avatarHudson Rennie

Summary

The article discusses the role of dopamine in happiness and how to maintain a healthy baseline of dopamine for long-term satisfaction.

Abstract

The text explains that dopamine, a neurotransmitter, is crucial for feelings of happiness and motivation. It outlines the complexities of dopamine's role in our lives, including its influence on behavior, learning, and mental health. The article suggests that modern life, particularly the use of technology, has altered our dopamine baselines, making sustained happiness more elusive. It provides strategies for managing dopamine levels, such as making the action the reward, unstacking activities, understanding the need for social interaction, and adjusting eating habits. These strategies are aimed at preventing the devaluation of dopamine's impact due to overstimulation.

Opinions

  • The author posits that our relationship with our brain is what allows us to be happy and productive but also what holds us back, implying a need for self-awareness and management of our mental processes.
  • The article conveys that technology, while not the sole cause, has contributed to the rise in mental health issues and has a significant impact on our dopamine levels.
  • It is suggested that the key to maintaining long-term happiness is through controlling dopamine levels, rather than chasing fleeting pleasures.
  • The author emphasizes that the pursuit of excellence is a habit formed through consistent action, not through sporadic, high-intensity efforts.
  • The text argues against the idea of using rewards as the primary motivation for actions, advocating instead for finding joy and satisfaction in the activities themselves.
  • It is implied that society's habit of stacking enjoyable activities leads to an unhealthy spike in dopamine, which can decrease overall satisfaction in life.
  • The author suggests that solitude and personal resilience are important for managing dopamine levels, countering the common belief that social interaction is always necessary for happiness.
  • Intermittent fasting and other eating habits that focus on the process rather than the reward are recommended as ways to increase dopamine sensitivity and overall satisfaction with life.

Happiness | Psychology

The Key To Happiness Is Dopamine

Here’s how you can have more of it

Photo by Harry Quan on Unsplash

“No one is in control of your happiness but you” — Barbara De Angelis

Over the past twenty years, our brains have evolved at a streamlined rate. Since the release of the first smartphone in 1995, technology has become an intimate part of our lives. Some of us, interact with technology more than our own thoughts.

Mental health issues are on the rise and there’s no doubt that technology has played its part. But, it’s not the sole cause.

Most of us, walk through life unknowingly chasing a donut on a string. We move from one pleasureful experience to the next without thinking about the consequences. Our relationship with our brain is what allows us to be happy and productive. It’s also what holds us back.

Learning how to control your dopamine levels is the key to maintaining long-term happiness and satisfaction.

What is dopamine — and what does it do?

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that carries information between our body and brain. Dopamine is what makes us feel happy and excited. Whether it’s from food, sex, exercise, or music, dopamine fills us with feelings of pleasure.

But, dopamine is much more complex than merely making us feel good. It’s also responsible for just about everything we do. Including:

  • motivation
  • focus
  • learning
  • movement
  • Pain and pleasure

Everything we experience is filtered through our perception, based on our dopamine levels. A dark, early morning can either fill you with inspiration or sadness depending on your dopamine levels. Pain, is intensified when dopamine is low and dulled when high. It is the driving factor behind anything we do.

Mental health issues can be explained through dopamine as well. Depression, from not enough of it. Schizophrenia, from too much. Of course, mental health is much more complex than this. But, in its most basic form, dopamine is the culprit.

Humans are reward-driven creatures. Our dopamine levels fluctuate in order to keep us alive. Driving us to the next food source or shelter. As life becomes easier for us, happiness becomes harder to achieve.

Your baseline for happiness changes every second

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” — Aristotle

Dopamine is a fickle beast. It provides us with the chemicals we need to be happy, but only enough to keep us moving.

It’s the treadmill that keeps us inches away from that donut. Our primordial brains don’t want us to get too comfortable because in the past it meant certain extinction.

The more often we engage in activities that raise our dopamine levels, the harder it becomes to experience the same level of satisfaction in the future. A spike in dopamine lowers what is called your baseline. Your average levels of dopamine.

We all know that social media has adverse effects on our mental health. Remove all the emotional layers that come along with it, and the stimulating lights and noises our phones emit are enough to spike our dopamine within a few seconds. Constantly looking and thinking about your phone, can drastically drop your dopamine baseline.

Matt Walker, in his book “Why We Sleep” shares that looking at your phone between the hours of 10 PM and 4 AM is especially harmful. It can lower dopamine levels for days afterwards. Rest is a huge factor in dopamine production as well.

But, technology is not the only activity that substantially raises dopamine levels. On average the following activities raise your dopamine by:

  • Chocolate — 1.5X above baseline
  • Sex — 2X
  • Nicotine — 2.5X
  • Exercise — 2X

Caffeine is an interesting case as it doesn’t necessarily raise dopamine levels on its own. It does, though, allow you to experience higher levels of dopamine from other activities.

Neuroscientist, Andrew Huberman, describes that merely talking about something you like is enough to raise your dopamine levels.

So, what does this mean for long-term happiness? Should you stop engaging in activities you enjoy merely to maintain a steady baseline of dopamine?

Surely not.

How to maintain happy levels of dopamine

“Long-term consistency trumps short-term intensity.” — Bruce Lee

The reality of our brains is that they want us to keep moving forward. We experience the most satisfaction just as our fingertips touch that donut. Shortly after eating it, the treadmill will start up again and we will be searching for another.

The key to maintaining healthy levels of dopamine is to stop looking at the donut as a reward.

“Don’t spike dopamine prior to engaging in effort, and don’t spike dopamine after engaging in effort. Learn to spike dopamine from effort itself.” — Andrew Huberman

Here are some practical ways to maintain happy levels of dopamine:

Make the action the reward

We all want to do and achieve difficult things, because it feels good. So much so, that we will often engage in activities we do not enjoy merely in anticipation of a reward.

Studies show that engaging in activities solely to receive a reward decreases dopamine levels during them. So, instead of enduring something you dislike merely to receive a reward, re-wire your thinking.

Slow down and make adjustments to your process. You can actually train your brain to release dopamine through action itself by understanding that the action is the reward. Research shows that living in the moment is not just a healthy mantra. It actually increases levels of happiness.

Unstack your activities:

In James Clear’s book, “Atomic Habits,” he talks about habit stacking. Essentially, strategically combining habits that we want vs. need to do to make undesirable habits desirable. Like listening to music while doing the dishes, for example.

Although this does help to build better habits, we often stack habits that are already enjoyable, creating a super-spike of dopamine. Some examples of this are drinking a large coffee before working out or eating while watching Netflix.

We are addictive creatures by nature, and are always looking to maximize our levels of dopamine. The problem is, the more we spike our dopamine, the lower our baseline becomes.

So, unstack activities when you can and move your focus away from the reward. Singular focus is the reward. Working out with your phone in another room will allow you to focus on the workout and gain more satisfaction from it, over time. Unstacking activities is difficult. When starting out, simply be aware of when you are stacking activities unnecessarily. Then, start asking yourself, “Do I need to be doing both?”

Understand your need for social interaction:

Scientists have uncovered that the release of oxytocin and social interaction directly impact levels of dopamine. From a biological standpoint, our survival was based on social interaction and reproduction. We are all wired to enjoy being liked and loved by others.

If you’re someone that hates being alone, it could be because you rely on social activity for dopamine. Spending time alone is a great practice for building personal resiliency, reliability, and modulating healthy levels of dopamine. Life is about balance. Your social life included.

Adjust your eating habits:

Every time we engage in an activity we enjoy, our dopamine levels spike, thus dropping our baseline. But, the less our dopamine receptors are exposed to dopamine, the more sensitive they become.

Intermittent fasting is a very popular eating habit for its efficiency and health benefits. It’s also a great way to move your enjoyment from the reward to the action. If you’ve ever fasted yourself, you may have experienced feelings of euphoria and satisfaction with how long you’ve fasted for. It helps move your attention away from anticipating food and into abstaining from it.

Decreasing your intake of unhealthy foods or eating healthier ones can benefit from this same philosophy. Enjoying the process is backed by science.

**Not everyone’s body responds well to fasting, so be gentle with yourself and conduct your own research.

It’s all in your head… literally (to summarize)

  • Dopamine controls everything we do, from physical movement, focus, motivation, and how we experience pain and pleasure
  • We are reward-driven creatures — dopamine is our ultimate “why”
  • Move the reward to the action to maintain a healthy baseline of dopamine

Much of the information cited in this article comes from this episode of Andrew Huberman’s podcast, “The Huberman Lab”. For more insights into the human brain and how to control dopamine, I highly recommend listening.

For more stories like this, follow me at Hudson Rennie. You can also have stories sent directly to your inbox by adding yourself to my subscriber list.

And if you enjoyed reading…

Health
Mental Health
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