In general, I try to not let social media sway my health decisions. If I did, I’d be self-diagnosing myself with tourettes while doing hip thrusts until I could turn a quarter into two dimes and a nickel with my ass. With body dysmorphia on the rise and the negatives of self-therapy coming to light, there seems to be at least some fact-based rationale for my thinking (a rare thing). But nevertheless, I stumbled upon a man suggesting a way to build your dopamine levels back up and I was intrigued.
Part of it was his face. He reminded me of a girl I once dated who was a follower of the Children of God, the cult known for “flirty fishing” to get new members. I couldn’t look away from his dreamy, hypnotic eyes. He could have been talking about the watermelon seed spitting competition in Luling, Texas and I wouldn’t care. But he was talking about dopamine, which was relevant to me.
My dopamine is pretty out of whack from a number of things I’m forgetting due to my memory being foggy from dopamine issues. So I had to try this STORER method Mr. Flirty was proposing. It goes like this:
Stopping the digging
I usually spend anywhere between two to four hours per day reading the news. I’ve done this since I was four years old (strange, I know) and prided myself for it. But about ten years ago this desire for information became doomscrolling, which Mr. Flirty tells me drains my dopamine.
And today I’d been scrolling Reddit more voraciously than normal because I was planning on making a stock options bet. The Orange Man gave his “5-day pause” on the Iran bombing (which conveniently ends after markets close on Friday), and so I know this weekend he’s either going to resume making Iran a smoldering hole in the ground, or say Mission Accomplished and declare a peace deal. My strangle options play would give me money either way… unless nothing happens and stocks trade flat.
I can feel the anxiety building, so I put my phone down. No more Trump, no more Robinhood. I’m stopping the dopamine drain. Time to move onto the next step.
Tuning into my body
Mr. Flirty says tune into my body, the idea being I have to get out of my head and thoughts of 15x returns on a protracted war and build up some energy to “climb” out of this dopamine hole. Right. He suggests a few methods, splashing cold water on my face, hyperventilating, other things that a disturbed person does. I decide on the “crazy monkey shake,” where I must pace back and forth flailing my arms around.
I choose to do my monkey shake in front of the living room windows which face the street (I never want my neighbors to think I’m approachable), and weirdly… I feel better afterwards. There does seem to be some new energy flowing through me. This might not be crack pottery after all. I strut into the next step.
One small win
I’ve now got an ember of energy, which Mr. Flirty says must be fanned into a flame with a “small win.” He suggests I look around me and see “what needs doing,” though with his British accent I hear “wot nyeeds doin’.” I look around my office and see a plant that needs some attention. I get up, fill a glass, dump it in, and… yes, something is definitely happening now. I’m feeling a tickle of invigoration. It’s a feeling I used to get when trading meme stocks years ago. Fantastic. Now I’m ready to embrace the R word.
Regulate, with 10-15mins
Now I’ve got to harness all of this momentum I’ve built into what Mr. Flirty calls a “low resistance, high stability” habit for no longer than 10-15 minutes.
This is where things get pear-shaped for me, because he suggests tasks that range from British (put the kettle on, pop down to the shop for nutritious ingredients) to Stupid (read 3 pages of a book, shave). But the gist of Regulate is “pain first, pleasure later,” as opposed to my dopamine draining M.O. of the exact opposite.
So I pull up Youtube and find BullyJuice, aka your favorite personal trainer. Juice doesn’t give a shit about kettles or shaving, he wants to roast fat. I start the “10 minute HIIT” video and get about halfway through before I collapse doing fake jump roping.
Still though, I’m solidly firing on all cylinders now. I may have let Juice down, but not Mr. Flirty. A news alert pops up on my phone, “Mass text in Iran promotes Trump assassination campaign, $25m pledged.” Doesn’t matter to me now, I’ve got engaging to do.
Engage one target
Mr. Flirty has warned me about this step. He tells me that this is where most people lose the plot because they try and tackle all of the things they’ve been putting off all at once. No, he says, you must choose the one thing to do with your new energy that would make you feel accomplished today.
His suggestions, though less Victorian, are mostly not applicable to me again (30 minute walk, answer 5 open loop messages (don’t know what that means)), so I decide to do one of the more reasonable ones: 60 minutes of work.
For the last few weeks I’d been putting off building my AI stock trading Clawbot that has access to my Robinhood account and a small bank account. I’d outlined the workflow and written the prompt for Claude Code, but I hadn’t had the energy to move forward. Not today. I had the energy and will now.
I spent the next hour building my bot, combining it with a previous Claude Code creation tied to monitoring r/wallstreetbets and a number of other subreddits and news sites. I get the first of four modules working and I feel pretty damn good. Normally I’d need a nap at this time of day, but I was wide awake, full of clarity. You could even say I was refreshed.
Reflect on the signal
This is about mining golden nuggets from the dopamine dip I just climbed out of. I’m supposed to ask myself questions like, “What led to the dopamine dip today?” and “What can I do to avoid the dopamine dip tomorrow?”
Well, I know what led to the dopamine dip… phone, social media, stock trading, drinking, cigars, Reddit front page, Youtube, Youtube, Youtube…
Tomorrow I’ll visit them again. But maybe less so. In fact, I’m thinking about joining Mr. Flirty’s followers.
Look at how much fun they’re having. I almost don't want my puts on oil futures to print, because then it's into the draft they go. Worried about my friends, I grab my phone to see what Orange Man is saying now.
No, no, put it down. Alright, "Stop the drain..."
