That Neuroscience Guy - The Neuroscience of Laziness

Episode Date: January 30, 2023

Find it hard to get off the couch? Maybe you've been putting off a task for longer than you should have. Why do we have trouble getting active when we need to? In today's episode of That Neuroscience Guy, we discuss the neuroscience of laziness. 

Hi, my name is Olof Kregolsen, and I'm a neuroscientist at the University of Victoria. And in my spare time, I'm that neuroscience guy. Welcome to the podcast. You know, I almost didn't record the podcast today. I was sitting on the couch and, you know, I was just sort of randomly flipping through Netflix. Just, man, it was even hard to get up and go get a snack. Sometimes I just feel lazy. And I'm sure you do too.

So on today's podcast, the neuroscience of laziness. podcast, The Neuroscience of Laziness. Laziness basically refers to a brain state where people are experiencing feelings of apathy and lack of motivation. We call that laziness. And there's a lot of neuroscience behind why we're lazy. A ton, actually. We'll start with brain regions. ton, actually. We'll start with brain regions. Now, before we talk about laziness, let's just review the brain regions. So first, the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex we've talked a lot about in terms of decision-making. We know it's there. But a lot of people think about the prefrontal cortex, and they say the words executive control. And what that basically means is that the prefrontal cortex is running the show, if you will. And we know it plays a role in task switching, our ability to switch between two or more different tasks, goal setting, our ability to

look ahead at the future and decide what we want to do. It controls working memory. It's basically what allows us to pull things out of long-term memory and push things into long-term memory. And then, of course, it plays this role in decision-making. And it turns out in people that are lazy, there's reduced function in the prefrontal cortex. It's just simply not getting the job done. Now, another brain region that shows some differences in activity

in people that are lazy is the striatum. And the striatum is a, you know, it's not a big neural region, but it does a lot of things. But in the instance of laziness, its role in reward processing is crucial. And if you think back to our episode way back in season one, where I talked about the neuroscience of human learning and specifically about reinforcement learning. This is when we learn from rewards or we predict or expect rewards. And in people that are lazy, we also see dysfunction in the striatum and specifically in the parts that are evaluating rewards. And why this matters is if you think about the choice to sit on the couch or go outside and do something, well, if this system's playing around with these values, it might be overvaluing sitting on the couch

and undervaluing the true value of getting out and going for a walk or a run. Now, there are other brain regions that are being shown to be impaired or have reduced function in people that are lazy. The anterior cingulate cortex, which plays a massive role in basically assigning actions to choices. So if we make a decision to do something, the anterior cingulate cortex plays a role in saying, okay, well, this is how we're going to do this, or this is the way we're going to do this. And if that's impaired, then obviously we lose that as well. And a specific part of the prefrontal cortex, I talked about it in terms of executive control,

but I'll come back to it with the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. It's a very specific region, which plays a key role in our ability to self-regulate and control our motivation. So all of these brain regions tend to be functioning differently impaired is kind of the wrong word because of in most cases laziness is associated with just normal people with normal brain function who are just not getting it done if you will and these are the brain regions which aren't getting it done now there's a reason for that why are these brain regions not firing properly well that gets us back to neurotransmitters and we've talked about neurotransmitters in the it done. Now, there's a reason for that. Why are these brain regions not firing properly? Well,

that gets us back to neurotransmitters. And we've talked about neurotransmitters in the past. But if you remember, these are the chemicals within your brain that convey signals. And a big one that is seen to be shown to be reduced in people that are lazy is dopamine. And if you remember our chats about dopamine, we've talked about it in a bunch of different ways, but in particular, its role in reward processing. Dopamine is the thing that basically carries those reward signals. So if dopamine levels are reduced or the dopamine system is not functioning correctly, then our reward system is impaired and that contributes to laziness. There's also norepinephrine, another

neurotransmitter, which increases alertness, arousal attention. And I don't think I have to go further than that for you to understand its role in laziness. But it also affects our sleep wake cycle, our moods, and even plays a role in memory processing and decision making. So again, all of those words, you can imagine that if norepinephrine levels are off, you might not be as alert, you might not be as aroused, you might have trouble paying attention, you might have issues with your sleep-wake cycle and want to nap more, your mood might be off, and your memory and decision-making might even be impaired when you're lazy. And last but not least, there's serotonin. So serotonin is another neurotransmitter that tends to be reduced or not functioning correctly in people that are lazy. And again, the list of things that serotonin plays a role in will probably help you understand what you feel like

or why you're acting the way you are when you're lazy. So serotonin plays a role in learning, memory, happiness. It helps regulate our body temperature, our sleep cycles, our sexual behavior, and even hunger. And a lack of serotonin, so if it's really reduced, it's thought to play a crucial role in depression, anxiety, mania, and a bunch of other health conditions. So again, you can imagine that if you have these reduced levels of dohumine, norepinephrine, and serotonin, that's going to lead to these impairments in brain regions, like the prefrontal cortex, the striatum, and the anterior cingulate cortex.

And that is why you're lazy, because these neurotransmitters either aren't doing the job properly or at reduced levels. Now, what can cause laziness? So what causes these neurotransmitters to be off? Well, factors such as chronic stress, depression, lack of physical activity, poor sleep, and diet can affect the activity and levels of these neurotransmitters and the neural circuits that they support. So think about it. If you've stressed a bit, and we all went through COVID, which caused some background stress, depression, a lot of people struggle with different levels of depression,

lack of physical activity. That's a big one in modern society, and we'll come back to that. Poor sleep. A lot of people report sleep issues and poor dietary choices. All of these things reduce the level of those neurotransmitters, which impairs those brain regions, which is why you feel lazy. Now, it's important to know that laziness is a really complex phenomenon, and there can be other factors as well. Like I mentioned, depression, but attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, ADHD is being

tied to it, chronic fatigue syndrome. So there are some underlying medical conditions that could cause laziness. So if you are struggling with laziness, it is really important to go see a doctor. All right. Now, if it's something you know you can overcome, you just got to do it. Okay, fine. By just simply being more physically active you're going to increase the level of those neurotransmitters by sleeping better by improving your diet you could help yourself fight off laziness now there's some cool research that's been done around laziness you know some specific studies one of the ones that i was reading when I was sitting on the couch and decided not to be lazy and get my act together and plan the next episode is it's been shown that people that are lazy tend to have an overactive default mode network. And if you remember the

default mode network, this is the brain network that becomes more active when we're mind wandering or doing nothing. And it could be that the overactivity in the default mode network in people that are lazy, basically that impairs their ability to initiate goal-directed behavior and decision-making because the brain's literally in a state where it thinks it's just chilling out. So your brain is actually keeping you lazy in these people. And again, this is probably due to these underlying differences in neurotransmitters. One that I really found interesting, and it's a study by someone I know at the University of British Columbia, was looking at, you know, why people

are being lazy. And in this specific research study, they were looking at what was called the exercise paradox that people discuss in the health professions. And basically, we know that society is encouraging us to be more physically active than ever before. Yet, if you actually look at the statistics, people are less active now than they were 20 years ago. And the question is, why is this? And the theory that's been put out by the researchers at UBC is really, really interesting. They're actually tying it to our sort of hardwired responses. In other words, the fight or flight response. As the human being has evolved,

conserving energy is essential for survival. Basically, if you were able to conserve energy, it made you more efficient in searching for food and shelter, more efficient in avoiding predators, and even more efficient in competing for a partner. So we were actually hardwired and driven to conserve energy. And the modern version of that may simply just be laziness. Now, the way the researchers at UBC did this was kind of cool, which is why I like the study. They basically created a game where you had to make choices to either be more physically active or to be more lazy. And they were recording brain activity using EEG while they did this. And what they found was

fascinating. When people made choices to be more physically active, they responded more quickly. They were very quickly to select that option on the computer screen. But when they made choices to be lazy, there was actually more brain activity, even though they were slower in fighting it. So the brain was working harder in these situations. And the idea is basically is that this is the brain sort of saying, this is the right thing to do. We're innately attracted to these sedentary behaviors because at some deep level, we're hardwired to be lazy.

It's an interesting theory, but it's also been supported by research from Oxford. And they basically found that if they looked at the motor system in people that are lazy, so they recorded specifically from the premotor cortex, they found that people that are lazy had more activity in the premotor cortex than people that weren't lazy. And again, the idea is people that are lazy, your brain's actually working harder, which is therefore you make a choice to not do it

because your brain's going, that movement, that thing that you want me to do, it's just too hard. I don't want to do it. So we default back to being lazy. Now the question comes whether you can retrain someone's brain, right? Can you get someone to not be lazy? And it's kind of a chicken and egg problem because like I said, three simple things you can do is exercise more, improve your diet and work on sleeping better. And by doing that, you know, those things,

you'll be able to help stave off laziness. But it's important to realize that if you are chronically lazy or chronically apathetic, you need to see a healthcare professional. Now, on that note, you know, I'm feeling lazy. I'm just going to go back to the couch and watch some Netflix for the rest of the night. I'm kidding. Anyway, thank you so much for listening. Remember, check out our website, thatneuroscienceguy.com. I've been posting stuff on the blog more recently to support the bites and dropping in some extra stuff. There's links there to our Etsy store.

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My name is old Craig Olson and I'm that neuroscience guy. I'll see you on Wednesday for another neuroscience bite.