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- BBC News World
August 28, 2022
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When we are told regarding fasting, the idea of totally or partially abstaining from eating or drinking comes to mind.
But there are other types of fasts that are more regarding deprivation of those things that give you so much pleasure, which eventually become toxic and, in many cases, addictive.
A few years ago, the “dopamine fast” trend started gaining traction in the tech industry.
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Dopamine is a neurotransmitter, a chemical messenger in our brain. It is generally believed to cause pleasurable sensations and is present in a large number of processes such as movement control, memory, learning and brain reward.
Thus, the purpose of dopamine fasting is to isolate oneself from the harmful stimuli of the modern world, such as excessive technological connection.
The idea is that fasting allows your brain to recharge and restart for a short period of time.
Trending in Silicon Valley
“To me, dopamine fasting means not using electronic devices, not eating any type of food, not communicating with people,” American entrepreneur James Sinka told the BBC.
“It’s regarding isolating yourself from all the things in the modern world that can release dopamine in the brain.”
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Anne Lembke, psychiatrist and author of the book Dopamine Nation, says that over the past five years there has been a trend among Silicon Valley executives to go on a dopamine fast.
When you’re doing this fast, you’re not really doing a dopamine fast. What you are doing is depriving yourself of substances or behaviors that cause the release of dopamine in the reward system that works in the brain.
The world of overabundance we live in, says Lembke, is an unprecedented stressor for humanity.
“It’s very paradoxical,” he says in a dialogue with BBC Reel, because we think we have all the things we’ve always wanted and our life should be great.
But that’s not what’s happening.
“We’ve reached the tipping point where the more stuff we have, the less happy we feel,” he says.
The “gremlins” of the brain
As we know, dopamine is a chemical that we produce in our brain. It is essential to experience pleasure, reward and motivation.
The more dopamine we release in a specific area of our brain, called the reward pathway, the more pleasurable the substance or experience we have.
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Dopamine is a neurotransmitter produced by our brain.
One of the most interesting discoveries in neuroscience over the past 75 years is that the same parts of the brain that process pleasure also process pain, and function as opposite sides of the scales.
If a person eats chocolate, they may have a small release of dopamine, but the brain quickly adapts to this increase in the substance and down-regulates dopamine transmission.
“I like to think of it as gremlins looking for neural adaptation and jumping on the pain side to level the scales.”
It’s like a roller coaster that goes up and down.
“I only fast for one day”
“We know that social media creators use as much stimulation as possible to generate more dopamine,” says James Sinka.
And, when it comes to food, he says he’s impressed to see so much processed food on the market, something that has never existed in human history.
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On the other hand, he argues, pornography is “extremely empowering” and with the speed of the internet available to consumers, it is becoming easier and easier to access this content.
When it comes to drugs like marijuana, there have also been changes. “It is now 10 times more powerful than 50 or 100 years ago,” adds Sinka.
At least fasting worked for Sinka. “When I do a dopamine fast, I do it for a day. When I wake up in the morning, all I allow myself to do is meditate, write and drink water, walk and think.”
Although this practice is not new, given that Buddhist monks have practiced it for hundreds of years, the entrepreneur believes that it is very important in the modern world because “we have carefully designed stimulating factors that do not have never existed before in human history”. .
He takes the opportunity of fasting as an example of self-exploration.
“There is biochemical, psychological and evolutionary value in being alone with your thoughts, in being bored.”
In search of more powerful pleasures
The primitive brain wiring that seeks to gain pleasure and avoid pain is adapted to an environment of scarcity and danger. “That makes evolutionary sense,” says psychiatrist Lembke.
“It’s a very smart strategy for an environment where if you can’t find water or animals to eat, you might die.
“But it’s an absolutely appalling neurological mechanism in a world where you can get cocaine, sex, video games, anything with your cell phone,” he warns.
This means that as a society, we are chronically inclined on the side of pleasure, explains the specialist. “It makes us need more powerful pleasures to feel something.”
“Our brain, our reward circuitry is very unlikely to change,” says Lembke.
This reward circuit has been preserved over millions of years of species evolution.
In fact, the reward pathway in the human brain is quite similar to that of lizards and other organisms in nature.
So what we have left, he says, is to change our ecosystem.
“Pay in advance”
For psychiatrist Lembke, dopaminergic fasting permanently reprograms the reward pathways in the brain.
The problem is what do you do followingwards when you resume your daily life?
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“What I’ve done for 20 years working with people who are addicted to certain behaviors or substances is a different dopamine fast.
“I’m not asking you to abstain from any experience that gives you pleasure, but I’m asking you to identify that particular behavior or substance that you have a problem with,” she explains.
The psychiatrist asks them to refrain from this pleasurable behavior for 30 days.
It’s 30 days, because that’s how long neural adaptations take to find balance.
“What I recommend to my patients is that they get dopamine indirectly,” he says.
This means that it offers to stimulate the pain side first, such as exercising or offering tasks that involve some level of sacrifice, so that the brain rewards you with a release of dopamine to compensate for the effect of pain.
“It’s like paying in advance”, explains the expert.
