Leverage Dopamine to Overcome Procrastination & Optimize Effort | Huberman Lab Podcast

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 today we are

discussing dopamine dopamine is a topic

that I've covered before on this podcast

and many people have heard of dopamine

most people know that dopamine is

involved in pleasure to some extent or

another and nowadays people are starting

to appreciate that dopamine is also

intimately involved with motivation

drive and pursuit

well today you're going to learn that

indeed dopamine is responsible for all

of those things but you are also going

to learn that dopamine is critical for

overcoming procrastination for ensuring

ongoing motivation and indeed for

ensuring confidence in fact we are going

to talk about the relationship between

dopamine and motivation and confidence

at the level of neurobiological

circuitry and we are going to cover

tools that will allow you to leverage

your dopamine in order to have a maximum

motivation to overcome sticking points

which include things like

procrastination but also by

understanding the neural circuits in the

brain and body that release and use

dopamine but more importantly by

understanding what are called dopamine

dynamics that is what gives rise to Big

peaks in dopamine or troughs in dopamine

or what's referred to as our Baseline

level of dopamine which turns out to be

our Baseline levels of motivation and

feelings of well-being by understanding

how those things relate to one another I

assure you that by the end of today's

episode you will be in a far better

position to understand why you become a

motivated why you procrastinate how to

ensure motivation on an ongoing basis

and even how to leverage effort and the

desire to become motivated as a way to

do just that to become more motivated

today's discussion is not about

psychology although I will center around

practical everyday examples and offer

many many tools that you can Implement

if you choose today's discussion is

really about pulling apart these things

that we call motivation reward pleasure

procrastination and understanding them

in terms of their dopamine Dynamics so

whether you've heard me or others talk

about dopamine before or whether or not

today is your first exposure to the

topic of dopamine today's episode is

really designed to give you the

biological and practical knowledge so

that you can leverage your dopamine

circuitry and your dopamine levels as

well as tools to adjust dopamine

circuitry and levels in order to

optimize mental health physical health

and performance before we begin I'd like

to emphasize that this podcast is

separate from my teaching and research

roles at Stanford it is however part of

my desire and effort to bring zero cost

to Consumer information about science

and science related tools to the general

public in keeping with that theme I'd

like to thank the sponsors of today's

podcast our first sponsor is Helix sleep

Helix sleep makes mattresses and pillows

that are the absolute highest quality

I've talked many times before on this

and other podcasts about the critical

role that sleep plays in allowing you to

be awake and alert and have a good

elevated mood throughout the day sleep

is just fundamental to our mental health

physical health and performance and

there's no replacing great sleep a key

thing we all need in order to get

excellent sleep is to have an ideal

sleep environment Helix mattresses are

designed for your unique sleep needs in

order to ensure that you get the best

possible night's sleep so if you go to

the Helix site and you take their very

brief two or three minute quiz it will

ask you questions such as do you sleep

on your side your back or your stomach

do you tend to run hot or cold

throughout the night and they will match

you to a mattress that's specific to

your sleep needs I match to the dusk

mattress that's the one that works for

me and since sleeping on the dusk

mattress now for well over two years

I've been sleeping better than I ever

have before so if you go to their site

you take the quiz and you figure out

what's the ideal mattress for you just

go to helixsleep.com huberman take their

two-minute sleep quiz and they'll match

you to a customized mattress and you'll

get up to 350 off any mattress order and

two free pillows again if interested you

can go to helixsleep.com huberman for up

to 350 off and two free pillows today's

episode is also brought To Us by whoop

whoop is a fitness wearable device that

tracks your daily activity and sleep but

also goes beyond that by providing

real-time feedback on how to adjust your

physical training and sleep schedule and

other activities throughout your day in

order to optimize your health I've been

working with whoop on their scientific

advisory Council to help Advance whoops

technology and mission of unlocking

Human Performance not just for athletes

but for everybody as a whoop user I've

experienced the health benefits of their

technology firsthand for instance it

tells me of course whether or not I had

a good night's sleep or a poor night

sleep by giving me a sleep score it

tells me the percentage of rapid eye

movement sleep to slow wave sleep but

whoop also tells me for instance whether

or not certain activities during my day

time such as naps or training or

training of a certain amount of

intensity how that's impacting my sleep

and vice versa if you're interested in

trying whoop you can go to join.woop.com

huberman again that join.woop.com

huberman today and you'll get your first

month free today's episode is also

brought To Us by Roka Roka makes

eyeglasses and sunglasses that are

uniquely tailored to the needs of

athletes and everyday people the company

was founded by two All-American swimmers

from Stanford and everything about Roca

eyeglasses and sunglasses were designed

with the biology the visual system in

mind I've spent a lifetime working on

the biology of the visual system and I

can tell you that your visual system has

to contend with enormous number of

challenges in order for you to be able

to see clearly Roca eyeglasses and

sunglasses are designed such that when

you go from one environment to the next

like a brightly lit environment to a

less a brightly lit environment you

don't notice that transition you always

see with perfect clarity another

terrific thing about Roka eyeglasses and

sunglasses is that many of the

performance glasses out there that are

designed for sport make people look like

cyborgs which if you want that they do

have those options the cyborg options as

I call them but they also have many

options where the aesthetic is more of

the sort that you would wear to dinner

or to work or anywhere that you happen

to be if you'd like to try Roca

eyeglasses or sunglasses go to Roka

that's Roka Dot com and enter the code

huberman to save 20 off your first order

again that's Roca roka.com and enter the

code huberman at checkout the huberman

Lab podcast is now partnered with

momentous supplements to find the

supplements we discussed on the huberman

Lab podcast you can go to live momentous

spelled ous live momentous.com huberman

and I should just mention that the

library of those supplements is

constantly expanding again that's

livmomentis.com huberman okay let's talk

about dopamine what is dopamine dopamine

is what's called a neuromodulator which

simply refers to the fact that it's a

chemical that modulates or changes the

electrical activity of other cells and

the cells I'm referring to are neurons

neurons are just nerve cells so you have

a brain and a spinal cord and the

neurons in your brain and spinal cord

connect to one another and they connect

to different areas of the body including

basically every organ of your body and

every organ of your body communicates

back to your brain and spinal cord

through Direct act or indirect Pathways

for instance you have neurons in your

gut that sense what sorts of nutrients

you've eaten or drank and then send

neural signals electrical signals up to

the brain and indeed that whole process

happens to be modulated by dopamine

dopamine as a neuromodulator has the

basic property of either ramping up

increasing or decreasing the activity of

other neurons and that's done by

adjusting things like electrical

potentials and things of that sort that

we really won't go into this episode but

that I promise to get into in detail in

a future episode if you're interested in

the biochemistry and biophysics of

neurons and things of that sort

so we have this neuromodulator dopamine

and we know that that neuromodulator can

increase or decrease the activity of

other neurons

so then we have to ask ourselves where

is dopamine released in the brain and

body and what specific types of neurons

is it impacting in other words what

specific types of functions does

dopamine have so there are basically

five circuits within the brain that use

dopamine as the primary neuromodulator

and those five circuits engage different

but related functions so I'm going to go

through them one by one relatively

quickly giving you a little bit of

nomenclature and some sense of what each

of those circuits looks like and what it

does the first circuit is the so-called

Nigro striatal pathway so in the back of

the brain there's an area called

substantia so named because the

neurons that are actually very dark they

actually contain pigment you'd be able

to see this if I were to slice up a

brain you'd see two dark regions in the

back that substantia Niagara substantia

Niagara contains neurons that are chock

a block full of dopamine but they

release that dopamine in a brain

structure called the striatum the

striatum is involved in movement both

the initiation of movements and the

suppression of movements in so-called go

action and no go suppress action

pathways topic for a future podcast the

second brain circuit that uses and

leverages dopamine to a great extent is

the so-called mesolimbic pathway now

you'll also in a moment hear about the

mesocortical pathway so today I'm going

to talk about these somewhat

interchangeably at times but where it's

important for me to differentiate

between them I will do that both of

these Pathways initiate from a set of

neurons in the so-called ventral

tegmental area or VTA I will use that

acronym VTA the VTA functions in close

partnership with a different brain

structure called the nucleus accumbens

or n a i don't think I'll call it n a

today I'll talk about VTA ventral

tegmental area and I'll talk about

nucleus accumbens for sake of today's

discussion you can lump those together

if you want

neurons in those areas project a bunch

of different places but in the

mesolimbic pathway those neurons are

projecting to areas of the brain like

the hypothalamus which sits right above

the roof of your mouth and is

responsible for a lot of basic functions

things like maintaining your body

temperature for libido in the pursuit of

sex for Hunger for the generation of

signals to the pituitary gland that

cause the release of

hormones and other things into the

bloodstream so the connections which I

sometimes refer to as projections from

the neurons in the VTA and nucleus

accumbens to the hypothalamus are

basically using dopamine to modulate the

output of a lot of different things that

happen in this hypothalamus that

controls a lot of we could call them

primitive functions but they're really

basic functions for survival now the

other pathway out of the VTA and nucleus

accumbens is to the cortex that's why

it's called mesocortical pathway so this

is a very different pathway out of the

VTA and nucleus accumbens than the one I

just described a moment ago the pathway

I'm talking about now the mesocortical

pathway projects to the prefrontal

cortex which is a structure that many of

you have perhaps heard of but even if

you haven't it's important to know this

is an area that resides right behind

your forehead

and that in humans compared to other

species is greatly expanded in terms of

its size and complexity of function so

it's involved in everything from

planning and executing of action to

making good or bad decisions depending

on context in fact one of the primary

functions of prefrontal Cortex is to

really understand context whether or not

for instance you are alone in your room

where certain behaviors are appropriate

whether or not you are at work where

other behaviors are appropriate

understanding what the context is and

therefore what sorts of actions need to

be generated and suppressed in fact a

guest on the huberman Lab podcast and

this is a guess whose episode hasn't

aired yet described this beautifully

he's a neurosurgeon and he said the way

to think about the prefrontal cortex is

it's basically an area of the brain that

says

or no not now to other brain regions in

order to suppress action we know this

because people that have damage to the

prefrontal cortex

often can't suppress their impulses okay

so the pathway from VTA and nucleus

accumbens to the prefrontal cortex is

absolutely critical for today's

discussion because we are largely going

to be discussing motivation Drive

Pursuit procrastination and all sorts of

things that have to do with our feelings

about context whether or not we want to

do something or not whether or not we

feel we should or we shouldn't whether

or not we feel we failed the last time

or there's a high probability of success

the next time prefrontal cortex does

many many things but when thinking about

dopamine's role in the prefrontal cortex

that is when thinking about this

mesocortical pathway we really want to

think about how dopamine is activating

or changing our propensity to do certain

things and get us into action or prevent

us from doing certain things and prevent

action so basically you can think about

the mesocortical pathway as a circuit

that really governs all of the major

choices that you're going to make in

life about what to do and what not to do

toward your goals and away from the

things that you want to avoid now the

fourth dopamine pathway in the brain is

the so-called tubero infundibular

pathway and this is not one we're going

to focus on too much today this is a

pathway that relates to connections

between the brain and your pituitary

gland your pituitary gland being that

gland that's as I mentioned a moment ago

is also receiving input from the

hypothalamus and is releasing a bunch of

hormones into your bloodstream things

like luteinizing hormone follicle

stimulating hormone things like

melanocortin hormone these are hormones

that are impacting everything from the

function of the ovary and females to the

function of the testes and males it's

governing things like cortisol release

under stress thyroid hormone meaning

it's regulating thyroid hormone release

and on and on dopamine has a very

powerful impact on the output of the

pituitary so again that's probably a

topic for a future episode but it's

important in reviewing the different

brain circuits that use dopamine as a

neuromodulator that I mentioned that one

then there's a fifth one and this fifth

one is not often discussed and again

won't be the main topic of today's

discussion but for thoroughness and for

clarity it's important that we mention

it this is the circuit within your

retina that is the pie crust-like lining

of neural tissue on the back of your eye

because remember your eye is actually

part of your brain that got extruded

from your brain during development you

know those two eyes that you see in the

mirror and that you see in other people

are actually two pieces of central

nervous system and within the retina

which is the neural portion of the eye

within the neural retina

dopamine is responsible for adapting to

different light conditions so that you

can see clearly both in the evening and

when it gets darker you can still see a

bit and in the morning when it's very

bright you don't really have to make

adjustments to your visual system in

order to see clearly your visual system

does it for you and one of the ways that

it does that is through the

neuromodulator dopamine so today we are

not going to discuss the retinal

dopamine Pathways or the

tuberinfrendibular dopamine Pathways and

we won't really talk so much about the

Nigro striatal pathway I'll say one more

thing about it and then I'll leave it

alone we are going to talk about the

mesocortical pathway and we might touch

on the mesolimic pathway a little bit as

well so today we're mostly going to talk

about mesocortical circuitry and

function and dopamine within the

mesocortical circuit and the reason that

we're doing that is that today's

discussion is really about motivation

procrastination goal setting and pursuit

it's very important to understand that

neither dopamine nor the mesocortical

circuit cares about any specific goal or

Pursuit this is a circuit that uses

dopamine in order to pursue anything

now of course some people have a greater

propensity to pursue things like work or

goals and Athletics or relationships or

a combination of those other people

unfortunately have a greater propensity

to pursue things like drugs of abuse

what are drugs of abuse drugs of abuse

tend to be drugs that increase levels of

dopamine to the extent that other types

of Pursuits in life that are adaptive

for us like work relationship School Etc

become Irrelevant in fact the definition

of addiction that I use and that I

believe really matches the neurobiology

very well is that addiction is a

progressive narrowing of the things that

bring us pleasure healthy functioning of

the mesocortical pathway however allows

us to toggle or switch back and forth

between different types of Pursuits of

all the sorts that I've mentioned

earlier so if we can understand how that

means the cortical pathway works just a

little bit in particular when dopamine

is released and when it's not released

what dopamine does when it's released to

our sense of motivation and drive

and if we can understand a little bit

about how our recent dopamine history

that is whether or not there is dopamine

in our system already

dictates whether or not we are going to

feel motivated in the next 5 10 15

minutes hours days and weeks that is all

very easy to understand I promise I'll

explain it to you in a simple way but I

want you to get a circuit into your mind

I want you to Envision that there are

these neurons little nerve cells in the

VTA and nucleus accumbens those neurons

make dopamine they send their

projections that we call axons which are

like little wires and they can release

dopamine into the prefrontal cortex and

now you already know because you learned

it a few minutes ago that the prefrontal

cortex then can ensure that certain

behaviors take place and other behaviors

do not take place that or quieting that

we talked about earlier

with that in mind let's now take a look

at how dopamine is released and let's

keep two things in mind there are peaks

in dopamine that is dopamine is released

into the frontal cortex where it has

these effects of activating or

suppressing action

and we can think of those as peaks in

dopamine so if I call it a spike that

means an increase and then a decrease if

I call it a peak it's an increase and

then a decrease there can also be

troughs in dopamine what do I mean by

that well we have Peaks and dopamine and

that Peak and dopamine can rise up and

then go back to what we call baseline or

there can be a trough it can go below

Baseline so the two key things to

understand about dopamine is that we

have dopamine Peaks that are triggered

by certain behaviors certain compounds

drugs or substances food

Etc and that we have a dopamine Baseline

our dopamine Baseline is our reservoir

of dopamine it's how full or empty our

dopamine pool is and that dopamine pool

is the pool of dopamine that we use in

order to create those dopamine Peaks and

when those Peaks come down sometimes

they go back to Baseline and sometimes

they go to lower the base slime which we

call the trough

if any of this seems confusing I want

you just to imagine a wave pool this is

an analogy that was given to me by one

of our podcast guests which is Dr Kyle

Gillette who's an obesity specialist and

works on a number of things related to

endocrine hormone function including

testosterone estrogen in both men and

women you want to check out his episodes

on Hormone Health

now they're fascinating and actionable

he's a tremendous wealth of knowledge

and he has this analogy for how dopamine

Works in our brain and body and that

analogy is this notion of a wave pool if

you've ever seen a wave pool it's

basically a concrete pool and there are

waves within it okay duh those waves can

be of different heights so they can be

little Ripples and we can think of those

as little mini Peaks or they can be big

waves they can be really big crashing

waves

if the height of those waves and the

frequency of those waves is very very

large so some of that water which here

I'm using as an analogy to dopamine can

slosh out of the wave pool and the

Baseline drops However if those Peaks

are small enough

or they are seldom enough

well then the Baseline that is the water

level in that pool stays more or less

constant I think this is an excellent

analogy for how dopamine works in the

mesocortical pathway as it relates to

motivation and pursuit and all those

sorts of things because we really need

to think about how the Peaks and the

Baseline relate to one another

and this is very important the Peaks on

the Baseline are not independent of one

another they relate to one another so

now you have in your mind a wave pool

and just understand that if you get a

great big huge wave maybe one of them it

will crash out and some of that water

will Splash out the Baseline will go

down a little bit but if you get big

peak after big peak after big peak

pretty soon you're going to empty that

pool whereas if you have smaller waves

or less frequent big waves well then the

Baseline will stay relatively constant

so let's think about dopamine Peaks and

bass lines and let's remember that for

every Peak there's a trough what do I

mean by that well when you have a wave

you also have the bottom of the wave

when you have a mountain you have the

bottom of the mountain

when we think about dopamine Peaks and

dopamine baselines we have to include

that trough because that trough that is

the level of dopamine below Baseline

really dictates whether or not you are

going to feel motivated to pursue

something or not so I'm going to give

you a visual in your mind the visual in

your mind is an increase in dopamine

that's triggered by your desire for

something and really could be your

desire for anything if you're hungry and

you're thinking about I really want a

sandwich I really want to let's think

what sandwich would I want right now a

really nice roast beef sandwich on

sourdough with a slice of Swiss Tomatoes

slice of pickle here I'm describing the

sandwich that I would want so if you're

hungry and you're thinking about that

dopamine starts Rising this is crucially

important to understand dopamine is not

just released when we get the reward

when we get the thing that we're

pursuing dopamine is released in

anticipation of what we want

that increase in dopamine

is by no happenstance no mistake

relates also to our propensity and

desire to move remember earlier I told

you there's a separate Circuit of

dopamine that triggers movement and that

when it's depleted is causing things

like deficits and movement related to

Parkinson's or other movement disorders

well that's not pure coincidence that's

because desire and the need to move in

order to pursue and reach goals are one

in the same process

so if I desire a sandwich or I desire a

cup of coffee or I desire some water

when I'm thirsty there's an increase in

dopamine that we could call a little

mini Peak and dopamine

but then here's the key thing very soon

after I realized my desire for something

that Peak that was caused by the desire

comes down and drops below Baseline

below the level of dopamine that it was

prior to even thinking about the

sandwich or the coffee or the glass of

water

and it's that drop below Baseline that

triggers my desire to go out and find

that sandwich that coffee that water or

that blank insert whatever it is that

you happen to desire action or substance

of any kind or person Etc

so that drop below Baseline is

fundamental to the whole process and

that drop below Baseline was triggered

by the preceding Peak so let's say that

I desire a sandwich there's an increase

in dopamine then very quickly it comes

down below Baseline just a little bit

now I'm in pursuit of the sandwich I'm

looking for where I can get that

sandwich I can order it perhaps to be

delivered I can go out and find it

now is the stage in which I have to

think about what are the different

stimuli that is the things in my

environment that signal whether or not

I'm likely to get that sandwich or not

okay so for instance if I were to go to

my phone and order food on an app or

walk down the street and see the sign

for a deli that's a cue that I'm likely

to relieve that drop in dopamine and get

not just back to Baseline but then I'll

get a peak in dopamine and indeed that's

what happens if I find that Deli I go

into the deli they're open they're

making the sandwich that I want they

make my sandwich and great I get that

sandwich and that sandwich will have

some degree of inherent reward to it

some degree of my liking it or not

liking it so let's say I like it it's

not the best sandwich I've ever had but

all I'm doing is comparing my desire for

that sandwich to the sandwich that I

actually got and ate and chances are

it's going to relieve that craving

meaning it will take that dopamine that

had fallen below Baseline up up back to

Baseline and if I like the sandwich it's

going to indeed increase that dopamine

again to another Peak

now if I love the sandwich like it's the

most delicious thing that I've ever

tasted in my entire life well then I'll

get a big peak in dopamine when I

consume that reward however chances are

that sandwiches more or less as I expect

it to be which is pretty good I'll eat

it and I'm fine what do I mean by fine

well there's a concept called reward

prediction error reward prediction error

says that the dopamine that it is

experienced that is that's released from

the VTA and nucleus accumbens

is going to be of a certain value and

that value is going to be compared to

the desire and expectation of what I

thought I was going to get so if you

take what you actually got minus what

you expected that's reward prediction

error so if the sandwich is basically

what I expected to get fine dopamine

comes down basically to a baseline level

that's pretty standard for me and is

basically the Baseline level I had

before I ever thought about the sandwich

at all

if the sandwich completely surprises me

and is completely amazing just an

amazing sandwich well then the level of

dopamine that I experience when I

consume that sandwich is going to be

even greater and it's going to be that

minus what I expected so there it's a

bigger reward prediction error in the

direction of higher Peak by consuming

the sandwich

and then of course there's the other

possibility which is the deli's closed

or the sandwich they make me is lousy or

doesn't taste good or something happened

in the consuming of that sandwich that

just makes a bad experience in which

case if we take that reward experienced

minus reward predicted from the initial

craving well then it's going to be less

than what I expected and therefore the

Baseline drops below where it was prior

to even Desiring the sandwich okay so

all of this might seem a little bit

complicated but it's all very simple

desire for things increases dopamine

but then our level of dopamine drops

below Baseline and it's that drop below

Baseline that triggers the motivation to

bring that dopamine level back up by

going and pursuing the thing that you

wanted in the first place now of course

as this is happening you're not

conscious of your dopamine levels you

experience this as context-dependent

craving and pursuit because remember the

prefrontal cortex is involved in context

setting and craving and pursuit because

it relates to action and movement which

is one of the general features of the

dopamine system so you can start to see

how this is a beautifully designed

system and you can also see how it's a

perfect system for desire and pursuit of

anything not just sandwiches as I'm

giving you in this somewhat trivial but

every day and therefore applicable

example so just by understanding reward

prediction error and especially by

understanding that a craving triggers a

peak in dopamine that makes you

motivated but then drops your level of

dopamine below Baseline which makes you

even more motivated

you are already halfway through the

conceptual aspect of today's podcast

because if you can understand that you

will understand why for instance when

you initially want something or you

think you want something

it puts you into motion but then pretty

quickly you're starting to feel the pain

of not having that and that is also

contributing to your desire to pursue

that thing this is a subtle effect but

if you watch for it you'll start to see

it or experience it within yourself your

craving for things is not just about

craving for those things per se it's

also a desire to relieve the pain of not

having those things and if you can

internalize that and start to develop an

awareness around it you will be in an

amazing position to leverage all sorts

of aspects of the dopamine system in

order to increase your motivation

especially when things get really hard

or when you have the propensity to

procrastinate which is something that

we'll get into a little bit later in the

podcast I'd like to take a quick break

and acknowledge one of our sponsors

athletic greens athletic greens now

called ag1 is a vitamin mineral

probiotic drink that covers all of your

foundational nutritional needs I've been

taking athletic green since 2012. so I'm

delighted that they're sponsoring the

podcast the reason I started taking

athletic greens and the reason I still

take athletic greens once are usually

twice a day is that it gets to be the

probiotics that I need for gut health

our gut is very important it's populated

by gut microbiota that communicate with

the brain the immune system and

basically all the biological systems of

our body to strongly impact our

immediate and long-term health

and those probiotics and athletic greens

are optimal and vital for microbiotic

health in addition athletic greens

contains a number of adaptogens vitamins

and minerals that make sure that all of

my foundational nutritional needs are

met and it tastes great if you'd like to

try athletic greens you can go to

athleticgreens.com huberman and they'll

give you five free travel packs that

make it really easy to mix up athletic

greens while you're on the road in the

car on the plane Etc and they'll give

you a year's supply of vitamin d3k2

again that's athleticgreens.com huberman

to get the five free travel packs and

the year supply of vitamin D3 K2 now I'd

like to talk about the Dynamics of

dopamine release with a little bit more

detail and this is something I've never

covered on any social media post or on

any podcast either this one or as a

guest on other podcasts because on the

face of it it might seem a little too

detailed like why is he telling me all

this isn't it just enough to know that

there are Peaks and troughs and bass

lines and dopamine well it turns out

that if you can understand what that

Peak and trough are really about in

other words what's really happening when

we zoom in on that Peak and trough

you'll be in an amazing position to

overcome procrastination and essentially

pursue any goals in an ongoing basis so

I'm very excited to share this

information with you because I do think

that it has tremendous actionable power

what I'm about to describe relates to a

number of different findings that have

been made mostly over the last five to

ten years although to be quite direct

mostly within the last five years and it

has to do with the fact that the peak

and trough and Baseline that I talked

about a moment ago that are associated

with craving

they look like a peak followed by a

trough followed by a return to Baseline

and maybe another Peak if you get the

reward or a drop below Baseline if you

don't or you don't like what you got

but if we were to zoom in on that Peak

and the reward in other words really

zoom in on the whole process and start

thinking about the circuitry that is the

neurons in VTA and nucleus accumbens and

how it relates to the frontal cortex in

a bit more detail what we discover is

nothing short of amazing

what we discover is that whenever we're

pursuing something we are always looking

for cues as to whether or not we are on

the right path

to achieve that thing and we are also

setting a mindset or a context within

our brains

as to whether or not we are confident or

pessimistic as to whether or not we're

going to achieve that thing now this is

vitally important for anyone out there

who finds it hard to get motivated and

stay motivated it's also vitally

important for anyone who's

psychologically minded in any way you

don't have to be a psychologist but

psychologically minded in any way and

wonders why is it that some people are

just so motivated and other people have

such trouble with motivation why is it

that some people require perfect

conditions in order to achieve things

and other people just seem to manage to

pursue things no matter what it also

relates to the fact that some of us are

very good at achieving our goals in one

context and not so much in another so

here's what you need to understand

I'll stay with the example of the roast

beef sandwich just because we already

have that in mind but you can replace

roast beef sandwich with essentially any

goal

the cue that we're going to likely

get what we want so for instance the

sign that there's a deli on the corner

or that I open my phone and that there's

an app

that represents a restaurant that sells

the particular sandwich that I like that

cue as I mentioned before increases

dopamine you see that like oh okay and

subconsciously there's already a signal

that's initiated by that dopamine that

I'm on the right path

then as I mentioned dopamine drops below

Baseline that's further contributing to

my desire to go pursue that sandwich

either with my thumbs on my phone

through the app or with my feet and

walking to the deli standing in line and

so forth

then as I mentioned before there is a

peak in dopamine of varying height

depending on how satisfying I find the

reward to be

when I actually get that sandwich get

that goal

now keep in mind there is some time

delay between the queue

the app the deli

Etc and when I get my sandwich

that Gap is going to be different for

different things so in pursuing uh you

know four-year degree it's going to be

four years if the diploma is your goal

if if it's an exam you're studying for

it might be a week long

and there will be many other signals in

between that initial cue that hey the

the reward likely lies down this path in

this textbook in um on you know this

dating app or at that Deli there are

many other cues

those cues come in subconsciously and

involve everything from how long the

line is at the deli to you know whether

or not you're you know seeing the types

of people on a dating app that you'd

like to see whether or not they're

responding to you whether or not

someone's texting you back or not

all of those cues are integrated and

adjusting your Baseline level of

dopamine all the time

as you go to pursue that goal

so what the dopamine system does is it

doesn't just compare the height of the

Peak at the beginning right the I desire

that to the reward that you got we

talked about reward prediction error

that's the that's the

kind of first grade version of reward

prediction error it's also taking into

account all the things that happen in

between and all of that is serving as a

cue for the eventual reward and all of

that is funneling into what we call

reward prediction error

in other words the dopamine system is

very good at subconsciously parsing what

are the things that happen between

wanting and getting

and that's part of the learning that

dopamine achieves and indeed there are

specialized circuits from the VTA and

nucleus accumbens that are involved in

just the learning of how we achieve or

don't achieve specific types of rewards

that we desire so this is called reward

contingent learning because it's

learning the contingencies of what led

up to a reward or what didn't lead up to

a reward

at the same time end in parallel there's

an ongoing release of dopamine in the

background and that ongoing release of

dopamine that has nothing to do with

learning is really just sort of a

propeller that's driving us in the

direction of whatever it is that we're

trying to pursue

so I realize for some of you this might

seem like unnecessary or perhaps even an

overwhelming amount of detail

but it's actually quite simple

your brain is trying to figure out what

happened prior to getting or not getting

a reward and it's comparing what you

wanted compared to what you got

at the same time the dopamine system

initiates a motivation signal that takes

you through that entire round of pursuit

and those three things there's the

stimulus the desire the I want that

that's the first thing that leads to

that Peak the peak drops a little bit

below Baseline and it triggers

motivation the motivation is the second

thing

the motivation is dopamine release also

but from a separate set of neurons

within this circuit driving you forward

and the entire time that it's driving

you forward

it's paying attention to what's there

along the way even if you don't realize

it consciously and then there's the

reward itself or the lack of reward

itself so those three components

the learning contingency which has to do

with the stimulus and the reward

and everything that happens in between

and the propeller nature of dopamine as

I'm referring to it those all combine

into a total learning so that after you

get the sandwich or after you finish the

exam or after you go out on a date or

after you do anything that you desire to

do

that system that originates in the VTA

and nucleus accumbens and goes up to

your cortex it learned it learned many

things it learned the contingency

between stimulus and desire motivation

and whether or not you succeeded or not

it's basically a scoreboard for how you

did given what just happened

so actually it's all very simple in fact

if you can understand even just half of

what I just said

you are now in a far better position to

understand everything from addiction to

motivation to procrastination and it

will make sense of all the tools that

I'm going to talk about next which will

allow you to overcome procrastination

points to overcome deficits in

motivation and indeed to reset your

motivation in an ongoing way so that you

can reach your goals okay so let's take

everything that I just told you and set

it aside it's still important but let's

just say this you don't have to think

about any of those details or names or

anything

let's just think about addiction

because in biology and in Psychology

frankly it really often pays to think

about the extremes first and then work

our way towards more typical

circumstances and with that said

addiction unfortunately is very common

nowadays I just heard a statistic in

fact that

there is an 8080 percent increase in

alcohol use disorder among women in the

last 30 years I talked a little bit

about this in the episode that I did

about alcohol and health

again I want to be very clear I'm not

somebody that is completely against

alcohol for adults provided they're not

alcoholics

turns out two drinks a week probably

fine health-wise zero would be better if

we're honest zero is better than any

alcohol but two drinks a week is

probably fine past two drinks you start

running into problems and yet many many

people out there male and female alike

suffer from alcohol use disorder also

called alcoholism

the same is also true for things like

methamphetamine or cocaine or other

types of substance addictions

and the same is also true for a lot of

Behavioral or what are sometimes called

process addictions things like sex

addiction or video game addiction or any

type of behavior that frankly is

leveraging the dopamine system but that

engages this Progressive narrowing of

the things that bring someone pleasure

such that nothing else is really Salient

nothing else is really pulling them in

in the way that they're video games or

sex or pornography or alcohol

pick your substance or

you know behavior that you see out there

or hopefully not but that you might

suffer from an addiction too so what's

happening in addiction

well addiction involves dopamine among

other things often the opioid system Etc

but if we were to think about what's the

stimulus in an addiction and what's the

peak in dopamine and then what happens

after that Peak It all becomes very

clear as to why addiction happens and

why it's so pernicious

so for instance let's take cocaine

cocaine causes dramatic increases in

dopamine very very fast so if somebody

craves cocaine

what are they craving they're craving

that dopamine Peak they're craving the

increased level of alertness they're

craving a number of things associated

with the feeling of being under the

influence of the drug but the stimulus

for it simply becomes that line of

cocaine or in the case of crack that

crack rock that they're going to smoke

and God forbid they're mainlining it you

know they're shooting into a vein what

happens is they snort smoke or inject

cocaine and dopamine levels almost

immediately

go up up up up up up to a very high peak

okay so the the time gap between the

stimulus and the dopamine is very very

short

so short in fact that there's really no

other contingencies in between that the

mesocortical system has to learn in fact

what is the system quote unquote learn

it learns

cocaine equals massive amounts of

dopamine equals feeling euphoric and

energetic Etc

and in doing that

it reinforces the whole circuit so that

that short we can even say hyper short

contingency is really what the system

wants

so much so that longer contingencies of

say putting in the hard work of you know

generating a fitness program or a

professional program for yourself or a

education program which takes not just

many days but many weeks and years well

none of that is going to lead to peace

in dopamine that are as high as the

Pekin dopamine associated with cocaine

so that tells us something critical

it is both the duration between desire

end effect and when I say effect I mean

the rewarding properties of dopamine

that are experienced that's important so

very short gaps

teach the system to expect and want

short gaps

makes it very hard to pursue things that

take longer

so when we say it's the short or in this

case hyper short distance or time

between the stimulus and the dopamine

what we're really talking about if we

were to plot this out on a on a board or

on a piece of paper is the steepness of

the rise of that Peak it's very very

steep the peak in dopamine is coming up

very fast after the desire

and in addition to that and this is very

important the higher the peak in

dopamine and the faster the rise to that

Peak the further below Baseline the

dopamine drops after the drug wears off

okay so in the case of cocaine it's a

very fast and very large rise in

dopamine followed by a steep drop

and very deep trough in dopamine below

Baseline

you say okay so there's pleasure then

there's lack of pleasure ah but it's

worse than that because it's not just

lack of pleasure if you recall what we

talked about a little bit earlier that

drop below Baseline triggers

the desire and the pursuit for what for

more

and so this sets in motion a vicious

Loop where people start pursuing peaks

in dopamine that can come very fast

without much effort

and that's one of the ways in which

addictions start to take hold

there's a simple way to think about this

and to remember if you want to avoid

this whole thing I mean the first one is

obvious don't do cocaine don't try it

don't use it certainly don't get

addicted to it

those are all sort of one in the same

frankly I don't know many people that

despite

opinions to the contrary that use

cocaine recreationally that don't at

some point run into either a financial

psychological physical or some other

problem the other thing that's

absolutely critical to keep in mind and

this was discussed in my colleague Dr

Anna lemke's book dopamine nation and on

this podcast excellent book by the way I

highly recommend it if you haven't read

it already it's a fascinating

exploration into dopamine as it relates

to addiction not just drug addiction but

other types of addiction again the name

of that book is dopamine Nation we'll

provide a link to it in the show note

captions

the other thing that happens after those

big fast increases in dopamine caused by

things like cocaine is

afterwards when it quickly drops below

Baseline

it takes a much longer time to get back

to the original Baseline than it did

prior to using the drug

and worse still is that the peaks in

dopamine that are created from more

consumption of cocaine leads to

progressively lower Peaks

and deeper troughs below Baseline so the

whole system is Shifting away from

pleasure and more to pain and the desire

for pursuit of the drug

now

this is a terrible situation and it's a

terrible situation that's not just

unique to cocaine in fact if we were to

look at the averages and again these are

averages of the height of the peaks in

dopamine that are created by different

substances and the rates at which those

Peaks take place because remember the

time to Peak is just as important as how

high that Peak goes

we see some pretty interesting numbers

so for instance and again these are

averages based on neuroimaging combined

with

um what are called pet scans positron

emission tomography combined with blood

draws and a number of other data from

both animal and human studies

you find is that at Baseline just kind

of on a background of no drug taking of

any kind the neurons in the Venture

pigmental nucleus accumbens area are

firing at a rate of about three to four

per second releasing dopamine so that's

your Baseline of dopamine release your

your forebrain is always seeing a little

bit of dopamine from from that system

if you were then to anticipate food and

you're relatively hungry

that would double okay so this probably

happened when you decide to eat lunch

today if you were hungry prior to eating

lunch

it doubles in the anticipation of the

food and then depending on how much you

enjoyed that food it might triple or

quadruple it might be lower than it was

during the anticipation as we talked

about before

so there's an approximate doubling under

conditions of Desiring and consuming

food

let's take nicotine as the next example

for people that use nicotine either

smoking vaping snuffing or dipping

all routes of nicotine Administration

that I covered in our episode about

nicotine

there's about a 150 percent increase in

the rate of dopamine neuron firing

cocaine is going to increase the rate of

dopamine output into the prefrontal

cortex by about a thousand percent okay

so what you're really talking about here

is a tenfold increase

in the amount of of dopamine that's

released into the prefrontal cortex as

measured by the rates of firing of these

dopamine neurons

methamphetamine is going to be anywhere

from a thousand percent anywhere up to

ten thousand percent it really varies

depending on the potency of the drug and

a few other factors and here's where

perhaps it gets a little more

interesting some of you are probably

wondering about caffeine or about sex or

about video games now they're the

numbers vary tremendously and it's

really important to understand that

across the board not just for caffeine

sex video games but also for nicotine

alcohol and other substances and what we

call motivated behaviors some of which

are part of a healthy life like eating

and reproduction you know provided it's

you know age-appropriate context

appropriate you know species appropriate

consensual well then we consider it

adaptive if it's not well then

considered maladaptive

some people will sit down to play a

video game they really like video games

and as they're sitting down they will

experience a five-fold increase in the

rate of dopamine output from their

nucleus accumbens for other people it's

going to be a tenfold increase for other

people like me who don't like video

games very much I don't have anything

against them I don't dislike them but it

doesn't do much for me

it might not cause any increase

whatsoever it might even cause a

decrease in dopamine so there's a lot of

individual variability for sex it turns

out to be a range so the typical range

that's cited in the literature is

anywhere from a four to five-fold

increase in the rate of dopamine neuron

firing however there are certain

individuals for which that number is

doubled caffeine is a little bit of a

special circumstance because caffeine

has the property of not just causing the

release of dopamine but increasing the

amount of dopamine receptors over time

and there aren't a lot of excellent

measurements of the amount of dopamine

released as a function of caffeine

intake in different populations of

humans it's mostly animal studies but

what we think based on the Gestalt based

on the overall picture of the literature

is that it's an approximate doubling of

the dopamine signaling that's coming out

of the VTA nucleus accumens to

prefrontal Cortex when we anticipate and

when we drink our coffee

again I really want to be clear that for

all of these things these are relative

levels and they are distribution so if

we were to plot them out on paper you

would see that these are not bar graphs

these are overlapping curves to some

extent so some people are going to

achieve more dopamine release or less

dopamine release from one Behavior or

substance however it's very clear that

cocaine methamphetamine

even heroin for that matter are way out

on the right hand side of the curve

causing enormous increases in dopamine

very quickly and the other things that

we described have again a distribution

that is more leftward shifted on this

imaginary plot that I'm creating

it's a lot of individual variability

however it's fascinating that dopamine

is the single molecule that's causing

the craving and pursuit and experience

of all of these substances and behaviors

and the learning of all of that craving

Pursuit and actual experience is what

predicts whether or not we will

re-engage reuse that substance or not

re-engage in a behavior or not and how

frequently we will do that so that's

addiction but if you understand how the

height of those peaks in dopamine and

the rate to reach those Peaks and the

troughs that result and how long the

troughs take to get back to Baseline if

you understand or a little or all of

that

you're really in a terrific position to

understand how to Leverage The dopamine

system for the pursuit of healthy goals

and behaviors I should mention one thing

about recovery from addiction which is

that the reset of all that dopamine

circuitry from unhealthy to healthy

often involves depending on the

addiction 30 days of complete abstinence

that 30 days of complete abstinence

inevitably involves a lot of pain and

discomfort and craving anxiety insomnia

Etc that relates to the big trough in

dopamine that inevitably occurs now of

course there are some addictions such as

severe alcohol addiction and in some

cases opiate addiction that immediate

and sustained abstinence cannot be used

as the tool somebody really needs to

work with an addiction specialist and

sometimes there needs to be a tapering

off of the substance for other

addictions it can be quote unquote cold

turkey and then of course there are

other addictions particularly food and

sex but sometimes even things like video

games for which the desired outcome is

not necessarily to eliminate the

behavior completely but to set some

constraints around the behavior so that

it's not occurring to the exclusion of

other pleasureful things in life and

adaptive things in life and for that

there is the requirement for what are

called binding behaviors we'll get back

to binding behaviors later but binding

behaviors or behaviors in which people

bind their behavior

around a particular substance use or

around a particular behavioral addiction

like sex Video Games Etc in space and or

time in space meaning they might only

engage in those particular behaviors in

certain places and certain times when

it's context appropriate there are

numerous examples of binding behaviors

in space and time it all has to do with

clamping or directing when the

engagement with the dopamine releasing

behavior is going to occur so what's

happening when people decide to go cold

turkey or they use these binding

behaviors well what's happening is that

people are engaging the specific

circuitry within the prefrontal cortex

that as I mentioned at the beginning of

the episode are important for context

setting so in the cases of binding

behaviors the prefrontal cortex is

essentially getting trained up to

understand that okay certain things like

food or perhaps sex or perhaps video

games

they're okay if they are done or

consumed in

appropriate amounts or in particular

context that requires the context

setting goal directed behavior that the

prefrontal cortex is responsible okay so

for the last 10 or 15 minutes we've been

talking a lot about addiction and

actually this is not an episode about

addiction however if you understand a

little bit about the dopamine Dynamics

in an addiction you can leverage that

knowledge towards healthy adaptive goal

Pursuit and achieving your goals so

let's think about that in the context of

what generates dopamine Peaks what

generates desire to pursue goals what

causes our readout of whether or not we

achieved a goal or not in other words

what allows us to learn how to pursue

goals of different kinds not just get

good at achieving one kind of goal but

really understand and get really really

good at setting goals and pursuing goals

of different kinds that are adaptive in

different areas of life because we all

are going to have to pursue goals in

school work relationships Fitness mental

health and on and on in order to be our

best selves that's clear

well all of that is possible using the

same basic set of dopamine circuits and

the same basic dynamics of dopamine so

for instance if we are going to feel

motivated at all that is if we are going

to wake up in the morning or have any

period of time during our day in which

we feel like we are capable of pursuing

goals

we are going to have to have a healthy

level of Baseline dopamine in other

words we are going to have to have

enough dopamine in the wave pool enough

water in the wave pool that is

before we can generate any waves or

peaks in dopamine let alone troughs and

the rest so how do we achieve a healthy

Baseline level of dopamine well there we

can really look to some foundational

practices practices that perhaps you've

heard about on this podcast before and

that to some of you might seem a little

mundane although some of them are a bit

more sophisticated maybe even esoteric

the good news is that we can all control

these things and they don't require

purchasing anything but they do require

some degree of regular upkeep and effort

those things include what I call the

very Basics now the very Basics put in

the context of today's discussion are

the things that put water in the wave

pool those are going to be getting

sufficient amounts of quality sleep each

night something that we've done several

episodes on and then have online

toolkits for us you can see the master

your sleep episode the perfect your

sleep episode the light and health

episode if you want to skip all that and

just get right to the tools we have a

sleep tool kit or it's actually called

the toolkit for sleep that you can

access at hubermanlab.com completely

zero cost you just go there and download

that toolkit getting sufficient sleep

each night literally restores your

dopamine reserves it allows dopamine to

be present and for you to have a level

of Baseline dopamine that will allow you

to even consider your goals in any kind

of meaningful or reasonable way

second there are practices that are

supported by the scientific literature

to increase your Baseline level of

dopamine that are independent of sleep

but are similar to sleep and I like to

refer to these as non-sleep deep rest

this is not meditation there's actually

very little evidence that meditation of

the traditional kind of you know sitting

eyes closed third eye sent focusing on

your third eye center which is this area

behind your forehead there is very

little evidence that that increases

levels of dopamine there is a place for

meditation in the context of today's

discussion but I'll repeat

meditation itself is a focusing exercise

it is not known to increase dopamine

however non-sleep deep breaths so-called

nsdr very similar although different to

what's sometimes called Yoga Nidra which

is where you lie there you do a sort of

body scan some long exhale breathing and

SDR is very similar you can find a link

to a zero cost nsdr on YouTube it's a 10

minute long one there are also 20 and 30

minute ones out there also on YouTube

but I'll provide a link to the 10 minute

one

those have been shown to increase the

amount of dopamine in your dopamine

Reserves

by up to 65 percent which is a

remarkable number so quality sleep

non-sleep deep breast AKA Yoga Nidra

very powerful ways to keep your Baseline

level of dopamine at a sufficient level

in addition to that nutrition no doubt

plays a role in your Baseline level of

dopamine because tyrosine the amino acid

is the rate limiting enzyme For the

synthesis of dopamine

tyrosine is present in varying levels in

different foods you can look those up

online you just simply put in a search

for tyrosine levels in different foods

everything from particular cheeses like

parmesan cheese has high levels of

tyrosine certain meat certain nuts

certain vegetables without getting into

details in specifics you can find those

there but you need proper nutrition and

therefore nutrients in particular

tyrosine in order to have

sufficient levels of Baseline dopamine

the third thing on the list and again

these are things that we come back to

almost every episode but I don't think

they can be repeated enough because

these are really things that we need to

focus on every 24 hours you might be

able to skip a day here or there if you

get sick or you're traveling or you have

some major life event but really every

24 hours we need to re-up our sleep we

need to re-up our nutrients

even if you're fasting you're re-upping

your nutrients from stored sources

within your body

the third thing is sunlight morning

sunlight in particular I've done

extensive episodes about this check out

the episode on lighting your health if

you want all the details but you want to

try and view sunlight as early in the

day as possible

five to ten minutes on a clear day

minimum 10 to 20 minutes on a cloudy day

minimum

20 or 30 minutes on a very overcast day

minimum without sunglasses don't stare

at the sun please don't damage your eyes

look off slightly off from the Sun but

yes you want to face the Eastward

towards the Sun and on those cloudy days

that's especially important to do why

well viewing morning sunlight increases

cortisol early in the day which is

excellent because you want cortisol

elevated early in the day and you want

it lower later in the day and because of

the relationship between the cells in

your eye that sense sunlight

specifically morning sunlight believe it

or not that happens and signal to your

hypothalamus and the relationship

between the hypothalamus and the

pituitary and other endocrine organs

it sets in motion a dopamine-related

Cascade in

neuromodulators dopamine and hormones

that lead to states of well-being

elevated mood alertness Etc throughout

the day it also helps your sleep at

night but today we're talking about

dopamine so yes believe it or not that

morning sunlight exposure does increase

your levels of dopamine not just

cortisol

and fourth on the list is going to be

movement exercise of varying kinds be

resistance training could be

cardiovascular training that does

increase levels of dopamine here we're

not talking about achieving peaks in

dopamine right that could be

accomplished through setting a personal

record a PR or through Sprints or heavy

lifts or learning some new Dynamic

movement what we're really talking about

here is getting into a regular exercise

program of if not every day at least

five days a week a mixture of

cardiovascular and resistance exercise

that we also know is known to elevate

and maintain an elevated level of

Baseline dopamine so it's not just about

the Euphoria you feel during or after

exercise it's also about the Baseline

level of dopamine that's achieved

through regular movement and engaging in

movement and if you're asking how could

that be well you already know the answer

the circuits in the brain and body that

generate movement not just goal seeking

but movement itself as I mentioned

earlier that Niagara striatal pathway

and yes that circuit is separate from

the VTA nucleus accumbens to cortical

circuit the mesocortical circuit that

we've mainly been focusing on today but

they interact and so by engaging in

regular movement you ensure that you're

maintaining elevated levels of Baseline

dopamine which is what you want if

you're going to be able to engage in any

kind of motivated Pursuit behavior of

any kind so those are the fundamentals

that will set the level of Baseline

dopamine in your system

a couple of key points yes there is

variation based on both genetics and

Circumstance in Baseline levels of

dopamine if someone's going through a

particular hard time or if somebody

inherited a gene in the dopamine

synthesis pathway that simply affords

them higher levels of Baseline dopamine

we likely know these people they seem

hyper motivated all the time not just

based on prior success

but they just seem to have a lot of

energy and a lot of go drive you know

you talk about activation energy some of

you may know what that term means others

of you won't having low activation

energy is great I mean the amount of

energy that it takes to get into action

to pursue adaptive and meaningful

healthy goals some people just seem to

have lower activation energy and higher

levels of dopamine are probably

associated with that some of us have

lower levels of Baseline dopamine

regardless everyone needs to engage in

the foundational things that I just

mentioned a few moments ago every 24

hours or at least strive to there is no

escaping that I'd like to just take a

brief moment and thank one of our

podcast sponsors which is inside tracker

inside tracker is a personalized

nutrition platform that analyzes data

from your blood and DNA to help you

better understand your body and help you

reach your health goals I've long been a

believer in getting regular blood work

done for the simple reason that blood

work is the only way that you can

monitor the markers such as hormone

markers lipids metabolic factors Etc the

impact your immediate and long-term

health one major challenge with blood

work however is that most of the time it

does not come back with any information

about what to do in order to move the

values for hormones metabolic factors

lipids Etc into the ranges that you want

with inside tracker changing those

values becomes very straightforward

because it has a personalized dashboard

that you can use to address the

nutrition-based behavior-based

supplement-based approaches that you can

use in order to move those values into

the ranges that are optimal for you Your

vitality and your longevity inside

tracker now includes a measurement of

APO lipoprotein B so-called APO B in

their ultimate plan apob is a key marker

of cardiovascular health and therefore

there's extreme value to knowing your

apob levels if you'd like to try inside

tracker you can go to insidetracker.com

huberman to get 20 off any of inside

tracker's plans again that's inside

tracker.com huberman to get 20 off now

there are things that can increase one's

Baseline level of dopa being further

and some of those get us into the realm

of supplements and prescription drugs

but for now I just want to mention a few

of them that are purely behavioral in

nature are zero cost and that have been

shown in the research literature to

increase Baseline levels of dopamine for

long periods of time and this is

important because if any of you are out

there listening to this thing about

Peaks and troughs and bass lines you

might be asking wait what's the

difference between a Baseline and a peak

really because if for instance you get a

big peak well that's a peak in the

Baseline so how do you distinguish

between Peak and Baseline and well

there's a trough and let's say that

trough lasts an hour is that hour-long

trough for your baseline or you know

where's your set point how do you

establish your set point or more

importantly how do you raise your set

point ah well if you're not already

asking that question I just asked it for

you I Define an increase in your

Baseline level in dopamine to be

anything that increases dopamine for

more than one hour you know when we

think about cocaine and amphetamine

pornography sex caffeine things of that

sort regardless of how long one engages

in about of those behaviors or

substances

the increases in dopamine are going to

be relatively short-lived on the order

of minutes to an hour sometimes longer

now I didn't say that's how long you're

engaging in the behaviors I said that's

how long those increases in dopamine are

going to occur even if you were to

continually engage in those behaviors

and remember with continual engagement

in a dopamine spiking Behavior

a behavior that increases dopamine Peaks

the height of those Peaks remember gets

lower and lower and lower especially in

a short amount of time and then drops

below Baseline

there are tools and techniques that you

can use to elevate your Baseline level

of dopamine for long periods of time and

here again this is done in addition to

the basic tools that I mentioned a few

moments ago the simplest one for which

there are excellent data and here I'm

referring to data published in the

European Journal physiology I'll provide

a link to this is that

exposure of your body up to the neck to

cold water and it doesn't have to be

super cold by the way to cold water has

been shown to increase Baseline levels

of dopamine and the other so-called

catecholamines which include

norepinephrine and epinephrine but

for sake of today's discussion dopamine

in particular

for not just one but at least two and

probably as long as four or five hours

there have been some additional

scientific studies after the paper I

just mentioned

and it's really remarkable you can

accomplish this a number of different

ways you could get into a cold shower in

the morning and I do recommend doing

this in the morning and in that case

it's okay to get the water on your head

in fact I recommend it uh you could get

into an ice bath you could get into a

cold Plunge in these circumstances I'm

not suggesting this for sake of

increasing metabolism or fat loss and

the whole discussion around uh

deliberate cold and metabolism and fat

loss has become a little bit

controversial so we won't go there now

mostly because we're focused on the

clear ability of deliberate cold

exposure to increase dopamine for long

periods of time AKA your dopamine

Baseline

the ways to do this vary depending on

the temperature so for instance

there are data pointing to the fact that

if you want to get a long lasting

increase in your Baseline dopamine you

could take a very cold shower or cold

plunge or ice bath

for a very brief period of time anywhere

from 30 seconds to two minutes maybe

three minutes but probably 30 seconds to

two minutes now you might ask what is

very cold you have to be careful because

I don't want to recommend anything

that's going to cause anyone to have a

heart attack or go into shock or

anything of that sort

it's going to vary by person depending

on your level of cold tolerance what I

recommend is if you are going for the

short exposure long dopamine release

approach that is 30 seconds to two

minutes that you start warmer than you

think you need to and then you ease into

it over a few days

but we're really talking about ranges in

temperature from anywhere from about 37

degrees Fahrenheit to about 55 degrees

Fahrenheit again be careful approach it

with caution and ease into it I do

recommend doing this early in the day

and I should mention not after strength

or hypertrophy training because within

the six hours after strength or

hypertrophy training this deliberate

cold exposure especially immersion up to

the neck can suppress the strength and

hypertrophy adaptation that the training

is designed to accomplish okay so that's

one approach the other approach that's

supported by the literature to increase

Baseline levels of dopamine for very

long periods of time in fact this is the

original approach is to get into warmer

water so not warm but warmer so 60

degree Fahrenheit water

up to the neck and to stay there for

about 45 to 60 Minutes the reason I

don't think most people will do that or

that most people would prefer a shorter

colder exposure protocol is that most

people don't have 45 to 60 minutes each

morning to get into water and sit there

and in that study they actually had them

sitting in lawn chairs basically in the

shallow end of a pool up to their neck

for a full 60 minutes and then measuring

dopamine release and so forth so there

are a bunch of different ways to do this

I should emphasize I don't think you

need to be super precise about the

temperature and even the duration what I

recommend is

find a temperature that's uncomfortably

cold to you meaning that you feel

agitated you want to get out but that

you're confident you can safely stay in

and again I can't give a simple

prescriptive to everybody but this is

known to increase Baseline levels of

dopamine significantly in fact double

them or more for long periods of time

meaning hours up to four maybe even six

hours into the day which is one of the

reasons I suggest doing this early in

the day

I happen to get into a cold plunger take

a cold shower first thing in the morning

I do go outside and get my sunlight

first sometimes sometimes I do the cold

first it really depends on my

circumstances and how I'm feeling that

day I don't think it really matters

which one you do first but you want to

try and get both of those in early in

the day because you really want the

catecholamines and cortisol elevated

early in the day okay so that's

deliberate cold exposure we already

talked about exercise so if you're doing

your exercise early in the day there's

no reason why it couldn't be done in

concert with this deliberate cold

exposure I recommend doing the

deliberate cold exposure first for the

reasons we talked about a few minutes

ago and then of course there are

compounds both prescription and

over-the-counter compounds that can

indeed raise your Baseline levels of

dopamine for an hour or more and when I

say an hour or more it really depends on

individual variation in terms of how

quickly you metabolize dopamine and it

depends on individual variation in how

you manage or tolerate different dosages

of drugs and different types of drugs so

the typical drugs and here I'm talking

about legal

prescription drugs for increasing

dopamine are things like Ritalin

Adderall modafinil and arm modafinil

also tap into the system and I did an

entire episode about ADHD which is the

typical context in which you hear about

these prescription drugs but assuming

it's prescribed by a doctor for either

clinical reasons like ADHD or for other

reasons all of those compounds do

significantly increase Baseline levels

of dopamine for many many hours that's

absolutely clear and it's one of the

major reasons why those drugs are so

effective in increasing motivation and

attention then there are compounds that

are sold over the counter things like

amino acids such as l-tyrosine itself

that's a very commonly sold and used

amino acid it's present in a lot of

so-called pre-workout formulas I as many

of you know am a fan of single

ingredient supplements for the most part

aside from foundational supplements like

ag1 which give you many many

micronutrients kind of all together

because it would be nearly impossible to

consume each of those as individual

ingredients and get the right amounts

Etc but for all other supplements I'm a

big believer in parsing what you need

and what's most effective for you in

single ingredient formulations and the

typical ways in which people

work to elevate their Baseline levels of

dopamine

with supplements are using either

l-tyrosine which as I mentioned earlier

is the rate limiting enzyme for dopamine

or by using what's called mucuna purines

which is actually very similar to l-dopa

which is the treatment for Parkinson's

mechuna purines actually comes from the

velvety outside coating of a certain

bean I know it sounds really esoteric

but that's actually where it's found in

nature and it's really 99 l-dopa and I

confess having tried McCune appearance

having examined the scientific

literature on the cune appearance there

is some evidence that it can increase

dopamine especially in that

tuberinfrendibular pathway because it

can tap into some of the hormone-related

functions of the pituitary it does

increase alertness and mood it might

even increase libido motivation Etc but

the effects of mercuna purines tend to

be very much of the increasing the peak

in dopamine and then very quickly

dropping that peak in other words the

peak trough phenomenon not for

increasing Baseline levels of dopamine

now it's likely different for people

with Parkinson's who are taking

prescription drugs that are similar to

mercuna purine so if people have

Parkinson's oftentimes they are

prescribed things like l-dopa which is

in the pathway to dopamine synthesis or

they are prescribed things like

bromocriptine which will indeed increase

dopamine and I do realize that some

people use those prescription drugs

recreationally which I don't recommend

those drugs can be used to increase

Baseline levels of dopamine but more

typically they cause Peaks and dopamine

and troughs and dopamine which is why I

do not recommend them they are not going

to allow you to accomplish what you want

if your goal is more motivation Etc

in fact they are likely to do the

opposite give you a big peak an

alertness and then a crash that can

include depressive symptoms and just not

feeling very good

l-tyrosine however has been examined in

the scientific literature and at

reasonably low dosages has been shown to

increase circulating and available

levels of dopamine both in the brain and

body and lead to increased cognitive

performance and in some cases physical

output I'll provide links to a few of

these studies but the two that I really

parsed most finely for sake of this

episode really just focus on taking

l-tyrosine under conditions where your

Baseline levels of dopamine are reduced

due to stress and under conditions where

there's no stress and people are trying

to increase their Baseline levels of

dopamine for sake of improving cognitive

function the first paper is entitled

effective tyrosine on cognitive function

and blood pressure under stress I'll

provide a link to this in the show note

captions and it's one of many papers

really

dating back to the early 90s exploring

how

relatively High frankly relatively High

dosages of l-tyrosine Taken under

conditions of stress allow people to

rescue some of their cognitive function

in terms of working memory tasks and

other kind of cognitive tasks visual

Pursuit tasks and so on

the second paper is entitled tyrosine

improves working memory in a

multitasking environment and the second

paper is perhaps more interesting

because it involves exploring the use of

tyrosine supplementation basically

taking tyrosine about an hour before a

cognitive task or set of cognitive tasks

that involve a lot of multitasking and

working memory working memory for those

of you that don't know is your ability

to maintain small batches of information

in your mind for relatively short

periods of time so for instance if I

tell you my phone number or the phone

number where I grew up 493-2931

if you can remember that chances are

you'll remember it for 30 seconds 60

seconds but that you won't remember it

tomorrow because there's really no

reason to a lot of the tasks that we do

throughout the day involve working

memory and working memory is very

subject to interference from other tasks

that we happen to be doing like looking

at our phone or having a conversation or

trying to navigate through a city

it involves a lot of attention and this

study shows that tyrosine improves

working memory especially in the context

of multitasking and having a lot of

conflicting goals and they did a number

of really nice experiments here it's

again it's a small study not that many

subjects but it's one of several papers

in fact this is the paper that kind of

set in motion the Domino of other papers

exploring the efficacy of l-tyrosine for

cognitive performance and they looked at

working memory tasks of course but also

auditory visual tasks and they involve

some interference of visual cues and

things of that sort and they saw some

really interesting effects basically

when we need to attend to multiple

things at the same time l-tyrosine can

help us do that at least as it relates

to memory when I say althyrosine what I

really mean is having your Baseline

levels of dopamine elevated can really

help navigate multitasking environments

especially as it relates to working

memory and this is true under conditions

of stress and under conditions of not

stressful okay you might say well isn't

multitasking stressful itself yes it can

be but when we talk about under

conditions of stress we're talking about

people who are sleep deprived we're

talking about people that are under

other kinds of psychological or physical

stress l-tyrosine can help in that

context as well so as I mentioned before

in these studies they use very high

dosages of l-tyrosine so high that

actually I don't recommend them they did

measure stress hormones they did measure

blood pressure and things of that sort

but I want to caution you I do not

recommend I will say it again I do not

recommend following the dosages that

were used in these two studies

because they are exceedingly high they

used 100 milligrams per kilogram of body

weight of tyrosine one hour prior to

these cognitive tasks now I weigh about

220 pounds I'm a little bit lighter than

that so that's a hundred kilograms

approximately

translated from this study that would

mean that had I participated in the

study and I wasn't in the placebo group

but I was in the l-tyrosine group I

would have been given 10 000 milligrams

of l-tyrosine which is 10 grams of

l-tyrosine I do not recommend that in

fact there are papers showing that as

little as 500 milligrams

but perhaps up to one gram that is a

thousand milligrams or 1500 milligrams a

gram and a half of l-tyrosine Taken 30

to 60 minutes before a cognitive or

physical task can increase Baseline

levels of dopamine for extended periods

of time and thereby improve performance

on those mental or physical tasks

so

if you are somebody who's interested in

trying l-tyrosine please know that the

increases in Baseline levels of dopamine

can be substantial they are long lasting

which qualifies them as Baseline

increases as opposed to Peaks and I

would say you should also start with the

lowest possible dose so for most people

250 to 500 milligrams is going to be a

reasonable starting dose depending on

your body weight smaller people start

with 250 larger maybe 500 keep an eye on

whether or not you're combining it with

caffeine or with any other stimulants

and keep in mind that again the bigger

the peak in dopamine the bigger the

trough in dopamine afterwards so pay

attention to whether or not you

experience a crash that same day or the

next day but chances are if you're using

a relatively low level of l-tyrosine so

anywhere from 250 maybe 500 milligrams

or a thousand milligrams of l-tyrosine

prior to cognitive or physical work and

taken early in the day by the way

because this can act as a bit of a

stimulant that you're going to achieve

these long lasting increases in Baseline

dopamine but please also keep in mind

that that I always always suggest that

you engage in the proper behaviors and

you disengage from the improper

behaviors as a first line of offense on

any health goal so now you know how to

set your Baseline levels of dopamine at

the highest possible level

you of course want to guard that

Baseline level of dopamine very

carefully so for instance you want to

avoid any kind of behaviors or

substances that are going to Peak your

Baseline level of dopamine very high or

very sharply or if you do engage in

those types of behaviors whatever they

may be that you are well aware that your

Baseline level of dopamine will drop far

below what it was after that Peak has

fallen you will be essentially in the

quote unquote trough

if however you find yourself in that

trough you now have the knowledge to

understand that that trough will resolve

if you wait enough time that Baseline

level of dopamine that you were at prior

to the peak will come back you will feel

better however most people don't know

that and as a consequence when they feel

that low

that is they feel kind of a motivated

maybe a little bit depressed maybe a lot

ammotivated or a lot depressed following

some quote unquote Peak experience

what they end up doing is thinking about

what caused that Peak experience and

then go back and try to re-engage in the

behavior and try and regenerate that

Peak experience but you now know that

that is a terrible strategy in fact that

strategy will only lead to diminished

Peaks from the same experience it will

lead to in many cases pursuing more and

more intense experiences to try and

recapitulate recreate that big peak

which won't work or even worse people

start stacking and combining different

dopamine increasing behaviors in order

to try and obtain something like that

initial Peak when in fact all they need

to do all you need to do is simply wait

because the way that the dopamine

circuitry is arranged is that it's not

just about pleasure as you know it's

about motivation desire Pursuit and

pleasure and it also has everything to

do with pain and discomfort

now when people hear the word pain they

often think oh pain okay so a physical

pain or an intense emotional pain but

today we're going to talk about pain a

little bit differently we're going to

talk about the pain associated with the

trough and dopamine that occurs after a

big peak in dopamine

as a period in which

pain and effort go hand in hand and I'll

return to this in a moment but I want

you to just note that in your mind kind

of earmark that in your mind because

what we're about to talk about is how to

leverage that pain and to use effort as

a way to not just get out of the trough

more quickly but actually to get back to

a higher level of Baseline as you exit

that trough meanwhile I really want to

harp on this one point that I made a

moment ago which is that after some big

experience so it could be a vacation or

a night out partying or the birth of a

new child all of these are well-known

phenomena that lead to troughs or

deficits in dopamine afterwards which

can cause a sort of postpartum

depression postpartum depression is a

phrase normally used to describe

literally postpartum post-birth of a

child depression and that has many

causes not just related to dopamine

baselines although it does involve

dopamine baselines but it has hormonal

aspects and other aspects as well but

postpartum depression is also used to

describe any time that our Baseline

dopamine has has gone down way way below

what it was prior to some recent Peak or

exciting exhilarating win or behavior

couple of things that one can do in

order to get out of that trough more

quickly the first one is simply to wait

with the understanding that you will get

out I know that sounds overly simplistic

and maybe a little bit brutal but I

think most people don't realize this

they don't realize that the dopamine

circuitry does take time to replenish

and it has everything to do with

restoring both the synthesis of dopamine

as well as What's called the readily

releasable pool of dopamine so dopamine

is packaged in these little spherical

things that we call vesicles those

vesicles are released from the ends of

nerves so in this case we're talking

about the nerves that originate again

and

VTA and nucleus accumbens and send their

little wires up to the prefrontal cortex

and that's where dopamine is released

and that readily releasable pool of

dopamine takes time to replenish and

that can take several days in order to

replenish just knowing that can help you

through that process and of course then

it raises the question is there anything

that you can do to accelerate that

process and indeed there is and indeed

this is what I consider not just

something to get you out of a trench of

kind of lower mood and motivation but

actually what represents the Holy Grail

of motivation today I'm going to talk

about this pain effort process as a very

powerful way to get out of sticking

points but more importantly to get into

a mode where effort and reward can

actually accelerate your progress along

any path to any goal and in a way that

you can do it repeatedly and this is not

simply taking mechanisms from biology

and painting names on them rather this

is leveraging mechanisms in biology that

are well defined in the animal and human

in literature that have parallels to the

addiction and addiction recovery

literature but that have been shown in

specific circumstances to really allow

people to engage in motivational

Pursuits in a variety of context School

relationships work etc in an ongoing way

and in a way that never depletes their

Baseline of dopamine to the point where

they have to do a lot of extra work to

get it back and in a way that allows

them to be really motivated in a variety

of contexts in an Adaptive way so what

we're really talking about here is

regardless of your genetics regardless

of who your parents are which obviously

you couldn't select

being able to leverage your dopamine

system in order to be maximally

motivated when you want to be and indeed

to avoid procrastination I'd like to

tell you about a classic experiment that

I've described once before on this

podcast but frankly this experiment is

so crucial I don't think it can be

described enough

this was an experiment that was done at

Stanford many years ago and involved

children but it's actually been repeated

in adults

the experiment involved observing a

classroom of young children so these

were kids about kindergarten age a

little bit older and observing which

activities kids like to do in their free

time so their structured time where they

had to you know these are little kids so

they play blocks or they had to

um sing or they had to write or or do

what they could or I suppose draw

they're probably not writing um

significant prose at that age but then

they had free time where they could do

whatever they wanted and what the

researchers did was observe the children

who selected by their own choice to draw

pictures so there were some tables out

with crayons and markers and paper Etc

and there were some kids that would just

naturally go to that activity every day

because they liked that activity

and they measured how much of the free

time these children elected to use their

free time drawing doing these different

art projects

and then what they did was they started

introducing rewards to these children

they started putting a gold star or in

some cases a silver star on their pieces

of artwork and telling them what a good

job they did and the kids really liked

that in fact who wouldn't right they're

not only doing an activity that they

like but they're also getting a reward

for it so you can probably see where

this is all going what they were doing

was they were increasing the amount of

dopamine that these children experience

and again in parallel experiments done

with adults if you take adults who enjoy

a particular activity you let them do

activity and then you start rewarding

them for that activity especially when

you surprise them with a reward for an

activity they already like

they report that being a much more

pleasurable experience than had they

just done the activity

then what they did with these children

and in the experiments with adults done

later on was they cease giving them the

reward and then they observe what

percentage of their free time they spend

doing that activity drawing and what

they observed was you guessed it a drop

in the total amount of time that the

children elected to do this activity

that initially they were doing quite a

lot in other words

their total satisfaction or desire or

motivation to engage in this activity

drop below what it was prior to ever

receiving a reward and again this has

been repeated in a variety of contexts

in different populations different

cultures different countries men women

boys girls lots of different backgrounds

so what this tells us is everything you

already know which is that reward

prediction error is not just about the

desire to do something and you carrying

it out and it being pretty good

amazing or not good okay I always like

to joke that the nervous system sort of

codes things into three bins you can

think about this in terms of food or any

type of experience it can either be yum

yes I really like that yuck I really

don't like that or meh it's kind of so

so

what the scenario led to where rewards

were received for an activity that

people already like to do and then

removed was that an activity that at one

point was a yum becomes a meh and that

all reflects a drop in Baseline dopamine

why because the activity that the

children or adults liked combined with

the gold star or the monetary reward or

praise that children and adults seem to

like compounded to create a bigger peak

in dopamine and therefore a bigger

trough in dopamine and if you're already

wondering whether or not their desire to

engage in that activity eventually came

back it did indeed so essentially what I

described all matches precisely with

dopamine reward prediction error and the

fact that peaks in dopamine give rise to

subsequent troughs and dopamine that if

one Waits long enough

allow Baseline levels of dopamine to

return to normal

and of course the amplitude of that

dopamine Peak has been varied by giving

more money or less money in different

scenarios nearly all the different

derivations of the experiments that you

could imagine that map onto the Dynamics

of dopamine release that we've been

talking about during this episode all

played out exactly as one would have

predicted based on the neural circuitry

and the Dynamics of dopamine I recommend

that you leverage this knowledge to make

sure that any activities that you enjoy

to do whether or not you enjoyed a

little or a lot but especially if you

enjoy it a lot that you guard and

Protect by making sure that you don't

start layering in or attaching reward or

other sources of dopamine releasing

behaviors or substances to that specific

behavior or if you do that you don't do

it terribly often now how often is

terribly often we'll get to that in a

moment but let me give you an example

from my life just as an example but you

will likely have and you'll know people

that will have different examples

I love to exercise I know to some people

uh this might seem foreign but I love to

exercise I love to do resistance

training I love to run I am not one of

those people that doesn't like the

experience of exercising but likes the

feeling afterwards quote unquote I hear

that a lot I don't like to exercise but

I love the way I feel afterwards I love

physical training and I love the way I

feel afterwards but I mostly love the

feeling during I don't know why I'm

wired that way I can't say that I'm

somebody who likes to do hard things

across the board there are plenty of

difficult things in life that I dread or

that I'm sort of meh about

but for me hard exercise intense

exercise of a particular kind resistance

training and running in particular

both give me a yum yes I love this kind

of feeling and yes it persists for me

quite a long while afterwards both for

sake of the way that it changes my

neurochemistry but also my sense of

satisfaction but I just simply love it

now years ago I discovered that if I

drink

a cup of black coffee or an Americano or

a double espresso or some yerba mate

that my workouts can be quite a bit more

intense I can run further and then I

also discovered that if I were to take a

pre-workout energy drink or I took say

300 milligrams of alpha GPC and 500

milligrams of phenylethylamine and

perhaps even 500 milligrams of

l-tyrosine and perhaps did that

alongside the caffeine in the Yerba mate

then yes absolutely I really like those

workouts I could be like a laser in

terms of focus I could exert even more

effort put on some music and I could

achieve even better performance and then

I also discovered that I could

export that protocol of caffeine yerba

mate and various supplements to my

cognitive work so I was when I was

studying or writing papers or writing

grants or in the laboratory when I was

doing experiments with my hands in those

days you know cutting brain tissue and

staining it and working really long

hours and I discovered that all of those

things all of those behaviors compounded

with my love of exercise and my love of

doing science and gave me these big

peaks in what to me felt like even

important experiences they felt you know

unlike anything else they were just so

so peak in their nature

which was great and it did indeed

enhance my performance however

while it did not create a dependency for

those different substances caffeine

supplements Etc what I noticed was that

in the days and sometimes weekends

afterwards even though for much of my

career I confess I've worked weekends as

well but I would notice that I'd

experience a real trough in energy I

just would not feel that good and then

if I kept up those behaviors

consistently and I was consistently

adding in these other let's just call

them what they are dopamine releasing or

stimulating behaviors and substances

that my enthusiasm for physical training

or running

or for doing experiments actually

started to diminish and this was really

discouraging to me at the time because I

started to think okay maybe I'm burnt

out maybe I have adrenal burnout which

by the way doesn't exist folks your

adrenals don't burn out there is

something called adrenal insufficiency

syndrome you can over stimulate your

system by way of too much adrenaline

epinephrine and norepinephrine but

that's a separate thing there's no such

thing as adrenal burnout per se

but I didn't know that so I thought gosh

I'm really burnt out when in fact

it's now obvious to me what I was doing

I was combining too many dopamine

releasing or stimulating behaviors in

substances for things that I already

enjoyed doing as behaviors namely

exercise and doing experiments anything

related to science actually

so what this means is not to avoid

taking things or doing things that

amplify your amount of dopamine but to

be very cautious about how often one

does that and how many different

dopamine stimulating behaviors or

compounds one stacks

especially in terms of taking those

things or stacking those things

in and around behaviors that you already

really enjoy doing I was essentially

just creating another version of the

kids in nursery school or first grade

with the gold star experiment I was

basically just doing the exact same

thing and when I realized that and I

changed my relationship to those

compounds I didn't eliminate them all

together but I started realizing for

instance that I didn't need to double up

on yerba mate and coffee every workout

sometimes I would do one sometimes I

would do the other frankly I always do

one or the other it's rare that I ever

do any kind of physical training without

some caffeine first and I do my physical

training typically in the early part of

the day so that's fine doesn't interfere

with my sleep

I might do a hike without caffeine but

if I'm in a weight trainer I'm going to

run I tend to drink coffee beforehand or

have yerba mate

or if I occasionally meaning about once

every third sometimes every other but

usually about every third workout I'll

take 300 milligrams of alpha GPC maybe

occasionally maybe every third or fourth

workout and these are resistance

workouts mind you not running I'll take

500 milligrams of l-tyrosine or more

typically 500 milligrams of phenol

ethylamine and very very rarely maybe

once every two or three months I might

stack all of those things together prior

to a workout but of course I'm always

mindful to also include workouts or runs

or bouts of cognitive work so that could