Recently I had been considering doing a Dopamine Fast, so I did.
A lot of videos had come up on my YouTube recommended page about the fast. I was watching and learning all about the process and seeing what people believed the benefits were.
I figured, “I don’t have a job, plus a decent amount of time with quarantine, why not give it a try?”
This post explains a little about what I did. It explains how I felt during the fast, what I learned, and how it changed me.
If you’re interested in watching the process, I posted a video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfP0Ta7-gjI&t=5s
But for those of you who prefer to read, let’s get into it.
What is a Dopamine Fast?
You’ve likely heard of dopamine before.
Dopamine is a hormone and neurotransmitter found in the body. Its main functions are related to a person’s experience of pleasure. It’s also the main component in “motivational salience”.
When you eat that delicious piece of chocolate cake or you give your best friend a hug, dopamine makes you feel awesome.
In more recent studies, they’ve found that dopamine is linked to motivation. The hormone pushes or pulls an individual towards or away from performing a task. When you anticipate an event will feel good or benefit you, your brain releases dopamine. This dopamine rush encourages you to do that task.
Obviously that’s a pretty vague description. Dopamine is a complex thing, much like everything in the human body. Feel free to check out some of the many studies on it if you’re so inclined.
So much like any fast, you’re withholding yourself from eating, drinking, or doing something. In this case you’re limiting your body’s release of dopamine for a period of time.
In most cases, a dopamine fast lasts for a full 24 hours, but that’s not always possible. You can go longer or shorter depending on your schedule and preference.
The idea is, a lot of the things that produce dopamine in your brain are not necessarily beneficial for you. Things like checking your phone for texts, scrolling through social media, playing video games, drinking alcohol, using other drugs, etc.
Unhealthy habits form because when we perform them or anticipate performing them, we get a rush of that beautiful chemical, feel good, and our brain remembers that feeling. Once the brain learns that performing that action makes you feel good, you’re more likely to continue doing it.
These habits lead to less productivity, lower attention span, lower motivation to complete tasks, and a decrease in productivity.
So for one whole day, you get rid of all the distractions. All the dopamine.
You basically don’t do anything that could produce the chemical. No checking your phone, no reading, no talking to people, no eating, no work, nothing.
It’s just you and your thoughts for 24 hours and your best friend, water.
The goal is to reset your brain, who has become addicted to feeling good all the time with menial tasks. After the fast you should feel increased motivation to work hard, increased creativity, more mental clarity, more attentiveness, and many more positives.
You may also discover the most important questions weighing on your mind (I’ll explain what I mean later on).
So with that, let’s deprive ourselves of feeling good!
Performing the Dopamine Fast
Like I said earlier, to perform this fast you have to completely cut out everything that produces dopamine. This may not be 100% possible as simple things like taking walks and being in nature can cause the release.
The main things you stop for the day are eating, using your phone, watching TV, talking to people, and working.
You want to focus fully on being alone with your thoughts. Be fully present in the moment for the entire day.
So that’s exactly what I did.
It’s a strange feeling to wake up with a full day of nothing to do except drink water and think.
To start my day, I did a little journaling about what I believed the day had in store for me and then I took a cold shower.
I decided the best way to pass a lot of time was to go for a long walk downtown.
There were some places I had always been curious to see but never been, so I went to those places.
I found a beautiful park down the road that was right on the water. There was a dope tunnel there with some cool graffiti, so I looked at that a little before passing through.
On the other side there was a path towards downtown, so I decided to sit on some rocks by the water before going anywhere else.
I ended up being swarmed by ants while I was sitting there, so that was unfortunate, but hey, nature does what it does.
I left that spot and headed to this bridge I always pass by but have never gone on. It was a bridge for people to cross over on their walks, so I sat there and watched the water and the people as they passed. This is where I did a lot of thinking about my life and other people’s lives.
After sitting there for a while, I headed home to journal and sit on the porch.
That’s mainly what my day consisted of.
I went for another walk later in the day and sat by the water to think, I journaled a lot, and I was just present all day.
There’s not much to tell about the actual activities I did because I didn’t have many activities to do. That’s the point of the whole experience.
The real shit is in how the fast made me feel and the realizations I had along the way.
Thoughts and Feelings
The main thing you’re probably thinking is “I would be so bored if I did this!”. To be honest, I would say I was never necessarily “bored”. I would just say I constantly felt like I needed to be doing something.
I felt like I should be working, I should be looking at my phone, checking emails, doing something. But I had nothing to do.
So when I was sitting on the walk bridge watching the people pass by, I thought a lot about life.
There’s this word I love: sonder. It’s this idea/realization that there are billions of other people living in this world, experiencing life in their own way, having their own thoughts, feelings, dealing with their own shit, and trying their best to figure all this stuff out.
So as I sat there watching the people pass by I had this realization of just how many people live in this world. All these people are living their own lives. They all have their own families, friends, coworkers, problems, fears, things that make them happy, all these things that I experience, but uniquely theirs.
It was crazy for me to think about the fact that I will never meet any of these people that are walking past me. I will never talk to them. Know who they are and what they’re going through. This interaction of us passing each other on this bridge will likely be the only instance of our lives intersecting.
I thought about how wild it is that that person walking past could be dealing with some horrible shit in their life. Or they could be having the best day of their life.
I would never know and they’ll never know what I was going through.
Only one person said hello to me on the bridge. One person out of probably close to a hundred people. One person felt compelled to acknowledge my existence.
It made me wonder if maybe we should be doing that more. Should we make more of an effort to smile at people we pass? Say hello to people? Acknowledge the fact that we see them?
It may not do much of anything, but to me it feels like it could do some good. Maybe the simple act of showing a person you see them can make that person feel better. Make them feel seen.
That was my bridge experience.
The other big realization I had was while I was sitting on my porch.
As I sat there with my thoughts, I realized that no matter what I thought about, my mind always came back to the major questions in my life.
“Where should I go from here?”
“What career should I pursue?”
“Where will I live after I leave Binghamton for good?”
I always came back to the questions that scared me the most. The questions that I didn’t have the answers to.
I was left to reflect on these thoughts and dive deep into the possibilities of the future and all the options I had. There was no right or wrong answer to be found, because the future is so uncertain, but the various options were there.
It seemed to me that when I gave myself nothing to do except think, my mind did less thinking.
On a normal day, it seems like I constantly have hundreds of things on my mind and I never have the time to focus on one thought. But when I didn’t have outside distractions to focus on, my mind focused on what it needed to.
I believe all these things like cell phones, social media, TV, friends, family, work, drama, books, any of these distractions are exactly that: distractions.
These things prevent us from sitting down and thinking about what we need to. When we don’t want to think about our life and where we want to go with it, we look at Instagram to see what other people are doing with their lives.
When we don’t want to deal with our own drama, we gossip about other people with our friends.
We’re so afraid to actually ponder our own lives and have these tough conversations with ourselves that we do anything we can to distract ourselves.
So when you remove all these external distractions that consume your time, you have no option but to think about your own life.
And that’s what is necessary.
You need to think about the questions that scare you the most. You need to have that realization that you don’t have all the answers.
Realize that though the future is uncertain, you’ll be ok.
Stop distracting yourself. Sit down and be present with your thoughts. Figure out what your mind is thinking about most and then dive deep into those questions you have.
You don’t need to find the answers, but you need to know what you should be focusing on. What truly matters.
Final thoughts
The overall experience of the dopamine fast was beneficial in my mind.
It was the reset I needed.
I felt an immense increase in my productivity. When I once again had the option of having something to work on, I focused hard on it.
I love having work to do and simply having something to focus on.
I still use my phone mindlessly a little too often, but I realize now more than ever that I’m just using it as a distraction. So I make more of an effort to use it for more important things, not so much just scrolling through Tik Tok for hours on end.
I enjoy having things to do. Whether it be working on my podcast, writing blogs, creating content for Instagram, or painting. But I don’t use these things as vices anymore.
I don’t use work to distract myself from thinking about the future and the things that scare me. When I have thoughts weighing on the back of my mind, I take the time to focus on them. I know that I may not find the answer I’m looking for, but I know that thinking about my options will make me feel more sure of myself and the path I’m taking.
So if you’re someone who has anxiety, uses their phone too much, has no drive to work, or just needs a little jumpstart, consider a dopamine fast.
Remove all the distractions that fill your life and find out what questions you have for yourself.
As always, thanks so much for reading my post! I hope you enjoyed and learned something.
I love hearing from all of you and I love talking about your lives and what you’re going through, so please don’t hesitate to contact me through any of my social media channels.
If you’re looking for more content, check out the Expedition to Try podcast or read some of the other blogs.
Peace out, and good luck!
