TMIT 24: How to Build a Dopamine Moat Around Your Family

TMIT 24🎙️: From sugar crashes to screen-time meltdowns—what’s really going on in our kids’ brains?

In this episode, we unpack dopamine: the energy juice that fuels motivation (and sometimes chaos). We explore how to build a “dopamine moat” around your family—so your kids can develop resilience, focus, and joy in a world of instant gratification.

We talk about:
• Why the crash matters more than the high
• How to flip the seesaw and earn your dopamine
• Simple tools for building motivation and buffering burnout
• Sleep, breathwork, and what parmesan cheese has to do with it

Whether you’re raising toddlers or teens, this episode will change how you think about mood, motivation, and modern family culture.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to The Most Important Thing.
I'm Danielle DeMarco Neufeld. And I'm Greg Neufeld.
Together, we're exploring how ambitious busy families can
build culture at home. Because after all, family is the
most important thing. Hi, everybody.
Hi, Greg. Welcome back.
Back, indeed we are back from the left Coast.

(00:23):
That's right. It's been a little while since
we've recorded one of these. I'm still a little bit jet
lagged, but it's not terrible. Me and my whole 3 hours.
I know you do so great with jet,jet lag.
You can sleep anytime, anywhere.For me it's a little bit more
difficult. Yeah, this household, minus me,

(00:44):
has been a little bit rocky since we touched down, but it's
been, it's been just rolling right into the next thing, right
from jet lag to first day of school.
Yeah, I think the kids have adjusted pretty well.
It's really just me. Well, that's not true.
I had to wake them up this morning, which is surprising.
I don't know, I saw there was a whole chat from the school of

(01:05):
photos of kids like tuckered outfrom the first day, so I'm not
surprised that they were among those.
Yeah, that's true. Anyway, should we talk about our
trip? Yeah, let's do it.
OK, it was awesome. It was.
We all survived and mostly thrived I would say.
Yeah. So we spent 14 days together in

(01:27):
Washington state, +2 travel daysand it was, it was glorious.
We hit 4 Airbnbs, 4 different cities in Northwest Washington,
including Seattle to finish it off and explored a lot of nature
but really did a lot of exploring on what we're what's

(01:49):
capable as a family. Yeah, I think we came home with
a renewed idea of what's possible, which is great.
Do you have any peak moments that you want to share?
Yeah, I mean, in, I think in each in each stop, there was
something pretty magical. So in Port Angeles, which was

(02:10):
our first stop, I think Hurricane Ridge was just
awesome. I mean, showing the kids what
mountains are. I don't think there's any way to
relive that. Like we, we only get one shot at
showing them the mountains and we, we did a hell of a job
there. That was just awesome.

(02:31):
Yeah, it's I'm laughing because I have a different peak moment
idea of Hurricane Ridge, which was that I was like trying to
defend the life of myself and mychild.
So Maverick and I, I was pushingMaverick in the stroller and
they said it was a family friendly hike, which it was in
the sense that it was paved, butit was an actual Ridge.

(02:52):
Meaning like if you have one wrong step you are going over a
Cliff never to return again. Not like I'm going to roll in
some wildflowers like when we went to Mount Rainier, I'm going
to fall into a rock. No, like you are dead gone
dropping 500 feet like there is no option.
So, well, I agree, it was beautiful and I enjoyed the kind

(03:14):
of strenuous elevation gains. I don't know if I will ever
forget the feeling of holding onto Maverick stroller for
dealer life, wondering if I was going to trip and he would have
gone off the side of the Ridge. Yeah, but we survived.
We did, and you look good doing it.
Oh, thanks. One thing I got to say about

(03:35):
that is I think every outdoorsy experience needs some like gut
checks on whether or not it's whether or not you're going to
make it out like, you know, you are, but like there's a tiny
little bit where you're where you're like concerned.
And I think that keeps you together.

(03:55):
That keeps me together for sure.Focused on present moment, the
right steps, the present moment.Like 1 foot in front.
Of the other, I kept saying to Hunter, 'cause she was saying,
you know, this is a little dangerous here and there, you
know, throughout, throughout thecouple of weeks.
And I said, yeah, it's risky. Play it just, it keeps us
focused, keeps us in the presentmoment.
And that said, I would say Hurricane Ridge was something a

(04:18):
little bit different. Like we watched a YouTube video
of a family with a child youngerthan ours and the guy was like,
I am holding on for dear life. I am so focused right now.
When the woman was trying to do the travelogue and we were
laughing at them, we were makingfun of them saying like, OK.
And then Hunter's like, Oh my God, we shouldn't go.
And I'm like, it's OK, no problem.

(04:38):
It's just it's their first kid and, you know, they'll be fine.
No, they were right. They were absolutely right.
You know, don't take my word forit.
Try it yourself, but maybe don'tbring a stroller.
Yeah, yeah, true. So Hurricane Ridge, I think was
a, was a very present moment peak where I, I did feel a

(05:01):
little bit like we were living on the edge and, you know,
walking with the kids down that down that Ridge, like really
focused. Like part of me is like, this is
beautiful. Part of me is like, I can't
believe we're doing this. And part of me is like, I can't
wait till this is over. And I, I think that's, I think
that's part of the experience, right?
I think if I reflect on all the hard things that I did as a kid

(05:23):
and I'm still alive for it was that same sensation, right?
Of just like, am I gonna make it?
Yeah, I probably am, but I better focus.
Sure, it's exhilaration, I thinkis the word that I would use for
it. Yeah.
And then Lake Crescent was unbelievable as well, out of
Port Angeles, which was another peak out of Forks.

(05:46):
There was a hidden rainforest that we found that was
unbelievable, where we also had two dogs show up and guide us
through the trail like we were. In it was straight out of where
the Red Fern grows. It was insane, but it was great.
It was beautiful. Obviously the kids loved seeing
the dogs 'cause we missed Winston desperately.
Yeah, Mount Rainier was just cool to see.

(06:07):
I, I enjoyed that. I.
Think we're a little hiked out by the time we got to Mount
Rainier as well. It was cool.
It was, it was like it was so cool to to go up and then to see
it from different perspectives throughout the rest of the trip.
You know, like when we were on the ferry from Bainbridge Island
to Seattle, we could see Mountain Rainier.
It's like, wow. We were there.
Yeah, and in Seattle, the house that we stayed up was very

(06:32):
special. We could talk more about that
sometime, but also seeing friends and family.
Yes, absolutely. Yeah.
I also loved just having time toplay games.
We did a lot of puzzles and played quite a few games.
We discovered Battleship as a family, the game of Life, Clue,

(06:53):
all things that we don't have athome.
We have all these like fancy game, right games, you know?
But the old school ones were really fun to do together and to
get the kids involved, which they did a bit this summer.
But more in family workout, likejust doing a little bit of like
circuit training or running in the mornings.
I think was really fun to have everybody get involved.

(07:17):
Yeah, that was, it was so nice. It was so nice to well, and the
weather really cooperated for uswith us as well.
So we we had I think maybe 30 minutes of rain in the Pacific
Northwest. It's like, how does that even
happen? Totally.
And then the last thing I'll sayis that the cyber truck was
pretty awesome. Yes, the kids loved being three

(07:37):
across. I loved how spacious it was,
both for our luggage but also sitting in the car and the
beautiful, what do you call this, the windshield.
I guess it was the perfect sightseeing car, especially
because it could get really dirty and we felt fine with it.
Yeah, You know, it's bizarre, like you had the vision there.

(08:00):
The cyber truck is the perfect family vehicle.
It's it's in our future. Yeah, it is also the autopilot
on the windy roads. As long as you trust it, which
we do, it's amazing. It's way better for you than
trying to navigate. I was saying it's like the
difference between driving all around Washington state and just

(08:20):
being a passenger on a train andI just got to sit there while
the car drove. I think I disengaged autopilot
all of two times and once was because someone didn't like our
cyber truck and was going to sideswipe.
So that was a little rough. Yeah, we definitely.
Got dirty. Luck.
It's such a polarizing vehicle. But everyone wanted to see it,

(08:41):
who is like genuinely curious about what it was.
And we're so surprised about, you know, the minimal inside and
the huge that it was a pickup truck because most people don't
know. They're like, what is this
thing? Yeah, I think a lot of people
put a lot of their own ideas, like project a lot of things
onto cars. Like that's definitely being our
experience for sure. Like we have some friends that

(09:02):
are no longer our friends because of Tesla's, right?
Yeah. I mean, like, it's just a car
people. Like, that's how I feel about
it. It's just a car and it happens
to be a great car, but that doesn't mean it's for everyone.
It just happens to be a great car for us.
Yeah, there's got to be a culture study there because the
the culture of the Elon Musk companies versus, you know,

(09:24):
let's say a culture of a place like Apple, right?
They both make very similar products at Tesla versus Apple.
I would say that the Tesla is the iPhone.
For a car for sure. Like, but there's bumper
stickers all over that are like,I got the car before he was
crazy. Like, you know, having.
I hate Elon Musk. Elon Musk having a leader that

(09:45):
is benevolent, like a Tim Cook, who like kind of, you know, is
Tim Apple just like, you know, by the way, Mr. Rogers.
CEO of Apple, in case you didn'tknow, because of exactly what
we're talking about. But like, you know, benevolent,
like Tim Apple versus Elon Musk changes the culture around the
employees and who is going to work there, as well as the

(10:08):
consumer experience and what it's like to be a consumer.
Like, I just want a good car formy family that drives itself,
and all of a sudden, you know, I'm labeled as something.
Yeah. As a result, I'd be really
curious to know if there were other cars throughout history
that encouraged people to play chicken or sideswipe.
Like the feedback that, you know, some of the things that we

(10:29):
experienced on the road with people really being aggressive,
giving us the middle finger, trying to push us off the road
like I would. I'm curious if throughout
history that has happened with other cars.
Well, it definitely happened with the Model T and, and the
first Fords, but that was because people are like, you
know, there's like, it's like a horse and buggy driving by be

(10:51):
like you, you know, whippersnapper, right?
And, and people didn't like the idea of of cars 'cause it was
changing in industry. But for Tesla, this is a
political component that I don'tknow if we've ever seen in I
mean, I'm sure at some point people boycotted Fords because
he was like anti-Semitic later in life, But I don't think it we

(11:15):
didn't have no one has ever had a platform like Elon Musk.
He owns the platform that broadcasts all of the things
that he says. And so it's just amplified by,
you know, N percent. So it's interesting.
It's just such an interesting study of like of humanity.
I know, yeah. I think that a cyber truck
probably isn't our future. I just, well, you drive like an

(11:38):
asshole all the time. Not you're.
You're using the wrong word there.
OK, you drop I. What word would you like me to
use? I own my space, so if I want to
park somewhere for a moment, I will.
You're a very aggressive driver,I.

(11:59):
Don't think I'm an aggressive driver.
You're more of like aggressive in the space.
It's not even like when we're driving.
An aggressive Parker. I'm an aggressive like like
idle. Intersection.
I will. Here's a good example.
I pull up right to the bathroomsto let you and the family out in
a busy parking lot at Mount Rainier and then park there to

(12:19):
go to the bathroom because I'm not blocking anybody.
I agree. Anyway, you're aggressive, OK.
But I don't drive like an asshole.
This is there's a lot of people in Florida that drive like an
asshole. You excuse me, I, I apologize.
Let me let me be more specific. You navigate intersections,
parking lots, public areas with caught with vehicles in a very

(12:45):
confident manner. And when you are in a Model X,
which is essentially the minivanof Tesla's, it's fine.
We're in like it's a pretty nondescript blue car.
When you are in a cyber truck, it brings it to a whole nother
level. So this kind of the fact that
people are projecting good or bad, their feelings on that car

(13:06):
and then you come in with bravado, it's a little
uncomfortable for me. It just means we need like an
iridescent wrap with butterflies.
So that it's like a girl and I need.
To keep the windows down so you can see it's like a nice family.
Yes, I know, that's the thing. Maybe it's my Cybertruck with
iridescence. There you go.

(13:27):
OK, anyway, we digress. We have a lot of.
I am so excited about this topictoday.
Yeah, yes. Well, so I think that a, a peak
was also for me seeing how we got there and back without
incident, like I was the most worried about the travel days.

(13:47):
I was like, we are going, we areso in for it.
We are so screwed. We're taking two flights out.
We're taking a six hour flight back.
You know, like in the middle of peak travel season, there's
bound to be delays. There's bound to be issues like,
you know, who knows if we're going to get in before midnight
on the first night like I was, Iwas definitely preparing for the

(14:09):
worst case scenario. Which is so funny because I was
like the complete opposite. I was like, I'm going to bring
enough food and the children will read and do homework and
meditate and it will be just fine.
No screens. Yeah, that was funny too you.
Were in the middle of the ocean one day and I was like, yeah,
and you guys will get to watch movies and.
And you're like, I don't know about that.

(14:29):
And I'm like, let me let me pullyou aside and tell you what's
going to happen on this travel day.
They're going to do whatever they want when it comes to
screens because they get no screens otherwise.
We, and This is why we're, we'rehaving this conversation today
about dopamine and how to build a dopamine mode around the
family. Because I am a bit militant
about cheap dopamine, right? And specifically around movies

(14:52):
and around TV time, because I find that the kids are bears
after they watch a movie and after they watch TV.
So yeah, that's just one of the things that I'm pretty militant
about. Sugar is another one.
But on the trip, it was great. I got to read two books because
I didn't get bothered for five hours straight on either ride

(15:14):
because the children watched so many movies straight, right?
Yep, Maverick fell in love with Star Wars.
And my favorite thing about him watching Star Wars, besides the
fact that he understood what wasgoing on, was that when he, he
was, he had to turn off the, thethird movie in the, in the, you

(15:36):
know, the original trilogy, episode 6.
He had to turn it off like 1/4 of the way in because we were
landing or we had landed. He was like, OK, I'll watch it
on the next plane. And I was like, yes, that's
exactly right. You are you are not watching
this movie until we get on another plane.
Yeah, I mean, that's how it works for us, right?

(15:56):
But it's so it's so amazing likethis is the reason to withhold
screens seems to be because you get to we get to bring it out in
like this rare occasion and it'sa moment of of wow for them.
Yeah, that's the hope, right? But I noticed, even though,
like, I'm fine with the fact that we watched that they all

(16:17):
watch screens and I loved getting to read my book, I
should say. Hunter chose to listen to her
audio book on the way home 'cause she recognized that
watching so many movies didn't make her feel good, which I
thought was great growth. But for Jade in particular, she
just, I mean, she loved. She would just sit there, her
whole body engrossed in each screen in each movie.

(16:39):
But then when it would be over, she'd be like, mom, I'm done,
I'm done, the movie's over, I'm done, I'm done.
And I was like, OK, let's, let'sdo some deep breathing.
Do you have to go to the bathroom?
Are you hungry? Are you thirsty?
Like, let's check in with our bodies.
Because you could tell she was in a complete vortex, like

(17:01):
completely under the influence, totally engrossed in what she
was watching for two hours straight.
Which I guess on one hand is like a good attention span, but.
An amazing attention span. Something happened in her brain,
right? And so this is something that
I've been thinking about for a while is just like the way that
a lot of today's cheap dopamine,whether it's sugar or Netflix

(17:26):
streaming or same day Amazon deliveries, is hijacking not
just the kids brains, but all ofour brains and what we can do to
be more intentional about it andnot just say no, no, you're
never going to watch a movie ever again.
But in these opportunities wherewe do decide to watch a family

(17:47):
movie or we do decide to have something sweet to celebrate
something right, to celebrate some occasion, how we can, one,
like all of us understand what'shappening in our brain. 2,
prevent about like alleviate theworst of it if you will.
And three, just really develop astrong baseline in our bodies so

(18:12):
that when we do have these high dopamine inducing events, we are
better able to get back to a healthy baseline.
Does that make sense? Yeah, totally.
And so you framed this as putting a dopamine Moat around
our family. Yes, absolutely.
So that's a phrase that I had heard not about family, but

(18:35):
around your own life from AndrewHuberman.
And I think it's a really worthwhile conversation to have
for the whole family. So I think we should start by
talking about what is dopamine, OK, Because I think I had a
little bit of a, a skew understanding of it because I
was thinking about it more as itrelates to pleasure.
But dopamine, it's often referred to as the feel good

(18:57):
neurotransmitter and it helps tohave it helps.
Let's see, dopamine exists to help people survive and grow.
So it's the thing that made people get out of their tents
and go build a fire, go hunting.It is truly a motivating.
You know, I asked GPT to explainit to me like a 7 year old and

(19:20):
it said dopamine is like your brain's energy juice.
So this is the thing that helps you start and keep going.
It doesn't mean that you're happy.
It means that your brain says, oh, let's go get up and go and
do that thing. Does that make sense?
So I think a great example of it's not what you experience

(19:43):
when you're eating ice cream. It's dopamine that says, we have
ice cream in the freezer. Let's go get it right.
I was talking to Jen Zelman, oneof my closest friends, that we
always like to talk psychology. And yesterday I was telling her
about my research for this episode.
And. She and I both had the
misunderstanding that it really was about pleasure and so when I

(20:04):
explained it to her, she said wow, that's why I love TJ Maxx.
The thrill of the hunt. And that is exactly what
dopamine is. The thrill of the hunt.
So we're, we're wired to be dopamine feeding animals, right?
But it's usually like the I'm I'm guessing the historical

(20:25):
leverage of dopamine is to get up and go do the thing like
correct? That's it, Yes.
Get, you know, to, you know, work together as a team to get
that whale you know you know, and and reel it in.
Absolutely. So things like.
That and so there are other, youknow, I don't, I'm not going to

(20:45):
profess to be a brain expert, but there are other like feel
good hormones, right, Like oxytocin.
This is not that right? This is, I mean, truly, you get
the biggest dopamine surge before you actually get the
thing, right? That's why Christmas Eve is
always my favorite day of the year.
And 9:52 AM on Christmas morningis my least favorite time of the

(21:11):
year, right? Because it's like so much
expectation, so much excitement.And so that's actually the thing
that I think is important to know about dopamine is that.
So in the 1970s, a researcher atthe University of Pennsylvania
named Richard Solomon develop something called the opponent
process theory. And so basically it says that

(21:33):
every time you get a dopamine spike, your brain later pushes
back with the opposite feeling. So you can think of it like a
seesaw. If you push down on the fun
side, then the not so fun side goes back.
And because the brain loves balance, homeostasis, the more
you push for fun, the harder thenot fun side is going to push

(21:57):
back. And so it's it's really not just
that your brain compensates. So your brain compensates with a
dopamine spike by dialing down dopamine.
But it's not just that. It also dials up stress, stress
chemicals, which make the crash really hard, not just empty.

(22:19):
Yeah. Does that make sense?
And then over time with repeatedstimuli, because another aspect
of dopamine is that it trains your brain.
So every time you have a dopamine surge from some
activity, your brain remembers like that.
That was fun. Let's do it again.
And so that can be channelled ina positive or adaptive way for
things like sports or learning and instruments, but it can also

(22:42):
be, it can also be hijacked through things like sugar or
screens or gambling. And so over time with what they
call like repeated stimuli. So if you're continuously having
these dopamine surges, the initial high, like how high the

(23:02):
seesaw goes up is going to get weaker and shorter and the
rebound state, the not fund state is actually going to get
longer and stronger because the brain keeps adjusting to protect
its balance. Sure.
And so that's actually that seesaw.

(23:23):
And the opponent process theory is actually underpinnings of a
lot of what they think about around addiction and withdrawal
as well, obviously in its most extreme form.
Definitely. And so are there different types
of dopamine hits, like if you are doing something that's
meaningful, are you going to experience the dopamine effect

(23:46):
differently than if you're doingsomething that's very fleeting?
Yeah, I mean, I there's definitely this idea of cheap
dopamine in the zeitgeist, whichis really what I'll call
unnatural. It really I as my understanding
of is it really comes down to delayed gratification.
The typically the dopamine rewards that come with things

(24:08):
that are that you'd find more naturally occurring in the world
and that have to do with tend tohave to do with meaning and
purpose and have to do with hardwork before gratification.
It's this instant gratification cycle.
I mean, even as simple as we used to have to wait until
Thursday night at 8:00 every every week to watch Friends.
Now, if you want to watch Friends, you can binge watch it

(24:30):
the entire day long, right? And so like, what's the what's
the biggest form of dopamine? In my view, it's at that end of
that episode. It's next episode in 765, right?
I mean, I get chills when I eventhink about it.
Totally interesting. What I'm trying to build a model
around mentally is are we looking to limit cheap dopamine

(24:53):
because it creates A rebound effect the more cheap dopamine
we have? Or are we looking to limit it so
that we can experience real dopamine and not have nearly as
much of A rebound? Because we're not.
We're not teasing our body so much I.
Think it's a great question. I would say everyone kind of has

(25:13):
to figure it out for themselves.But for me, as someone who is
super sensitive to these highs and lows, it has to do with
longer, more drawn out experiences of pain, if you
will, of, of hard work to experience that reward and
having it. Not like it's too tight of a

(25:34):
feedback loop, if that makes sense.
Like, you know, we've talked about this even as with regards
to something we've discussed before on the podcast, blood
pressure, how I can't get my blood pressure taken right
Because to me that's too tight of a feedback loop.
Like because I know that within 10 seconds I'm going to have the
answer, I get anxiety in the present moment.
Does that make sense? Whereas if it were a much longer

(25:56):
feedback loop like say like a blood test or something that I'm
going to get the answer to threedays later, then perhaps I would
have less of a response. Yep, no, that that that
resonates for sure. And so a lot of the intrinsic,
like a lot of the things that you would get gratification from
even, you know, 30 years ago, like, I don't know, Harry Potter

(26:20):
books coming out once every two to three years and having to
wait. We know we have a, a friend that
we're going to talk to on the podcast soon who said that he
makes his kids wait every year. He only reads one Harry Potter
book a, a year with them becausehe wants to delay that
gratification and make them waitthe way that we did.
Because that also isn't it's, it's a healthy, it's a healthy

(26:43):
motivation. It's a healthy anticipation, a
healthy use of dopamine. Yeah, I like that.
I wonder why, from a performanceand nootropic perspective, one
of the substances I affiliate with dopamine is nicotine.
And I would think that nicotine is one of those places where

(27:05):
it's such a cheap dopamine hit because you have 20 cigarettes
in a pack and if you want to smoke another one, there you go.
And the more you smoke, the morenicotine you get in, the less of
a it's. Like chain smoking cigarettes,
Yeah. Well, so I'm wondering like how
people are using and if it's because of dopamine or if it's

(27:26):
something else, why people are now using nicotine as a
performance enhancing drug for work, for, for studying, for
even athletics where, you know, this has been available to us
for so long. Why is this now coming into the
zeitgeist where nicotine becomessomething that people think of
not as a maybe it's more of a stimulant and less of a dopamine

(27:53):
cause or dopamine friend. But I'm I'm, I'm going to look
up after this why that is. Yeah, I can tell you that.
Nicotine definitely surges with,I'm sorry, I should say dopamine
surges with nicotine. So it's part of what makes
nicotine so addictive. Yeah, Well, I think about the

(28:15):
cheap dopamine hits from my 20s and, you know, things like
nicotine and alcohol and uppers and things like that.
Like I've replaced those with working out and caffeine and
building my business and building our family, right?
Like those are much healthier dopamine hits.

(28:39):
But you know, I'm definitely, I have a dysregulated dopamine
system and I look for those dopamine moments all the time.
So I think a lot about that whenthis topic comes up is like,
what's the equivalent of, you know, what I found in my 20s for
our kids? And it's probably candy Netflix.

(29:02):
For sure, all things that are ubiquitous and so readily
available, which wasn't maybe was so readily available to you,
drugs and alcohol in your 20s, but certainly not as much in our
childhood, right? It's only increased its
influence, right? You mentioned a couple of
things. So you said working out caffeine

(29:25):
and building our businesses. And I would say that the
caffeine, no, but there's a crash that comes with caffeine,
right? But the other two working out
and building businesses, that iswhere you really put the hard
work and the effort what 1 and the seesaw opponent process
theory would call the not fun side before the reward.

(29:46):
And so that's actually to me thenumber one way we want to live
in a world where dopamine exists, right?
Like it's an incredibly important aspect of our human
makeup, but there's a great way to make this opponent process
theory, this seesaw theory work for you, which is to put the
knot fund 1st. And so in order to create

(30:09):
balance and homeostasis, the brain floods your body with
endorphins, with positive feeling, with with dopamine to
give you to give you that balance.
Cool. So let's talk about the that as
like a framework for, you know, how to get positive dopamine

(30:31):
benefits in, in our family. Yeah, I mean, that is why we do
homework every morning or you and I work out every morning
because doing hard work early inthe morning really gives you
that boost of dopamine and otherfeel good hormones for the rest
of the day. I mean, I have a list that we

(30:52):
can talk about later in the in the conversation of everyday
ways to to boost dopamine. But certainly flipping the
seesaw and leveraging the not fun part of the opponent process
theory is a great way to build willpower.
This is a little bit sciency, but I discovered this about six
months ago and I think that you know how obsessed I am with

(31:15):
this, which is that they've discovered that every time that
you push through, do hard work, use willpower.
Not only do you get that strike for balance and and positive
dopamine boost, but the surge actually grows a part of your
brain called the anterior mid singulate cortex.

(31:37):
And they have found that people that live a long time have large
AMC CS so that. So we tell our kids, I tell our
kids that not only by doing hardthings are your skills growing,
but your brain is growing too. And it just might help you live
longer. Yeah, that's awesome.

(31:58):
I mean you, you love that AMC. I do, I do.
I love it so much. No, because it's so validating,
because I feel it in my bones, right?
That like now this idea, you know that dopamine has memory
and that when your system recognizes that something felt
good, you can channel that for good or bad, right?

(32:18):
You can keep watching that next show or you can push yourself to
do 7 minute ABS at the end of your workout.
Like those are your options. And I should say those are your
options because part of this is that dopamine and just your
natural levels of dopamine can vary by person based on genetics

(32:38):
and circumstance. So that's I think an important
thing to know and to teach our children that some people just
have more get up and go than others naturally.
I have a very large get up and go naturally which can be a
blessing in many ways, but if not channeled correctly can be
very dangerous. Yeah, it's that's fair.

(33:01):
I don't. Naturally.
I've had to train my brain. Sorry, it's not funny.
What I What I love about our balance though, is I see our
kids showing up with a lot of the I don't want us that I
probably had when I was their age.
Let's be clear, Hunter. Hunter, Yeah.
Shows up with the I don't want us you.
Know it, it shows up. It shows up across the family.

(33:22):
Hunter most probably because she's the age where she's doing
a lot. You're kind.
But I see that reverse a lot faster and I think that's they
they're getting that from you, which is great.
And Jade, yeah, I think Hunter is getting it most from Jade.

(33:42):
Who's getting it from you? So.
I think she just naturally has it.
So I don't want to, I don't wantto label our children, but like
one thing that I, it seems to belike what I've noticed so far,
what I've observed is that Jade's get up and go is much
more prevalent than Hunter's. And she's learning.
She's learning so many beautifulthings from her younger sister,
and that is one of them. No, for sure.

(34:03):
I just feel grateful that, you know, there's a there's a
healthy balance in this family, both genetically as well as
being modeled. Yeah, and I think that you have
helped me enjoy relaxation and pleasure in life more than I
have naturally because I'm so busy getting up and going.

(34:24):
Yeah, and it takes both. Right.
Yeah. You know, I wonder what your
crashes were like in, you know, in college and early, you know,
in your career because you are such the get up and go person
that. Yeah, I feel awful.

(34:44):
They feel absolutely awful when I don't have motivation because
I have such a strong because most days I'm super motivated.
But no, it's true. Like the dopamine stuff, sugar
was definitely a huge dopamine. Like I definitely got myself in
a, in a bad dopamine cycle around sugar in my teens and 20s

(35:11):
TV as well. And so that's probably, but I'm
just, I'm so acutely aware of it.
I don't know if everyone feels it as strongly as I do.
I don't know. I'm not in other people's
bodies. But I would just say that this
is something that has really been top of mind for me with the
kids forever because it is something that has the like the

(35:31):
highs are high, but the lows areso low.
Yeah, Yep. So should we talk about, Well,
you had wanted to talk a bit about what cheap dopamine does
to family culture. Well, yeah, I think this is kind
of the the why we care. Yeah.
So there's a few things that that are pretty obvious that

(35:52):
cheap dopamine does to kids and that impacts family culture.
A couple of them. One is making boredom
impossible. So I can see that if our kids
are watching a movie on a plane for once in a blue moon and
they're enjoying that, great. But if they were watching

(36:16):
screens all the time, the plane ride would have been very
different. And then another related example
is we played there, we played audiobooks in the car on a lot
of our drives between the Airbnbs and between different
sightseeing. I mean, there was a lot of car
time and we found that we could listen to either one audio book

(36:40):
as a family or the kids could listen to 1 and we could listen
to 1. And by the end of that trip, you
know, 5 seconds, 10 seconds would pass.
And the question would be, mom, dad, can we ask you?
Something they're afraid to ask.I think you're gonna say no, but
it's an obsession. Even something as simple as an

(37:00):
audio book quickly became and obsession.
Yeah. And so, you know, my job, I, I
felt in that in those moments that once realizing that this
was going to be a problem, was to change the dynamic and switch
to what I grew up with, which isriding in the car listening to
my parents music. Exactly.
Well, it reminds me of what Jen said, the Italian phrase Dolce

(37:22):
farniente, the pleasure of doingnothing.
That is, you have to really intentionally carve out space to
do that in the United States today.
For sure, yeah. To take a walk without podcast,
to take a a drive without, you know, listening to something or

(37:43):
learning to something. Without listening to exactly
what you want talking to someone.
On the phone to sit on a subway and, you know, we're a train
without doing work without. Yeah, absolutely.
For sure, it's hard for all of us, not just for kids.
And you know, now we're in the age of AI where it's a as long

(38:04):
as you have an Internet connection, you have a friend,
you have a chat companion that will answer any question you
have and talk to you about any topic you want until you're blue
in the face. Yeah, I think I was telling you
yesterday that I it was listening to the All In podcast
and Freeburg made a great point about how before with the early

(38:28):
adoption of the Internet, you needed to have a person on the
other side like to chat with youwith AOL instant messenger, say.
And now with the advent of AI, it is infinite connection,
infinite time with another quoteUN quote person to hear all your
problems. And they don't.
And by the way, they respond right away, they don't remember.
Did you ever play this game withpeople on AIM where like you

(38:49):
wouldn't respond for like 5 minutes?
People do text messages too, right?
And but chat TPT never does thatright?
So talk about a tight feedback loop.
Yeah, so. And dopamine hits.
So makes it really hard to be bored.
What does that do to family culture?
That's it's pretty obvious. It creates this demand for

(39:11):
constant stimulation. And when you have that inside
our family, your family, that's where tension gets.
Sure, super irritable, right? Makes everybody super irritable.
The replacing shared effort withinstant excitement.
So that's another one that came up here, which is the idea that

(39:35):
dopamine is best. One together, almost like, Oh
yeah. Like embracing shared
challenges. Challenges, you know, doing a
puzzle together or playing a game together or taking a walk
together or seeing, you know, exploring a National Park
together. All of those, you know, all of
those take time and effort and, and our shared efforts versus,

(40:00):
you know, if you can, I don't know what the what the cheap
dopamine equivalent is, but any cheap dopamine equivalent, let's
say let's go shopping for a new pair of shoes versus the cheap
dopamine of let me buy these right here and they'll be here
tomorrow on Amazon, you know, orZappos like.

(40:22):
That's replacing the shared effort with the.
Yeah, I'm just, I'm thinking about my dad and his first,
like, designer watch. I think I've told you before
that it was five years in the making.
Seven years in the making, I don't know.
But like the complete opposite of a quick dopamine hit.
We went to a Breitling store anytime there was 1, and he

(40:46):
would look around sometimes, trysomething on, sometimes not.
But it took years before he finally hit the bid.
And that is a beautiful example.I think those are really
expensive watches, you know? And he earned it.
Like, not only did he earn it financially, but he earned it
with his patience and his attention and his delayed

(41:07):
gratification, right? Yeah.
So modeling the shared effort versus the instant, teaching
kids that dopamine comes from shared effort versus instant
excitement, I think is a family culture element to watch out
for. I think that's an opportunity
for us. I just want to say 'cause I

(41:28):
think that we, as we've talked about before, we hire people to
do a lot of things. We, the kids, don't necessarily
see us doing a lot of work otherthan with our bodies, right?
Like working out or work like actual career work.
There isn't much hard work that goes on in this House, if that

(41:48):
makes sense. Like physical stuff like fixing
things or building something. I'm getting a side eye.
Yeah. I'm just saying that this is, it
doesn't mean we need to do anything about it.
I'm just saying that that is a place that we have not ventured.
Sure. And as we've discussed, Greg has
no interest, OK. But as crashes increase,

(42:13):
irritability increases and that creates a lot more surface area
for conflict. Yes.
So I think that's probably the main one that we noticed.
In fact, yesterday I proposed after our kids listen to
audiobooks, even they should just go outside for three
minutes because that when that timer goes off, we, we give them
30 minutes a day when that timergoes off.

(42:35):
Like, doesn't matter how many days in a row they've listened
to it and how many times they know that that timer's going
off, they really don't want thatmoment to.
Stop. Or they're just like, like
there's like blank stares. Yeah, I think getting into the
habit of doing something else. Well, so can we talk a little
bit about my ideas for defendingagainst the dopamine hijackers,

(42:56):
Like how to. So obviously Netflix, sugar,
video games, all these things, Idon't think they're inherently,
I don't think we should have a 0tolerance policy against them.
But I think understanding what is happening in our brains and
teaching it to our kids and really trying to lessen the
withdrawal effects, I think can be really meaningful.

(43:18):
So I have some ideas before the quote UN quote cheap dopamine.
So let's just say, you know, an audio book right now, 'cause
that's really our version of cheap dopamine in the house.
So before the cheap dopamine, insert effort first.
So I don't know, do 10 push ups,do your homework.
We do homework in the morning, but like something that feels

(43:38):
like you can earn the audio bookcan really help, can really help
with that opponent process theory aspect and doing like the
not fun thing first. So I think that that should be
always thought #1 is like what kind of hard work insert effort
here before cheap dopamine. Yeah, basically sit on the not

(43:59):
fun side of the CPAP to enjoy the fun side a lot more.
And then what you're really doing is you're priming your
body to support that crash afterthe dope.
And so during the cheap dopamine, just keep it clean,
don't stack. So don't eat while you are
listening to your audio book is a, is a rule that we've that

(44:20):
we've come up with, right? Let's not eat candy while we
watch a movie because that just makes the spike that much
higher. And then after cheap dopamine
reset the system. So they say that most people, up
to 80% of people unintentionallyhold their breath or breathe
more slowly when they are using screens.

(44:43):
They call it screen apnea, and so Huberman has his.
There's a lot of different breaths you could do, but my
favorite is the physiological sigh that he talks about, which
is a double inhale followed by aslow exhale.
So it's really filling the lungsas much as you possibly can.
So the first inhale's a big one,and then the second one kind of
caps it off, followed by a slow exhale.

(45:06):
Repeat that one to three times. That's what I had Jade do after
her audio or after her movie on the plane.
Let's just take some deep breaths, because she was
definitely not breathing deeply while she was engrossed in Snow
White. That's a good one.
Yeah. And then, you know, outside of
those, before, during and after,normalize the seesaw

(45:28):
conversation. I think that it's really easy to
teach kids that with every high comes a low, and that the more
intense the high, the farther we're going to fall.
So we with that we're we're trying to scaffold the fall,

(45:48):
right by putting something difficult on on both sides of
the high, yeah. Does that create a higher high?
Do we know? Like is there a higher?
Not necessarily, not necessarily.
I would say it directly is related to the knot how how low
you go on the knot fun side, right?

(46:09):
Like how grueling of a workout versus the endorphin kick
afterwards. I think what it really is, is
it's this Moat idea, right? So it's really we are wrapping
it in effort and recovery in order to have like a soft
landing. So moats are not, if you think
about it like from a castle perspective, right, a Moat, it's
not completely impenetrable, right?

(46:30):
But it is slowing down the force, right?
It's slowing down the attack. Yeah, the the thing that I'm
thinking about is my version of eating an audio book, which is
like sometimes when I'm eating, I'll look at my phone and like
read something and I don't feel like I'm getting a dopamine hit.

(46:50):
I actually feel like. That's like an attention thing
more than I would say like dopamine hit.
Maybe dopamine has something to do with it, but it's a little
bit different than these spikes I.
Always hate myself after eating and looking at the phone at the
same time 'cause I'm like I didn't get anything out of
either of those. Experiences.
Yeah. That comes with being

(47:11):
intentional and like our attention spans.
Yeah. I wonder if that has been more
aware that you've been more aware of that since we've
started meditating together 'cause that's something that
happened to me when I first started meditating consistently
is like listening to a podcast while I brush my teeth.
I, I love to and it annoys me. Like I know that I'm doing

(47:31):
something not so wonderful for my body.
The more you know. Yeah, it's a season for me.
Like for some reason during the summer I don't, I don't want to
multitask like that. I'm just like happy with
enjoying my thoughts while I'm brushing my teeth or whatever.
But then come like September, October and I'm like not doing

(47:52):
enough. Yeah.
Oh boy, don't even talk to me about what happens in Q4 to my
body, yeah. I know.
Well, I think this is a good episode for us to be putting out
there ahead of all of the dopamine induced festivities,
holidays, school. Back to school in general, yeah.
Back to school in general for sure, but like, you know, the

(48:14):
school comes with lots of baggage, it comes with lots of
birthday parties, it comes with lots of, you know, new
experiences and, and people and just just call it like
heightened emotions and conflicts.
And. And so, yeah, there's a lot of
dopamine that's showing up, I'm sure in households across the

(48:38):
country right now that are then being fed by others cheap
dopamine hits. You come home, you get a, you
know, you get a sweet snack, youget a like.
These aren't. These are recipes for a crash
later on. You see someone else's cool
pencil case. Like there's a lot of peer
influence too. Social comparison involved.
Totally. OK, so just to recap, as far as
like if there is going to be a cheap dopamine hit in your day,

(49:01):
the three things that you can dois try to put hard work or some
kind of delay gratification effort before, don't stack
during. So just pick one and really work
on resetting afterwards. So deep breathing, taking a
walk, something that is going tohelp your body with that crash
landing. In a in off ramp.

(49:22):
Yes, in off ramp, exactly. I like that.
I like. That and then finally I have
some everyday ways to increase baseline dopamine as a family.
Can we talk about those? OK, great.
So #1 not, none of these are going to be surprising, but I
think it's important just to recount them.
Number one is sleep. The best dopamine reset for your
body. And people may hate me for this,

(49:44):
but I did look up the sleep guidelines from the American
Academy of Sleep Medicine, whichhas been endorsed by the CDC,
Academy of Pediatrics, etcetera.And for school age children,
that's 6 to 12. Guess how many hours per night
they want you to sleep? I cheated, so I know.
Oh, OK, 9 to 12 for kids ages 6 to 12/9 to 12 hours of sleep.

(50:07):
That's not in bedtime, that's sleep a night, right?
I don't even know. Like, I don't even think Hunter
gets that right now. And if you're younger, it's more
like preschoolers, 10 to 13 hours.
Sometimes that can include a nap.
But the point is that we all need more sleep.
We all need more sleep. And that's the best thing you

(50:29):
can do for so many different functions in your body, but
certainly for your dopamine reserves or dopamine stores.
Definitely. The second when you can't get
sleep is what they call non sleep deep rest NSDR, which I
discovered when I was pregnant with Hunter through Greg's aunt.
It's the specific term, like thespecific form of NSDR that we do

(50:52):
is called yoga nidra, which tends to be like a 15 to 25
minute body scan. So it's different than a
meditation. This is something that I think
the research is very clear on that a focused sitting up
straight kind of ohm type meditation is not an SDR and it
is not yoga nidra. This is non sleep deep rest.

(51:13):
It is when your body truly goes into, I want to call it like a
catatonic state. And so that can just even 10 to
20 minutes of a yoga nidra can restore dopamine reserves by up
to 65%. Your aunt used to tell me it was
equivalent to like 2 to 4 hours of sleep and that sounds crazy
but I always felt it and this really confirms it.

(51:37):
For sure. I I believe it.
I think it's really equivalent to a part of the sleep cycle.
I think it's equivalent to the R.E.M. state.
Cause I've I always when I was when I used to track my sleep.
I don't really do that anymore. Would notice if I if I had a low
R.E.M. Morning that doing a yoga nidra

(51:58):
would give me that feeling like I caught up on REM sleep.
Yeah, Anybody out there that's like first trimester, pregnant
and just so tired? It got me through every single
day. Yoga nidra, There are a lot of
them on Spotify. There are a lot of yoga Nidra
for kids playlists on Spotify aswell that are just more like 10
to 15 minutes. But just having that as a tool

(52:19):
in the tool kit for our family is incredibly helpful.
Oh yeah. OK, so sleep, non sleep, deep
rest, nutrition, dopamine building blocks, in particular
tyrosine, which is an amino acidthat your body uses to make
dopamine. So there are certain foods that
are especially high in tyrosine,Parmesan cheese being the

(52:42):
biggest 1 fish like salmon and tuna, Turkey, beef, eggs, nuts,
seeds, all all healthy things for you, right?
But that these are particularly helpful to build your dopamine
reserves over time. Nice.
I was research. When I was doing the research, I
was like, OK, should I have given Jade like a high tyrosine

(53:05):
snack after the movie? And no, that's not going to
help. It's not like an instant.
It's not going to help with thatcrash in any way.
This is really about buffering the baseline.
Yeah, there's there's some good uses for L tyrosine as a
supplement and L Dopa in the form of Mikuna purines,

(53:28):
especially if your your systems are a little bit out of whack
and you need to kind of have a areset around dopamine like I've
I've done some some work with both of those.
Your mileage may vary, but I if you if you struggle with waking
up in the morning or if you wantto quit coffee, actually this is

(53:50):
a really good one. If you if you want to give up
coffee, don't give it up withoutsomething like altiracine
because you will really hate yourself for many many weeks.
Good to know. Yeah, I wonder, I guess it's
because it really supports dopamine levels, correct.
OK. Yeah.
So. After hangovers and, you know,

(54:12):
bad sleep, I I often found myself spooning like almond
butter in my mouth. Yes.
Totally. This is exactly why it's a.
It's a tyrosine. It's tyrosine heavy food.
I wouldn't recommend that it's a.
OK. All right.
Morning sunlight this as early in the day as possible.
Circadian reset. Circadian reset.

(54:33):
Exactly. But it also it it helps you get
your cortisol to release as early in the day as possible,
which is what you want. And it leads to restoring
dopamine reserves and all types of homeostasis.
So on a sunny day, it's really just five to 10 minutes.
Cloudier, Overcast days, it's like up to 30 minutes.

(54:56):
But apparently it's especially important to get outside on
cloudy days. Yeah.
Oh, because the the light. Correct, because there's less
light getting inside. So you, you want to go outside.
So that's probably like the, my favorite thing that Winston has
done for us is that he gets me outside first thing every
morning as soon as the sun is up.

(55:16):
Sometimes the sun isn't even quite up, right?
And then the last one is movement.
So regular exercise that's both cardiovascular and strength
training can really help supportdopamine levels.
OK, great. So this has been our
conversation on dopamine motes, right?
And I think the dopamine is wonderful.
It fuels humans to do incrediblethings.

(55:38):
But the real question is really,in today's world, given that
cheap dopamine is ever present, can we learn to harness it to
provide lasting motivation? Or are we kind of going to get
swept up in the tsunami that is cheap dopamine, right?
And so for me, what I take away is that we're going to try to

(56:00):
continue to reduce our reliance on external kind of instant
forces of dopamine and to reallypromote activities that
naturally stimulate dopamine release.
Totally. I think we're we're committed to
that path. I love talking about this stuff
because I think it's important from a family culture

(56:23):
perspective to understand like what what are these factors that
are that we're up against? Sure, right.
I think that everyone building any product for a consumer is
probably building it around cheap dopamine these.
Days it would behoove them for. Sure, exactly.

(56:43):
So part of the dopamine mote is pretty obvious, but it's keeping
out advertising, keeping out, you know, buying the ad free
version of everything that our kids see, that we see, like not
turning on the news, not having,you know, any news e-mail alerts

(57:04):
or anything like that. I hear you.
And I understand how initially that would be a reaction.
I just don't know how realistic that is.
And I would just caution US against being too.
Like, if there's one thing that this trip has taught me, it's
that I want to invite the outside world in more.
And so I don't necessarily ascribe to the idea of

(57:25):
completely sheltering the children from what's out there.
What I do want to do is open theconversation about how pervasive
this stuff is and help them become discerning consumers as
early as possible and to normalize and to just like Brené
Brown says that normalization isthe antidote to shame.

(57:45):
And that just to normalize that this is a normal that everybody
loves to eat a bag of chips. That like, it's very hard to
find someone who's going to be OK eating three chips, right?
And so if you ate a bag of chips, like, that's cool.
It happens. But like, what?
What can you learn from it? What just happened here?
No, I, I, I agree with everything you said.

(58:06):
I do want to invite the outside world in.
I just don't want it to be invited in through an ad
exchange, you know, through a place.
But this is like a teach a man afish versus give a man a fish
kind of thing. If you block, if you block all
of that. And I feel like I have friends
who were really sheltered growing up and then they got to
college and they went nuts. Like I don't want to completely

(58:28):
block our children from things out there.
I want to especially Hunter, who's 7 at this point, like she
can, she can think critically like she can become, especially
if we teach her about, you know,the Charlie Munger ISM of like,
show me the incentives and I'll show you what is it the
outcomes, the outcomes. Like what are these people's
incentives? What are they trying to motivate
you to do? And do you want to do it?

(58:50):
Yep, no, I totally. Great, Have I changed your mind?
Yeah, you and you, you've definitely changed my my
perspective on the sheltering. The the news, not so much.
I just don't believe that news has any place in it.

(59:11):
I didn't say. I didn't say.
News no, we can we can we can debate that another time.
But like I'm I'm a I'm a staunchI'm a staunch tea toddler when
it comes to any kind of news like getting that that doesn't
appeal to you that sorry, that doesn't apply to you coming into
the house. So like New York Times, like
news alerts off like. That's that's a whole

(59:35):
conversation for a different. Episode but those are I have.
Some thoughts on those? Too.
Those are cheap dopamine. 100% Ithink you could add that in same
day Amazon deliveries like. That's that's number one news.
Alerts all the things, the dopamine just keeps rolling in.
But yeah, so I think we've said enough and would love to hear if
anybody else has some innovativeideas of how to build a dopamine
mote around your family. Let us know.

(59:55):
Yeah, totally. OK, great.
It's. Been great.
Yeah. He's so fun.
Love you, goosey love. You goosey.
Hey guys, if you're still here, you're definitely our kind of
person. Thanks for spending this time
with us on The Most Important Thing.
If this episode resonated with you, we'd love for you to follow
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someone else. Building family culture on

(01:00:16):
purpose.