The core of what we feel lies in the chemicals in our brains. These brain chemicals affect your happiness or influence your mindset. Today, April Shprintz delves into the power of dopamine and serotonin and how these brain chemical influences our mindset to achieve the goal. Neuroscience and these brain chemicals play a huge role in how we experience life regardless of our personality type. Delving deeper into the wonders of our minds, April also provides tips on how to boost serotonin and dopamine to get the goal. So, tune the volume up, and let’s get into today’s topic.
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Which Brain Chemical Is Influencing Your Mindset?
A lot of times when we talk about people, usually in a work or goal-achieving environment, we talk about type A and type B personalities with type A being very driven and go for the goal type personality and type B, usually being those folks that are more mellow, tend to be happier all the time, maybe not as driven, and those sorts of things. I am fascinated by the role that neuroscience and the chemicals in our brain play in our mindset and the way that we experience life altogether, regardless of the type of personality that we seem to have.
The two chemicals that I find the most interesting are dopamine and serotonin. Dopamine has gotten a lot of press. Andrew Huberman has a great podcast where he talks about how you can naturally boost your dopamine levels if you’re looking to be as efficient as possible and get as much done as possible. Those are wonderful activities to do, and I employ those in my life. There are things like cold showers sun exposure, and making sure you work out, just doing things to naturally boost your dopamine so that you’re more motivated to accomplish your goals.
The one thing that I don’t think in this day and age we talk about as much as would be beneficial to people from a mindset perspective is the benefit of making sure that you also have equal amounts of serotonin. That chemical that allows you to enjoy the goals that you’ve achieved, that allows you that happiness, that calm, that focus on the life that you already have, which as we’ve talked about as we work through different ways to utilize your mindset to get the life you want is part of the practice because the more you focus on what you have is a lot of what you want, the more of what you want will come into your life because that’s where your focus is.
Brain Chemical: Serotonin allows you to enjoy the goals you’ve achieved and allows you that happiness, calm, and focus on life.
Ways to boost serotonin naturally are gratitude practices, mindfulness, meditation, getting enough sleep, workout, and sunlight. Those three work for both of them. If you want to make sure and just be happier and more motivated overall, make sure that you’re getting enough sleep, you’re seeing actual sunlight without sunglasses on, and getting some movement in your life will make a humongous difference. When I talk about these two, I’m looking at it more from a, “Are you that type A super dopamine-driven person? Are you that person that people call type B where you are more even-keeled, you enjoy things, and you don’t get as keyed up about everything?”
For me, there’s no doubt I am a type A person. However, where I found the most happiness and where I have found I am much better with my mindset and able to have the life I want is the goals, but it’s getting the goals and then enjoying them. For much of my life, I was just dopamine-driven that I would get to the top of the mountaintop or I would achieve the degree, the award, the level in a company, whatever it was. I would feel empty when I got there. I never understood what that was about. The reason for this is because dopamine drives the activity and the actual achievement of the goal, but you don’t tend to get a flood of dopamine once you achieve it.
Brain Chemical: Dopamine drives the achievement of the goal, but you don’t tend to get a flood of dopamine once you achieve it. So, keep in touch with serotonin.
Being in touch with that serotonin and that side of you that enjoys something once you have it and is happy to just be, allows you to enjoy the fruits of your labor in a much better way. If you’re that person who’s always going for the next goal, you get to the top of the mountain and instead of looking at the view, you’re looking at the next highest mountain that you can climb. There is a way that is more enjoyable and does not take away from how many goals you achieve. It just allows you to enjoy them more.
When you’re type A or very dopamine-driven, you think you’re going to enjoy the goal when you get there. The serotonin side of things allows you to enjoy the process. The benefit there is when you can enjoy the process, you feel like you’re getting there even faster. I am in no way an expert on brain chemicals. I’m vastly interested in them. I geek out on them. There are so many folks who’ve forgotten more than I know.
Brain Chemical: The serotonin side of things allows you to enjoy the process and the benefits.
I mentioned the Huberman Lab Podcast, which is a great one. A book that is fantastic on this and breaks it down on dopamine and how it drives everything in your life from love, sex, addiction, and to why we do the things we do is a book by a friend of mine, Mike Long, and his colleague Dr. Daniel Lieberman called The Molecule of More. It breaks down why we feel exactly the way we do and helps you better understand the benefits of embracing that gratitude and happiness chemical that allows you to enjoy the things that you’ve achieved as you’re experiencing them and even once you get there.
The magic happens when we're not relying on the high highs. We are motivated, happy, and enjoying our life. Share on XI encourage you to focus on finding ways to do this because it will also help you with your mindset practice. The very same thing that you’re doing, the reframing, the focusing on the things in your life that you enjoy, and the things that matter to you, those practices are also going to help boost your serotonin and get you to a place where you feel better all the time.
Keep in mind, when I’m talking about serotonin, I’m talking about your overall mood, not so much your motivation and your high highs, but can your baseline be at a better place where you feel better all the time, regardless of whether or not you’re achieving things or getting to some goal? Are you even-keeled in a better baseline happiness place? That is what I want for you. That is where the magic starts to happen, where we’re not relying on the high highs, we are motivated, happy, and enjoying our life as we have it. That allows us to focus more on getting the things that we want and enjoying the things that we already have. That, my friends, is the secret. Here’s to your success.