Explain to me why the brain doesn’t actively and constantly release dopamine or similar happiness hormones. As I understand it, the brain itself controls hormone production, and dopamine is released as a reward for special, positive events, such as eating something good, being in good company, or during sex. Its when the brain says, “You’ve done well, do more of that.” But since it rewards itself in this way and you feel better with a dopamine release, and the brain has control over releasing these positive hormones, why doesn’t it do this all the time to create a constant positive feeling? I am well aware that this would have negative consequences, the full extent of which I can’t even imagine. But since the brain has full control over when it releases what, why doesn’t it reward itself all the time?
In: Biology
Your brain uses dopamine to motivate you to do certain things. Usually the things that are beneficial to your survival/reproductive chances. If it gives you dopamine all the time, how is it going to motivate you?
There’s a bunch of reasons.
You’d eventually build up a tolerance to it and you’d have to release more and more and more to get the same effect which is not possible after a point.
Further, from a survival standpoint this would be extremely maladaptive. People need to feel fear and danger to fully understand and adapt to the situations they’re in.
If you were just blasted with happy chemicals all the time you’d become extremely complacent.
To put it simply, natural selection doesnt favour those who are in a state of happiness at all times. We could never evolve to always be full of dopamine because we would die.
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