How to Boss your Habits with Dopamine Fasting

 “Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny.” Lao Tzu.

The ancient philosophers had a profound understanding of the connections between thoughts, actions, habits and identity. They may not have studied the neuroscience of habits or been able to name the dopamine loop in our brains but as we can see by the quote above from the Founding Father of Taoism in 500BC they knew it by experience and observation. 

We are essentially the same animals we were when Lao Tzu wrote this more than 2000 years ago although our world has changed beyond all recognition. What he doesn’t say but we now know because of neuroscience, is that the key reason for this predictable trajectory is due to the part played by the neurotransmitter dopamine, part of our ancient wiring, a brilliant design for keeping us alive in an environment but unhelpful in times of abundance and potentially catastrophic in times of excess. 

Dopamine is produced in the pleasure /pain centers in the brain and enables us to remember things and categories them as important or essential ‘intel’ (originally where food was, or a cliff was so we don’t fall off it) and it’s a strong dose - lest we forget.  In our modern, faced-paced world with immediate rewards at our fingertips it’s the wrong, strong tool for the job essentially, and we often behave more like the rats in the famous addiction study who learned quickly where cocaine was and would run across their cage to hit a lever to get it, than we’re like to admit.   ‘It’ (whatever ‘it’ is) feels good and we want more of it. 

“But what’s wrong with feeling good?” you might ask. Because our brains and bodies love balance (homeostasis) hitting the pleasure button repeatedly will actually work to make us unhappier and feel less good over time.  If you imagine we are on a seesaw and every time we get a dopamine hit (shopping/ food/ phone/ alcohol/ social media) the seesaw swings one way and then has to swing the other way - we get a downer - to rebalance. We are in a sense primed for addiction. The more we do ‘the thing’ the higher and lower the seesaw goes, and we get stuck on it trying to avoid the pain of the downswing, and then we want more. And more. Not our fault. Just biology. 

We are living in unchartered waters of high impact, high reward, high dopamine stimuli – for example texting, TikTok, Instagram, internet shopping (yes, you know that satisfying eBay ‘brinnng’ sound when you buy something - pure dopamine), gambling, over-exercising, over-working… the list goes on. And for these not to take over and become addictive habits and then full-blown addictions, which is where the path leads if compounded by frequency, regularity and amount and exposure we need a game plan.  Studies show that we become addicted to smartphones, shopping, business - anything whilst feeling like we are constantly missing ‘something’. Restless, irritable, stressed and dissatisfied. Sound familiar? 

I had the great pleasure recently of interviewing Anna Lembke, MD,  Professor of Psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine and Chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic, and author of the best-selling book ‘Dopamine Nation.’   She gave me the following tips to reset ourselves, and help guard against ‘dopamine resistance’ and addictive behaviours in the form of Dopamine Fasting:-

1. Abstain -  Whatever the habit is that you feel is getting out of hand, you need to abstain, she says for a month ideally, otherwise, you cannot get perspective on this behaviour and how it’s affecting you.
2. Track It - Keep a journal or have a way of keeping a record of your urges, use and feelings. Knowledge is power. 
3. Lean Into Pain A Bit -A great way to release natural endorphins and reset is to challenge ourselves.  So, working out, sitting with a degree of discomfort, asking ourselves how we feel, white-knuckling, intermittent fasting, and cold water, are actually good ways to balance the brain away from the addictive behaviour. This will be very individual and testing the limits a bit is not the same as damaging ourselves.
4. Tell The Truth - We are great at fabricating stories to justify our habits and drugs of choice, she says. We minimise the frequency, use and relationship. The tracker will help you to see and so will telling people who can support us and hold us accountable, such as loved ones and support groups.
5. Make Friends With Shame - Shame is an unpleasant emotion which lets us know we have transgressed a boundary or acted in a way that is not in line with our values and goals. It feels bad partly because of more ancient wiring because in the past, if we transgressed boundaries we would’ve been shunned by our group, which would mean death, so our connection to the pack is still strong. Lembke says we can use this pro-social aspect of shame to motivate ourselves to change (move-away-from goal) and then practice self-compassion using the power of connection and truth-telling above to strengthen the bonds. This way we tolerate a bit of shame to build resilience rather than the quick fix of numbing the shame with our addictive behaviours which in turn brings more of it. 

One of the most helpful things we can do is to slow down. Take stuff off the list, stare into space, have a hobby instead of turning it into a side hustle, and do nothing. I know- controversial, right? But think about it- being endlessly productive and chasing the dopamine means we are never truly present or satisfied.  Slowing down and being mindful can allow us to make conscious choices rather than just reacting and feeding unhelpful behaviours which as Lao says, will become our habits and our destiny. 

So, let’s make like an old Chinese Master and watch the river, meditate, connect with our brain and body or at least try to switch our phones off for a bit and give ourselves a break from the dopamine rat race to give ourselves a chance to boss our habits instead of them running the show.

Kate Baily is a trainer for The Coaching Academy, a Habit Change Specialist and co-creator and co-facilitator of the Addictive Behaviours Coaching Certification with Mandy Manners.

If you would like find out more about Addictive Behaviours and Coaching, you can join Kate and Mandy on our next Addictive Behaviours Coaching training event, please click here to book: Our Online Coaching Events | The Coaching Academy (the-coaching-academy.com) 

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