Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This week I was listening to the Huberman lab podcast episode 32 on pain and pleasure, and it brought me back to something my highschool rowing coach used to tell me.
Dr. Huberman is a Neurobiologist and professor at the Stanford school of medicine and his podcast covers a number of topics with a scientific and specifically a neurobiology approach to various topics.
Dr Huberman, does an excellent job covering very complex scientific topics, breaking down on a mechanistic basis what goes in the body and brain while remaining surprisingly approachable to the novice, unscientific enthusiast.
The episode on pain and pleasure was a two hour deep dive into the various ways we experience and modulate pain and pleasure and how the two are interconnected. Specifically of interest, to me anyhow, was the research around dopamine reward prediction error by Dr Schulz
The study explored the way that dopamine levels are modulated when behavior is rewarded on a variable schedule. The best example of this is slot machines in a casino. Not knowing when you are going to win and then getting a bigger reward than expected makes the behavior more rewarding (from a chemical perspective not necessarily a financial one)
Dopamine is not really a feel good hormone, it is actually a behavior reinforcement and learning hormone. The dopamine levels in patients did not change significantly and actually dropped after a reward was received. The dopamine is instead released based on anticipation of the reward so that the behavior used to obtain the reward is what is learned.
This is one reason why athletes feel so connected to their training and preparation prior to a win. The dopamine is released in anticipation of the win to reinforce the training behaviors.
This same concept can be applied to our own behavior outside a clinical setting. We can regulate our self rewarding in order to continue to motivate behavior. The thought being, if you reward yourself every time you engage in a behavior you want to keep doing, your dopamine response will gradually decrease. Whereas if you reward yourself on a variable, intermittent, or otherwise randomized schedule for that same behavior, your dopamine levels (which help drive motivation for that behavior) will remain higher.
The practical application example that was given was rewarding yourself or your teammates after a win or a hard training session. There is certainly something to be said for celebrating your accomplishments, but celebrating every time can lead to reduced dopamine which in turn would lead to less desire to perform those actions that lead to the win in the first place.
In high school I joined the crew team my freshman year and was lucky enough to be part of a few very successful boats. Competing in both a lightweight eight man boat and a lightweight four man boat, my friends and I won numerous local regattas, placed at the NY state championships and even won a Canadian national championship.
After every win, regardless of whether it was our local club race or a national championship ship our coach would say “enjoy it today, because tomorrow it doesn’t mean shit”.
While that’s not my particular coaching style, and that type of coaching and motivation isn’t for everyone, it seems that it is at least backed by the science of motivation and dopamine reward pathways.
By not celebrating our wins and overstimulating a dopamine response, our desire to obtain a reward and thus the behavior that was required to obtain that reward was reinforced.
As with most topics we cover here, and many more we don’t, a delicate balance must be struck to obtain optimum levels of pleasure, dopamine modulation, and serenity for that matter too. In a first world of instant gratification, a self regulated variable reward protocol can help us reinforce good behaviors on the path to serenity.
Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.