Dopamine Rehab
When COVID changes the chemistry of joy, motivation, and anticipation, life begins to shrink. This five-session protocol is designed to help your body find its way back.
Remote · Five sessions · $997
You don't miss happiness.
You miss wanting things.
This isn’t sadness. Or depression, or anxiousness. You just...don't feel pulled toward life anymore.
Planning a vacation feels like work.
Choosing something from a menu feels exhausting.
Music doesn't quite reach you.
Books sit unread.
Friends invite you somewhere and your first thought isn't That sounds fun.
It's “That sounds like effort.”
Some people describe it as a grey filter over everything. Others say everything feels heavy. Or flat.
Or as though someone turned the volume down on life.
If this sounds familiar, you're not imagining it.
There's growing evidence that Long COVID changes how the brain creates, releases, and uses dopamine—the chemical that helps us anticipate reward, feel curiosity, experience pleasure, and believe something is worth doing.
Dopamine does far more than make us happy.
So What’s Actually Happening?
Science is rapidly evolving in this arena, but the best explanations currently available include breakdowns (some directly measured in brain imaging, others theorized from how inflammation is known to work) in six different stages of the Dopamine pathway:
PRODUCTION
The enzyme that converts tyrosine to dopamine's building block is getting the signal to activate, but the protein itself often doesn't get made. The instruction is there; the execution fails.
STORAGE
Brain imaging shows measurably fewer dopamine-releasing nerve terminals in people with long COVID. Even where dopamine is produced, there may be less capacity to store and release it.
CLEARANCE
One theory suggests inflammation may cause dopamine to get cleared from the synapse faster than usual, before it can do its work. This idea hasn't yet been tested directly in COVID patients.
REWARD PREDICTION
Brain scans show changes in the regions that weigh effort against reward. Researchers think this may make it harder for the brain to register that effort is worth it — though this link is still being studied.
CORTISOL/HPA AXIS ACTIVATION
Chronic stress hormone activation is known to suppress dopamine more broadly. Some researchers think a similar pattern may be at play in long COVID, though this hasn't been studied directly yet.
INFLAMMATION
The spike protein has been shown to keep triggering inflammatory signaling long after the infection clears. Researchers believe this ongoing inflammation is part of what disrupts dopamine function, though the direct link is still being mapped.
Why I built this protocol
As I kept working with clients, I noticed the same pattern appearing beneath symptoms that looked completely unrelated.
Loss of joy.
Food changes.
ADHD-like symptoms.
Pain.
Sleep disruption.
The more I studied the biology, the more those pieces began fitting together.
This protocol grew out of that work.
What we’ll do
What we'll do together
Week One
Find the first opening.
A shift your body can actually feel.
Week Two
Begin reducing the background emergency.
Week Three
Help your nervous system experience a different baseline.
Week Four
Work directly with the pathways that support motivation, anticipation, and reward.
Week Five
Consolidate what's changing and decide what comes next.
What Clients have experienced
“Everything felt heavy.”
Here, creativity meets opportunity. Whatever you're building, we're here to help you take the first step with confidence. Driven by curiosity and built on purpose, this is where bold thinking meets thoughtful execution. Let’s create something meaningful together.
“Food tasted like cardboard.”
Here, creativity meets opportunity. Whatever you're building, we're here to help you take the first step with confidence. Driven by curiosity and built on purpose, this is where bold thinking meets thoughtful execution. Let’s create something meaningful together.
“Twelve days later, I was taking off on an overseas trip with my daughter.”
Here, creativity meets opportunity. Whatever you're building, we're here to help you take the first step with confidence. Driven by curiosity and built on purpose, this is where bold thinking meets thoughtful execution. Let’s create something meaningful together.
Is this right for you?
Checklist.
Simple.
This protocol may be a good fit if...
This probably isn't the place to start if...
Investment
Five sessions.
$997.
Remote.
Discovery call.
Done.
You deserve to recognize yourself again.
One of the hardest parts of Long COVID is wondering whether this is simply who you've become.
I've wondered that too.