I know (or, my sense is that) the whole dopamine detox thing causes a lot of folks to raise eyebrows, myself included for the most part. But, I’ve done multiple meditation retreats, which are a kind of extreme case of dopamine detoxing in practice (although most folks frame their reasons for meditating very differently than that).

I have to say, the quality of my first person experience is massively changed during these retreats, and you usually return to “normal life” with quite a different perspective on it. It just _feels_ different, and I realize I don’t have to be so caught up in all of it. Although if I don’t keep up the practice, that quality of experience and perspective fades very quickly, and I find myself back to being battered around by various interests, desires, impulses.

It’s kind of like crash dieting. Unless you can incorporate these changes (ie, a better digital diet) into your life sustainably, you won’t reap any real long- or maybe even medium-term benefit. Although, the upside of meditation retreats (or maybe dopamine detoxing?) is that you do at least learn that there is a “there” there.