This post distills my findings on the Dopamine reward system, from digging into resources from Andrew Huberman and Anna Lembke. Specifically:

• How the Dopamine reward system functions

• How to think about Dopamine

• Protocols to increase baseline levels of dopamine

• Protocols to ensure you’re not living in a deficit state -- to maintain system-wide dopamine to ensure consistent motivation and satisfaction from life’s experiences

Dopamine is a major factor in regulating our quality of life:

• how much satisfaction and pleasure we’re able to feel from experiences

• belief in our ability to accomplish things

• how motivated we are to do things

And - irregular behavior patterns that create dopamine deficit states can be the cause of anxiety, depression, and ADHD.

When we indulge in a dopamine-releasing activity, our baseline dopamine levels peak.

After the peak, there’s an equal and opposite dip below baseline.

We experience the dip as a craving — i.e. wanting another drink, bite, or notification.

If during a dip, we attempt to get back to our baseline by engaging in the activity again, it will rise slightly temporarily, but then drop even further down into a deficit, creating more craving.

Feelings of restlessness, depression, or anxiety can be a result of being in this perpetual deficit state, where you’re fighting just to get back to baseline.

An example of this is opening your phone to check notifications. And, after a few minutes, feeling a craving, and checking them again. This second time, the burst of pleasure from checking is much less, and you feel much more restless and unmotivated afterwards.

Dopamine is a Currency

Understand that dopamine is a currency. When you use it, you have less available system-wide.

1) Recognize what things give you a major peak.

Common peak-inducing activities:

• Social Media

• Novel information (news, etc.)

• Text messages

• Pornography

• Orgasm

• Nicotine

• Alcohol

• Chocolate

• Cannabis

• Amphetamines

2) Save it.

Be aware of spending on things you don’t deem important to your well-being.

Spend it wisely on things you deem important, and for rewards that equal the effort:

• Hitting a goal you’ve set out for yourself

• Meaningful work

• Social connection

• Life’s pleasures: art, nature, special meals, experiences

• Developing your craft or hobby

Be conscious of peaks

• Not too high

  • Layering peak-inducing activities, or having major peak inducing activities, will inevitably result in a dip/deficit state. Layering will reduce your innate motivation to do that activity in the future (i.e. always listening to music + drinking pre-workout before a workout)

• Not too often

  • Frequently indulging in peak-inducing activities will keep you in a deficit state, craving more of the thing

    • i.e. checking Instagram or Whatsapp every hour will give you an initial peak the first hour, but the pleasure will diminish each subsequent time you check it, and drive you further into a deficit

    • This deficit state can materialize as a restlessness, anxiety, lack of motivation to follow through on hard work, lack of satisfaction in life, or lack of self-belief to achieve hard things. You’ll need more and more stimulation (dopamine-releasing activities) in order to simply feel content.

3) Weather the Dips

When you experience a dip, stay with it.

Resist the craving to do something to get back to baseline — this will drive you further into a dip and keep you in a perpetual deficit state; restless, craving, anxious, unmotivated.

4) Do Hard Things

Challenging, effortful activities train your reward system, and induce a natural rise in system-wide dopamine levels.

Examples:

• Effortful focus/work on a task

• Challenging workout

• Ice bath / cold shower

• Sauna

It’s been proven that you can rewire the system / train it to enjoy challenging activities, by subjectively telling yourself “this is good, I’m retraining my reward system, doing hard things is rewarding.”

I want to enjoy the simple pleasures of life — nature, a meal with friends, music. I’ve struggled to fully enjoy these things for much of my adult life, and I understand that my perpetual dopamine deficit state is largely the reason.

I don’t want to feel anxious, restless, or needing more and more in order to feel content, complete.

I want to be innately motivated to develop my craft as an artist, believe I’m able to, and have the neurochemical life force to do it.

Things i’ve modified:

• limiting whatsapp/imessage — checking messages 1-2x per day only

• limiting checking of email

• cannabis less frequently

• sugar on rare occasion

• cacao less frequently

• alcohol on rare occasion

• limiting of news feeds

Before doing something you know is going to spike a dopamine level, you can ask yourself — is this a worthy use of my currency?

Is it worth the dip?

Am i acting from a place of filling a craving, to get back to baseline? Do i want to simply exacerbate the feeling?

Or am I consciously deciding to engage in this activity because I feel it’s worth it & part of enjoying life? (i.e. eating chocolate dessert with friends)