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Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor Podcast. I'm your host Rob. Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so you never miss another podcast episode. I put out episodes four times a week to help you learn, grow and improve yourself. So if you want that, go ahead and hit that subscribe button. Today I'm going to be talking about how to do a dopamine detox so that you can reclaim your focus, your motivation and your joy in your life. Do you ever feel sometimes in this world that we live in that your brain is like glitching? What I mean by that is that you're like, I'm going to sit down, I'm going to. I'm going to get some work done. I'm going to be productive. And then suddenly you're checking your phone, you're hopping between tabs that are on your computer, you're on your phone scrolling mindlessly on Instagram or TikTok and you don't even consciously do any of it. Like it just kind of happens. Have you ever found yourself in that situation? I'm sure that you probably have. I find myself there all the time. But then you start to wonder yourself, like, why can't I focus? Like, why can't I sit down and actually focus and get done what I need to get done? Like, why do I feel stuck even though I'm doing everything that's right? Why do I keep feeling like I'm working hard and spinning my wheels? And so today, what I'm going to talk about is the antidote for all of that. And I'm gonna teach you basically how to reclaim all of those things. Your focus, your motivation, your drive, and especially your joy. Like your joy for life. It's time to add some more fun. It's time to add more color to your life, to actually have more happiness when you experience things instead of things just feeling kind of like muted. And we're gonna talk about one of the most powerful tools that really people talk about. And it's this idea of a dopamine Detox a dopamine fast. And this isn't like a biohack your way into being a productivity machine. It's really about more than anything else, healing your nervous system and retraining your brain and reconnecting with your purpose and once again having more joy in your life. And so I really, really, really feel like today's episode is really important. And I hope that every person who's listening to this tries this at least one time just to see the benefits. So let's dive in and let's talk about it. So when you look at dopamine, everybody's heard of what dopamine is, but what is it? Actually, dopamine's often misunderstood and people think it's like a feel good chemical, it's a pleasure chemical, but that's only kind of part of the story. Dopamine is your brain's motivation fuel. It's the chemical behind wanting something, behind craving, behind anticipation of something, behind seeking. And it's also the chemical behind addiction. The most addictive drugs in the entire world are high dopaminergic drugs like cocaine, methamphetamines, nicotine, opioids. Opioids, Whatever you say, I think it's opioids and it's the chemical of motivation. And it pushes you towards doing something. It pushes you towards your goals or push you towards, you know, scrolling on your phone for a little while. And it's what lights up when you're chasing a reward. And your brain loves that chase and it loves getting there. But the problem is your brain doesn't care what the reward is. Exactly. It doesn't care. You know, it treats Instagram likes and potato chips and doom scrolling and porn the same way that it uses in thinks of deep goals and personal growth and deep relationships. It doesn't matter where it gets the dopamine from, it just kind of wants the dopamine. And if it gets a hit of dopamine, your brain goes, oh my gosh, yes, I want more of that. And over time, if you're not paying attention, this pattern will evolve and it creates a really big problem for a lot of people. And the reason why it's such a big problem is because we live in a world of hyper overstimulation, like way more than it should be. You know, we have highly processed foods, we have, you could, you could scroll all day long for the rest of your life on social media. You, so you have infinite scrolling, you could do. We have video games that are just fast paced and insane at this point. We have on demand everything. We have texts and emails all day long. And your brain, dude, it's exhausted. Like it's, it's just like, can I get a frickin break? And when you constantly flood your brain with dopamine spikes, your baseline drops. And this is really important for what we're going to talk about today and why you want to do this. When your dopamine baseline drops, what it means is that you can't focus very well. You lose motivation for meaningful work. The simple pleasures in life don't really give you any pleasure anymore, just kind of feel dull. And you crave these quick hits of dopamine to avoid deep work. And studies have actually shown that this overload in your brain and your system can impair your ability to filter distractions, which leads you to being, you know, a huge lack of focus, high heightened irritability, more confusion, more agitation. And there's a thing that's called the reinforcement sensitivity theory that says that overstimulation is linked to anxiety. And it's activated when all of the stimuli that's coming into our brains all day long exceeds our brain's processing threshold. It's basically like if you were like, weird analogy, but it's like if you were burning your taste buds with hot sauce and doing it over and over again, eventually nothing tastes like anything. That's kind of what our lives have become like. We have so much dopamine Everywhere that we can get from all of these infinite amount of things going on around us, that life just kind of loses its luster. It's not as exciting. And that's where you really want to start thinking about dopamine fasting. And it's not a punishment to you in any sort of way. What it is really more than anything else is it's a recalibration for your brain. And so a dopamine fast isn't about removing dopamine, because that's completely impossible. It's about reducing the artificial spikes so that your brain can basically have a full reset. And so when you remove these distractions, what happens is your brain rebalances. It becomes more sensitive to everything, to sights, to sounds, to taste. It becomes more sensitive to small rewards. Now, things that used to be exciting, that aren't exciting anymore, well, they become exciting again. Another thing that happens is your focus will sharpen. You can sit and read and think and be again more focused and not feeling like you're distracted. You constantly have to be looking at something and doing something all the time. You could probably go to the bathroom and not have to have your phone with you, right? So your deep thoughts and your intuition also get louder. The insight that you're looking for lives in the quiet and your true desires start to emerge. Not like the cravings that you're just trying to do of get all of this dopamine and getting it all in, but kind of like the calling that you're looking for in your life. And so the reason why this matters, the real truth is that most people in this world are not lazy. They're just overstimulated in their life. And they're also very under aligned. Meaning, you know, you want to do meaningful work, you want to do deep focus, you want presence with your family, you want to be able to get off your phone, you want to be able to not work when you're on vacation. You want more joy and you want more happiness in your life. But your brain is stuck in this loop of like, I need the next hit, I need the next hit, I need the next hit. Exactly like an addict would be. And a dopamine fast doesn't just reset your brain, it rewires your habits in many ways as well. And what is important to you in your life. And so let me give you just the real simple neuroscience of resetting all of this and how it actually works in your brain. And then I'll tell you how to actually do it. Okay, here's what the research actually tells us dopamine has a baseline which is your normal level, and spikes, which is when you get some sort of reward. So you have a normal level and then you have the spike, which is whenever you, you know, see a puppy, whenever you get onto Instagram, whenever you have a piece of cake. So we have a dope, we have a dopamine baseline which is our normal level, and then we have spikes, which is when we get some sort of reward. And when you have high frequency rewards, which is snacking a lot, scrolling a lot, constantly being entertained, you actually drop your baseline over time, which means that your normal level of dopamine actually lowers because you have so many hits of dopamine all the time. And a lower baseline means less motivation, more anxiety, and more distraction and less focus. But what happens when you remove those artificial spikes that we're talking about? And we will be right back new.