Dopamine Detox
A self-imposed break from quick-hit pleasures — phones, sugar, porn, games — meant to 'reset' the brain's reward system.
Origin
Popularized around 2019 by California psychiatrist Cameron Sepah, who described a behavior-fasting protocol borrowed from cognitive-behavioral therapy. The internet stripped the nuance out of the original and renamed it 'dopamine detox' or 'dopamine fasting' — terms Sepah himself has called misleading, because no one actually empties their dopamine. The framing nevertheless went viral on YouTube and TikTok and became one of the standard self-improvement disciplines of the early 2020s.
Modern usage
Used both earnestly ('I'm doing a 30-day dopamine detox') and ironically (after a doomscroll). Often invoked in the same paragraph as [[mewing]], [[biohacking]], and cold plunges as part of the 'fix yourself by subtraction' wellness package.
In the wild
Day three of the dopamine detox and I've just rearranged my sock drawer twice.— common social-media joke
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