What makes you happy?

We bet the answer to this question could not be one, but many things. Your response will also most likely be different from the next person’s.

Around 64% of global adults, nearly two-thirds of the world’s population, report being happy. But the quest for happiness is often mixed up with the journey of seeking pleasure and satisfaction as a by-product of dopamine.

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter made by your brain and is a hormone responsible for giving you that “feel good” feeling you crave.

It’s one of the best neurotransmitters that help regulate your reward centre and can give you a positive outlook on life. To know how to make the most out of dopamine fully and have healthy levels, keep scrolling!

How dopamine is produced

Before we delve right into the benefits of dopamine, we first need to know how your brain produces it. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter your brain makes, serving as a chemical messenger across nerve cells and the rest of your body.

In parallel to this, it also acts as a hormone secreted by your kidney’s adrenal gland and a neurohormone released by your brain’s hypothalamus. Dopamine plays a key role in your body associated with the following:

• Memory
• Mood
• Sleep
• Focus
• Behaviour
• Cognition
• Attention
• Lactation

It’s essential that your brain synthesises and regulates dopamine levels in order for your brain to function properly. If there are any imbalances or disruptions to your dopamine production, your behaviour, mood, and overall health may be impacted.

4 epic things to know about dopamine

Dopamine provides a lot of benefits to your body; it can do the following:

Help with your motivation

Dopamine is closely linked to motivation and achieving goals. It actively supports your brain’s neural networks, helping it with cognition, orientating and general motivation. This neurotransmitter gives you a feeling of pleasure when you achieve your goals, allowing you to stay motivated and progress further.

Dopamine can help save a life

This neurotransmitter can profoundly affect your life; doctors often prescribe it to help treat low blood pressure, septic shock, poor blood flow to certain organs and poor cardiac output. It can be a lifesaver!

It plays a role in your tolerance levels

When you take certain drugs or medications, tolerance means you reach a level where you don’t feel the effects compared to how you previously did, even if you’re still consuming the same amount.

Often, when developing a tolerance, you crave more to feel the original benefits; dopamine helps you with this. If you constantly overuse drugs, your reward centre becomes overstimulated and it is difficult for your brain to handle higher dopamine levels. Therefore, it either decreases dopamine production or reduces dopamine receptors.

Exercise plays a role

Physical exercise can help play a role on your dopamine levels. It’s known to produce positive effects and help with your motivation. Exercise is thought to remodel your reward system, increasing serotonin alongside dopamine, too.

Things that reduce/improve dopamine

When it comes to your body’s dopamine levels, you don’t want too high or too little. If you have an overproduction of dopamine, you might struggle with impulsive behaviour and act before you think. Too few dopamine levels may make you lack motivation, reduce alertness, increase fatigue, and become less excited about specific tasks.

The truth is dopamine levels can increase or decrease certain behaviours throughout your life. To take control of this, here are some behaviours worth noting that can reduce and improve your dopamine levels:

Medical conditions

Sometimes, low dopamine levels may be linked to an underlying medical condition. Often, Parkinson’s disease, depression and dopamine transporter syndrome can cause your dopamine levels to decline. Mainly, though, it’s neurodegenerative diseases which cause a loss of neurons.

Stress

If you’re suffering from chronic stress, cortisol can influence dopamine regulation in your brain. Prolonged stress can make your brain receptors less sensitive to dopamine, causing you to experience less pleasure and lack motivation.

Excessive drug and alcohol use

Drugs like alcohol, nicotine and caffeine can cause your dopamine levels to skyrocket, giving you a powerful rush. They cause your brain’s receptors to overactivate, making you more compulsive and less resistant to these substances. However, dopamine is not solely responsible for addiction; environmental factors and genetics influence it, too.

Getting sufficient sleep

When your brain releases dopamine, you feel more alert and awake. Research shows that when you wake up in the morning, your brain releases large levels, gradually decreasing in the evening when you sleep. However, lack of sleep impairs this balance of levels.

Listening to music

One fun way to encourage more dopamine to be released in your brain is by listening to music. Listening to music can be a fun way to stimulate dopamine release in your brain. Growing research supports auditory stimulation, showing it can make your external environment more pleasurable. For this reason, music therapy is regularly prescribed to help people with mood disorders.

In summary

Overall, dopamine is a powerful neurotransmitter produced by your body. While age plays a particular role in your dopamine production, you can take control of many environmental factors to ensure you get the right balance.

The most important ones are getting a good night’s sleep, regulating your alcohol and caffeine intake and exercising! Try some of these if you feel you’re lacking motivation or more fatigued than usual. If you do feel you’re suffering from more serious symptoms, consult a doctor, as they may be able to look to see if you have an underlying health issue.