I have been a bit out-of-sorts lately. Not just physically unwell but mentally a bit off too. It’s late winter here in Australia so it’s not particularly unusual for me to be off my game at this time of year, but with Spring around the corner I’m looking to make some positive changes. There are a few unhealthy habits that I’ve fallen into of late that I don’t really want to go into. Possibly I've done this as a bit of an attempt to cope with (or escape) my issues but there really isn’t a good excuse for them and deep down I know I need to be better. I have done a bit of research and I think that as a result of these unhealthy habits I am now suffering from Dopamine Deficiency which is making my situation worse.
When I read through the article above there’s a list of stuff linked to dopamine deficiency :-
- Anxious or moody
- Depressed or hopeless
- Forgetful
- Indifferent about things you used to enjoy
- Unable to concentrate
- Unable to sleep
- Unmotivated
- Uninterested in sex
- Withdrawn
Yep. I pretty much tick every box there and that seems a bit fucked up.
So, what to do? Earlier this year I was flirting with the idea of doing a Digital Detox but since my work involves using a computer that seemed to be a tricky prospect. I’ve come to the conclusion that Dopamine Fasting would be more to the point and so for the month of September (the start of Spring) I am going to give my own version of that a try.
The tricky part here is that I don’t really know what Dopamine Fasting looks like for ME. Many point out that dopamine itself is not a bad thing and you can’t exactly cut it out or quit everything you enjoy, but the focus of Dopamine Fasting appears to be making sure that I’m not burning up my dopamine on unhelpful, unhealthy and/or unproductive activities and then running on an empty tank.
So with that as a starting point I can identify some obvious stuff that I really should stop doing. That includes things like gaming (eg Splinterlands), junk food, social media and gambling. However, on some of these things it can start to become a bit of a grey area. For instance, I play Live Poker regularly which technically is a form of gambling but its ALSO my primary meat-space social activity. Similarly while it’s easy to get stuck doom-scrolling for cheap dopamine hits on social media like Hive or Facebook I do get valuable and important information from those sources so I need to figure out how to apply some discipline and/or implement a usage framework there to avoid the bad aspects while exploiting the good.
This is a very personal and private endeavor for me and to be honest its a bit embarrassing to talk about. I’m only posting about this on Hive because I can remain anonymous here and also because maybe there are others out there with similar problems, or who have similarly attempted to address them with their own form of Dopamine Fast. If so I’d love to hear from you. This is all new to me and I’m on a bit of a self-discovery arc here so I’d appreciate any comment or insight.