Recent neuroscience research has revealed that dopamine isn’t primarily about reward – it’s about motivation and craving. A key experiment demonstrated this using two rats: one normal and one with depleted dopamine. Both rats could enjoy food and pleasures, but when effort was required (even just moving one rat-length to get food), only the rat with dopamine would make the effort.

This finding shows that dopamine drives us to pursue rewards rather than creating the pleasure itself. Humans with low dopamine can still experience pleasure (like eating or watching TV) but struggle to find motivation to, exercise, pursue goals, or create things.

Our dopamine baseline constantly adjusts based on our experiences. When we repeatedly get easy pleasures (like social media scrolling or food delivery), our baseline rises, making normal activities feel less rewarding. This can create a destructive cycle – like constantly watching TED talks until they become boring, or needing increasingly intense experiences to feel satisfied.

The solution involves understanding the pain-pleasure balance. The more friction or difficulty you experience, the greater the subsequent dopamine reward. For example, after a hard X Gym workout, dopamine levels can double over baseline for 2.5 hours. The pain itself doesn’t release dopamine – it’s the contrast after the pain ends that creates the surge.

The reason so few people nowadays can produce normal dopamine surges that lift their baseline is because of their low tolerance for pain. Life is too easy with our modern conveniences. The familiar saying is true:

We find rewards too easily now. We live in a world of instant gratification full of buttons, thermostats, food abundance, screens, and countless other things that help us avoid physical effort and pain to achieve those rewards. This lowers our dopamine baseline, leading to more of those easy behaviors to chase dopamine, leaving us feeling tired and unmotivated.

To reset to a higher dopamine baseline, first, take a break from the easy pleasure-seeking behaviors. “Fasting” from social media for 2-4 weeks, for instance, creates a period of relative “pain” or discomfort, but afterward, simpler pleasures become rewarding again.

Success in modern life increasingly depends on managing this balance – being able to delay gratification, embrace necessary difficulties, and understand that the pursuit itself, rather than just the reward, is what drives lasting satisfaction.

Next, put more effort into things before the reward. Exercise is the perfect example of this but even things like cooking your dinner instead of going out or ordering in brings more reward pleasure when eating it.

In fact, the more effort, the more dopamine you get back, and thus a higher baseline. This is why people who inherit money often become so depressed and unmotivated, while those who are self-made remain motivated, happier, creative, and inspired.

The key is viewing dopamine as a motivator for pursuit rather than just seeking immediate rewards. This capacity for motivated pursuit, when properly managed through understanding our dopamine system, is essentially unlimited, which makes exercise (and other stuff) easier to do, even to the point of craving it!

Some people read an article like this and still feel like they can’t get started. They know it’s all true and they SHOULD do it, but still can’t seem to come up with the initial energy to get started. Here are som easy hacks that might help you get rolling (and then continue them because they are great habits regardless):

Quality sleep: Get to bed before 11 pm (the earlier the better) and focus on quality sleep because that is when you are actually downloading dopamine into the “tank” for use tomorrow.

Good nutritious foods give you the nutrients necessary (especially tyrosine) to continue to keep that “tank” full through the day.

Sunlight, especially within the first two hours of waking (5 minutes sunny, or 15 minutes cloudy) primes your dopamine pump tp work better the rest of the day.

Exercise – because of the effort, gives you a great burst that lasts for hours afterward. If you do light exercise, you will need 2-3 hours. If you can handle intense X Gym exercise though, you will only need 21 minutes because the effort is condensed and the pain is higher, both working to spike your dopamine and fill that tank! Even a single Xercise snack which takes only 3 minutes can put significant amounts of dopamine into your tank. This is why so many people like the X Gym App because you can pick just one 3-minute Xercise, so if you have limited time and motivation it could be your secret weapon!