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Tj Power is the lead neuroscientist at the DOSE Lab and cofounder of Neurify, a trailblazing organization in the mental health sector. He is also a renowned international speaker, having captivated audiences worldwide and worked with major corporations and health services. Whats the big idea? Human brain chemistry is at odds with modern lifestyles. The activities and habits that naturally boost dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins have been largely replaced by routines that leave us feeling depleted. Uplift mood, tune focus, boost energy, and deepen relationships by fostering optimum conditions for your bodys favorite neurotransmitters. Below, Tj shares five key insights from his new book, The DOSE Effect: Optimize Your Brain and Body by Boosting Your Dopamine, Oxytocin, Serotonin, and Endorphins. Listen to the audio versionread by Tj himselfin the Next Big Idea App. 1. Dopamine that requires effort is better Dopamine is your brains motivational fuel. When elevating your dopamine levels, focus on the idea of earning dopamine and not just getting instant, quick hits. In our hunter-gatherer past, dopamine rewarded us for effort. It made activities like hunting for food or building shelter feel good so that we wanted to keep doing these things. Today, dopamine is getting hijacked by quick hits like social media, sugary snacks, and online shopping. These easy dopamine fixes cause brief neurochemical spikes that then crash out and make us feel quite low. To optimize dopamine naturally, start your day with action. Instead of going on your phone first thing in the morning, go to the bathroom, brush your teeth, splash some water on your face, or even get a little bit of sunlight. This kind of action naturally starts generating dopamine in your brain. Throughout your day, really connect with goal-oriented tasks. Maybe thats tackling a challenging project at work or cleaning your home. We all know that feeling, for example, when you need to change and wash your bedding. Its an annoying task that isnt particularly fun. You wake up one morning and think, yeah, I should probably change and wash my bedding today. And then a few days later, youre like, oh yeah, I need to. You go through the hell of unbuttoning the duvet, getting the sheet off, jamming it in the washing machine so it all fits in one load, getting it out, drying it, and putting it all back on the bed. Eventually, you find yourself getting into your freshly washed bed, and you think about how nice it feels to be under clean covers. No one regrets washing their bedding. Thats dopamine. Dopamine rewards you for an effortful task that is beneficial to you as a human being. Try to limit quick dopamine behaviors. Replace endless scrolling with something like reading, writing, solving a problem, or connecting with a human. If we can reduce quick dopamine and increase slow dopamine, then our brain will operate much better. 2. Build connection through the love hormone Oxytocin is a connection chemical that strengthens relationships and develops trust. In the past, oxytocin was essential to survival because it drove cooperation within tight-knit social communities. Today, digital habits and individualistic lifestyles weaken oxytocin pathways, leaving us feeling isolated and lonely. To elevate oxytocin, consider a few of these actions: Physical touch. Hugging someone for five seconds is a scientifically proven way to raise oxytocin. Deepen social moments. When socializing with people you love, remove distractions. Get that phone as far away as possible. Eye contact is a priority. Listen actively and ask interesting questions. Altruism. Pro-social behaviorlike acts of kindness, helping a friend, writing someone a thank you, or smiling at someone and asking how their days goingincreases oxytocin. 3. Have a dose of natures antidepressant Serotonin is the bodys mood booster. Spending time outdoors in the sunlight and consuming unprocessed foods supports serotonin production. Unfortunately, our modern indoor lifestyles and processed diets deplete this chemical, leading to mood swings and fatigue. To boost serotonin levels, spend more time outdoors. On a sunny day, you might only need five minutes outside to achieve a nice increase in this chemical. On cloudy days, youll require 10 to 15 minutes. Often, we only go outside when its sunny, neglecting the cloudy days when we really should be getting out there. A simple rule I like to follow is the principle of seeing sunlight before checking social media every single morning. As someone whos addicted to my phone, going on social media first thing in the morning primes my brain for that dopamine loop, causing me to stay on my phone all day. Observing sunlight before social media is an essential routine in my life that helps maintain my serotonin levels. The second part of this is prioritizing gut health to increase serotonin. Ninety percent of this chemical is made in your gut. Anytime you eat fibrous, rich, nutrient-dense foods, your body uses them to generate serotonin. The third part is a practice called underthinking. When overthinking, our brains and thoughts go rapidly and often in a negative direction. Its important that we know how to calm down our bodies in those moments. If we settle our hearts and reduce cortisol levels (the stress hormone), our thoughts will also calm. We often do this with a physiological sigh. This is where you take a double inhalation through the nose, followed by a big exhalation from the mouth. Repeating this three to five timesdouble in, one out, double in, one outbuilds serotonin and slows overthinking. 4. Use endorphins to alleviate pain Endorphins are your brains natural painkillers. Theyre activated by physical activity, hot environments, and laughing regularly. For our ancestors, endorphins were critical for enduring the physical demands and stressors of surviving in the wild. To activate them in your life, you need to make sure you move daily. Exercise triggers this chemical. Take a 10-minute walk. Try walking faster or up a hill, or turn it into a little jog or sprint. Any moment of physical activation is great. To activate them in your life, you need to make sure you move daily. Next, I suggest experimenting with heat therapy, like a warm bath or sauna. You may have experienced this before getting in a bath: suddenly, you feel a bit more relaxed, neurobiologically speaking. Thats because endorphins are released into your brain, calming you down. Finally, we really need laughter. Our research at the DOSE Lab shows that humans in our modern world are not laughing enough. We ask people, on a scale from one to 10, how frequently they laugh. Using data from 50,000 people, we got an average answer of only 5.1. If your personal answer to that question is a low number, you need to prioritize happy social moments or funny movies and TV shows. Things that get you laughing are essential for this chemical. 5. Get happy from DOSE Happiness isnt just a fleetig emotion. Its deeply rooted in brain chemistry. You can transform your mental and emotional state by understanding and intentionally boosting dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins. Start with small changes to your daily lifestyle: phone habits, food choices, and time spent outside. Over time, youll notice significant shifts in your motivation, mood, relationships, and happiness. This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.
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If you tune into the Puppy Bowl on Sunday, you’ll likely see a key person’s influence even if you don’t actually see her. Victoria Schade is a dog trainer and novelist who’s the shows lead puppy trainer and wrangler. She’s the one making sure the shelter pups have a conflict-free contest and that they’re captured at their most adorableall from off-camera. It is Schade who gets the puppies to look up during the The Star-Spangled Banner or run through a tunnel to get to the field for the starting lineups. Shes on the lookout for possible conflicts or nervous dogs. My responsibilities include ensuring puppy happiness and safety during gameplay, she says. So if theres any moment where a puppy looks like theyre overwhelmed or they just need a break, Ill step out and give them a little break on the sideline. Schade has been working with the doggies on the Animal Planet show for 19 years and is believed to be the longest serving member of the Puppy Bowl crew. She also works the kitten halftime show and calls filming both her favorite week of the year. I think she is one of the most dedicated, hardest working people out there in the business, says Puppy Bowl referee Dan Schachner, now in his 14th year. She doesnt ever seem to run out of energy. She never says no to a request and theres always brightness and sunshine from her with every step. Schade has coached hundreds of dogs over the years but never adopted one from the showuntil now. She took home Boris, known on the show as Mr. Pickles, from Dallas Dog rescue. I saw star quality. So this was the year, she says. Treats and funny noises Early on, Schade was responsible for recruiting and selecting the puppies, a task now that leans on animal rescue groups and shelters throughout the country. These days, she’s the lead trainer. If youre seeing the puppy looking up at the camera, Im typically right there with the treat, she says. Its a lot of treats and funny noises. And that does the trick. This year, Schade is stepping out from the sidelines and joining Schachner on camera for an hour-long pre-game kickoff show, which features a doggie combine and a draft. Other show highlights include segments with Dan Smyers, from superstar country duo Dan + Shay, and Kansas City Chiefs defensive tackle Derrick Nnadi. Schade has developed some very special animal-related skills over the years, including anticipating when one of the players needs to relieve itself. One of my Puppy Bowl skills is reading butts. So I know when a puppy is going to go to the bathroom and Ill typically say like, Watch out in the 20-yard-line, were going to have a deposit and everyones ready to go with that cleanup. The Puppy Bowl made its debut as counter-programming to the Super Bowl in 2005. Dogs score touchdowns on a gridiron carpet when they cross the goal lineany goal linewith a toy in their mouth. The show is really just an excuse to spend time watching adorable, clumsy pups play with chew toys, wag their tails furiously and lick the camera. A deeper reason is to encourage animal adoption. According to the ASPCA, approximately 390,000 shelter dogs are euthanized each year and 2 million shelter dogs are adopted. Most of the puppies are usually adopted by airtime, since the show was filmed in the fall. But the point is to show that animals just like the ones on the show can be found at any shelter at any time. This year’s three-hour television event will feature 142 rescue puppies from 80 shelters across 40 statesand one from Nicaragua, a Chihuahua-German shepherd. There will be 11 special-needs dogs. Thats the most amount weve ever had,” says Schachner. “Look out for Jolene, who is a pitbull mix thats in a wheelchair. Look out for a three-legged Boston terrier from New York City. And my personal favorite, is Sprinkle, who is a blind and deaf Aussie. So its just incredible to watch them play. The inaugural Puppy Bowl was watched by nearly 6 million viewers. Last year, 12.6 million viewers tuned in. In comparison, this years Golden Globes attracted 9.3 million. Practical advice for raising puppies Schade, whose first book was Bonding With Your Dog, and who then pivoted to writing pet-oriented novels, like Life on the Leash and Dog Friendly, is a wealth of information about our four-legged friends. She advises dog owners to learn to read the body language of their pet, to try to understand what they’re trying to say. Like tail-wagginghow tight? And where is the tail positioned? Schade is a big advocate for positive reinforcement and science-based training, not the so-called alpha dog approach, which uses intimidation or force. Theres no need to be the alpha, which has been debunked anyway. You are your dog’s ally. Youre their friend. Youre their No. 1. And its a relationship based in compassion and understanding. That means load up on treats. She advocates keeping them in your pocket and consistently using them as rewards for good behavior, especially when potty training. I cannot stress it enough: When you think youre treating enough, treat more because, especially during puppyhood, it is such a critical learning period and every interaction is a chance to teach something. By Mark Kennedy, Associated Press
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Ever since DeepSeek burst onto the scene last month, theres been no shortage of opinions about what the Chinese startups artificial intelligence accomplishments mean for Americas AI giants like OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, and Meta. However, there’s one company that’s usually been absent from any discussion of just how bad DeepSeeks arrival is for many of Americas tech giants: Apple. Whenever a tech insider or analyst mentions Apple and DeepSeek together, its usually to suggest that the arrival of the Chinese LLM could be beneficial to the iPhone maker. Is that really the case? AI technology is moving so quickly (DeepSeek virtually appeared out of nowhere) that it seems futile to make long-term predictions about any advancements ultimate impact on the industry, let alone an individual company. Still, I can see a few ways that Apple may benefit from DeepSeek and its successes. Partnering with DeepSeek can give Apple Intelligence a way into China The most direct way that Apple could benefit from DeepSeeks arrival is if the company decided to actually partner with the Chinese startup. Its no secret that Apple badly wants to bring Apple Intelligence to China, as the companys software chief, Craig Federinghi, told me last June when it first previewed its AI platform. China is Apples second-largest market after the US. Apple believes that the addition of Apple Intelligence to its phones represents a unique selling point that will attract new iPhone users and encourage existing ones to upgrade, leading to increased sales. Increasing sales in China is very important to Apple, where its phones have been struggling recently against domestic rivals (the Cupertino company recently saw its China sales drop 11.1% on an annual basis). The problem for Apple is that China has stringent laws surrounding AI systemseven those designed for consumers. Thats why, to meet the countrys legal requirements, Apple might likely partner with an already approved AI provider in China. Indeed, in December, Reuters reported that Apple was in early talks with Tencent and ByteDance about the possibility of integrating their AI models into Apple Intelligence in the country. But now Apple may have a third option: DeepSeek. From both a technological and optical perspective, choosing the small startups LLM for integration with Apple Intelligence in the country could be a wise move. Technologically, integrating DeepSeek into Apple Intelligence on iPhones in China could confer several performance benefits. Two significant advantages of DeepSeek over other LLMs are that it can run on less powerful chips and uses less energy. This makes it perfect for Apples Apple Intelligence platform, which tries to perform as much on-device computing as possible to make things speedier and more private for its users. Partnering with DeepSeek over other AI providers in China may also be excellent optics for Apple from a marketing standpoint, at least locally. Ever since DeepSeek upstaged the much better-funded U.S. tech giants, the small startup has become a point of pride in the nation. Its founder, Liang Wenfeng, even reportedly received a heros welcome when he returned to his hometown of Zhanjiang over the Lunar New Year holiday. If Apple wants to increase sales in China, what better way than by touting that the AI developed by Chinas tech hero is powering Apple Intelligence? AI R&D just got cheaper for Apple Even if Apple doesnt partner directly with DeepSeek, the Chinese startups disruption of the U.S. AI industry seems to offer some indirect advantages for Apple. Before DeepSeeks arrival, general wisdom held that if a company wanted to be competitive in the AI raceto be in it to win itit needed to invest tens of billions of dollars in research and development. After all, thats what OpenAI, Microsoft, Meta, and Google have done. Apple could have thrown the same amount of money into AI development in order to catch up with its U.S. rivalsbut DeepSeeks success shows that the company may not have to do that anymore. DeepSeek says that its model was trained for less than $6 million, a pittance compared to the money OpenAI and Meta, for example, have spent training their models. And DeepSeeks R1 LLM outperforms OpenAIs and Metas models in many areas. If its now known that powerful LLMs that can compete with the heavyweights can be created and trained for just cents on the dollar, Apple no longer needs to consider spending tens of billions to catch up and can direct its massive cash stockpiles elsewhere. Further, DeepSeek claims it took just two months to train its model. If thats the case, then Apple will be able to catch up to its U.S. competitors in no time. Apples position in the AI race So, does DeepSeeks arrival give Apple a leg up in the AI race? When it comes to potentially bringing Apple Intelligence to China and boosting iPhone sales in the country, it very well may. But outside of China, its impossible to say if DeepSeeks arrival will actually materially benefit Apples position in the AI race long-term. DeepSeeks innovations seem to show that you dont need to spend billions of dollars and years training advanced AI models. This revelation doesnt only benefit Apple, however. While Apple now might not have to spend the time and money its US competitors did to create a model on the scale of ChatGPT and Llama, neither do other companies now, which levels the playing field for everyone, big and small. Besides, who knows what other AI breakthroughs are just around the corner? DeepSeek virtually came out of nowhere. Theres no guarantee it wont be upstaged by another groundbreaking AI advancement in the months ahead that disrupts the industry all over again. And because of that, its impossible to say who will be in what place on the future AI leaderboardsno matter if youre talking about Apple, OpenAI, or DeepSeek itself.
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