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Dopamine Detox (Take back control of your life and unlock a cheat code for success.)
Leigh Davies
June 15, 2024
If you are reading this, you may be feeling stuck in life.
You probably don’t have a problem scrolling social media or playing video games for 2 hours.
But working on your business or studying?
Now thats another story…
If you were like me, you will spend hours watching youtube, scrolling social media or playing video games, almost on auto-pilot until you suddenly look up realising you wasted a WHOLE DAY.
We both know that working on your business or studying will bring you more benefits eventually, yet we still choose the entertaining alternative…
All because of a simple chemical - Dopamine.
I knew back then that if I could switch from craving negative things to enjoying positive things I would automatically build success much faster.
Ill show you how to hack your dopamine to work for you, not against you…
Dopamine Discernment
Our brain automatically chooses the most dopamine.
(Resulting in often choosing harmful things in modern day society)
Your brain only sees the potential for pleasure with zero context…
For this reason people will:
Choose fast food over whole foods.
Tear their life apart with drugs.
Form an addiction to vaping.
Become addicted to games.
Doom scroll social media.
Your brain doesn’t care if the high dopamine activity is damaging to you,
It simply wants more of it.
Our brain even releases dopamine in anticipation for a dopamine reward.
For example, before you eat comfort food (Simply thinking about it), your brain releases dopamine anticipating that the food will make you feel good.
“No harm in chocolate or playing video games just once…”
You would be right, there isn’t…
But when actions become habitual is where problems arise.
Habits create us, in a sense. Repeat actions reinforce who we are.
Every hit of dopamine craves more and more, before long, we are addicted to the point that it becomes a gigantic problem.
Not only do we have a problem, but the problem becomes a part of us…
Hacking Homeostasis
Have you ever:
Had no phone for a weekend?
Not eaten junk food for a week?
Been camping without internet?
Chances are, when this happened you felt a bit empty, like something was missing…
Essentially that’s feeling homeostasis in action.
When dopamine changes from “normal levels” our body adapts.
Your body tries to maintain homeostasis (stability) so it down regulates your dopamine receptors.
Essentially, your brain gets used to having high levels of dopamine and those levels become your new normal.
(Arguably the source of many false ADHD assumptions.)
When the stimuli is gone, we feel hefty withdrawals…
This can be a huge problem in modern society because the things that don’t give much dopamine are often healthier, while the things that give immense dopamine are engineered that way by big corporations and are negative and addictive.
The Business of Dopamine — How Corporations Exploit Your Brain for Profit
GAMERS GENERATION:
Remember Candy Crush?
If not, your parents probably do.
Released in 2012, it became one of the first smartphone games to achieve widespread popularity, peaking at nearly half a billion players.
When Activision acquired it in 2015 for around $5.9 billion, it was more valuable than the Star Wars intellectual property at the time!
CRAZY.
Candy Crush's success is in its formula for delivering quick bursts of satisfaction, keeping players hooked with colourful visuals and rewarding gameplay.
To prevent player burnout, many free-to-play games, including Candy Crush, introduced mechanisms like ‘Energy’ values out of necessity to reduce playtime and encouraging players to return later.
SOCIAL MEDIA MADNESS:
Why were features like YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels introduced?
To maximise attention span.
Have you ever ignored a long, text-heavy post on Reddit or Instagram
That's because your brain now prefers easily consumable information.
Apps aren't making you dumber…
But they are changing how you consume information, favouring quick dopamine hits over detailed content, keeping you hooked, making companies more money.
Each scroll or video triggers dopamine, regardless of the content.
This quick reward system leads to mindless scrolling and repeated engagement, making features like Reels and Shorts much more viral than longer, detailed videos.
Pressing Reset - Guide To Freedom
So you have had enough. You want control over your life.
You are sick of being taken advantage of by large corporations.
You want nothing more than to be fulfilled, full of energy and in control.
This is how you can claim your life back. 👇
Dopamine Detox
People treat dopamine detoxing like a challenge, an achievement to obtain once but inevitably slip back into the same old ways as before.
Then, really what was it all for… Absolutely nothing.
Get clear on these, otherwise you won’t make it through:
Ask yourself WHY it’s important to do this?
What will happen if you don’t change?
Why am I making this all sound so dramatic?
Because its fucking hard to make these changes, it will test your will…
Instead of cutting all activities, find the activities you can do during the challenge that are beneficial like working out, working on your business or eating whole foods to replace existing bad habits.
Make these sustainable and healthy.
Replacement is the best cure.
You need lasting change.
7 Day Challenge Criteria:
1hr Screen Time Daily MAX - Use the widget or an app to limit this.
No Digital Entertainment of any kind.
No Junk Food, Alcohol Or Drugs.
No Social Media of any kind.
Only Water.
No Music.
No Porn.
8 Factors To Guarantee A Success:
Saying NO.
(Saying this out loud helps)Environmental design.
(Throw out junk food, remove triggers)Keeping your own word.
Shop on a FULL Stomach.
Make the healthy alternatives EASY.
Breaking the bad habit with replacement.
Avoid environments that trigger bad habits.
(Stay somewhere else if needed)Determine things to do when you get cravings.
(A good one is pushups or a walk, exercise is proven to reduce cravings.)
Keep these in mind and refer back to the newsletter as a guide.
You can do this.
The Unconscious War For Our Attention
Before I did a detox, I was miserable, low on energy and nothing seemed fulfilling.
Back then, I had no idea what a dopamine detox was or how it would affect me but instinctively, I did it anyway.
I knew these addictions were stealing my life, it was just a matter of telling my unconscious reward system that…
When I finally quit, almost everything became twice as fulfilling as it was before.
I was able to make more time for good habits while cutting out meaningless distractions, this enabled me to be much calmer and more present.
The “boring things” became surprisingly enjoyable and doing beneficial things was something I actually looked forward to.
Let’s help you achieve this too.
Start this week.
Start now.
This week may be the most important week of your life.
(It was for me when I did this challenge.)
This specific challenge is so important and beneficial that I will personally coach you through it, for free for the next 7 days.
Personal Progress 8th June - 15th June 📈
Weekly discovery:
This week I learnt a lot, mainly the power of repeated affirmations.
I have been re-reading “The Greatest Salesman In The World” which includes 10 Ancient Scrolls to repeat reading 3 times daily to fully internalise.
I have noticed a massive boost in self esteem, confidence and has created a deep belief in myself.
Very powerful.
Favourite quotes of the week:
Current Reads:
“The Greatest Salesman In The World - Og Mandino (Added to my “yearly re-reads”)
The book tells the story of Hafid, a camel boy who becomes a successful salesman by following principles from ten ancient scrolls.
These scrolls emphasise persistence, love, and positive habits, teaching that true success comes from developing character and mindset.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (Wish it was longer)
I can give you the tools, information, and resources to change, but at the end of the day, you are the only person who can change your life.
Reading this will do absolutely nothing unless you take ACTION.
Your dream life is around the corner. The only person stopping you is you.
My mission is to help people live with purpose to realise their ideal future.
I hope this helps you do just that.
To help another person reclaim control over their life - Share, Like and Comment.
Until next week,
Leigh.