Maintaining Motivation with Dopamine
Even the best of us feel tired and sluggish on occasion, but there are also pervasive periods where we feel so unmotivated that we think there is something sinister, lying dormant in the deep recesses of our body.
According to a study done at Emory University, the chronic inflammation of dopamine can influence and drive our levels of motivation. When you feel normal amounts of dopamine, your body typically feels an upsurge of energy and motivation. Once you have less dopamine, the continued maintenance regulation of energy and motivation is much harder to maintain, but it’s still possible to fight back against it.
Similar to fighting an infection, you typically need some kind of mechanism to ensure that your fortress is barricaded from the enemy. For example, if you’re dealing with the general flu, you need some sort of an immune system reinforcer, such as a healthy diet, adequate sleep, medicine, and exercise.
Otherwise, you have to dip into other contingency reserves that usurp too much energy. There’s a huge possibility that the immune system can influence the level of dopamine needed to keep ourselves motivated. According to the study, if dopamine is chronically inflamed, spikes in depression and schizophrenia are much higher.
In this case, chronic inflammation can arise from pre-existing or ongoing illnesses, such as autoimmune disorders, infections, and many more, which is a huge certainty as we enter the fall and winter seasons, a hotbed for allergy and flu season. Ongoing world events also complicate matters.
While this all seems fatalistic, it’s not. There are plenty of strategies floating around the internet that focus specifically on increasing one’s motivation, alongside increasing one’s immune system reserves. For example, motivation could be increased by making a reasonable to-do checklist or schedule, alongside a dedicated but measurable plan, incentives for doing said task, and an open-mind to try new things. It’s not easy, but it’s possible.
Furthermore, one can increase their immune system response by continuing to eat a healthy diet, such as one that includes high amounts of citrus, peppers, ginger, garlic, spinach, and many more. Plus, as mentioned earlier, exercise can reinforce our immune system too.
While our motivational reserves might be at an all-time low, perhaps time will heal the severity of our wounds. We can look back to today and marvel at how much we overcame, especially in the years ahead.
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