Illustration: Matija Medved

Optimize Me

Everyone is Wrong About Dopamine Fasting

Avoiding pleasurable activities to reset the brain’s ‘reward chemical’ sounds great. Too bad that’s not how dopamine works.

Dana G Smith
Elemental
Published in
4 min readDec 3, 2019

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Welcome to Optimize Me, a new Elemental column exploring (and fact-checking) the weirdest self-improvement trends.

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Dana G Smith
Elemental

Health and science writer • PhD in 🧠 • Words in Scientific American, STAT, The Atlantic, The Guardian • Award-winning Covid-19 coverage for Elemental