121__transcript.txt

- 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 ophthalmology at
Stanford School of Medicine.
This podcast is separate
from my teaching and
research roles at Stanford.
It is however, part of my desire
and effort to bring you zero
cost to consumer information
about science and science related tools,
along those lines I'd like to thank
the sponsors of today's podcast.
Our first sponsor is Athletic Greens.
Athletic Greens is an all-in-one vitamin
mineral probiotic drink.
I've been taking Athletic
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The reason I started
taking Athletic Greens is
because I found it rather dizzying
to know which vitamins
and minerals to take
and Athletic Greens covers all my bases
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It also includes probiotics
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of data supporting the fact
that probiotics are important
for the gut brain access, for immunity
for metabolic health, endocrine
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So I take Athletic Greens once,
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Headspace is a meditation app
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I've been meditating on and
off since I was 16 years old.
I'm 45 now.
So that's about 30 years
of on and off meditation
and I confess most of
that time it was off,
meaning I find it really hard to stick
to a meditation practice.
A few years ago I discovered Headspace
while flying on JetBlue flights
'cause at that time they
were offering Headspace
as something you could watch
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And it made me feel great.
I'd find that I arrived
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and I got the Headspace app
and I started using it daily
and I've continued to use it daily.
Headspace has a large
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There's also now just a
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like improved sleep,
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There are just a myriad of
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The hardest thing is doing it
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The third sponsor of today's
podcast is magic spoon.
Magic spoon is a low carb,
grain-free keto friendly cereal.
As I've mentioned a few
times before on this podcast
the way I eat throughout
the day has everything to do
with when I wanna be alert
and when I wanna be sleepy.
So in the first part of the day
I fast because that enhances alertness.
Then I eat keto.
So my lunch and my afternoon
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and vegetables because those
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So for me, magic spoon as a
keto cereal is a great snack.
It's really tasty.
I don't actually mix mine with milk.
I just eat it directly.
They have a bunch of different flavors.
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I really enjoy it.
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put "Huberman" at checkout
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A quick note before we
begin today's discussion
about the neuroscience of motivation.
I'm pleased to announce
that we have now captioned episodes one
and two in Spanish and
soon, all the episodes
of the Huberman Lab
Podcast will be captioned
on YouTube in Spanish.
We've used some of the revenue
from the podcast to
hire expert captioners.
So it should be accurate.
You might catch a mistake here
or there a dialect
difference from time to time
but by our read and by our experts reads,
it's all accurate.
So we're very pleased that
people who speak Spanish
and digest information
best in Spanish can now
digest the information
here on the podcast.
Thanks to everyone for
supporting the podcast
which allows us to broaden
our reach in these ways
and we do hope to expand
to other languages in
the very near future.
This month, we're talking all
about the neuroscience of emotions
and today we're going to
talk about an extremely
important topic that
central to our daily life
and that's motivation.
We're going to talk about
pleasure and reward.
What underlies our sense
of pleasure or reward.
We're going to talk about addictions.
You can't have a discussion about pleasure
and reward without having a
discussion about addictions
and the addictive properties
of certain substances
as well as how to break free of addiction.
As well we're going to talk
about the neurochemistry
of drive and mindset.
So all these themes are woven together
in the context of emotions.
Each one of them of course could also
be its own entire month of the podcast
and in fact, we are going to have
an entire month devoted to addiction
and I have a very special guest
that's going to be joining us
to talk about the science
and clinical practices
that we know are important
for understanding and treating addiction.
But for now, let's just
talk about the neuroscience
of motivation and reward
of pleasure and pain
because those are central to
what we think of as emotions
whether or not we feel good,
whether or not we feel
we're on track in life
whether or not we feel
we're falling behind.
So motivation is fundamental
to our daily life.
It's what allows us to get
out of bed in the morning.
It's what allows us to
pursue long-term goals
or short-term goals,
motivation and the chemistry of motivation
is tightly wound in with the
neurochemistry of movement.
In fact, the same single
molecule ,dopamine
is responsible for our sense of motivation
and for movement, even though
nerves controlling muscles.
So again, these are
nerves in the spinal cord
or brain that move our
limbs, the effector chemical
they're the one that actually
causes the muscles to
twitch to contract, is a
CDOT Colleen in the brain.
Acetylcholine is responsible for focus.
However, whether or not we move,
whether or not we want to move
whether or not we have the
desire to overcome barriers of
they could be social barriers
or financial barriers or time constraints.
That depends on this molecule.
We call dopamine, it's
a fascinating molecule
and it lies at the center of
so many great things in life
and it lies at the center
of so many terrible aspects of life
namely addiction and certain
forms of mental disease.
So if ever there was a double-edged blade
in the world of
neuroscience it's dopamine.
So let's talk about what dopamine is
and as always we are going to talk
about actionable tools today.
We're definitely gonna talk about
some things related to supplementation.
Although you might be surprised to learn
that it's not all just
about increasing dopamine
and in particular, in some cases
that's the wrong thing to do.
Sometimes it's appropriate
sometimes it's not.
More so we're going to
talk about tools related
to what's called dopamine scheduling, how
the way that you're leading your life
and the way that you're
conceptualizing your goals
can actually predict whether
or not you're going to
continue to pursue those goals.
And therefore whether
or not you will succeed
in achieving those goals
As well as whether or not you will quit.
There's a fundamental relationship between
dopamine released in your brain
and your desire to exert effort.
And you can actually control the schedule
of dopamine release
but it requires the appropriate knowledge.
This is one of those cases where
understanding the way
the dopamine system works
will allow you to leverage
it to your benefit.
And if you don't understand
the way that dopamine works
there's a good chance that it's going
to pull you out into the current of life.
Meaning the rest of the world is going
to control your dopamine schedules.
So I'm excited to tell you
about today's information.
You're gonna learn some basic science.
You're gonna learn a lot of tools
and these tools I believe are applicable
whether or not you're five years old
eight years old, 80 years
older, anything in between.
So let's talk about dopamine.
Let's get a few basic facts on the table.
Dopamine was discovered in the late 1950s
and it was discovered as the
precursor, meaning the thing
from which epinephrin
or adrenaline is made.
Now that's fundamentally important
because this molecule we
call dopamine nowadays,
we think of as the molecule
of reward and pleasure,
but actually it is the substrate
from which adrenaline
is made and in the brain
it's the substrate from
which epinephrin is
made epinephrin is the
same thing as adrenaline
except in the brain we call it epinephrin.
Epinephrin as you may recall
from previous podcasts,
or if you haven't no problem epinephrin
allows us to get into action.
It stimulates changes in the
blood vessels, in the heart
in the organs and tissues
of the body that bias us for movement.
And if you'd like to learn
more about epinephrin
you can check out our
episode on mastering stress.
We talk a lot about it there.
Dopamine was initially thought to be just
the building block for epinephrin.
And it is indeed the
chemical building block
from which epinephrin is made.
However, dopamine does a
lot of things on its own.
It's not always converted to epinephrin.
Dopamine is released from several sites
in the brain and body, but
perhaps the most important one
for today's discussion about motivation
and reward is something
that sometimes just
called the reward pathway
for the it's sometimes called
the mesolimbic reward pathway
but it's fundamentally important
to your desire to engage in action
and it's fundamentally important
for people getting addicted
to substances or behaviors.
So how does this work?
Well, you've got a structure
in the deep part of your
brain called the VTA.
It stands for ventral tegmental area.
As always you don't have
to remember these names,
but if you want to I
offer them to you for food
further googling, research,
reading, et cetera,
the VTA or ventral tegmental
area contains neurons that
send what we call axons little
wires that spit out dopamine
at a different structure
called the nucleus accumbens
and those two structures VTA
and nucleus accumbens form
really the core machinery
of the reward pathway
and the pathway that
controls your motivation
for anything you can think
of them like an accelerator
they bias you for action.
However, within the reward
pathway, there's also a break
the break or restriction on that dopamine
which controls when it's released
and how much it's released
is the prefrontal cortex.
The prefrontal cortex is
the neural real estate right
behind your forehead.
It's discussed for so many
aspects of neuroscience.
You hear about it for decision-making ,
executive function ,for
planning, et cetera.
And indeed it's responsible
for a lot of those.
It's this really unique real estate
that we were all endowed with as humans,
other animals don't have much of it.
We have a lot of it
and that prefrontal cortex acts
as a brake on the dopamine system
without that break you would be purely
a pleasure seeking animal.
You would be purely pleasure seeking.
You would have no basis for
regulating your behavior
in terms of trying to get
things that make you feel good.
And that brings us to the
important feature of motivation
which is that motivation
is a two-part process
which is about balancing
pleasure and pain.
Okay. Most people think about motivation
and reward and dopamine is just
trying to achieve pleasure.
And indeed dopamine is released
in the brain from the VTA
at the* nucleus accumbens.
When we experience things that we like.
So here's the way to conceptualize this
and if you can internalize
this in your mind
it will really help you as
you move through your day
trying to understand why
you might be motivated
or not motivated for certain things.
So when you're just sitting
around, not doing much
of anything, maybe you wake
up in bed in the morning.
You're thinking about getting up or not.
This reward pathway is releasing dopamine
at a rate of about three
or four times per second.
It's kind of firing in a low level.
When I say firing me an electrical
activity in the neurons.
So when you're just around,
you feel okay, not depressed
not highly motivated, not excited
maybe three or four times a second.
If suddenly you get
excited about something
you anticipate something,
not receive an award
but you get excited in
an anticipatory way.
Then the rate of firing
the rate of activity
in this reward pathway suddenly increases
to like 30 or 40 times
and it has the effect of creating a sense
of action or desire to move
in the direction of the
thing that you're craving.
In fact, it's fair to say
that dopamine is responsible
for wanting and for craving,
and that's distinctly different
from the way that you hear
it talked about normally
which is that it's involved in pleasure.
So yes, dopamine is
released in response to sex.
It's released in response to food.
It's released in response
to a lot of things
but it's mostly released in anticipation
and craving for a particular thing.
It has the effect of narrowing our focus
for the thing that we crave
and that thing could be as
simple as a cup of coffee.
It could be as important
as a big board meeting.
It could be a big, final exam.
It could be a, the person
that we're excited to meet
or see dopamine doesn't care
about what you're craving.
It just releases at a particular rate.
In fact, if we just take a step back
and we look at the scientific data
on how much the dopamine
firing increases in response
to different things, you get
a pretty interesting window
into how your brain works
and why you might be
motivated or not motivated.
Let's say you're hungry,
or you're looking forward
to a cup of coffee, or you're
going to see your partner.
Well, your dopamine neurons
are firing at a low rate
until you start thinking
about the thing that you want
or the thing that you're
looking forward to
let's say you're craving chocolate
or a good meal, a steak
if you like steak or a nice plate of pasta
if you like pasta, when you eat that food
the amount of dopamine that's released
in this reward pathway goes
up about 50% above baseline.
The neurons there go from firing,
three or four times per second to,
six or 10 times per second.
It really depends
and these aren't exact numbers.
But if we were to measure the amount
of dopamine that's released, it goes
up about 50 points, all right.
Sex, which is fundamental
to our species, continuation
and reproduction.
Although it doesn't have to
be for conceiving children.
Sex does release dopamine
and it increases dopamine
levels about a hundred percent.
So basically doubles them.
Nicotine of the sort that's in cigarettes
or some people are taking nicotine
in supplemental form increases the amount
of dopamine about 150% above baseline.
It also does some other
things that we're gonna
talk about, but nicotine does that
and it's kind of interesting
that nicotine would increase the amount
of dopamine in your brain
very quick, within seconds
that's 150 times over
baseline as opposed to sex
which is a 100 percent
above or food which is 50%.
Cocaine and amphetamine
increase the amount
of dopamine that's
released a thousand fold
within about 10 seconds
of consuming the drug.
However, just thinking about food,
about sex, about nicotine
if you like nicotine or cocaine
or amphetamine can increase the amount
of dopamine that's released
to the same degree as
actually consuming the drug.
Now it depends in some cases, for instance
the cocaine user, the
addict that wants cocaine
can't just think about
cocaine and increase
the amount of that's
released about a thousand
fold is actually much lower
but it's just enough to put
them on the motivation track
for it to crave that particular thing.
Now, there are reasons why you would
have brain circuitry like this.
I mean, brain circuitry
like this didn't evolve
to get you addicted
brain circuitry like this evolved
in order to motivate behaviors
toward particular goals,
water when you're thirsty ,
sex in order to reproduce
and we're gonna talk
about the relationship
between estrogen and testosterone
and the dopamine system
because those hormones actually
bias dopamine to be released.
These things and these
brain areas in neurons
were part of the
evolutionary history that led
to the continuation of our species.
Things like cocaine and
amphetamine are disastrous
for most people because
they really so much dopamine
and they create these
closed loops where people
then only crave the particular
thing, cocaine, amphetamine
that leads to those massive
amounts of dopamine release.
Most things don't release
that level of dopamine.
Now, nowadays there's a ton
of interest in social
media and in video games
and there have been some measurements
of the amount of dopamine
released video games
especially video games
have a very high update
speed where there's novel
territory all the time
not novelty is a big stimulus of dopamine.
Those can release dopamine somewhere
between nicotine and cocaine.
So very high levels of dopamine release.
Social media is an interesting one
because the amount of dopamine
that's released in response to logging
onto social media initially
could be quite high
but it seems like likely that
there's a taper in the amount
of dopamine and yet
people still get addicted.
So why, why is it that we can get addicted
to things that fail to get
to elicit the same massive amount
of pleasure that they initially did.
Being addicted to
something isn't just about
the fact that it feels so good
that you wanna do it over and over again
and that's because of
this pleasure pain balance
that underlies motivation.
So let's look a little bit closer
at the pleasure pain balance because
there in lies the tools
for you to be able to control motivation
toward healthy things and
avoid motivated behaviors
towards things that are
destructive for you.
There are a lot of reasons why
people try novel behaviors
whether or not those are drugs or
whether or not those are adventure,
thrill-seeking things or
they seek out new partners
they take a new class as you'll notice.
I'm not placing any judgment
or value on these different behaviors.
Although I think it's fair to point
out that for most people addictive drugs
like cocaine and amphetamine
are very destructive.
Actually we know that about 15
to 20% of people have a genetic bias
towards addiction , you sometimes hear
that the first time that you use a drug
you can become addicted to it.
That's actually not been shown
to be true for most things
in most people, but for some
people that actually is true.
And we'll talk a little
bit later about why
certain people are heavily
biased toward becoming addicts
on the first use of a particular drug.
It's actually very interesting,
it has everything to do with whether
or not they were formerly
addicted to something else
but in any case, the
way that addiction works
and the way that
motivation works generally
in the non-addictive setting is
that when you anticipate something
a little bit of dopamine
is released, and then
when you reach that thing,
you're engaged in that thing
the amount of dopamine
goes up even further
but as you repeatedly pursue a behavior
and you repeatedly engage
with a particular thing
let's say you love running
or you love chocolate as
you eat a piece of chocolate
believe it or not, it tastes good
and then there's a shift away
from activation of dopamine.
And there are other
chemicals that are released
that trigger a low level sense of pain.
Now you might not feel it as physical pain
but the craving that you feel
is both one part dopamine
and one part, the mirror image of dopamine
which is the pain
or the craving for yet
another piece of chocolate.
And this is a very important
and subtle feature of the dopamine system.
That's not often discussed.
People always talk about just as pleasure.
You love social media.
So it gives you dopamine.
And so you engage in that.
You like chocolate, it releases dopamine.
So you do that.
But for every bit of
dopamine that's released
there's another circuit
in the brain that creates you can think
of it as kind of like a
downward deflection in pleasure.
So you engage in something you really want
and there's an increase in pleasure.
And then without you doing anything
there's a mirror image of that
which is a downward deflection in pleasure
which we're calling pain.
So for every bit of pleasure
there is a mirror image experience
of pain and they overlap
in time very closely.
So it's sometimes hard to sense this
but try it the next time you
eat something really delicious.
You'll take a bite,
it tastes delicious
and part of the experience is
to want more of that thing.
This is true for any
pleasureful experience.
Now, the diabolical part
about dopamine is that
because it didn't evolve in
order to get you to indulge
in more and more and more of
something, what happens is
that initially you experience
an increase in pleasure
and you also experience this increase
in pain shortly after or woven in
with the pleasure that makes
you want more of that thing.
But with each subsequent time
that you encounter that thing
that you pursue, the chocolate that
you pursue the lover
each time, the experience
of dopamine release and pleasure
is diminished a little bit.
And the diabolical thing is
that the pain response
is increased a little bit
and this is best observed
in the context of drug seeking behavior.
The first time someone
decides to take cocaine
or amphetamine, they may
do it out of boredom.
They may do it out of peer pressure.
They may do it to relieve
some internal sense.
Maybe they're bored, or
they're just excited.
Maybe they're high in
novel novelty seeking.
There are a lot of reasons why people
might try a drug far too many for us
to get into our parks here.
Maybe they don't even wanna do it
but someone encourages them.
They will experience a
huge dopamine release
and they will feel likely very good.
However, the next time they take it
it won't feel quite as good.
And it won't feel even
as good the third time
or the next time, but the amount of pain
the amount of craving that they experience
for the drug will increase over time.
So much of our pursuit of pleasure
is simply to reduce the pain of craving.
So the next time you
experienced something,
you really like I don't wanna
take you out of that experience
but it's really important
that you notice this
that if there's something you really enjoy
part of that enjoyment is
about the anticipation and
wanting of more of that thing
and that's the pain system in action.
And so we can distinguish between dopamine
which is really about
pleasure and dopamine
which is really about
motivation to pursue more
in order to relieve or
exclude future pain.
Let me repeat that.
Dopamine isn't as much
about pleasure, as much
as it is about motivation
and desire to pursue more
in order to reduce the amount of pain
and we are now talking about pain
as a psychological pain and a craving
although people that
miss a lover very badly
or that really crave a food very badly,
or that are addicted to
a drug and can't access,
it will experience that
as a physical craving
and a mental craving the body and brain
are linked in this way.
It's almost, they'll
describe it as painful.
They yearn for it.
And I think the word yearning
is one that's very valuable
in this context, because yearning seems to
include a whole body experience
more than just wanting
which could just be up in the mind.
So your desire for
something is proportional
to how pleasureful it is
to indulge in that thing
but also how much pain you experience when
you don't have it.
And you can now start
to let your mind wander
into all sorts of examples of addictions
or things that you happen to like,
I'll use the example that
I sometimes use on here
which is my love of croissants.
Although several of you pointed out
these are called croissant
but then it sounds like
I'm trying to speak French
and I always tried to
do that when I was a kid
and I went to a bilingual
school and it failed
then it's gonna fail now.
So I'm gonna call them croissants.
They're delicious.
I love them a really good
one makes me wanna eat six.
It's true.
I have pretty good
impulse control, I think
but it makes me wanna eat six.
I taste it and it tastes so delicious
and unless I really force
myself to experience
the taste of it in my mouth
and how flaky I'm getting
hungry for it right now
and delicious the croissant
is mostly the tastes
of that croissant makes me
want to eat more croissants.
Now, eventually blood sugar goes up
satiety is reached, et cetera.
What happens then?
What is satisfaction and satiety about?
Well, that's a separate neuromodulator.
That's about the neuromodulator serotonin.
It's about oxytocin.
It's about a hormone system
that involves something
called prolactin.
So we're gonna talk about
all of those in the book
"the Molecule of More" wonderful book
those were described as
the here and now molecules
the ones that allow you to
experience your sensations
and pleasure in the present
and for which the brain stops
projecting into the future.
So now let's talk about craving
and these so-called here and now molecules
and how those engage in a kind
of push pull balance that
will allow you to not
just feel more motivated,
but also to enjoy the things
in life that you are pursuing
to a much greater degree.
We have neurons in an area
of our brain called the raphe R-A-P-H-E
The raphe releases serotonin
at different places in the brain.
Serotonin is the molecule of bliss
and contentment for what you already have.
I've talked before about exteroception,
exteroception is a focus
on the outside world,
everything beyond the
confines of your skin.
I've also talked about
interoception of focus
on things that are happening internally
within the confines of your skin.
Dopamine and serotonin can be thought
of as related to extra reception.
Dopamine makes us focused
on things outside us
that are beyond what we
call our personal space
where we actually have to move
and take action in order to achieve things
and serotonin in general has to do with
the things that are in our
immediate here and now,
hence the description
of these as the here and now molecules.
So it's interesting to
point out that the body
and the brain can direct its attention
towards things outside us or inside us
or split our attention between those.
I talked about this in a previous podcast
but if you didn't see it, no problem.
Just understand that dopamine biases us
toward thinking about what we don't have,
whereas serotonin and some
of the related molecules
like the endocannabinoids
if you picked up on
the word cannabinoid,
yes it's like cannabis
because cannabis attaches to
endocannabinoids receptors
and the endocannabinoids
are receptors that
and chemicals that the
cannabinoids that you
naturally make that are involved
in things like forgetting.
It's not a coincidence
that pot smokers don't have
the most terrific memory.
You may know a few that
have great memories
but chances are, they would
have even better memories
if they weren't pot smokers
but you make these molecules that bind
to these receptors that
make you feel kinda blissed
out and content in the present.
Those are receptors that exist in us
not for sake of consuming
THC or marijuana, but
for sake of binding of our
natural endogenous cannabinoids.
So you've got these two systems
they're kind of like a push pull
and if you were to say in the book
or wherever you go there
you are Jon Kabat-Zinn talks
about this meditation practice.
That's different than
most meditation practices
where you eat one almond
and you focus all of your
attention on the almond
the taste of the almond,
the texture of the almond.
That's really a mindfulness practice
that's geared towards
trying to take a behavior
which is normally about
pursuit, normally feeding
as we were going to engage in
feeding because of dopamine
we pursue more of a food
because of that pleasure pain relationship
I talked about before the
focus on the one almond
or becoming very present
in any behavior that
normally would be a kind
of extra susceptive pursuit behavior
and bring it into the here
and now that's a mental
trick or a mental task
that the mindfulness
community has really embraced
in order to try
and create increased pleasure
for what you already have.
It's really trying to accomplish a shift
from dopamine being released to serotonin
in the cannabinoid system,
being involved in that behavior.
So if you're interested in mindfulness
which is something I've talked
about before in this podcast
and I sort of made some off the cuff jokes
about the opposite of
mindfulness being mindlessness.
Mindfulness is a vast space
that is a mindful practice that a lot
of people have engaged in.
And indeed it can give
you deeper appreciation
for things that you already have.
Dopamine has the quality
of making people kind of
rabidly in pursuit of things.
Look at people who are high
on cocaine or amphetamine,
and they are almost
entirely extra receptive drugs
like marijuana, the opioids
anything that really hits
the serotonin system hard
tend to make people rather lethargic
and content to stay
exactly where they are.
They don't wanna pursue much at all.
Occasionally when people
smoke marijuana or consume THC
their appetite goes way up
and they really wanna consume food.
That's because of its effects
on insulin and its effects
on blood sugar, which is a
slightly separate matter.
But since some of you, probably your minds
might've gone to those either experiences
or reports of what pot does,
that's why it does that.
So you've got these molecules
like dopamine that make you focused
on the things you want
and the things you crave.
And then you've got the
molecules that make you content
with what you have.
So the most important thing,
perhaps in creating a healthy
emotional landscape is to have a balance
between these two neuromodulator systems
people that are always in anticipation
and desire and seeking that's
wonderful for pursuing goals.
However, it's terrible for enjoying life
and actually those
people are actually quite
difficult to be around.
There's a certain, almost
sociopathic element
to people who are what they
call hyper dopaminergic.
People who are always on
the dopaminergic scale
to the point where they
are always pursuing goals.
In fact, those people are known to be
at least in the psychological spectrum.
They can be very manipulative dopamine
and the pursuit of something
doesn't necessarily
have to be high energy and
intense from the outside.
When you observe it from the outside.
In fact, there are people
who will manipulate
in order to get what they want.
This has been shown who have
high levels of dopamine release
in their brain, but
they've learned that a kind
of passive manipulation is
the best way to maneuver
through a particular environment.
I don't wanna focus too much
on sociopathy because those
are kind of extreme examples
but it just goes to show that
people who identify a goal
and realize the series of
steps that they need to take
in order to achieve that
goal can either do it
through ethical means or non
ethical means they can do it
through active pursuit, being the kind
of type a person that's
always declaring their goals
and going after it,
posting it on Instagram
telling everybody about
it, try and recruit others.
There's that phenotype
there's that kind of signature of dopamine
and then there are the people that wanna
get what they want, and they're doing it
by always serving other people
by always taking care of
everybody else's needs
by always trying to accomplish their goals
but through a mode that at least
from the outside seems more passive
or more about supporting others.
Neither of these are good or bad.
And that's because dopamine is a molecule.
It doesn't care how you reach your goals.
It only cares that you reach your goals
because the internal sensation
is one again of mild pleasure
a little bit of pain,
although more pain over time.
If you're not reaching those goals
and it takes you away
from the here and now.
So at about this point in the podcast
I'm guessing that some you
are thinking, okay, great.
I want more dopamine.
I want to be more motivated.
I don't wanna procrastinate as much
and I want to be able to experience life.
I want these here and now
molecules to be released as well.
Well, there is a way to
do that, but you have to
understand the source of
procrastination is not one thing.
There are basically two kinds
of procrastinators or
so says the research.
The first kind are people
that actually really
enjoy the stress of
the impending deadline.
It's the only way they
can get into action.
These are people that
really like the feeling of
something being due in
an hour and how activated
and sharp and focused
that makes them feel.
Those people are people that are tapping
into the epinephrin
system, the stress system
and for which the stress really tightens
their ability to see it creates that
soda straw view of the world.
It creates an action element
in the body that makes them
feel like they wanna move.
It really eliminates all
the distractions for them.
So they're actually leveraging
stress internal stress
in order to achieve a
state that they can't
seem to otherwise achieve.
I won't tell you what to do
in order to overcome all
kinds of procrastination
but from a logical
perspective, it makes sense
therefore, for those
kinds of people to think
about other ways that
they can get their system
into activation, I've talked
about this in previous podcasts
but a couple of those tools might be the
what we called super oxygenation breathing
which I admit is not
always super oxygenating.
So this would be if didn't
want it to consume anything.
This could be 25 or 30 cycles of
in deep inhales and exhales.
It's likely to create some
anxiety and a low level stress.
If you're someone who's
prone to panic attacks
I wouldn't recommend this, but
it's pretty straight forward.
It will deploy adrenaline
into your system.
And you will find that your
visual field is focused
and you will be able to work
and focus better than if
you just kinda waited around
for some wave of motivation
to wash over you.
Normally you're waiting
for that deadline to come into sight
and then that's what the stimulus is.
But you can self-direct adrenaline release
without ingesting anything.
You can also ingest coffee, caffeine
or Mate or something
like that, which is what
I prefer very often to
coffee, which has caffeine.
Caffeine does release
dopamine at low levels
how much it releases
dopamine it isn't clear.
It seems to increase
firing in these neurons
in the nucleus accumbens by about 30%
which is a pretty low level,
but it can create agitation so for
caffeine sensitive people,
that could be a problem.
I've talked before about things
like L tyrosine the precursor
to dopamine or Mucuna Purina.
I talked about that in the last episode
but if you didn't see
that, just to remind you
L tyrosine is present in red meats,
it's in certain nuts and L tyrosine
is the precursor to dopamine.
You can supplement L tyrosine.
If you like, you will get a
big inflection in dopamine
but there is a crash associated with it.
However, it will increase
motivation in the short term
not suggesting anyone do this.
I wanna be very clear to
say what I always say.
I'm not a doctor.
I don't prescribe anything.
I'm a professor.
I profess things.
You have to know whether or not
these things are appropriate
for your mental and
physical health or not.
So you need to consult a doctor.
For instance, people who
suffer from schizotypal
or schizophrenia or
mania should probably not
be taking supplements that
increase their dopamine levels.
Now, if you can't increase your level
of focus and your level of alertness
and your level of motivation
using breathing well
then there might be
something else at play.
There are other procrastinators
for which they simply are not
releasing enough dopamine.
They're not making enough dopamine.
And for those people
there are a variety of things
that can increase dopamine.
I do suggest you talk to a psychiatrist
or doctor I've talked about Mucuna Purina,
which is 99.9%. L-DOPA
the precursor to dopamine.
So there are people
that do much better when
they take things that increase
their dopamine levels.
There are antidepressants
like Wellbutrin Pru prior own
which increase is the other name for it
which increased dopamine and epinephrin,
it can increase risk of epileptic attacks
if you're epileptic.
So again, you have to talk to your doctor
but they will increase dopamine
and motivation and focus.
However, if you think back
to our earlier discussion
about dopamine, dopamine
if it's very high, creates
a sense of pleasure
and the desire for more,
so you can also become a person
for which enough is never enough.
The only thing that dopamine
really wants is more
of the thing that releases dopamine
and so big inflections in dopamine,
whether or not they come from cocaine
or whether or not they come
from a supplementation,
caffeine exercise study regime
will just make you want more of something
and we've all heard
before of growth mindset
this incredible discovery of my colleague,
Carol Dweck where some of
these positive mindsets
that the psychology
community has put forth
as really good for pursuit of goals
and pursuit of things that
require long bouts of effort.
Well, it's wonderful if you
can learn to attach dopamine
to that process psychologically, but
if you're starting to augment the amount
of dopamine increase the amount
of dopamine through things
like supplementation
and prescription drugs
what's gonna happen is
you're not only gonna need to pursue more
and more of the sorts of things
that are associated with the dopamine.
So more doing more studying, more sport
more pursuit, higher
mountains, more money,
more whatever but we know that over time,
the mirror image of that
the pain of lack of
accomplishment will also increase.
This is the pleasure pain relationship
that we talked about earlier.
So in a few moments, I'm gonna talk
about how to think about
healthy dopamine schedules
but I just wanna take a
step back for a second
and talk a little bit about
the flip side of Dolby
and what happens after this
so-called dopamine crash
what mechanisms are installed in us,
because believe it or not,
there are mechanisms that are installed
in all of us that really put the complete
and total break on
dopamine, why they're there
and what they do because
you've experienced these before
and there are actually ways
that you can navigate them.
These dopamine crashes
are these intentional
dopamine suppression mechanisms
in order to leverage
healthier dopamine schedules
and to feel more motivated.
Perhaps one of the most
fundamental mechanisms
in all humans is the
neuro circuitry designed
for seeking out mates and for reproduction
and that's because the continuation
of any one species is the
primary driver for any species.
That's just the reality.
Now I'm removing all context here.
So whatever I say, of course, it's
on a backdrop of consensual age
appropriate species, appropriate context,
appropriate all of that.
This is not about the sociology
of reproduction and sex.
This is about the biology,
the biology of sex in males and females
doesn't matter if it's XX chromosome X
Y chromosome X, X, Y
X, Y Y doesn't matter.
The reality is that dopamine is released
on anticipation and consummation
of sex and reproduction.
And after orgasm, regardless
of chromosomal background
there's a dramatic decrease in dopamine
and an increase in a
hormone called prolactin.
Now, prolactin is associated
with milk let-down in lactating mothers.
It's also present in males and in general
prolactin creates a sense
of lethargy of stillness
and lack of desire to move
and lack of desire to pursue more
of whatever released the dopamine.
Prolactin in fact, sets
the refractory period
on a male's ability to mate again
now this is gonna vary tremendously
from individual to individual.
It also can, there are data showing
that it can vary tremendously
from mate pairing to
mate pairing the number
one thing that releases
dopamine is novelty
and it is true that the
refractory period is shortened
by the introduction of novel mates.
This was first shown in a kind
of classic experiment in
of all things in chickens.
This is called the Coolidge effect
and the story is the story goes
and I believe it's a true story,
it's actually in all the
neuroendocrinology textbooks.
So I believe it's true is
that president Calvin Coolidge
was visiting a chicken farm.
They were is being taken
around and the person who was
hosting the visit showed them
a rooster that was Coolidge and his wife
were on the visit and said
"this rooster copulates
thousands of times per day."
And Mrs. Coolidge apparently
kind of elbowed president Coolidge
and said, "ah, you hear
that" kind of like pointing
out the prowess of this rooster
and Coolidge said," yeah
but let me ask you a question,
same hen or different hens."
It turns out it was different hens.
And the reason is the introduction
of a novel mate increases dopamine levels.
And what's interesting about this is that
after copulation prolactin
goes through the roof
and prevents further
copulation dopamine crashes
but the introduction of some
sort of novelty shortens this.
Now this is not a ploy for people
to change mates often what this
is a story about the
dopamine and prolactin system
that also exists in humans.
Now, there are actually things that people
in certain communities take
in order to bypass these
refractory periods.
There's actually drugs
that increase dopamine
suppress prolactin and vice versa.
There's actually another
way to suppress prolactin.
Vitamin B6 is a fairly potent
prolactin inhibitor as a zinc.
And if you look out there
in the literature and for those either
in the wellness and cost
sports performance community
a lot of the so-called
quote unquote testosterone
boosters are actually
combinations of vitamin B6
and zinc which inhibit prolactin
and by way of inhibiting
prolactin increase dopamine.
So they do have some functional
effect in that regard.
They're not really increasing
testosterone directly
they're suppressing prolactin levels.
And there are clinical conditions
like hyperprolactinemia
which leads to massive
decreases in libido, et cetera.
And there are prescription drugs to
treat hyperprolactinemia, which of course
you should always talk
to an endocrinologist
about those sorts of prescription drugs.
So it's interesting that
this very basic mechanism
of dopamine and prolactin,
this sort of motivation,
no more motivation is
a system that evolved
for reproduction first, but
that actually takes place.
And you can see in elsewhere
in the world, for instance
schizophrenia disease that
has many different types
and facets, but schizophrenia
is a case of an often
of hyperactivation of the dopamine system
so much so that it can make
people feel kind of high,
they hallucinate, I
mean, we're talking very
very high or dysregulated
dopamine circuits in the brain.
One of the treatments for schizophrenia
are drugs that block dopamine receptors.
And if you have the it's unfortunate,
there are so many people that are out
on the street these days
who have schizophrenia,
some of whom are taking their meds,
some of who, whom aren't
if you ever see somebody on
the street that's doing what's
it's like a lip smacking and writhing
it's actually called tardive dyskinesia.
This is a movement disorder that's created
by taking these anti dopaminergic drugs.
So you can imagine these
anti-doping synergic drugs
while being very effective
in suppressing hallucinations
they create these movement problems
because of dopamines importance
for the movement circuitry
so-called pyramidal circuitry
for the aficionados.
In addition, you sometimes see
in males that take these drugs, drugs
like haloperidol and the
other dopamine blockers
that they actually develop
breast tissue gynecomastia.
So the development of
male breast tissue is
because of the elevated
levels of prolactin
because they're suppressing
their dopamine so much.
Now that's a really extreme
case, but maybe perhaps
if you see somebody engaging
these very strange kind
of face riding and body riding behaviors
that's actually not a consequence
of their mental illness.
That's a consequence
most often of the drugs
that they're taking to
treat the mental illness.
Those are side effects of those drugs.
Now prolactin is increased any time.
We have some really
heightened, intense experience.
It's not just released
after sex and reproduction.
Prolactin is released
after some major event,
it's actually responsible
thought for some of postpartum depression
for different types of kind
of the, the let down the low.
I can distinctly remember
that after finals or
after publishing a big paper,
I would be very, very happy
but then I'd find that, Oh, you know
like what next or things
might seem a little bit dimmed
or dulled out for the next day
or so, or the following week.
The timescales on these are gonna vary
because some people
release a lot of dopamine
for a very long time in
response to something great
and other people have a quick inflection
of dopamine and then they're
back to feeling not so great.
It really varies from person to person.
In fact, long ago, I started
as I learned about
dopamine reward circuitry
and the relationship would be
between dopamine and prolactin.
I started to leverage
this, believe it or not.
After some major event
I would take a couple 100
milligrams of vitamin B6.
I think for people who
have diabetic neuropathy
you need to be careful
with vitamin B6 check with your doctor.
I was told, although I
haven't found the literature
on this that it can, in some cases
exacerbate peripheral neuropathy, but
for most people it's thought
to be reasonably safe
but again, always check
with your physician
but I would take some B6 to
kind of offset some of that low.
And I actually, I don't know
if it was subjective or not
but it seemed to have
somewhat of a positive effect.
I also started just internalizing the fact
that dopamine is so subjective.
There are objective aspects to dopamine
and how much is released
but there's also some
subjective effects to dopamine.
And so one of the things that you can do
in order to generally
just be a happier person
especially if you're a person
in pursuit of long-term goals
of any kind is the longer
that you can extend
that positive phase of
the dopamine release.
And the more that you can
blunt the pain response to that
the better, and you can
actually do this cognitively.
I used to joke with my lab
that when we'd publish a paper
I would get really excited, but I wouldn't
allow myself to get too excited
what I wanted to do instead
and what I've still tried to do is try
and extend the arc of
that positive experience
as long as I possibly can simply
by thinking back like,
Oh, that was really cool.
I really enjoy doing that work.
I really enjoyed the discovery.
I really enjoy doing that with the people
that I was working with at the time,
what a pleasure that was.
I can get this very easily
from pictures of people,
in things like Costello
that I really enjoy trips that I've taken.
So you can extend pleasure
without having to engage in
the behavior over and over.
That's extending the arc of
that dopamine release as well.
It offset some of the pain
of not having that experience occur over
and over and over again.
Now for the high performers out there
you're probably familiar
with this many people who
have a big achievement.
Their first thoughts are will now, what
what am I gonna do next?
How am I ever gonna exceed that?
And indeed many people who are very high
on this kind of dopamine sensation
and novelty seeking scale
are prone to addiction.
They're prone to the rabid pursuit
of external goals of external
perception to the neglect
of these internal mechanisms
that allow them to
feel calm and happy.
So for people that are
very driven, very motivated
adopting a practice of
being able to engage
in the here and now the sort
of almond type practices
we talked about earlier
of learning how to achieve
a really good night's sleep
on a regular basis through
tools and mechanisms I talked
about in previous podcasts gives us sort
of balance to the pleasure
seeking for an offsetting
of pain and the pleasure
in the here and now.
So pleasure is really two things.
It's a joy in pursuit
but it's also the joy in what you have.
And there's a beautiful model
of emotional development
that was developed
by Alan shore professor at UCLA
and psychiatrist that talks
about some of the basics
of good infant parent attachment
where good parenting that leads
to healthy adult relationships
and emotion regulation
tends to include both sides
of this dopamine serotonin spectrum.
We talk about the
relationship between child
and parent typically was
the mother, but also father
where you can get the child really excited
by kind of squealing and ramping them
up or talking about something
or ice cream or play.
And the kid gets very excited.
That's the dopaminergic system
the anticipation of something
that's coming, but as well
engaging with children
in a way that's really
about everything that you have right
in the here and now,
the reading of the book
the kids always seem to ask one more time.
One more.
They seem to want more of
the things that they enjoy
but really engaging with them
in a way that increases
their sense of pleasure
for what's right there, as
well as giving them a lot
of things to be excited about
and positive anticipation.
Now, having worked years ago
with at-risk kids and also
with young kids at summer
camps and things like that
one of the things that you
learn is you never say maybe
to a kid about a reward.
If you say, we might have ice cream later
you are essentially saying
we are having ice cream.
They don't hear the maybe part
and it turns out adults don't either.
It's really interesting.
There's something called
reward prediction error.
I've talked about this before
but I haven't really talked
about it deeply in the context
of the dopamine system,
dopamine, as I've said,
is involved in anticipation of wanting,
not of having it's involved
in motivation toward
the thing that you want.
And it biases us towards action.
Reward prediction, error
equals the actual amount
of dopamine that's released in response
to something versus minus
the amount that's expected.
Okay. So if you tell a kid,
we might have ice cream
they hear we're gonna have
ice cream and they expect it.
And if you later say, well
we're not gonna have ice cream
and I said, maybe that's
actually gonna lead
to a much bigger crash in dopamine.
It's going to lead to a negative signal,
a punishment signal.
It's literally going to feel like pain.
So kids, you can leverage this.
If your parents say
maybe they're effectively
telling your dopamine system
absolutely. Now adults are like this too.
If we think something might
happen and it doesn't happen
there's a big crash in our aspect,
in our emotionality and that's because
that dopamine system goes from firing
about three to four times per second
to about 10 or 15 times per second
in the possibility that
something might happen
possibility is deeply
woven into our biology
of the dopamine and motivation system,
as a way for us presumably
in ancient times
to explore novel territories
and get a sense that
maybe there's water there.
Maybe there are mates there.
Maybe there's better food there
maybe there's resources there.
The maybe is important thing
that in language terms
maybe means maybe, but
in neuro-biological
terms maybe means perhaps
there's going to be the surprise
of an even bigger dopamine reward.
And the one thing dopamine loves more
than anything else is surprise.
When we get something
positive, we go to the mailbox
we're expecting some bills and you open it
up and you get a letter
from somebody you haven't
thought about in a long time.
And you adore that person.
That's a huge dopamine release.
It actually triggers neuroplasticity.
You probably never forget that
because of the way that
dopamine Gates' plasticity.
When we get an, a surprise
of something that we didn't want,
also it creates plasticity.
So the surprise, novelty,
motivation, and reward
they're all woven into this
package that we call dopamine.
And the cool thing is you can actually
regulate this whole system
in a way that will steer you
or lean you towards more
positive anticipation
of things in life and less disappointment.
It's simply a matter
of adjusting what we call
the dopamine schedule.
Okay. A couple things before we continue,
we're gonna talk about attention
deficit in a few minutes.
But before that, I wanna talk
about something that I've mentioned before
in previous podcasts, but
that you may not be aware of
and if you're aware of
you may still be doing,
which is severely injuring your
ability to release dopamine
it's creating a sense of
disappointment in ways
that are most likely hurting
you mentally and physically.
And that's the blunting of dopamine
by viewing light in
the middle of the night
I realized this is not
a discussion about sleep
and circadian rhythms,
but the data now are so
strong showing that viewing bright light
from about 10:00 PM to 4:00 AM
too often triggers activation
of this circuit called the habenula
So this is eye to
It goes from your retina
to a structure called the
habenula H-A-B-E-N-U-L-A
Then from the habenula to
some of this reward circuitry
and it suppresses the
activation of the reward.
Circuitry, not just in
that moment, but to things
that you normally positively
anticipate and pursue.
And the reason I'm bring this
up now is because I haven't really gone
into depth on the dopamine
system before now, you understand
that you have this very
precious reward system.
That's kind of a double-edged sword.
It needs to be taken
care of and treated well.
You wanna use it, but
not overuse it, et cetera
but getting bright light
exposure in the middle
of the night is reducing your
capacity to release dopamine.
So it's not just
about the sleep that you're
not getting in that time.
It's also that you're
not getting the dopamine
that would otherwise be available to you.
So you're actually taking, think of light
in the middle of the night as a kind
of antagonist is kind of
a blocker of dopamine.
Maybe that'll help you.
If you're somebody who has to work
in the middle of the night
and you wanna bypass
this dopamine suppression
please see the episode
about jet lag and shift work
because there are a lot
of tips there that will
allow you to do that
in order to understand how to
control the dopamine system
how to leverage it for a better life.
You need to understand the results
of a very important experiment.
This experiment was able
to separate pleasure
from motivation.
It's a very simple, but
like many simple experiments
a very elegant experiment, what they did
and this has now been done in animals.
and in humans, they offered rats food.
It was a food that they particularly liked
and the animals would lever
press for a pellet of food
kind of classic experiment
that eat the food
and they presumably liked the food
because they were motivated,
press the lever and eat it.
Great. They took other rats.
They eliminated the dopamine neurons.
You can do this by injection
of a neurotoxin that
destroys these neurons.
So they actually had no
dopamine in their brain.
They have no ability to release dopamine
and they gave them a lever
that rats would sit there
and they'd hit the lever
and they'd eat the food.
They're still enjoyed the food.
So you say, well, okay
so dopamine is involved in motivation.
It is involved in pleasure.
No, it absolutely is.
They could still enjoy the
food, but if they moved the rat
literally one body length
away from the lever.
What they found was the animals
that had dopamine would move
over to the lever, press it and eat.
And the ones, the rats that
did not have dopamine available
to them, wouldn't even move
one body lane, one rat length
to the lever in order to
press it and get the food.
Dopamine, therefore is not
about the ability to experience pleasure,
it is about motivation for pleasure.
This has been repeated in humans
in a variety of different scenarios.
You can't really do the lever
press thing quite as easily
but we know that people have low levels
of dopamine are simply less motivated
even though they can achieve pleasure.
And this has serious ramifications
for the fact that now, quote
unquote pleasure or ways
to induce things that we
believe give us pleasure are everywhere.
And they're within reach.
We don't have to forage for our food.
There's lot of highly
processed, high sugar
high fat foods.
There's also foods that are
healthy, that tastes good
but they're hopefully
they're pretty easy to
get all that different
people have different access
to things, of course, but dopamine
isn't about the ability
to experience pleasure.
It's about how motivated you
are to reach those pleasures.
And so many of you are
probably thinking, wow
I'm not a very motivated person.
Like you talked
about the one kind of
procrastination earlier.
What about when I just feel
kind of met about life now
for some of you, there may
be a real clinical depression
and you should talk to a professional.
There are very good prescription drugs
that can really help people.
There's also great non drug
treatments of psychotherapy
and other treatments
that are being developed
in addition to psychotherapy
in the various kinds
of psychoanalysis, et
cetera, that one can use.
I think the data really points
to the fact that a combination
of pharmacology and talk
therapies are generally best.
And there are a huge
range of these things.
I know many of you are
in these professions.
We're not gonna talk about that right now.
There's a compound.
That's kind of interesting
in the supplement
space that isn't MaCuna appearing, L-DOPA
it's not L tyrosine that isn't
promoting massive releases
of dopamine or even dopamine alone
but a combination of
dopamine and serotonin.
And it's an intriguing molecule
it's sold over the counter.
Again, you have to check
with your healthcare provider
before you would take
anything or remove anything.
That's very important, which
is, but it's, fenal ethyl
fenal Ethel aiming, or P-E-A
pea or beta fenal Ethel
aiming releases dopamine at low levels
but also serotonin and low level.
So it's kind of a cocktail
of the motivation molecules
as well as the quote unquote
here and now molecules.
And people's response
to this varies widely
but many people report
feeling heightened sense
of mental acuity wellbeing, et cetera.
It is a bit of a stimulant
like anything that triggers activation
of the dopamine and norepinephrine pathway
but is an interesting supplement.
I actually haven't tried it before.
So I can't report on my own experiences.
I will point you however, to examine.com.
It wouldn't be a Huberman
Lab Podcast episode.
If I didn't point you to examine.com
this incredible free
resource where you can put
in any supplement.
And it will tell you the
quote unquote human effect
matrix it'll point you
to the various studies.
We always provide a link
to this in the caption.
It's an amazing resource.
So you can go there to explore more
but I haven't talked about
beta Fino, L Ethel, Amy
and before in previous podcasts
and I wanted to add it to
the list of things that tap
into the dopamine system that are in this.
I guess we call it now
the supplementation space.
I personally am fascinated
by these supplements
and the things that
exist out there that are
non-prescription that seem to, at least
in some people have positive effects.
For instance, last episode
we talked about CDOT
L-carnitine, which there
are several papers that
report antidepressant effects
as well as positive effects
on other things, sperm health,
ovarian health, et cetera.
I learned from a colleague
that acetyl L-carnitine
in Europe is actually a prescription drug
in the US it's sold over the counter.
So I guess, depending on
where you're listening to this
the availability might vary.
And as always, I put the
caveat, you have to check
with your healthcare provider,
if it's right for you
but I'm fascinated by the fact
that these things exist
and that they lie somewhere
between prescription
drugs and doing nothing.
And that makes them interesting compounds.
And I think that P-E-A
beta fennel ethylamine is
yet another one of the, of such compounds.
I going to talk a lot
about attention deficit
and attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder
in a future episode, but I
do wanna mention it today
in the context of
dopamine and impulsivity.
So ADHD or ADD so attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder,
ADD our clinical diagnoses.
I think a lot of people
nowadays walk around and say
I have ADD or you have ADD
and indeed one can create a sort
of ADD by attention
switching all the time.
I'm a big fan of Cal Newport.
He wrote the book" deep work."
I believe he was the one who said context
switching is terrible for the brain.
It's like the worst thing for the brain
because then the brain
learns to context, switch
and real deep work productivity,
learning of all kinds
good relationships of all kinds
really come from depth of experience
not from breadth of
experience within the moment.
And so I think it's important to know that
there's clinical ADHD and ADD
and then there's the
kind that people are kind
of inducing and through distraction
and social media and phones, et cetera.
And those can sometimes lead
to clinical ADHD and ADD
But I wanna talk about ADHD
and ADD in kids just briefly
the drugs that are normally
given to treat those conditions
ADHD and ADD are things like Adderall
things that have very
amphetamine, light qualities
and structures, and you might
ask, why would they do that?
Well, it turns out that in kids
these activate that for brain circuitry
the break that exists on the
deeper mesolimbic circuitry.
So as you recall, there's
the VTA and nucleus accumbens
as the kind of accelerators on dopamine.
And then there's the prefrontal cortex
which acts as a break and
can limit impulsivity.
And those drugs tend to
increase the activity
of neurons in that pathway,
the prefrontal cortex
and it reduces impulsivity.
In fact, there's a experiment
described in the book
"the molecule of more,"
which is really interesting
where they looked at
impulsivity in obese children
and it turns out they did this experiment
in a safe way that they looked at kids
both obese kids and non obese kids
and their willingness to
cross a very busy highway.
And it turns out that
the obese kids got hit
by cars more often than
non obese children.
It turns out this was a
virtual reality experiment
and it had nothing to do
with the fact that they were obese
or limitations on movement
or speed of movement.
It was that the obese
children were more impulsive
in a variety of contexts
not just in this virtual
crossing the street thing.
And it turns out the
data point to the fact
that impulsivity at age
10 is actually predictive
of overeating disorders
at a later stage in life.
So some of these drugs
that are designed to
create heightened activity
in the braking system
the decelerator
of the reward pathway are
designed to reduce impulsivity
because they suppress
the release of dopamine
and they allow, hopefully
they allow children and it
and when they become adults
to better control the schedule
of dopamine release.
So now let's talk about
what is a dopamine schedule
and how you can leverage this
in order to have heightened
levels of motivation
but not get so much dopamine
that you're experiencing
or a crash afterwards.
And also, so that you can
experience heightened pleasure
from the various pursuits
that you are engaged in life.
I know many of you are interested
in tools that will allow
you to be more motivated
to focus longer, sleep better.
That's really what the Huberman
Lab Podcast is all about
but always framed in the context
of neuro-biological principles
and objective mechanisms.
There are some tools that we can apply
to the dopamine system
and motivation that can really
improve our ability to stay
in pursuit of things,
as well as enjoy things
after we've achieved our goals,
or even an route, our goals.
And here's the key principle.
Dopamine is very subjective.
Meaning you can
either allow yourself to
experience the pleasure
of reaching a milestone of
achieving or some craving or not.
Now that won't work in
the extreme cases of drugs
like cocaine and amphetamine,
but it's actually
pretty powerful what one can
do with the subjective system.
In fact, I'm gonna describe
to you an experiment
that highlights just how
powerful the subjective readout
or the subjective interpretation
of a given experience really can be.
Even at the level of pharmacology.
I love examples of subjective effects
over things that would
otherwise seem hardwired
because they really
illustrate the interplay
between our cognition, our belief system
and what would otherwise be these,
just plug and chug kind of mechanisms of,
you eat X amount of chocolate
or you drink X amount of water
after being water deprived
for a certain amount of time.
And you get X amount of dopamine.
Here's the experiment.
The experiment was just
published on March 18, 2021.
So very recently, and the title
of the experiment is expectation
for stimulant type modifies
caffeine is effects on mood and cognition
and this was done in college students.
And it's a fascinating study.
What they did is they gave
college students either placebo
essentially nothing or 200
milligrams of caffeine.
200 milligrams of caffeine is
about what's in a well, a typical coffee
like a medium coffee that
you buy a drip coffee
or a coffee that you'd make at home.
It's a fair amount of caffeine.
If you were to take in pill form
it would definitely
make you feel more alert
unless you were one of those mutants
literally mutants that is
insensitive to caffeine.
And those mutants are pretty rare.
So they took 65 undergraduate
students in college.
They randomized them to
either placebo or caffeine
and they told them
that they were either
getting caffeine or Adderall.
Now, Adderall cognitively carries
a very different expectation.
College students know
Adderall to be a much
stronger stimulant than caffeine.
They know it to create a sort of high.
This is the way the students described it
and they thought that it
would increase their level
of focus and their
ability to perform work.
So it was really interesting
is there was definitely
an effect of placebo versus caffeine.
That's not surprising, however,
right, you take a placebo
you may or may not feel more alert
but you take 200 milligrams of caffeine
very likely you're gonna feel very alert
but there was also an
effect of whether or not
the students thought they were
getting caffeine or Adderall.
The subjects receiving
caffeine reported feeling
more stimulated, anxious, and motivated
than the subjects that
received the placebo.
Okay. But the ones that expected Adderall
reported stronger amphetamine effects.
So they felt much more high.
They performed better on
a working memory test.
And in general, they had
all the increased cognitive
effects that would have
been seen with Adderall
but they were only ingesting caffeine.
And so this shows an interaction
between the drug caffeine
and the expectation that it was Adderall.
So it led to heightened performance simply
because the students thought
they were getting Adderall.
And I don't know whether
or not they told them at the
end that it wasn't Adderall.
I doubt that they did this.
If you wanna look it up
the study was published in the journal
of experimental clinical
psychopharmacology.
The paper is Looby L-O-O-B-Y at all.
And again, it was just published
March 18th, 2021 speaks
to the fact that yes, there
are so-called placebo effects
but this is different than placebo.
This is a belief effect about
what the specific reactions
to a given stimulant ought to be.
And I think this is very
important because I think
that it points to the fact that the top
down the kind of higher
level cognitive processes
are impacting even the most
basic fundamental aspects
of the say dopamine release
or our mountain adrenaline
release or epinephrin release
in ways that can positively
impact performance.
In this case, it was
a positive improvement
in working memory and focus.
As long as we were talking about caffeine
I'd like to point out a study.
That's really interesting.
This was published in
journal of neuroscience
which is the society
for neurosciences kind
of flagship journal.
It's their journal.
It's a good journal
and what they showed was
that caffeine can
increase dopamine release
in the brain by about 30%.
That wasn't surprising.
I even said that earlier,
but what they also showed is
that it has a protective
effect on dopamine neurons.
So caffeine in some cases may not just
increase dopamine release
but it might actually
have a protective effect
on dopamine neurons.
Now that's distinctly different
from some claims that drugs
like MDMA ecstasy have been
it's been argued can, are neurotoxic
for things like dopamine
and serotonin neurons.
The study that was published about that
in the journal science,
which is an extremely
prestigious excellent
journal later, it was shown
that it wasn't MDMA ecstasy
that was given in that case.
It was actually amphetamine,
which is known to
destroy dopaminergic and
serotonergic neurons.
So what does this mean?
This means that low levels
of caffeine may at least
in a few studies be protective
for dopamine neurons
over time that MDMA
ecstasy something that's
in clinical trials right now
for the treatment of trauma
PTSD of various kinds and depression
but still illegal at
this point in time may
although it doesn't appear
yet from any published studies
destroy dopaminergic neurons,
perhaps origin, urgent neuron.
So there's a real asterix
and a question mark there
but amphetamine and in
particular methamphetamine
is very destructive for
dopaminergic neurons.
So I don't think any of
us needed any additional
reasons to avoid methamphetamine.
This drug that creates
huge increases in dopamine
and then huge crashes
from that dopamine, very destructive drug.
But in addition
to that seems to destroy
dopaminergic neurons from time
to time, I've talked about
nicotine on here, not smoking
because obviously smoking
is bad lung cancer's bad
for health, et cetera, but
nicotine in supplemental form
I've mentioned that a very
famous neuroscientists
Nobel prize winning scientists
choose a lot of Nicorette.
I know other people that you Nicorette
they believe in its
neuroprotective effects
for Parkinson's and Alzheimer's
and indeed nicotine can
stimulate dopamine release.
We talked about that earlier
whether or not it has a protective effect
isn't clear the protective
effects might be
through the noradrenergic
and acetylcholine systems.
Those findings are still unclear
but it is interesting to note
that nicotine can increase prolactin.
Somewhat. There are a couple
of studies I'd be happy to link to them
in the caption that shows
that nicotine taken too much
over too long periods of time
can also increase prolactin
which again is the
opposite side of dopamine.
So today we've talked a lot
about the dopamine system
and those kinds of schedules
that will allow craving
or addiction, but what's
the schedule of dopamine.
That's going to allow you to maximize
on your pursuit of pleasure
and your elimination of pain.
And we get the answer to that
from our good friend gambling,
the reason gambling works
the reason why people will
throw their lives away.
The reason why people go back
again and again and again
to places like Las Vegas
and Atlantic city is
because of the hope and anticipation it's
as those are cities in
places built on dopamine,
they are leveraging your dopamine system.
And I realized that there
are experienced gamblers.
There are people that enjoy gambling.
I'll actually just say,
I like sitting at the roulette table.
I was take a designated amount of money.
It's not much, I enjoy playing
a little bit of roulette.
I certainly enjoy when I win.
I certainly don't like it when I lose
but I do it cheerly for
the pleasure of playing.
And I do it very seldom.
I don't have a gambling problem.
And if I did, I'd probably tell you
but I don't have a gambling problem.
Yet people throw away the
entire lives on gambling.
And as a friend of mine
who's a certified addiction
treatment specialist tells me
that gambling addiction
is a particularly sinister
because the next time
really could be the thing
that changes everything.
Unlike other addictions
the next time really
could change everything.
And that's embedded in the
mind of the gambling addict
and rarely does it work out in favor
of the wellbeing of the gambling
addict and their family.
However, the intermittent
reinforcement schedule
was discovered long ago
by scientific researchers.
So this is the slot
machine that every once
in a while gives you a
wind to keep you playing.
This is the, the probability
of winning on the craps table
or the roulette table, or at
blackjack just often enough
that you're willing to buy
tickets, head out there
play again, go downstairs
again from your room
even though you swore you
were done for the night
intermittent reinforcement
is the most powerful form
of dopamine reward schedule
to keep you doing something
so we can export that.
We can use it for good.
If there's something that
you're pursuing in life
whether or not it's an academic goal
or a financial goal, a relationship goal.
One of the things that
you can do to ensure
that you will remain on
the path to that goal
for a very long time, and
that you will continue to
exceed your previous performance as well
as continue to enjoy the
dopamine release that
occurs when you hit the
milestones that you want to
achieve is to occasionally remove reward
subjectively, let's say you
set out a goal of making
I'm gonna make this quantitative
with respect to finances
'cause it just is an easy description
but this could also be in sport.
This could be in school.
This could be in music
could be in anything creative endeavors
but let's say you set out
a certain financial goal
or let's say you wanna
get a certain number
of followers on whatever
social media platform
as you reach each one of those goals.
You should know now that the amount
of dopamine is not going to peak.
It's actually going to diminish
and make you crave more the
key to avoiding that crash
but to still keep it in healthy levels
that will allow you to continue.
Your pursuit is as you are,
stair casing toward your goal.
Maybe that's dollars,
maybe that's followers
maybe that's grades
maybe that's some other metric
it's metals or trophies.
You actually want to
blunt the reward response
for some of those intermediate goals.
Now I'm not telling you
should celebrate your wins
but I'm telling you not
to celebrate all of them.
Whereas a good friend of mine who recently
fortunately for him had a
great financial success.
He asked me and somebody
else a good friend of mine.
Who's very tuned into dopamine
reward schedules understands how they work
at a really deep level.
And he said," I don't
know what to do next."
And we said," Oh, well, that's simple,
You should just give most of it away."
And this wasn't a ploy to receive any
of the money ourselves.
This was really about reducing
the impact of that reward.
Now hopefully giving them money away.
If you already have enough
of it would be something
that was rewarding
in and of itself.
But if you're a student who's
pursuing goals in university
or you're an athlete, who's pursuing goals
it actually makes sense
from a rational perspective.
Once you understand these
mechanisms to hit a new high point
of performance, or to get
that A-plus or a for you
if it's an A-minus, et cetera
and to tell yourself, okay, that was good.
But to actually actively
blunt the reward to not go
and celebrate too intensely,
because in doing that
you keep your dopamine system
in check and you ensure
that you're gonna stay on
the path of continued pursuit
not just for that thing, but
for all things big increases
in dopamine leads to big crashes
in dopamine and big increases
in dopamine up the ante.
They increase the extent
to which you are willing to
invest time and energy
in order to achieve goals
and rewards that may be out of your reach.
You never really know if
you're going to succeed.
So to make this crystal
clear, celebrate your wins
but don't celebrate every win.
That's one way that you can ensure
that you're going to continue
down the path of progress.
And I think most of the
learning tools that are
in schools are about reward
for genuine performance.
They are about encouraging us.
We do have to believe
that we can perform well.
One of the hallmarks of growth mindset is
the internalization that we're
not getting it right yet.
The word yet is very important.
And also the sense that we reward
our good behavior, our good
performance, but not every time.
One way to do this is to
actually take the reward
and reinforcement out of your
own hands and your own mind.
And you tell somebody that
they are in control of
whether or not you're allowed
to feel good about your wins.
Now, I realize it's very
unnatural for most people
but if you're somebody who
simply going to be in pursuit
and you're going to really
register your wins, and you think
that that's gonna actually
make you a better performer
it will in the short term,
but not in the longterm.
So you can lift the what Las Vegas
and Atlantic city and
other gambling mechanisms
and places have known for a long time.
They lifted it from the scientists.
You can now take it back and
you can start to leverage that.
And you just make it intermittent.
You reward yourself, not
on a predictable schedule
so not every other time
or every third time
or every 10th time, but
sometimes it's three
in a row then not at all for 10 days.
So reward is important.
Self reward is critically important
but make sure that you're not doing it
on such a predictable
schedule that you burn
out these dopamine circuits or
that you undercut your own
ability to strive and achieve.
Actually have a story from graduate school
which I was forced
into an intermittent
reinforcement schedule
that I do believe has served me very well
in my scientific career
and other aspects of life.
My graduate advisor was
an amazing scientist.
Unfortunately, she passed away
but amazing scientists
and amazing human being
with a very dry and somewhat
cruel sense of humor.
Her name was Barbara Chapman,
and we published a paper
in the journal, science and science nature
and cell are considered the big three
the most competitive
journals to publish in.
And I had a first author paper in science.
It was really exciting to me.
I was a graduate student.
I was very excited about the discovery.
I was excited that it was in science.
I was just thrilled.
And I remember when the
paper finally got accepted
because it had involved a ton
of revisions and a lot of very hard work.
And she came in and she
said," paper got accepted."
I was super excited
and she just kind of sat
there and nodded, and I said
"are we gonna celebrate,
are we gonna have a party?"
Or what, like, what are we gonna do it?
And I'll never forget her answer.
She said," I think we
should skip this one."
And I thought she was joking.
And I said," what do
you mean skip this one?"
We're gonna publish the paper.
He said, yeah, we're
gonna publish the paper.
But she said, " maybe when
you get like four more
maybe three, maybe two too."
And I thought she was messing
with me and she wasn't messing with me.
And she was right.
We never had a party.
We had a celebration for that paper.
I think she was really trying
to instill two ideas in me.
One is that the work itself
was what was supposed to
be most rewarding.
That practice of experimentation
a writing the paper, the experience
of achieving something
they worked very hard at
and that did indeed feel amazing.
I actually can still feel it in my body.
Now, the excitement.
So there's a, still a dopamine release
or that arc is going very long.
This would be almost 20 years
ago now that this happened.
So that's remarkable.
The other one is that she's right.
We never went out and celebrated
and we did celebrate other wins
other papers in the future
and things of that sort.
But she was either consciously
or subconsciously putting me
on an intermittent reward schedule.
And to this day when
something really good happens
I actually hesitate as
to whether or not I wanna
internalize that and
celebrate whether I wanna
tell anybody which is its
own form of celebration
because then you're
getting positive feedback.
And so I'm very cautious
with how I deploy dopamine
release in response to wins.
It's certainly not the only way that I've
navigated my career.
There are a number of other
principles I incorporate
but intermittent reward for wins
for achievements is a very
powerful way to ensure
that you will stay on the path of pursuit.
At this point in the podcast
I'd like to take a moment
to address some corrections.
I made some errors in previous episodes.
They weren't major errors
but a couple of you pointed them out
and it's important to me
that we strive for accuracy.
So the first one was I
talked in a previous episode
about the potential benefits
for some people, not all
of ashwagandha and its
role in blunting cortisol
and a way of offsetting medium term,
and some long-term stress.
It's a supplement that
I've benefited from.
It works through the GABA system
and some other systems, someone pointed
out a study that admittedly
was done in rats.
I point I was focusing mainly
on studies in humans during
the episode, but they point
out a study that was
done in rats that showed
that long-term
administration of ashwagandha
could actually create some
negative effects mainly
on the fibroid and perhaps
even the cortisol system
maybe the melatonin system.
I just wanna acknowledge that study.
I'll reference it in the caption again
that was a rat study.
I was focused on human studies.
Please go to examine.com.
Put in ashwagandha will
tell you the various effects
on different aspects of brain and body.
It will also link to the pub med articles
that are relevant there
it is called the human effect matrix
'cause that's only focused on humans.
That's one of the reasons
I like examined.com
as it's focused on human studies, again
a wonderful free resource,
but I do appreciate
that you pointed out that study
because I do want people
to be aware of the range
of effects that these various
compounds can have as well.
A couple of times in previous episodes
I said five HTP and not five HT five
HT is serotonin five
HTP is a precursor to a serotonin.
I was talking about supplements
and compounds that can stimulate
the release of serotonin.
In the previous episode,
I was actually referring
to it in a context
for which I don't personally
like to take five HTP.
That's just my own bias
for reasons I described in that episode.
But if you heard me say five HTP
when I meant to say five HT, I apologize.
And then last, I just
wanna point out again
something that I
mentioned at the beginning
which is that the Huberman
Lab Podcast is now subtitled
in Spanish episodes one and two
as well as our welcome
video are in Spanish.
The other ones will be subtitled soon.
You can expect that within
the next couple of weeks.
So if you know Spanish speaking
people who prefer to
digest the information
in Spanish or that's,
you can look forward to
the Spanish subtitles.
You need to activate those
in the caption feature on YouTube.
Unfortunately, we don't
have Spanish dubbing
over on the audio platforms.
I realized once again, we've
covered a lot of material.
Hopefully you now know far more
about the dopamine system
reward and motivation
than you did at the
beginning of this podcast.
Hopefully you also
understand the other side
of dopamine and reward, which is pain
and the balance of this
pleasure pain system, as well
as the molecules that we
call or that were described
in the molecule of more book, I should say
as the here and now molecules
things like serotonin
and the endocannabinoids.
We talked about a variety
of supplement based tools,
things like vitamin B6 and zinc
as they relate to prolactin P-E-A
Very interesting compound again
I've never tried it very interesting
definitely in use out there L-DOPA MuCuna
appearings talked about
caffeine, talked about nicotine.
Talk about how some of the effects
of Adderall can be
created purely cognitively
without actually
ingesting Adderall, simply
by telling people they're
ingesting Adderall
giving them caffeine.
Very interesting study that I referenced a
little bit earlier,
and we talked about scheduling dopamine
adopting the intermittent
reward schedule for yourself
in order to ensure long-term engagement
with pursuits that I
hope are healthy pursuits
and ones that serve you well
this was by no means
an exhaustive coverage
of all things, dopamine and motivation.
It was by no means.
The only time that we're gonna talk
about dopamine and
motivation, next episode
we're gonna continue to talk
about emotions from
yet another perspective
but hopefully you have enough now to think
about in the meantime, and
that you can consider adopting
in your own life and practices as always.
I really wanna thank you
for your time and attention.
If you learned something useful
today, please pass it along.
One of the things that we teach
in science that I think
is really wonderful
to adopt in general in life is this idea
of watch one, do one, teach one.
This is what we tell graduate
students and med students
and post-docs watch somebody
do something, learn it
then do it, apply it, see
if it works for you and then teach it.
So it's usually not watch
one, do one, teach one.
It's usually watch one
do 20 teach as many people
as you possibly want.
I'm not looking for attribution.
These are tools that are grounded
in neuroscience for which
I can't claim attribution.
I'm just passing them along so
that you can adopt them if
you like and pass them along.
If you think people can benefit
from them, many of you
have continued to ask how
you can help support the
Huberman Lab Podcast.
If you like what we're doing here.
And you like the information
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That allows you to support the podcast
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Because we mentioned supplements
from time to time throughout the podcast
and people always ask about what brands
and sources we use or suggest
for those supplements.
We partnered with Thorne
T-H-O-R-N-E Thorne
supplements are known to be
among the most stringent supplements
in terms of the specificity of what's
in the bottle matches what's on the label.
The quality of the ingredients
is exceedingly high
the Mayo Clinic
and all the major sports
organizations are partnered
with Thorne because of that stringency
and that commitment to rigor.
If you'd like to see the supplements
that I personally take
as well as get 20% off any
of the supplements that
Thorne makes you can go
to thorne.com/u, that's the letter
U, slash Huberman (thorne.com/u/huberman).
And you can see what I take
and any of those supplements
as well as any of the other products
on the Thorne site will be available
to you at 20% off that's
thorne.com/u/huberman
to get 20% off any of the
supplements that Thorne makes.
Finally, I wanna thank you
for your time and attention today.
I hope you learned a lot
and that you learned a lot
of possible tools that
you could incorporate
into your life as it relates
to motivation and emotion.
Thank you for your interest in science.
(soft music)