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00:00:00 Introduction & Tool 1 to Induce Lasting Dopamine Dopamine is responsible for: Motivation, desire, and craving Satisfaction and feelings of wellbeing Addiction to all things This podcast will focus on: What we do, how we do it, and how we conceptualize those things leads to changes in our dopamine levels. What dopamine is and what it isn't There are many myths about dopamine that need to be dispelled How Dopamine works: Biology Psychology Neural circuits Dopamine schedules Food, drugs, caffeine, porn even some plant-based compounds can change our baseline levels of dopamine and subsequently the levels of dopamine we are capable of experiencing from very satisfying or dissatisfying events in the future. This will be a vast discussion that will be well structured and you will come away with a deep understanding of: What drives you Tools to leverage dopamine How to sustain energy, drive, and motivation over long periods of time. Fascinating results from a paper published in the European Journal of Physiology underscore what dopamine is capable of and how behaviors alone can allow us to achieve very high sustained increases in dopamine levels in ways that serve us. The study involved: Human subjects getting into water of different temperatures Warm, moderately cool, and very cold They sat in the water for up to an hour Measurements of cortisol, norepinephrine, epinephrine, and dopamine were gathered The study found: Cold water exposure led to very rapid increases in norepinephrine and epinephrine, as well as dopamine The increases in dopamine were very significant They kicked in after 10-15 minutes of cold water submersion and continued to rise, eventually reaching levels as high as 250% above baseline. After getting out of the water this increase was sustained Many people are interested in cold water therapy as a way to increase metabolism and fat loss, but also to improve the sense of well-being, cognition, clarity of mind There is something special about this very alert but calm state of mind that seems to be optimal for everything except for sleep, from all aspects of work to social engagements, to learning and sports. Cold water exposure done correctly really can help people achieve that state of mind. The details of this study and what it entailed will be discussed later on as well as: How to limit the amount of cortisol (stress hormone) that's released as a result of the cold water. Compounds (supplements) people can take to increase their levels of dopamine should they choose. 00:04:48 Sponsors: Roka, InsideTracker, Headspace 00:09:10 Upcoming (Zero-Cost) Neuroplasticity Seminar for Educators 00:09:58 What Dopamine (Really) Does Tonic and phasic release of dopamine Most people have heard of dopamine, usually in terms of 'dopamine hits' but these are a bit of a myth, and misunderstandings of this need to be dispelled. Your body uses dopamine at baseline concentrations, meaning there is a set amount of the chemical that is always circulating in your brain and body (tonic release). This is important for how you generally feel; whether you're in a good mood, motivated, etc. You also can experience peaks in dopamine above that baseline (tonic) level, so-called phasic releases of dopamine. These two things interact and this is very important to know and understand The underlying neurobiology for this will be taught clearly If you remember nothing else from this episode, remember that when you experience or crave something really desirable, exciting, and pleasurable that afterward your baseline level of dopamine drops. These peaks of dopamine (phasic) will influence how much dopamine will generally be circulating afterward (tonic). You might think that after a big peak in dopamine you will end up feeling even better because of the pleasurable/desirable event, but what actually happens is that your baseline level of dopamine drops after that peak experience, and your general mood thereafter will be lower. The precise mechanism for how these two things interact will be explained. Dopamine has everything to do with how you feel right now as you're listening to this, how you will feel an hour from now, your level of motivation, desire, and your willingness to push through effort. If you've ever interacted with anyone who doesn't seem to have any drive, who's given up, or someone who seems to have endless drive and energy, what you are looking at is a difference in the level of dopamine circulating in their systems WITHOUT QUESTION. There will be other factors too, but dopamine is the primary determinant of how motivated we are, how excited we are, how outward-facing we are, and how willing we are to lean into life and pursue things. Dopamine is what we call a neuromodulator Neuromodulators are different from neurotransmitters Neurotransmitters are involved in the dialogue between neurons (nerve cells) tending to mediate local communication Like two people talking to one another at a concert Neuromodulators influence the communication of many neurons Like many people dancing in coordination at a concert In the nervous system, this means that dopamine levels will change the probability that certain neural circuits will be active and that other neural circuits will be inactive It modulates many things at once and this is why it's so powerful at shifting not just our levels of energy, but also our mindset, our feelings of whether or not we CAN or CANNOT accomplish something. How does dopamine work and what does it do? Responsible for motivation, drive and craving at the psychological level Controls time perception We will get deep into how it modulates time perception and how important it is that everybody be able to access increases in dopamine at different time scales. Important to avoid addiction to substances and sustain effort and be happy over long periods of time. Vitally important for movement The difference in dopamine for mindset and dopamine for movement will be discussed In diseases like Parkinson's or Lewy Body dementia, there is a depletion or death of dopamine neurons in a particular area of the brain which leads to shaky movements, challenges in speaking, initiating movement, as well as drops in motivation and affect. 00:15:30 Two Main Neural Circuits for Dopamine There are 2 main neural circuits in the brain that dopamine uses in order to exert all its effects. The first is a pathway that goes from the ventral tegmentum to the ventral striatum and the prefrontal cortex. This is the mesocorticolimbic pathway This is the pathway by which dopamine influences motivation, drive, and craving Involves structures like the nucleus accumbens and the prefrontal cortex Gets heavily disrupted in addictions by drugs like cocaine and amphetamine. If you are pursuing anything in life you are tapping into this mesocorticolimbic pathway The other pathway emerges from the substantia nigra The cells in this area are dark and connect to the dorsal striatum This is the nigrostriatal pathway The first part of neuroanatomical nomenclature tells you where the neurons are, the second part tells you where they are connecting to. This is heavily involved in movement. Remember that there are 2 pathways as this turns out to be important later. 00:18:14 How Dopamine Is Released: Locally and Broadly Dopamine can be released locally, between two neurons, and broadly over many neurons at once. Synapses are the little spaces between neurons Neurons communicate with one another by making each other either more or less electrically active One nerve cell influences the next to fire (become electrically active) by spewing out vesicles (little packets) of chemicals, when they enter the synapse some of it docks on the other neuron, and by virtue of electrical changes in the postsynaptic neuron that neuron will fire. Dopamine can do this like any other neurotransmitter or neuromodulator, however, dopamine can also engage in volumetric release. The volumetric release is like a giant spew of packets that influences thousands of cells. This makes dopamine interesting because it can have influences from a very narrow to a very broad scale. If you were to take a drug or supplement that increases your level of dopamine you are influencing both the local and volumetric releases of dopamine. This is important because you are affecting your baseline and peaks above baseline levels. Many drugs that increase dopamine will make it harder for you to sustain dopamine release over long periods of time, and to achieve those peaks that most of us crave when we are in pursuit of things. When both the volumetric and local releases are being affected the difference between the peak and baseline is likely to be smaller. How satisfying a reward is doesn't just depend on the height of the peak, but the height of the peak relative to baseline. If you increase the baseline and the peak levels, you are not going to achieve more and more pleasure from things. Increasing your dopamine levels overall will make you excited about all things but it will also make that motivation very short-lived. There is a better way to optimize this peak-to-baseline ratio that will be discussed. We have covered: 2 main neural circuits, one for movement and one for motivation and craving. 2 main modes of communication with dopamine. Local and broad. 00:22:03 Fast and Slow Effects of Dopamine Dopamine is unique compared to other neurotransmitters because it works through what are called g-protein-coupled receptors. Mostly neurons communicate through one of 2 modes (there are others) fast electrical synapses (ionotropic conduction) basically one neuron activates another and ions rush in through ion gates (usually Na+) . Slower g-protein coupled receptors Dopamine is released in these little vesicles, some of it binds the postsynaptic neuron and it will set off a cascade of events. Although g-protein coupled receptors are slow they also have multiple cascading effects, they can even impact things like gene expression or how well or how poorly that cell will respond to the same signal in the future. The effects of dopamine take a while in order to occur This is important because it now underscores 2 things additional things: Dopamine has two pathways to communicate, (craving and movement) There are 2 scales at which dopamine can act (local and broad) Dopamine can have slow effects, really slow effects or very long-lasting effects (even gene expression) 00:25:03 Dopamine Neurons Co-Release Glutamate Dopamine doesn't function alone Neurons that release dopamine co-release glutamate Glutamate is a neurotransmitter that is excitatory meaning it stimulates neurons to be electrically active. You should now begin to get a picture that dopamine is responsible for movement, motivation and drive, but also that it stimulates action in general because it releases this excitatory neurotransmitter tending to making neurons more active. Dopamine is very stimulating overall, we say that it tends to stimulate sympathetic arousal When the sympathetic nervous system is active it brings us into a state of more alertness, readiness with a stronger desire to pursue things outside the confines of our skin. In summary, dopamine, when released tends to make you look outside yourself, pursue things outside yourself, and crave things outside of yourself and delivers the pleasure that arrives from achieving things, (this also involves other molecules.) If you've ever felt lethargic and lazy with low motivation or drive; that’s a low dopamine state If you've ever felt really motivated and excited (perhaps even a little scared) you are in a high dopamine state. Dopamine is a universal currency that you use to track pleasure, success, and whether or not you are doing well or poorly. How much dopamine is in our system at any one time compared to how much dopamine was in our system a few minutes ago and how much we remember enjoying a particular experience of the past dictates your so-called 'quality of life' and your desire to pursue things. This is subjective, but if your dopamine is too low, you will not feel motivated, if it is really high you will feel motivated. If your dopamine is somewhere in the middle, how you feel will depend on whether or not you had higher levels or lower levels of dopamine a few minutes ago. 00:28:00 Your Dopamine History Really Matters Your experience of life and your level of motivation and drive depends on how much dopamine you have relative to your recent experiences. This is something that isn't accounted for in the simple language of 'dopamine hits'. A simple way to envision dopamine hits is that every time you do something you like you get an increase in dopamine. This is correct, however if you enjoy something and get a peak, things that you might otherwise have found enjoyable might not be interesting in comparison shortly thereafter as they don't stimulate the same level of dopamine release. If you do something later it might be more interesting than immediately after something else that you have experienced as enjoyable. How much you enjoy something depends on your baseline level of dopamine when you arrive there and your previous dopamine peaks. When you repeatedly engage in something that you enjoy, your threshold for enjoyment goes up and up and up. We will talk about this process and explain how it works because if you understand it along with some of these schedules and kinetics around dopamine you will be in a terrific position to use any dopamine enhancing tools that you decide to use, modulate and control your own dopamine release for optimal motivation and drive. For people who want more information on the biology of dopamine transmission, there is a link to a review of that was published in nature reviews neuroscience called Spatial and temporal scales of dopamine transmission. 00:30:30 Parkinson’s & Drugs That Kill Dopamine Neurons. My Dopamine Experience 2 anecdotes, one from Huberman's personal life and one from recent history illustrate some of the core biology of dopamine and how profoundly it can shape our experience. Tragic situation occurred in the 80s when there was an outbreak of what looked like Parkinson's symptoms in a young population. Parkinson's is a disease where people will start to quake, and have issues with smooth movements, speech, and sometimes cognition as well. Typically it hits people later in life and has a genetic component. There is a question of whether or not certain lifestyle factors can also create Parkinson's. Some years ago illicit laboratories were trying to make a drug called MPPP which is an opiod-like compound a bit like heroin. Heroin addicts went out and bought what they thought was MPPP, unfortunately, what they ended up taking ended up being a lot worse; MPTP. A number of opioid addicts took this and ended up becoming completely boxed in and paralyzed. Both aspects of dopamine transmission were disrupted. They had no motivation and drive They couldn't generate any movement of any kind This condition is irreversible because MPTP kills the dopaminergic neurons of the substantia nigra and the mesocorticolimbic pathway. Huberman was in college when this happened and at the time he had no understanding of what it was to have very high or very low levels of dopamine. He had experienced regular ups and downs of life and various pleasures but nothing compared to this next anecdote. Huberman got Giardia which is a stomach bug that causes terrible diarrhea and is extremely unpleasant. He ended up going to the emergency room and ended up begging them for something to stop up his guts. They put in a saline line for hydration and injected it with Thorazine. Thorazine is an antipsychotic drug given to people who have schizophrenia and functions by blocking dopamine receptors. Within minutes he felt more sadness, and an overwhelming sense of depression than he's ever felt in his entire life, it was absolutely profound. He was crying miserably without understanding why he was crying. He then begged them to give him l-dopa to get his dopamine levels back up again. They did and within minutes he felt fine again. It was incredible for him and really opened up his mind to what it is to have plummeted levels of dopamine. The poor souls who took MPTP lost all their dopamine cells, People with Parkinson's struggle with this as well because their dopamine-producing cells often die; it's not merely a problem of them not releasing enough dopamine. We will discuss dopamine neuron health and protection as they are very precious. Huberman's experience with Thorazine opened his eyes to the fact that dopamine is perhaps one of the most powerful molecules that any of us has inside of us and one we ought to all think very carefully about how we leverage. While most experiences and things we do, take, and eat won't create enormous highs and lows in dopamine, even subtle fluctuations in it really shape our perception of life and how we feel so we want to guard them and ensure we understand them. 00:36:58 Tool 3 Controlling Dopamine Peaks & Baselines We want to keep the baseline in the appropriate healthy place and still be able to access the peaks in dopamine, as these are some of what makes life rich and worth living. All of us have different baseline levels of dopamine Some of this is sure to be genetic, some people simply ride at a higher level and are a little bit more excited and motivated than others who are a little mellower and less excitable Some of this has to do with the fact that dopamine doesn't act alone It has close cousins and friends in the nervous system Epinephrine (adrenaline) is the main chemical driver of energy, it's released from the adrenal glands above our kidneys and from an area of the brainstem called the locus coeruleus. Its release tends to wake up neural circuits in the brain and various aspects of our body's physiology giving us a 'readiness' Dopamine and epinephrine often work in conjunction with one another Epinephrine is manufactured from dopamine, l-dopa is converted to dopamine, to nor-epinephrine, and then to epinephrine. Any time you discuss a peak or release in dopamine that inevitably means you have an increase in epinephrine as well. Dopamine colors the subjective experience of an activity to make it more pleasurable, Epinephrine is more about energy; fear, mental paralysis, and trauma. If dopamine is mixed in with this state of fear then it becomes a state of 'excitement' 00:40:06 Chocolate, Sex (Pursuit & Behavior), Nicotine, Cocaine, Amphetamine, Exercise What sorts of things increase dopamine and by how much? Recall that we all have a baseline level of dopamine, but your level of dopamine has as much to do with what you've experienced in the previous days and months etc. When you do/ingest certain things your levels of dopamine can rise above baseline transiently. Depending on what you do/ingest it can rise either more or less, or it will be very brief or last a long time. Some of the typical things that people do or eat that increase dopamine with some average measurements from microdialysis studies in animals or from serum measurements in humans Chocolate: will increase your baseline level of dopamine 1.5x, transiently for either a few minutes or even a few seconds. Sex: both the pursuit and the act of sex increase dopamine 2x on average. The different aspects of sex have different effects on dopamine levels, but for now, as a general activity, it roughly doubles the amount of dopamine in circulation. Nicotine (smoked): Increases dopamine 2.5x above baseline that is very short-lived which is understood by observing chain smokers. Cocaine: 2.5x above baseline Amphetamine: 10x above baseline (a tremendous increase) Exercise: Will have a different impact on the levels of dopamine depending on how much someone subjectively enjoys that exercise If you're somebody who LOVES running, the chances are it's going to increase your levels of dopamine 2x above baseline, not unlike sex. People who dislike exercise will achieve a lower or no dopamine increase as a result. If you like other forms of exercise like yoga, weightlifting, swimming, etc. the increase is going to vary depending on your subjective experience of those activities. This is important and brings us back to something we talked about earlier The 'cortical' part of the mesocorticolimbic pathway is important because the prefrontal cortex is the area of your brain involved in thinking planning and assigning rational explanations, and subjective experiences to things. e.g Huberman likes Pilot v5 pens, if he spent enough time thinking or talking about it he could probably get a dopamine increase from that alone. As we begin to engage with something more and more, what we say about it and what we encourage ourselves to think about it has a profound impact on its rewarding or non-rewarding properties. It's not simply the case that you can lie to yourself and tell yourself that you love something when you don't really love it and increase dopamine. However, if people journal about something or practice some form of appreciation for something and they think of some aspect of something they enjoy the amount of dopamine that behavior will evoke tends to go up. For people who hate exercise, you can think about some aspect of it that you genuinely enjoy. Don't tell yourself you hate something but that you love the reward you give yourself afterward! The reward given after displeasurable events can actually make the situation worse by undermining the dopamine release that would otherwise occur for that activity. Certain things have a universal effect in making people's dopamine levels go up such as sex, nicotine, cocaine, and amphetamines. The amount of dopamine released from things like exercise, studying, hard work, working through a challenge in a relationship, or something challenging of any kind is going to be subjective and vary from person to person. This subjective component will be explained in more detail later. 00:46:46 Tool 4 Caffeine Increases Dopamine Receptors Caffeine will increase dopamine slightly, but it's pretty modest compared to some of the things that have already been discussed. Regular ingestion of caffeine increases the upregulation of certain dopamine receptors, so caffeine makes you more sensitive to dopamines effects. Caffeine increases the number and density of the g-coupled protein receptors. You might think of people having a cigarette and a cup of coffee together, or smoking and drinking together, this is because different compounds or certain behaviors and compounds can synergize to give bigger dopamine increases. It's not uncommon for people to take things like pre-workout substances or energy drinks leading to big stimulating effects on dopamine and nor-epinephrine and then exercise to get an even greater dopaminergic experience out of the workout. This approach of simply trying to get your dopamine as high as you possibly can in order to get the most out of a particular experience is not optimal. Layering in multiple substances and activities that lead to big increases in dopamine can create severe issues with motivation and energy right after those experiences and even multiple days later. If you do this too often you'll find that your capacity to release dopamine and your level of motivation and drive overall will take a serious hit. 00:49:54 Pursuit, Excitement & Your “Dopamine Setpoint” From the beginning of the episode, the tonic and phasic release of dopamine has been discussed. We can now cover this in more depth in order to leverage it for our own purposes. In order to do this it's useful to ask why do we have a dopamine system like this, or why do we have this system at all? Our species like all species has a survival agenda to replicate as much of itself as possible. It's not just about sex and reproduction it's about foraging for resources; food, water, salt, shelter, and social connections. Dopamine is the universal currency of foraging and seeking things that provide sustenance and pleasure in the short term and will extend the species in the long term. Once we understand that dopamine is a driver for us to seek things, it makes perfect sense as to why we have a system with a baseline level and peaks that spike above that baseline and the peaks and baseline would be related in some direct way. Let's say you were alive 10,000 years ago and you woke up and realized you had very little water and food left with a child and a partner and you NEED things. You need to be able to generate the energy to go seeking those things. Chances are there were dangers in seeking those things e.g. storms, cold, injuries, predators, isolation, etc. This process of going out and foraging was driven by dopamine. Let's say you find a few berries, or you hunt an animal and kill it, or you find some meat and water somewhere; you will experience some sort of dopamine release (you've found the reward), but then it needs to return to some lower level that is still pushing you because if you just stayed there you would never continue to forage for more. What's very important to understand is that it doesn't just go back down to the level it was at before, it goes down to a level BELOW what it was before you went out seeking your needs. This is counterintuitive because we often think in terms of pursuing a win Run a marathon, cross the finish line, and feel great and you think ok, now I'm set for the entire year, I'm going to feel this amazing sense of accomplishment etc. This is not really what happens, you will experience a peak, but then your level of dopamine will drop below baseline. Eventually, it will ratchet back up, but 2 things are important The extent to which it drops below baseline is proportional to how high the peak was. If you cross the finish line mildly happy, it won't drop that much below baseline, if you cross the finish line ecstatic, a day or 2 later you will feel quite a bit lower than you might have otherwise. Post-partum depression that people experience after giving birth or after a big win like a graduation etc. is heavily influenced by the drop in baseline levels of dopamine. This happens on very rapid timescales and can last quite a long time as well. This also explains how if we continue to engage with things we enjoy over and over again they begin to lose their edge over various timescales. Some of us experience this drop in excitement more quickly and severely than others. This has direct roots in these evolutionarily conserved circuits. Some people may feel the illusion they're simply riding higher and higher all the time. Often times we are feeling good because we are layering in different aspects of life, doing and consuming things that are increasing our levels of dopamine giving us those peaks Afterward, the drop in baseline occurs and it always takes a little while to get back to our stable baseline. We all have a dopamine 'set point' If we continue to indulge in these same behaviors that continue to increase our peaks in dopamine we won't experience the same level of joy from those behaviors or from anything at all. This is what addiction is. Even for people who aren't 'addicted' or have an attachment to any specific substance or behavior, the drop below baseline is substantial and it governs whether or not we will be able to pursue other things. There is a way for us to work with this system such that we can experience peaks while keeping the baseline at an appropriate healthy level. 00:56:46 Your Pleasure-Pain Balance & Defining “Pain” Dr. Anna Lembke was a previous guest on the Huberman podcast, she's head of the addiction dual diagnosis clinic at Stanford and is the author of 'Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence. The Molecule of More: How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity--and Will Determine the Fate of the Human Race is another terrific book about dopamine. Both books focus on dopamine schedules and the relationship between these peaks and baselines of dopamine. Dr. Lembke talks about this pleasure-pain balance that occurs when we seek or experience something we really like. We gain a little bit of pleasure (e.g. eating chocolate) then there is a little bit of pain that subtly exceeds the amount of pleasure. We experience it as wanting more of that thing. There is a pleasure-pain balance that is governed by dopamine to some extent. The pain comes from the lack of dopamine that we experience after a peak. Earlier we talked about how dopamine is released into synapses where it can activate postsynaptic neurons, or it can be released volumetrically over many neurons, in both cases, it's released in synaptic vesicles and these vesicles get depleted. The total amount of dopamine in vesicles that are available to be released is what synaptic physiologists call the 'readily releasable pool of dopamine'. We can only deploy dopamine that is packaged in these little vesicles and is ready to be released. The pleasure-pain balance doesn't only hinge on the readily releasable pool of dopamine but a large part of it does. Now it should make sense why if you take/do something that leads to huge increases in dopamine, afterward your baseline should drop. 01:00:00 Addiction, Dopamine Depletion, & Replenishing Dopamine Fortunately, most people do not pursue things that lead to these enormous increases in dopamine and drops below baseline. Addicts do however and make the mistake of pursuing the dopamine-evoking activity/substance again to feel better. This only drives their baseline lower and lower. When people are truly addicted to something then they won't receive much pleasure from anything at all. You can see this with Videogames where people start out enjoying it, and they keep playing and playing and playing until one of 2 things happens (or both). A narrowing of things that can bring you pleasure, people start losing interest in school, relationships, fitness, wellbeing etc. They stop getting dopamine releases from the addictive behaviors and drop into potentially serious states of depression leading to suicide. The more typical scenario of someone who is really good at working through the week with some exercise throughout and with drinks on the weekends who can develop depression, burnout, and drops in motivation: This person will only be drinking 1-2 nights per week but may be spiking their dopamine with food during the middle of the week, swimming in the ocean in the middle of the week as well going out dancing on the weekend. On the surface, it sounds like a pretty balanced life. The problem is that dopamine is not just evoked by one of these activities but by all of them. Dopamine is one currency of craving motivation and desire and pleasure. Looking at the activities at face value and saying the drinking is just on the weekends, the food is only in the middle of the week as is the dancing and ocean swimming doesn't reveal what's really going on. Looking at dopamine simply as a function of peaks and baseline it makes sense why this person after several years of this work hard play hard lifestyle would say they're feeling quite burnt out. There are age-related reasons for why people can experience drops in energy but often they're spiking their dopamine through so many different activities throughout the week that their baseline is progressively dropping. This drop in baseline can be very subtle and sinister in that it's imperceptible until it reaches a threshold of low dopamine where we feel we can't really get pleasure from anything anymore. This begins to look the same as more severe and acute addictions to things like cocaine and amphetamine. We should all of course engage in activities we enjoy, it's a huge part of life, the key thing is to understand this relationship between peaks and baseline and how they influence one another. Once you understand this you can begin making really good choices in the short and long term to maintain or raise your dopamine baseline and still have peaks with feelings of elevated motivation, desire, and craving. Those peaks and having a sufficiently high baseline are what drove the evolution of our species as well as the evolution of any individual's life progression. What should you do if you've experienced a drop in your baseline level of dopamine because of engaging in activities or substances that led to big peaks over prolonged periods of time? The child of one of Huberman's friends after becoming addicted to video games decided to do a 30-day fast from his phone, video games, and social media of all kinds. He's now at day 29 and not incidentally his levels of concentration and mood have improved. This is hard to do, particularly in the first 14 days but the way you replenish this releasable pool of dopamine is to not engage in these dopaminergic seeking behaviors for a substantial period of time. He thought initially that he had ADHD and was being treated for it, while there are many people with ADHD it is likely that many people are simply suffering from low dopamine levels and cannot concentrate adequately or have appropriate levels of motivation. Tapering or quitting the dopamine-evoking behaviors is the best strategy to adopt. 01:07:50 Tool 5 Ensure Your Best (Healthy) Dopamine Release Certain substances like cocaine and amphetamine should be avoided and categorized as unhealthy Other things like food, chocolate, coffee, sex, etc. are all a part of life and aren't 'bad' per se but need to be engaged with appropriately. How can we achieve the peaks that are an essential component of our enjoyment of life without dropping our baseline? The key lies in the intermittent release of dopamine Do not expect or chase high levels of dopamine every time we engage in these activities. Intermittent rewards schedules are the central schedules by which casinos keep you gambling, elusive partners keep you pursuing and texting (on either side of the relationship), and the internet, social media, and all highly engaging activities keep you motivated and in pursuit. Thinking back evolutionarily, not every trail, pursuit, or hunch about where to find rewards would have played out successfully. There is something called dopamine reward prediction error. When we expect something to happen we are highly motivated to pursue it. If it happens, great! We get various chemical rewards including dopamine and we are more likely to engage in that behavior again. You'll find there is something you are probably addicted to due to an intermittent schedule by which dopamine sometimes arrives in various amounts. This is the best schedule to export to other activities. How do you do this? If you are engaged in activities like school, sports relationships, etc. where you experience a win, you should be very careful about allowing yourself to experience huge peaks in dopamine unless you're willing to suffer the crash that follows. In the practical sense, this might look like having coffee or pre-workout or music with your exercise regiment at random intervals. You just do the exercise on its own sometimes without increasing dopamine through exogenous sources as well. If you want to maintain motivation for school, exercise, sports, and relationships for any duration the key thing is to make sure that the peak in dopamine (if high) doesn't occur very often, and if it does occurs often you vary how much dopamine you experience with each engagement in that activity. Some activities naturally have this intermittent property woven into them. Sometimes we have classes we like and others we don't We don't always get straight A's, or the perfect relationship outcome, etc. How much motivation and pleasure you derive from what comes next is dictated by how much motivation and pleasure you experienced prior. You can't give a very specific protocol like delete or limit dopamine every third time is that it wouldn't be intermittent. It should be random and unpredictable. 01:15:28 Smart Phones: How They Alter Our Dopamine Circuits The Smartphone is a very interesting tool for dopamine in light of all this It's extremely common to see people using their smartphones for various things while they're engaged in other activities. This doesn't just affect our level of focus and engagement with any particular activity, but it's also a way of layering in dopamine and it's no surprise that levels of depression and lack of motivation are really on the increase. Everything discussed up to this point sets up an explanation or interpretation of why interacting with digital technologies can potentially lead to disruptions in our baseline levels of dopamine. Huberman noticed that if he brought his phone to his workouts, not only was he slightly more distracted, but also he lost interest in what he was doing, it didn't feel as pleasurable. As he started learning more about this relationship between peaks and baseline levels of dopamine, he realized some time ago he probably experienced an incredible increase in his level of dopamine during one of his workouts while working out and listening to music, or podcasts, and communicating with people. He had layered in too many of them too many times and eventually it wasn't working for him anymore. We often interpret this increase in phone usage as an inability to be alone nowadays, but in Huberman's opinion, we have simply achieved a great increase in dopamine levels through technology and are now addicted to the point of constantly needing the next hit without ever achieving the same levels of fulfillment as in the past. Try to remove multiple sources of dopamine release from activities that you want to continue to enjoy or to enjoy more. This can be very challenging during the first week or so. 01:19:45 Stimulants & Spiking Dopamine: Counterproductive for Work, Exercise & Attention For this very same reason, it's wise to avoid using stimulants every time you study, workout, or do anything that you want to continue to enjoy or be motivated towards. Caffeine is an exception because it can make whatever dopamine is released by an activity more accessible to your neurons without affecting your baseline too much. However, a number of energy drinks and pre-workout supplements contain things that are precursors to dopamine and do cause the release of dopamine to a substantial degree. Over time this will deplete your dopamine levels. Taking stimulants and then engaging in activities will inevitably result in challenges with motivation and drive related to those activities. Intermittent dopamine spiking schedules are the way to go if you do it at all, chronically doing so in order to enhance your focus motivation, and drive will absolutely undermine your motivation focus and drive in the long run. 01:22:20 Caffeine Sources Matter: Yerba Mate & Dopamine Neuron Protection Caffeine is something of an exception because it increases the density and efficacy of dopamine receptors. The source of caffeine could be important. Yerba Mate, contains caffeine, is high in antioxidants, and contains something called GLP-1 which is useful for the management of blood sugar levels. It has also been found to be neuroprotective, specifically for dopaminergic neurons (only a few studies have been done) in both the movement and motivation-related pathways. 01:24:20 Caffeine & Neurotoxicity of MDMA MDMA is under investigation for its potential to treat trauma and depression in various clinical studies, it's also a drug that's used recreationally and illegally. Whether or not MDMA is neurotoxic has been quite controversial, early on it was thought to destroy serotonergic neurons. One of the early papers making this claim was retracted as the study mistakenly used methamphetamine instead of MDMA. Caffeine however has been found to increase the toxicity of MDMA due to its upregulation of these dopamine receptors and can be dangerous in this context, while beneficial in another context. 01:26:15 Amphetamine, Cocaine & Detrimental Rewiring of Dopamine Circuits Amphetamine and cocaine can cause long-term problems with the dopaminergic pathways. Paper Amphetamine or cocaine limits the ability of later experience to promote structural plasticity in the neocortex and nucleus accumbens Neuroplasticity is the brain's ability to change and adapt and is the basis of learning, memory, and remodeling of our neurocircuitry in positive ways. This study was one of the first to show that ingesting amphetamine and cocaine because of the high peaks and low dopamine baselines that they generate limits plasticity and learning. This was shown to be a long-lasting effect, unlikely permanent but should serve as a serious cautionary note that amphetamine and cocaine not only can drop baseline levels of dopamine but limits the brain's ability to learn and change itself to get better at least for some period of time. 01:27:57 Ritalin, Adderall, (Ar)Modafinil: ADHD versus non-Prescription Uses A previous episode on ADHD talked about the widespread use of drugs like Adderall, Ritalin, modafinil, and armodafinil which all lead to very large increases in dopamine. For people with ADHD, this can really improve their symptoms. There is a lot of non-prescription and non-clinical use of these substances as well. It stands to reason that the use of these substances could provide the same blockade of plasticity that cocaine and amphetamine do because the amount of dopamine release that's triggered by these compounds is comparable. 01:28:45 Tool 6 Stimulating Long-Lasting Increases in Baseline Dopamine Having covered some of the darker aspects of dopamine and how getting big peaks can be detrimental, it's time to acknowledge its virtues and how good it makes us feel. Being in pursuit and motivated and craving things feels wonderful, and shouldn't be demonized. There are activities that we can do that will give us healthy, sustained increases in both the peaks and the baseline levels of dopamine. In recent years there has been a trend of more people doing cold exposure in part popularised by Wim Hof, cold showers, icebaths exposing oneself to cold water of various kinds can in fact increase our level of dopamine and norepinephrine. This is not a new phenomenon, in the 1920's Vincent Priessnitz was one of the first people to popularise and formalize cold water therapies. He was an advocate of cold water exposure to boost the immune system and increase feelings of well-being. Safety parameters should be established first. Getting into very cold water at 30-40F can put people into a state of cold water shock leading to death. For most people getting into 50-60F water or if you're acclimated to 30-40F water can have tremendously beneficial effects on your neuromodulator systems including dopamine. What temperature of water you can tolerate will depend on how adapted you are and how familiar you are with the experience of getting into cold water. There is never a case in which getting into cold water does not release a dose of epinephrine The quickening of the breath, widening of the eyes, and the feeling of being breathless happens almost every time for everyone. This wall is always coming and there isn't really a way of getting around it. Study published in the European Journal of applied physiology looked at people getting into water that was warm moderately cold or very cold. 32C 20C or 14C and the concentrations of epinephrine and dopamine. Upon getting into cold water the changes in adrenaline and noradrenaline were immediate and large, interestingly however dopamine levels started to rise slowly and then continued to rise and reach levels as high as 2.5 times above baseline. This is comparable to what one sees in cocaine use, except in this case it wasn't a rise and crash. It was a sustained increase that took a very long time (up to 3 hours to come back to baseline) which is really remarkable. This explains some of the positive mental and physical effects that people report after doing cold water exposure. There was an increase in stress hormone release in cold water exposure but what was interesting was that it was transitory. There are two different approaches to remaining in the cold when it's uncomfortable 1 is to try and relax, practice slow breathing dilate your gaze 2 increase your level of autonomic arousal and force yourself into it The approach to getting into the water doesn't matter for the sake of dopamine release. In the study people stayed in the cold for an hour, this could be dangerous at low water temperatures and could lead to hypothermia. It's well established that getting into cold water whether it's a shower, ice bath, circulating cold water, stream, etc. evokes the norepinephrine release immediately and the long arch of dopamine release. This is good because it appears to raise the baseline of dopamine release for substantial periods of time and most people report feeling a heightened level of calm and focus after getting out of cold water. Once doing this begins to feel comfortable then it doesn’t appear to evoke this release, there seems to be something in the pathway from cold water exposure through the norepinephrine pathway and into the mesolimbic brainstem that causes this release in dopamine. It's basically a zero-cost way of triggering a long-lasting release of dopamine without ingesting anything. Approach it with safety and caution in mind. 01:37:55 Tool 7 Tuning Your Dopamine for Ongoing Motivation The positive and negative aspects of rewards from behaviors can illuminate a better approach to achieving a better relationship between your activities and the dopamine system, enabling you to tune it up for discipline, hard work, and motivation. Hard work is hard and is something that most people don't generally like. Most people work hard in order to achieve some end goal. End goals and rewards are terrific whether or not they are monetary, social Because dopamine relates to our perception of time, working hard at something for the sake of a reward that comes afterward can make it much more challenging and make us much less likely to lean into hard work in the future. Researchers took children who enjoyed drawing and began giving them rewards for drawing, then stopped giving them the rewards and found the children had a much lower tendency to draw on their own. This relates to intrinsic vs extrinsic reinforcements Prior to receiving these rewards, these children were intrinsically motivated to draw. When we receive rewards for something, even when we give ourselves rewards, we tend to associate less pleasure with the activity itself. This seems counterintuitive but its bases on the peaks and baseline relationships in dopamine levels. If you get a peak of dopamine from a reward, it will lower your baseline and the cognitive interpretation is that you didn't really do the activity because you enjoy it, you did it for the reward. It's important to understand that dopamine controls our perception of time. When and how much dopamine we experience is the way we carve up our subjective experience of time. When we engage in hard work of any kind, because of the reward we are going to give ourselves at the end we actually extend the time bin over which we are perceiving that experience of work. Because the reward comes at the end we start to dissociate the circuits for dopamine reward that would have normally been active during the activity and because it all arrives at the end, over time we have the experience of less and less pleasure from that particular activity while engaged in it. This is the antithesis of the 'growth mindset' Caroll Dweck came up with this principle of striving to be better where striving itself is the end goal and this delivers tremendous performance long term. People who have the growth mindset have been observed to end up performing very well because they're focused on the effort itself. All of us can cultivate a growth mindset The neural mechanism of cultivating the growth mindset involves learning to access the rewards from effort and doing. This is hard to do because you have to engage the prefrontal component of the mesocorticolimbic circuit, telling yourself the effort is great, and pleasurable, even though you might be in a state of discomfort. You can find over time that you can begin to evoke dopamine release from the friction and challenge you find yourself in. You completely eliminate the ability to generate those circuits and the process of being able to reward friction while in the effort if you are focused only on the goal at the end, because of the way that dopamine marks time. If you say you're going to do this hard thing and push and push and push for the end goal, not only do you enjoy the process less, you make it more painful while you are engaged in it, and less efficient at it because dopamine levels will be lower and dopamine has these incredibly stimulating effects for our mind and bodies, and you undermine your ability to lean back into this activity the next time. Next time you need twice as much coffee and three times as much music and the social connection just to get out the door and do what you need to do. What serves as a tremendous amplifier on all endeavors that you engage in, especially hard endeavors is to stop layering in exogenous sources of dopamine to get to the starting line and to continue, but rather to subjectively start to attach the feeling of friction and effort to an internally generated reward system. This is not meant to be vague, it exists in your mind and biology and has existed in humans for hundreds of thousands of years. You are not just pursuing things that are innately pleasurable, food, sex, warmth, water etc. but the beauty of the mesocorticolimbic pathway is that it includes the forebrain and you can tell yourself the effort part is the good part. What's beautiful about this system is that it begins to become reflexive for all types of effort. In those moments of the most intense friction you tell yourself 'this is very painful and because it's painful it will evoke an increase in dopamine release later, but that in that moment you are doing it by choice and because you love it' In some ways, this is lying to yourself but it's lying to yourself in the context of a truth which is that you want it to feel better, you want it to feel pleasurable. This is very different from thinking of the reward that comes at the end. We revere people who are capable of doing this David Goggins comes to mind as an example, many people are probably familiar with. There's no question that in the past we revered people who were willing to go out and forage and hunt and gather and caretake in ways that other members of our species would rather have avoided. The ability to access this pleasure from the effort aspect of our dopaminergic circuitry is without question the most powerful aspect of dopamine and our biology of it. The beautiful thing is that it's accessible to all of us. Don't spike dopamine prior to engaging in effort, and don’t' spike dopamine after engaging in effort, learn to spike it from the effort itself. 01:47:40 Tool 8 Intermittent Fasting: Effects on Dopamine Intermittent fasting is an example of people attaching dopamine to effort and strain as opposed to a process or reward that naturally evokes dopamine release. This is popular nowadays with various time intervals that people adopt. Many people find it easier to not eat at all than to eat small portions of food, this has everything to do with the dopamine-rewarding properties of food. When we ingest food our dopamine levels rise and typically can cause cravings for more. Fasting from the perspective of dopamine schedules Typically when we eat we get dopamine release, especially when we are very hungry because deprivation states influence the way that our reward circuitry works. Our experience of dopamine is heightened when our receptors haven't received much of it recently. When you fast and then finally eat, it evokes more dopamine release and heightened sensitivity to that reward. People also begin to evoke dopamine release from the effort of fasting itself This is likely why fasting has been practiced for so long because it increases the rewarding properties of food as well as those of deprivation. A lot of the knowledge of the benefits of fasting serve as reinforcing and amplifying aspects to the rewarding aspects of fasting. If people are deep into their fast and are telling themselves their blood lipid profiles are improving along with their insulin sensitivity, longevity etc. they are enhancing the rewarding properties of the behaviour of fasting. This is a salient example of where 'knowledge of knowledge' can help us change these deep primitive circuits related to dopamine and how the forebrain can be used to shape the very circuits that are involved in generating reward for what otherwise would just be primitive hardwired behaviors. Rewards are not only attached to more primitive drives like food or sex or warmth but also to things we decide are good for us. 01:53:09 Validation of Your Pre-Existing Beliefs Increases Dopamine Hearing something that reinforces one's prior beliefs actually can evoke dopamine release. The dopamine pathway is so vulnerable to subjective interpretation that it actually makes it such that when we see or hear something that validates a belief we already have we experience pleasure and reward. 01:53:50 Tool 9 Quitting Sugar & Highly Palatable Foods: 48 Hours If you ingest something you like and then something even sweeter or more savory then you go back to the food you ate previously you won't like it as much. This shift in perception can be stopped by blocking the shift in dopamine This really speaks to the experience of the peaks and valleys of dopamine where the pleasure you derive from anything is going to depend on your prior experience of things that evoke dopamine. A big dopamine release makes it more challenging to experience big dopamine releases in the future. Dopamine is one of those things you don't want too high or too low for too long. Highly palatable foods will make whole foods taste much less rewarding for at least a period of a few days. This speaks to dopamine being a universal currency of pleasure that establishes value not just on what you are experiencing in the moment, but what you experienced in the days and minutes before. 01:55:36 Pornography Now you understand how your current level relates to your previous experience of dopamine and how it will connect to your future level of dopamine. It should become obvious why things such as pornography, its accessibility, and its intensity can negatively shape real-world romantic and sexual interactions. This is a serious concern and the underlying neurobiological mechanisms you now understand. Any activity that evokes a lot of dopamine release will make it harder to achieve the same level and greater level of dopamine through a subsequent interaction. Many people are addicted to pornography and many people who regularly engage in it experience challenges in real-world romantic interactions. 01:56:50 Wellbutrin & Depression & Anxiety There are circumstances in which increasing dopamine levels is desirable, advantageous, and clinically helpful. Wellbutrin also called Bupropion increases dopamine and nor-epinephrine. It was developed as an alternative treatment for depression because some people who take SSRI's suffer from serotonin-related side effects like decreased appetite, libido, or increased appetite, etc. Wellbutrin seems to avoid the sexual side effects, it can blunt appetite because of the increases in norepinephrine and dopamine increases motivation and craving but also creates a state of alertness that can sometimes get in the way of healthy eating. It can increase anxiety because of the way that dopamine and nor-epinephrine are stimulating and tend to place people into heightened levels of alertness. 01:58:30 Tool 10 Mucuna Pruriens, Prolactin, Sperm, Crash Warning There are many people who are seeking to increase their baseline levels of dopamine without taking any prescription pharmaceutical compounds. There are many supplements that now exist to achieve this. Mucuna Puriens is from a velvety bean whose contents are l-dopa which is the precursor to dopamine. If you take it you will experience very large increases in dopamine that are transient The constellations of effects look a lot like the effects of l-dopa The most obvious use is in the context of Parkinson's, at least 5 studies have shown that they can reduce the symptoms of Parkinsons much in the same way l-dopa does It can reduce a hormone called prolactin which tends to be in a push-pull relationship with dopamine. Prolactin is involved in the milk letdown of women and the refractory period for sex after ejaculation in males. It has a number of other effects that lie in the sex and reproduction pathway that are worth noting It increases sperm concentrations and quality (4 studies) Useful for people seeking to conceive children with nonprescription compounds It's important to be aware that almost every time you consume a substance that increases dopamine by being a precursor to dopamine there is almost inevitably a crash or reduction in the baseline that we referred to previously. For this reason, many people have turned to L-tyrosine. 02:01:45 Tool 11 L-Tyrosine: Dosages, Duration of Effects & Specificity L-tyrosine is an amino acid precursor to l-dopa so it lies further up the dopamine synthesis pathway and it's very common that people take it to feel more energized alert and focused. There are data that show it will accomplish that It's typically taken in capsule or powder form in anywhere from 500-1000mg It is a potent stimulus for increasing dopamine and the timescale for that increase is about 30-45 minutes after ingestion, and after about 30 minutes the effects dissipated. 02:05:20 Tool 12 Avoiding Melatonin Supplementation, & Avoiding Light 10pm-4am Things that can reduce your baseline levels of dopamine should also be mentioned One that is rarely discussed is melatonin Melatonin can help one get to sleep but not stay asleep Dr. Matt Walker, in their discussion of melatonin, has generally stated that the use of melatonin except for the treatment of jet lag is not really a good idea. It's not often thought about as impacting the dopamine pathway, however, there is at least one study Michiama 2001 Acute effects of melatonin administration on cardiovascular autonomic regulation in healthy men - K Nishiyama et. al found a statistically significant decrease in dopamine 60 minutes after melatonin administration. Viewing bright lights between 10 pm and 4 am has been shown to reduce dopamine levels for several days after that light exposure. 02:07:00 Tool 13 Phenylethylamine (with Alpha-GPC) For Dopamine Focus/Energy PEA is a compound that you've probably taken without realizing it that increases dopamine It's found in various foods (e.g. chocolate) and can increase synaptic levels of dopamine. Huberman takes 500mg of PEA every once in a while as a work aide with 300mg of alpha-GPC, leading to a sharp but transitory increase in dopamine that he's found to be much more regulated and even than something like l-tyrosine and certainly something like mucuna purines. 02:08:20 Tool 14 Huperzine A Huperzine A is a compound that's gaining popularity as a so-called neutropic It's a compound sold over the counter in the USA that can increase Achetyl choline transmission (a different neuromodulator entirely) Interestingly it somehow by way of interaction between the cholinergic system and the dopaminergic system leads to increases in dopamine in the medial prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. Huberman recommends against people simply diving in and consuming things without gaining knowledge about how they function and whether or not their appropriate for you as an individual. In the years to come, we are likely to see a lot more of l-tyrosine, PEA, and Huperzine A as a way of tapping into the dopaminergic and cholinergic circuits along with things like Alpha-gpc as nonprescription short-lived milder alternatives to things that really spike dopamine like Adderall, Ritalin, modafinil, armodafinil etc. 02:10:02 Social Connections, Oxytocin & Dopamine Release One more result that's not related to pharmacology but for behaviors and social interactions A very interesting and important finding made a few years ago by Rob Melanka showed that oxytocin and social connections are directly stimulating the dopamine pathway. For many years the scientific community at large would hear and think that oxytocin was in the serotonergic pathway, that it was about pair-bonding and that some of the neuromodulators that were more associated with things related to feeling good with what we have in the 'present moment' which is typically what we think of with regards the opioid or serotonergic system. The dopamine system is about seeking and reward. Paper published in 2017 in the journal Science, Gating of social reward by oxytocin in the ventral tegmental area - Malenka et. al. found that oxytocin social connection and pair bonding itself triggers dopamine release, For the evolution of our species and any species where social connections are important, it's also important to go and seek social connections. While it's fun to think about pharmacology and underlying neurobiology, neurocircuitry and cold water baths, dopamine schedules and rewards mechanisms attaching a reward to effort, and the various things we've talked about today in terms of various scientific tools and protocols, it would be to remiss not to emphasize those close social connections that evoke oxytocin release (romantic, parent-child, friendships, and friends at a distance) are central to stimulating the dopamine pathways. The take-home message is quite simple, engage in and pursue quality, healthy social interactions. 02:12:20 Direct & Indirect Effects: e.g., Maca; Synthesis & Application A lot of things have been covered today with a focus on a lot of things that lie directly within the dopamine pathway and circuitries as well as the things that directly stimulate those pathways and circuitries. What hasn't been covered are things that indirectly serve those pathways. On the internet and the literature, you will find that things like maca root and the gut microbiome can increase dopamine They do by creating an environment in which dopamine and dopamine circuits can flourish. Maca is a good example of this as it will reduce cortisol and through some indirect pathways related to cortisol can increase dopamine but it's not a direct increase in dopamine, as a consequence it's rather subtle compared to the various compounds and behaviors that have been discussed. Cold water exposure for example leads to huge and sustained increases in dopamine. There is lot of information that might be overwhelming but the most important thing to understand is that these dopamine pathways really are under your control. The locus of control resides in the fact that your previous levels of dopamine are influencing your levels of dopamine right now and your current levels of dopamine and where you take them next will influence your dopamine levels in the days and weeks to come. With the mechanisms that you now have learned and some of the tools to tap into the dopaminergic system, both behavioral, and pharmacological that you'll have a better understanding of your dopaminergic system with a greater ability to control it.

@Phil777 I agree with you, anyone can do more or less whatever they want online. However given that this particular space of content creators and forum users has an above average tendency to randomly go off the rails, and in some cases commit suicide, spontaneous changes in behaviour can be worrying It’s better to err on the side of caution and check in with people who suddenly change their behaviour in general, but in particular in this space on the internet I certainly don’t think it was unwarranted to at least be slightly confused or concerned that something had happened

Looking at childhood pictures, watching your favorite movie, eating your favorite ice cream after having not eaten any junk food for years, posing with a gun; throw a vaporizer with unlimited amounts of highly potent psychedelics in the mix and you have your 21st century schizoid men suicide starterpack. You can always turn around. I hope he realises this in time.

Yes, I feel the same. It feels very different and very sudden. But maybe like @Vynce and @LSD-Rumi said - he wouldn't just go straight to insane/suicidal in one day, but it would have shown earlier. But I don't know, when did he post all those netflix post on the blog. usually, he doesn't post mutually posts there on the same day, right? It's just when Wave became manic before his suicide one sign was that he posted weird things all the time, every hour. So that's why I'm thinking like this. but maybe it is just projections. I would just really hate it if something is actually wrong. But we can't really do anything when we are not his friends irl, so it's so frustrating right now. I wish I could just call him.

Okay. That's a good way to look at it, if it went really bad it would be going on for longer. Okay. Yes, I'm probably projecting my insecurities, you are right. I just felt I had to express my thoughts to you. Because of what I wrote earlier, I would feel really bad if he did it and I hadn't expressed my worries. Even though you are correct, since you have had God's realizations, I don't get why you wouldn't communicate in a more loving manner to me when I clearly feel anxious? - projections or not. It's not just "wtf" people actually do commit suicide sometimes just from one day to another <3

The point of this work should not be to one-up each other on who went "deeper." This will inevitably end in the psychward or in suicide. I think we all lost our way to some degree, as to what we are actually in this for. We are the leading edge of evolution and I don't think we are taking enough responsibility for this currently (that is if you care about humanity and this world at all).

It could be social acceptance, but I intuit that to be not the case. I don't see why acceptance in particular would only apply to females, but I can think of reasons for why females might fall for these kinds of ideologies. We know suicide rates for young teenage girls has skyrocketed since the advent of social media, and it seems that there is a particular effect it has on them. We are also creating a kind shadow out of femininity culturally speaking, and the arguments provided by the woman in the video seem valid to me, with the psychology of teenage girls working different from boys (with the cutting aspect for example). Women already feel disadvantaged in society due to them being women, and we are continually spreading the message that to be a woman means to be fundamentally oppressed, and to be a man is to be fundamentally privileged and oppressive. And when we are talking about child history of dysphoria, I am assuming they mean that the teenagers themselves, who want to transition, do not report any child history of dysphoria, otherwise it wouldn't make sense to assert that there is no child history of dysphoria. I think MrGirl is almost spot on as far as this question goes, and people who are in denial about this seem to be borderline delusional to me. Certainly we cannot justify the confidence with which current claims about the underlying reality of this phenomena are made, yet when that confidence is questioned, you are automatically viewed as bigoted and transphobic. That alone should be a huge red flag. If I use my empathy, and I try to put myself in the position of a young teenage girl, I can see why I would want to change my gender. Let's say I am not on the level of attractivness as other women are, and with social media, I am constantly confronted about this. I already hate my body because I am going through puberty, society is telling me that women are oppressed, and not only that, the culture I live in communicates to me that being cys is being boring. I can see my friends on social media making fun of cys people, and trying to differentiate themselves from the white "normies", which is basically considered the bigotted oppressor class. So, I am depressed, I probably hate my body, I hate my role in society because everyone talks about victimhood, and I now have the opportunity to jump on the bandwagon and become special just by claiming that I am non-binary, or whatever else. Once I am, I not only have found an explanation for why I feel like I do not fit into society, I now am part of another group which will respect my identity as it is fundamentally protected within that culture. In fact, I would be very surprised, with my knowledge of how teenagers work, if it was not that case that a significant portion would be doing the gender thing in the same exact manner as people did with the emo, goth and so forth movements when we were young. That's just what teenagers do, especially the ones who are outcasts in society. The fact that the advocacy is moving towards self-ID just further indicates to me that this is not really grounded in the phenomena of gender dysphoria. Combine this with the fact that people can create their own echo chambers today, and can receive significant social validation for what they do, and you basically harm individuals because, something which should have been just an exploration of identity, suddenly becomes a dysfunction they carry into their adulthood. Remember, we didn't have that as children, because we didn't have social media. When we were being stupid teenagers, we didn't get world-wide validation from it, we didn't get to feel incredibly special, with people incentivized to signal to us their support and love for our delusions. As a teenager I had a phase where I bought into conspiracy theories, imagine if I had social media back then, with an endless ocean of people trying to validate what I am saying. Rather than a phase, it could have become a permanent part of my identity, that's the danger of social media. The issue I have is that, teenagers, and young adults, have all sorts of reasons for adopting certain identities, but the only reason that you are allowed to consider is whatever falls in line with the cultural dogma. You can't doubt their motivations, as if teenagers and children we wise. Teenagers and children are extremely impressionable, they are very susceptible to these kinds of cultural movements. But of course, if you lack genuine empathy for individuals, you don't care what will happen to them. It's far more comfortable to go along with the cultural dogma, and not to question it at all. In my eyes, most of what is happening within this sphere is extremely toxic, it's precisely the opposite of growth. It's so sad because, we realized that identities are constructed, and instead of realizing that we ought not to be so attached to them, we instead did the precise opposite. We created new categories, new identities, and we are more attached to them than we have ever been before. There is so much self delusion too, people genuinely think they are gaining happiness from constructing these identities. But we all know that once you threaten them, they will flail around in fear, because of how attached and needy their are towards that contracted identity. They are like hyper-masochistic guys, all you need to do to threaten their entire existence is to question their identity. This of course will lead to suffering, and that suffering eventually will lead to wisdom. But it will be easier for those individuals if they have people who can lead them towards the next steps, because with no alternative, wisdom is not guaranteed.

Okay, I'm just extra watchful of this because I lost someone to suicide who behaved like this, very deep ecstasy can be dangerous. But I see your point. I guess it's a matter of it continuing or not.

Well, maybe you are right, but then we should be worried. His behavior of posting weird stuff every hour seems like a manic episode to me. In the worst-case scenario, it could result in suicide. Do we know if anyone in here is physically friends with him?

@Scholar I'm asking you a very cuthroat question and you're constantly trying to evade my argument. You haven't scientifically proved your point. Why should I believe you when you say it's unhealthy to want to be trans. But where is the Proof that it's unhealthy ? This is simply your opinion. You think it's unhealthy. But are there any studies to back up your claim ? Where is the valid proof that it's unhealthy to want to be another gender? Show me your claim. For example if I said that smoking is unhealthy for lungs, I'm making a legit claim. I can show you X ray scans of human lungs after years of smoking that show shriveling and degradation. Leading to death due to asphyxiation.. But where is the link between trans lifestyle and health degradation ? If a trans person committed suicide, it's generally not because they chose to be trans, but because they were frustrated that society didn't want to accept them and they felt like an outcast. and we all know that being discriminated or treated like an outcast can lead to feelings of unworthiness just like racism does.. So it's legit that a trans person would feel depressed and suicidal. These feelings have little to do with their choice of gender change and more to do with how society chooses to perceive them. Explain your argument please.

Great. And now my brother is suicidal. He has been thinking about suicide for over a year now. But every time he talks to me about it, it seems to be getting more serious in his mind than before. I don't know what to tell him. I try to comfort and take an understanding approach. It does not work well most of the times. The only thing that seems to be working is when I paint him a picture of a better future, where his problems might be solved and life is a little bit easier. Most recently, he told me some specific ideas about what he would want to happen after he commits suicide. He's looking for a way to make his body completely disappear so that nobody would have to deal with burial and that kind of stuff. He said he would also leave a note on what to do with his personal stuff. These are not good signs. He is not joking around. He's in great pain, and I know it. We live in the same room. We're basically together 24/7. I really don't know what to do in such situations. It seems impossible for me to talk any sense into him. Sometimes I tell him that my life is way more miserable than his, and that despite that I don't think about killing myself. I'm alluding to the possibility of ego death that I want him to see, but unfortunately he's unable to. He dismisses all of spirituality as hippy nonsense. Medication is not a solution for him either. He doesn't want to take anything, even for his OCD, which is milder but seems to be contributing to the overall problem. I don't particularly feel attached to him at this point. I have already accepted the fact that he might actually do it someday. If he kills himself, well then. But I still have a bias, and prefer if he stays alive.

Where'd you get that from?? According to https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/suicide-rate-by-country Finland has a suicide rate of 15.3, while the US has 16.1 As a Finnish person I hear this very often even in Finland. I'm not sure why it has stuck as a meme for so long that Finland has a very high suicide rate, even though it's actually not true. I think it just stuck from the 90's and early 00's since back then Finland actually had a really high suicide rate due to Nokia going bust and other stuff.

That is what you call freedom. That is unconditional love. God loves you regardless of what you do, no matter what you do. Why? Because God is you. There is one restriction God has....It is impossible for God to not love itself. The truth is, its also the same for you. It is impossible for you to not love yourself. You have never not loved yourself. Even Suicide is an expression of love. Suicide is the belief that you are separated from love (which is you) so you kill yourself because that is what you most desire. Without Love you cannot exist, so you kill yourself because you think you lack what you need to exist. Love is the answer to everything. There is nothing to do but love, there is nothing to be but love, and all things that ever happened have been love, love is all there is. Leo did a whole video on Self-Love being the highest teaching. How to know you are trapped in delusion/illusion? You are not embodying the highest expressions of love. Love and knowledge and wisdom are the same. So is will as well. So Love, Knowledge, Wisdom, Truth, Will all are the same. Leo should do a video on what is beauty and what is fun lol and maybe what is funny/comedy to god.

Finland: Rank 1 happiness. Also Finland: Rank 5 suicide rate.

I'm really starting to feel like suicide is the most talked about subject on this forum outside of Spirituality. Its like either Spirituality or Suicide Ideation.....

I have this feeling chronically all day every day. I've had experiences of the other side and it felt much more unified and loving than it does here and I have a longing for that sense of love and wholeness that isn't obtainable in this world as the person that I am now. What stops me is that I have family members who would probably blame themselves, and they did cause many of my complications later in life to be quite honest, but I can't stand the idea of them having to find my body and live the rest of their lives in pain because of what I had done. I know that there is karma to be worked out on the other side, and I don't want to add to my karma by making other people miserable and then having to wait around for them to die to explain to them the pain that I was in. I also have some pets that would be confused and sad if I just disappeared one day. I've experienced what felt like my family on the other side before and although I don't remember them and don't know who they are, I miss them quite a lot and wish to get back to a place where imagination and fun and love are the predominant moving forces. So I spend my days contemplating, working through the fear and building on my death so that when the time comes it is something to be celebrated. I have a partner on the other side, I have a "pack" of other souls and wish to celebrate another level of existence with all of them. I feel frustrated with myself for having mental, emotional and physical problems and I don't have the adaptation or the energy to change. I think there is hope, but that hope lies in death. I think it will be a sweet, somewhat sadomasochistic release of a lot of pent up pain and confusion. I think there will be a sense of knowing and growth and ability that we don't have here in this world. But I also think that part of the process of this life is living it to the end, even if it's hard and even if you don't want to. I think that suicide could ruin the surprise, like opening a birthday present too early. But who knows. If consciousness has a plan for everything and is aware of the comings and goings of everything, then why would suicide be a surprise? Should it not be included in the experiences we set out to have? I don't know. What I do know is that we have a purpose while we are here, that our souls are meant to grow in awareness and that this world aids in the process of that. I just hope that when all is said and done, that I don't have to come back here ever again. I want to be wrapped up, warm, safe, loved, whole, capable, complete, genuine, free and fully spirited with powers greater than myself. Death will either be a wonderful experience, or nothing at all. But yeah, I do think about it a lot, I just can't do it because I know that the ramifications of my actions will create something that I don't want for myself or other people. I might do it after my parents pass away, and if God is good then my disease will just kill me sooner rather than later and I won't have to worry about any of this, I can just go. Like a free get out of class card. I wish the world was fun, loving, safe, connected and peaceful but it's not and it takes people away from who they really are. I've lost my spark. My desire to progress in any meaningful way and one day blends into the next. There has to be something better for everyone on the other side. I have a strong faith in this.

If you truly and carefully do the work and open your heart to GOD/source/infinite intelligence/infinite creativity, then you will discover more and more that miracles become commonplace and vice versa. You will see like @jimwell is saying: In the end, work is work, also if that work is exciting, also if that work is art. I can tell you this from experience because I've spent most of my 20s wishing for some of the "important-art-people" to "discover me" and see how "oh-so-amazing-and-talented" I am... Haha. And now it sort of happened, but you know... It happened a few months after I lost the love of my life to suicide, and that changed everything. Even though I'm so happy that I can freely spend my days doing art and feel financially secure from that atm, then it's worth nothing if I don't work on my grief, finding some appreciation for the smaller things in life. Another thing is that you make better art with an open heart and if you have life experience, having taught yourself how to feel connected to GOD, even though things seem dull or even painful. What is art? isn't it a form of telepathy when all comes down to it? You want other people to get a glimpse of a story or experience, or feeling you have lived. Then the art will be a million times better if you become a person worth learning something from. For example, someone that can see art and beauty even in things that seems mediocre to others. Another thing is that even with all the time and money in the world, you won't be able to spend the time properly, sitting down with yourself and making the art because being with yourself and your own inner life will be too painful if you haven't healed all the shit that is troubling you now. So grow up. This is life. If you are truly an artist to your core, you will be able to experience art (as in everything that exists) anywhere and enjoy it without needing to be the one that has made it. Amazing, you have to go be part of an interactive art constellation every day and play your part, and the artist is no other than the humble but very famous GOD ALMIGHTY. And you will even get paid? and maybe even get inspired to write beautiful songs? How fucking lucky you are. You can't make art if you don't live through mediocre things. Art is about love, grief, fear, etc. = ordinary things and the same old stories. And that is beautiful.

I don't know how to keep living with this. The reality is that I have to. I feel so alone; no one can experience this with me. I can tell our story a million times, but I can never hear it again because he is not here to tell it back. I woke up just now. Having spent yesterday at his parent's, I went to bed almost immediately after returning home. W talked for hours. So many things had happened during the half year we had the break. One thing is that there had been an episode where they had taken him to the psychiatric emergency department. He had been told he would get discharged almost immediately if they took him in, so he had declined it. His mom seemed angry about that. She said that even if that's the case, they shouldn’t necessarily say that because then, of course, he wouldn't go. Another thing is that the day of the suicide was the day before he had a scheduled appointment with a psychiatrist at the hospital. I don't know why for sure, but that information felt important to me, maybe because I have felt bad for not contacting his parents or pushing him more to get help. I'm not sure, maybe that's not completely it. And I know the system is fucked up. All they do is throw anti-depressants and sleep meds around everywhere instead of helping people heal the roots of the problems. He had been given some sleep medication, but he didn't want to take it, he only took half a dose because he was afraid to get addicted. And I'm like, wtf. Any addiction would be better than you doing this! and also, if you ingested so many weird health supplements, drugs, and medicines all the time, also illegal ones, then why couldn't you just try some fucking sleeping pills. It makes me so angry. They showed me his final letter. I became angry reading it, I haven't felt so much anger in this before. I had looked sort of forward to reading it. I thought it would help me understand better and get more closure, but I couldn't recognize his voice at all. It was two papers, not many words. He said he had an amazing life, amazing parents, and amazing friends, but that he couldn't sleep and couldn't take it anymore. He said he wasn't there, that he couldn't watch a movie or have conversations, he said life is beautiful, but only if you can be present, and that he couldn't be present, that he wasn't there anymore. But then. Why. not. just. do. the. fucking. fucking. fucking. sleeping. pills. There is this feeling. I have tried it a couple of times, where you are in the middle of a breakup fight, and you feel sad and scared, but beneath it all, you also feel a little bit excited about your decision and that things are going to change. But then the other part calms down, and you sit and sort of open your hearts to each other, and you feel connected. Then a part of you actually feels scared that you won't need to break up anyway, it's like a feeling deep down that you almost won't admit to yourself, and you might even say something that will ruin the connection or get the discussion starting again. I think he might have had that feeling, that he had made the decision and now he couldn't handle to change his plans, or he felt that tiny bit of excitement and probably a lot of relief, so he didn't want to put himself into a scenario that would make him change his mind, thinking he might have to go through all of this again at a later point. Now he just wanted to get it over with. At the end of the letter, he had written down a number to a tinder girl he had been seeing and a small message to her. I knew he was seeing her even when we thought about starting couples therapy. It hurt a lot, which was unexpected because usually, I have felt completely good about him having experiences with other girls. Maybe it's because I feel sad he didn't write anything to me. Maybe it's because I realize that he had grown closer to her, having spent a year and a half sort of dating her. His father told me they only spend time together on the weekends, and that is also how I understood it. As if it was mostly a sexual thing. Also, because he talked so much about our relationship while he had her, and the last time I saw him, he had just woken up from sleeping with some other girl even. I don't know, I feel stupid for obsessing so much over this. It's just that I'm so sorry that I wasn't there for those last six months and that she was there and got to know him right until the end. Wow, I feel so angry at her, It's a long time since I've felt jealous like this, not since high school. I feel like I could hit her. They gave me one of his hoodies and one of his t-shirts. It's so weird to see them lying on my floor as if he just took them off and went to the shower or something, as if he will be here in a minute. It's like he misses inside them. I don't know how I feel about them. In one way, I want to wear them all the time and never take them off, in another way, I want to put them away and never look at them again. His father told me that's how he has felt about pictures. He said he had been worried that it would be too difficult to have me visiting because when they look at me, they are so reminded of him, and also because I said I would bring the book I made with photographs. They really appreciated it. His dad was surprised in a good way when I said it was for them to keep. He said it multiple times. They invited me to come with them to their summerhouse next month, where they will spread his ashes out on the sea. I think it is the best idea. It was his brothers' idea. Wave in the Ocean. I said I would very much like to come and be a part of it but that I thought they should discuss it as a family and then let me know later if they still wanted me to come. I hope they won't change their minds, but their needs come first in this. I opened up to them about how I felt lonely in the grief because I wasn't part of his friend's group for real. They said they had thought about inviting the people from the funeral over for his birthday in the fall. I would like that, but fuck how much better it would be if it was just a regular birthday and he would be there. They also gave me back a birthday present I had given him once. it's an orbit mobile that resembles a planet with rings around it. I have hung it in the window over my bed, I looked at it while falling asleep yesterday. I feel mixed about it now because I feel sad looking at it, but it is also so pretty and reminds me so much of him and what we shared. I feel so ashamed, especially for the early part of our relationship, when we were 20-21. And it is from then that his parents remember me the most. I wasn't a very good girlfriend. I was picking on him a lot about small stupid things. I was so stupid and childish, I didn't know how to behave or be nice, and I didn't know anything about love. I was picking on him because he couldn't put up a hook for that stupid mobile. It had been lying under the bed for a long time. Then I said I would marry him if he ever actually put it up. But I didn't. I wish I could get just one more chance to love him. I know in some ways, you could say I get second chances all the time, for he is other people just as much as he was himself, and I can almost hear him say that in my head. But you know what I mean, I just wish I could kiss him. Him, exactly him. I tried to explain our complicated relationship a little bit to them, I think they got a better understanding of how big of a part of my life he was, even though we were apart a lot of the time. But I also think they thought it sounded crazy. I told his father how Wave had said to me that he needed to be with the tinder girl to learn some particular things and that I needed to be with someone else I slept with at that time to learn some other particular things, and he connected in with some astrological stuff, and then, when we had done that and learned those things, then we would be ready to be together. And his father just shook his head, saying that this was escaping from his fear into some sort of philosophical reveries, and it just hit me. That we think we are so special, so enlightened, so developed, but sometimes people who just live without thinking too much about it can teach us a lot, sometimes they are so much wiser, we kill ourselves from thinking too much trying to be Gods trying to plan and figure out, instead of just living as bodies. God's bodies, of course. But bodies. The last thing they gave me was the big yellow bowl he used to eat oatmeal in. It was his, I always got another one, a smaller, I'm not sure I have actually ever eaten from this one. It's stupid small things that matter. This experience has changed me so much and is changing me so much. I get scared, not knowing what to be sure of anymore. I'm so tired of him being dead, It's like a part of me thinks that it's something I'll have to endure for a couple of months, but it's not, it will never be over, at least not until I'm dead too. I thought this would give me closure, but It just opened up more things and more feelings. It's Sunday today. I don't know what to do with myself. There is no one else than myself that can sit with this feeling, but I'm so tired of trying to teach myself to be alone. I can never win. And now, there is a whole other dimension to that because if we haven't been so focused on teaching me to be alone and teaching him to be more outward, then maybe we could have ended up just as a normal couple. But I have to stop thinking about what if. I have to trust God, and I have to trust Wave I really really have to. And I just have to live. When I went home yesterday on the train, I, of course, felt it would be peaceful just to end it now as well, now I delivered the stories and the pictures, maybe I could also leave now and be in peace with him. But I'm thinking that if we were playing a video game together, and he died, he would maybe go get some snacks in the kitchen and then come sit beside me and watch me finish the game, cheering on me, he would think I was stupid if I turned the game off, maybe even right before the finish line, maybe we are very close to winning the game if I just hold on a little bit longer, and I have to keep my eyes on the screen, trusting that he sits there right beside me, but I can't look, I have to trust.

From my understanding (according to Buddhism or some other spiritual sources) sleep is related to death in that the last thought we have prior to falling asleep is the first we will have when we wake up and so in a similar way the state of mind in which you are in when you die will determine your next life (that is if reincarnation exists). However thought is just a form in the mind. Does the mind go on after death then? It seems quite contradicting and also a form of scare tactic. What are your thoughts on this and reincarnation in general? better than that what kind of direct experiences have you had meditating that lead you to believe what you do about reincarnation?

Maybe it’s just me but I resent my parents for creating me. Life will inevitably contain some pain, and for many an unbearable amount, from which the only escape is death. Suicide can be very difficult: a failed attempt can cause more suffering, and can cause it for those around the person doing it. No sane person would say we should subject an innocent being to undeserved suffering without consent . it’s unjust by societal standards, why should doing this to someone not yet alive be different? Since there is no possible way to get the consent of a being not yet alive, antinatalism seems like the only logical position.

Some of Schopenhauer's best insights were his ideas about the centrality of boredom. Boredom sits at the heart of the human condition. If we were in a survival situation, that is all we would be consumed with...the means to putting food in our mouth, getting hydrated, and finding comfortable shelter from the elements. In an industrialized, complex network of production and consumption, this is all atomized into our little "work" pursuits. On the other side of the spectrum, waiting for us is boredom. Boredom lays bare that existence isn't anything BUT striving-after. We strive to survive and be comfortable. Then, if we do not have any entertainment pursuits to occupy our mental space, we may get existential. "Why are we doing this repetitive upkeep, maintenance, and thrashing about?" It becomes apparent about uselessness of existence. Then we start looking for an ounce of pleasure.. we all try to submerge in these entertainments to not face the existential boredom straight on. That would be too much to dwell in for too long. We design goals, and virtues and reasons, and entertainments, and standards to meet, and trying to contribute to "something". We cannot fall back on the default of existence.. the boredom. So what is one to do? If suicide isn't a real option, there is only the perpetual cycle. The illusion is that it can be broken. Schopenhauer deigned freedom by asceticism. but it's simply training the mind to live with the existential striving-after more easily. That is all .a mental technique. It is not a metaphysical escape hatch.

@Superfluo You don't seem to have a signature currently. Could you link the posts please? @Anirban657 How long will you be taking the medications for? Key thing here is "good doctor". Last time I put my faith in a doctor I almost died to suicide, had they given me warnings about the medication they prescribed it wouldn't have been so bad... because I wouldn't have taken it in the first place knowing how risky it is for people under 18.

@Devin These guys end up hurting themselves socially more than their wives could ever have. Many of them end up in jail serving life sentences. Others commit suicide afterwards. Also there any many murders among couples who are not even married, and therefore have nothing to separate.

I wasn't joking, lol. Toxic Orange mindset right here. No one asked to be born. Life is forced upon us. If you want to force everyone to work to live, then you better provide legal suicide booths in every city, and somehow find a way to eliminate trauma for all affected by the suicides. Each person on average contributes something like a few million to the economy during their lifetime. People are profitable. Why do you think suicide is illegal? You're killing the government's livestock by committing suicide. Is Trump less lazy than OP? He's lazier than the lowest paid members of society, yet somehow he gets a pass because he's rich and successful in the eyes of Oranges. If you actually looked at the effort rich people have to put into their work, it's not much different to a homeless person sitting on a street holding a cup.

I think it requires a certain level of awareness and consciousness development to be able to work with mental health condition, especially a complex one such as Bipolar, Schizophrenia or major depression. Medications are there to ease life for people who do not have tools, knowledge or resources to handle these holistically. Medication prevent people from killing themselves during states of mania and hyperarrousal. If you are a highly developed individual, chances are you can, for example deal with a panic attack through a breath work and introspection but for people in spiral dynamics stage blue who are not aware of such practices even existing, medication is what helps them and keeps them from making a suicide attempt. They are not ideal and for moderate conditions such as mild to moderate depression, they do not work as well but for extreme conditions, meds are actually very helpful. The problem is that once people are put on meds, they do not receive further support. Meds should be used to alleviate major symptoms so that core issues can be addressed, which is where an integrative approach such as IFS comes in. It's like asking someone to hold a carpet while you vacuum clean underneath