“Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that helps
control the brain’s reward and pleasure centers. Dopamine also helps regulate
movement and emotional response, and it enables us not only to see rewards, but
to take action to move toward them.” – Psychology Today
There are a lot of articles on the internet
about dopamine and how it affects your mood, behavior, energy, and focus. What’s
not commonly spoken about, however, is how dopamine is affected by your
perception. Discussed more rarely still is the reason why your dopamine levels
may be low. Below are 10 ways to increase your dopamine levels, courtesy of Power of Positivity, as well as my own observations regarding
the underlying issues which may have led to each situation, and how to tackle
them.
1. Don’t Get Addicted
“Many
people get addicted to something because it gives them some kind of instant
gratification – drugs, alcohol, sex, pornography, shopping, and other addictive
behaviors actually have the opposite effect on dopamine levels in the
long-term. In essence, when we get overly addicted to something, the ‘reward
circuitry’ of our brain kicks into overdrive and we crave the ‘quick hit.’ This
is not a sustainable solution for dopamine production, which can and should be
done naturally.”
What’s missing here is the fact that
addiction is quite often a result of low dopamine, meaning addiction is more of
an attempt to fix an already existing problem. In essence, “the underpinning of
your addictive personality is a lack of fulfillment from within, with a
resulting urge to achieve fulfillment through substances, objects, or events
that relieve the inevitable pain – for a while.” (source)
“When we receive a reward of any kind,
dopamine is released in our brains. Over time, this stimulus and release of
dopamine can lead to learning. Researchers have recently found that how quickly
and permanently we learn things relates directly to how much dopamine we have available in
our brains. As we get rewarded over and over again for something, we learn that
we should keep doing whatever that is very deeply, and it’s hard to unlearn
those kinds of behaviours.” (source)
What this means is that low-dopamine is a
response to a lifestyle which doesn’t offer much in terms of reward to the
person living it. It may be a response to the environment you’re living in, the
clothes you’re wearing, the tight budget you’re working within, the relationship
choices you’ve made or have been made for you, or a result of trauma where
there was no perceived reward. It’s very easy to understand how dopamine levels
may appear low when we consider all the potentials leading to less-rewarding
lifestyles and life-experiences.
What’s necessary then is less of a ‘don’t get
addicted’ approach and more of an ‘increase the rewards in your life’
style of applied advice. Fact is, you’ll constantly feel less fulfilled through
low dopamine when you’re not (or are unable to) fill your day with things that
inspire and reward you. Meaning, the most effective protection against
addiction and greatest advantage to high-dopamine levels is a defense against
low-rewarding activities and an offence working towards rewarding actions,
activities, and ultimately, a lifestyle of fulfillment and achievement.
Also, because addiction is most often rooted
in past traumatic experiences, where emotions create a fight or flight response
that becomes rooted in your core emotions, it’s vitally important to seek
proper and effective help in dissolving past trauma. Doing so can only help you
perceive more rewarding experiences in your life, rather than filtering
experiences through a ‘traumatized’ awareness.
2. Checklist Small Tasks
“Dopamine increases
when we are organized and finish tasks – regardless if the task is small or
large. So, don’t allow your brain to worry about things that need to be done.
Instead, write these tasks down and then check them off one at a time. It’s
been shown that it’s more satisfying to the brain’s dopamine levels when we
physically check something off of our to-do list. Also, write down and check
stuff off regardless if you can mentally remember the tasks.”
In reading the book Principles of Self-Management, I came across a
brilliantly well-researched understanding of motivation when it comes to tasks.
In short, if a task is greater than 25% of a change in a person’s routine, the
person will be overwhelmed with feeling incapable of achieving it. This leads
them to self-defeat and self-sabotage to avoid accomplishing the task. On the
other side, if a task is less than 10% different than a person’s normal
routine, they don’t do it because it won’t have enough meaning for them to do
so. As such, it’s wise to make sure you write down goals and tasks that are in
between this 10% to 25% range of new behaviors and actions, otherwise, you just
won’t do it.
However, this 10-25% range is simply a guide
for tasks that are not directly linked to our highest values. In reality, if
you can link a task to your highest values and see clearly how it will help you
accomplish what’s truly most important to you, you’ll do it. If you can’t see
how it will help fulfill your highest values, you’ll procrastinate, hesitate,
and get frustrated in the attempt to do it. By linking a task to your highest
values, you’ll both increase the chances of you doing it and also increase the
reward you will feel when you accomplish it, a result of producing more
dopamine in the brain.
3. Create Something
“For us writers,
painters, sculptors, poets, singers, dancers, and other artists, we can
identify with this. When we’re in creative mode, we can become hyper-focused.
As a result, we can enter a state called flow. Dopamine is the brain
chemical that allows us to achieve this state. The lesson is this: take up a
hobby or activity in which you actually create something tangible. Try
something like arts, crafts, auto repair, drawing, photography, or something
else that sounds interesting.”
Sparking your creative drive is an effective
way to increase your potential for feeling great, achieving goals and inspiring
yourself through your accomplishments. However, it can also be a distraction
from a feel-bad lifestyle, if it’s not maintained with a purpose in mind.
Whenever you’re working on a project, creative or not, that truly inspires you,
you’ll activate your ‘flow state,’ where time and space seem to stand still. So
how to you determine what it is that truly inspires you?
The most important goal in revealing your
most authentic creative energy is to remove the creative energies of other
people from your life. So many of us look up to the creations of others,
whether works of art or music, and their works or talents take up time and
space in our own minds. This isn’t necessarily bad, but it can influence your
own beliefs about what you can create. If you compare yourself to others and
minimize yourself, you’ll repress your own creative ability. This can affect
your dopamine levels, because if you can’t see your own creations as rewarding
to you, as much as someone else’s, you’ll feel inferior and incapable.
One very effective way of neutralizing the
influence other people have on your mind is to literally look at the negatives
or downsides of their accomplishment. This isn’t to practice being a critic,
but it can enable you to de-infatuate with their creative powers, helping you
to stop minimizing your own. Once you recognize that your creative
endeavors can exist on the level of those you admire, through practice (just
like they did), you’ll increase your ability to see your own creations as
meaningful and rewarding.
4. Exercise
“Same ‘ole, same
‘ole, we know. We’ve discussed repeatedly the importance and benefits of
physical exercise, and we’re just going to add to this list again. So, not only
does exercise help us relieve stress, achieve better physical health and make
us more productive; it boosts our
dopamine levels. More specifically, exercise increases multiple
neurotransmitters – serotonin and endorphins, besides dopamine, receive a
boost. Here’s something else cool: the exercise needn’t not be arduous. Simply
taking a stroll or climbing some stairs will achieve a good dopamine jolt.”
Exercise is important, but it can also become
a crutch or an addiction if it’s not something being integrated into your daily
life. Many people go to the gym to work out, yet don’t live a life that
requires the body they’re building. Another thing is actually placing a value
on exercise itself. Many people buy the gym memberships, yet never use them. So
what’s the easiest way to make exercise a part of your life?
There’s a branch of exercise called ‘functional training’ in which exercises are tailored to help
you with your daily tasks. This is much more helpful than just ‘workouts,’
because if you can train your body into a state where your daily tasks are not
taxing on your energy, you’ll breeze through the day and have more energy at
the end of it. Staying in a high energy state instead of being brought down by
your daily tasks will help you be more inspired during your day and innately
feel more inspired to exercise.
5. Get a Streak Going
“As with creating a
checklist, getting a streak going is a great way to increase dopamine levels.
For the purpose of this article, a streak is a visual reminder of how many days
in a row you’ve achieved something.
Get a calendar
specifically for this purpose: write down whatever goal you have and the days
of the week or month when they are scheduled. For example, if you work out on
Monday, Wednesday and Friday, mark these days on the calendar for the month. As
you finish a workout, mark it off on the calendar. Keep a streak going, and
you’ll keep the dopamine coming.”
While the ‘streak’ is a useful tool for
celebrating accomplishments, it unfortunately has a downside—routine. Doing
something enough times becomes a routine, especially if the action isn’t
continuously fulfilling to your highest values. To counter this, try adapting
the ‘goal’ or ‘action’ in terms of efficiency and effectiveness. By
continuously finding ways to improve the performance of the behavior, over
time, you can look back at how many times you’ve done it, but also how much
better you’ve become at it. This way, your performance becomes a competition
with yourself, which increases your potential for feeling rewarded as you
master a skill.
6. Increase Tyrosine
“Of the chemicals
that make up dopamine, none are more important than tyrosine. In fact, tyrosine
is considered the building block of dopamine. Therefore, it is important that
you get enough of this protein. There’s a large list of foods that increase
Tyrosine, including: Almonds, Avocados, Bananas, Beef, Chicken, Chocolate,
Coffee, Eggs, Green Tea, Watermelon, Yogurt.”
Food is a reward, not a chore. This is the
difference between living to eat and eating to live. While it’s important to
utilize foods to your advantage, it’s just as important to recognize that the
brain is its own best pharmacy. Few foods actually make it past the blood-brain
barrier and this actually includes Tyrosine.
“Tyrosine is one of the 22 key amino acids
that are used for building proteins around the body. In addition to this,
however, it also raises the levels of certain neurotransmitters in the brain,
namely dopamine and norepinephrine. These are famous for being ‘feel good’
chemicals that can help boost mood and elevate concentration, making tyrosine a
popular nootropic. However, tyrosine is completely incapable of passing the
BBB. This way, no matter how much of it you were to take, you’d feel almost no
effects.” (source)
The truth is, tyrosine must be bonded with
another molecule to make it past the blood-brain barrier, so tyrosine in itself
isn’t capable of making significant impacts on the brain. However, through
natural digestion and regulating healthy bodily function, it can assist the
brain in having to work less on fixing an unhealthy system, which in turn
can help increase the potential for dopamine and dopamine related good
feelings.
7. Listen to Music
“Do you ever wonder why music makes you
happy? I mean, we can be in the dumps one moment but once we put on our
favorite jam, we’re swaying and shaking away…feeling pretty good about
ourselves too! The reason for this is that listening to music increases
dopamine levels. In fact, scientists say that listening to music has the same
effect as eating our favorite foods or watching our favorite T.V. show. So,
when you’re feeling down, throw on some of your favorite tunes and jam out!”
Listening to music can increase dopamine
levels temporarily, but what we’re really looking for is a lasting fulfillment
feeling so you can make your daily life enjoyable and productive for your
goals. Also, popular music these days is often manufactured in such a way as to
prey on your brain’s chemical dependency, making much of music a form of
substance addiction.
However, music has been a part of human
history since as far as we can see, so its influence on our brain is greatly
appreciated. In fact, one of the greatest cultural appreciations throughout
history has been music. So, listen to music, but just make sure it’s not the
only source of dopamine in your life.
8. Meditate
“As with exercise,
we are discovering more and more benefits to meditation. We are again adding to the list. As we
discussed, the human brain is susceptible to a variety of addictions. One other
addictive habit that we have is overthinking. In fact, some Buddhists have a
phrase for this addiction: ‘monkey mind.’
Overthinking is not
merely a distracting habit, it’s also a genuine compulsion that leaves us in a
perplexing state, while also having a negative effect on our spiritual
development. However, scientists are finally catching up to what Buddhists have
known for thousands of years: meditation and mindfulness are essential to a
healthy mind.”
Meditation can be a highly effective form of
dopamine increase if done properly, as it can weed out the mental influences
which may be causing your chemistry to be less than desired. With
the intent of reaching a state of self-fulfillment, meditation clears out
the mental clutter and replaces it with presence and fulfillment for just being
alive. This is a state available to every human and can help assist our daily
lives by increasing our awareness of what feels good for us and what we don’t
resonate with.
9. Take Supplements
“While there are some great ways to increase
dopamine levels, sometimes we’re facing a time crunch. Fortunately, there are
natural supplements on the market that have been shown to increase dopamine
levels. Here are a few:
Acetyl-l-tyrosine: Another building block of
dopamine. A healthy dose of this makes it easier for the brain to produce
dopamine.
Curcumin: An active ingredient that’s also
common in curry spices and turmeric.
Ginkgo Biloba: A tremendously popular wonder
supplement that’s also believed to boost dopamine levels and keep it
circulating in the brain longer.
L-theanine: Increases multiple
neurotransmitters in the brain, including dopamine. Green tea is a terrific
source for this.” (source)
While supplements can impact our dopamine
response, they should by no means replace your own inner potential for
fulfillment. That responsibility lies with you and you alone. However,
with respect to inner wisdom, without knowing what feeling amazing actually
feels like, it’s difficult to strive for it as a goal. Supplements can help us
get there so we can have a reference point for what our potential can be. The
trick is to facilitate change in our lives, enough so that the need for
supplementation to feel good is lower than the feel goods we actually
experience in our life.
10. Toxic Cleansing
“As miraculous as
our bodies are, we do accumulate toxins and bacteria that is bad for us.
Endotoxins are the kind that can cause our immune systems to get out of whack,
and it also constrains the production of dopamine. Here are a couple tips for
helping cleanse the gut of endotoxins: eat fermented food, get enough sleep,
and resist the urge to indulge in fatty or sugary foods.”
Whenever you’re not fulfilled in your life,
you run the risk of over-indulging in sugary and sweet foods in an attempt to
temporarily fulfill yourself. However, if you find fulfillment through the
challenge and support of your day, you’re more likely to eat for the tasks
you’re doing instead of eating just to feel good.
How you eat and how fulfilled you are, are
directly correlated. If you’re actively enjoying the challenges of your
life, you’re more likely to consume foods that serve your highest interests
and health, because you see a reason to eat well. Controlling how you eat is
less important than finding fulfillment in what you do.
So the next time you find yourself craving
that candy bar, ask yourself if there isn’t something else you could eat that
could help you find fulfillment. Also, notice what you are doing at the time
you’re craving sugar and ask yourself if it’s really something you need to do,
or can you delegate it to someone else so you can get back to things that
inspire you. By focusing on what inspires and fulfills you, you’ll find
yourself actively seeking to better your health without having to really focus
on it.
http://www.collective-evolution.com/2016/01/20/10-ways-to-increase-dopamine-levels-in-the-brain/
No comments:
Post a Comment