Ineffable Paradise

“Dopamine is a type of neurotransmitter and hormone. It plays a role in many important body functions, including movement, memory and pleasurable reward and motivation. High or low levels of dopamine are associated with several mental health and neurological diseases.”

Dopamine is mostly known as the hormone that makes you happy. You know that feeling when you eat a piece of chocolate? No I’m not only talking about the taste here. That’s an easy example of your body responding with dopamine to an external stimulus. But why am I writing about this? Let me show you another easy example.

Let’s say you start the day and you have a choice in what you want to do today. You can either go to the gym or binge watch your favorite series! Which one will you choose?

The majority of people when they face a decision like that, will most likely choose option two. I mean it makes sense, watching a series is far more easy and entertaining than going to the gym, even though both activities release dopamine in your body, but on a different level.

Dopamine makes you addicted to anything and it’s so easy to get tons of it on demand, because we store most of it in our pocket, on our phones. Scrolling on Social Media, getting likes, watching entertaining content. These are just the easiest ways people can get dopamine and we don’t realize it how hooked we are on it until that source of impulse and dopamine becomes unavailable for some reason.

I realized on myself how important it is for me to get enough impulses. For example I’ve been unable to write a blog post in one sitting. I would stand up, walk around, check my phone etc. When you are an online content creator it’s really easy to go down on the rabbit hole of never ending content when you don’t pay attention. That’s what happened to me so I decided I will do a Dopamine Detox.

What is a Dopamine Detox?

It’s a certain amount of time you spend with a set of rules that have the purpose to reduce your Dopamine release and get you off a little from your addiction. It will help you focus on tasks that do not release the happy hormone as much and therefore, they might seem harder to complete.

What are the rules?

Set a time for how long you would like to detox. It can be from hours all the way to weeks. I only did a day, but I would like to make a habit out of it and do it every second week on Sunday.

Avoid dopamine triggers such as:

• Junk food
• Social Media and Internet
• Gaming
• Music
• Television
• Porn and masturbation
• Mind altering substances (alcohol, nicotine etc.)

However you can:

• Read
• Journal
• Go for a walk
• Excersise
• Catch up with a friend offline

But as long as you avoid the triggers mentioned above you can make up other stuff you would like to do. Maybe try a new hobby or go for a hike. Anything that does not include the triggers.

I only spent one day with detoxing, but it was so beneficial! I spent the day mostly with reading, because I could not remember the last time I was able dive myself into a book as much. Reducing all the constant impulses helped me relax so much, I never would’ve imagined. I started to appreciate silence. I didn’t feel like I was totally and constantly drained. I had a good night sleep and the effects lasted for several days. I was able to concentrate more on difficult tasks. I felt well rested and clear headed which made me stay on the top of my game.

If all this happened to me after just one day of detox, imagine a week or even a month! We don’t even realize how much Dopamine we consume throughout the days and that actually takes our energy away. This constant ache for quick rewards that make us feel better is really inefficient in so many ways.

So if you don’t have your plans for the weekend yet, I’m giving you a challenge. Try dopamine detox. Even if it’s just for half a day, 12 hours and see how it works for you.

Thank you so much for reading this Blog Post! I hope I was able to give something valuable to you today and if so, please consider checking out the rest of my blog. By consuming my content, you help the most and you also make me happy with it! Thank you so much for being here and have a great day!