23:04
Has it ever happened to you that you had a free day and instead of doing something you really enjoy, you spend hours on your phone without even getting any pleasure from it? People say that if you truly loved something, you would do it, but I don't really agree because I keep putting off the things I truly love. And this is not a discipline problem. This is literally how dopamine works. And once you understand this, you can change because your daily habits are training what your brain actually craves. In this video, I break down the worst and best dopamine habits based on neuroscience. Let's start with bad habit number one - smoking and vaping. Everyone calls dopamine the pleasure chemical, but it's actually not.
It doesn't cause pleasure, it actually causes a desire, a drive to get the thing. So, something doesn't necessarily have to be fun. You don't even have to like it to get hooked on it. Look at long-time smokers. Most of them will tell you that they don't even get much pleasure from it anymore, they just can't quit. This is exactly what it means to want something without loving it, and it works on two completely different systems in your brain. And it's actually scary how normalized it is. When I was in high school, everyone around me smoked. I know that underage people smoke. And I hated it terribly. But I understand this appeal because it's social. There are so many times when
people have come closer thanks to these smoke breaks. And it's such an easy excuse to say to someone, "Hey, do you want to smoke outside or something?" And when everyone around you is doing something, you stop questioning it. And vapes, in my opinion, have made it even worse, because smoking is quite restricted and has a bad image. But with vaping you get so many different flavors and colors. You can also do it literally anywhere all day long, you know? For example, even while I'm filming this video, I can quickly light a cigarette. But I can't do that with smoking. You know what else you can do anywhere all day? This is shopping. Our phones are, in essence, a store that never closes. This is coming from someone who literally has trouble
shopping on Amazon, which is great. Not long ago, I had a situation literally every day where some package from Amazon would arrive at my house, and it was n't even supposed to be expensive. I just wanted to buy all sorts of nonsense all day long. This is a problem because your brain is always weighing two things: how much effort will it take and what reward will I get? When the reward is a single click away, the deal looks great to your brain, okay? So you keep doing it because you don't have to put in much effort to get the reward. And everything that actually requires effort starts to look worse next to it. This is the same reason why ordering food every day makes
cooking impossible. So I set a very simple rule: if I want something, I have to buy it in a physical store, not on Amazon. And after I implemented it, I literally stopped buying 80% of the things I wanted to buy. I'm not even exaggerating. I saved so much money after implementing this simple rule. Sure, there are times when I buy online instead of in a physical store, but for the most part, I go to a physical store, look at the item, and realize that I don't really want it. Or worse, I don't even go to the store when I think, "Oh, I have to buy this thing, and I have to go to that store, I don't even want it anymore, because the effort-reward ratio is now inverted." "So I don't want her anymore." And it made me realize that what I want is not necessarily what
I wanted to buy, but the quick dopamine rush I get from buying something and the anticipation of waiting for the thing I'm ordering. And with shopping, at least you know what you're getting. With gambling, you don't know that. It's literally a slot machine. And our brains are wired in such a way that unpredictable rewards produce much more dopamine compared to predictable rewards, like waiting for a package you ordered on Amazon, as opposed to gambling and buying, for example, loot boxes. And that might actually drive our brain crazy, because you think, maybe this time I'll win. Maybe there's a rare specimen in this box. So, you go on and on. And sometimes you get something good, you know, what you wanted. Sometimes not. And this is the most interesting
combination. Gambling is so normalized these days, it's crazy, that many people don't even think it's gambling. Go to X and you'll see tweets like Polymarket saying there's a 29% chance it'll happen by the end of the year. The odds are against it. And every other tweet is someone betting on something and making it a social event. And even when you watch TV commercials, sports betting commercials are on TV. This is madness. You see advertising everywhere. And it takes away the friction and the bad feeling you usually have about it. But the blind box or betting and gambling at least ends when you open it or when you get the result. Unless you're
just buying another one, or just trying to get another jackpot. But at least whether to buy another one or bid on another thing is still your decision. But with Netflix and most online video platforms, you need to stop. Because the next episode is just beginning. If you do nothing, you keep watching. They moved the effort from start to stop. And the episodes are also designed for that. Each one ends on a high note, on a cliffhanger, on something that keeps you in suspense. And, obviously, television has always done that. As if I would n't like Netflix because it started it. But with Netflix, I've noticed that I like it a lot more. It feels so engineered and they know exactly what is keeping us hooked. So they sprinkle it into
every episode, that after a while you think, "Oh my God, this is so intrusive." I mean, I knew all this, okay? I recently subscribed to Netflix to watch an episode of "Bad Bunny love." Don't judge me for this. I just wanted to watch the episode. And I literally stayed up all night to finish the entire season, which is crazy. Even after learning about it, it still affected me. And now I have such a craving for Netflix. Like I want to put on a show or watch something while I'm doing something. I make YouTube videos about ADHD, which means my real job is reading and writing all week long. Research papers, sponsored briefs, call notes, and scripts. The problem is that my working memory is very poor.
Let's say I'm reading something. As I write this, it's already slipping out of my head. So I copy and paste things into a separate window and I lose my place. That's why I accepted the sponsorship from Superhuman. From the creators of Grammarly, Superhuman Go is your AI assistant that works in the apps and websites you already use to proactively improve your writing skills and complete administrative tasks. You only need to install it once via the Chrome extension, and it's already on what you're reading. Like this article. This paragraph is exactly what I need, and it's quite dense. So I highlight it, click "explain," and it breaks it down right on the page. I never really look away from the article and never
interrupt my progress. Same thing after my weekly conversation with the miniature designers. I ask what we decided last week and what I owe them. So, it turns my notes into tasks and creates message drafts. Nothing will be lost, I promise . The next morning, these tasks are already in my daily brief before I open anything. So I don't have to remember it myself anymore. If you want to try Superhuman Go from the creators of Grammarly, the link is in the description below. And the whole point of the attention economy is that your attention never drops, not even for a second. And that's exactly what happened to me after watching this series on Netflix.
I immediately started looking for the next one. And when I couldn't find a series to watch, I started looking for podcasts, audiobooks, or even music to fill that silence and boredom in my life that should have been there, but I wanted to get rid of. It was starting to hurt so much. Because your brain essentially gets used to whatever level of stimulation you give it. If it's continuous, silence simply can't compete with it. Think about it, reading, thinking, or even planning a meeting with friends suddenly seems like too much of a task because nothing pays off right away when compared to the high dopamine activity. And when I think about it, I have periods where my reading either
fades or is interrupted. I've had periods where I don't read books at all and watch something all day, and then I go crazy and read a book in a day. You know, I don't have a gap. But if you look seriously, always, and always, and always, the moments when I can't sit down with a book are when I have something playing in the background 24/7, and I'm watching this artificially created dopamine content. There is no boredom, no silence, no time to think at all. So I decided to make a simple rule: I either listen to this while doing chores I hate, or I listen to different things and watch this artificially created dopamine crap while I work out. And
other than those two scenarios, I just have to sit and actively consume this thing without doing anything else. And after a few days of living like this, you notice that most of the content is n't actually that interesting. Oh my God, my eye is literally singing. Maybe mine too, okay? Once you do that, you realize they're not really that interesting for me to regain my ability to read. So you need to train your brain in a way that doesn't give you immediate rewards. Because otherwise you'll spend the whole day on your phone. It's not that you don't like other things. It just can't compete with your phone when it's designed to keep you addicted. That's how this thing is designed.
What do you do on your phone on your day off? You scroll through TikTok, Reels, Shorts, whatever feed you're on. And I honestly think that's the worst thing of all. The show is the one that created the episode, right? As in movies, it's the movie that keeps you in suspense. The algorithm, the way it was developed, which I have a whole video about, is built in a way that uses everything we just talked about, all at once. It's literally the most interesting thing in the world. It doesn't require any effort, you just move your thumb. It's a slot machine, and most of it is in the middle, and every now and then you get some cool content to keep you going. By the way, I hope my
content is cool. And there is no end to our story. There is no end to the tape, it just goes on and on. And it's so normalized that we do n't even think about it anymore. When someone says I spend too much time on a screen, no one takes it seriously. Whereas if you told someone that I'm an alcoholic, I drink too much, everyone suddenly gets really worried about it, right? But if you think about it, they're actually equally bad, in my opinion. I don't know, maybe this sounds dramatic to you, but in my opinion, it's just a form of addiction, and it's just as serious as the previous one. So, you might be thinking, should just stop taking dopamine then? It's impossible. Because you need it, and it's literally what makes you get out of bed and do something.
So the goal isn't necessarily to reduce the amount of dopamine you get, but how you get it. Because the problem was never too much The problem is how you get it. And the first rule is that you have to earn the dopamine you get. When we think about ways to combat addiction, the first step is always to not keep it within reach. You would n't put alcohol in front of an alcoholic when he's trying to quit. And the same goes for our phones. Personally, I like to block social media, all social media on my phone. I don't even have any apps on my phone. I have to use it literally through the browser. And when I work, I usually set pre- set rules to unblock that.
Mostly it causes social friction that makes me not even unlock it while doing other things. Many people say, "Oh, why are you going to such lengths? » It's because I don't trust myself and don't want to rely on discipline. I know I'm like a monkey, and this is like a billion dollar company trying to set me up. Do you really think my discipline will beat a designed machine? No. If something is designed so frictionless to keep you hooked, if you add friction to it, don't you think it would make it easier for you to quit? But blocking things actually leaves a hole. All that dopamine came from somewhere, and you have to
replace it with something that's actually worth the effort. Because when you don't replace it with something good, I actually found myself constantly chasing that dopamine from worse decisions. I literally found that after blogging on social media, I started drinking more because I wanted it to be a dopamine rush. You shouldn't do this. We need to choose something better. What I actually recommend and what I test is cardio, especially running outdoors. For example, going outside, sunlight, BDNF production . We all lead a sedentary lifestyle. I'm sure you're not taking enough steps, okay? And cardio increases dopamine and norepinephrine levels, which are targeted by ADHD stimulants.
Obviously, for someone who has been taking ADHD medication for about 2 years, depending on the severity of your condition, this may not completely replace your medication. It will not be as powerful as medicine. But even then, it's a significant difference. You can clearly notice the difference right after a good 20-30 minute run in the fresh air. And there's a study, conducted mostly on children and teens, that shows that one session of moderate cardio can improve your concentration for about an hour or two. So you can literally use this almost as a dopamine booster before something you really don't want to do. Whenever I feel stuck, out of ideas, or don't want to
do anything, I actually take a quick run and it gives me so much clarity. And I have so much energy that I can't even sit still. It's really hard for me to sit down and shoot this video right now. I'm so bored right now that I want to, you know, get up and do something. So usually when I run at times like these, it just relaxes me and makes my life easier. And after a good run, I swear, the runner's high is such a high-quality high that you feel like all that cheap, high-quality, cheap, and fake dopamine is no longer satisfying. Compared to that, this feels so pure and so good. I know I sound like a junkie, but I really want you to run a few times, okay? And if you feel this
runner's high for the first time in your life, then you will understand what I mean. And I'm so glad that running is actually beneficial, because otherwise I would be reckless, addicted, and no one could stop me. But in any case, the next lesson is weightlifting. Where do I even start? Why don't my muscles look that big on camera when they really are big? How can I make them even bigger? Can you see it at all? Do you see that? Why does this look bad? Anyway, I started weightlifting at the very beginning of my major depression, which I struggled with for 7 years. That's one of the main things that threw me off balance when I think about it. And every time I take a break, maybe longer than a month,
I literally feel my mental health deteriorate, and I go back to all these bad habits that I talked about. And I think it works so well for me because it's the opposite of a slot machine. You know exactly what you get for your efforts. You can see it in the numbers. Unless you have really good genetics, your body won't change that much when you start, obviously, just like in any other sport. But the weights are increasing. You can literally see it in every workout. You are getting stronger and stronger. And I'm a very data-oriented person, okay? I like numbers. So as long as I can see my progress, even in the form of numbers and not necessarily in the sense of what I look like, I can keep going. And this is the dopamine that you
actually work for and that you actually earn. Because you need to go to the gym, you need to wait, you keep doing it for the numbers to grow. And once that normalizes, you almost reprogram your brain and retrain it that in order to get dopamine, you need to work. I actually intentionally made a rule that I don't listen to music during the day except when I'm running or lifting weights. And it actually feels much more useful. And it's a double dopamine hit when I lift weights and listen to music, because I don't listen to anything all day. It's just nice. It's just so wonderful. So if there 's something you can't afford to do, combine it with a habit you want to do, it becomes doubly beneficial, and it's actually so addictive. So if you're not
lifting weights right now, that's your top priority, okay? Try either running or weightlifting. If you're like me, do both. Both running and weightlifting are not even for your body. This is so that you can function well, focus well, feel well, and get those baselines back to what they were before, to normal, to what they should be. And with weightlifting, you can see progress. With a new skill, for the most part, you can't. Learning something new and being really bad at it is very painful, especially in adulthood. I'm doing it with golf now, okay? It's so humiliating to stay afloat while a four-year-old child is crushing you right next to me. And progress is so slow. It's so slow that it almost feels like every time I go to the shooting range, I get
worse. But when you do it over and over again, whether it's golf, a new language, an instrument, or even making a YouTube video, your brain is trained to expect immediate reward. And you repeat things without any results. The same goes for YouTube videos. A lot of people think, "Oh, they'll post like 10 videos and get views or something." Whereas you post about 20 videos and get nine or eight views. So many people quit because they are used to getting rewarded immediately. If you keep doing this often enough, you train yourself to understand that the reward doesn't come instantly, so you don't expect it immediately. And if you do it on your own, it's extremely difficult to stick to it.
I never stick to it when I do it myself, but when you go to a class or when you have, I don't know, like, a coach or something, then the responsibility arises and the money is burning out of your pocket, you suddenly feel this urgency that changes the rules of the game. No, I'm not going to do a presentation to sell my entire course on YouTube or anything, okay? It simply changes the rules of the game. Just read. And reading requires the same patience. It's a contribution, but a contribution that you control. When you watch something, when you're on social media, the contribution is controlled by others.
The pace, the way it is presented, is controlled by others. But when you read, you're the one who keeps the pace. Nobody is editing this, you're screwed. And when you close the book, it's finished. And if you're having a hard time getting started with reading, or you've never been a reader, I'm actually thinking about making a video about it, because I can guarantee you that you're reading wrong. There are rules to this nonsense, okay? So, let me know if you want a video about this. Okay, so reading is an input that you control, right? Keeping a diary.No input signals at all. There are only output signals. I feel like this is the only way I
can process my thoughts, my fears, my overload. And I think I would go crazy if there wasn't such a thing as keeping a diary. You know, I don't know how many diaries I've finished in my life. I usually use this brand of diaries. I even like that I have a cover for it. This is my favorite. I can also make a video about journaling. can be so painful sometimes because the phone always provides a way to escape. Just sit down with a pen and paper, right? For example, at midnight when everyone is asleep, and to let your thoughts come out and process them.
This is literally the only way, in my opinion, to get to know yourself and understand what limits you, as well as free yourself from your fears and control what blocks you. Definitely, journaling and weightlifting are two things that pulled me out of depression, and I highly recommend doing them. And I don't necessarily write about my day or something like, "Oh my God," a diary or anything like that. I write about what's on my mind, what's on my mind, and what I can do about it. It's more like problem solving for me and more like understanding the internal things that are going on inside me because I'm a very, very solution-oriented person and not necessarily very good at understanding emotions.
This really works for me. This is a very, very game-changing thing. It's like therapy. If you are a more emotional person, perhaps you can also write about your emotions to process them. And over the weeks you start to see your patterns, like what gets you off track, or maybe it's bad sleep, maybe it's a certain time of day, maybe it's certain habits that you have, right? I get asked about this quite often. How do you have such high self-awareness about your actions? This is thanks to keeping a diary. This happens through reflection and output of this. And in the attention economy, because it's designed in such a way that you're constantly consuming, you're always a consumer. So you never let things out, and I think that's one of the
main reasons why we're so overwhelmed and we don't have a clear space to reflect, to be aware, and to change what's happening right now. And instead of relying on your memory, which is so blurry and self-critical, you get a crystal clear picture of how things are going and where you are headed. And when you know your patterns, you can deal with problems before they arise. And honestly, that's exactly what I wanted this video to do for you. Now you also know the patterns thanks to our examples. So, now that you have a free day, you understand where everything is going and why. So, instead of blaming yourself, you can now take action and do what you actually want to do instead of what has
been chosen for you. Obviously, this won't happen overnight. I've been working on this for years. It's a constant battle between our choices and what these big companies want from you, but your brain is always training something, so it could be you. So if you have any video requests that I mentioned in the video, just let me know in the comments, because I actually read the comments quite a bit, and I'll see you in the next one.
