Throughout life, I used music for many things.
But 4039 saved songs and 91 created playlists later, I’ve realized, that I don’t enjoy music anymore. That I don’t listen to music to listen to music but to squeeze a little more dopamine out of ordinary life. And I don’t like that, so I’ve decided to try a radical experiment. Go 7 days without listening to anything.
In the last few weeks, I’ve realized something alarming about my day-to-day life. I’m constantly stimulating myself with music. From the moment I wake up, until the moment I go to sleep I constantly listen to something. I do it while I eat, while I walk, travel, exercise, and even work.
This isn’t anything totally new, when you look back to my Spotify wrapped from the last two years, you can see that I’ve spent an average of 5 hours every day listening to music. I never felt it being something bad, I just thought I like the music and it was okay to enjoy it.
This mindset changed a week ago when I forgot my headphones at home and had to spend an entire day without them. I knew it will be uncomfortable but I didn’t put as much emphasis on the situation. But then, something happened, something that most people won’t even realize but to me, it was a wake-up call I needed. I was standing at a station, waiting on a bus, and as I was looking around, without thinking I reached for my ear, tapping it to skip a song, but the thing is, I had no headphones in my ear, there was no music. My brain didn’t want to listen to a different song. It wanted another hit of dopamine.
At that moment I realized I’m just like the rat from the experiment, pushing a button every time I need a dopamine hit. Music for me was no longer an enjoyable activity, it was a drug that I had constantly within my reach.
So I’ve decided to continue with this accidental experiment to see what will happen in my day-to-day life when I cut off something that was for so long such an inherent part of it.
I also realized that the root problem isn’t actually music to be precise, but the constant stimulation. This means I not only stopped listening to music, but I also podcasts, I stopped scrolling through social media, and watching YouTube videos. You can call it Monk mode, Dopamine detox, or any other trendy name. For me it was an experiment to find out how it feels to be alive, without constantly stimulating my brain with easily accessible dopamine.
Throughout the week I got great moments and not so great thanks to not having headphones in my ears all the time. Especially the last realization I had at the end of the experiment blew my mind, make sure you wait on this one.
But I don’t want to skip anything, let’s start at the beginning.
One of the first activities I did without music and headphones was the gym. I was even lucky to be there at a time when a lady behind the bar was too lazy to play some music which meant all I heard were strikes of iron and my own thoughts. It was a refreshing experience, I was able to concentrate more on my technique and muscle-mind connection. The workout was quicker and the pump was better. However, this wasn’t the rule throughout the week. Sometimes when the gym was fuller, I felt a little distracted by people around me, and especially when I was running longer distances on a treadmill, I realized how boring this activity can actually be.
I can watch these facts from two perspectives. I can either get frustrated by that and conclude it is better to isolate myself with headphones, or, use it as an opportunity to train my discipline as well. When I’m not listening to music, there’s nothing to help me get through the workout when I feel tired or frustrated. There’s just me, my head, and my (sometimes fucked) thoughts. All this time I was avoiding these confrontations but what I’ve realized throughout the week is, that I can handle them, and I can gather even more benefits from working out than with the headphones in my head. I don’t train just my muscles, but my mind as well.
The notion of having nothing to cope with my thoughts expanded to the rest of the day as well. As I’ve cut off the music, YouTube videos, and podcasts as well I’ve had an incredible opportunity to analyze my life. To give you a context, I meditate and journal daily and I always thought that it was enough to filter out my most important thoughts, ideas, and anxieties but I’ve realized that there’s just so much more appearing throughout the day that I’m unable to catch during the 30 minutes of sitting in a lotus position or writing into a diary. I’ve realized how raw life is. How boring it is, but at the same time, how colorful and exciting this everyday blankness and boredom can become.
When you’re waiting at the station for a bus with your headphones, then everything feels the same. Same people, same weather, same place, everything is blank, normal. But once you open your mind to this normality, you realize how unique every moment is, how rich and interesting the world around you actually is. Everything feels better. More colorful. Like coming out from a dark cave to the light or switching from a black & white filter to a normal one.
The thing that also felt much better was the music. And I know that this video is about how I didn’t listen to music for 7 days, but to be honest it was impossible. I didn’t listen to my music, but I wasn’t able to avoid the music around me completely. In a gym especially. And what I found out was fascinating. Every time I heard a song, I felt so great and energized. I enjoyed even the songs from genres I don’t usually listen to. The more rare the experience was, the better it felt, which hints to me a way I can utilize music in a more healthy way in the future.
The next thing that got affected a lot was my consumption/creation ratio. I naturally tended to lean much more toward creating than consuming during the week.
“The less I listen to something, the more I feel a need to talk, to think. The less I consume, the more I want to create, and to feel, and to be.”
And the last, and probably the most important breakthrough happened only a few days ago. I realized how many little moments of gratitude I’m able to catch during the day that I wouldn’t be able to catch if I were consuming something, and how are those moments outnumbering the unpleasant, uncomfortable ones, that are appearing as well, that I would be able to avoid if I listened to something.
“The less I listen to something, the more I’m able to catch those little moments of gratitude, of being alive, of being happy to be here.”
I’m happy to be here. And that leads me to the end of this week. End of this experiment.
“But what shall I do now?”
What I presented to you were mostly the positive aspects of this ‘detox’, but what I also realized was just how much I do love the music. How much I wanted to just sit down and play something, how much I wanted to make things like cooking or cleaning a house a little more enjoyable by listening to some good tunes. And how much it makes me sad and frustrated that I can’t experience these things at all. I realized that I love music too much to leave it completely out of my life.
But I’ve also realized, that too much of a good thing leads to a bad thing. I’ve realized that by listening to music all the time, I won’t be able to enjoy the moments I deliberately decide to listen to something. This leads me to the idea of “no headphone zones and activities” I’ve come up with a list of rules and limitations I shall use, to be able to enjoy the music, but at the same time to avoid falling again into an overstimulating spiral. The main one is, that I won’t use headphones when I’m in a gym or in public. This means that I will have multiple blocks during the day I won’t be connected to anything and be able to just circle through my thoughts. Another limitation I will put on myself is the music I will use during work. In calm environments where I can work distraction-free, I will try to work without headphones. When it comes to working during the day when the environment is too busy and I need headphones to disconnect and concentrate I will limit the type of music to some lyrics-free lo-fi or nature-type sounds to avoid getting stimulated by it too much.
And in the end, I will listen to music much more mindfully. When I want to listen to some specific song, emphasize some specific mood, or just chill out and relax for a little.
I will play music to enjoy it, not to escape from something. And when you think about it. This should go about any other pleasant activity you have in life. You should do it because you enjoy it, not because you want to escape something else. Because at that moment, it is no longer a pleasant activity, it’s an addiction.
And with this point, I want to close up this essay. Before I end, I want you to think about your life. What is the one thing you can’t imagine your life without? What is something you do so often you don’t even think about it? Maybe it is music as well, social media scrolling, chatting, or anything else. Try to go one day without it and then think about how it makes you feel. Do you feel some unpleasant thoughts? Are you bored? Anxious? Stressed? Are you catching yourself doing some automatic actions like pulling out your phone or skipping songs? Then try to think about what you can change to make the relationship between you and this activity healthier and more beneficial to you.