After a relatively calm summer, I’ve had three jam-packed months. We had the big campaign for LYT Workshop 14, then the Second Brain Summit alongside our first-ever team retreat, alongside actually running the workshop. All of that was followed by running a brand new cohort, Notemaking Mastery, for 22 days straight in November. The result is that the chronically higher levels of stressors eroded at my mental equilibrium and I got into a habit I’m particularly susceptible to: clicking over to YouTube and watching tons of videos.
My November was basically alternating between delivering an epic cohort and trying to de-stress by watching YouTube videos and other content. While that may actually sound kind of fun, it’s what happens beneath the surface that matters: I was messing up my reward system, constantly needing to keep my dopamine levels high through stimulation. Over time, this makes it hard to find the energy or desire to do good, hard things, because it becomes easier to do low value, easy things.
I’m not alone here. As far as I’m concerned, it’s an epidemic that can’t get enough of a spotlight. For teenage girls whose habit is scrolling TikTok for hours, they screw up their dopamine “reward” system so badly that some can’t even find the energy to get out of bed. When I heard that, I thought, “damn, I can relate to that.” It wasn’t as extreme as that, but there were signs: a stronger reluctance to get out of bed in the morning, a weakening of the desire to do hard work, a weakening of an ability to focus. All of this to say, I knew that once Notemaking Mastery finished, concluding a grueling three-month sprint, I would need to get my mind right again. The good news? I was successful. Here’s a brief rendition of four things that made the biggest impact in resetting my dopamine:
Contrast therapy
I absolutely love and adore acute temperature extremes, most notable saunas and ice baths. The day after Thanksgiving, I was annoyed with myself for not being more proactive about finding these kinds of places locally. I mean, I live in LA. Why am I not taking advantage of the perks of living in a big city where so much is so conveniently accessible? After an hour of research on Yelp, Google Maps, and various websites, I found a nearby location that offered “contrast therapy,” which means an ice bath next to a sauna. Moments later, we were out the door and on our way. I could wax on poetically about contrast therapy, the intensity of the cold plunge countered with the heat of the sauna, or how it increases dramatically increases levels of norepinephrine, dopamine, growth hormone, BDNF, and prolactin—while also acutely increasing levels of cortisol in a manner that actually regulates it, or how it just makes me feel amazing, but this listing is all you get for now.
Sitting, but with a Meditation Chair
Meditation chairs are criminally underrated and I have a strong belief if people had these around, they would actually sit and breath because it’s actually comfortably for the vast majority of us who don’t have perfect posture. Calming your thoughts and reclaiming agency over the day is the prime goal; it’s not work on posture. Want to work on your posture? Great. But first things first.
If I’m noticing I’m clicking around more mindlessly, I now can immediately just turn from the desk, leave my chair, and sit on this meditation chair (but a big cushion between the legs works just fine too). So far, I’m just sit for 5-7 minutes, taking satisfaction as the dull aches of my dopamine receptors that are anxiously craving distraction slowly calm down.
50% Grayscale
The colors on my mac and my iPhone are brilliant. They are spectacular. They are a bit too much for me. I mean, I love them, but I’m realizing they subtly amp up my levels of stimulation (and therefore, dopamine).
Maybe like me, at some time in the past decade you’ve tried turning on “grayscale” mode, but that was too extreme. You need *some* color. But more recently, Apple finally provided the option to adjust the intensity of the colors on screen. To adjust this on the Mac, go to System Settings > Accessibility > Display > Color Filters. Turn them on, make sure the filter type is Grayscale, then play with the intensity. Now on my devices, my color intensity is set to half, so I get some color, but it’s not crazy.
Pro tip for Mac users: Then using cmd-opt-fn-F5, you can first toggle off all the accessibility options except for Color Filters, then anytime you hit that hotkey, you can toggle Grayscale. Having a hotkey to toggle color intensity is clutch.
More Digital Destimulation
Thanks to this video, I installed Untrap for YouTube (a browser extension) and ScreenZen (an iOS app). Untrap allows me to make the YouTube environment far less distracting. The biggest changes I made: stopping endless scroll and removing related videos. ScreenZen discourages you when you open distracting apps on your phone. I biggest change I made there was limiting my YouTube time to 7 minutes before it interrupts me and asks if I want to continue. Even if I say yes, it waits 5 seconds. These seem ridiculous, but let me tell you, we are living in a ridiculous time, and that may call for ridiculous measures. Last, I just installed Opal on my phone. This one is hardcore and I like it. When I mindlessly click to YouTube it just shuts me down completely (I have the default setting of “no distractions from 9-5” or something like that.)
Reflections
The concrete results? My screen time dropped 72%. The subjective results? I’ve reset my dopamine, making it easier to do hard work without distracting myself and to easily do that work for extended periods of time. My intrinsic motivation is fully back and dialed in.
The fact that such changes are possible in a week is compelling. I hope it provides you with a sense of hope when you find yourself in a phase of over-stimulation. There’s no shame in that. Frankly, I think it happens to everyone at some point these days—it’s just few are willing to bring their awareness to it and see it for the problem it is. Nervous system dysregulation is inevitable. The bigger question is how are we equipped to re-regulate?
Honorary mentions
Resetting dopamine isn’t as simple as taking a pill. It involves many things that all contribute synergistically to the overall change in lifestyle. Here are additional things that have positively contributed to resetting my dopamine and getting my mind right.
Guitar
Last month, I bought a guitar. I’ve never played before. I have no illusions of ever being any good. But I love that me making music gets me out of my head and into my body. Picking up the guitar is such a healthier habit than clicking into YouTube.
Fewer deadlines
It would be extremely hard to have made these changes in the middle of Notemaking Mastery. That’s like sprinting in the 100 Meter and suddenly making a hard left to the Long Jump. For change to work, something major usually needs to change in your daily routine. For me, having a bunch of time finally open up is what gave me enough spaciousness to seek self-care.
Therapy
I’m new to therapy as of this year, but if you can find a quality therapist, it can be quite amazing. You might ask, what’s this have to do with dopamine? But I know you already know the answer: it’s all connected. That’s why I think it’s important to mention the role therapy played here. Even seemingly completely unrelated breakthroughs in therapy played a role in the mindset I had leading up to my quest to get my mind right.
Palma 2
Continuing my efforts to have a less stimulating relationship with digital devices, my eyes lit up when I saw the Boox Palma 2. I prefer the handheld reading size so I can easily lie down in bed, put a small pillow on my chest, and prop my phone on it to gently hold it with a single hand. I read all of Asimov’s Foundation series this way. So I now it works for me whereas bigger tablets just don’t. The Palma gives me e-ink, in a handheld size, and since it runs Android, I can install all the phone apps I want. I’ve mostly used Audible in the evenings, but it’s been fun to install YouTube on the Palma because e-ink doesn’t refresh instantly, so it effectively puts a speed limit on fast-moving images, which for 90% of YouTube content, is something I actually prefer.