E125 - Dr. Anna Lembke: Addiction To Dopamine Enslaves Us, Reclaim Your Mind & Life

In a world of overindulgence, from drugs, food, news, and social media, Dr. Anna Lembke reveals the science that explains why the relentless pursuit of pleasure leads to pain... and what to do about it. She explains how addiction works in the brain and how this plays out on an individual level from the micro decisions we make every single day to the macro. She shares the proven methods to escaping this cycle of suffering and how by intentionally choosing pain through healthy practices like cold plunges, exercise, and meditation, we can reset our dopamine levels in our brain. 

She explores the concept of delayed gratification as defined by "The Marshmallow Experiment" which discovered a correlation between success in life and ability to delay gratification. 

This episode is full or practical takeaways for anyone looking to better understand their brain and relationship to dopamine/addiction.

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0:00 Intro 

2:27 Defining Addiction and Dopamine 

8:25 How Pleasure & Pain Work in the Brain

14:01 Our Biology Dooms Us in the Modern World

16:32 The Plenty Paradox: Convenience is Killing Us

22:05 Cold Plunges, Exercise, & Mediation: Healthy 'Pain' that Balances Our Dopamine

25:09 Resetting through Vipassana & Darkness Retreats

34:58 How She Started Doing This Work

37:43 Spectrum of Addiction: From the Intense to the Subtle

41:30 Becoming Resilient to Addiction

44:25 Ad: Sleep Better with Birch Mattress & Save 25%

45:40 Breaking the Cycle of Shame and Guilt

51:23 Shedding an Addiction to Your Identity

56:02 The Pain That’s Good For You

58:15 4 Things that Determine Addiction Risk 

1:02:00 Danger of Social Media Addiction

1:09:44 Strategies for Overcoming Compulsive Behaviors 

1:13:09 How Our Morning Sets Us Up For Success (or failure!)

1:14:37 Delayed Gratification: The Marshmallow Experiment 

1:20:05 Practices to Change Negative Behaviors

1:26:11 Your Personal Growth Changes the World

1:28:39 The Beauty that Hides in Pain

1:31:55 Conclusion 

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Dr. Anna Lembke received her undergraduate degree in Humanities from Yale University and her medical degree from Stanford University. She is currently Professor and Medical Director of Addiction Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine. She is also Program Director of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Fellowship, Chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic, and a diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and the American Board of Addiction Medicine.

Dr. Lembke appeared in the Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma, an unvarnished look at the impact of social media on our lives.

Her latest book, "Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence" (Dutton/Penguin Random House, August 2021) was an instant New York Times and Los Angeles Times bestseller and has been translated into 30 languages. It combines the neuroscience of addiction with the wisdom of recovery to explore the problem of compulsive overconsumption in a dopamine-overloaded world.

Website: https://www.annalembke.com

Book "Dopamine Nation": https://a.co/d/ccpgrk4

Dopamine Nation Workbook: https://a.co/d/6vADILi

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Know Thyself

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André Duqum

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