Dopamine is a neurotransmitter, a chemical that ferries information between neurons. The brain releases it when we eat food that we crave or while we have sex, contributing to feelings of pleasure and satisfaction as part of the reward system. It boosts mood, motivation and helps regulate movement.
People with lower levels of dopamine are more prone to addiction. That’s why they seek it more. Now as you see it controls the reward circuit of your brain, you can easily start to abuse it. And by becoming addicted to dopamine seeking behaviors you become a Dopamine monkey. Now we’ll look at some of the easy ways to not becoming a dopamine monkey.
Going black and white on your on desktop and mobile will do wonders for your concentration. You will get a far less stimulation while using your phone and desktop than you used to before. This is return will easily reduce the time that you spend looking at your phones and desktop and will get you more time to create content rather than just passively consume it. The color in your phones is designed to keep you longer on the phones the red notification badges will become less SHOUTY when they’re a boring grey. But still they are legible and you do not receive any less information its just the way in which the information is being delivered to you has changed. But you will still have other effects that could influence you like the slot machine effect in social media apps. One tip for social reducing app usage is that just don’t download the apps go on them by your browser, the modern browsers are just as powerful as the apps themselves. Obviously if its apps like Messenger or Whatsapp then the option is still to download the app because of the rich feature set that they offer. But having INTENT is what matter, when using your mobile phone or your desktop have an intent in your mind and remind yourself of that intent of why are you using the device and stay on track, its kindof like meditation you try not to have any thoughts and as soon as you have a thought you acknowledge the thought and you move ahead.
Stop Multitasking when it is not essential. Stop listening to music when reading or studying. Stop watching netflix during your meals. Concentrate on the task that you are performing. Think of it as an mindfulness experience. Be immersed in what you are doing even if that may be trivial.
When I brush my teeth, I brush my teeth — Anonymous
More analog is better. Have a separate space to play around with pencils, pens, paper, index cards, newspaper. A space meant only for thinking and playing with these analog tools. Do not bring any electronics here. And once you start getting your ideas you can then transfer them onto your digital station.
Log everything any activity you want to do on a consistent or daily basis such as reading, writing, gym — keep track of them with effective tools. The best way to manage my time is to have excel sheet with the time I’m awake and divide it into 15 mins spaces and then list down the activity that I performed in that space. It really helps you keep track of time, and the experience of having ‘lost’ time is gone. For gym tracking I use the app fitNotes to keep track of the exercises and my previous lifts. For keeping track of the books I have read I use goodreads and update the progress of my current books on a daily basis.
Try out few of the points listed above and let me know of the improvments you noticed in yourself. My twitter DMs are open.
