Controlling Your Dopamine For Motivation, Focus & Satisfaction

Huberman Lab

Scicomm Media

Science, Health & Fitness, Life Sciences

4.8 • 26.2K Ratings

🗓️ 27 September 2021

⏱️ 136 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This episode serves as a sort of “Dopamine Masterclass”. I discuss the immensely powerful chemical that we all make in our brain and body: dopamine. I describe what it does and the neural circuits involved. I explain dopamine peaks and baselines, and the cell biology of dopamine depletion. I include 14 tools for how to control your dopamine release for sake of motivation, focus, avoiding and combating addiction and depression, and I explain why dopamine stacking with chemicals and behaviors inevitably leads to states of underwhelm and poor performance. I explain how to achieve sustained increases in baseline dopamine, compounds that injure and protect dopamine neurons including caffeine from specific sources. I describe non-prescription supplements for increasing dopamine—both their benefits and risks—and synergy of pro-dopamine supplements with those that increase acetylcholine. For the full show notes, visit hubermanlab.com. Thank you to our sponsors AG1 (Athletic Greens): https://athleticgreens.com/huberman InsideTracker: https://insidetracker.com/huberman Thesis: https://takethesis.com/huberman Supplements from Momentous https://www.livemomentous.com/huberman Timestamps (00:00:00) Introduction & Tool 1 to Induce Lasting Dopamine (00:04:48) Sponsors (00:09:10) Upcoming (Zero-Cost) Neuroplasticity Seminar for Educators (00:09:58) What Dopamine (Really) Does (00:15:30) Two Main Neural Circuits for Dopamine (00:18:14) How Dopamine Is Released: Locally and Broadly (00:22:03) Fast and Slow Effects of Dopamine (00:25:03) Dopamine Neurons Co-Release Glutamate (00:28:00) Your Dopamine History Really Matters (00:30:30) Parkinson’s & Drugs That Kill Dopamine Neurons. My Dopamine Experience (00:36:58) Tool 3 Controlling Dopamine Peaks & Baselines (00:40:06) Chocolate, Sex (Pursuit & Behavior), Nicotine, Cocaine, Amphetamine, Exercise (00:46:46) Tool 4 Caffeine Increases Dopamine Receptors (00:49:54) Pursuit, Excitement & Your “Dopamine Setpoint” (00:56:46) Your Pleasure-Pain Balance & Defining “Pain” (01:00:00) Addiction, Dopamine Depletion, & Replenishing Dopamine (01:07:50) Tool 5 Ensure Your Best (Healthy) Dopamine Release (01:15:28) Smart Phones: How They Alter Our Dopamine Circuits (01:19:45) Stimulants & Spiking Dopamine: Counterproductive for Work, Exercise & Attention (01:22:20) Caffeine Sources Matter: Yerba Mate & Dopamine Neuron Protection (01:24:20) Caffeine & Neurotoxicity of MDMA (01:26:15) Amphetamine, Cocaine & Detrimental Rewiring of Dopamine Circuits (01:27:57) Ritalin, Adderall, (Ar)Modafinil: ADHD versus non-Prescription Uses (01:28:45) Tool 6 Stimulating Long-Lasting Increases in Baseline Dopamine (01:37:55) Tool 7 Tuning Your Dopamine for Ongoing Motivation (01:47:40) Tool 8 Intermittent Fasting: Effects on Dopamine (01:53:09) Validation of Your Pre-Existing Beliefs Increases Dopamine (01:53:50) Tool 9 Quitting Sugar & Highly Palatable Foods: 48 Hours (01:55:36) Pornography (01:56:50) Wellbutrin & Depression & Anxiety (01:58:30) Tool 10 Mucuna Pruriens, Prolactin, Sperm, Crash Warning (02:01:45) Tool 11 L-Tyrosine: Dosages, Duration of Effects & Specificity (02:05:20) Tool 12 Avoiding Melatonin Supplementation, & Avoiding Light 10pm-4am (02:07:00) Tool 13 Phenylethylamine (with Alpha-GPC) For Dopamine Focus/Energy (02:08:20) Tool 14 Huperzine A (02:10:02) Social Connections, Oxytocin & Dopamine Release (02:12:20) Direct & Indirect Effects: e.g., Maca; Synthesis & Application (02:14:22) Zero-Cost & Other Ways To Support Podcast & Research Title Card Photo Credit: Mike Blabac Disclaimer

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life.
0:09.1	I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor of neurobiology and
0:12.7	Ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. Today we are going to talk all about dopamine and what drives you to do the things that you do.
0:20.8	We're going to talk about motivation and
0:23.1	desire and craving but also how dopamine relates to satisfaction and our feelings of well-being.
0:30.4	And of course any discussion about dopamine has to include a discussion about the potential for dopamine-induced addiction.
0:39.2	Indeed dopamine lies at the heart of addiction to all things.
0:43.2	But today we are mainly going to focus on how what we do and how we do it and how we conceptualize those things.
0:51.4	Leads to changes in this amazing molecule in our brain embodies that we call dopamine.
0:57.8	I'm going to teach you what dopamine is and what it is not.
1:01.3	There are a lot of myths about the molecule dopamine. We often hear about so-called dopamine hits.
1:06.4	Today we are going to dispel many common myths about dopamine and we are going to talk about how dopamine actually works.
1:12.8	We're going to discuss the biology of dopamine, the psychology. We will discuss some neural circuits and a really exciting aspect of dopamine
1:21.1	biology or so-called dopamine schedules.
1:23.9	In other words, we are going to discuss how things like food, drugs, caffeine, pornography, even some plant-based compounds can change our baseline levels of dopamine.
1:33.9	And in doing so, they change how much dopamine we are capable of experiencing from what could be very satisfying events or events that make us feel not so good because of things that we did or took prior.
1:46.6	So I promise you it's going to be a vast discussion, but I will structure it for you and you'll come away with a deep understanding of really what drives you.
1:56.0	You will also come away with a lot of tools, how to leverage dopamine so that you can sustain energy drive and motivation for the things that are important to you over long periods of time.
2:06.2	Before we dive into the meat of today's discussion, I'd like to share with you a fascinating result that really underscores what dopamine is capable of in our brains and bodies and underscores the fact that just through behaviors, no drugs, nothing of that sort.
2:22.6	Just through behaviors, we can achieve terrifically high increases in dopamine that are very long and sustained in ways that serve us.
2:31.6	This is a result that was published in the European Journal of Physiology. I'll go into it in more detail later, but essentially what it involved is having human subjects get into water of different temperatures.
2:43.6	So it was warm water, moderately cool water, and cold, cold water.
	...

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