 Hello and welcome back to my channel. If you're new here, my name's Jackie and I'm an aspiring fiction author who does videos on writing and writing experiments, and today, or tomorrow, I am going to attempt to do a 24-hour dopamine detox. Now this is an idea I got from another YouTuber called Andrew Kirby who does amazing videos on personal development and productivity style topics, and he recently released a series on dopamine detoxes, and he positioned it to people who are constantly consuming more and more personal development content but are never taking action on it. And the problem with this is when you say you're going to do something like starting a new routine or going after a new goal, and then you don't, you gradually lose credibility with yourself and you gradually stop respecting yourself and you start feeling bad about yourself, and when you're feeling bad about yourself, what you naturally want to do is look for things that will make you feel good, and what makes us feel good is a dopamine rush, and luckily, or not so luckily for us, there are many things available to give us that rush at this time in history, things like social media, Netflix, junk food, porn, and so on. These are all things that give us instant gratification, the very little effort on our part. The problem with this, though, is that once you start seeking that dopamine hit, it can become addictive and you keep looking for your next fix, which means it's very easy to go into a spiral of watching video after video rather than actually producing something of value or bettering yourself. Now, one of the challenges with the way society is set up today is that it's very hard to get out of this cycle, and the reason is because we have so many options, so you aren't making any single choice in isolation. So the example Andrew gives is you're not just choosing to eat a carrot, or choosing not to eat a carrot, you're choosing between a carrot and chocolate, and most of the time your brain is going to want to have chocolate because it gets the instant rush from the sugar and the fat. Similarly, as a writer, you're not not choosing to sit down and write, you're just choosing to watch a video on YouTube instead, and ultimately, when we're given the choice, our brain will choose the path of least resistance, it will choose the easiest path to instant gratification, which means it's going to go for Netflix or social media or video games rather than sitting down and doing the work and creating something. And one of the issues that compounds this is the fact that so many of these technologies that we use today actually play into that need of our brains. So every time you post something on Facebook and you get a like or every time you like something on Facebook and see the number go up, that gives you another little hit and that tricks you into staying on the platform for longer, so it's very easy to get stuck. So when it comes to the dopamine detox for a 24 hour period, what you're doing is cutting out everything that could stimulate a dopamine rush so you can focus on the more important things instead. So that means no TV, no computer, no video games, no phone, and instead you're stuck with things like journaling and walking and exercise and meditation. And although 24 hours isn't a long enough period to reconfigure your brain chemistry, it is an important period on a psychological level because if you commit to doing this and you do it, that is really powerful evidence to you and your brain that yes, you can uphold your commitments and no, you don't need to be dependent on these things that you've been using to get through your day or to avoid the things you know you should be working on. So the reason I thought it would be helpful for me to try this is because it's been almost two weeks since I last did any work on my book for various personal and professional reasons. And I thought it would be good to use this as a reset just to take a day away from all of the stimuli that are far easier and far more, not more gratifying but more instantly gratifying than working on my book is, which honestly is hard work. It doesn't go well a lot of the time and sometimes it's easier to watch a video or read a book rather than work on my own book. So what are the rules? Well there are three different levels that Andrew has outlined, beginner, intermediate, and time theorist. And depending on which level you choose that will influence what you're allowed to do and what you're not allowed to do. So for the beginner level you are not allowed your phone, computer, any gaming, any porn, drugs or stimulating food. You are still allowed to have coffee and tea, you're allowed to talk to people, you're allowed to read books, listen to music, eat food, you're allowed to journal, you're allowed to walk, and you're allowed to exercise. When you get to the intermediate level you then lose coffee and tea talking with people reading books and music. And this is the level I'm planning to attempt tomorrow. And the things I'm most worried about are, I'm a little worried about not using my computer and when you think about the reason why you're not allowed to use these things it's because you don't want them to stimulate that dopamine rush, you don't want them to give you that instant little high. And the reason I think computers are banned is because that's where you can access a lot of websites and social networks and so on that do give you that high. And the only reason I would really want to use my computer in this is to use Microsoft Word so I can type my book. So technically I probably could do it for that because writing I think would sit in the same category as journaling, it is producing stuff, you are reflecting on your work, you're not looking for gratification or reward which requires no effort on your part. However I'm going to be good and I will write by hand tomorrow. The next thing is no talking to people. So I'm doing this on a Sunday which makes things easier because I don't need to talk to anyone at work. However I am married and that means I'll basically be ignoring my husband for a day. He has told me he is fine with this though so read into that what you will. And then the final thing I'm a little worried about is no reading. So I'm okay not having the internet for a day, not having Netflix, not having my phone, not having my computer but like reading is my go-to source of entertainment and I'm not actually sure how I'm going to fill the whole day if I can't even read. And then that brings me to an interesting observation I've had already which is that my brain is already trying to figure out how I'll organize tomorrow and what I'll do. So I'm thinking I'll probably go on three different walks, I'll probably do some exercise and stretching at home, I'll be writing my book by hand, maybe I'll do some plotting work, maybe I'll clean the house and in fact I realized I was doing this when yesterday I thought oh I should give the house a vacuum and then I'm like no save it for Sunday because that's something that's not on my not allowed to do list on Sunday so the fact that my brain's already trying to think of ways to get around potentially being bored I think is a sign of how dependent we get when it comes to all of this external stimulation. But the ultimate goal is to use this to give my brain a little bit of quiet time, use it as a bit of reset and to get back into my book and I'm hoping that by enforcing a level of quietness around me that'll give my brain some space to really get back into the book and start building writing momentum again. So from here I'm going to enjoy the rest of the day when I am allowed to talk to my husband and watch YouTube and read and do all of the things that are banned for tomorrow and then I will check back in tomorrow with how I'm going. It is now Monday and I've successfully completed my 24 hour dopamine detox. So from 9 30 p.m on Saturday night until about 7 a.m this morning I did not use my phone, my computer, watch porn, play video games, do drugs, eat stimulating food, drink coffee or tea, talk to anyone, read or listen to music. I did have one slip-up which was a moment with my husband and it was an I told you so moment and I just spoke without even realizing and he got to gleefully say to me, ah you're talking. So the moral of that story is if you want me to break a vow of silence all you need to do is give me the opportunity to be right and silence will be thrown out the window. There were a couple of things that stood out to me about the experience. The first one was that I had so much time and I've never been the sort of person to complain about not having enough time before. I've always recognized that if I don't have the time to do something I'm usually not prioritizing it and that's not necessarily a bad thing. So for the past couple of weeks I haven't really worked on my book. That's not because I didn't have enough time because I could have put time towards that if I wanted to but there was something else happening in my life and I chose to make that a higher priority and consequently that was taking up a lot of the available book writing time and energy. And what was interesting is that I never consciously realized how much time I was spending on these instant gratification activities and how much that was making me feel a sense of urgency when it came to getting things done because there was always something else to do. Whereas yesterday there was nothing else to do because I couldn't do anything so I went for my walk in the morning and I stopped at a park in Kalamaya on the way back and I just sat there and watched the world go by for 10-15 minutes which I've never really done before because there's been this rush to okay let's get home finish the walk because I need to do X, Y and Z. And that happened several times throughout the day where I would do one thing and then sit down and go oh well I guess I'll just sit here and stare into space for five minutes because there's nothing else to rush to. However having so much time made me realize how dependent I was on these activities and while I was fine when I was doing something so I was fine to go walking without listening to anything I was fine to clean the house without any music on I didn't need to distract myself because I was actively doing something but as soon as I stopped like I immediately wanted to go to my computer and open up YouTube or I wanted to pick up my Kindle I couldn't just stop and be quiet on my own and anytime I was still for more than a couple of minutes my mind immediately started looking for oh well what else can I do now the good news is that the apartment's probably the cleanest it's been since we moved in so how did I spend my day well I went on two separate walks which were each about an hour and a half so that three hours of walking I did about an hour of riding half an hour of journaling maybe two hours of cleaning I wasn't tracking the time so these were all approximate I lay down in bed with my eyes closed and just daydreamed for a good two hours because I had nothing else to do and then of course there was probably an hour and a half two hours of eating showering and all of that stuff oh and I did half an hour of stretching as well so it's not like I did nothing with the day I still had quite a bit on but there was still so much time now arguably I should have been spending all of that time working on my book but I did struggle a bit and I think there were two sides to this one was that I couldn't use my computer so I didn't have the reference of anything else I'd already done to use as a springboard and then the other one was that I couldn't use my computer so I couldn't type so I was riding by hand which surprisingly went fairly well I didn't get cramps or anything though I wasn't doing it for that long but riding by hand just goes so much slower than typing when I'm typing and I'm in the flow I feel like there's no gap between my brain and my fingers like the thoughts just come out and appear on the screen whereas when I was writing it was so agonizingly slow and I found that I was skipping through things rather than going into the same amount of detail I would have done if I was typing on my computer so I think that if I'd had access to my computer and Microsoft Word I probably would have spent more of the day writing just because the act of writing would have been easier having said that the other side of the argument is does every hour need to be spent productively do you always need to be producing something shouldn't you be able to sit down and take a break and I think that was where my greatest weakness was in this experiment because I really couldn't sit down and take a break I did lie down with my eyes closed and once I was in bed with my eyes closed even though it was let's say 2 3 p.m. I was able to treat it almost as like the time when you go to bed before you fall to sleep and you're just letting your mind wander and I think just being in bed and not having my eyes open and not having any stimulus helped with that but when I wasn't in bed it was really hard for me to switch off to the extent where I probably did a lot more than you're supposed to on one of these detoxes and I actually feel quite tired today as a result in fact this morning I actually spent two hours reading and on YouTube because I felt like I needed to take that time to unwind from yesterday even though theoretically I should have felt refreshed after yesterday so I'm not saying this is a good thing I'm aware that it's pretty appalling that my brain has gone to this stage where I need YouTube or a book or some sort of stimulus to switch off but I wouldn't have known that if I hadn't done this experiment so all in all was it a valuable experiment I think yes because even though I've never considered myself to be a person who's particularly plugged in I'm not that active on social media most of the platforms I'm on I only joined because I used to have a business and I was using them for marketing but I still have that instinct to look outside myself to give my brain something to feast on and that's probably not a good thing I shouldn't be freaking out at the idea of having six hours left until I go to bed and I've got nothing to do and I better grab my phone or turn to the computer having said that I think going completely cold turkey was a bit much or at least it would be a bit much for more than a day for me so although I see the value in taking this time to detox and I see the value so much that I do want to create like a weekly detox day I am going to step back to the beginner level which means I still will be able to talk and listen to music and read and I'm also going to make the small modification which is I can use my computer but for productive work so what that means is it will be on airplane mode I will not be able to access the internet or any of the goodies it contains but I will be able to access Microsoft Word and Camtasia so that means I can write and I can edit videos both of these are things that I'm creating or producing rather than me consuming other people's content and I think video editing at least that's actually one of those tasks that does allow my mind to unwind a little bit from a writing perspective was it valuable well I don't think yesterday I achieved very much I wrote just under a thousand words by hand I think so that's more than I've done in basically the previous two weeks and it was good to get started again I also started thinking about how to integrate a new thread of the plot that I came up with in the second half of April so I did a lot of thinking about the book I did a little bit of writing and having that as one of the only activities I could do for the day meant like I had to write otherwise I would be bored so it was good in that sense however I think that not having the computer and not being able to type did make it more difficult to use the opportunity as well as I could have I also don't know if having the mental space increased my creativity and productivity which is something I was expecting I thought I would be able to write for much longer and I'd come up with a lot more and that didn't happen however it was a one-day experiment my brain hasn't actually changed as a result so I'm not expecting significant changes to my performance or mental well-being having said all of that I do think there's merit in doing this for the long term I think there's merit in taking time away from our devices and all of these things that trigger short-term behaviors and seeking out our latest fix of entertainment so that's why I do want to continue doing the beginner's version of this on a weekly basis and I hope that as a result of giving my brain more space over time my writing will become more effective over time that is all from me for this video and now over to you have you tried the 24 hour dopamine detox and if so please let me know how you went in the comments below if you like this video please give me a big thumbs up and I will see you next time bye