Dopamine Nation (Anna Lembke, MD)

 

I've been trying to understand why some people don't or seem to be unable to change. This has a lot of good answers to that question.

Notes:

Lessons of the Balance

1. The relentless pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain, leads to pain.

2. Recovery begins with abstinence.

3. Abstinence resets the brain's reward pathway, and with it our capacity to take joy in simple pleasures.

4. Self-binding creates literal and metacognitive space between desire and consumption, a literal necessity in our dopamine overloaded world

5. Medications can restore homeostasis, but consider what we lose by medicating away our pain.

6. Pressing on the pain side re-sets our balance to the side of pleasure.

7. Beware of getting addicted to pain.

8. Radical honesty promotes awareness, enhances intimacy and enhances a plenty mindset.

9. Pro-social shame affirms that we belong to the human tribe.

10. Instead of running away from the world, we can find escape by immersing ourselves in it.

Goodreads says:

This book is about pleasure. It's also about pain. Most important, it's about how to find the delicate balance between the two, and why now more than ever finding balance is essential. We're 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 we've 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 pain...and 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.