What Online Activities Are Bad For Your Dopamine System? (These Ones)

Not all online activities are bad for your dopamine system.

Just because the internet is involved, doesn't automatically make them bad. It is how and what you do online that matters.

Let's take a look...

This video and blog post is a free lesson from my course, Dopamine Focused Fasting

Check it out, it's a cool course that includes 5 different fasting protocols.

What online activities are bad for your dopamine system?

How about the digital world then?

Well we talked a lot about that in the beginning of the course so we are not going to make this too long, however, there are a few things that I still need to point out.

And just because I put this last doesn’t mean that it’s not important. Far from it. In fact, for most of us today’s super stimulating digital world is the precise reason for why we want to do a dopamine fast in the first place.

Heck you could even do one of the fasting protocols where the only thing you change is your online behavior, and it would still benefit you greatly.

The never ending online stimuli can be bad for our dopamine system...

Just the fact that the digital world doesn’t spike your dopamine as high as cocaine or some other heavy drug, does not mean it can’t hurt us.

No, because most of us are constantly bombarded with it all day long and our brains get no break from it, except when you’re sleeping.

Let’s get to my important point with this lesson…

Jumping from one thing to another...

One super important thing I want you to understand about the online world is that not all activities online are equally bad for your dopamine system.

For example, there is a huge difference between mindfully watching a 3 hour long Netflix movie versus spending 3 hours aimlessly browsing on social media. getting dragged along by the feed, the notifications and all that jumping from one thing to another and only keeping your attention on one thing at a time for about 3-5 seconds. BIG difference between those two.

They are not even in the same universe.

Keeping attention one one thing at a time...

The Netflix example is nothing to worry about at all, but man if you frequently do the social media example almost all days of the week, and maybe you even spend more than 3 hours total time per day, then you are definitely blasting your dopamine system with a supernormal stimuli that will affect you.

But hey, that’s why we do dopamine fasting, which is great.

If you’re the least bit unsure about what activities online are bad and good, in general we can say that doing work, studying and mindful recreation is okay, but whenever you start jumping from one thing to another like a brainless monkey, chasing the next best thing just because you’re bored and need more stimuli, then it’s no longer productive or a smart thing to do.

Mindfulness is the key...

So for example, watching educational YouTube videos is perfectly fine, just as long as you don't keep jumping off every video, constantly clicking to a new suggested video after only a few seconds, and you keep doing that for several hours a day. 

Now, I am not saying that you will  fry your brain if you do the chasing behavior a few times a day, but you need to remember the Richard Solomons graph and how long term repeated actions that you do way too much of may indeed affect your dopamine set point.

The worst thing for your dopamine system online is porn sites...

The absolute worst thing for your dopamine system you could be doing online is fapping to porn sites. Nothing, and I mean nothing, of today’s online stimuli will desensitize your dopamine system faster and more severely than that.

And I should know because I have a history of having to overcome a porn addiction myself. So I’ve done my homework on this.

It took me a long time to get out of it too, but I've been free for several years now. So now I'm fine.

If you’re still sceptical if online porn really can cause addiction and desensitization, and all those kinds of problems, then you can find a link the the site Your brain on porn and the research site down below. On that page you can find 60 neuroscience-based studies (MRI, fMRI, EEG, neuropsychological,
hormonal). serious brain studies, who all support the addiction model.

So yeah, there's no doubt any more. It is really a thing.

Nothing online spikes dopamine higher that porn....

I really have to stress this, nothing spikes dopamine higher than porn, that you do online. Because, as you remembered from module 2, nothing is considered more important for mother nature than to carry our DNA to the next generation.

Evolutionary 'jackpot'...

And your reptilian brain thinks that when your fapping to porn, your’re having real sex. And not only that, but since you’ve got so many gorgeous, willing females there at the same time, your reptilian brain goes, “oh man you have hit the evolutionary jackpot”

So it really skyrockets your dopamine to the highest possible level and then you can even keep it there, sky high for hours if you keep clicking from video to video.

Feeling stuck? You can transform your life in 13 weeks OR LESS by >>Downloading<< my FREE guide below...

Only chemical drugs can spike your dopamine higher...

Now, it is possible to get your dopamine to spike even higher, but not without using chemical drugs. So porn is the worst thing you can do online.

You know, when I wrote the outline for this module, I was a bit unsure whether or notI should be saying what I’m about to say, because I know there’s a risk that people will misinterpret my words, but I decided to go for it because I just think it’s that important...

...and here it comes...

Online porn vs alcohol for your dopamine system?

My personal experience of having gone through periods where I was overusing alcohol and overusing online porn, I have to say that for me, online porn actually desensitized my dopamine system more than the alcohol even though I drank a lot of it.

Disclaimer:

Here’s the disclaimer though, I’m not saying that porn is more dangerous, because alcohol affects every single organ in your body, but I’m saying that the negative

effects on my dopamine system was worse from having porn binges versus alcohol
binges.

I’m also not saying that is the case for you. I’m just saying that was the case for me.

I was using online porn in the worst possible way...

Granted, I was using porn in perhaps the most destructive ways possible, meaning I could sometimes spend hours on a porn site, clicking from video to video, searching for the perfect one to finish on, which obviously never comes, but I was there, endlessly chasing the next better one driven by sky high dopamine.

As you remember, if dopamine could speak it would say, "Something good is about to happen, something good is about to happen!", so it drives you forward and I’m ashamed to say that some of my worst sessions were many hours long…and oh man oh man...it was not good.

And just in case you’re wondering, no, I am no longer using  it not even in moderation. Not even between the fasting protocols, because I know from experience that if I start opening that door again, it will suck me right back in.

If you decide to use porn in moderation, be careful with it...

Now you might be able to use it in moderation between your fasting protocols, I’m certainly not judging anyone who does, again it is your life and your rules. But  for me, as a former addict, that specific low value dopamine activity is no longer an option.

However, if you choose to use it in moderation, I would still like to end by saying, be careful with it.

Be extremely careful!

Because even if you're lucky enough to not develop and addiction to it, online porn still hammers your dopamine system so much more than what aimless browsing on social media does. So, just a little something to consider there.

If you want more infor about this, check out my online course Dopamine Focused Fasting

Related posts:

• Will NoFap give you success in life?
• Scrolling on phone in bed is bad for your dopamine
• Social media and your dopamine receptors
• Desensitization from social media makes your life boring
• How much dopamine stimulation from technology can your brain handle?
• You have to clean up your life in order to overcome a porn addiction