Andrew Huberman and 3 Tips To Improve Motivation and Focus

     Here’s Part 3 of Coach Brent Tipton’s series on coaching players with short attention spans. You can [read the entire series with part 1 and part 2]( in case you missed them. Now, let’s pass on to Coach Brent Tipton… As I (Brent Tipton) explained previously…  I believe it’s important to have a basic understanding of some human psychology in order to tailor our instruction in a way that allows us to overcome short attention spans.  Without doing this first, it’s like trying to solve a problem without fully understanding the underlying causes of that problem…  With that in mind, let’s talk about… Dopamine and 3 Tips To Improve Motivation and Focus Dopamine is a chemical in the brain that’s most commonly associated with delivering feelings of pleasure.   It’s a “feel good” chemical.   Most people think of dopamine in terms of “hits”...  For example…eat a piece of chocolate…get a dopamine “hit”...  LIsten to your favorite song…dopamine “hit”...  In fact, there’s been a craze recently of people taking ice baths or cold showers largely because [recent research]( has shown that they trigger a massive dopamine response that can last up to a few hours.   While thinking of dopamine as a “feel good” chemical is not entirely wrong…it’s actually far more complex than that…  And full disclosure…I’m not a neurologist…so I don’t fully understand its complexity myself!  But what I do know is this…  In addition to dopamine being released when we experience something pleasurable…it’s also released to boost motivation and concentration so that we have the energy and desire to pursue a goal.   As Stanford neurobiologist Dr. Andrew Huberman explained on his Huberman Lab podcast:  “Dopamine has everything to do with your level of motivation, your level of desire, and your willingness to push through effort” and “is responsible for movement, motivation and drive.”   He went on to add:  “If you’ve ever felt lethargic and just lazy with no motivation or drive, that’s a low dopamine state.”   In fact, dopamine is so vital to motivation that if the chemical is blocked in rats they lose all desire to eat…and even live!  Author James Clear summarized this research in his book Atomic Habits:  “...researchers blocked the release of dopamine, [and] to the surprise of the scientists, the rats lost all will to live. They wouldn’t eat….They didn’t crave anything. Within a few days, the animals died of thirst.”  Pretty powerful stuff!  But it doesn’t end there…  Dopamine is also vital to concentration, focus, and learning, which Dr. Michael Frank of Brown University explains in [this interview](   If this interests you, you can read Dr. Frank’s influential [2020 article]( which was published in the prestigious journal Science.  So, what can we do to help increase this vital chemical in our players?  Or asked another way…what can we do to ensure we aren’t contributing to decreases in their dopamine?  I have three recommendations… First, encouraging your players to limit their screen time on smartphones can actually go a long way.  This is because scrolling through social media results in small bursts of dopamine that can add-up over time and reduce overall levels of dopamine…resulting in a lack of motivation and focus during practice.   You see, even though our brains naturally make dopamine on their own…we can use up that dopamine faster than our brains can create it.   As Dr. Andrew Huberman explained on Joe Rogan’s podcast:  “The phone is starting to gobble up all that dopamine…and we are wasting our cognition….And it’s not like they’re getting so much dopamine from using the phone….It’s that they’re spending [dopamine] like spending $5 bills all day long and pretty soon you’re broke and exhausted.”  This season we challenged our team to limit their screen time to under four hours per day. And at the end of each week, the players would send a screenshot of their screen time.   Shockingly, after the first week one player had actually spent over 28 hours on TikTok alone!!  After a few weeks of our “Screen-time Challenge” I could notice a significant difference in the players’ discipline and focus.   So encouraging your players to limit their screen time is one way to help ensure players don’t show up to practice with their motivation and focus already depleted.  A second strategy I recommend is to try to make the game fun.   I know that sounds simple, but it can go a long way…  Because if something is fun, not only will players’ dopamine levels rise as they’re engaged in it…but dopamine levels will also rise beforehand in anticipation of playing.   This can be done through both large-scale changes like implementing a [fast-paced and fun-style]( of gameplay…as well as small-scale changes like using [game-based drills]( practice.   I’ve found one of the best ways to make practice fun is to use game-based activities that simulate a gameday environment.   I personally like 3v3 games…because small-sided games have less players involved which means that each athlete will not only receive more physical touches with the ball…but they’ll also be presented with more “mental touches” on defense as well.    Making these game-based activities a competition in practice will also help boost concentration and focus.  My third recommendation is really more of a general piece of advice than a specific tip.  And since you’ve made it this far in the article, it likely doesn’t apply to you!  But I think it’s important to put genuine care and attention into devising systems and practices that develop your players’ overall abilities and skills…  Because if they recognize that their hard work is actually paying off…and translating into tangible results…this will work wonders on their motivation and desire to work even harder in practice.   That’s all for today!  I hope you’ve enjoyed [this series on overcoming players’ short attention spans](  Let us know…did you find this information useful?  What are your thoughts on encouraging players to limit their screen time?  Would this be something you’d be comfortable asking your players to try?  Reply back and let us know.  All the best,  Brent Tipton Breakthrough Basketball            This email was sent to {EMAIL} because you indicated that you'd like to receive emails and updates from Breakthrough Basketball on 2016-12-16 05:42:39. 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