Dopamine Detox

Welcome to the episode where I dive deep into the fascinating world of dopamine, exploring its profound influence on our behavior and motivation. Join me as I embark on an enlightening adventure, offering insights and guidance for those seeking to regain control over their lives and break free from addictive habits.

In this episode, I unravel the hidden pathways of dopamine within your brain, taking you on a virtual tour through Mesolimbic Avenue, the brain's reward system, and Mesocortical Street, leading to the prefrontal cortex. Discover how dopamine reinforces behaviors, and learn the difference between seeking pleasure and experiencing true motivation.

But hold on! I'm here to dispel the myths and misconceptions surrounding dopamine detoxing too. Instead of eliminating dopamine altogether, we explore the importance of redirecting its power towards healthier and more fulfilling activities. Whether you're a stay-at-home parent longing for a sense of self amidst the beautiful chaos or someone overwhelmed by the demands of modern life, this episode has something for you.

Buckle up as ever for my personal anecdotes and insights gained from a secret getaway, blending humor and introspection into a captivating narrative. From the breathtaking landscapes of North Vancouver to encounters with quirky characters, this tale will transport you to a world of self-discovery and balanced living.

So, if you're intrigued by the enigmatic workings of your brain, contemplating a dopamine detox, or simply seeking a refreshing perspective on life's challenges, this podcast episode is a must-listen. Empower yourself with knowledge and practical advice to make conscious choices about your dopamine-driven behaviors, and embark on a transformative journey towards a more fulfilling and harmonious existence.

For more:
Videos by Dr. K / HealthyGamer GG on Dopmamine Detox:
https://youtu.be/wK-s2qBU40A
https://youtu.be/RPzV8fWmKPY

Dopamine Nation by Dr. Anna Lembke
greenapplebooks.com/book/9781524746742

Transcript

Dopamine Detox

Do you ever wonder if you need to do a Dopamine Detox, but you don’t really know how Dopamine works or how you would go about detoxing from it? That’s where I was at about a month ago. I was exhausted at the end of the day, so at night I found myself stuck in a weird loop of indulging in guilty pleasures.

So, I’m a writer but right now, I’m mostly a stay at home mom because kids are little. Cassidy is only 2 and Sawyer is not yet 5. And my work, and a parent and a homemaker, Sometimes it feels kind of like I was trying to build a sandcastle too close to the shore and before I can stick the damn feather on top, my castle keeps getting washed away and no one even ever sees it. They call what I do invisible labor. 

In fact, let me just take a sec to express how fucking magical it is to have children. Yes, life is a million times harder than it was before kids. BUT - The sound of their outrageous, uninhibited laughter fills me to the brim. A dozen times a day, I am up close to their little faces, and all I can think is how beautiful they are. Sometimes they smell like pancakes and syrup. They want me to make them all cozy at night in such a way that I’m sure my mother tucked me in when I was a little girl. Oh, and my son calls his butt his fart cannon. He came up with that joke on his own and I couldn’t be more proud. I am the curator of their childhoods, and I take this more seriously than you can imagine.

But, But… by evening time, I was exhausted. 

Modern life is exhausting. So much is expected of us these days and we’re so overstimulated. The more technology rises up to make tasks easier, the more work is expected of us. It’s not just parents. A lot of you have jobs that wear you the fuck out. I mean at the end of the day, at night, you’re dog tired BUT you’re not just going to go to bed, right? You need a little sumpin sumpin. Sumpin fo you. The you you were before you had kids. The you that you can’t bring to work. 

For some of us, this means finding our buttons, pushing those buttons, metaphorically speaking, the ones that release dopamine in the mesolimbic pathway in our brains, and we do that for hours until we finally force ourselves to crash into bed. 

I had been doing this too often, and was fed up with my night time routine. At the end of my chaotic days, a magical pocket of time would open up for me, usually from 8 PM onwards. I had some precious time before bed—a window that could last three hours if I went to bed at 11 PM like a responsible adult, or it could stretch to a glorious seven hours if I went to bed at the ungodly hour of 3 AM. Yes, you heard it right, sometimes I went to bed at 3 AM. 

What are we doing when we’re up all night? We’re chasing dopamine, folks. That’s what’s up. 

It can look like a lot of things, video games, pc gaming for hours, binging on food, social media - scrolling scrolling scrolling all night, falling into reddit holes, alcohol, cigarettes, weed, other drugs, porn, masterbating, erotic fantasy books, all sorts of sexual stuff, hitting people up on the apps, trolling, gambling, online shopping. In the word’s of Dr. Anna Lembke, “We’ve transformed our world from a place of scarcity to a place of overwhelming abundance…” and “the increased numbers, variety, and potency of highly rewarding stimuli today is staggering.”

So at our fingertips, all time, are substances and activities that are considered “high dopamine” which isn’t to say, they contain dopamine, of course, but they release Dopamine in our brain’s reward pathway. To different extents. They’ve measured the dopamine output in rat’s brains and shown chocolate increases dopamine output 55%, Sex 100% - depends on the quality, if you ask me, Nicotine (which is my guilty pleasure) 150%, Cocaine 225% and Amphetamine like speed or Adderall, 1000%.

Today I want to dive into the fascinating pathways in your brain that dopamine can travel through. But I don’t want you to get too caught up on the technical terms for a moment and instead envision two roads within your brain: Mesolimbic Avenue and Mesocortical Street. Picture them as real-life highways. Now, let's explore where these roads lead.

First, let's take a drive down Mesolimbic Avenue. This road leads straight to the part of your brain that lights up with excitement when you experience rewards—the Nucleus Accumbens. Imagine this avenue as a long, straight desert highway. Dopamine gets behind the wheel of its Bugatti and tears up the miles, an exhilarating and energizing ride.

Now, let's switch gears and explore Mesocortical Street. This route is a more desirable path for your dopamine, although for a lot of us it’s less frequently traveled, at least it is in my brain. Mesocortical Street takes us to the Prefrontal Cortex, which, as Amy Arnsten describes, is responsible for the characteristics that set humans apart from other animals. It's where self-awareness, complex planning, problem-solving, learning and memory, executive functions, personality expression, decision making, and modulation of social behavior reside.

I want to send my dopamine there! I want there to be a huge train full of dopamine that arrives at the Prefrontal Cortex every hour on the hour.

I don’t think when I’m watching my third episode of Selling Sunset on Netflix, my dopamine is going anywhere near the distinguished prefrontal cortex. That’s some nucleus accumbens shit, am I right? You know what I mean. 

For me, I had fallen into this kind of, specific little routine. It’s not great, I’m not proud. Let’s just say, after the kids went to bed around 8PM, I could finally do whatever I wanted. Many nights of the week there was wine, there was a game called Royal Match on my phone, think Candy Crush, and there was brain numbing reality tv, and the great outdoors, by which I mean my lovely little back patio with fairy lights and a wood burning fire pit, and cigarettes. Sometimes, I’d throw in a little gummy (you know the ones) or have some therapeutic microdosed tea (you know the kind). 

I was just unwinding, right? It’s wine o’clock for mommy, right? Cute. Society sanctioned self care. Except the smoking, no one is down with that shit, especially in the Bay Area let me tell you.

Do you guys remember that Disney animated movie Wall-E? Of course you do. I watched it for the first time in recent years with my son. All the humans have left Earth and live on this big ship in space where they glide around in hovering chairs, their muscles have atrophied because they don’t do anything. They just consume constant entertainment through VR and robots feed them whatever they want. My little nighttime guilty pleasure seshes kind of felt like that. But I didn’t have the energy to change it.

I looked at my face in the mirror in the morning and saw a skull inside a soggy paper lunch bag. 

I was listening to these two vegan activists have a conversation, and the chick was saying that when she serves people meat pizzas at the bar she works at, sometimes she just wants to slam it down at the table and scream in their faces like, “Don’t you understand what you’re doing?!” And the dude was like, “Yeah, you know, I just don’t respect anyone who can’t try something for 30 days.”

When I heard him say that I was like, damn… like, I don’t try anything for 30 days unless you count trying to drink wine, hahaha. Not every day, not every day.

I knew I needed to switch things up, maybe drastically. So, I rented an apartment in North Vancouver, and kept it a secret from everyone I knew in the area from when I used to live in British Columbia. 

North Vancouver is a natural wonderland. From Downtown Vancouver you travel via ferry or bridges across the beautiful and industrious expanse of the Burrard Inlet. In North Van, most of the year it rains, so on sunny June days, it is a verdant, flower lush Pacific Northwest forest populated with nature-loving, fit and bright REI shopper type camping hiking biking people.

I couldn’t get away for 30 days, but I had two precious days alone there - I was going to do laps in the pool, crush it at the gym, relax in the sauna, eat healthy, not drink or smoke or watch reality tv or play on my phone, and hell, I was probably going to finish writing BOTH of the novels I’ve started and at the end I was going to emerge a perfect gorgeous amazing healthy saint! Two days. No problem. I won’t put on my precious ring, said Gollum.

When I got to the AirBNB, it was this tall, brand new building, and on the ground floor were these retail spaces but none of them were occupied yet. There was no one at the front desk, but when I got in the elevator this man in a suit got in with me, He tapped his access card on the pad and selected his floor. When I pressed the button for my floor it didn’t light up, so I said, kinda to myself, “Oh, I can’t go up unless I fab in too, ok I get it,” and he said, “Yeah, I wish,” and laughed. But, guys, why would he wish he could go up without a fab? He had a fab and so did I.  I wonder if in his head he was thinking like oh my god Im an idiot why did I say that? And then we rode up so awkwardly because I was facing forward toward the elevator doors like a human being and the dude was standing there with his full body turned toward me! Like facing me and staring at me! Why? I was like am I in a simulation? This guy was like an NPC from a video game just glitching out.

Got into the apartment, fuck yes it was really nice. Floor to ceiling windows, views of the Lions Gate Bridge. Chefs kiss. Opened the fridge, there was a bottle of red wine in there. Not today, Satan! I said, and shut the door. Looking around, no TV. Okay, wasn’t expecting that, but good, I thought. I can watch TV at home. No TV, no distractions. Excellent.

It’s gorgeous out, hot. I’m going for a swim. On the way down, the place was like this weird maze of empty luxury amenities. No signs of anyone. There was a movie theater with plush leather recliners, completely empty. A game room with pool and ping pong tables, devoid of players. Countless lounges, all vacant. At one point I opened a door to find a room with seating and a fucking steinway grand piano, you know, just in case you want to invite your friends to navigate a fancy dystopia maze and then sit in white chairs in a white room and stare at you while you play piano like American Psycho.

After skulking around the property for a good 20 minutes, I finally found my way to the rooftop infinity pool, but on the gate there was a sign telling me I better not fucking swim in there because someone had gotten SICK from swimming in it and it was as closed as heaven to the devil. CLOSED. Okay weird. Who got sick? There’s no one here. Maybe that weirdo from the elevator. Great, now I have rabies from his elevator breath. Ok… Let me just. Let me just… go upstairs and figure out what Dopamine even is before I try to detox it.

So, Dopamine Detoxing has become pretty trendy, and there’s a lot of misinformation out there. Some blogs say you want to get rid of all the dopamine in your brain and you do that by stopping any fun/stimulating behavior for 24 hours. Then you’ll be detoxed, reset, ready rock. Um, that’s stupid guys. Parkinson's disease, is a result of destruction of your dopaminergic neurons in a part of your brain. So if you got rid of all of your dopamine, you would get Parkinsons disease 3.0. Not sure if you noticed this before but you don’t want to have that one.  I learned that from Dr. K who goes by HealthyGamerGG on Twitch and Youtube and he’s amazing. He’s in his 30’s or 40’s probably and he’s this super successful brilliant psychiatrist but he likes to game, like play computer games and go on Twitch and so he helps like little gamer guys and girls with their problems with being addicted to video games and porn and being isolated and lacking confidence. He’s so special! He gets really pissed off when internet charlatans spew a bunch of pseudo science about dopamine and dopamine detox. I’ll link to his video in the show notes.

I’m not going to be one of those slobs that just says a bunch of random intuitive stuff about Dopamine, okay? I want to make Dr. K proud. 

Another thing Dr. K taught me is that neurotransmitters like Dopamine, Serotonin, Gamma and others are like letters of the alphabet. I guess this is neuroscience 101. So like letters of the alphabet, they are used to spell out a bunch of different words, or more literally, send a bunch of different signals in different parts of your brain. So it’s complex. For example, Dopamine is also involved in just the general flow or jerkiness of your body movement. It’s weird to think of one neurotransmitter working to make it less robotic when you wave arm and also makes you want to post another picture of your ass on Only Fans. Just like how the letter A is for Apple, and A is for America and A is for Asshole. Get it?

A huge distinction to know is that Dopamine is not the pleasure molecule or whatever.

Dopamine is motivation, not pleasure. Mice that have been Genetically engineered so that they don’t make any dopamine will starve to death even when food is placed just inches from their little snouts. If you put food right into their mouth, they will chew it and swallow it, and seem to enjoy it.”

Again, dopamine is motivation, not pleasure. It’s neurotransmitter that reinforces our behavior. What’s the reason why I would keep digging my hand into the bag of salt and vinegar chips even after the roof of my mouth is shredded and my stomach is full to bursting, I am not enjoying these chips anymore. That’s dopamine. Sometimes, it keeps reinforcing the behavior even after the behavior becomes painful. Our caveman brains want us to have salt and calories, and will keep reinforcing the behavior of eating a chip.

Furthermore, our brains are constantly trying to reach homeostasis, so when we put a chip in our mouth and experience pleasure, it is proceeded by pain… like a mental discomfort. We know the solution, have another chip.. That felt good. Dopamine hops on its motorcycle and rips down Mesolimbic Avenue. We take another chip. Again and again and again.

Dopamine is also involved in the motivation to NOT do something. Like yesterday I was supposed to have a photoshoot at my house, my house was a disaster, and I really wasn’t feeling well, so I emailed the photographer and cancelled. And it just felt right. And then I was like what else can I cancel? Can I cancel putting on a bra? Can I cancel getting out of bed? Can I cancel keeping my eyes open? Caveman brain says conserve energy.

Do I really want to have another glass of wine, when I’m really actually tired and need to go to bed? Is that last drink pleasurable? What about you? How long have you been scrolling through reddit? How did you end up looking at deep fakes of teenage twitch stars? We get stuck in these dopamine loops - pleasure, pain, dopamine, pleasure, pain, dopamine. One more game of League of Legends. When you’re starting to feel weird and bad watching this cam girl, click onto the next. Is this pleasurable at the point of excess. NO. But you need to relieve the pain that followed the pleasure, and dopamine keeps a’coming down Mesolimbic Avenue. More more more, how do you like it? how you like it?

Dr. K from HealthyGamerGG said there are three ways a person may present if they need a dopamine detox:

1. You are compelled toward a behavior that you don’t enjoy.. 
2. You don’t do the things you should be doing, like updating your resume on LinkedIn or working on your thesis, Ωyou just keep impulsively doing this behavior that gives you quick dopamine hits.

Here’s are some activities that are associated with Mesocortical Street and the Prefrontal Cortex because they don’t give you immediate, high hits of dopamine every step of the way:

-Researching and purchasing a meal plan, doing the grocery shopping and then prepping the food for the week.

-Updating your resume on linkedin and applying to jobs

-Finishing your novel

-Doing your taxes

-Reading a literary or nonfiction book

-Learning to play the guitar 

Here’s another one, making small talk with people. For example, making small talk with the parents I see at drop off everyday at my son’s preschool. I don’t particularly like doing that, small talk is hard and has a high risk of leading to awkwardness. My foot must taste good because I love putting it in my mouth. But the more I do it, the deeper these interactions get, and if I start small and invest a little each day, some of these people will be my friends by the end of the year and everyone will know who my kid is and care about him. I’ve always said you need to get to know your neighbors - if there’s a zombie apocalypse, I’m going to need someone checking for me. 

In Anna Lembke’s book, Dopamine Nation, she says that we are all now vulnerable to prefrontal cortical atrophy as our reward pathway has become the dominant driver of our lives. That is so fucked up. That’s what I worry about.

So, I bought three limited Eric Joyner prints at his open studio - if you don’t know him he paints these really funny images of robots in the future, in like a post human era. And the robots are like, cutting the grass and resting next to a river. I just loved the images and I wanted to frame them and give them to Shawn for our anniversary. Our wedding anniversary was May 7th and I still haven’t framed them. I have so many projects I want to do but I’m not motivated to do them because they won’t send a bunch of dopamine sprinting down Mesolimbic Avenue. Has my Prefrontal Cortex fucking atrophied???

The third indicator Dr. K looks for to determine if someone needs to do a dopamine detox is:

1. Normal, real activities that seem pleasurable to other people aren't enjoyable to you.

Dr. K says this happens when our dopamine receptors get down regulated and it’s way harder for us to experience pleasure. He recommends 2 weeks or more of abstaining from the high dopaminergic behaviors to get your dopamine receptors to gear back up. 

He says that if you’re quitting porn or video games or gambling or shopping, you’re not going to feel withdrawal symptoms, but you’re going to be really bored, so prepare for that. You may want to do some self-binding in the form of  travelling, camping… unplugging. He says most relapses happen when you don’t have a plan. What are you going to do instead?

He also mentions that watching a movie is not a highly dopaminergic activity, like watching a 2.5 hour film every day is fine.. Watching a Netflix series that is designed to keep you watching, where every episode ends on a cliff-hanger - that’s the baddie.

When Anna Lembke talks about Dopamine Fasting, she focuses more on drug use, including cannabis and alcohol. She says 2 weeks often isn’t enough to reset our reward pathway, but 1 month usually does the trick. 

But, in the words of Bo Burnham, I don’t want to do that. I’m not doing that. In my experience, drastic change usually isn’t reliable. I’ve tried to quit everything cold turkey before and it’s just not me. Fuck that vegan who said I should try stuff for 30 days. Plus, luckily, I’m not compelled toward something I don’t enjoy - I really am having a great fucking time outside at night. Also, luckily, I still really, super enjoy simple things that don’t release a big load of dopamine down my mesolimbic pathway. 

I need to work on the second thing, spending time doing complex projects that don’t offer a bunch of dopamine all along the way. More productive nights, less guilty pleasure nights. Week by week, a little better all the time. 

Knowledge is power. Just learning about how dopamine works, how I haven’t been using my prefrontal cortex and what these loops I get stuck in are all about, really helps me switch gears.

One last thought - If you’re like me, sometimes it seems like the role you play in your daytime life isn’t very YOU. Maybe you aren’t a parent, but your job is boring or meaningless, or you can’t express your creativity or grow there. It's just a means to an end, trading time and stress for money and benefits. OR maybe you have little kids like I do, and a few years ago all of sudden you were supposed to be a mom or a dad like, all day long. You were never one of those before but NOW, now it defines who you are almost every waking moment.

Another aspect that our prefrontal cortices are involved with is personality expression. Totally spitballing here, but maybe if we inject a little bit more of ourselves into our day life, take up a bit more space in the room, I bet our kids and coworkers would like that too. We will strengthen that part of our brains, and maybe then we won’t come crashing into 8PM spewing a bunch of dopamine at our nucleus acumbenses. Nucleia Acumbi. K what’s the plural of Nucleus Acumbens?

I want better rewards. You know? And real, enduring rewards come to us when we’re present and open, learning and expressing ourselves. Pleasure, maybe, sometimes for sure, but no guilt. Most nights, anyway. Wink Wink. 

Oh and I never wrapped up my story! Did I end up drinking that AirBNB fridge wine during my stay there. NOPE! Did I fall into my high dopamine loop? Nope! Did I swim in the pool despite the risks? No no no. I wasn’t about to go in there and you know, potentially mess up my vagina. Oh my god calling it a Vagina is too real.

I ended up buying bags of ice and taking intense cold plunge ice baths up there. So exhilarating, this is my new favorite thing to doI read, I wrote, I walked in nature, took big long sleeps. Maybe it’s not enough time to fix my brain but something healed out there and I’m doing so much better now.

This has been, Better for the Boy. Thanks for waiting. If you want to support this podcast please share it with someone, give it five stars on Apple Podcasts and Spotify - a lot of people listen actually but no one does that. You can always shoot me an e-mail at kaylaogdenwrites@gmail.com if you have any recommendations of topics I might explore.  Next time, I want to talk about the way our identities are tied to our work, the future of labour, universal basic income and that kind of stuff. So, when artificial intelligence takes over our jobs, what are we going to do with our time?

Talk soon. 

Kayla Ogden