I recently realized that self-improvement wouldn’t work without dopamine detoxing (at least for me). I’ve tried all sorts of ADHD medication and self-improvement techniques like journaling, GTD, 5 secs rule, mindfulness, counseling, etc., none of them stuck. I aim to be more self-disciplined by instilling them into my life, but they all require self-discipline to enforce. Especially if I’m surrounded by superstimuli like social media and meme videos, anything that requires attention away from them becomes extra annoying and painful.
When my brain is adapted to superstimuli, it also takes more willpower to shift my attention to something less stimulating or addictive. So I procrastinate more. I wait until the last moment when intense stress can override my craving for dopamine spikes. This also means I gradually lost my agency. I had to wait for external crises to push myself out of indulging in the superstimuli. But self-improvement and contributing to meaningful causes require serious thinking and work, beyond the bare minimum effort to avoid failing at whatever I’m doing. Only recently, after I went cold turkey on all the superstimuli, did I finally feel free again. Doing serious work is no longer that excruciating. I reclaimed mental space for more reflection. The flywheel of self-improvement finally starts spinning.
Also, 2 years ago, I installed https://www.minimalistphone.com/, and, from my subjective felt non-QS experience, it helped a lot. In particular, I set up a nearly full-day blocker for Brave (my main web browser), which was the most distracting app. If I really want/have to, I can access the web via Chrome, but it’s higher friction, because I’m not logged into my Google, LW, etc accounts, and also it doesn’t have the adblocker (and I am an ardent ad hater).
Remove anything I feel an unsatiated desire for and become agitated when I don’t have access to. No video games, TV, Netflix, social media. I turned my phone display to greyscale and turned off all those UI animation effects that make interactions feel sleek. I installed https://screenzen.co/ Screen time also works. I asked my partner to set passwords for them. On my laptop, I installed https://selfcontrolapp.com/ and set max block time to months https://gist.github.com/gschema/16bc1e77833dfe06e63b81256473fe72 Whenever I found myself developing any new addiction to a website, like novels on wikisource, I added them to the block list.
Finding a replacement could ease the withdrawal. Lesswrong is a perfect replacement for social media for me. The updates and feedback are much less frequent, and there is no endless scroll.
Perhaps finding a new superstimulus also helped. I got addicted to a mobile game a few weeks ago, and totally shifted my attention from social media to it. When I went cold turkey on all distracting apps, it felt easier because I had less attention on social media. Also, I haven’t developed much attachment to the game given the short time.
I’m very susceptible to recommendation algorithms and have been fighting with binge watching videos or social media posts. I recently found that going cold-turkey is much easier than limited usage per day. When I have a quota to check these instant-gratification inducing apps, the temptation is always in the backdrop. Whatever I’m working on feels much more boring compared to checking those apps. Instead, strictly blocking these websites frees me from deciding when to use my quota, and eliminates the comparison. The work I need to do feels less boring. I went cold turkey by asking my friend to set the password of screen time on my phone, and installed self control on my laptop with prolonged intervals of 3 months.
My favorite thing to do when waiting for my AI coding assistant is to do burpee with push-up. Sitting for long hours is bad for health, and taking even a 5-minute break in between could yield some health benefits. Burpee is a great compound exercise to get the heart rate pumped in a few minutes. Squat is also nice. I also noticed more energy and mental clarity since I developed this habit.
I recently realized that self-improvement wouldn’t work without dopamine detoxing (at least for me). I’ve tried all sorts of ADHD medication and self-improvement techniques like journaling, GTD, 5 secs rule, mindfulness, counseling, etc., none of them stuck. I aim to be more self-disciplined by instilling them into my life, but they all require self-discipline to enforce. Especially if I’m surrounded by superstimuli like social media and meme videos, anything that requires attention away from them becomes extra annoying and painful.
When my brain is adapted to superstimuli, it also takes more willpower to shift my attention to something less stimulating or addictive. So I procrastinate more. I wait until the last moment when intense stress can override my craving for dopamine spikes. This also means I gradually lost my agency. I had to wait for external crises to push myself out of indulging in the superstimuli. But self-improvement and contributing to meaningful causes require serious thinking and work, beyond the bare minimum effort to avoid failing at whatever I’m doing. Only recently, after I went cold turkey on all the superstimuli, did I finally feel free again. Doing serious work is no longer that excruciating. I reclaimed mental space for more reflection. The flywheel of self-improvement finally starts spinning.
How did you do the dopamine detoxing?
Not OP, but a few months ago, I figured that a big thing I needed was more friction when accessing various distracting apps and websites on my desktop, so I did the obvious thing: vibe-coded https://github.com/MatthewBaggins/app-blocker-daemon and https://github.com/MatthewBaggins/site-blocker.
Also, 2 years ago, I installed https://www.minimalistphone.com/, and, from my subjective felt non-QS experience, it helped a lot. In particular, I set up a nearly full-day blocker for Brave (my main web browser), which was the most distracting app. If I really want/have to, I can access the web via Chrome, but it’s higher friction, because I’m not logged into my Google, LW, etc accounts, and also it doesn’t have the adblocker (and I am an ardent ad hater).
Remove anything I feel an unsatiated desire for and become agitated when I don’t have access to. No video games, TV, Netflix, social media. I turned my phone display to greyscale and turned off all those UI animation effects that make interactions feel sleek. I installed https://screenzen.co/ Screen time also works. I asked my partner to set passwords for them. On my laptop, I installed https://selfcontrolapp.com/ and set max block time to months https://gist.github.com/gschema/16bc1e77833dfe06e63b81256473fe72 Whenever I found myself developing any new addiction to a website, like novels on wikisource, I added them to the block list.
Finding a replacement could ease the withdrawal. Lesswrong is a perfect replacement for social media for me. The updates and feedback are much less frequent, and there is no endless scroll.
Perhaps finding a new superstimulus also helped. I got addicted to a mobile game a few weeks ago, and totally shifted my attention from social media to it. When I went cold turkey on all distracting apps, it felt easier because I had less attention on social media. Also, I haven’t developed much attachment to the game given the short time.
I’m very susceptible to recommendation algorithms and have been fighting with binge watching videos or social media posts. I recently found that going cold-turkey is much easier than limited usage per day. When I have a quota to check these instant-gratification inducing apps, the temptation is always in the backdrop. Whatever I’m working on feels much more boring compared to checking those apps. Instead, strictly blocking these websites frees me from deciding when to use my quota, and eliminates the comparison. The work I need to do feels less boring. I went cold turkey by asking my friend to set the password of screen time on my phone, and installed self control on my laptop with prolonged intervals of 3 months.
My favorite thing to do when waiting for my AI coding assistant is to do burpee with push-up. Sitting for long hours is bad for health, and taking even a 5-minute break in between could yield some health benefits. Burpee is a great compound exercise to get the heart rate pumped in a few minutes. Squat is also nice. I also noticed more energy and mental clarity since I developed this habit.
One of the advantages of home office is that I can do things like this during work. Sadly, in open space office this is not an option.
that’s true. standing desk with a mini stepper may also help