Imagine this: It’s winter break, and you’ve survived a grueling stretch of exams. Exhausted, you plop onto the couch. Guess what you do? You instinctively reach for your phone, and before you know it, you’re deep into a session of “doom-scrolling,” instead of grabbing a meal with friends or diving into your favorite hobbies. Some would call this sullen state of idleness “addiction,” and unfortunately, addiction to easy entertainment forms such as social media is a prevalent issue today.

One method of challenging this has been spreading across social media like fire. Now known as a “Dopamine Detox,” and first coined as “dopamine fasting” by Cameron Sepah, this technique was idealized to break away from problematic behaviors by cutting off the sources of such instant gratification, essentially depleting the dopamine we receive from them. When a person indulges in easy temptations like social media, TV shows, and video games, the brain networks that function as a ‘reward pathway’ trigger the release of dopamine neurotransmitters, making you feel good. However, this response also affirms your desire and need to repeat the behavior, making the behavior addictive. The body resets its baseline so that feeling ‘normal’ requires continued participation in the addiction. To obtain the ‘high’ again, the body then desires greater indulgence, trapping the victim in a depressive and vicious cycle. To combat this, the dopamine detox trend has risen to suggest cutting off this dopamine response completely–though this approach might not be entirely realistic or feasible.  

Dopamine is just one of the many neurotransmitters in the body that contribute to satisfaction and serve many functions, including learning, motivation, and reward processing. Therefore, it’s not physically possible to rid oneself of dopamine completely, as the phrase ‘Dopamine Detox’ implies. Neurobiology researchers like Dr. Stephanie Borgland from the University of Calgary explain this key misconception, “The challenge with dopamine fasting is that they’re making the assumption that you’re going to rewire your brain over this period of time in the absence of dopamine… When in fact, you’re just not being reinforced for that period.” Instead, she suggests that “To change a habit, you need to have new learning.” 

Interestingly, this is already a practice that many psychologists suggest for staying away from dependencies, known as “cognitive behavioral therapy” (CBT). This technique is used in place of “Dopamine Detox” and portrays a healthier expectation of the process. CBT is essentially training oneself out of an unhealthy habit through repeated practice of mindfulness and redirecting any innate desire to partake in the habit. All this time, people expect an automatic and chemical shift that drives them out of addiction, when in actuality, it is a lengthy and dedicated process to overcome addiction. 

Unfortunately, some people have taken on more extreme pursuits to nullify any gratification in a twisted version of the dopamine detox, involving the removal of other enjoyable activities such as indulging in delectable food, exercising, hanging out with friends, or listening to music. Scientists caution against this wrong and dangerous approach since, as mentioned previously, humans rely on dopamine and other ‘happy’ neurotransmitters for executive function. Instead, many researchers and lifestyle coaches suggest that the proper way to maintain CBT is by fasting on something that is minimally disruptive to our lifestyles, such as reducing one’s scrolling time from 4 hours to 2 hours or sacrificing three episodes of binge-watching for a more refreshing trip outside to run errands. Replacing the unhealthier activity with a more productive one will re-wire and reinforce your enjoyment of the alternative task. With steady but healthy participation in this process, you’ll be able to train that reliance on quick entertainment out of you in due time. 

Ultimately, the title of “Dopamine Detox” is possibly inaccurate, but the concept and its benefits are still very real. Thus, next time you find yourself aimlessly scrolling on TikTok with no hope of stopping, please consider practicing CBT!