Does Dopamine Detoxing work – or is it just another fad? I did a 7-day dopamine detox and scanned my brain before & after the experience to see how it affected my brain. And the results were… surprising. Even for me.
Diamond versus hydraulic press wait for it three two one right now you’re getting a rush of dopamine can you feel it it’s the chemical of anticipation because you’re expecting a reward you want to see what happens to the diamond don’t worry i’m going to show you what happens to the diamond in a bit but first let’s go back to that feeling because isn’t that the
Reason why you waste hours scrolling through tick-tock you cannot stay focused for long periods of time and you lack the motivation to work on the challenging things that would actually really fulfill you because dopamine tells you just one more and that’s where the idea of dopamine detoxing comes in a popular trend where you cut out the fun stuff that spikes
Your dopamine and supposedly it resets your brain and you become a productivity machine but is it really effective or just another fad i decided to test it out myself for seven days and also took a brain scan before and after it to see how it would affect my brain and the results were surprising that’s remarkable you can’t do that in seven days the rules are
Simple no media consumption which means no podcasts no youtube videos no netflix books are allowed no junk food or sugar and no flippy floppy eater bing bong and so it started it’s day one just woke up i gotta check my phone i’m gonna put this phone away in my closet so during this dopamine fast i also want to get back to my ideal daily routine starts off with 7
30 getting up and immediately making my bed then filling up my bottle and drinking a liter of water while meditating outside in the sun get that vitamin d early on next up i should no journal i’m gonna journal 20 minutes or so and then 9 a.m is when i sit down and get to work that would be the case if i hadn’t snooze for 45 minutes damn it before starting the
Fast i had a really hard time focusing because of all the input i was taking in but how had it affected my brain so getting the brain scan my brain high on dopamine before the seven day detox this 13 000 brain scanner gives you insights into your ability to focus anxiety levels how well you process information and just in general if you have a brain by measuring
Your brain’s activity while putting you through different tests seven mistakes that high last time it was red everywhere right we’ll see what it’s like after the week so right now i’ve done my most important work that’s when i have my first meal at 3 pm roughly a healthy smoothie the thing is i actually like doing house chores cleaning my room doing laundry that
Was way too much but without listening to any podcast it just feels like a chore look at him what are you doing you’re looking at me it’s getting dopamine but what if there’s more to our phone addictions than just dopamine i think the main reason why i’m always so pulled towards having headphones in my ears at all times whenever i’m not working it’s just that
Sense that you’re not alone you’re watching a video and it feels like you are there with the people and you know them super well but they have no clue who you are which is called parasocial relationships it’s an actual thing it’s a weak form of connection but it is one being a content creator or an entrepreneur in the early stages it’s very lonely and i notice
How cutting all of that out really brings forward this feeling of loneliness just sitting in your room in absolute silence doesn’t feel good 5 p.m second and last meal of the day eggs broccoli and ground beef i eat the same thing every day super easy for me i think this is one of the most challenging times not to use your phone when you’re eating now it’s just
Sitting here and eating it’s almost 9 p.m now that’s when i usually stop working i got everything done that i wanted to get done which is awesome that’s doesn’t happen every day cause i always put too much on my plate it’s 10 30 p.m now this is the time where i usually pop in a podcast and always fall asleep listening to a podcast i don’t know if i can sleep
Without it i’ve been struggling with sleep for years we’ll see how it affects my sleep and then on day two of the fast it finally happened i had transcended my pathetic self my presence was like butter cutting through a hot knife and i finally saw the light i slept pretty well damn did the morning routine feeling great very focused creative now starting work
Right at 9am perfect timing today is going to be a good day i usually always look forward to working out gives me a break from work and i can listen to some podcasts some music without any of that working out is pretty boring but i’m using the time to brainstorm some ideas for new videos day two was miles better than the first one and i wanted to take this
Week as an opportunity to socialize more as well where we going a business networking pool party epic the event was good met a couple of interesting people i definitely feel more relaxed than i usually do especially at this time around the day so let’s look at the other side of the argument people saying it’s pseudoscience and just another fad and after doing
Some research i found that it’s just incredibly misunderstood from both sides i watched multiple psychiatrists break it down and i understood everything perfectly which goes from the ventral tag mental area mesolimbic pathway dominates their mesocortical pathway i’ll try my best first of all dopamine detox the name is just misleading it’s no detox dopamine is
Not a toxin it’s a vital neurotransmitter the dopamine levels actually don’t change the dopamine detox has nothing to do with your dopamine level it has everything to do with your dopamine receptors basically when too much dopamine is sent through neurons the receptor the receiving end down regulates it to receive less is that right just let’s go with it where
Now that my dopamine receptors are kind of down regulated other activities let’s say reading a book going for a walk start to feel less pleasurable so it’s not a dopamine detox it’s more like a dopamine receptor reset and by the end of this video we’re gonna see if this whole thing had an effect on my brain at all the second misconception is that dopamine is
Actually not bad it’s just misunderstood man it’s responsible for your ability to work hard have passion perseverance grit set goals and go after them and we also get dopamine from exercising working on our business hugging someone so dopamine isn’t good or bad it just depends on when it’s being released nature come here therefore dopamine resets are not about
Cutting out all pleasure and you hear so many people in articles and youtube videos saying that our brain is addicted to dopamine and it wants dopamine but it’s the other way around it’s not that our brain wants dopamine it’s that dopamine makes our brain want stuff and dopamine is not really the pleasure molecule it’s the motivation molecule it doesn’t say i
Like it says i want so whenever you feel the compulsion to check your phone or you crave some food that’s dopamine if you’re compulsively doing something that you don’t even enjoy you know it’s time for a dopamine reset before going on this journey i asked a bunch of you ambitious waiters if you wanted to join me for this adventure and some of you were stupid
Enough to say yes why did you decide to join for this i’ve tried cutting it out so many times guys get lost in it 15 30 minutes become like one hour two hours cryptocurrency to instagram to snacking or just scrolling have you noticed any uh benefits so far or even on the first day i noticed it totally more more present i feel like i’m thinking just talking to
Some of you makes me realize how common this problem is this little slot machine that we all have in our pockets and sometimes i wonder if someone like shakespeare grew up in today’s time would he have created all this great art like just imagine the next shakespeare the next elon musk that have all these incredible innovative ideas that would change the world
But instead of getting to work they’re hooked on tick-tock how many great works of art and technology are we missing out on because of tick-tock the biggest threat to my dreams coming true me creating the thing that i want to build a thriving community of people that are weird and ambitious like us the biggest threat is really social media if i get too hooked
On that thing and i continue the way i have before making this dopamine reset that ain’t gonna happen we’re wasting our lives on this and who am i i’m preaching to the choir i know that you know that otherwise you wouldn’t be watching this video but why do we keep getting sucked into it and what’s the way out for my work yesterday was listening to a podcast he
Interviewed near a.l his book indistractible is all about how to remove a lot of these forces you mentioned that only 10 of triggers are external so like notifications your boss 90 of the time we’re distracted because we’re uncomfortable with some sort of sensation and we’re looking for a distraction from that boredom loneliness fatigue uncertainty stress how
Much of this distraction is just because we don’t want to deal with our emotions if distraction is always there we can always avoid what needs to be addressed and after time it just bubbles up more and more and that’s why things like anxiety are a rising issue not just because it makes you stressed while you consume it but also because you never address any of
The emotions that are going through your body what if it’s just about figuring out what are we trying to avoid what are we running away from and that’s actually what we directly need to address for example i mentioned mine multiple times which is the feeling of loneliness i don’t know what you’ve been told we’re headed to the honor gym for a morning workout if
You think you’re gonna get away playing small you’re wrong that’s not what this place is about ice bath gives you 250 dopamine rush so dopamine is good when you’re getting it from healthy sources now to some real talk though how do we get back to normal life because let’s face it some of these tools are incredibly valuable and if you want to function in society
You almost got to be part of it but how can we use only what we need as a tool and cut out the things that are draining us there are four things i’ll be looking at to fight against getting sucked into internet rabbit holes number one remove temptations don’t have the apps on your phone keep your phone locked away from you and install apps like kill newsfeed or
Distraction for youtube to make the apps even on desktop really really boring number two define clear rules for example i could say i keep my phone turned off until 1pm i listen to only one podcast per day and also always turning off my screen at 10 pm and i also have an alarm set for that and the hardest part number three address the inner triggers i know it’s
Easier said than done but what is making you want to get distracted is it boredom is it discomfort is it loneliness have some sort of mindfulness practice to address these emotions to deal with them in a healthy way it’s day six we’re nearing the end and i’m looking forward to finishing this these mortals so glued to their phones i can’t relate i love you dopamine
I’ve always had strict rules around using social media on my phone but i want to adjust them a little bit to really optimize them more number one i want to continue reading fiction in the evenings because i think there’s a good chance that it would finally fix my sleep issues that i’ve been having for years so i ordered june which is a book by frank herbert really
Looking forward to that one secondly i want to continue using a separate alarm that is not my phone because then i can wake up without touching my phone at all and in fact i want to turn off the phone in the evening lock it in the closet and just leave it there until the next day after my most important work is done and on top of that i want to proactively schedule
Time when i’m going to be checking social media and if i fall off just continuing to get back on track again this final day we spend all day celebrating my friend’s birthday in this gorgeous place here in austin people socializing sunshine no phones it’s beautiful a lot of fun throughout these last few days i can safely say that i felt more present i felt more
Calm and also the creativity has been slowly coming back again now i’m really curious to see if the brain scan shows any significant results here we are after seven days of dopamine resetting last time i had quite a few mistakes this time i was super focused and much more calm during the exercise so now i hopped on a call with dr davis brockenshire he’s looked
At thousands of brain scans over the course of his career and we’ll look at the reports to see what happened to my brain this is your brain before the dopamine distraction we’ll notice that the back of the brain is very cold or very low voltage you’re putting out on average about 10 micro volts a little on the low end so this is consistent with somebody that has
A lot of screen time our sliding scale you can see you’re just tipping outside on the anxiety box let’s take a look at you after the fast voltage one up not bad you’ve healed a huge part of the back your brain this is exciting because this is the first time i’m seeing this as well the reaction speed your brain got quicker look what we did here so you went into
This on the verge of anxiety and you have totally normalized your alpha waves that’s remarkable you can’t do that in seven days so well done this is interesting there’s no red your brain is at peace and i’ve never seen blue in theta but this means your brain is extremely efficient at being calm it seems like this is the way to go wow that’s awesome hey there
I’m here to give you more dopamine check out this video here i put a ton of work into all of them it will not disappoint i’ll see you over there
Transcribed from video
How Dopamine Detoxing Changed My Brain By Leon Hendrix