A Full Dopamine Detox Protocol To Reset Your Life In 30 Days

You Need To Reset Your Life

00:00This is for those times where life starts to lose its wonder and zest. When you feel more tired than you do, calm when you may not realize you're using coffee as a security blanket. When you start to notice dark circles under your eyes, when you look back to a time where life felt seamless and almost magical.

00:17Because there's a harsh reality of living in today's world. By simply living, we take on risk, but not the good type of risk. The risk of binge tech like social media, streaming, gaming and news. The risk of simulated sexual stimulation like pornography and dating apps.

00:33The risk of consumables like alcohol, drugs and junk food. The risk of thrill seeking like gambling, shopping sprees or extreme sports. Now, I'm not one to demonize your actions here. I'm not a saint by any means. I'm just a guy who studies weird stuff and shares what he learns on the internet for money.

00:50Sure, but also meaning. Because if I wanted to get filthy rich, I'd start a religion. Most people online love to put on this guise of perfection. They'll be the first to tell you when you're doing something that's just slightly bad. But when you look at their life, they're usually not in the physical, mental, spiritual, or financial situation that you would ever want to be in.

01:12And that's the thing. You've done what someone else thinks is bad. At least five to 10 to 100 times this week. And so have the people that think what you're doing is bad, and that's fine. But we're not here to discuss morality behind all of this.

01:28Instead, I want to talk about this. When you live in today's world of convenient, quick pleasures. And if you don't want to become a monk, because if you did want that, it's out of ego, which I find funny. Then you need a tool to perform a factory reset on your life.

01:43Humans create tools to solve problems. Technology creates problems, but it also allows humans to do what used to be impossible. Meaning, in this world of technology, you need some kind of tool to mitigate the problems that technology causes.

01:58If you're not going to go and live off in the woods, then you need to implement something into your life that helps mitigate the risk of using your phone using the internet. Being around cheap and convenient foods, etc.. So if you do what we're going to talk about at least once a year for 30 days at a time, you will buffer the consequences of modern life.

02:18In other words, you will bring that childlike wonder back into your life. That feeling of not caring, that feeling of non narrow mindedness, of open mindedness, of not being stuck in your head all day and actually being able to experience life on a deeper level.

02:34So before we talk about the actual dopamine detox protocol, let's talk about the brain. Let's talk about what's going on. Why this cheap dopamine epidemic is such a problem. And I also want to note that superhuman 90, which is a protocol to reset your life in 90 days instead of 30, like we're talking about in this video with training, nutrition and lifestyle systems that goes live on October 28th and the price increases then.

02:58So if you want to check it out. Link in the description.

The Cheap Dopamine Epidemic

03:00Your brain operates on a salience network, meaning whatever provides the most dopamine becomes the most important. I think you can already see how big of a problem that can become. But let's have some fun and let's break it down. As we've discussed way too many times, me high except me high.

03:15The godfather of flow, the flow psychologist, he found that flow states, or the optimal state of human experience or just pure enjoyment, require a specific skill to challenge ratio. If the challenge of a goal is too high for your skill level, you get anxious.

03:31If the challenge is too low, you get bored. You wouldn't fight a level 100 character when you are a level one, it just doesn't make sense. Overstimulation destroys the potential for flow states or enjoyment, because it raises the bar for what you consider stimulating.

03:47Everything that is more boring than your phone. Gambling, porn, partying, and the rest is automatically labeled as boring by your brain. So a dopamine detox has become a well marketed way of resetting your baseline for stimulation. And it works so well for three reasons.

04:04The first is that boredom is the gateway to novelty. Carl Jung OG, psychologist, harped on the importance of shadow work or confronting the uncomfortable aspects of ourselves we typically avoid. Sitting with. Boredom does just this. It activates breakthrough insights when the rational mind stops trying to solve everything it reveals are authentic desires beneath external conditioning.

04:26It sets the scene for three flow triggers, making you more likely to enter a season of intense learning and building. The first trigger is deep embodiment, so being present with discomfort. The second is novelty because boredom forces you to seek new, healthier stimulation and the third is unpredictability.

04:43Not knowing what will emerge from the void. You're bored because you don't have a quest. You don't have a quest because you're playing someone else's game and counterintuitively, the solution is to stop playing any game and sit with your boredom until your own becomes clear.

04:59Now, the second reason that dopamine detoxes work so well is that the brain will upregulate dopamine receptors when deprived, because hydronic adaptation is your psychological thermostat. No matter how high or low the temperature goes, it always tries to return to the set point.

05:15This creates what psychologists called the hedonic treadmill. You're always running toward the next source of pleasure, but the satisfaction never lasts. Each experience becomes the new normal, requiring more intense stimulation to achieve the same emotional high.

05:28But when you deprive yourself of pleasure, the opposite happens. It's a hidden treadmill reversal. Slowly, then rapidly, simple pleasures become enjoyable again. You experience what the Buddhists call beginner's mind. You notice the detail in the sky when you walk outside, you notice the hint of rosemary in a well cooked meal.

05:46Life becomes electric as it should be. Now, the third reason a dopamine detox works is that you don't need motivation. You need clarity. Now, Nouvel said, all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone. So think about that.

06:02When was the last time that you actually created space for emergence? Because that's how reality works through chaos or a change in perspective of chaos, order emerges. And when I hear that, I can't help but think about this image. A dopamine detox creates space for sense making that is processing and integrating experience in the information age.

06:24Modern technology creates a context collapse. Our brain is only capable of processing so much information around 50 bits of information per second through our conscious attention. So if you were to binge on food over the course of a month, you would probably gain a good amount of fat.

06:39Now, if you were to binge on information from social media, as an example, every day since you've had the app installed on your phone, you're walking around mentally obese and you don't notice it because it's become normal. It's homeostasis.

06:53Now, when you deprive yourself to the point of boredom, you're almost forced to confront all of the problems that you've suppressed over the years. Now, it will be painful, but if you sit with it long enough, you'll receive a burst of clarity that launches you into a new phase of life.

The Dopamine Detox Protocol

07:09So now we can talk about the actual dopamine detox protocol. What are we going to do for the next 30 days? Now, the ultimate goal isn't to become an ascetic or a monk, or go off and live in the woods and never experience modern pleasures again.

07:22The goal is to develop sovereignty and agency, the capacity to choose consciously rather than to react compulsively. The capacity to notice where your life is heading generate new goals that align with the future you want, and act toward those goals without permission from anyone else.

07:38A periodic detox is a calibration tool to keep you on track every 6 to 12 months, and this creates the foundation from what our Lord and Savior Mihai accept. Mihai considers the highest human aspiration a life composed of flow states where challenge and skill dance in perfect harmony, creating meaning through engaged attention and action.

The Pain & Gain Story

07:58With all of that said, here's the protocol. Step one is the pain and gain story. Because before we continue, there's a problem. You've watched this far. You like what you're hearing. You're motivated to change your life. But we all know that unless you set the stage for an identity shift because all lasting behavior change is identity change, you will give up in two weeks like always.

08:21So you need to create a visceral, emotional, and specific story. Two stories to be exact. One for where your life will end up if you keep living in pain, and one for who you will become if you decide to change. Now for things like this I love using I.

08:36I don't like having. I tell me what my pain story is or my game story is because it needs my personal context. That's when I like using AI, so when I have to amply give it my personal context and it can string things together and show me things that I didn't know before, and it can just be difficult to dig in to your own head and find out what these things are.

08:55Usually it comes through a few months of just going about life and having conversations and noticing little things here and there that you pick up and you realize, oh yeah, I don't want that. I do want that. Now I have a piece of this story, but you can get that faster by conversing with AI in the correct way.

09:13So I created this extremely extensive AI prompt to ask you questions and to help determine what your pain and gain story is. And this is the foundation for having the motivation to actually change. Now, a disclaimer here is that I programed this to be pretty intense.

09:29I told it not to hold back, it digs deep and it tries to get to the root of your motivation. Now this is just one prompt that I'm giving away for free. But there are four more in superhuman 90. The Complete Life reset in 90 days that I talked about before.

09:42Link in the description if you want more of that. Now.

Go Monk Mode

09:45Step two in the protocol is to go monk mode, because if you've never done this before, it will be difficult. And if you don't have a deep intrinsic reason to see it through, you will probably give up very quick. That's why step one is so important.

09:59Now for 30 days, you're eliminating binge tech, social media, streaming, gaming news, unnatural sexual stimulation, porn and dating apps, consumables, alcohol, drugs, junk food, sweetness in general, and thrill seeking. So gambling, shopping sprees, extreme sports.

10:13Now, if you're asking what will I do with my time, then that's the exact problem. What do you mean? What do you do with your time? You do what non addicted people do. You move, you exercise, you talk to people, you prepare your food, you learn and build towards your goals.

10:28And when you aren't doing those things, you sit with the boredom until it's no longer boring.

Walk 10,000 Steps A Day

10:32Now getting into things that you can actually implement in your lifestyle. Step three is to walk 10,000 steps a day. Sounds simple, but hear me out now. The funny thing here is that 10,000 steps a day was actually a marketing gimmick to help sell Pedometers.

10:45The sweet spot for walking is actually 7000 to 8000 steps. That's where most of the benefits are received. 10,000 steps just sounds nicer. Now. Why go on more walks for most untrained people, it's a form of low intensity cardio, improves digestion, blood pressure, and insulin sensitivity, helping you to get and stay lean.

11:04You finally get some sunlight to unlock your circadian health. It's an undistracted time to learn something new, so listen to an audiobook or lecture. You can resolve mental turmoil and reflect on your life, and you can generate ideas that can be put to use in your deep work sessions.

11:19Now, specifically here, I'd recommend the three by 20 method. That's what I'm calling it and what it is super simple. You walk three times a day, 20 minutes after each major meal breakfast, lunch, dinner. Because one 20 minutes is more than doable.

11:34Two if you do that three times a day, you get all the benefits. That is probably going to equal 7 to 8000 steps, and you'll probably hit 10,000 if you walk at any other time during the day. Because the thing here is, if you do it morning, afternoon, night, you get morning sunlight, afternoon sunlight, evening sunlight, which will drastically increase your sleep quality.

11:52You'll be dropping water weight and inflammation. If you've never done this before, and you're going to notice a decently drastic change in how you look and feel within the first seven days, and this is considering you live the average American lifestyle.

12:05And this is in the context of the entire dopamine detox protocol. The 10,000 steps is to just get you moving.

Go To The Gym (Seriously)

12:11Now, the fourth one, building on top of that is to go to the gym. Seriously. Because when I look and feel terrible, I don't want to do anything with my life. I want to hide from the world. I don't feel confident in my actions, so I stopped caring even more.

12:26I let myself go, I binge eat, I have zero discipline and simply feel worse now. I personally believe that every single person should do some form of resistance training. Cardio is great, but so is a bit of muscle mass in my own life. I like going to the gym and I like walking sometimes.

12:42I do do cardio in the morning and I've actually been doing more of that just 20 minutes first thing when I wake up. But the other thing here is that, frankly, nobody wants to look like a runner. And I'm talking about runners who only run and don't lift or didn't build their physique by lifting and then start running.

12:57And people think that they got their physique from running. That's not how it happens. And it's okay to not lie to yourself, men. You want broad shoulders and a V taper. Women, you want the hourglass figure. It's a survival mechanism and you will only create that physique in the gym or through some form of resistance training.

13:13You can do calisthenics. You can do at home workouts, but the most optimal way and arguably the most enjoyable ways to just go to the gym and know, ladies, you will never get too bulky. Men have been trying to do that their entire lives, and they still can't do it now.

13:25Beyond that, 30 plus minutes of exercise provides a steady and sustainable dopamine release. Physical movement is one of the most reliable flow triggers. It creates Bdnf, or brain derived neurotrophic factor, supporting neuroplasticity. Strength training lowers risk of heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and early death.

13:41Plus muscle protects against frailty. As you get older, more muscle equals higher BMR equals you can eat more without gaining fat. And it boosts mitochondrial density and efficiency, which equals more energy. And I don't want to hear that regurgitated lifting weights is risky and can get you injured because the answer is yes.

13:59If you're stupid or don't know what you're doing. So first learn about it to go to the gym. Three if you want my training or also my trainer's training that he's given me because superhuman 90 was created by both of us.

Do An Elimination Diet

14:10Check that out. Now, step five is to do an elimination diet because I love health and fitness. It's been a passion of mine for 15 years now, since I was 15. I just turned 29 yesterday and yes, when I was 15, I was obsessively tracking calories and macros.

14:26I've tried every diet under the sun, but since I've tried every diet under the sun, I understand that they're all based on a few principles and I try to be non dogmatic about all of them. With that said, I do think that everyone should do an elimination diet at least once in their life.

14:39Why? Because it nearly guarantees a drastic boost in energy too. You'll also lower information and drop water weight, making you look 10 pounds lighter with a tighter jawline. If you actually commit to it for 30 plus days, you will rewire your eating habits and potentially become disgusted at the thought of eating hyper palatable foods again.

14:58And you may find foods that create digestive problems, skin problems, headaches, or foods that just make you feel terrible without you noticing. So to make this simple and not have this video drag on just try the Vertical Diet. It's by stand Efforting many bodybuilders swear by it, many other people swear by it.

15:13But here's an image. It's pretty simple. Red meat, very nutrient dense white rice, easy to digest, and micronutrients from various other things. Literally just follow this graph. But this is the diet that I kind of return to when I need to go back to a baseline.

15:27When I find myself going out too much, or going to Chipotle after the gym and starting to feel worse, or look puffier in the face in the morning. But yeah, try it out now.

Build A New Project That Increases Your Potential

15:36Step six is to build a new project that increases your potential. Now listen to this carefully. The best way to learn is to build a real world project and only search for information when you need it. How much you learn is directly correlated with how much progress you make on the project.

15:52When you watch endless tutorials, you fill your mind with noise and chaos. Most of that information goes to waste. It leads to overwhelm anxiety and slows down how fast you learn. Now, when it comes time to build the project. Because the only reason you're learning in the first place is to build the project.

16:08You feel as if you learn nothing and you have to search for the information anyway. So if you want to learn faster, skip the tutorial phase. Outline a project first. Now, this confuses a lot of people. What do you mean by a project? A project is anything.

16:22Your health can be a project. Your business can be a project, a thing in Photoshop can be a project. A project is simply a structured way of achieving a goal or making progress toward a goal. It's a way to further narrow your frame of reference so your mind biases the right information as you learn.

16:38As you read books, study tutorials, or have conversations, good dopamine will spurt into your brain to signal that information is important for the completion of the project. Your subconscious will munch on problems and send relevant ideas to your conscious mind.

16:52This is what creatives call sour thoughts. It's when the default mode network in your brain is active when you're at rest. Charles Darwin worked on his projects and focused blocks, then went on long walks and on these walks his brain was at rest and potential solutions to problems pop into his head.

17:09Now here's how you start a project. Choose something to build that moves the needle toward what you want in life. You know from earlier. This is your painting game story. Create a note or document in brain dump everything that comes to mind, say 3 to 5 sources of inspiration that you want to emulate.

17:24If I'm creating a YouTube video as a project, I would save 3 to 5 YouTube videos. I would want to create similar iterations of, study those sources and breakdown their structure characteristics, outline the project into sections, milestones, images, inspiration and what you need to know.

17:39And last, have a place to capture ideas that come to mind, preferably somewhere you don't lose the ideas or forget about them. So now that you're ready to start, don't start learning.

Reflect For 10 Minutes Every Night

17:49Just start the project now. Step seven. And arguably the most important one that nobody does, is to reflect for ten minutes every night, because your brain is constantly trying to process your experiences, and when you don't give it dedicated time, it hijacks your attention at the worst possible moments.

18:06This is these. Like Gornick effect, your brain holds on to incomplete tasks and unprocessed experiences, creating tension that drains your cognitive resources. So reflection helps close open loops for the day, among other things. Like it is an act of metacognition or thinking about your thinking.

18:22The highest form of human intelligence. It builds a feedback loop for progress, and after 30 days, you'll have 30 data points about what actually moves your life forward. It transforms mistakes into data rather than regrets, and it reduces decision fatigue for tomorrow.

18:38So set a non-negotiable alarm for 9:30 p.m. or 30 minutes before bedtime, and use the 3 to 1 framework. Three wins, two lessons, one intention for the morning. Use a physical notebook. Don't go down any digital rabbit holes, especially before bed, and you can start with two minutes.

18:55If ten minutes feels like too much, the dopamine detox clears the noise. The walking creates space. The gym builds confidence. The diet optimizes your biology. The project gives you purpose. Reflection is how you track mental and spiritual progress.

19:09Thank you for watching. If you want to learn a high income skill in today's world, or you just want a project to build like we talked about in the video, check out to our writer if you want the full dopamine detox training, nutrition, lifestyle plan, check out superhuman 90.

19:23And if you want a map to reach the 1%, I highly recommend watching last week's video on the human 3.0 model. And that video is called How to Make Progress Faster in Your Life, and it's a full guide to doing just that. Like subscribe again, comment.

19:36Thank you for watching. See you in the next one. Bye.