A month that started with a video about the dopamine pit and ended with my productivity up two to three times. Book, films, skill, hypothesis, habit and the main insight.
1) Best book
Cognitive Therapy Techniques by Robert Leahy. I haven’t finished it yet. I spotted it at a book fair, opened a few random pages and immediately knew it would be an incredibly useful psychology manual.
2) Films and series
Nastya and I went to the cinema to see The Count of Monte Cristo. A very interesting, gripping film. Anyone who’s read the novel will of course find plenty of inconsistencies, but to me those are two different genres.
We’re still watching Grey’s Anatomy — season 5 already — about the lives of surgeons in Seattle. It’s an easy evening series: you can laugh at it and then talk it over with the person you love.
3) Most useful video
“The Dopamine Pit” by Andrey Kurpatov. I knew social media content gives us fast, cheap dopamine, but I didn’t know that when we scroll a feed we prevent dopamine from accumulating in the body in large amounts.
As a result we have no strength or motivation for difficult, large-scale work — we’re stuck in the fast-dopamine trap.
For me that understanding was fundamental, and I gave up short-form content entirely. Only YouTube stayed.
4) Skill I worked on
Enjoying my day and any small thing that happens in it.
When I quit social media, my brain stopped suffering and straining. I started taking pleasure in everything going on around me.
It’s a completely different level of awareness and enjoyment of life.
Watch the 2023 film Perfect Days — it shows a very similar state.
5) Hypothesis I managed to test
I enjoy organising celebrations.
Nastya’s birthday was on 30 September, and I spent about three weeks preparing that day for her.
I wrote about it in more detail yesterday and I’ll write more in upcoming posts, but I can say with confidence that I genuinely loved putting together a surprise like that for my wife.
Preparing the interactive parts, the video greetings, the games, the unexpected turns during the event itself — all of it is deeply interesting and absorbing.
6) Habit I worked on
Not looking at social media feeds and stories. My digital detox started on 3 September after that video about the dopamine pit, and in that time my “information receptors” cleaned themselves out.
It’s a bit like what happened when I gave up sugar and my taste receptors reset. Metaphorically, the same thing has now happened to my brain.
I had no idea how badly it was being worn down by my 30 to 50 minutes a day in feeds and stories.
After quitting social media, my memory and concentration improved. My brain started generating interesting ideas and solutions by itself.
My productivity went up two to three times. I started working on the difficult strategic tasks I’d constantly been postponing.
My overall level of joy in life rose very substantially.
7) Main insight of the month
We get used to anything, and over time we stop feeling how much our body is suffering.
Only after I quit social media did I understand what a heavy, punishing state my brain had been in the whole time before the detox.
The problem is I barely felt it. It was like a 15 kg weight in the backpack on your shoulders that you’ve simply grown used to. Only once you take it out and throw it away do you realise how heavy it was and how much it was actually constraining and limiting you.