The Dark Side of Motivation
By: Rosalba Mancuso
Motivation is the inner strength that pushes people to move on and achieve their dreams. It is a wonderful sensation of energy you feel when you have expectations and goals to reach. Yes, motivation is simultaneously power and energy. It helps keep your spirits high and deal with life’s challenges. Motivation is, hence, an emotion leading to action, and as all emotions, it lies and originates in the brain. This emotion gained significance and extreme popularity in the digital era, especially with the advent of social media.
In the world of digital marketing, however, motivation does not appear for what it naturally is, but as a repetitive slogan, or a kind of ominous torment that simply reads as “stay motivated”. In this dark and gloomy time, “stay motivated” means “stay connected to your device and long for more.”
Unfortunately, all this has nothing to do with healthy motivation, namely the internal state that drives people to goal oriented behavior.
What humans (including me) are learning from the devilish messages of online marketing is a twisted version of motivation, an insane way to act that guides them to always stay in an alarm state, where desires and expectations are hardily or never satisfied. The manipulation, in this mechanism, is evident: unsatisfied people are easily prone to buy in order to regain their lost motivation.
This unhealthy state of motivation is what psychology defines as introjected motivation.
Photo de Xan Griffin sur Unsplash
Types of Motivation
According to an article published in Metro UK there are four types of motivation.
1. Extrinsic motivation
2. Intrinsic motivation
3. Introjected motivation
4. Identified motivation
Extrinsic motivation is an inner push that comes outside you, you act because something or someone orders you to do that.
Intrinsic motivation is, perhaps, the most natural type of motivation, because it originates from internal reasons, such as personal values, inner goals and beliefs. This form of motivation also brings a few risks. If the path of personal development has not been made properly, one can act with a motivation guided by a sense of guilt, punishment or reward.
Introjected motivation is the behavior that gets internalized upon external pressures, such as the already mentioned marketing messages. These messages focus on high performance or high expected results.
Identified motivation is the action guided by the awareness that something must be done. It is perhaps the healthier form of motivation, because it requires a fair sense of responsibility and respect for yourself and others.
Consequences of a Wrong State of Motivation
Motivation handed by wrong beliefs or external pressures is the most dangerous form of internal emotion. It can damage non only your mood, but also your brain.
In my life, I have experienced all the consequences of a wrong state of motivation.
Fueled by strong expectations, many paths I undertook in my youth were guided by extrinsic and introjected forms of motivation. I learned expectations through my dad. He poured all his expectations on me. These expectations were, in short, an excellent and high paid job, or fame and popularity.
Afterwards, with the advent of the World Wide Web, I internalized every distorted marketing message that came to my devices. Every project I had in mind was dictated by a sort of inner and invisible pressure. I felt forced to reach high results and exhibit excellent performance. Many of them were unrealistic, and obviously led me to fail. Unfortunately, after a failure, my motivation punctually collapsed. Over time, this condition has caused me depression and neurological symptoms.
All this happened because I pursued an introjected state of motivation, not the one I should have during my journey of personal development. In my case, hence, depression was the logical outcome of unhealthy motivation. At the time, however, I was unaware that a motivational collapse could damage my brain and trigger a neurological disorder. As regards the latter, I experienced migraine, dizziness, vertigos, hand tremors and leg weakness. Sometimes, it looked like my body was in the evil grip of uncontrollable shakes. These symptoms always occurred after depression caused by the collapse of my motivation.
Through the information I got from doctors and web searches, I gradually learned that depression is one of the main causes of neurological disorders, besides being a key symptom of the most common ageing neurological diseases, such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer. There is, indeed, a strong link among motivation, depression and neurological disturbances.
Photo de Yuris Alhumaydy sur Unsplash
Motivation and the Brain
As said, motivation is an internal push that drives humans to act. It is mainly perceived as an emotion, and as all emotional sensations, it stems from the brain. This sensation is controlled by dopamine, a neurotransmitter and hormone that regulates many brain and bodily functions, such as stress resistance, pleasure, expectations, reward, emotions and movement. As an emotional modulator, dopamine is also responsible for the load of motivation that pushes us to act. When you have goals and purposes to achieve, the levels of motivation and dopamine are high. They lead you to believe that everything is possible and conquerable. But it is not always the case.
If a person who has a distorted state of motivation meets frequent failures and motivational collapses, i.e. emotional stress, dopamine levels reduce abruptly, leading to a condition known as dopamine dysregulation. Emotional stress is, in fact, considered the primary cause of dopamine dysregulation. This type of stress is often induced by psychosocial factors, known as “stressors”. Even digital interactions are included in the list of psychosocial stressors.
A study published in Elifesciences found, for example, that long-term exposure to psychosocial adversity was associated with dampened dopaminergic function.
Motivation and dopamine can also collapse because of manipulation, as revealed in a study published in Neuron. As a stress modulator, in fact, dopamine is heavily involved in motivational control, which includes three key internal conditions: rewarding, aversive and alerting. The manipulation we are witnessing in the digital era enhances just the emotions related to the control of motivation. Indeed, alerting, rewarding and aversive are often experienced by those who spend much time connected to the Internet. This mechanism is detrimental for dopamine levels in the brain. As the aforementioned study says “dopamine has long been known to be important for reinforcement and motivation of actions. Drugs that interfere with dopamine transmission interfere with reinforcement learning, while manipulations which enhance dopamine transmission, such as brain stimulation and addictive drugs, often act as reinforcers (Wise, 2004).”
Pervasive marketing messages engineered to turn people into digital consumers operate a massive manipulation of the brain, like an addictive drug. The transmission of dopamine gets, thus, artificially reinforced and needs more and more stimulation to produce normal levels of pleasure and satisfaction. The Internet has made us all addicted to dopamine, as an article in The Guardian reveals. Motivation and dopamine reinforcement, however, have a dark and unknown side. This side works like withdrawal in drug addiction.
Just a few evenings ago, I was watching a TV program on drug addiction, where the addict who stopped taking the addictive drug experienced uncontrollable hand tremors. These symptoms were neurological and caused by the collapse of dopamine in the brain due to the drug withdrawal.
Mentally vulnerable individuals can have the same symptoms when they don’t reach the expected levels of satisfaction. In this framework, social media, and online devices work as addictive drugs. The withdrawal symptoms may be extremely severe and result in neurological disorders.
Photo de Gaspar Uhas sur Unsplash
Motivation Collapse and Neurological Disturbances
When in December 2021, I perceived my early neurological symptoms, I wondered why they occurred. I had gone through a harsh time of ups, downs and collapse of my motivation during the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. At the time, I didn't know that depression could impair the brain. Emotional circuits are, in fact, in an area of the brain known as nigrostriatal or striatum. This is the same area that controls movement. There, presynaptic nerve cells (neurons) transmit dopamine to other neurons (called postsynaptic), and allow many psychical and physical functions, such as motivation, emotions and movement of legs and hands.
Conclusion
With this article, I didn’t want to give you bad news, but the opportunity to avoid the sinister trap of manipulated motivation. Indeed, an unhealthy internal mood, stimulated by external pressures is detrimental for the brain and could cause a neurological disease. Seek for help, before your brain gets damaged. Cognitive behavioral therapy, for example, can be a game changer for your condition. It is thanks to a skilled psychotherapist that I learned how to live a more balanced life and recognize all the false stimuli of motivation. The final step of this wonderful path of mental healing has been the natural boost of my dopamine levels, improvement of my neurological symptoms and an amazing reconnection with my true self. Today, I am a mindful person who is capable of shaking the world, not her body. Believe me: mental wellness is possible. Just “stay motivated” with the right things!
Rosalba Mancuso is a Sicily-based freelance journalist with three decades of experience as a contributor to national newspapers and magazines. International medical reporter and professional member of the AHCJ, American Association of Health Care Journalists, she covers stories and news on mental health, autoimmunity and neurological diseases.
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