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Dopamine is very complex and has a lot of jobs in the brain. It’s part of attention, and motivation, and desire, and reward, and pleasure. There are a lot of things that can stimulate your brain to produce dopamine. Music. Drugs. Social media. Eating. Exercise. (Kind of.)

In short, dopamine shows up anytime your brain is making a prediction about what will happen: a good thing (reward!) or a bad thing (negative reward, aka consequence!).

Some of the things that stimulate dopamine-showing-up are positive for your mind and body. Some of those things are not. Dopamine doesn’t care. It’s there, regardless, anticipating, provoking desire, predicting error.

The weird thing is, though, that dopamine is not making you feel good, as in, “This is great and I’m enjoying this and engrossed in this and I like it.” Instead, it’s making you feel craving, motivation, even anxiety: “I want more of this, I need more of this, I crave more of this, I have to have more of this.”

You’re feeling dissatisfaction and anticipation. Your brain is telling you to pay attention to something, because you want what it might give you.

That’s not the same as feeling good, hello!