It’s All in Your Head: Why A Lack of Motivation Might Not Be Entirely Your Fault

We generally think of motivation as a personal attribute entirely within our control. If you have motivation, you are thought to be disciplined, organized, and energetic. If you lack motivation, the general stereotype is that you are lazy, unorganized and lack passion. This characterization isn’t entirely accurate and for some people can be quite unfair. It turns out that an individual’s motivation capabilities, like most aspects of personality, are a combination of genetic and environmental factors. Today’s post probes the genetic aspect of motivation.

Motivation from a physical perspective involves having the right balance of brain chemicals. There is an area of the brain called the “reward center” and psychologists and scientists are very interested in how that area of the brain works. Being able to influence the reward center could allow doctors to help patients make positive changes to overcome challenges like addiction or depression.

Below we look at two mental illnesses with motivational impacts. Clearly, this is for general information only. If you suspect you have a problem with either one of these conditions, please consult your physician.

Too Little Motivation: Depression

“Depressed patients often lack motivation and the ability to experience reward or pleasure — and depression and addiction often go together.”

–“Resilience Factor Low in Depression, Protects Mice From Stress,” Press Release, National Institute of Mental Health, May 17, 2010

Depression is a common and disabling illness for many Americans. While the reasons for depression are numerous and not entirely known, scientists theorize that an imbalance of brain chemicals may explain why some people become very depressed when facing adverse circumstances while others do not.

One important motivational brain chemical is dopamine. Dopamine is the pleasure chemical that is released primarily in response to good food, sex, exercise, alcohol, caffeine and sugar. Dopamine levels decline in response to age, stress, lack of sleep, poor nutrition and drug abuse. The video below provides an animation illustrating how dopamine works.  (Note: if you are having trouble viewing the embedded video, you can also click here to watch it on YouTube.)

Dopamine levels must be exactly right to influence motivation. Too little or too much dopamine negatively influence our cognitive processing. Too much dopamine has been associated with depression and schizophrenia. Parkinson’s disease is caused by the death of dopamine-producing neurons and Parkinson’s patients have almost no dopamine.

Another brain chemical frequently out of balance in depressed patients is deltaFosB, a transcription factor that is responsible for turning on and off mutiple genes to produce proteins. Depressed people are thought to have too little deltaFosB. Antidepressants are thought to work by increasing deltaFosB. DeltaFosB, like dopamine, has to be kept in balance. The right amount of deltaFosB gives us “resilience” to stress. Too little results in depression and too much promotes addiction.

Too Much Motivation: Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

When you think of the most organized people, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) comes to mind. Repetitive cleaning and an irrational fear of germs or uncleanliness are common manifestations of this anxiety disorder.

I was somewhat surprised to read, however, that OCD is a “disorder of motivation and reward expectancy.” OCD patients do not lack motivation but perhaps have too much motivation. Too much motivation? Could there really be such a thing?

Researchers at the National Insitutes of Mental Health found in experiments with monkeys that brain activity in the “reward-anticipating circuit” has a great impact on keeping us focused to complete long tasks. Monkeys were shown progress bars indicating how much of a task they had completed and how much more of the task they had to complete to get a treat. The scientists found that as the monkeys got closer and closer to completing the task, activity in the reward-anticipating circuit increased and the monkeys became more accurate in their performance of the task. Once they were almost finished with the task, this activity slowed down until the treat was received. This is apparently the “normal” pathway.

The scientists theorize that in OCD individuals, the reward-anticipating signals never turn off.

“The [OCD] individual performs the behavior that would normally alleviate the sense of expectancy, but the signal somehow fails to turn off. There is no feeling of completion, the tension remains unresolved, and a compulsion to keep repeating the behavior takes over.”

–“Brain Signal Boosts as Monkey Nears Reward,” Press Release, National Institute of Mental Health, May 30, 2002.

So, if someone has OCD tendencies and is really bothered by cleanliness or organization, it might truly be easier for that person to clean ad naseum than the rest of us. The OCD individual has a natural boost to keep going.

Hmm….what could be wrong with that? Well, obviously OCD at its extreme is a very paralyzing illness. Very mild OCD might be beneficial for a lot of tasks. The downside of OCD, I imagine, is that you never gain the sense of satisfaction and completion that a normal person would have. It is probably harder for the OCD individual to relax, appreciate their accomplishments and take a break. They are in a constant state of striving. Over time, I imagine the stress of this condition would be quite exhausting and taxing on the body. So, while the OCD individual might have the cleanest house on the block, they might struggle with their physical health or in their relationships.

Motivation “Cheats”

So, knowing the physical cues that influence motivation, what are some “cheats” we can try to use to positively influence our own brain chemicals and motivation?

1.  Assign a good reward. We may be unmotivated to do certain tasks because we aren’t making the connection to any sort of reward for completing that task. An OCD individual has a natural reward system where the act of completing the task is enough to alleviate their anxiety. The normal individual might need something more concrete like purchasing a wishlist item, taking a vacation, going out to dinner, etc. Pick something that is worth striving for!

2.  Monitor your progress. Creating a visual symbol for your task and your progress might help keep you focused and promote those reward-anticipation chemicals. Creating a checklist, a simple rectangle from paper that you color as you progress, or a sticker chart might help you stay on track.

3.  Eat motivation-inducing foods. There are certain foods that boost the production of dopamine. Livestrong has a list here. Not surprisingly, most of these are healthy foods like whole grains, avocados, lean proteins and fish. While sugar, caffeine and alcohol also are dopamine-producing foods, there is no recommendation that we increase our intake of any of those foods!

Finally, the most important message I would like to convey about physical aspects of motivation is that we all need to remember that individuals are unique and not every brain is wired in the same way. Something that may be simple for you may be truly very difficult for someone else. Before we are quick to assign labels like “slob,” or “neat freak,” we should pause to consider that we may be commenting on uncontrollable behavior. Our best motivational tool is to focus on the best aspects of everyone and do our best to help others reach their goals.

Have you or a loved one struggled with depression or OCD? What motivational tools were helpful to you/them?