Earned Exhaustion Feels Like Happiness, Unearned Feels like Sadness or Anxiety

This is a hard one to fully articulate. But essentially, I think that the mix of chemicals we have in our brain at certain points can be interpreted as totally different emotions.

Recently I’ve learned a lot more about dopamine and serotonin and other neurotransmitters and have come to understand them very differently.

The specific points I want to make here rely on related aspects of the two chemicals. Dopamine pushes you to act to improve your future. In general, it makes you think about the future and act now.

Serotonin, on the other hand, makes you think about the present. In general, it is produced as a reward for doing things well.

If I’m super productive all day and I get a ton done, I might be exhausted at the end of the day. But I generally feel contentment, or even happiness.

The dopamine is gone and I no longer feel like doing anything that requires effort. But since I was productive all day, I am content.

I might also be exhausted at the end of an unproductive day, however. And the feeling of having no energy to do anything while also having not gotten anything done all day is one that I generally interpret as sadness or anxiety.

So what is the difference between the two?

I think either way, you’re out of your dopamine. You don’t have the “energy” to get things done.

It’s possible that after a successful day, you receive more serotonin, and that’s what makes you content.

I would argue, though, that it’s possible the mix of neurotransmitters in your brain is exactly the same. That the only difference in terms of how you feel is simply due to differences in how you interpret how you are feeling.

They say that tons of emotions are just different interpretations of the same things. Nervousness and excitement, for example, are physiologically almost identical.

Are happiness and sadness really so different?

I think both are typically associated with a lack of energy. We think of happy people as having energy and being productive, which is likely true, but I suspect that while they are being productive, they would not describe their top emotion as “happy”.

Happiness is typically felt when you are at rest.

As is sadness. Which might explain people that seem like they are happy and positive and productive, but then describe feeling incredible sadness when they finish their day or when they are alone and resting.

Clearly there is more to it than this, and the exact combination of neurotransmitters and other chemicals in our brain that leads to different emotions is quite complicated.

But I just think it’s an interesting idea that how we interpret our emotions can make a huge difference.

For myself, I remember there was a long time where I had a lot of bad debt and I just couldn’t seem to shake it. Every time I was at rest and exhausted, I remember feeling this anxiety about it. Like, “I can’t rest because I have this huge problem”.

I can’t help but think that I still feel exactly the same way, but on days where I’ve been productive at least, I now interpret that feeling as contentment or even happiness. It’s like, “yeah, I did well today, and now I can just relax”.

Maybe it’s all part of how we, as humans, reward ourselves for a job well done, and punish ourselves for doing badly.

In my case, though, maybe I could reframe this. Maybe at the end of the day, I can focus on how I’ve been doing overall. Maybe I wasn’t productive that day, but if I can at least say that I’m on the right track in general, maybe I can always feel good.

We’ll find out!

The Value of Friendship

I recently attended the retirement party of a long-time family friend. It was full of his friends from various areas of his life as well as many co-workers.

At one point, he pulled me aside and said,

“This feels so weird, like attending my own funeral. So many of these people I’m never going to see again.”

Several times throughout the evening, he said things over the microphone begging people to keep spending time with him in his retirement. He was so worried that he wouldn’t be able to maintain his social life after he retired.

I’m not really sure what the lesson here is, but it just really struck a chord with me. I don’t know why, but it made me sad.

Happy for him, of course, both for his successful career and also his plethora of friends. But the extent to which he was worried about losing them all really stuck out to me.

Was it just a general anxiety of transitioning into this new stage of life? What was driving that fear?

I’m not sure I can figure out a good answer here. And maybe I never will unless I retire in the same fashion.

I just hope he continues seeing all of his friends and everything works out.

Finally Making Changes to Sleep Pattern

First of all, it is depressing to me that I haven’t posted since April 20th. A ton has happened since then and I’m a little sad that I haven’t had time to talk about any of it.

Anyway, I do have good news. I’ve made more progress in the last week to my sleep than I had in years.

Basically I started listening to the Huberman Lab podcast, and it has some excellent information and recommendations for improving sleep.

I’ve been getting up without my alarm the last few days and starting to sleep better. I’ve been up generally early and have been much more productive overall.

The key is to just tie in to a lot more physiological processes than I have been to help me develop a proper rhythm. Brute-forcing a habit hasn’t worked for me in the past and I think it’s mostly just because I didn’t understand the physiological processes that control a circadian rhythm.

So I started getting up early and actually going outside and exposing my self to the morning light, which helps set your clock for the day. Specifically, I haven’t been using my phone at all, and I’ve gone outside and hot tubbed for a bit first thing in the morning.

In addition to being great for the light reasons, it’s also just easier for me to get up and do something I enjoy vs. say, a strenuous run or something.

And then I’ve also made an effort to be outside for a bit around sunset, which also helps regulate your internal clock and circadian rhythm.

And then of course, I’m trying not to stay up too late. Falling asleep has still been a challenge but I feel like it’s getting easier every day as I fall into this new rhythm.

I’ve also been just generally much more productive, though that may literally be just because I’m getting up earlier.

I also have avoided news and entertainment sites (aren’t they the same thing at this point?) almost completely, which in turn has also made me much more calm and focused, and generally improved my mood.

All good things!

I’m really hoping I can continue all of this and just keep improving. The more I learn, the more I realize that my terrible sleep habits are likely causing lots of other problems in my life, or at the very least: preventing me from performing optimally.

So this is just one thing that’s going well, but I hope to continue improvement from here.