Dopamine - Andrew Huberman on Health Theory

tags:: Health & Fitness #source/video Dopamine
author:: Tom Bilyeu Andrew Huberman
Source

• The most powerful thing you can do for your motivation to be successful, is learning to get pleasure from the (painful) process
• After you had a dopamine spike, it's important to let it cool down and replenish. Get used to days of "life is meaningless" after a big win.
• Dopamine is a key way in which we track time. Blinking our eyes and marking big events in our life.
• Practice keeping your NO GO circuitry working well by deliberately stopping impulses throughout the day. (And you can get pleasure from that "pain.")
• Pleasure without prior requirement of pursuit is terrible.

Reward prediction error: too high expectation dips dopamine too far down.

It's the state of wanting that is what's pleasurable.

I'm going to climb this mountain only to want the next mountain to climb.

The amount of pleasure you eventually experience is directly related to the amount of pain you experience underway. E.g., after a painful ice bath, 2.5h 250% increase.

If you're not motivated, you need to stop the little mild hits of dopamine sustenance that are just enough. It's probably that you're getting dopamine from something but it's not givig you the motivation anymore.

Pursue rewards but understand that the pursuit is the reward.

The celebration has to be a lower high than the pursuit. Understand there will always be a crash of pain (and the more pain the more pleasure next time).

Pleasure without prior requirement of pursuit is terrible for us.

Those who will be successful, will be those who can control their relationships with pleasures.

Addiction is a progressive narrowing of the things that bring you pleasure.
A good life is a progressive expansion of things that give you pleasure, and include progression and hard work.

You want to continue exerting effort.

Self-regulation

It's all about self-regulation. We're going to select for people to self-regulate.

When nothing feels good: maybe you've saturated your dopamine systems. You're in the pain side of the see-saw, so you need to take a step back and rest. It will replenish. Make sure to see-saw and to make sure it doesn't get stuck in any of the sides.

What dopamine actually does

Dopamine is a big part in how we perceive time. "Blips" of dopamine create time segments, and blinks of our eyes to too. Frequency of blinking is set by the amount of dopamine. Dopamine marks key events in life. In low dopamine, people tend to overestimate time. It's an interval timer.

Depressed people look at the past. Fixing their levels makes them focused on present and future again.

People who spend a lot of time in deep meditation understand the fluidity of time, and by that we mean fluidity of dopamine peaks.

How to destroy your brain

Tom: I'm happy internet etc didn't exist when I was young, because at age 14 I'm not sure if I'd have been able to have enough discipline.

10pm-4am: turn off the lights. Even if the color is right. You get neurochemically punished by viewing bright lights at those times. Fire is fine, moonlight is fine, low very dim lights are okay.

We have to pay attention to something we really love but do it a little bit too often. E.g., people who jump out of airplanes a lot die from addiction.

Huberman experiment: first 1h of the day no hour. I give myself "2 no-gos" if I succeed. Because it's difficult, and a lot of mornings I fail.

Idea: every odd hour of the day turn off the phone completely.

Basal ganglia: go's and no go's. Learning to keep that NO GO circuitry working well is crucial. I try to get 25 things per day where I actively refrain from doing something I impulsively want to do. E.g., checking phone, or even walking to the kitchen to get a glass of water.

Neuroplasticity happens in second part of sleep. Start of the day is perfect position to receive "the download" but when you immediately get a stimulus you cannot register it.

Second half of sleep: re-experience but can't secrete adrenaline. So it's a form of internal (trauma) therapy.

Most of the growth in life comes from these rigidly externally-imposed schedules. And we hate them but they are where we learn restraint.

The "murmur in the background" (sounds) is one of the ways your brain detects you're falling asleep. Tom Bilyeu's trick to fall asleep: quiet fiction book, when he drifts off and head drops he can't understand anymore.

How do you accomplish XYZ?

You have to be obsessed with your goal.

• Meaningful goals. Exciting and honorable. (Leads to feedback loops: attaching dopaminergic response to the pursuit.)
• Create rules from that and really stick to them. Very strict in which rules, because you have to believe they will absolutely lead to the goal.
• I'm the kind of person who when he sets a rule, follows it.

Getting motivated

One way: get good at attaching dopamine to the pursuit.

Another: understanding the pleasure/pain balance. More friction and pain = more better feeling afterwards.

Bias towards action: best position is mostly balanced, mostly knowing you can lead forwards. At a comfortable RPM.

Orgasm itself is sympathetic (stress system), then it drops back down. Arousal and relaxation, that's the dance to master.

Two types of goals:

• Short term goals (daily, cup of coffee)
• Long term goals

What we learned now:

• Repeated engagements lead to depletion
• The balance between pain and pleasure is always at work