What is Dopamine, And How is it Related to Productivity?

Your body is a complex combination of systems, each one tightly wound with the other. At the head of it all is your brain, making adjustments through each second of the day to keep all of these systems working well together and carrying out their functions. The way your brain communicates with them is by using 'Neurotransmitters', the body's chemical messengers. Dopamine is one such chemical messenger, which also happens to act as a hormone when released by the adrenal glands. This happens as a stress response.

Dopamine plays a vital role in affecting movement, coordination, pleasure, and cognition. As such, it's often referred to as a 'feel-good' hormone. As humans evolved, our brains needed to incentivize us to do things that would benefit our survival. We managed this by slowly developing a sort of in-built reward system. This is why certain behaviors increase dopamine levels, making you feel good. The caveat is that since we are hard-wired to seek out things that release dopamine, we keep gravitating towards those actions. The most common things to increase dopamine levels are things like eating good food, sex, and even positive social interactions. The common theme here is that all of these things are vital to your survival and procreation.

Dopamine is directly related to productivity in how it incentivizes you to carry out tasks, as well as how it enforces your motivation, habit formation, and goal-directed behavior. You'll find yourself able prioritize different tasks easier when you have increased dopamine levels, which is also why one of the symptoms of low dopamine levels is the disorder attention deficit hyperactivity disorder ADHD.

Why is balanced motivation important for sustainable performance?

Dopamine can get you started on a task, but you can't expect it to solely carry you across the finish line. That can lead to burnout, which in turn will detrimentally affect your mental health. This causes a negative feedback loop leading to low levels of dopamine. Things like a sense of purpose in the work that you do gives you an incentive to carry out tasks without being solely reward-oriented, allowing you to be more productive in the long term.

Can Dopamine Deficiency Lower Your Productivity?

Dopamine facilitates learning by contributing to reward-based associations. This is why we see an increased dopamine level whenever we anticipate a reward. The way that dopamine works as a reward isn't just at the end goal, but rather the anticipation of achieving said goal. You've often felt satisfaction when you think of completing a task, and this is why. It's a mini-boost that incentivizes you to initiate your task—however, it doesn't stay long enough to keep sustained focus. With this mini-boost, you'll have increased activity in your prefrontal cortex. This is where planning and attention span is fixated, allowing you to modify your behavior to be goal-oriented. Other brain areas, like the striatum and hippocampus, are involved in the process, too.

This is why dopamine is so essential for beginning a task. It's what helps you switch your brain up to be focused on achieving a specific task without getting distracted. This is also why if someone suffers from dopaminergic dysregulation, it can be considered a symptom of the attention deficit hyperactivity disorder ADHD. People who suffer from low cognitive performance due to issues like this are often prescribed the ADHD drug Methylphenidate, also known as Ritalin. This helps them boost dopamine levels and focus on the task at hand as a neurotypical person would, despite their attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. This works when reuptake gets blocked, and its concentration in the synapse raises.

The difference between short-term motivation and long-term productivity

We've established that dopamine gives you the boost you need to begin a task, but being able to maintain that momentum takes discipline. The issue with short-term motivation is that you'll become overly reliant on external rewards, and dopamine receptor desensitization, that comes from overstimulation, can make it harder for you to stay motivated. This can lead to you seeking a dopamine rush elsewhere, which can be through distractions like mindless media consumption or consumption of junk food.

Maintaining long-term productivity isn't an easy feat. The first step is to build a habit that makes you less reliant on immediate rewards. Convincing yourself that you're doing these tasks for personal reasons rather than the rewards they give is difficult, but it can help reduce your dependency on dopamine to be productive. Creating a positive feedback loop where you focus on smaller and more consistent goals to provide a steady dopamine payout while nurturing long-term habits helps you break the cycle of struggling between high and low dopamine levels. Most importantly, getting enough rest and even taking the time to do other less intense activities will help keep you from building a tolerance to high dopamine levels.

Challenges of Dopamine Burnout

Your body can malfunction and have issues with maintaining the appropriate amount of dopamine levels. There could be a problem with production in your midbrain, leading to an overall dopamine deficiency. There could be problems with the dopamine receptors themselves which means that even though you have all the dopamine you need, it can't bind to the appropriate receptors, causing imbalance. These are just physiological ways in which you can end up with low dopamine. However, your dopamine levels can also be affected sheerly by your mental health conditions. It's a sort of Catch-22 loop.

First, let's get into what 'burnout' is. It's normal to feel exhausted after periods of heavy physical activity. That's to be expected when you're exerting yourself, burning up calories and pushing your body to its limit. So how come you have similar feelings when you're overwhelmed with work or social responsibilities? That's mental burnout, and it's brought up by persistent stress, high workloads, a lack of being appreciated, poor compensation for your efforts, and even unhealthy dopamine-boosting behaviors.

This happens because while our bodies evolved our dopamine systems to keep us alive, it doesn't recognize stress-factors like projects and presentations as anything other than a threat. This can trigger a flight-or-fight response, leading to a significant rise in not only dopamine production, but cortisol and adrenaline, too. With the nature of these tasks lasting long periods of time, our bodies stay in a constant state of fight-or-flight, much longer than it's intended to. And the chronic stress causes us to react through fear and self-doubt, which eventually lead to burnout. Now, dopamine-driven burnout affects your performance and mental health conditions, throwing you in a loop.

What are signs of dopamine-driven burnout?

Before you can get started on fixing dopamine-driven burnout, it's important to identify if that's what you're struggling with. Let's take a look at some of the key low dopamine symptoms:

• Physical fatigue, even if you haven't been physically exerting yourself
• Lowered self-worth. Often brought about by the feeling that your task wasn't accomplished in time or to your liking
• Social withdrawal. You may feel that you simply don't have the energy to interact with others as you normally would
• Lowered sex drive.
• Disturbed sleep. This can be caused by stress, manifesting in poor sleep cycles, or even insomnia.
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Changes in eating

When you have dopamine receptors desensitization, you'll begin to crave activities that are considered 'shortcuts', which will quickly boost dopamine release. Giving in to cravings like junk food, endlessly scrolling on social media, even masturbation simply because you're bored is a sign that you have low dopamine levels. The problem with using these shortcuts is that your chronic stimulation of the reward system causes receptor desensitization, which, in turn, leads to more wellbeing issues. You might begin to need more dopamine just to feel the same way, which manifests in you spending more time on these shortcuts, leading to an increased indulgence in these bad habits.

Strategies for Dopamine Management in Productivity

Dopamine was meant to help humans survive nature, not the modern-day world. As such, we need to adapt in order to not burn out. These strategies, if employed properly, can help you stave off burnout while also maintaining a good balance between your productivity and mental health:

Setting goals and rewards

Dopamine functions as a reward system in and of itself, but that doesn't have to be the only one. When you have a large task at hand, your reward can seem awfully distant, and that makes it harder to incentivize yourself to push forward. It's important to set realistic goals for yourself, and having appropriate rewards for attaining each of those goals will massively improve your productivity. In doing so, you'll create a feedback loop where each minor goal you attain reinforces this positive behavior.

• Achievable goals: It's easier to tackle 3 small tasks than 1 massive one. Divide your project into small tasks and batch them by theme to minimize switching costs. Set a time frame that is realistic, and then start working on it. The dopamine levels spike when reward anticipation comes around.
• Minor rewards: Giving yourself a little treat just for finishing a minor task is completely justifiable. It's positive reinforcement, and it'll activate the dopamine circuit which can help you maintain your course.

Managing Time

If you struggle with procrastination, learning to manage time will do wonders for your mental health. Having a schedule gives your tasks structure, and they won't feel as burdensome when you understand exactly how long you'd need to finish different parts of it.

• Prioritization: Not every part of a task is equally urgent. Taking care of the important, more difficult tasks early on will leave you with far less stress. However, saving some minor tasks for when you need a dopamine boost is a good idea. If you feel like you're unable to get anything done, wrap up one of those easier tasks. You'll feel a whole lot better about yourself!
• Time management techniques: It's unreasonable to expect yourself to work with undivided attention for long periods of time. That's simply not how humans function. Give yourself the time to relax after a burst of productivity. A good example is the 'Pomodoro' technique. You work for 25 minutes, then take a 5 minute break. This way, you won't feel overwhelmed or feel like your focus is drifting away from the task at hand.
• Avoid multi-tasking: Though it may not seem so, it has been proven that multi-tasking leads to shoddier work with more fragmented attention ad increased dopamine demand than if you had simply done one task at a time.

Recovery

Keeping your dopamine system constantly overwhelmed can lead to you feeling burnt out, which is why no matter how productive you are, it's important to give yourself the time to rest and recover. In the long term, this will translate to a more consistent level of productivity.

• Sleep: All of your body functions are tied to how well you sleep. Both stress and disrupted circadian rhythms lower your sensitivity to dopamine, as well as increasing your catecholamine levels which can lead to cardiovascular illnesses. Not to mention that sleep deprivation also leads to weight gain and negatively affects your expected lifespan.
• Exercise: Whether it's a heavy workout at the gym, sports, or a walk, doing some form of exercise influences the secretion of neurotransmitters, having positive consequences against vulnerabilities like anxiety and depression.
• Diet: You can't get something from nothing, so if you want your body to produce dopamine, you need to feed it. Dopamine is synthesized from the amino acid tyrosine, so eating foods like soy products, chicken, fish, turkey, green leafy vegetables, lima beans, dairy products, and even sesame seeds can help boost its production. Avoiding a high fat diet is recommended, as it has been shown to cause dysregulation in the neurotransmitter system.

It might seem cheesy, but the people who tell you that you need to exercise and eat better are often times right. Your mental health is dependent on the endorphins released from sleeping, eating, and exercising, allowing you to replenish endorphin and dopamine levels. Even something as simple as taking a 30-minute walk will do wonders for your mental state, simply from being outside and feeling the sun on your skin. That small amount of vitamin D makes a huge difference and triggers dopamine release.

Building a Sustainable Dopamine Routine

As much as you need to be productive, you can't expect to be endlessly productive without getting burnt out. It's importance to balance your productivity with activities that give you the chance to recover and rejuvenate. Let's take a look into how you can be sustainable with your practice:

Maintaining a schedule

Establishing a structure to your day makes it easier for you to follow a routine of productivity. This way, you'll be able to develop a habit of completing tasks.

• Structured breaks: When you start working, the first thing you'll look forward to is a break. Establish structured breaks for yourself so that you can maintain focus and avoid being overstimulated.
• Match intensive tasks to high-energy periods: Different people are productive at different periods of the day. If you feel you're the sort to get things done in the morning, then schedule your high-demand tasks for that period of time.
• Mix work and play: Working non-stop will cause you to burn out. Prioritize the high-focus tasks, but follow them up with something rejuvenating, like a short walk or meditation.

Avoiding overstimulation

Maintaining motivation without getting dopamine burnout is the key to your long-term success. Here are some tips addressing lifestyle factors that can help without having to mess with your levels of dopamine too much:

• Digital detox: Things like scrolling on social media, multitasking, and even excessive phone notifications can affect dopamine production, eventually leading to dopamine dysregulation. As tempting as it may be, it's important to avoid the temptation to check these distractions. If you struggle with avoiding your phone, it's a good idea to have a second phone purely for work purposes. This can have added benefits like improving your sleep cycle.
• Physical activity: Regulate your dopamine level and boost endorphins with exercise. Any exercise will help you enhance your dopamine receptor sensitivity as well as increase dopamine synthesis, causing a natural dopamine boost over time without having to deal with dopamine related disorders.
• Meditation: Practicing meditation has proven to increase endogenous dopamine release by up to 65%, as well as increasing serotonin levels and decreasing cortisol, the stress hormone.
• Incremental goals: Having multiple attainable milestones instead of one juicy goal in the distance is far more sustainable for long-term productivity, helping you maintain more consistent levels of dopamine. It also allows you to feel some satisfaction of a job in the process of being completed, instead of stressing over the whole task still being in the works.

Conclusion

We've learnt that while dopamine is a driving factor in your short-term productivity, your long-term success lies in your discipline. To maintain your productivity, it's vital to put in the effort to prevent burnout, managing your workload by breaking it into smaller tasks, and motivating yourself with more intrinsic rewards rather than just external ones. At the end of the day, your sights should be on balance and a focus on the long-term. Doing so will allow you to make the most of your dopamine boost without being overly reliant on it.

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