How I Tricked My Brain To Like Doing Hard Things (Dopamine Detox)
You probably don’t have a problem playing video games
or browsing social media on your phone for hours
without breaking your concentration.
But what about half an hour of studying,
or working on your side business for an hour?
Even though you logically know that studying, exercising,
or building a business will bring you more benefits in the long run,
you might still prefer watching TV, playing video games,
and scrolling through social media.
While it might seem obvious why one activity is easy
and the other is difficult, some people seem to have
no problem tackling hard tasks regularly.
This begs the question:
why are some people more motivated to do difficult things,
and is there a way to make doing hard things easy?
To answer this, we need to look
at the brain neurotransmitter, dopamine.
The Role of Dopamine in Motivation
Dopamine is often considered a pleasure molecule,
but that’s not quite what it does.
Dopamine is what makes us desire things,
and it is that desire that gives us the motivation to get up and do stuff.
To understand how powerful dopamine is,
consider neuroscientists’ experiments on rats:
- High Dopamine: Researchers implanted electrodes in rats’ brains. Whenever a rat pulled a lever, its reward system was stimulated. The rats developed a craving so strong they kept pulling the lever for hours, refusing to eat or sleep until they dropped from exhaustion.
- Blocked Dopamine: When researchers blocked the release of dopamine, the rats became so lethargic that even getting up to drink water was not worth the effort. They lost all will to live. However, if food was placed directly in their mouths, they would still eat and enjoy it—they just lacked the motivation to get up and do it themselves.
Your brain develops priorities based largely on how much
dopamine it expects to get.
If an activity releases too little dopamine,
you won’t have much motivation to do it.
If it releases a lot of dopamine,
you’ll be motivated to repeat it over and over.
Your brain releases dopamine when you anticipate a potential reward,
even if the activity itself is ultimately damaging to you.
High Dopamine Activities and Tolerance
While nearly everything releases some amount
of dopamine—even drinking water when thirsty—the highest
releases happen when you get a reward randomly,
much like playing a slot machine.
In today’s digital society,
we are flooding our brains with unnaturally high amounts
of dopamine daily through behaviors like:
- Scrolling through social media
- Playing video games
- Watching internet p*rnography
We anticipate some sort of reward with each of these behaviors,
turning us into those rats pulling the lever for a new dopamine hit.
The Danger of Homeostasis
Our bodies have a biological system called homeostasis,
meaning they like to keep internal conditions balanced.
Just as your body sweats to cool down or shivers to warm up,
it also adapts to dopamine levels through tolerance.
When your brain gets used to having high levels of dopamine,
those levels become your new normal.
You develop a dopamine tolerance.
This becomes a huge problem because things
that don’t give you as much dopamine no longer interest you.
Studying or working hard feels boring
because they release lower amounts of dopamine compared
to digital distractions.
Once your dopamine tolerance gets too high,
you simply aren’t able to enjoy low-dopamine behaviors.
How to Perform a Dopamine Detox
To prevent this and reset your brain,
you need to perform a dopamine detox.
Disclaimer: If you are suffering from a severe chemical drug addiction, please seek professional help as you may experience extreme withdrawal symptoms.
The Radical Approach: The 24-Hour Detox
Set aside one whole day to avoid all highly stimulating activities.
You will let your dopamine receptors recover
by having as little fun as possible.
- What to avoid: The internet, phones, computers, music, masturbation, and junk food.
- What you are allowed to do: Go for a walk, meditate, reflect on your life and goals, and write down ideas on a physical piece of paper.
You are going to embrace boredom.
This works because of contrast.
If you eat at a fancy restaurant every day,
a bowl of plain rice sounds terrible.
But if you are stranded on a deserted island and starving,
that same bowl of plain rice suddenly seems highly desirable.
Dopamine detox starves you of all your usual pleasure,
making less satisfying, productive activities desirable again.
You become so bored that boring stuff becomes fun.
The Moderate Approach: One Day a Week
If you don’t want to take extreme action,
pick one day of the week to refrain from one
of your specific high-dopamine behaviors completely.
Whether it’s checking your phone constantly, playing video games,
or eating junk food, make that specific behavior
off-limits for the entire day.
Your dopamine receptors will begin to recover,
and your resulting boredom will propel you to do the
productive tasks you usually put off.
Using High Dopamine Activities as a Reward
Ideally, you should limit high-dopamine behaviors
as much as possible.
However, you can also use them as an incentive to pursue things
that give you long-term benefits.
You can use a high-dopamine activity as
a reward for completing difficult work.
Track your low-dopamine tasks (cleaning, reading, working, exercising)
and, only after completing a set amount, reward yourself.
The Golden Rules of Rewarding Yourself:
- Only after the work is done: You must complete the difficult tasks first.
- At the end of the day: If you indulge in high-dopamine behavior early in the day, you will lose the motivation to do the low-dopamine work.
- Set a ratio: For example, for every completed hour of low-dopamine work, reward yourself with 15 minutes of high-dopamine behavior at the end of the day.
We are all dopamine addicts to a certain extent,
and that’s a good thing because it motivates us to achieve our goals.
But it is up to you to decide where you get your dopamine from.
Separate yourself from unnaturally high amounts of dopamine,
and normal, everyday activities will become exciting again.
