Staying busy can feel good for a while. Remaining productive might contribute to your career or prevent boredom from settling in. The habit also feeds the brain’s need for constant stimulation.
If you frequently encounter this modern-day attention challenge, learning how to overcome dopamine-seeking behaviour could improve your quality of life. You might remember how lovely it feels to relax by finally slowing down.
What does constant stimulation look like?
People stay constantly stimulated by remaining occupied.
You might have a busy workload during the day, but double your stimulation by listening to music or podcasts in the background. They’re playing while you drive home until you can switch to watching videos as you make dinner.
Your TV plays while you eat, clean up and relax in bed. Maybe you’re also playing a video game, crocheting or doom-scrolling. Even if an activity feels like entertainment, your brain remains stimulated by one or more things until you close your eyes for the night.
Dopamine’s role in stimulating habits
Stimulation sources trigger dopamine rushes, so the input is probably making you feel good in the short term. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that regulates your reward system by making your brain feel everything from pleasure to disgust.
When you do something like scroll social media and see a funny post, your reward system makes you feel good. Your brain wants you to do it again because the activity was pleasurable.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with experiencing a dopamine rush after doing something you enjoy. The natural process occurs throughout the day. Unfortunately, never getting a break from that pleasure-and-reward response can result in dopamine addiction symptoms.
Feeling constantly sad or stressed requires management strategies and emotional processing, but you might feel that you do not have time for therapy. If you replace mental health resources with constant stimulation, the intense dopamine levels in your brain could make you more aggressive, less resistant to impulses, or prone to developing addictions. You may chase the higher intensity of positive stimuli if you don’t learn to regulate your reward system.
How to become less reliant on dopamine hits
When you’re ready for a dopamine detox, use some simple strategies to improve your mental health. You’ll balance your neurotransmitters, relax and enjoy having less stimulation again.
1. Focus on one trigger
You likely have more than one activity that creates a dopamine rush. Choose one as your focus, like opening a game on your phone.
When you feel dopamine addiction symptoms start, like getting frustrated with external factors while playing the game, recognise it as a possible reaction to your dopamine levels. Acknowledge the influence the habit has on you without judgement, so it’s less intimidating to tackle.
2. Start with small breaks
You won’t be able to quit continual stimulation instantly. Once you’ve identified a dopamine trigger, take small breaks while engaging with it.
You could play your phone game for 10 minutes and pause for 60 seconds. Enjoy the silence or focus on something you can see, like birds in your garden.
Don’t worry about the length of your breaks. Pausing your activities for a few moments can create clarity and calm amid heightened emotions. Practising taking even short breaks is key until it feels less challenging. Make the breaks gradually longer when you’re comfortable.
3. Journal about your experience
Dopamine detoxing should help you enjoy your free time, but those breaks might be too much to handle at first. Fill them with journalling. Writing is less stimulating and helps you process things. Practise self-compassion by embracing whatever you put on paper.
Writing about your thoughts and feelings could decrease your stress, which might make you crave previous dopamine sources less intensely. Adding tools like journalling to your mental health resource kit is crucial as you learn how to overcome dopamine-seeking behaviours.
4. Improve your diet
Restore your balanced dopamine levels by gradually improving your diet.
Tyrosine is an enzyme crucial for dopamine biosynthesis, so you may have lower dopamine levels if your body doesn’t have enough tyrosine to produce it. You’ll find tyrosine in foods like chicken, dairy, lima beans and red meat. You could even use the opportunity to swap out junk foods that might contribute to your constant stimulation, like potato chips or candy.
Craving continual stimulation means your brain might not have enough dopamine to feel happy without those external factors. Regulating your natural dopamine production with your diet could make you feel less inclined to indulge in stimulating activities because you have a naturally robust level of dopamine.
5. Exercise more often
Getting physically active could also help you hone your attention.
Exercising can make you focus on one activity, especially if it’s something like outdoor jogging. Movement also improves natural dopamine levels by producing feel-good hormones.
Exercising could be a great resource if your previous dopamine hits came from sedentary activities. If you’re new to working out, you might walk around your house to increase your heart rate or do body weight exercises. You’ll encourage your brain to make dopamine on its own, which will help when you’re taking breaks from stimulating habits.
Overcome dopamine-seeking behaviours
Gain more control over your attention levels after learning about dopamine addiction symptoms and what causes them. Once you understand what’s behind the modern attention crisis, you can take charge of your mental health with gradual lifestyle adjustments.
