The Back Story
The Back Story is your source for the latest in health, wellness and medical care for you and your entire family. Dr. Jaspal Ricky Singh M.D. and the world-renowned physicians at Weill Cornell Medicine, join forces with an expanded network of experts to bring in-depth conversations covering medical research, trending topics and wellness. Our podcast is a trusted source of information for medical care, combined with real patient experiences and the latest breakthroughs in medicine.
The Back Story
Only 2 Things Make You Happy: Dopamine and Serotonin
Human beings are programmed to approach pleasure and avoid pain. It's an instinct that dates back millions of years, to a time when people needed to actively seek food, clothing and shelter every day, or risk death.
Dopamine Nation talks about the importance of living a balanced life in relation to all the pleasure and stimuli we’re surrounded with on a daily basis, such as drugs, devices, porn, gambling facilities, showing us how to avoid becoming dopamine addicts by restricting our access to them.
Here are my three favorite lessons from the book:
- Misery turns humans into pleasure addicts who can’t deal with discomfort.
- Our brains build resistance to dopamine over time, and that’s a bad thing.
- Ironically, pain can help us tap into our dopamine reserves.
Lesson 1: Dopamine addiction follows from our desire to stop feeling miserable.
Lesson 2: Constantly fulfilling our dopamine cravings leads to neuroadaptation.
Lesson 3: Using pain as a dopamine source can promote our well-being.