Dopamine has a huge influence on what we do throughout our day. Quite often it’s the driving force for addictive habits to form, ones which are difficult to break. Smoking, drinking alcohol, playing video games, or using your phone can all release dopamine.
However, you can learn to use this powerful neurotransmitter to your advantage. That’s where dopamine hacking comes in. In this article I’ll cover what dopamine is, how it works, its benefits/consequences, and how to use it like a superpower.
Sound interesting? Keep reading then.
What is Dopamine?
Dopamine is a type of neurotransmitter. It’s a chemical messenger your body releases when you’re expecting or pursuing a reward. It causes you to crave things you want or need, motivating you get them.
What’s interesting is that humans have this wanting chemical more than any other species.
Crazy, right?
However, dopamine alone isn’t enough to motivate you. It’s co-released in your nervous system with adrenaline. Both play equally important roles:
- Dopamine makes you feel good. So, when you do something enjoyable, you feel pleasure, encouraging you to want to do it again in the future.
- Adrenaline gives you energy. It stimulates your nervous system, causing you to feel alert and ready to act. Just like when you’re in fight-or-flight mode.
This chemical cocktail is the perfect mix to motivate you.
How Dopamine and Adrenaline Work Together
Let’s imagine you’re an experienced camper.
You’ve gotten lost out in the wilderness, but you have essential survival tools with you. You haven’t eaten in days and feel fatigued with little energy to spend. All of a sudden you spot a rabbit in the distance.
Your mind floods with images of how it will taste cooked over a roaring fire. Boom, your pleasure response activates as dopamine releases. At the same time your body releases adrenaline. Despite feeling fatigued beforehand, you now feel energised.
Your mind and body are alert, beautifully synchronised together. Your heart is beating faster, whilst more blood flows to your vital organs. You’re in survival mode, feeling motivated and ready to hunt your dinner!
Another example would be you craving to check social media.
The anticipation alone releases dopamine, you feel pleasure, causing you to want to pick up your phone. Then as you scroll mindlessly, even more releases. This tells your brain that browsing through social media makes you feel good. Keeping you motivated to do it again in the future.
This is the downside to dopamine. It can cause addictive behaviours to begin and continue.
What Happens When You Release too Much Dopamine?
The problem nowadays is we have an endless number of ways to trigger dopamine release. Food, entertainment, video games, exercise, social media, technology, porn, and so on.
But dopamine is a limited resource.
We all have a low-level baseline amount in our system. When you experience a big peak in dopamine, it then falls below baseline and becomes depleted. Causing you to feel drained.
This explains why you feel exhausted and unmotivated after achieving a big goal you’ve been striving for. Or after indulging in unhealthy food. Your body needs time to restore your dopamine levels back to baseline.
The more your dopamine peaks, the further it falls afterwards. It’s good practice to avoid spiking your dopamine before an activity, otherwise you limit how much you can release during an activity.
So, what can you do to use dopamine to your advantage?
Conserve Your Dopamine
As you only have a limited amount of dopamine to spare, learn to conserve it. If you release too much, you won’t have any left during the rest of your day. So, pace yourself instead.
Be mindful of what activities trigger your own dopamine release. Write a list. That could include sex, sports, working out, listening to music, eating, shopping, scrolling on your phone, and so on.
That doesn’t mean don’t have fun or enjoy things.
But pay attention to how you feel and don’t try to cram in too much in a short period of time. That way you’ll have plenty to release throughout your day. That way you’ll have more energy and motivation overall.
As Andrew Huberman puts it, “a little bit goes a long, a lot goes even further, but it also takes you down deeper afterwards”.
That’s a good rule of thumb to remember.
Release Your Dopamine Intermittently
You can use dopamine like a superpower to help you do tasks that you find challenging or boring. I used to approach this incorrectly. In the past when doing something boring, I would work for 20 minutes, and then reward myself.
Usually, I’d listen to a song, make a cup of tea, have a snack, or watch a short video on YouTube. I thought that if I knew a reward was coming, I’d be more likely to do the work. There is some truth to this, but it’s not the best tactic.
Rewarding yourself after the hard work tells your brain to postpone feeling pleasure, until after you’re done. Most likely causing you to want to rush and get to the end point, without enjoying the process.
What’s far more effective is to reward yourself intermittently. Casinos have been using this strategy for decades. When you gamble, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. You never know what the outcome will be, but the anticipation of winning keeps you coming back.
You can use this exact same strategy to your own advantage.
Give yourself rewards throughout the task at random. That way you release dopamine whilst you’re doing the hard work, causing you to enjoy the process. Furthermore, it motivates you to keep going and to do more in the future.
See how this crafty little brain hack works?
Develop a Growth Mindset with Positive Self-Talk
Psychologist Carol Dweck developed the growth mindset. This allows you to retrain your brain to release dopamine in moments of difficulty. Enabling you to experience pleasure when pursuing your goals, even if the task you’re doing is tedious and challenging.
How can you do this? It’s simple enough.
Let’s say you’re writing a demanding assignment. There will likely be times when you feel fed up and frustrated. In these moments tell yourself “I’m so proud I’m the type of person who works hard to pursue my long-term goals. This essay may be challenging now but it will worth it in the end.”
Then continually praise yourself by saying “I’m doing well here, keep going”.
Imagine you’re craving that piece of cake you’ve spotted in the café. Uh-oh, you’re in the danger zone! You’ve already released dopamine by anticipating what it would taste like. You’re meant to be dieting. Plus, you already caved in and bought a chocolate brownie two days ago.
Time to fight dopamine WITH dopamine by releasing it on your own terms.
Say to yourself “I’m so glad I’m resisting the urge to eat this. I know so many people who give into their temptations and have no will power. By not eating this cake I’m working towards being healthier”.
Finding it hard to get through your workout? Say “I’m so happy I’m working out to build a stronger body. There are many people who sit at home and do nothing. I’m taking steps to make positive changes right now”.
Talking to yourself like this can release small amounts of dopamine. Even it seems hard to believe. What’s important is that you say these statements with conviction. If they’re true, then that shouldn’t be difficult.
This mindset empowers you to have a strong sense of personal validation. You become more resilient and self-sufficient, with the ability to motivate yourself to do anything, at any time.
Use Dopamine Like a Superpower
I’ve covered a lot in this article. Allow me to summarise everything clearly. When you release dopamine, you feel pleasure. You release it when you anticipate something enjoyable, whilst you’re doing it, and a little after you have finished.
To use dopamine as a superpower you should:
- Be mindful of what activities release your dopamine
- Conserve your dopamine
- Avoid spiking your dopamine before an activity
- Release your dopamine intermittently to enjoy the process
- Develop a ‘Growth Mindset’ using positive self-talk
Once you do this, you can feel motivated anything. Be more productive. All whilst enjoying the process, no matter what the task. You can release dopamine on command for your own benefit. You just need to take those first steps.
Are you ready? Let me know in the comments.
Take care of yourself,
Chris from Mindful Way to Be
