How to stay motivated

I was wondering why, and I wanted to know, how to stay motivated for studying. Hence, I began searching for answers. Many of the results that I stumbled upon during my research were things that I also thought of, for example to give myself some kind of reward after the work, to think of my goals or to choose suitable environment for studying.  However, the answer I was looking for was hidden under title dopamine detox or dopamine fasting.

It is a simple practice, which can have enormous impact on our motivation for activities, that are more challenging for us. Basically, external stimuli like our phone, computer, internet or junk food etc. cause that our brain is flooded with higher levels of dopamine (neurotransmitter) because it is expecting a reward.  We are then motivated to repeat these activities, and such high levels of dopamine become our “normal levels”. On the other hand, activities that release less dopamine, for ex. studying, working etc. we enjoy less, and we do not have enough motivation to do it. Dopamine detox/fast means, that we avoid highly stimulating activities, which flood our brain with dopamine. For me, internet is one of the higher stimulating activities, as I can browse the internet for hours and never ger bored. So, I used dopamine detox to reduce my time spent on the internet to a large extent. Other activities, such as exercising, or learning are consequently much more fun as I have the motivation to do it. Of course, dopamine detox can be done in a way, that you avoid all the external stimulation of dopamine for 24 hours, however, I have not tried it yet.

This concept is remarkably interesting for me, but will I perform it in the future? Yes, I plan to perform it in order to find out whether it is effective. There are of course opinions that dopamine detox does not work, or at least not in the way that many people think it does.