Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that plays a major role in supporting our mood. However, with dopamine, the trick is to maintain a proper balance. Too much dopamine wears out your pleasure centers, while too little can leave you feeling down. If you’re curious where your dopamine levels lie, there are certain things you need to look for. In this video chat, Dr. Daniel Amen discusses the role dopamine plays in your body, how to tell if you have an imbalance, and how to optimize your dopamine level to keep you feeling at your best.
Say hello say hello everybody this is me so he was ahead last night everybody loved the cat so he wanted to come and say hi he has a dopamine deficiency don’t you know motivation except when somebody has meat then he has motivation other than that he’s just laying around the house doing nothing except looking for love hello everybody so tonight i thought i’d talk
About dopamine dopamine is a really interesting neurotransmitter and one of the most important neurotransmitters in your brain it activates when you fall in love that’s why i say love is a drug cocaine activates dopamine stimulants like ritalin and adderal work on dopamine receptors in the brain his name is me so right can you say hi can you say hi it’s like dude
What are you doing to me love this guy he’s such a good boy all right to work dopamine is made by cells deep in your brain in an area called the substantia really important also in an area called the vta and when dopamine’s too high you can get ocd you can be in a manic state you can really be agitated sometimes even psychotic and when it’s too low you look like
You have a db short attention span you can’t sort of grab the details so feral to give close attention to do details you intend to make careless mistakes it’s sort of like you don’t have enough gas moving the car so you have trouble listening because your focus isn’t good you fail to finish things your organization’s not great but one of the most important symptoms
Is you avoid dislike or are reluctant to engage in tasks that require sustained mental effort that that’s hard for you you also tend to lose things get easily distracted and can be forgetful and one of the things that has been discovered recently is your phone yes the one i’m talking to now connect chily steel your dopamine it’s been programmed to a dict your
Brain and wait for the next little buzz or sound or vibration to notify you that there’s incoming news that there is an incoming text or email or however you communicate just waiting anticipating for that little dopamine head it trains your brain to want and then you end up wasting a lot of time either on games or other things that steal your mind and i noticed
This about parkinson’s what is this brand of shirt it’s a publisher ralph lauren anyways my dopamine must be low i’m reading the comments as we go there’s comment about parkinson’s disease in parkinson’s disease where you get a resting tremor and you have trouble walking and you lose coordination and your motivation can go down and you can be depressed and you
Have trouble moving your muscles often cells in this in this substantial start to die and you don’t produce enough dopamine and that’s a real big problem and i think one of the common causes of parkinson’s yes it has some genetic contributions but you’re exposed to toxins so my dad had no idea but when we were little my brother and i would dig trenches around
The fruit trees with an acre of land and we had lots of fruit trees and we would then spray the weeds with oil like engine oil and it would kill the weeds but inhaling of those fumes clearly a bad idea for the brain but back then 60 years ago nobody knew that but being exposed to environmental toxins condemned your brain particularly the dopamine receptors in
The brain and so how do you detox those toxins as you always should be detoxing i’m not a fan of the two-week detox like you should always be detoxing why would you ever want anything toxic in your body or in your brain and so you’re always supporting the four organs of detoxification water flush things out through your kidneys fiber flush things out through your
Gut sweat with exercise or infrared saunas actually behind me or in front of me behind you is an infrared sauna and then support your liver it’s one of the reasons i don’t drink because it’s toxic to your liver and eat brassicas we had brussels sprouts tonight phenomenal dinner and brassicas broccoli cauliflower kale cabbage are all detoxifying vegetables for you
Yes military personnel are subject to high toxin exposure i’ve actually scanned a couple of people who were exposed to agent orange their brain just look like a disaster and the black tar pits in afghanistan and iraq they caused a lot of damage to the to the brain so whatever you inhale whatever comes on your skin whatever you eat if it’s toxic it becomes part of
You and actually damages you so you want to protect your dopamine it’s just so critical and in my book feel better fast and make it last there’s a whole section on how to protect things so now you know how important dopamine is dopamine is also involved in addictions and there’s an addiction cycle the addiction cycle is in the book and what do you do you engage
In actions that increase dopamine makes you feel high or pleasurable thing cocaine or falling in love but when the dopamine wears off you feel withdrawal leaving you more likely to feel flat or even depressed so you re engage in the behavior you fall in love with someone else or you use cocaine again and it helps you feel good even if it’s bad for you and sugar
Increases dopamine and so engage in the behavior feel high dopamine spikes dopamine wears off you feel bad you engage in the behavior again but the highs not quite as good the second time which is why you always think back to your first love even though that person may in fact make you crazy later on anyways it’s the cycle of addiction and so what i’m talking about
Is so let’s do positive things to drip dopamine when you dump it you feel high but then you feel terrible so think of dripping dopamine rather than dumping dopamine so positive things meaning and purpose i look forward to talking to you that adds meaning to my day lasting love after this i’m hanging out with my lasting love tana volunteering positive relationships
Traveling although not during a pandemic spiritual experiences like prayer worship churches are beginning to open just be thoughtful remember that don’t worry be happy people die the earliest from accidents or preventable illnesses so socially distance wear masks when you’re out be thoughtful i know some of you think that coronavirus is not that bad and it’s
A conspiracy and you know i’m irritated they’re not talking about the real problem of mortality with this thing which is our unhealthy society but i have a 30 year old team member in new york who ended up on a ventilator for five weeks so let’s make no mistake this thing can be wicked and you don’t want it so be smart gratitude appreciation digital discipline
Pumpkin seeds increase dopamine green tea the supplement sammy l-tyrosine and omega-3 fatty acids so these are things that can support your dopamine so the things that dump dopamine that really they make you feel good in the short run bad in the long run jumping out of an airplane why would anybody jump out of a perfectly good airplane repeatedly falling in love
And falling out of love in love out of love in love out of love high-risk sports extramarital affairs video games pornography cocaine fame undisciplined digital behavior methamphetamines alcohol scary movies gossiping and i want you to be super careful with your dopamine now if you were born with low dopamine maybe you have a dd you should check out my a td post
Where i describe the symptoms short attention span but not for everything distractibility disorganization procrastination impulse control issues and binding ways to boost dopamine either with supplements like rhodiola ashwagandha ginseng green tea or stimulant medications when they’re prescribed properly make a radical positive difference for people so high value
Dopamine activities sunlight vitamin d increases dopamine all of you should know your vitamin d level like you know your blood pressure or your cholesterol it’s that important and then work to optimize it either by getting more sun or taking a vitamin d3 supplement critical normals between 30 and 100 i think optimal z’ between 50 and 100 my level just recently
Took it as 76 or i’m so proud of myself exercise increases dopamine it’s actually a natural treatment for atv meditation yoga massage therapy certain kinds of music fish oil olive oil green tea protein rich diet having some protein in your diets important turmeric oregano magnesium resveratrol all of these things can strengthen your dopamine 22o vitamin ds 22
It’s not good and you’re right everyone in canada is likely deficient if they are not taking a d3 supplement interesting fact on d3 when i really learned about it i’d been trying to lose weight for 30 years tried every diet you can imagine i come from a family of overweight people my mom’s an awesome cook and her pizza would give me dopamine also make me fat and
When i tested my level was 17 now but i just tell you normal is thirty to a hundred so i was severely deficient even though i live in southern california where the sun is out like it is today three hundred thirty days a year and one of the most interesting things when i started taking vitamin d 10,000 units a day to raise my level i now take 7,000 units a day my
Appetite went away it was so interesting that i just didn’t feel hungry all the time and that’s one of the many benefits of taking vitamin d so you want to protect your dopamine levels you know i keep saying this brain health is three things brain envy you got to care about it freud was wrong penis envy is not the cause of anybody’s problems never seen it not once
In my 40 years of being a psychiatrist got to care about it avoid anything that hurts it do things that help with dopamine you want to have that same mindset dopamine nd you want healthy dopamine avoid anything that dumb said that hurts it and engage in habits just like we talked about vitamin d exercise meditation magnesium oregano that support it and with better
Dopamine levels yeah better mood yeah better energy yeah better motivation you can focus for longer you can do things you know you should do miso’s talking to all of you if you can hear her him this is so important you might want pizza but it might hurt you you never want to be in love with something that is harmful for you you might love chocolate chip cookies
But they don’t love you back they’re going to abuse you and beat you up somebody asked about the books called feel that are fast and make it last i love this book like it’s perfect for a pandemic i hope you stay safe and as the world opens up be thoughtful be careful and i want you to have enough anxiety that you do the right thing but i also want you to get some
Sunshine because that will boost your vitamin d level and your dopamine and help keep you happy just because something from missouri and a lake i said like hundreds of people and i’m like i’m not thinking that’s a great idea anyways i’m thinking about you i will talk to you soon have a great night
Transcribed from video
Do You Have a Dopamine Imbalance? with Dr. Daniel Amen By AmenClinic
