By protecting our children from adversity, have we made them deathly afraid of it? By bolstering their self-esteem with false praise and a lack of real-world consequences, have we made them less tolerant, more entitled, and ignorant of their own character defects? By giving in to their every desire, have we encouraged a new age of hedonism?

Many of us use high-dopamine substances and behaviors to distract ourselves from our own thoughts. When we first stop using dopamine to escape, those painful thoughts, emotions, and sensations come crashing down on us.

Our brains are not evolved for this world of plenty. As Dr. Tom Finucane, who studies diabetes in the setting of chronic sedentary feeding, said, “We are cacti in the rain forest.” And like cacti adapted to an arid climate, we are drowning in dopamine.

Beyond neurotransmitters, extreme cold in animals has been shown to promote neuronal growth, all the more remarkable since neurons are known to alter their microstructure in response to only a small handful of circumstances.

But the positive impact of Prohibition on alcohol consumption and related morbidity is widely underrecognized. The reduced drinking effects of Prohibition persisted through the 1950s. Over the subsequent thirty years, as alcohol became more available again, consumption steadily increased.

She thought about that for a moment. “But it’s so boring,” she said. “Yes, that’s true,” I said. “Boredom is not just boring. It can also be terrifying. It forces us to come face-to-face with bigger questions of meaning and purpose. But boredom is also an opportunity for discovery and invention. It creates the space necessary for a new thought to f

Prosocial shame mitigates the emotional experience of shame and helps us stop or reduce the shameful behavior. With that in mind,

First, most of us are unable to see the full extent of the consequences of our drug use while we’re still using. High-dopamine substances and behaviors cloud our ability to accurately assess cause and effect.

Not that you’ll find that in any psychiatry textbook. It’s just something I’ve noticed after decades seeing patients: When people get better, everything holds together and has a rightness. Jacob had a rightness to him that day.