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The science of “dopamine anchoring,” a more accessible national park, and celebs helping pets
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Today’s episode dives into the concept of dopamine anchoring and how it can help you with motivation. Plus, the national park that’s rolling out new accessibility features, the enduring sourdough boom, and the celebrity couple helping pets and pet parents in Nashville. This episode was hosted and produced by Case Kenny. Research and writing by Natalie Stone, Ally Mauch, Rebekah Brandes, and Stephanie Friedman. Music by Ryan Peitzke. For more good news, tune in to Nice News Today on Mondays and Fridays and subscribe to the daily Nice News newsletter at NiceNews.com. The episode is brought to you by AG1. Head to drinkag1.com/nicenewstoday to try the new flavors and get a free welcome kit.
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Good morning. Welcome to Nice news today, your 10 minute roundup of the week's most positive News. It is August 18th and today I'm diving into the concept of dopamine anchoring and how it can help you with motivation. I've also got the scoop on a national park that's rolling out new accessibility features, the bakery helping keep the sourdough boom alive and well, and the celebrity couple offering pets free vet care in Nashville. I'm your host, Case Kenney. Let's uncover some good together. Probably thanks to social media, having general knowledge of dopamine and its role in the brain's reward system is more common nowadays. You may have heard of dopamine menus, dopamine decor, dopamine dressing, and even dopamine detoxes. And today I'm presenting you with Dopamine Anchoring a A quick recap for the uninitiated. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that gets released when you think of or do something pleasurable. Maybe listening to a song you love, finishing a big project, or smelling fresh cookies in the oven. The most powerful dopamine hits actually come from looking forward to something which is helpful in getting us to keep going in order to achieve the reward. According to Verywell Health, Dopamine anchoring takes advantage of this reward system by creating positive associations with boring or annoying tasks. For example, maybe you save episodes of your favorite podcast to listen to while deep cleaning your place, or you only light your most expensive candle while studying for exams. Over time, your brain will associate these tasks with the dopamine inducing rewards, which should make you more motivated to get them done. Now you don't want to set up dopamine rewards for everything in your life. Therapist Brianna Parolo warned that it risks, quote, turning every activity into a transaction that requires payment in pleasure. But it can be helpful for getting through any necessary tasks that are normally draining. Give it a try and let me know what you think. Summer is prime time for checking out America's national parks, but for disabled visitors, those trips can be challenging. To help make it easier for everyone to explore nature, Rocky Mountain national park in Colorado recently announced new accessibility features here. Here's what to expect an accessible bus with wheelchair spaces and a wheelchair lift that will drive passengers across the park, as well as an accessibility guide offering information on distances, surfaces and amenities that would help those with disabilities. The park is also replacing old, worn down picnic tables with ones made of reinforced concrete that will comply with accessibility standards. And it's purchased new all terrain wheelchairs that the public will be able to use for free. Additional upgrades include accessible fishing opportunities and American Sign Language interpreters for park staff. These new features are expected to be rolled out by May 2026, but in the meantime you could head to the National Park Service's website to see all 28 of the locations that loan wheelchairs and mobility aids. Were any of you one of the many sourdough bakers of 2020? While some have discarded their starters in the years since the pandemic peak, the tangy bread itself hasn't gone anywhere. It experience the resurgence on social media last year, and one bakery in San Francisco is further proof, pun intended, that sourdough is still on the rise. The Bay Area city is associated with the bread because it became popular during the California Gold Rush, but sourdough was actually made first thousands of years ago, and the team at Jane the Bakery is carrying on that ancient method. Owner Amanda Michael recently told CBS News that they use the entire grain kernel, including the germ and endosperm, and their grain is grown on a family farm and milled on site. They bake up to 600 fresh sourdough loaves each day, including a delicious sounding chocolate hazelnut flavor. And there's one of the countless establishments contributing to the sourdough market, expected to reach $5.3 billion by 2030. If you have a San Francisco trip in the works, you may want to add a sourdough crawl to your itinerary. According to one therapy service in Queens, New York, shredding the gnar can be an effective way to cope with mental health issues. Ride and Tide, a surf therapy program in the Rockaways, has two components, land and sea. Before participants take their boards to the water, there are sessions on land that include art discussions and a warmup. Surfer Gina Girondo started the service while seeking a calming activity that could act as an alternative to traditional talk therapy. She told CBS it can help those with ptsd, anxiety, depression and loss, although it shouldn't serve as a primary treatment for mental health issues. Facilitator Ashley Fallon added that the sessions offer participants a way to challenge themselves in a comfortable setting, which can help them move past mental blocks. For Sharon Liu, surf therapy provided a mental clarity that she hadn't experienced in a long time. She said, quote, it sounds corny, but I feel one with it. There is just a sense of peace that happens if you're a pet owner. You know that vet costs can add up and quickly become overwhelming, so you'll especially appreciate this story. Earlier this month A free pop up clinic helped folks in Nashville get their furry friends the treatments they needed. Country singer Brad Paisley and his wife, actor Kimberly Williams Paisley teamed up with an organization called the Companion Project through their nonprofit the Store to offer care to over 200 local pets at no cost to the pets. Pet parents, volunteer vets administered annual checkups, vaccinations, microchips and more, and attendees also received heartworm, flea and tick medications to take home. Williams Paisley told WSMV News she and her husband saw the need for the clinic after talking to community members at the store, which offers free groceries to people experiencing food insecurity. In a social media post, Williams Paisley wrote, quote, overall health isn't just about addressing food needs. We love our customers and their beloved the pets. Today's inspiring human is the true embodiment of the phrase Walking the walk Nathan Kesty is a street outreach worker for an organization called Downtown Duth in Duth, Minnesota. He spends his days walking 10 to 12 miles around the city, rain or shine, checking in on unhoused residents, according to a recent profile in MPR News. He carries water when it's hot and coffee when it's cold. He offers first aid kits to those who need them and even to text some people to make sure they take their meds. Some of his check ins are short and others are long, deep conversations, all with the goal of eventually helping people into housing or treatment programs for drug addiction and mental health problems. In the three years or so of being an outreach worker, Kesty has logged nearly 29,000 contacts with the unhoused population and he's helped more than 150 people get into treatment programs and stable housing. Here's what he had to say about what keeps him going the ones where maybe you see somebody almost every day for six, seven months and then finally they're like, yeah, let's try to get into housing or let's try to get into treatment and then maybe you don't see them again for another six, seven months and then they come up and they tap you on the shoulder and not only are they clean from substances, but they just look like a completely different person and they just say thank you. That's the million dollar reward. We certainly need more people like Kasty out there helping humanity. And that's it for today's episode. If you loved these stories, please consider giving us a follow on Apple, Spotify and YouTube Music and sharing this episode with a friend. If you want more good news, visit nicenews.com to sign up for our free daily newsletter. Until next time. Keep spreading your light. And remember, there's more than enough good out there to go around. Have a great day.