/lit/ - Literature

>>18335540
What is EasyPeasy pill?

>>18335540
>lowering your dopamine levels
That's not how the reward system works. Maybe read a book on neuroscience first

>>18335540
There is no such thing as dopamine detox. You people are like 1950s housewives with their diet pills.

just go backpackong for a week

>>18335616
Hackbook of Carr's "Easy way to stop smoking", but for porn addicts.

>>18335650
Ah, I thought it is something like a guide to overcome bad daily habits as browsing 4chan all day instead of work in overall, because it's my grand problem.

>>18335540
Its not about lowering dopamine levels
You have it backwards, you need to lower stress hormones. You feel unmotivated because you dont get enough dopamine

>>18335650
?

>>18335540
any anons in this thread who want to talk about this subject should add me on discord Downlifter#3904

>>18335540
OP, I have recently made a list of good and bad habits one should avoid. I drew from several sources (remember than long post on discipline from /lit/?) and have implemented many parts of this in my life, but I haven't succeeded in getting it *all* down. You should try to instill these habits by keeping a scoreboard in your personal journal or calendar.
>BAD
NO: Sugar. Onanism. Daydreaming. Vidya. Music. FastFood. Fizzy drinks. Movies. Twitter. Youtube. 4chan. Reddit. Discord. Waking up after 6 AM. Eating before 11 AM. Using screens after 10 PM.
>GOOD
Meditate for 20 minutes. Do exercises like pushups, pullups, squats, crunches, and dips. Keep a journal where you'll record thoughts, words and deeds of the day along with records of any interesting sightings, hearings, perceptions, feelings and deep conversations. Ask yourself three Pythagorean questions at the end of the day: What did I do today? Where have I sinned? What duty have I failed to fulfill?

Posting the chart

>>18336834
Cope

>>18335540
Starting strength and GOMAD

>>18336925
Cringe and cope

DUDE WOWZERZ like COPE and **OOMER CRINGE SEETHE

get off 4chan and eat every other day and you'll recalibrate what constitutes physical pleasure (being able to dine without worry, shelter, peace and quiet)

>>18336936
god i love fit so much

>>18336984
Macde me audibly laugh

>>18335540
Atomic Habits

>>18335630
>Brain prefers easy task that rewards 10 dopamine over hard task that rewards 8 dopamine
What am I not understanding?

>>18336925
Cringe and bluepilled

>>18337140
Dopamine isn't good boy points. Like anon said, read a book, preferably one by an actual academic and not a self-help author. Especially if you're going to base your entire approach to life on it.

>>18336834
Good advice. This frightens and confuses the dopamine addict.

>>18335639
>>>18335540 (OP)
>There is no such thing as dopamine detox. You people are like 1950s housewives with their diet pills.
This.
It's crazy how utterly stupid this board is.

>>18335540
>lowering your dopamine levels

This is such a stupid way of thinking about dopamine man. Really you should be embarrassed for saying that. First off, dopamine is not inherently bad by itself. Second, it's not "how much" overall dopamine, it's *WHERE* the dopamine is acting on what region of the brain. If you have a porn addiction that means you're going to have decreased dopamine activity in the pre-frontal cortex, the part of the brain that regulates behavior, and increased activity in the nucleus accumbens which is the region involved in pleasure seeking and addiction.

So you might think, "Well how do I decrease activity in the nuclues accumbens then?" Which AGAIN is the wrong way of thinking about it because pleasure seeking is also NOT inherently bad. It's PORN that is inherently bad, pleasure seeking PORN is what's bad. You need to "seek pleasure" to survive, it's what DRIVES us forward in life and makes life worth living.

So what you need to focus on is not "decreasing dopamine" but REPLACING *unhealthy* activities that increased dopamine in your nucleus accumbens with HEALTHY activities that do the same. You need to "rewire" your pleasure centers.

Nofap and no porn help do this. No internet helps this too. Getting rid of your phone helps this too. Basically getting rid of all modern technology including TV and video games helps with this because it takes you OUT of the network of temptation that led you to porn to begin with. If you want to find pleasure in things that aren't porn you also need to find pleasure in things that don't come from a monitor or a toaster or whatever in general. It took me abstaining from porn and masturbation for SIX months WHILE doing hard manually labor to "break the cycle" and during that cycle I found a girlfriend and we started shacking up and I had a good job and friends which made it even easier to not give a fuck about tech.

A lot of people don't know this but dopamine's main activity and purpose is in MUSCLE movement. That's why depressed people stay in bed all day, or at least part of it. The thing about dopamine that's special though is that you don't need to have high dopamine to increase your dopamine to get out of depression. Literally by moving at all you increase dopamine. Exercising is even better, and even better than exercise is manual labor, like on a farm where you're exerting yourself towards a useful end while working together with people in a team. Farms are literally the best way to escape depression and reorient your chemistry towards its natural state- working with a team to find or create food to share with people. You'll also find generosity to be helpful. Giving things to others will make you feel better, contrary to what the greedy "mine mine mine" narrative of the US might tell you (I don't know where you're from). Have you tried wwoofing? Maybe try wwoofing.

>>18335540
Nichomachean Ethics and Jpepe’s 12 Rules for Life. Also praying to God and learning to meditate.

>>18335639
At least the diet pills got you thwacked, lowering your dopamine would just fuck up your brain

>>18337140

Watch some lectures by sapolsky. The most fundamental thing you need to understand about dopamine is that it MOVES us. It does more than that like error-correction but the main thing is does is MOVE you around in your environment to find your basic needs. I want you to say this 10 times before you go to sleep and 10 times when you wake up in the morning.

"Dopamine Increases In The Anticipation Of A Reward (Opioid Response)"
"Dopamine Increases In The Anticipation Of A Reward (Opioid Response)"
"Dopamine Increases In The Anticipation Of A Reward (Opioid Response)"

Rewards are just anything that elicits an opioid response in the brain, anything that leaves you feeling satisfied, relieved of pain, relaxed, content, etc. Food, sex and water are the main ones. Shelter is another since it limits exposure from the elements. Anything that relieves stress or pain. Dopamine is what gets your body to MOVE to GET the things that causes an opioid response. That's why heroin and painkillers are so fucking addicting. They are literally the "ultimate" drug- the are the ends to all of our means- they are literally what we as humans strive for. All of our motivations and ambitions are driven by satisfaction, and those drugs produce the chemical in our brain that simulates that state of satisfaction.

>>18337400
So basically Wendell Berry was right?

>>18337400
>>18337439
Thank you anon(s) for this

>>18337463

>According to him, the good life includes sustainable agriculture,[38] appropriate technologies,[39] healthy rural communities,[40] connection to place,[41] the pleasures of good food,[42] husbandry,[43] good work,[44] local economics,[45] the miracle of life,[46] fidelity,[47] frugality,[48] reverence,[49] and the interconnectedness of life.[50] The threats Berry finds to this good simple life include: industrial farming and the industrialization of life,[51] ignorance,[52] hubris,[53] greed,[54] violence against others and against the natural world,[55] the eroding topsoil in the United States,[56] global economics,[57] and environmental destruction.

Yes. If you read John Callahan's autobiography he talks about how working on a ranch essentially "cured him" of his petty, self conscious "neuroticism" which was totally caused he realized in hindsight by living a sedentary, *literary* lifestyle, much of what /lit/ suffers from.

Fuck could you imagine how powerful /lit/ would be if they were farmers? No one seems to grasp how profound the effects of farming are.

>>18337524
I grasp it, work is anathema the self-absorbed urboid soul. Pain is an identity today and people don't want to hear it can be cured by sweat.

>>18336914
this chart is full of gems but my god is it a slog. montaigne's essays alone took me a month to read

>>18337524
Also, let's not forget about what Tolstoy said about peasants with regards to his own bourgeoise lifestyle: "It is not life that is evil, but our lives that were evil."

>>18337463
>>18337524
The stoics were way ahead of you guys. Apparently, Musonius Rufus taught the following.

"How, I ask, could planting trees or plowing or pruning vines not be honorable? Are not sowing seed and harvesting and threshing all occupations for free men and befitting good men? Even keeping flocks, as it did not disgrace Hesiod nor prevent him from being a poet and beloved of the gods, so it would not prevent anyone else. In fact to me this is the most agreeable of all aspects of farming, because it gives the spirit more leisure to reflect on and to investigate the things that have to do with our own development and training. For while, to be sure, the occupations which strain and tire the whole body compel the mind to share in concentration upon them, or at all events, upon the body, yet the occupations which require not too much physical exertion do not hinder the mind from reflecting on some of the higher things and by such reasoning from increasing its own wisdom—a goal toward which every philosopher earnestly strives. For these reasons I recommend particularly the life of a shepherd. But, speaking generally, if one devotes himself to the life of philosophy and tills the land at the same time, I should not compare any other way of life to his nor prefer any other means of livelihood. For is it not “living more in accord with nature” to draw one’s sustenance directly from the earth, which is the nurse and mother of us all, rather than from some other source? Is it not more like the life of a man to live in the country than to sit idly in the city, like the sophists? Who will say that it is not more healthy to live out of doors than to shun the open air and the heat of the sun? Tell me, do you think it is more fitting for a free man by his own labor to procure for himself the necessities of life or to receive them from others? But surely it is plain that not to require another’s help for one’s need is more dignified than asking for it. How very good and happy and blessed of heaven is the life of the soil, when along with it the goods of the spirit are not neglected, the example of Myson of Chen may show, whom the god called “wise,” and Aglaus of Psophis, whom he hailed as “happy,” both of whom lived on the land and tilled the soil with their own hands, and held aloof from the life of the town. Is not their example worthy of emulation and an incentive to follow in their footsteps and to embrace the life of husbandry with a zeal like theirs?"

>>18336742
no him but just fucking google it

>>18335540
I'm starting to feel like the easypeasy thing could have been shortened to half it's length. He keeps repeating paragraphs, sometimes without changing a word, and it's making it very difficult to get through.

>>18335639
What do you mean there's no such thing as that? You might not like the meme term 'dopamine detox' but what is wrong with the idea that avoiding addictive behaviours weakens the desire to repeat them? Seems pretty straightforward to me.

>>18337439
But dopamine detox is about the removal of things like heroin, social media, etc, that trigger off high levels of dopamine

>>18335540
If you want to overcome addictions you have to find something more meaningful than those addictions. The natural state is animalistic pleasure-seeking. The problem we have as humans is we have given ourselves so much with which to seek pleasure, far more than any animal would find in the wild. It is actually normal to be addicted to things, but what you need is to develop strong desire for a higher goal or a higher life, and work single-mindedly toward it. You have to find something greater than the animal state, and connect your emotions to that goal.

The most stupid takes on dopa detox are spouted here on /lit/, any other board has more informed takes on it. Isnt that funny?

Dopamine detox is not about lowering the amount of dopamine triggered or whatever, it quite simply is to re-wire how and when your brain does trigger dopamine.

>>18337439
Great post thanks anon

>>18340019
Other boards aren't much better in my opinion. Everyone likes to shit on dopamine detox, despite not knowing what it is, and then they can't provide a solution to beating addiction other than "dude just be stronger"

>>18335540
>weed addiction
NGMI unfortunately. Very easy to quit weed, easier than quitting masturbation, easier than quitting gaming, easier than quitting eating sugar.

>>18335540
Mate there's really two simple ways to do it. You don't need to convoluted it, that's just the addiction finding ways to sustain itself.
Really simple.

Whatever it is you're doing, do the opposite. Invert your behavior. Energize, validate, and get into something that cannot be done with your other fix. Validate it while you do it. The only negative energy you should apply to your other fix is to just act as the initial repulsion. Meaning don't sit there and think about/energize it. Use that negative burst to push you into something else that acts in contrast or antithesis, and find ways to love it.

I even convoluted writing all that out but it's real simple in practice

And the second

Literally just fuck off into nature until the volume turns down
It helps if, When you return, you aren't in the same setting.
Behavior exists on a web, both internally and externally. What has more agency over you (thoughts v sensory/internal v external) well affect you most.
You have to dissociate from the cascading patterns. I used to get analytical and it would lead me directly to smoking. I had to dissociate from it all to stop the cascade.
Same I had to leave certain environments bc of triggers. This one's more obvious

So yeah pissing off into nature is a great way to turn the volume down on anything and just dissociate.
Just mind what you are returning to.


Also kinda weird but poetry helps so much because it helps you break the repeat language semantics/scripts/character you may be running in your head that act as pavlovian triggers for other behavior

>>18336834
>no music
lmao you people are NPCs

>>18336834
How is daydreaming bad. What if you are in a creative profession and need the ideas

>>18342286
That's not an apt insult - everyone listens to music. You can take it out if you like, or replace all of your current track with Wagner or something, and you can change the way you use music as well, from mindlessly having it in the background to carefully considering each part of the piece.
>>18342369
That's not daydreaming. Another term for what I mean would be wool-gathering, where you indulge in idle imagining or aimless speculation. Going for walks in nature and mulling over some philosophical problem is not forbidden.

Retards, listen, please, stop larping as medieval monks. You're not in a monastery.

Read 'Your brain on porn' and 'The brain that changes itself. The latter talks about dopamine across a variety of feedback loops and activities and the former is specifically porn (obviously).

>>18335702
Honestly the words ‘porn’ and ‘4chan’ are interchangeable in the easypeasy book. The philosophy behind it still would function pretty much the same if you wanted to apply it to any addiction.

>>18342944
Nah, I am too aware of reading mass literature like this. I'd rather try to handle it myself.

>>18335630
>neuroscience

>>18342882
This is bad advice. Everyone could benefit from some monastic practice in their lives.

>>18343000
I don't understand your point. Awareness is the crux of the matter, having an awareness of the simple ways to avoid entrapping yourself in whatever you consider to be an addiction.

>>18335540
takes a minimum of 90 days to do a "reset". you have to re-wire your reward system in your brain. you need to be hardline but also practical, you have to be ready to die at any moment if you want to actually make a difference. De-activate every single social media account, tell your friends if they want to contact you they can call.
do not watch porn, in fact i suggest downloading some kind of app that autoblocks porn websites. you need to get off this shit first and foremost.
weed is retarded, stop doing that. go enjoy nature, fresh clean air, learn to shoot a gun and train your body but don't do it to be a fag have a goal with purpose. practice archery for example.

>>18340652
Incredibly true, especially the part about new surroundings. A big part of addiction is circumstances that trigger a response, for example; if someone smokes every time they drive, then it will be harder for them to quit smoking if they drive a lot. It's easier to quit anything if you're in a new environment, especially if the people around you don't pressure you into it or, better yet, are sympathetic to your abstinence.

>>18336834
>sugar is bad
>daydreaming is bad
>Music is bad
stop

Addiction is a response to stress, fear and anxiety. Remove the stress, the fear and anxiety, and the need for addiction will vanish.

If you can't stop smoking or jacking to porn, the cigarettes/porn aren't the thing destroying you, its whatever is causing you intense stress

>>18336834
your life is shit, you are confusing being stoic with being an autistic faggot

>>18343169
Christ. Sugar (from the right sources) is actually great, this is such a fucking psyop. Combining more dairy and nutritious sources of sugars is insanely important for managing cortisol and anti-stress processes by regulating and inhibiting PTH secretion.

>>18343220
absolutely based. people think because shit food is filled with sugar, that must mean sugar itself is the problem
>it tastes good so it must be bad for me!!!

>>18336834
>vidya and movies bad!
every fucking time

>>18343220
nice corporate propaganda
simple sugars are the cause of alzheimer's, obesity, heart disease, diabetes and are an influential risk factor for cancer

don't fucking eat sugar (obviously some, just avoid simple sugars as much as possible)

>>18336834
>EVERY form of immediate reward is BAD

>>18336834
Jesus, what a miserably boring person you must be.

>>18337140
Biology it seems

>>18337400
Nice

>>18343319
exhibit A)
an idiot taught in such a way that he believes he has uncovered the "propaganda", when what he believes is completely mainstream

there is no direct link between sugar and diabetes, its a myth
Alzheimer's is a metabolic problem
sugar alone doesn't 'cause' obesity

>>18339491
Isn't the repetition the point? From what I remember these types of books are trying to psycho-cybernetics you into wanting to live a life without cigarettes/porn/alcohol/whatever by getting you to repeatedly visualize how good that life will be.

>>18335540
I have a ss that's going to help you
wait a sec to find it

>>18343641
found it
godspeed anon

>>18339997
This anon is right. The problem with all the psychology of habit and addiction literature is that it tries to give accounts through only efficient causality (cue-response-reward, dopamine, etc). Social scientists are afraid of any talk of teleology or purposiveness because they think it's unscientific and religious. So psychologists tend to take the default "purpose" of human behaviour as pleasure-seeking, because they can understand pleasure as a neurochemical response that enforces behaviour. But if you think all your behaviour is motivated by pleasure, the only way you can distinguish between "good" and "bad" habits is by whether they give you immediate pleasure now and pain later, or pain now and greater pleasure later. The problem is that picture won't motivate you to change, there's always the temptation for immediate pleasure. You need to find a motivation that's greater than your own, individual pleasure and social science doesn't have the resources to help you.

btw does anyone have the assisted meditation link?
I remember it had some 20smth sessions * 3 parts of audiotapes on google drive

>>18343220
>>18343238
I should have said sweets or candies instead...

>>18343193
>>18343247
>>18343322
>>18343354
Seethe more

>>18335540
Realize matetial pleasures don't make you feel good and what you ate for dinner last week is meaningless compared to how kind you were. I remember meals I've bought for the homeless more than the best meals that I've had for myself in NYC.

>>18335540
>detox
You are a dumb fucking gorilla nigger. Hang yourself you inbred mongoloid subhuman fuck.

>>18335540
learn to hate pleasure

just eat healthy, exercise, get 30 mins of sunlight a day
easy

>>18344581
This stuff will all increase your sex drive, actually. So he'll probably be wanking more lol

What kind of (((alchemy))) is behind the development of all these masochistic self-denial fads from plebbit
>ahhhh I'm abstaining

>>18343704
found that one too
https://drive.google.com/drive/mobile/folders/1SZmT1XyH9wPtKVJ9aCSqw69190aAQOYB?sort=14&direction=d
hope OP and other anons will get better

>>18344902
>pic
oh no

>>18335540
I have so much trouble staying focused while I'm reading. I want to read and learn so badly but my mind is scattered. Thinking of taking ritalin desu.

>>18344902
Kek nice pic

>>18336834
NPC

>>18346792
Cringe

>>18346524
>Thinking of taking ritalin desu
stop thinking and take it. I started bupropion+ zoloft months ago and I'm sharp as fuck + great memory + stamina. I regret I was so brainwashed into pharma conspiracies and not started the treatment 15 years ago.

>>18347289
You kind of sound like a shill

>>18347305
>You kind of sound like a shill
I guess I do if you say so

>>18335540
Literally just stop

>>18335540
>lowering dopamine levels
You don't want that you stupid retard

>>18337439
An important thing to remember too is that Parkinson’s is literally when dopamine neurons in your brain die off and it’s a movement disorder

>>18337524
there are no more ranches to work on

>>18336914
Can someone reccomend the top 5 to read from this list? I have wayy too many books on my list currently.