Dopamine Nation

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1-Page Summary
In Dopamine Nation, Stanford University psychiatrist and addiction treatment expert
Anna Lembke argues that addiction is just an extreme form of a universal problem: the
compulsive pursuit of neurochemical rewards at the expense of your own
happiness. In other words, the treatments that work for severe addictions can work for
everyday overindulgence as well.

Most people have issues controlling their consumption of pleasurable things—such as

junk food, pornography, social media, or binging on their favorite YouTube channels.
Lembke draws on contemporary neuroscience and the stories of her patients to take a
close look at the reasons for overindulgence and provide clear directives on taking back
control of your behavior. This guide will introduce you to her main ideas while connecting
them to outside psychological findings that explain the brain chemistry at work. We also
supplement her strategies with targeted solutions from behavioral experts to improve
your chances of overcoming your indulgent behaviors, once and for all.

Our guide will take you through the core ideas of Dopamine Nation in four parts.

Part #1: Why People Are Driven to Overindulge covers how industrial
societies create the perfect conditions for overindulgence.
Part #2: How Your Brain Chemistry Encourages Overindulgence explains
the basics of how your chemical reward system keeps you overindulging.
Part #3: Working With Your Brain To Overcome Overindulgence covers
Lembke’s strategies to restore your brain's chemical balance.
Part #4: Overcoming Emotional Obstacles discusses the emotional reasons
why people fall into patterns of overindulgence and how to address these issues.

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 What Counts as an Addiction?

Lembke argues that the treatments helpful to severe addicts will shed light on how you
can control your everyday compulsive behaviors. However, it’s worth considering that
psychologists are not in complete agreement with each other about what should be
considered an addiction, and may therefore disagree with Lembke, asserting that we must
draw sharper distinctions between various forms of overindulgence.

Some argue that the term “addiction” has become overused in everyday speech. They
contend that thinking of everything as an addiction muddies the waters about specific
treatments for specific issues. These psychologists advocate a narrower definition of
addiction: a neurological dependency on outside chemicals not normally found in the
brain. Under this rubric, cocaine can be an addiction, but sex cannot.

To stay true to Lembke's argument, we've added commentary throughout this guide to
connect treatment suggestions that may be specific to addiction (like joining a support
group) with advice to address milder forms of overindulgence (like talking with a supportive
group of friends).

Part #1: Why We Are Driven to Overindulge

Lembke begins by explaining that overindulgence is a widespread and growing issue. She
attributes this growth to the interaction of three distinct factors. In this section, we'll take
a look at each factor and then explain how they work together to create a cycle of
overindulgence.

1. Human brains evolved to thrive in scarcity. Your brain is designed to solve the
problem of scarce resources. In our early hunter-gatherer days, food and other resources
were hard to find, and those who had the strongest motivation to seek it out would have
an advantage. Because obtaining pleasurable goods—such as food—results in the release
of a neurochemical reward, your brain has evolved a very strong motivation to continue
pursuing pleasurable goods.

(Shortform note: To understand why our brains are primed for pursuit of pleasure, it
helps to recognize that desire is a much stronger motivator than possession. In
Robert Greene's The Laws of Human Nature, he argues that having something will only
provide a brief experience of satisfaction before desire will motivate you to pursue
something else. This means your mind's evolved motivation for neurochemical rewards is
perfectly tuned to repetitively seek out a reward.)

2. Industrialization provides abundance. People in industrialized nations now

experience an abundance of food, entertainment, narcotics, and other pleasure-inducing
goods. The intense motivation to seek neurochemical rewards that served your ancestors
so well now leads to overconsumption—your brain still behaves as if you could run
out of these pleasurable goods at any moment, and encourages excessive pursuit.

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3. Leisure time provides opportunities for overconsumption. In industrial
societies, survival requires less daily effort: You no longer have to gather food all day or
move every time there's a drought. The consequent increase in leisure time creates
opportunities for compulsive consumption—when you don’t have to spend your time on
basic survival, you can redirect that time to pleasurable activities. Hunter-gatherers didn't
have time to play video games all day, but people in industrial societies often do.

Does Abundance Create Indulgence?

Lembke contends that the overabundance found in industrial societies creates opportunities
to compulsively overindulge. In other words, she says, greater supply leads to greater
demand. However, some would disagree with this formulation. The economist John
Maynard Keynes rejected the idea that supply could create demand. He argued that if people
desired things simply because they were abundant, then businesses could make money by
producing anything they wanted—there would always be a market for their products. He
contended that businesses are only profitable when they produce supply in response to the
consumer demand that already exists.

That said, Lembke's position has strong advocates as well. David T. Courtwright (The Age
of Addiction) argues that demand for addictive goods such as alcohol and cigarettes doesn't
follow the demand-before-supply model perfectly. Companies that sell addictive goods
have an incentive to try to get customers "hooked" on their products by making these
products easily available. The greater the supply, the easier it is to get a “first dose” into
the hands of prospective consumers.

For example, when alcohol companies sponsor sporting events, concerts, and festivals, their
goal is to make their brand of alcohol abundant and easily accessible so that people will try
it—and eventually, become addicted. He argues that through these strategies, businesses are
able to leverage the abundant supply of their addictive goods to create future demand for
their products.

Result: Perfect Conditions for Overindulgence

These three factors work together to create a dangerous cycle of overindulgence: Your
brain is fine-tuned to keep consuming pleasurable goods—and now you have
an abundance of these goods and plenty of time to consume them. Lembke
asserts that rising overconsumption is behind a well-documented decrease in happiness
among industrialized nations, and she highlights the rise in addiction-related deaths in all
age groups between 1990 and 2017.

Even if the odds are stacked against you, it's still possible to overcome your
patterns of overindulgence. However, you'll have to tackle the cycle in both its
dimensions: neurochemical and emotional. Throughout the rest of this guide, we'll
explore both angles—for each, we’ll first discuss the obstacles to changing your habits,
then walk through Lembke's solutions.

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 When Does Free Time Make People Unhappy?

Lembke draws a clear link between excess leisure time and overindulgence. She also
suggests this may be a cause for rising unhappiness in industrialized nations. However,
psychological research shows that leisure time by itself doesn't necessarily decrease
human flourishing. Understanding how much free time to have and how to use your free
time well may prevent you from falling into overindulgence.

Studies have revealed a kind of “goldilocks zone” of free time that increases happiness.
Fewer than two hours of free time per day makes people less happy—but so does more
than five hours. Between two and five hours seems like the optimal range. That said, using
excess free time wisely can mitigate its ill effects. Filling your excess free time with
meaningful hobbies or socializing can make you much happier than activities that feel
hollow, repetitive, or lonely, such as the repetitive consumption of abundantly pleasurable
goods like social media or junk food.

Part #2: How Your Brain Chemistry Encourages Overindulgence

Now that we’ve explored how your evolutionary and social circumstances set you up for
overindulgence, let’s take a closer look at the role your brain's natural chemistry plays.
Lembke writes that the balance of chemicals in your brain can either present
enormous obstacles to overcoming overindulgence—or be part of the
solution. Understanding your brain's natural tendencies will help you change your
behavior by working with your brain instead of against it.

In this section, we'll first take a look at the chemical largely responsible for cyclical
overindulgence: dopamine. Then, we’ll examine how pain and pleasure interact
neurologically to drive the cycle of overconsumption.

What Is Dopamine and How Does It Drive Overindulgence?

Contrary to popular misconception, dopamine isn’t the “happy chemical”

that releases when you receive something pleasurable—it’s the chemical that
motivates you to seek out pleasure. Studies have shown this chemical is largely
responsible for overindulgence because it drives you to continually seek out pleasurable
activities. Some of the highest dopamine-driven activities include gambling, shopping,
sex, and using cocaine or methamphetamines. However, Lembke points out that “high-
dopamine activities” are not the same for everyone—the high-dopamine activity that
motivates you to indulge compulsively may be something “milder” like sugar, video
games, or social media.

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 Are Some Activities Designed to Be Addictive?

Understanding that dopamine is the chemical that drives our pleasure-seeking sheds light on
how many of the activities people engage with every day are designed to manipulate
their brains and keep them in a state of overindulgence. Game designers in particular
have realized that your brain releases dopamine when you feel you are close to obtaining a
reward. Therefore, they’ve developed proven strategies to make you feel close to winning—
and therefore engaged in—their games. Let’s explore three of the most common tactics:

1. Dangling a large unobtainable reward. If you are constantly reminded that you have a
chance to hit the jackpot, you will remain in a state of dopamine arousal. For example,
carnival games often display one big prize, like a giant stuffed animal, that's almost
impossible to win.

2. The "near miss" effect. Players are likely to experience a rush of dopamine if they feel
they almost got a reward, and might get it on their next try. For example, a slot machine
requiring you to match three characters will create a "near miss" effect if you match two of
them, making it feel like you were closer to winning than you really were.

3. Unpredictable rewards. Studies have found games that reward players unpredictably are
more addictive than games with predictable rewards. Unpredictable rewards mean that
there's always a possibility that you could win big on the next play. Gambling is the most
obvious example, but consider that popular video games like World of Warcraft use this too.
If monsters drop loot randomly, then the next monster you defeat could always be the one
that drops a rare item.

How Pain and Pleasure Drive Overconsumption

People engage in high-dopamine activities because they lead to pleasure—and in turn, this
pleasure keeps you locked in a cyclical loop of overindulgence. In this section, we’ll
explore how pleasure—and pain—play a part in this cycle.

Neuroscientists have discovered that pain and pleasure are processed in the same
parts of the brain. When you’re feeling pain, you won’t feel pleasure and vice versa.
Lembke encourages you to imagine this system as a seesaw that tilts in either the
direction of pleasure or pain.

When you engage in your high-dopamine activities, you "press down" on the pleasure side
of the seesaw. This not only causes pleasure, but it also "lifts up" the pain side, alleviating
your pain. Unfortunately, using pleasure to alleviate pain comes with a catch. Lembke
explains that the brain has a natural tendency to balance out the seesaw, seeking
what neuroscientists call “homeostasis.” If you press constantly on the pleasure
side by overindulging in pleasurable things, the brain will naturally heap more “weight”
on the pain side of the seesaw to keep your system in balance.

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(Shortform note: Biology demonstrates why your body has such a powerful drive for
homeostasis. Studies have found that all living things strive for homeostasis, even at the
cellular level because your cells and organs function best when they are in a
predictable environment. If your brain swings unpredictably between pleasure or
pain—thereby frequently changing the environment—it will have to devote energy to
adjusting to the environment and optimizing function. Your brain avoids having to
expend this additional energy by counterbalancing environmental changes—remaining in
a neutral, predictable state.)

How the Pain/Pleasure Balance Makes It Hard to Stop Indulging

The excess “pain weight” that counterbalances pleasure can lock you into a cycle of
overindulgence because of two factors that work together.

1. You build up a tolerance to pleasure. Each repeated experience of pleasure

will have less of an impact because it must push against more weight on the pain
side. This is why your fifth trip to the casino won’t feel as good as your first.
2. You can set your default balance to pain. As you build up "pain weight" over
time, it will keep weighing down the pain side of your seesaw, even when you aren't
doing anything pleasurable. Therefore your default state—when you're not doing
anything painful or pleasurable—will be feeling bad instead of feeling neutral.

These two factors have a cyclical effect: You feel pain when you stop consuming
because of the extra weight placed on the pain side. This pain creates an incentive to
consume again and go back to feeling okay. However, each act of consumption will have
less effect than the one before, enticing you to indulge more than before. This, in turn,
keeps adding weight to the pain side, digging you deeper and deeper into a negative
feedback loop.

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 How Pain and Pleasure Motivate Us

Rather than using the seesaw metaphor, some researchers argue that what's actually
happening with pain and pleasure is that they are each taking turns directing your
motivational circuits. The motivational circuits are the pathways your behavior-motivating
chemicals follow toward various goals, informed by inputs from different parts of your
brain. Understanding how pleasure and pain influence these circuits can shed further light
on why overindulgent behaviors feel cyclical as if you’re caught in a loop.

Pain and pleasure are both responses evolved to motivate your behavior. However, your pain
and pleasure motivations are meant to trigger behavior in distinctly different situations,
because they motivate such different behaviors. Pleasure motivates you to move toward
helpful things (finishing a delicious meal). Pain motivates you to move away from harmful
things (taking your hand off of a hot stove).

However, once you start using pleasure as a strategy to alleviate pain, you will have both
influencing your motivational circuit in the same situation. Now that avoiding pain and
obtaining pleasure are the same activity, these two sources of motivation can take turns
propelling you toward the same behavior over and over.

Part #3: Working With Your Brain to Overcome Overindulgence

By understanding your brain's natural motivations for overindulgence, you can then
understand how to circumvent those motivations and break the cycle. In this section, we’ll
explore Lembke’s two tools for resetting your balance: abstinence from pleasure and
therapeutic pain.

Solution #1: Abstain From Pleasure

Lembke's first strategy for restoring balance is to abstain from your high-dopamine
activities for two to four weeks. Remember that repeated indulgence in pleasurable
activities induces the brain to balance your seesaw by adding "pain weight." By abstaining
from pleasurable activities—therefore not adding “pleasure weight”—you let your brain
recalibrate and take the pain weight off.

However, as Lembke notes, this solution is far from perfect. Abstaining from pleasure
requires a lot of self-discipline. The early stages are often accompanied by painful
feelings of withdrawal—you’ll have to voluntarily endure this pain without giving into the
temptation of relieving it. Once you get through the withdrawal period, you’ll no longer
feel the need to indulge.

(Shortform note: Another reason abstaining from pleasure is challenging is because it

forces you to work against your habits. In The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg provides
clarity on what makes habits so hard to break. He writes that your brain uses habits to
save energy: Once a repeated action becomes automatic, you no longer have to think

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about it or make a decision.This frees up energy for other activities. When you try to break
habits—good or bad—your brain will resist your attempts because it naturally wants to
avoid having to expend more energy on decision-making.)

What Is Dopamine Fasting?

The practice of abstaining from pleasure to reset your pain-pleasure balance is widely
referred to in popular culture as a "dopamine fast." Lembke uses the term herself
throughout Dopamine Nation. However, this term has drawn a lot of criticism—here we’ll
explore three of the most common criticisms.

1. Dopamine is essential for your body's natural functioning, so you can't actually
"fast" from it. Dopamine plays an important role in digestion, kidney function, blood
pressure regulation, lactation, and even color sensitivity. While you can decrease the amount
of dopamine released in your brain, you can never get to zero—nor should you want to.

2. Some critics contend that dopamine fasting is simply a buzzy rebranding of common
sense wisdom that has been around for centuries. Many religious traditions include
periods of abstinence such as weekly Sabbath days or longer fasts like Ramadan and Lent.
However, defenders of dopamine fasting would point out that if people have been using this
strategy for self-improvement across centuries and cultures, that only provides evidence of
its value.

3. It's led to some weird behavior. There are accounts of people avoiding eye contact,
conversations, busy streets, and even the smell of food—all to avoid the release of dopamine
in their brains. This seems to arise from people believing they need to avoid all activities
that could release dopamine. However, Lembke is clear that you mainly need to avoid the
activities you engage in compulsively, such as scrolling through social media or eating
chips. Unless you struggle with compulsively making eye contact or smelling food, these
aren’t things you need to avoid.

Strategies for Abstaining From Pleasure

Since abstaining from pleasure requires a lot of self-control, Lembke recommends
developing a strategy to improve your chances of success. She divides possible
strategies into three general categories: spatial, temporal, and associational restrictions.

1) Spatial restrictions: Make it physically harder to engage in your high-

dopamine activity. By creating more of a physical distance or barrier between yourself
and your object of indulgence, you give yourself more of an opportunity to think twice and
interrupt thoughtless or automatic habits of consumption. For example, this could take
the form of throwing out your junk food or deleting a social media app.

2) Temporal restrictions: Reduce overindulgence by setting time limits on when,

how often, and for how long you can indulge. This will increase your awareness of
how much you are indulging and prevent you from losing track of time (and consumption.
For example, you could set a timer while playing a video game or only have a cocktail on
Friday nights.

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3) Associational restrictions: Avoid activities that you associate with
indulging. Sometimes an activity will remind you of your high-dopamine activity and
trigger a craving. By avoiding activities that trigger cravings, you will decrease your
frequency of cravings, improving your odds of success. For example, someone who
compulsively gambles may feel a craving triggered by playing any card game, even ones
without betting.

Strengthening Your Willpower

Lembke points out that each of these strategies requires willpower to follow through with
your abstinence. Even if there is distance between you and your high-dopamine activity, you
still need to make the choice to respect that distance. You need discipline to adhere to strict
time limits, as you may be tempted to do an activity "just a little longer." Finally, even if you
avoid most reminders of your temptation, you won't be able to eliminate all reminders.

Fortunately, there are practical steps you can take to increase your willpower, and with it,
your chances of successfully resetting your homeostatic balance through abstinence. In The
Willpower Instinct, Kelly McGonigal writes that your bodily health—specifically your
heart rate variability, or how much time passes between each of your heartbeats—
plays an important role in improving willpower. Generally, she explains, those with a
high heart rate variability have a greater sense of willpower. Two ways that you can increase
your heart rate variability—and thus your willpower—over time are exercise and relaxing
activities like meditating or sitting in a sauna. Consider incorporating exercise and
relaxation habits into your abstinence strategy to improve your willpower and chances of
following through.

Solution #2: Use Therapeutic Pain

Lembke’s second strategy for restoring a neutral homeostasis is to intentionally press

on the “pain” side of the seesaw. Because your brain strives for equilibrium, feeling
pain will cause your brain to take weight away from the pain side. This will undo the
effects of your high tolerance for pleasure, leaving you with a neutrally balanced seesaw
and a “normal” default state, instead of a painful default state that compels you to seek
pleasure for equilibrium. Lembke recommends finding a safe way to experience physical
pain, like regularly taking ice water baths or cold showers.

However, she warns, pressing on the pain lever can itself become an
addiction. If you experience pain too much or too often, your brain will homeostatically
balance its seesaw in the other direction—adding weight to the pleasure side and making
you feel good in response to pain. (This is the reason many endurance athletes feel a high
after completing a triathlon.) Be careful not to simply substitute one pattern of indulgence
for another.

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 The Difference Between Chronic and Acute Pain

At first, it may seem counterintuitive that pain is beneficial to your well-being. However,
pain researchers shed further light on the benefits of pain by dividing it into two categories:
acute and chronic. You experience acute pain in direct response to your environment—
for example, the pain you feel if you put your hand in cold water. Your receptivity to acute
pain is essential to your health, as it compels you to avoid damage to your body. Conversely,
chronic pain is something you experience over long spans of time in response to
something internal, such as a back injury. Chronic pain does not provide a clear health
benefit and often interferes with your life.

Using this distinction, we see that Lembke's strategy is to treat chronic pain with acute
pain: The "pain weight" on your seesaw is internal and long-term (chronic), whereas the ice
water bath is external and short-term (acute). Each experience of acute pain causes your
brain to rebalance itself through homeostasis. This takes weight off the pain side so that a
chronic experience of "pain weight" is no longer your default.

The Difference Between Therapeutic Pain and Self Harm

Lembke writes that self-administered pain can reset your seesaw and change your habits of
overindulgence. However, there's a sharp distinction to be drawn between experiencing
pain in ways that are safe and ways that are harmful.

Though often hidden and stigmatized, between 13 and 23% of teenagers have practiced
some form of self-harm such as cutting, burning, or puncturing their skin. This is often done
to alleviate emotional pain or express self-hatred. Self-harm can also be addictive as it can
create pleasurable feelings.

While some people find that self-harm creates some of the same neurological responses as
therapeutic pain, there is a huge difference in the risk.Taking an ice-cold shower isn’t going
to put you in the hospital. On the other hand, self-harm-related injuries are one of the most
common reasons teenagers go to the emergency room.

Part #4: Overcoming Emotional Obstacles

As you recall, overindulgence is driven by both neurochemical and emotional factors. In

the previous section, we explored the neurochemical factors. In this final section, we'll
explore four of the most common emotional obstacles to breaking out of the
overindulgence cycle, as well as Lembke’s solutions for overcoming each.

Obstacle #1: Prioritizing Long-Term Rewards

Lembke’s first obstacle to overcoming overindulgence is the difficulty of choosing long-

term rewards over short-term ones. Most people prefer the short-term rewards of
indulgence because they are easier to obtain and they feel good right away—only feeling
bad in the long run. On the other hand, stopping your overindulgence and going through
withdrawal feels terrible in the short run, and only feels good after about two to four
weeks.

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Lembke goes on to clarify why we’re primed to ignore positive long-term effects for short-
term gains. She explains that the pursuit of long-term and short-term rewards is
handled by separate parts of the brain. Pursuing short-term rewards relies on
emotional parts of the brain such as the amygdala. Pursuing long-term rewards requires
effort by the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain involved in logic, conceptual thinking,
and long-term planning. In other words, you can chase what is in front of you by acting on
emotional impulse, but prioritizing a delayed reward requires thinking logically about
your goals.

While prioritizing long-term rewards may be hard for most people, those who
compulsively overindulge are placed at a particular disadvantage because
overindulging rewires their brains over time. Researchers have found that people
who compulsively overindulge have lower-than-average connectivity between the reward
pathways and the prefrontal cortex. (Shortform note: Recall, reward pathways are the
channels your motivational chemicals, such as dopamine, take through your brain toward
the various goals your brain sets for them.)This means that the prefrontal cortex is less
likely to interject with a logical argument when you pursue a short-term reward at the
expense of a long-term one.

Why Is It So Hard to Prioritize Long-Term Rewards?

In Predictably Irrational, Dan Ariely explains why prioritizing long-term rewards over
short-term ones is a struggle for most people. He draws a distinction between “cool-state
decisions” and “warm-state decisions.” You’re in a cool state when you feel calm and
collected and in a warm state while experiencing intense emotions. It’s relatively easy to
pursue long-term rewards and make rational decisions when you’re in a cool state. However,
when you’re in a warm state—such as when your brain is flooded with dopamine—it’s
difficult to ignore your emotions or act rationally. He writes that most people are very poor
at predicting how they will react in a warm state—they expect they’ll be able to stick to
their cool-state decisions even when emotionally aroused.

He suggests that the solution to overcoming this gap isn’t a pledge to make better decisions
but to prevent yourself from having to make decisions in a warm state at all. For example,
Lembke’s suggestion to create physical distance from your desired indulgence helps to make
the decision not to indulge for you.

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 How Does Your Behavior Change Your Brain?

Lembke’s discussion of connectivity between the prefrontal cortex and the brain’s reward
pathways is related to the science of neuroplasticity.

Neuroplasticity is your brain’s capacity to create new connections, learn, and change
itself. Neuroscientists have learned this process happens continually based on how you use
your brain. Your neurons grow and form connections in the areas of your brain you use
the most, while they shrink and lose connections in the parts of your brain you use the
least. For example, a musical instrument becomes easier to play the more you practice. But
stop practicing for long enough and it becomes hard again. This is because the act of
practicing uses your neurons involved in playing music, and they grow and shrink in
response.

How does this relate to the pursuit of short- and long-term rewards? If you always pursue
the short-term emotional reward right in front of you, it strengthens the connection between
the emotional parts of your brain and the reward pathways. Meanwhile, because you aren’t
using your prefrontal cortex to think about long-term goals, the lack of activity causes those
neurons to shrink and become disconnected from the reward pathways. Therefore you're less
likely to pursue long-term goals because your brain hasn't built up a strong connection
between prefrontal cortex and reward pathway required to do so.

The Solution: Restore Connectivity With the Prefrontal Cortex

Lembke’s solution is to reinforce the connection between your prefrontal cortex and your
brain's reward pathways through deliberate use of your prefrontal cortex. She advises
you to make an effort to think about your future. Lembke found that just thinking
about what you want your life to look like 10 years down the road activates your prefrontal
cortex, helping you gain perspective and find motivation to change your behavior.

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 Strategies for Prioritizing Long-Term Rewards

Lembke's solution to the challenge of prioritizing long-term rewards is to practice using

your prefrontal cortex so that you gradually develop a stronger capacity for long-term
thinking. However, this solution only yields results after a significant time investment.
Dan Ariely (Predictably Irrational) offers some practical solutions for prioritizing long-term
rewards that you can start applying immediately.

Make pre-commitments. When building habits, commit to things that are hard to
back out of. If you’re committing to abstaining from pleasure, you can create
accountability by doing it with a friend.

Minimize distractions. Create an environment that limits your access to distractions.

If your attention is constantly being pulled in new directions, it’s easier to lose focus
and fall back into automatic behaviors.

Reward yourself. You can reinforce the behaviors that are most important to you by
tying them to a reward. If you're cutting back on social media, set a weekly goal and
treat yourself with a meal out if you achieve it

Obstacle #2: Recognizing and Accepting Your Patterns of Behavior

Lembke names difficulty in accurately recognizing and accepting your patterns

of behavior as the second emotional obstacle. Often, it's hard to see how your behaviors
fit together in a pattern. This once again has to do with the eroded link between the
reward pathways and the logic center of the brain.

Recall that when you repeatedly pursue short-term and emotionally driven rewards, you
decrease the connectivity between your reward pathways and your prefrontal cortex—the
part of your brain responsible for long-term planning. The prefrontal cortex also narrates
your experiences in real time and keeps you aware of your behaviors, which plays an
essential role in self-awareness. The less internal running commentary you have on your
daily actions, the less aware you are of your behavior.

Furthermore, even if you are aware of your behavior and recognize the extent of your
patterns of overindulgence, it can be difficult to accept that you have a problem.
Most people don’t want to see themselves as lacking self-control and maintain their
positive self-image by minimizing, ignoring, or discounting their patterns of behavior.

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 How Bad Is Your Cycle of Overindulgence?

Lembke writes that the difficulty in recognizing your patterns of behavior lies largely with a
lack of self-awareness or unwillingness to acknowledge the pattern. A good place to start
gaining clarity about your behavior or acknowledging the existence of a pattern may be
comparing your behavior to standards used by psychologists to diagnose addiction.
Psychologists see addiction as a process with three sequential stages. As you read, consider
whether any of these sound familiar.

Misuse: Someone misuses a pleasurable activity when they are using it to alleviate or
distract from emotional or physical pain. Pay close attention to why you are indulging
in your high-dopamine activity. For example, are you having an alcoholic drink to
have fun with your friends or because you had a hard day at work?

Abuse: This stage is characterized by heavier overindulgence to maintain the pain

alleviation effects. You may be at this stage if you notice that you've built up a
tolerance to your pleasurable activity. Are you engaging in the activity for longer
periods than you used to, or ingesting higher doses of a substance?

Addiction: A repetitive cycle of abuse becomes a full-blown addiction once someone

begins putting great effort into accessing their pleasurable activity. They also begin to
suffer the consequences of their overindulgence in their relationships, mental health,
and financial well-being. To understand if you’ve reached this stage, ask yourself two
questions. How did you respond the last time you weren’t able to access your
pleasurable activity? Secondly, what has pursuing this activity cost you
(financially, emotionally, and socially)?

The Solution: Tell the Truth

Lembke argues that to recognize and accept your patterns of behavior, you must make a
practice of telling the truth. By this, she means committing to honesty—even when it
feels painful, uncomfortable, or shameful. This practice offers four distinct
benefits in changing your patterns of overindulgence.

1. Recognition. By honestly calling your behavior to your attention, it will be easier to

see your patterns of compulsive consumption as they really are. The more you commit to
acknowledging each instance of indulgence, the more you will perceive that they are part
of a pattern and not just isolated incidents.

(Shortform note: Lembke writes that practicing greater honesty highlights behavioral
patterns, but this may not be enough: Recognizing patterns of behavior may also require
a strong memory or record of your ongoing behaviors. In The Bullet Journal Method,
Ryder Carroll asserts that keeping a log of your daily activities will help you better
remember your behaviors, their frequency, and their context—creating new opportunities
for self-reflection when your own memory may fall short.)

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2. Strengthening the mind. By honestly acknowledging your behavior, you will
gradually reforge the linkage between your prefrontal cortex and your reward pathways.
As your brain gets used to paying more attention to your decisions, it will naturally rewire
itself to make this practice easier. This increased connectivity will then allow you to be
more mindful and make better decisions when facing an opportunity to indulge.

(Shortform note: Lembke writes that you can strengthen your prefrontal cortex by
practice—the more you use it, the stronger it gets. But this may not be the only way.
Neuroscience has shown you can also strengthen your prefrontal cortex
through mindfulness activities that don’t necessarily require you to honestly assess
yourself. In The Willpower Instinct, Kelly McGonigal writes that a daily mindfulness
practice like meditation increases blood flow to the prefrontal cortex. Additionally, people
who meditate regularly have been shown to have more gray matter in their prefrontal
cortex. When trying to break your pattern of overindulgence, consider making
mindfulness a part of your daily routine.)

3. Accountability. Honesty gives you a greater ability to take responsibility for your
actions. By admitting when your decisions lead to overindulgence, you can find
opportunities to interrupt the cycle. Lembke writes that an honest account of your own
behavior is the first step toward taking control of your decisions.

4. Agency. The final benefit of truth-telling is an improved sense of agency. As you

recognize your own role in your overindulgence, you will see that you have the power to
change it. People who see themselves as the ones making decisions and leading their own
lives often have greater faith in their capacity to change.

Lembke writes that one of the most important ways to strengthen your agency is
to be aware of how you tell your life story. People who tell stories that focus only on
what has happened to them, while overlooking their own decisions, may have a limited
sense of their own capabilities. On the other hand, people who tell life stories that
emphasize their own choices tend to see themselves as having more control over their
future choices. This gives them a greater ability to exercise that control and change
their habits of overindulgence.

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 A Better Way to Tell Your Life Story

Lembke writes that telling your life story honestly and with a focus on your own agency will
provide a sense of empowerment and accountability to overcome your patterns of
indulgence. But how can you go about changing the way you tell your life story?
Psychologists offer three tips.

Avoid binary or absolute language. Phrases like, "There was nothing I could do," or,
"It's impossible to fix this" create a story where you are powerless. This language not
only frames you as having less agency, but it also undermines your accountability for
your own actions by rendering the situation as something out of your hands.

Use simple and direct language to approach difficult subjects. You don't need to
approach your most sensitive topics with strong judgments and opinions. Simple and
direct language will make it easier to lower the emotional barriers to acknowledging
painful or difficult truths. For example, instead of saying, “I made the stupid decision
to try a cigarette when I was younger and idiotic,” simply say, “I decided to try a
cigarette when I was 20.”

Think about the life story you would like to have. Reflecting on your greater
narrative arc can help inspire you to tell a new story. Is it a story of growth, resilience,
and healing? Or is it a story of frustration and despair?

Obstacle #3: Isolation

Lembke identifies isolation from others as a third emotional obstacle to overcoming

overindulgence. She explains that your overindulgent behaviors may leave you cut
off from family and friends for two main reasons: 1) shame about your
overindulgence and 2) choosing dopamine over your relationships.

1) Shame: When you compulsively overindulge, you may feel ashamed of your behavior,
which can lead you to conceal it from others. The more time you spend hiding from
other people, the less time you will spend connecting with them. Furthermore,
maintaining the façade that you don’t have a struggle with overindulgence may make it
harder to be open and fully yourself around others. This will erode your ability to connect,
leaving your relationships less rewarding.

Shame also creates an obstacle to overcoming overindulgence because it can prevent you
from reaching out for help since doing so would require disclosure. When shame becomes
an obstacle to connection, you may find yourself struggling to break out of your behavior
patterns alone.

2) Choosing dopamine over relationships: The second reason compulsive

overindulgence alienates you has to do with the lifestyle it requires. Lembke writes the
more time and energy you invest in pursuing high-dopamine rewards, the
less time and energy you have to invest in relationships.

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(Shortform note: While Lembke focuses on the ways overindulgence can leave you more
isolated from others, there is also strong evidence that emotional isolation may be the
root cause of your overindulgence in the first place. People who grew up without secure
and nurturing relationships with their parents are far more likely to struggle to build
strong relationships later in life. This leaves them far more vulnerable to turning towards
overindulgence as a substitute for intimacy.)

Furthermore, Lembke argues, isolation can deepen the cycle of overindulgence.

Recall that the neurological relationship between pleasure and pain creates a cycle by
adding weight to the “pain side” of the seesaw. Isolation feeds into this cycle
because loneliness is painful and therefore creates new incentives to indulge.The
lonelier you feel, the greater reason you have to indulge and feel better in the short run.
This will likely leave you more isolated and feeling worse again, deepening the cycle of
indulgence.

(Shortform note: Lembke writes that loneliness is emotionally painful and thus creates a
further incentive for overindulgence. However, this might understate the case. Health
researchers have found that chronic loneliness not only causes emotional pain but can
also result in physical pain and severe damage to your bodily health. Chronic loneliness
increases your risk for high blood pressure, heart attack, stroke, and cognitive decline. It
also worsens the symptoms and length of illness when you are sick. By increasing your
physical pain alongside your emotional pain, loneliness adds even more weight to the
“pain side” of the seesaw.)

The Negative Beliefs Underpinning Shame

Lembke writes that shame may isolate you and make it harder to change your behavior.
Others have pointed out that your shame may be the result of negative beliefs about
yourself that you must first overcome. In The Power of Vulnerability, Brené Brown writes
that people struggle to break down barriers of shame when they believe they are uniquely
undeserving of love. She writes this is the result of two underlying false assumptions.

The source of shame is unrelatable. If you think no one else has gone through your
experiences, then it raises the stakes of sharing them. It's a very small risk to reveal a
weakness or fault that is commonly shared, whereas it's a large risk to reveal a
weakness or fault that makes you stand out from others.

The source of shame negates self-worth. If you are convinced your value as a
person is conditional on being successful, moral, or respectable, then anything that
goes against those qualities can leave you feeling worthless and irredeemable.

When it comes to patterns of overindulgence, both of these beliefs are false. Recall that
compulsive overindulgence is a widespread problem that many people struggle with, and no
one's value as a human is diminished by it. If you struggle with either of these underlying
beliefs, recognizing their falsehood can make it easier to overcome the shame that may
isolate you in a pattern of indulgence.

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Solution #1: Form Relationships Through Authentic Sharing
Lembke encourages breaking out of isolation by authentically sharing with others. Recall
that you must be honest with yourself to restore your sense of accountability, agency, and
self-awareness. You must also be honest with others to form closer
connections. By being yourself with others, you create opportunities to bond while
overcoming the shame and isolation of overindulgence.

Lembke writes that forming closer relationships through authentic sharing can help you
overcome overindulgence in three distinct ways.

When you have higher-quality relationships, you will feel less of a need to pursue
dopamine-heavy rewards to cope with loneliness.
Discussing your behavior with others can help you find solutions. Your friends and
family may offer input and advice to help you change your patterns of behavior.
By articulating your patterns of overindulgence to others, you may develop a more
honest and realistic assessment of your habits.

Is Authentic Sharing Enough?

Many psychologists agree with Lembke's assertion that close relationships can play a vital
role in alleviating loneliness, gaining advice, and developing a more honest assessment of
behavior. But some argue that while authentic sharing may be necessary for rebuilding
relationships, it may not be enough. If your patterns of indulgence have seriously
damaged your relationships, you may need to utilize other forms of relationship repair, like
conflict resolution or relationship counseling, to rebuild.

This is especially important to understand, because psychologists have found that

relationships can be a major source of stress in life, and therefore an obstacle to overcoming
indulgence. The added stress of a relationship characterized by broken trust or frequent
arguments can provide strong incentives to fall back into overindulgence.Furthermore,
traditional treatment programs often overlook relationship stress because addressing these
issues can appear like deferring responsibility and blame. Therefore, it is important to
remain aware of the health of your relationships and to seek remedies as needed.

Solution #2: Find a Supportive Community

Lembke notes that your willingness to share is only part of the solution—you also need a
listener who accepts you, no matter what you share. Finding the right listener is
vital: Some people may be put off by your disclosures, and sharing with someone who
rejects you will only deepen your feelings of shame and discourage future disclosures.

If the people around you don't accept you and your struggles, you may need to seek
out new relationships. Fortunately, there are support groups specifically designed to
help those who compulsively overindulge, such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics
Anonymous. These communities are full of people who share your struggle—and therefore

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won’t judge you and will have tried and true advice for changing your patterns of
behavior. These communities also provide accountability, because you will be expected to
share if you find yourself falling back into patterns of overindulgence.

How to Minimize the Impact of Rejection

Lembke stresses that rejection can deepen your pain and leave you feeling isolated.
However, you can minimize the pain of rejection if you can respond to it in a healthy,
resilient way. If rejection doesn't hurt you, it won’t discourage future disclosure or cause
further isolation. In The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, Mark Manson writes that handling
rejection is an essential social skill. The better people are at hearing and saying no, the
stronger their relationships will become because they will feel less need for superficial
acceptance. Psychologists recommend three steps for handling rejection.

1. Acknowledge your pain and let yourself grieve. Feeling rejected hurts. Recognize your
feelings and let yourself process.

2. Don't put the blame on yourself. If you're rejected, it's easy to assume it’s because
there’s something wrong with you. There are many reasons someone might reject you—
many of them having more to do with them than with you.

3. Take this as an opportunity to practice resiliency. If you frame your experience as an

opportunity to practice processing and recovering from rejection, you may see it in a more
positive light and therefore be more accepting of it.

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 Should Everyone Attend Support Groups?

On the surface, Lembke's advice about support groups may not seem applicable to everyone.
However, recall that Lembke's thesis throughout this book is that the solutions that help
addicts have important things to teach everyone about controlling milder forms of
overindulgence. Here, we'll talk about some of the benefits support groups provide, and
how you might find these benefits through your “everyday” relationships.

1. Non-judgmental listening: One of the core benefits of support groups is that you can
feel heard without feeling judged. Try talking to your friends and family about your attempts
to overcome overindulgence. See if any of them really make you feel heard.

2. Accountability: Support groups keep you accountable. Having to admit to others when
you falter creates a strong incentive to change your habits. Try creating accountability by
making an agreement with someone you trust that you’ll disclose when you fall short of
changing your habits.

3. Advice: Support groups allow you to benefit from the wisdom of people who have
already made a lot of progress in changing their habits. Try seeking out someone in your
social circle or online community who has already overcome a similar form of
overindulgence.

4. Encouragement: Lastly, support groups provide motivating encouragement and positive

reinforcement for your success. As you talk to friends and family, see if you can find
someone who is rooting for you to change your patterns of overindulgence—spending more
time with them will help keep you motivated.

Obstacle #4: Escapism

Lembke’s final obstacle to overcoming overindulgence is escapism. People often find their
own lives boring, and so they turn to overindulgence to make their lives more
interesting and forget feelings of dissatisfaction. Lembke’s solution is to discover
something new and enriching in your life—something you may have previously
overlooked. She explains that when breaking habits of overindulgence, it helps to find a
new hobby or outlet for your passions that will help you take more interest in your own
life.

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 How to Have a More Satisfying Life

Lembke writes that people often fall into patterns of overindulgence because they find their
lives unsatisfying and boring. Here we'll discuss the root causes of boredom and the four
activities psychologists recommend to get more satisfaction out of life.

Many writers have attempted to create a definition of boredom. In A Theory of Fun for
Game Design, Raph Koster describes boredom as the opposite of learning. You are bored
when you aren’t receiving new information to reinforce new habits or ways of being. Brené
Brown (Atlas of the Heart) describes boredom as wanting to do something fulfilling but not
being able to—a sense of being cut off from purpose. Finally, in Atomic Habits, James Clear
defines boredom as the state when you are no longer challenged or excited by the things
you’re doing.

To find more satisfaction in life, you’ll want to seek challenges, learn continuously, and
do something you consider meaningful and important. Psychologists recommend four
specific courses of action you can take to align your life with these factors and find
enrichment.

1. Volunteer. Find opportunities in your community to help people out. Many find it
fulfilling to know that they are helping others, and this could provide you with a sense of
meaning and purpose you were missing.

2. Start a new project. Taking on a long-term project could provide a sense of challenge
that may have been missing. You might take on the challenge of remodeling your kitchen, or
set a goal to read one book every week.

3. Learn something new. You can stimulate your mind and challenge yourself by making
an effort to learn. Try learning a new language, taking a cooking class, or reading a book on
something you know little about.

4. Express yourself. Seek out a way to challenge yourself while gaining a sense of meaning
and purpose as you share your feelings and story with others. Try finding a creative outlet
like music, visual art, or creative writing.

Next

Exercise: Restore Your Own Balance

Guided Tour

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