Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence

A study of skydivers compared to a control group (rowers) found that repeat skydivers were more likely to experience anhedonia, a lack of joy, in the rest of their lives.

The authors wrote that “skydiving has similarities with addictive behaviors and that frequent exposure to ‘natural high’ experiences is related to anhedonia.”

Scientists have shown that stress alone can increase the release of dopamine in the brain’s reward pathway, leading to the same brain changes seen with addictive drugs like cocaine and methamphetamine.

In humans, high levels of physical activity in junior high, high school, and early adulthood predict lower levels of drug use.

Among Japanese citizens living outside the epicenter of the 1945 nuclear attack, those with low-dose radiation exposure may have shown marginally longer lifespans and decreased rates of cancer compared to un-irradiated individuals

We’ve all experienced some version of pain giving way to pleasure. Perhaps like Socrates, you’ve noticed an improved mood after a period of being ill, or felt a runner’s high after exercise, or took inexplicable pleasure in a scary movie. Just as pain is the price we pay for pleasure, so too is pleasure our reward for pain.

Unlike pressing on the pleasure side, the dopamine that comes from pain is indirect and potentially more enduring. So how does it work?

Pain leads to pleasure by triggering the body’s own regulating homeostatic mechanisms. In this case, the initial pain stimulus is followed by gremlins hopping on the pleasure side of the balance.

The ancient Greeks developed a heating system for public baths but continued to advocate for the use of cold water to treat a variety of ailments. In the 1920s, a German farmer named Vincenz Priessnitz promoted the use of ice-cold water to cure all manner of physical and psychological disorders. He went so far as to turn his home into a sanitarium

My patient Jasmine came to me seeking help for excessive alcohol consumption, up to ten beers every day. As part of the treatment, I advised her to remove all alcohol from her home as a self-binding strategy. She mostly took my advice, with a twist.

She removed all alcohol save one beer, which she left in her refrigerator. She called it her “totemic

In today’s dopamine-rich ecosystem, we’ve all become primed for immediate gratification. We want to buy something, and the next day it shows up on our doorstep. We want to know something, and the next second the answer appears on our screen. Are we losing the knack of puzzling things out, or being frustrated while we search for the answer, or havin