Moment 211: Dr. Andrew Huberman: The Real Reason You're Always Exhausted & Have No Dopamine!

Andrew D. Huberman (0:00)

We can, again, look at things through the lens of biology and say, well, what are we talking about when we're talking about energy? What is this energy thing that people are talking about? And I think it largely boils down to these catecholamines, the dopamine epinephrine norepinephrine cocktail that is setting the brain into a mode of attention, of motivation. We now know dopamine is more about motivation to seek rewards as opposed to feeling of pleasure or reward. There's a lot to be said about that. And keep in mind that these three neurochemicals, dopamine, norepinephrine, and epinephrine, have been the neurochemical cocktail by which humans and other mammals have set and pursued goals for hundreds of thousands of years. So we don't have like a unique system, a unique neurochemical system for seeking out of mates versus food versus creating shelter versus creating technology and whole societies. And it's not just these three neurochemicals. Certainly, there are other things involved, acetylcholine and a bunch of other things, neuroplasticity for that matter. But it's clearly the case that the currency that the brain has set around getting us into forward center of mass, as I say, to like envision something, explore. Nope, not down there, this way. Ah, there's a scent here. And trade out an actual scent for, oh, there's something interesting here. There's someone interesting here. And like exploring that, no, that's a dead path to cul-de-sac. Turn around, go, oh, here. And then connecting these nodes of progress. What's progress? Ah, there's kind of another surge of these catecholamines, which sets us in forward center of mass. You know, I don't want to oversimplify the biology, but when we talk about energy, for instance, taking time to rest at night, sleep, taking time to maybe meditate a few minutes, or do this practice that I'm a huge fan of, non-sleep deep rest, which is kind of a body scan, deep relaxation, long exhales. It's a practice very similar to an ancient practice called yoga nidra, which has been practiced for thousands of years. It's a kind of pseudo sleep. And we know from a really nice study that NSDR, non-sleep deep rest, aka yoga nidra, can increase the baseline levels of dopamine in a brain area called the basal ganglia, which is for action generation and also withholding action. By about 60% from baseline, just a short period of doing this practice can kind of re-up dopamine levels to a considerable extent. It's a remarkable study and there are others like it. So what does that mean? Well, it means that in rest, we build up this capacity to be forward center of mass when we emerge from rest. That's why I think we have to sleep every 24 hours. This is why practices where we deliberately calm ourselves and still ourselves allow us to be more forward center of mass mentally and physically afterwards. It's kind of a duh when we hear it. We kind of go, oh duh, of course, rest action, rest action. But there's a lot more to it. If you start exploring the layers, you start realizing that excitement for things versus burnout. What's burnout? It's just trying to be forward center of mass for too long.

It's misuse of our dopamine circuitry. It's ignoring the fact that these catecholamines and dopamine in particular, they are not infinite in their availability. There's a reservoir of them that can be depleted, but it can be replenished as well. One of the best analogies for this was actually explained to me by a guy named Dr. Kyle Gillette. He does some online work as a public-facing physician, endocrinology in particular. He said, with dopamine, it's kind of like a wave pool. You have this reservoir that can allow you to pursue things or scroll the internet or build businesses, whatever it is. If you are really forward center of mass, very intensely, you start generating these waves. And if you get big waves of dopamine, and they crash out of the pool, you start depleting the reservoir. So when I think about drugs of abuse like cocaine, which leads to huge surges in dopamine, or amphetamines, huge surges in dopamine, what do we know about huge surges in dopamine? Well, after those huge surges, you drop below your initial baseline to a state in which the same thing doesn't feel as good anymore. You need so much more energy to get the same output.

Steven Bartlett (4:24)

That's what this is, right?

Andrew D. Huberman (4:25)

That's what this is.

Steven Bartlett (4:26)

I'll put this on the screen for anyone.

Andrew D. Huberman (4:27)

Yeah, so my colleague at Stanford, Dr. Anna Lemke, who runs our dual diagnosis addiction clinic and wrote the wonderful book, Dopamine Nation, described this best. It's sort of like a seesaw, but whereby you get a big peak in dopamine, let's say from a drug of abuse like cocaine. People on cocaine, it's all about ideas and what's next. They're not like, hey, let's just kick back. It's all about what's the, in fact, they have a million ideas per second. Most of them are terrible ideas, but they're very forward center of mass motivated. Then when the drug wears off, they feel very low and very depressed. The dopamine is actually depleted below baseline.