Can You Take the "Dopamine Fast" Challenge?

[MashaN]

After seeing this I'll give it a go for a full 24 hours at times throughout 2019. Although I'm not sure if I'd give up reading.

I don't think I would find it beneficial to do it frequently. To me the idea is appealing for the purpose of recalibrating the mind. And it seems like a fun experiment.
Limiting social media to 30 minutes per week did some wonders, and to me challenge like this one is just going a step further for the sake of doing it.

 

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[Zcott]

I don't think I would find it beneficial to do it frequently. To me the idea is appealing for the purpose of recalibrating the mind. And it seems like a fun experiment.
Limiting social media to 30 minutes per week did some wonders, and to me challenge like this one is just going a step further for the sake of doing it.

I've made fair few cutbacks on the internet and popular media which I've felt benefits from, but yes I agree, doing a full days I definitely would be doing it for the sake of it. I'm a curious person.

 

[Chx]

I did the challenge yesterday.

The only rules I "broke" were no food—I had lunch—and no talking to others, which is extremely difficult if you don't live alone.

But overall, I can proudly say that I achieved the goal of "having as little fun as possible."

Here are my main takeaways from the exercise:

1 - Time Slowed Down Everything I did became slow, methodical, calculated. After all, there was no reason to rush. Throughout the whole day, I never multi-tasked. It allowed me to pay attention to details like never before.

2 - Can't Hide Your Emotions Even in such an uneventful day, there were times when I felt angry, irritated, upset, etc. For example, when some a**hole's Subaru splashed me with snow-water, I felt . Normally, when I feel strong negative emotions I try to mask them with pleasure. Watch some comedy, eat ice cream, you get the point. The issue was, I didn't have any options to give myself that hit of dopamine. So, I had to deal with the problem at face value. "okay, he probably didn't do it on purpose." This is a much healthier way to let go of those emotions because it trains you to better handle them in the future.

3 - Focus My only options for things to do were write, think, meditate, or walk. No book to read, videos to watch, games to play or food to eat. This drastically increased my focus, and I could tell because I was able to meditate for much longer periods than I normally do. I also could write for hours and not think twice about it. What I learned: To tighten your focus, just remove distractions.

4 - The Little Things With no artificial sources of dopamine, I found joy in the little things I noticed, like the sense of community as everybody was outside shoveling snow and the sound of rain hitting my jacket. With so many things taken away, I felt much more grateful for the things I did have: a warm house, warm clothes, winter boots, pen and notebook to get my thoughts on paper.

5 - Inconvenience Life gets a lot less convenient with no phone and no internet. Is the weather nice enough to go for a walk? I'll have to go see for myself. (No, it was not nice enough, but I went anyways.) But how many F*cks did I give about social media that day? Zero. 100% worth the inconvenience.

6 - Self-Discovery When you spend so many hours journaling, you're bound to learn new things about yourself.

7 - Bonus - Accountability I used the power of accountability to keep me from the temptations to use my phone, read a book or eat a snack. How? Well, two days ago, I posted this:

I'm going to do this tomorrow, will post results the day after.

And I know that you guys would not be very happy if I succumbed to my temptations and broke the fast. Peer pressure isn't always bad. If you're thinking about doing this exercise, post that you're going to do it and we'll hold you accountable.

Conclusion This is a great exercise for personal growth. Your day might suck from hunger and boredom but you'll feel pretty amazing the next morning. Plus, you get the mindfulness benefits that come with a whole day of meditation and journaling.

 

[Tom.V]

I'll run it tomorrow.

 

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[MashaN]

I did the challenge yesterday.

The only rules I "broke" were no food—I had lunch—and no talking to others, which is extremely difficult if you don't live alone.

But overall, I can proudly say that I achieved the goal of "having as little fun as possible."

Here are my main takeaways from the exercise:

1 - Time Slowed Down Everything I did became slow, methodical, calculated. After all, there was no reason to rush. Throughout the whole day, I never multi-tasked. It allowed me to pay attention to details like never before.

2 - Can't Hide Your Emotions Even in such an uneventful day, there were times when I felt angry, irritated, upset, etc. For example, when some a**hole's Subaru splashed me with snow-water, I felt . Normally, when I feel strong negative emotions I try to mask them with pleasure. Watch some comedy, eat ice cream, you get the point. The issue was, I didn't have any options to give myself that hit of dopamine. So, I had to deal with the problem at face value. "okay, he probably didn't do it on purpose." This is a much healthier way to let go of those emotions because it trains you to better handle them in the future.

3 - Focus My only options for things to do were write, think, meditate, or walk. No book to read, videos to watch, games to play or food to eat. This drastically increased my focus, and I could tell because I was able to meditate for much longer periods than I normally do. I also could write for hours and not think twice about it. What I learned: To tighten your focus, just remove distractions.

4 - The Little Things With no artificial sources of dopamine, I found joy in the little things I noticed, like the sense of community as everybody was outside shoveling snow and the sound of rain hitting my jacket. With so many things taken away, I felt much more grateful for the things I did have: a warm house, warm clothes, winter boots, pen and notebook to get my thoughts on paper.

5 - Inconvenience Life gets a lot less convenient with no phone and no internet. Is the weather nice enough to go for a walk? I'll have to go see for myself. (No, it was not nice enough, but I went anyways.) But how many f*cks did I give about social media that day? Zero. 100% worth the inconvenience.

6 - Self-Discovery When you spend so many hours journaling, you're bound to learn new things about yourself.

7 - Bonus - Accountability I used the power of accountability to keep me from the temptations to use my phone, read a book or eat a snack. How? Well, two days ago, I posted this:

And I know that you guys would not be very happy if I succumbed to my temptations and broke the fast. Peer pressure isn't always bad. If you're thinking about doing this exercise, post that you're going to do it and we'll hold you accountable.

Conclusion This is a great exercise for personal growth. Your day might suck from hunger and boredom but you'll feel pretty amazing the next morning. Plus, you get the mindfulness benefits that come with a whole day of meditation and journaling.

Thank you for sharing. Good to hear you stuck with it no matter what. I had plans to do the challenge today, but other things interfered that I can't fall behind on. I will re-schedule though.
I do know what you mean when you say "time slowed down". A similar effect happens for me during fasting for longer periods (at least 21 hours). So in a way, we can extend our existence, not physically but in our mind only, by doing things like these. Although the quality of life may not be the best. Because let's face it, experiment like this one is a form of self-induced suffering, that usually contrasts the following day. Which is why you're feeling great and accomplished after.
Thanks again for sharing!

 

[Disciple96]

I did the challenge yesterday.

But overall, I can proudly say that I achieved the goal of "having as little fun as possible."

3 - Focus This drastically increased my focus, and I could tell because I was able to meditate for much longer periods than I normally do. I also could write for hours and not think twice about it. What I learned: To tighten your focus, just remove distractions.

4 - The little things With so many things taken away, I felt much more grateful for the things I did have: a warm house, warm clothes, winter boots, pen and notebook to get my thoughts on paper.

6 - Self-Discovery When you spend so many hours journaling, you're bound to learn new things about yourself.

Conclusion This is a great exercise for personal growth.

Excellent, I'm so happy to hear this challenge is something that you found value in. This just fires me up even more and I can't wait until NYE to give it a shot!

"The little things" - the way you described this really puts me there. In our daily lives, with the hustle and bustle of modern living, it can be difficult to appreciate the incredible wealth we already posess. This seems like a great way to rebalance yourself to a more minimalist way of thinking.

I greatly appreciate your following through on this. +Rep, congrats on being the first one to complete the challenge!

I'll be updating with my own experiences on Teusday. Until then, I can't wait to see what results other people have!