![\"""\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/4\/2023\/03\/ErdosLede-27b57e2.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C374"\" "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>Pop culture tells us obsession is a good thing. Books like the entrepreneur Grant Cardone\u2019s Be Obsessed Or Be Average<\/em> sit on self-help shelves in bookshops.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have this category of obsession that\u2019s related to genius and talent, to sports and perfection. We live in a society that is devoted to it, where we\u2019re supposed to be obsessed,\u201d says Lennard Davis<\/a>, an English professor at the University of Illinois.<\/p>\n Harmless obsessions see us learn everything about a favourite band or celebrity. But some of us fall victim to obsessions that become harmful. For example, when a celebrity obsession turns into stalking, or when a concern about fire leads us to ritually check the oven many times before leaving the house.<\/p>\n So what is it about the human brain that means an idea can shift from a thought to an obsession, and is there a difference between those obsessions that society deems healthy and those it considers not?<\/p>\n Dopamine is one of the brain\u2019s neurotransmitters, a chemical messenger that relays signals between neurons and brain areas. It\u2019s mostly linked to a sense of reward and pleasure, conveying the message that this is behaviour worth repeating, though this is just one of many of its functions.<\/p>\n Typically, a dopamine surge follows success, regardless of whether that\u2019s in sport, work, or a video game. Dopamine isn\u2019t the only neurotransmitter in the reward pathway, but it is the key neurotransmitter involved in wanting<\/em> the reward, and therefore motivating people to pursue it.<\/p>\n Our expectation of a reward could be cued by loading up a web page to check stock performances, getting a notification from work, or thinking about ticking a workout off our exercise schedule.<\/p>\n But every time pleasurable activities are experienced, powerful self-regulating mechanisms kick in to bring dopamine levels back down again.<\/p>\n Dopamine boosts are strongest from novel activities (the first time you try a new type of food, for example), and consequent hits are never as rewarding because of the way your body and brain regulate the presence of the neurotransmitter.<\/p>\n Therefore, most pleasurable activities don\u2019t escalate to obsessions, because they produce small enough dopamine spikes that we enjoy them and then decide to pursue something new in order to experience the boost again.<\/p>\n However, if we repeat the exposure to the thing that gives us pleasure, the self-regulatory mechanisms that make us feel low afterwards can get stronger and last longer. Then, \u201cwe need more exposure to our drug of choice to get the same effect\u201d, writes psychiatrist Prof Anna Lembke<\/a> in her book Dopamine Nation<\/em>.<\/p>\n This is called neuroadaptation, and it\u2019s how we create tolerance to certain stimulants. For a chocoholic, one bar doesn\u2019t do it anymore. A workaholic pursues longer hours.<\/p>\n Sometimes, obsessions can become addictions. Addiction is defined by a continued or compulsive pursuit of a substance or behaviour, despite its harm to oneself or others.<\/p>\n For a long time, the term \u2018addiction\u2019 was only used to describe harmful use of substances like nicotine and amphetamines. But more recently, the definition has been expanded to behavioural addictions. Gambling addictions are common, but addictions to exercise, work, and even shopping are now acknowledged.<\/p>\n While there are numerous studies that have found that environmental factors can increase a person\u2019s risk of addiction, there is a growing body of evidence suggesting that some of us are more prone to addiction than others, thanks to our genes.<\/p>\n Back in 1996, the US scientist Dr Kenneth Blum coined the term \u2018reward deficiency syndrome\u2019, where some people inherit a genetic variation that affects the \u2018brain reward cascade\u2019.<\/p>\n While most of us experience dopamine spikes in response to fairly mundane pleasures of everyday life, people with this genetic variation don\u2019t get as much of a hit from these activities, so are more prone to seek ever-greater highs through drugs, alcohol, food and high-adrenaline sports<\/a>. Blum estimated that up to 30 per cent of the population may have these underactive reward pathways<\/a>.<\/p>\n While trying to reach a new level in Minecraft <\/em>might cause your friends to say you\u2019re obsessed, few would question the hours Michael Phelps spent in the pool to achieve Olympic stardom. But even his obsession may have been mediated by the same pathways as less-productive obsessions.<\/p>\n Exercise produces dopamine spikes like other pleasurable activities, and studies of endurance runners have shown that withdrawal symptoms can develop after 24 to 36 hours of not running<\/a>, producing irritability, anxiety and guilt. \u201cObsession is socially constrained,\u201d points out psychiatrist Prof Dean McKay<\/a>.<\/p>\n One determinant of whether your obsession is healthy depends on how valued the obsession is. \u201cSomeone could be obsessed with stamps in a way that\u2019s unhelpful. On the other hand, being a philatelist is actually a career where you might look for ways to trade and sell valuable stamps in a collector\u2019s market, the way someone might with art,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \u201cThe other factor is the degree to which the pursuit of an obsession causes personal distress,\u201d says McKay.<\/p>\n Tabloids and social media have given rise to one of our most common and pervasive obsessions: celebrities.<\/p>\n Obsessions with celebrities are measured using the Celebrity Worship Scale, which was devised by psychologists in 2002 and published in the British Journal Of Psychology<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n For most people, relationships with celebrities are what sociologists term \u2018entertainment social\u2019, where an attachment to a celebrity provides entertainment or enhances social activities.<\/p>\n They will agree with statements like \u2018I love to talk with others who admire my favourite celebrity\u2019.<\/p>\n Mild obsessive qualities can start to come in when these relationships become \u2018intense-personal\u2019 (\u2018When something good happens to my favourite celebrity, I feel like it happened to me\u2019).<\/p>\n An extreme form is called \u2018borderline-pathological\u2019 (\u2018If I was lucky enough to meet my favourite celebrity, and they asked me to do something illegal as a favour, I would probably do it\u2019).<\/p>\n Celebrity worship is fairly new to academia, so not much is known about how these relationships affect our brains.<\/p>\n A 2021 meta-analysis of studies about celebrity worship showed that intense-personal and borderline-pathological celebrity worship are correlated with neuroticism and psychotic tendencies<\/a>, and appear to be related to poorer mental health.<\/p>\n It is also linked to poor-quality intimate relationships and a difficulty coping with conflicts, though whether intense Taylor Swift fandom or Nickelback devotion causes these difficulties \u2013 or stems from them \u2013 is yet to be determined\u2026<\/p>\n Read more:<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> In the psychological and mental health realm, obsession is where someone is plagued by intrusive thoughts that they can\u2019t eliminate.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is a strong desire not to experience that thought. In a way, it\u2019s the exact opposite of a passion. The person is haunted by their obsession,\u201d says McKay.<\/p>\n When people become so obsessed with a thought that it causes anxiety or compulsions, it can begin to veer into obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s say on average, people want to be clean,\u201d says McKay. \u201cIf you ask 100 people if they\u2019d prefer their hands to be clean before they eat, the majority of them are going to say yes. And there are going to be some people who really make sure of it, which is still in the range of, shall we say, normal.\u201d<\/p>\n But a few of those people may experience some life stressor, usually something run-of-the-mill and not particularly traumatic.<\/p>\n \u201cThen they\u2019ll push cleanliness to a level where it will start to be harmful, where the washing becomes very excessive, and it leads to problems in other areas of their life,\u201d McKay says. This is where it becomes OCD.<\/p>\n The social factors around taboo topics strongly affect patterns of OCD. \u201cA society may have greater prohibitions about certain behaviours, so you see a corresponding increase in obsessions related to them,\u201d McKay says.<\/p>\n \u201cOne that has received a lot of publicity lately is intrusive thoughts about paedophilia. Many people with OCD will have these thoughts \u2013 \u2018I saw a child, it occurred to me that the child was good looking\u2019. When that thought shows up, the person might say, \u2018wait a second, why did I think that? Am I attracted to children?\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cThat person is in no way attracted to children \u2013 they have no desire, no interest, nothing. But they get that thought, and now suddenly they\u2019re anxious about it.<\/p>\n \u201cNow they\u2019re avoiding that thought and when it shows up they get more anxious, and that makes the thought more prevalent,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Usually, OCD involves compulsions. Sometimes they\u2019re related to the intrusive thought, like someone who ruminates over germs may wash their hands many times a day.<\/p>\n Read more:<\/strong><\/p>\n Sometimes they\u2019re unrelated, like a child who needs to have his shoes lined up perfectly in order to protect his parents from harm. But in rare cases, OCD can be absent from visible compulsions, and this is where the term \u2018Pure O\u2019 arises.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a useful term because there are taboo thoughts and intrusive ideas that have no clear external ritual that might alleviate them,\u201d McKay says. But psychiatrists don\u2019t tend to use the term, because Pure O sufferers do<\/em> change their behaviour.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are things in the environment that might activate a thought, so sufferers of Pure O might go to great lengths to avoid them.<\/p>\n \u201cFor example, they may get this thought: \u2018I\u2019m near a steak knife, and I don\u2019t know what might happen\u2019. So they might engage in behaviour where they make sure there are no sharp objects around.\u201d<\/p>\n There isn\u2019t an easily definable behaviour, so it presents like a pure obsession.<\/p>\n Another way people with Pure O act on their intrusive thoughts is to counter them with other thoughts, to seek reassurance.<\/p>\n One common OCD \u2018theme\u2019 is sexual orientation obsession, in which sufferers obsess over whether they have a different sexual orientation than the one their current relationship is based on.<\/p>\n If they find someone of the same sex attractive, they might feel compelled to spend time thinking of attractive people of the opposite sex, in order to reassure themselves.<\/p>\n Neurobiological and neuroimaging studies give us some clues as to how OCD plays out in the brain. In functional MRI studies, people with OCD tend to have more activity in the brain\u2019s corticostriatal pathway<\/a>, which controls movement execution, habit formation and reward.<\/p>\n In rare cases, people develop OCD after head trauma, or in response to infections and encephalitis, adding weight to the idea that changes in the brain can cause OCD.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also expected that serotonin plays a role in OCD, because selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are effective for some people who suffer from OCD.<\/p>\n But researchers still don\u2019t have the full picture about OCD. \u201cI don\u2019t think we\u2019ve defined OCD in a way that will permit us to identify the biological base,\u201d says McKay.<\/p>\n \u201cContamination, for example, stands apart because it\u2019s not just anxiety \u2013 it also relates to disgust, which involves an entirely different emotional system.\u201d<\/p>\n Hoarding was also once considered a subtype of OCD, so people with hoarding tendencies may have been included in OCD MRI studies, but recently it\u2019s been removed from the diagnostic criteria for OCD.<\/p>\n Without an accurate picture of what OCD is exactly, it\u2019s hard to get a good idea of what\u2019s happening in the brain.<\/p>\n So what treatments are on offer for people with OCD? Sufferers may be offered a course of SSRIs, and cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT).<\/p>\n In some cases these don\u2019t work, and more invasive treatments like deep brain stimulation are trialled, where electric impulses are passed through electrodes implanted into particular brain areas.<\/p>\n McKay has some tips, if intrusive thoughts begin to recur in our minds. \u201cRemind yourself that a thought is just a thought, it doesn\u2019t necessarily mean anything,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Psychiatrists talk to their patients about \u2018the over-importance of thoughts\u2019, which is an attitude where people assume that if they thought something, it must be meaningful. \u201cBut the truth is that people just have random thoughts,\u201d says McKay.<\/p>\n He also suggests keeping in mind that we will always live our lives with some measure of uncertainty. Whether you obsess about making sure your hands are clean, or about proving a complicated mathematical theory, we can only be mostly certain.<\/p>\n \u201cThe more that people get comfortable with that, the more likely they are to free themselves from harmful obsessions.\u201d<\/p>\n Prof Dean McKay<\/a> is a psychiatrist and professor of psychology at Fordham University, New York, US. He is head of the Compulsive, Obsessive, and Anxiety Program (COAP) lab and researches the cognitive processes underpinning OCD.<\/p>\n Prof Lennard Davis<\/a> teaches English at the University of Illinois Chicago, US. He is also professor of disability and human development at the university\u2019s school of applied health sciences.<\/p>\n Read more:<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> <\/body><\/html>\n Obsession can drive us to achieve goals. But what causes us to become obsessed? And when does it tip over into a harmful fixation? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":24418,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"12"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/03\/obsession-the-benefits-and-dangers-of-having-a-one-track-mind.jpg",1200,500,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/03\/obsession-the-benefits-and-dangers-of-having-a-one-track-mind-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/03\/obsession-the-benefits-and-dangers-of-having-a-one-track-mind-300x125.jpg",300,125,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/03\/obsession-the-benefits-and-dangers-of-having-a-one-track-mind-768x320.jpg",768,320,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/03\/obsession-the-benefits-and-dangers-of-having-a-one-track-mind-1024x427.jpg",800,334,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/03\/obsession-the-benefits-and-dangers-of-having-a-one-track-mind.jpg",1200,500,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/03\/obsession-the-benefits-and-dangers-of-having-a-one-track-mind.jpg",1200,500,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Obsession can drive us to achieve goals. But what causes us to become obsessed? And when does it tip over into a harmful fixation?","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/24417"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The role of dopamine in obsession<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"""\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/4\/2023\/03\/stamp-collecting-7c4707f.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C406"\" "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>How do addictions form? And how much do our genes matter?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Why do we get obsessed with celebrities?<\/strong><\/h3>\n
How does obsession become OCD?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"""\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/4\/2023\/03\/hyperactive-64fb2ff.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C254"\" "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>![\"""\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/4\/2023\/03\/underactive-2c65dbb.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C220"\" "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>OCD treatments<\/strong><\/h2>\n
About our experts<\/strong><\/h4>\n
","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"