What's The Purpose Of Doing A Dopamine Detox? (Dopamine Fast Because)
So, why do a dopamine fast? I mean, what's the purpose of doing a dopamine detox?
This is a free snippet from my online course Dopamine Focused Fasting.
Let's jump in and take a closer look at why we do a things like dopamine fasting in the frist place.
Here' we go...
Dopamine wants more dopamine...
One important thing to understand about dopamine is that whenever you engage in highly pleasurable things, the dopamine system has a mechanism that's reinforcing itself, making you remember those activities especially well.
Even to the point of you starting to release dopamine whenever you see something that reminds you of that activity.
Yes, so, your brain starts releasing dopamine, even before you engage in those activities, and this is to make you motivated to go for them again.
Remember dopamine's main function is to make you motivated to go after something.
If dopamine could speak it would say something like this...
"Something good is about to happen…something good is about to happen, just go a bit further now and we are there….almost there…go go go…the . good . is about . to come…!"
So it is really driving you forward.
And according to your dopamine, your current situation is almost never good enough as it is, where you're at, right now.
Two plates in front of you...
Imagine you're sitting at a table and to the left you have a plate with three boiled potatoes with no salt and nothing else on the plate.
And to the right you have a plate of some hot delicious french fries, perfectly salted with some ketchup and some super tasty dressing…
Which of these two plates are you going to feel the most desire to go for?
Well if you answered the right plate, which is more unhealthy, don’t feel bad because you’re not alone...
...you only have a few billions of people there alongside with you.
The dopamine system is going to make us gravitate towards high stimulating things...
Our dopamine system is going to make us gravitate towards the right plate, simply because it’s more stimulating. It releases more dopamine.
Notice, I didn’t ask which one you want the most, because you also have a more sophisticated part of your brain that is fully capable of making you want things that you know are good for you long term.
But at least 90% of you are absolutely going to feel a more intrinsic pull or intrinsic drive to go for the french fries…that's the dopamine I'm talking about there.
Your brain is comparing dopamine activities against each other...
Your dopamine driven brain is constantly comparing every dopamine activity against each other. And it will make you feel a pull to go for the higher dopamine activity.
Remember that self-reinforcing mechanism we just talked about?
Well, in this case, then, that would mean that the more often you go for the right plate, the more you will actually start to desire that one.
But that’s not the only thing that happens - and here comes the real key point now, so listen carefully…
IMPORTANT...
The more often you go for the right plate, the more boring the left plate will start to look.
So what you perceive as exciting versus boring in life is NOT a static set-point. It can change, in any direction, depending on how you choose to navigate yourself in life.
This is very very important to understand, it’s really the core reason for why we do dopamine fasting, so let me repeat it one more time...
The more often you engage in highly stimulating stuff, the more and more boring the other, “normal”stuff will become, like for example, doing chores, your daily tasks and working on your projects.
Your brain becomes less sensitive to dopamine...
The reasons for why other things start to pale in comparison is because those highly stimulating things make your brain become less sensitive to dopamine.
Imagine going outside on a sunny day...
Another way to put this is, imagine you’re going outside on a sunny day. Maybe you even look towards the sun for a short moment -which you shouldn’t do, by the way- but just for the sake of this example, let’s say you do.
Then, if you immediately go back inside, everything suddenly looks very dark inside your house.
Your living room will start to look like it's in the middle of the night...
The sun was so stimulating for your eyes that in order for your eyes to protect themselves they kicked in a counter mechanism to make them less sensitive to the light.
So, the actual amount of light particles inside your house has not changed but your perception of the light has changed.
So now your living room looks like it’s in the middle of the night, even though it’s daytime.
The same thing happens with your dopamine system...
Well the same thing happens with your dopamine system.
This is where the problem with today’s word enters the picture, because as we talked about, dopamine is not just about food, other activities pale in comparison too.
Not just eating, because remember all the subcategories we talked about in the previous lesson?
It's about you working on every single goal you can think of and how working on them pales in comparison.
YouTube shorts vs long form content...
To really bring this home, let me take a few specific examples…
The more YouTube shorts you watch, the more boring long from videos will be to you.
You see, YouTube shorts release more dopamine because novelty spikes dopamine. And with shorts you can see more new things in less time.
So here the YouTube shorts are the sun and the long form content becomes your dark living room.
Social media vs physical books - and your dopamine system
Another example...
The more you browse social media, check likes, follow notifications and only read comments that are a few words long, the more boring and sometimes even impossible it will feel for you to read several pages in a real physical book.
It’s just too boring for you!
So here, social media is the sun and the physical book is your living room.
Online porn vs real life people - and your dopamine system...
Another example...
The more hardcore porn you watch on streaming tube sites, the less arousal you’ll get from just looking at pictures or a softcore movie - even if it’s showing very attractive people, according to your own standards.
Because the hardcore stuff and the jumping from video to video, rapidly switching between scenes really skyrockets your dopamine.
And what’s worse, by clicking and chasing like this, you can keep your dopamine levels sky high for a very long time.
For hours on end!!!
So, the hardcore stuff becomes the sun, and the vanilla stuff and real life people become your living room.
Yes, this can even go so far that your porn use can make you less attracted to real life people, simply because they pale in comparison with the dopamine bomb online.
This is why we do a dopamine fast...
The takeaway message here is, the more you aimlessly browse the internet, play video games, watch porn, eat junk food or just engage in a lot of instant gratification stuff, the harder and more effort it will take for you to work on your goals.
All those things that you know you need to be doing are going to feel extremely boring, and like they take a lot of effort to do.
This is why we do a dopamine fast, to reset your dopamine system and turn everything around, so that you can enjoy doing small every day activities again.
The purpose of a dopamine detox is basically to get you to enjoy small stuff again and make you a productive beast.
Soon time to turn everything around...
Now, I know so far all this sounds so negative and horrible, but don’t worry, we are soon going to talk about how to reverse all the negatives, and boost the positives, which is actually the point of this dopamine fasting course.
And then later on I’m going to share with you the 5 different fasting protocols.
They all have different lengths and they are all set up in a different way so that it will be easy for you to choose one that suits your goals the best.
The first three work kind of like a hard reset for your dopamine system.
And then the last 2, which are the longest ones, are created to really help you skyrocket your productivity while they at the same time also reset your dopamine system and make you more sensitive to dopamine again.
And the last two also have a scoring system, so they become almost like a fun game to play.
We do a dopamine detox in order to skyrocket our productivity...
You simply cannot believe how productive you can become by doing them, and not only that, you will also start liking the day to day activities so much and you rediscover that child-like excitement for life, you know, that excitement you had when you were a little boy...or girl.
And we dopamine fast to get back that child-like excitement for life...
So, stay with me here as we have just a few more things to talk about before turning it all around.
It’s really worth understanding how this works because it will be so incredibly helpful for you, later on when we go to those fasting protocols.
So, let’s now go to the next lesson to take a closer look at just exactly why your ancient dopamine system is incompatible with today’s modern world.
For more info on this, make sure to check out my online course: Dopamine Focused Fasting
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