Why we all need a dopamine menu
ere’s a new way to brighten mundane days sweeping Tiktok, says Hattie Crisell
IF THERE’S ONE thing that Tiktok’s Genz community could teach the world, it’s how to make our endless, boring life admin much more adorable and gami ed. Struggling with your wardrobe? Create an out t planner in Notes, complete with mini photos of yourself. Daily lunch decisions overwhelming you? Buy mason jars and spend your Sunday making beautiful rainbow salads for the week. ese hacks are so satisfying that they o en spread like wild re – even if they aren’t actually quicker or easier than bumbling through life unaided.
e latest trend is to address what philosophers call existential ennui – that weary sense that life is not being used meaningfully – with a ‘dopamine menu’: a long list of activities guaranteed to make you feel good.
e concept was actually developed for people with ADHD, who may need more frequent hits of dopamine (aka the pleasure hormone), but it’s caught on as a generally good idea for the rest of us, too. When you
nd yourself with unscheduled time, rather than being sucked into a vortex of scrolling on your phone, you have suggestions at your
ngertips of more nourishing activities.
It works like a food menu: in the ‘snacks’ category, you list wellbeing-boosting things that can be done in a spare ve minutes. ‘Main courses’ are your more substantial activities. ‘Desserts’ are fun pastimes that shouldn’t be consumed in large quantities (like social media). ‘Side orders’ are things that can be done at the same time as a dull task to make it more enjoyable, while ‘specials’ are infrequent treats (perhaps because they’re more expensive).
Of course, you could argue that these hacks are in themselves just ways of procrastinating. On Tiktok, dopamine menus tend to be made with coloured pens and stickers, giving the whole thing the feel of a primaryschool task that screams ‘too much time on your hands’. Also, do we really need to ll every second of the day with activities we can be proud of ? If you want to spend your free time eating crisps while watching Loose Women and second-screening Instagram Reels, isn’t that your prerogative?
But the dopamine-menu brigade are not arguing that all our time has to be useful.
e idea is just to avoid the mindless habits that make you feel worse, like that hour you spent researching your ex’s irritatingly successful wife or reading endless ‘Where are they now?’ articles about former Lo e Is Blind contestants.
At this time of year, with sunsets creeping up on us earlier, it can’t hurt to have handy reminders of how to brighten your day. And if you don’t have time to crack out the pencil case, we’ve made a menu for you.