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Practice long periods of not having stimulating activities around you. Just sit and be bored for a few hours at the end of the day. This will increase your bas

Practice long periods of not having stimulating activities around you. Just sit and be bored for a few hours at the end of the day. This will increase your baseline dopamine for normal activities. When your baseline is too low, you self medicate by going on Reddit which spikes your dopamine for a while. Taking a break from stimulation lets your brain accumulate dopamine naturally

freedomben 4y ago
That's fascinating and probably good advice, although it does raise the question of whether the cure is worse than the disease :-)
- srcreigh 4y ago
  https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=f%28x%29%3D%28sin%28x%29%2B1%29%2F%280.02*x%29%2C+g%28x%29%3D1%2Bsin%28x%29%2F10+from+x+%3D+0+to+2000 https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=f%28x%29%3D%28sin%28x%2...
pikseladam 4y ago
wow. awesome tip. thank you
- sshine 4y ago
  There’s a lot more tricks to lowering your dopamine baseline: https://hubermanlab.com/controlling-your-dopamine-for-motivation-focus-and-satisfaction/ https://hubermanlab.com/controlling-your-dopamine-for-motiva...
  - Bilal_io 4y ago
    Dr. Huberman is great, his videos can run for long (over an hour) but he breaks down everything and explain things in detail. I've enjoyed watching his video on ADHD.
emberfiend 4y ago
100%. Another tool available is to generally move to lower-intensity dopamine producers. Long/slow/thoughtful videos over short/fast/bitesized videos, books over videos, old/clunky/slow games over new/polished/fast games, board games over computer games, and so on.
cratermoon 4y ago
One of the many aspects of meditation is "sit and be bored". Of course the mind has a tendency to fill in the boredom with thoughts, ideas, worries, etc. Learning to notice those and return the attention to sitting is surprisingly difficult, and may take years of practice.
mod 4y ago
I think I'm, in a way, OP-who-took-this-advice. I could have written his post, and I'm mid-journey on your advice. I sort-of naturally fell into it. I'm just not as interested in HN or Reddit anymore. The whole internet feels like it's arguing, not discussing, and that rubs me wrong. So I feel very bored by the internet right now, which is something I never thought I'd say. It's allowed me to really focus up on some other things like my fitness and some real-world projects, but I wouldn't say the struggle is over. The dopamine cycle is legit.
treeman79 4y ago
As a full blown ADHD person. Boredom is physically painful. worse then most other pains I’ve experienced. Basically a terror of being bored. First time I took medication it blew my mind that the pain of working on something boring was gone. I rarely take the medication due to side effects. But I can function somewhat better now that I know what it’s like to basically be normal. I still get way more done on medication.

freedomben 4y ago

That's fascinating and probably good advice, although it does raise the question of whether the cure is worse than the disease :-)

srcreigh 4y ago
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=f%28x%29%3D%28sin%28x%29%2B1%29%2F%280.02*x%29%2C+g%28x%29%3D1%2Bsin%28x%29%2F10+from+x+%3D+0+to+2000 https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=f%28x%29%3D%28sin%28x%2...

pikseladam 4y ago

wow. awesome tip. thank you

sshine 4y ago
There’s a lot more tricks to lowering your dopamine baseline: https://hubermanlab.com/controlling-your-dopamine-for-motivation-focus-and-satisfaction/ https://hubermanlab.com/controlling-your-dopamine-for-motiva...
- Bilal_io 4y ago
  Dr. Huberman is great, his videos can run for long (over an hour) but he breaks down everything and explain things in detail. I've enjoyed watching his video on ADHD.

emberfiend 4y ago

100%. Another tool available is to generally move to lower-intensity dopamine producers. Long/slow/thoughtful videos over short/fast/bitesized videos, books over videos, old/clunky/slow games over new/polished/fast games, board games over computer games, and so on.

cratermoon 4y ago

One of the many aspects of meditation is "sit and be bored". Of course the mind has a tendency to fill in the boredom with thoughts, ideas, worries, etc. Learning to notice those and return the attention to sitting is surprisingly difficult, and may take years of practice.

mod 4y ago

I think I'm, in a way, OP-who-took-this-advice. I could have written his post, and I'm mid-journey on your advice. I sort-of naturally fell into it. I'm just not as interested in HN or Reddit anymore. The whole internet feels like it's arguing, not discussing, and that rubs me wrong. So I feel very bored by the internet right now, which is something I never thought I'd say. It's allowed me to really focus up on some other things like my fitness and some real-world projects, but I wouldn't say the struggle is over. The dopamine cycle is legit.

treeman79 4y ago

As a full blown ADHD person. Boredom is physically painful. worse then most other pains I’ve experienced. Basically a terror of being bored. First time I took medication it blew my mind that the pain of working on something boring was gone. I rarely take the medication due to side effects. But I can function somewhat better now that I know what it’s like to basically be normal. I still get way more done on medication.