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Dopamine Nation
Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence | Dr. Anna Lembke
4 posts | 5 read | 4 to read
Brilliant riveting, scary, cogent, and cleverly argued.Beth Macy, author of Dopesick This book is about pleasure. Its also about pain. Most important, its about how to find the delicate balance between the two, and why now more than ever finding balance is essential. Were living in a time of unprecedented access to high-reward, high-dopamine stimuli: drugs, food, news, gambling, shopping, gaming, texting, sexting, Facebooking, Instagramming, YouTubing, tweeting The increased numbers, variety, and potency is staggering. The smartphone is the modern-day hypodermic needle, delivering digital dopamine 24/7 for a wired generation. As such weve all become vulnerable to compulsive overconsumption. In Dopamine Nation, Dr. Anna Lembke, psychiatrist and author, explores the exciting new scientific discoveries that explain why the relentless pursuit of pleasure leads to painand what to do about it. Condensing complex neuroscience into easy-to-understand metaphors, Lembke illustrates how finding contentment and connectedness means keeping dopamine in check. The lived experiences of her patients are the gripping fabric of her narrative. Their riveting stories of suffering and redemption give us all hope for managing our consumption and transforming our lives. In essence, Dopamine Nation shows that the secret to finding balance is combining the science of desire with the wisdom of recovery.
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jen_the_scribe
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TW: NSFW anecdotes that include topics such as addiction (in many forms), harmful behavior, depression, and suicidal tendencies. Nonetheless I think everyone who is able should read this. Some of it seemed like common sense (although apparently, not so common) but a lot of it included concepts I never even considered. In an increasingly modern world where we give into instant gratification and overconsumption with ease… (continued in comments ⬇️)

jen_the_scribe …we definitely all need to relearn (or learn anew for younger generations) how to reset our pleasure/pain balance (homeostasis). Too much dopamine creates symptoms that mirror mental illness and then we either load up on medications or stimulants (or both) that in turn keep our dopamine out of balance. Dr. Kemble offers insights with the science to back it up so that we can all reset the balance. It seemed unbiased to me, as she mentions… 3mo
jen_the_scribe topics such as religion and medications in the sense that it might help some people, but it‘s not for everyone. She even mentions if abstaining from the thing we‘re addicted to (even things like social media or books 😬) for 30 days doesn‘t help, then that data helps us see that it‘s not dopamine that‘s the issue (but possibly actual mental illness). The author narrates this and does a good job, but she reads slow so I just upped the speed. 3mo
jen_the_scribe Overall, this is an important book and helped me realize that if we take a deeper look, we‘re all addicted to something. The world we live in now makes it so easy to be. And a lot of us need to learn to embrace discomfort more, and to reset while leaning into the simpler joys in life. 3mo
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jen_the_scribe

“We‘ll do anything to distract ourselves from ourselves.”

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jen_the_scribe

“Americans no longer talk to each other, they entertain each other…”

Wow.

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jen_the_scribe
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I‘ve been in a bit of a reading/listening slump lately, and fiction has been hit or miss lately too. So I figured, I might as well learn something while trying to get out of the slump. I‘ve heard good things about this one…

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