A Dopamine Detox: First Few Days (Part 1)
On Tuesday, I announced that I would be starting a dopamine detox and that I would post updates on Saturdays (a day with an hour or two allocated for internet use). Well, Saturday is here and it's time for my first update.
Today is day 5 of my dopamine detox and I am certain there is some value to this process.
Firstly, regarding the burden of doom-scrolling: For these 5 days I have completely avoided scrolling and I don't think I'd want to ever scroll again. I've noticed my mornings have become quieter and calmer, there are no more endless feeds with chaos and catastrophies that have happened in the world while I was asleep that I'm unable to prevent or fix. I no longer go down deep youtube rabbit holes that I'd spend hours on just to later not be able to recall what I've spent all that time on watching. I've gone over the fear-of-missing-out as there's really nothing to miss out on, all the news are just templates with a few changing variables: Russia captured X; Ukraine took down Y drones. I like to view this from a history-textbook perspective to evaluate if the news are worth reading and it goes something like this:
How extensively will this event be taught to kids in 50 years?
I bet the Russo-Ukraine war would be taught no deeper than this: In 2022 Russia attacked Ukraine to create a buffer zone, concerned by the increasing proximity of NATO. It was the first major symetrical war after WW2 and it changed military strategy introducing drones and squad-size operations.
Anything else is just details and it's the details that fill our heads and make it feel heavy.
Secondly, regarding sleep: Ever since I got my first smartphone, at age 11 or so, I remember being sleep-deprived. I'd get ready for sleep, go into my roomand watch YouTube to help me fall asleep. Of course, it wouldn't help with falling asleep but would keep me awake for hours instead, even though I was be very tired. I remember I usually got around 5.5 hours of sleep in middle school, probably even less in high school. So far, the dopamine detox has put a stop to this. My goal was to go to sleep at 22:30, to get 9 hours of sleep and wake up at 7:30. I had this goal on mind some time before starting this dopamine detox, but I could never manage to follow it, but after starting this challenge, I managed to achieve it the first night; there was simply nothing holding me awake.
I expected to go through a withdrawal crisis but I didn't. The key was just realizing that scrolling and dopamine-indulging were nothing but a burden-chains we voluntarily wrapped around ourselves; realizing that FOMO is a lie. If you sit and ponder on these things, I promise, your experience with dopamine detoxing will be smooth, like a knife passing through butter.
I should address as well the automatic actions that result from habits related to internet usage. After years of using phones, we are habituated to check our phones and refresh feeds at random intervals. To counter this, we need to employ watchfulness, which means being aware of what we're doing at all times. If you adhere to this practice, you will notice when you're about to take your phone and refresh the feed and say to yourself: "Oh no, I've taken out my phone and am about to refresh the feed; I should stop right now.". You should go about constantly reminding yourself that you're on a dopamine detox and that scrolling is a thing of the past.
In the next entry, I will expand on the concept of watchfulness and lay out some guidelines for watching over my thoughts as well as actions.
Until then.
With love, Ubu in Chains🍃