生活手记Can a dopamine detox reset your brain?
“Taken literally, the idea makes no sense. But it may be good for you anyway.”
“多巴胺戒断”能重置你的大脑吗？
“如果按字面理解，这个概念其实说不通。但即便如此，它仍然可能对你有益。”
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原文
NO SOCIAL MEDIA. No gambling, alcohol or junk food. Certainly no masturbation, pornography or sex. Sounds dull? Welcome to your dopamine detox. Popular among Silicon Valley types, the idea is to abstain from quick-hit rewards in the hope of rediscovering simpler pleasures.
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不刷社交媒体。不赌博，不喝酒，不吃垃圾食品。当然，也不自慰、不看色情内容、不进行性行为。听起来很无聊？欢迎来到你的“多巴胺戒断”。
这种做法在硅谷人群中颇为流行。它的核心理念是暂时远离那些能够迅速带来满足感的刺激，希望借此重新发现生活中那些更简单、更朴素的快乐。
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The claim is that all these vices overstimulate the brain’s dopamine system, causing it to become “less responsive” and leaving people disillusioned and burnt out. A few weeks of abstinence, enthusiasts claim, can “reset” the brain.
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这种理论声称，上述种种容易让人沉迷的行为会过度刺激大脑的多巴胺系统，使它逐渐变得“反应迟钝”，最终让人感到幻灭、疲惫甚至倦怠。
“多巴胺戒断”的支持者认为，只要停止这些活动几个星期，就能够把大脑“重置”。
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Taking a purifying break from bad habits is not a new concept—think of Lent sacrifices or Dry January. A dopamine detox is the same idea repackaged with a (pseudo)-scientific twist. Where it goes wrong is the biochemistry. Proponents imagine that dopamine is the “pleasure molecule”; a finite resource that can be exhausted by overuse.
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暂时远离不良习惯、进行一段时间的“净化”，其实并不是什么新鲜概念——比如基督教大斋期的克己行为，或者“一月戒酒”活动。
所谓“多巴胺戒断”，本质上只是把类似的理念重新包装了一遍，再披上一层带有几分“伪科学”色彩的外衣。
它真正出错的地方，在于对生物化学机制的理解。
支持者往往把多巴胺想象成一种“快乐分子”，仿佛它是一种数量有限的资源，用得太多就会被耗尽。
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That is not how dopamine works. It is involved not just in reward, but also in learning and movement. Fully “detoxing” from it would be disastrous. Parkinson’s disease, for example, is caused by the loss of dopamine-producing neurons. Even the chemical’s role in the brain’s reward circuitry is widely misunderstood. “Dopamine is clearly not the pleasure molecule,” says Christian Lüscher, a neuroscientist at the University of Geneva.
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但多巴胺并不是这样运作的。
它不仅参与奖赏机制，也参与学习和运动。真正意义上把多巴胺从身体里彻底“戒掉”，反而会造成灾难性的后果。
例如，帕金森病就与产生多巴胺的神经元丧失有关。
甚至多巴胺在大脑奖赏回路中的作用，也长期遭到广泛误解。
日内瓦大学神经科学家 Christian Lüscher 表示：
“多巴胺显然并不是所谓的‘快乐分子’。”
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Instead, bursts of it signal surprise—what scientists call a reward-prediction error. When something turns out better than expected, dopamine-producing neurons fire more often than usual (when it turns out worse, they fire less). These spikes are teaching signals, strengthening connections between neurons and helping the brain learn which actions are worth repeating. A similar process, known as reinforcement learning, is used to train many modern artificial-intelligence models.
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实际上，多巴胺的短暂爆发更像是在向大脑传递一种“意外”或“预期偏差”的信号，科学家将这种现象称为奖赏预测误差（reward-prediction error）。
当事情的结果比预期更好时，产生多巴胺的神经元会比平时更加活跃；而当结果比预期更差时，它们的活动则会减少。
这些多巴胺信号可以被理解为一种学习信号：它们会加强神经元之间的连接，帮助大脑学习——哪些行为值得以后再次重复。
现代人工智能模型的训练中也存在一种类似的机制，被称为强化学习（reinforcement learning）。
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Eventually behaviour that used to be deliberate, such as selecting an app to message a friend, can become automatic: opening it absent-mindedly every time your phone lights up. Habits can be useful. They save the brain from having to think things through from first principles every time. But they can also be traps. Once a behaviour has become habitual, it can persist even when the outcome itself provides no pleasure.
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最终，一些原本需要有意识决定的行为——例如主动选择一个应用程序给朋友发消息——可能逐渐变成自动化行为。
于是，每当手机屏幕亮起，你可能还没有认真思考，就已经下意识地打开了那个应用。
习惯本身当然是有用的。它能够让大脑不必每一次都从头分析和思考，从而节省认知资源。
但习惯同样可能成为一种陷阱。
一旦某种行为真正形成习惯，即使这个行为带来的结果已经不再让人感到快乐，它仍然可能持续下去。
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Although taking a break from any harmful habit is a good idea, the idea of “dopamine hits” is most associated with social media. In many ways, apps are designed to be habit-forming, says Georgia Turner, a neuroscientist at Cambridge University, with algorithmic feeds providing a steady flow of low-effort, unpredictable rewards. The dopamine-fasters are right that pausing your use can interrupt this loop—though that happens through normal brain plasticity, not by replenishing dopamine.
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尽管暂时远离任何有害习惯通常都是一个不错的主意，但所谓“多巴胺刺激”这个概念，最经常被人们用来讨论社交媒体。
剑桥大学神经科学家 Georgia Turner 表示，从许多方面来看，各类应用程序本身的设计就具有促进习惯形成的特征。
算法信息流会持续向用户提供一种几乎不需要付出努力、结果却又不可预测的奖励。
因此，“多巴胺戒断”的支持者有一点确实说对了：
暂停使用这些应用程序，确实可能打断这种习惯循环。
但是，这种改变依靠的是大脑正常的神经可塑性（brain plasticity），而不是因为停止刺激之后把所谓“耗尽的多巴胺”重新补充回来了。
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Several studies have tested what happens when people take time away from social media. Most find that brief breaks do little for well-being, perhaps because there are short-term costs to being disconnected from social networks. When entire social groups ditch the apps for longer, results seem better. In one school-wide experiment in Britain, conducted by researchers from the University of York, students avoided social media for three weeks and, afterwards, reported better sleep and mood.
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已有多项研究考察了人们暂时离开社交媒体之后会发生什么。
大多数研究发现，短时间暂停使用社交媒体，对整体幸福感的改善并不明显。
其中一个可能的原因是：暂时与社交网络脱离，本身也可能带来短期代价。
然而，当整个社交群体一起停用这些应用，并且持续更长时间时，效果似乎会更好。
在英国一项覆盖全校的实验中，约克大学的研究人员让学生连续三周不使用社交媒体。实验结束后，学生报告自己的睡眠质量和情绪状态有所改善。
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If bad habits can be broken, people have more time for things they truly enjoy. A dopamine detox, in other words, may well be worth trying—even if the mechanism by which it supposedly works is muddled.
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如果能够打破不良习惯，人们自然就能腾出更多时间，投入到那些真正令自己感到享受和满足的事情之中。
换句话说：
所谓“多巴胺戒断”或许确实值得尝试——只不过，人们通常用来解释它为什么有效的那套“多巴胺重置”机制，本身是混乱甚至错误的。
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