I Did My First Dopamine Detox and These Were The Results.
What's a dopamine detox and how did I experience it? And other Monday Thoughts on sacrifices, map art and what you think you're good at.
😏 I Did My First Dopamine Detox
I’ve been thinking about it for a while, but now finally done my dopamine detox. Snazzy word isn’t it? But what does that mean? And what were the results?
⚡ Wait, isn’t dopamine a good thing?
Yes, it is. Dopamine is a type of neurotransmitter made in your brain. It involved in many of our body functions such as
movement,
memory,
motivation,
mood,
attention,
etc.
So, it’s one of the founding bricks of our ability to think, analyse and plan. It fosters curiosity, can bring us into focus mode and helps us strive.
It’s also known as the “feel-good” hormone because it plays a role as a “reward centre”. Every time we’re doing something pleasurable, our brain releases dopamine. As a result, we feel good and we want more of that.
That’s why fast food, sugar-loaded food and alcohol are so addictive. Every time you consume them, they release a big load of dopamine into your brain. It gives you a great feeling and makes you want to repeat it.
Unfortunately high or low dopamine levels are associated with lots of negative consequences such as mood swings, memory loss, sleeping problems, poor impulsive control, etc. It’s also linked to Parkinson’s disease, ADHD and restless legs syndrome.
⛔ So, what’s a dopamine detox?
The term dopamine fast was invented by Dr. Cameron Sepah. He identified a list of compulsive behaviours which lead to cheap dopamine impulses including
emotional eating
excessive internet usage and gaming
gambling and shopping
porn and masturbation
thrill and novelty seeking
recreational drugs
By fasting from these activities we become less dependent on the dopamine reward. The goal is to get closer to your ideal level of dopamine. With the right balance of dopamine, you feel happy, motivated, alert and focused.
👨✈️ Why did I do a dopamine detox?
I started to feel that some of my behaviours were happening on auto-pilot.
having a stressy moment —> fastly grabbing something sweet
feeling a bit tired —> fastly grabbing a coffee and continuing
crashing after a heavy day —> ordering fast food or drinking alcohol, “because I earned it”
feeling overwhelmed or sad —> checking social media or the news website
Now as my original readers know I’m not a big fan of diets, detoxes and large restrictions. This is a bit different. I decided to do it because I wanted to become more conscious of these behaviours on auto-pilot and not be dependent on them.
⏳ How did I experience it?
So, I decided to cut on
coffee
alcohol
fast food
sweets and cookies
social media and news websites
I eliminated coffee and alcohol completely. I’ve gone cold turkey on caffeine already some years ago. Then I really eliminated all sources of caffeine, so not only coffee (50-150 mg caffeine/cup) but also cola (15-60 mg per cup) and tea (25-75mg per cup). This time I focused on the coffee.
Fast food, sweets and cookies are more of a thin line because I didn’t go on a diet. Instead, I focused on not eating on an auto-pilot and not seeing food as a reward.
For the social media and news websites I installed an app blocker, which I unblocked only a few times when it was necessary (f.e. to post my newsletter last week).
The biggest result was a continuous headache. That’s probably mostly because of the coffee and perhaps a bit because of the sugar drop. I had the same some years ago, so I knew a bit about what to expect but nevertheless it was quite annoying. The headache reduced after a week and stopped more or less after 10 days.
On the positive side, after some days I definitely felt more energetic. I also felt much more aware of how often I grab my phone and open social media when I actually didn’t really want to do that. It happened automatically. Probably my brain needed some small energy hits at that moment. My phone usage dropped to an average of 1h33 daily. In the weeks before it varied between 2h and 2h30 daily. So I won somehow 45min. per day. That doesn’t sound like a lot but adds up to 5 hours in a week which is more than half a workday.
So, I’m not going to cut these things from my life for the long run, but I’m going to work do them more mindful from now on. I will continue for a bit with the coffee detox and switch the app blocker on from time to time. Instead of using these activities as a “cheap” reward, I will do them less, be more conscious about them and really enjoy those moments.
😍 My Favorite Things of last week
🎭 Improv: after a call for shared activities at work, I submitted a project to give improv classes. We did a trial session this week and are going to start with a small group two weeks from now. The focus is on stepping out of your comfort zone, letting go of control and being energized. Very excited!
✏ Art Ed Fairburn: This artist turns maps into portraits with a shading technique called crosshatching. He has been doing this since 2012 with amazingly detailed results.
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
📽 Movie True Spirit: a very inspiring and emotional movie about the youngest person ever to sail solo, non-stop around the world. Jessica was 16 when she started her journey in 2010. Lovely Aussie accents included!
🗨 Quote of the week
“If you don’t sacrifice for what you want, what you wants becomes the sacrifice.”
✏ Visual of the week
➡ Want to get automatic updates on this (somewhat) weekly newsletter?
One last thing…
If you don’t like it or no longer find it interesting: unsubscribe (no hard feelings). If you feel like you want to ask or add something: go ahead. Any kind of feedback is welcome: worshippers, grammar nazis, and everything in between!
Great content. This was some poor writing though. Brush up on effective sentence structure.