Do You Need a Dopamine Detox?

Do you feel separation anxiety when you’re away from your phone, tablet, or video game console? Are you feeling flat, bored, depressed, or like you’ve lost your joie de vivre? Do you have low motivation but increased anxious thoughts? If so, these are signs you may need a dopamine detox. Our brains are releasing a near-constant and overwhelming stream of dopamine, which exhausts the brain’s pleasure centers. This is especially true if you’ve been engaging in certain stimulating activities or impulsive behaviors, such as too much social media use, shopping, recreational drug use, or emotional eating, to name a few. These types of behavior can dramatically increase dopamine levels and exhaust your brain’s pleasures centers while making healthy habits feel less enjoyable. This can cause low motivation, flat mood, anxious feelings, and/or depression. It’s not uncommon in our modern world with access to near-constant stimulation. Your brain chemistry can get easily hijacked! Here’s what you need to know about dopamine, reward, pleasure, and how dopamine fasting could help you regain control of your habits and protect your mental wellness.

ABOUT DOPAMINE

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that is critical for mental health. Dopamine plays a role in many important behavioral and physical functions, including motivation, learning, mood, attention, movement, sleep, and more. Often referred to as a “feel good” neurochemical, dopamine works in myriad ways and is an essential component of your brain’s reward system and pleasure centers. The brain’s reward pathways include structures such as:

• Ventral tegmental area (VTA)
• Nucleus accumbens
• Caudate nucleus (part of the basal ganglia)
• Substantia nigra

The VTA and substantia nigra are 2 of the primary structures that produce dopamine. This brain chemical is released when you’re exposed to something that is rewarding and pleasurable. Dopamine’s role is to cue the brain that it should repeat an experience that results in positive effects. This dopaminergic system is designed for learning and survival. It helps us to learn about and seek out positive behaviors such as reproduction, food, and comfort that ensure we will survive. The problem is that in our fast-paced modern life, pleasure-seeking culture is impacting, and sometimes even exploiting, the brain’s reward system. Our brains are releasing a near-constant and overwhelming stream of dopamine, which exhausts the brain’s pleasure centers. Activities such as too much text messaging, email, playing games online, scrolling social media, watching TV, online shopping, and multi-screening can have a similar impact on dopamine release as recreational drugs, alcohol, or caffeine. Medical experts and science estimate that drugs can cause a dopamine hit that is 10 times stronger than with natural rewards! Too much or too little dopamine can cause mental health conditions, such as depression. When your brain is exposed to intense stimuli, it can prompt such disorders, leading to behavioral or substance dependence. Indeed, when dopamine production is excessively high for prolonged periods as a result of maladaptive behaviors and compulsive habits, the brain’s pleasure centers become less responsive to it. The dopamine “high” stops being as intense as it once was, requiring more stimulus and thus the addictive cycle begins. For example, social media apps are designed to manipulate the brain’s reward system by triggering a dopamine hit every time you scroll to a new video, hear a notification sound, or see the red message alert. There is scientific evidence to prove it. Dopamine triggers the drive to repeat the behavior. These apps are literally designed to lock you into more screen time!

WHAT IS A DOPAMINE DETOX?

Several years ago, Dr. Cameron Sepah, a researcher and psychiatrist from the University of California, San Francisco, coined the term dopamine detox. The catchy name is a bit of a misnomer though, because a dopamine detox is actually not about detoxing from dopamine, because it is essential for our brains. It focuses on curbing or abstaining from the impulsive and/or addictive behaviors and activities that trigger a large surge or dump of dopamine in the brain’s pleasure centers, and focusing instead on healthy habits. The concept of a dopamine detox is rooted in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), according to scientific studies. Dopamine fasting is also focused on breaking the classic conditioning response that drives an individual to engage in excessive behaviors. This might mean a dopamine-fasting individual allows themselves to feel uncomfortable, bored, or even feel lonely. They may choose simple activities rather than going for the high-octane ones that deliver a dysregulating dopamine dump. Ultimately, it’s aimed at targeting problematic habits, and restoring some level of control over behaviors that bring pleasure. Amen Clinics similarly interprets a dopamine detox to mean limiting unhealthy behaviors and activities that dramatically increase dopamine or “dump” dopamine (i.e. nonstop screen time), while cultivating behaviors and activities that “drip” dopamine moderately and make you feel good over the long haul.

HOW TO DOPAMINE DETOX

You can experience the brain health benefits of dopamine detoxes by abstaining from the technology or behavior that is dumping an overload of dopamine into your brain’s reward centers. Do it for a few hours, a full day, a weekend, or an entire week. Simply take a break from the intense stimulation and give your brain’s pleasure centers a chance to reset and recalibrate to a higher sensitivity. That way, you can gain control of your behaviors and not need as much dopamine to feel good. Natural, sustaining rewards such as conversation with a loved one, taking a walk in nature, reading an insightful spiritual passage, or playing a piece of music will likely be satisfying again. These are dopamine-balancing activities  as they “drip” dopamine moderately and provide a more sustainable feeling of well-being. To moderate the effects of technology, consider taking mini-breaks during the day. Just 15 minutes of a digital detox can be good for your brain. Consider making tech off limits in some of your rooms so you can unplug on a regular basis.

DOPAMINE-DUMPING ACTIVITIES TO LIMIT

 Here are a number of so called “pleasurable activities” (they actually hurt you!) and compulsive behaviors to limit:

• Consuming high-fat/high-sugar food combinations
• Alcohol and substance use
• Online porn
• Consuming caffeine
• Playing video games
• Watching TikTok
• Thrill seeking (skydiving, motorcycle racing, heli-skiing, running with bulls, etc.)
• Gambling
• Shopping
• Getting into relationships for the “falling in love” feeling

When you fast from these behaviors, you’ll likely feel some discomfort. But, the most important thing is to stay with it. Your brain will thank you. Journal if you need to.

DOPAMINE-DRIPPING ACTIVITIES TO PRACTICE

In addition to avoiding dopamine-dumping activities, embrace new behaviors and healthy activities that drip dopamine. Dopamine producing activities that promote healthy dopamine production and enhance the brain’s pleasure centers without wearing them out include:

• Regularly engage in exercise
• Begin every day by thinking of 3 things you’re grateful for
• Savor quiet pleasure that comes from simple things in your life (picking flowers from the garden, holding hands with your significant other, attending an inspiring lecture, or cooking a delicious meal)
• Spending time in nature often
• Meditate
• Make time to laugh with friends or watching a humorous show
• Bring together meaningful activities and pleasure, such as volunteering for activities you love
• Drawing or painting
• Playing with your pet
• Yoga
• Hugging
• Spending time with loved ones
• Listening to pleasurable music

Depending on how attached you are to behaviors that dump dopamine, you may need to seek the help of a qualified mental health professional. If you think you may have a behavioral or substance use addiction, reach out to a professional right away to help you get a greater sense of control over your life. Addictions, impulsive behaviors, and other mental health issues can’t wait. At Amen Clinics, we’re here for you. We offer in-clinic brain scanning and appointments, as well as mental telehealth, clinical evaluations, and therapy for adults, teens, children, and couples. Find out more by speaking to a specialist today at 888-288-9834 or visit our contact page here. Reviewed by Amen Clinics Inc. Clinicians Founded in 1989 by double-board certified psychiatrist and neuroscientist Daniel G. Amen, MD, Amen Clinics Inc. (ACI) is known as the best brain and mental health company in the world. Our clinical staff includes over 50 healthcare specialists, including adult and child psychiatrists, integrative (functional) medicine physicians, naturopaths, addiction specialists, forensic psychiatrists, geriatric psychiatrists, nutritionists, licensed therapists, and more. Our clinicians have all been hand-selected and personally trained by Dr. Amen, whose mission is to end mental illness by creating a revolution in brain health. Over the last 30-plus years, ACI has built the world’s largest database of functional brain scans—over 300,000 SPECT scans on patients from 155 countries—related to how people think, feel, and behave. Dr. Amen is also the founder of BrainMD, a fast growing, science-based nutraceutical company, and Amen University, which has trained thousands of medical and mental health professionals on the methods he has developed. In addition, he has produced 16 national public television shows about the brain and his online videos on brain and mental health have been viewed over 300 million times. Dr. Amen is a 12-time New York Times bestselling author, including Change Your Brain, Change Your Life; The End of Mental Illness; Healing ADD; and many more. Hist latest book, Raising Mentally Strong Kids, was published March 2024.