How to Leverage Dopamine to Control Your Motivation and Satisfaction

Method

Intermittent Fasting

Intermittent reward is the best method to make you keep going at something. And the casino is a pro in this area. Their slot machines give you lose streaks, win streaks, big wins, small wins all randomly and that keeps people keep playing.

Also, I’m not talking about food fasting, but dopamine fasting or dopamine detox.

Fasting is a simulation of prehistoric time. Reward is anticipated but not always given, sometimes there is a lot of rewards, sometimes just a little.

For example, remember how I said “not always listen to music before gym sessions”? You can listen to music, just not always. And there shouldn’t be a schedule like don’t listen to music 3 times then next 3 times listen to music. The tech here is to make it random. You can flip a coin if you wish to.

Cold exposure

I’m talking about taking cold water shower. There is a study of human body submerging in water in different temperatures, and the results showed that getting in cold water give you a rise in Dopamine.

Different from most other Dopamine peaks, which is a rise and crash, Dopamine from cold water rises slowly and the effect can last up to 3 hours. This will give you a long-lasting sense of focus, clear mind, and no “crash”.

When getting into cold water, your natural response is shortness of breath, eyes open, and even pain in the level of skin. Some people take the approach of fighting against the grain, some people try to calm themselves and some distract themselves. Either approach undermine the potency of the Dopamine effect. The study was conducted with 1 hour in water and reheat after, but I doubt you need that long for regular basis. I’ve done 5 mins in cold water, and it left me shivering right after.

How cold the water should be is different for everyone. It depends on how cold resistant you are. However cold you choose your water to be, it should give you hard time. The point of this is to make your body uneasy (not in shock) so that the Dopamine is released, and a bonus is you learn to be comfortable in uncomfortable situation.

Supplements

Frequent Caffeine usage will give you a higher potency of Dopamine experience with the same peak height.

L-Tyrosine, Phenylethylamine, Huperzine A, Maca: Use with careful consideration. Watch this from 2:01:45 to have a better understanding.

More sources

Book

Dopamine Nation: Finding balance in the Age of Indulgence

The Molecule of More

Video

Huberman Lab : This video is a more detailed version of what I wrote, with more examples, technical terms and deep explanations.

Conclusion

This is what I want you to take out of this post.

Low Dopamine level = bad bad. High peaks = drop to low Dopamine level. Layering and constant increase in stimulus = high peaks.

Intermittent peaks = motivation, seeking, focus.