School of Sacrifice | Dopamine
Peregrino Issue 14
Hello friends, and welcome to another issue of Peregrino. I hope Lent is treating you well and your prayer, fasting, and almsgiving game is on point. If not, you still have time to correct the course. Here are two short essays about what’s been on my mind this week. I hope you enjoy them.
School of Sacrifice
A good priest recently told me that the vocation to be a father and husband is a school of sacrifice—and one from which you never graduate. So I connected this idea to living my (lowercase) priesthood as a father and husband.
A priest’s job is to offer sacrifice. I have intentionally offered up two things for the salvation of my wife and children; cold showers and workout sessions. I —generally—do not enjoy these two activities, so it seems fitting to offer them up.
I recognize that these two activities have health benefits, so isn’t this all benefiting me in the long term? There is no doubt about it. However, what I’m sacrificing is my comfort. Better health is a good exchange for my comfort. I want my children to have a father who can play outside with them and be strong enough to carry them on my back if they tire on the trail or run into the ocean if they carelessly throw themselves into the waves with complete disregard for their danger. Looking at you, Emilio.
I have also been intentional about sacrificing time. On average, my children wake up at 5:00 am, and we put them to bed around 6:00 pm. Between 5:00 and 9:00 am, I spend time with the kiddos while I let Diana rest for a bit longer—I can’t sleep in anyways—, make sure everyone is changed out of their pajamas or at least have a fresh diaper on, empty the dishwasher, make some coffee, get a workout in, hit the cold shower and start work. I break for lunch around noon, then go back until it’s time for dinner.
My children’s day’s first and last hours are the most challenging. They’re starving after fasting for 11 hours. I’m trying to wake up and keep them quiet so Diana can rest. I know Mateo is going to spill the milk in his cereal bowl, yet I still say to myself that today’s the day he masters eating cereal, only to be burned again. After dinner, small things can trigger meltdowns. We’re all tired and cranky. But it is no surprise that I have a better disposition when I pray first thing in the morning. I can handle early morning spills and bedtime mayhem better than on the days I don’t.
For the last seven weeks, I have been carving out an hour to spend in front of the Blessed Sacrament daily. I’m at a 90% success rate when it comes to making it daily to see the Lord. I have been going to the chapel between 7:30 and 8:30 pm. I come back and talk to Diana about what I was reading during my holy hour, we talk about our day, and sometimes we even plan the next day if something significant is happening. Then it’s time for bed.
Saturdays are usually spent working around the house, with the occasional date night or social gathering. We’ve been to several birthday parties lately. On Sundays, we attend Mass and do our best to keep the Sabbath—a day of proper rest and recreation. Recently, I’ve been taking one of the three older kids with me to run errands or get a treat and spend time one-on-one.
This weekend I took Oliver to adoration. I told him we would be there for 15 minutes before we could get a treat. He asked if that was a lot of time. I told him it was half the length of an episode of his favorite show. He said that wasn’t long. And he’s right; it’s not that much in the bigger schema of things.
Every day we get 24 hours, and we can spend that time however we want. There are lots of things competing for our time. God, spouse, family, friends, work, TV, the internet; the list goes on and on. I want to waste as much time as possible on God and my family. If in heaven we are to contemplate the face of God in all His glory, I want to start now, even if it is in a veiled form, by looking at His face in the Eucharist. I want my kids to say, “We were together all the time,” when they remember their childhood.
I’d invite you to take inventory of where your time is going and see if this aligns with your priorities. What comforts can you sacrifice for others? If you are baptized, you are called to be a —lowercase— priest and offer sacrifice. Let’s be the best students in this school of sacrifice, following the example of the master.
Dopamine
I’ve been consuming content created by Dr. Andrew Huberman, professor of Neurobiology and Ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine and host of the Huberman Lab podcast. He discusses science and science-based tools for everyday life.
One of the most exciting things I’ve learned from him is how dopamine is the molecule that drives motivation, craving, and pursuit. And how you can control it to increase focus and avoid and combat addiction and depression.
Here are some of the things Dr. Huberman recommends adding to your daily protocol:
Prioritize sleep.
Sun exposure first thing in the morning.
Delayed caffeine intake, between 60 and 90 minutes after waking up.
Workout in a fasted state.
Practice intermittent fasting.
Cold exposure.
Dr. Huberman has talked about a book called Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence by Dr. Anna Lembke. The description of the book on Amazon states the following “We’re living in a time of unprecedented access to high-reward, high-dopamine stimuli: drugs, food, news, gambling, shopping, gaming, texting, sexting, Facebooking, Instagramming, YouTubing, tweeting . . . The increased numbers, variety, and potency is staggering. The smartphone is the modern-day hypodermic needle, delivering digital dopamine 24/7 for a wired generation. As such, we’ve all become vulnerable to compulsive overconsumption.” The bottom line is that the relentless pursuit of pleasure leads to pain.
I thought about the disciplines Exodus90 proposes, which all aim to regulate this high-reward, high-dopamine stimuli. For example, abstain from eating between meals, abstain from soda and sweet drinks, abstain from desserts and sweets, abstain from alcohol, abstain from unnecessary mobile/computer device use, abstain from video games, abstain from TV and televised sports, abstain from non-essential purchases, abstain from meat, and fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays.
On top of this, its prayer and fellowship aspects make it quite effective, in my opinion, for resetting someone’s dopamine baseline, and attaining freedom, which is the program’s goal.
I’ve been doing this for 50 days, and I can tell you it’s not easy. There are days when I don’t want to work out, I stall before taking a cold shower, and I would love to indulge in Crumbl cookies before bed. But I also feel better than I did before I started. I now know I can live without Instagram or alcohol, or impulsive shopping. I still struggle with going down YouTube rabbit holes, but I’m working on it.
I’m happy with the results so far. I have lost 15 pounds, and I’m starting to get satisfaction from doing difficult things like working out and fasting. A group of men is going through this with me, which has greatly helped. And most importantly, the grace from prayer has overflowed into my family.
Taking care of our bodies and soul is a lifelong process. We must care for our physical and spiritual needs and not neglect either. I’m thankful for people like Dr. Huberman who make knowledge like this readily available so that people can make positive life changes. On the spiritual side, frequenting the sacraments would be the best advice I can give you; second place to that would be practicing virtue.
In the words of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, “The world offers you comfort. But you were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness.” So let’s pray for one another that every day we choose greatness over comfort.