What do all these things have in common? The answer is dopamine. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that is involved in the brain’s reward system. It is triggered by the expectation of a reward and its release fills us with a feeling of pleasure. Our brain then associates the behavior with the feeling of pleasure.

The brain’s reward system helps ensure that we learn—and remember—behaviors that enhance our chances of remaining alive. That’s why so many of the things we naturally find rewarding are related to food and reproduction. Many different substances, activities, and behaviors trigger the release of dopamine. Some of them, in addition to food and sex, are:

• social interactions
• music
• generosity
• scary movies, scary situations, or scary thoughts
• psychoactive drugs (alcohol, cocaine, heroin, nicotine, etc.)
• gambling
• sugar

Dopamine is part of a brain circuit called the mesolimbic pathway. The mesolimbic pathway connects behaviors to feelings of pleasure, which results in the formation of habits.  A pleasurable experience acts as a stimulus to wake up the mesolimbic pathway. Along with the release of dopamine, emotional and learning circuits are activated to increase the likelihood we will remember what we did.

A reward is positive reinforcement. It motivates us to repeat the behavior. In the case of long-term goals, small hits of dopamine encourage us to keep moving forward, so it pays to know where you are headed. And it’s more effective to acknowledge and celebrate each small accomplishment along the way than it is to wait for one big jolt of dopamine at the end.

Dopamine also plays a role in:

• movement
• memory
• behavior and cognition
• attention and alertness
• motivation
• sleep
• mood
• learning

Abnormal levels of dopamine are involved in Parkinson’s disease, schizophrenia, and drug addiction.

The Good, the Bad, and the Addictive

Although a wide variety of behaviors can affect dopamine levels, some of those behaviors have a greater potential for being harmful or even life-threatening. Psychostimulant drugs such as cocaine, methamphetamine, and ecstasy operate by inhibiting the reuptake of dopamine. As a result, the brain remains flooded with it. The person using the drug will continue ingesting it in order to maintain the increased level of dopamine.

Dopamine affects the sympathetic nervous system, resulting in a release of energy which is intended to spur us on toward the finish line. So the abuse of psychostimulant drugs often results in increased heart rate and elevated blood pressure. There is no long-term change to the production of dopamine or to dopamine receptors in the brain as a result of using these kinds of drugs, but when a person stops taking them, he or she will experience some seriously unpleasant feelings.

Many activities or behaviors performed compulsively are classified as addictive, even though they have no component of physical dependence. That’s because the behaviors stimulate the brain’s reward system—or over-stimulate it—to the extent that people are driven by a craving for whatever gets them those hits of dopamine. Craving a reward doesn’t just happen in the case of addictions. Craving is actually essential for successfully creating good habits, too. Whether it’s using cocaine or getting more fruit and vegetables in one’s diet, the brain’s reward system operates the same way.

Behavior  —> Dopamine Hit —> Pleasure —> “Do it again!”

Rewards Reinforce Habits

If there are no rewards, or weak rewards, habits are much less likely to take hold. That’s because the basal ganglia, which is the part of the brain that turns repetitive behaviors into habits, depends on having enough dopamine to operate efficiently.

If something doesn’t produce a hit of dopamine in our brain, we will not experience it as rewarding. It doesn’t matter if 99% of the rest of the people in the world find it rewarding (i.e., get a dopamine hit from it). If it doesn’t give us a dopamine hit, it won’t work as a reward. We talk about the reward as if it’s the activity, behavior, thing, or substance. But the things (activities, behaviors, etc.) that feel rewarding are essentially means to the same end: that hit of dopamine.

Sometimes we know what the reward for a habit is, but since habits can be formed outside our awareness, there are times when we’re kind of clueless. And as far as the brain is concerned, anything that produces a hit of dopamine is good. The brain doesn’t care about our opinions or mental assessments of good or bad. No one sets out to become addicted to a substance or a behavior. The brain’s reward system operates outside our conscious awareness. Feed into it and we create a habit or an addiction. Try to stop it consciously using will power or intention without understanding the powerful system we’re up against and we fail more often than not.

It’s easy to believe that your verbal inner voice is your whole thought process and ignore your neurochemical self. —Loretta Graziano Breuning, Ph.D.

In order to change a habit or start a new one, we have to be able to identify what it is that gives us that hit of dopamine. We may know we feel good every time we do a particular thing without knowing what part of the behavior is creating the reward. It’s especially important to figure rewards out correctly when trying to change an existing habit. If the new behavior doesn’t produce a similar reward, it won’t work as well.

Long-Term Reward System

Dopamine doesn’t just play a role in immediate rewards or in the formation of habits, it also helps us stay focused on long-term goals whose rewards are not within sight.

The journal Nature reported on a study conducted by researchers from the University of Washington in Seattle and MIT that revealed details on how the brain is able to stay focused on long-term goals.

While most previous studies have involved looking at dopamine with respect to an immediate reward, the new study found increasing levels of dopamine as laboratory rats approached an expected reward after delayed gratification.

Researchers were able to continuously record dopamine concentration while training rats to find their way through a maze in pursuit of a chocolate milk reward. What they found was that levels of dopamine rose steadily and culminated in a peak level as the rodent neared the reward. According to Ann Graybiel, brain researcher at MIT:

The dopamine signal seems to reflect how faraway the rat is from its goal. The closer it gets, the stronger the signal becomes. It’s as if the animal were adjusting its expectations, knowing it had further to go.

Graybiel believes the same thing happens in the brains of humans.

Of course, many of our long-term goals could take weeks, months, or even years to achieve. In such cases, we’d be wise to set short-term goals, track our progress, and reward ourselves for achievement along the way.

All Rewards Are Not Created Equal

As previously stated, a reward that works for one person may not work at all for someone else. One person may imagine soaking for an hour in a hot bubble bath to be a tiny slice of heaven while another person considers it cruel and unusual punishment. And some rewards that seem small and innocuous might turn out to have unintended negative consequences.

Temperament-Based Rewards: Understanding our personality or temperament can help us identify the type of reward that is most effective. Rewards can be physical/material, emotional, or mental. Someone who responds well to mental rewards, for example, may not be very motivated by that bubble bath.

Guilty Pleasures: It’s counterproductive to use something we ordinarily feel guilty about or try to avoid doing as a reward. That’s especially true if we use “guilty pleasure” rewards often. What we end up doing is reinforcing the craving for something we’ve already concluded doesn’t serve us in the long run. Using “bad” behavior to reward ourselves for good behavior pretty much defeats the purpose.

Satisfying Rewards: Know yourself. Then explore. Stretch your imagination. We tend to get into ruts in all kinds of areas including that of rewarding ourselves. Dopamine is more likely to be triggered when we try—and enjoy—new activities. There are probably a lot of things we might find pleasurable and have even thought about doing but never followed through on. Identifying some of those things and intentionally trying them out as rewards could expand our horizons and maybe even lead us in new and pleasurable directions.

One-time or Occasional Rewards: Rewarding ourselves after an intense or exhausting effort can be tricky. The point when the effort or ordeal is over is often when our self-control is at a low point. It’s easy to feel we really deserve a treat of some kind. The almost automatic next step is to give ourselves a free pass to overindulge. But that turns an opportunity to reinforce positive behavior into an excuse for self-indulgence, and it could easily negate the sense of accomplishment we would otherwise feel. Planning ahead can solve the problem. If we decide what our reward will be ahead of time—before our self-control is depleted—we can bypass temptation. Then it’s a win-win situation.

Extrinsic vs. Intrinsic Rewards

Sometimes the reward stimulus comes from others or from our environment. We might work extra hard for a bigger paycheck or for acknowledgement of our efforts if those things make us feel good. We might take up some form of exercise to look better at the beach or swimming pool or senior center if other people’s approval makes us feel good. We might get into the habit of picking things up around the house to avoid arguing with our spouse or partner if maintaining the peace makes us feel good. Similarly, we might change our diet or take up meditation so our doctor won’t get on our case about our blood pressure if getting through our next appointment without another lecture makes us feel good.

Extrinsic rewards can be effective for a while, maybe for a long while. Extrinsic rewards often motivate us to change or start a habit, and that’s a good thing. But extrinsic rewards are usually not effective over the long haul. If we ask ourselves why we want to do what we’re doing—not why someone else thinks we should do it—we have a better opportunity to clarify what’s really important to us. And if we can’t answer that question, it’s a sign we might just be spinning our wheels.

If we can identify a reward behavior that is meaningful to us—an intrinsic reward—we’re much more likely to stick with the habit or behavior. In fact, if we focus on intrinsic rewards, we’re not only more likely to be successful in creating and maintaining habits we want to have, we’re also likely to find out we no longer need to reward ourselves for continuing them! Rewards are great motivators, and they are critical in kick-starting new habits. But nothing beats the moment of discovering the habit has become a part of who we are and not just something we do.

Relegating What Matters to Reward Status

It can be tempting to use something that really matters to us as a reward for putting time and effort into something that doesn’t. If I get the house clean, I can get some writing done. If I finish this project for so-and-so, then I can work on my [music, quilting, gardening, etc.…].

This is an unequivocally bad idea and entirely backwards.The things that matter to us are often the very activities that energize and enliven us, whereas the things that don’t matter, but which we have to do anyway, can be draining and tiring. Putting off doing something that really matters until we’re drained and tired from directing the bulk of our energy and attention on things that don’t matter usually leads to not doing the things that matter.

If there’s something that’s really important, we need to find another way to include it in our lives. Making sure we spend time on things that matter can actually make those other activities less burdensome.

Besides, if we have to constantly reward ourselves for getting through the day, we might want to consider changing at least some of what it is we’re doing during the day.

~ ~ ~

The bottom line is that the importance of rewards cannot be overstated, yet this is often the step people omit when they are trying to change their behavior or achieve their goals. Maybe they place excessive confidence in self-control or will-power. Or maybe they believe they should be able to do these things without having to reward themselves.

But the brain’s reward system is going to operate with or without your consent or input. So why not be intentional about it and use it instead of letting it use you?