The doctor and the patient in this moment. Well, we don't all have the same dopamine reward systems because I tried romance novels and they didn't totally do it for me. But there must have been an interesting moment of recognition for you as you were reading a romance novel to in the morning, realizing like, what am I doing? The incontinence of our own desires produces a powerful shame reaction that makes it difficult to talk about.
In “Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence,” Dr. Anna Lembke says today’s superabundance of pleasurable stimuli makes us all vulnerable to overindulgence. But don’t lose hope. Anna, the medical director of addiction medicine at Stanford, says that by understanding how modern stimulants — from Instagram to masturbation machines — prey on our primitive brains, we can find ways to overcome the unhealthy dependencies that prevent us from leading balanced lives.
(This episode originally aired in December 2021.)
Host: Rufus Griscom
Guest: Anna Lembke
Executive Producer: Caleb Bissinger
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