“What happens when physical stress <<< mental stress runs high”
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When you’re running a business, you know you shouldn’t get your hopes up—yet you try, you hope, you fail, you’re let down, you’re crushed, and all that mental fatigue piles up.
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I’ve come to think this is a completely different kind of “fatigue” from the physical kind—the sort you’d get from waking up early every morning to work out, faithfully climbing the stairs, or sticking to a diet.
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So I went looking for the process and the principles hidden behind it, and for what you have to do to overcome it.
The Situation:
Three days ago, my business took a hard stumble, and I found myself back at square one, having to start over… On the surface it doesn’t show, but my family seems to pick up on it—there’s a subtle sensitivity, a look on their faces. During the day I try to forget about it, but it keeps surfacing here and there; I regret, I blame myself, and this negative feeling—“I’m never going to make it”—suddenly flings the door wide open. All I can do is close that open door and mutter to myself the unconvincing words “No, I can do this,” while deep down I’m thinking, “Is it really not going to work?”
Analysis
-> According to neuroscientist Wolfram Schultz’s research on dopamine, the human brain releases dopamine in line with the ‘expected reward (expected value)’, pouring every last bit of energy into it.
A. In other words, if you expected a reward of 100 and you actually get 100, dopamine stays at its baseline calm.
B. But the moment the expected reward doesn’t come through at the full 100—or the moment you realize it was a delusion—it’s called a “negative reward prediction error” (disappointment), and dopamine secretion drops sharply.
This steep fall floods you with emptiness and depression. And in that moment, the activated nucleus accumbens and autoreceptors keep clamoring for ‘an easier dopamine outlet.’
In the end, you get caught in a vicious cycle.
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