Addiction has more to do with our brain's response to stress than overfondness for a substance, says neuroscientist Dr Selena Bartlett.
“We always study how to get rid of the alcohol, we study all the drugs, we always focus on the drugs and the symptoms. But [reaching for a substance] is the brain's way of handling stress over many generations,” she tells Jesse Mulligan.
Professor Selena Bartlett Photo: Peter Cronin
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Selena Bartlett hosts the THRIVING MINDS podcast.
Our brains are always seeking homeostatic balance in response to multigenerational stress, she says.
"And in animal species, the brain, the stress, if it's too much and not being handled by the species or the person, then the brain has a very beautiful system to drive you to get rid of it.
“As you take sugar, alcohol and drugs, you get a hit of dopamine and other things, serotonin, endorphins that balance out those neurochemicals that kill the brain off if it's not taken care of. That's what we call toxic stress.”
Stress reaches the brain more quickly than any other response because it's the thing that keeps us safe and alive, Bartlett says.
"Over a long time, we've had to escape predators and the brain circuitry has been hard-wired for that.”
Our brain’s response to a stack of emails is the same as being confronted by a predator, she says, but we are not prisoners to that baked-in response if we can successfully engage our brain's prefrontal cortex, she says.
This top part of the brain is what enables humans to step back and take a pause before responding.
"By taking that millisecond reaction time to an email and turning it into a one-second pause ... the prefrontal cortex enables us to make a rational decision about what we're looking at.”
Bartlett's work now focuses on helping people be the boss of their own brains.
“[Brain circuitry is] instinctual and hardwired, but it can be trained like a muscle.”
It's critically important to also understand that not every brain is the same, she says.
"What we tend to do with meditation and all these other kinds of modalities is we think that it's a blanket across the whole.
“We think of everyone having the same brain and that if they just did this they'd be better. Well, that's just not true at all because of the individual nature of the way the brain architecture has developed over history.”
However, Bartlett does recommend everyone start their day with the same healthy morning routine.
“Instead of grabbing your phone as your eyes open, look out the window and take in a panoramic view.”
There is hard science behind this simple move, Stanford University researchers have demonstrated.
“What they've shown is when you take in a panoramic view, what you're doing is you're taking the visual nervous system and de-escalating the autonomic nervous system, compared to when you grab your phone, and you're taking a narrow view, you're narrowing your vision, it actually stimulates the autonomic nervous system.”
If you look out the window upon waking every morning you will notice a difference, Bartlett says, but you have to stick with it.
“Keep doing it until it's your new automatic habit, it will demonstrate to you, one the power of the brain to be trained like a muscle, but also just how much effort it's going to take for your particular brain to make that become your new instinctual, automatic habit.”
Exercise is also a powerful de-stressor, she says.
“We're born to move because we're animals in nature. If we don't move dopamine levels go down, it makes us really stressed.
“So the more you can move your body through the day the better. Exercise is the one thing that really, really taps into neuroplasticity and brain change because it increases oxygen to the brain which needs tons of oxygen.
"And how do you get oxygen to your brain? Through movement and exercise deep breathing and blood flow. It's probably the number one thing that allows your brain to become healthy over your lifespan.”