Breaking the cycle of consumption

By Daniel Francis

I recently listened to a podcast that centred on something called ‘The Hostage Brain’. The explanation of the concept spoke to our everyday struggles, so I thought it would be important to share the details.

‘The Hostage Brain’ refers to the very human act of wanting to control things around us. We want to ensure the plans we set are executed exactly as we planned them. We want to elicit a specific reaction from those around us or achieve a specific result given our efforts.

The truth is, we can’t control everything, and for those of us who have a more difficult time coming to terms with this fact, it can become very stressful. What happens next is where things become troublesome.

That stress can be turned inwards and can cause extreme sadness or even depression. Then what do we do? We try to treat this sadness with a dopamine hit. If you remember from your school science classes, dopamine is the happy hormone. We try to get that dopamine hit from whatever source can supply it quickly. For some of us, we turn to the wrong sources, whether it’s recreational drugs, pornography, alcohol, scrolling on social media, etc.

Yet that dopamine comes at a price. We experience the short burst of euphoric stimulation, but we took a path of pain to get there, and worst of all, dopamine is addictive.

When you choose this type of pleasure to deal with your lack of control, you end up on a never-ending cycle of consumption and misery. This cycle is the Hostage Brain concept.

We have all experienced something like this at one point or another. We cling to our vices in times of weakness, and they are addictive, but they come at a price. Sometimes we do not immediately see the price, but there’s always one to pay, whether in health, spiritually, or relationships. The difficult thing about breaking the Hostage Brain is that it is difficult to break by willpower alone, but it requires a combination of contributory factors.

The first is grace. Grace in understanding that we are all human and susceptible to sin. God knows this, and He will forgive us. Yet this does not mean we should stop trying to walk away from sin because we know we will be forgiven.

Secondly, we must build habits to rewire our brains to fight against the Hostage Brain. In those moments of weakness where you want to reach for your vices, this is where our habits will help keep us on the proper path.

When we pray, fast, and serve, we rewire the brain to desire what is good, not just what feels good. When we build on these habits over time, there is a steady shift away from craving escape to craving God.

Modern neuroscience shows that dopamine traps us in cycles of pursuit and pain, yet the Church offers an ancient but tried and true remedy: grace through spiritual discipline.

It begins with the choice of wanting to end the cycle of consumption and misery. I’m not saying this is easy, but I’m saying that when God is in the middle, you stand a chance at change, but you have to let Him in to start creating that change. Just as I said earlier in this article, you can’t break the Hostage Brain through willpower alone; it takes grace, habit, and, I will add, also holiness.

Daniel Francis is a millennial helping other millennials. He is a two-time author of the books The Millennial Mind and The Millennial Experience, and an entrepreneur. Over the past four years, he has served as a Personal Development Coach whose work targets Millennials and helps them tap into their full potential. He is also a self-publishing coach and has guided hundreds on self-publishing their book successfully.

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