Which one do you choose: pain that leads to pleasure, or pleasure that leads to pain? Your quality of life depends on it.
Sapiens Maximus
This is your ultimate Sapiens Maximus guide to dopamine. Dopamine has everything to do with how you feel right now. Dopamine also determined how you felt an hour ago, and will determine how you feel an hour from now.
It is also a major player in your attention span – have you already zoned out while reading this article? If not, how long can you last before you do? Dopamine is a key determinant. So is the quality of this article of course 🙃
Additionally, dopamine is the key player in your levels of motivation and your ability to get shit done. It’s also a key culprit for your cravings and perpetual bad habits.
This little known molecule is shaping our lives’ trajectory. Yet, most of us have no idea what it is or how we can use it to our advantage.
Dopamine: Some Key Questions
The table below contains some key questions to warm you up. If your answer to any of these is “YES”, then this article’s for you.
| (1) Have you heard about dopamine, but are not entirely sure what it actually is? |
| (2) Do you want to learn more about “dopamine detox“? Is it an overhyped fad or does it have some merit? If the latter, how do you implement it effectively? |
| (3) Do you find it difficult to get out of bed in the morning, and struggle to feel motivated more generally? |
| (4) Do you procrastinate more often than you should, finding yourself compulsively doing what’s easy instead of doing what’s needed? |
| (5) Have you been struggling with a bad habit that you just can’t seem to be able to get rid of? |
| (6) Are you struggling, or have you struggled, with addiction(s)? |
| (7) Are you interested in learning how addictions develop? |
| (8) Do you have a persistent sense of “grey”? Do you find it difficult to derive pleasure from simple daily activities? |
| (9) Are you generally unhappy with your life? Do you feel “down” more often than not? |
While these questions might seem unrelated at a superficial level, they have one key thing in common: dopamine.
This article teaches you how to use dopamine to your advantage, instead of allowing it to use you. This is not some obscure, purely academic topic. It’s highly relevant to your daily activities and your quality of life more generally.
Content Breakdown
This article is not a short and easy read. However, it is an essential one. We provide you with the content breakdown below for easy navigation.
Re-visit this article as often as you need to, and feel free to skip to the relevant section(s) directly.
However, we recommend that you read this ultimate guide in its entirety at least once.
First Things First: What is Dopamine? What Does It Do?
Dopamine definition: dopamine is a type of neuromodulator. You can think of it as a molecule, or chemical, made in your brain.
This molecule is primarily what motivates you to pursue what you don’t already have. You could think of it as “the molecule of more”, forever driving you towards new pursuits and the accumulation of resources and experiences.
Dopamine motivates us to obtain food, sex and shelter. More abstractly, dopamine is also the key driver for seeking love, knowledge and the fantastical unknown.
This single molecule has been a key player in most groundbreaking scientific discoveries, works of literature and art masterpieces throughout human history. It’s why you’re reading this article right now.
Dopamine: Shopping, Junk Food & Pornography
However, in today’s world of hyper-indulgence, dopamine’s “dark side” is more prominent than ever.
Dopamine is just as likely to motivate us to go on a shopping spree followed by a binge-eating fiasco. It could also lure into compulsively watching pornography for hours, among other counter-productive behaviours.
If we are not vigilant, dopamine can make us enslaved by the perpetual & compulsive pursuit of “more”. More money, more sex, more material possessions etc.
Dopamine could turn us into miserable human beings who are permanently unable to fill the self-created void inside of us. This is why many “successful” people relentlessly pursue more, even when they objectively have enough for 10 lifetimes. It’s also why a spouse risks everything for a fling with a stranger. Dopamine’s pull for “more” takes over.
At the extreme, dopamine can drive us deep into addiction. This could be drugs such as cocaine and heroine, or behaviours such as gambling. However, dopamine can also provide us with a path to recovery and healing.
Dopamine: Blessing V/S Curse
In a nutshell, dopamine can be a great blessing or a terrible curse. The aim of this article is to equip you with the info you need to make sure it’s the former.
Using dopamine to your advantage entails understanding dopamine’s functions. Let’s dive deeper into these while discussing some of the last century’s groundbreaking scientific experiments.
Dopamine: The Pleasure Molecule?
Dopamine is widely known as the pleasure molecule. In early studies, scientists observed that research participants experienced feelings of pleasure when their dopaminergic system was stimulated. In fact, the greater the dopamine activation, the greater the pleasure. The pathway that dopamine-producing cells occupied in the brain became known as the reward circuit (aka the mesolimbic pathway).
The expression “dopamine hits” is closely related to this understanding of dopamine. When you receive a like on social media, or a DM from your crush, your brain experiences a dopamine spike. This in turn gives you a mood uplift.
However, the perception of dopamine as the pleasure molecule is too simplistic to the point of being misleading. What if dopamine is not, strictly speaking, exclusively about pleasure?
Dopamine: From Pleasure To Motivation
As previously pointed out, dopamine is fundamentally about motivating you to pursue what you don’t already have. This is separate from enjoying what you do have (i.e. wanting ≠ liking).
In one experiment, researchers genetically modified mice so that the mice were unable to make dopamine. Researchers proceeded to place food at close proximity from the mice, just inches away from their mouths.
Astoundingly, dopamine deficient mice would starve to death instead of move few inches to get to the food. They had no motivation whatsoever to do anything. Yet if researchers put food directly in their mouths, the mice would chew it and even seem to enjoy it.
Since then, and following a number of studies, a new hypothesis emerged: dopamine is the motivation molecule. In fact, dopamine is the single most important molecule motivating us to accumulate resources & experiences. This could be food inches away from us, a new groundbreaking discovery or anything in between.
Pleasure & The H&N Molecules
While dopamine plays an important role in our experiences of pleasure, it does not have a monopoly over this domain. Another set of molecules, called the “Here & Nows”, are key to our enjoyment of what we do have. This is in fact why they are called the “Here & Now” molecules or “H&Ns“, since they govern our relationship with what’s here in the present moment (i.e. what we have).
Famous H&Ns include serotonin, oxytocin and endorphins. These molecules are, for example, what makes monogamous relationships viable. Otherwise, as soon as the thrill of the new and mysterious wears off, dopamine sends us off on a new thrilling chase. These molecules allow the transition from passionate to companionate love – one that is more muted but also more robust and enduring.
The H&Ns are key to experiencing happiness; something that dopamine can never deliver since its sole motto is MORE. The H&Ns serve to balance dopamine’s relentless, never ending pursuit. They’re what allows you to pause for a moment and enjoy what you have accumulated through the dopaminergic chase. A key way to boost your H&Ns is to keep a gratitude journal. You can check out our happiness article here for more tips.
For now, there is one final layer to add to our understanding of dopamine: its relationship with the unknown.
Dopamine & Uncertainty
We have already established that dopamine is the single most important molecule motivating us to acquire what we don’t already have. The pursuit of more is necessarily linked to exploring the unknown. In fact, a number of studies have demonstrated that novelty and uncertainty maximize dopamine and the associated pleasure.
This is why (1) gambling, (2) your social media feed and (3) Netflix series (to name a few) are so addictive. What’s going to happen next? 🤔 Your dopamine system creates an overwhelming urge for you to find out.
Scientists have shown this yet again in rats’ (and monkeys;) experiments. If you drop food pellets in a rat’s cage, the rat’s dopamine surges. However, when you keep dropping food pellets at regular intervals – say every 5 minutes – dopamine activity slows down.
The rat knows when to expect food, and the element of uncertainty disappears. As soon as the surprise element vanishes, so does the dopamine spike. Conversely, when you start dropping food pellets at arbitrary times, dopamine shoots up again.
In a human context, scientists have shown that dopamine levels peaked during a gambling experiment when the probability of winning and losing is identical. Evidently, equal probabilities represents maximal uncertainty.
Intermittent Reward Schedule
Scientists often call this phenomena the intermittent reward schedule. As the name suggests, it’s a schedule where the rewards arise unexpectedly. Due to the powerful dopaminergic association, this is the mechanism by which elusive partners keep you interested. It’s also how social media giants get you to compulsively scroll for hours. The “feed”, by design, maximizes novelty & uncertainty. It’s also the same tactic that casinos use to keep you playing.
Reward Prediction Error
Dopamine’s relationship with uncertainty is partially captured in the concept of reward prediction error. This could be roughly translated into a simple equation: Reward prediction error = actual reward MINUS expected reward.
New Restaurant In Town: Does It Live Up To The Hype?
While this might sound complex, it’s fairly simple. Let’s say you are super excited about trying a new restaurant in town. You heard great things about this place from your friends, and you are almost certain that the experience is going to be exquisite.
Yet when you show up, the restaurant just doesn’t live up to the hype. The food is average and the service is mediocre. After building up the experience in your mind, you feel enormously let down. What you have experienced as a ’down mood’ or a ’let down’ is, in reality, a dopamine dip. This is because the reward received turned out to be lesser than the reward anticipated.
Conversely, when something positively surprises us (i.e. it BEATS our expectations), we feel great. This is due to the dopamine bump we experience. In this case, if you went in to the restaurant with the expectation of the food being mediocre, yet the food was average, you would have experienced a dopamine spike and an associated mood bump.
It doesn’t matter how good something is in absolute terms. What matters is how it compares with our expectations.
The Magic Of Managing Expectations
This is why in our day to day lives we should do our best to MANAGE EXPECTATIONS. Even if we are expecting something to be great – a restaurant, a job, a date – it is better if we don’t go in expecting too much out of it.
It’s the same idea when we are managing people in our lives, whether personally or professionally. The key message, always, is to under-promise and over-deliver.
Now you know that neuro-chemically, this ancient wisdom has everything to do with dopamine.
Dopamine’s Functions: A Recap
We appreciate that this might be a lot to digest. Let’s recap 😁
(1) We can largely encapsulate dopamine’s functions in one sentence: the pursuit of more.
(2) While we often associate dopamine with pleasure, this is not entirely correct. Fundamentally, dopamine is about the accumulation of resources and the exploration of the unknown.
(3) In fact, dopamine has much more to do with (i) the motivation to get a reward instead of (ii) the pleasure of the reward itself. In other words, dopamine is primarily about wanting rather than liking.
(4) Any pleasure generated by dopamine wears off when the new & mysterious becomes the old & familiar. When the reward prediction error vanishes, so does the dopaminergic pleasure.
(5) When we get what we want, dopamine immediately turns our attention to the next goal. That’s why associating happiness with “more” subjects us to a never ending pursuit that leaves us miserable. It’s like chasing the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. There’s no finish line.
(6) Dopamine’s evolutionary function is to ensure our survival by never allowing us to be satisfied. As soon as we hit our goal(s), dopamine directs our attention to the next mountain to climb.
(7) Dopamine is about wanting what we don’t have, H&Ns are about enjoying what we do have. We need to keep this fundamental distinction in mind if we are to succeed in our quest of taming dopamine and living a more balanced life.
We have established dopamine’s functions. However, we are yet to establish how dopamine exerts such a powerful influence in our lives.
The neurochemistry of dopamine’s modus operandi is highly complicated. Nonetheless, this article breaks down what is arguably at the heart of dopamine’s influence: the pleasure / pain balance.
The Pleasure / Pain Balance
“What a strange thing that which men call pleasure seems to be, and how astonishing the relation it has with what is thought to be its opposite, pain.
A man cannot have both at the same time. Yet if he pursues and catches the one, he is almost always bound to catch the other also, like two creatures with one head.
When a man has the one, the other follows later.”
Socrates
We all have a tonic, baseline level of dopamine secretion. Our mood is to a large extent determined by the fluctuations from this baseline – either increases in dopamine secretion (higher motivation & pleasure) or dips (lower motivation & pain).
What matters therefore are not absolute levels of dopamine, but the peak to baseline ratio of dopamine.
Spikes & dips in dopamine (vs baseline) = pleasure & pain, respectively.
One of the most important scientific discoveries of the last century is that pleasure and pain are processed in overlapping brain regions . As Dr. Anna Lembke points out, it is helpful to think of pleasure and pain as a balance. It’s like our brain contains a scale with a fulcrum at the centre. By default, the balance ought to be level with the ground.
When we experience pleasure, our brain releases dopamine. This tips the balance to the side of pleasure. On the other hand, when we experience pain, dopamine dips. This tilts the balance to the side of pain.
Homeostasis
HOWEVER, the balance wants to remain in equilibrium. This is linked to one of evolution’s most powerful biological processes: homeostasis. Scientists commonly define homeostasis as a self-regulating process by which biological systems maintain stability while adjusting to changing external conditions.
For example, if your body over-heats (because of a workout and/or hot weather), you start sweating. This is your body’s way of releasing excess heat and re-establishing equilibrium at 37 degrees celsius.
In the context of dopamine, when the balance tips to one side, powerful self-regulating mechanisms similarly kick-in to reinstate the level balance.
That is, if you experience pleasure (e.g. orgasming or having a highly dopaminergic junk meal), pain will follow shortly thereafter. Conversely, if you experience pain (e.g. working out at the gym or having a cold shower), you will subsequently experience pleasure due to your built-in homeostasis response.
Over-Indulgence: A 21st Century Plague
The problem in today’s world is that we are tipping the balance to the side of pleasure way too much, way too often. We have transformed the world from a place of scarcity to one of overwhelming abundance.
Overstimulation has become the rule rather than the exception. Social media, pornography, gambling, junk food, alcohol, soft drugs, hard drugs, shopping, gaming – the number and variety of easily accessible, highly rewarding (super dopaminergic) stimuli is staggering.
At the most basic level, this little device that we carry around with us everywhere is quite literally re-shaping our brains. As Dr. Anna Lembke puts it, “the smartphone is the modern-day hypodermic needle, delivering digital dopamine 24/7 for a wired generation.“
We are all struggling, to varying degrees, with compulsive over-consumption. We are continuously flooding our system with abnormally high levels of dopamine. As we will extensively discuss in the next section, this comes at a steep price.
Part of our brain’s response to the abnormally high levels of dopamine is developing tolerance.
Dopamine & The Development Of Tolerance
Tolerance is experiencing less pleasure from the same or similar activities. As we repeatedly expose ourselves to same or similar stimuli (social media, junk food, pornography, shopping, tv, etc.), the pleasure response gets weaker and shorter. Crucially, the after-response on the side of pain gets stronger and longer.
At a more fundamental level, our ability to experience pleasure goes down and our propensity to experience pain (whether psychological or physiological) goes up. Homeostasis becomes much more difficult to establish. Our balance, by default, becomes titled to the side of pain.
It always seemed paradoxical that the most affluent countries were the most miserable. Poor mental health – from anxiety to depression – is much more prevalent in the United States than it is in a host of impoverished countries. When we look at these statistics from the lens of the pleasure / pain balance, it all makes sense.
Understanding the depth and breadth of the problem we are facing suggests that “popping a pill” might not be an effective, sustainable long-term solution (although medication can certainly play a role in certain circumstances). Instead of relying on fictional magic pills, we should take a hard look at our lives and see what lifestyle changes we should be making.
Dopamine & Cravings
To recap, over-indulgence leads to excess pleasure, which in turn leads to tolerance + pain.
The next step is that tolerance and pain create cravings – whether conscious or subconscious. In fact, craving is your system’s reaction to the dopamine dip. Craving’s implicit message is that dopamine dipped, so let’s spike it again to relieve the suffering.
The dopamine dips and associated pain can be microscopic, yet they lead to craving nonetheless.
For example, have you ever managed to only eat one highly palatable potato chip? Big Food have engineered each bite to maximize the dopamine kick. As we have already established, a dopamine dip very shortly follows from the dopamine spike. The dip translates into a craving for one more piece, and then another.
Once you start the compulsive consumption cycle, “reason” is no longer (mostly) in charge. You become influenced by the pain / pleasure balance, tipped to the side of pain. You know you shouldn’t go for one more piece, but it doesn’t matter. You are no longer in control; your dopamine deficit state is.
As we develop tolerance, we find ourselves forced to seek newer, more potent versions of the dopaminergic activities we have become accustomed to. This could be higher doses of drugs (eventually leading to overdoses), more hardcore pornography, food that is even more hyper-palatable etc.
Chasing The Initial High: An Elusive Target
The more we try to replicate the feeling of pleasure we initially experienced, the more elusive pleasure becomes. Soon enough, the balance becomes so titled to the side of pain, our tolerance becomes so advanced, that we lose interest in most day to day activities.
Tolerance and persistent cravings lead to a monumental shift: we are no longer trying to obtain pleasure; we are just trying to alleviate our chronic emotional and physical pain.
This vicious cycle is terrifying:
(1) The balance that is titled towards the side of pain pushes us to pursue highly dopaminergic activities to alleviate the pain.
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(2) Yet pursuing highly dopaminergic activities further tilts the balance to the side of pain. This in turn forces us to pursue pleasure even harder.
When we have abused our dopaminergic system as extensively and as long as most of us have, the brain’s response is to de-regulate dopamine receptors and transmission.
We become in a persistent dopamine deficit state.
Dopamine & Addiction
This is the precursor to the development of addiction.
As Dr. Andrew Huberman puts it, addiction is the progressive narrowing of things that bring you pleasure.
(Another helpful definition of addiction: addiction is the continued and compulsive consumption of a behaviour or substance despite its harm to self and/or others.)
Towards A Chronic Dopamine Deficit State
Once we get to the dopamine deficit state, we are ever more compelled to pursue even MORE dopamine through our drugs of choice (whether behavioural or substance-based).
We lose interest in everything else. A beautiful sunrise, social connections, meaningful work, hobbies, food – none of these things are able to alleviate our suffering & existential malaise. The only thing that can temporarily help, even if marginally, are higher doses of our drug of choice. Higher (and higher) doses counter the rapidly building tolerance. That is, until they don’t. Tragically, as might be obvious at this stage, it’s a death trap.
The Paradox Of Over-Indulgence
Our relentless pursuit of pleasure, paradoxically, leads to “anhedonia”: the inability to experience pleasure altogether. Addictions drive us deeper into the dark hole of dopamine deficit, to the point where we are blinded to everything other than the astoundingly dopaminergic activity that our pain is pushing us towards. If you see a person struggling with advanced addiction, it is almost biologically impossible for them to care about anything other than higher and higher doses of their drug.
You might not be an “addict”, but most of us are somewhere on the spectrum of the dopamine deficit state. We all have, to varying degrees, used and abused our dopaminergic system in ways that evolution did not intend.
Our hyper-indulgent, dopamine fuelled economy of InstaFluencers, likes, DMs, pornography, junk food, materialism & overall degeneracy has made it very difficult for us not to. This has left us not nearly as motivated as we could be, prone to distractions and procrastination, reluctant to do hard work, and with a persistent sense of hollowness and malaise.
To varying degrees, this has also left us with a sense of anhedonia.
So, what’s the solution?
The Path Towards Healing & Recovery: Dopamine Detox + Hormesis
We have established that excessive pleasure seeking causes a dopamine deficit state. We have also discussed how our excessive pleasure seeking is almost inevitable with access to and usage of highly dopaminergic, ubiquitous activities and substances.
If you are ready for a change in your life, if you want to reclaim control, the below two steps are for you.
Recovery Tip #1: Abstinence.
The path to recovery and healing starts with abstinence. If flooding your system with excessive levels of dopamine is wrecking havoc on your life, you need to dial down your highly dopaminergic activities.
People commonly refer to this as a “dopamine detox” or “dopamine fast“. Simply put, the process requires you to abstain from your highly dopaminergic activities for a certain period of time.
Common culprits to cut out include:
(1) emotional / binge eating;
(2) eating highly palatable foods, such as junk food and foods containing added sugars;
(3) mindless internet usage including, most notably, social media;
(4) gaming;
(5) gambling;
(6) shopping;
(7) porn and masturbation;
(8) thrill and novelty seeking; and
(9) recreational drugs.
Dopamine Detox & Addictions: A Word Of Warning
If you are suffering from severe addiction(s), including addictions to substances, please seek direct medical advice from your doctor or other qualified clinician. Abstaining in the case of advanced addictions needs careful medical supervision, as doing so has its own set of risks and challenges.
Now that we have that out of the way, the question is: HOW, PRACTICALLY, DO YOU SUCCESSFULLY ABSTAIN?
Dopamine Detox: Executional Roadmap
You know that you need to stop these activities to allow your brain to heal and for your system to re-establish homeostasis.
Yet knowing what to do and actually doing it are two entirely different things!
In particular, for the “dopamine detox” to be effective, we recommend abstaining for at least a week, noting that four weeks is the recommended standard. This is by no means easy when we have been compulsively flooding our system with dopamine for so long. It has become second nature to us. When was the last time we DID NOT compulsively scroll through social media, or mindlessly watch Netflix?
Depending on how run down your dopamine system is, it could take up to three months for your brain to start meaningfully healing and for you to notice tangible benefits in your day to day life.
For a roadmap on how you can successfully abstain, we recommend that you check out our ultimate guide to breaking bad habits.
Dopamine Detox: Some High Level Tips For Success
Practically, it’s going to be very difficult for you to abstain if you don’t replace your bad habits with good ones. Let’s say you are, like most of us, spending several hours a day compulsively (1) scrolling through social media, (2) shopping online and/or (3) watching tv.
When you abstain, all of a sudden, you have a huge gap in your day. What do you do with all that time?
Boredom is one of the key culprits in relapse. When you get bored, you are likely to revert to your highly dopaminergic activities. This is especially the case when we have become obsessed with distracting ourselves from ourselves. When was the last time you just sat down and did nothing? Where you just focused on being in the present moment, alone with your thoughts and possibly your boredom?
Most of us are “plugged in” from the second we wake up to the second we fall asleep. This is harming your brain more than you realize.
A key in you successfully abstaining is replacing your bad, highly dopaminergic habits with good ones.
Your dopamine detox success depends on keeping yourself busy. Draw a list of things you want to do over your dopamine fast period. Make sure to include physical exercise (for a list of exercise’s astounding physical and psychological benefits, check out our article here).
Just like there is an art to breaking bad habits, there’s an art (& science) to building good ones. You can check out our ultimate guide to building good habits here.
Last tip before we move on to the next section: prepare for things to get (much) worse before they get better.
Universal symptoms of withdrawal from any addiction include anxiety, irritability and insomnia. The more established your addiction (or bad habit, to use a milder expression) is, the more severe the withdrawal symptoms are going to be.
BE PREPARED TO FIGHT.
Recovery Tip #2: Embracing Pain & Hormesis.
We are biologically wired to pursue pleasure and avoid pain. This has been the case during our ancestors’ time, and this remains the case today. Yet our generation is, arguably, the softest in human history. This is partially due to two self-reinforcing mechanisms.
(1) Our relentless pursuit of pleasure, which is enabled by pervasive, easily accessible dopaminergic activities.
This is only getting worse with time as our society descends into deeper degeneracy and excessive pleasure seeking. For example, during our ancestors’ time, a male might see a handful of naked females during his lifetime. In today’s world, a young teenager can, within few clicks, see more naked females in an hour than our ancestors could have seen in 10 lifetimes.
(2) Our avoidance of pain is easier than ever with our exceedingly more indulgent lifestyles.
Our ancestors had to hunt and forage for hours to obtain minimally processed, whole foods. Now we can walk 30 seconds to any shop and get any food we want. Such foods are also infinitely more palatable than our ancestors’ (for a discussion of the rise of ultra processed foods, you can check out our article here). Even more, there are plenty of food delivery apps that get you exactly what you need to your door.
For the most part, we don’t have to experience “pain” to ensure our survival. In today’s world, the easiest thing is to be an over-fed couch potato.
Part of re-establishing dopaminergic homeostasis is embracing challenges & pain. Just like the pursuit of pleasure leads to pain, the pursuit of challenges & pain leads to (well-earned) pleasure.
Embracing Pain
“What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.“
Nietzsche
Hormesis is a phenomenon in which exposure to a stressor makes us better. For example, working out technically damages your muscles. Yet through hormesis, your muscles’ exposure to stress forces them to grow stronger. The same principle applies across the board – whether in relation to physiological or psychological stressors.
In fact, this is how medical practitioners sometimes treat phobias. For example, if you are struggling with social anxiety, one way to tackle it is to gradually expose yourself to what you are deathly afraid of: social interactions. With time, you can incrementally expand your comfort zone, ultimately overcoming your social phobia altogether.
However, for hormesis to work, the stressor needs to be administered in the right dose. If you overtrain, your muscles are going to shrink. If you go through too much adversity, you are going to crumble instead of grow. If you overwork, you are going to burn out. You get the idea!
Below, we suggest some key challenging activities you should consider pursuing as part of your dopaminergic recovery.
How To Increase Dopamine (Productively)
(1) Physical Training.
As previously pointed out, physical training has astounding benefits and should be added to your staple of good habits. It doesn’t have to be lifting weights – it can be whatever works for you as long as you are moderately challenging yourself. You should be able to start feeling the psychological benefits of exercise almost immediately.
(2) Cold Therapy.
You might have already heard about Wim Hof (aka the Iceman). He has been pioneering cold therapy for a good number of years now, and has an impressive global following. This is for good reason. Many of his followers report better anxiety management, lesser depression, heightened alertness and an overall better sense of well-being. A number of scientific studies are increasingly substantiating cold therapy’s benefits, with Hof being a key proponent.
(3) Intermittent Fasting.
We have extensively covered intermittent fasting here, so there is limited value in us repeating ourselves. In a nutshell, per our discussion in the article so far, intermittent fasting subjects the body to a form of a stress. This stress – or pain – can be in turn highly beneficial both from a dopaminergic standpoint and more generally (as further discussed here).
Dopamine: From Good To Great
The tips shared so far should help you re-establish dopaminergic normality. Once your dopamine system heals, you should feel motivated, more focused and able to enjoy the simple things in life.
Here’s a tip for you to go from good to great: learn to spike dopamine from the (productive) activity itself. This is in contrast to spiking dopamine prior to, or after, the activity (by anticipating or indulging in external rewards). In other words, you should cultivate your ability to find enjoyment in the process instead of the outcome or any associated external benefits.
For dopamine, we are working towards a simple yet incredibly powerful equation: EFFORT = REWARD.
This is relevant to the classic distinction between intrinsic motivation (doing something because it is inherently interesting or enjoyable) and extrinsic motivation (doing something because it leads to a separate outcome). While most people discuss this distinction, few realize that dopamine is at the heart of its significance.
Yet implementing this tip is easier said than done. Homo Sapiens, by default, avoids difficult things unless absolutely necessary. How do we trick ourselves into enjoying difficult things, such as working on a side hustle?
Developing Intrinsic Motivation Tip #1: Change Your Self-Dialogue.
Our self-dialogue is immensely powerful. This is because, at least in part, dopamine responds to subjective experiences. What matters is how interesting and pleasurable YOU perceive an activity to be. Fundamentally, our perception of how pleasurable (or painful) an activity is is heavily influenced by the meaning we ascribe to it.
If you tell yourself that you hate what you’re doing and that it’s a chore, your brain is unlikely to release dopamine while you’re doing it. You won’t find enjoyment in the process, just discomfort and pain.
Alternatively, if you focus on the positives of the activity itself, no matter how classically unenjoyable or boring, you will derive pleasure from doing it. When your brain starts associating friction with progress, enjoyment will very shortly follow.
Developing Extrinsic Motivation Tip #2: Allow The Dopamine Detox To Work Its Magic
Once the dopamine detox works its magic and our pleasure / pain balance is level again, we are able to derive pleasure from the simple things in life. Very importantly, it becomes easier for us to derive pleasure from challenging activities.
Working on your side business is not nearly as enjoyable as playing video games, watching the latest Netflix hit show or mindlessly scrolling through social media.
On the other hand, working on your side business is (probably) more enjoyable than sitting on your couch all day and doing nothing, consumed by boredom.
We have evolved to derive pleasure from productive and challenging activities such as hunting and foraging. Cutting out unproductive, highly dopaminergic activities in our dopamine detox takes us back to a phase where we had to earn our rewards.
David Goggins: A Super “Field Scientist”
Goggins is the embodiment of turning effort into the reward. If you want real life illustrations of the tips shared in this article, make sure to check out his many YouTube videos and social media posts.
Although Goggins did not study any of these tips, he has uncovered them in practice – whether in his Navy Seal training or countless ultra-marathons.
In many ways, Goggins is the super “field scientist”. He doesn’t philosophize from the comfort of a chair; he constantly tests and develops his philosophy through practice.
As our readers would know, this is at the heart of the Sapiens Maximus philosophy. It’s not about knowledge, but applied knowledge. We give you the tools you need but these tools mean very little without you consistently applying them to your life.
Summary
We have covered a lot of ground in this article. Therefore, we think it would be helpful to provide a high level recap of everything we discussed. You can come back to this summary as and when needed to remind yourself of the key points.
Dopamine & Its Functions
In this article, we have explored what dopamine is and what functions it serves. We have also dispelled some common misconceptions. For example, dopamine is about motivation and the pursuit of more, much more than it is about pleasure. It’s about thrill seeking, novelty and the continuous accumulation of resources.
Dopamine, by evolutionary design, is meant to turn us into perpetual seekers. Never satisfied with what we have. If you’re homeless, you’d want a roof over your head. If you have an apartment, you’d want a nicer one. If you have a luxury flat, you’d want a mansion. If you’re with an amazing spouse, other people start catching your eye as soon as the thrill of the unfamiliar wears off.
Dopamine doesn’t understand what “enough” is; it only understands one word: MORE.
This is why it is key to counter-balance dopamine with another set of molecules: the Here & Nows. These include serotonin and oxytocin, and ensure that you enjoy what you have already accumulated through the dopaminergic process. Practices like keeping a gratitude journal enhance your H&N’s functions.
Pleasure / Pain Balance
Separately, we have also explored the pleasure / pain balance. We have seen how, through the process of homeostasis, what goes up must come down (and vice versa).
Yet the problem in today’s society is that we are relentlessly and compulsively pursuing pleasure.
Feeling “good” often trumps all else in our lives – whether that’s translated into Netflix binges, endless social media scrolling or junk food bonanzas. Many facts & statistics illustrate this. Here’s one for you: more people are dying from obesity than starvation.
Through our repeated pleasure seeking, we have developed a chronic dopamine deficit state. Our balance has become, by default, titled to the side of pain. We have lost our ability to enjoy the simple things in life, and are forever in pursuit of more pleasurable, highly dopaminergic activities.
Our development of tolerance has meant that we are coerced into seeking more potent forms (more frequently) of our “drugs” of choice.
Paradoxically, our continuous pursuit of pleasure has led to anhedonia: the inability to experience pleasure altogether. Our pleasure / pain balance has gotten so skewed that for most of us, it is no longer about feeling good. It has become about feeling normal. It’s no longer about achieving pleasure. It has become about alleviating suffering. This is most acutely observed in advanced addictions.
Recovery
Continuous flooding of our brains with abnormally high levels of dopamine has messed us up. The path to recovery begins with abstinence. This is commonly referred to as a “dopamine detox” or “dopamine fast”.
The process entails cutting out, or heavily reducing, highly dopaminergic (unproductive) activities. It is however very difficult to implement this – especially if our bad behaviours and addictions are deeply rooted. For some helpful guides, you should check out our articles on breaking bad habits and building good ones.
The next step in your recovery is embracing challenges & pain. We are so obsessed with shielding ourselves from pain that our generation has become the softest in human existence. Pain is good, it’s an impetus to grow. It’s also a key factor in rebalancing the pleasure / pain balance.
When we pursue challenges and subject ourselves to (productive) pain, our ability to experience pleasure goes up. Just like our pursuit of pleasure has caused us chronic pain & suffering, our pursuit of (productive) pain will provide us with well-earned pleasure.
From Good To Great
Armed with our new understanding of dopamine, we can use this molecule to supercharge our lives. A key component of going from good to great is learning how to spike dopamine from effort. This is at the heart of classic distinctions such as (1) intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation and (2) focus on the process vs outcome.
The equation we are striving towards is simple, but incredibly powerful: EFFORT = REWARD. A number of individuals, such as David Goggins, have shown the transformative impact this approach could have on a person’s life.
Parting Thoughts
A lot has gone into writing this article. Yet none of it means anything if you don’t apply it.
We wish you good luck on your journey to strength in adversity, calm amidst the storms, relentless resilience and uncompromising health.
Your self-proclaimed family,
The Sapiens Maximus team
Sources & Further Readings
(1) Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence – Dr. Anna Lembke
Disclaimer: No content on this site should ever be used as a substitute for direct medical advice from your doctor or other qualified clinician.
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