Boost Your Brainpower

A few lifestyle tweaks can help increase dopamine and put you on the road to having less stress and more energy. Here's how.

- by ARRICCA ELIN SANSONE

Do you ever feel as if happiness, energy, and stress are all in your head? To the extent that dopamine is involved, you are correct. "Dopamine benefits us because it reinforces essential behaviors such as eating when hungry, drinking when thirsty, and reproduction," says Emily Gordon, M.D., an assistant professor of medicine at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School and director of the Addiction Medicine Fellowship Program. "It gives you a sense of accomplishment."

BEYOND THE BUZZ

The brain has billions of neurons that transfer messages from one nerve cell to the next, directing all our movements and emotions. "Dopamine is a chemical in the brain that is sometimes referred to as 'the feelgood neurotransmitter' because it's integral to the brain's reward system, pleasure, and motivation," says Charlotte Markey, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at Rutgers University and the author of the Body Image Book series.

However, it's actually a little more complicated. "Dopamine is better thought of as a teaching molecule that helps the brain change and learn about what is happening from moment to moment," says Kenneth T. Kishida, Ph.D., Boswell Presidential Chair of Neuroscience and Society and a professor of biology and translational neuroscience at Wake Forest University.

All kinds of situations can engage the dopamine system to help us learn to get the rewards we seek, says Kishida. Having a new experience by interacting with someone you've never met before, talking to a longtime friend, bonding with an infant during breastfeeding, and even just noticing that your favorite show is about to begin are situations that may engage the dopamine system.