5 Things You Do Every Day That Are Actually Addictions

It's pretty strange, when you really stop and think about it. In most expressive arts we tend to value ability -- so why do the teeming masses prefer simple pop instead of, say, complex progressive music or speed metal, which, according to fans, require a lot more technical prowess from the artists? Why aren't little girls going to school with Yngwie Malmsteen backpacks (besides, you know, the very idea being creepy as hell)?

Maybe it's a marketing thing. Maybe the music has a wide generational appeal. Or, hell, maybe everyone is just flat out stupid. Or maybe it's because your brain is so hooked on pop music that it doesn't matter what you think.

The Addiction:

Yes, pop music is basically cranial crack, to the point that scientists have actually been able to predict which songs would become big sellers by hooking kids up to an MRI scanner and playing previously unheard pop tunes for them. When a future hit came on, the pleasure center of the brain lit up like a Christmas tree.

Here's the curious thing: The participants were also surveyed about the songs, and the reviews they gave them were significantly different from what their brain scans revealed. Yes, although the songs gave their brains the kind of high you usually have to break a bunch of laws to achieve, they consciously went against their brainwaves in order to seem less inclined to pop music than the MRI scanner showed they were.

And not only does your brain go apeshit when it hears catchy, poppy music, but also it actually derives pleasure from predicting the melodies as you listen, anticipating the emotion associated with certain types of music. This leads to a one-two punch where you get one thrill when your brain is expecting something to happen, and when it actually does another rush of dopamine comes in from an entirely different part of the brain. And this is where your brain enters Addict Mode. The easiest way for it to get its dopamine fix is tunes that are simple, predictable and repetitive -- so that's what it prefers, no matter your views on the artistic merits. That's right -- no matter how carefully hipster you are, or how hardcore a metalhead image you maintain, your brain is secretly into Bieber.

The Addiction:

Let's take on salt first. You need salt (or more specifically, sodium) to live -- it regulates blood pressure and keeps your nerves working. Your body has no means of producing it, and humans evolved in an environment where salt is a trace element (making it so valuable that in the old days it was commonly used as a form of currency). So your brain has evolved to treat it like precious gold. Or, you know, cocaine.

Salty foods may in fact act as an antidepressant, the brain's way of rewarding us for staving off extinction. And just as with any addiction, the brain doesn't know when to turn it off -- the pleasure centers of your brain get accustomed to the high, demanding more and more. And, just to make things even worse, salt may actually contribute to changing our brain chemistry, so that instead of feeling full after eating, we just keep craving more. Combining it with fat and other elements in junk food is actually thought to be about as addictive as heroin.

That's why, while salt may have been rare at one time, it sure as hell isn't rare in the junk food aisle -- the average American consumes over twice as much sodium as needed every day, which in turn contributes to the 400,000 heart disease deaths every year.

OK, so what the hell is the deal with spicy or "hot" foods? Why do we voluntary subject our mouths to actual pain, even from childhood (to the point that one school had to ban Flamin' Hot Cheetos because the kids were so into them that they were leaving trails of that orange powdery residue everywhere)?

The chemicals in spicy food irritate the trigeminal nerve, which is responsible for, oh, not much, just all the sensation in your goddamned face. Scientists theorize that the irritation causes the brain to release endorphins to ease the discomfort by, well, giving the eater a natural high. And like any high, you want it again, and to make it more intense. That's right -- people who love spicy foods are addicted to pain.

If we were compiling a list of boring, harmless things impossible to get hooked on, chances are lip balm would be #1, except it's so boring and harmless that we'd probably forget to include it. Yet ...

The Addiction:

... there are actual websites out there dedicated solely to helping people overcome their lip balm addiction. There are actual living and breathing people claiming to be addicted to goddamn ChapStick. Occasionally, they will even seek help from the Internet for their crippling addiction ... with the exact results you'd expect.

But all the snarkiness behind that link does in fact hide a few interesting points. For instance, the mention that the supposed buzz you get from using lip balm is actually caused by the menthol, camphor and phenol used in it. Now wait just a second. Phenol? The same phenol that is corrosive to the eyes, skin and respiratory tract, and is also used as an embalming agent? The same phenol that can cause instantaneous death after injecting one gram?

Yep, that's the one. Lip balm maker Carmex claims that it's included in the mix to "reduce the itching and burning associated with dry chapped lips." What they completely fail to mention, however, is the fact that this stuff -- along with a bunch of other substances commonly used in lip balms -- will actually irritate your lips more in the long run. That's right, the greasy crap you are slathering on your lips in an effort to keep them from flaking off is actually the very thing that's drying them out. What's worse, you tend to lick your lips a lot when you use lip balm, which also contributes to the dryness.

The relief from the dryness and discomfort that a lip balm provides your pie hole is a temporary fix, kind of like a smoker who suppresses his tobacco cough with another cigarette. This rush combines with the habit of compulsively applying the balm. When you throw some oral fixation into the mix (which, as any ex-smoker who has found himself chewing through a fountain pen will testify, is a bitch to get over), it all adds up to a pretty legitimate, if extremely stupid, psychological addiction.

It's possible you know (and maybe hate) at least one person who describes herself as a "tanning addict." When someone deliberately wears a tag like that, it tends to come off as a desperate "Look at me!" more than anything else. Let's face it: Suntans are cool and all, but who in their right mind could be addicted to intentionally exposing the largest organ in the entire human body to damaging, cancer-causing radiation?

Hell, after the total war we waged against the ozone layer in the '80s, it's a miracle we don't explode like microwaved hot dogs every time we make contact with sunlight. And don't even start with the beaches or solariums -- indoor tanning is just as bad, if not worse. So why would any sane person continue to actively tan, let alone bullshit us about being addicted to it?

The Addiction:

Because it actually gets you high, that's why.

Tanning meets all the criteria for a drug that creates psychological addiction. The mechanism isn't much different from spicy foods -- in the process of frying themselves, a frequent tanner experiences a release of those same beta-endorphins, the morphine-like opioids that your brain creates to numb pain and deal with stress, presumably because it thinks that your body is currently in the process of being slowly grilled to a crisp. And just like with regular morphine, you can get addicted to the pleasurable sensation.

Actually, you know what? Let's ditch the morphine comparison completely, because it turns out tanning beta-endorphins can be up to 80 times more powerful than the big M. Hell, tanning can even create the physical sort of dependency regular drug users know and love, complete with withdrawal symptoms that can easily be every bit as severe as those of heroin.

To study the effects, or maybe just because they wanted to jerk people around, researchers gave frequent tanners and occasional tanners a drug that blocked their opioid receptors, negating the high they are able to get from narcotics. Then they turned the subjects loose in a tanning salon. The occasional tanners experienced no ill effects, but the frequent tanners soon developed nausea and jitteriness so severe some of them actually had to drop out of the test.

But then there's the people who start eating their ice, crunching through it as if they've been draining their Coke just to get to it. It's such a common habit that restaurant ice machines are specially designed to create ice that's fun or easy to chew. And yes, people get hooked on it.

The Addiction:

Ice chewing, or pagophagia, is a subset of a larger disorder known as pica, which causes people to crave things with no nutritional value (including much rarer and weirder compulsions like dirt, paper, chalk or even feces). Ice chewing specifically usually indicates iron deficiency, and chewers may actually be subconsciously trying to get the nutrients they're lacking from the water. This is further evidenced by the fact that ice actually tastes better to an anemic person, presumably because the brain is jonesing for a fix of that sweet, sweet Fe.

And here's the thing with ice chewing: it's a big, widespread thing. People have been munching on frozen water from at least the 17th century, and since the habit has no actual downside apart from brainfreeze and funny looks from other people, it tends to be for life.

Of course, not all ice chewers are in it out of habit or misplaced iron deficiency. Some do it for the kicks. And, as is the case for every single fetish you can imagine (and many, many, many that you really shouldn't), there is a home for those people on the Internet.

And see how video games keep you around in 5 Creepy Ways Video Games Are Trying to Get You Addicted. Or learn about The 5 Greatest Things Ever Accomplished While High.

And stop by LinkSTORM because soon LOLcats will be classified as an addiction, too.

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