Health and Wellbeing: How to use the ‘feel good’ hormone to help you to stay motivated

I CAN'T stay motivated…I can’t get the motivation to do that…I can’t seem to stick with my goals…

This is a pattern that I hear in 80% of cases when I work with my clients on our 1:1 coaching sessions. And if this pattern occurs that often, it is surely worth looking a bit more in depth on this topic.

What is motivation?

Motivation is an effect produced in the brain by certain neurotransmitters. When certain neurotransmitters spark chemical messages into our brain, we get the signal of taking a certain action.

Two simple questions then: what is the neurotransmitter that carries this message? And can we control or influence the production of this neurotransmitter in a way which supports us to get healthier and happier?

“I spent 3 hours on writing this article. The 3 hours wasn’t a time spent well, mind you. Sure it was, I was working – writing, deleting, documenting – but the pace of one article in three hours wasn’t out of a lack of knowledge or a lack of creativity as much as lack of motivation.

“I spent 20 minutes on emails, 20 minutes on Instagram, 15 minutes answering a non-urgent text received on WhatsApp from a client, 5 minutes sending a quick thank you message to my best friend for going for a walk with me today….and the list goes on”

Does it sound familiar? Motivation is a tricky one to tackle but not impossible.

Let’s answer the first question: What is the neurotransmitter that carries the motivation message across our body? One of them, the main one, is the hormone called dopamine.

To explain how dopamine works across our brain in a very simple language, is to say that dopamine’s chemical signal gets passed from one neuron to the next and in between those two neurons, dopamine interacts with various receptors inside the synapse.

But things get a little more complicated from here onwards and we don’t want to get lost in too much detail. One thing very important to understand is that for motivation specifically, it matters which pathway dopamine takes. If the dopamine takes the most important reward pathway in the brain, the cerebral cortex, you are in for a win. Let’s keep our focus on how we can control and influence this process in a way that supports our journey to become happier and healthier.

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When there is an increased amount of dopamine on the right pathway, your brain recognizes that something important is about to happen, so, the motivation kicks in. So how it works is simple. You create the dopamine environment, and the brain does the rest.

One way to achieve those rewarding experiences is by setting incremental step-by-step goals. Dopamine will flow as a result of brain’s positive reinforcement every time when you have achieved a step or met a challenge.

Stay entirely focused on one step at the time or one micro-goal at the time, celebrate every small win. Focus on how great you are feeling when that step is completed.

You can increase your dopamine via positive feedback and even better, you can create that self-celebration where you give yourself the high 5 and praise yourself. Self-praise is a self-love gesture.

Boost your diet with dopamine-filled foods. Plenty sources of natural probiotics such as: natural yoghurt, sauerkraut or kombucha and natural glucose, which occurs in raw fruits and nuts.

Take a 10 minute nap. Science shows that 10 minutes is the optimal length. More than that can make you sluggish and create the opposite effect.

Get moving in the middle of the day. Have a brisk walk after lunch or if your work timetable permits, have your workout in the middle of the day.

You can optimise your dopamine levels by using plant based supplements as well if the levels are low and you feel you tried everything else and they didn’t work. Saffron is one of the supplements which benefits from huge research lately and has proven its property to optimise the dopamine level.

Speak with your health coach, nutritionist, naturopath, herbalist, or alternative therapist about where you can get the saffron in the right concentration.

Getting to understand how our brain and body works and how they communicate, and bring so much awareness on our journey to a healthier and happier life.