I Did A 24-Hour ‘Dopamine Fast’. This Is What Happened…
With entertainment and distractions literally at our fingertips, we are spending more and more time on social media, watching Netflix and playing video games. Whenever we feel bored for a minute, we grab our smartphone and distract ourselves. Or what about grabbing a nice sugary or high-fat snack in order to fill the gap of boredom?
The question is, why do we do these kinds of things even though we know it isn’t good for us? The answer can be found in your brain.
Want Some Dopamine, Bro?
You see, every time you scroll through Instagram, watch something on YouTube or Netflix, receive likes on your Facebook post, play some Call of Duty, masturbate to porn or take a bite of a nice juicy hamburger, your brain produces a strong hit of the neurochemical dopamine.
Essentially, your brain is addicted to dopamine and it feels really good whenever dopamine is produced. Therefore, your brain will try to stimulate the repetition of the behaviour that produced the dopamine in the first place. And that’s where things go wrong for us nowadays.
