Navigating Dopamine, Addiction, and Mental Health: Seeking balance in an Age of Indulgence
Audio only version
Show Description
Join us in this insightful interview for The MindHealth360 Show and the How To Academy with Dr. Anna Lembke, Professor of Psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine and author of the best-selling Dopamine Nation. In this interview, Dr. Lembke explores the intricate balance between pleasure and pain governed by our brain’s dopamine levels, and offers valuable strategies for finding balance in an age of indulgence. With the rise of digital drugs and behavioural addictions, such as social media, online shopping, gaming, and gambling, Dr. Lembke discusses the need for balance and the pursuit of pain in a world obsessed with quick dopamine hits. She explains that our biological mechanism of seeking pleasure and avoiding pain is well-suited for a world of scarcity, but it is mismatched for the overwhelming abundance of rewards in today’s society, leading to a global mental health crisis and addiction issues.
Dr. Lembke provides a deeper understanding of the neurobiology of pleasure and pain, shedding light on how these mechanisms work in the brain and their impact on mental health. She also teaches us to recognise and address addictive behaviours, whether related to substances or digital activities for greater health and happiness.
Learn about:
- How the rise of digital drugs and behavioural addictions, such as online sex, video games, social media, online shopping, and online gambling, are having devastating effects similar to drug and alcohol addiction
- The neurobiological mechanisms of pleasure and pain in the brain and the consequences of excessive stimulation
- Why dopamine and endorphins from painful experiences are longer lasting, challenging the idea that pleasure is the ultimate goal
- Demographic changes in those facing addiction, and why this is happening
- How avoiding challenges and pain is making people less mentally resilient and more unhappy
- How bombarding our brains with highly reinforcing substances and behaviours that release a lot of dopamine will cause a down-regulation of dopamine transmission, leading to a dopamine deficit state akin to clinical depression and anxiety
- How to deal with digital addiction for sustainable recovery
- Why learning to sit with discomfort, rather than relying on painkillers and antidepressants, may be a more effective approach to managing physical and mental pain
- Why radical honesty and creating intimacy are key to healing, due to the link between dopamine and oxytocin
- How digital devices are causing addiction and atrophy of the prefrontal cortex, which is especially concerning for children and adolescents
- Why we need companies, schools, and the government to come together and rethink the integration of technology and implement regulatory interventions to address the negative impact of digital media on children and adolescents
About Dr. Anna Lembke
Anna Lembke, MD is professor of psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine and chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic. A clinician scholar, she has published more than a hundred peer-reviewed papers, book chapters, and commentaries. She sits on the board of several state and national addiction-focused organizations, has testified before various committees in the United States House of Representatives and Senate, keeps an active speaking calendar, and maintains a thriving clinical practice.
In 2016, she published Drug Dealer, MD – How Doctors Were Duped, Patients Got Hooked, and Why It’s So Hard to Stop (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016), which was highlighted in the New York Times as one of the top five books to read to understand the opioid epidemic (Zuger, 2018). Dr. Lembke recently appeared on the Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma, an unvarnished look at the impact of social media on our lives.
Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence (Dutton/Penguin Random House, August 2021), an instant New York Times Bestseller, explores how to moderate compulsive overconsumption in a dopamine-overloaded world.