CTV NEWS | What is dopamine fasting and why are people doing it?
As for the idea that people can control their dopamine release to achieve greater joy, Cecilia Flores, a psychiatry professor at McGill University who studies the development of the dopamine system, isn’t convinced. Even sitting alone in an empty room with zero stimuli – no food, no music – still wouldn’t be enough to limit the release of dopamine. That’s because we need dopamine for “our everyday survival,” Flores said. “Preventing encounters with those stimuli does not mean that the next time, more dopamine will be released,” she said. “Maybe the person feels like that. But what they cannot say is that it’s because of their dopamine. Even to make the link between the dopamine and pleasure is far-fetched, because what dopamine does is much more complicated than that.”
