Dopamine color matching, why make people happy?
■ Qiao Ying
In the summer of 2023, "dopamine" was a hot word. Wearing a blogger’s raiders video and a fashion artist’s business trip makes "dopamine wearing" a new fashion that has to be mentioned. Not only that, the street gardens in Shanghai’s urban renewal, the color matching of new retail foods such as milk tea, bread and coffee shops make "dopamine color matching" full of urban people’s vision.
This summer, "dopamine", a proper term originally in the field of psychology, suddenly broke into the mass consumer market. Without "dopamine color matching", it seems that it is not a "fashionable essence". What exactly is dopamine? Dopamine color matching, why make people happy? Let’s walk into the world of dopamine together.
Secrete "happiness"? Look down on dopamine
Dopamine is an important neurotransmitter in the brain. In 1957, a doctor named Catherine montague found dopamine in the laboratory of a hospital near London. In the human brain, only one in 200,000 brain cells can produce dopamine. Although the content is small, dopamine has a great influence on people’s spirit and emotions, and is closely related to information and emotions such as pleasure, excitement and happiness.
Is dopamine important? Very important! In the past, people always thought that dopamine was a happy molecule and that as long as it was secreted, it would be happy. This cognition is actually biased. Dopamine is an important component of reward loop, and its secretion is not so much related to happiness as to the surprise when people "get".
For example, love. When we meet for the first time, we will feel "Wow, love in the city" in our hearts and be instantly attracted to each other. In the follow-up communication, the boy’s humor deeply attracted the girl, and the girl’s gentleness moved the boy silently. During these processes, dopamine in people’s brains is secreted in large quantities, and people feel passionate. However, when two people really live together around pots and pans, all kinds of problems emerge, and both sides will think, how did they make such a strange decision in the first place? Why? At this moment, the dopamine concentration dropped and the passion retreated. In other words, the passion, happiness and excitement of human beings come from dopamine produced in the process of chasing when people don’t get it.
For another example, when a girl buys a beautiful skirt, she will feel very happy and want to wear it often. But after she wore it several times in a row, she began to think that this skirt was so much, and began to chase other beautiful skirts. This is also related to dopamine. When I first saw the skirt, "good love" was true, and the desire of "never having it, wanting to have it" made the brain secrete dopamine. And when you have it, with the freshness of the past, dopamine secretion decreases, and the girl’s love for the skirt also declines. At this time, if there are other excellent skirts, dopamine will be "awakened" again, so it will "find another new love".
It can be seen that dopamine is more accurately a molecule of expectation and desire than a molecule of happiness. In other words, the secretion of dopamine comes from the reaction to accidents.
Drive mankind to "go further and live better"
However, it is undeniable that dopamine is extremely important, because it makes human beings go further and live a better life. In the process of studying the origin and migration of human beings, scientists have found that people who migrate farther will secrete more dopamine than those who live in places of origin such as East Africa. The same is true of Darwin’s theory of "survival of the fittest", because the "fittest" secrete more dopamine, they are more willing to explore, more enterprising, more willing to take risks, and more willing to get more things for themselves, thus surviving.
Back to the beginning of the article, "dopamine penetration" is also related to "living better", a word coined by a fashion psychologist. When she was depressed, she searched hard for ways to arouse her inner passion. One day, she found that dressing together was also a way to adjust her mood, so she had an "emotional enhancement dress", which was the predecessor of "dopamine wearing".
As you can see, bright and gorgeous colors are the core of "dopamine wear". According to the research of color psychology, "people’s first feeling is vision, and the biggest influence on vision is color". Color can stimulate people, thus affecting their mood. The key to "dopamine penetration" lies in the direct collision between high-brightness colors, which make people shine and awaken their excitement. In addition, rich and exaggerated printing patterns and shapes can also bring shock and impact to the vision, thus prompting the human body to secrete dopamine and produce a pleasant feeling.
Some people think that "dopamine penetration" is popular because it conveys positive information through light, shadow, color and shape, forming a "positive association", which has a certain effect on improving mood. In fact, there are precedents for similar scenes in life, such as "dopamine space", "dopamine architecture" and "dopamine landscape", all of which use bright colors and interesting patterns in design to drive people’s emotions.
"Desire loop" and "control loop" that must be known.
Every time we talk about dopamine, we have to mention the midbrain marginal pathway, which is the "desire circuit" of dopamine. Desire begins in the ventral tegmental area of the brain, which is one of the main production areas of dopamine. When the cells in this area are activated, dopamine can be released into the nucleus accumbens, which gives human beings the motivation to do something. For example, our excessive shopping and addiction to the internet are all related to the excessive function of dopamine "desire circuit".
Here, a question will follow: how can we reduce the powerful control and influence of dopamine "desire circuit" There is a method called "Dopamine can control dopamine". There is a circuit in the frontal lobe of the brain, which is called "control circuit". Contrary to the previous "desire circuit", the effect of dopamine secretion by the "control circuit" is ruthless and careful, that is, dopamine can reach a balanced state under the adjustment of the "control circuit".
But the problem comes again. Many human brain functions have not been clearly developed, and it is impossible to accurately adjust the "desire circuit" and "control circuit". What should I do with my dopamine? Two methods may help you strike a balance.
Learn to pay attention to reality. When people blindly pursue success and pleasure, please pay attention to the present and balance reality and ideal. In life, you should be proficient in one or two things, or cultivate some of your hobbies. Because when you do something seriously, you will have a "flow of heart", and a high degree of immersion can pull you back to the present and pay attention to the present.
Learn to rest, and don’t let the excited dopamine secrete constantly every day. From time to time, stealing laziness, taking a vacation and letting yourself relax can bring more opportunities for enjoyment. At the same time, it is recommended not to try multi-task parallelism. At present, with the development of mobile phones, computers and other communication equipment, office software is more and more "easy to use", and people often open multiple "windows" and carry out several tasks at the same time. People’s brains are getting busier and busier, and multithreading is an important reason why dopamine is out of control.
Speaking of which, I hope you can know something about dopamine. Perhaps, some people think that "dopamine wearing" is just a follow-up behavior of young people, but the deeper reason behind it is that people can get rid of their suppressed negative emotions and look for simple happiness. This summer, it is better to try "dopamine for one summer".
(The author is the deputy chief physician of Shanghai Mental Health Center)


















