Episode 035: Want to feel more productive?
The first thing David wants to talk about how amazing Dolly Parton is, how he’s heard more amazing things that she’s done in the last six months and it blows his mind.. Isabelle references the podcast Dolly Parton’s America, about how Jad Abumrad’s (of Radiolab’s) dad befriended Dolly Parton, and just how beloved she is and why that might be. David names Imagination Library, which gives free books to kids 5 and under every month to encourage literacy, because her own dad never had a chance to learn how to learn how to read. Isabelle really wants to go to Dollywood, and David’s partner Robin went, and it was amazing and is like Orlando in the Smokies. The other thing David wants to talk about is norepinephrine, a neurotransmitter that plays a key role in ADHD and it’s almost a crime we haven’t mentioned it before, focusing so much on dopamine. Dopamine is still really important, but both are. Imagine that neurotransmitters are like a light switch, they are on or off (whereas hormones are like a thermostat, you change the temperature and then it slowly brings the body back up to it). Dopamine is the reward or satisfaction feeling, it’s sex drugs and rock n’ roll, it’s raising the stakes and feeling the risk and then doing the thing anyway. For example, as you procrastinate and then do the task, you feel dopamine as you inch closer to getting your task done, because it’s giving you the feeling of achievement, but as soon as you’re done, the dopamine is gone. As folx with ADHD, we are dopamine deficient, so we’re kind of starving for it, it’s a little bump we’re getting as opposed to a full high of dopamine. David uses the example of researching a knife, and he went down this massive research wormhole, and he buys the knife, and the moment it came, it was like “Yay, it’s here.” (Crickets chirping). The shine and newness goes away, and he still likes the life, the handoff in that moment is from dopamine being the lead thing, and then norepinephrine comes in. So if we’re hunter-gatherers, the dopamine comes in when you’re hunting, as Isabelle points out, it’d be evolutionarily beneficial to have the process be rewarding, and the moment you hunt and then you feel productive, that’s norepinephrine kicking in, that feeling of being productive. It connects to motivation, and the thoughts that you have, how you think about things, and Nora, as David calls norepinephrine, is amazing, she is involved with the self-talk in your head, and when there’s too much, there is negative self-talk cycles we can get into. Motivation isn’t always pleasant, because we can shame ourselves or beat ourselves up. Isabelle names that she thought the I did it feeling is dopamine. It can be hard to get things started or finish them, using the gatherer metaphor, it can be rough getting out to find the berry bush, but then you get the dopamine once you found the bush and are picking the berries, and then again the let down once you’ve found them all—Isabelle wonders if it’s a pleasant feeling, having this norepinephrine trade off? David names it can easily be manipulated by how you think about things. If you feel like you did nothing but brush your teeth today, then that’s how you feel. But if you brushed your teeth after just breaking a leg and having food poisoning, you’d feel differently about it, you’d feel so grateful you did the thing—you get the burst from feeling validated. Isabelle keeps clarifying dopamine is the thrill of the hunt or the chase or the online shopping cart building, or researching cutting boards (which synchronicitously with David’s knife-researching example, Isabelle is now doing), ends once you order it, is norepinephrine the moment when you’ve ordered the thing. The dopamine goes down once you’ve finished the task, it goes away because it makes you want the next thing (it pushes you to seek that reward again), like David ordering all the video games, and only playing with two of the games. Isabelle is still confused: is it the feeling that comes after the thing happens that forces us to pause and reflect on what just happened. It’s more complicated than this, so David is being purposefully vague, but it’s connected to our perception of productivity, worth, and work. If dopamine is what helped you get through the day, norepinephrine is how do you feel about the day you just did, it’s around wins and accomplishments. If dopamine is the lights, norepinephrine is evaluating the light show. David thinks about it in his life, there are some days where he mowed the lawn, went to hardware store, saw a friend, did laundry, “what a productive day!” And then he feels the WOOO that’s norepinephrine. Dopamine is really connected with being distracted by auditory outside things, whereas too much norepinephrine, you are distracted by internal judgments. If you’re ruminating a lot, or evaluating what you just said to the friend, replaying your day a lot, that’s norepinephrine, and if you have too much it can get you caught in that. Our brains have a solid negativity bias, we pay more attention to doubt, fear, uncertainty, and if we’re ruminating and analyzing a lot, it would be a set up to be negative. Norepinephrine is what we practice: if we’re very practiced in feeling anxiety, we would be reinforced to anxiously review the things. The practice when you don’t need it for it to actually happen when you do, you have to make it a reflex, it would be take too much energy. David uses the example when driving, he sees a car swerving in front of him, he practices thinking they have to go to the bathroom, or they have an emergency, that’s why they’re driving so wildly, as opposed to thinking they are awful people, because he truly does not have data in either direction.
All the Dolly Parton things
Jad Abumrad and Shima Oliaee’s podcast: Dolly Parton’s America
Dolly Parton’s ties to Moderna Vaccine (she gave $1M to Vanderbilt, which helped fund three pandemic-related research projects including the one that helped develop the Moderna vaccine; source NPR)
Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library
Our brain’s negativity bias and interview with one of the people who researches this and wrote a book on it (article from Berkeley's Greater Good magazine)
DAVID’S DEFINITIONS
Dopamine deficiency? ADHD is often understood as neurobiological (brain) difference, that includes lower levels of dopamine, the neurotransmitter (messenger chemical) in our brain that gives us feelings of satisfaction and reward—the feeling of YOU ARE DOING IT… Another way of viewing it is a neurotypical person has a shot-glass-sized need for dopamine and so little bits of dopamine fill it up enough to feel that satiation, whereas a person with ADHD has a pint-glass-sized need for dopamine. At times, you need a lot more dopamine and are starving for it, but at other times, you have so much dopamine it is so rewarding (and perhaps the reward feeling while eating that doughnut is actually that much greater), but it also makes it even harder to pull away or transition from getting that dopamine to not (imagine how hard it is to not keep watching a show you love or how it would feel if someone suddenly unplugged the tv). Keep in mind that dopamine is just one of the neurotransmitters doing some fun other stuff where ADHD is concerned.
Neurotransmitters: a messenger chemical in the brain, there are tons of them, most currently talked about include serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine, that work like a lightswitch, they are either on or off.
Dopamine: gives you feelings of satisfaction and reward (the feeling of YOU’RE DOING IT!), sex, drugs, rock n’ roll, raising the stakes and making things riskier can release dopamine as you do the task anyway (like as you procrastinate and feel the relief of getting the thing you’ve procrastinated done). As soon as you finish the task, dopamine is done: the dopamine is generated in doing the task and anticipating the task. It’s the lights.
Norepinephrine: Once a task is done, this kicks in with that “I was productive” or “not” feeling. It connects to motivation, the sense you DID the thing. It can be easily manipulated by the way you think about things, so it’s not inherently a pleasant or unpleasant feeling, it’s just coming in to help you pause and slow down and evaluate (and it is more complicated than that) and how you use it can be up to you a bit. Our perception of productivity, worth, and work. It’s evaluating the light show.
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Cover Art by: Sol Vázquez
Technical Support by: Bobby Richards
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