How to get high on your own dopamine—naturally
Here’s how you can push your body to naturally generate the happy hormone.
If you've experienced a jolt of excitement when your phone buzzes, a rush from seeing a new parking space open up, or a flutter of hope before good news lands, you've experienced dopamine at work.
“Dopamine is the good feeling that you’re about to get a reward,” explains Loretta Graziano Breuning, a professor emerita at California State University, East Bay, and author of Habits of a Happy Brain.
Beyond anticipation, dopamine also helps reward us after beneficial behaviors such as eating, connecting with others, or accomplishing goals. In this way, “dopamine contributes greatly to our motivation to do things," says Jacquie Olds, associate professor of clinical psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.
But dopamine is far more than a “feel-good” reward chemical. It's also a chemical “that allows for fine-tuned control of neural networks,” explains Anna Lembke, a physician and professor of psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine.
In this way, the hormone influences blood pressure, sleep regulation, digestion, kidney function, and immune activity—largely because it affects blood vessel dilation, sodium balance, circadian rhythm, and gastrointestinal motility and secretions.
Dopamine even plays a crucial role in the body’s fight-or-flight survival response by increasing alertness, boosting energy availability, and helping regulate heart rate and blood pressure.
Despite such benefits, the modern world often hijacks our dopamine through things like doomscrolling or substance—activities and products that can actually have negative effects. But there are natural ways to trigger dopamine and enjoy its rewards without overdoing. Here’s what to know.
How dopamine release is triggered—and why it can be good for you
Dopamine is a neurotransmitter, or chemical messenger, that's primarily “made in the nerve cells in the lower part of the brain called the brainstem,” explains Theresa Larkin, an associate professor in medical sciences for the Graduate School of Medicine at the University of Wollongong in Australia.
More specifically, it's produced in two neighboring regions called the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and the substantia nigra. Smaller amounts are also produced in the adrenal glands above the kidneys.
When dopamine is released in these brain regions, it creates a powerful “surge of wanting,” says Kent Berridge, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Michigan. That surge is what motivates you to start something and why you're glad you followed through once you do.
Research shows these rewards increase when additional effort is required. “The more effort you have to put in, the more dopamine that will be released,” says Lembke. This helps explain why achievements earned through challenge often feel deeper and more satisfying than instant gratification.
Within the brain, dopamine also plays a central role in learning and memory. For instance, a 2025 study shows that dopamine strengthens long-term memory formation by reinforcing neural connections and tagging experiences as worth remembering—especially when events are novel, emotionally charged, or personally significant. That’s why moments like falling in love or traveling somewhere new tend to leave such vivid imprints.
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Dopamine further supports learning by “making you feel interested in a subject,” says Lembke. At the same time, it helps regulate attention, motivation, and impulse control—one reason dopamine dysfunction has been linked to neurodevelopmental conditions like ADHD.
The chemical also affects both fine and gross motor skills, playing a crucial role in movement and coordination through its regulation of the basal ganglia. In fact, damage to this pathway underlies Parkinson’s disease, a progressive brain disorder marked by slow movement and rigidity.
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How dopamine gets hijacked by the modern world
Despite its many benefits, the dopamine system can be steered—or even hijacked. This can occur through highly stimulating, fast-reward activities such as doomscrolling, where constant novelty and unpredictable rewards repeatedly trigger dopamine release with little effort required. Other compulsive behaviors such as online shopping, gambling, gaming, or even binge-watching can similarly overstimulate the dopamine system over time.
Alcohol and drugs are especially potent because they cause large surges of dopamine, creating intense euphoria and “raising dopamine levels artificially higher than natural rewards,” says Olds.
When this happens in excess and often, the brain may respond by reducing dopamine receptors, dulling the motivation system. Sometimes, even meaningful activities can lose their appeal, leading to anhedonia—a state in which ordinary pleasures feel flat or unrewarding. In fact, this dopamine-deficient state, says Lembke, has been shown to resemble clinical depression.
Unfortunately, anhedonia has become increasingly common in modern life. Dopamine evolved in environments where rewards were uncertain and effort mattered, but today’s world delivers dopamine triggers that are constant, cheap, and engineered for speed. "Modern society immerses us in a sea of available rewards, and their cues are meant to keep us over-engaged,” says Berridge.
(How Gen Z is fighting back against digital brain rot.)
How to work with dopamine
By avoiding oversaturation and working with dopamine the way it evolved to function, you can prevent extreme spikes and the crashes that follows. “Avoid substances and activities that are immediately reinforcing," advises Lembke. Think excess alcohol or too much time gaming or doomscrolling.
Instead, increase your focus on improved diet and exercise. Research shows that regular physical activity not only releases dopamine but can also raises baseline levels of the hormone and support mood and motivation over time.
Being thoughtful about food choices can also help ensure your body produces and regulates dopamine properly. Dopamine is synthesized from the amino acid tyrosine, which is found in foods like nuts, seeds, dairy, meat, bananas, and avocados. "So, eating these foods is a good way to increase the building blocks of dopamine,” says Larkin.
Setting and keeping small, realistic goals is another powerful way to support healthy dopamine signaling. “A goal is what triggers dopamine,” Breuning says.
Breaking the objectives into smaller steps can further create steady, sustainable releases of the hormone—whether you’re organizing a space, completing a project, or turning in an assignment on time. “A nice natural way to get regular little increases in dopamine during the day is to have a to-do list and check things off and enjoy that feeling of accomplishment,” says Larkin.
(Nine simple ways to boost your mental health, according to science.)
Exercise and goal achievement also cause dopamine to rise gradually and stay elevated longer, says Lembke, making these strategies more protective than quick hits of stimulation.
In the end, benefiting from dopamine without falling into oversaturation is a matter of balance. “Honor the reward responses you have, but manage them carefully,” advises Breuning. “For example, if you love an effort-driven hobby as well as an unhealthy habit, stop the unhealthy habit by making more time for the beneficial hobby."
That balance matters because dopamine “is needed to give life its zest,” says Berridge. “Without it, life is drab; leaving us in unmotivated states of apathy in which nothing seems attractive or worth obtaining.”
