welcome back to the tamed course we recently came across an idea that has changed the way we look at building habits this is an idea that will make it easier for you to stick to good habits and avoid bad ones and we call it the nothing rule how does it work well when you go to the gym and have an intense workouts where you know you pushed your body to its limits you'll probably feel pretty sore for the next couple of days but when this soreness comes around you don't feel bad about it you actually
feel kind of good right even though it literally hurts to get out of bed and move you feel good because you know that you put in a lot of effort during the workout and now your body is rebuilding itself back stronger you know that this type of pain is part of the strengthening process on the other hand let's pretend that you're a complete newbie and you didn't know that being sore was part of the process if you suddenly woke up two days after your first intense leg workouts with incredible pain in your thighs you might
be worried you might think that you did something wrong because you were fine yesterday and all of a sudden you can barely walk this pain might even cause you to take some medication to try and leave deviate the symptoms the only difference is that you don't know that the pain was supposed to be expected and a part of the process the pain is a good sign the reason I'm bringing this up is because pain Works in a very similar way when it comes to our addictions not just our addictions but all of our behaviors you
see whenever you indulge in any pleasurable activities whether it's playing video games watching naughty videos online or chomping down fast food you're spiking your dopamine to levels much higher than normal now what's interesting is that when you stop these activities your dopamine doesn't just return to the Baseline level that you started at it actually drops below Baseline directly correlated to how high the spike was which means that the higher and longer the high you've been chasing the lower you will drop for longer now what does low levels of dopamine feel like according to google a
lack of motivation tiredness inability to focus anxiety can't feel pleasure from previous enjoyable experiences feeling of hopelessness trouble sleeping and more essentially you feel like crap this in a way is a type of pain it's not really the physical pain you get from a hard workout this is more of a mental thing a boring uncomfortable sad type of pain now what's interesting is that this pain is actually a good thing just like how the soreness after working out is a good thing you see the only way for your dopamine levels to recover to Baseline levels
to the levels it used to be at when you were younger where it was easy to find motivation and pleasure in life the only way to get closer to that level is to do nothing this boring sad tired feeling you get after taking a break from pleasurable activities is a sign that your dopamine levels are slowly starting to recover so instead of reaching for more dopamine spiking activities to relieve yourself of this pain do nothing instead and that you will eventually heal with time of course I don't actually mean literally do nothing all day or
like stay away from as many pleasurable activities as possible and wait day by day your Baseline levels will increase and many things recently felt boring will start to feel slightly pleasurable again such as getting some work done or chatting with some friends here's your chance to focus on building up these good habits so that you can eventually get a life where turning to your bad habits is in your way of spiking your dopamine levels you'll have a healthier alternative that satisfies you speaking of healthier Alternatives having someone to speak to about your issues is always
a good idea because it allows you to untangle the mental mess that lives in many of our heads which is why this episode is sponsored by betterhelp betterhelp is the world's largest therapy service and it's 100 online you can message your therapist at any time and schedule live sessions when it's convenient for you if your therapist isn't the right fit for any reason you can switch to a new therapist at no additional charge with better help you can get the same professional and quality you'd expect from in-office therapy but with a therapist who is custom
picked for you with more scheduling flexibility and at a more affordable price betterhelp has a special offer today where you'll get 10 off your first month just go to betterhelp.com Improvement pill thanks again to betterhelp for sponsoring this video now back to the topic at hand here's another tip I want to leave with you in regards to dealing with these negative emotions it's called the 10 minute trick and I picked it up from the Diary of a CEO podcast this is something you can use if you feel like the nothing rule isn't effective enough when
you feel a strong negative emotion such as boredom or stress where you want to do something to spike your dopamine bits to help alleviate the pain such as playing on your phone you simply tell yourself okay I'll play on my phone in 10 minutes this helps relieve some of the pain for there is the pain of not knowing when you'll be able to relax that causes you to feel even more uncomfortable on top of the already negative emotions you feel during the dopamine recovery process this is actually a huge source of uncomfortable feelings we have
every day uncertainty when you're trying extremely hard to stay away from a bad habit it will constantly be in your mind but when you give yourself a time slot to deal with a negative emotion your brain can relax knowing that there's already a plan in place for relieving that pain and that's it I hope the 10 minute trick and the nothing rule are helpful in your habit building Journey if you haven't watched the rest of this tamed course you can find links in the description box below besides that stay tuned
