I conceived many many years ago back in college when I was drinking smoking and just partying way too hard it's a ritual that worked incredibly well for me back then and it's something that I still do at least once or twice every single year I call it the dopamine fast now for this to work you have to treat it like a type of holiday this is a full-day event that starts from the time you wake up all the way until the moment you fall asleep and this is a type this one is to have as little enjoyment as possible, which means there's a long list of things you can't do.
That's right, everything you believe to be pleasant, interesting, or delightful is completely banned, so no eating. All you're allowed to do is drink water. You can leave your phone on for emergency calls but not use it.
No internet access, which includes online browsing and/or social media of any type, such as Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram, and no video viewing, which implies no television, no YouTube, no Netflix No movies, no narcotics of any type, no booze, no cannabis, no drugs No smokes or caffeine-containing products; no video games; no music; no socializing with friends; and no chatting.
No talking to anybody unless it's an emergency or for anything work-related, no masturbation, and finally no reading of any books fiction or nonfiction now here's what you can do you can drink water you can walk around outdoors you can meditate you can do some light exercise and most importantly you can write using a pen and paper and those are the rules now at this point you're probably wondering why in the world would anyone do this to themselves it
This practice will drive you to become highly productive once more, and I'll also explain why writing is so vital during Dopamine Fast.
The Dopamine Surge
There are two main reasons why it's so effective.
The first is because it starves your animal. What I mean by this is that the relationship between your mind and body is similar to that of a rider and a donkey. If you want your donkey to move, all you have to do is wave a carrot in front of him.
When our lives are in confusion, we tend to overindulge in stimulating activities such as pornographic drugs. Junk food and binge-watching show all release a significant quantity of dopamine, which is akin to allowing your donkey to consume a smorgasbord of carrots and other yummy donkey veggies. If your dog has been eating at a buffet all week, he will not be stimulated by a small carrot on a stick since he will be full when you arrive - performing dopamine faster effectively starving your donkey you providing your body as little stimulation as possible for an entire day. When your donkey is starving, you can easily persuade him to move by waving a small carrot in front of him; similarly, when you wake up in the morning after dopamine fast, you will find it much easier to persuade yourself to go to the gym or read a few pages of a book by thinking about the reward you will give yourself after.
The second reason committing to dopamine fast is that it prevents you from masking your pain needs to be corrected It's an indication that there's a problem someplace. If your hand touches something that's too hot, you feel pain, and your brain says, ah, there's a problem over there, and it instantly moves your head. The same is true for emotional turmoil. Rejection, loneliness, and embarrassment are all symptoms that something is wrong in our lives, but the trouble with us humans is that we love to run away from these sensations, preferring to self-medicate with pleasure rather than tackling the underlying problem, which is why so many people turn to food addictions. sex and liquor since they're in a bad mood because all of these factors can make the pain go away at least temporarily now when you do dopamine fast you have no way of avoiding your problems because there's literally nothing you can do to mask any of the pain and this forces you to address all of the problems that you've been running away from for who knows how long and this forces you to address all of the problems that you've been running away from for who knows how long and this forces you to address all of the problems.
Here's where writing comes in: the greatest way to manage this suffering is to write to organize your ideas, figure out why you're feeling this discomfort in the first place, and finally come up with a strategy. See, whenever I commit to doing dopamine fast, I spend at least a couple of hours writing throughout the day. Here are a couple of very good questions to ask yourself. These are the writing prompts that I'll use most often whenever I commit to doing dopamine fast.
Question number one: do I feel any discomfort today? If so, wherein my body am I feeling it? Is this an emotion or is this physical pain? If it's an emotion, try to describe it is it What does it feel like
Question number two: ask yourself why do I feel this way now it's important not to blame a chemical reason or you know genetics or other people because most of the time we feel bad is because of something we can control there are almost always things that you are doing that are causing these issues so ask yourself what things have I been doing that could possibly be causing these issues.
Question number third: What should I do to make things right? What are one, two, or three things I can do tomorrow to decrease at least part of the pain?
Question four: What would my life be like if I didn't do any of these one-two-three things for the next five years? Assume the worst-case scenario and really describe it.
Finally, question five: What would my life be like if I did these one-two-three things consistently for the next five years? Assume the best-case scenario and really describe it.
Now, the key to making the most of these writing prompts is to write a lot. The more you write, the better, but allow yourself to truly focus on what you're writing. Give yourself some time to reflect between responding to each request just carefully.
Neatly you have all of the time in the world because there isn't much else to do if you answer all of these prompts in detail you'll have a clearer idea of exactly what you need to do tomorrow you'll feel pretty motivated to stick to the one to three things that you wrote about because you'll come to realize that there are things that will get you closer to solving your problems and that's why the dopamine fast is so effective now.
