Behaviors, habits, and even foods may help balance your body’s response to dopamine, a neurotransmitter (chemical messenger that promotes communication between nerves). Dopamine helps regulate muscle movement and contributes to positive feedback that gives an emotional sense of satisfaction and contentment.

Jump to Key Takeaways.

1. Eat a Balanced Diet, Including Protein

Nutrition is key to helping the body produce dopamine and in supporting the cells that respond to this neurotransmitter.

To avoid a deficiency, be sure to consume adequate nutrients, such as:

• Carbohydrates
• Fats
• Minerals
• Protein
• Vitamins

This will allow your body to have the building blocks it needs to create dopamine and the cell receptors that respond to dopamine.

2. Limit Saturated Fats

Saturated fats contribute to atherosclerosis (buildup of fats, cholesterol, and plaques in the walls of arteries) that can lead to narrowing in the arteries throughout your body—especially arteries in your heart and brain that can cause a stroke.

A stroke can affect areas of the brain that produce or respond to dopamine, potentially leading to a condition called vascular parkinsonism. Obesity has also been associated with altered dopamine regulation.

3. Improve Gut Health 

The absorption of nutrients in your digestive system can be affected by several factors, including your overall gut health.

Tips to improve gut health include:

• Get enough fiber: Fiber helps keep your bowels regular.
• Maintain a healthy gut microbiome: The microbiome is the community of friendly microbes in your gut. Foods like yogurt and kimchee encourage balanced gut microbes.
• Drink enough fluids: While hydration needs vary, drinking nine to 13 cups of fluid per day is generally recommended.

All these foods help your body absorb nutrients efficiently and may also reduce inflammation in the brain that counteracts healthy dopamine activity.

4. Exercise

Staying active and engaging in different types of exercises create physiological changes in the body, muscles, and brain that induce positive feedback, which is partially mediated by dopamine.

These actions can provide a sense of satisfaction and reduce seeking satisfaction through harmful, unhealthy habits, such as drinking alcohol or smoking.

5.Get Enough Sleep

Getting enough sleep is crucial to maintaining dopamine balance.

Effects of poor sleep on dopamine regulation include:

• Symptoms of Parkinson’s disease: Lack of sleep can temporarily exacerbate symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.
• Symptoms of schizophrenia: Disrupted sleep patterns can worsen symptoms of schizophrenia.
• Response to dopamine: Getting enough sleep plays an important role in your body’s response to dopamine, even if you do not have a medical disorder associated with dopamine. It allows response to the positive reinforcement role of dopamine in the brain.
• Exaggerated responses to triggers: Sleep deprivation contributes to exaggerated responses to events and emotional triggers, which can make you unusually anxious, tearful, disappointed, sad, or angry. These responses may cause you to behave in ways that you later regret, which can make you crave dopamine activity.

6. Make Time for Fun

Dopamine helps you feel pleasure. Engaging activities that you enjoy can give you a steady feeling of satisfaction. This balances dopamine activity, rather than extreme highs and lows.

Activities that you might enjoy include:

• Taking a walk
• Chatting with a friend
• Organizing or cleaning a space at home
• Watching a funny or heartwarming video, show, or movie
• Listening to music
• Journaling
• Exercise
• Sports
• Board games
• Drawing
• Experiencing the outdoors

7. Meditate

Meditation trains awareness and attention to the present moment. It may involve guided exercise, prayer, or stillness. These types of activities can help balance your responsiveness to dopamine.

8. Spend Time in the Sun (Safely)

Vitamin D is involved in the biochemical pathways that help your body produce and respond to dopamine. Getting an adequate supply of vitamin D may help balance your body’s production and response to dopamine. Sunlight exposure is one of the most efficient ways for your body to produce vitamin D.

In addition to its impact on vitamin D, sunlight is known to improve mood for most people. Being outside or having access to the outside—even through windows—provides your body with a consistent sense of the time of day, which helps regulate your circadian rhythm and your overall physical processes on a healthy schedule.

When to See a Healthcare Provider

If you’re experiencing any symptoms of dopamine dysregulation, it’s important that you see a healthcare provider so that you can get an accurate diagnosis and start treatment.

Conditions associated with dopamine imbalance include:

• Parkinson’s disease: Symptoms include tremors, muscle stiffness, difficulty with balance, and decreased emotional expressions. Treatments include medications that increase dopamine or that help promote dopamine responsiveness in the brain. 
• Substance use disorders and behavioral addictive disorders: These disorders are associated with decreased responsiveness to the body’s dopamine and craving for substances or performing behaviors that boost dopamine. These disorders are treated with a combination of behavioral and medical therapy.
• Schizophrenia: This mental health condition can produce delusions, hallucinations, false beliefs, and a lack of self-care. Medications used to treat schizophrenia may have an effect of decreasing the body’s response to excessive dopamine.
• Tic disorders and Tourette’s syndrome: These movement disorders are characterized by sudden involuntary spasms or unusual movements or sounds and are often treated with medications that reduce dopamine activity.

Key Takeaways 

• Dopamine is an important neurotransmitter that helps regulate muscle movement and promotes an emotional sense of contentment.
• Natural ways to increase your body’s responsiveness to dopamine and avoid nutritional causes of dopamine deficiency include eating a balanced diet (including protein and fiber), reducing saturated fat, getting enough sleep, and meditation.
• Medication is usually necessary for treating medical disorders associated with dysregulation of dopamine, such as Parkinson’s disease and schizophrenia.