Why Quarantine is the Perfect Time for a Dopamine Detox
Three weeks into quarantine, I was walking through the produce section of Whole Foods when I realized I was completely and totally high.
Fruit was everywhere- baskets and baskets full of it. I was mesmerized by the saturation of the colors, observing how the light bounced off the organic Gala apples as though they were made of blown glass. I noticed myself becoming engrossed in the 2003 alt-rock song wafting from the speakers, somehow remembering all the lyrics and singing it softly to myself. I felt lit up, a sense of joy consuming me. Soon, I noticed nearly everyone around me was also singing softly to themselves.
Three months ago, this random song would have barely registered; now, it was inspiring to the point of inciting public karaoke. Starved for stimulation, quarantiners across New York City were finding spontaneous joy on their weekly trip to the grocery store. Back in the era when we regularly left our homes, we’d be inundated with data to process, data that our brains took great pleasure in. But gone are the days of high volumes of stimulation vying for our attention in the outside world. Now, what is left is stillness, silence, and boredom.
This creates a terrain ripe for what I like to call “stimulation overcompensation,” where our brains naturally seek out things to maintain our baseline dopamine levels at the same high levels to which we’re accustomed. Dopamine has been named the “pleasure chemical,” and it is released whenever we do something beneficial for the survival of the species, as if nature is rewarding us. Today, this system, otherwise built for things like social interaction, eating, and procreation, has been hijacked with warped and synthetic versions of species-proliferating behavior like scrolling on social media, eating chocolate cake, and watching pornography.
None of these things aid in our survival, yet they are everywhere, highly accessible, and insidiously addictive, triggering inordinate levels of dopamine release. My preferred methods of dopamine release happen to be the indescribable feeling of texting with the ghosts of fuckboys past, endless YouTube rabbit holes about the nature of reality, or not one, but two pints of Candy Bar Halo Top ice cream.
None of our modern-day stimulations are “natural,” so to speak, and they come with a consequence. For example, the higher our baseline dopamine levels, the lower our motivation, the shorter our attention span, the less willpower we have, and the less we enjoy activities that normally bring us great pleasure, such as walking to the park or working on a creative project.
In quarantine, we're increasingly turning to things like comfort food, social media, and our phones to maintain our baseline dopamine levels at the same high levels to which we’re accustomed. I am guilty of falling into this trap.
It was about this time, three weeks into quarantine, that I realized I had nothing but time and still nothing to show for it, except ever-tightening leggings from my carb and sugar intake, exponentially increasing screen time, and surging anxiety levels from drinking more and more caffeine each day. I no longer had anything to hide behind, no excuses as to why I wasn't doing the things that set my soul on fire.
I was just alone with myself, exposed. I realized I wasn’t doing my work because, unlike the dopamine-releasing activities I'd been performing on a loop for the last three weeks, it didn’t get me high. I had heard of the “dopamine detox” a few months back, but rationalized (of course) that I just didn’t have the time. I am a person with a high propensity for chaos; without order, it is either discipline or oblivion for me.
In week three of quarantine, witnessing how far I had spiraled away from order, I decided to take action and embark on getting a grip on my mind and my dopamine addiction. There are several ways to fast from dopamine or lower one’s baseline. Given that I was starting this journey during a global pandemic, I decided not to completely cut off all social contact. I also decided not to fast, although I did intentionally push back the time I had my first meal so I could regain some dominion over cravings.
My quarantine dopamine detox went as follows:
Putting my phone on black and white mode
Turning all notifications off
Limiting texting but not eliminating entirely (no fuckboys)
No music
No TV or YouTube
No books
No intimacy (a given)
Deleted all social media and dating apps
Sugar & carbs off limits
Track everything I eat in a calorie tracker app and set a calorie limit per day
Not eating before noon
Minimal caffeine intake
I did the detox at this level of intensity for about five days. It wasn’t easy, but I was ready.
There was a lot of downtime. A lot of time sitting in silence with myself, observing what was going on within my body. It felt like I was creating an emptiness there, clearing out space so I could fill it with what I desired. I dedicated time to my spiritual life and to my writing. I invested time in my website, catching up on blogs I had written months prior. I was still working during this time, so I had that interaction and brain activity. I was also lightly texting two friends and speaking on the phone with my dad every few days. But other than that, I had created a stillness, and eventually I felt I was coming back to myself.
After about five days, I slowly felt my inspiration reignite. Instead of forcing myself to write each day, I found myself waking up with the urge to put pen to paper. I started a personal development practice that had been looming over my head for about a year. I slowly started reincorporating some dopamine stimulation and was very perceptive to how it made me feel. I tried to put my phone back on color mode, but turned it back to black and white shortly after - color was too much. I allowed phone call notifications.
I redownloaded YouTube, Instagram, and selective dating apps. These seemed to be fine as long as I stayed in black and white mode with notifications off. I allowed myself some classical music, and found myself replaying Miserere mei, Deus over and over, nearly crying from how overwhelmingly beautiful it sounded to me. I have maintained what I like to call a “dopamine diet” where I keep certain things in control, as I am aware I can spiral with them and develop addiction.
My dopamine diet today looks like this:
Phone lives in black and white
No notifications except for phone calls
Minimal social media- stopped endless scrolling (b&w mode helps with this)
Watch YouTube sometimes, never anything else
Fuckboys have remained blocked from all forms of contact
Minimal dating app activity
Very disciplined diet; no sugar, no carbs
Track everything I eat, and maintain a specific calorie limit
Still weaning off caffeine
In the last two weeks, I have launched a podcast, uploaded a YouTube video, published this article, made significant progress on the personal development program I started, lost 10 pounds (something I hadn’t been able to do for months), and delved deeper into my spiritual life. I feel like I am connected to myself again, and it feels unbelievable. I feel like I am slowly mastering myself, constantly monitoring my thoughts and my relationships to things I know I am prone to craving. I take necessary action when I feel my attention veering too far in a direction I don’t authentically want.
Our lives have shifted from having physical boundaries guiding us to our homes to now having our homes become our offices, gyms, and restaurants. We need discipline now more than ever. Just because we are sitting 10 feet away from our kitchens doesn’t mean that eating constantly is good for us. Just because we have limitless time to use our phones doesn’t mean that allocating it there is productive. It is essential to establish this discipline for ourselves, to strengthen the muscles we will use when we return to our normal routines.
I initially felt trapped in quarantine, like I was being set back from achieving my goals. But the opposite is true- quarantine is the perfect time for a dopamine detox, when the outside world demands so little of us, or virtually nothing. The only thing we can control in this world is ourselves. We must use this time, when the illusion of order has been shattered and the chaos of our existence has been revealed, to regain order over ourselves, act with authentic agency, and live in truth and alignment with our highest good.
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