When looking at our health, we often never look at our behaviors. Here is why this is a mistake. Unhealthy behavioral patterns and addictions are main drivers to illness. Most illnesses are created, meaning we were not born sick. The environment around us helps us navigate our day to day lives. Addiction drives our focus into areas that are imbalanced. Everyone's focus should be on reaching homeostasis on a daily basis. Homeostasis is the balance of the body, mind, and soul. Easier said than done in todays world, I get it truly. Here is the thing though, if we keep giving into these addictions they will consume us whole. Any addiction whether it be picking up pennies, sex, drugs, alcohol, food, etc. is unhealthy. Our energy is being given to one area meaning other areas of our lives will suffer from neglect.
Addiction is multifaceted in that it needs different components to even exist. Dopamine would be the main driver of addiction by far! It is a chemical reaction in the brain that signals enjoyment. Once we release dopamine our bodies want more of it. It might take more excitement to occur or in the case of drugs more to get the same response. This is why drug addicts often overdose. They are always reaching for that peak euphoric experience. Their is a way to hack the mind to bypass the dopamine reaction, but getting someone to want to do the work while in a state of wanting more might be challenging. If you are interested in learning this hack, please look up Chase Hughes brilliant work.
Childhood patterns would be runner up in driving an addiction. These pattern's were learned early on and are almost impossible to touch without some serious psychotherapy. Once a behavioral pattern is etched into the brain, it will be on a replay. Imagine that movie, book, or song you play over and over again. This is what childhood patterns do in the background of your mind. Here is why they might need a reset. Say your childhood pattern was to never go to bed on time. As an adult you might just assume you are a night owl and accept the behavior as normal. Realistically you are a morning person, but this childhood pattern has set in deep. This will undoubtfully throw your homeostasis out the window, run over by the first car that drives by, and leave you feeling miserable. Rewiring the brain is the most effective way to reset this pattern to one you actually want.
Lastly, while their could be other factors contributing to addiction; emotion is always a contributor. Emotions not only feed our enteral wants, they also physically make us respond. Such as with a sex addiction for instance. We see a person we want, it triggers an emotion that then immediately without permission makes our body respond. A woman might have erect nipples or a vaginal pulse. Maybe for a food addict it would start with the thought of food leading to an emotion of feeling wanted or loved. The body would then respond with a watering mouth and an insatiable belly hunger. Now the drive has increased to levels that make it almost impossible to resist. Hence the reason this would be calcified as an addiction. Refocusing our emotions to healthier alternatives might be easier said than done, but this is crucial to overcoming a physical response. Again psychotherapy can assist in redirecting the emotion to a healthier alternative.
Anytime we are knocked out of our homeostasis it makes us more susceptible for disease growth. The body reacts with a stress response that creates a dysregulation to our Vagal Nerve. The Vagus Nerve which controls our Sympathetic (fight, flight, or freeze) and our Parasympathetic (calm and rest) responses. I will note that some scholars also include within the Autonomic Nervous System the Enteric Nervous System, which I agree so I am including it. Enteric Nervous System is responsible for the neurons that control the functionality of the gastrointestinal tract. In autoimmunity I am hoping the connection is clear here! Emotions activating the Autonomic Nervous Response would cause a response down to the small intestine creating, "Leaky Gut." Please read my blog on Stomach Permeability to understand how this ties into autoimmunity's causation.
Hopefully addiction has been broken down enough in this blog to understand what needs to be done to take control of it and why. Homeostasis is crucial to our longevity and quality of life. Personally, I hope everyone could manage their homeostasis enough to have a form of calm, peace, and balance. The next time you find yourself putting all of your focus into an addiction ask yourself, "Is it truly worth the disease it is spreading throughout your body?" If you or a family member has an addiction, please call a hotline in your area to get help to regain balance. Addiction is a horrible merry-go-round, but their are ways to overcome it.
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