Scrolling for hours with no meaning is never rewarding, yet so many do it, myself included, although I’m not on TikTok yet, and I hope I’ll never have to be, some days I find myself spending too much time on YouTube & Instagram, so here I am reading Dopamine Nation to get a better understanding of why I do what I do and what I can do about it to pursue healthier habits.
Rating: 3/5 (very good) – I’d recommend it to people who spend too much time pursuing cheap dopamine and instant gratification. It’s nice to see Dr. Lembkes share her experience with addiction to romance novels, binging them to escape her everyday stress which over time escalated into compulsive consumption. Despite recognising the negative effects, she found it difficult to stop. This realisation helped her empathise more deeply with her patients in her day to day job as an addiction psychiatrist.
Scoring: 1 – don’t bother, 2 – ok, 3 – very good, 4 – great, 5- must read.
Key Insights
What fires together wires together
“Neurons that fire together, wire together” – I’ve come across this phrase a few times in the brain and addiction books I’ve read to date. It’s an important concept to understand because it is fundamental to how brains operate.
Imagine your brain is like a big garden with lots of paths. Every time you do something, like exercise, watch netflix or use social media it’s like walking on one of those paths.
When you walk on the same path a lot, it gets clearer and easier to follow, like when the grass gets pushed down and the path becomes smooth. That’s what “wiring together” means. Your brain makes that path stronger because it thinks, “Oh, they’re using this path a lot—it must be important!”
Now, if you stop using a path, the grass grows back, and it becomes harder to find. That’s how you can forget things or stop bad habits.
The more you do something, the easier it is for your brain to remember or do it again next time. It’s your brain’s way of getting really good at things you practice.
When you start exercising, it’s hard at first because your brain hasn’t connected exercise with feeling good. But each time you work out and feel proud or energetic, those neurons fire together and create a stronger connection. Over time, your brain wires exercise to positive feelings, making it easier to stick to the habit.
Checking social media feels good because your brain gets a dopamine hit from likes, comments, or new posts. Each time you scroll, your brain wires the habit: “boredom → pick up phone → feel rewarded.” Over time, social media becomes automatic, making it hard to stop, even when it’s not satisfying.
Working out wires an active, positive habit that boosts energy and health. Social media wires a passive habit for instant gratification. To change, replace social media use with something engaging, like journaling or reading, and reinforce workouts with positive triggers. Your brain will adapt.
Recovery begins with abstinence
There is no magic pill, no quick tip or hack to fix you in 3 minutes. Abstinence takes time and patience.
Abstinence means stopping something completely for a period of time, especially something that might be harmful or that you’re doing too much of. It’s about giving your body and mind a break so they can reset and heal.
Our brain’s reward system, primarily driven by the neurotransmitter dopamine, is designed to motivate us toward behaviors that ensure survival and satisfaction, like eating, social bonding, or achieving goals. However, modern activities like consuming drugs, overeating junk food, or excessive social media use overstimulate this system, causing a flood of dopamine. Toxic dopamine.
Over time:
- Desensitisation: The brain becomes less responsive to dopamine. Activities that used to bring joy, like enjoying a meal or spending time with friends, feel dull or unsatisfying.
- Dependence: To feel pleasure, the brain relies on repeated hits of the overstimulating activity (e.g., substances, social media, or gaming), creating a cycle of compulsive behavior.
Abstinence breaks this cycle by stopping the overstimulation of the brain’s reward pathway, giving it a chance to reset.
- Resetting Dopamine Levels: When the overstimulation stops, the brain gradually regains sensitivity to natural dopamine levels. This process will take time and feel very uncomfortable initially, as the absence of the habit or substance leads to withdrawal symptoms or low mood.
- Creating Space for Simpler Joys: Once the brain resets, activities like taking a walk, eating a healthy meal, or spending time with loved ones start to feel rewarding again. Abstinence clears the way for these natural, healthier sources of joy.
So commit to abstinence, endure the discomfort, replace with simple pleasures (exercise, read, clean, play tennis just to name a few) & be patient, it takes time.
Questions
- What is dopamine?
- What is cheap dopamine?
- What is good dopamine?
- Why do we feel good when brain releases dopamine?
- What activities increase dopamine?
- What is my drug of choice?
Highlights
- pharmacotherapy alone, without insight, understanding, and the will to change behavior, is unlikely to be successful.
- I ask my patients, “What kinds of barriers can you put into place to make it harder for you to get easy access to your drug of choice?”
- One thing she taught me was that telling the truth was fundamental to her recovery.
- There is a well-known phenomenon in AA called “drunkalogues,” referring to tales of intoxicated
- exploits that are shared to entertain and show off rather than teach and learn. Drunkalogues tend to
- trigger craving rather than promote recovery. The line between honest self-disclosure and a
- manipulative drunkalogue is a fine one.
- Social media has contributed to the problem of the false self by making it far easier for us, and even encouraging us, to curate narratives of our lives that are far from reality. In his online life, my patient Tony, a young man in his twenties, ran every morning to take in the sunrise, spent the day engaged in constructive and ambitious artistic endeavors, and was the recipient of numerous awards. In his real life, he could barely get out of bed, compulsively looked at pornography online, struggled to find gainful employment, and was isolated, depressed, and suicidal. Little of his real day-to-day life was evident on his Facebook page.
- As a parent who is worried about her children’s well-being in a world flooded with dopamine, I’ve tried to incorporate the principles of prosocial shame into our family life. First, we’ve established radical honesty as a core family value. I try hard, not always with success, to model radical honesty in my own behavior. Sometimes as parents we think that by hiding our mistakes and imperfections and only revealing our best selves, we’ll teach our children what is right. But this can have the opposite effect, leading children to feel they must be perfect to be lovable.
- Children begin lying as early as age two. The smarter the kid, the more likely they are to lie, and the better they are at it. Lying tends to decrease between ages three and fourteen, possibly because children become more aware of how lying harms other people.
- The relentless pursuit of pleasure (and avoidance of pain) leads to pain.
- Recovery begins with abstinence.
- Abstinence resets the brain’s reward pathway and with it ourcapacity to take joy in simpler pleasures.
Cheers