Low dopamine or too much dopamine?

[DepressedAndOut]

Hello,

This is a quote from a book about healing the brain:

""With repeated use of a drug, the body adapts by either producing less dopamine or down-regulating its receptors."

Why is it that people with PIED are told that they have too much dopamine and that they need to stay away from fast releasing dopamine activities?

 

[Numez]

its like with loud music your ears start to block the sound so you become more deaf. then you need to stay away from loud music in order to hear normal again.

loud music is porn.

 

[doneatlast]

its like with loud music your ears start to block the sound so you become more deaf. then you need to stay away from loud music in order to hear normal again.

loud music is porn.

That is my understanding as well. 

You can also look at it like blood sugar... if you eat lots of refined carbs/sugars, then your blood sugar will spike, but it will also dip low.  The body regulates your blood sugar much better when you have less refined sugar going into your gob.  Eliminating the sugars gets rid of spikes, but also the dips, which is slightly counter intuitive (but not really when you understand what is going on).  Porn is sugar in this case.  You get highs and lows.  Eliminate it, reboot, and your body regulates everything much better.

 

[elephantricity]

Your body is constantly trying to reach a state of homeostasis, which is the tendency toward a relatively stable equilibrium between interdependent elements, especially as maintained by physiological processes. So if a normal healthy adult has a set number of dopamine receptors and production of dopamine, and you introduce dopamine producing elements such as drugs or porn habitually, the body will then start to produce less dopamine naturally because its getting it from an outside source (and in great abundance no less). So when you quit drugs or porn, you may feel depressed for a bit, because your brain isn't producing the same amount of dopamine is used to before drugs/porn. However, since the body is trying to reach a state of homeostasis, it will eventually revert to the way it was pre porn/drugs. It just takes time.