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welcome to the huberman Lab podcast where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life I'm Andrew huberman and I'm a professor of neurobiology and Opthalmology at Stanford school of medicine today we are going to talk all about dopamine and what drives you to do
so that you can sustain energy drive and motivation for the things that are important to you over long periods of time 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
mind that seems to be the one that's optimal for pretty much everything except sleep but for all aspects of work and for social engagement and for sport that highly alert but calm State of Mind really is The Sweet Spot that I believe most of us would like to achieve and this cold water exposure done correctly
their sunglasses cuz I can wear them anywhere and also the Aesthetics of their sunglasses and Eyeglasses are terrific unlike a lot of other performance glasses that frankly make people look like cyborgs the Aesthetics on Ras are really terrific you could wear them anywhere you'd like to go if
reviews I've been meditating for a long time but I confess sometimes I meditate and sometimes I am very inconsistent about my meditation ideally I would meditate every day for 20 or 30 minutes but what I found over the years is that I'll start a meditation practice and then as life gets more stressful or
most people have heard of dopamine and we hear all the time now about dopamine hits but actually there's no such thing as a dopamine hit and actually the way that your body uses dopamine is to have a baseline level of dopamine meaning an amount of dopamine that's circulating in your brain and body all the time and
everything to do with how you will feel an hour from now has everything to do with your level of motivation and your level of desire and your willingness to push through effort if ever you've interacted with somebody who just doesn't seem to have any Drive they've given up or if you've interact with
controls time perception and we will get deep into how dopamine can modulate time perception and how important it is that everybody be able to access increases in dopamine at different time scales this turns out to be important to not end up addicted to substances but it also turns out to be very important to sustain
tegmentum actually means floor so it's at the bottom of the brain and it's the ventral part of the floor so it's really low in the back of the brain the ventral tegmentum and it goes from the ventral tegmentum to What's called the ventral striatum and the prefrontal cortex now that's a lot of language but basically
reinforcement and motivation I want you to remember that there are two Pathways if you don't remember the two Pathways in detail that's fine but please remember that there are two Pathways because that turns out to be important later now the other thing to understand about dopamine
let me tell you this part is really important because if you were to take a drug or supplement that increases your level of dopamine you are influencing both the local release of dopamine and volumetric release this relates back to the Baseline of dopamine and the big peak above Baseline and that turns out
relate this back to again this Baseline versus Peaks above Baseline so that's a description of what we would call the spatial effects or the spatial aspects of dopamine I said this connects to that that connects to this you can get local or more broad volumetric release what about the duration of release or the
receptors and anytime you hear about these gpcrs or G protein coupled receptors pay attention because they're really interesting they're slow but they also can have multiple Cascades of effects they can impact even gene expression at some level they can change what a cell actually becomes they can
tends to stimulate sympathetic arousal sympathetic doesn't have anything to do with sympathy it's just simply means that it tends to increase our levels of alertness it tends to bring an animal or a human into a state of more alertness Readiness and desire to pursue things outside the confines of its skin so if I
depends on whether or not you had higher dopamine a few minutes ago or lower dopamine this is important your experience of life and your level of motivation and drive depends on how much dopamine you have relative to your recent experience this is again something that's just not accounted for
I realize that some people probably want even more information about the biology of dopamine transmission if you're interested in that I'll post a link to a absolutely Stellar review that was published in nature reviews Neuroscience called spatial and temporal scales of dopamine transmission it is quite
because they were drug addicts but what they ended up taking turned out to be a lot worse what they ended up taking was mptp and mptp can arise in the synthesis of mppp so someone in a lab someplace this was mainly in the Central Valley in California but elsewhere as well somebody created
line in to rehydrate me and they injected something into the saline bag and within minutes I felt more sadness more overwhelming sense of depression basically lower than I'd ever felt in my entire life it was absolutely profound I I was crying endlessly
or to in this case to have my dopamine receptors blocked uh from thorine was eye opening to say the least and has given me you know tremendous sensitivity to the fact that dopamine is perhaps one of the most powerful molecules that any of us has inside of us and the one that we ought to all
released from the adrenal glands which r at top our kidneys it's released from an area of the brain stem called Locus cerius and its release tends to wake up neural circuits in the brain and wake up various aspects of our body's physiology and give us a Readiness so it should come as no surprise that dopamine and
AK adrenaline are family members and they tend to work together like a little gang to make you seek out certain things so what sorts of activities what sorts of things increase dopamine and how much do they increase dopamine well let's take a look at some typical things that people do out there
both the pursuit of Sex and the act of sex increases dopamine two times so it's a doubling above Baseline now of course there's going to be variation there but that's the average increase in Baseline dopamine caused by sex later I will talk about how the
no increase in dopamine from exercise and if you like other forms of exercise like yoga or weightlifting or swimming or what have you again it's going to vary by your subjective experience of whether or not you enjoy that activity this is important and it brings us back to something that we talked about
actually make the situation worse they won't make you like exercise more or studying more they actually will undermine the dopamine release that would otherwise occur for that activity so certain things chemicals have a universal effect they make everybody's dopamine go up so some people like
density of those G protein coupled receptors now sitting back and thinking about that you might think oh yeah you know sometimes I'll notice people at least in the old days that it used to be a cigarette and a cup of coffee or when people drink alcohol often times they'll smoke and it's well known that different
phasic release and so forth but now let's really drill into what this means and how to leverage it for our own purposes in order to do that let's take a step back and ask why would we have a dopamine system like this why would we have a dopamine system at all well we remember what our species primary
danger of storms there's the danger of cold there's the danger of leaving your loved ones behind so you go out and forage right you could be hunting you could be gathering or you could be doing both the going out and foraging process was we are certain driven by dopamine I mean there's no fossil record of the
the finish line pretty happy it won't drop that much below Baseline afterward if you cross the finish line ecstatic well a day or two later you're going to feel quite a bit lower than you would otherwise you might not be depressed because it depends on where that Baseline was to begin with but the
sort of dopamine set point and if we continue to indulge in the same behaviors or even different behaviors that increase our dopamine in these big Peaks over and over and over again we won't experience the same level of Joy from those behaviors or from anything at all now
substantial degree with all the things I off where's the pain coming from well the pain is coming from the lack of dopamine that follows and you now know what that lack of dopamine reflects how do you know well earlier we were talking about how dopamine is released between neurons and
isn't a lot of dopamine around to keep your Baseline going fortunately most people do not experience or pursue enormous increases in dopamine leading to these severe Baseline many people do however and that's what we call addiction when somebody pursues a drug or an activity
suicide from these sorts of patterns of activity but what about the more typical scenario what about the scenario of somebody who is really good at working during the week they exercise during the week they drink on the weekends well that person is only consuming alcohol maybe one or two nights a week but
very very subtle and that's actually a Sinister function of dopamine we we could say which is that it can often drop in imperceptible ways but then it once it reaches a threshold of low dopamine we just feel like H we can't really get pleasure from anything anymore what used to work doesn't work
that episode with Anna to do a 30-day complete fast from phone from video games and from social media of all kinds he's now at day 29 he's really accomplished this not incidentally his levels of concentration his overall mood are up he's doing far far better what he did is hard in particular the first 14
not doing that but some of the things on these lists of dopamine evoking activities are things like chocolate coffee even if it's indirect um sex and reproduction provided it's healthy consensual context appropriate age appropriate species appropriate of course is Central to our Evolution and
motivated to pursue it if it happens great we get the reward the reward comes in various chemical forms including dopamine and we are more likely to engage in that behavior again this is the basis of casino gambling this is how they keep you going back again and again and again even though on average the
workout you listen to your favorite music you go at your favorite time of day you have your pre-workout drink if that's your thing you do all the things that give you that best experience of the workout for you but there's also a version of this where sometimes you don't do the
continue to engage in over time whatever those happen to be start paying attention to the amount of dopamine and excitement and pleasure that you achieve with those and start modulating that somewhat at random that might be removing some of the dopamine releasing chemicals that you might take prior
with the phone it's also a way of layering in dopamine and it's no surprise that levels of depression and lack of motivation are really on the increase everything that we've talked about until now sets up an explanation or an interpretation of why interacting with
often this is something that I think has misinterpreted as people can't be alone now people talk about oh you know they can't walk across the street or they can't go anywhere ride the bus can't be on the plane without being in contact they can't handle just their thoughts I don't think that's really what's going
be motivated at there's one exception which is caffeine because I mentioned before if you like caffeine that actually could be a good thing for your dopamine system because it does upregulate these d23 receptor so it actually makes whatever dopamine is released by that activity more
motivated and focused so just as we talked about intermittent reward schedules a moment ago intermittent spiking of dopamine if you do it at all is definitely the way to go and chronically trying to spike your dopamine in order to enhance your motivation focus and drive will
consuming that caffeine in the form of Y bate both for sake of upregulating dopamine receptors and getting more of a dopamine increase and of course for the simulate properties of caffeine if that's what you're seeking and in addition to that because yamate does appear to have some sort of
more toxicity of MDMA so caffeine can be a beneficial substance in one context and actually can be a detrimental if not dangerous substance in another context two substances that greatly increase dopamine namely amphetamine and cocaine can cause long-term problems with the dopaminergic pathways and this is
in a previous episode on ADHD I talked about the widespread use of drugs like adol rlin modafinil and armodafinil all of which lead to very large increases in dopamine and for people with ADHD can really improve their symptoms but of course there's a lot of non-prescription non-clinical use of those compounds as
of various kinds can in fact increase our levels of dopamine as well as the neuromodulator neuro nephrine this is not a new phenomenon in the 1920s a guy by the name of Vincent priset was one of the first people to popularize and formalize cold water therapies he was an advocate
really interesting study that was done and published in the University of uh excuse me the European Journal of Applied physiology I can provide a link to that study in the in the show caption it's a really interesting study they looked at people getting exposed to water that was warm moderately cold or
be well you could mimic what was done in this study and do 14° c but for some people that won't be cold enough for some people that will be too cold they did look at the release of stress hormones like cortisol in addition to the release of things like epinephrine and adrenaline and it's interesting that
release immediately and the long Arc of that dopamine release why would that be good up until now I've basically said getting increases in dopamine are detrimental to your Baseline well this does appear to raise the Baseline of dopamine for substantial periods of time and most people report feeling a
Behavior and the negative aspects of rewards for our behavior and from that I will suggest a protocol by which you can achieve a better relationship to your activities and to your dopamine system in fact it will help tune up your dopamine system for discipline hard work and
ourselves rewards for something we tend to associate less pleasure with the actual activity itself that evoked the reward now that might seem counterintuitive but that's just way the way that these dopamine energic circuits work and now understanding these Peaks and baselines in dopamine which I won't
striving itself is the end goal and that of course delivers you to tremendous performance it's been observed over and over and over again that people that have growth mindset kids that have growth mindset end up performing very well because they're focused on the effort itself and all of us can
door in order to do the run or to study so what's more beneficial in fact can serve as a tremendous amplifier on all Endeavors that you engage in especially hard Endeavors is to a not start layering in other sources of dopamine in order to get to the starting line not layering in other sources of dopamine in
the context of a truth which is that you want it to feel better you want it to feel even pleasureful now this is very far and away different from thinking about the reward that comes at the end the hot fudge Sunday for after you cross the finish line and you can replace hot fudge Sunday with whatever reward
nowadays some people like to do intermittent fasting some people don't some people have a 12-hour feeding window every 24 hours some people do long fasts of two to three days even I personally don't monitor a feeding window with a lot of precision I tend to skip one meal a day either breakfast or
behaviors and activities by the way the longer you restrict yourself from that activity the greater the dopamine experience when the dopamine is finally released because of an upregulation of The receptors for dopamine but I just spent five minutes or more telling you that you should
that fasting can encourage things like autoag the engulfment of dead cells and things of that sort well as people tell themselves these things they are enhancing the rewarding properties of the behavior of fasting and so this is a Salient example of where knowledge of knowledge can actually help us change
essentially the results that come out of this are the following if you ingest something that you like it tastes good to you but then you ingest something that's even sweeter or even more Savory and then you go back to the food that you ate previously well you don't like it as much and that might seem like a
negatively shape real world romantic and sexual interactions this is a serious concern the discussion is happening now the underlying neurobiological mechanisms You Now understand and this isn't to pass judgment on whether or not people like or don't like pornography that's an ethical discussion it's a
the dosage of Wellbutrin that's correct for them in addition things like wbin Bryon can increase anxiety because of the way that dopamine and norepinephrine are stimulating and tend to place people into heightened levels of alertness nonetheless many people have gained terrific relief from depression from
in women it's involved in setting the refractory period for uh sex after ejaculation in males the reason mating can occur and then not occur after ejaculation is because of an increase in prolactin Muna Pines is often used to brunt blunt prolactin and they're actually a couple of studies showing
counter in the United States that people will take El tyrosine as a way to get more energized alert and focused and indeed there are data that El tyrosine will accomplish that El tyrosine is typically taken in capsule form or powder form anywhere from 500 to 750 to 1,000 milligrams it is a potent stimulus
prescription drugs those are the most direct root to that of course if you have a pre-existing dopaminergic condition so schizophrenia or psychosis of any kind bipolar anxiety things like munin and Al tyrosine will not be good for you and if you don't you should just understand and expect that it's going to
agree I think that melatonin is not often thought about as impacting the dopamine pathway but there's at least one study um published in 2001 first nishiyama just as it sounds he it's spelled just as it sounds acute effects of melatonin Administration on cardiovascular autonomic regulation in
it leads to a sharp but very transient increase in dopamine that lasts about 30 to 45 minutes and at least in my system I found to be much more uh regulated and kind of even than something like El tyrosine and certainly much more regulated and even and lower dopamine release than something like Muna purines
modaal and similar and I can't help but share with you one more result it's not related to pharmacology it's related to behaviors and social interactions and that's the very interesting and I would say important finding that was made a few years ago by my colleague Rob malenka who's our department of
type those are parent child type those are friendship related and those can even be just friends at a distance related right it doesn't actually require skin contact to get oxytocin release but oxytocin release is Central to stimulating the dopamine Pathways so the take-home message there is quite
the next days and weeks to come so I hope both with the mechanisms that you now have in hand plus some of the tools to tap into the dopaminergic system both behavioral pharmacologic prescription and non-prescription Etc that you'll feel that you have more control over your dopamine system and certainly that
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