Dopamine and another 90 days

[Some Yahoo]

I think I might need to do another detox.

I had a revelation yesterday.  I work from home, and I get this psychological block all the time.  I am sitting there and I have the software open to do my work, but I can't force my mind to get in there and get the work done.  Most of the time I can't even get started.  I fight with myself - often producing a lovely stress headache in the process.  90% of the time, I end up browsing the internet or watching YouTubes.  

Yesterday it hit me.  That headache is dopamine withdrawal.  Watching videos gives my brain at least some hope of a little drip of dopamine, so I am drawn to it.  I know I won't get that from working, so I get this headache telling me that if I do that, it's gonna hurt.  It's like a Pavlovian response. If I pursue the work, I'll get pain, but if I play, I might get a little hit of dopamine.

Dopamine is not evil: it's a normal part of brain chemistry.  It's meant to be like strawberries.  You love them, and every spring, you get a couple of baskets of them and have a couple nice treats.  But what we gamers have conditioned ourselves to is like eating 20 pounds of strawberries every day and little else.  Our brain chemistry is starving for the other good chemicals needed to be healthy and well adjusted, but we keep loading up on strawberries.

I am getting the feeling that I at least need to redo the detox, but instead of just games, I need to detox from the whole dopamine dependency.  That means YouTube, porn, right-wing news, social media, deviantart, all of it.  I feel like all I did the first time was switch drug dealers.

Live and learn, I guess.

I post this embarrassing mess in the hopes that some of you who are relapsing over and over might see some truth and try again.  I am not a brain scientist, and there is little reason to blindly trust my conclusions, but maybe it can help some of you.  I'll let you know if this new approach helps me.

FYI one thing you can try along with your detox is exercise.  Working out is supposed to stimulate good brain chemistry (endorphins) and aid with depression.

Good luck, all of you.  I know your friends looked at you like a loon when you told them you were addicted to video games, and said things like "That's an addiction?  Just quit and be done with it!".  But we know that this is a beastly thing to conquer.  Yeah it's a first-world problem, but that doesn't make it not a problem.

 

 

Edited March 28, 2019 by Some Yahoo
clarity.

[fawn_xoxo]

Is it possible for you to work from a public place? It's helped me a lot, used to work from home only.

[Some Yahoo]

39 minutes ago, fawn_xoxo said:

Is it possible for you to work from a public place? It's helped me a lot, used to work from home only.

Not really.  I have all kinds of company private data I deal with.

And as far as books, I will look at these, thanks.

 

[Undsoweiter]

@Some Yahoo i am doing nearly the same thing right now since after 60days of normal detox the problem just went videos and webnovels only youtube because of the self help videos is left and even this i am limiting

after 4 days i have to admit it is great and even now my head feels so much clearer meditation also helped me a lot so far

good luck and stay strong against your urges