on realizing the power of dopamine detoxes | morning coffee crumbs #5

I love finding the romance in everything that is life, but I'm realizing that finding neutrality may also be vital???

Existential dread always seems to come knocking by your front door when you least expect it. 

For months, I was looking forward to June 2 - a day that I promised myself would be the start of a breather period of sorts.

I hoped to sit still for a bit.

I hoped to not make any major travel plans or make large commitments that would require me to show up with more energy than I could muster.

I hoped to prioritize a routine and rhythm that could be sprinkled with spontaneity so if I wished - a life I desperately craved. 

4 more weeks. 

2 more weeks. 

10 more days. 

5 more days. 

3 more days?

1 more day?!?!

It’s June 2.

I woke up the morning of june second, ready to ride along that summer rhythm I had been endlessly daydreaming about. Yet, I fell asleep that night to the beat of a racing mind that somehow fully missed the memo and decided to run a marathon of its own. 

I woke up the morning of june third in sweat, brain fog, and numbness. I fell asleep that night, without really addressing it and brushed it all away as a mere consequence of just feeling physically tired from all the travel, social energy, and sleep deprivation, as of late. 

I woke up the morning of june fourth in a mental state of an absolute mess.

I wasn’t sure what triggered it then, but something snapped - and I broke down. It was like every little worry to the biggest anxiety that had been conveniently brushed away for months all washed up at the surface. I was worrying about some real things, but mostly unchangeable things, the unnecessary things, the overly exaggerated things, and the things that only became things because my anxiety was making them out to be something they never were. 

I did fall asleep that night, feeling resolved and at peace - an absolute 180 from how I started that morning, thanks to long conversations with my dad and my best friend, and all the grace and support they gave me. 

It is the night of june tenth, as I write this, and I feel more stable and calm than I have felt in weeks. Even if a good place to be, it is an odd feeling to be here right now - considering how impossible this state conceptually felt only six days ago. 

And similarly, I find myself reflecting back to the three-day long tumultuous journey my mind forced me to advent on. That too was an odd place to be, to be shoved into a pitfall of doom and dread after finally scaling to the peak of the mountain. 

Just when I finally found some quiet and space to breathe, my anxiety chose to occupy that space. And I couldn’t figure out why - until I did. 

In the moments before we fall asleep or in the moments when we shut our eyes to begin meditating, it is our deepest desires or stressors that often bubble up at the surface.

We plot plans.

We simmer over possibilities.

We waltz with our imagination - or sometimes, twist it and strangle it.

We let the whispers of our heart infiltrate our mind.

We let the walls come down.

Disregarding the nature of the thought being good or bad, we just allow ourselves to be. 

I have prided myself on taking very deliberate moments in my day and even, full days in a week, to just fully sit with myself by myself, and with my thoughts. I figured that those moments were serving as good enough pauses to allow my mind to take over and to really listen to my thoughts.

But these activities that kept me busy made me feel good, they made me feel energized, they made me prioritize myself; they did not give me the space to fully allow my mind to speak its truth. 

After months of travel and busy schedules all topped with the busiest six weeks I had in a while with multiple road trips down to San Diego, a trip to New York and the Hamptons, a bachelorette weekend in the Palm Springs, all while balancing work, routine, my life in LA, June 2 marked the start of a sudden crash in dopamine - in the best of ways, but also in a confronting way.

It was like hearing silence after months of listening to loud music on the stereo. It was needed, it was craved for, but it also opened doors to thoughts I did not expect. 

What I had come to realize was that all the anxieties I had felt through the three days following June 2 were not new; they were always there in the foundation behind the colorful wallpaper that was slapped on top of it. I just hadn’t let myself truly feel for a while. 

Only because I am doing okay now, I’m glad that everything came rushing that day - and that I had the right people that helped me muster the strength to sort through the anxiety in the quickest of ways. I feel lighter, and still have so much of my breather period left to just feel the summer rhythm. 

But it wasn’t easy to deal with it all at once. It was a hellish, hopeless sort of feeling that sucks life out of you. While nothing is for certain, I really do believe that this was an inevitable state of being for me to land in, after spending months just running against time and performing for myself. 

In retrospect, I needed a break between all the commitments.

An introvert, I need time in between to recharge and reset, instead of letting my body run into overdrive. I want to be mindful of wedging in periods of detox time, even during the busiest periods of my life. Even if I may feel perfectly charged at a point in time, maybe this just means intentionally scheduling in nothing for a whole weekend, because I know I need to stay in energy saver mode before weeks of travel.

What is interesting is that I think I always knew I needed a break from the everyday - but I was going about it in ways that I thought were enough, when it may not have been.

I did find journaling, walking, exercising, cleaning, and cooking to all be “breaks” that help me find serenity, joy, and peace in the everyday. These activities are often thought to be dopamine detoxes, since they’re rather healthy habits that are not tied to addictive patterns or behaviors. 

Yet, I realize that for me, a serial routine-chaser and to-do-list-crosser-offer, these activities did trigger dopamine releases in me. While I genuinely looked forward to do these activities that I found meditative, they also made me feel happy as I was doing them. Plus, I would not be telling you the full story if I said I didn’t feel accomplished to strike them off in my planner. 

The term dopamine detox has its fans and its critics on the internet, but as I interpret it, I do find virtue in its concept.

A detox suggests that we abstain away from anything we find instantly perceptible joys in and do a relatively neutral activity. As a romantic, I will say that I find myself finding depth and happiness in everything. Following this definition to the absolute T may be an impossibility, yet I do wonder if there is perhaps just something more to the definition of neutral. Neutral may mean something that isn’t instantly giving me gratification, or something I’d rather not be doing if I was optimizing for my happiness points.

To me, meditation is the perfect example of a neutral activity - perhaps ironically because we have to sit with our thoughts and do nothing about it except accept. It is innately a practice that encourages a neutral mind. 

As I continue along the beat of my summer rhythm, I hope to empower myself little by little and remind myself to:

let our thoughts run loose and free, never in the shackles of our own repression.

A Quick Activity, if you’re willing (highly encourage!!!)

I invite you to do a 2-5 minute meditation session. Put everything aside, and sit criss-crossed with your eyes closed.

Try focusing on your breath - the inhales and the exhales.

Pay attention to where your mind drifts and wanders.

• What are the things that come to your mind?

• Did anything surprise you?

• Were you able to gently move your thoughts to the side and return back to your breath or move on to a different thought strand?

• Did you find it difficult to sit still?

If you have a moment, write down the things that came to your mind to perhaps gently confront them.

• Why do you think these specific thoughts came to mind?

  • If negative thoughts: what are ways in which you can address them to relieve your headspace?

• What are ways in which you can find moments of neutrality, whether it is committing to meditation practices as such, to find more stillness in the everyday?

Dearest Readers…

As always, I would love to hear what your thoughts were and if you resonated with any part of this piece in the comments below.

I took a hiatus for a couple of weeks while navigating the pinnacle rush of my pre-june-second life and the anxiety spell that followed - but I’m back! And if there is ever anything you would like to invite me to think about or write about, please, please, please message me! There is no better sort of mail I love receiving.

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