Controlling Your Dopamine For Motivation, Focus & Satisfaction

I really recommend everyone to listen to Andrew Huberman's podcast [0] on Dopamine and how it affects motivation, focus, and satisfaction. Many people see Dopamine as just a pleasure chemical, but it actually directly influences motivation and focus. We also all have a somewhat set amount of dopamine in a day, so participating in activities that release a short peak of dopamine (drugs, masturbation, etc) means that we have less dopamine, and therefore less motivation for the rest of the day. I was also recently in a low motivation rut, however after making some lifestyle changes I feel much more motivated throughout the day. I stopped getting high, cut out all porn, and added 2 min of a cold water at the end of my regular shower. It was tough to start, but 100% worth it. [0] [this video]

This is an area I'm pretty passionate about. So first of all, it's pretty clear that you _do_ have some interests. You mention Feynman and Kazantzakis. That sounds like you're interested in the history of science and literature. That sounds pretty cool. Many people will recommend going to a professional which I won't try to dissuade you from but that's not mutually exclusive with examining your lifestyle. I'm obsessed with this podcast by Andrew Huberman (Stanford Neuroscientist) because he's talking about a scientific basis for stuff that has "felt" true to me for a while. Your food diet affects how you feel but your information diet does massively as well. There is a neurochemical basis for this with your baseline dopamine levels, that sets your motivation. [this video] I also recommend reading the book Dopamine Nation. Too much social media will fry your brain. If you're checking Hacker News more than a handful times of day, work on doing less of that. If you're addicted to Reddit, Twitter, or pornography, work on doing less of that. Exercise. Spend time in the outdoors. Focus hard on sleep hygiene. Eat less sugar and processed foods. You can not change all this stuff overnight but if you can take baby steps it will help massively. You will not feel better tomorrow or next week but if you take tiny steps you will feel a tiny bit better in a few months. I would also highly recommend learning about mindfulness, meditation, and yoga. A lot of dissatisfaction is aversion to a feeli

Check out the latest episode from Huberman Labs regarding dopamine peaks and maintenance: [this video] Also an earlier one about addiction, good tips to apply here or similar situations. And it's OK to take some time off and switch to other activities, while your brain replenishes your desire to work on the background. I did, for a couple of months. I was actually in the same spot as you and the guy from another post ( [link] ), even thought I was getting some sort of early dementia, as my memory was also affected. The unable to start or keeping are also signs of burnout and ADHD. You could try asking others in your team to give you some extra hand-holding, motivation or accountability. Some bumps in the road are solvable with a bit of encouragement, but it's hard to open up given that delivering what they ask from you is the expected thing. Sometimes even when you want to proactively tackle on these matters, it's a process that takes a while. That rejection you feel right now is totally common, and it's could be a sign that you should stop trying for now, it doesn't mean that you won't like it / be able to do it in the future, just a protection mechanism from your body overreacting.

Also mine. Have gone long stretches between relapses during which time I've felt noticeably better. What typically happens is I'll rationalize its use after a spell, but will find I'll want to watch the next day, and the next. Particularly if sleep suffers, just to get some deliverance. From what I've learned, large sustained dopamine hits lead to deficits in baseline levels. I could intuit early on that some of my negative experience (including sleep) was linked to consumption, but managed to convince myself each time that I "just need to better manage it". Even if the truth stares you in the face it's hard. I like to think of it as a "mild" addiction owing to frequency (it wasn't always) but still an addiction, which is like playing with fire. It can always get worse. I've been enjoying Huberman's videos on the topic of dopamine and other things - [this video]

The positive side of plasticity is that your brain can also re-adapt fairly quickly to a lower (healthier) level of stimulation if you can get over the initial hump. My understanding is that most of this is regulated by dopamine, and your dopamine system needs time to reset in order to adapt to new patterns. In the meantime, it's normal to feel bored or lacking in motivation; that's part of the reset process and you just need to wait it out. Personally, I've found it's easiest to change habits and patterns via some sort of healthy distraction that takes my mind off whatever I'm trying to change. Travel, getting into a new hobby/project, or starting a really good book are all great for this. Andrew Huberman goes into this stuff in depth in his podcast, especially this episode: [this video]

Motivation and motivated people are products of certain behaviors. * The primary driver of motivation in animal brains (even in small worms) is a healthy dopamine cycle. In the brain there exists a dopamine baseline by which regular drive and motivation occur. There are also dopamine spikes when a pleasurable moment occurs. A dopamine spike is always followed by a dopamine crash and that dopamine crash will always occur in the same ratio below baseline that the spike occurred above baseline. Driven people are able to maintain a near constant high baseline and recognize their depressive spikes with healthy and positive responses. Drug use, except for caffeine, almost always damages and/or destroys either the dopamine cycle or permanent dopamine production. A primary motivator behind the consumption of drugs, particularly combinations of drugs, is chasing a dopamine high that has already left the brain. * Openness is one of the big 5 of personality indicators. Openness is the willingness to try new experiences and creativity falls under openness. Openness is not in any way correlated with extroversion. These are not necessarily alpha personalities, as in their goal is probably not to compete but rather to be productive and industrious and probably original. This is an important distinction because alpha personalities qualify their performance in comparison to others while industrious and/or creative people quality their performance in response to their output even when there ar