How much dopamine do you get from sex?

2023-04-27 · Short · Ali, Ali Abdaal (channel) · recording, 0:47 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Health, sleep and habits · mode: Explanation and tutorial · tags: Evidence-based framing

In a Short, Ali compares how much dopamine rises with water and food, coffee and chocolate, sex, nicotine and cocaine, and says that thinking about something alone raises dopamine, so you can train your brain to look forward to things that are good for you, like exercise.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Dopamine increases from food, sex, nicotine and cocaine; training the brain to look forward to good things

• ★★ Ali says satisfying a craving for simple things such as water or lunch raises dopamine 50% above baseline, roughly the same as coffee or chocolate, while sex raises dopamine levels by 100%. — 00:00:00
• ★★ Ali says smoking a cigarette raises dopamine more than sex: within seconds of inhaling, nicotine raises dopamine by 150%. — 00:00:00
• ★★ Ali says class A drugs such as cocaine raise dopamine levels by 1000% within seconds. — 00:00:29
• ★★ Ali says just thinking about something can raise dopamine levels, which motivates us to go out and find it. — 00:00:29
• ★★★ Ali says you can train your brain to look forward to things that are good for you, like exercise, and perhaps to avoid things that are bad for you, like drugs. (hedged) — 00:00:29

In the description and comments

• ★ Ali Abdaal (channel): The channel says some of the Short's information comes from an episode of Andrew Huberman's podcast Huberman Lab, which it highly recommends watching. — creator comment · first in: 2023-03-15, How Dopamine Actually Works 🧠

Threads in this video

• refine · How do you reset your dopamine and cheap-pleasure habits? — Ali says you can train your brain to look forward to things that are good for you, like exercise, and perhaps to avoid things that are bad for you, like drugs. (00:00:29)

Mentioned

Central: dopamine

Only in the description or credits: Andrew Huberman · Huberman Lab

Also centred on dopamine: How Dopamine Actually Works 🧠 · This dopamine study is mind blowing 🐀

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