how to *quickly* escape a dopamine hole

Do you ever feel sometimes in this world that we live in, that your brain is, like, glitching? And what I mean by that is that you're like, I'm going to sit down, I'm going to. I'm going to get some work done, I'm going to be productive. And then suddenly you're checking your phone, you're hopping between tabs that are on your computer, you're on your phone scrolling mindlessly on Instagram or TikTok, and you don't even consciously do any of it. Like, it just kind of happens. Have you ever found yourself in that situation? I'm sure that you probably have. I find myself there all the time. But then you start to wonder yourself, like, why can't I focus? Like, why can't I sit down and actually focus and get done what I need to get done? Like, why do I feel stuck even though I'm doing everything that's right? Why do I keep feeling like I'm working hard and spinning my wheels? And so today, what I'm gonna talk about is the antidote for all of that. And I'm gonna teach you basically how to reclaim all of those things. Your focus, your motivation, your drive, and especially your, like, your joy for life. It's time to add some more fun. It's time to add more color to your life, to actually have more happiness when you experience things instead of things just feeling kind of like muted. And we're gonna talk about one of the most powerful tools that really people talk about. And it's this idea of a dopamine. Detox a dopamine fast. And this isn't like a biohack your way into being a productivity machine. It's really about more than anything else, healing your nervous system and retraining your brain and reconnecting with your purpose and once again having more joy in your life. And so I really, really, really feel like today's episode is really important. And I hope that every person who's listening to this tries this at least one time just to see the benefits. So let's dive in and let's talk about it. So when you look at dopamine, everybody's heard of what dopamine is, but what is it actually? Dopamine's often misunderstood, and people think it's like a feel good chemical, it's a pleasure chemical, but that's only kind of part of the story. Dopamine is your brain's motivation fuel. It's the chemical behind wanting something, behind craving, behind anticipation of something, behind Seeking. And it's also the chemical behind addiction. The most addictive drugs in the entire world are high dopaminergic drugs like cocaine, methamphetamines, nicotine, opioids. Opioids, Whatever you say, I think it's opioids. And it's the chemical of motivation. And it pushes you towards doing something. It push you towards your goals or push you towards, you know, scrolling on your phone for a little while. And it's what lights up when you're chasing a reward. And your brain loves that chase and it loves getting there. But the problem is your brain doesn't care what the reward is. Exactly. It doesn't care. You know, it treats Instagram likes and potato chips and doom scrolling and porn the same way that it uses and thinks of deep goals and personal growth and deep relationships. It doesn't matter where it gets the dopamine from. It just kind of wants the dopamine. And if it gets a hit of dopamine, your brain goes, oh my gosh, yes, I want more of that. And over time, if you're not paying attention, this pattern will evolve and it creates a really big problem for a lot of people. And we will be right back. Hey, I want to interrupt today's episode to tell you about my sponsor. It is me, myself, if you didn't know. I obviously have some coaching programs outside of the podcast to help you learn and grow and become a better version of yourself. And step by step programs and processes to help you become better in your life and create the life that you want. If you want to learn more about it, you can go to coachwithrob.com once again, coachwithrob.com check it out and let's get back to the episode. And the reason why it's such a big problem is because we live in a world of hyper overstimulation, like way more than it should be. You know, we have highly processed foods. We have. You could scroll all day long for the rest of your life on social media so you have infinite scrolling. You could do. We have video games that are just fast paced and insane at this point. We have on demand everything. We have texts and emails all day long. And your brain, dude, it's exhausted. Like it's, it's just like, can I get a fricking break? And when you constantly flood your brain with dopamine spikes, your baseline drops. And this is really important for we're going to talk about today and why you want to do this. When your dopamine baseline drops, what it means is that you can't focus very well. You lose motivation for meaningful work. The simple pleasures in life don't really give you any pleasure anymore, Just kind of feel dull, and you crave these quick hits of dopamine to avoid deep work. And studies have actually shown that this overload in your brain and your system can impair your ability to filter distractions, which leads you to being, you know, a huge lack of focus, high heightened irritability, more confusion, more agitation. And there's a thing that's called the reinforcement sensitivity theory that says that overstimulation is linked to anxiety. And it's activated when all of the stimuli that's coming into our brains all day long exceeds our brain's processing threshold. It's basically like if you were like, weird analogy, but it's like if you were burning your taste buds with hot sauce and doing it over and over again, eventually nothing tastes like anything. That's kind of what our lives have become like. We have so much dopamine everywhere that we can get from all of these infinite amount of things going on around us that life just kind of loses its luster. It's not as exciting. And that's where you really want to start thinking about dopamine fasting. And it's not a punishment to you in any sort of way. What it is really more than anything else is it's a recalibration for your brain. And so a dopamine fast isn't about removing dopamine because that's completely impossible. It's about reducing the artificial spikes so that your brain can basically have a full reset. And so when you remove these distractions, what happens is your brain rebalances. It becomes more sensitive to. To everything, to sights, to sounds, to taste. It becomes more sensitive to small rewards. Now, things that used to be exciting, that aren't exciting anymore, well, they become exciting again. Another thing that happens is your focus will sharpen. You can sit and read and think and be, again, more focused and not feeling like you're distracted. You constantly have to be looking at something and doing something all the time. You could probably go to the bathroom and not have to have your phone with you, right? So you. Your deep thoughts and your intuition also get louder. The insight that you're looking for lives in the quiet and your true desires start to emerge. Not like the cravings that you're just trying to do of get all of this dopamine and getting it all in, but kind of like the calling that you're looking for in your life. And so the reason why this matters, the real truth is that most people are in this world, are not lazy. They're just overstimulated in their life. And they're also very under aligned. Meaning, you know, you want to do meaningful work, you want to do deep focus, you want presence with your family, you want to be able to get off your phone, you want to be able to not work when you're on vacation. You want more joy and you want more happiness in your life. But your brain is stuck in this loop of like, I need the next hit, I need the next hit, I need the next hit. Exactly like an addict would be. And a dopamine fast doesn't just reset your brain. It rewires your habits in many ways as well. And what is important to you in your life. And so let me give you just the real, simple neuroscience of resetting all of this and how it actually works in your brain, and then I'll tell you how to actually do it. Okay, here's what the research actually tells us. Dopamine has a baseline, which is your normal level, and spikes, which is when you get some sort of reward. So you have a normal level and then you have the spike, which is whenever you see a puppy, whenever you get onto Instagram, whenever you have a piece of cake. So we have a dopamine baseline, which is our normal level, and then we have spikes, which is when we get some sort of reward. And when you have high frequency rewards, which is snacking a lot, scrolling a lot, constantly being entertained, you actually drop your baseline over time, which means that your normal level of dopamine actually lowers because you have so many hits of dopamine all the time in a lower baseline means less motivation, more anxiety, and more distraction and less focus. But what happens when you remove those artificial spikes that we're talking about? Well, your baseline actually begins to rise again, which is really important. And you get more pleasure from less things, and you stop needing constant overstimulation all day long. And you basically recover your ability to feel joy, to feel focus and peace and drive. And you go from like, numb and reactive and anxious to clear and calm and more intentional. So let's talk about how to actually do this. Okay, let me, let me be honest with you. If you're going to do this, the first few hours of a dopamine fast might feel a little bit brutal. And I don't mean like it hurts in any sort of way. Like, you're not going to be any pain. It's not dangerous. To do this, but it might feel brutal. You know, you might reach for your phone without thinking and realize, oh, my phone's not there. You might feel restless, you might feel irritated, you might even start to feel anxious, but you'll actually start to notice when you do a dopamine detox. You do a dopamine fast, you'll notice how addicted you are to being stimulated all the time and being busy all of the time. And boredom might pop up. No big deal. What's the danger of boredom? Boredom is just the lack of stimulation. So get bored, be bored. If boredom pops up, let it. If your emotions start to pop up, you know, if you get mad or angry or agitated or sad, feel them. That's what emotions are there for. You know, it's not that that boredom is not bringing up your emotions. It's finally giving you some space to let these emotions that you've been trying to push down for so long finally have some space to come up and feel expressed. If your thoughts start to race, your brain goes all over the place. Don't do anything about it, just listen. It's okay for your brain to go all over the place if these things happen. You're not failing, you're detoxing. And I've never heard of a comfortable detox, you know, and someone goes into to rehab, their detox is not very comfortable. But it won't be as dramatic, hopefully as doing a detox when you go into a rehab. But this is your nervous system actually working through some things and coming back online. Here's what you really want to expect if you do a dopamine detox, okay, after you do 24 hours, if you do a 24 hour detox in some sort of way, you'll notice in that moment as you're going through it, how often you reach for some sort of a distraction, something to keep you busy all the time. Your phone and eating all of the time and going onto the computer and going and turning on Netflix and then turning on HBO Max and then trying to watch something else and trying to keep yourself busy. You'll notice how often you reach for distractions. You'll see it and it's crazy how much you try to keep yourself busy. We are incredibly distracted. Your mind will feel really noisy the first day because you're not keeping so busy that you're avoiding the thoughts and feelings that maybe you've been avoiding for a long time. But as you do this, you will become less reactive and less anxious. If you want to go longer than 24 hours. Here's what also you'll notice, you'll mental clarity in two to seven days, depending on what you want to do. I know people that do, you know 14 day gifts detoxes from their phone and from TV. They notice. And what I've literally seen, like I've even personally myself, I've done a 10 day silent meditation retreat where you can't speak to people, you can't look people in the eyes, you can't journal, you can't read, you can't do it, you can't work out, you can't do yoga, you can't go for a run. The only thing you could do is meditate or stare at a tree. And what you'll start to notice as you do these detoxes is your mental clarity increases, your emotional resilience deepens. You will feel more in control of your thoughts. You'll feel more in control of your habits. You might cry, you might laugh, you might finally start to feel again. Like. I remember on day seven of my silent meditation retreat, I felt absolute like rage come out of me and I was so mad and I was sore and I was meditating for so long and I didn't say anything out loud, but I was like screaming at people in my head and I was like, I'm just gonna fight through, I'm just gonna keep going. I'm just gonna keep doing this. Cause clearly there's something that this rage that's coming out of me is something that's been probably pushed down for a while. Then on day eight, I remember sitting there and it was an hour long meditation I was in a session for. I stayed there for two and a half hours. Cause I've never felt so great in my entire life. And you don't have to do a 10 day silent meditation retreat if you don't want to. I do recommend it, it's amazing. But day eight, I remember just sitting there and just like crying because I never felt so much joy in my entire life. The crazy thing I was doing, nothing, literally nothing. Day nine, exact same thing. Day ten, exact same thing. And I was like, oh my God, this is amazing. What was really crazy about it is then I looked at my phone after day 10 because I just wanted to see what there was. NBA playoffs that were going on and I want to see the results. I looked at my phone for like five minutes and I got a headache and I was like, oh my God, this is crazy. I was driving back home to go from Dallas to Austin and I stopped at a place to get a burger and I had to walk into this restaurant and the TVs were on and there's music playing. And I got a headache just from walking into the restaurant, being there for like five minutes. So you'll realize how much all of these distractions have actually lowered your joy and your depth for life. And so it's very simple of how you do a dopamine detox. There's basically three levels that I wrote down for you. Level one, super simple. Just do a digital detox for a few hours. No phone, no social media, no TV for a few hours after work, you know, and do it one to two times a week. So you come home from work, it's six o', clock, you turn your phone off, you put inside of a drawer and you pick it up. Tomorrow morning, you get like eight, nine, ten hours off of your phone. Do it one to two days a week, and you replace it with stuff like going for a walk, reading a book, journaling, oh my God, having a real conversation with another human without being on your phone at the same time. Then you just pick your phone up the next morning. So that's like level one, just do a digital detox for a few hours one, two times a week. The second one that you could do that I recommend is a full day fast every week. If you want to. No phone, no social media, no TV for 24 hours. I recommend making it a new rule in your house and just trying it out for a month. I recommend Saturday, it could be no phone, or Sunday could be absolutely no phone. Just be with yourself, be with your friends, be with your family. And same thing, you replace it with walks and reading and journaling and conversations. And you take your phone, you put on airplane mode at Friday at 9pm and you put in the kitchen drawer and you just take it out Saturday at 9pm it's very easy. You won't die, I promise you. Or if you want to do level three, which is like, if you want to go for a hard reset, it would be like no tech, no stimulation, no talking for an entire weekend. If you live by yourself, just try it for an entire weekend, Friday at 8pm until Monday at 6am That's 60 hours of none of it. And it could be just you. And if you live by yourself, it'd be just you in silence and going out in nature and your breath and presence. And, you know, if you want to go longer, you could go longer. If you live with family and you have children, well, then just your phone doesn't get in the way on the weekend. And so those are the three different levels. And if you want to go hardcore and do like a, you know, a 10 day silent meditation retreat like I did, you could do that if you want to. But I recommend just starting off for, you know, when you come home from work until right before you leave for work one day and just see how it works. If you're starting to notice your brain running all over the place, I recommend journaling. And I'll give you a couple journal prompts that I came up with. You know, when you're doing a dopamine detox and you feel that itch to do something, take out a pen and paper and just say, what am I trying to avoid doing right now? Or what am I trying to avoid feeling right now? What's the emotion that I'm trying to numb? You know, what is, what's my inner voice trying to say? Why do I feel agitated? And you can just get curious when you feel agitated in those moments. Just get curious. Your answers could really, really surprise you. And so, you know, it's not one size fits all, but, you know, how often should you do it? You could do daily for 30 to 60 minutes, you know, maybe a morning of just silence, no phone. You could do weekly. You could do one day off of tech for just Saturday or just Sunday, quarterly. You could do a full weekend, you know, a full reset of just weekend retreat and just disappear from all of that stuff. It's not about strict rules. It's just about listening to what you need and what your body needs and what your brain needs in some sort of way. And so this whole idea of a digital detox is not about punishing yourself. It's about a reset that your body really deserves. And to be honest with you, I bet every single person listening to this, your body's craving a reset. You know, we've been trained to avoid stillness. And stillness is where you remember who you are and where your true desires return and you start to come in contact with your intuition and your life becomes more vivid again. And so you can start small, but I recommend just start it today, give it a shot, and if you're scared, which a lot of people are, just do it anyways. Hey, thanks so much for watching this video. Based off of what you have been watching recently, YouTube thinks this video is the best one for you right now. And if you want to make sure to never miss another video, hit that subscribe button and I'll see you on the next video.