Leverage Dopamine to Overcome Procrastination & Optimize Effort

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 and dopamine or troughs and 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.

And 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.

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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 our 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

No cord through direct 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 promised 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 you

Dopamine as the primary neuromodulator and those five circuits engaged different but related functions, 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 nigrostriatal pathway. So in the back of the brain, there's an area called substantial Niagra 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 to dark regions in the back. That's substantia nigra substantia nigra contains neurons that are chock-a-block full of dopamine but they release that dopamine in the brain structure called. The striatum, the striatum is involved in a movement, both the initiation of movements and the suppression of movements and so-called go action and no go suppressed action. Pathways topic for a future podcast. The second brain circuit that uses and leverages dopamine to a great extent. Is the so called me. So limbic pathway. Now, you'll also

Moment here about the Miso cortical 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 me's Olympic 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 caused the release.

This 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 me zombie.

So cortical pathway. So this is a very different pathway out of the VTA and nucleus accumbens in the one. I just described a moment ago, the pathway I'm talking about now, the music cortical 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.

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 lap podcast and this is a guest whose episode hasn't aired yet. Describe this beautiful, he's a neurosurgeon

In 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. And we know this, because people that have damage to the prefrontal cortex, often can't suppress their impulses as so the pathway from VTA and nucleus accumbens to the prefrontal cortex. Has absolutely critical for today's discussion because we are largely going to be discussing motivation. Drive Pursuit perk

Ask the nation and all sorts of things that have to do with our feelings about context. Whether 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 dopamines role in the prefrontal cortex that is when thinking about this miso cortical pathway, we really want to think about how dopamine is activating. We're 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 music cortical 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 to burrow 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

It'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 melanic Orton hormone, these are hormones that are impacting everything from the function of the ovary and females, to the function of the testes in males. Its governing things like cortisol release under stress, thyroid hormone it, meaning it's regulating thyroid hormone release, and on and on, dopamine has a very powerful impact on

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 eyes

We part of your brain that got extruded from your brain during development nose, two eyes that you see in the mirror and that you see another 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 tuber infundibular dopamine Pathways and we won't really talk so much about the nigrostriatal pathway. I'll say one more thing about it and then I'll leave it alone. We are going to talk about the means of cortical pathway. We might touch on the me's Olympic pathway a little bit as well. So today we're mostly going to talk about me. So cortical circuitry and function and dopamine within the

He's a cortical 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 Miso cortical 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 relationships, cool, etcetera, become a relevant. In fact, the definition of addiction that I use and then 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 Museo cortical 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 of 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,

Hurry. 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.

Text. 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 of, I called a peek. It's an increase in. 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 in 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

Of 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 than Baseline, 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, guess 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 want to check out his episodes on Hormone Health. 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

If pool you've ever seen a wave pool? It's basically a concrete pool and there are waves within it. Ok? 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. 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 bass line, 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 music cortical 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 and 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 will crash out in 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

Lines. And let's remember that for every Peak, there's a trough. 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 bass lines. 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.

Thing or not. So I'm going to give you a visual in your mind. The visual on 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 high really want a sandwich. I really want to. Let's think what sandwich what I want right now. 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 understand. Dopamine is not just released when we get the reward. When we get the thing that were 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 where I desire some water, when I'm thirsty, there's an increase in dopamine that we could call 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

In etcetera, 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

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 that I'll get a peek and dopamine. And indeed, that's what happens. If I find that Delhi, I go into the deli. They're open, they're making the sandwich that I want. They make my sandwich and great.

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 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 an eight, 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.

Then 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 lead 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 experience. 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 - 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 experienced, when I consume that sandwich is going to be even greater, and it's going to be that - 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 delis 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 bad experience. In which case, if we take that reward experienced - 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. 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 in pursuing the thing that you wanted in the first place, 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.

Hours 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

Evaded. 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, 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 with

In yourself, you're 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

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On the road, in the car on the plane at cetera and they'll give you a year supply of vitamin D3 K to again, that's athletic greens.com huberman to get the five free travel packs. And the year supply of vitamin D3 K to 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 is it guest on other podcast 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 what 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

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 in the reward, in other words to really zoom in on the whole process.

SS and start thinking about the circuitry that is the neurons and 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

And 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 want to be a psychologist but psychologically minded in anyway 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

Ooh, 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 queue 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

And that there's an app that represents a restaurant, that sells the particular sandwich that I like that Q as I mentioned before increases dopamine, you see that and 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 thumb's on my phone through the app or with my feet and walk into the deli.

Lee 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 cue, the app, the Delhi Etc. And when I get my sandwich, that Gap is going to be different for different things. So in pursuing, you know, four year degree, it's going to be four years, if the

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 q that hey the the reward likely lies down this path in this textbook in 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

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

angel reward. And all of that is fun only 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

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 that desire that I want that. That's the first thing 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 is I'm referring to it. Those all combined into a total learning, so that after you get the sandwich or after,

Finish the exam or after you out on a date or after you do anything that you desire to do that system that originates in the VTA 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 set as I you have to think about any of those details.

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 80 80 percent increase in alcohol, use disorder among women in the last 30 years. I talked a little bit about this in the episode.

Oh 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 to drinks a week. Probably fine health-wise 0 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.