There's been a lot of talk on YouTube lately about a practice
called the "dopamine detox" or "dopamine fast", and it was originally
invented by the creator of a YouTube channel called Improvement
Pill back in November 2018. In late 2019 early 2020 the practice
once again, perhaps even became more mainstream this time
of sorts, when the California psychiatrist
Dr.
Cameron Sepah wrote a LinkedIn article about it,
and then that article went viral. Since we've seen YouTubers
like Andrew Kirby, Alex Becker
make videos about the topic and even the New York Times itself
reporting on it.
So all of this begs the question, how does a "dopamine detox"
work? Does the science check out? And if the science doesn't,
which, not to foreshadow a little bit too much here, but let's
say the science doesn't check out. What would explain the
number of proponents this practice has if we can assume that
they're not all making it up.
I'm going to get into this in this video today.
But first if you haven't subscribed already, please consider
doing so because I make videos like this at least once a
week and your support would mean the world. Dopamine is a
neurotransmitter AKA chemical messenger in the brain that
plays a vital role in many essential functions such as memory
retention and motivation. Colloquially however, we know dopamine
to be the pleasure chemical or the pleasure hormone
because it gets released every time we anticipate doing something
rewarding or pleasurable. The evolutionary function of this,
of course is that, this ensures that we are more likely to
repeat certain behaviours that go on to ensure the survival
of our species. Behaviours such as eating high calorie foods
or mating, trying to keep this PG, of course! And so that's
why we find things like eating chocolate cake, playing video
games, and you know, "that", highly rewarding and pleasurable.
The problem is in our day-to-day hyper-connected lives,
it's become way too easy for us to get dopamine. And with
a surplus of dopamine, our body will naturally want to bring
things back to a level of homeostasis and it will do this
by reducing the number of dopamine receptors
we have. Fewer dopamine receptors means less dopamine is absorbed
into the system. With fewer dopamine receptors, the things
that we require to function as healthy and contributing members
of society, things like going to the gym or paying your taxes
or even getting your work done.
These tasks can become increasingly difficult from the perspective of
somebody whose dopamine system is out of whack. And so the
practice of a "dopamine detox" goes or at least a logic of
it goes like this, that if for a certain period of time if
you were to avoid pleasurable activities or rewards for let's
say a week or two, you will allow your body to regulate it's
dopamine system back to the way things were prior to your
stimuli overflow of eating chocolate cake every day and playing
video games too much. You know,
things we do in our day-to-day hyperconnected lives.
I should also mention social media is also one of the biggest
culprits and in so many ways,
you know that feeling you get when you don't check your phone?
That behaviour is akin to the behaviour of an addict craving
his drug.
So from the way that I described it, this practice kind of
sounds like it makes sense,
doesn't it? At least at a very high level. In application you
get a whole range of different ways in which the practice
is applied.
Everything from no technology after 6 p.m.
on Sundays to no technology,
no games, no delicious foods for a week
every three months, to even some people for an entire month
taking it upon themselves to avoid eye contact with other
people and flash photography.
Yeah.
Disregarding the most extreme of applications, how well
does the "dopamine detox" actually work? Contrary to popular
belief, depriving yourself from awards or pleasurable activities
for a day, a week, or even two weeks, isn't going to do much
to regulate your dopamine system. While there is lividly
to resetting your dopamine system back to, like a baseline
default mode, most experts agree that this is a practice that
takes place over the course of many months and usually if
you are addicted to something if you avoid it over the course
of many months, you can maybe get your dopamine system back
to a level of where it was that before you became an addict
of that substance. But apparently, our dopamine system is
meant to be dynamic in nature and it's constantly changing
and adapting according to what our body needs. Neurotransmitters
are synthesized on demand and stored in vesicles AKA little
packages inside the cell in preparation to be released. According
to neuroscientist
Dr.
Kim Hellemans, "If the cells are firing,
they are released, and more will be synthesized in preparation.
If the cells are not firing the dopamine will still be there
waiting to be released."
In other words, going on a dopamine fast isn't going to have
a noticeable impact on your dopamine levels.
And Dr.
John Grohol, the founder of Psych Central, believes that
the appeal of a "dopamine fast" is based on our perhaps overly
simplistic beliefs about how the brain works.
Dr.
Kent Berridge, a professor of psychology and science at the
University of Michigan, believes that those who report benefits
from going on a "dopamine fast" or actually benefiting from
practices of mindfulness instead. A faster, who commits to
avoiding alcohol, social media, pleasurable distractions, in
our day-to-day lives.
This person is essentially practicing mindfulness.
And if I were to repeat to you what the benefits of so called
"dopamine fasting" are, they're going to strike you as eerily
similar to the benefits
of mindfulness. Benefits such as clarity of cognition, increased
focus, increase attention, and an increased ability to regulate
your emotions.
So in conclusion, "dopamine fasting", at least based on the parameters
that we've been given, this won't do anything to regulate
our dopamine system and regulating your dopamine system is
really something you should only be concerned about if you
are addicted to something even social media if you've gotten
to a point where you have an internet addiction for example,
then practicing more mindfulness in your life and having
extended periods of avoiding the stimuli that you're addicted
to, that's going to do you some good. But for everybody else,
the concept of a "dopamine fast" seems to be pretty extreme.
The science of it doesn't really check out and those who purport
benefits from this practice are really just benefiting from
mindfulness and you know, as well as I know that we could
all stand to benefit from more
mindfulness our lives.
That's it for today's video.
Please consider giving this video a like and subscribing
if you haven't already and, say my back is killing me.
Did you hear that?
I think I'm going to go get a massage, which ironically is
not something that I'd be able to do if I were to truly go
on a "dopamine fast", but if I wanted to do breathing exercises
and ground myself into the present moment while getting a
massage I'd be able to do that, and I think that be mindfulness
and I feel like that would be good for me.
It's just one of those examples of sort of just taking the
essence of practice and figuring out for yourself,
what's valid and 
what's not, because I'll be honest with you. At the beginning
of this video, prior to doing the research,
I thought I was just going to make a video about what a "dopamine
detox" was and how cool it was and to lend my hat into
this fad. But now we've come to a different product for this
video. So anyways, I'm going on and on.
I'll see you guys in my future videos.
