Dopamine Enhancement - The First in Vivo Study on Humans

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The study that I'm about to describe is a study that dates back 20 years. It's the first in vivo demonstration of an association between an endogenous neurotransmitter release within us and conscious experience. So it's something that you can explore very safely and certainly not having to purchase anything. And what's really remarkable is the selectivity or I think it's fair to say the immense selectivity that this particular behavioral intervention seems to exert on dopamineWithin this pathway associated with divergent thinking.

In this episode, I explain how the brain engages in creative thinking and, based on that mechanistic understanding, the tools to improve one’s ability to think creatively and innovate in any area. I discuss how convergent and divergent thinking are essential for generating creative ideas and provide three types of meditation tools (open monitoring meditation, focused attention meditation & non-sleep deep rest; NSDR), which improve our ability to engage in these creative thinking patterns in specific and powerful ways. I also discuss how dopamine and mood contribute to the creative process and describe behavioral, nutritional and supplementation-based approaches for increasing dopamine to engage in creative thought and implementation. I explain how movement and storytelling (narrative) approaches can generate novel creative ideas and how substances like alcohol, cannabis, and psilocybin impact our creative ability. Excitingly, creativity is a skill that can be cultivated and enhanced; this episode outlines many tools to help anyone access creativity and apply creative patterns of thought to different domains of life.

For the full show notes, visit hubermanlab.com.