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A review by lpm100
Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence by Anna Lembke
5.0
Book Review.
Dopamine Nation.
"If every day is a sunny day, then what's a sunny day?"
5/5 stars
*******
∆This book is short, and easy to read but very powerful. It can incline a careful reader toward depth of thought.
∆∆It is pretty consistent with being written by an MD:
1. Very concerned with actual cases/clinical observations (as opposed to books written psychologists that go on just a little bit too much with speculation/mental masturbation)
2. Fairly terse with words, because the point is more to identify limited and specific circumstances and give comments on that.
∆∆∆This book puts me immediately in mind of two others. (They would be good to read in addition to this one.)
"The Coddling of the American Mind." (If you make people too comfortable, that alone is enough to lower their threshold of pain. To the point where people get triggered just by *seeing* certain words.)
"The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog." (If you want to raise healthy children, a little bit of stress in manageable amounts is a very helpful tool. Absolutely no stress is positively destructive.)
*******
Of the book:
-231 pages of pros over 9 chapters.
-Average of 26 pages per chapter (enough to easily read one per lunch break and the whole book can be read in about 4 hours.).
-134 references (about one reference every 1.7 pages, so fairly dens).
-19 pages of embedded notes.
-A thorough index
*******
What at the top 10 things that we learn from this book?
1. Too much comfort= oversensitization to any type of pain.
2. Too much pain and too many thrills (like skydiving and weightlifting) can become addictive and leave a person unable to enjoy the small pleasures of normal life.
3. Everything in proportion and nothing in excess.
4. Controlled exposure to small amounts of things that one fears is a way to overcome phobias.
5. There are natural, safe and healthy ways to get the same high that one gets from drugs. (Exercising / rock climbing/ other things that give you a feeling of accomplishment.)
6. Yes, "cold water parties" really are a thing (p.170).
7. People may have many emotional states that appear strange to others. (Think of women that love getting smacked around by abusive men. Or men who like being cuckolded by some bull--and watching. Or people who just love to be angry/worry about any and everything.) These emotional states are far from irrational, and at a minimum there is some dopamine release as a result of experiencing them that makes people want to experience them again.
8. Having a religious/social community is not a bad idea, and when those communities have a higher barrier to entry they can be more influential over an individual such that they can incentivize him/her out of bad behavior.
9. Honesty is the beginning of stopping dopamine driven behaviors-- it is easier to be dishonest with oneself than with others.
10. Making people think in terms of *time horizons* can exert a powerful effect. ("You are 27 and still sleeping on your mother's couch and won't keep a job and don't even have $10 to your name. Can you see yourself this way at 35? 40? 45?" OR "You have been pleading with this bum to get a job / life since he was 18 years old. 9 years ago. Another week, and another week of this and you will look up and you will be 85 years old.")
Thought questions relevant to my own life:
1. When I sent my sons to (parochial) school, I chose to send them to an accepting, inclusive, welcoming Modern Orthodox environment as opposed to sending them to school with Wicked Haredim.
Could that be setting them up for failure by sending them to an environment that's too comfortable?
If they had had some bullying and abuse at any of our Big Yeshivish schools here (and it would have happened there as sure as the sun rises in the east), might it have made them stronger people?
But then: how much stress is too much for a child to experience, and how does a parent know?? (Our Modern Orthodox school has a number of students who were bullied out of The Big Haredi schools. It seems that it is common for parents to miscalculate how much abuse a child can take.)
2. If you ever wondered why celebrities so frequently have drug problems, you need look no further than this book: once you have all of the things that a human being wants (influence, income, adoring fans, an infinite variety of sexual partners), what else can top that?
The only logical choice is to start looking for ways to chemically induce even greater feelings of euphoria.
3. Does there exist an external metric for determining just how much stress is useful vs counterproductive?
Or is this something that other people have to watch and tell you? ("You're gettin" too stressed out, man. I think it's time for you to take a break from [this stressor].")
Or, is there a community that you watch in order to use their norms/references?
4. Why is it that high IQ races of people (think Ashkenazi Jewish or Chinese people) not only seem to embrace suffering, but in its absence will create it?....... Is it the obverse of the fact that lower IQ races of people (the 13% in the United States) are extremely work avoidant/ generally disinclined to any academic challenge?
Is excessive desire for comfort a sign of low IQ?
5. Can an addiction be good? Running? Reading? Weightlifting? Studying?
New vocabulary:
Opioid induced hyperalgesia
Opponent-process Theory
Experience-dependent plasticity
Optogenetics (p.64)
Dopamine deficit state
Abstinence violation effect
Anhedonia
Prosocial shame
Lessons of balance:
1. The relentless pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain leads to pain.
2. Recovery begins with abstinence.
3. Abstinence resets the brain's reward pathway and with it our capacity to take joy in simpler pleasures.
4. Self-binding creates literal and metacognitive space between desire and consumption, a modern necessity in our dopamine overloaded world.
5./. Medications can restore homeostasis, but consider what we lose by medicating away our pain.
6. Pressing on the pain side resets our balance to the side of pleasure.
7. Beware of getting addicted to pain.
8. Radical honesty promotes awareness, enhances intimacy, and fosters a plenty mindset.
9. Pro social shame affirms that we belong to the human tribe
10. Instead of running away from the world, we can find escape by immersing ourselves in it.
Dopamine Nation.
"If every day is a sunny day, then what's a sunny day?"
5/5 stars
*******
∆This book is short, and easy to read but very powerful. It can incline a careful reader toward depth of thought.
∆∆It is pretty consistent with being written by an MD:
1. Very concerned with actual cases/clinical observations (as opposed to books written psychologists that go on just a little bit too much with speculation/mental masturbation)
2. Fairly terse with words, because the point is more to identify limited and specific circumstances and give comments on that.
∆∆∆This book puts me immediately in mind of two others. (They would be good to read in addition to this one.)
"The Coddling of the American Mind." (If you make people too comfortable, that alone is enough to lower their threshold of pain. To the point where people get triggered just by *seeing* certain words.)
"The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog." (If you want to raise healthy children, a little bit of stress in manageable amounts is a very helpful tool. Absolutely no stress is positively destructive.)
*******
Of the book:
-231 pages of pros over 9 chapters.
-Average of 26 pages per chapter (enough to easily read one per lunch break and the whole book can be read in about 4 hours.).
-134 references (about one reference every 1.7 pages, so fairly dens).
-19 pages of embedded notes.
-A thorough index
*******
What at the top 10 things that we learn from this book?
1. Too much comfort= oversensitization to any type of pain.
2. Too much pain and too many thrills (like skydiving and weightlifting) can become addictive and leave a person unable to enjoy the small pleasures of normal life.
3. Everything in proportion and nothing in excess.
4. Controlled exposure to small amounts of things that one fears is a way to overcome phobias.
5. There are natural, safe and healthy ways to get the same high that one gets from drugs. (Exercising / rock climbing/ other things that give you a feeling of accomplishment.)
6. Yes, "cold water parties" really are a thing (p.170).
7. People may have many emotional states that appear strange to others. (Think of women that love getting smacked around by abusive men. Or men who like being cuckolded by some bull--and watching. Or people who just love to be angry/worry about any and everything.) These emotional states are far from irrational, and at a minimum there is some dopamine release as a result of experiencing them that makes people want to experience them again.
8. Having a religious/social community is not a bad idea, and when those communities have a higher barrier to entry they can be more influential over an individual such that they can incentivize him/her out of bad behavior.
9. Honesty is the beginning of stopping dopamine driven behaviors-- it is easier to be dishonest with oneself than with others.
10. Making people think in terms of *time horizons* can exert a powerful effect. ("You are 27 and still sleeping on your mother's couch and won't keep a job and don't even have $10 to your name. Can you see yourself this way at 35? 40? 45?" OR "You have been pleading with this bum to get a job / life since he was 18 years old. 9 years ago. Another week, and another week of this and you will look up and you will be 85 years old.")
Thought questions relevant to my own life:
1. When I sent my sons to (parochial) school, I chose to send them to an accepting, inclusive, welcoming Modern Orthodox environment as opposed to sending them to school with Wicked Haredim.
Could that be setting them up for failure by sending them to an environment that's too comfortable?
If they had had some bullying and abuse at any of our Big Yeshivish schools here (and it would have happened there as sure as the sun rises in the east), might it have made them stronger people?
But then: how much stress is too much for a child to experience, and how does a parent know?? (Our Modern Orthodox school has a number of students who were bullied out of The Big Haredi schools. It seems that it is common for parents to miscalculate how much abuse a child can take.)
2. If you ever wondered why celebrities so frequently have drug problems, you need look no further than this book: once you have all of the things that a human being wants (influence, income, adoring fans, an infinite variety of sexual partners), what else can top that?
The only logical choice is to start looking for ways to chemically induce even greater feelings of euphoria.
3. Does there exist an external metric for determining just how much stress is useful vs counterproductive?
Or is this something that other people have to watch and tell you? ("You're gettin" too stressed out, man. I think it's time for you to take a break from [this stressor].")
Or, is there a community that you watch in order to use their norms/references?
4. Why is it that high IQ races of people (think Ashkenazi Jewish or Chinese people) not only seem to embrace suffering, but in its absence will create it?....... Is it the obverse of the fact that lower IQ races of people (the 13% in the United States) are extremely work avoidant/ generally disinclined to any academic challenge?
Is excessive desire for comfort a sign of low IQ?
5. Can an addiction be good? Running? Reading? Weightlifting? Studying?
New vocabulary:
Opioid induced hyperalgesia
Opponent-process Theory
Experience-dependent plasticity
Optogenetics (p.64)
Dopamine deficit state
Abstinence violation effect
Anhedonia
Prosocial shame
Lessons of balance:
1. The relentless pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain leads to pain.
2. Recovery begins with abstinence.
3. Abstinence resets the brain's reward pathway and with it our capacity to take joy in simpler pleasures.
4. Self-binding creates literal and metacognitive space between desire and consumption, a modern necessity in our dopamine overloaded world.
5./. Medications can restore homeostasis, but consider what we lose by medicating away our pain.
6. Pressing on the pain side resets our balance to the side of pleasure.
7. Beware of getting addicted to pain.
8. Radical honesty promotes awareness, enhances intimacy, and fosters a plenty mindset.
9. Pro social shame affirms that we belong to the human tribe
10. Instead of running away from the world, we can find escape by immersing ourselves in it.