Breaking the Cycle: Understanding Dopamine's Role in OCD

The OCD and Anxiety Podcast by Robert James Coaching. Music.

Hello and welcome to the OCD and Anxiety Podcast where we explore how to have a more positive relationship with anxiety disorders taking back control so that you can start living the life you choose and not the one chosen by your fears. Music. Hello and welcome to episode 479. I hope that you're doing very well today. Before we jump into today's episode I want to quickly remind you about my free discovery call.

If you're feeling stuck, overwhelmed or just tired of OCD and anxiety taking control, this call is a great first step to regain your freedom. We'll talk one-on-one about your specific challenges and I'll share how my personalized coaching approach can help you to break free. You can head over to my website robertjamescoaching.com to book your free discovery call today. In today's episode, we're looking at something that doesn't get talked about

enough. And that is how OCD compulsions might actually be driven by dopamine. Dopamine is the neurotransmitter that fuels motivation, learning and reward. It's really what keeps us coming back to things like social media. Video games or even sugar. But what if your OCD compulsions are running on the same system?

If you've ever felt like you have to perform a compulsion, almost as if you're on autopilot this could be why today we're going to explore how this works why it keeps you stuck and what you can do to break the cycle if you find this podcast helpful it would be amazing if you could consider leaving us a review it really does help the podcast it doesn't take too long so whether that's on apple podcast or on spotify if you could leave us a review I would really appreciate it.

So many thanks and if you have any questions at all about anything I speak about today do please let me know and off we go. When we think about OCD, we focus on the distress, the intrusive thoughts, the anxiety, the urge to do the compulsions. But if compulsions didn't offer something to your brain, you wouldn't actually keep doing them. And that something, at least in part, is dopamine. Dopamine is a learning signal. It rewards behaviours that it thinks are helpful, even when they aren't.

So when you perform a compulsion, whether that's checking, ruminating, seeking reassurance in one form or another, you get a temporary sense of relief. Your brain registers that relief as a reward, reinforcing the cycle. The paradox of dopamine is that the more we indulge immediate rewards, the more we reinforce the very behaviours that keep us stuck. And this is exactly what happens in OCD. The more we chase short-term relief, the more we kind of reinforce the very cycle that keeps us trapped.

The more we chase short-term relief, the more we reinforce the very cycle that keeps us trapped. So let's break this down with an example. Say you have an intrusive thought. What if I left the stove on?

Anxiety of course kicks in and your brain goes into overdrive we need to fix this so you go and check the stove the moment you see that it's off of course you feel a bit better and that's a tiny dopamine hit your brain now associates checking with relief and so the next time the thought pops up you feel the same urge to check again dr lemke calls this chasing the dragon. And, you know, of course, there's a recognition there that this is like an addiction.

However, this isn't an addiction to a drug as we might normally associate that phrase with. This is an addiction to, you know, a compulsion, something that temporarily gives us some relief. And so, you know, when we're in that cycle of OCD and we're going round in circles, we're trying to have certainty about things, we are actually making ourselves feel a bit numb.

We're numbing the anxiety that we're kind of feeling about the obsession and that's why we kind of keep doing it we keep seeking relief but over time it takes more and more to satisfy us this is why compulsions tend to get worse over time you start out by checking once then twice then 10 times because that initial relief isn't enough anymore the dopamine pathway has really been reinforced by making our compulsions feel more automatic. Almost like a kind of addiction.

So how do we break this cycle? If OCD compulsions are at least in part fueled by dopamine, then recovery isn't just about stopping compulsions. It's about rewiring the brain's reward system. So one thing that you can start practicing is this. One of the most powerful things that you can do is to postpone your compulsions. If your brain is expecting its usual dopamine hit, delaying the behavior forces your brain to sit with discomfort instead of immediately soothing it or gratifying it.

And over time, this weakens the reward loop. The next time you feel the urge to check, ruminate or seek reassurance in some way, set a timer for five minutes and commit to doing anything else during that time other than the compulsion. And this small act of resistance throws a wrench into that OCD cycle. I wanted to share a testimonial from someone who has worked with me in coaching. If you're looking for support with OCD, it can be helpful to hear from others who have been through the process.

Here's what they had to say. I found Rob through his podcast and could not recommend coaching sessions with him enough. I have been to several therapists, each with different approaches, but none are nearly as effective as Rob's. Rob is compassionate and understanding, and his focus on acceptance and commitment therapy, ACT, is extremely valuable.

The mind can be challenging to navigate sometimes. Rob has an excellent understanding of the anxious and OCD brain and is able to explain how to get on with enjoying your life despite these challenges. Thank you, Rob, for helping me and others. The work that you do is so valuable. I'm really grateful for those kind words. And if you're looking for structured support with OCD, I offer a free discovery call where we can chat about your challenges and see how coaching might help.

You can book that over at robertjamescoaching.com. The link is in the show notes.

Another tip is that dopamine isn't inherently bad. It's just that in OCD it's tied to the compulsion. So one of the best things that you can do is to shift where you get your dopamine. And actually exercises like cold exposure, deep breathing, meaningful hobbies or exercise naturally boost dopamine in a way that doesn't reinforce OCD. Dr. Anna Lemke, a leading expert on dopamine, discusses how the term be here now used to be something that was very frustrating for her when she would hear.

There was various people who would practice Zen meditation, for example, who might tell her, be here now. And she would find it quite frustrating and annoying because, you know, when she was present to what she was experiencing, Often she would be experiencing a lot of discomfort... You know, emotions that she really didn't want to be feeling. But actually now she's come to realize that be here now has a different meaning.

She stated, I realized that be here now means to be here now and be uncomfortable and be okay with being uncomfortable and being okay with not being able to control my pleasure or my pain or my comfort level, but just being open to whatever comes and I think that's a really key shift that I'm not trying to control my experience in the moment and that it's okay to be unhappy or restless or uncomfortable and not trying to run away from that but just really turn and face and embrace the discomfort.

This for me was incredibly powerful when I heard her say this because of course this is something that we have to learn to do in OCD.

We really don't like the difficult emotions that come up from the obsessions that we might be struggling with we really want to distract ourself from that or to feel better in some way but when we can learn to lean into that discomfort through exposure or acceptance commitment therapy to allow that that discomfort to be there to postpone doing things with it you know to just stay present to it well actually you know often we transform that discomfort it isn't quite so uncomfortable anymore.

Of course it's still something that we would prefer wasn't there but actually by allowing it it doesn't bother us in quite the same way. If OCD compulsions feel automatic like they have control over you it's not because you're weak it's because your brain has been trained to expect dopamine from them.

The good news is you can really retrain it by delaying compulsions, finding new sources of dopamine and bringing yourself back into the present, you start to weaken the cycle. If you'd like more support, I do offer a free discovery call. You can get that by heading over to my website at robertjamescoaching.com. There's a link in the show notes. I really hope that you found this episode helpful. If you have any questions

at all, do please let me know and do please subscribe. It really does help the podcast. Many thanks and I will see you next time. Music.

And now just a quick reminder of my disclaimer any information that you view on my website instagram page facebook group or anywhere else online or any information that you listen to on the podcast is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for actual medical or mental health advice from a doctor psychologist or any other medical or mental. Music.