Dopamine Detox Experience
I tried dopamine detox for 7 days from 10th July to 17th July 2023. Did it change my life, the answer is YES but how and in what sense is what we’re going to talk about?
But before we get to the details, let’s establish some essential ground rules.
Life’s Last Edit by Rahul Makwana
Think of it as a self-help bible—not just a collection of lessons, but a guide to transforming your life.
Rules for Dopamine Detox
- Avoid Digital Entertainment: Skip social media, gaming, and TV. Instead, read a book or go for a walk.
- Limit Sugary & Processed Foods: Choose healthier snacks like fruit or nuts instead of sugary treats.
- No Unnecessary Purchases: Resist impulse shopping; spend time journaling or with loved ones instead.
- Replace Scrolling with Hobbies: Engage in creative activities like drawing, cooking, or exercising instead of aimless scrolling.
- Embrace Silence & Solitude: Avoid background noise like music or podcasts during quiet moments. Focus on being present.
Yes, it will be hard but as someone says,
Do hard things, have an easy life; do easy things, have a hard life.
These are advanced rules, and you don’t need to follow all of them at once. I went all in because I was curious to see how my body and mind would react.
You can start small—maybe cut out social media or skip OTT apps for a few days. Even just one change can make a noticeable difference in how you feel physically and mentally.
Don’t let the thought of quitting everything overwhelm you. Pick one rule, commit to it for a few days, and observe what happens. No excuses—just give it a try.
Is it Time for a Dopamine Detox?
No one knows what is the right time for Dopamine Detox because, from your perspective, you’re living a perfect life. You might be like, I’m doing good, why do I need to make any change?
To know whether you need Dopamine Detox, just answer these questions.
- Are you finding it challenging to stay focused on a single task?
- Do you often catch yourself mindlessly scrolling through social media or spending excessive time on your phone?
- Do you feel you’re not having fun doing things that you used to enjoy the most?
- You’re finding 30-minute videos or even movies too long and you’re scrolling on Reals, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts for hours.
- You’re having a hard time sleeping at night, hence you using a smartphone in your bed for hours?
- You don’t like to do exercise because you feel you don’t have time.
Answer these 6 questions with 100% honesty. No one is watching you, just answer to yourself.
Now even if the answer is YES for 2 to 3 questions then you need to try Dopamine Detox.
I get it—it’s tough to give up habits you’ve been attached to for years. But if you genuinely want to improve yourself and build a better future, these changes won’t feel impossible unless you let them be.
Assuming you want to try Dopamine Detox, it makes sense to understand what Dopamine and Dopamine Detox are.
Even if you’re not planning to try it, take a moment to read and understand why you shouldn’t give away your dopamine so easily to everything around you.
What is Dopamine and Dopamine Detox
To make it simple, Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that is sort of a messenger that tells you when to feel good.
For example, when you drink coffee, your brain releases dopamine, making you feel energized and alert.
The issue with dopamine is that if you drink coffee every day for a year, your brain becomes less responsive. Over time, the same cup of coffee won’t give you that initial boost of energy—it’s like your brain gets used to it.
Take masturbation as an example. If you do it every day for a year, the pleasure and satisfaction won’t feel as intense over time. On the other hand, if you space it out—say once a week or month—it tends to feel more enjoyable and fulfilling. This is because your brain has time to reset and respond more strongly.
Why do you feel this way?
When you start drinking more than one cup of coffee each day, your brain begins to adjust, making that extra caffeine the ‘new normal.’
Over time, instead of feeling energized after just one cup, your brain will crave even more caffeine to feel the same boost you got when you first started drinking coffee.
This is why people become addicted to substances like alcohol or drugs. Over time, the brain starts to crave more and more to feel the same effects, and before they realize it, they may become dependent.
As someone said “Moderation is the key to everything”
This is where the Dopamine Detox comes in,
Anyone can try Dopamine Detox, but it’s essential for those who no longer feel joy or satisfaction from activities like drinking coffee, masturbating, or even having sex. If these experiences have lost their spark, it’s likely a sign that your brain’s reward system is overstimulated and needs a reset.
The solution is not to release Dopamine too often.
Benefits of Dopamine Detox
The Dopamine Detox doesn’t mean, you have to stop having SEX but it rather means, you have to cut down on unnecessary things. So you can focus more on the things that matter.
- More focus and clarity
- improved self-control
- Increased appreciation for simple things
- Reduced anxiety
- Better sleep quality
All these benefits or rules may sound basic but once you try out Dopamine Detox and experience it all, you will realize how it feels to be a normal person who enjoys everything about life.
Now, let me share with you my 7-day Dopamine Detox journey.
I Tried Dopamine Detox For 7 Days
To get some idea, I tried the Dopamine Detox for seven days, and yes, I went all in, I didn’t skip a single rule.
I will add the rules below, so read those and make sure you don’t try every single rule at once.
My Dopamine Detox Date:
- Start: 10th July 2023
- End: 17th July 2023
By the way, if you’re from India and if you understand Hindi then do watch my video on Dopamine Detox, this way you will be able to understand better.
Day 1
I’m someone who loves coffee and I’m someone who doesn’t want to quit. This was the biggest challenge for me.
I usually wake up every day at 5:00 AM and do all the normal things, like, brush, take pop, and freshen up.
At around 5:30 minutes, normally I make coffee for myself and drink the same for about 30 minutes on the roof of my house. This is one of my favorite things to do in the morning.
I also walk for 30 minutes while I drink coffee, it feels amazing. I enjoy every second till I finish my coffee.
Now, if you love coffee as I do then you already know that it’s not that easy to quit. Even if you manage to quit for a day, the day feels empty.
That’s what happened on the first day which was 10th July 2023.
Today, I woke up at 5:00 AM and did all the normal things. The hard part started at 5:30 AM, I didn’t know what to do.
For about 10 minutes, I thought about drinking coffee but then I thought it’s only 7 days, so let’s go with it.
So what I did was, I started working on the article that I was supposed to write after 8:00 AM.
I wrote for about 2 hours and finished a few articles. I read the same and I realized “Whatever I have written is trash.” No one will enjoy reading, even Search Engines won’t like it.
So I deleted everything. Wasted 2 hours.
The problem was, I really wanted to drink coffee, I even started thinking “about how it tests, feels, and the things I used to do when drinking”
So again, I reminded myself that this is only for 7 days.
Till around 8:00 AM everyone from my family was awake, so I went outside, had breakfast, and spent time with them.
After that, I had to do something else. I would have either drunk coffee, sugar, or something else and my Dopamine Detox would have ended right there.
But I didn’t do such things. Instead, I set up the lights, cameras, and laptop. And, I started shooting videos for YouTube, I did this till evening. Shot two videos, edited the same, and kept them on my computer.
Normally, I don’t shoot two videos in a single day, sometimes, I don’t even shoot one.
But, this was different, I had plenty of time to kill and I used that time to do some work.
At around 6:00 PM, I had dinner with my family and went to sleep at 8:00 PM. This too was different as I normally go to sleep at 9 to 9:30 PM. The dinner was on time, no changes there.
Day 1 ended at 8:00 PM.
(Social Media wasn’t really hard because I had cracked that years ago. For those who have a hard time quitting social, I will cover this in the movement)
Day 2
Day 2 was kind of easy compared to Day 1 because I had figured out what went wrong on day 1.
So I woke up at 5:00 AM, did all the normal things, and this time, I went outside at 5:30 AM for a walk. This was a gaming-changing movement.
For about 30 minutes, I was outside of my house. No one was there, except for a few dogs.
When I reached my home, I exercised for about 30 minutes, took a bath, and had breakfast with my family.
At around 9:25 AM, I wrote a newsletter and scheduled the same for the evening. By the way, you can join BookiesTalk Newsletter. It’s free.
Now, this too was different because I don’t write a Newsletter on Friday. The newsletter schedule is every Sunday at 9:00 AM (IST).
After that, I wrote a new article for BookiesTalk and made some changes to other articles.
Around 11:30 AM, I had lunch, and after 1 hour, I shot intro footage for the Dopamine Detox Video. I also edited the same and kept all the footage.
After the launch, I wrote another article on Bookiestalk along with a few new web stories.
Again, the same, I had dinner at 6:00 PM and went to sleep at 8:00 PM.
Day 3
Day 3 was easy because I went to a new city with my family. We also went to one of our relatives and spent all day there.
So day 3 ended. I was busy all day long and I was with my family, so everything felt good while I didn’t even think about Dopamine detox or even coffee.
Yes, I had to say No to Coffee and Tea with a heavy heart to relatives.
Day 4, 5, 6 and 7
I won’t repeat the same things, like, I woke up at 5:00 AM and things I did because you already know that.
On day 4, I knew that I was doing Dopamine detox. So I just accepted that and went ahead with the day.
Did all the things, like, Shooting videos, writing articles, editing a few videos, reading books, exercising, and going out with Friends.
What I learned on days 4,5, 6, and 7 was,
The first two days are very hard (The last day will be easiest), I mean very very hard but if you can pass the first two days then, it gets easy and you start accepting that, this is what it is now.
Your brain becomes aware of the things you have been doing. It will for sure, force you to do something out of the box but if you can resist then everything will be fine.
So what you have to do is, just take care of day 1 and day 2 and the rest will be easy peasy.
Day 7 has ended, so it makes sense to share the screen on time of my smartphone.
Look, I’m running a few websites and I need WhatsApp, this is the reason why I was using WhatsApp. After all, WhatsApp is a messaging App.
Day 8
Finally, I enjoyed a cup of coffee while filming, and I’ve included it in the final cut. I had it around 10 AM, which is the perfect time because the caffeine won’t disrupt your sleep later when you go to bed at night.
Yes, day 8 went faster than day 1.
I didn’t even realize that I was doing Dopamine Detox because I was enjoying my work. The first couple of days were a bit tough, but after that, everything started to feel much easier.
The question you might have is, will I quit coffee? the answer is NO, why would I.
Because I’m not someone who drinks two to three cups of coffee every day, I enjoy Coffee but only one cup in the morning.
As I have said, you don’t have to isolate yourself from the internet, use it if your work requires it. The idea of Dopamine Detox is to cut down on unnecessary things.
What to Do after Dopamine Detox
If you have followed every step then after 7 days, you will know where to spend your time but keep in mind, your mind is complex and it has all the memories.
So make sure you’re aware of it and don’t start using social media too often, movies, Porn, or anything else. Keep it simple, use social media but for a few minutes, not for hours.
Remember, you started Dopamine Detox because you wanted to make a change in your life. Now that you’ve achieved that change, stick to it. Going back to old habits will make it much harder to start over again.
I would suggest you write down your thoughts when you try Dopamine Detox for the first time, especially, write the first two days.
If you don’t know how to write your thoughts, please visit “Writing A Thoughts” (chapter. 7). It will be a big help.
So whenever you feel like using social media, just go back and read the first two days. This will remind you of what happens when you use social media for hours.
Reminder, don’t forget to write down your thoughts when you try dopamine detox for the first time.
It doesn’t matter where you write, just write your feelings.
In the same way, start adding a few extra things to your daily routines. Like reading books, doing meditation, exercising, going out for walks, or just running.
Deal with Social Media Addiction
I promised you, I’ll talk about social media, so here we go.
When you try Dopamine Detox, you’re not quitting Social Media for a lifetime, you’re just quitting for a few days and after that, you can always use all these websites that you love using.
So keep this in mind when you try doing Dopamine Detox because this is a very important trick to fool your brain.
But if you tell yourself that I will quit social media for a lifetime then you won’t be able to quit it. After a few days or even hours, you will come back on social media.
When you say, I will only do this for 7 or even 2 days. Your mind will be like only 2 days, this is not that hard, so do it, I’m with you.
If you play with your mind smartly then you can do whatever you want. You just need to understand how your brain works. Remember, the brain doesn’t like drastic changes but if the changes are small and for a few days, it doesn’t give you a hard time.
Even after doing all this, you will have the urge to use social media but you just have to keep it inside and don’t use it because this is the key movement of your life.
If you manage to keep your distance from social media for the first 24 hours then the next day will be very easy because you have completed day 1 without social media.
The key part here is to complete the first 24 hours and you will be more than okay on the next day.
Your brain treats this like a reward. So from the next day, it won’t force you as much as it did on day 1.
So be aware of your actions and see where you’re spending your time. Do whatever you want to do, just don’t start using your smartphone and social media for 5 to 6 hours.
You’re not doing this for me or anyone else, this is for you and only you. Whatever benefits you will get are for you. So take care of yourself because that’s your job.
Risk of Dopamine Detox
Dopamine Detox is not scientifically proven and some scientists even believe that quitting social media, movies, TV shows, stopping masturbation, or even Sex can lead to,
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Fatigue
- Irritability
- Difficulty concentrating
- Sleep problems
The reason for these problems is that quitting everything can leave you feeling empty, making it hard to focus on other things.
My advice would be, don’t try to quit everything. Try to quit a few things. Like, Social Media, Coffee, masturbation, Porn, Movies, or something else. Remember to Stay active, do what you love, and stay close to loved ones. Balance makes change easier.
Also, Dopamine Detox will be different for different people. You might not feel anything new after seven days while other people can feel like they are in heaven.
Dopamine Detox FAQs
Conclusion
The idea of Dopamine Detox is not to unplug yourself from social media, masturbation, porn, sex, gaming, movies, or even materialistic things.
The idea is to have control over Dopamine and use this neurotransmitter to your advantage rather than being addicted to it.
Be aware of your actions and see,
- How many hours do you spend on a smartphone
- How many cups of coffee do you drink every day
- How many porn videos do you watch every day
- How many times do you masturbate
- Why you don’t feel like exercising
- Why do you love reading threads on X /(Twitter) rather than reading books?
Dopamine Detox won’t change your life drastically but it can give you the right path that you can follow. In the end, you have to take action and keep in mind, you have a choice.
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