Motivation is the number one problem students complain about. Depression and anxiety often are co-morbid with low motivation meaning they often exist along with low motivation. Low motivation is also one of the hardest challenges clinicians like me work on with college students.

What is a Motivation Issue?

Like many other blog posts and chapters I’ve written, we are our brains. Motivation, therefore, is nothing more than a software issue in your brain. What we think of as motivation is a complex relationship between brain structures and brain chemistry. Dopamine, one of the most important and well-studied chemicals, is often described as the molecule of pursuit because it’s instrumental in creating a pressure that creates an impulse, push or drive to achieve or acquire something.

If We Have Low Motivation, How Can We Improve It?

Put differently, what if we have low dopamine (or what’s clinically referred to as dopamine deficiency)? Here are a list of go-to things you can do to increase dopamine and likely improve your motivation.

+ Medication (specifically antidepressants or ADHD medication)

+ Eat foods high in magnesium and tyrosine (chicken, almonds, green leafy veggies, green tea, oatmeal, pumpkin seeds, turmeric and avocados)

+ Take supplements like L-tyrosine, L-theanine, Vitamin D, B5, and B6, Omega-3, and magnesium

+ Don’t work too late. End your work day before you get tired and bored of what you’re doing.

+ Exercise, music and social events all have significant affects – but don’t use them all at once. Too many sources of dopamine stimulation causes a psychological crash.

For more details on increasing motivation, listen to the absolute most helpful (and painfully detailed) resource – Dr. Andrew Huberman’s Huberman Lab “Increase Your Motivation“