Dopamine Molestation
Being controlled by our dopamine levels may not sound that important to you until you realise how to control it yourself and therefore control how pleasurable your life is.
After this article, you’re going to know all you need to know about the neurotransmitter in your brain, dopamine. What it is, how it works, why you want it and some uselessly fascinating facts you can spit out at the dinner table tonight to flex over your peers, thus feeling superior and leading to an increase in your dopamine levels.
None of us really have the time to indulge ourselves in the world of neuroscience and biochemistry in order to understand dopamine — instead I have done the studying and shall drop the necessary knowledge bombs needed for you to make practical use of in your every day life.
📈 Why Optimise Dopamine 🏆
You and I have different baseline levels of dopamine, some people are a little more excited or motivated and some not so much. You can thank your either marvellous or subpar genetics for this. The baseline is called the Tonic Level. The Phasic Level is the peak — when you experience something of high pleasure.
It’s important to note that these 2 levels are linked and affect each other. The higher the peaks, the lower the baseline. To understand this, think about when you do something you enjoy a little too often. It ends up being less enjoyable right? Or you need more of it in order to achieve the same amount of pleasure that you’re used to. I speak about a reward system in my Variable Reward article that combats this fatigue on joy.
The way we experience life is based upon how much dopamine we have — the problem with that is the dopamine crash. When we experience a peak, it is followed by a crash leaving us in a dopamine deficit, thus resulting in low motivation and drive. This crash is proportional to the intensity of the peak and the inferior feeling we have during this phase lasts as long as it takes for dopamine to rise back to your baseline level.
After a marathon runner has finished their race, they’ll often report feeling unmotivated. This is due to working very hard, building up to that peak of dopamine, completing the tough obstacle and then the very next day they wake up to their dopamine deficit.
🙇🏼 Feel Good Hormone ✌🏼
Being a neurotransmitter it acts like a hormone — which it is not, although it’s often referred to as the ‘happy hormone’ — that travels through your nervous system as a message, giving you the effects of pleasure, reward and motion. Most notably, pleasure.
Seriously, pleasure is the big one here.
Complex topic short — cocaine is the most popular drug in the world thanks to dopamine. When taking cocaine, the presynaptic cell releases a large amount of dopamine in a sudden burst. These dopamine surges help the brain learn and adapt in a natural world. This is the reason why cocaine can become so addictive. The excessive release of dopamine is tricking your brain into believing and adapting to this idea that cocaine is good since it has triggered your reward hormone, dopamine. Typically this is only done once you have accomplished a hard task — that hard task eventually becomes trying to acquire more cocaine to fill the addiction.
‘The problem is that pleasure experienced without prior requirement for pursuit is terrible for us’
— Andrew D. Huberman
🍫 The Sweet Spot 🎯
As with getting rich, there is no one single formula that works for everyone but there are many ways in which you can experiment with for yourself. Rather than just increasing your dopamine levels we will want to regulate them. Meaning we want to get our bursts of dopamine with peaks that are not too high that result in a heavy crash leading to a lack of motivation. Experiencing more frequent smaller peaks seem to be the way to go here.
What are the ways we can do this?
Avoiding stimulants too often
Going to the gym often, I use pre-workout often. After some time the effects of the pre-workout became less and I needed to take more. Rather than relying on the pre-workout and becoming addicted to it, I can use it less often and reap the benefits of what it’s made for. I write about this in my Variable Reward article.Avoid layering of peaks
My gym sessions typically include pre-workout before, listening to music and socialising. The result was feeling a little unmotivated after the gym due to the crash and after some time the pre-workout isn’t effective and the music just doesn’t pump me up like it used to. This made going to gym without those factors particularly difficult because I had layered the peaks on top of each other. Not using all of these at once is the best way to avoid peaking and crashing. It also ensures the longevity of pleasure for doing the activity.Cold plunge / shower
This is by far my favourite dopamine rush activity. This seems to be the most effective way of sustaining a high dopamine level for multiple hours with a minimal crash. During the month of January I would go down to the river and get into the icy water 3 times a week. My days afterwards were incredibly productive and filled with energy. The length of time you need to spend in the cold water depends on the temperature of the water. If you are to do this in the shower, you can spend just 30–60 seconds in the cold water. How cold? As long as the water is cold enough to shock your body. You’ll notice this in your immediate breath change. Afterwards you will feel on top of the world. Honestly I could turn cold plunges into a whole article — I am a big fan!
Intermittent dopamine fasting
Doing something everyday at the same time will train your brain on the pattern. This will result in a crash when you do not stick to this pattern and most likely lead to craving. Instead, you can change up the activity and time of when you do it or just do it less often this week.Doing a tough activity
When you associate friction with an activity you will develop your internal reward system. Pushing through a healthy amount of friction, a fine line between pleasure and pain, will spike your dopamine and leave you feeling rewarded afterwards. Doing this often has a compounding effect that often runs over into other aspects of your life.
📠 Fun facts 💃🏼
Things that you ingest or do that increase dopamine release.
Chocolate — 1.5x
Sex, both the pursuit and the act — 2x
Cocaine — 2.5x
Amphetamine — 10x
Exercise when you enjoy it — 2x
Exercise when you do NOT enjoy it — no increase
Cold water — 2.5x (With a sustained rise taking up to 3 hours to get back to baseline)
🔬 The Dopamine Guy 🏋🏼
As a huge influence on my life I wanted to share one of my major sources of inspiration. My introduction to dopamine was from none other than Andrew Huberman, a neuroscientist and tenured professor in the department of neurobiology and by courtesy, psychiatry and behavioural sciences at Stanford School of Medicine.
Most notably he is a skateboarder. Growing up in California in the late 80s, early 90s he was surrounded by the skateboarders that paved the way for what you see in skateboarding today. Yep, that’s the most important fact since this is how I got hooked on all his podcasts. Initially I didn’t know he was a skateboarder but I found myself returning to his podcasts often — I’ve since discovered that there seems to be a way of speaking and thinking that only skateboarders have, that allows me to more easily resonate with them.
Anyway, he was my introduction to dopamine and I would highly recommend checking out HubermanLab to find out more fascinating topics that will help your everyday life.
🔚 Ciao For Now 👋🏼
My curiosity towards neuroscience has grown over the last year and it all started with dopamine. I hope you managed to get some benefit out of today. I’d love to hear any comments or queries you have and as a like an subscribe would mean the world to me.
Check you soon 🤙🏼