Recently, a mental health trend has been knocking around TikTok: the dopamine menu. It has over 50 million views and is generally suggested for people who are having productivity issues. Dopamine, a neurotransmitter responsible for pleasure, motivation and reward, and the dopamine menu TikTok trend allegedly provides a way to boost the magic neurotransmitter naturally.
Low dopamine is involved in everything from neurological and psychological conditions like ADHD and depression to exhaustion, ennui or an inability to drag your attention away from the TikTok app itself.
Recently, when my boyfriend broke up with me, I found out heartbreak is also a fantastic way to rid your body of dopamine in rapid time.
Dopamine And Heartbreak 101
My breakup was, in my opinion, the worst kind. It was a surprise. Where my boyfriend had usually surprised me with coffees, cakes and second-hand books he thought I’d like, he surprised me that evening by telling me problems in our relationship I’d thought were surmountable were insurmountable and he no longer loved me. Then he left.
In under an hour my dopamine levels which had been dwindling because of hunger (I’d hoped to convince him we’d get Italian that night) and general tiredness, seemed to evaporate entirely. My experience is science-backed. According to The National Institute of Health, dopamine plays a role in influencing whether the brain identifies certain mental tasks as “worth the effort”. Science also tells us that during heartbreak our dopamine and serotonin levels to drop, while our stress hormones increase. Indeed, the effects of heartbreak are so violent and physiological that some argue their effects warrant a sick day.
Activities deemed “worth the effort” that weekend (he did the deed Friday COB, so I had just over 48 hours of recovery time) involved staring at the ceiling, reading through our messages and bursting into tears while my friends gathered around me as if in a deathbed vigil. My motivation to do things like walk to the kitchen to eat food, or put on clothes that weren’t the ones he had broken up with me in evaporated.
Laying in bed for 24 hours at a time has been de-stigmatised and rebranded as “bed rot” by TikTok. But, actual time outside the clock app doesn’t recognise viral hashtags or shattered goes, and Monday came around.
While it seemed unbelievable that a national holiday wasn’t being held in honour of my breakup, people were emailing me, Teams meetings were being held, and the gradual suspicion that sitting in my bed on a tear-soaked pillow wasn’t making me feel any better set in.
With few solutions up my sleeve other than repeatedly recounting to my friends the events of the breakup, which was unfortunately being “hit and run” style were a bit funny but, at the time, low on dramatic detail, I decided something probably had to be done.
How To Make A Dopamine Menu
@adhdcoachktina Adhd friendly goal setting includes a #dopamenu #adhd #goalsetting #corporatetiktok ♬ original sound – Kristina
Dopamine menus involve a list of activities chosen by you, that make you happy. Once you’ve landed on what makes you happy (some people spend a lifetime doing this) you can engage with your preferred activity, trigger dopamine and then (hopefully) use that surge to attack tasks that feel insurmountable.
TikTok has a solution for all manner of social and physical ills, many of them inadvisable, from DIY sunscreen and “Oatzempic” (no) to AMSR in lieu of meditation (do what works for you). I’m generally (and often rightfully) suspicious of anything TikTok recommends, but I had nothing to lose.
TikTok suggests brainstorming a list of things that make you happy. These can be extremely basic: patting your pet, warm showers, yoga, and drinking coffee. Importantly, they’re all things that don’t need to take up a lot of time, which is important when you’re juggling everyday tasks with uncontrollable sobbing.
You keep these activities in your notes app, and when you’re feeling low on motivation ,you can tick one off your list.
Does A Dopamine Menu Work For Heartbreak?
As mentioned, dopamine menus are generally suggested for people experiencing either chronic or fleeting lack of attention, not people who are experiencing the complete emotional haemorrhage of heartbreak.
This is why I was taken aback by the fact that the dopamine menu was pretty effective. Firstly, it created positive motivation to do things I was unmotivated to do. Drinking coffee made by someone else happens outside my house. Outside my house requires me to wear clothes. I had already checked two things I was unmotivated to do off my checklist. It also forced me to train my attention on things outside my relationship that made me happy. Patting my cat, spending time with my friends, doing yoga, and even writing for work or pleasure didn’t disappear when he did.
While I felt my life was falling apart during our breakup, it made me realise that so many things in my life were just as they were before he came into my life. I am still sad, but giving TikTok’s dopamine menu a 7/10.
This article originally appeared on Marie Claire Australia and is republished here with permission.
