You ever get bored?
Ever catch yourself mindlessly opening Instagram for the 100th time in an hour or hitting “Next Episode” when you know you should be hitting the hay instead? How often do you find yourself putting aside work for YouTube shorts and OMG watching If Cleaning was a Timed Sport Part 2 AGAIN?
Yeah…you’re not alone. It’s not easy staying focused when your brain’s always screaming for MORE FUNNN. (Needy much?)
We’re sure you’ve heard of dopamine detoxing—it’s all the rage these days. Simply put, dopamine is a neurotransmitter in your brain that shouts REPEAT when you do something pleasurable, thereby reinforcing the activity and possibly leading to addiction. Since dopamine is naturally produced in the brain, it’s not something you can simply “detox” from.
Dr Cameron Sepah, the creator of the dopamine fast, says that the technique is NOT about reducing the amount of dopamine in your brain. Rather, it’s about taming those impulsive behaviours that have us all acting like hamsters on a wheel, trapped in an endless cycle of chasing the next hit of “feel-good”.
Dopamine detoxing or fasting can help us resist those urges and gain control of our behaviours so we’re not caught up in the pursuit of ultimate happiness which forever evades us.
Here’s how it goes down:
- You’re scrolling through reels, minding your own business.
- BAM! You watch a video that’s hilarious or just plain satisfying.
- Your brain does a little happy dance :))
- Repeat. You want more.
This is where the danger lies:
Before you know it, opening your phone isn’t just a choice—it’s a reflex, an automatic action to chase that high.
The next time you see your phone (and each time after that), you’ll end up navigating to YouTube or Instagram and start watching videos—without a conscious decision to do so.
Suddenly your phone becomes a portable dopamine-hit machine. You might not even be bored but you’ll find yourself falling down a digital rabbit hole of rewards despite swearing you’d only watch one video.
How Can Dopamine Fasting Help?
The key is regaining control over your automatic behaviours. The worst part about being addicted to your phone, watching just one more episode, or binging on chips is that most of us end up feeling super guilty about it afterwards. That guilt can help you recognise the problem.
Next comes dealing with it. Practice restricting your external stimuli!
How? Try making things harder for you to give in. Establish simple rules and a schedule for you to follow every day.
You could:
- Put your phone away and make it difficult to access.
- Or if you think hiding your phone would make you anxious, use the best application there is: Airplane Mode!
- Ben Meer says you can reduce screen time by 50 minutes daily just by turning your phone to Greyscale mode. Dull those candy-coloured apps and make your phone less alluring.
- You can learn to live without addictive stimuli for a few minutes each day by scheduling time to engage in an activity like walking, cycling, running, cleaning, or journaling.
- It might help to hold yourself accountable for your behaviours. Ask a friend to help you out if you need some external accountability.
- Urge Surfing- When you feel the need to engage in your addictive behaviour, make it hard for you to give in but don’t actively fight your thoughts. Instead, surf the urge. Notice it, think about it, understand why you’re feeling that way, take a few deep breaths, and then bring your thoughts back to where they need to be.
- Check out this short guide to eliminating distractions and getting that monkey brain to focus productively.
Follow these tips and put yourself back in the driver’s seat! It’s about making conscious choices instead of sitting blindly and running on autopilot. The next time you reach for your phone or pull out a fistful of chips from that bag, pause. Take a breath. Ask yourself: “Do I really need this right now, or am I just chasing a quick hit?”
Maybe you’ll still unlock that screen or munch away. Maybe you won’t. At least now, it’s YOUR choice. That’s what this whole “dopamine detox” thing is all about—reclaiming your choices, one urge at a time.
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