Let’s Do Some Drugs… No, Not the Illegal Kind!

Photo by Artem Kovalev on Unsplash

What I’m doing is a bit unethical, but wait until you see what dopamine can do for you!

Do you need more motivation to get stuff done? Are you struggling to meet deadlines? Do you fade away in that mid-afternoon slump? Then what you need is a boost of energy. How about a fifth cup of coffee; that should do it, right? Well, hold on a minute.

Let’s see how highly motivated people do this. I’m talking about super successful people like Bill Gates, Michael Jordan, Richard Branson, Simone Biles, and Will.i.am. They have managed to be dynamos in their respective fields. Surely, they have had to deal with motivation, too.

Ironically, they also happen to struggle with ADHD. That’s right, not only are they highly motivated, and super successful, but they have the one condition that is known to hold people back from all that success. So, what do they do, and is this something we can all learn from?

There is. It’s a drug. Actually, it’s a naturally occurring drug that with ADHD doesn’t get to the part of the brain that gets people motivated. It’s called dopamine. This is the pleasure drug, the one that rewards you for getting things done.

Now I’m pretty sure that Simone Biles doesn’t pop a bunch of pills before a floor routine, Will.i.am doesn’t slip himself a quick upper before a piano solo in front of millions, and I’m quite certain Bill Gates never even considered taking drugs in his life. What these amazing people learned to do is find ways to use the dopamine naturally.

They have learned to maximize what they have and produce more when it’s needed, and when levels are low, they’ve learned to use that time to prepare for the next time they need it. Now they’ve probably received some professional help with this, something most people probably haven’t. The question we have to ask is: can we learn from them?

The answer is yes.

So, Let’s Hack Our Brains

Everyone has dopamine and everyone experiences high and low levels of it in their brains. For people with ADHD there is just a lot less of it, so these people have learned how to work with this deficiency. Here are techniques that they use, but that anyone can use to maximize dopamine levels to boost productivity.

1. Timing

It turns out that we have the highest levels of dopamine in our brains right when we wake up. This is why athletes typically get up early and practice first thing in the morning. If your goal is to lose weight, then that is an ideal time to do a quick workout. If you are cramming to write the latest wiz-bang app, then skip a slow roll out of bed, a big breakfast, and scrolling through your DMs, and go straight to your computer to bang out some code.

Morning dopamine spikes are well known. There have been hundreds of studies about it. Here’s an article from Psychiatric Times that describes this in detail: Recognition of Dopamine in Sleep-Wake Function May Improve PD Care. I’m also guessing that Gates, Branson, Biles, etc. are early risers and that they get their best work done first thing when they get up.

Here’s another important benefit. Because we are talking about dopamine and our brain’s reward system, this can become a learned behavior. Not only does it create a positive attitude towards the entire day, but the more you do this, the more it becomes a habit. Your brain associates this with pleasure and so you start to develop an early morning productivity routine that lasts.

2. Sleep

When you sleep, is when you recharge your dopamine batteries. As you start implementing the morning productivity routine above, you become accustomed to getting up early and getting tasks done. You actually look forward to waking up, because you know that you will be rewarded for it.

This then can help regulate your sleep patterns too. You start to look forward to the mornings the night before. This helps you fall asleep faster, more regularly, and sleep better. It’s almost as if you develop a desire to regenerate your batteries so you can produce dopamine more effectively so look forward to going to sleep.

I’ve read interviews of Gates and Branson, and also many other highly successful people, and when asked about sleep, they say that it is a very important part of their lives. They don’t necessarily sleep a lot, by the way, but they are particular about having routine sleep patterns, they sleep soundly, and they typically wake up early, refreshed, and ready to work.

3. Eating Right

Yes, I know, every self-help book will tell you the same thing: eat a healthy diet of low-processed, natural foods, low in sugar, good fats, blah blah blah. However, for people with ADHD, this is particularly important. Many foods actually boost dopamine, and most of them also happen to be healthy, so this matters for everyone.

It should also be noted that eating actually increases dopamine production. Since this is tied to reward and pleasure in the brain, this also means that it is easy to overeat. This is possibly one reason why eating high-fat, high-sugar, foods is a problem of excess for so many people – it stimulates pleasure and reward in the brain. This is why it is so important to eat healthier foods whenever possible.

Some of the foods that are not typically on healthy diet lists, but that do help with dopamine production are milk and cheese, bananas, chocolate, oatmeal, oranges, and coffee to name a few. Those do need to be used in moderation. This is because dopamine receptors in the brain can become overwhelmed and, over time, become desensitized to excess dopamine. This then leads to more excess and a dangerous cycle develops.

Let’s not ignore sugar. Let’s be clear, sugar and sugary foods act like a dopamine superconductor to the brain. This is why athletes often eat a banana or chug a spoonful of honey just before an event. This is not recommended, of course, and has significant downsides, but it can be used to hack the brain to produce higher productivity for short periods.

If you do need a sugar-dopamine rush for a specific task or project, there are healthier options over a Caramel Ribbon Crunch from Starbucks:

• Cherries, grapes, watermelon, bananas, apples and oranges

• Beets, carrots, corn, peas and potatoes

• Milk, yogurt, and cottage cheese

• Dates, raisins, prunes, dried apricots and mangoes

• Stevia, Monk Fruit, Kiwi

• Honey, palm sugar, coconut sugar, agave and maple syrup

None of these are good in excess, though. Generally, try and find sweet foods that are also high in fiber such as passion fruit, guava, pomegranate, persimmon, blackberries, and dates, to snack on when you need a dopamine fix.

Ultimately, this is why a healthy diet matters, and it does so especially when, instead of generating a dopamine spike, you want a steady release of dopamine over time. This is why there are many people who recommend a specific diet, such as the Dopamine Diet, from GoodFood. Spoiler alert, it recommends eating healthy, low-sugar foods.

We know that athletes are coached to eat very specific diets. Millionaires probably also have good advice or specialists at their fingertips to advise them on good eating habits. For the rest of us, it is pretty simple already: eat healthy, and use sugary foods, especially natural ones, only in moderation and not regularly. They can give you that dopamine boost, but there are better alternatives.

4. Sunlight

If you ever needed a low-effort way to boost dopamine here it is: get some sunlight on your face. It can’t really get easier than that. Light, especially sunlight, boosts dopamine levels naturally.

If you want to get scientific about it, there are many detailed studies, like this one: Bright light exposure reduces TH-positive dopamine neurons: implications of light pollution in Parkinson's disease epidemiology. So, the next time you need a boost, go outside and stand (or sit) in the sun.

Now I know that not everyone lives in a very sunny place and that sunlight can be scarce in the winter. No worries. A diffused bright light has a similar effect. It’s not as effective as true sunlight, but it does the job. Going to a brightly lit event, a tanning salon, or even just going outside at noon on an overcast day will still help generate dopamine.

What you don’t want to do is sit inside a darkly lit room slaving away for hours a day. Even if you think you’re being productive, you are not being as productive as you could be. Instead, take breaks and get out. People with ADHD are often told to do just that. I also think that is why the highly successful people mentioned above love the outdoors and are often seen in brightly lit spaces. That is probably because they are more productive in those spaces.

5. Music

This is another one of those low-effort ways to increase dopamine levels. Despite the fact that people with ADHD tend to dislike distractions, music seems to be an exception, especially when it is calmer and more relaxing music.

This is also backed by science. According to the article Dopamine modulates the reward experiences elicited by music from the National Library of Medicine and the NIH, “present findings show a causal role of dopamine in musical pleasure and shed light on the role of the human dopaminergic system in abstract rewards.” In short, music raises your dopamine levels.

We’ve all seen superstar athletes listening to music on their headphones right before they compete. Similarly, many highly successful people have learned to incorporate music into their workflow. They have also learned to stimulate their thinking with music when they are not physically working.

Likewise, music has been shown to increase productivity and focus for people with ADHD, as the article Music for ADHD: Benefits & Types to Improve Focus confirms: “Music can provide that much-needed hit of dopamine so they can focus their attention and get things done.”

I can also confirm that music gives my workouts a boost because I have tested it personally. This is something I wrote about in a previous article, Using Music To Motivate Yourself. Using my Fitbit, I found that “typically, I cover 25% more distance with the right music than without.” I didn’t know then why that was, but I’m pretty sure now that it’s because of the dopamine boost.

Conclusion

There are of course other ways to increase dopamine production, but I tried to focus on ways that are the easiest to implement. Except for getting up early and immediately getting to work, every other suggestion above for increasing dopamine levels is extremely easy to do, even for the least motivated of us.

Just so you know, getting up early to start working right away is by far the most effective strategy. This is because of the ripple effect it has on the rest of the day and one’s habits over time. It may take a little time to implement, especially for those of us who tend to work late into the evening, but once the habit sets in, you hardly have to think about it anymore.

I also presume that many of those reading this who are struggling with low productivity, might just have ADHD but were never diagnosed. I believe it is far more common than scientists believe. Official figures are somewhere around 4% according to Google, but I think that is hugely inaccurate.

This is because there is a stigma of low self-esteem in people who suffer from ADHD, especially for adults. They have typically been criticized for being lazy, unreliable, and disorganized since childhood. As a result, they often struggle in life, and especially in reaching success. This is why they will typically not seek out the help they need and that is why the condition is significantly underdiagnosed, in my opinion.

Highly successful people who also happen to have ADHD (at least the ones we know about), have either found help or have learned to adapt their work to become successful despite their disability. There is no reason why the rest of us, but especially those who might have undiagnosed ADHD, can and should learn from their experiences so that we too can find success in life.

It goes without saying that if you are struggling with symptoms of ADHD and it is keeping you from reaching your potential, then you should make every effort to try and find the professional help you need. While this article might prove useful and insightful, it can’t replace the professional help and services that are out there, and that could transform your life for the better.

For the rest of us, these are some pretty easy hacks that could change your life too.