At Least You Won’t Be Hungry –
DECEMBER 9, 2019 – Proponents, including lots of tech startup types, go to different extremes as far as what they eliminate on a dopamine fast. Some simply treat it like a digital or social media detox while others cast a wider pleasure net and won’t even talk unless absolutely necessary. The proposed scientific rationale for dopamine fasting, typically given by people who dopamine fast, often goes something like this: Frequent release of dopamine via pleasurable activities ups your baseline for dopamine—in other words, it overloads your brain’s dopamine receptors, causing your brain to reduce the number of receptors, and thus makes you less sensitive to dopamine. So then, the idea goes, you need more stimulation (More candy! More puppy videos! More likes!) to reap the same pleasurable reward.
