Do You Know How Substantial A Role Dopamine Plays In Your Life?
Dopamines confusing consequences and how to take advantage of dopamine for better motivation, drive and pursuit.
Ever been thrilled to do something and then two months later you find yourself dreading the thought of even doing it? This is because of the controversial molecule dopamine. Dopamine is responsible for many functions of the body but I will be focusing on its role for motivation, drive and pursuit. When you feel like you have low motivation then you have low dopamine. When you have high motivation and want to pursue your goals you then have high dopamine.
Dopamine is a neuromodulator which affects a wide range of neurones and it can increase or decrease the activity of neurones. There are 5 pathways dopamine can take but I’ll mainly be talking about the mesocortical pathway today. Before you run away from hearing science talk don’t worry I’ll talk about it in simple terms. The mesocortical pathway is when dopamine is sent to the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex size in humans is what separates us from animals. The prefrontal cortex is responsible for decision making and takes consideration of the context so some actions are acceptable in certain surroundings(context) and some are not, which means the prefrontal cortex is also involved in suppressing actions and thoughts if they are not suitable for the current context. The prefrontal cortex can be trained either to your advantage or detriment.
There is always a baseline level of dopamine in the blood which is the level of dopamine being regularly released. Your dopamine baseline affects how you feel and your motivation and drive to pursue things outside of yourself. Dopamine is the molecule of want and pursuit to reach your goals. Now the major part of dopamine that causes many bad things is its peaks. When dopamine peaks we feel amazing in the moment with unlimited drive and pursuit where it feels like you can run through walls. However with every peak comes a crash. We have a regular release of dopamine through vesicles that output dopamine to many neurones but if we have a higher amount of dopamine released then it makes sense there will be less dopamine to be released after the peak because our dopamine reserves have been depleted. This causes the crash below baseline where we feel no motivation and feel terrible. There are many examples of this like crashes after drug abuse and the lack of motivation you feel after achieving a massive goal.
The Downsides Of Dopamine
One key thing to understand is dopamine affects how we feel not just by how much there is but by the dopamine we have experienced prior. This dictates our enjoyment of everything, say if you watched a video and thought that was boring you may have found it more interesting if you didn’t watch the video before which evoked a higher dopamine peak than the current video you were watching. But also if you had low dopamine before it would affect your ability to feel motivated in the moment . All because of your dopamine levels prior which affects your current state. This has a part to play In addiction as well.
Dopamine’s Role in Addiction
The behaviour someone is addicted to has a high dopamine release which makes them do it only for pleasure but the more they continue to indulge in the activity the more and more they find themselves indulging in it not because of the pleasure but because of the pain of being without that behaviour. An even more cruel thing that dopamine does to us is that the more you engage in an activity which causes a peak in dopamine the shorter the peak will be and deeper the crash will be which means you enjoy the activity less and the crash that comes feels worse. Pretty mean isn’t it? And finally to finish off your overall understanding of addiction. The thing that makes someone want something is not when dopamine is high when they want the thing but actually the small crash that ensues after not getting the thing they wanted which then makes them go seek the thing to get rid of the pain. So it’s not about getting pleasure, it’s more about stopping the pain coming from the lack of that thing we want.
Dopamine’s Role in Procrastination
As a result of low dopamine levels we have low motivation which subsequently causes us to procrastinate as we dont have the drive to pursue our goals. You may feel helpless when you’re in this position as you can’t spike dopamine or it’ll crash and you’ll be in the same place you started an hour later but what if I told you we can quickly rebound from this non-motivated state. We can rebound from procrastination by doing something harder than the situation we are currently in. It may sound stupid that you can get motivation from doing something harder than the state you’re currently in but this works on the fact that the steeper the crash in dopamine the faster it rises back to baseline. So if you quickly crash your dopamine by doing a hard task that you don’t want to do your crash will be steep which will then lead to a steep rise back to baseline.
A way to implement this is to have a shortlist of activities you hate doing. Anything you think you would rather not do at the moment is the exact type of activities that should be on the list. Just a moment of uncomfortableness will lead to you quickly jumping out of your procrastination and back to pursuing your goals.
The Best Way To Release Dopamine
To avoid the consequences of constantly spiking dopamine you should vary dopamine release. This is called intermittent release of dopamine where dopamine released with the activity varies in quantity or might not even be released at all. This is used in all addictive behaviours to keep people hooked. For example, winning once every 100 tries in a slot machine to keep you hooked and wondering and craving when the next dopamine release will come which is winning. When you scroll on your phone, not every video hooks you and therefore you keep scrolling to find the perfect video which will elicit dopamine release. This makes use of dopamine’s love for novelty. Anything novel dopamine will pursue so by varying the amount of dopamine released by an activity it keeps it novel and the dopamine system to continually pursue it as it cannot predict the dopamine release it will cause.
Now you might think I know intermittent release of dopamine will keep us motivated towards our goals and is the basis of every addictive action in the world but how do I implement it in my daily life? The intermittent schedule can be implemented in many ways like removing the layering of dopamine for activities you want to enjoy. Say you go to the gym or study or do anything that requires cognitive focus. You may ingest some caffeine and listen to your favourite music to get you as motivated as possible to crush your goals. But the problem with this is the problem with everything that is associated with dopamine. It causes a spike in dopamine which then leads to a crash. And because you spiked your dopamine so high during this activity the next time you try the activity your brain needs more conditions to experience pleasure and start the activity. Next time you do an activity you enjoy flip a coin whether to remove your layering of dopamine on the activity like if a coin lands on heads then no music or no caffeine and this incorporates that intermittent release of dopamine as you can’t control it.
Another way to make sure you continue to enjoy the activity is that you can’t celebrate every win. Sure celebrate most of your wins but some just restrict yourself and think that’s nice I won but dont go over the top. This limits the release of dopamine as if you’re setting a limiter on yourself for that moment which comes back to the key principle the higher the peak the deeper the crash.
3 Ways To Maintain Healthy Dopamine Reserves To Have A Better Baseline
Regardless of whether you constantly spike your dopamine or not you still need healthy levels of dopamine reserves to begin with before you can think of maintaining a good baseline level of dopamine. You need to have dopamine to release in the first place and your dopamine reserves can be significantly reduced by not doing some non negotiable things every 24 hours which will naturally lead to less motivation which will make achieving your goals much harder. It’s easier to swim with the tide by doing an activity with motivation rather than trying to grind through an activity without motivation. So how do you make sure you have more dopamine reserves to keep your dopamine baseline levels higher.
By the way, if you’re enjoying the article, considering subscribing to get my articles in your inbox every Saturday. It’s completely free and you can unsubscribe at any time if my articles no longer provide value to you.
Firstly, Nutrition is key being able to produce dopamine. Tyrosine is the limiting factor on how much dopamine can be produced. Tyrosine is found in many foods like dairy, chicken and avocado so just make sure you’re getting enough of the right type of food each day to properly have enough tyrosine so it doesn’t limit how much dopamine you can produce.
Secondly, you need to engage In a regular exercise routine. This is because regular movement and engaging in movement engages the nigrostriatal pathway of dopamine. Don’t run away yet! Thank you for staying the nigrostriatal pathway is responsible for movement which in fact uses dopamine for movement. The amount of dopamine can even affect if we move or suppress moving which makes sense because when we are highly motivated we want to burst out the door and run to our goals. Coming back to exercise increasing baseline dopamine, exercise engages this nigrostriatal pathway responsible for movement which uses dopamine to move which means you are releasing regular amounts of dopamine from exercise.
Finally, adequate amounts of sleep replenishes dopamine and light exposure can enhance dopamine release. Light exposure between the hours of 10pm and 4am have been shown to reduce levels of dopamine for several days after the light exposure so make sure you don’t view light at night. But it is also important to view sunlight in the morning as the cells in your retina (back of your eye) sense the sunlight and sets off a cascade of dopamine and elevated mood to boost you for the morning.
Cold Exposure
Cold exposure is an amazing tool that can cause a 2.5x increase of dopamine above baseline and before you say won’t that cause a crash later on. No, as this increase is sustained for up to 5 hours after. The increase in dopamine baseline by cold exposure is the same as the peak caused by nicotine and cocaine which shows how effective cold exposure can be. The guidelines are between 30 seconds and 2 minutes in 27-55 Fahrenheit water up to the neck. The main way to do this is to run a cold bath and if you want it to be colder you can put ice in it. Also if you have resistance trained before the cold exposure leave at least 6 hours until you immerse yourself as it can greatly suppress strength and hypertrophy adaptations which is why it makes more sense to do it in the morning or before resistance training. However if you become cold adapted the cold will not elicit the same adrenaline response and then dopamine release will not occur. Also it can be seen to shift muscle fibres to more type 1 muscle fibres which is why I personally do not use ice baths myself as I am focusing on getting more fast twitch type 2 muscle fibres but for everything else ice baths look like a miracle tool with almost no downsides except getting adapted to the ice bath which will stop dopamine release. To overcome this you can make the water colder and colder as you start getting adapted to make sure you truly suffer in that tub.
You may be asking why does the sustained 2.5x increase above baseline dopamine not cause a massive crash hours later. This is where we get deeper into the science of baseline dopamine. The steeper the peak rises determines how fast dopamine drops and how deep it crashes past baseline. Because cold exposure causes a moderate slope of dopamine which is then level for hours afterward there is no crash because the peak wasn’t steep and lasted for hours afterwards.
Dopamine can be either helpful or detrimental to your success but it is all in how you use it and not letting it control you. Hopefully with these tools and new understanding of dopamine you can raise baseline levels making you have more motivation for your goals and when you spike dopamine you’ve come to terms with the fact you have to experience a crash afterward. If you have no health problems you can use supplements to raise dopamine. The most common one is l-tyrosine which lasts for 30 minutes but the downside of most supplements is that they cause a crash afterward. Before you use any supplements to ‘optimise’ your dopamine make sure you get your behaviours on track so you already have the best possible baseline dopamine and dopamine reserves before resorting to supplementation. Make sure you do your own research on what might work for you as supplements are crossing into dangerous territory when we start to rely on them. Just make sure to understand the universal rule of dopamine that with every steep peak comes a crash proportional to it.