What do most addictive behaviors have in common? They tend to be activities that release high amounts of dopamine in the brain. Dopamine is a primary chemical for motivation. It is a good thing in the right amount for the right things, but becomes problematic when we seek high highs too much. Whether our brain is seeking dopamine hits from substances, browsing social media, high intensity activities, receiving text messages or ‘likes,’ or the food or drink we crave most, all of these behaviors release high amounts of dopamine in the brain. The problem is that over time our brain develops a tolerance and it takes more and more of this activity to feel the same effect from the dopamine. At the same time, activities that are less ‘fun’ or ‘immediately rewarding’ like studying, working, etc. start to feel extremely boring as our dopamine has been used up on the more hard hitting activities and we feel very low motivation to do them because the chemical that helps give us motivation is depleted.
What is the solution? I will name 2: A dopamine detox, a gradual shift to intrinsically rewarding difficult but healthy activities, and processing experiences that make it difficult to be alone with our thoughts.
Dopamine Detox
If we give our brain a rest from chasing high dopamine activities and allow ourselves to just be very bored it allows our brain to rebalance. Over time, the less fun activities can again get enough dopamine to motivate them. This can be done in various ways. Andrew Huberman recommends a full 30 day detox. Others practice a detox one day a week. There are various ways this can be done. The key is to watch out for the high highs and to deliberately take a break from them. Here are a couple of relevant videos. Below is a nice explanation.
How to leverage dopamine in your own life:
Andrew Huberman lays out a lot of information about how to handle your dopamine system.
Note:
Note that some addictions are multi-layered and there are also other factors at play including past trauma, social influences, etc. Especially for more severe addictions it is extremely recommendable to include help from a mental health professional, support groups, and your own work with resources such as this.