Improve Your Baseline Dopamine for Motivation & Drive | Dr. Andrew Huberman
00:00:00.000 | [silence]
00:00:02.520 | If we are going to feel motivated at all,
00:00:05.160 | that is if we are going to wake up in the morning
00:00:07.560 | or have any period of time during our day
00:00:09.320 | in which we feel like we are capable of pursuing goals,
00:00:13.140 | we are going to have to have a healthy level
00:00:15.760 | of baseline dopamine.
00:00:17.600 | In other words, we are going to have to have enough dopamine
00:00:20.100 | in the wave pool, enough water in the wave pool, that is,
00:00:24.360 | before we can generate any waves or peaks in dopamine,
00:00:27.380 | let alone troughs and the rest.
00:00:29.400 | So how do we achieve a healthy baseline level of dopamine?
00:00:32.820 | Well, there we can really look
00:00:34.740 | to some foundational practices,
00:00:36.520 | practices that perhaps you've heard about
00:00:38.280 | on this podcast before,
00:00:39.700 | and that to some of you might seem a little mundane,
00:00:41.900 | although some of them are a bit more sophisticated,
00:00:43.960 | maybe even esoteric.
00:00:45.520 | The good news is that we can all control these things,
00:00:48.140 | and they don't require purchasing anything,
00:00:50.560 | but they do require some degree
00:00:52.180 | of regular upkeep and effort.
00:00:54.320 | Those things include what I call the very basics.
00:00:58.900 | Now, the very basics put in the context
00:01:01.460 | of today's discussion are the things
00:01:02.900 | that put water in the wave pool.
00:01:05.620 | Those are going to be getting sufficient amounts
00:01:08.260 | of quality sleep each night,
00:01:09.780 | something that we've done several episodes on
00:01:11.700 | and have online toolkits for,
00:01:13.380 | so you can see the Master Your Sleep episode,
00:01:15.040 | the Perfect Your Sleep episode,
00:01:16.340 | the Light and Health episode.
00:01:17.900 | If you want to skip all that and just get right to the tools,
00:01:19.900 | we have a sleep toolkit,
00:01:22.220 | or it's actually called the Toolkit for Sleep
00:01:23.660 | that you can access at hubermanlab.com,
00:01:25.480 | completely zero cost.
00:01:26.980 | You just go there and download that toolkit.
00:01:29.120 | Getting sufficient sleep each night
00:01:31.380 | literally restores your dopamine reserves.
00:01:34.740 | It allows dopamine to be present
00:01:36.540 | and for you to have a level of baseline dopamine
00:01:39.140 | that will allow you to even consider your goals
00:01:41.540 | in any kind of meaningful or reasonable way.
00:01:44.520 | Second, there are practices
00:01:46.900 | that are supported by the scientific literature
00:01:48.940 | to increase your baseline level of dopamine
00:01:51.580 | that are independent of sleep,
00:01:53.260 | but are similar to sleep,
00:01:54.460 | and I like to refer to these as non-sleep deep rest.
00:01:57.380 | This is not meditation.
00:01:59.300 | There's actually very little evidence
00:02:01.280 | that meditation of the traditional kind
00:02:03.500 | of sitting eyes closed, third eye,
00:02:05.420 | focusing on your third eye center,
00:02:07.240 | which is this area behind your forehead,
00:02:09.020 | there is very little evidence
00:02:10.560 | that that increases levels of dopamine.
00:02:12.860 | There is a place for meditation
00:02:14.120 | in the context of today's discussion,
00:02:15.880 | but I'll repeat, meditation itself is a focusing exercise.
00:02:20.700 | It is not known to increase dopamine.
00:02:22.580 | However, non-sleep deep rest,
00:02:24.300 | so-called NSDR, very similar,
00:02:26.480 | although different to what's sometimes called yoga nidra,
00:02:29.000 | which is where you lie there,
00:02:30.260 | you do a sort of body scan, some long exhale breathing.
00:02:33.060 | NSDR is very similar.
00:02:34.980 | You can find a link to a zero cost NSDR on YouTube.
00:02:39.740 | It's a 10 minute long one.
00:02:40.760 | There are also 20 and 30 minute ones out there
00:02:43.260 | also on YouTube,
00:02:44.100 | but I'll provide a link to the 10 minute one.
00:02:46.800 | Those have been shown to increase the amount of dopamine
00:02:50.140 | in your dopamine reserves by up to 65%,
00:02:54.160 | which is a remarkable number.
00:02:55.560 | So quality sleep, non-sleep deep rest,
00:02:57.980 | AKA yoga nidra, very powerful ways
00:03:00.900 | to keep your baseline level of dopamine
00:03:03.220 | at a sufficient level.
00:03:04.780 | In addition to that,
00:03:06.260 | nutrition no doubt plays a role
00:03:08.300 | in your baseline level of dopamine
00:03:09.760 | because tyrosine, the amino acid,
00:03:12.000 | is the rate limiting enzyme for the synthesis of dopamine.
00:03:15.660 | Tyrosine is present in varying levels in different foods.
00:03:19.300 | You can look those up online.
00:03:20.580 | You just simply put in a search
00:03:22.460 | for tyrosine levels in different foods,
00:03:25.240 | everything from particular cheeses,
00:03:27.260 | like Parmesan cheese has high levels of tyrosine,
00:03:30.400 | certain meats, certain nuts, certain vegetables.
00:03:32.820 | Without getting into details and specifics,
00:03:34.380 | you can find those there,
00:03:35.260 | but you need proper nutrition
00:03:36.780 | and therefore nutrients, in particular tyrosine,
00:03:40.460 | in order to have sufficient levels of baseline dopamine.
00:03:44.520 | The third thing on the list,
00:03:45.520 | and again, these are things that we come back to
00:03:46.860 | almost every episode,
00:03:47.840 | but I don't think they can be repeated enough
00:03:49.340 | because these are really things
00:03:50.420 | that we need to focus on every 24 hours.
00:03:53.220 | You might be able to skip a day here or there
00:03:54.740 | if you get sick or you're traveling
00:03:56.580 | or you have some major life event,
00:03:57.920 | but really every 24 hours we need to re-up our sleep.
00:04:01.960 | We need to re-up our nutrients.
00:04:04.580 | Even if you're fasting,
00:04:05.420 | you're re-upping your nutrients
00:04:06.460 | from stored sources within your body.
00:04:09.180 | The third thing is sunlight,
00:04:10.940 | morning sunlight in particular.
00:04:12.220 | I've done extensive episodes about this.
00:04:14.780 | Check out the episode on lighting your health
00:04:16.280 | if you want all the details,
00:04:17.740 | but you want to try and view sunlight
00:04:19.620 | as early in the day as possible.
00:04:21.220 | Five to 10 minutes on a clear day, minimum.
00:04:24.860 | 10 to 20 minutes on a cloudy day, minimum.
00:04:27.560 | 20 or 30 minutes on a very overcast day, minimum.
00:04:32.020 | Without sunglasses, don't stare at the sun.
00:04:34.460 | Please don't damage your eyes.
00:04:35.780 | Look off, slightly off from the sun,
00:04:37.460 | but yes, you want to face eastward towards the sun.
00:04:39.500 | And on those cloudy days, that's especially important to do.
00:04:42.400 | Why?
00:04:43.240 | Well, viewing morning sunlight
00:04:45.020 | increases cortisol early in the day, which is excellent
00:04:48.720 | because you want cortisol elevated early in the day
00:04:50.860 | and you want it lower later in the day.
00:04:52.380 | And because of the relationship
00:04:54.260 | between the cells in your eye that sense sunlight,
00:04:57.020 | specifically morning sunlight, believe it or not,
00:04:59.260 | that happens, and signal to your hypothalamus
00:05:01.580 | and the relationship between the hypothalamus
00:05:03.660 | and the pituitary and other endocrine organs,
00:05:07.120 | it sets in motion a dopamine-related cascade
00:05:10.980 | in neuromodulators, dopamine,
00:05:13.940 | and hormones that lead to states of well-being,
00:05:17.260 | elevated mood, alertness, et cetera, throughout the day.
00:05:20.080 | It also helps your sleep at night,
00:05:21.280 | but today we're talking about dopamine.
00:05:22.440 | So yes, believe it or not,
00:05:23.520 | that morning sunlight exposure
00:05:24.880 | does increase your levels of dopamine, not just cortisol.
00:05:28.920 | And fourth on the list is going to be movement,
00:05:31.520 | exercise of varying kinds.
00:05:33.400 | It could be resistance training,
00:05:34.400 | it could be cardiovascular training.
00:05:35.820 | That does increase levels of dopamine.
00:05:38.440 | Here, we're not talking about achieving peaks in dopamine.
00:05:42.000 | That could be accomplished
00:05:43.120 | through setting a personal record, a PR,
00:05:45.340 | or through sprints or heavy lifts,
00:05:47.900 | or learning some new dynamic movement.
00:05:49.940 | What we're really talking about here
00:05:51.500 | is getting into a regular exercise program
00:05:54.000 | of if not every day, at least five days a week,
00:05:57.100 | a mixture of cardiovascular and resistance exercise.
00:05:59.960 | That we also know is known to elevate
00:06:03.580 | and maintain an elevated level of baseline dopamine.
00:06:07.620 | So it's not just about the euphoria you feel
00:06:09.680 | during or after exercise,
00:06:11.460 | it's also about the baseline level of dopamine
00:06:14.900 | that's achieved through regular movement
00:06:17.220 | and engaging in movement.
00:06:18.460 | And if you're asking, how could that be?
00:06:19.980 | Well, you already know the answer.
00:06:21.820 | The circuits in the brain and body that generate movement,
00:06:25.020 | not just goal-seeking, but movement itself,
00:06:27.780 | as I mentioned earlier, that nigrostriatal pathway.
00:06:31.700 | And yes, that circuit is separate
00:06:33.920 | from the VTA nucleus accumbens to cortical circuit,
00:06:37.100 | the mesocortical circuit
00:06:38.260 | that we've mainly been focusing on today, but they interact.
00:06:41.700 | And so by engaging in regular movement,
00:06:43.580 | you ensure that you're maintaining elevated levels
00:06:46.060 | of baseline dopamine, which is what you want
00:06:48.620 | if you're going to be able to engage
00:06:50.020 | in any kind of motivated pursuit behavior of any kind.
00:06:53.280 | So those are the fundamentals
00:06:54.500 | that will set the level of baseline dopamine in your system.
00:06:59.500 | A couple of key points.
00:07:01.500 | Yes, there is variation based on both genetics
00:07:05.420 | and circumstance in baseline levels of dopamine.
00:07:07.740 | If someone's going through a particular hard time,
00:07:09.940 | or if somebody inherited a gene
00:07:11.780 | in the dopamine synthesis pathway,
00:07:13.640 | that simply affords them higher levels of baseline dopamine.
00:07:16.160 | We likely know these people.
00:07:17.660 | They seem hyper-motivated all the time,
00:07:19.380 | not just based on prior success,
00:07:21.700 | but they just seem to have a lot of energy
00:07:23.700 | and a lot of go drive.
00:07:25.020 | You know, you talk about activation energy.
00:07:26.700 | Some of you may know what that term means.
00:07:28.140 | Others of you won't.
00:07:29.340 | Having low activation energy is great.
00:07:31.140 | I mean, the amount of energy that it takes
00:07:32.560 | to get into action to pursue adaptive
00:07:34.660 | and meaningful, healthy goals.
00:07:35.980 | Some people just seem to have lower activation energy
00:07:38.540 | and higher levels of dopamine
00:07:39.860 | are probably associated with that.
00:07:42.180 | Some of us have lower levels of baseline dopamine.
00:07:45.100 | Regardless, everyone needs to engage
00:07:47.460 | in the foundational things
00:07:49.840 | that I just mentioned a few moments ago,
00:07:51.720 | every 24 hours, or at least strive to.
00:07:54.300 | There is no escaping that.
00:07:56.300 | (upbeat music)
00:07:58.880 | (upbeat music)
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