Dopamine: a neurotransmitter, the main reason we have a "rewards" system in our brains. Doing various activities will release Dopamine into our brains and it makes us feel good. But not everything that releases dopamine is necessarily good for you, like certain types of illicit drugs. The drugs in question today can be bought and purchased in many stores in your local area. They are mediums that take raw information and display them in ways that are easy for any one person to perceive and understand clearly. These mediums are books, music, and the combining of the two, movies.
Release the dopamine!
Have you ever gotten "chills" from hearing a song? Is there a time where you read a single line of a book and suddenly, the hairs on your neck are straight up? Well, those are signs of dopamine being released throughout your brain. Especially in songs, the mind will predict where a climax will happen in a song as it hears it, and the chills we get just means the brain is ready to let it all out. A similar process happens to frequent drug users and it might be just as gratifying, if not more. So, an addiction to something as harmless as music is not only possible, but it's almost comparable to a drug addiction, just without any life threatening and/or negative effects.
The chilling evidence
Studies show that only about 50% of people experience "the chills" from music and it is believed to be linked to a reward pathway in the brain that has existed since the first wave of Homo Sapiens. Music was one of the first ways humans would share knowledge and experiences through mediums and it's not hard to believe that that's why music is so highly cherished by societies around the globe.
It's been around for millennia and it's not going anywhere anytime soon. So, if you are prone to chills from things like movies and music, what does that say about you as a person?
What the chills say about you
Everyone differs in infinitely many ways, but a study was done on people that are prone to get chills from mediums.
They found that those who are more likely to experience a chilly dopamine release are also more open to new experiences. This might be because someone who is willing to try something new is far more likely to learn an instrument compared to someone who doesn't. So, for all you music lovers out there that frequently satisfy themselves with organized airwaves, enjoy that chill that creeps down your back because half of the world never will. Make music your full-time drug.
