Dopamine Detox

Everything seems like a great idea—everything except the very thing we should be doing.

Dopamine and the roles it plays

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that gives us the desire to take action to earn the exciting reward that’s waiting for us. It is the force that makes us act.

Dopamine is not a pleasure chemical, it is a neurotransmitter that is activated when you anticipate a potential pleasure. Simply because, if an event triggers the release of dopamine and once you obtain the expected reward, you’ll often feel empty and unfulfilled.

No amount of stimulation will ever bring you the sense of fulfillment you’re seeking. And the more we seek stimulation, the worse it becomes.

You can think of dopamine as the “molecule of more”. This is because the more our environment or actions trigger the release of dopamine, the more we’ll want our next “shot” of dopamine. This self-reinforcing mechanism is also how many addictions work.

The problem

By continuously triggering the release of dopamine through different means—such as drug or alcohol consumption—addicts strengthen their tolerance to such stimulation. As a result, they need stronger and stronger stimuli to experience the same sensation of pleasure.

Addictions are not just limited to drug and alcohol consumption. In truth, if you can’t spend a day without engaging in a certain activity, it means you’re probably a little addicted to it.

And, as we reduce our exposure to stimulating activities, we will naturally increase our focus and boost our productivity levels.

Many apps like YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram are designed to hook you. The more time you spend on their platforms, the more money they make through advertising. Perhaps one of their greatest recent discoveries is the use of notifications.

How many times have you opened an app just because a red notification pops up on your screen? And how much time did you waste subsequently?

Thanks to even more sophisticated algorithms like Amazon book recommendations, YouTube suggestions, and Facebook customer research algorithms. Now, the development of sophisticated algorithms has its pros and cons. On the plus side, it becomes easier to discover the content you want to watch. On the negative side, it makes it easier to become stuck in a never-ending loop, watching one video after the other.

Instead of using the internet to find information or communicate with loved ones, the internet has become the one using you. It does so by hijacking your focus and making you unproductive and, as a result, restless. Whoever has succeeded in staying away from the internet or social media for a few days, understands what a waste of time and focus such activities can be.

In the food industry, marketers and researchers discovered that, by adding sugar (among other things like fat), they can not only make the food more palatable, but they make us crave more. For this reason, if you look at the list of ingredients contained in any processed food, you’ll find sugar and fat in most of them. While we may not be addicted to them per se, it might be a good idea to reduce our intake and lower our dependence on them, especially on sugar.

Studies have shown that one of the best predictors of success is the ability to think long-term. People who repeatedly focus on where they want to be in the future, make better decisions in the present. They tend to eat healthier food, be more productive at work and save and invest more money than others. Therefore, Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, prohibited his children from using phones or tablets—even though his business was to sell millions of them to his customers! We must rewire our brains to focus on the long term, which starts by removing social media apps from our phones.

Unfortunately, these days, focusing on our long-term goals isn’t an easy feat. Many external forces lead us to become caught up in short-term thinking and encourage us to fall for immediate gratification. While we often know what we should be doing, we fail to do it. For example:

• We know we should eat healthily but we binge-eat sweets or sugary beverages more than we should.

• We understand we should study, but we procrastinate by watching yet another series on Netflix.

• We can see the benefits of exercise, but we’d rather be sitting and chatting with friends on social media.

As we demand more and more stimulation, our focus is increasingly geared toward the short term and our vision of reality becomes distorted. This leads us to adopt inaccurate mental models such as:

• Success should come quickly and easily

• I don’t need to work hard to lose weight or make money

Ultimately, this erroneous concept distorts our vision of reality and our perception of time. We can feel jealous of people who seem to have achieved overnight success. We can even resent popular YouTubers. Even worse, we feel inadequate. It can lead us to think we are just not good enough, smart enough, or disciplined enough. Therefore, we feel the need to compensate by hustling harder. We have to hurry before we miss the opportunity. We have to find the secret that will help us become successful. And, in this frenetic race, we forget one of the most important values of all: patience.

No, watching motivational videos all day long won’t help you reach your goals. But, performing daily consistent actions, sustained over a long period will. Staying calm and focusing on the one task in front of you every day will. The point is, to achieve long-term goals in your personal or professional life, you must regain control of your attention and rewire your brain to focus on the long term. To do so, you should start by staying away from highly stimulating activities.

Amazon, the world’s third-largest company, was created in 1994 but had to wait until 2003 to have its first profitable year. That year, it generated a net profit of $35 million after reporting a net loss of $149 million the previous year. Build the foundations for success one brick at a time. Build them strong so that they won’t collapse at the first obstacle or setback.

In many aspects, today’s society is designed to hijack your dopamine neurotransmitters. And, unfortunately, this is not designed in your best interest, it is designed to empty your wallet as effectively and thoroughly as possible. However, and more importantly, it dramatically erodes your ability to focus, making you feel restless and often bad about yourself. Overstimulated, you find yourself unable to do the difficult things that would have the greatest positive impact on your life and the lives of people around you.

Our mind plays several tricks on us like:

• Your mind convinces you that returning to work is easy

• Your mind tells you can do it later

• Your mind makes you believe that excitement is similar to fulfillment

• Your mind tells you opportunities are limited (FOMO)

How to detox

You must eliminate most or all sources of external stimulation for a total of 48 hours. Doing so will help you reduce your overall level of stimulation and revert to your natural state. You will feel much calmer and find it easier to focus on any specific important task. The stimuli may be drug/alcohol consumption, the internet, movies, music, phone, social media, sugar/processed foods or video games.

What should one be doing instead?

• Going for a walk

• Journaling

• Meditating/Relaxing

• Practicing awareness exercises

• Reading

• Exercising

If you want to take things one stage further, for a week or two:

• Maintain complete silence

• Stop smoking, drinking or taking any other drugs

• Don't use a phone or the internet and avoid outside contacts

• Avoid music, reading and writing

• Avoid filming or taking pictures

Or the easiest yet the most effective one: remove your biggest source of stimulation. Like Instagram or perhaps YouTube.

A three-step method for a successful detox

Step #1. Identify your biggest distractions

To do so, take a pen and a sheet of paper, and create two columns, "Cans" and "Can'ts". Once you have completed your list, put it on your desk or somewhere you will see it. It will act as a good reminder of the activities you must avoid.

Step #2. Add friction

Generally speaking, the harder something is to access, the less likely you are to do it and vice-versa. the more difficult you make it to engage in unwanted behaviors, the better.

• If your phone is your biggest distraction, remove all notifications or put it on airplane mode. Or, even better, switch it off and put it in a separate room.

• Watch and consume only specific content that serves a specific purpose.

Step #3. Start first thing in the morning

The third and final step is simply to get started. I recommend you start first thing in the morning before becoming overly stimulated. I’ve noticed that if I check my phone or access the internet upon waking up, I will probably become distracted.

Also recommended you create a morning routine to help you start your day on a positive note and with a strong focus. Over the long term, a simple morning routine can make a massive difference in your life. For instance, you could:

• Meditate

• Stretch

• Listen to some relaxing music

• Write down your goals for the day

• Write down three things you’re grateful for

• Repeat positive affirmations

• Identify your biggest temptations and/or distractions and write them down on the sheet of paper. Then, make sure you put the sheet in a prominent position.

• Make unwanted behaviors harder to engage in by adding friction.

• Make desired behaviors easier to engage in by reducing friction.

• Implement a simple morning routine to calm your mind and start your day with a low level of stimulation.

Take notes like what makes you feel restless, your urges to do something. Reflect on your life, on your goals, assess how you're using your time and reflect on yourself are you where you want to be in your life? What inner work could you do to improve yourself?

• Write down problems alongside their potential solutions. Just putting your thoughts on paper can help you declutter your mind and gain clarity. This is because it's difficult to address thoughts that stay in your mind. It helps clarify your thinking. By giving words to your thoughts (or worries), you can address them more easily. Dedicating time to thinking each week can make a major difference in your life. It can prevent you from making big mistakes and saves you a great deal of time and energy. Therefore, refuse to let busyness be an excuse to avoid reflecting on your life.

Doing the work (and overcoming procrastination)

While there are thousands of books on productivity, only a few principles matter. I believe the most important one is to identify your key task and tackle it first thing in the morning—and do this consistently.

Even though you might have a never-ending to-do list, there are always a few major tasks that, when completed, will skyrocket your productivity. Unless you can complete them, nothing else will matter.

Plan your day

You don’t need fancy tools to plan your day. Instead, you can use a secret technique forgotten by many—pen and paper. Simply write down a few key tasks you must achieve today. Three to five tasks might be ideal. Place them in order of importance and start working on your first task. Once you complete it, proceed to the next. Repeat the process until you have completed all the tasks on your list.

You’ll notice that your most important tasks are often the ones you want to do the least. Perhaps, it’s because they are challenging. Perhaps, you don’t know where to start. Or, perhaps, they’re boring. But your dopamine detox will help make these tasks easier to tackle.

Create a long-term vision

Use the same method to set weekly, quarterly, monthly and yearly goals. I also recommend you create a long-term vision. It could be a five- or ten-year plan. Of course, it won’t be perfect, but simply having an idea of the direction to follow will make a huge difference.

To set short-term goals, reverse-engineer what you must do to reach your long-term goals. For instance, if I want to write a book in the next ninety days, one goal could be to create an outline. Another could be to complete the first draft. And to hit that target, I could establish a specific daily word count.

The key to productivity can be summarized in three words:

• Focus - the ability to maintain your concentration and avoid distraction or procrastination while working on your tasks.

• Consistency - developing the habit of working on your key tasks every day, week after week, month after month, and year after year.

• Impact - identifying your key tasks (the ones that have the greatest impact on your long-term success) and working on them as often as possible.

Avoiding "dopamine relapse"

Be aware when you start relapsing

Self-awareness is the key to making lasting change. The first step to avoid or limit relapses is to notice whenever you find yourself becoming overstimulated. When you struggle to work on an important task, stop for a moment. Then, recommit to your daily routine.

In truth, you will probably relapse after a few days, weeks or months. And this is completely normal. I find myself going from periods when I’m hyper-focused to periods when I feel restless and so overstimulated that I struggle to complete any work.

Understand the battle between you and your mind

When it happens to you, the key is to accept it and avoid feeling guilty. Beating yourself up won’t help you build a successful daily routine. It will only make things worse. Therefore, don’t dwell on it. Don’t feel guilty or ashamed of yourself. Simply restart your routine and do it one day at a time.

Understand that the world is against you

When you reclaim your focus and use it to achieve your biggest goals, you can transform your life radically. You can make more money by channeling your focus into great work, and you can increase your well-being by redirecting it toward more meaningful activities (i.e., spending time with your family and friends or engaging in your favorite hobbies).

Here’s my point. The world is working against you. There will always be someone trying to grab your attention. As such, you have two choices. You can protect your focus by building habits and systems, or you can remain unprepared and let anyone distract you from the important things you should be doing with your time.

Prepare a contingency plan

• Consider all the activities with the highest potential for distraction. To identify them, revisit the list of “Can’ts” you created earlier.

• Envision the worst-case scenarios. What could lead you to lose focus and stop doing your morning routine? Using your action guide, write down all the worst-case scenarios you can think of.

• Prepare yourself mentally. Visualize yourself going through these scenarios. How will you react? Now, how would you like to react? See yourself dealing with these scenarios in the best way possible.

Put a sustainable system in place

The key to lowering your levels of stimulation is to implement a simple and sustainable system. This system doesn’t necessarily entail a complete shutdown from distractions, but it does require putting in place habits that will help you stay focused.

Consequently, as we’ve seen before, make sure you have a simple daily routine you can stick to consistently.

Cultivate the here-and-now neurotransmitters

To prevent overstimulation, cultivate the “here-and-now” neurotransmitters, which include endorphin, oxytocin, or serotonin. These neurotransmitters are the opposite of dopamine neurotransmitters in that they make you feel calmer and more present. To activate these neurotransmitters, incorporate activities that ground you in the present such as meditation, stretching, mindfulness, contemplative walking, deep social interactions, and practice doing nothing.

By incorporating some of the above activities, you’ll be calmer and more present during your day. As a result, you will reduce the risk of becoming overstimulated.

Credits - meurisse, thibaut . Dopamine Detox : A Short Guide to Remove Distractions and Get Your Brain to Do Hard Things (Productivity Series Book 1) Kindle Edition