Dopamine detox

Posted on May 27, 2022  •  4 minutes  • 751 words

Hey amigos. Take some time, sit back and ponder on how long you use your phone and how long you need to use it. Do you think that small box is addictive? What makes you stay with it for such a long time? It’s been two months since I have written a blog and all this while, I had no access to my phone and limited access to the internet. It is during this time that I realized I found a new normal. This was the period of dopamine detox. Let me elaborate on what I mean here.
Once your body is exposed to a lower temperature, it takes time for the body to adjust. Once it gets adjusted, the lower temperature becomes a new normal. This phenomenon of adaptation routinely occurs in your body. Every time you wear your clothes, watch, jewelry, etc, your body gets adjusted to the new normal. Similarly, once a person regularly starts eating sweet food like candies and ice creams, and the body gets adjusted to it, the person cannot enjoy normal food.
This behaviour is evolutionarily linked to mankind. As cave hunters, we preferably picked sweet foods that are mostly guaranteed to be non-toxic. Every time you choose sweet food, your brain rewards you with a burst of the feel-good hormone. This ensures that you prefer sweet food and be away from toxic food. Mechanisms like these have ensured your safety by rewarding you with food, sex and social bonding.
Human evolution is governed by the ability of humans to socialize. Every social bonding, every recognition, every comment makes you feel good. If not for that, you would not know you are living your life safely. Every time you show your strength over others, you get recognition. That’s how you know you are living. Every time you went hunting and got food for your family, they appreciated you. That’s how you know your family is living. Every time you helped your loved ones and they thanked you, that’s when you know your species are living. And every such act gives you a release of a feel-good hormone called dopamine.
And when the above phenomenon is being explored commercially, that’s how social media platforms have evolved. The moment your brain looks at a phone, it gets reminded of all the feel-good moments and asks you to pick it up and start using it. Every use increases the dopamine level even more. This feedback loop only makes phones more and more addictive.
As discussed earlier your body looks to find a new normal every time and this increased dopamine level now becomes your new normal. Why would this be a problem now? Most of the seemingly unimportant works like writing this blog or studying for exams do not release much dopamine. The moment your body is adjusted to elevated levels of dopamine, the normal works look less attractive and reward lesser happiness. Getting addicted to your phones is the same thing as getting addicted to a vat full of alcohol. It is dopamine that is released in both cases. This sounds scary and it is worth to think what other activities in your life feel less interesting.
You have a way out and that is called dopamine detox. It is to detoxify your brain from an excess load of dopamine. One easy method is to just get away from your phone and get parental restricted access to the internet. Well, that’s not possible always. The detox period can be from weeks to hours too. Abstaining yourself from high pleasure activities for at least an hour a day helps you find pleasure in doing simpler activities and gain greater concentration. Dopamine detox is just trying to tell the brain that there is no new normal and everything is as-is. Since I have just completed my detox period, let me tell you how I feel about it.
My brain has forgotten that it received bursts of dopamine from it. Phone for me is now just a tool for communication. Abstaining from its usage is not at all difficult and doing lesser motivating tasks is not difficult as it was. Well, fasting the brain from dopamine in just one period is not going to change the fact that it cannot get a new normal again. Consistency is important in every endeavor. Thank you for reading this far. Please feel free to add your comment on what activities you feel are less motivating that would reward you in long term.