Neuro-Wellbeing & The Developing Self

Are you feeling like the motivation to finish your work, laundry, errands, or commitments is getting harder for you to find? Many times, when we face stress or hard times, we face a weakening in our dopamine signals. I personally have faced a loss in motivation countless times. Let’s dive into what happens to our brains when we lose motivation, and strategies I’ve used personally to overcome procrastination, and get myself back on pace.

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter and hormone that is released when something feels good, or when we expect a reward for something. Dopamine weakens when events in our life feels boring, or not amusing. Think about a time when you knew you had to get something done, but you just didn’t care to. You probably got annoyed when reminded of what you needed to do, and the fact that you have made little to no progress.

When you feel lazy, picking your laundry off the floor into the hamper can feel like a huge task. This is because a part of the brain called the anterior cingulate cortex, needs to determine if something is worth doing. When you don’t feel motivation, this system alters itself so that simple task feel harder, and much more complex. When I’m not motivated, and a day goes by where I pretty much didn’t get any work that I was supposed to get done, I still feel “Exhausted” in the sense that my brain is more inclined to burn out easily.

Another way this plays out neurologically is when you feel confusion and extreme fatigue. The prefrontal cortex and the basal ganglia are both working to help you begin and continue your commitments. When these parts of the brain begin to slow down, you will feel like you don’t know where to start, or you don’t know how to continue with a task you were supposed to be doing. This best describes loss of interest and apathy.

So what are you supposed to do with all of these overwhelming feelings? How do you even get started? I am going to share with you 4 key strategies that have helped me get back on track fast and efficiently.

1. Be Specific about what you need to get done, and the duration.

Think about what you need to do, and focus on only one thing to get started. It’s important that you are telling yourself exactly what you need to do and how long you think you will spend time on it. For example, it could look something like, Today I need to practice my dribbling in basketball for 10 minutes. When I started using this strategy, I ended up realizing exactly what I needed to get done. Before, I was mindlessly overwhelming myself with lists of tasks that I never ended up completing. I highly recommend using a planner to write down your specific, minimal plans the night before, so you know exactly what work is practical for you to begin.

2. Take it slowly

Sometimes this is hard, because we slack off till the deadline, or we are behind in things that should have already been done weeks ago. What I mean by this is when you’re planning each day, the work you need to finish shouldn’t overwhelm your brain with a million things that you, yourself, know you won’t complete. You might start stressing yourself out by saying that you have to get all these things done today, and can’t take it one at a time. You’ll end up putting them all on your list, and find you haven’t even completed one. If you don’t even start somewhere small, you can’t expect to magically be able to tackle a tsunami of tasks.

3. Be Mindful.

Think about why you are doing these tasks. If you don’t get your laundry done, how are you going to go outside and run errands with no clean clothes? If you don’t get your part of a project done, how will this reflect on your grade? How are your work colleagues, or group partners, going to feel? Think about the importance of the matter, and be mindful in identifying the reasons that will help motivate you.

4. Time yourself.

Set timers on when you should wake up in the morning, begin your tasks, finish your tasks, and so on so forth. Factors that can be helpful are time-blocking and the Pomodoro technique. When I couldn’t get my work done fast enough, a lot of the reason was that I was tired of doing the work, and I couldn’t figure out a good schedule. I started setting 25-minute timers and getting as much work done as I could in one specific topic or section. Then, I’d take a 5-minute break and continue working for 25-minutes. This helped me a lot. I started getting work done so much faster and more efficiently.

If you know something is going to take you less time than you scheduled, be as accurate as possible to make sure you aren’t wasting your time. Elon Musk uses 5-minute blocks for every task he has to get done. Time-blocking can help us stay focused, eliminate interruptions, avoid decision fatigue, and so much more.

In conclusion, it’s very typical to get overwhelmed and lose motivation. I have faced loss of motivation or desire to get my work and errands done countless times. Sometimes it feels like you don’t know how to begin to get back on track. It’s important to recognize what is happening in our brains, so we can better improve and further develop ourselves. We need to make sure that we are listening to our emotions and what our brain is trying to say to us, so we can have a stable neuro-wellbeing. Until next time, 🙂

-R.J.