In this informal vlog, Samir Gardner explains dopamine as the brain's reward signal that is triggered by activities ranging from reading a book to scrolling on a phone. He argues that modern life—fast food, social media, video games, and constant digital stimulation—provides an excessive amount of dopamine, which dulls enjoyment of simple, low‑stimulus activities and hampers productivity. Gardner proposes a "dopamine fast" or "dopamine detox" as a disciplined, temporary reduction of high‑dopamine inputs (e.g., limiting fast‑food, social media, gaming) to reset the brain's reward system. He emphasizes that the goal is not total abstinence but conscious moderation, using examples like Ramadan fasting to illustrate self‑reflection and discipline. The expected benefits include increased ability to enjoy mundane tasks, reduced anxiety and depression, more boredom‑driven creativity, and better self‑awareness. Gardner concludes with a call to action for viewers to try a short detox, reflect on their habits, and subscribe to his channel.
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It's your boy Samir Gardner. Hope y'all doing good. So dopamine fasting or dopamine detox, uh, first of all, what's dopamine? Dopamine is like, basically it's like, um, the satisfaction that gets to your brain. So if, for example, you read a book, you're gonna get dopamine because it gives you satisfaction, you enjoy it. If you, uh, stay on your phone, that gives you more dopamine because there's a lot of pixel and everything, so you enjoy it. Your eyes— I mean, your brain pretty much is like captivated by all these colors and pixels, so you enjoy it. But I want to talk about like fasting from that or detoxing from that. Uh, first of all, dopamine is not— is essential to live, but I'm saying People nowadays have way too much dopamine. They can, like, they can access to way too much dopamine, all like, like at any time basically. There's fast food. Fast food is high in sugar, high in fat, high in sodium, everything, cholesterol and everything. And that gives you dopamine because why? Okay, just why does somebody go to McDonald's? Because it tastes good, right? Because they put a lot of sodium, put a lot of sugar, everything. And that keeps the guy addicted because it gives them a lot of dopamine. And what happens when— with people nowadays is that instead of facing the problem, they'll go to something that gives them more dopamine, like, I don't know, I mean, like McDonald's, or eating a lot, because eating gives you dopamine. That's why people people fast, like for example people that do Ramadan like me, like they fast. And what happened is that when, when they fast, or I mean not when they fast, but Ramadan is made like to more to find yourself and to get that discipline, that self-discipline, you know. And when you can fast for a day, I mean we fast for 30 days, but when you fast for example a day from from media, from everything that gives dopamine, you'll find yourself. That's why people on the, on the other side, when they have problems and they don't want to face the problems, they're gonna go straight to the thing that gives them the most dopamine. That's why they listen to music all the time, gives dopamine. That's why they go eat fast food, it gives dopamine. All these things gives a lot, gives a lot of dopamine. And also the reason why people are not productive, people cannot be productive, is because there is too much dopamine around them. And like, you know how you want to do, like, let's say, let's say you want to do your own work and you just go on social media and everything, like you just want to go on social media. The reason why is because social media basically gives you a lot of dopamine. Like I said in my past vid, it gives you a lot of dopamine. That's the reason why. So what, what you got to do is kind of cut off these things. I'm not saying completely cut them off, like you can still go on social media, you can still play video games, you can still do anything. I'm not telling you what to do, but if you want to be more productive, you got at least kind of limit your use of dopamine. Like, if you want to enjoy the little things in life, you gotta cut out dopamine too, okay? I swear, if— let's say, let's say you're used to eat McDonald's, okay? I don't eat any fast food. I eat like very, very healthy, okay? And the equivalent of Like, if let's say, let's say someone eats McDonald's, that's like his highest dopamine. But for me, it's not even gonna be McDonald's. I'm gonna get the same amount of dopamine by eating like, uh, I don't know, by eating bread, literally. Like, I enjoy more, I enjoy more because I enjoy it more than someone who eats McDonald's. I enjoy more bread than someone who eats McDonald's because I I'm, um, I don't have much dope, as much dopamine as him. Because you gotta understand, your dopamine receptors, if you don't like feed them too much dopamine, they're gonna get like happy with what you give them, okay? They're gonna be like— that's why some people can read for hours and you cannot read for hours, because you are basically— your day is like consistent of going going on your phone, playing video games, watching Netflix. And all those things gives you so much dopamine that you can't enjoy anymore reading books. You cannot. That's why also, as a kid, you used to enjoy playing basketball or soccer. Probably used to love doing that. But now you're like, "Oh nah, I don't wanna play basketball." You're becoming too lazy because The dopamine is, is greater. That's why if you want to enjoy the little things, you got to kind of cut off the dopamine. I'm not saying completely cut off the dopamine from technology, but you got to really be conscious and self-aware that that's the reason why you cannot enjoy anymore what you used to love doing back in the, back here in the days. And, and yeah, like basically dopamine, like I said, is essential. But I mean, it's what keeps people kind of happy. But like I said also, if you don't face your problem because you are always, um, you are always basically, uh, getting that dopamine, you're always keeping your mind away from the problems because Um, like I said, like, people rather get distracted— I didn't say that, my bad, my bad— but people rather get distracted than actually face a problem which is going to benefit them in the long term. Because when you face a problem, you become stronger. Anytime you face something negative, you become stronger. But if you keep yourself distracted, the problem is going to be bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger once, and You might, you might like get depressed from, from that problem. Like when you're gonna have to face that problem, you're gonna have a lot of stress and everything. And also, you know how you want to meditate sometimes, but sometimes you don't want to? Just imagine if you had nothing to do. You had no dopamine, you had no technology. Imagine if you were only living outside in nature. You'd probably be meditative for like 3 hours. But now that you got all these, this dopamine, you can't because you don't enjoy meditating because there's too much dopamine, you know what I mean? It might— if, if you do a dopamine detox, you might get bored the first time, but it's normal. And when you get bored, it's— the getting bored is like, I mean, it's very good for you, I'm not gonna lie, because when you get bored, you get so many ideas of what you want to do, or you just reflect on yourself and everything. And reflecting is one of like the main benefits— like not reflecting, but finding yourself is one of the main benefits of dopamine detox. It's one of the main benefits because, like I said, when you get bored, you have nothing to do, okay? So I mean, we have nothing to do, so you get bored. So What happened is that you have time to self-reflect, and so many people don't self-reflect no more. So they don't even know anything about themselves anymore because they spend most of the time on the phone. People spend like 8 hours on the phone sometimes. That's so much. You waste so much time like on basically nothing, because first of all, it doesn't even make you happy. You'll probably be way more happy without this phone or this, I don't know, like playing video games, probably be way more happy. But, but yeah, you at least when you do a dopamine detox, let's say for one day, you, you try like you block everything that's technology just for one day, you realize that like life, there's way much more about in life because You, you realize that life is not about technology. Life is not about getting good grades in school. Life is not about this. Life is about enjoying life and trying to evolve. Like, I mean, that's what I think life is about— enjoying it, enjoying it a lot. Because people don't enjoy it and wonder why they get depressed, but they spend most of the time on the phone. You gotta face your problems at the end of the day. I always gotta face your problems. People don't go outside no more. Because they want it. They're always on the phone because it gives more dopamine than going outside. But yeah, and that's the reason why so many people are sad, mad, and everything. They have anxiety. Anxiety is like— so many people have anxiety, but you gotta understand where the problem comes from. You cannot say, oh yeah, I'm gonna meditate. You gotta understand where the problem comes from first. You gotta understand, like, but yeah, that's it for the vid. Hope y'all liked it. Comment, share, subscribe, and like. I'm out, peace.
