Choose Joyy Podcast

Your Brain on Joy: The Dopamine One

• Chelsea • Episode 24

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Welcome to Your Brain on Joy- a mini-series breaking down the four neurotransmitters as if they were prescriptions for feeling better. 

This episode we start with Dopamine. What if the reason you feel “meh” isn’t laziness, but chemistry nudging you toward the wrong rewards? 

This conversation is for anyone craving real motivation without the crash. If you’re ready to swap quick surges for deeper satisfaction, try one trade this week: put the phone down for an hour, finish a lingering task, learn something new, or cook instead of tapping an app. Pause when you’re done and let that quiet surge of “I did that” land—that’s dopamine aligned with your growth. Next week we move to serotonin and the calm it brings. If this episode helped, share it with a friend who needs a nudge, and follow Choose Joy for more science-backed, heart-forward tools. Leave a review to tell us your one small win today.

Don't forget to text us to be featured on the next episode of Chels Chats!

Visit @choosejoyypodcast on Instagram and X for more.

SPEAKER_00:

You've made it to the Choose Joy Podcast. Here we make a conscious effort to choose joy daily. We allow ourselves to heal and grow into the path designed for us. Join me to unpack, affirm, and choose joy.

SPEAKER_01:

Hello and welcome back, Joyful Babes, to the Choose Joy Podcast, the space where we unpack real life with a little bit of science, a whole lot of self-awareness, and always joy. I'm your host, Chelsea, and we have made it to 2026. I have missed y'all, and I would like nothing further than to dive in. This month I want to kick off a brand new series that I am really, really excited about because joy isn't just a mindset, it's biology behind every burst of motivation, calm moment, or deep sense of connection. It's literal a chemical conversation happening inside our brains. And today on Choose Joy, we're breaking down neurotransmitters in a way that actually makes sense and more importantly, makes you feel empowered instead of overwhelmed. Neurotransmitters quietly shape our joy, our energy, and even our relationship in everyday life. So I thought together we can just dive in into the four happy hormones. So they say dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins. Each of these chemicals plays a role in how we experience joy, motivation, love, peace, and basically all the good feelings that we're consistently chasing. What a better time than now. Um, let's just get intentional about the way that we naturally support our happiness. Today and this week, we are focusing on drum roll, please. Dopamine, the feel-good neurotransmitter that's all about motivation, reward, and drive. But what is dopamine really? So you probably heard the word dopamine tossed around in conversations like that gave me a dopamine hit, or social media is messing with our dopamine. But what is dopamine actually doing in our bodies? Well, I've been doing some research, and scientifically speaking, dopamine is a neurotransmitter, which is simply a chemical messenger that helps send signals into the brain. So it's a part of your brain's reward system, which means it helps you feel pleasure when you accomplish things, such as eating something good or even anticipating something exciting. So it's not just the quote unquote happiness hormone. It's more like a motivation hormone. It's what gives you that push to get started and that little burst of satisfaction you get when you check something off your list. The tricky part, our modern lives are full of fake dopamine hits. Social media likes, junk food, online shopping, binge watching shows, all of this gives us a quick, easy surge of dopamine that fades away fast. And after a while, our brains start to crave the shortcuts more than the actual slower, deeper sources of joy. And we have touched on this in previous episodes um, delayed gratification, and that ties a lot into this. If you'd like to go back and take a listen to that episode, but today I want to talk about how we can reclaim dopamine in a healthy, balanced way. And over the course of this whole series, I will tap into each neurotransmitter and what are ways that we can make this applicable to our lives and do this in a healthy way when the world around us continues to give us the quick microwave versions. There is a science behind motivation and burnout. And I read something recently that said dopamine isn't about pleasure, it's about pursuit. And that's what really clicked for me because sometimes we think feeling unmotivated just means that we're lazy. When really we might just be low on dopamine. When you've been working hard without rest, when life feels repetitive or when stress is constant, your dopamine system can actually get depleted. So you stop getting those little hints of satisfaction from small wins. You might start to feel like you're doing a lot, but not getting anywhere emotionally. And that, my friend, is burnout. Although it may feel like it, the fix isn't just another productivity hack. You have to actually restore that natural cycle of motivation and reward, and that can mean setting smaller, more realistic goals, celebrating tiny wins, and doing something that new, you know, that wakes up your curiosity. Dopamine loves novelty, it loves progress. Something that I've been doing is instead of trying to just do a full reset, I asked myself, what is one thing that I can accomplish today that will make me proud? What does that look like? Even if it's just a little bit. And let me be even more realistic. Not too long ago, I noticed that I was losing excitement for things that I normally love, even for this podcast. I'm not gonna lie, I wasn't burnt out exactly, but it was just this weird meh phase, you know, like the space where everything just feels flat. Um, and it's truly just a lack of motivation. So I had to take a step back and I asked myself, what used to make me feel inspired? It turns out it really wasn't anything big, it was just the process of learning, planning, and finishing something that I created. So I started to set small project goals, right? Giving myself one hour to myself self-embetterment, whether that me be my podcast, whether that be learning a new skill, no distractions, no scrolling breaks, just pure focus. And when I did that, that sense of satisfaction, that quiet, yes, I did that. That moment that you just have felt way better than the instant gratification I could have gotten online, scrolling, drinking, etc. Um, that's dopamine working in a healthy way. So if you've been feeling a little joyless lately, um, it might not be that you're ungrateful or lazy, it might just be that your brain is feeling a little overloaded with fast dopamine and it's craving something real. So, how can we boost our dopamine naturally? Let's talk solutions. How can we naturally support dopamine in our daily lives? Well, number one, like I just mentioned, set small goals and finish them. Dopamine loves completion. Even checking off, I drunk water today or make the bed gives your brain a dopamine hit. I've been giving myself a habit tracker, which I will upload that template um to our social media so that you guys can have that to use for future reference, but a template, and at the start of every day and at the end of every day, I have been bubbling off what I do every day. Even if it's just three small things, I want to drink water. The first thing I want to do, the first beverage of the day, I want to be water. Check that off. Um, I want to, like I said previously, schedule one hour of my time directly dedicated to me and self-embetterment. Check that off the list. That is a dopamine hit naturally. Number two, move your body, exercise, even gentle stretching or walking increases dopamine and helps your body release it more efficiently. I beat, okay, the first of the year rush, baby. I was in that gym, I've been in that gym. Um, and even when I'm not in the gym, just try to do something small, move your body, stretch before bed, do some abs in the morning. Um, when you get up, when you see daylight, 10,000 steps. Move your body. Three, try something new. Like I said previously, novelty triggers dopamine. It could be a new recipe, a new playlist, or even a new route to work. Switch it up. Foods rich in different nutrients actually help your body make more dopamine. So things like eggs, fish, nuts, avocados. And speaking of eating habits and moving your body, your sleep schedule, get enough rest. You know, sleep is when your brain resets your dopamine receptors and really your neurotransmitters as a whole. So less sleep, less motivation and focus. Practice gratitude and reflection. Oh, that's a good one. Writing down what went well. I I love that. That's not something new that I picked up. That's something that I really works well with my brain and um just naturally increasing my personal dopamine levels. Writing down what went well today. I have a habit of anxiety, worrying about things, and just writing something small. I woke up on time, I got to work before eight. You know what I'm saying? Um, I don't know, like writing then good things, it just trains your brain to notice and reward progress. Because even small movement is movement towards a larger goal. You may not have gone 100 feet, but you did take a step, and that is still creating distance. So, choosing joy in the dopamine age we live in, um, what I call it, dopamine on demand, okay? A microwave world. Everything around us is designed to grab our attention and to keep us hooked. But joy, real joy, it takes presence, it takes the satisfaction of showing up, finishing something meaningful, learning something new, or simply just being proud of yourself for where you are. So as we start this happy hormone series, I want to challenge you. This week, trade one quick dopamine hit for a deeper one. Maybe it's putting your phone down for an hour and finishing a book that you started. Maybe it's cooking instead of ordering out, maybe it's checking off a goal that's been sitting on your to-do list for too long. Um, and when you do it, pause. Feel that quiet, fulfilling joy that says, I did that. That is your dopamine smiling back at you.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

All right, y'all. That's it for today's episode of Choose Joy. I'm glad to have y'all back. And next week, we're moving on to serotonin, so which is a little bit more calmer, okay? So if this episode resonated with you, please share it with a friend who might need a little motivation booth this week. And don't forget to follow Choose Joy wherever you listen. Remember, joy isn't found in the big moments, it's built in the small intentional choices that we make every day. So try getting a natural dopamine hit and don't just leave that motivation. Take that motivation and hurl it towards something bigger. And as always, choose joy. Duh.