The Dopamine Detox: Is It Real or Hype?
What is it? How do you do it? What are the results of it? Is it backed by science?
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Ever find yourself lost in an endless sea of notifications, falling down the rabbit hole of social media, or maybe reaching for just one more sweet treat more often than you’d like?
If you can relate, then you may be interested in the popular topic of dopamine detox.
What is it?
How do you do it?
What are the results?
Is it backed by science?
That’s what I’m talking about today.
The dopamine detox has been trending for a while, especially on TikTok, and people doing it suggest taking a break from activities that trigger the release of dopamine. These activities include social media, email, texting, watching streaming shows, and consuming sugar.
The idea is that engaging in these activities releases dopamine, which promotes compulsive behavior or psychological dependence on the pleasure you receive from engaging in the behavior.
So taking a break from them breaks the dependence and improves your mental well-being. That’s the premise behind the concept.
Is it a real thing?
Yes and no.
There is value in taking a break from things you compulsively engage in, especially if you feel you don’t have control over the behavior, but you can’t really detox or eliminate the production of dopamine in your brain.
So eliminating these activities for several days doesn’t reduce dopamine production as the name implies. That’s just not how the brain works.
Let me explain.
Dopamine is a chemical messenger, also known as a neurotransmitter, that plays several important roles in your brain and body.
We mostly think of it as a chemical produced in the brain, but it’s also produced by other organs such as the kidneys, adrenal glands, and your gut. But for our purposes today, we’re talking about its effect on your brain.
Dopamine has a lot of roles, but two big ones are reward and motivation. Reward refers to a process of reinforcing behavior because you experience a positive outcome.
It’s like having a hype man or woman.
You’ve probably seen those videos where someone is dancing or rapping and there’s someone cheering them on to keep going.
Dopamine does that.
If you experience something pleasurable, like a delicious sweet treat or a really funny video, dopamine gets secreted and sends the message, “Yes, this is nice. Do it again.” Dopamine helps entrain habits so that you can do these things on autopilot without much effort.
Dopamine is also important for motivation, which is the desire or willingness to do something. People who are depressed or have ADHD have dips in dopamine production and therefore struggle to feel motivated to do things.
This reward system can be a double-edged sword though. While it can drive beneficial behaviors like learning, creativity, and perseverance, it can also contribute to the development of unhealthy habits or addictions when we repeatedly seek rewards from harmful substances or activities.
This is where the idea of the detox comes from, breaking through habits and compulsive behaviors that are detrimental to your mental health.
People undertaking a dopamine detox aim to remove from their lives daily stimuli like social media, sugar, or shopping and replace them with less compulsive behaviors and better lifestyle choices. This fast can vary from a few hours to several days.
The concept of a dopamine fast or detox was introduced by Dr. Cameron Sepah, a psychologist and assistant professor at the University of California, San Francisco.
He also works as a coach for high-level executives in Silicon Valley. As a way to de-stress, he teaches clients how to reduce overstimulation from things like phone notifications, text messages, or social media alerts. He refers to these things as causing quick hits of dopamine that reinforce distracting behaviors.
So the fast or detox is about taking a break from these quick-hit activities so you can focus on the things that are more adaptive and reduce mental overwhelm. Your body naturally produces dopamine regardless of what you’re exposed to.
Remember, you need dopamine for motivation, learning, movement, and other important body functions. So a better representation of the dopamine detox may be a digital unplug.
There’s been a growing body of research finding that excessive use of smartphones has negative impacts on mental health and eye health from having the phone too close.
Many of these studies are looking at the negative impacts on adolescents related to overstimulation and negative self-image from unrealistic social media expectations.
So the moral of this story is,
although you’re not technically detoxing from dopamine because your body still produces it for other reasons and from other activities that you enjoy, reducing your digital exposure, or if that’s not as much of an issue for you, reducing activities that consume you like overeating sugar, gambling, or shopping just to name a few compulsive behaviors, reducing these things is still beneficial for your mental health and can help you feel less tense, less scattered, more mentally clear, and maybe even more content.
The benefits depend on how the behaviors were affecting you. But in general, overstimulation, even if it’s pleasurable stimulation, is taxing for your mind and can make you feel more on edge. We all need mental downtime.
How long should you fast?
It can be days, or some people will take a break for a week and see how they feel.
What can you do to fill the gap?
Here’s a few things.
Try engaging in mindful awareness. Using all of your senses, notice what’s going on around you at the moment. You don’t have to be sitting still.
If you’re doing laundry, notice the different textures of the clothes. Notice the smell of the detergent. What sounds do you hear in the room while you’re putting the clothes in the machine? These are probably all things you pay very little attention to while you’re doing this, but taking in the details of each experience while you’re doing it puts you in the moment and reduces worry and rumination about future things or the past.
You can also use the extra time to engage in peaceful, low mental effort activities, like puzzles or coloring. You can connect with someone, either in person or remotely.
Have a conversation and pay close attention to what the person is saying. Listen as if you’re planning to transcribe the conversation. Then from time to time, repeat back part of what they said to make sure you heard it right.
This would sound like, “So if I’m hearing you right,” or, “So you mean this,” or “You really did that,” with that being a summary of what they just told you they did. This kind of listening makes you more available during the conversation.
