I was combining too many dopamine releasing or stimulating behaviors and substances for things that I already enjoy doing as behaviors , namely exercise and doing experiments , anything related to science actually . So what this means is not to avoid taking things or doing things that amplify your amount of dopamine , but to be very cautious about how often one does that and how many different dopamine stimulating behaviors or compounds one stacks , especially in terms of taking those things or stacking those things in and around behaviors that you already really enjoy doing . I was essentially just creating another version of the kids in nursery school or first grade with the Gold Star experiment .
Uh And when I say the source , I don't mean it in any kind of mystical way . I think it's quite clear by now that when we hear about from Eastern medicine or we talk about motivation , drive and pursuit in on Western neurobiological languages that relates to dopamine or we hear about the source , maybe in my podcast episode with um the one and only Rick Rubin , incredibly productive music producer , who's as an just an unbelievable track record in terms of creative endeavors . And he talks about the source .
If we're a perpetual user of caffeine , I talked a lot about this on the episode in caffeine . But the key here is be cautious , I would say be very cautious about stacking and layering in too many dopamine peak inducing behaviors all at once on a regular basis . The key point here is if you are somebody that can engage in these intrinsically joyful activities for you , these activities that you're really motivated to do , whether or not it's skiing or playing music or dancing , et cetera without the need to layer in additional dopamine , releasing mechanisms or compounds or activities .
I just would not feel that good . And then if I kept up those behaviors consistently and I was consistently adding in these other , let's just call them what they are dopamine releasing or stimulating behaviors and substances that my enthusiasm for physical training or running or for doing experiments actually started to diminish . And this was really discouraging to me at the time because I started to think , OK , maybe I'm burnt out .
So I thought , gosh , I'm really burnt out when , in fact , it's now obvious to me what I was doing . I was combining too many dopamine releasing or stimulating behaviors and substances for things that I already enjoy doing as behaviors , namely exercise and doing experiments , anything related to science actually . So what this means is not to avoid taking things or doing things that amplify your amount of dopamine , but to be very cautious about how often one does that and how many different dopamine stimulating behaviors or compounds one stacks , especially in terms of taking those things or stacking those things in and around behaviors that you already really enjoy doing .
