Take Your Pick: Dopamine Fasting or Take a Break

"Dopamine fasting is not focused on reducing neuro-transmitters. It is squarely focused on [improving] our relationship with behaviours that are increasingly out of control and returning them to reasonable use."
"Dopamine fasting is based on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy [CBT], the gold standard treatment for compulsive behaviours like Internet addiction."
"[It] helps people cut down on the amount of time they spend on impulsive behaviours and regain behavioural flexibility over when they do them, by restricting their use within specific periods of time."
Cameron Sepah, assistant professor, clinical psychology, University of California

Abstinence can trigger more thoughts about the very thing you are trying to abstain from. Photograph: FatCamera/Getty Images

One of many Silicon Valley "biohacks" and wellness trends that is gaining popularity is called "dopamine fasting", touted as a method to allow the brain a break from overstimulation [and the influence of dopamine). The Internet is full of people writing of their satisfaction over having engaged in dopamine fasting, as did Jari Roomer, founder of Personal Growth Lab.

"Never in my entire life did I have a day in which my mind was so incredibly still and focused", he wrote, on completing his first 24-hour dopamine fast. viewers of a YouTube video on the "Improvement Pill" channel were informed how spending a day with as little mental stimulation as possible could rejuvenate the mind: "dopamine fasting".

To that end, viewers were instructed to withhold indulging in food, phones, Internet, videos, music, alcohol, drugs, hanging out with friends, speaking with people, masturbating and reading books -- while on the other hand encouraging them to drink water, take a walk, perform light exercise, meditate and with the use of pen and paper, do some writing.

To some people so inclined the permitted actions might appear far more appealing than the withheld ones.

The assumption here is that one's life has run away, gotten out of control, and to re-establish the direction in which one wishes to travel, the mind should be cleared of all indulgences which produce dopamine -- an abundance of which translates to no longer being motivated by what we crave. This must have impressed at least a proportion of its 1.7 million viewers.

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And then a LinkedIn article by Cameron Sepah appeared to give weight to the notion of dopamine fasting with a level of scientific legitimacy when he introduced "Dopamine Fasting 2.0" as a less intrusive way to target behaviours such as addictions, advising people to surrender that problematic behaviour gradually, beginning with abstention for one to four years, working up to one week.

With that instruction in mind, people fasted and his post saw over 100,000 views in a timespan of less than a day, popularizing the idea. Some narratives out of Silicone Valley focus on individuals hitting the disconnect button encompassing just about everything, for 24-hour stretches, including avoidance of normal social interaction to ensure dopamine is kept in check.

Two mid-20s startup founders committed to a dopamine fast during when they abstained from food, from screens, took care not to touch anyone or make eye contact. "A dopamine fast is simple, because it is basically a fast of everything" reported The New York Times in a dopamine fasting documentary. "The point of dopamine fasting is not to encourage monasticism or masochism" Dr.Sepah instructed, however.

Rather than forbidding or prescribing actions, readers of his post were told to fast only from what is highly pleasurable or problematic. Dopamine, referred frequently to as the "happiness" molecule is a neurotransmitter acting as a messenger in the brain, moving from one brain cell (neuron) to another by binding to a receptor on the receiving neuron to control our reward centre, executive functions, and affecting motivation, learning, attention and mood.

The short answer to the question of whether reducing stimuli can reduce the levels of dopamine in our brains is a considered 'no', according to Dr. Philip Seeman, professor emeritus, pharmacology and toxicology at the University of Toronto. Dr. Seeman's experience speaks for itself through his career lifetime spent researching dopamine receptors.

Dr.Seeman points out that a conversion happens when the receptor changes from high (super sensitive and more pleasure yielding) to low (sub-sensitive), which occurs daily. Stimulants such as smartphones and excessive socializing are mediated through the high receptors. Sleep, meditation, rest and quiet periods are able to convert receptors into the low version, making us feel calmer.

While removing stimuli can affect dopamine, it will occur not how its promoters describe on YouTube and social media. It isn't lost on most peoples' sensibilities that putting their phone on silent, spending time performing what feels like nothing, such as reading, cooking, walking, napping, has the value of producing the element of focus and serenity, as their dopamine receptors alter from high to low when obsessive scrolling through social media is set aside.