Dopamine Fasting: Abstaining for Personal Growth

Written by JD Delcastillo

To not sound like a regurgitated WebMD article, dopamine is casually known as the “feel-good” chemical. It’s produced in parts of the brain and plays a role in almost every function of the body. Its main goal is to motivate the body. Contrary to popular belief, your decisions are not because you’re a *insert astrology sign*. It’s because your brain knows that your body produces the most dopamine when you do that thing.

Kim Cattrall, the actor who played the iconic Samantha in Sex and the City, once said she doesn’t want to be in a situation for more than an hour where she’s not enjoying herself. Your brain feels the same way. The more dopamine an action produces, the more inclined you are to repeat it. This has to do with something in your brain called the “rewards system,” which is when your brain processes actions you make and creates a habit out of the ones that feel rewarding.

The excitement you get when you hear your favorite song. The love that fills your heart when you see your partner. The joy you feel when you buy new clothes. These are all good examples of things that give you dopamine. These jolts of dopamine are why you have favorite songs, attract certain people, and have a specific taste for fashion. Who doesn’t want to repeat the things that make them feel best?

Dopamine is great. It’s one of the vital pieces of our anatomy that allows us to live life and express ourselves to the fullest; at its core, it will enable us to feel joy. However, there’s a catch. There is always a catch.

Dopamine is addictive. Our brains are wired to seek it. Although we can make claims of free will or appeal to the strength of willpower, our brain will always influence what the rest of our body does. If one were to feed into this constant need for dopamine, the brain would rewire to constantly need that source and be unable to complete other actions without it. Further down the road, your brain will build a tolerance to dopamine, and you’ll need to find more stimulating activities to satisfy the need. The more pleasure you’re used to feeling, the more painful it will feel when you aren’t.

This is how addictions form, and when it comes to dopamine, you can be addicted to anything. Just to name a few, people are addicted to shopping, social media, sex, drugs, attention, alcohol, food, and other people. The list could go on. Whatever to get you that quick fix of dope…amine.

Dopamine becomes a double-edged sword in this regard since you can’t help it when your brain produces it. Not all sources of dopamine are negative in their explicit use, but they can become harmful when abused. The use of cannabis can have so many benefits medically and relieve stress overall. Still, the line between it being a leisure and a crutch becomes blurred the more it gets used. Sex is euphoric when done right and with the right person. However, it can also become negative if it’s constantly sought out and obtained without consideration for other factors like your health or emotional well-being.

In recent years, with more awareness among the public about dopamine and how it ties into mental health, a new concept was created in order to self-regulate the feel-good chemical: the dopamine fast. Originally created as a form of a “digital detox,” the idea is to abstain from using technology so that your brain can get used to the levels of dopamine it has without it. One popular form of the dopamine fast is for one day. You can only meditate, journal, drink water, walk, and think. This allows for the ultimate blockage from all sources of dopamine and is only done quarterly throughout the year. There’s not enough research to determine whether this positively affects people’s emotions or motivation, but it at least makes sense in theory. If you give your brain a dopamine tolerance break, it’ll force the brain to produce it in a healthier manner. This concept is why it’s become popular to do social media cleanse. We've realized that the dopamine social media gives us is making us overstimulated and is frying our brains. We live in an era of overindulgence. We constantly accept quantity over quality in our life, and it’s time to change.

This season, people need to take a hiatus and fast from these harmful sources of dopamine so that we can reset our brains. It’s easier said than done when you live in a country of overconsumption. However, it will do wonders for your physical and mental health.

The main benefit would be reclaiming your focus. You have a hard time paying attention during a lecture or completing tedious assignments because the action isn’t stimulating, and it isn’t producing any dopamine. If you’ve gotten this far into the article without checking your phone, then hey, your attention span and dopamine levels are excellent. Committing to a dopamine fast will teach your brain that it doesn’t need frequent distractions when doing a task for it to be completed.

Another possible benefit from a fast could be the realization that you never needed these sources of dopamine in the first place. After weeks of hooking up with that sneaky link, you go a few days without talking to them. You start to realize that the relationship wasn’t good for anything besides a distraction. Any bad habit that you consciously try to curb can be eliminated if you put in the effort.

The primary purpose of the dopamine fast is to take a more natural and self-involved route to improve your health. Although it can benefit some to get on medication and go to therapy, it doesn’t hurt to try alternative methods for self-improvement. A break from all the things in your life that provide you with dopamine can help you develop a deeper appreciation for them and give you a clearer vision of what negative sources you can live without.