I can’t be the only one who treats chasing dopamine like a perfectly reasonable hobby. Think a good song, a sunny walk, an unnecessary coffee; or, ideally, all three before 10 am. So when “dopamine menus” started doing the rounds on my FYP, I was immediately sold. One: how fun. Two: the promise that by deliberately choosing little pleasures, I could give my brain the reward it needed to get me moving again? Sign me up.
Admittedly, the more I thought about it, the stranger the premise seemed. When did dopamine become something we thought we could manage with a five-point list? Online, we talk about it as if we can simply top it up, turning one of the brain’s most complicated chemical messengers into shorthand for pleasure, motivation and feeling good - and apparently decided we can curate our way to more of it.
