Yesterday I treated myself to something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time – a session in a Sensory Deprivation Tank. Sometimes called floatation tanks, they’re basically a pod filled with water that has been super saturated with epsom salts – in my case, 1000 pounds of epsom salts in just 10 inches of water. You hop in, turn the light off and shut the lid. Inside it’s pitch black, the water and air is body temperature, and while the pod itself doesn’t make things completely sound proof, the addition of ear plugs do. So you’re literally floating in what feels like nothing, with no sights, no sensations, and no sounds other than your own breath. It’s just you and the infinite abyss of your mind.
My floatation tank at Regenerate
Why would anyone voluntarily do this? Not only is it quite relaxing, it helps decrease inflammation, reduce stress, lowers blood pressure and may help one recover from strenuous workouts or other stressors. It also helps top off your body’s magnesium stores, as Epsom salts are simply magnesium sulfate. This is important as magnesium is critical for over 300 reactions in your body and the majority of Americans are deficient in this crucial mineral.
But that’s not why I’ve been wanting to try one.
I’ve been big into meditation for a while now and am always looking for ways to further explore my mind. Once you begin any meditation program or just take some time to investigate your mind, you’ll come to realize what a strange, ephemeral beast it really is. It’s hard to control; it’s constantly hungry for new stimuli; it’s able to be aware of and observe itself; and strangest of all, it seems to disappear if truly examined.
Here’s a little exercise for you – observe your thoughts as they come and go, and the accompanying feelings, emotions and sensations. Notice how your mind sometimes has pictures that accompanies thoughts, and sometimes doesn’t. Notice what the sensation of boredom feels like, or the desire to go do something else. Now go back to observing your thoughts, and as you observe them, ask yourself, Who is it that is observing these thoughts? Are “you” your thoughts, memories, desires and habits, aka the content of your mind, or are you that silent observer that watches these thoughts and feelings come and go?
So anyway, it’s been posited that while in a sensory deprivation tank, your mind, deprived of it’s usual bombardment of signals, starts to open up a bit, with thoughts and images flowing up from your subconscious. This can be very therapeutic, enlightening, frightening or some combination therein. You may remember things from the far past that you’d forgotten, or perhaps insights into a problem you’ve been trying to solve may suddenly flash into your mind. I personally didn’t notice much more than a profound relaxation and a sense of exhilaration as my body floated in what seemed like zero gravity, but I suspect that after a few longer sessions I may have more success in the psychonautics department.
But this session in the tank made me think; how many of us can handle an hour plus of pure black, silence and even a complete lack of physical sensations? In today’s world, my guess is very few, and we have technology and society to thank for that. In the West we’re literally trained to live a fast-paced lifestyle, to constantly seek out immediate stimulation, and we’re told that what we already have isn’t good enough. Just look at the ads on tv – your car could be better, your body isn’t up to par with this model’s body, and you’d attract more “babes” by drinking Bud Light. Instead of living a relaxed life, content with what we have, it’s being drilled into us that we never have enough.
Social media, the internet in general and even texting on cell phones further amplify our discontent. Take Facebook for example. Unchecked usage literally rewires your brain, causing a shorter attention span, decreased self worth and the desire for constant, immediate updates.
See, we’re biologically built to seek out rewards, and in the past these rewards were wholesome, they mattered, they meant the difference between life and death, and they were much fewer and more spread out. Quality over quantity can best sum up the difference in rewards in the past versus current times. When you achieved a goal, whether its eating food when hungry, or having sex with an attractive partner, or getting some physical activity, or experiencing something novel, or basically doing anything that ensures your survival and the survival of the human race, your brain releases the neurotransmitter dopamine in order to reinforce that behavior. Dopamine is a molecule that plays key roles in goal-oriented behavior, pleasure, focus, mood and energy levels. Next time you’re hungry and take a nice big bite of some tasty dish, pay attention to how satisfying it feels – that’s dopamine at work. That pleasurable feeling you get from coffee or chocolate? Dopamine.
The problem is that the internet and social media in particular are hacking into this system of reward and using it to their advantage. These things are intentionally designed to be addictive, to keep you coming back multiple times throughout the day. When you see that little red number for the notifications of all the likes you’ve gotten on your new status, you get a nice little hit of dopamine, which encourages you to keep updating your page and checking back to see how many likes you’ve gotten. Why is your brain rewarding you for this? Because to be a social outcast in the past meant to be ostracized from the tribe. A tribe can defend itself out on the African safari. A single person? Not likely.
Facebook is further compounded by the novelty factor – if you keep scrolling long enough down your Facebook feed, you’ll eventually find something interesting and novel. BAM! more dopamine.
But perhaps most addictive of all is that Facebook is ego-based and takes advantage of intermittent reward. It’s well known that the best way to train lab animals is not to give them a reward each time they do something correctly, but to give them rewards only some of the time, at random. This keeps them guessing and in suspense, and more eager for that next hit of dopamine.
Facebook makes good use of intermittent reward. When you make a status, you’re never exactly sure how many people are going to like it, or who out of your friends will like it (will your crush like it??) And when you open your Facebook app, you’re never sure what kind of notifications, if any, you’ll have. Did someone friend request you? Did someone post something funny on your page, or did nothing happen involving you at all? Poor you..
Over time this behavior reshapes the brain, due to neuroplasticity.
Neurons that fire together, wire together
Neuroplasticity is the term for how the brain will reshape itself according to the stimulus it receives. So the more often you get angry when someone insults you, and the more often those certain neurons fire together in the brain when this occurs, the more likely it is to happen in the future because you’ve already laid down the neural network for this to occur. So when you’re opening your Facebook app 10, 20, 30 or more times a day, you’re actually rewiring your brain to crave this constant immediate reward, which makes it a bitch to stick to longer tasks that don’t have these immediate rewards. Unfortunately those tasks are usually the ones that matter, whether it’s paying attention to your kids, getting your school work done, or finishing that big project that’s due at work next week.
One more doozy from all of this – overusing social media actually damages the brain. See, the brain, like the rest of the body, is always trying to maintain homeostasis, it’s always trying to keep thing in a state of balance. So if the brain starts getting bigger releases of dopamine more frequently, it will compensate by desensitizing the receptors that are getting the extra dopamine – this makes them less sensitive so they don’t burn out. However, if elevated dopamine levels are sustained, eventually the brain starts destroying some of those receptors to compensate for the extra dopamine. This is the basis for drug addiction.
The red square of dopamine
Let me give you an example. Remember the first time you had a cup of coffee? Caffeine has quite a few effects in the body but a major one is a nice big hit of dopamine. It likely lifted your mood, enhanced your focus, improved your sense of well being, and you may have gotten giddy and excited about things, possibly even euphoric.
I remember my first cup vividly – I was in the 10th grade and my teacher prepared us some cheap Folgers coffee. I had one 5 oz cup of very weak coffee. It was the last class of the day, and I left school laughing maniacally on the bus, and then promptly crashed a few hours later. Now what happens when you drink coffee? You may feel like a zombie prior and feel just “normal” afterwards, but certainly not euphoric or giddy. This is because your brain has adjusted to the extra dopamine by becoming less sensitive to it.
So whether this desensitization occurs through caffeine, other drugs or things like social media, it leaves you with a brain that is less sensitive to dopamine, the main neurotransmitter involved in pleasure, reward, and goal oriented behavior.
This doesn’t mean you should delete your Facebook account, it just means to practice some moderation. If you’re going to use social media, try to limit it to just checking once in the morning and once in the evening, avoid the mindless scrolling, and turn off the notifications from your phone so you’re not getting those constant pings and buzzes. Try a going a few days or a week without it – I promise you’ll be able to function just fine. If, while on your sabbatical, you find yourself constantly checking your phone, or wanting to, to see if you have any updates, you may need to be a bit more strict with your usage.
Remember, there’s a reverse side to everything. Some things leave you less sensitive to dopamine, which makes you less motivated and lead to experiencing less pleasure. But there are also ways to improve your sensitivity to dopamine, and thus increase your drive, motivation and the pleasure you’ll get out of life. If you’d like to know more, contact me.