Addiction is a progressive narrowing
of the things that bring you pleasure.
Happiness is a progressive expansion of the things that bring you pleasure. The former emerges passively.
The latter takes work.
Addiction is a progressive narrowing of the things that bring you pleasure. Happiness is a progressive expansion of the things that bring you pleasure. The former emerges passively. The latter takes work.
when an addicted person’s brain adapts by counteracting the effect of the drug, the brain then enters a state of deficit when the user is not taking the drug. If dopamine release is pleasurable, dopamine deficit is unpleasant. Ordinary life becomes boring and even painful without the drug. Nothing feels good anymore, except the drug. The addicted p
... See moreJonathan Haidt • The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness
With repeated exposure to the same or similar pleasure stimulus, the initial deviation to the side of pleasure gets weaker and shorter and the after-response to the side of pain gets stronger and longer, a process scientists call neuroadaptation. That
Anna Lembke • Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence
But herein lies the problem. 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 th
... See moreAnna Lembke • Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence
One key to happiness, then, is to forestall the adaptation process: We need to take steps to prevent ourselves from taking for granted, once we get them, the things we worked so hard to get.
William B. Irvine • A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy
Addiction is really about the relationship between the person and the experience.” It isn’t enough to ply someone with a drug or a behavior—that person also has to learn that the experience is a viable treatment for whatever ails them psychologically.