How Your Phone Affects the Brain & Motivation

00:00:00.000 | So let's talk about the optimal way to engage in activities

00:00:05.000 | or to consume things that evoke dopamine.

00:00:10.520 | How are we supposed to engage

00:00:11.760 | with these dopamine evoking activities

00:00:14.120 | in ways that are healthy and beneficial for us?

00:00:16.440 | How do we achieve these peaks,

00:00:18.160 | which are so central to our wellbeing

00:00:19.800 | and experience of life without dropping our baseline?

00:00:22.980 | And the key lies in intermittent release of dopamine.

00:00:28.200 | The real key is to not expect or chase high levels

00:00:33.200 | of dopamine release every time we engage

00:00:36.680 | in these activities.

00:00:38.400 | Now, the smartphone is a very interesting tool

00:00:41.680 | for dopamine in light of all this.

00:00:43.620 | It's extremely common nowadays to see people texting

00:00:47.820 | and doing selfies and communicating in various ways,

00:00:51.840 | listening to podcasts, listening to music,

00:00:54.320 | doing all sorts of things while they engage

00:00:56.280 | in other activities or going to dinner

00:00:57.920 | and texting other people or making plans,

00:01:00.520 | sharing information, that's all wonderful.

00:01:02.320 | It gives depth and richness and color to life.

00:01:05.220 | But it isn't just about our distracted nature

00:01:09.560 | when we're engaging with the phone.

00:01:11.280 | It's also a way of layering in dopamine.

00:01:14.980 | And it's no surprise that levels of depression

00:01:19.320 | and lack of motivation are really on the increase.

00:01:22.720 | There's something called dopamine reward prediction error.

00:01:25.140 | When we expect something to happen,

00:01:27.480 | we are highly motivated to pursue it.

00:01:29.500 | If it happens, great, we get the reward.

00:01:33.280 | The reward comes in various chemical forms,

00:01:35.240 | including dopamine, and we are more likely

00:01:37.600 | to engage in that behavior again.

00:01:39.600 | This is the basis of casino gambling.

00:01:42.160 | This is how they keep you going back

00:01:43.400 | again and again and again, even though on average,

00:01:46.040 | the house really does win.

00:01:47.720 | Everything that we've talked about until now

00:01:49.920 | sets up an explanation or an interpretation

00:01:54.120 | of why interacting with digital technology

00:01:57.800 | can potentially lead to disruptions

00:01:59.980 | or lowering in baseline levels of dopamine.

00:02:03.840 | There's a intermittent schedule

00:02:05.860 | by which dopamine sometimes arrives,

00:02:07.920 | sometimes a little bit, sometimes a lot,

00:02:10.040 | sometimes a medium amount, okay?

00:02:12.560 | That intermittent reinforcement schedule

00:02:14.920 | is actually the best schedule to export to other activities.

00:02:19.920 | How do you do that?

00:02:21.640 | Well, first of all, if you are engaged in activities,

00:02:26.180 | school, sport, relationship, et cetera,

00:02:28.480 | where you experience a win,

00:02:30.820 | you should be very careful about allowing yourself

00:02:33.520 | to experience huge peaks in dopamine,

00:02:35.820 | unless you're willing to suffer the crash that follows

00:02:39.220 | and waiting a period of time for it to come back up.

00:02:43.760 | What would this look like in the practical sense?

00:02:45.680 | Well, let's say you are somebody

00:02:46.920 | who really does enjoy exercise,

00:02:49.080 | or let's say you're somebody who kind of likes exercise,

00:02:51.360 | but forces yourself to do it,

00:02:53.000 | but you make it pleasureful

00:02:54.220 | by giving yourself your favorite cup of coffee first,

00:02:57.160 | or maybe taking a pre-workout drink,

00:02:59.220 | or taking an energy drink,

00:03:00.840 | or listening to your favorite music,

00:03:02.360 | and then you're in the gym and you're listening to your music

00:03:04.160 | that all sounds great, right?

00:03:05.780 | Well, it is great, except that by layering together

00:03:08.960 | all these things to try and achieve that dopamine release,

00:03:11.520 | and by getting a big peak in dopamine,

00:03:13.480 | you're actually increasing the number of conditions required

00:03:17.620 | to achieve pleasure from that activity again.

00:03:20.720 | I can use a personal example for this.

00:03:22.460 | I happen to really enjoy working out.

00:03:24.080 | I've always really enjoyed it.

00:03:25.760 | But in recent years,

00:03:28.260 | I noticed that if I was bringing my phone to my workouts,

00:03:31.640 | then not only was I a little bit more distracted

00:03:33.840 | and not focusing on what I was doing

00:03:35.440 | as much as I could have or should have,

00:03:37.660 | but also I started to lose interest in what I was doing.

00:03:41.240 | It wasn't as pleasureful.

00:03:42.680 | I would feel like it just didn't have the same kind of oomph,

00:03:45.520 | and I was beginning to question my motivation.

00:03:48.720 | As I started learning more about this relationship

00:03:51.480 | between the peaks and the baselines and dopamine,

00:03:53.880 | what I realized was that some time ago,

00:03:56.240 | I probably experienced a incredible increase

00:03:59.400 | in the amount of dopamine during one of my workouts

00:04:01.760 | because I enjoy working out and I enjoy listening to music.

00:04:05.600 | I also enjoy listening to podcasts.

00:04:07.120 | I also enjoy communicating with people.

00:04:09.200 | Those are all wonderful pursuits,

00:04:10.540 | but I had layered in too many of them too many times.

00:04:14.400 | And then it essentially wasn't working for me anymore.

00:04:17.800 | Much in the same way a drug wouldn't work

00:04:19.500 | for somebody who takes it repeatedly

00:04:20.920 | because their baseline of dopamine is dropping.

00:04:23.360 | So at least for this calendar year,

00:04:25.700 | I've made a rule for myself,

00:04:27.240 | which is I don't allow my phone into my workouts at all.

00:04:32.240 | No music, at least not from the phone.

00:04:34.420 | It can be in the room.

00:04:35.520 | I might listen to a podcast in the room,

00:04:38.760 | but I don't listen to anything

00:04:40.920 | or engage in anything on my phone, no texting whatsoever.

00:04:43.320 | And most of the time,

00:04:44.140 | I just don't even bring it with me for that period of time.

00:04:46.320 | It's only a short period of time.

00:04:48.200 | I'm not training that often.

00:04:49.840 | This is something that I think has been misinterpreted

00:04:55.800 | as people can't be alone now.

00:04:58.240 | People talk about, oh, you know,

00:04:59.740 | they can't walk across the street

00:05:02.020 | or they can't go anywhere, ride the bus,

00:05:05.160 | can't be on the plane without being in contact.

00:05:07.560 | They can't handle just their thoughts.

00:05:09.220 | I don't think that's really what's going on.

00:05:10.960 | I think what's happened is that we achieved

00:05:14.200 | the great dopamine increase that comes from

00:05:16.240 | this incredible thing, which I personally enjoy

00:05:18.980 | being able to communicate by phone, by text,

00:05:21.560 | and exchange pictures and send links

00:05:23.240 | and these kinds of things, social media.

00:05:25.360 | But then what happens is it doesn't have

00:05:28.080 | that same fulfilling aspect to it.

00:05:30.480 | And it tends to remove the excitement and the pleasure

00:05:33.840 | of the very activities that we are engaged in.

00:05:36.480 | So I know this is a hard one for many people,

00:05:38.720 | but I do invite you to try removing multiple sources

00:05:43.440 | of dopamine release or what used to be multiple sources

00:05:46.660 | of dopamine release from activities that you want

00:05:49.600 | to continue to enjoy or that you want to enjoy more.

00:05:52.660 | And now you understand the biological mechanisms

00:05:54.840 | that would underlie a statement like that.

00:05:57.600 | It takes a little bit of working with.

00:05:59.640 | I know it can be challenging in the first week or so

00:06:02.640 | of not engaging with the phone during any kind of workout.

00:06:06.000 | That actually was really tough,

00:06:07.860 | but now I'm back to a place where I enjoy it that much more.

00:06:10.800 | I also feel as if I conquered something

00:06:12.400 | in terms of the circuitry related to dopamine.

00:06:15.140 | I now understand why something that I enjoyed so much

00:06:18.560 | had become less pleasurable for me.

00:06:21.260 | And there's a deep, deep satisfaction

00:06:23.420 | that comes from understanding,

00:06:24.400 | okay, there wasn't anything wrong with me

00:06:26.480 | or what I was doing or anything at all.

00:06:30.280 | It was just, there was something wrong

00:06:31.920 | with the approach I was taking,

00:06:33.200 | which was layering in all these sources of dopamine

00:06:35.520 | and dropping my baseline.

00:06:37.000 | If you want to maintain motivation for school,

00:06:39.120 | exercise, relationships, or pursuits of any duration

00:06:42.040 | and kind, the key thing is to make sure

00:06:45.080 | that the peak in dopamine, if it's very high,

00:06:48.200 | doesn't occur too often.

00:06:50.400 | And if something does occur very often,

00:06:53.520 | that you vary how much dopamine you experience

00:06:55.960 | with each engagement in that activity.

00:06:59.480 | So do like the casinos do, certainly works for them.

00:07:02.760 | And for activities that you would like to continue

00:07:05.560 | to engage in over time, whatever those happen to be,

00:07:09.520 | start paying attention to the amount of dopamine

00:07:12.660 | and excitement and pleasure that you achieve with those

00:07:14.880 | and start modulating that somewhat at random.

00:07:17.520 | That might be removing some of the dopamine

00:07:20.600 | releasing chemicals that you might take prior.

00:07:23.640 | Maybe you remove them every time,

00:07:26.560 | but then every once in a while you introduce them.

00:07:29.100 | Maybe it involves sometimes doing things socially

00:07:33.000 | that you enjoy doing socially,

00:07:34.120 | sometimes doing the same thing, but alone.

00:07:37.440 | There are a lot of different ways to do this.

00:07:39.760 | There are a lot of different ways to approach this,

00:07:41.800 | but now knowing what you know about peaks

00:07:44.400 | and baselines and dopamine and understanding

00:07:47.240 | how important it is not just to achieve peaks,

00:07:49.500 | but to maintain that baseline at a healthy level,

00:07:51.940 | it should be straightforward for you to implement

00:07:54.040 | these intermittent schedules.

00:07:55.560 | [upbeat music]

00:07:58.960 | [upbeat music]

00:08:01.540 | (upbeat music)

How Your Phone Affects the Brain & Motivation | Dr. Andrew Huberman

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