Dopamine Detox Diaries: Unplugging for Super- charge”

The previous post covered a few demons of the cheap sudden dopamine spikes and how it is becoming the undoing for almost all of us in one way or the other, how it adversely affects our attention, focus, social life, productivity and everything in between. This post will be on how I am trying to break free from the clutches of this dopamine Chaos and how it has shaped my life.

So after somehow stumbling on a video on YouTube about how dopamine is controlling me and how I should shape myself to prevent it , I got to know through the same video that YouTube is another reason for that dopamine clutch on me and I shouldn’t be watching random videos.

I stopped watching that video immediately and   started reading a book named “Dopamine Detox: A Short Guide to Remove Distractions and Get Your Brain to Do Hard Things” the intense title and the short length did hook me to the book long enough to finish it. Reading that book I realised that reading actually can be used as help on your journey to dopamine detox, as it teaches our brain delayed gratification i.e. that the dopamine spike will come much later after the start of an activity and that may help our attention, focus and much more. Here is a summary of whatever I have read, learnt, applied, on dopamine detox and what results have I seen in the last two weeks.

So, the rationale behind a dopamine detox is that if you are not exposed to constant high and immediate dopamine spikes for a while, even smaller, delayed peaks will provide you with that pleasure. Just like you don’t look for chicken when you are famished, even that “Lauki ki sabzi” (bottle gourd curry) sounds delicious. And hence, you will be more attentive, focused, and productive at things that your system previously thought to be a waste of time or tasks you were procrastinating.

The Regime

The Definitely-Do-Not’s:

We need to eliminate any and all sources of stimulation that can give us an immediate dopamine spike, which may range from, but are not limited to:

• Videogames (I don’t play them anymore anyway, which is a benefit of being a 30-something person in India).
• Movies (not a problem for me as I am a married man, a father, and have a stable job that requires interactions with students and patients. I have enough drama in my life already, so who needs movies?).
• Drugs and Alcohol (No problems here either. I only drink when the other person pays, and they’ve stopped paying, so I’ve stopped drinking).
• Music (It was tough to do that, considering I am mostly on my phone. But I thought that I could substitute it with my singing, so yes, I thought I could manage that easily).
• Social Media and Phone (This was a problem I struggled with. I was addicted to social media, binging on YouTube for hours, and had my phone with me even in the toilet. This is where I experienced withdrawal symptoms as well).

The substitutes:

The activities you can perform instead are as follows:

• Journaling
• Meditation
• Reading (this is what I am doing these days)
• Learning a new skill
• Or anything else since you will have a lot more time on your hand

So there are three types of dopamine detox:

• The teeny-tiny
• The ridiculously long
• The kinda-sorta

Most videos on the internet are majorly talking about complete dopamine detox of varied lengths ranging between 24 hours to 3 days, 3 days of not doing the activities mentioned in The Regime and the scary part is that is the teeny- tiny detox 😈

The ridiculously long detox is ridiculous as it is a 10-day program. Can you imagine following the regime and much more for about 10 days? The most I have stayed away from my phone is 7 hours and 33 minutes when I slept at night. I mean, what sane person will do all that for 10 days? On top of it, you are not even allowed to read and write for the duration. It is, I believe, called the Vipassana meditation. Sane people don’t do it, but when they get out, they become sane, I believe. Many people have positive stories to tell post their Vipassana. Remember the “Lauki ki sabzi” example? This is starving you so much that even saltless food feels like the elixir of immortality. I think because you are not allowed to talk to people, you crave for human interactions and hence learn to listen carefully. Because you stay away from your phone for so long, you learn other productive ways to substitute it and so on.

I don’t have the courage to follow the long route so, my journey was mostly on The kinda-sorta detox or the partial dopamine detox.

This sort of detox demands us to remove our biggest source of stimulation, evidently I was addicted to social media and my phone so I did remove it majorly from my day.

The Withdrawal

I thought I could do it easily. I mean, how difficult can it be to not look at your phone at all? And I couldn’t hold the urge even for 10 minutes. I really can’t imagine not taking my phone to the restroom; it was a nightmare. Then, I realized my addiction. It eventually got easier as days passed. It’s easy not to look at the phone when I was in college as I substituted it with reading. Also, just motivation won’t get you through this. It needs to be a habit, a discipline. The book by Clear, J. (2018), “Atomic Habits: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones,” helped me in this regard. Also, the Pomodoro technique of 25 minutes of work and 5 minutes of break, or a 90-minute work with a 20-minute break, helped me focus better on my work. When I knew that the next 5 minutes or so I will surf social media, I still keep my timer on so that I don’t go surfing the internet and start procrastinating again.

Detox Benefits: Advantages of starving yourself of dopamine🧟‍♀️

Okay, so barring when I faced a few withdrawals and occasional reminders to prevent relapse. I felt a few benefits from starving myself of dopamine.

• Time: I had a lot of time because of not loosing hours on YouTube or social media I always had some extra time to spend on myself, my family, and other productive activities.
• Learning: Because I don’t get instant gratification my mind is gradually leaning towards activities that give delayed gratification and hence I am enjoying a lot of reading, that has resulted in a lot of learning as well.
• Sleep: I have slept much better in the last 2 weeks than I can ever remember as I am not in my bed surfing the net.
• Sleeping better and having time has helped with my mood, focus, productivity.

Flow

So in flow your productivity can drastically improve. In the Book “Dopamine Detox: A Short Guide to Remove Distractions and Get Your Brain to Do Hard Things” the author says if you built a routine and start doing the same work at the same time on a regular basis

You might even experience flow. (Named by the psychologist Mihaly Csíkszentmihályi, the “flow” is a mental state in which you’re so fully immersed in an activity that you become hyper-focused, while experiencing a sense of underlying enjoyment)

Dopamine Detox: A Short Guide to Remove Distractions and Get Your Brain to Do Hard Things

So flow does improve your productivity and that is all everyone can ask for. I saw somewhere that flow can be induced and just by sleeping better you can improve your productivity also since I have been on the detox I have been sleeping way better than I ever have so I am positive that “The Flow” will reach me eventually.

To conclude you have to change things and take charge of your life, do something to make a difference for yourself.