ScienceDaily: Motivation is affected by oxidative stress, nutrition can help

“In life, motivation can be the difference between success and failure, goal-setting and aimlessness, well-being and unhappiness. And yet, becoming and staying motivated is often the hardest step, a problem which has prompted much research.

A very small part of that research has looked into the question of metabolism. "Do differences in metabolites in the brain affect our capacity for motivation?" asks Professor Carmen Sandi at EPFL's School of Life Sciences. "If that is the case, could nutritional interventions that can affect metabolite levels be an effective vehicle to improve motivated performance?"

Sandi's group, with their colleagues at the Nestlé Institute of Health Sciences, have now published a study that shines the first light into answering that question. The researchers focused on an area deep into the brain called the "nucleus accumbens," which is known to play a major role regulating functions like reward, reinforcement, aversion, and not least, motivation."

Some Insights From This Article

• Motivation can be affected by our oxidative stress! A quick overview of oxidative stress, our brain and our body as a whole uses energy throughout the day by burning through chemicals through reactions to produce usable energy. This process can sometimes produce toxic wastes which can be prone to oxidize cellular components. This in turn can damage cell processes and significantly impair its function. However, our body has amazing mechanisms in neutralizing and removing these wastes!

• Sometimes this mechanism can lag behind our bodies production of these species in special circumstances creating “oxidative stress” in which the cells are almost pressed to remove these waste products before they do damage in the cell.

• Our brain cells have this process as well! And this study shows that this process can impede our states of motivation, as oxidative stress in nerve cells can impair their ability to function properly. How do I counter this? Often such situations occur when our brain doesn’t receive adequate sleep or a balanced nutritional diet that provides the means to remove these sorts of wastes.

Full article is here!

#Motivation #Health #Brain