Why Dopamine Detox / Fasting doesn't work
Dopamine is the neurotransmitter that signals anticipation of pleasure. Ir helps you be motivated to get things done and to move. Too much of it and you over-excite the neurons with the resulting pleasure chemicals (EOPs) and then you are ;’over-stimulated’ which is a state where you struggle to focus on the present moment and enjoy things. You therefore feel the urge to do more, consume more etc. It was once thought to be behind addiction, which is now no longer our understanding. However we do know the balance of serotonin and dopamine plays a part and I wrote about that here. But will starving ourselves of dopamine hits (short-term pleasures) help us to balance them? Well, no - because addiction is more about ‘meaning’. 

Addiction
Addiction has been proven by experiments with rats to be more complex, and more about cultural and physical environment than motivation chemicals.. Because we are creatures of habit and the science of habit is more about psychology than biology. I used to think addiction is all biological, thanks to ideas like this first video, but reading books by Harrari and Brandt helped me see it is much more about the way we think - the meaning in our lives.​

How you think about it matters
OK, but most  of our normal habits are not toxic addictions, they are simply a little ‘reactive’ and therefore overbalanced. Problem is we often beat ourselves up about them, as if they are terrible. This makes the cravings for relief stronger! If you finally do decide to stop and use the  ‘fasting’ or ‘detox’ methods then you will probably add what I call ‘deprivation stress to the underlying feelings of craving. you are attempting to use willpower and slave driving rather than going with the flow of enjoyment. Positive, empowered thinking will not add stress, it will add enjoyment! I have two suggestions:

• First, see the time off as liberating, luxurious and a relief - like a holiday! 
  
• Second, recognise this is all a process of learning and finding balance. Nothing is wrong and pain is a natural part of the learning process. In fact pain is a good sign - a sign of growth. 
  
• Third, if you do slip up, do it consciously. Experience it, get real, and talk about it. This way you get to expose yourself to the truth of the habit, and learn faster, to naturally let it go.
  

The strongest is the one you feed
A neat visual perspective on that is I imagine dopamine as a wee doggie inside me. It is craving and barking and yapping. If I feed it, then it gets stronger. I choose to see the yapping as a sign that it wants feeding. When I say no, it gets weaker and my pussycat of power gets stronger instead! So craving is good! This was inspired by the book ‘The Easy Way to Quit Sugar’.

MAD habits - the core reason we form reactive habits
The core reason, in my opinion, that we have reactive habits is because we have evolved three basic directions to threat detection (stress): Fight, Flight, Freeze. Millions of years of evolution are not overcome by a weekend off your smartphone. The next time you feel lonely or rejected you’ll be back on social media because the powerful autonomic nervous system has evolved to do that. The modern world is full of temptations that play on the modern versions of FFF:

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My old compulsion and my new chosen habit
I’ve already used these methods to eliminate compulsions towards news, sugar and facebook (over the past two years) and now I’m working on Pornography (and similar visual stimulus of women) which I’m replacing with reading and guitar playing. As an example here are my detailed answers to questions 3 and 4

Affects: (major positives in red, negatives in green)
Pornography:

• Career / Purpose: These two are the same for me, but you may wish to split them. Porn sometimes interferes with my passion project - my work. If I get a difficult challenge I rarely, but sometimes I turn to porn. No benefits.
• Financially: I don’t spend money on porn, but do spend time and energy. To quantify that I’d say it costs me 2 hrs of work a week as a conservative estimate, which is £100/week and therefore around £5000 per year (potential loss). No benefits.
• Socially: There are times I stay in and do this instead of reaching out to friends. Therefore it has a high detrimental effect. I remember a couple of times friends have been low/ lonely and I’m wrapped up in this energy sucking activity. When I remember that I feel sad about my priorities. Benefits: It has increased the amount of fantasies I can do with partners, which is a fun thing.
• Emotional: I know that porn makes me low sometimes. I see women and compare them with the porn and feel disappointed. This is a big downside. Benefit: Sometimes it's nice to shift my mood by using the easy reaction of porn and masterbation. Long term though the mood enhancement wears off and is often worse the next day as my energy levels are low. 
• Thoughts/Mind: This is a huge bad point - Porn litters my mind with crap and stops me seeing real beauty. Minor benefits of extra fantasies in my mind, but this does not offset the huge negitive.
• Physical health: Porn saps my energy. I feel weaker and it takes time from fun movements, like dance, boxing or climbing. No benefits. 

Guitar and reading:

• Career / Purpose: Reading has big benefits. I’ve already built up a big library of resources. I also use guitar to write children's songs with mindfulness themes!
• Financially: Books provide so much inspiration, which makes me work harder. It’s impossible to quantify this, but I could definitely say that it drives my financial progress. 
• Socially: Guitar is the big winner here. I love playing for others and it adds so much to a party. Reading also gives me more to talk about. 
• Emotional: Guitar can shift my mood massively, long term. Books less so, but if I'm in a good mood books can sustain that. 
• Thoughts/Mind: This is a huge good point. Both books and guitar can inspire so much positive and creative thinking. 
• Physical health: Neutral, but sometimes books make me a bit lazy

Pleasure: What is pleasurable, really? 
I know, from my reading of ‘The Easy Way to Quit Sugar’ that I can affect pleasure by recognising 
The ugliness of porn: Porn is pleasurable for about 10 minutes, whilst I ogle and orgasm. It is ugly for longer - Fake people, in makeup, covering up traumas, infiltrating my mind with craving and being a slave to people who make the movies (who I imagine as chubby, smoking, greedy people). 
The beauty of reading and guitar: Sometimes I think of reading as boring and guitar as hard work, but them I think of inspiring books like ‘Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman’ and ‘The Bosy Keeps Score’ and remember the feeling of inspiration. I also remember the times I learned guitar in my 20’s and loved it, and playing for people in festivals. Inspiring people who read I think of include The Beatles, JK Rowling, Carl Sagan, Nick Drake…

One more secret weapon: Tripping the TRAPs with a Clap!
A friend of mine introduced one final weapon in fighting the MAD habits. A pattern interrupt you know well: Clapping your hands! Here’s how it works

1. First imagine something that feels great, like doing incredibly well in a job interview and getting offered the hob, on the spot. 
2. CLAP! Associate empowerment feelings with the clap. 
3. Repeat this 3-5 times every week. 
4. Use the clap whenever you notice yourself doing the old habit. This will empower you! Then say “I’m better than…(old habit)
5. Walk away! 

Holiday time!
With that in mind and taking as many good feelings into this time off. I’m giving myself 2 months off. Ahh the luxury. I suggest always thinking in this ‘liberating’ way, so you don’t add ‘deprivation stress’ to the feelings of craving already in your body. Remember they are just a little yapping dog of dopamine. 

I like to tell everyone I’m on holiday and celebrate it daily. I can do it so much better if I holiday with another person. We can call this an ‘accountability buddy’. We encourage and celebrate daily. If we get an urge? Tell them. Call each other ‘lucky swine!’ for the fact they have painful cravings. Ha! That’s because the pain is a good sign - a sign of growth and opportunities for more growth if framed correctly. 

So go forth, holiday well and after your holiday you can choose, naturally, without any ‘shoulds’ or willpower, your balance of habits. 

Want to experience this course or 1:1 coaching - contact me now.

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This blog is my perspective on why we repeat patterns, get attracted to people who trigger us, and why nothing is wrong - this is all good stuff, if we choose to play with it. 

Reactions Rule
We are emotional creatures (more than logical). Most of our 'reactions' are caused by hidden emotional wounds, obscured by defense mechanisms . Until we can see them and trace them to their origin we will react cluelessly to them. People in therapy are going through a process of recognising, accepting and working with these internal wounds and reactions. 

Michael Singer calls these wounds, the inner thorns. I tend to agree. 

The clues that you are reacting to an inner wound are 'disturbance':

• When you react without clear, conscious choice (lost in the FOG of Fear, Obligation or Guilt)
• When you feel pressure to act immediately  and clumsily
• When you believe things are not ok, something is wrong
• When you criticise harshly others or yourself
• When you feel a need to advise, fix or rescue others
• When you feel powerless and lost

These things point us to an unconscious pattern of defence and avoidance.  It is not the situation, it is your inner thorn - your wound - that makes you react with emotion.  It is very hard to interrupt this reaction without the awareness, but even when you do have awareness it is hard.

I have found the best way I can change my patterns is to prepare to remember. If I do some prep work then I can spot  the wounded reactions and more easily interrupt them. Prep involves facing our fears. 

What is the underlying need or fear?
Fear and need are two sides of the same coin. So working together and switching between fear and need the two questions you could ask repeatedly are:

• 'What is the need beneath that?'
• 'Then what is the fear of  what might happen?'

Here's an interview between a Client (C) and Questioner (Q):
C: "I need to get this job and I'm feeling anxious all the time"
Q: 'What is the need beneath that?'
C: "I need money and a career that I like!"
Q: 'What is the need beneath that?'
C: "I guess security. And maybe satisfaction?... No... Purpose!"
Q: 'What is the need beneath that?'
C: "I don't know!"
Q: 'Then what is the fear of might happen?'
C: "What if I don't get it? I'll be penniless, broke... my girlfriend might leave me."
Q: 'Then what is the fear of might happen?'
C: "It'd be awful. I'd feel like such a loser - alone and lost"
Q: 'Then what is the fear of might happen?'
C: "I don't know... I guess I could become depressed, go mad and lose the will to live!"
Q: 'What is the need beneath that?'
C: "I guess I'm needing connection and the knowledge that I'm OK"
Q: 'So what you're really needing is a sense of connection and acceptance"
C: "Yes. I want a job for those reasons. I guess it's not really about the job after all..."

Deep Diving Reveals Insights
If we keep diving into this 'fear and need' we will get closer to the wounding within. However the nervous system does not always think in verbal language or even in images. Some stuff is pre-verbal and not remembered, so much be explored through the emotional system itself.  You have to 'feel to heal'. 

The Role of Mindfulness
Meditation and mindfulness invite us to see beyond our thoughts and stories, our words and imaginations, to look into the void within, to feel the sensations and emotions of the body and to hold them in loving awareness, so that we may find and heal wounds and change patterns of behaviour. To cultivate loving responses rather than fearful reactions.

The Nervous System Wants a Disconfirming Experience 
Until we do realise our reactions we will continue to unconsciously create that which we fear the most. I believe this is our nervous system's way of recreating the original wound, as a way of finding a healing experience, or a 'disconfirming' experience. 

For example: A client of mine was afraid of getting close to men, because of a difficult early experience in her life. When she experienced a man who she wanted to be close to, and she engaged with him with openness and some coaching, they found a surprise. With open communication and boundary skills the man was loving, kind and safe. This 'disconfirming experience' helped her to relax and enjoy his company.  She was drawn to men like this and, unlike in her youth, the person was not mean. It meant she could relax, knowing 'it isn't always true' that men are nasty. That meant she could let herself get closer to men.  She could do this in a safe, balanced way.

Gradual Exposure Reduces Fear
The original difficult experience, and many others, confirmed the fear was legitimate. The only way to change that is to expose ourselves, vulnerably, to something similar, and have a different outcome - one that changes the way the mind and body perceive the reality. To see that positive outcomes are possible and then we can relax and stop reacting through fear. 

Be Process Oriented 
Life  is a process. We can be a slave to it or we can be an active participant and use the process to help us heal, grow and learn. Coaching, therapy and training mindfulness is simply a way of getting into that process more consciously, so we can move it forward. It will be painful, it will be difficult (at times) but nothing is wrong. This is OK. This is exactly where you need to be. ​

Create Safer Exposure For Yourself, Now. 
If you'd like to begin this process, in a safe fun way, come and chat with me and do an introduction Coaching session or a course with one of my Groups or In your Workplace. You can contact me below.