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- Unchained Part 4: Dopamine Detox To Rewire Your Brain
Unchained Part 4: Dopamine Detox To Rewire Your Brain
CT Dool
February 21, 2025 • Read Time: 11 minutes
Why You’re Addicted to Dopamine (and How To Do a Dopamine Reset)
Your brain is hijacked.
If you feel like you:
Can’t focus
Struggle with motivation
Find yourself mindlessly reaching for cheap dopamine…
You’re not the exception—you’re the norm.
Welcome back to the Unchained Series. If you missed it, jump back to Part 1 for the most powerful resource to quit porn forever.
Table of Contents
Our modern society has turned the brain’s reward chemical into a weapon—used against us.
Porn, social media, video games, junk food, and endless scrolling are engineered to keep you hooked.
No, really—anytime you resist opening Instagram, you’re fighting against 100,000 highly paid, educated, and organized engineers that came together with the goal of hooking you. Good luck.
That’s in BILLION$. Boys are playing with B’s… and here I am alone on the couch trying to fight them off.
The sad truth is: attention = money. Therefore, if they can steal our attention, they’ll have an unlimited flow of money.
Why wouldn’t tech giants them allocate billions of dollars into hacking your attention?
This is why you feel stuck.
What’s the Solution?
A Dopamine Detox is a powerful way to reset your brain, rebuild your discipline, and regain control.
Tech giants, Instagram models, the porn industry, video games—they’re all vying for your attention. It gets them paid.
My take? Fuck ‘em.
Dopamine Detox: Not a Trend.
It’s a mental reset that literally reshapes your brain and the way you experience pleasure and motivation.
In healing your dopamine receptors, you open up the possibility to view the world “in color” again instead of a dull, grey existence.
You can enjoy the small things, connect with others more deeply, and lean into life.
The Hard Truth: You Don’t Need More “Motivation”—You Need a Dopamine Reset
Lack of motivation, depression, aimlessness, sleep problems—they’re not causes. They’re symptoms.
Your brain is hardwired to chase cheap dopamine, and until you break the cycle, you’ll stay trapped.
Now, let’s get into how to actually detox your brain and escape the addiction cycle.
What Is a Dopamine Detox? (And Dopamine Fast Benefits)
A dopamine detox is not about eliminating dopamine (which is impossible).
It’s about resetting your reward system so you stop needing constant stimulation to feel satisfied.
It’s about returning to the natural state humans have been in for thousands of years…
And breaking free from the modern state 95% of people are trapped in and think is normal.
Immense joy and gratitude simply from seeing a sunset? Check. ✅
The ability to read dense texts, crush workouts, and grow a business? Check. ✅
Easily connecting with strangers, friends, and your partner? Check.✅
These are just some of the benefits of healing the dopamine system and returning to that natural state.
Trust me, life is not the same. And that’s good.
The Common Misconceptions
It’s not about quitting everything forever.
It’s about cutting out highly stimulating, low-value habits that hijack your brain.
You’ll likely find that, after detoxing, you now longer desire as much stimulation.
You find plenty in the small things—reading, journaling, exercising, conversations, music, working.You don’t have to go full monk mode.
This isn’t about sitting in a room doing nothing (I mean, you could, and it would probably expedite the healing process).
Our approach is to cut the serious offenders out first. We’ll then gradually find ourselves gravitating toward less and less stimulation.You’ll feel like shit at first.
Studies confirm it—the dopa pathway is the dopa pathway, whether your preferred addiction is a substance or behavior.
Withdrawals are real, and most people quit before they reach the good part.
We must learn to confront these shitty feelings rather than escape—the original reason we’re addicted.
Withdrawals are the necessary purging that allow the good stuff to come back—joy, gratitude, drive, presence, connection.
The brain is adaptive and resilience—here showing the healing after abstaining from cocaine (effectively a dopamine detox).
Dopamine Detox vs. Dopamine Fast
Dopamine Detox | Dopamine Fast |
|---|---|
Long-term reset for sustainable self-discipline | Short-term extreme abstinence (1-3 days) |
Focuses on replacing bad habits with better ones | Focuses on complete sensory deprivation |
Designed for lasting behavior change | Designed for quick mental clarity |
For most people, a dopamine detox is the better long-term strategy.
Quick wins are cool—but sustainable change is cooler… Let’s get into the 7-day launch plan.
The 7-Day Dopamine Detox Plan (Step-by-Step)
Days 1-2: The Junk Stimulation Purge
✅ Cut out the worst offenders: Porn, social media, video games, junk food, mindless YouTube scrolling.
Sugar is one of the fastest-acting dopamine sources. Just seconds after hitting the tongue, dopamine is flowing.
Porn provides on of the largest, super-normal (i.e., not available in nature) dopamine floods known to man.
Tik Tok is designed to maximize dopamine—and therefore addiction.
We must cut the bullshit out.
✅ Replace former habits: Walks, reading, deep work, silence, and real conversations.
Guess what? The brain is very aware of your dopamine levels and wants to maintain them. When you remove dopa, you create a void—and the brain is pissed.
Hence, withdrawals and you feeling like shit. We must begin to fill the void with natural dopa sources.
✅ Lean into withdrawal: Anxiety, boredom, and cravings will hit hard. This is your brain rewiring itself.
Another hard truth: the natural sources of dopamine don’t hit as hard as the artificial ones—at first.
Going from binging social media, surfing porn, drinking, and video games—nature, sunlight, and reading are going to feel like nothing.
You’ll be irritable, have mood swings, get anxious. This is normal.
Know this: you’ll soon be enjoying the shit out of those simple things like reading, walking, and pursuing goals.
Days 3-4: The Boredom & Withdrawal Phase (and the Dopamine Fasting Rules)
✅ Accept the discomfort. Your brain will scream for dopamine—ignore it.
The brain is clever. The subconscious mind is governing a lot of this—it will seek and pursue dopamine at every opportunity.
Listened to an intense song and got a hit of dopa? Let’s do that again, says your brain.
We must become mindful of when we’re avoiding withdrawals and dopamine binging again—in any form.
✅ Dopamine Fasting Rules: Follow these, and your detox will move along quicker.
Dopamine fasting rules outlined
Protect key hours: No artificial stimulation in the first or last hour of your day. Natural wakeup and wind down.
Absolutely zero big dopa spikes: No “quick peeks” at a hot girl on Instagram, or worse, a pornographic image. No social media. No drugs. No drinking. You know what’s right and what’s not—follow your instincts.
Maximize time offline and in nature: Sure, we’ve still got to work (although an ideal dopamine detox is done while on vacation and off-grid). If you’re online, it should only be for work or with a strong, necessary purpose. The more time you spend offline and outdoors, the faster your brain heals.
No replacement addictions: If you simply replace social media and gaming with YouTube and drinking more, you’ve defeated the purpose of the detox. We replace our addictions in order to avoid withdrawals. Remember that withdrawals MUST happen. This is the brain rewiring and healing.
Journal, journal journal: Journaling is not only a powerful replacement habit and natural dopamine source. It’s an opportunity to develop self-awareness and reflect on your healing process. I have a free PDF with hard-hitting prompts that I guarantee will aid in your detox.
You’ll be prompted to put in your email, then I’ll shoot the PDF straight to your inbox.
Days 5-7: The Rebuild Phase
✅ Reintroduce dopamine sources—but selectively. Choose activities that build you up, not break you down.
✅ Track your progress: Use the Bulletproof Mind Journal to log cravings, mood, and focus levels.
✅ Lock in your identity transformation.
If you want, you can leave it as “a few days that sucked.” Or you can uproot the whole fucking identity of sluggish, unmotivated, dull existence from before… in favor of building a powerful, joyful, driven future.
For a detailed timeline on porn recovery and withdrawals, see Part 2 of the Unchained Series.
The Science Behind It: Does a Dopamine Detox Really Work?
The science tells us that the brain downregulates its natural dopamine production to balance the floods from overstimulation.
Nerd-speak for “dopamine if f*ckkkkked”
Harvard Health and many health experts have reacted in opposition to the “dopamine detox trend.” They rightfully point out—you can’t fast from a naturally occurring bodily chemical. And 24-hours free of stimulation won’t do shit.
Obviously… That doesn’t mean dopamine detoxes are BS.
The truth is, dopamine detox is a misnomer. It’s actually a stimulation and vice detox, which DOES rewire your brain.
For more on brain rewiring and exactly how to do it—see Part 3 of the Unchained Series.
By resetting your dopamine system, you regain control over:
Your ability to focus deeply.
Your motivation to pursue difficult but rewarding tasks.
Your resistance to cravings and destructive habits.
The Unchained Challenge: Take Action Today
Most people read about dopamine detoxing but never take action.
Here’s your challenge:
Start the 7-day dopamine detox today.
Download the Bulletproof Mind Journal to track your progress and solidify your habits.
DM me on Instagram (after your detox, free of social media, of course) and let me know how it went.
This is your opportunity to change, forever. Free yourself from dopamine slavery. Reclaim your mind.
To your growth and travels,
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