Dopamine Addiction & Detox in Quarantine

In this episode, we discuss dopamine addiction, how it manifests in quarantine, and why now is the perfect time for a dopamine detox. We break down why we may be more drawn to things like social media, our phones, and comfort food right now, what is really stopping us from not being as productive or creative as we'd like to be with our extra time, as well as reviewing successful strategies for dopamine detox. I share my personal dopamine fast story as well as my hugely positive results. 

Transcription:

[00:00:00] This is such a potent time. Right now we're in quarantine when we don't have the simulation, we usually do to really, rein in your mind. The only thing we can really control in this world is ourselves.

[00:00:18] Hi, everyone. Thanks for tuning in. And welcome back to the show, where we analyze cultural trends, experiment with self mastery and challenge the status quo. I am Morgan May, and today we are discussing dopamine, addiction and detox specifically in quarantine. But first, before we get started, I just want to plug a really dear friend of mine, Mike Jones.

[00:00:37] I commissioned him to do the artwork for my show, and I'm so thrilled about how it came out. He is so talented. He's easily the number one-  no contest -number one funniest person that I've ever come into contact with.He is a brilliant illustrator as well. He has an Instagram account and an Amazon book. The Whole Thing When He Got There is the book. @thewholethingwhentheygotthere is the Instagram account. I'll play everything in the description, but I just want to shout him out.Thank you again, Mike.

[00:01:12] So today we're discussing dopamine addiction and detox in quarantine. And you may be wondering what the two have to do with each other, so we'll start off with a little brief anecdote about what brought me down this rabbit hole.

[00:01:29] So, a couple weeks ago, I was an earlier adopter into quarantine so since mid March I've been quarantining myself and I had bet I had stocked up on food and whatever. I didn't need to leave for about two and a half weeks. So the first time I left quarantine was quite an experience. So right now I'm on Manhattan. I'm in New York. And quarantine here is definitely different compared to if you are in house or the suburbs or somewhere that isn't so densely populated. So I was just like in my apartment, the same setting alone for 3 weeks. My first time leaving I wanted to get some meat and eggs and  perishable things that I didn't have. And my experience leaving was wild.

[00:02:30] So obviously I walked out my front door, the sun hitting my face was a religious experience. I said a prayer. I was just like I had this like whole just like reaction and deep gratitude for the sun. I was kind of nervous because in the beginning, everyone was still like, "What is going on?" Very fearful. I feel like that energy for me is waning now, but it- certainly the beginning, it was just like nobody really knew what to expect. I was walking down an otherwise incredibly busy street, there were no cars at all. And it was super bizarre. So super weird experience. Get to Whole Foods. Everyone is super scared, standing six feet from each other. There was a line they wanted to control how many people were in the building.

[00:03:20] So once I got and I waited online and I got in, I really started noticing what was happening in my body. And I was also in a great mood. I was looking at the fruit and like the colors of the fruit were beautiful to me and highly saturated. This whole experience, it sounds like I'm I was on drugs, honestly reflecting on it I'm like, "Was this like a mushroom trip?" But no, this is just my first day out of my apartment since quarantine in about three weeks. All this has a point, I swear. So the fruit, it's just like incredibly saturated.

[00:04:01] I just like felt my brain lighting up, walking through the cheese section, the fragrance. It was a good new experience, in that regard. And I'm walking through the aisles and I'm noticing that I am singing to myself softly and not even. This isn't terribly out of character for me, but I could observe what was happening in my body. And it was- I was  lit up. I was loving the song. And the song was 3 Doors Down's "Miss Me When I'm Gone" Which is this random alt r- I looked it up later-Random Alt Rock song from like 2003 or 2004. From about  15 years ago or something crazy, over that. And I was  loving it. Like I was just like kind of getting into, really feeling good. I was around other human beings and although, I mean, I'm in New York City, everyone's a stranger. I hadn't seen or been around human beings physically for three weeks, so it was just, I was just  feeling really good.

[00:05:08] It wasn't a really good mood as I'm walking down these aisles. I'm noticing all the people that I'm passing about four or five or six people that I was passing. I noticed they were all also  singing to this Alt Rock song from 2003.

[00:05:25] And it was so funny to me because this isn't- it wasn't the latest  Ariana Grande bop or  Bieber bop, that's so catchy that like everyone kind of knows it was. It's not  a timeless classic either like "Don't Stop Believing" it was just just literally random, 2003 Alt Rock song from 3 Doors Down and- no shade to 3 Doors Down. But  it's just pretty random. 2020, global pandemic... Kind of random.

[00:06:01] And I, it hit me that we are all living in this  deprivation state where we're in our apartments every single day looking at the same things, doing the same things, totally stripped of the otherwise stimulus that we are usually immersed in.

[00:06:25] And not only that, but on top of that, there's a tremendous amount of fear and anxiety and unknown. So, where otherwise our moods might be at like a seven, eight, nine, we have now stripped away all the stimulation that kind of gets us up. Even social interaction can be that.

[00:06:47] And then taking us further back is doomsday  fear and all of that. So, we're normally at a seven, eight maybe now we're at a negative  two or three with everything piled on. I just thought it was so interesting, especially with this one song, because it was so random and something I know from  my marketing background is nostalgia is such a clever marketing tactic. And the reason why is because it really takes people back to  simpler times, happy times. So, everyone was together, singing this random song. But we were- the the drawing force, was this stimulation. A song we wouldn't normally put on or- it was new. And the second thing is that it's bring us back to... Not global pandemic vibes. So this happened. I observed this going on and around the same time, I think it was a little bit- either before or after, I had noticed my own behavior. So I was alone with myself for I think like two and a half, three weeks before, leaving my apartment.

[00:08:01] And so I was just with myself, living in quarantine, which is it's kind of a weird space because on the one hand, we have all of the boundaries, we can't physically leave our apartment. We are confined by the bounds of our physical wall. But on the other hand, there are no boundaries because everything is shut down, there's not a lot going on.

[00:08:30] So in addition to this kind of abnormal event of  noticing multiple people and Whole Foods singing along to this like random alt rock song. And my internal experience of looking at the fruit and,  being happy that I'm around though six feet removed,  total complete strangers in a grocery store.

[00:08:55] I was also noticing some behaviors that I was participating in. So I was more addicted to my phone than usual, checking it constantly. I was spending- I had really high screen time with something like six or eight hours a day, which is crazy. I was using social media more and more, YouTube, particularly at this time. I had given up Instagram for Lent, but I was- it was still trickling into my reality. Last Lent, I was super disciplined and I gave up YouTube, didn't touch it for  the whole 40 days. This time, Instagram was in my periphery, I wasn't scrolling, but I was I would go on it when I wasn't supposed to be on it. I noticed around food. I mean, I give myself a break, everyone was so stressed out. And sometimes I will go to food to quell- it's comfort food. And I know that I have this, but two weeks on end of eating things to make me feel better, mainly more carb heavy, sugar heavy. Things totally not ideal. And I just noticed I didn't have the willpower that I usually did surrounding food or do surrounding food. And I also noticed I was drinking way too much caffeine, like two cups of coffee a day, sometimes more, which is too much for me. I can't really handle that.

[00:10:21] So I notice all these things that I was doing, in particular the phone stuff and the food stuff was really- I was able to see it kind of under a microscope because that's all I'm doing all day. So all that to say, I think it's so important right now and we're all in quarantine and we don't have any boundaries really other than the confines of our home and boundaries from other people to really understand how our brains work normally in the culture and maybe how they're adapting now that we're home so that we can really do what we can to be the best people that we can be. If we're if we have all this time down at home just endlessly scrolling on social media or doing things that aren't helping us, it just might not be the best. So this time, I think actually this time where a lot of people can feel like they're set back from achieving their goals, something like a dopamine detox or really mindfully like getting a grip on some of your own behaviors that you can control. It's pretty ideal. I've I heard about this concept months ago, but I just.

[00:11:35] My life is so busy and friends and dinners and and all of it, this just there's no time to really like do a full dopamine fast. But quarantine, I think is ideal for this. And so I'm really excited to talk about it.

[00:11:49] So dopamine is dubbed the pleasure chemical. It's actually a neurotransmitter and a hormone, and it is responsible for rewarding that's for good behavior or motivating us, which is really interesting. So something to help kind of illustrate what dopamine looks like in a more extreme environment. A study that was done, scientists hooked electrodes up to the brains of rats and they put them in an environment with a lever. And every time the rats pulled the lever, the scientists would trigger the electrode, which was hooked up to the specifically their reward center. So every time the rat pulled the lever, you get a hit, a dopamine. And so what ended up happening? The rat continuously pulled the lever over and over and over and over and over and over again to the point of sacrificing- He was no longer motivated to do anything else, to eat, to sleep. Nothing. He was just pulling employing the lever obviously in addictive state. So this would happen until the rats literally just passed out from exhaustion, not eating or drinking or anything.

[00:12:59] So conversely, the scientists went to the other extreme and they blocked the rats from producing dopamine in their brains.And what ended up happening was the rats didn't want to eat or sleep or procreate or socialize or anything. They had no motivation. It was as if they were depressed. If the scientists put food in their mouths, they would eat it. But they were not motivated to do to work for that, to put any effort in whatsoever to meeting their basic needs of survival.

[00:13:37] So we need dopamine. I mean, it drives us, motivates us to do things like socialize with other humans, like procreate, feed ourselves, things that our species need. But when presented in higher doses or when presented with more stimulus, that kind of sets off those reactions in our brain. What ends up happening is we become heavily out of balance. It kills our motivation, kills our willpower. It kills our ability to maintain attention on something and it decreases the satisfaction that we get from doing the things that we love.

[00:14:17] And I can speak to this like I was in- I've been in quarantine and I was spending my time on social media, like eating carbs, like not doing not creating anything like these things that I have, said that I want to do for so long. I just had all these excuses.

[00:14:35] But finally, I couldn't hide from anything. I was just  with myself,  looking at my own stuff and looking at the fact that I wasn't doing any anything that I wanted to, meeting any of my goals. And I had to ask myself why? And it's because, writing and creating, they didn't get me high, basically. They didn't set the thing off in my brain that all these other things were setting off. I just I wasn't motivated to. Which is sad. It's so sad and it made me angry. So I took action and went down this path. And it's been so fruitful, honestly. I mean, this my first podcast episode I've been I've been working on so many creative projects. One very special personal development project. It's been productive on a soul level, but I needed to take the step to get there. So when we look at the culture today, we can see or the just the terrain, the environment that we live in. We live in a very highly stimulating environment. There's so much stimulus, absolutely everywhere. And stimulus in the sense that it will set off dopamine and these chemical reactions in our brain.

[00:15:49] I think so many times we- I haven't always been conscious of the fact that, the chemical reactions happen in our bodies- when when we fall in love like that- that's just a host of chemicals happening in our brains. When we eat comfort food. We love comfort food, but why? Because it's setting off- It's not just because chocolate cake is amazing. It's because it is literally setting off a chemical reaction or brain. So when this is happening constantly in our day to day life, because, the things that are are good for us like social interaction, procreation, eating and kind of warped into social media where you have the access to two billion people basically and constant new things, yes, we're social animals. But, I think we thrive in a social environment of one hundred and fifty people versus the thousands and thousands of followers that we have. Or sex. That's super important for the species. But we live in this environment where promiscuity is very mainstream or, immodesty, I guess you could call it like where sex is is, accessible. And porn is free and everywhere. So, you know, it's it leads to a very unnatural and more synthetic environment that we're just not, built for, the natural order of our brains. You can tell  this because we're all now addicted to dopamine.

[00:17:29] If this stuff was natural, then it wouldn't cause such an intense chemical reaction or brain or we would have the capacity to have like a higher baseline of it. But I think my example, I spoke to it because I think so many of us experience  this plight.

[00:17:49] Some other things that trigger dopamine release that is everywhere and more mainstream: Sugar, caffeine, alcohol, shopping, our phones. Obviously, social media, like I mentioned, all of these things, again, are just so ingrained as part of the culture. So even when we use even just a little bit of it, it's like the thing with dopamine or with drugs in general. And I think actually porn is a great example of this because you start to see the stimulus and your brain likes it and it wants more of that. So it'll tell you to continue feeding it with whatever just triggered that reaction or brains. But  in the instance of Porn, for example, you need a little bit more than the last high that you've got. You need a little bit more. So maybe the kinds of content that you're watching get like a little bit more intense or a little bit more intense or more of it, consuming more of it.

[00:18:46] It builds because your baseline- your threshold gets higher and higher and higher. It's like alcohol- if you're drinking alcohol every single night, you're going to have a much higher tolerance for alcohol than someone who is having their first shot in a year.

[00:19:04] So, if you think about it like that, too, it makes sense why in this quarantine we're in a deprivation withdrawal state and therefore looking to things like social media or eating comfort food or our phones to compensate and  keep our levels at the same baseline we're used to.

[00:19:29] So this reaction of dopamine that happens in the brain. It's pretty universal across all human kind. But I think, what I've noticed anyway that in my experience, maybe some people would have a different relationship to others like me. For example, I know I have a pretty high propensity for chaos. It's either discipline or oblivion for me. I know if I don't have some form of structure I- it's not productive at all. So I think it's why I'm so drawn to self-mastery is because I think I'm taming all this chaos, bringing order to this chaos so I can be productive and live a healthy and liberated life. So. So also for me, I think part of that is I'm very highly sensitive. And so maybe a two on the dopamine trigger scale for somebody else would feel like an eight for me. So especially I think if you're more sensitive, if you are highly creative, have a high, high propensity for chaos, I think something like this is super beneficial because it lowers your baseline. So you're able to keep everything else under control and managed, which is something that I've definitely found, especially lately and since lowering the dopamine in my brain.

[00:21:03] So I started with a pretty intense dopamine detox. And what that looked like was I first addressed my phone. I put everything on black and white. I took all notifications off. I deleted all social media and all dating apps as far as entertainment. There was no music. There was no TV, there was no books even. And also sugar was just off limits. So this level of intensity lasted a few days.

[00:21:32] I was mindful during this time that I have a propensity to kind of self isolate and pull away from,  everyone that I love during things like this. I didn't want to do that totally. I told some friends and family what I was doing. They knew that my notifications were off. I was still text messaging, but just not as frequently. There was- and there's still as I've kept my notifications off, but extremely large stretches of time where I just wouldn't look at my phone even though I wanted to. So there was still some kind of withdrawal, but it was a very mindful and intuitive process.

[00:22:10] I talk to my body sometimes. I mentioned that in some previous content that I put out. But it's a paradigm that works for me where I kind of believe we're  a spirit and a body, living in a body.

[00:22:25] And so, if I'm ever making a change, I just like to check in with myself and let myself know what we're doing and that, yes, these cravings are okay. But we're not doing that right now. We're not eating, Ezekiel bread with honey or going on social media. We're not doing that. This is like still and silent time. I think that that really helped. And I would definitely recommend if you're gonna start this process, starting with fasting of all of the things that you can do for as long as you feel like you need to. So I did this for less than a week, about five days, and then I slowly started incorporating things back into my day-to-day.

[00:23:11] So I'll tell you where I'm at now anyways. What I've done to keep dominion over myself and my my mind. I've kept my phone in black and white. I've kept all notifications off except for phone calls. So I allow people to contact me in that way if I need to reach me, especially in a global pandemic. I just I thought it was important.

[00:23:37] I have re-downloaded YouTube, but I try to watch it in black and white as much as I can, and I stick to that pretty well and it makes it so I don't kind of fall on these endless rabbit holes just because my brain isn't, as excited by the color. I've kept kind of minimal. Other social media. So I really only go on Instagram and I, I'm not posting I, I don't really scroll so much anymore on it.

[00:24:02] I think my Lent forty day fast from that was really helpful in that way. And with my diet I started tracking every single thing that I ate. I've never been able to stick to that in the past. The concept of doing something so mundane every single day is just not appealing to me. But I made myself do it because I'm like, "Morgan,  you're literally sitting  feet away from your kitchen. We need to implement  bounders and need to understand what we're putting into your body." So I have  a calorie tracker. And I also decided to do full carnivore again, the sugar I was eating and emotionally- And it's just like not conducive to some of the health things I'm healing from right now. So cut out everything basically, except for animal products. I'm feeling incredible doing that too. So just creating boundaries around, the kinds of things that I was eating, how much I was eating that helped me so much. And I'm down, for example, weight loss has been a big initiative of mine. I'm down seven pounds since starting this journey, which is amazing. I'm so happy about it.

[00:25:14] Also, I cut my caffeine intake in half or more. I bought decaf coffee beans and a ground or mixed them up with regular coffee beans for a "half caff" But I think there's even less than half.

[00:25:32] Less than 50 percent caffeine. So I went through pretty bad withdrawal the first two days, headaches and stuff, but totally worth it.

[00:25:40] But probably the most profound benefit that I have seen as I am creating again and I'm really into personal development again. So, I mean, I've always been into personal development, but I'm really dedicating time to my spiritual practice, to personal development practice,  every single day, which feels amazing and like doing this, recording my first podcast. It feels incredible. And I'm motivated to do it now. I just I feel like I got a grip. And I really want to encourage everyone to explore this idea too, and explore- go inward, explore your relationship to certain things. And if any of these anecdotes or "symptoms" of addiction or just your experiences, if you resonate at all, give it a go. This is such a potent time. Right now when we're in quarantine, when we don't have the stimulation, we usually do to really, rein in your mind. The only thing we can really control in this world is ourselves. And really sinking into that and and truly mastering ourselves so that we can fulfill the purpose we all have within us. 

[00:27:07] And I think a lot of these triggers for dopamine, they they take our attention and they put it on something else. And our attention is one of the most valuable things that we have. Whenever we put our mind to or spend our time, whoever we spend our time with we become those things. Whatever we put into our body, we really become these things. And if if we're not exercising our autonomy in choosing these things because we're addicted or at the behest of these chemical reactions in our brain, what are what are we really becoming?

[00:27:41] So, yes, we're not set back. This is an incredibly potent time to level up, to gain dominion over ourselves to realign and and get back on track to our purpose and doing things that truly make us happy and fulfilled and that are productive in those ways. And I would really recommend it to anyone and everyone, especially now.

[00:28:08] So that's the show. Thank you so much for tuning in again. Don't forget to subscribe and leave a comment here or on my Instagram @themorganmay. And I'll see you next time. Bye :)