Hey friends,
I fell ill last week so wasn’t able to make time to write the newsletter. I hope you didn’t miss me too much.
One big life update is that we bought a flat! We’ve been searching for a home to call our own as we are rooting down here in Lisbon, so this feels like a big move in that direction.
I think a future post on why we’ve chosen Lisbon is due, but in the meantime, if you’re curious to understand the thinking and intention behind our move, my post on our Semi-Nomadic Living Experiment™️ does a good job getting to the heart of it:
Choosing where to live is one of those big decisions that influence thousands of other factors in your life. It influences who you’ll spend time with, the lifestyle you’ll live, the opportunities that will be available to you, and so much more.
— From We’re Moving! Here’s Why
Now onto this week’s idea.
5-Day Dopamine Fast
Wake up, check my phone.
Brush my teeth, check my phone.
All day, checking and scrolling and checking and scrolling.
What is this life?
Hooked
Despite many years of practice and experimentation in creating a more mindful relationship to technology, every so often, I feel myself falling back into a predictable cycle.
Content calls my name.
Distractions knock on my door.
I listen.
Part of me itches for entertainment, for information, for something other than what is happening right now.
Moments of boredom feel softened by the dulcet tones of my favorite podcast host.
The quiet frustration from the long queue at the grocery store is tempered by an interesting article.
Sometimes I’m consuming on purpose, which feels different. But lately, I’ve felt a compulsion to consume, and this is always a red flag for me.
Press Reset
What’s interesting is that the more content I consume, the less I enjoy it.
It’s just like that bar of chocolate. The first square is all pleasure. By the time I’m eating the last, the pleasure has diminished and a compulsion has taken it’s place.
This is what Dr. Anna Lembke, a Stanford Medical School psychiatrist, researcher and author of the book, Dopamine Nation describes as the Pleasure-Pain Balance.
Every time we do something pleasurable, we tip the scale of this Pleasure-Pain Balance.
But like all natural systems, this scale wants equilibrium. So we feel a crash, or a craving, or a slight hollowness.
And then we seek out more of what gave us pleasure.
We eat one more piece of chocolate.
We consume one more Instagram Reel.
But it doesn’t feel the same. We become tolerant. We adapt.
In Dr. Lembke’s words:
Now, our drug of choice doesn't even get us high. It just makes us feel normal. And when we're not using, we're experiencing the universal symptoms of withdrawal from any addictive substance, which are anxiety, irritability, insomnia, dysphoria and craving.
Now, this all might sound a bit over-the-top.
Is my phone really a drug? Is it all so bad?
Well I believe that’s a personal question, one I can’t answer for you.
All I know is in my own experience, I can feel that urge, that itch, that desire for more, and I don’t feel this relationship is serving me.
I’ve been here before, and I know when my balance is out-of-whack. I sense my attention weakening, my presence dimming, and my connection to the real world feels duller.
A Mini-Dopamine Fast
And so it happened that on Sunday night, in a conversation with my brother about the urge to always-be-on, we came up with a mini-challenge.
5 days.
Content-free.
A Mini-Dopamine Fast.
Sure, Dr. Lembke suggests a 30-day dopamine fast is really the bare minimum, but that seemed like a lot.
And in the spirit in which this newsletter was born, I thought it’d be better to start small, try it for a bit, and see how it goes.
So we agreed to 5 days with:
No TV
No news
No articles
No podcasts
No social media
What was allowed (in terms of content)?
Just books, boredom, or talking to another human.
What I learned
First off, it was painful. There is no getting around that. There were countless moments where I really craved a TV show, podcast, or to scroll my Twitter feed. It was made worse by getting sick, which really was a trigger moment for me as I usually give myself carte-blanche for content consumption when I’m unwell.
Luckily, the itch become way less noticeable within 48 hours. I was surprised at how quickly the urge to consume faded into the background. It was still there, but much weaker even just a couple days in.
I felt a lot more calm and peaceful. All week, I felt just a little bit more ease in the system. My mind felt a little slower. My energy more balanced. I think this is because consuming information all day at work, then consuming more in the breaks and the evenings, it can be easy to overload the system. During the fast, the down moments of the day were more restful. The breaks were actual breaks. Going for a walk became a time to process, not a time to download more information into my skull.
I can see clearly now the rain is gone. The biggest benefit of the 5-day fast was just gaining perspective on my relationship to my tech and my consumption patterns. I think Dr. Lembke is right in that the only way you can see your relationship to these patterns (ahem, addictions) clearly is in a state of total sobriety, and I would agree, even if my fast was just a baby one.
Coming back online also feels a lot different. As my brother said so eloquently, it’s “Like an alcoholic drinking after a week of sobriety.” You still do it, but damn, it’s not as fun. There is a certain clarity that’s come with the fast. I’m more cognizant of the moments I’m seeking to dull, distract, or escape some unpleasant present moment experience.
More purposeful consumption. As I’ve brought back podcasts, YouTube, Twitter, etc. into my days, it seems as if I’m already experiencing a little more balance. For example, I’ve enjoyed sitting down with YouTube at the end of the night to watch some stupid and funny videos, but I feel more in control of stepping away after 20-30 minutes instead of falling into a mindless, energy draining 60-90 minutes of content consumption.
New (and refreshed) intentions going forward
I don’t want to get rid of all these apps.
I enjoy seeing what my friends are doing and learning up their latest life updates on Instragram.
I get joy from connecting with new, like-minded people on Twitter.
I love that I can learn from an array of experts anytime, anywhere through a podcast.
But in a world of abundant access, I know I need to draw some lines in the sand in order to get the best of these technologies without them overwhelming me.
Here are a few short principles I’m bringing back into my life:
No “Infinity Pool” apps on my phone. Any app with an endless stream content can’t be there. No Gmail. No social media. No news.
No digital content for the first hour of the day. Starting the day on my own terms helps me stay more mindful throughout the day. I’ve noticed that simply one hour in the morning with no digital content helps. I’ll still read a book, but nothing on my phone and no emails on my compuer
No content after 10pm. Many weekday nights I’ll put down devices at 9pm, but I’m keeping 10pm as the hard and fast rule across the week. I’ve recognized that I’m much more likely to slip into an Infinity Pool of dopamine-fueled distraction later in the evening, so having a hard boundary means I don’t have to make a decision every night and will my way to stop. It’s just the rule.
That’s it.
Thanks for reading.
If you’ve tried any other experiments to get balance back into your relationship with content, I’d love to hear about it! Drop a comment on Substack below.
This newsletter is a labor of love. I write to think out loud and share my experiences and reflections with others. We’re all on this human journey called life and by sharing our experiences, we find connection and inspiration from others. I hope you might occasionally find a tiny nugget of wisdom in these letters that make you think.
If you enjoy my dispatches, the best way to support me is to share it with a friend.
Thanks y’all. 💌