So I received the following comment   asking how one recovers from a period of unwanted slacking off what are some

good practices and ways to recover essentially asking how to get your life

back together now when I came across this comment the first thing that came

to my mind was actually a ritual that I invented many many years ago back in

college when I was drinking smoking and simply partying way too hard it's a

a ritual that worked extremely well for me back then and it's something that I

still do at least once or twice every single year I call it the dopamine fast

now in order for this to work you have to treat it like a sort of holiday this

is an entire day event that starts from the moment you wake up all the way until

the moment you fall asleep and this is a special holiday because unlike most

other holidays which are fun and filled with activities the entire purpose of

this one is to have as little fun as possible which means that there's a huge

list of things that you cannot do that's right things that you consider to be fun

entertaining or pleasurable are strictly forbidden so this means no food all

you're allowed to do is drink water no phone you can leave it on for

emergency calls but you can't use it no internet which includes surfing the web

and or social media of any kind Facebook snapchat Instagram no watching of videos

so this means no TV no YouTube no Netflix no going to the movies no

substances of any kind no alcohol no weed no drugs no cigarettes and nothing

with caffeine no video games no music no hanging out with your friends no talking

to anyone unless it's an emergency or for something work-related no

masturbating and finally no reading of any books fiction and or nonfiction now

here's what you can do you can drink water you can walk around outside you

can meditate you can do some light exercise and most importantly of all you

can write using a pen and paper and those are the rules now at this point in

time you're probably wondering why in the world would anyone do this to

themselves it sounds miserable it sounds like torture well I'm gonna

show you exactly why the dopamine fast is so effective and how committing to

this ritual can force you in to become extremely productive again and I'm also

gonna explain why writing is so important during a dopamine fast but

before we do that I do want to thank the sponsors of today's videos the guys over

at vinz Sarah watches if you're going to be doing a dopamine fast which means

you're basically doing nothing all day trust me you're gonna end up wondering

what the time is quite often which means you need a watch but on a more serious

note I never really wore watches before getting introduced to Vince arrow

earlier this year and since then I've been paying a lot more attention to the

way I dress and the importance of fashion in general and by just applying

some simple fashion tips like matching the color of my watch strap with the

color of my belt and shoes I've actually started to get a lot more compliments

especially for my female friends it's accessories like watches that can change

your entire demeanor and how people view you because well a good watch indicates

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about it all right so let's resume our conversation about the dopamine fast now

there are two main reasons as to why it's so effective the first is that it

starves your donkey what I mean by this well if you think about it the

relationship between your mind and body is sort of like the relationship between

a rider and a donkey if you're riding a donkey and you want it to move all you

have to do is wave a carrot in front of him this is similar to how if you want

to convince your body to do something that's hard all you have to do is think

about the reward you get after this is basically how habits work we

automatically do things as long as there is a decent reward that follows as long

as there is a carrot on a stick now what happens to us when our life is a mess is

that we've been indulging in too many stimulating things things like porn

drugs junk food and binge watching shows all produce a huge amount of dopamine

this is equivalent to letting your donkey eat and a buffet of carrots and

other tasty donkey vegetables if your dog is been eating in a buffet all week

he's not gonna be motivated by a little carrot on a stick anymore because he's

full when you come - doing a dopamine faster essentially

starving your donkey you giving your body as little stimulation as possible

for an entire day and when your donkey is starving you can easily convince him

to move by waving just a little carrot in front of him this means when you wake

up in the morning after doing a dopamine fast you'll find it much easier to

convince yourself to go to the gym or to read some pages of a book by thinking

about the reward you will give yourself after the second reason committing to a

dopamine fast is so effective is because it prevents you from masking your pain

what is the purpose of pain well if you think about it pain is an indicator that

something is wrong and needs to be fixed right it's a sign that there's a problem

somewhere if your hand is touching something that's too hot you feel pain

and your brain goes ah there's a problem over there and it automatically moves

your head pain is necessary for us to fix our problems the same thing applies

to emotional pain things like rejection loneliness and shame these are all

indicators that something is wrong in our lives but the problem with us humans

is that we love to run away from these feelings we love to self-medicate with

pleasure instead of solving the actual problem that's why so many people turn

to food drugs sex and alcohol when they're in a bad mood because all of

these things can make that pain go away at least temporarily now when you do a

dopamine fast you have no way of avoiding your problems because there's

literally nothing you can do to mask any of the pain and this forces you to

address all of the problems that you've been running away from for who knows how

long and here's where writing comes in in order to address this pain the best

thing to do is to write to organize your thoughts to figure out why you're

feeling this pain to begin with and to eventually come up with a plan see every

time I commit to doing a dopamine fast I will spend at least a couple of hours

writing throughout the day here are a couple of very good questions to ask

yourself these are the writing prompts that I'll use most often whenever I

commit to doing a dopamine fast question number one do I feel any discomfort

today if so where in my body am i feeling it is this an emotion or is this

physical pain if it's an emotion try to describe it is it anxiety is it

depression is it shame what does it feel like question number two ask yourself

why do I feel this way now it's important not to blame a chemical reason

or you know genetics or other people because most of

the time the reason we feel bad is because of something that we can control

there are almost always things that you are doing that are causing these issues

so ask yourself what things have I been doing that could possibly be causing

these issues question number three what should I do to fix it what are one two

three things that I can do tomorrow that will at least somewhat address this pain

things that would get me a couple of steps closer to fixing whatever problem

is causing this pain question number four what would my life be like if I did

not do any of these one-two-three things for the next five years assume the worst

possible scenario and really describe it and finally question number five what

would my life be like if I stuck to these one-two-three things consistently

for the next five years assume the best possible scenario and really really

describe it now the key to getting the most of these writing prompts is to

write a lot the more you write the better but allow yourself to really

focus on what you're writing give yourself some time to think between

answering each of these prompts right slowly and neatly you have all of the

time in the world because quite frankly there isn't much else to do if you

answer all of these prompts in detail you're gonna have a clearer idea of

exactly what you need to do tomorrow you're gonna feel pretty motivated to

stick to the one to three things that you wrote about because you'll come to

realize that there are things that will get you closer to solving your problems

and that's why the dopamine fast is so effective now again this is a ritual

that I came up with but worked really really well for me so I'm curious as to

whether or not it will have the same effect for you guys if you're trying to

get your life back together try this out and let me know in the comments below

how you felt the next day besides that guys stay tuned

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