Dopamine is a neuromodulator that sets both your baseline drive and the peaks of enjoyment you feel, and understanding it is the first step to keeping your motivation high instead of letting social media, casinos, and processed food drain it.
On this Physical Friday I sit down with wellness coach Zach Fagerberg to start a three-part series on dopamine. In part one he explains the baseline, the peak, and the inevitable crash below baseline that creates craving — and why easy, effortless hits are a recipe for burnout. This is the foundation for using dopamine to your advantage.
Listen now: press play in the player above and follow along.
Zach Fagerberg explains that dopamine is a neuromodulator, not just a neurotransmitter, which means it does not just pass a signal from one nerve to the next — it influences many nerves in an area at once. That is why it touches so much of what we pursue in life. You have a baseline level of dopamine at any given time that determines how much drive and seeking you feel, and you get peaks on top of that baseline. The height of a peak determines how much you enjoy and perceive liking an experience.
Your baseline is the steady level of dopamine in your system that sets how much motivation and drive you feel day to day — someone with a low baseline can seem to have no spark, while someone with a high baseline brings energy to everything. A peak is a spike on top of that baseline that creates the enjoyment of a specific experience. Zach Fagerberg points out that dopamine is finite and takes time to replenish, so every peak is followed by a dip below your previous baseline. That dip is where craving lives.
Because the craving does not happen during the peak — it happens in the crash afterward. Zach Fagerberg explains that after any peak, dopamine falls below the baseline you started at, and that drop below baseline is exactly where you feel the urge to seek the experience again. It is not an endless up-and-up system. Understanding that the reward is always paired with a reciprocal dip is the first key insight, because it reframes constant peak-seeking as something that comes with a built-in cost.
Social media delivers easy dopamine release with little to no effort, which Zach Fagerberg calls a recipe for disaster. Over the long term, dopamine does not just affect the moment — it rewires what you seek and how. Your system starts asking why it would lift a pinky when scrolling delivers all the dopamine it wants, yet peak after peak after peak taps the finite resource faster than it can replenish, and you end up with a significant drop below baseline. That can show up as burnout, the doldrums, or not getting excited about anything.
It can feel like burnout — tired of everything, not excited about anything you used to enjoy. Zach Fagerberg shares that for him it has also shown up as bouts of depression, tied to not supporting a strong baseline. The common thread is a flatness or lack of drive that makes even good things feel like a grind. The important point is that how you arrived at a low baseline matters, because the path in shapes the path out. There is no single one-size-fits-all fix to reset it.
Zach Fagerberg's big encouragement is awareness. Once you understand how good modern structures — social media, Las Vegas casinos, processed foods — have gotten at exploiting your dopamine system for profit, you get to decide whether, how, and how often you engage. You do not have to go cold turkey; he uses social media for business. The move is putting your foot down so the situation does not just creep in without your say-so. A practical start is writing down the activities you do mindlessly that feel good briefly but leave you worse off afterward.
I have always been fascinated by how dopamine quietly runs so much of what we do — why we keep scrolling past the point of good sense, how casinos engineer their floors, how exercise changes how we feel. Zach Fagerberg has been studying dopamine seriously, and I wanted him to lay the foundation so we could build a whole series around using it to our advantage instead of being a slave to whoever is manufacturing it for us. We get into the core mechanics in the episode, so press play in the player above.
Here is the framework Zach Fagerberg lays out in part one. We go deeper in the episode.
I unpack each of these in the episode. Press play in the player above.
Think about leaving a Las Vegas casino — the lights, the noise, the flashing, the constant stimulation, and then that almost collapse of, glad that is over, the moment you step out. Every one of those lights is effortless dopamine, and the comedown is the dip below baseline in real time, and they do not let you off the hook, because the fountains and lights are already pulling you toward the next one. I get into why that design works on us in the episode, so press play in the player above.
I asked Zach Fagerberg whether the answer is just a set number of minutes per day, and his answer is more useful than a rule. If something has already lowered your baseline, you cut it back until you feel your drive and motivation returning — that moment when a thing you had gone numb to suddenly has a little fire again. It takes self-awareness, but that is what growth is. He explains how to read that signal in the episode, so press play in the player above.
Dopamine quietly decides how much drive you bring to everything, and the easy, effortless hits are the ones quietly draining your tank.
Before next week, write down a couple of the things you do mindlessly that feel good for a while and not so good after. It will make part two land harder. Press play in the player above.
Physical Friday is my weekly fitness series for fishing guides, anglers, hunters, and outdoorsmen — the training, nutrition, and mindset to stay in the game for life. Watch and listen to every Physical Friday episode from Tom Rowland.
dopamine · baseline dopamine · neuromodulator · Zach Fagerberg · social media · Las Vegas casinos · processed food · burnout · motivation · Ray Cash Care · Physical Friday · Tom Rowland Podcast
I'm Tom Rowland, a professional fishing guide based in the Florida Keys, host of the Tom Rowland Podcast, and the longtime host of the Saltwater Experience television show. On the podcast's Physical Friday series I share the training, nutrition, and mindset that keep fishing guides, anglers, hunters, and outdoorsmen strong enough to do the things they love — hunting, fishing, hiking, and more — for life.
Subscribe to get the latest episodes, show notes, and exclusive content delivered straight to your inbox.