Dopamine – the molecule of motivation and desire to pursue

I am a big fan of podcasts and hope to launch my own lifestyle podcast “Natter with Nina” in October 2022. 
This article about the chemical in our brain called dopamine rephrases some of the podcasts on the subject created by Andrew Huberman, a Professor of neurology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. His podcasts are based on “neuro-biological principles and objective mechanisms”.
 
Dopamine is a very powerful molecule in our body and has two main roles:
1. It controls our motor functions (our movements)
2. It influences anticipation, motivation to go out and pursue and the desire for more
You probably recall that serotonin was the molecule of bliss, of contentment with what you have, of the here and now. The dopamine molecule is the opposite – it motivates us to reach out for resources, to have more, to desire or to crave.
The amount of dopamine in our body is determined by our genes. Therefore some people are naturally more driven, ready for action and striving to achieve. Others are more apathetic with a lower urge to attain goals or satisfy needs. 
 
So our dopamine baseline is set up genetically. Additionally there are behaviour (activities) and substances that can increase our level of dopamine. For example:
  • eating chocolate increases the level of dopamine 1.5 times
  • practicing sex (including persuasion, anticipation and actual sex) – 2 times
  • nicotine – 2.5 times
  • cocaine – 2.5 times
  • exercise (only if you enjoy it) – 2 times
  • amphetamine – 10 times.
 
It looks simple – practice these activities or take substances and you will achieve your goals. Sorry, It is not so simple at all. The catch is that every peak of dopamine in the body is followed by a crash in the dopamine level and more importantly, the crash lowers the amount of dopamine  below the starting line.  I remember crossing the finishing line of my first marathon in Rome – it brought me indescribable pleasure, I felt great, I felt on the top of the world. Some days later all this euphoria was gone and I felt very depleted, very sad. 
If the peaks of dopamine are very high the lows are very low and eventually the general dopamine baseline will decrease. Moreover, dopamine is the chemical of craving, of the desire to have more. After every release of dopamine we feel pleasure followed by the pain of craving for more. So, the first time you try a Lindt chocolate it melts in your mouth and pleasure spreads through your body, but the second time it is not so great and the next time even less. You need more and more chocolate to feel the same delight as before. It is a vicious circle and leads to addiction – drug addiction, food addiction, sex addiction, gambling addiction, video games addiction, Iphone addiction, social media platforms addiction, addiction to pornography, etc. Having more decreases the pain of craving.
Another important fact is that novelty and surprise bring huge releases of dopamine.
Dopamine motivates us to take action to achieve a goal and obtain the reward. And here is another catch in the way dopamine works. To achieve the goal requires hard work, even harder if the work is not liked and the reward comes at the end. An interesting project was conducted at Stanford University involving children in kindergartens. Only children who liked drawing were selected to participate and they were given rewards at the end of every drawing session – golden stars and some toys. After a period of time the scientists stopped giving these regular rewards. Remarkably, the children also stopped enjoying the drawing as a result. The pleasure of the regular rewards surpassed the pleasure received from drawing and made the effort to achieve the goal (drawing better) much more difficult. The release of dopamine as result of regular end rewards can keep you motivated for a short period of time but do not work in the long term.
So this molecule of pleasure and pain seems quite awkward, like Jekyll  and Hyde. How can we use the knowledge that science gives us to be more motivated and more driven to achieve our goals? The wonderful Professor Andrew Huberman has suggested some tools and protocols to help with that. Maybe you have already guessed some of them or even practice them. The next post in this section will be about how to balance the pleasure and pain of dopamine release for our benefit in everyday life. 

Was Nietzsche wrong – why do not we listen?

Recently I came across a statement of Friedrich Nietzsche (yes, the German philosopher who also said “What does not kill you makes you stronger”) – “And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music”.

Initially I quite liked the statement. Those who do not hear and listen to something so beautiful and emotional like music (they are obviously not cool and do not have fun) condemn the awesome people who enjoy and treasure the dance of life. And, of course, I was in the group of the quirky people. 

 

On second thoughts, I was not so keen on the proposition. Actually, I found it divisive and dogmatic. It says that there are only two ways to react if you listen – to dance and be cool or to  brand those different from you insane.
What happens if you listen to music and enjoy it quietly? What if you listen to music and sing-along? What if dancing is not good for your body and soul?

 

This brought me to the big subject of the art of listening. We all want to be heard but we do not listen. Why is that? Is it only the listener who is to blame? 
Communication is a two-way process and let’s look at the reasons we do not listen. 
1. We do not listen because we are thinking what we will say when the speaker finishes talking. Human beings are selfish and our opinion is more important to us than the other’s – that’s life. However, there are also other contexts when our words could have significant consequences , so rehearsing them in our mind instead of listening is what we do. 
2. We hear the speaker through our conscious or unconscious prejudice. Maybe we do not like the appearance, the accent, the manners, etc of the speaker.  (Incidentally, I am very proud of my post “Let’s celebrate the accents”. Yesterday i read a newspaper article which not only confirmed my conclusions but announced the commencement of a major project into accent bias.: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jun/12/accent-discrimination-is-alive-and-kicking-in-britain-study-suggests).
3. We are genuinely not interested in the subject  – we know much more on the subject, we have heard the speech many times, we do not know why we are there. 
4. The pace of speaking is not right – it is speedy or it is very slow. If the speech is quick we cannot not process it, if it is very slow we lose the will to live (reference: work or club meetings)
5. The language is too complicated or intolerable.
6. We are tired or even exhausted. Listening requires mental energy and physical or mental tiredness is a barrier to listening. 
7. We are in flow – doing something that absorbs us, something that we are passionate about and don’t want to stop and listen to the distraction.
8. We listen but what we understand is different to what was said. The reason is being we subjectively process the words through our own experiences and values.
9. The environment is very noisy and it is difficult to listen. 
10. We disagree with what was said and stop listening.

Poor speaker! George Bernard Shaw (Irish play writer and winner of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1925) describes it beautifully: “The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place”.

Musee Rodin – do not miss it

On the left bank of River Seine in the 7th arrondissement of Paris you will find a real jewel- Musee Rodin. There are at least four reasons not to miss it when you visit Paris:

1.  The crowd is much less than at the other Parisienne attractions

2.  You will spend a few hours enjoying magnificent sculptors in one of the most beautiful gardens in the world and inside a splendid building of the former hotel Biron

                  

3.  You will be fascinated by the life of one of the most talented artists of modern times – Auguste Rodin (1840 -1917)

4.  You can admire three paintings of Van Gogh – Pere Tanguy, The Viaduct in Arles and The Harvesters and a painting of The Rodin’s Thinker by Edvard Munch. 

                                               

 

Of all the sculptures displayed in the Musee Rodin I have two favourites – The Thinker and Balzac. 

The famous Thinker presents a man with a very fit and powerful body (nowadays we cannot attach gender) sitting on a stone in a moment of deep thought and concentration. It appears that he has risen above daily chores and noises, above the external world and is contemplating his inner worth and space. It is very clear to me why Rodin was acknowledged as a modern sculptor – he did not go for a photographic similarity of the figure but expressed himself as an artist, expressed feelings, concepts and ideas. One of the man’s legs is not fully developed and is still part of the stone, the surface is not smooth but has traces of sculptor’s tools (is that reminding you of the brush strokes on the paintings of Van Gogh?!). The sculpture just invites us to stop for a while, to slow down, to rise above modern day speed and impatience and look for inner peace. 

The “Balzac” sculpture caused a scandal when it was presented by Rodin.  The author of Human Comedy was well known for his habit of  writing standing up wearing his dressing kaftan. Creating his monument, Rodin chose not to use any symbols such as books and pens or to go for a photographic resemblance of the writer.  Instead, he presented a revolutionary monument, showing a man with vision, a genius looking over the world, powerful with his intellect and talent. Surprise, surprise – The Society des Gens de Letters who commissioned it refused to accept it.  Why? Because the decision was made by yesterday’s people and not people of vision. (the story of our lives). 

Rodin’s personal life is very interesting for me for two reasons. Firstly, Rodin was not a mainstream artist. He applied three times to the prestigious Ecole des Beaux-Arts and failed every time. He had a very long apprenticeship mainly in the studios of the very fashionable sculptor Albert-Ernest Carrier- Belleuse in Paris and Brussels, learning the trade of the decorative craft. He was 35 when his first sculpture The man with the broken nose was accepted by the Salon. Success came to him when he was 40 years old. Maybe the fact that he did not have an academic education and was more practitioner than creator was a blessing in disguise as this paved his way to become the most famous sculptor of the 20th century. 

Secondly, Rodin met his long-time partner and wife for two weeks, Rose Beuret, when he was 24. She was a seamstress and they had one son Auguste Beuret (Rodin gave him only his first name not his surname). The artist had endless affairs but Rose never left him. Maybe she loved him and/or she appreciated that she was living with a genius. Rodin was unfaithful to her and had a 10 year passionate affair with one of his students, Camille Claudel. Camille became his lover and muse. She was also a talented sculptress. They separated when Rodin refused to leave Rose for Camille but they still kept in touch. However, in 1893 Camille created The Age of Maturity sculpture. It has three figures. In the middle is a man, on the left is a much younger woman on her knees who is looking longingly towards the man, The man is reacting to her but at the same time is leaning to the right where there is a mature woman embracing him. The mature woman is smiling and guiding the man away from his young lover. Rodin was furious with this sculpture and that was the end of his relationship with Camille. Camille continued her creative work but became ill and was confined to an asylum. Rodin married his long-time companion Rose two weeks before her death. 

Musee Rodin has a room dedicated to the work of Camille Clodel, including The Age of Maturity. One wonders whether mature ladies should choose to live in France if handsome and talented French men appreciate maturity so much (reference: current President Macron).

Palais Garnier – a world “magnifique”

I have been to some of the most famous opera houses in the world (Sidney Opera is still on the list) but Opera Garnier in the Place L’Opera in the 9th arrondissement of Paris is something magnifique in its own right. The taxi approaches the square from the beautiful L’Opera Avenue and the building is in front of us (my husband Adrian and I) – monumental and authoritative but attractive and artistic at the same time. The building was commissioned by Napoleon The Third in 1860 (he was the nephew of Napoleon The First). The anonymous competition to build the Opera House in Paris was won by Charles Garnier who was a very young architect (35 years old) and had not build anything before this commission. 

                         

A big crowd of tourists is sitting on the stairs of the Opera, chatting, people watching, enjoying the warm Parisian evening. Adrian and I climb the stars between the tourists, show the barcodes of our online tickets to the security guards and “Abracadabra” – doors are open to a magical world.  

The Grand Staircase of the Opera is breathtaking – a mixture of marble, gold and light. Ballet lovers are all around, buying programmes, taking pictures, looking around – all happy to be here. There is no dress code. Some people (obviously tourists) are in their casual trousers and t-shirts. An elegant French couple enjoy a glass of wine – the woman is in a beautiful little black dress and her partner wears an immaculate suit with a scarf around his neck in the way that only French messieurs know how to do. A Russian family passes – straight from the St. Petersburg salon of “War and Peace” – the mother has long blond hair and wears a velvet opera coat, the daughter is a little princess in a dusty pink dress with tulle roses and the father is a copy of Anton Chekhov – intelligent, with a beard and spectacles. 

We have folding seats in the second row from the stage. It is too early to enter the main auditorium for the show  but the friendly French assistant speaks from experience – I can enter it  to take photographs. Of course, I want photographs  but what amazes me is how we all (everyone around me is taking photographs) do not live in the present moment, The main auditorium is spectacular and instead of breathing the atmosphere we are busy with our iPhones. Later, at home we will look at the pictures regretting the moments we are missing now. 

The ballet is the creation of a Swedish artist Mats Ek on the music of Bizet and Chtchedrine, Franz Liszt and Ravel. He is a famous contemporary choreographer whose style of dancing is very expressive, distinctive and immediately recognisable. I dream that time will stop and I will be in this wonderful world forever. 

During the interval the fairy tale continues with a visit to the Grand foyer and the terrace. I also look at the ceiling and the magical  surrealistic figures of the Marc Chagall frescoes. The story goes that in 1960 General De Gaulle and the French Minister of Culture, Andre Malraux, entertained a foreign delegation with the premiere of Daphnis and Chloe, the ballet of Maurice Ravel, in the Opera Garnier. The costumes and decor were created by the artist Marc Chagall. The minister looked at the ceiling, saw the work of Jules Lenepveu (quite academic) from the19th century, and asked Chagall whether he would be willing to paint new frescoes. In 1963 Marc Chagall was commissioned by the French Government to paint the ceiling of the Opera Garnier. The appointment sent a shock through some French circles. The correspondent of the Los Angelis Times described the reaction as if the minister ordered the Eiffel Tower to be painted pink! The message was that foreigners should stay away from French heritage (Chapel was originally from Belarus). 

                                       

The Government and Chagall compromised – Chagall’s painting should not destroy the original paintings. They were painted on a suspended, removable canvas, 240 meters square. The paintings are colourful, a joyful tribute to 14 distinguished composers in two circles. They are so beautiful that one could hardly imagine there was any opposition to them when they were revealed on 23rd September 1964 . By the way, Chagall did not take a penny for his work as he regarded this work as a great honour. 

The ballet is over, it is time to go. Outside, on the stairs a man is playing guitar and two couples are dancing with many singing and laughing. In front of us is the River Seine and the magical world of Paris.