Does ‘laziness’ start in the brain? | Neuroscience

WWe all know people with very different levels of motivation. Some will go the extra mile in any endeavor. Others just don’t bother to put in the effort. We might think of them as lazy – happier on the couch, rather than planning their latest project. What is behind this variation? Most of us would probably attribute it to a mix of temperament, circumstances, upbringing, or even values.

But research in neuroscience and in patients with brain disorders challenges these assumptions by revealing the brain mechanisms that underlie motivation. When these systems become dysfunctional, once highly motivated people can become pathologically apathetic. Whereas before they might have been curious, highly engaged, and productive—at work, in their social lives, and in their creative thinking—they may suddenly appear to be the opposite.

For example, in my clinic I saw a young man named David who had been a high flyer in his company but suddenly lost interest in his job as well as the people around him. Previously, he was a productive, outgoing person who always seemed to take initiative at work and in his social circle, but now David did very little and didn’t seem to care. As he put it, he “just couldn’t be an asshole.” Eventually he was fired but reacted with complete indifference. He didn’t even bother to sign up for unemployment benefits. Seeing that he was unable to pay his rent, David’s friends offered him a room in their house. They quickly regretted it. He hasn’t done anything all day, waiting for his friends to come home to cook for him. His GP tried him on an antidepressant, but it had no effect.

But David wasn’t depressed. In fact, he was quite happy. After studying his case further, we discovered that the cause was actually two tiny strokes, one on each side of the brain. These were located in the basal ganglia, nuclei crucial for motivated behavior. Research in animals and humans has shown that the basal ganglia connects our needs and desires to actions.

When the basal ganglia function poorly, people do not initiate actions even though they are capable of doing so if prompted. David, for example, could throw out the trash or clean the house if asked. But left to his own devices, he did nothing. Studies of people who develop apathy have shown that many simply don’t find taking action sufficiently rewarding. The cost of this effort does not appear to be worth the potential benefits.

In some patients, medications that stimulate the dopamine system in the brain can restore motivation. Dopamine plays a key role in the brain’s reward system – but while neuroscientists previously thought it was a chemical associated with pleasure, recent research shows that it works by stimulating “desire”, causing people to seek out outcomes they find rewarding. David was successfully treated in this way: his motivation increased after taking a drug that stimulates dopamine receptors in the brain. Through this, he was able to find a new job, become independent, and even find a partner, something he never would have bothered to do when he was in his listless state.

Lessons learned from patients like David can be applied to healthy people who suffer from apathy. At the University of Oxford, we scanned the brains of students with contrasting levels of motivation – from extremely motivated to severely apathetic. We found significant differences in the appearance of their brains. This is not surprising in itself. There are natural variations in all biological systems that make us who we are, with contributions from our different genes and environments. Interestingly, however, we found that the brain regions involved in motivation worked harder in the most apathetic students when we asked them to choose whether a particular course of action was worth it.

Why might this be the case? We know that almost everyone is willing to work for big rewards. A recurring finding among apathetic people is that, unlike their more motivated counterparts, they are unwilling to exert effort when the reward seems small. In our study, we asked people to decide whether to perform a brief action – squeezing a handgrip at different effort levels – in exchange for small monetary rewards, represented on screen by apples. Some choices were obvious: “one apple for maximum effort” (not worth it) or “15 apples for moderate effort” (definitely worth it). But there were less clear offers, like “six apples for 80% effort.” Motivated people made up their minds quickly. The apathetic slowed down, hesitating much longer on borderline cases. Their brains had to work harder to make a decision – and thinking hard is aversive, something we tend to avoid if we can.

So, deciding whether something is worth doing seems to tax apathetic people more, meaning they avoid the decision altogether. When faced with the choice of doing something, they tend to simply say “no.”

What does this mean for those of us so-called lazy people, or their friends and loved ones, who might appreciate a change in attitude? It’s likely that scolding or haranguing them – as if apathy were a moral choice – won’t work. Instead, researchers focus on this reluctance to think about the value of an activity.

A practical way to get around this problem is to make a plan for the day or week ahead. This provides a structured routine that reduces the burden of having to repeatedly think about whether each activity is worth it. You make your choices in advance, so you don’t get hassled by each one in the moment. Ideally, some of these activities should be personally meaningful and elicit a sense of accomplishment or enjoyment. This can help reinforce the value of committing to it, by making the reward seem greater – which in turn makes it easier to decide to say yes next time.

Additionally, several studies have shown that moving your body can have a positive impact on apathy. Aerobic exercise three times a week for 40 to 60 minutes, dance classes, or even vigorous walking can improve motivation, possibly through effects on the brain’s dopamine system. External prompts such as alarms on smartphones or visual reminders (e.g., placing running shoes near the door to encourage going to the gym or running) can also be effective in signaling actions.

The ultimate goal of this type of intervention is to work with the brain, using what we have discovered about the roots of apathy – in part through understanding unusual cases like David’s. The key to changing daily behaviors is to make weighing costs (effort) and benefits (rewards) a habit that doesn’t feel too much like hard work. Even for the most apathetic among us, this holds out the hope of transforming an instinctive “no” into an ability to consider saying “yes.”

Masud Husain is Professor of Neurology and Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Oxford and author of Our Brains, Our Selves (Canongate).

Further reading

Neuroscience of You: How Every Brain is Different and How to Understand It by Chantel Prat (Dutton, £26.99)

Behaving: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst by Robert Sapolsky (Vintage, £12.99)

The Dopamine Brain: Break Free of Bad Habits and Learn to Balance Pleasure and Purpose by Anastasia Hronis (Vermilion, £16.99)