The Mindset Mentor - How to Quickly Escape a Dopamine Trap

Episode Date: January 22, 2026

Do you feel unmotivated, distracted, and mentally drained no matter how hard you try? You’re not lazy. You’re stuck in a dopamine hole. In this episode, I break down what dopamine actually is, how constant stimulation quietly destroys your focus and joy, and why scrolling, snacking, and nonstop noise keep you feeling numb and stuck. I explain how overstimulation lowers your dopamine baseline, leaving you craving quick hits while meaningful work feels impossible. Feeling stuck? It's time to take back control. If you're ready to master your mind and create real, lasting change, click the link below and start transforming your life today. 👉 http://coachwithrob.com   High performers don’t wait for clarity, they create it. This Mindset University call will help you see your blind spots and your next level. Grab your spot here 👉 https://www.coachwithrob.com/mindset-university-call-rob   The Mindset Mentor™ podcast is designed for anyone desiring motivation, direction, and focus in life.     Past guests of The Mindset Mentor include Tony Robbins, Matthew McConaughey, Jay Shetty, Andrew Huberman, Lewis Howes, Gregg Braden, Rich Roll, and Dr. Steven Gundry.   Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor podcast. I'm your host, Rob Dial, if you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so you never miss another podcast episode. I put out episodes four times a week to help you learn, grow, and improve yourself. So if you want that, go ahead and hit that subscribe button. Today, I'm going to be talking about how to do a dopamine detox so that you can reclaim your focus, your motivation, and your joy, and your life. Do you ever feel sometimes in this world that we live in that your brain is like glitchy,

And what I mean by that is that you're like, I'm going to sit down. I'm going to get some work done. I'm going to be productive. And then suddenly you're checking your phone. You're hopping between tabs that are on your computer. You're on your phone scrolling mindlessly on Instagram or TikTok. And you don't even consciously do any of it. Like it just kind of happens. Have you ever found yourself in that situation? I'm sure that you probably have. I find myself there all the time. But then you start to wonder yourself like, why can't I focus? Like, Why can't I sit down and actually focus and get done what I need to get done? Like, why do I feel stuck even though I'm doing everything that's right? Why do I keep feeling like I'm working hard and spitting my wheels? And so today, what I'm going to talk about is the antidote for all of that. And I'm going to teach you basically how to reclaim all of those things, your focus, your motivation, your drive, and especially your joy, like your joy for life. It's time to add some more fun. it's time to add more color to your life to actually have more happiness when you experience

things instead of things just feeling kind of like muted. Then we're going to talk about one of the most powerful tools that really people talk about. And it's this idea of a dopamine detox, a dopamine fast. And this isn't like a biohack your way into being a productivity machine. It's really about more than anything else healing your nervous system and retraining your brain and reconnecting with your purpose. and once again, happy more joy in your life. And so I really, really, really feel like today's episode is really important.

And I hope that every person who's listening this tries this at least one time just to see the benefits. So let's talk about it. So when you look at dopamine, everybody's heard of what dopamine is, but what is it actually? Dopamine's often misunderstood and people think it's like a feel-good chemical. It's a pleasure chemical. But that's only kind of part of this story. dopamine is your brain's motivation fuel. It's the chemical behind wanting something, behind craving, behind anticipation of something, behind seeking, and it's also the chemical behind addiction.

The most addictive drugs in the entire world are high dopaminergic drugs, like cocaine, methamphetamines, nicotine, opioids, opioids, whatever you say it, I think it's opioids. And it's the chemical of motivation. and it pushes you towards doing something. It push you towards your goals or it pushes you towards, you know, scrolling on your phone for a little while. And it's what lights up when you're chasing a reward. And your brain loves that chase and it loves getting there.

But the problem is your brain doesn't care what the reward is exactly. It doesn't care. You know, it treats Instagram likes and potato chips and doom scrolling and porn the same way that it uses and thinks of deep goals and personal growth and deep relationships. It doesn't matter where it gets the dopamine from. It just kind of wants the dopamine. And if it gets a hit of dopamine, your brain goes, oh my gosh, yes, I want more of that. And over time, if you're not paying attention, this pattern will evolve and it creates a really big problem for a lot of people. And the reason why it's such a big problem is because we live

in a world of hyper overstimulation, like way more than it should be. You know, we have highly processed foods. We have, you could, you could scroll all day long for the rest of your life on social media. So you have infinite scrolling you could do. We have video games that are just fast-paced and insane at this point. We have on-demand everything. We have texts and emails all day long. And your brain, dude, it's exhausted. Like, it's just like, can I get a freaking break? And when you constantly flood your brain with dopamine spikes, your baseline drops. And this is really important for what we're going to talk about today and why you want to do this. When your dopamine baseline drops, what it means is that you can't focus very well. You lose motivation for meaningful work. The simple

pleasures in life don't really give you any pleasure anymore. It just kind of feel dull. And you crave these quick hits of dopamine to avoid deep work. And studies of actually shown that this overload in your brain in your system can impair your ability to filter distractions, which leads you to being, you know, a huge lack of focus, heightened irritability, more confusion, more agitation. And there's a thing that's called the reinforcement sensitivity theory that says that overstimulation is linked to anxiety. And it's activated when all of the stimulat that's coming into our brains all day long exceeds our brains processing threshold. It's basically like if you were like weird analogy, but it's like if you were burning your taste

buds with hot sauce and doing it over and over again, eventually nothing tastes like anything. That's kind of what our lives have become. Like we have so much dopamine everywhere that we can get from all of these infinite amount of things going on around us, that life just kind of loses its luster. It's not as exciting. And that's where you really want to start thinking about dopamine fasting and it's not a punishment to you in any sort of way what it is really more than the thing else is it's a recalibration for your brain and so a dopamine fast isn't about removing dopamine because that's completely impossible it's about reducing the artificial spikes so that your brain can basically have a full reset and so when you remove these distractions

what happens is your brain rebalances it becomes more sensitive to to everything to sights, to sounds, to taste, becomes more sensitive to small rewards now. Things that used to be exciting that aren't exciting anymore, well, they become exciting again. Another thing that happens is your focus will sharpen. You can sit and read and think and be, again, more focus and not feeling like you're distracting.

You constantly have to be looking at something and doing something all the time. You could probably go to the bathroom and not have to have your phone with you, right? So your deep thoughts and your intuition also get louder. The insight that you're looking for lives in the quiet. And your true desire start to emerge, not like the cravings that you're just trying to do of all this dopamine and getting it all in, but kind of like the calling that you're looking for in your life. And so the reason why

this matters, the real truth is that most people in this world are not lazy. They're just overstimulated in their life and they're also very underaligned. Meaning, you know, you want to do meaningful work. You want to do deep focus. You want present. with your family. You want to be able to get off your phone. You want to be able to not work when you're on vacation. You want more joy. You want more happiness in your life. But your brain is stuck in this loop of like, I need the next hit. I need the next hit. Exactly like an addict would be. And a dopamine fast doesn't just reset your brain. It rewires your habits in many ways as well. And what is important to you in your life. And so let me give you just the real simple neuroscience of resetting all of this and how it

actually works in your brain and then I'll tell you how to actually do it. Okay. Here's what the research actually tells us. Dopamine has a baseline, which is your normal level and spikes, which is when you get some sort of reward. So you have a normal level and then you have the spike, which is whenever you know, see a puppy, whenever you get onto Instagram, whenever you have a piece of cake. So we have a dopamine baseline, which is our normal level. And then we have spikes, which is when we get some sort of reward. And when you have high frequency rewards, which is snacking a lot, scrolling a lot, constantly being entertained, you actually drop your baseline over time, which means that your normal level of dopamine actually lowers because you have so many hits of dopamine all the time.

And a lower baseline means less motivation, more anxiety, and more distraction, and less focus. but what happens when you remove those artificial spikes that we're talking about and we will be right back and now back to the show well your baseline actually begins to rise again which is really important and you get more pleasure from less things and you stop needing constant over-stimulation all day long and you basically recover your ability to feel joy to feel focus and peace and drive and you go from like numb and reactive and anxious to clear and calm and more intentional. So let's talk about how to actually do this. Okay, let me let me be honest with you. If you're going to do this, the first few hours of a dopamine fast might feel a little bit brutal.

And I don't mean like it hurts in any sort of way. Like you're not going to be any pain. It's not dangerous to do this. But it might feel brutal. You know, you might reach for your phone without. thinking and realize, oh, my phone's not there. You might feel restless. You might feel irritated. You might even start to feel anxious. But you'll actually start to notice when you do a dopamine detox, when you do a dopamine fast, you'll notice how addicted you are to being stimulated all the time

and being busy all of the time. And boredom might pop up. No big deal. What's the danger of boredom? boredom is just the the lack of stimulation so get bored be bored if boredom pops up let it if your emotions start to pop up you know if you get mad or angry or agitated or sad feel them that's what emotions are there for you know it's not that that boredom is not bringing up your emotions it's finally giving you some space to let these emotions that you've been trying to push down for so long finally have some space to come up and feel expressed. If your thoughts start to race, your brain goes all over the place. Don't do anything about it. Just listen. It's okay for your brain to go all over the place.

If these things happen, you're not failing. You're detoxing. And I've never heard of a comfortable detox. You know, and someone goes into rehab, their detox is not very comfortable. But it won't be as dramatic, hopefully, as doing a detox when you go into a re-exam. rehab, but this is your nervous system actually working through some things in coming back online. Here's what you really want to expect if you do a dopamine detox. After you do 24 hours, if you do a 24 hour detox in some sort of way, you'll notice in that moment as you're going through it, how often you reach for some sort of a distraction, something to keep you busy all the time. Your phone and eating all the time and going on to the computer and going on to the computer and

going and turning on Netflix and then turning on HBO Max and then trying to watch something else and trying to keep yourself busy. You'll notice how often you reach for distractions. You'll see it and it's crazy how much you try to keep yourself busy. We are incredibly distracted. Your mind will feel really noisy the first day because you're not keeping so busy that you're avoiding the thoughts and feelings that maybe you've been avoiding for a long time. But as you do this, you will become less reactive and less anxious. If you want to go longer than 24 hours, here's what also you'll notice. You'll mental clarity in two to seven days, depending on what you want to do. I know people that do, you know, 14-day detoxes from their phone and from TV,

they notice, and what I've literally seen, like, I've even personally myself, I've done a 10-day silent meditation retreat where you can't speak to people, you can't look people in the eyes, you can't journal, you can't read, you can't do it, you can't work out, you can't do yoga, you can't go for a run. The only thing you can do is meditate or stare at a tree. And what you'll start to notice as you do these detoxes is your mental clarity increases. Your emotional resilience deepens. You will feel more in control of your thoughts. You'll feel more in control of your habits. You might cry. You might laugh. You might find start to feel again. Like I remember on day seven of my silent meditation retreat, I felt

absolute like rage come out of me. And I was so mad. And I was, I was sore and I was meditating for so long. And I didn't say anything out loud, but I was like screaming at people in my head. And I was like, I'm just going to fight through. I'm just going to keep going. I'm just going to keep doing this because clearly there's something that this rage that's coming out of me is something that's been probably pushed down for a while. Then on day eight, I remember sitting there and it was an hour-long meditation I was in a session for. I stayed there for two and a half hours because I've never felt so great in my entire life. And you don't have to do a 10-day silent meditation retreat if you don't want to. I do recommend it. It's amazing. But day eight,

I remember just sitting there and just like crying because I never felt so much joy in my entire life. And the crazy thing, I was doing nothing. Literally nothing. Day nine, exact same thing. Day 10, exact same thing. And I was like, oh my God, this is amazing. What was really crazy about it is then I looked at my phone after day 10 because I just wanted to see what there was NBA playoffs that were going on. And I want to see the results. I looked at my phone for like five minutes and I got a headache. And I was like, oh my God, this is crazy. I was driving back home to go from Dallas to Austin and I stopped at a place to get a burger.

And I had to walk into this restaurant and the TVs were on and there was music playing. And I got a headache just from walking into the restaurant being there for like five minutes. So you'll realize how much. All of these distractions have actually lowered your joy and your depth for life. And so it's very simple of how you do a dopamine detox. There's basically three levels that I wrote down for you. Level one, super simple. Just do a digital detox for a few hours.

No phone, no social media, no TV for a few hours after work. And do it one to two times a week. So you come out from work, it's 6 o'clock, you turn your phone off, you put inside of a drawer, and you pick it up tomorrow morning. You get like eight, nine, ten hours off of your phone. Do it one to two days a week. And you replace it with stuff like going for a walk, reading a book, journaling, oh my God, having a real conversation with another human without being on your phone at the same time.

And you just pick your phone up the next morning. So that's like level one. Just do a digital detox for a few hours, one, two times a week. The second one that you could do that I recommend is a full day fast every week if you want to. No phone, no social media, no TV for 24 hours. I recommend making it a new rule in your house and just trying it out for a month. I recommend Saturday. It could be no phone or Sunday could be absolutely no phone. Just be with yourself, be with your friends, be with your family. And same thing. You replace it with walks and reading and journaling and conversations. And you take your phone,

you put on airplane mode at Friday at 9 p.m. And you put in the kitchen drawer and you just take it out, Saturday at 9 p.m. It's very easy. You won't die, I promise you. Or if you want to do level three, which is like if you want to go for a hard reset, it would be like no tech, no stimulation, no talking for an entire weekend. If you live by yourself, just try it for an entire weekend. Friday at 8 p.m. Until Monday at 6 a.m. That's 60 hours of none of it. And it could be just you. And if you live by yourself, it could be just you and silence and going out of nature and your breath and presence. And, you know, if you want to go longer, you could go longer. If you live with family and you have children, well, then just your phone doesn't get in the way on the weekend. And so those are the

three different levels. And if you want to go hardcore and do like a, you know, a 10-day silent meditation retreat like I did, you could do that if you want to. But I recommend just starting off for, you know, when you come home from work until right before you leave for work one day and just see how it works. If you're starting to notice your brain running all over the place, I recommend journaling. And I'll give you a couple journal prompts that I came up with. You know, when you're doing a dopamine detox and you feel that itch to do something, take out a pen and paper, and just say, what am I trying to avoid doing right now? Or what am I trying to avoid feeling right now? What's the emotion that I'm trying to numb? You know, what is, what's my inner voice trying to say? Why do I feel agitated? And you can just get curious when you

feel agitated in those moments, just get curious. Your answers could really, really surprise you. And so, you know, it's not one size fits all, but, you know, how often should you do it? You could do daily for 30 to 60 minutes, you know, maybe a morning of just silence, no phone. You could do weekly. You could do one day off of tech for just Saturday or just Sunday. Quarterly you could do a full weekend, you know, a full reset of just weekend retreat and just disappear from all of that stuff. it's not about strict rules. It's just about listening to what you need and what your body needs and what your brain needs in some sort of way. And so this whole idea of a digital detox is not about punishing yourself. It's about a reset that your body really deserves. And to be honest with you,

I bet every single person listening is your body's craving a reset. You know, we've been trained to avoid stillness. And stillness is where you remember who you are and where your true desire's return and you start to come in contact with your intuition and your life becomes more vivid again. And so you can start small. But I recommend just start it today. Give it a shot. And if you're scared, which a lot of people are, just do it anyways. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on your Instagram stories, tab me in it, Rob Dowell Jr. R-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. And with that, I'm going to leave the same way, leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make someone else's day better. I appreciate

you and I hope that you have an amazing day.