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Dopamine Fast – Why you should start one today

Havard Mela — Fri, 02 Aug 2024 13:14:07 +0000

Why You Should Do A “Dopamine Fast” Today

The value of stillness in today’s world is underrated. It might be time for a dopamine fast.

It is simply astonishing how helpful it can be to unplug from the constant distractions we encounter online.

The big tech platforms have both a “tool component” and a “drug component”. To overcome the “drug component” that makes us addicted and waste a lot of time, we need conscious strategies.

The benefits of being conscious of our digital use are immense. If we limit our exposure, we will avoid the constant dopamine spikes we get from scrolling and overstimulation in general. Adding a few more tweaks will help us optimize our dopamine levels.

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that motivates us to do stuff and gives us pleasure when reaching rewards such as sex, food, and money.

By optimizing your dopamine levels, you will experience:

Excitement
Increased motivation
Confidence and drive
Becoming more goal-oriented

Everything will feel much more exciting, and you will have much more energy to get things done.

Dopamine will give you the ability to work hard towards your goals. Without it, you will be lazy and unmotivated. I remember the days when I used the internet in an unfocused, limitless way. It turned into a couch potato, and the reason was that all the easy pleasure I got online had a really bad effect on my dopamine system.

Anything that harms your dopamine system will make you less willing to work hard and be

disciplined. As we all know, to become successful or even live happy and meaningful lives, we have to make an effort and show up every day. And that becomes easier if your dopamine system works in your favor.

So, how do we prepare for a “dopamine fast”? Here are two necessary steps:

1. Become conscious of your digital life

Internet and Technology Addicts Anonymous (ITAA) has developed some great tools. However, you don’t have to be addicted to benefit from their models.

ITAA has a framework to classify different online behaviors. Determining what kinds of digital activities you need to be careful with, what are beneficial uses, and what is not an issue for you can be very useful. Using their framework made a big difference for me.

Their system is divided into bottom, middle, and top lines:

1. Bottom lines: We should abstain from digital activities at all costs.

These are our digital compulsions or addictions. When we engage in these activities, we cannot stop and we get lost in them. We lose self-esteem every time we spend time on our bottom lines. I recommend using Focusme to block your bottom lines.

2. Middle lines: These digital activities can trigger us.

Knowing what can trigger us to access our bottom lines is very important. Personally, I used to struggle with porn addiction, and for me watching porn is a bottom line. I am very conscious about anything that can trigger that unwanted behaviour, such as scrolling through Instagram or watching certain movies. Middle lines are digital activities that can lead us down the slippery slope to our bottom lines by triggering us by showing pictures and videos or evoking emotional states that make us vulnerable.

3. Top lines: These are healthy activities offline or with screens that empower us and improve how we feel about ourselves.

These kinds of activities keep us satisfied and happy and are beneficial to our lives. Top lines can be beneficial uses of technology, such as researching things, watching video lectures, recording music, and so on. Our top lines encompass healthy hobbies and activities we engage with outside tech that make our lives better.

Everyone’s bottom, middle, and top lines are different. We use different apps and digital activities online, and we have different interests and triggers. So, figuring out your bottom, middle, and top lines is a very useful exercise to gain some clarity.

By consciously thinking about what can trigger you, you are in a much better position to manage your digital use. That will help you become more aware and disciplined in your life.

2. Identify other ways you go for instant gratification

Here are some other typical ways to go for easy pleasure:

“Doomscrolling”
Playing video games
Excessive procrastination
Online gambling
And so on…

You are set when you have identified the other typical ways you go for instant gratification online.

The big benefits of a dopamine fast.

You don’t have to become a monk. Simply having some small habits you do every day can make a huge difference and reset your dopamine levels.

Fasting from dopamine isn’t possible and not desirable. After all, we need dopamine to get motivated, and it is technically impossible.

Instead, “dopamine fasting” is about minimizing exposure to cheap dopamine from social media, online porn, and so on.

Here are some examples that I have used:

No social media use for the first hour after waking
No social media use for the last hour before
Avoiding bottom lines (your problematic internet habits).
Going to the gym and leaving your phone at
Putting your phone in a different room for two hours while

If you avoid your bottom lines and also limit how much you go for instant gratification, your dopamine system will thank you.

Final thoughts

What matters most is that we limit the cheap pleasures in our lives. Otherwise, our brain’s reward system will become desensitized to the smaller pleasures in life. And your ability to work hard will disappear since your dopamine system is desensitized.

If you have too many easy pleasures in your life, the things you do to give you pleasure will produce pain.

It might not seem like fun to place restrictions on ourselves, but it will actually cause you to enjoy life a lot more and make the smaller things more enjoyable.

My life has improved by being more conscious about easy online pleasures. Having a healthy

dopamine system has also skyrocketed my ability to work hard. And the same can happen to you, too. Havard Mela is an author, coach, and digital minimalist. You can check out his website here.

If you feel it’s time for a dopamine fast, why not try FocusMe? Our FREE trial will get you on track for more productivity guaranteed! Click the button below to start a free trial today.

The post Dopamine Fast – Why you should start one today appeared first on FocusMe.

Technology Is A Double Edged Sword: 4 Ways To Avoid Cuts

Jon Rumens — Thu, 11 Mar 2021 20:33:02 +0000

We all know that technology is a double edged sword. Luckily, it's possible to benefit from the pros while avoiding the cons. Here's how...

Sure, we’ve all heard the phrase plenty of times, mostly coming out of a friend who had too much to drink at a very average party. In this context, and most others, it’s normally used to describe broad societal issues rather than the subtleties of our everyday lives. By the time we reach adulthood, we’ve been made acutely aware of the threats posed by nuclear war, chemical weapons and even caveman tech such as knives. Fortunately, most of us have also learned that nuclear power is far better than coal, chemicals are just as capable of saving lives as they are of ending them and sharp objects are mostly used for cutting food rather than robbing people. For the majority, that’s where the story ends. We accept the good with the bad, keep calm and carry on. But technology is a double edged sword that we experience everyday, mostly in mundane and barely noticeable ways.

Once we begin to recognize the role it plays in our lives, both positive and negative, we become empowered to decide which technologies are worthwhile despite the risks (think knives), which could probably be replaced (nuclear with renewables) and which are simply unavoidable and need only be managed responsibly (like chemicals). Here are 4 steps for building a healthier relationship with technology while also avoiding it’s worst side effects:

Prioritize

Before you can decide which technologies and usage methods are right for you, it’s important co consider what you’re willing sacrifice and for what benefits. The kinds of questions you’ll need to ask yourself on the way to making that decision include:

Is your privacy worth more to you than what you gain by giving it away?

Many people answer this question with, “well I have nothing to hide”. That’s all good and well, but there are other serious considerations when it comes to privacy. Probably the most important is that your personal data can now be used against you for other nefarious purposes besides old school spying. This includes unfairly influencing elections & policy, empowering companies to exploit your deepest fears for profit and, in extreme cases, even encouraging genocide.
Are some side effects on your physical and mental health a worthwhile price to pay for the benefits technology provides?

For most of us, the answer to this is an obvious yes. We know that the relatively negligible ill effects of an occasional TV binge are well worth 5 straight hours of watching libertarian hillbillies run shady big cat zoos. That said, there is also real and serious danger that comes with the use of certain technologies. You don’t have to be a 5G conspiracy theorist to agree that certain wavelengths and frequencies are harmful to humans and other species. There also aren’t many people telling their children about the wonders of the dark web or encouraging them to spend more time on social media. We all need to draw our own lines in the sand when it comes to which technologies we’re willing to accept into our lives and our societies. The only way to do this is by weighing up potential risks benefits.
What are your moral and ethical philosophies about technology and life in general?
It’s a big question, but one we all must confront if we hope maximize the benefits and avoid the pitfalls that come with being technological animals. Are you the kind of person who prefers to use the best and/or cheapest version of something, regardless of who created it, who benefits from it and what effects it has on the wider world? Or, do you believe in supporting ethical/sustainable companies & technologies? How you spend your time and money has a real effect on the wider world and the future of every being that inhabits it.
Answering these and other tough questions that have no one right answer and that we all approach differently is the first step to ensuring that you have a healthy relationship with technology.

Analyse

After you’ve decided your own boundaries and how you want to approach living with technology, the next step is to analyze how you use it. Are you addicted to or do you have an unhealthy dependence on any form of tech?

If you’re serious about living a balanced life in the 21st century, you have to regulate your technology usage. Some obvious signs of addiction or overuse are spending excessive amounts of time on a device or app, checking a device or app constantly and choosing tech time over important aspects of life such as socializing, work, exercise and eating well.

Does your use of technology help or hinder you when it comes to achieving your goals? If it’s the latter, what could you change that would help you to avoid the dangerous side of this double edged sword?

Research

If knowledge is not power, at the very least it can lead to some self-empowerment. Understanding the technology you use and the psychology behind why you do it will help you to ensure that the tool never guides the makers hand. For some, this might mean learning more about topics such as privacy or why big tech monopolies are a critical issue in the 21st century.

If your issues are with social media, news or gaming addiction, there are ways to break the cycle. In some cases, if you’re tough enough, you can just go cold turkey and delete the offending accounts or apps. You can also participate in online forums that function like AA meetings for tech junkies to get support and ideas from people who have had similar experiences. But this can be a self defeating act as your regular poison will still just be a click away. Things get even more problematic when, like literally billions of others, you work with a smartphone, computer or some other form of technology every day.

That’s where productivity management tools come in. Why try with one hand tied behind your back when you can simply bind both and thus ensure that you’ll stick to your goal. There are some free to use apps that do a job worthy of their price tag, meaning they’re usually easy enough to bypass that even beginners can untie themselves with ease. As a programmer myself, I could easily get around most self-imposed technical restrictions as soon as my will cracked, so I decided that only a proper set of handcuffs would do. Those handcuffs are FocusMe.

Test

After asking so many questions and making some big decisions about how you want to change your relationship with technology, the last thing left is put it all into practice.

For most people, the kinds of changes they want to make include reducing dependence on some form of tech or trying to better regulate the time we must spend using it. For others it may be a case of reducing tech hesitancy and embracing new technologies that once seemed too complicated, dangerous or expensive. Naturally, when reality and theory meet they aren’t always as compatible as they seemed in your head.

Which is why, either way, you’ll need to be patient as you adjust to your new way of doing things. Don’t be too hard on yourself if you fail sometimes or your new ‘rules’ simply don’t work in practice. The most important thing is to keep looking for better ways to strike the right balance. If at first you don’t succeed, go back to the drawing board, design a new strategy and try again.

If you’re serious about taking your productivity to the next level with a powerful attention management tool like FocusMe, you can learn more about how it works or simply get started now by clicking the big shiny button below!

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