I tried a dopamine detox for a week, here’s how it went

“A dopamine detox should force us to feel bored and help us to break the unconscious habits we have of reaching for quick fixes.”

Do you ever wonder what you did to pass the time before TikTok and Instagram? Before the countless hours lost to mindless scrolling? Well, after yet another night spent on TikTok, I had a minor existential crisis. Surely there were better uses of my time?

To find out, I tried a dopamine detox. This basically entails fasting from dopamine-producing activities to reduce ‘reward sensitivity’. Dopamine is a type of neurotransmitter in the brain that is naturally produced by the body – which means, technically, we can’t ‘fast’ from dopamine entirely.

For more content like this, tap through to our Life section.

Really, a dopamine detox is more of a dopamine recalibration. The theory is that temporarily depriving yourself of triggers should replenish your brain’s stores of dopamine and subsequently make the ‘pleasure centres’ more balanced.

A dopamine detox should force us to feel bored and help us to break the unconscious habits we have of reaching for quick fixes – like scrolling TikTok and Instagram.

According to the articles on this trend, the best dopamine detox is one that’s tailored specifically to your habits. With that in mind, my aim for the week was to cut out Instagram, TikTok, online shopping and podcasts. This is how it went.

Day 1

The first day is hard, but not simply because I’m chronically online (although I won’t deny that probably doesn’t help). I’m going strong until the afternoon when I get some super disappointing news. Immediately afterwards, I reach for my phone every five minutes wanting to distract myself with Instagram pictures. It’s alarming how unconscious the movement is – I find myself just automatically picking it up.

Day 2

Thank god work is so busy lately (not a sentence I’d ever thought I’d write, but this is what this experiment has reduced me to already). The lack of scrolling is actually flowing quite well into curbing my desire to shop online. Who knew the two were so interconnected? (Everyone, probably.) I go to my friend’s after work and use her as a distraction, probably entirely overstaying my welcome late into the night.

Day 3

I’ve overhauled all of my music playlists. I haven’t listened to music in, oh, five months? Podcasts usually fill every waking hour of my time. I feel oddly relieved not to be constantly listening to other people’s voices. Also, I get the Olivia Rodrigo hype now.

The third evening is tough. My partner wants to watch his TV shows, which is fair because normally I monopolise the television. I try to read instead, but can’t get into my book. I sit and stare aimlessly for a while, feeling restless, and then end up going to bed because there doesn’t seem to be anything else to do. It feels like a bit of a cop-out.

Day 4

I go to the gym after work, and then after that, my partner and I end up taking a walk around the block together. I leave my phone back at home, and I don’t feel particularly naked or anxious without it. That night, I watch a cheesy Netflix romcom and I don’t scroll my phone throughout or Google the ending. I don’t know why this makes me feel like a better person, but it does.

Day 5

It’s Friday and after work, we head straight to the bar to meet up with some friends. Obviously, filling the time with other people – whether it be friends or my partner – is an easy distraction that whisks away the temptation to scroll. I like that I want to go out, which is unusual for me as I’m normally a homebody. Is this a side effect of five days sans scrolling?

Day 6

I thought the weekends would be the toughest in terms of feeling bored or restless. In fact, my day flies by and I’m more productive than I’ve been in a long time. I get a lot of life admin done. At night, my partner goes out and I try to watch television, but the internet keeps buffering the episodes. I get frustrated and wind up going to bed at 8.30pm. I guess maybe the nights are the hardest.

Day 7

The house is clean, the washing basket is empty and I actually meal prep in the afternoon. I read an entire book, sitting for three hours straight on the couch. I don’t know if that’s an improvement on sitting for three hours straight on the couch watching TikTok, but it feels like it is.

Takeaways

I won’t lie, the morning after the dopamine detox was done, I was scrolling Instagram within five minutes of waking up. But it didn’t give me the rush I’d been hoping for – in fact, within a few minutes, I felt oddly drained and a little disappointed.

The same feelings swept over me when I tried to open TikTok a few hours later. Similarly, when I tried to listen to a podcast, the voices felt irritating and grating, and I realised I wasn’t ready to re-introduce constant chatter into my life.

I don’t think a single week of detoxing dopamine has completely recalibrated my brain – I’m sure it takes longer than that. But I do think it’s helped to take the shine off the things I used to chase in pursuit of distraction. Can I go so far as to say I feel more centred? Maybe.

Removing the constant barrage of other people’s opinions and the slideshows of their lives has helped me turn my gaze inward. I’ve found myself craving longer, more sustained forms of entertainment, instead of tiny, bite-sized snatches.

The nights were definitely the toughest part. Realising I spend so much of my evenings just consuming content online has forced me to rethink how I want my nighttimes to look. Reading? Journaling? I’ve yet to quite work it out, but I do know that three hours of TikTok is not it.

Would I do this again? Definitely. It’s a reset I needed, and I’m glad I implemented it. I wouldn’t mind even doing it for longer, though it’s difficult as much of my freelance work relies on me staying connected to the online world.

Right now, I’m still taking a beat to stop and consider why I’m picking up my phone before I automatically jump online. Of course, I know there might come a point when this new habit fades and my screen time skyrockets once more. But when it does, at least I know a one-week detox can help reset my dopamine-addicted brain.

For more on dopamine detoxes, head here.