Take a look at these pictures, Do you see any particular common pattern ?

Completing all of these activities gives your brain a reward, As soon as you complete them. Reason for these is brain chemical called Dopamine.

Dopamine is the brain’s reward chemical, Gifted to us by Evolution, It’s primary purpose is to give keep your motivation intact by giving a sense of satisfaction on completing activities, E.g. Winning a competition, Completing a hunt etc. When you Accomplishing something your brain releases this chemical in form of dopamine hit and you feed satisfied. But due to information explosion and modern life you are surrounded by access of Dopamine hits. As social media corporations, news agencies, all information compete for your attention they target these dopamine hit by hitting your primal instinct. That is why you see these red notification dots, so when you complete reading a notification your brain will assume you have completed something important and gives you small amount of dopamine, which leads you to be addicted to social media, phone app, video games or cigarettes ( smoking cigarettes also gives you dopamine hit).

So how do we get out of this vicious loop of dopamine addiction.

First step of solving any of these problems is first acknowledge them, Then we can start thinking of solutions.

One of the solutions that is being tried is Dopamine fasting. Starting with spending at least one day in week, completely switching off your dopamine triggers, e.g. mobile phones, screens, Cigarettes etc. And then build on top of them.

If you also have some thoughts and solutions about how to overcome dopamine addiction let me know in the comment section.