Today we’re going to be talking about Dopamine Detoxing. I thought I’d share with you guys an update on my experience, my progress, and my results of having been on a Dopamine Detox off and on for the last two years.

Now if you’re someone that is unaware of how dopamine affects your life, maybe this is the very first time you’ve heard this concept or this idea of a Dopamine Detox or a Dopamine Fast. Hopefully, this article can be educational, eye-opening, and maybe even life-changing for you, just as it was for me when I first discovered this years ago in my life.

It can offer an explanation for maybe why you feel tired and lethargic throughout your day, or why you feel lazy and unmotivated. You just can’t get yourself to do things that you know will progress your life. Or maybe why things are not really giving you the pleasure, the joy, the happiness that they should.

You feel this numbness like a zombie going throughout your day and going throughout your life or nothing seems to give you that joy. It’s hard for you to experience the ups and the positive emotions in your day-to-day life. I know for me, when I discovered this, it revolutionized my entire life, set me on a new course, a new direction, that my life is so much better off for now, for someone that’s already aware of Dopamine.

And you’ve also maybe watched some videos already on YouTube about Dopamine Detox, dopamine Fast. And I also think this article can be helpful just to have you hear from someone that’s been on this journey now for about two years.

There have been ups, there have been downs. It’s not just been like this. It takes some time to reset your brain and rewire your brain to be a more healthy, and more sustainable way. And so I think it can also provide some motivation, some encouragement for some of you guys that have been curious about this. Maybe you’ve not embarked on this journey yourself, or maybe you are on this journey and it can be helpful just to hear from someone else that’s been on it and kind of compare results and the experience, because some of this, I think, can resonate with you.

What Is Dopamine?

Now, let’s explain what Dopamine is for those of you that don’t know. But Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that’s released in the brain anytime there’s an anticipation of a reward or pleasure. It’s been an essential part of our survival as human beings because it’s what motivates us.

Dopamine is released when there’s food or water or a mating opportunity that can allow us to reproduce. And without Dopamine, we wouldn’t have the motivation to continuously strive to find food, water, shelter, and reproduction opportunities. We wouldn’t be motivated for that which has been essential to our survival as human beings. Now, the challenges and the problem lies in this modern world that we live in. We live in a modern world where there are a lot of things that are overstimulating the dopamine in our brain.

They’re causing our dopamine levels to spike a lot more than they normally would in nature natural ways, as we’ve been designed to be able to release dopamine. And so in the case of myself, I lived a life where I was always chasing pleasure, instant gratification, anything that can give me a boost to hit a pleasure was addictive for me. And my journey started when I was addicted to video games, which overstimulate dopamine levels to unnatural levels.

In fact, video game developers, even design the games knowing how to get you addicted to their product. And so they know how to incentivize you, to offer rewards, to flash certain things on the screen or on your phone in order to release dopamine in your brain, which gives you this incredible high and makes you want to come back to play that game.

And for me, I used to be addicted to video games when I was in high school. To give you an idea, I would skip school to play video games at home. I would play for hours and hours. I’d sneak downstairs to the computer room and play video games all day.

It was a way for me to escape reality and enter into this world of fantasy. And the more that I did that, the more that I overconsumed dopamine. Then it had negative effects and consequences on my life. I felt like I just wanted to isolate myself. I didn’t really get dopamine and pleasure from going outside the house, from socializing with people, other things didn’t really give that to me because I overstimulated my dopamine through something that’s artificial and unnatural like video games.

So that’s how it first started for me. And I’ve actually there are certain types of people that they call to have a dopamine energetic personality. I think they have fewer dopamine receptors than the average person and they’re more prone to addiction. And so if you know my story, I was once addicted to sugar also stimulates dopamine levels.

I had a binge eating disorder where I’d go to the store, get a tub of ice cream, get chocolate bars, and chips, buy tons of junk food, go home and consume thousands of calories in the sitting and then repeat that process every other day.

It’s pretty bad. So I’ll explain to you guys some of the things that overstimulate dopamine. But the important thing you’ve got to understand is that anything that’s going to overstimulate your dopamine, it’s going to give you a huge spike. You’re going to feel great. You’re going to have this high from it.

Dopamine Deficit

Whatever comes up must come down. And so usually when you have a big spike in dopamine, there’s a crash. And what happens is you can go into this dopamine deficit state, also what I call a dopamine hangover. And so if you’ve ever played video games, eaten junk food, watch pornography, spend hours on social media just scrolling through Aimlessly on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, watching YouTube videos, binge-watching Netflix, maybe gambling or alcohol or drugs like marijuana, all of these things, they overstimulate your dopamine.

And so what happens is you’ll have a huge crash when you have that crash, often what you do is you feel tired, you feel unmotivated, you feel lazy, you feel like to do nothing.

And the problem lies when you consistently and repeatedly engage in activities that overstimulate your dopamine. Because you build a tolerance where I’ll give you an example. Let’s say if you’ve ever drunk coffee or caffeine, you’ll know that the first time you drink coffee, you feel great, your body is releasing adrenaline, and you get this incredible high, and it can be very addictive.

And so when you start drinking coffee on a daily basis, what happens is you don’t get that same high as you originally did from the first time that you had coffee or caffeine. In fact, you build a tolerance to it.

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And then as time goes on, maybe several months or maybe a year, one cup of coffee doesn’t do it for you anymore. It doesn’t really give you much effect. So now you need two cups of coffee, and then it’s a matter of time before you need three cups of coffee to get the effect. And then what’s your life like when you don’t drink coffee? You feel tired and irritable.

You just can’t get yourself to do anything because you’ve built a dependency on it. But also you’ve wired your brain to be dependent on this drug, caffeine. And when you don’t get that hit you’re in this deficit state. You have these withdrawals, these cravings for it, and you need it to function. And it’s the same thing with dopamine, which is when you consistently stimulate it.

What happens is you no longer get the same pleasure from things that used to give you pleasure in your life. When you’ve always been setting the bar for your pleasure by having sugar junk food and pornography and video games and alcohol and gambling and the internet and social media. All these things have been overstimulating your dopamine.

You no longer can feel the joy and the pleasure of just looking out at the stars, looking at the clouds, looking at birds, or enjoying a sunset or a sunrise. There are certain things that just don’t really give you much pleasure.

I know for me, in my teenage years, and also my 20s as well, I was addicted to pornography I used to spend hours a day watching pornography, and I didn’t know the effects that had on me until later in my life, and I eventually learned that it was making me less attracted to reality, less attracted to women, and more attracted to fantasy.

I trained my brain to when you watch pornography, and guys or girls that have watched pornography probably know this, you might have multiple tabs going on every time you see a new woman or a new guy or whatever, it gives you that hit of dopamine, and you’re just constantly chasing that high and just kind of riding that wave of dopamine.

But what happens is, that you’ve now trained your brain to be desensitized towards actually being attracted to an actual, real human being, which can’t compete with the overstimulation that you’re getting from technology. That’s just unnatural. It’s not reality.

It’s a fantasy. And so that was something that was very alarming to me when I discovered that. It was something that made me remove that from my life. And that’s what I’ve essentially done over the last several years of my life. I mean, I overcame my video game addiction in my 20s.

Actually, when I was maybe around 18 or 19 years old, I stopped playing video games. I still engage in some of these things occasionally, and I want you to know it’s okay to do so here and there, but it’s the overconsumption, the overstimulation of it that’s going to have negative effects on your life.

Okay, So as I walk you guys through this in this article and kind of what I’ve shared so far, I want you to pay attention. Does any of this relate? Does any of this resonate with you? For some of you maybe this is a nonissue, but for others, if you’re like me and you felt laziness, you have no motivation in your life.

You’re always procrastinating and putting things off. You can’t get yourself to do things that could be incredibly frustrating because you have this inner conflict, you have these desires and goals and ambitions for your life, but you have this conflict where your dopamine is in a deficit state. You’re in this hangover, this chronic hangover and it’s hard to get yourself out of that, to pursue these things.

They just don’t give you that motivation as they should or you always feel tired. I know for me I’d have on days and off days, I’d have a day or two where I feel great, I feel normal, and then I’d have a day or two where I couldn’t get myself to do much.

It’s incredibly frustrating and this is what really reveals the problem to me and part of what the solution is.

Things I removed From My Life

So for me, when I discovered this, I decided to do a dopamine detox. The dopamine detox is where you intentionally remove things that overstimulate dopamine for a period of time. And so for me, I removed social media. I didn’t access Facebook or Instagram, and I didn’t use YouTube, I set up blockers on my devices, my phone, and my computer.

So I couldn’t access these things for a period of time. And that was a great opportunity for me to kind of reset my brain and just kind of find other things to preoccupy myself, other things that are more healthy and sustainable.

They can still give me dopamine, but not at the same extreme that technology is. So that was something that I did. Pornography is something that I removed completely from my life because especially when you’re in a relationship, then it’s very detrimental to your relationship.

Alcohol is something that I rarely consume, maybe once a month, maybe a glass of wine here and there. So that was something I’d removed. Sometimes in California or maybe in Vancouver, I’d have some marijuana. So that’s something that I removed and maybe might enjoy occasionally.

The time that I spend watching things on my computer and really just the time that I spend on devices has drastically been reduced over the last two years and even at times just eliminating them completely.

Now I know this is maybe not practical for everybody, especially maybe your job, your career, requires you to be on the computer, requires you to be on social media, whatever it is. But even for myself as a social media influencer, I eventually had to make the decision in my life that I was going to make my mental health, my mental, and my emotional well-being more important than my career or making money. And the reality is that it is.

There’s nothing more important because what good is it having all the money and having a great career if it’s affecting your life in this negative way and you’re not feeling happiness and joy? Now, that’s not to say that you can’t still find a way to have a balance and we’re going to discuss that.

So I started removing these things from my life and drastically reducing them for my life. And what I did was I started to replace the free time that I had with other activities that are more natural and more sustainable. So for example, one of the best things I think you can do is a few things. Number one is to socialize, actually get out of the house, meet people, and interact with people. That’s what people did before the Internet came along.

And we can socialize and interact online. But you’re not getting the same depth, you’re not getting the same connection. It’s not the same just typing to someone or communicating through technology as it is being in person with other human beings. So that was something that was huge for resetting my brain. Another one was just being outside in nature, getting out of the house.

Because in the house it’s very easy to get the comforts and the pleasures and the addictions and cravings that you’re going to have to all the different vices that are going to overstimulate your dopamine. And so for me, getting outside, going for walks, going to the beach, which is right there for me. I’m in Panama right now.

There’s a golf course right here. So I’ve been getting into golf, playing tennis, playing basketball, going to the gym, going out on the boat, on the ocean, and with the sea, for example.

Just finding other activities that still stimulate dopamine, but not at an unnatural level as what technology will. Other things I started doing were enjoying puzzles, and just putting together puzzles, which I find just really puts me in the present moment.

And things that before, honestly, I would consider to be boring because I needed the stimulation that things like making a puzzle was boring for me. I just couldn’t be engaged by that. And that kind of shows part of what the problem is when you overstimulate your dopamine.

Certain things like meditation for me were something that I resisted so much but have been a huge part of my solution and my recovery from overconsumption of dopamine. Because learning how to just sit there and be still and silent and calm and embrace boredom or whatever emotions might arise and release and let go and surrender that, that is a huge thing because you’ll have cravings and temptations that come up, but you learn how to just sit with it and to let it go.

And it always fades and passes because all temptations and cravings and emotions are temporary. They’re fleeting. They’re like the clouds in the sky.

They come and they go. If you just watch and observe them, they eventually fade. So making puzzles, and playing chess was another thing.

Actually being with my partner my wife, and connecting with her and being present with her and spending time with my dog and spending all these things that really I think are important to life and our fulfillment as human beings, unfortunately, have gotten lost in many ways because people are addicted to technology. It’s one of the concerns that I have with the metaverse, I think.

The metaverse, just like anything, has a lot of pros and advantages but of course, will have negative consequences when you overconsume and put yourself in this manifest world where you’re disconnected from reality. So there’s going to be some negative effects on people’s emotional and mental well-being because that’s an unnatural world that we’re going to experience that the human brain has not evolved to be able to have the capacity to be able to deal with and handle.

So replacing and making these changes in my life has been huge, has been incredibly significant.

Results I Have Experienced From Dopamine Detox

And let me share with you some of the results. One is I feel way more stable and consistent and just kind of even keel throughout the day.

I don’t have the same ups and the same downs that I used to. I’m kind of more in between, in the middle and I have ups but they’re not like crazy ups like this. I’ve learned to let go, which is hard to do once you’ve experienced certain highs.

That’s one of the reasons, by the way, you want to avoid drugs because certain drugs like heroin, or cocaine, once you’ve experienced a certain high, the brain can remember that and always want to get back to it. So that’s why sometimes it’s better in life to avoid things like that that will overconsume your dopamine which is what drugs do and is what gets you addicted to them.

And so I don’t have those same highs that I used to have, but I have these highs that make me feel incredible joy, pleasure, and happiness that’s just different than what it was before, but doesn’t come with the crash, doesn’t come with a hangover. So I’m way more steady throughout the day and just on a daily or weekly basis, which is great because I’m able to show up in the way that I want to show up.

Other times when I was back in my 20s, addicted to dopamine and I’d have these crashes, I could have a day and I have certain calls or meetings or interviews and I just couldn’t get myself to function. Sometimes I’d have to cancel certain meetings and calls because I was just in this dopamine deficit state where I couldn’t function the way that I wanted to. And so that’s been a huge thing.

Having more motivation has been a huge result that I’ve experienced. Not just for things like success or money or things like that. Because even, by the way, chasing money and success is a dopamine spike and it was actually something that I was addicted to as well.

But you have the motivation more just to get outside, to socialize, to meet up with people, to play sports, be outside in nature, just to do things in your life versus before it’d be harder to get myself out of the house. I’d much rather just play video games or watch TV or just be on my computer or scroll through my phone.

Those are things that were more comforting, more pleasurable than it was getting outside. So that was a really great benefit as well. Just have more natural motivation to do things in my life. My energy has drastically improved as well.
I’d say I experience more pleasure out of everything.

Everything. Whether it’s kissing my wife, whether it’s playing with my dog and just going to the park with him and running around, even exercising, going to the gym, or certain hobbies and activities. They’re more fulfilling and more pleasurable for me, which is such a beautiful thing. It’s really sad how I and many others have been disconnected from that because of this overstimulation.

The Most Challenging Thing I Have Done

But I will say honestly, it’s been very challenging, probably one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done in my life because you’re overcoming a lot of the addictions that we have.

And obviously, there are addictions that are severe, like drugs and alcohol, but without a doubt, these are still addictions. There are maybe different degrees of addictions and different consequences for some of these addictions. But for me the consequences were significant and the results of the experience have been worth going through those ups and downs.

And so if you’re someone that’s on this journey, maybe this relates to you in some way, understand that usually when you go on this journey, it gets worse before it gets better. Because when you start removing these things that gave you this high, then what happens is you have cravings, you have withdrawals, you can’t concentrate, you feel tired, you feel worse.

And that can even happen for several weeks, even several months, until eventually, you start to feel motivated again. Your brain starts to reset itself and it starts to go back to normal. So understand that it’s a journey, it’s a process. I’m still on my journey.

I still spend more time than I like in front of the computer, in front of devices, consuming certain things that are pleasurable, which by the way, you can still do once in a while, but more the addiction to it and the overstimulation to it, which is unhealthy.

Resources To Help

I want to share with you guys a few resources as well. Number one is a book called Dopamine Nation by Dr. Anna Lemke. I really enjoyed this book.

I highly recommend that you read this book because it will help share more about Dopamine, how it affects us, and talk a little bit about addiction as well. Another great book that really changed my life, that was one of the first books that I read on this topic was called The Molecule of More.

And it even explained to me, even when I was single, when I was single, I was addicted to chasing women because every time that you meet a new woman and she responds to you in a positive way, a huge spike in dopamine you get a woman’s phone number. Huge spike in Dopamine.

Even if you hook up with a woman, a huge spike in dopamine, but then there’s a crash and then you’re always in this cycle, this perpetual cycle of always chasing that high. And so you can’t commit to someone, you can’t commit to being with one person because you don’t get the pleasure of just being with someone in a long-term relationship.

And once you reset your brain, your relationship is so much better. Without a doubt, my relationship has improved as I’ve removed these things from my life. So The Molecule More is a fantastic book, even attributes a lot of the most successful people throughout history as being dopamine addicts and explaining the problems they have in their personal life, in spite of the incredible successes they’ve achieved in society.

So that’s a really fascinating book. Another great book, which is probably one of my favorite relationship books is called Cupid’s Poison Arrow. Cupid’s Poison Arrow. That book also goes into dopamine and how it affects us in our relationships, in our sex life with orgasm. That’s a really fantastic book if you’re in a relationship.

And the last one I’ll share with you guys is for those who watch pornography. It’s called Your Brain on Porn, a really great book that will explain what’s happening to your brain, which, by the way, they’ve measured this. Now with brain scans, they can measure your dopamine levels and how it gets stimulated by certain things that you do and when you’re in a dopamine deficit state.

But Your Brain on Porn is a great book because it really goes into the science and explains what’s happening to your brain when you’re watching pornography, which will be very eye-opening for you and might even encourage you to give up watching pornography in your life.

So those are some great books that I can highly recommend to you guys. Otherwise, there are many other videos on YouTube. There’s a lot of content out there these days on this concept and this idea of a dopamine detox. But if you’re someone that’s been on this journey, leave a comment below.

Let me know where you’re at with it. Let me know if there’s anything that’s been really helping you. Let me know what your experience has been so far and some of the results you’ve experienced. And if you’re brand new to this, also comment below. I’d love to hear if any of this connects and relates with you as well.

As usual, I’m just trying to share with you guys my experience, and hopefully, my experience and what I’ve learned can benefit you and others.