On a dopamine detox.

I was watching a Youtube video some days ago about why some people are not motivated enough and why some people are so highly motivated. The reason provided by the content creator was plausible enough for me: that some of us reward ourselves so easily for everything we did, whether we do something "good" or "bad" for ourselves. For instance, when we're just slacking off for a whole day instead of doing something productive, we still reward ourselves with binge-watching our favourite tv series at the end of the day. And that is where it goes wrong, people.

When we consider something as a reward to ourselves, our brain release a hormone called dopamine. This dope thing (pun intended) makes us feel pleasure and also motivated to do things. It's the same hormone our brain releases after a nice workout session, or the bad one: after using drugs such as cocaine. However, when our brain release this hormone too often (or too high), the threshold for us to feel pleasure is also increased. Take a druggie, for example, drug addicts always feel emotionally low when they are sober because they have such a high threshold to feel pleasure. They are not motivated to do anything because nothing can pleasure them (unless they expect to receive a high amount of dopamine afterwards).

That is what happens when we reward ourselves constantly (and not in the appropriate context). Our body release dopamine too often that making us "immune" to feeling motivated with our repetitive tasks. If we fall victim to this issue, the creator of the video gave a recommendation that I found interesting: a dopamine detox.

The idea of a dopamine detox is to do things that are so boring (lol, this is true tho) to lower our body tolerance of dopamine, therefore making other regular activities seem more exciting.  In an extreme example, the OP recommend not to use the internet, or watching tv, or doing any activities that could potentially spike the amount of dopamine released, for a whole day! 

I used to do a no internet connection day every Sunday, to reduce my dependency on social media usage. Not a whole day in my case tho, it was like 12 hours or so because I needed to connect with my friends :( But I still watched Netflix on the TV lol so...

Now that all seems pretty clear and reasonable enough, I think I might give it a try to do a dopamine detox for a specific period of time. Idk how long yah, but I think let's try 7 days in minimum lah yaa. Anyway, the idea of this "programme" for me is not to eliminate any kind of activities that release dopamine in me. I just want to lower my dopamine threshold, so that's why I'm not doing an extreme dopamine detox sih kayaknya.... aku kan juga harus bekerja people. Butuh internet. Aku juga butuh teman.

Alasannya simply karena pengen nyoba aja wkwkwk pengen bisa lebih produktif kalo alasan pencitraannya. Gue udah 3 hari deactive akun Instagram, log out Twitter dan Facebook, ngga nonton Netflix atau TV! Baking juga! I'm planning to release a new Medium article too (masih belom selese tapi hehe). Dan gue baca ~30 halaman Thinking, Fast and Slow dan ~150 halaman The Mark of Athena dalam 2 hari terakhir. Trust me, baca Thinking, Fast and Slow 30 halaman dalam 3 hari tuh pencapaian lo. Puyeng beb bacanya. 

And develop more meaningful connections with people juga kok meskipun harus menjauh dari media sosial. Every chat or call and other online (or offline) interaction feels so genuine, you know. It makes me feel grateful that some people are truly thoughtful, and realise that those people are the ones who care for me and vice versa. I'm blessed to have them in my life <3