What is dopamine fasting and is it really life changing?

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

The effectiveness of this method has been tested for centuries.

Dopamine fasting is one of the hottest healthy lifestyle trends. It was popularized by The Definitive Guide to Dopamine Fasting 2.0 - The Hot Silicon Valley Trend Cameron Sepah is a professor of clinical psychiatry at the University of California, a psychologist with extensive practice in Silicon Valley (USA). Sepa has tested this method on clients - investors and employees of large IT companies and startups. And he achieved amazing results. At least that famous world publications started talking about dopamine fasting How to Feel Nothing Now, in Order to Feel More Later.

What is dopamine fasting

This is a temporary, for an hour or a day, a conscious rejection of pleasures. Sex, fast food, favorite movies, watching social networks, music, hobbies - all this is prohibited during dopamine fasting. But it is allowed to walk, think, meditate, write on paper, do household chores, cook and eat as simple food as possible, communicate with loved ones - but only personally, and not through gadgets.

Such a "post" without bright tastes, emotions, entertainment looks boring. But this is its meaning.

How dopamine fasting works

Cameron Sepa's proposed dopamine diet is based on Dopamine fasting: Misunderstanding science spawns a maladaptive fad on cognitive behavioral therapy, a psychotherapeutic method that allows a person to perform two important actions:

• Realize (cognition - "cognition") their illogical, negative thoughts, desires, needs, habits and evaluate how they affect life.
• Change behavior to reduce the impact of these factors.

Temporary abandonment of momentary pleasures makes it possible to look at the world with a fresh look. For example, remember that even simple food (bread, milk, cereals, fresh vegetables and fruits) has a rich taste - we just do not notice it due to the habit of salty and spicy fast food and sweets. Understand that walking in the fresh air alone with your own thoughts is no less enjoyable than watching social networks. Or find that the hated work is actually interesting and even addictive - if not endlessly distracted by the phone.

Boredom Is Extremely Important I did a dopamine fast - here’s why it was amazing for my productivity. Against her background, any activity, even one that you previously avoided, becomes attractive. In the days following the fast, I was incredibly focused on getting the job done. I've never been more productive!

Dopamine Fasting Fan on Reddit

Actually, education of mindfulness is the main meaning of dopamine fasting according to Cameron Sep's version. Seeing and evaluating our habits from the outside, we get the opportunity to control them. And this improves the quality of life in general. Including helps to lead a healthy lifestyle or to show miracles of efficiency.

In an effort to enhance this effect, some ARE THE TECH BROS WHO ‘DOPAMINE FAST’ FULL OF SHIT? fans of the dopamine diet have gone even further. They reduce the amount of pleasure to almost zero: they refuse food, sports, sex, gadgets, conversations, and even eye contact with people. The logic is this: the more you limit yourself, the brighter the “taste of life” will be after the fast is over.

But Cameron Sepa himself and other psychologists consider Debunking Dopamine Fasting to be wrong. This mistake is caused by the incorrectness of the term "dopamine fasting".

What does dopamine have to do with it and why the term "dopamine starvation" is incorrect

To understand the issue, you need to remember what dopamine is. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter (a chemical that carries signals from neurons in the brain to cells in the body and back) that plays a critical role in learning. It rewards us with a sense of pleasure when we have done something that helps our body survive and pass on its genes.

The most primitive example: we found a healthy berry, ate it, the brain evaluated the taste and amount of calories received and released dopamine - we are pleased. Thus, the neurotransmitter helped to form the so-called context-dependent memory: "remember what exactly you ate and come back here to experience the pleasure again." Or we were praised for something - the brain realized that kindness increased the chances of survival, and again threw out dopamine. We feel good, we strive to receive the award again.

It is dopamine that is a guarantee that we will drink when we are thirsty, hide in the shade from the scorching sun, or do not miss the opportunity to have sex with a suitable partner.

But in the modern world, it has become too easy to get pleasant emotions. Eat a hamburger - here are the calories and a spike in dopamine. Wrote a post on social networks - attention and again an outburst. Scrolled the tape - you feel a feeling of involvement ("I'm not alone!"), And again the dopamine jump. People get hooked on the pleasures that are easily accessible. This is how addictions are formed.

The ability to quickly receive a reward scatters attention and prevents you from focusing on long-term goals. This is what the psychotherapeutic technique popularized by Cameron Sepa fights against. But not with dopamine per se.

Dopamine fasting is just catchy and, as Sepa himself admits to Debunking Dopamine Fasting, is a "technically incorrect" term.

A person physically cannot control the level of neurotransmitters naturally present in the body. Even if you completely abandon pleasures, dopamine will not decrease - only the number of instant bursts will decrease, which do not affect the general background.

This means that limiting yourself in absolutely everything, including food and communication, is absolutely pointless. This will not bring additional productivity or more thrills from life. It is enough to temporarily give up only some momentary joys.

How to organize effective dopamine fasting

This is not difficult. Set aside some time regularly - several hours or, say, one day - and consciously limit yourself to those desires that are personally problematic for you. For example, if you cannot imagine life without a smartphone and social networks, during the period of dopamine fasting, you should put all gadgets aside. Just "switch off" from the world of familiar pleasures.

Professor Sepa suggests The Definitive Guide to Dopamine Fasting 2.0 - The Hot Silicon Valley Trend to conduct dopamine fasting according to the following schedule:

• 1-4 hours at the end of the day. Times may vary depending on your job and family needs.
• One day off a week. For example Saturday or Sunday. Ideal if you spend this day outdoors.
• One weekend a quarter. It would be nice to spend it on a camping trip with loved ones. Or go to the neighboring city to admire the sights.
• One week a year. Combine a dopamine diet with a vacation.

Recommendations may seem trivial. And this is so. Dopamine fasting is far from an innovative idea. Any psychologist will tell you that sometimes you need to take a break from gadgets, work, news and devote time to simple things like walking and talking with your family. In addition, in most world religions there are days that prescribe distraction from work in order to reflect in silence and calm, to be alone with yourself and loved ones.

So dopamine fasting is just a new fashionable name for a centuries-old proven way to recuperate and redefine life values.