This week, I’m taking a partial respite from work (“I will be out of the office with intermittent access to email; if you need immediate assistance, please contact ….”).

In my days as a “podium” law professor, this was easy. In the six and a half years since I started effectively running a small law practice, I’ve rarely had the luxury of shutting things very far down.

I’m not complaining. Sure, being on call 365 days a year is exhausting, but it’s had its rewards too.

Like many lawyers, I feel a strong sense of purpose from helping people navigate through the turbulent waters of the legal system. That sense of purpose can generate deeper reserves of energy than we knew we possessed.

But at times, I’ve suspected that something a little more sinister could be at work too — something a little like addiction.

law practice and the dopamine system

As lawyers, we often take pride in our work. We take the cell phone call with one hand while typing a brief with the other, then hit Send in time to dash off to court and advocate passionately for our clients.

It’s fast. It’s hard. The stakes are high.

When we succeed, we get rewards, both extrinsic and intrinsic. The more we succeed, the more opportunities come our way. The more opportunities, the more fast-paced, high-stakes challenges. We run, we fight, we succeed, we get rewarded. And the cycle begins again.

There’s a name for this: It’s called the dopamine effect.

Our brains produce dopamine when we get rewarded. Dopamine tells us, This is good; seek more of this.

Up to a point, that’s adaptive behavior. The problem arises when we get very intense hits of dopamine, or at very frequent intervals.

Eventually, in response to all that dopamine, our brains start to down-regulate our natural production of the chemical. Then, if we don’t get frequent and strong external stimuli of our dopamine system, we can start to feel listless, meaningless. That’s what happens to people who get addicted to strong stimuli like drugs, alcohol, gambling, or gaming.

If you’re a lawyer, you already know: Succeeding in a high-stakes legal game provides no less a dopamine hit than any of those common addictions. So if you’ve been feeling like your work — which you love, which brings a sense of purpose to your life — also somehow owns you, maybe you’re stuck in a dopamine feedback loop.

Dopamine Detox for Lawyers

The good news is that research suggests even a short step back may reset your brain. Try a “dopamine detox.”

For lawyers, that can be tricky, because obligations often require some level of constant connectedness. That doesn’t have to be a barrier. They key, researchers say, is to find the specific triggers that make you crave a dopamine hit and scale back on those particular influences.

Anna Lembke, psychiatrist and author of Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence, suggests starting with the thing that seems to “take you over,” the thing you feel a little compulsive about. Simply cutting that thing back or out may only leave you feeling anxious — but it might point to something else in your life that drives the anxiety.

Maybe you tend to work very late, even though you’ve been meaning to get more sleep. Simply forcing yourself to go to bed earlier may only leave you tossing and turning. What’s the point?

By becoming curious about your sleeplessness, however, you might notice something related — like maybe you’re most likely to work too late on weeks when the client has called frequently. Could you be carrying the client’s anxiety for her? Striving too hard to please because he reminds you of your dearly departed dad?

Sometimes, Lembke suggests, locating and easing off those triggers helps relieve the need for the dopamine hit that we get from reflexively responding. Maybe you can arrange for your law partners to take some of the client’s calls. (Are you sure the client wouldn’t benefit from another contact?)

Step One: Admitting You Have a Problem

Honestly, none of this ever occurred to me before tonight.

Maybe dopamine doesn’t affect me. Maybe I just love my work. Maybe you do too.

Or maybe it took a week of stepping back to see what’s been staring me in the face (or flooding me in the brain) for a while now.

And maybe we could love our law practice even more, and fulfill our sense of purpose more deeply, by becoming more aware of and rebalancing our health with the occasional dopamine detox.