WHAT IS DOPAMINE / DOPAMINE DETOX

THE POWER OF DOPAMINE

Many of us today think that we have a problem getting things done. (do you think that’s true?) 

Have you ever went to sleep the night before with a fully thought out plan in your next day for all the things and goal you will start working on and getting some of them completed, but somehow at the end of that new day you got nothing accomplished and you start to beat yourself up and thinking that you are not meant to do that, whatever the goal is and you start thinking that your life sucks or you feel you are stock in a ruth, or even worst you feel to just give up on everything and just accept life as this is you loted life. 

       For a very long time I felt that way until I found out about this neurotransmitter that’s called DOPAMINE. 

How Does Dopamine Make You Feel?

  Dopamine is responsible for allowing you to feel pleasure, satisfaction and motivation. 

    Dopamine makes us desire things and with the desired come motivations to make us want things in our life. 

    Many of us are not sure or not educated about how powerful Dopamine is and how big of a part it plays in our life, day in and day out, Dopamine is so powerful that everything around us is build to manipulate our Dopamine from the things we eat, watch, listen, touch, smell and even read, With these connected to our main sencies.

Example:

     Your dinner choice is a bowl of greek salad OR a nice steak dinner with mash potato and mac and cheese, which one would your brain pick automatically? Yes you guessed it right, 98% of the people would choose the nice Steak dinner with the side or Mash Potato and Mac and Cheese and that is because you just got a Dopamine Hit and you remember how amazing that steak dinner will be over the salad.  I say that to say this. ANY ACTIVITY YOU THINK ABOUT THAT HAVE A POTENTIAL OR IMMEDIATE REWARD, YOUR BRAIN WILL RELEASE DOPAMINE. 

Let look at a different Example:

      You are going to bed to have yourself a great night sleep, while on your phone in bed you thought of reading a chapter of the book you started so you put the phone down and got the book and started reading but you start knowing that reading the book is not as fun as watching reels on instagram or your favorite social media platform, you have no desire for the book so no Dopamine is release and you stop reading the book and back to the phone. I say that to say this 

IF YOU KNOW THERE NO POTENTIAL OR IMMEDIATE REWARD YOUR BRAIN WOULDN’T RELEASE ANY DOPAMINE SO YOU WOULDN’T DESIRED THAT THING. Which was reading the book over social media.

What Power Does Dopamine Have on us?

      DOPAMINE WILL MAKE YOU FEEL BAD OR WORST ABOUT YOURSELF RIGHT AFTER YOU HAVE ENJOY THAT THING. 

LIKE: drugs the more you use it and get that instant reward your baby craves more and more of it.

*How about games: Casinos know that if they make you win a few games you will end up staying and playing and spending your money at the machine.

*Such as video games give you the instant reward of moving to the next level and your brain keeps releasing the dopamine so you stay and play for hours.

*What about a delicious dessert you take one bite and all you want is more and more. 

*How about movies you are watching but you know there is a reward at the end when everythings comes together and ties the story with a happy ending or shocking.

And you can end up thinking about a lot more too.

Homework for you, lists 10 things that you find yourself doing that make you release a high amount of Dopamine. You can also share some in a comment if you like.

I know we all are Doing this and we might say, oh well that’s not that bad what’s the harm?

Read on to find out.

Is Using too much Dopamine Bad? 

       We Have a Biological system called HOMEOSTASIS Which keeps our body internal physical and chemical conditions stable.

       It’s a self-regulating process by which an organism tends to maintain stability while adjusting to conditions that are best for its survival. If any of these are unstable our body tends to adapt to it.

FOR Example : When the place is cold our body temperature drops which makes us feel cold. Our body will shiver to generate heat to warm up our body and when it’s hot outside our body temperature gets hot so we start sweating too in order to get rid of the excess heat. So our body is always trying to keep our body temperature around 98 degree fahrenheit or 37 degrees celsius. Which gives us Balance the same thing with our Homeostasis. 

How do our HOMEOSTASIS Adapt to what we Use, Put or Do to our body?

    Our Body Adapts to Things through TOLERANCE. Let’s look at an Example : someone that drinks alcohol rarely will likely to get drunk faster than someone that drinks more alcohol on a regular basis will, the person that drinks more alcohol has to drink more than their regular amount to get drunk. One person’s body had built up more Tolerance than the other.

     Same thing with DOPAMINE your body try to maintain HOMEOSTASIS (Balance) but when you starting Using high Amount of Dopamine the HOMEOSTASIS would Learn to Adapt to your High leave of External Dopamine and tries to use that as the new balance so now you end up having a new higher Dopamine TOLERANCE for whatever the external input you are taking in video game, porn, social media , dunk food, gambiing, Drugs, alcohol and the list goes on and on.

     So you would ask that these things don’t  sound that bad because most people around you are doing the same, but it is bad.

* Because you have this New TOLERANCE of Dopamine, the things that don’t release much Dopamine to you like Reading, working on your Business or even exercising will no longer be of interest to you cause you don’t feel the same high level of Dopamine that you will feel when watching porn. Playing video games or even taking illegal drugs etc… those release a lot of Dopamine to you so you feel great and excited in the moment.

The problem here is that because you are always getting the High levels of Dopamine from things that are not as important to you or wouldn’t help or benefit you in the long run, you still find it hard to let go. This is where the people would say you have an ADDICTION to (X). 

Disclaimer : I understand what addiction is and I know it’s real and I support anyone that is trying to break out of any addiction. Back to the topic of how to fix this now.

The MIllion Dollar Question Is How to FIX this?

     DOPAMINE DETOX

There is a saying that goes ‘ If you want to see CHANGE Be the CHANGE’. 

     To Perform a Dopamine Detox you will start off by taking a day or if you can a week and stay away from all the things that supply you with the high level External Dopamine, then you will start to replace that boredom with things that will only give you small amount of dopamine like walking, reading, swimming etc. When you feel bored you know you are in the right place. Give yourself that time to be in the moment and enjoy what’s around you like nature, the wind and even listen to the birds.

Step 1 : Set time for DOPAMINE DETOX (recommend to start with one day every week) then work 3 days per week, then 1 week each month until you make this a part of your lifestyle .

Step 2 : STOP all things that Give you a high level of External Dopamine. NO (tv, internet, social media, video game, junk food, masturbation, phone,no music, no soda , no sugar , etc) (No External Pleasures)

Step 3 : Things you will be doing. YES (take walks, Meditate, Write, Reflect, think of Ideas, workout, enjoy the beach, drink water, eat healthy food , drink coconut water,  etc ). 

Step 4 : Embrace boredom, Teach yourself to enjoy your Peace.it’s funny to see what would happen when you leave your everyday life and get dropped on an island, everything you think is important will be missed but wouldn’t be as important for your serviral on that island. That was just food for thought. 

I know all this might sound crazy and wild. Another way you can start is everyday starting right now you can Eliminate one or two things that give you that high Level of external Dopamine like NO tv/movie/videos for the day and use that time to read or walk and do that everyday with one or two things then work yourself to a full day of the week and then a full week of the month. That’s how I started off. It helped a lot because of my pack schedule. 

DISCLAIMER 

If you are trying to get rid of any drugs or alcohol addiction I would Recommend you get Professional help because the process of withdrawing from those substances will take sometime and you will need those help mentaily, emotionally and physically. I Pray you get well and back to your amazing life.

BENEFITS OF THE DOPAMINE DETOX

TO HELP YOU RECOVER YOUR DOPAMINE RECEPTOR FROM THE UNNATURAL HIGH DOPAMINE IT WAS GETTING BEFORE.

TRICKS & TIPS 

     Teach yourself how to master your Dopamine by doing All your lower level Dopamine release like reading, working out, studying for school, task to do, etc. but keep in mind you are doing all this FIRST part of your day so you can then reward yourself with a small amount of your External dopamine like 1 hour of tv, video or video games, NO porn, NO drugs, NO alcohol. So what you are doing is teaching yourself to REWARD yourself after at the end of your day for the things you have done for the day. I call it WORK AND GET PAID.

DO NOT reward yourself right after you finish doing one of the small Level of Dopamine release tasks. So if you just work on your business idea for an hour don’t reward yourself with junk food, wait until the end of the day. 

For anyone That uses drugs, alcohol, smoke, or anything that is not good for your Health DO NOT use that as a Reward.

So if you Study for an hour Don’t reward yourself with 1 cigarette before bed. Replace it with something else like candy or a soda.

Conclusion

So in conclusion I would say from my own experience that it will take some time to get yourself in a rhythm of doing this but you have to be conscious about everything you are doing and asking yourself is this high level of Dopamine or is it Healthy. 

The question is did you find a solution (yes) you did, it’s now just you to execute it. You can make all the things that seem boring to do in your life start to be more exciting for you.

Remember Dopamine is a MOTIVATOR too so as you start to work on your projects or whatever you are working on, it will Release some Dopamine and you will feel great about yourself when you complete what you are doing. 

Alway keep track of yourself on everything you do. 

My goal is to share the things I have learned and apply and if you have any thoughts, comments or questions please reach out to me via email, social media or in the comments. Thanks for reading, have a blessed day.

AMAZON LINK : https://amzn.to/3momtrb