Dopamine and Serotonin: Yin + Yang of the Brain

We live in an age of the dopamine economy. Our digital landscape has created a dopamine rich environment that provides unlimited and effortless rewards for our brains.

It was fun at first, but now we are realizing the consequences of such an environment:

• widespread depression and anxiety

• lack of motivation

• non-existent discipline

Fortunately there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Thanks to figures like Andrew Huberman and Anna Lembke, we now understand how to leverage neurotransmitters for the better.

Our Neurotransmitter Heros

Let’s meet our players—

Dopamine: the motivation and focus chemical (this is the guy on your timeline screaming to wake up at 4am, drink a gallon of water, and workout 67 times a day)

Serotonin: the relaxing and creative chemical (the free floating spirit guy telling you to take a chill pill and deny the government)

Each of these chemicals plays a crucial part in shaping our behavior on a daily basis

But, they operate in opposites. When dopamine is high, serotonin is low. When serotonin is high, dopamine is low.

This is where our opportunity lies.

Optimizing Around Peak Zones

Huberman outlines in his podcast that there are predictable periods of time throughout the day when one of these chemicals is at its highest levels.

Why does this matter?

These chemicals—or rather lack thereof— are the reason we:

• feel like crap

• feel overwhelmed

• can’t get out of bed

• can’t get to the gym

• can’t get that project done

• can’t stop scrolling on social media

Understanding these zones provides a playbook to counteract these shortcomings:

Looking at the image above, the grey shaded areas represent sleeping hours.

Outside of those hours there are 2 important zones:

• 0-9 hours after sleep dopamine is spiked to its highest levels during a 24-hour period

• 9-16 hours after sleep serotonin is spiked to its highest levels during a 24-hour period

This blueprint gives us instructions for how to optimize certain tasks during certain periods.

When dopamine is high our brains excel at structure and logic. High priority and high energy tasks are the goal here.

We should schedule our most demanding work during the first 9 hours of our days

When serotonin is high our brains excel at thinking outside the box. Problem solving and creativity are the goal here.

We should schedule creative and ideation tasks during the second phase of the day.

It’s important to remember this is the average daily cycling of our neurotransmitters. This cycling operates off our of baseline levels.

In other words, if we have soaked our brain in dopamine due to binge watching, sugary foods, mindless scrolling etc these zones will be less optimal.

Regulating Dopamine

To get the most out of our day, and enhance focus it is imperative to regulate our dopamine intake.

Normal dopamine levels resemble something like this:

Exposing our brains to elevated levels of dopamine constantly creates crashing in this neurotransmitter. These spikes and crashes hurt our baseline levels.

This creates abnormal dopamine levels which resemble something like this:

The sporadic fluctuations between peaks and crashes makes it difficult for our brain to have predictable levels of focus and energy.

Achieve Focus Flows

To capitalize on the 2 different zones of the day, we need to

These will allows us to enter better periods of focus to accomplish more without having to fight our natural tendencies.