Life-hacking |

I spoke last week how Newton’s three laws of motion can be applied to develop our productivity. Today, let’s explore this a little further.

Too many of us fail to deal with that first law- that a body in motion stays in motion. Which means we don’t start our days with intent. Instead, we waste time on Facebook, read our eMail, maybe jump over to Instagram. That doesn’t keep us focused on our short or long term goals.

It turns out science can tell us more about why some of us are like this. Our brains may be wired to make us fail to exert our first law of motion. The nucleus accumbens, the section that emits neurotransmitters to activate the rest of our body, seems to be the culprit. Why we are alert, focused, or able to complete a project centers in this region of our brain.

Oh, and that favorite transmitter, dopamine, the one that makes us happy, the one that keeps us motivated, is the key transmitter in question. (Check the index for dopamine and you’ll see a slew of reasons why this neurotransmitter is important.)

But, dopamine can only help our decisiveness and our desire to be effective, if, when released to the synapses between our neurons, it manages to traverse through the mesolimbic pathway. (This is the pathway between the central portion of our brains to the cerebral cortex, highlighted in blue in the above diagram.) The more the dopamine, the better we recognize that our actions are good for us (that feel-good emotion). And, dopamine is often released BEFORE we get our rewards; it’s a motivation for us to act, to avoid negative consequences. (We also need to remember that dopamine levels spike when we are stressed, when we experience loss; the neurotransmitter excites our brain so we can “power through” these negative feelings.)

Drs. Michael Treadway (lead researcher), Joshua Buckhotz, Ronald Cowan, Neil Woodward, Rui Li, M. Sib Ansari, Ronald Baldwin, Ashley Schwartzman, Robert Kesslert, and David Zald published these new results in the Journal of Neuroscience. (Dopaminergic Mechanisms of Individual Differences in Human Effort-Based Decision-Making)

Twenty five (25) folks ranging in age from 18 to 29 were the test subjects. The volunteers chose either an easy or a hard “button-pushing” task. If they chose the easy, their reward would be $ 1. If they chose the harder version, they could earn up to $ 4. After they made their choice, they were provided the odds of achieving the various rewards. Each task took about 30 seconds, which were repeated over a 20 minute cycle. While this was going on, the volunteers were hooked up to to a PET (positron emission tomography) brain scanner.

The “go-getters”, those opting for higher rewards, demonstrated higher release of dopamine in the striatum and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (the motivation and reward centers of the brain).

The “slackers” (those opting for the lesser tasks and rewards) had high dopamine levels, too. But, their concentrations were present in the anterior insula (the center of the brain dealing with risk perception and emotions).

When dopamine is accumulated in the anterior insula, there is a reduced desire to work (obviously even true, if one means earning less money). Besides providing us information on our ability to complete a task, this research has tremendous relevance to those afflicted with ADHD (attention deficit, hyperactivity disorder), schizophrenia, and depression. Because up until this finding, one assumed that all dopaminergic drugs would stimulate the brain effectively. This research shows that Newton’s second law of motion applies- not just applying force, but the directionality of where we effect that force is critical. (i.e., getting the dopamine where it provides the benefit we desire is critical.)

(Data had existed that dopamine was crucial to developing motivation from various rat studies. And, we knew that low levels of dopamine meant subjects were less likely to be willing to work for things (no motivation, the cost/benefit is lacking). But, this study actually served to demonstrate that where the dopamine accumulates was critical for the actual task completion.)

Given the science, we now know that even slackers can turn things around. But, it means we must exert our First Law of Productivity (things in motion stay in motion). We need to tell ourselves “we have to do this”, “we choose to do this” so we can reach our goals. Not “we can’t do this”. We need to set the objects in motion- purposefully. Which means the tasks we choose must be in alignment with our values. And, most importantly, we need to understand that failure is a process from which we learn- so we won’t be afraid of failure.

How do we get dopamine flowing? By breaking the tasks into smaller increments- and each step we accomplish will release more dopamine to egg us on towards completion. So, as we proceed, we check off these mini-tasks as done, we depict our progress graphically, thereby providing feedback to our brain that we are moving forward.

For most of us (since only 15% of us are capable of time-slicing, aka multi-tasking), that means effecting one thing at a time. Otherwise, we dissipate our energy- and that means either reduced dopamine levels or having dopamine accumulate via the wrong pathway.

This also generally means we will be exceeding our expectations. Which, via feedback loop in our brain, means more dopamine will be excreted to the right pathway next time. Because our brain wants us to do this again, to develop those great feelings.

Another motivation approach is to consider how our task may be benefiting others. Whether we are working on the next medical breakthrough or a better dispensing box for plastic wrap, if we share our knowledge (which may provide us with laudatory comments) or we know we are making the world a better place, dopamine release is augmented.

We can even modify our diet, as a means to amplify dopamine release. Choosing probiotics (like yoghurt) amplifies dopamine production. Or, we can munch on apples, avocados, bananas, green vegetables- which contain L-tyrosine (another dopamine amplifier).

Most importantly, we can’t dwell on failures or setbacks. We need to figure out what we need to do different and do so- immediately.