Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence

Exercise has a more profound and sustained positive effect on mood, anxiety, cognition, energy, and sleep than any pill I can prescribe.

Addiction broadly defined is the continued and compulsive consumption of a substance or behavior (gambling, gaming, sex) despite its harm to self and/or others.

With intermittent exposure to pain, our natural hedonic set point gets weighted to the side of pleasure, such that we become less vulnerable to pain and more able to feel pleasure over time.

Human beings, the ultimate seekers, have responded too well to the challenge of pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain. As a result, we’ve transformed the world from a place of scarcity to a place of overwhelming abundance. Our brains are not evolved for this world of plenty. As Dr. Tom Finucane, who studies diabetes in the setting of chronic sedentar

The neuroscientist Samuel McClure and his colleagues examined what parts of the brain are involved in choosing immediate versus delayed rewards. They found that when participants chose immediate rewards, emotion- and reward-processing parts of the brain lit up. When participants delayed their reward, the prefrontal cortex—the part of the brain invo

“The pleasure I derive from Sunday service depends not just on my own inputs but also on the inputs of others: how many others attend, how warmly they greet me, how well they sing, how enthusiastically they read and pray.” Club goods are strengthened by active participation in group activities and gatherings, and by adherence to group rules and nor

The d in DOPAMINE stands for data. I begin by gathering the simple facts of consumption.

As philosopher and theologian Kent Dunnington wrote, “Persons with severe addictions are among those contemporary prophets that we ignore to our own demise, for they show us who we truly are.”

“Do you still want to be using cannabis like this ten years from now?”

urge you to find a way to immerse yourself fully in the life that you’ve been given. To stop running from whatever you’re trying to escape, and instead to stop, and turn, and face whatever it is. Then I dare you to walk toward it. In this way, the world may reveal itself to you as something magical and awe-inspiring that does not require escape. In