This is something I came to slowly realize in the search for repairing my attention/depression issues. So far I've been getting good results. It started with giving up amphetamines (adderall, vyvanse), when that didn't do the trick, I removed alcohol and caffiene from my diet. The benefits I experienced led to stop smoking marijuana as well. That one was the toughest to give up, the anhedonia was torturous. It was like my brain forgot how to make dopamine. I couldn't enjoy any activity.

It's been 38 days since I stopped smoking, and it seems that things are starting to improve. I'm able to work on my creative endeavors again in multiple short bursts. I've also massively cut down on porn consumption (from daily to biweekly on average, but trying to get rid of it all). As well as halved my newsmedia consumption (an avg of 10 hours a week down to 5, another thing I want to get close to zero).

I've been reading a lot more, mostly philosophy (stoicism, daoism), but also worked through some other self help books as well as some science fiction. Still playing lots of games but, Im using it as my support system for the time being. Eventually I want to get even games down to just a very select few titles.

It's am ongoing process, tempting to want to rid myself of everything but that would be setting myself up for failure, too overwhelming. Must ease into things. the benefits have been manifold, discipline, concentration, memory, emotional control have all improved, which cascade into fitness, eating better, getting work done, less procrastination, and my favorite: more time. Bill Burr said "a year sober is the longest year of your life" and it's true, the clock passes so much slower, which is great, life is starting to feel plentiful again.

Anyway, I digress. But what I did notice is that is all comes back to dopamine. Some activities seem to give it more sustainably, others supernormally. And by limiting supernormal stimuli, we should expect to see positive effects.

Do intense physical exercise, that’s the missing link in your plan. You’ve got basically all the other key parts in place.

Some martial art (a real one) like muay-thai (no need for fights) works really good for this.

Martial arts are really hard to get into as a beginner. I'm physically fit and fairly flexible, but the dogmatism of many martial arts and the high barrier to entry (extreme strength and flexibility seem to be required even to start) made me really uncomfortable with a wide variety of martial arts. I've tried aikido, capoeira, kung fu muay-thai, boxing — but they all seemed to required beginners to immediately be able to do side-splits, acrobatic flips (I'm in NYC, so maybe the quality of beginners was much higher).

I'd recommend yoga in combination with weightlifting or HIIT training.

It's not a gatekeep. It's just easier to do in group by following the teacher/group.

The "have to be fit to join" is a myth. You can go whatever your fit/fat levels are.

The mindset is "do what you can" and improve step by step.

BJJ could be one to try if you have patience left?

I don't think there's a need to gate-keep exercise.

Start with walking and fast-walking in bursts.

This is an impressive change you are making, congratulations!

If you're not already doing this, I'd like to suggest journaling this effort in detail. This will be an amazing journey to look back on. And in the mean time, when things are tough it's always nice to be able to see all your accomplishments thus far.

Good on you brother. I underwent a similar effort recently. Cutting back or eliminating adderall/coffee/alcohol/marijuana/twitter/facebook/reddit/instagram/bullet chess ( my addictive game of choice )/more I'm probably missing.

I made it about a month clean before I had a drink which pulled me back into everything else. I'm trying to clean up again. I want to re claim my attention and be able to mindfully focus my time on more productive and helpful things.

One day at a time, I guess.

Read Hesse and discover moderation, it sounds like your personality seeks extremes.

I don't know you, but I'm so happy for you. You have done such incredible work.

Lol I have a new food fast, but you don't have to stop eating.

You can:

* eat your normal breakfast while fasting from food

* engage in your normal lunch routines with friends while fasting from food

* have a hearty, family style dinner with your loved ones while fasting from food.

Why does this person require abuse of the term "fast"? Fast means to abstain, but the entire list includes point for point the opposite of "abstaining" from dopamine. Exercise releases dopamine. Learning and creativity release it. Helping others release it. It's not a fast, and anyone who calls it that is just lying (or abusing our language in a very doublespeak 1984 kind of way, "eating is fasting" kind of way)

This comes across as a ridiculous fad with better branding than substance.

Yeah, this whole notion of a "fast" seems like it's based on the usual one-dimensional view of dopamine as synonymous with excitement and pleasure. There's a lot of evidence that dopamine is far more subtle than that; it seems to play a huge role in anticipation and sensory gating, for example.

Perhaps dieting would be a better term - it's most similar to a whole foods/avoid simple carbs diet.

> Leading (helping, serving others)

Helping and serving others is not leading at all. And leading is not helping and serving others.

If you're ever in a management position, I hope for your sake -- and your subordinates' -- you outgrow that notion.

You can be helping and serving without having any leadership impact or role. Completely. Overwhelming majority of people who help others or server others are not leaders. Helping and serving others will not put you into leadership position nor proves you are capable of leadership.

And while good leaders help on occasions, they are not serving not the bulk of that role does not consists of helping and serving.

The concept you are looking to read up on is servant leadership. It's entire thesis is that a leader serves those "below" them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servant_leadership

Necessary but insufficient.

at a minimum, a nice jewish boy from a podunk town in a roman backwater province vehemently disagrees with you. He went pretty far, too!