Dhru Purohit Show
Why You Need a Dopamine Detox: The Science Based Way to Master Self Control & Break Addiction Patterns with Dr. Alok Kanojia
25 Nov 2024
This episode is brought to you by Momentous, Lifeforce, and One Skin. In today’s world, addiction takes many forms—whether it’s alcohol, drugs, social media, or snacking on ultra-processed foods. Certain key factors drive these behaviors and make breaking the cycle of addiction challenging. Today’s guest offers powerful insights into brain health and psychology, explaining why these behaviors occur and how we can break free. Today on The Dhru Purohit Show, Dhru sits down with Harvard-trained psychiatrist Dr. Alok Kanojia to explore addictions, how they start, and their impact on brain health. Dr. Kanojia explains the roles of dopamine and serotonin in addictive behaviors and reveals the lifestyle habits that deplete serotonin. He also shares his top tips for successful morning routines and the secret to mastering self-control. If you’re looking for insights into why we engage in addictive behaviors and advice on how to break free from the cycle, this episode is a must-listen! Dr. Alok Kanojia, known online as "Dr. K," is a Harvard-trained psychiatrist specializing in the intersection of technology and mental health. As the co-founder of Healthy Gamer, a mental health platform designed for the digital generation, Dr. Kanojia has inspired millions with his content while overseeing the mental health coaching of thousands of young people. Widely regarded as the leading expert on video game addiction, he is also recognized as one of the most prominent mental health authorities for the younger generation. In this episode, Dhru and Dr. K dive into: How addictions start (00:00:11) How social media impacts brain health (2:41) How dopamine and serotonin are impacted during these addictive behaviors (11:56) Top lifestyle behaviors that rob us of serotonin (17:42) Morning habits that influence our need for dopamine hits (23:15) Dharma and self-control (28:50) How to find your purpose (38:35) Choosing discomfort (44:35) Improving self-control and sitting with the discomfort of being uncomfortable (49:25) Dr. K’s journey (01:00:45) Meditation practice and how Dr. K started his meditation practice (1:06:45) Ultra-processed foods, gut health, and depression (1:14:35) Dr. K’s PSA on mental health advice on social media and comfort crisis (1:20:05) Also mentioned in this episode: Dr. K’s Book: How to Raise a Healthy Gamer Healthy GamerGG Spotify Podcast Healthy GamerGG Apple Podcast For more on Dr. K, follow him on X/Twitter, Twitch, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and his website. This episode is brought to you by Momentous, Lifeforce, and One Skin. Optimize your energy and mental clarity with the Momentous Three: Protein, Omega-3s, and Creatine made by and used by the best. Go to livemomentous.com and enter promo code DHRU to get 20% off any order. Right now, you can save $250 on your first diagnostic and get personalized suggestions. Optimize your longevity and track your progress; go to mylifeforce.com/dhru! Right now, One Skin is offering my community 15% off; just go to oneskin.co and use coupon code DHRU to save 15% and give your skin the scientifically proven, gentle care it deserves. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Full Episode
Dr. K, welcome to the podcast. Alcohol, over-caffeinating, pornography, shopping, and social media help us understand what's going on in the brain and the body when these behaviors turn into addiction. And most importantly, what role do dopamine and serotonin play in this process?
You know, when does something become an addiction? So we engage with all these things, whether you're talking about shopping or alcohol or whatever, because they do something for us. Right. So some part of our brain is experiencing a reward of some kind. The problem is that when we start to get addicted to things, these become solutions that create more problems than they solve.
So if you look at someone who's struggling with like alcohol addiction, they may be using the alcohol to cope. with negative feelings, depression, things like that. We use alcohol as liquid courage that helps us socialize better, be more comfortable at places. We can have a couple of drinks when we go to an office party so that we feel more relaxed and we feel more sociable.
All addictions start out as like solutions to things. And then over time, what happens is we start to become dependent on the behavior and the behavior starts to create problems. And then despite it creating more problems, we find that we can't stop. And that's really when we've achieved an addiction.
And in terms of what's going on in the brain, well, it turns out that depending on what your choice is, whether it's alcohol or shopping or social media, what's happening in the brain is actually like quite different. So that's kind of the common pathway. But then there's a lot of detail about what circuits are affected and things like that.
Well, let's take, for instance, for my audience, something that I regularly hear is people feeling like they're abusing social media and it's impacting their life. It's robbing them of pleasure or it's impacting them from really pursuing the things that they want to pursue in life because they're feeling like they're losing motivation or comparison is seeping in.
So can you talk a little bit more about what might be happening in the brain for somebody who feels like they're addicted to social media?
So social media addiction is like really interesting because the first thing to understand is that see substance use addictions. So these are things like alcohol, opioids, marijuana. These act in a very discreet way. Right. So I have a molecule of alcohol that crosses the blood brain barrier and then activate something called the GABA receptor. So it's like very targeted.
The issue with a lot of these technologies is that they're not nearly as targeted. So we see a lot more of a whole brain effect. And the different problems that you described each have like unique parts of the brain that they affect. So let's like run through those. So social media does a couple of fundamental things. The first is that it messes with our sense of identity.
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