Should You Do a Dopamine Detox?

Spending too much time scrolling on your phone, mindlessly eating, consuming alcohol, or online shopping? If you look for a quick fix to any of these behaviors, you may have come across the idea of a “dopamine detox.” This pseudo-science trend first emerged in popularity among tech industry workers and venture capitalists. The idea is to abstain from certain pleasure producing activities to detox from dopamine, the “feel-good” chemical in your brain. While this sounds great in theory, the science behind this idea falls short as dopamine is much more nuanced than this.

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter in the brain that is responsible for reward seeking behaviors, motivation, movement, focus, and learning. A healthy balance of dopamine in the brain is needed and a disruption in signaling can be associated with conditions such as ADHD, Parkinson’s disease, depression, addiction, and difficulties with impulse control. On the other hand, excess dopamine activity in certain brain pathways has been linked to symptoms such as irritability, anxiety, insomnia, and even hallucinations as seen in schizophrenia.

Activities that stimulate strong dopamine release such as scrolling social media, eating sweets, partying, having sex, gambling, shopping, etc. can increase overstimulation. Excessively partaking in these activities can desensitize the brain’s reward system and as a result, normal activities may begin to feel more boring. This is where the idea of a dopamine detox comes in. The intention behind this detox is to abstain from any activities that would trigger the reward system in the brain over a set period of time to “reset” the brain. This concept is oversimplifying the way dopamine works in the brain.

A complete detox where all dopamine is stopped in the brain is scientifically impossible, as the brain will continue to produce dopamine even when not exposed to stimuli. Similarly, too low of levels of dopamine would also be detrimental. This is seen in Parkinson’s disease where the dopamine producing neurons begin to die, leading to a loss of motor control. Dopamine is essential for motivation, focus, learning, and even the initiation of movement. While overindulgence in certain behaviors that spike dopamine should be avoided, our need for dopamine is rooted in survival. Dopamine is not inherently bad, so the idea of detoxing from it creates a negative connotation around this neurotransmitter.

It’s clear from the trend of a dopamine detox, that the role of dopamine in the brain is commonly misunderstood. This molecule has more to do with reward prediction and signaling surprise than the reward itself. Bursts of dopamine occur when an event turns out better than expected and these neurons will fire less when the expected outcome turns out worse. These bursts help the brain understand which actions should be repeated. This idea is commonly seen in scrolling social media since every time you refresh your feed, new exciting content may occur. Our brains continue to repeat the action in order to seek out the reward.

Overtime, these behaviors that used to be intentional, such as opening social media, become automatic. Many social media apps are designed to be habit forming. They deliver a curated algorithm that pushes out a consistent flow of content to keep you refreshing the app to see if the next post will be a “good” or “bad” reward. We begin to absentmindedly partake in these activities purely out of habit.

Our brains turn the engagement of these mindless behaviors into habits in order to reduce cognitive effort in having to think these frequent behaviors through each time. While these may be bad habits, our brain is aiming to make these recurring behaviors more efficient for us to do.

In short, abstaining from pleasurable activities is less about a dopamine detox and more about breaking a bad habit. Abstinence from these behaviors can interrupt this reward-prediction loop, but this happens through normal neural plasticity, not by replenishing dopamine.

Breaking bad habits is not a new concept. The idea of going “cold turkey” to break addictive behaviors has been around for years. We even see this in religious practices such as Lent, which involves giving something up for 40 days, or Ramadan where fasting occurs from sunrise to sunset. More recently, trends such as Dry January have grown in popularity where people are encouraged to take a temporary pause from drinking alcohol for the month.

Across these examples, we see that intentionally taking a mindful break from more indulgent behaviors over set periods of time can be effective. These structured pauses help to make space for increased levels of mindfulness which can help people weaken or even break these habits altogether.

Despite the term “dopamine detox” inaccurately reflecting the science behind this, reducing time spent partaking in mindless behaviors is beneficial. When overindulgence and bad habits are broken, people have more time for the things they truly enjoy. In a similar context, people may feel more present and reach a greater state of mindfulness which has been associated with health benefits such as stress relief and improved sleep. Since many of these dopamine producing activities have the potential to become addictive, the act of unplugging and distancing oneself from these behaviors over a period of time can have a positive impact on overall health and well-being.