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What Is Dopamine?

Dopamine is released when you are doing something pleasurable or when your brain is expecting a reward.

If you associate an activity with pleasure, merely anticipating it will increase dopamine.

When dopamine is released, you will seek more of that feeling. This is the main cause of addictions and why things like sex, amphetamines, sugar, and cocaine are so addicting. They spike dopamine high above baseline, then drop it just as far below baseline, causing you to feel worse (more dopamine depleted) than you did before the activity.

This causes you to want the dopamine hit even more, and you need increasingly larger dopamine hits to get back to baseline, which is the cycle of addiction.

This is how porn, media, and modern society in general, have been able to ensnare us in their clutches, they make our brain less and less sensitive to its own neurotransmitters. You need more and more stimulus (more exciting video games, kinkier and kinkier porn) to get the same dopamine release, and things that you once found interesting (books, sports, conversations with friends, whatever), are no longer stimulating enough.

Having fried dopamine receptors and a low baseline is a one-way ticket to depression. However, if you have a high dopamine baseline, doing hard things will feel good, and simple things will bring you pleasure.

“A good life is a progressive expansion of the things that bring you pleasure and includes pleasure through motivation and hard work.”- Andrew Huberman.

This is what happens when you restore your dopamine receptors, you enjoy doing hard things, and the hard things move you toward your goals.

We’ve all had low dopamine before. It’s the feeling you have after a big loss or after your drug of choice fades off, basically when you feel like doing nothing but sitting around and feasting on instant gratification, It feels like sh*t!

High dopamine is the opposite. You want to build, create, and learn. Dopamine drives forward the evolution of our species. You want dopamine, and you want it in abundance.

How to use this info to your advantage

Spikes in dopamine are always followed by drops in dopamine. the higher the spike, the lower the fall. The key is to try to avoid dopaminergic activities that bring you pleasure but don’t require effort/pursuit. The optimal strategy is to increase baseline levels while avoiding huge spikes (and drops) along the way.

A great way to do this is to adopt what is called a “Growth Mindset”. This is a state of being in which you derive pleasure from effortful activity on the way to achieving your goals. Over time, you’ll train your brain to release dopamine during effortful activities, and gradually, the effort becomes the reward.

Here are some activities that will increase your dopamine baseline

• Proper nutrition
• Proper rest
• Proper exercise
• Positive Mental Attitude/Compassion/Generosity
• Meditation
• Journaling
• Cold Showers
• Yoga
• Learning
• Embracing discomfort
• Quality socialization

Here are some activities that will decrease your baseline

• Improper nutrition: overeating, processed foods
• Sugar
• Sedentariness
• Poor mental hygiene
• Porn
• Masturbation
• Drugs (especially stimulants)
• Social Media
• Video Games
• Seeking comfort

If a majority of your daily activities are in the latter category than something called a dopamine detox will do you wonders. This is when you time to avoid all stimulating activities. No phone, computer, music, junk food, or masturbation. Instead, you can meditate, read, reflect, exercise, eat well, and walk. The longer you can do this, the better. However, even a day will make a drastic difference, and you will be able to see the effects your bad habits are having on you from a clearer point of view.

Hope this helps someone out! Remember, when you are deliberately doing things that suck, your baseline of dopamine increases, which in simple terms means better life. Embrace discomfort my friends!