Dopamine and Training
Have you ever heard of the ‘runners high’? – of course you have. You may also be one of those people who has been running and wondered when that high was going to kick in for you and it never came.
Well this is all related to dopamine.
The release of dopamine in the body has an affect on how you experience an activity like running, training or anything else in life.
But, it’s the human body and obviously it’s a lot more complicated than that. This podcast by Dr. Andrew Huberman will go into much more detail but I want to give some basic understanding so you can potentially manipulate your dopamine levels to enjoy training more.
First we need to understand a few things. We have our baseline level and our peak level of dopamine. Our baseline is affected by many different things in life and someone with a low baseline level is more likely to be in a depressive state compared to someone with a high level, who will seem much happier.
Our peak levels are usually controlled by an experience or substance. For instance; chocolate can increase dopamine levels 1.5x over baseline, nicotine and sex 2x and Amphetamine 10x over baseline. When it comes to something like training, the levels will rise depending on how much you like that activity (or your mindset around the activity as we will see). Hence the reason some people don’t experience ‘runners high’
It’s important to understand that each of these experiences or substances raise the peaks levels to an amount above baseline. This explains why a drug addict needs more and more of the drug to experience anything like their first hit. So if your baseline is low, some of your favourite activities or something like training may not give you the same feeling as it has done in the past.
I often tell people that for me, training starts to get fun when it starts to hurt. I now understand why that is and how it has helped me stay consistent over many years…
The human body is an extremely complex, powerful machine. But I believe that our mindset is even more powerful and can control a lot of what goes on in the body. Your mindset around training will directly affect the experience you have and the dopamine response you get from it.
If your focus is only on the reward that comes from training; which could be allowing yourself to eat more dessert or it could be focussing purely on the goal of weight loss you have, then your dopamine levels will be lower whilst doing that training and it will become less and less enjoyable each time.
But if you focus on the fact that training is good for you and you search for the pain and discomfort because that is in itself the reward, then your dopamine levels will be higher and you will enjoy training more and more.
Let’s look at these two mindsets walking into the gym and the thoughts they are having:
Person A: I can’t wait for the weekend, why do I even come to the gym, this workout is going to be horrible – burpees suck. Let’s just get it over with.
Person B: oooh these burpees are going to hurt, GOOD – I’m not great at burpees so I need to do more of them, bring it on!
Seeing it like this may seem obvious but person B is going to have a much more enjoyable experience compared to person A. Repeated over time, person A is the one most likely to quit training altogether. Our mindset is such a powerful tool and we can use it to out advantage to manipulate our experience when it comes to something like training.
I train almost everyday, I don’t always look forward to training but I can always tell myself that this is good for me, I look forward to experiencing the pain as I know that is where the benefits come from. Sometimes you have to lie to yourself and control your mindset when it’s trying to work against you.
As well as understanding how our mindset can affect our training experience, it’s important to note how other things we do around training can be good or bad for our dopamine levels. Dopamine stacking is when there are multiple things layered into a particular experience that all help rise dopamine levels. In some cases this can be good but it can make enjoying that experience more challenging in the future (similar to how the dug addict needs more to get the same high).
The things below are all dopamine inducing that could be stacked around training;
- Pre workout supplements to get fired up for training
- Running with a friend
- Listening to your favourite music
- Checking your phone (a dopamine spiking activity at any time of day)
If you constantly stack all these together when you train, it will be harder to get a dopamine level increase when some or any of these aren’t present. Sometimes training alone, without music and no pre-workout will allow you to tap into higher dopamine levels when you use all of these, prior to a competition or something. It will also allow you to have a higher baseline level when it comes to just the activity of training.
Caffeine is an interesting substance as it increases the efficacy of our dopamine receptors; meaning we will experience a rise in dopamine levels better. I often find myself wanting to have a coffee prior to training and this could explain why.
Dopamine is responsible for a lot of your motivation & drive so it’s important to understand how our behaviour, choices & mindset can effect our levels of dopamine. I recommend having a listen to the podcast I linked above to see if you can learn something about yourself and apply it to your life and your training.
We all know that getting stronger, fitter and healthier is good for us. If we can use our mindset and other methods to control how we experience dopamine and training then we will all be successful in the long term goal of Getting Better At Life
