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Comment by j_m_b | Hacker News Reader

There is no evidence dopamine fasting does anything. It's just the latest techie health fad.

You're right, dopamine dieting is much better. Dopamine veganism, if you will. Humans didn't evolve this crappy hormone because we were surrounded by stimuli, but exactly because we weren't. You gain nothing by being stimulated.

My reasoning is it's an entire profession to measure flavour profiles and quantities of food additives, hooks and drops in songs, microtransaction timings in games, et cetera. The science is clear, we simply ought to apply it in reverse.

I'm fairly certain the average neanderthal would feel ill after drinking a 500ml Monster and listening to djent.

This is a pretty demonstrably false statement. I think what you mean to say is that dopamine fasting may have no concrete benefits? But certainly manipulating/controlling your own dopamine levels does do something, unless you're contending that dopamine itself does nothing, which you're not. Dopamine fasting does let your receptors upregulate and resensitize. Take Adderall every day for a month and see how you feel -- you'll realize your receptors have been pretty downregulated and you need a break.

The question is whether this still applies if in the last statement you replace Adderall with social media or "modern music". I've personally found no benefit from deliberately limiting digital stimulation. But these things are of course very difficult to measure and assess objectively.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dopamine_fasting

> Detractors say that the overall concept of dopamine fasting is unscientific since the chemical plays a vital role in everyday life; literally reducing it would not be good for a person,[10] and removing a particular stimulus like social media would not reduce the levels of dopamine in the body, only the stimulation of it.[10] Ciara McCabe, Associate Professor in Neuroscience at the University of Reading, considers the idea that the brain could be "reset" by avoiding dopamine triggers for a short time to be "nonsense".[9]

> Cameron Sepah, who has promoted the practice of dopamine fasting, agrees that the name is misleading and says that its purpose is not to literally reduce dopamine in the body[9] but rather to reduce the impulsive behaviors that are rewarded by it.[6]

For further thought: Stimulant medication significantly improves excessive impulsivity in those with some types of executive function disorders. ADHD is extremely well studied in this regard.

Sorry, I did make a mistake in marrying my argument to "fasting." I meant, modulation I guess. You don't want to blast your system with dopamine constantly. Also "reducing the impulsive behaviors that are rewarded by it" is basically the same thing as "don't do the thing that gives you dopamine".

Lol no, it clearly works. It's call de-sensitization.

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