Feedback Loops

We create feedback loops for ourselves. Those loops encourage our brains to produce the feel-good chemical called dopamine. But aren’t we leaving our comfort zone? Doesn’t that cause us to feel uncomfortable? Stay with me:

I am a snow skier with many years of experience. My wife isn’t or wasn’t. She is now. At first, I committed one of the worst sins possible with a novice skier. I tried teaching her myself. 

My dopamine levels always hit a high when I’m on a black ski run, carving neat lines to the bottom. (There’s always some adrenaline as well.) For non-skiers, black runs are the steepest, most challenging hills. They are hard to get to, are frequently narrow, and feature immovable objects like trees. 

No, I didn’t take my first-timer wife to a black run. I chose one of the easiest green runs, the polar opposite of black.  

Her dopamine levels weren’t high, but her adrenaline had left the scale and was headed for an eruption.

As she headed towards the only boulder for miles around, unable to stop, I saw the full effect of an adrenaline overdose. (Adrenaline is the fight, flight or freeze chemical).

She undertook the response below as she fell over, metres from the rock. An increase in volume accompanied each statement:

‘Help me up!’ (freeze)

‘Get me out of here!’ (flight)

‘Whose idea was this?’ (fight)

Not a drop of dopamine anywhere. Learning sequences should produce dopamine instead of adrenaline. Dopamine reinforces our need to discover, learn, and remember more. 

Adrenaline gets us doing one or more of the F’s. The message from this post:

Happy Brains Learn

Following lessons from a professional instructor, my wife now takes on challenging blue runs (the middle level between green and black). To leverage more ski trips, I gave up black runs. I’m too old for them now, anyway.