Dopamine gets a bad rap these days.
We're told our phones are giving us dopamine hits, said in a tone that implies dopamine itself is the problem. But dopamine isn't the villain. It's one of the most important chemicals in your brain. It's the thing that drives motivation and focus.
The real story here is how you trigger it. Because dopamine can either leave you feeling genuinely restored or endlessly chasing the next hit, depending on where it came from.
Think of it as cheap dopamine versus deep dopamine.
Cheap dopamine is what your phone delivers. A notification, a like, a new post. Your brain gets a sudden spike, fast and effortless. Because it arrived without any real effort, your brain quickly recalibrates, and you're left chasing the next hit.
Katina Bajaj, a Creative Health Scientist I interviewed recently, describes it perfectly: it's like eating a bag of chips. You got something. But you're not satisfied.
Deep dopamine works differently.
It's slower. It comes from effort, working through a small challenge, making something from your Unwind box, for example, and being able to say "I did this."
Because the dopamine was earned, it doesn't crash the same way dopamine from the phone scroll session does. Deep dopamine builds and leaves you feeling genuinely restored rather than depleted and ready to scroll again. This is what motivation is actually made from.
So if you've ever finished a scroll session feeling worse than when you started, this is why. Your brain got the chips. It wanted a meal.
This is a big part of why Kate and I built Unwind Co. We wanted to make "the meal" as easy as possible to sit down to. Everything you need, no decisions required, just you and the chance to slow down, switch off and unwind.