Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence

Published Oct. 14, 2021 by Dutton.

ISBN:
978-1-5247-4672-8
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5 stars (2 reviews)

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. …

1 edition

Revealing and Insightful

5 stars

This book is fantastic, a model of combining personal stories, clinical narratives, science, and behavioral analysis. Just as I might be getting distracted during a bit of science or analysis, Lebke includes an anecdote from her personal life or one of her patient’s. (All stories are included with the explicit consent of the owner. Lembke even includes a bit of information about how she collected the consent at the end of the book.)

The book begins with some clinical definitions, one being that the measure of dopamine generated in neural pathways is how scientists measure the addictiveness of a substance or behavior. From there, she takes the reader into an unusual story of a patient addicted to sexual edging. The stories of this patient and others are revisited frequently throughout the book as their stories apply to the information in each chapter.

As the book moves into the balance of …

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