun through one system.
Your thoughts, your brain, yourbody, the dopamine system.
(14:34):
Which is great news because thismeans that this dopamine spike
system that you might beaddicted to is not out of your
hands.
You're not hostage.
You're not hostage to yourcravings or the overstimulation.
Your point of control is alwaysthe same.
What are you making thisactivity mean?
What are you making this foodmean?
(14:56):
The transformation happens whenyou stop letting your
subconscious run the show andstart deliberately choosing
where you drive your pleasurefrom.
You start generating pleasurefrom foods that nourish you.
You start tolerating naturaldopamine instead of the dopamine
spike.
You start teaching your brainthat your healthy pleasure
(15:16):
counts.
Not only does it count, itbuilds your life up.
And once you start to see thenet positive results in your
life through more naturaldopamine activities, your brain
will have evidence that delayedgratification also works.
Your brain is always listening.
It will start to rewireaccordingly.
(15:37):
This is why people think thathealthy habits don't feel as
good.
It's because the brain hasn'tlearned to translate it yet.
It's not because the pleasureitself isn't there, it's because
the brain hasn't built the bankof thoughts yet.
The moment you begin toconsciously direct your
thoughts, this nourishes me.
(15:57):
This feels good in a very cleanand healthy way.
My body deserves this.
My nervous system loves thissafety.
When you start to think thesethoughts, the pleasure shifts to
a more sustainable version.
If you find yourself bored andyou can't tolerate it, this is
your nervous system showing youwhere you are dysregulated and
(16:18):
where you need to heal.
At a low consciousness setpoint, a chronically
dysregulated state, the brain isdrawn to high dopamine
activities.
Solitude feels like lonelinessand it becomes intolerable,
maybe even threatening becauseit is so unfamiliar.
All of that because whenstimulation drops, your inner
(16:40):
dialogue gets louder.
So you clean, you scroll, yousnack, you overwork, anything to
avoid that dialogue.
If intentional solitude orotherwise known as Khalwa, any
kind of boredom feelsunbearable, it means your
baseline is dependent onstimulation.
And if that is the case, usethis as a diagnostic data point.
(17:04):
I am not demonizing dopamine,I'm asking you to reclaim it.
And when you do enough of that,your life looks completely
different and you become a womanwhose pleasure just cannot be
hijacked.
Here are some high dopamineactivities that are very
intentionally pleasurable andfeel deeply healthy.
(17:25):
A belly laugh with your bestfriend that makes you fold
forward in a way that you'rewiping your tears.
A powerful workout where yourmuscles burn and your brain
lights up.
When you're lifting heavyweights or you're cycling, that
kind of exertion bringsexhilaration to the body.
Finishing a big meaningfulproject.
(17:47):
While you worked hard on it,when you hit submit and you
close that laptop, your brainwill give you a natural dopamine
explosion because you've earnedit.
Because your thoughts are Ideserve to relax now, because
you're proud of youraccomplishment.
These are all banks of thoughtsthat you're counting on.
(18:07):
Or if you're traveling to abreathtaking place for the first
time, the awe that youexperience, the architecture,
the mountains, the fields, thisis a powerful form of natural
high vibration pleasure.
If you experience a spirituallydeep moment, like a dua that
lands in your chest, and youfeel that intensity, that
(18:28):
purity, a meaningful, deep,connected conversation that goes
late into the night.
Or when you learn something newthat blows your mind, that
happens to be my favoritenatural dopamine hit because I
have so many thoughts around hownew and novel that is and how
unique and how it changes mylife.
This also gives me a dopaminesurge and feels this also feels
(18:53):
as a dopamine surge, butrequires intentionality on my
part and it creates a positiveoutcome and momentum in my life.
Or if you show up for yourselfin a moment where you normally
previously didn't, you set aboundary, you spoke confidently,
you chose courage.
All of these are dopamineactivities.
(19:14):
They will feel empowering to youif you give them the right
attention.
But the problem is, which iswhat I've been trying to tell
you in this podcast, is thatthese acts will not feel
satisfactory until you refineyour thoughts about these
actions.
Remember, your point of controlis your conscious thought.
So when you're doing theseactions, your brain can label
(19:37):
them as wholesome and fun, or itcan label them as a waste of
your time.
And depending on where you areon this journey of directing
your brain, you will be able tolabel it something as beneficial
or something that is not.
So rewire the dopamine fromdysregulation towards your
self-regulation, and this workis well worth the effort.
(19:59):
With that I pray to Allahsubhanahu wa ta'ala, Ya Allah,
expose to me what I've beennumbing and what I'm using to
numb it.
Help me tolerate the discomfortand help me heal from it.
Help me rewire my reward systemtowards what builds me up as a
human and as a servant of you, OAllah.
Raise my consciousness andanchor my joy in you.
(20:23):
Amin Yarabul Amin.
Please keep me in your draas.
I will talk to you guys nexttime.
Welcome to Islamic Life Coach School Podcast.
Apply tools that you learn inthis podcast and your life will
be unrecognizably successful.
Now your host, Dr.
Kamal Akar.
Hello, hello, hello everyone.
Peace and blessings be upon allof you.
Inshallah, today I want to talkto you about artificial pleasure
and how it's everywhere.
(00:24):
And I've talked about similartopics in the past, and this is
in the spirit of Ramadan passingbecause I love what Ramadan
Reset has to offer and I want tobe able to apply it for the rest
of the year.
So I want to emphasize how thedopamine spike as offered by the
highly engaging content of thephone, the processed food, and
(00:47):
all of that is hiding yourdysregulation.
If you pick up your phone andyou scroll for 30 seconds,
you've already consumed morenovelty than your grandmother
processed in a week.
Your life is not moreinteresting than hers, but now
the apps are designed to hijackyour dopamine loops in a way
(01:07):
that humankind has never seenbefore.
Every time you experience a highdopamine hit, especially around
the unpredictable cycles of thereward, the brain says maybe the
next hit will feel better thanbefore, and the cycle keeps your
mind hostage.
The dopamine withdrawal fromthese spikes shows you your
(01:30):
mismanaged mind, because thisdopamine withdrawal is an x-ray
when you're not overeating andover-scrolling or over
socializing or whatever yourdrug of choice is for your
brain, even if it is not anactual drug.
When you withdraw from it, youremotional life comes to the
forefront.
It comes into the spotlight.
(01:51):
Then you have to figure out away to deal with it.
And if you don't know that, thenyou go back to overdoing
whatever activity you areengaging in just to suppress it.
Withdrawal of dopamine brings tolight the painful emotions and
the discomfort that you have tolearn to deal with.
So let's say you eat a pint ofice cream every time you feel
anxious.
(02:12):
Then you have anxiety unless youeat the ice cream.
So when you decide you're notgonna eat the ice cream, then
you also have to have a way todeal with the anxiety, because
otherwise if it's not the icecream, it's gonna be cupcakes.
When you're looking forartificial pleasure, anything
related to a high dopamine hit,social media, shopping, Facebook
(02:33):
likes, even the dopamine hit ofa man's attention in a world
where a girl is brought up tocenter their entire existence
around men.
So yes, a male attention alsocreates a dopamine hit.
When girls are programmed tomeasure their worth with how
much they're worth to a man,that and any other activity that
(02:54):
creates a high dopamine hitcreates a numbing effect to the
underlying difficult emotion.
Then you get stuck in the cycleof immediate gratification and
unless you have the activity,you can't feel better.
This artificial pleasure is theshortcut your nervous system
gets addicted to because itfeels like winning the lottery.
This is very much manufactured,extremely concentrated, and
(03:18):
completely divorced from realgrowth.
So your brain is originallywired to like the potatoes grown
in the ground, but somebody in alab figured out how to slice
them very thin and fry them inoil and dust them with just the
right amount of chemicals tolight up your reward circuitry
like fireworks in the brain.
(03:40):
So when you stop eating thosepotato chips and try to enjoy
the potatoes without the extras,it doesn't taste as good.
So when you stop overeating,over scrolling, overworking,
over socializing, somethinguncomfortable is going to
happen, and that is your realemotional life that is coming
into the spotlight.
(04:01):
The loneliness that you mighthave been outrunning or the
exhaustion that you've beensilencing with the stimulation,
all of that is going to come upwhen dopamine withdrawal is
taking place.
This is an x-ray of yourmismanaged mind.
So artificial pleasure isengineered to overstimulate your
dopamine system.
It creates a shortcut, itbypasses effort, your meaning
(04:22):
making, the depth from yourlife.
Whenever you yourself choose togo through a dopamine detox
through Ramadan or anythingelse, when food constant
stimulation and indulgences arereduced, yes, hunger and thirst
surfaces, but what also surfacesis your inner dialogue, your
impatience, your fear.
(04:44):
When you cannot reach for foodor a stimulation at will, when
you intentionally reducedistractions, your system can no
longer rely on its usualemergency exit.
The fireworks are not there asmuch to rescue you, and that's
when you see what you've beenavoiding.
That way the cause of yourdysregulation reveals itself to
(05:06):
you when you're not hiding itwith one dopamine hit after
another.
So what we're trying to do isreduce these artificial dopamine
hits with a sustained pleasure.
Something that does feel good inthe body, but is not that
intense.
So a real human conversationgives your nervous system
warmth, connection throughoxytocin.
(05:29):
But when Netflix drops a wholeseason overnight and your brain
goes, Why do I have to talk toan actual person when I can
binge watch eight episodes andget a much larger feeling of
connection?
So we're trying to replaceartificial hits with intentional
pleasure that rewires andregulates your system at the
(05:51):
same time.
Or let's take the fashion world.
Your nervous system is supposedto feel pleasure from comfort,
from your identity, from barakain the way you express yourself.
But if fast fashion is givingyou a dopamine hit every time a
package arrives in the mail, allyour brain cares for is the
spike of the dopamine of theanticipation of the package, and
(06:14):
not so much about enjoying thecontent.
So if you want to enjoy what youbought, make your money's worth,
then you have to learn thatskill.
Because that skill does not havea very high dopamine reward.
To learn to enjoy what youbought, you would have to rely
on your meaning-making brain,what thoughts you give to what
(06:35):
you bought.
Artificial pleasure hijacks thenervous system, it numbs your
emotional discomfort, while thislevel of created natural
intentional pleasure rewires andregulates your system.
The problem is that thisintentional pleasure requires
work on your part.
It requires for you to build abank of thoughts that you can
(06:58):
use to drive a dopamine hit fromany external activities to a
meaning that you're making aboutwhat the activity was.
Meaning, let's say you have atendency to fall for all of the
sales in the shops and you findretail therapy very stress
relieving.
But you also want to be moreintentional about your
purchases.
Then this bracelet that you'vebeen wanting for quite some time
(07:21):
comes across your attentionagain and you want to purchase
it.
When you buy the bracelet toescape the discomfort created by
your mismanaged mind, then thedopamine hit is going to
artificially dampen the painthat you've been trying to
escape and it will create asense of immediate relief.
But the issue is that this mindis going to associate the object
(07:42):
with your pleasure.
It's going to associate thebracelet with your instant
happiness.
When in reality your thoughtsabout that bracelet are creating
your happiness.
When you buy the bracelet forartificial dopamine hit, the
fireworks, then you feel theinstant pleasure.
But you're also on your path ofreform.
You don't want to be engaging inso much shopping all the time,
(08:05):
so then immediately guilt ofindulging follows.
But the way you rewire this isthat you have to move on to
intentional pleasure, and youget to create that from the
object that is the same exactpiece of jewelry.
What you have to focus on isyour thoughts.
In this case, you think thatthis bracelet looks good on you.
It has this right tone of goldand it has the right precious
(08:29):
stones and it's the right priceand it fits your budget and it
looks great on your wrist.
All of these thoughts will bringyou joy.
The bracelet itself does notbring you joy.
If you're looking in the mirrorand you think to yourself, Wow
this bracelet exactly matches myaesthetic, this is a thought
that's going to bring youhappiness.
The bracelet itself is neutral.
(08:51):
The bracelet does not bringhappiness because if the
bracelet was the cause of yourhappiness, then the same
bracelet would cause happinessin everyone, but that's
obviously not the case.
This is you intentionallycultivating your joy through
this bracelet, throughintentionally creating thoughts
to enjoy your purchase.
(09:12):
This is also derived fromdopamine, but it does not feel
as intense as fireworks.
It's going to create more of asteady excitement in your body.
And that is the work.
You're going to have to rely onthis bank of thoughts to be able
to create the joy in your bodythat comes from this purchase,
which is the same bracelet.
(09:32):
One intention behind thepurchase of this bracelet is
that you're escaping discomfort,which is a subconscious
intention most of the time, andthe other one is that you're
creating joy intentionally inyour life.
It is the same materialisticitem.
This level of naturalintentional pleasure requires
participation.
It requires your attention.
(09:53):
It asks you to generateintentional thoughts instead of
escaping discomfort.
The same object can be anemotional band aid or an
intentional act of joy, and thedifference is not in the object,
it is in your thoughts about it.
What all of the acts ofimmediate gratification have in
common is that they bypassdepth.
(10:14):
They require no effort on yourpart, because they're designed
to speak to a version ofpleasure of you that is
chemically much louder and muchless fulfilling.
While artificial pleasure isfast, real pleasure is earned,
and the work ahead of you isthat if your nervous system is
addicted to fireworks, you'regoing to start to recognize the
(10:36):
beauty of the simple sparks.
This instant gratification loopof intense pleasure, when it
hijacks your nervous system, itcreates an overall net negative
effect in your life.
While it is still based on anaturally and beautifully
created reward system, it is notbeing used properly with instant
gratification.
(10:56):
The same dopamine system has thepotential to have you enjoy the
pleasures of life immensely andcreate a net positive result in
your life.
If you think of relaxation atthe beach, if it brings you
warmth, if it brings you joy,and you enjoy the sun and you
love burying your feet in thesand, you love the ocean wind
(11:16):
giving your whole nervous systema full body exhale, that's real
pleasure.
Your brain is working toregister safety, beauty, and
gratitude all at the same time.
Or if you enjoy sitting in yourliving room floor and playing
board games with your kids,nothing else is trying to
monetize your attention.
You have your inside jokes andbelly laughs and this feeling of
(11:39):
warmth and fullness inside ofyou.
This comes from your thoughtsthat you have about your
children, about this valuabletime that you're spending with
them.
Your mind is telling you you'reexactly where you're supposed to
be.
This meaning requiresintentional attention for the
joy to be extracted from thatmoment.
When you cultivate more and moreof these thoughts and raise your
(12:02):
bank account of these thoughts,it's going to rewire your reward
system to seek more intentionalpleasure.
Or if you enjoy a walk aroundthe block with your husband when
you're not rushing, or if you'recooking something simple in your
kitchen, and your nervous systemis used to translating that into
stability and belonging and loveonly if you've been able to give
(12:25):
that cooking the meaning ofbelonging.
Otherwise, your brain will stillopt for another more immediate
gratification activity.
Or your intentional pleasureactivity might be reading a book
in bed while you lose track oftime in the best way possible,
or studying for an exam andworking very hard to see the
(12:45):
fruits of your labor and drawingjoy from your hard work.
These are simple intentionalthoughts that will refill you.
Dopamine spike is addictive, butif you refine your thoughts
about the low dopamine activitythat you are still engaging in,
you are learning the skill ofself regulation.
(13:06):
And at first, this rewiring willfeel underwhelming because your
brain has been trained to expectfireworks.
But what feels boring is justyour nervous system
recalibrating.
This level of naturalintentional pleasure is slower
and steadier.
It comes from presence,connection, effort,
(13:26):
spirituality, meaning making.
And the real control point inall of this is your conscious
thought.
Both artificial and naturalpleasure pathways enter through
the same doorway, your nervoussystem, the dopamine reward
system.
And your point of control behindall of this is your conscious
thought.
The subconscious runs old loops.
(13:49):
The conscious mind interruptsthem.
When you eat to escape anxiety,the food is not the problem.
The instruction your mind isgiving you is the problem.
When your mind is telling youthat I cannot tolerate this
anxiety, therefore I must eat,that meaning making has to be
changed.
That is the point of yourcontrol, your conscious thought.
(14:10):
The work is to learn to send adifferent instruction.
Like this discomfort issurvivable.
This feeling is information forme.
I am able to generate joywithout escape.
The origin of the pleasure, thetarget of the pleasure, and the
translation of the pleasure allrun through one system.
Your thoughts, your brain, yourbody, the dopamine system.
(14:34):
Which is great news because thismeans that this dopamine spike
system that you might beaddicted to is not out of your
hands.
You're not hostage.
You're not hostage to yourcravings or the overstimulation.
Your point of control is alwaysthe same.
What are you making thisactivity mean?
What are you making this foodmean?
(14:56):
The transformation happens whenyou stop letting your
subconscious run the show andstart deliberately choosing
where you drive your pleasurefrom.
You start generating pleasurefrom foods that nourish you.
You start tolerating naturaldopamine instead of the dopamine
spike.
You start teaching your brainthat your healthy pleasure
(15:16):
counts.
Not only does it count, itbuilds your life up.
And once you start to see thenet positive results in your
life through more naturaldopamine activities, your brain
will have evidence that delayedgratification also works.
Your brain is always listening.
It will start to rewireaccordingly.
(15:37):
This is why people think thathealthy habits don't feel as
good.
It's because the brain hasn'tlearned to translate it yet.
It's not because the pleasureitself isn't there, it's because
the brain hasn't built the bankof thoughts yet.
The moment you begin toconsciously direct your
thoughts, this nourishes me.
(15:57):
This feels good in a very cleanand healthy way.
My body deserves this.
My nervous system loves thissafety.
When you start to think thesethoughts, the pleasure shifts to
a more sustainable version.
If you find yourself bored andyou can't tolerate it, this is
your nervous system showing youwhere you are dysregulated and
(16:18):
where you need to heal.
At a low consciousness setpoint, a chronically
dysregulated state, the brain isdrawn to high dopamine
activities.
Solitude feels like lonelinessand it becomes intolerable,
maybe even threatening becauseit is so unfamiliar.
All of that because whenstimulation drops, your inner
(16:40):
dialogue gets louder.
So you clean, you scroll, yousnack, you overwork, anything to
avoid that dialogue.
If intentional solitude orotherwise known as Khalwa, any
kind of boredom feelsunbearable, it means your
baseline is dependent onstimulation.
And if that is the case, usethis as a diagnostic data point.
(17:04):
I am not demonizing dopamine,I'm asking you to reclaim it.
And when you do enough of that,your life looks completely
different and you become a womanwhose pleasure just cannot be
hijacked.
Here are some high dopamineactivities that are very
intentionally pleasurable andfeel deeply healthy.
(17:25):
A belly laugh with your bestfriend that makes you fold
forward in a way that you'rewiping your tears.
A powerful workout where yourmuscles burn and your brain
lights up.
When you're lifting heavyweights or you're cycling, that
kind of exertion bringsexhilaration to the body.
Finishing a big meaningfulproject.
(17:47):
While you worked hard on it,when you hit submit and you
close that laptop, your brainwill give you a natural dopamine
explosion because you've earnedit.
Because your thoughts are Ideserve to relax now, because
you're proud of youraccomplishment.
These are all banks of thoughtsthat you're counting on.
(18:07):
Or if you're traveling to abreathtaking place for the first
time, the awe that youexperience, the architecture,
the mountains, the fields, thisis a powerful form of natural
high vibration pleasure.
If you experience a spirituallydeep moment, like a dua that
lands in your chest, and youfeel that intensity, that
(18:28):
purity, a meaningful, deep,connected conversation that goes
late into the night.
Or when you learn something newthat blows your mind, that
happens to be my favoritenatural dopamine hit because I
have so many thoughts around hownew and novel that is and how
unique and how it changes mylife.
This also gives me a dopaminesurge and feels this also feels
(18:53):
as a dopamine surge, butrequires intentionality on my
part and it creates a positiveoutcome and momentum in my life.
Or if you show up for yourselfin a moment where you normally
previously didn't, you set aboundary, you spoke confidently,
you chose courage.
All of these are dopamineactivities.
(19:14):
They will feel empowering to youif you give them the right
attention.
But the problem is, which iswhat I've been trying to tell
you in this podcast, is thatthese acts will not feel
satisfactory until you refineyour thoughts about these
actions.
Remember, your point of controlis your conscious thought.
So when you're doing theseactions, your brain can label
(19:37):
them as wholesome and fun, or itcan label them as a waste of
your time.
And depending on where you areon this journey of directing
your brain, you will be able tolabel it something as beneficial
or something that is not.
So rewire the dopamine fromdysregulation towards your
self-regulation, and this workis well worth the effort.
(19:59):
With that I pray to Allahsubhanahu wa ta'ala, Ya Allah,
expose to me what I've beennumbing and what I'm using to
numb it.
Help me tolerate the discomfortand help me heal from it.
Help me rewire my reward systemtowards what builds me up as a
human and as a servant of you, OAllah.
Raise my consciousness andanchor my joy in you.
(20:23):
Amin Yarabul Amin.
Please keep me in your draas.
I will talk to you guys nexttime.
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