This is the final post in a series of reflections I am writing on the ideas of How to Calm Your Mind by Chris Bailey.
I’ve seen the rise of the term “Dopamine Detox” on a certain subset of the internet over the past year. The idea is that the neurochemical dopamine is addicting people, especially young men, to a set of bad things: TikTok, unhealthy foods, porn, video games, etc. Like all viral ideas, there is a hint of truth in this but as the idea spreads online, it gets simplified and meme-ified to the point of becoming nonsensical scientifically.
This is why the How to Calm Your Mind chapter on “Simulation Fasting” appealed to me.
The more accurate (but also heavily oversimplified) role of dopamine is that it’s released when we anticipate novelty or accomplishment, but it is not necessary associated with accomplishment itself. Dopamine’s role in motivating us to do hard things is vital, but it also motivates us to prioritize activities that feel productive, but aren’t. This includes things like social media, email, news, etc.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with these activities but they often undermine calm–and thus productivity–by making us anxious and distracted, and by taking up a lot of time.
This is where “stimulation fasting” comes in. Bailey talks about his attempt to remove unproductive tasks that made him feel busy but actually just led to increased anxiety. He gave a bunch of actionable advice, some of which inspired me to try this myself.
December Experiments
Recognizing the same problem in my own behavior, I experimented with this during much of December. They key tool was a little NFC reader called Brick which enables me to lock myself out of certain apps on my phone until I physically tap my phone to the Brick. It uses the same system as my iPhone’s built-in ScreenTime feature, but with a physical lock that makes it much more effective.
Setting which apps to block was trickier than I was expecting. At first, I blocked the usual suspects like Instagram and Facebook (I also entirely deleted Twitter and Threads for reasons I may write about another time), but my habits changed quickly to habitually checking NetNewsWire, email, and playing games like Knotwords and Threes. So I adjusted the settings include these apps as well as Overcast (for podcasts). I really like Podcasts but I find myself too often turning on a podcast in order to procrastinate.
This experiment was largely successful. During December, I was able to write on this blog more, practice piano more, get longer stretches of productive work done, and avoid a lot of enraging news cycles about the upcoming Trump administration.
First 100 Days
Looking ahead to 2025, I am going to take a more ambitious stimulation fast during the first 100 days of the Trump 2.0 administration. I think I can do it because I largely have the habits and systems in place from my December experiments. I’m optimistic that I can personally grow from this period that I am certain will be terrible for our country and for our culture.
I believe this stimulation fast, in addition to all the other ideas from How to Calm Your Mind that I’ve written about previously, have a potential to really help during this very anxious time.
