I love the feeling.
I think, “Go me! Look at you go!” as I strike the pen through the list item.
But as good as it feels to cross things off, it’s not really about that. That’s not where the power of lists resides.
The power exists in making the list in the first place. Getting the thoughts out of your head and down on paper.
In his book Keep going: 10 ways to stay creative in good times and bad Austin Kleon states:
“Lists bring order to the chaotic universe. I love making lists. Whenever I need to figure out my life, I make a list. A list gets all your ideas out of your head and clears the mental space so you’re actually able to do something about them.
When I’m overwhelmed, I fall back on the old-fashioned to-do list. I make a big list of everything that needs to get done, I pick the most pressing thing to do, and I do it. Then I cross it off the list and pick another thing to do. Repeat.”
When I’m feeling really under the pump, I’ll go for a walk and scribble out a list while I’m walking.
I’m not sure which activity helps me more – the walking or the list making – but by the time I arrive home from my walk, I always feel less anxious and more in control.
If you haven’t been having much luck with to-do lists, you may have fallen into one of the following common traps:
If you look at your list and it says says things like ‘Mum’s birthday’ or ‘Study’, it’s time to make these list items crispy.
Crispy is a Behaviour Design term created by Stanford university Professor BJ Fogg. When you make a behaviour crispy, you get really clear on the specific behaviour you need to carry out.
Here are some examples I came up with to illustrate the difference between fuzzy and crispy list items:
Fuzzy to-do list item: Mum’s birthday
Crispy to-do list item: Call mum to wish her happy birthday after lunchFuzzy to-do list item: Study
Crispy to-do list item: Open Quizlet study deck and test myself for 5 minutes on the bus
When you ‘crispify’ a list item, you tighten it up. You make it crystal clear for your brain what you need to do next. This in turn makes it much easier for you to get started.
If your list is no longer working for you, feel free to abandon it and create a new one. As Psychiatrist Douglas Puryear says in his book Your life can be better:
“I make lists over and over, all day long. It’s not just about having the list; there is also benefit in making them. Writing down what I need to do is somehow calming and organizing, and therefore motivating. When I write things down, it’s as though I’m on top of them.”
Our brains get bored easily, so try making your list a little bit different every now and then.
Here are some simple ideas on how you can jazz up your next to-do list:
It doesn’t matter what medium or what materials you use to create your to-do list. What matters is that you get everything out of your head and you make each list item crispy.
If your to-do list is causing you to have a mini meltdown, back up. Ask yourself . . .
“Is this list too long? Can I cross a few things off?”
Create a short list from your big list – just three items (post-it notes are good for this). Then put away your long list. When you’ve completed those three items, create a new list of three from your long list.
During times of chaos, lists are your friends. Reach out and use this fabulous tool to lighten your mental load. You don’t need any special skills or talent to do this. Lists are for everyone.
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I was the kid who was always late for school. I’d forget things. I’d lose my stuff. I’d regularly have to check the grimy lost property bin.
When I was younger, I admired people who were organised. Seeing someone with colour-coded files, a neatly arranged bag, and a tidy bedroom was inspiring.
I figured I was just wired differently. Being messy was just how I was—a simple fact of life. My boyfriend (now my husband) even affectionately nicknamed me Mess Pot.
It never dawned on me that perhaps these ‘organised’ people I was so in awe of had been exposed to other organised people and practices from a young age.
It wasn’t until I was in my early twenties that the penny finally dropped.
Here’s what I realised . . .
No one pops out of the womb knowing how to be organised.
If you know how to learn, you can learn how to become organised. It’s not rocket science.
So, that’s exactly what I did.
Over the past 15 years, I’ve taught myself to be organised.
I’ve read many books on the topic, from Marie Kondo’s bestseller The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up to David Allen’s Getting Things Done.
I’ve experimented with numerous organisational methods, systems and strategies that the authors promised would transform my life from chaos to freedom, control, and ease.
In this article, I share what I’ve learnt from all these books, organisational gurus, and personal experiments I’ve conducted to become organised. I hope this inspires you to develop your own systems and strategies that work for you.
You can follow other people’s systems and methods, but I’ve discovered that it’s best to develop your own organisational system. The organisational system you adopt must align with your values and goals. If it doesn’t, abandon it or tweak it until it feels right for you.
For instance, I love books, and I own many. This is why I yelped out in pain when I read Marie Kondo’s advice on how to deal with books.
In her book The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, Kondo advises readers to rip out relevant pages from reference books and discard the rest of the book. There was simply no way I would do that to my precious books!
Central to her KonMari method is holding an object in both hands and feeling the emotion that arises.
If the object sparks joy? You keep it.
If there is no joy? You get rid of it.
I can see how this strategy has enormous appeal. It simplifies the decluttering process. You don’t have to think too hard. But there are dangers in the spark joy approach.
You can end up on a consumer treadmill of discarding items that no longer spark joy and constantly acquiring new ones that do. However, you can bet that the joy will soon dissipate from those new items as you habituate to them.
In addition, this ‘Spark Joy’ strategy also overlooks the functional role of many items in our lives.
My toilet plunger doesn’t exactly spark joy, but it’s incredibly useful when I need it!
The point is you need to trust yourself. Don’t give all your power away to a stylish organisational guru with a cult following and a Netflix series!
Trial and error is the key to getting your organisational groove on. And patience.
Your life won’t be transformed in a day or a week. You have to trust that the solutions will come, but it will take time.
This may sound a bit woo-woo and new age. So, let me frame it another way . . .
On your journey to become organised, pretend to be a scientist. Run some personal experiments.
In the book Tiny Experiments, Anne-Laure Le Cunff encourages us to come up with a research question and then turn it into a hypothesis. She states:
“Don’t overthink it. Formulating a hypothesis is an intuitive process based on your past experiences and present inclinations. It should simply be an idea you want to put to the test- an inkling of an answer to your research question.
If you observed that you dread giving presentations, maybe improv classes could help build your confidence. If you feel anxious in the morning, maybe meditation could help regulate your emotions. If you enjoy graphic design, maybe freelancing could help strengthen your portfolio.”
Don’t be put off by this scientific language (e.g., ‘Hypothesis’ and ‘research question’). Running a tiny experiment and formulating a hypothesis is easy.
Here’s an example from my own life . . .
I’ve noticed that when clutter piles up on my desk, I am more easily distracted and feel overwhelmed. So, I came up with the following research question:
“How can I decrease feelings of overwhelm and increase my ability to focus when I’m at my desk?”
My hypothesis to this question was:
“Decluttering my desk by removing all non-essential items will decrease feelings of overwhelm and increase my ability to focus on the task at hand.”
Then, I put this idea to the test and observed what happened.
Some experiments you run will work. Others will flop, but that’s okay. The point is you won’t know unless you run some tiny experiments.
As Anne-Laure Le Cunff states:
“Once you have a hypothesis, you can design an experiment and turn your life into a giant laboratory for self-discovery.”
Through running tiny experiments, I’ve come to realise that being organised isn’t about having a beautifully colour-coordinated filing system or a nicely decorated home.
It’s also not about following 10 simple steps and waking up one day to find that you’ve magically become an organised person.
In our materialistic culture, we are sold a particular idea and image of what it means to be organised. But I’m not buying it. And you shouldn’t either. Why? Because it’s a lie designed to make us feel bad about ourselves, so we buy more stuff!
In stark contrast to the slick images you see online and in glossy magazines, life is messy. It’s a constant struggle.
Purchasing pretty storage containers and having a tidy, organised home won’t make your life less messy and uncertain.
But I can say this: being organised will make it easier to navigate the mess and chaos of life. It will help you focus your time, energy, and attention on what matters most to you.
So, I’m suggesting that you block the influencers and ads from your feed and burn the home lifestyle magazines. You’re going to create your own personal philosophy for organised living.
Being organised is about helping my day go a little more smoothly.
It’s about removing friction and resistance between me and the tasks I need to do. When I’m organised I can easily find what I need, which allows me to dive into my projects: filming that video, cooking that new recipe for dinner, and mind mapping that book I’ve just read.
Being organised is a way to enjoy the present moment more. Instead of feeling overwhelmed by mess and clutter, I feel calm and grounded. It’s easier to focus on the task at hand.
Is it worth taking the time to become more organised and experiment with your own systems and strategies?
Yes. 100%.
Being organised has decreased my stress levels and boosted my confidence. It has also saved me a significant amount of time and energy.
I’ve found that developing a few guiding principles helps ground you in your quest to become organised.
Below, I share my guiding principles and how I’ve integrated each one into my life.
I’m not here to tell you to copy what I do (it’s best to develop your own philosophy, guiding principles, systems, and strategies). However, if you’re unsure where to start, feel free to experiment with the systems and strategies listed below.
Give every item a home. Everything should have a special place in your space.
Professional chefs do this. Before they start cooking a dish, they prepare the ingredients and take out the kitchen utensils they need. There’s a term for this practice. It’s called the mise en place.
Mise en place is a French term that literally translates to ‘putting in place’, but it means a place for everything and everything in its place.
When it comes time for a chef to start cooking a dish, they know where the ingredients and kitchen utensils are. This allows the chef to work efficiently and focus on the task at hand: cooking the dish.
In the book Work Clean, Dan Charnas explains how this concept can be applied outside the kitchen to our everyday lives.
Charnas encourages us to arrange our spaces to remove resistance. He states:
“The less friction we have in our work, the easier it is to do, the more we can do, and the quicker we can do it; and thus the more physical and mental energies we can preserve for other things.”
Mise en place changed my life for the better. I used to spend a lot of physical and mental energy trying to find my keys, wallet, etc., but not anymore.
I now have a designated spot for my keys, hat, wallet, and bag. After using these items, I return them to their special place.
With the mise en place, I no longer waste time searching for items. I can quickly and easily find what I need. You can read more about how I apply mise en place to my life here.
If something is important, I can’t have it stuffed away in a cupboard, drawer, or file. If it’s hidden away, it doesn’t exist.
This is why you’ll see vertical wall hangers in most rooms of my house. These hangers contain key items I frequently use in the space.
By having one item per pouch, I can easily find what I need when I need it.
I get easily overwhelmed by piles of stuff, so I have to be vigilant and stay on top of the mess.
I have a simple trick for keeping my space relatively tidy. I tell myself:
“All I need to do is put away three things. That’s it!”
The sink is overflowing with dishes? I tell myself, “Just do three dishes!”
Laundry is scattered all over the bed? “Just put away three pieces of clothing!”
The kitchen bench is covered in random stuff? “Put away three spices!”
Putting away three items feels easy. And when something feels easy, I’m more likely to get started.
When everything has its special place (see Principle #1: Embrace mise en place), it’s easy to implement this principle.
There’s nothing more frustrating than having a brilliant idea and having no way to capture it. You need to be able to catch thoughts as they occur.
This is why I have whiteboards, markers, pads of paper, and pens placed in key locations.
These random ideas that I capture get thrown into my in-tray to process later on.
Distractions keep you from doing what you need to do. Like a pile of clutter on your desk or boxes obstructing your entryway, distractions are a barrier to your goals and intentions.
If you want to be more organised, you need to deal with anything that could distract you before sitting down to do your work.
Like most people, the biggest distraction I face is my phone.
If I’m constantly checking my phone, I feel scattered, frenzied, and overwhelmed. Everything speeds up. I start to feel like I’m spinning out of control.
I know I have to avoid this mental state at all costs if I want to have any chance of having a productive, enjoyable day.
This is why I have a morning ritual of placing my phone in pocket 1 of my vertical wall hanger in my dining room (well away from my workspace) before I start my workday. Out of sight is out of mind.
I used to feel intimidated by the idea of planning, so I rarely planned my week or day.
But over the past few years, I’ve become a planning machine. Why? Because plans are powerful. Even rubbish plans work wonders!
As Ned Brockman says, plans “help make you less anxious about the howling chaos of modern life.”
Here’s how I create my ‘rubbish’ plans for the week and day:
At the end of every week (on a Sunday), I create a plan for the week ahead.
I do this by reflecting on the week I’ve just had (What did I do this week? Can I claim any wins? Are there any unfinished tasks or people I need to get back to?) and looking at the week ahead (What do I need to do this week?).
I write out all the major to-dos for the next seven days on a list.
This list usually overwhelms me (there’s always a lot to do!). To combat this feeling of overwhelm, I transfer a few tasks from the list to an index card. This is my daily card (the to-do list for the day).
As I complete each task, I mark it off my daily card. As I see more items being marked off, it builds positive momentum and a sense of progress and satisfaction.
I use a paper-based planner and a massive year-in-a-glance calendar to help me keep track of my commitments.
When I can see how many days I have before an important presentation or my next holiday, I feel calmer and more in control.
Using planners also frees up precious mental space for learning as you’re not trying to hold so much information in your working memory.
I’m far from being a minimalist. I love my stuff. But having too much can be overwhelming. More stuff means more things to manage, making it harder to stay organised.
As someone who loves to op-shop, I frequently have to remind myself of the following quote by William Morriss:
“Have nothing in your house which you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.”
Every few months, I’ll collect some items to donate to my local op-shop. Reducing my possessions makes cleaning and organising a lot easier and quicker.
It’s important to remember why you are striving to be organised in the first place. It’s not to impress other people. You are doing this for you.
Being organised helps you pursue your goals and live in accordance with your values. You have to keep your goals front and centre of your mind; otherwise, the goal of being organised can dominate your life. Organising can become a form of procrastination.
This is why I keep coming back to my values and goals (which I have captured on a mind map). This reminds me that being organised helps me to live a good life. But it’s not the point of my life. There are more important things I want to do with my time, energy and attention.
That said, it’s hard to focus on and work towards my goals if I’m completely disorganised. I lose sight of them! You need to find a healthy balance.
If you want to be more organised, I encourage you to experiment with developing systems and strategies that work for you. Come up with an organisational philosophy and set of guiding principles that align with your values.
Why not treat your life as a laboratory and run some tiny experiments to become organised?
Through trial and error, you’ll discover what works and what doesn’t.
Remember, this isn’t about having a perfectly decorated home or trying to impress others. The point of being organised is to allow you to do the things you want to do without as much friction. It’s about living a good life.
You need to start by doing something different.
As Paul Taylor says in his book Death by Comfort:
“Nothing changes if nothing changes”.
Over the years, I’ve read a lot of books and articles on the psychology of behaviour change. One thing is clear from the research literature: it’s much easier to change your behaviour by changing your context rather than changing your thoughts and attitudes.
In other words, the simplest ways you can create change is to set up your environment to make it easier to do the things you want to do and harder to do the things you don’t want to do.
In this blog, I explore different ways you can tweak your study space to make it easier for you to study and harder for you to get distracted.
Timers are super handy tools, especially when you’re lacking motivation.
Whenever I’m avoiding a task or not feeling in the mood to do something, I’ll say to myself “Let’s just do 10 minutes”. I start the timer and off I go. Usually by the 10 minute mark, the motivation has kicked in and I want to keep going.
Using a timer is a simple and easy way to push through mental blockages. It can also create a sense of time awareness and prompt you to take regular breaks.
Charging cables, flashcards, mini notebooks, and USB sticks: these are just a few examples of random little items that we need. But where do you put this stuff?
A vertical wall hanger with clear pockets (typically used for storing jewellery) works well for storing and separating these random but important items.
Feeling stressed in your study space? Perhaps it’s clutter that’s getting you down.
Take a moment to scan your environment. If your eyes land on a pile of objects and you find yourself feeling stressed and/or overwhelmed, take those items and dump them into a box. Now take that box and put it in another room. You can sort through these items later on.
Staying hydrated is super important when it comes to learning. Research shows even mild dehydration can impact students’ ability to learn and remember information.
But if there’s no water in sight, you’re probably not going to be taking regular sips.
I have a reusable drink bottle but some people find having to unscrew a lid a barrier to taking sips. If that’s you, have a jug of water and a glass nearby. You might also enjoy using a reusable straw (stainless steel or glass).
Being hungry sucks and it doesn’t serve you when it comes to learning. Your brain needs energy to think and learn. Where does it get that energy from? Food.
Make a start on stocking your fridge and pantry with plenty of healthy snack foods. My favourite snack foods include blueberries, strawberries, and pretty much any fruit, nuts, veggie sticks, and soy yoghurt.
While you’re at it, get rid of any tempting ultra-processed junk food. This junk will mess with your ability to think and learn.
If I can’t see my work and items I need, they don’t exist. This is why I always store important items in clear storage containers and write things I need to do on bright yellow paper and colourful post-it notes. If it’s out of sight, it’s out of mind.
One trick I use is leaving myself post-it note reminders of what I need to do next after I complete each work session. These notes give my brain a clear direction of what it needs to focus on next, which means I’m less likely to get derailed.
When there’s a lot of things happening and multiple projects on the go, it’s easy to lose track of what you need to do.
Using open storage systems (e.g., open bookshelves or pigeonhole units) can be another effective way to keep track of all your projects. I use a pigeon hole to organise all my projects. This keeps them in sight and in mind.
I remember an academic coach once saying to me, “If you start the day by checking your email, you’ll be 10% less productive”.
She was spot on.
When you start the day with devices, this puts you in reactive mode. You feel less in control.
Here’s a little psychological trick I use to get myself into proactive mode: I lock my phone in a kSafe for the first 30 minutes of the day. My phone is already placed in the safe before I go to bed, which means all I need to do is spin the dial and press the button when I get up in the morning.
This simple action signals to my brain that I’m in control of my day (and not big tech).
Of course, you don’t need to buy a kSafe to stay off your phone. Placing your phone in a drawer (out of sight) or in another room will also do the job.
You use them to mow the lawn, but a pair of earmuffs work wonders for blocking out noise while you’re trying to study.
They also have signalling power. When you put them on, it signals to others (and your brain) that you are in work/study mode. When you take them off, you are free to play, rest, and do whatever you like.
Having a yearly planner stuck up on your wall can help to create a sense of time awareness. You look up at the planner and you can see in one glance how much time you have between now and when a project is due or when an exam is scheduled.
Indoor plants have been found to boost creativity. But certain types of indoor plants, such as English ivy and the Money plant, also purify the air.
You don’t need to create a jungle to experience the benefits of indoor plants. One or two plants in nice colourful pots is all you need to freshen up your space.
Have you considered working on your feet and incorporating some movement into your study sessions?
Active workstations, such as sit-stand desks, cycle desks, and treadmill desks, help to break the sedentary work cycle, get the blood pumping more efficiently up to your brain, and give you a cognitive boost.
If you prefer to stay seated while you study, that’s no problem. Just make sure you get up and move every 25-30 minutes. Take an exercise snack.
An exercise snack is a quick 30-60 second bout of exercise. I have a few small pieces of exercise equipment strategically placed in my study space to mix up my exercise snacks.
Depending on what you like to do and the space you have available, here are a few ideas:
• Kettlebell
• Dumbbells
• Resistance bands
• Skipping rope
• Gymstick
• Hula hoop
If you feel good in your study space, you’re more likely to want to spend time there. One of the simplest ways to spruce up your space is with colourful and inspiring pictures.
Up on my walls is a colourful world map, a poster from a memorable comedy show I attended with my brother, and a framed piece of children’s artwork.
What do these things all have in common?
They make me feel good. And when I feel good, it’s easier to think, focus, and learn.
After looking at a screen for 25 minutes or so, get down on a yoga mat and do some gentle stretches. If the mat is already rolled out on the floor, it’s a lot easier to get down and stretch your body.
This is a designated spot for all your school items (e.g., books, files, reference materials, unit outlines, practice exam papers, and notes). Need to find something to complete a project or study for a test? There’s only one place it can be: in the magic spot.
When your work gets difficult, it’s too easy to escape to social media, YouTube, and Netflix. To stop yourself mindlessly checking these apps, activate an Internet blocker app such as Cold Turkey or Freedom.
It’s not just Big Tech companies that can distract us. Often we distract ourselves with all kinds of random thoughts.
How do we handle these thoughts?
You can capture them in a notepad that’s strategically placed within arms’ reach. When a random thought strikes, write it down. You don’t have to act on every thought straight away.
Think of this notepad as your ‘Thought Inbox’. Once you’ve written the thought down, it’s not going anywhere. You can return your focus to the task at hand and deal with these thoughts at a later time.
Ads online are like advertising in public spaces: they constitute visual clutter. They also stir up consumptive desires and frequently throw you off course.
You can eliminate a lot of online ads by installing an adblocker plugin. I use Adblock Plus.
When I’m feeling nervous about putting ideas down on paper, I go to my whiteboard. It’s less scary to jot down ideas on a whiteboard.
If it doesn’t work out, that’s okay. You can easily wipe it all away.
Each of these strategies may not seem like much on their own. But when combined, they can have a big impact on your ability to focus, learn, and get things done.
Like anything in life, the key is not to get bogged down by a sense of overwhelm. You don’t need to make all of these changes all at once. Just get started with one or two.
About 10 years ago I met the beloved Australian celebrity Costa Georgiardis from the television show Gardening Australia.
I was blown away by Costa’s energy and enthusiasm.
He was exactly like he appeared on TV. But he wasn’t hamming it up for the camera. Costa was the real deal.
He was high on life.
I’ve heard that people often ask Costa “Why are you so energetic?”, “Why are you so up?”, and “Don’t you get tired?”
Some people feel tired just being around Costa (check out this video to get a sense of Costa’s energy).
What’s the difference between motivated and energised people and less motivated people who struggle to get off the couch?
According to Stanford professor Dr Andrew Huberman the difference has everything to do with dopamine.
In this blog post, I want to explore how dopamine works and how you can adjust your dopamine levels to experience more motivation, focus, and energy in a safe and healthy way. Let’s go!
Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that is involved in reward processing. Your brain releases this molecule whenever it anticipates a reward.
In a healthy brain and environment, dopamine plays an important role in keeping you motivated, focused, and on track with your goals.
Unfortunately, this natural feedback system can be hijacked by big tech companies and fast food corporations.
Tonic dopamine is your baseline level of dopamine that circulates through your system. People who are generally enthusiastic and motivated have a high baseline dopamine. But if you struggle with motivation and often feel lethargic, chances are you have a low baseline dopamine.
But then there’s phasic dopamine. This is where you experience peaks in dopamine above your baseline level. These peaks occur as a result of engaging in certain behaviours and/or consuming certain substances.
For example, social media companies train users to seek out quick, easy, and frequent hits of dopamine. Fast food companies engineer foods that have just the right amount of salt, fat and/or sugar to release big spikes in dopamine. This make you want to eat more of the food product and keep going back for more.
It’s important to understand that these peaks in dopamine don’t last.
After engaging in a dopamine-rich activity, you will experience an inevitable drop in dopamine. And this drop will be below your baseline level.
It should come as no surprise that when you’re in a dopamine deficit state you don’t feel very good. You experience pain and discomfort.
According to Psychiatrist Dr Anna Lembke this is our brain’s way of trying to bring everything back into balance and establish homeostasis.
In the book Dopamine Nation Dr Lembke talks about how pleasure and pain are experienced in overlapping regions of the brain. She states:
“Pleasure and pain work like a balance”.
If you tip to the side of pleasure or pain, self regulatory mechanisms kick in to bring everything back into balance.
But you never want to tip to one side for too long. Dr Lembke states:
“With repeated exposure to the same or similar pleasure stimulus, the initial deviation to the side of pleasure gets weaker and shorter and the after-response to the side of pain gets stronger and longer, a process scientists call neuroadaptation . . . we need more of the drug of choice to get the same effect.”
In other words, consuming more of a dopamine-rich substance or behaviour is bad for your brain. It will leave you in a dopamine-deficit-state.
And when you’re in this state, it’s much harder to do your school work.
There are a number of simple things you can do to regenerate your dopamine receptors and increase your baseline dopamine. I’ve listed several strategies below.
Before you start your work or study, you want to avoid engaging in activities that will cause spikes in dopamine. If you watch TikTok videos or play video games before sitting down to do your homework, this is going to make your work feel a lot more painful and boring.
Here’s why . . .
Dr Huberman states that how motivated you feel to do a task depends on your current dopamine levels and what previous peaks in dopamine you have experienced. This is important to understand because with this knowledge, you can create routines and habits to conserve your dopamine and motivation for pursuing your goals.
With this in mind, I’ve recently simplified my morning routine in the following ways:
• I don’t start the day by looking at my phone or computer
• I exercise without listening to music
• I have a healthy breakfast of overnight oats and berries rather than a super sweet smoothie
• I have a cold shower (more on why I do this below)
Whilst this may sound boring, it’s had a dramatic impact on how easy it is for me to get stuck into doing my work.
The term ‘Dopamine Detox’ is a little misleading since it’s technically not possible to detox from dopamine. Nevertheless, the idea is a good one.
When you engage in a dopamine detox, you’re taking a break from engaging in dopamine-rich activities (e.g., consuming junk food, going on social media, and watching Netflix). This will give your dopamine receptors a chance to regenerate.
After taking a dopamine detox, you’ll probably notice that simple things like eating basic wholefoods or going for a walk are much more pleasurable. As Dr Huberman points out:
“Our perception for dopamine is heightened when our dopamine receptors haven’t seen much dopamine lately.”
Research shows that cold water therapy (i.e., being submerged in cold water) can increase your dopamine by 250% above your baseline level.
Let’s put that in context:
Chocolate increases dopamine by 150% above baseline
Alcohol increases dopamine by 200% above baseline
Nicotine increases dopamine by 225% above baseline
Cocaine increases dopamine by 350% above baseline
Amphetamines increases dopamine by 1100%
You need to remember that these peaks in dopamine are followed by a sudden crash below your baseline level. Let’s not overlook the fact that chronic substance abuse causes brain damage and can be fatal.
Unlike other addictive substances, cold showers create peaks in dopamine that can last for several hours. You also don’t experience the subsequent dramatic crash below your baseline level.
Word of warning: Before you turn on the cold shower tap or start running an ice-bath, it’s important to be aware that people can go into shock when plunging themselves into cold water. Please be careful!
If cold showers aren’t really your thing, try increasing your dopamine with exercise. Exercise has been found to increase dopamine by 130% above your baseline level.
In the book Move The Body, Heal The Mind, neuroscientist Dr Jennifer Heisz says:
“Exercise increases dopamine and repopulates dopamine receptors to help the brain heal faster during recovery [from addiction]. Although all forms of exercise can do this, runner’s high may do it best.”
Look for ways to make it harder to engage in the dopamine-rich activities. Create barriers and/or friction points to stop you from mindlessly seeking quick shots of dopamine.
For example, I recently noticed I had a problem with compulsively checking my phone. Whenever I felt bored or lonely, I’d check my phone to see if I’d received any messages. I didn’t like the fact I was doing this but I found it hard to stop. What could I do?
I could use a dumb phone.
I found a ‘seniors’ flip phone that allowed me to do basic things like make calls and send texts. But sending texts is not easy! I have to type in each letter and change from upper to lower case. It really puts you off wanting to text your friends.
Since switching to a dumb phone, the number of times I touch my phone each day has significantly decreased.
As you do your work, praise yourself for the effort you’re putting in. Doing this can increase the dopamine you have for the activity.
Dr Huberman suggests saying the following while you’re doing painful work:
“I know this is painful. But you need to keep at it. Because it’s painful, it’s going to increase my dopamine later and I’m doing this by choice.”
We live in a dopamine-rich world. It’s so easy to flood your brain with quick hits of dopamine that feel good in the moment but leave you feeling flat and irritable shortly after. These peaks in dopamine make it harder for us to pursue our goals by undermining our motivation.
No matter what your current dopamine baseline is, just remember this: you have the ability to increase your dopamine in a healthy and sustainable way. Kick-start the process today!
Dr Jane Genovese delivers interactive and engaging study skills sessions for Australian secondary schools. She has worked with thousands of secondary students, parents, teachers and lifelong learners over the past 15 years.
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