Dopamine Detox: Week 3 Lessons and Musings
This was the week I was supposed to bust through the clouds... did I?
Hey friend, I’ve made it through week three and onto week four. If there’s any post from this experiment I want you to read it’s definitely this one.
So week three was supposed to be something transformative. It was supposed to be busting through the clouds and into the sun. The reading I did had me feeling like this week was going to be something amazing and what it ended up being was disappointing and lackluster.
Don’t get me wrong… I’m not regretting doing this challenge in any way. It was truly challenging my first week and a half and did signify that I had a problem with things like social media, videogames, and to a lesser extent cannabis. This week relayed to me that these problems weren’t so big and I probably could have hit my reset button at the end of week two.
I’ll still be continuing on with the challenge to see what I continue to learn of course. Afterall, I was doing this challenge for multiple reasons. To retrain my brain to find dopamine in the little everyday tasks I was avoiding, to ensure I can pass any drug tests needed for the new field I’m trying to work in, to just keep a promise to myself, etc…
Dopamine, ADHD, understimulation, and overstimulation
So to get into why I feel like this week fell very flat we first have to understand ADHD/neurodivergency a little better. As always, I’m no doctor so I’ll be summarizing and leaving links for further exploration.
See, I noticed in Dopamine Nation how ADHD and neurodivergency was rarely mentioned. I figured I would try the challenge regardless since us folks with ADHD have a difficult time staying focused. Simple math says, reduce distractions and increase focus.
People with ADHD have genetically decreased dopamine receptors. We simply cannot get the uptake that other folks get. This is why it’s often connected with addiction. This is also why we take meds that stabilize our dopamine intake or block it.
5 Things You Should Know About ADHD
ADHD Overstimulation and Understimulation Explained
Understimulation
Understimulation happens when we have a lack of sensory inputs. It can cause feelings like depression, fatigue, restlessness, irritability, and more.
What Does It Mean To Feel Understimulated?
Overstimulation
Overstimulation happens when we have too much sensory input. It leaves us feeling overwhelmed, frazzled, anxious, emotional, impulsive, and more.
The fact is that neurodivergent people go through both under and overstimulation. We have a difficult time regulating these things since our brains are different.
Link Between ADHD and Overstimulation
Why ADHD Brains Crave Stimulation
How does this tie into the dopamine detox?
See when I first started this challenge I believe I was dealing with classic overstimulation. I was consuming too much and doing too little because of all of the constant input that was scrambling my brain.
Around week two I found balance. It felt good to not have so much stimulation and I was able to focus on things and get more work done. But as I mentioned above, we go through both over and understimulation periods. What comes up must come down.
Week three I have been dealing with understimulation. I have been depressed, tired, completely unmotivated for the most part. It hasn’t been me even wanting to play games or smoke. It’s just been a complete feeling of blah.
When I looked into it further, there’s a mix of reviews on dopamine detoxes with ADHD because of this. It’s also why I think it wasn’t mentioned in the book so much. It’s difficult to study it when neurodivergent folks go through cycles like this. It makes the experiment difficult to track and understand.
With all this said… lets get into my summary of notes from this week.
Week 3 Realizations
I began dopamine-seeking hard.
I noticed I was spending more time on my phone visiting Reddit or scrolling through Pinterest. I contemplated deleting both at one point but realized I was never on there for long since I just wasn’t as interested in them. (Understimulation sign #1)I noted feeling tired and lethargic most days.
Now this could be partly due to the point of my cycle I’m in, but I also believe this is largely because I’m feeling understimulated.The times I felt the best were when I got out of the house and experienced something fresh and new.
Getting boba with a friend or going to a brewery with Elijah broke up the monotony of the day. All chores and no play makes Roo a dull girl. As I said above, understimulation calls for something new. A change of environment can be new and exciting because we’re getting new sensory inputs.I need structure and a plan for my day. (Especially when dealing with understimulation.)
I was my most productive when I had a daily bullet journal I used for planning out my days, months, future, and life. It’s something I’m getting back into now. I do best when I have clear objectives for the day and my top 3 to-do’s laid out for myself.I jump to being critical of myself rather than evaluating why I might be feeling what I’m feeling and how I can better support myself.
This has been a theme since the start of the challenge. Well… even before the challenge really. I grew up with undiagnosed ADHD and my parents were really hard on me because of it. Due to that, I tend to just jump to an internal dialogue of criticism instead of asking myself how I can better support myself to achieve what I want. This is an ongoing process and something I’ll be working on for a good long while.
I don’t miss cannabis as much as I thought I would.
Confession time: I used to get anxious thinking about being without weed for a few days. What would I do without it? Where would I get it?
It’s honestly so shocking to me now that I ever felt that way. Giving up cannabis has been incredibly easy for me. Sure there have been days I wished I had it for pain management purposes but outside of that I genuinely haven’t missed it. It makes me shocked that I had ever normalized smoking cannabis constantly throughout the day. Why did I feel like I needed it before every activity? This week I realized that while I do still enjoy and love cannabis my relationship will be changed with the plant because of this. Excess consumption is so normalized and it’s truly not normal to need to smoke constantly.Understimulation’s cure is new input.
At the end of the week I went out to get some supplies for a DIY post I wanted to work on for here. I grabbed some clay and tools and browsed Pinterest for some inspiration and jumped into my projects. I was able to spend hours playing with clay and working on it without the feeling of boredom or lethargy that had been following me this entire week.
It showed me that when I’m feeling the way understimulation makes me feel I need to seek new input. I need to try something new, change up my environment, and give myself the stimulation I desire rather than seeking it from an app or the TV or a drug.
There we have it y’all. While this week felt boring and flat, in reality, it was a week of learning about myself on a deeper level and learning how to combat feeling this way in the future. It’ll be interesting to see what week four brings to the table.
Until next time!
xo,
Roo
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I can totally relate to this.
Seeing it from a different perspective in your words it helped me understand certain things better. I use a bullet journal as well, and I like your idea of putting the first 3 top focused on myself 👍🏼 You inspired me to work on things again for my well being.
I’m not doing a ‘dopamine detox’ like that, but I’ve been trying to work on the things I do excessively on a daily basis, like smoking when is not really that necessary and needed, instagram is a big one even when I delete the app by times i find myself still downloading again, I do crafts and art and get ideas from pinterest and can be there for hours and lose track of time. And the most difficult one to slow down for me is been coffee, doing all those things in excess just triggers my conditions, (i usually don’t realize it until after i have wasted my day in things that wasn’t worth it, that’s why I’ve been trying to follow a schedule and routine, is difficult But I’m doing it)
I wanted to ask if meditation and some yoga is something you have try? So far that’s been one of the main things that has helped me when I feel some type of way.
(Ps. Sorry if there’s any misspellings, English is not my first language)
Thank you again for this type of content, and creating this space ✨🤗 Good vibes ✌🏼