How to Increase Dopamine: 10 Questions, Answered With the Studies

To increase dopamine, give your brain what it needs to build it: sleep, daylight, training, and enough protein and carbohydrate. Those are the parts with human studies behind them.

Most supplements and every dopamine detox plan are not. I will take this the way a room asks it, one question at a time.

What are the symptoms of low dopamine?

Low dopamine looks like low drive. Researchers can produce it on purpose.

32 women with mild seasonal mood changes drank an amino acid mixture with no tyrosine or phenylalanine, the two amino acids dopamine is built from. About 4 hours later their mood, energy and willingness to work for money were lower than on the complete mixture. (Cawley 2013)

In 40 healthy men, a drug that blocks tyrosine hydroxylase, the first enzyme in dopamine production, increased sleepiness. Mood only crashed when they were also kept awake. (McCann 1993)

No blood test reads your brain dopamine, and low thyroid, bad sleep and depression look the same. If it does not lift, see a doctor.

How do you increase dopamine naturally?

Start with what is free.

• Sleep. 20 healthy adults were scanned rested and after 1 night without sleep. After the lost night, dopamine D2/D3 receptor availability in the ventral striatum was lower, and so was alertness. (Volkow 2012)
• Train. People in rehab for methamphetamine did supervised exercise 3 days a week for 8 weeks. Striatal D2/D3 receptors rose in the 10 who trained, and not in the 9 who got health education instead. (Robertson 2016)
• Sit still. During Yoga Nidra meditation a scan marker fell by 7.9%, which the authors calculated as a 65% rise in dopamine release. (Kjaer 2002)

Light and food are next.

Sunlight and dopamine: does light raise it?

The human data points that way. 68 healthy volunteers were ranked by sunshine exposure. The 17 with the most had significantly greater striatal D2/D3 receptor availability than the 18 with the least. (Tsai 2011)

In the amino acid study above, half the women woke to bright light, up to 3000 lux, and half to dim light at 10 lux. Lowering dopamine dropped mood only in the dim room. Energy and motivation fell in both. (Cawley 2013)

I do not stare at the sun. Being outside and looking at the sky is enough, and I leave the sunglasses off. Why the eye matters is in my long dopamine article.

Which foods increase dopamine?

Dopamine is built from tyrosine, and tyrosine comes from protein.

• Remove the building blocks and brain dopamine falls. Healthy men were scanned after a complete amino acid drink and after one without tyrosine and phenylalanine. The scan signal that rises when dopamine falls went up by 6% in the striatum. (Montgomery 2003)
• One food carries L-DOPA itself. 5 healthy volunteers and 6 Parkinson's patients ate 250 g of cooked broad beans. Plasma levodopa rose, and 3 patients had severe dyskinesias. (Rabey 1992)

So the dopamine foods are the plain protein foods: cheese, milk, eggs, meat and fish. I eat them with plenty of carbohydrate, because in my view a brain short on sugar builds very little. I do not eat beans.

Do dopamine supplements work?

Some do something. None is proven the way the label suggests.

• Tyrosine. A review concluded that it improves thinking in short stressful or demanding situations, and only when dopamine or noradrenaline is temporarily run down. (Jongkees 2015)
• More is not better. 17 adults aged 60 to 75 took single doses of 100, 150 or 200 mg per kg. Working memory got worse as the dose went up. (van de Rest 2017)
• Mucuna pruriens. This bean powder is a natural source of L-DOPA. In 8 Parkinson's patients, 30 g gave peak L-DOPA blood levels 110% higher than standard levodopa with carbidopa. (Katzenschlager 2004) L-DOPA is prescription medicine, so talk to a doctor.
• Bromantane. In rats, 50 mg/kg raised the expression of the genes for the two enzymes that make dopamine. (Vakhitova 2004) The human trials are in bromantane and dopamine.

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Does a dopamine detox work?

Nobody has tested it. PubMed has one paper on "dopamine fasting", a literature review, and no clinical trial. The review itself reports that critics say the idea has no scientific proof, and that extreme versions can lead to loneliness, anxiety and malnutrition. (Desai 2024)

What has been tested is a break from the phone. 154 adults were randomly assigned to stop using social media for 1 week or carry on as usual. The group that stopped scored better on well-being, depression and anxiety. Nobody measured dopamine. (Lambert 2022)

So put the phone down, and do not call it a detox. You cannot fast from a molecule your brain makes all day.

Dopamine vs serotonin: what is the difference?

Dopamine is made from tyrosine and drives wanting. Serotonin is made from tryptophan and is sold as the happiness chemical. In my view it works more like a brake: how to lower serotonin.

The two trade off. Rats got L-DOPA with carbidopa daily for about two months. 30 minutes after the last dose, dopamine was higher in every brain region measured and serotonin was lower in all but one. (Borah 2007) It was not a clean win. The same rats showed depression in a swim test.

Does Adderall lower dopamine?

Not while it is working. Amphetamines release dopamine the neuron has already made and stored. (Sulzer 2005) That is why I say Adderall borrows dopamine. The question is what the brain does after months of it.

• In people, on a related drug. 18 adults with ADHD who had never been medicated took methylphenidate (Ritalin) for 12 months. Dopamine transporter availability in the striatum went up by 24%. The authors wrote that this may reduce the drug's effect and worsen symptoms when it is not active. (Wang 2013)
• In adult primates. Amphetamine treatment similar to what is used for adult ADHD damaged dopamine nerve endings in the striatum. (Ricaurte 2005)
• In young monkeys, no difference. After 18 months of methylphenidate or amphetamine at therapeutic blood levels, the dopamine system developed as expected. (Soto 2012)

So the brain seems to adapt, and the science is not settled. Adderall is a prescription drug. Do not stop or change it without your doctor. The peptide angle is in BPC-157 and dopamine.

The honest part: how strong is this evidence?

• Dopamine detox has no trial at all. One review, zero experiments.
• Most supplement evidence is animal or small. Bromantane's gene data is from rats. The mucuna study was a handful of patients. A review of tyrosine under stress found 10 randomized and 4 controlled trials and still called the evidence insufficient for confident recommendations. (Attipoe 2015)
• A scan is not a dopamine meter. Receptor availability can move because receptors changed or because dopamine changed.
• The season data goes against me. In 86 healthy adults, dopamine synthesis in the putamen was greater in fall and winter than in spring and summer. (Eisenberg 2010)
• Blood is not brain. The cold plunge number people quote is plasma dopamine: up 250% in young men after an hour in 14°C water, with noradrenaline up 530%. In my view that is a stress response. (Srámek 2000)

If you take Parkinson's medication, antipsychotics, MAO inhibitors or ADHD medication, do not add any of these supplements without your doctor.

So what do I do every day?

• Light. Outside every day, no sunglasses.
• Sleep. 7 to 9 hours, same time every night.
• Strength training. I call it an antidepressant drug.
• Food. Protein and plenty of sugar. No fasting.
• Gut. In my view gut inflammation makes dopamine harder to build. I take 2 capsules of BPC-157 in the morning.
• Promises. If I decide to do something, I follow through.

The full protocol is in Reset your brain's reward system and raise your dopamine baseline.

Quick answers

How do you increase dopamine naturally?

The options with human studies are sleep, daylight, exercise and enough dietary protein. One night without sleep lowered dopamine D2/D3 receptor availability in 20 healthy adults, and 8 weeks of exercise raised it in a small trial of recovering methamphetamine users.

What are the symptoms of low dopamine?

When researchers lowered dopamine in healthy volunteers, they saw sleepiness, lower mood, lower energy and less willingness to work for a reward. No blood test reads brain dopamine, and other conditions cause the same symptoms.

What foods increase dopamine?

Dopamine is made from the amino acids tyrosine and phenylalanine, which come from protein foods such as cheese, milk, eggs, meat and fish. Leaving them out of a test drink lowered brain dopamine in healthy men. Broad beans contain L-DOPA itself.

Do dopamine supplements work?

Tyrosine improved thinking in short stressful situations according to one review, but higher single doses worsened working memory in older adults. Mucuna pruriens contains L-DOPA and was tested in Parkinson's patients. Bromantane's gene data is from rats.

Does a dopamine detox work?

It has never been tested. PubMed has one literature review on dopamine fasting and no clinical trial. A one-week break from social media improved well-being, depression and anxiety in a trial of 154 adults, but dopamine was not measured.

Does Adderall lower dopamine?

Amphetamine raises dopamine while it is active by releasing what is already stored. The long-term picture is unsettled: 12 months of methylphenidate raised dopamine transporter availability by 24% in 18 adults with ADHD, one primate study found nerve ending damage and another found no difference. Do not change a prescription without your doctor.