? You probably don't have a problem playing video games, or browsing social media on your phone, in fact I have no doubt that you could sit in front of a screen do both of these activities for 2 hours or even longer without breaking your concentration.
? But what about half an hour of studying? Oof, that might be too hard. How about working on your side business for another hour? Hmm, doesn't sound too appealing.
? Even you logically know that studying, exercising or something equally productive will bring you more things in the long run, you still prefer watching TV, playing video games, and scrolling through social media.
? One might argue that it's obvious why, one activity is easy and doesn't require much effort, while the other activity is difficult and requires you to apply yourself,
? But some people seem to have no problem doing hard things regularly, why? is there a way to make doing difficult things easy?
? We need to look at this brain neurotransmitter, dopamine, it's a pleasure molecule, makes us desire things, it's that desire that give us the motivation to get up and do stuff,
? If you are not sure how powerful dopamine is, let me introduce you an experiment neuroscientists did on rats. Researchers implanted electrodes in the brains of rats, whenever the rat pressed the button, the device stimulated the rat's reward system in the brain, the result was that the rats developed a craving so strong, kept pressing the button over and over, refused to eat even sleep, until they dropped from exhaustion.
? But then the process was reversed, the device would not stimulate their reward system, rats became so lethagic that even getting up to get a drink of water was not worth the effort, didn't eat, didn't sleep, didn't mate, didn't crave anything at all, lost all will to live. However, if food was placed directly in their mouths, they would still eat the food, the just didn't have the motivation to get up and do it themselves.
? You may think that it is thirst or hunger that motivates us to get water or food, but there is also dopamine that plays a key role here.
? This rat experiment might be extreme, but you an see similiar effects dopamine has in our daily lives. In fact, your brain develops priorities in large part based on how much dopamine it is expecting to get, if an activity releases little dopamine, you will not have much motivation to do it, but with a lot of dopamine, you will repeat it over over,
? So what behaviors release dopamine? any activity that where you anticipate there is a potential reward releases it, but if there is no immediate reward, your brain won't release dopamine. Your brain just wants more and more dopamine.
? A stereotypical example is drug addicts, he knows it is not good for him, but because drug can release unnatural amount of dopamine, he will use drug over over.
? Nearly everything releases dopamine, even drinking water, but the highest dopamine release happens when you get a reward randomly, for example gambling.
? You might ask, is high dopamine not good?
? Our bodies have a biological system called homeostasis, keep internal physical and chemical conditions at a balanced level, whenever an imbalance occurs, our body adapts to it. For example when it is cold outside, you start shivering, when it is hot, you start sweating, our body maintains a temperature of around 37 degrees Celsius or 98 degrees Fahrenheit.
? For dopamine, it does not play its role alone, it must connect with its receptor to release happiness and motivation for you. If you stay in high level dopamine state, your body will reduce your dopamine receptors, then if you do another activity with no such high dopamine, because receptors are few now, you are not able to get equal happiness as you got in the high level dopamine activity, you have no motivation to do low level dopamine activity, you feel uncomfortable, you will miss high level dopamine activities, prefer to repeat them again, and this will reduce your dopamine receptors even more, this is a vicious circle.
? The only way to treat the shorty of dopamine receptor, is to cut off the high level dopamine immediately, stop those activities that make you happy, when dopamine are few, your body will increase receptors, but before receptors have increased to normal level, if you can't help to repeat those happy things again, treating fails. You need to wait that time, when you recover dopamine receptors to normal level, then try to study, you will find this hard thing you once thought difficult, now is easy and funny.
? So is that simple? simple is right, but maybe not easy.
?


apply yourself: 專心
craving: 渴望
exhaustion: 精疲力凈
drug addict: 名詞，毒品上癮者
homeostasis: 內(nèi)部平衡狀態(tài)