Sources Contact Advanced Search Tutorials

An Interest In:

Web News this Week

Search Archive

Some of Our Sources

View All Sources

Help Webnuz

Referal links:

November 24, 2019 02:34 pm

Silicon Valley's Newest Health Fad: Dopamine Fasting

"They have done biohacking, clean sleeping and the keto diet, but now Silicon Valley types have coined a new health trend -- dopamine fasting," reports the Guardian:It is thought that depriving yourself of the neurotransmitter, a chemical messenger that motivates us to do things, can help to reboot or rebalance the brain. Fasting might entail abstinence from technology, artificial light, food, drink, conversation, eye contact -- essentially anything that an individual finds stimulating. But is there any sense to the fad? "Retreating from life probably makes life more interesting when you come back to it," says David Nutt, director of the neuropsychopharmacology unit in the division of brain sciences at Imperial College London. "Monks have been doing it for thousands of years. Whether that has anything to do with dopamine is unclear." A professor at UCSF Medical School tells the New York Times that the name is a misnomer, since it's more of a stimulation fast. The Times writes that "A dopamine fast is simple because it is basically a fast of everything... The number of things to not do is potentially endless."Silicon Valley is not the first group to discover that moderating emotions or spending periods trying to feel less can lead to happiness. In their quest, they are moving toward two very old groups: those in silent meditation and the Amish.... Karen Donovan, who is developing a new Vipassana silent meditation center in Silicon Valley, said she sees this trend as moving closer to the ultimate dopamine fast: sitting on a dark floor with eyes closed for 10 days. "There's a growing self-awareness of what in Vipassana terms we would call suffering," she said.

Slashdot

Slashdot was originally created in September of 1997 by Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda. Today it is owned by Geeknet, Inc..

More About this Source Visit Slashdot