Do you look at friends who find pleasure in marathon running or early morning gym sessions and think: what? While you may just assume that some people are just ‘exercise people’ and you are simply not, there may be other elements into why some find working out easy breezy and others find it a slog.

According to a new study, it might all come down to the pleasure chemical dopamine. While dopamine is typically thought of as a chemical that spikes after exercise, giving us the pleasing buzz after training, a paper from Johns Hopkins University suggests the amount of dopamine we have going into our training could make or break our session.  

The study was done in patients with Parkinson’s, a disease where neurons in the brain that produce dopamine die off. Researchers asked them to complete a hand grip task on days when they took their standard dopamine medication and on days without the medicine.

When the participants had taken their regular medication, they were able to accurately squeeze at specified levels of effort and they assessed their own expenditure accurately too. When they completed the tasks without the medication, participants over-reported their efforts – meaning they thought a task was harder than it was – and were less likely to match output to the researchers’ request. 

In another experiment, the participants were told they could squeeze the grip with a relatively low effort or flip a coin and take a chance between not doing a task or doing the task with a high level of effort. When they had taken dopamine medication, they were more willing to take a chance on having to perform a higher amount of effort than when they didn’t take their medication.

What does all this mean? While this study was done in people with Parkinson’s disease, researchers say the effect of dopamine is relevant for all of us. Essentially, it means dopamine can reduce how much effort we think physical activity will be and increase our motivation to do it. Researchers also say that issues with dopamine signalling could explain fatigue in conditions such as depression and long Covid. 

Dopamine levels regularly fluctuate, but giving them a little boost before you get training could help you work harder.

Work out in the morning 

“Your dopamine levels are at their highest when you first wake up, so try to figure out a routine where you undertake your physical exercise in the morning,” says Lorna Wilkins, a personal trainer, yoga teacher and co-founder of wellness consultancy Tommy Hatto. That extra dopamine boost during your workout might help make exercise feel a little easier.

Enjoy your morning latte

“Caffeine in the morning will also help boost your dopamine,” says Amanda Strowbridge, a clinical hypnotherapist, neuro-linguistic programming master and physical therapist. “But try to avoid caffeine after 12pm as this may disrupt your sleep, which will reduce baseline dopamine.”

Prioritise sleep

A study from the Journal Of Neuroscience found that sleep deprivation results in a decrease in dopamine and wakefulness, meaning you’ll feel tired and find exercise harder. “A good night’s sleep puts you in prime position for your workout the next day,” says Wilkins.

Find a mood-boosting workout playlist

We all know the importance of the right playlist, but music actually boosts our pleasure chemical, Wilkins says. “Find music that makes you want to dance, as listening to positive up-tempo music has shown to increase activity in the pleasure areas within our brains,” Wilkins adds. “You can channel that energy into a more productive workout.”

Load up on protein

Diet is also crucial. Tryptophan is associated with boosted dopamine and serotonin and is found mainly in high-protein foods. “These include red meat, poultry, fish, eggs and milk but also tofu, beans, spirulina and nuts,” says Strowbridge.

Head into your workout feeling good and you might come away feeling better.

Images: Getty