Dopa-what?

Dopamine is one of the “feel good” chemicals in our brain. Interacting with the pleasure and reward center of our brain, dopamine — along with other chemicals like serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins — plays a vital role in how happy we feel. In addition to our mood, dopamine also affects movement, memory, and focus.

Dopamine detoxing is more or less the same as of any other detox. This is where doing so, results in lowering the bar,or how much dopamine is required to make you happy. Dopamine is in no means a bad thing, but short term dopamine hits such as the hit you gain from using social media or watching TV or even mindless binge eating when you're bored, is in no way healthy in my honest opinion, with each instance, you'll be craving more of it ,and since the effects dont last long,it will soon turn into a frequent habit, with parttakement in it just strengthening the routine.

Doing the detox involves you to refrain from: binge eating; Social media; Phone; TV; Gaming And in most cases reading and other short term bringers of dopamine.

I have no evidence backed by science that this works, but such as the keeping your tongue in a certain posture referred to as Mewing will improve your jaw. A large community does stand behind this idea and have had many positive feedback with doing the detox.

I however recommend doing a more periodic fast during certain points of the day as clarified in this post

https://www.reddit.com/r/nosurf/comments/dkda4b/a_dopamine_fast_that_everyone_should_do/

Am yet to implement something as such ,but the pace I am currently going to a more Mindful Day is a bit slower, but steady and more reliable for me in the long term essence of it.

I did this for just over 24 hours , and holy grail this was fun boring, but yet mildly enjoyable.

The thought of staying off my phone and laptop was difficult to say the least , but keeping away from anything that hits me in the right way, my iPod, the TV and my handhelds, was downright torture, having grown into them to my daily routine

The first 3 hours tested my patience ,and made me realize just how long an hour is. I could differentiate between an hour , passing early on the morning and one later in the evening the latter feels faster.

The rest of day was spent with reading ,meditation, journaling , some light exercises and playing around with my baby niece. The next 6 hours after my first three was more of a blur now that I think of it, with much my time in filler ,not doing anything productive until the latter part of the day where I started doing some studying, for my exams 4 weeks later of that day. Not to say all that filler wasn't particularly bad given the nature of this challenge is to do nothing mind tingling .

The night ended on a pleasant note with having a more sounder sleep and waking up more relaxed than what I'm used to. Not using the phone prior to bed , makes for a huge improvement in your sleep.

Sadly ,to my demise , the efforts of the day were in vain as ,the very next day was spent with the next 7 or so hours straight on my laptop and going back to my same bad habits. This may possible be due to the fact that the fast was not as long ,being only a day long, or more evidently ,that Old habits die hard.

I am once again in no way saying there's much of a science behind doing something so drastic to improve upon your habits, but I can for fact say that doing this was indeed a refreshing experience and a fast once in awhile such as during the end of the weekday can be a great way to start of your weekend.