So I received the following comment a couple of videos ago from a mr. Bhatt he
asks how does one recover from a period of unwanted slacking off what are some
good practices and ways to recover essentially asking how to get your life
back together now when I came across this comment the first thing that came
to my mind was actually a ritual that I invented many many years ago back in
college when I was drinking smoking and simply partying way too hard it's a
ritual that worked extremely well for me back then and it's something that I
still do at least once or twice every single year I call it the dopamine fast
now in order for this to work you have to treat it like a sort of holiday this
is an entire day event that starts from the moment you wake up all the way until
the moment you fall asleep and this is a special holiday because unlike most
other holidays which are fun and filled with activities the entire purpose of
this one is to have as little fun as possible which means that there's a huge
list of things that you cannot do that's right things that you consider to be fun
entertaining or pleasurable are strictly forbidden so this means no food all
you're allowed to do is drink water no phone you can leave it on for
emergency calls but you can't use it no internet which includes surfing the web
and or social media of any kind Facebook snapchat Instagram no watching of videos
so this means no TV no YouTube no Netflix no going to the movies no
substances of any kind no alcohol no weed no drugs no cigarettes and nothing
with caffeine no video games no music no hanging out with your friends no talking
to anyone unless it's an emergency or for something work-related no
masturbating and finally no reading of any books fiction and or nonfiction now
here's what you can do you can drink water you can walk around outside you
can meditate you can do some light exercise and most importantly of all you
can write using a pen and paper and those are the rules now at this point in
time you're probably wondering why in the world would anyone do this to
themselves it sounds miserable it sounds like torture well I'm gonna
show you exactly why the dopamine fast is so effective and how committing to
this ritual can force you in to become extremely productive again and I'm also
gonna explain why writing is so important during a dopamine fast but
before we do that I do want to thank the sponsors of today's videos the guys over
at vinz Sarah watches if you're going to be doing a dopamine fast which means
you're basically doing nothing all day trust me you're gonna end up wondering
what the time is quite often which means you need a watch but on a more serious
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way I dress and the importance of fashion in general and by just applying
some simple fashion tips like matching the color of my watch strap with the
color of my belt and shoes I've actually started to get a lot more compliments
especially for my female friends it's accessories like watches that can change
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about it all right so let's resume our conversation about the dopamine fast now
there are two main reasons as to why it's so effective the first is that it
starves your donkey what I mean by this well if you think about it the
relationship between your mind and body is sort of like the relationship between
a rider and a donkey if you're riding a donkey and you want it to move all you
have to do is wave a carrot in front of him this is similar to how if you want
to convince your body to do something that's hard all you have to do is think
about the reward you get after this is basically how habits work we
automatically do things as long as there is a decent reward that follows as long
as there is a carrot on a stick now what happens to us when our life is a mess is
that we've been indulging in too many stimulating things things like porn
drugs junk food and binge watching shows all produce a huge amount of dopamine
this is equivalent to letting your donkey eat and a buffet of carrots and
other tasty donkey vegetables if your dog is been eating in a buffet all week
he's not gonna be motivated by a little carrot on a stick anymore because he's
full when you come - doing a dopamine faster essentially
starving your donkey you giving your body as little stimulation as possible
for an entire day and when your donkey is starving you can easily convince him
to move by waving just a little carrot in front of him this means when you wake
up in the morning after doing a dopamine fast you'll find it much easier to
convince yourself to go to the gym or to read some pages of a book by thinking
about the reward you will give yourself after the second reason committing to a
dopamine fast is so effective is because it prevents you from masking your pain
what is the purpose of pain well if you think about it pain is an indicator that
something is wrong and needs to be fixed right it's a sign that there's a problem
somewhere if your hand is touching something that's too hot you feel pain
and your brain goes ah there's a problem over there and it automatically moves
your head pain is necessary for us to fix our problems the same thing applies
to emotional pain things like rejection loneliness and shame these are all
indicators that something is wrong in our lives but the problem with us humans
is that we love to run away from these feelings we love to self-medicate with
pleasure instead of solving the actual problem that's why so many people turn
to food drugs sex and alcohol when they're in a bad mood because all of
these things can make that pain go away at least temporarily now when you do a
dopamine fast you have no way of avoiding your problems because there's
literally nothing you can do to mask any of the pain and this forces you to
address all of the problems that you've been running away from for who knows how
long and here's where writing comes in in order to address this pain the best
thing to do is to write to organize your thoughts to figure out why you're
feeling this pain to begin with and to eventually come up with a plan see every
time I commit to doing a dopamine fast I will spend at least a couple of hours
writing throughout the day here are a couple of very good questions to ask
yourself these are the writing prompts that I'll use most often whenever I
commit to doing a dopamine fast question number one do I feel any discomfort
today if so where in my body am i feeling it is this an emotion or is this
physical pain if it's an emotion try to describe it is it anxiety is it
depression is it shame what does it feel like question number two ask yourself
why do I feel this way now it's important not to blame a chemical reason
or you know genetics or other people because most of
the time the reason we feel bad is because of something that we can control
there are almost always things that you are doing that are causing these issues
so ask yourself what things have I been doing that could possibly be causing
these issues question number three what should I do to fix it what are one two
three things that I can do tomorrow that will at least somewhat address this pain
things that would get me a couple of steps closer to fixing whatever problem
is causing this pain question number four what would my life be like if I did
not do any of these one-two-three things for the next five years assume the worst
possible scenario and really describe it and finally question number five what
would my life be like if I stuck to these one-two-three things consistently
for the next five years assume the best possible scenario and really really
describe it now the key to getting the most of these writing prompts is to
write a lot the more you write the better but allow yourself to really
focus on what you're writing give yourself some time to think between
answering each of these prompts right slowly and neatly you have all of the
time in the world because quite frankly there isn't much else to do if you
answer all of these prompts in detail you're gonna have a clearer idea of
exactly what you need to do tomorrow you're gonna feel pretty motivated to
stick to the one to three things that you wrote about because you'll come to
realize that there are things that will get you closer to solving your problems
and that's why the dopamine fast is so effective now again this is a ritual
that I came up with but worked really really well for me so I'm curious as to
whether or not it will have the same effect for you guys if you're trying to
get your life back together try this out and let me know in the comments below
how you felt the next day besides that guys stay tuned