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Comment by nicoburns | Hacker News Reader

> All I really look forward to these days is getting high and playing video games or watching Seinfeld reruns each weekend

Not saying it's the only cause of your problems, but you shouldn't underestimate the affect that getting high can have on how you feel when you're not high (especially if it's an every day or most days thing). Consider a (say 3-6 month) detox.

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I really recommend everyone to listen to Andrew Huberman's podcast [0] on Dopamine and how it affects motivation, focus, and satisfaction.

Many people see Dopamine as just a pleasure chemical, but it actually directly influences motivation and focus. We also all have a somewhat set amount of dopamine in a day, so participating in activities that release a short peak of dopamine (drugs, masturbation, etc) means that we have less dopamine, and therefore less motivation for the rest of the day.

I was also recently in a low motivation rut, however after making some lifestyle changes I feel much more motivated throughout the day. I stopped getting high, cut out all porn, and added 2 min of a cold water at the end of my regular shower. It was tough to start, but 100% worth it.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmOF0crdyRU

All of your advice is good. It should be noted that taking Tyrosine can help replenish depleted dopamine stores.

Yeah it's interesting to me how little this gets talked about now days, but back in the 80s teenagers called it "antimotivational syndrome"[0] to describe what happens to stoners.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amotivational_syndrome

I get all of those symptoms periodically without weed or any other kind of drug to make it happen. Maybe there's a confounding variable there.

The symptoms in that linked article overlap with a lot of other conditions, for sure.

ADHD inattentive type, etc. Even low testosterone can cause a lot of those symptoms.

Yeah that’s now called undiagnosed ADHD, because that’s what it is.

Yeah, my motivation goes up when I smoke weed, not down. And it took me until I was an adult to realize that I was using weed to treat undiagnosed ADHD. I still enjoy smoking weed, but don't have a dependence on it to function now that I have a proper diagnosis and treatment.

Does the treatment involve other drugs? Just curious

Yes, I take Focalin XR now.

this is me but before a diagnosis and treatment. i think its time to go see doc

I thought a member of my support group said it best: "getting high makes you ok with being bored."

Being able to manage boredom is actually a Very Important skill -- much more so than the much-vaunted "21st Century Essential Skills" (like coding) that get so many dollars and media hype.

For real. I smoked weed all day, every day, throughout much of high school and all of college. After I graduated, I had to move to a new state for work and lost my "contacts" and had to stop. I thought I would really miss it, but I didn't and got over the feeling of "needing" weed pretty quickly.

Listening to a joe rogan podcast with matthew walker about sleep - seems that drugs can prevent you from getting REM sleep. So the detox might be a good step.

a related podcast clip with another interviewer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwrrKlII4XA

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