I think the hardest thing about the dopamine detox is that I'm not ready to let some things go. I enjoy Pokemon Go with my girlfriend... I guess I could stop it. I don't really enjoy it as much at the moment.
Yeah, let me talk about my cheats. With dopamine detoxes, you are supposed to reduce addictive dopamine sources. YouTube and Reddit will be hard, but I can see myself doing it, and I look forward to those. The biggest problems will be:
Brawl Stars
Pokemon Go (has an accent but I don't care dasjlfsajflasuisa)
My Singing Monsters
Discord
Minecraft
Unhealthy Food
Music
YouTube (putting it on here now)
Checking my phone
Let's go through them all.
Brawl Stars has been my favorite game in the past 4 years. It has a great balance between monetization and gameplay and the team is like amazing. I am worried it's about to see lots of monetization as it's been very free to play friendly but we'll see. I suffer less as a paying player, but when the game sees less attention then that affects me. Anyway, I am unwilling to give up Brawl Stars. I have a fear of missing out on exclusive cosmetics, which I have gotten consistently since December 2018. I will plan on checking this every morning, but still setting limits. No pushing trophies unnecessarily, like I did this year for Shelly and Tick and Janet. No mastery pushes, you already did that. I've had my fun. I will just play it for my Starr Drops and that's it, like 20 minutes in the morning, likely more unfortunately. It will be a tough balance, and at this moment, I think I have to risk being more unhealthy to stay with it. It's like sunk cost fallacy but I also really enjoy the game. So I'll still go for it, and if I'm lucky, it will be a healthy morning routine that doesn't intrude. I can use it to resist other temptations maybe. Idk.
Pokemon Go has been... A wild ride. At college, I play it much more, so I'll see if I can... Idk. I don't know what will happen. I actually really enjoy it from time to time, and with my girlfriend. And I have a lot of storage to organize. I think I will... Just see what happens, try not to play it too much, but it also gets me out of the house, so I don't know. I will definitely play special events still, so I think it's still here to stay. I think the problem with Pokemon Go is when I just check it constantly. Like, oh, let me check the Pokemon at my house. And it's also a problem at the store. I check it whenever I go somewhere, and I don't like that addiction. So will just try to improve, but I think it could be messy and interfere with things.
My Singing Monsters just released a new update as I'm writing this, like, I watched the video in the middle of the post. It's a new Celestial Island holiday event, and it looks hype. I have recently, like, as of 2 months ago, gotten addicted to My Singing Monsters on Steam. I had gotten really, really far on the mobile version and gotten bored, but this new account feels fresh and fun. I am almost about to get my first Celestial, the last Repatillo I need is done tomorrow morning. But like... Do I need this? I think... I could quit. My Singing Monsters is super fun but I've also had my share of fun... I am enjoying it though. So like... I don't know. If I deleted it, I think I could, and it would work, but it might sting too much at the moment. At the moment, unlike most of my other games which I just deleted, I still have it downloaded. If I keep it, I will check it twice a day, maybe three times... I hope I stop checking it three times a day or more, it's too much. I will check it after this post to see the new update for sure though. So maybe I should delete it. That's... It will be messy, but like, would I rather have one million subscribers or monsters? Maybe I could do both haha... But like... Yeah, I think this may have to go, but I'm not ready, so I don't know.
Discord is another thing. I just unpinned it for the first time. Discord isn't really... Something I notice, but I spend a lot of time on it, and I want to stop going onto it for the sake of going onto it, or because there's nothing else going on. I moved all the Animal Jam servers to a lower folder so I can stop looking, and it's sort of working. Almost. The big problem is my Minecraft friends are still online and they will suck me back into things. So I will try to resist playing more MC while still interesting. It will be a bit more social media, but hey, just trying to do better than before. Maybe not as scary, but it could still suck me into things and out of Discord, YouTube, and Reddit, Discord still is on my phone and has notifications and stuff. I need to limit notifications as much as possible, but on top of that, I need to stop checking my phone, and that's the real problem with Discord. It keeps me checking my phone and on my phone. I want to stop checking my phone so much, even if it annoys family members and friends who want to contact me. I have to check it so often, it's like a slot machine I now know, and I want to relinquish that control. So I don't know what will happen with that. Just talking about checking my phone now, but I really will check my phone still. It's just a part, and it's hard to balance. But by deleting apps and having less on my phone, at least I will hopefully do better than I am now.
Minecraft will be the hardest thing, and I am trying to stop now while I have a breathing period. Two weeks ago, I would've said no way, but the game has slowed and I have a shot. I will still collect keys each morning and that's it. It will give me dopamine, but it won't be mindless, I will go on with a purpose and I think I can manage it. Just hope it doesn't ruin the dopamine detox too much. The biggest problem is if I get sucked in by new events on the server, when the nether was released I played sooooo much and honestly it was fun, but accomplishing my dreams and goals would also be fun.
Unhealthy food is something I don't really want to talk about, but basically, I just filled our pantry with a ton of unhealthy food, and I need to eat it. So... I'm going to try to stick to Cheerios in the morning, and eat healthy food for meals, and then maybe I can have a little bit here or there... Idk. I will probably eat unhealthy. But I will try to see if I can prevent it from ruining the detox. Maybe I can just stick to Cheerios in the morning and then that will be enough. Idk.
Music is going to be hard. I got addicted to K-pop as of... September, and now I have like 70 songs probably that I like. A band released a new album only like... 2 days ago, and I love some of the songs, but I want to try and do this all the way as much as I can. I am addicted to music, and even though it doesn't seem as bad as other behaviors, I can't study without listening to music and I haven't in... Ever basically. So I want to try. I am not listening to music right now and it's crazy. I guess I am doing the dopamine detox, up until this point I wasn't sure if I wanted to try because of how much I give up but I am going to try it.
YouTube will be hard, and that includes Twitch. I love watching speedrunners on Twitch, and some of the content on YouTube is just fantastic. Maybe, MAYBE I'll watch a YouTuber with a purpose, or a specific video, like MPG's reaction to the new My Singing Monsters update, but I want, want, want to stop just checking YouTube and trying to find videos to watch. There are endless videos to watch and that's when it goes from watching with a purpose to mindless scrolling. Reddit was like that, I used to only look at specific things and it just sucked me in. To be honest, when I only use Reddit for Pokemon Go I am still scrolling mindlessly and just seeing what is up with that game. Rarely do I actually look for a specific article or something. So yeah, bye bye to these, will be a big change but I'm ready to give it up. Twitch has been mindless for ages.
Let me rank them from easiest to hardest. If I had to go cold turkey on all of these today, here's what I would give up first to last.
YouTube
Checking my phone
Unhealthy Food
My Singing Monsters
Pokemon Go
Minecraft
Music
Brawl Stars
Discord
Minecraft
YouTube
Eh, that's not really right, I can't even think straight right now. I am going to check the new My Singing Monsters update, and then my partial dopamine detox begins. Does it even count if I have all these things though? Cheats are: My Singing Monsters, Minecraft, Pokemon Go, Brawl Stars, Discord, and technically checking my phone. Ideally you would have no phone for a week but I have a girlfriend and stuff. But I'll just give this a start and see what happens. The main things is that all games should have a purpose, where I check them for one purpose and THAT'S IT. I want there to be downtime where I am bored and tempted to do addictive things but can't. If one of these takes the place of that downtime, that's where it's a problem. More to say and think about but let me end this and do classwork too. Peace. Just wrote a lot wow.
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