How to Reset Your Brain's Dopamine Levels to Improve Focus, Shed Unwanted Body Fat, Mental Maths

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Estimated Reading Time: 2 mins

3 Ideas For Better Habits

1

Practice Dopamine Fasting to Reset Your Brain

Dr. Anna Lembke, psychiatrist and Chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic, on how to restore your dopamine levels and regain focus:

"I’ve been recommending a 30-day absence trial for my patients for 20 years, and I think there’s a lot of merit in it. I ask patients to identify the drug, or drugs, with which they have a problem of compulsive over-consumption, and to eliminate that drug for a month, knowing that they’ll feel worse before they feel better. The goal, essentially, is to do a kind of personalized biological experiment to discover whether or not, by resetting their reward pathways, they can feel better.

And the beauty of the intervention is that about 80 percent of my patients come back feeling better—just by eliminating their drug of choice, without me having to prescribe a pill or do any kind of in-depth psychoanalysis." Reference: ​Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence​

2

Low-Carb Diets Shed Unwanted Body Fat

Vince Gironda, the world's first personal trainer and an early pioneer of the fitness industry, on how to lose unwanted body fat:

"Q: I have been reading your column in MuscleMag International for some years. I am 44 now. In fact your questions and answers are the first section I turn to. My problem is this: I have a covering of fat all over my body so please give me a training routine to rid me of this unwanted body fat. I need muscular definition.

A: There is no such thing as a weight training routine for definition. There are only diets for definition.

To obtain definition (cuts) it is my experience that in most cases someone of your age has to maintain a very low blood sugar state for a good period of time.

In short, you will probably have to eat as little as possible." Source: Common Errors In Bodybuilding

3

Arrogance = Ignorance + Conviction

Writer Tim Urban on the danger of arrogance:

"Arrogance is ignorance plus conviction. This is an especially deadly combo because it prevents you from improving. It not only leaves you without real knowledge, it deprives you of the humility needed to gain real knowledge or grow into a better thinker."

Source: ​The Thinking Ladder​

Productivity Tools and Resources

4

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5

You Can't Do Simple Maths Under Pressure

An ​interactive math quiz​ to train your mental math skills.

Brain Food

Today I Learned: Less than 40% of internet traffic comes from humans. The majority comes from bots. (​Source​)

Science: New research suggests that narcissistic bosses hinder cooperation and create knowledge barriers within organizations. (​Source​)

Have a productive week,

The Smarter Brain Team

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