During this first month of 2026, many of us have been inspired by recent trends such as 'dopamine fasting' and 'dopamine detoxes' to quit bad habits and reduce our consumption of things like social media, junk food, shopping, etc. But what is the actual science behind dopamine, and how does it interact with our increasingly digital world?
In this clip from our recent conversation, Anna Lembke explains what's going on in your brain when you're engaging in overly stimulating behavior, and how our modern environments tend to hijack our dopamine pathways.
Watch the full episode:
https://youtu.be/iksSRPpLOzQ
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📝 Transcript
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Top Comments
@thegreatsimplification
Watch the full episode:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iksSRPpLOzQ
@decipher3796
We do have the brains to compare it with. There are indigenous people in the Amazon and Papua New Guinea that still live like we are originally wired to live. A professor in biology told me they had a visitor from one of those indigenous tribes to help them with one of their projects and his brain had clearly developed differently. He seemed to be way more focussed on the sounds and signs from nature and was in a kind of blissful state, just listening to the birds. To be honest, or perhaps frankly, I am disappointed that your very important question got answered with a list of amount of dopamine released per drug.
I am a great admirer of your invaluable work. I ‘discovered’ your work only at the end of last year and have been binge watching the last few weeks. Yesterday I came across the episode on saying ‘I don’t know (but I will get back to you)’. I am starting with practicing your suggestions today. My hope is that scientists in particular would embrace the essentiality of this answer (and your suggestion) as well.
7 likes
@nickfindsgold9788
We put ourselves in the Zoo ... We arent built for this 🤯
4 likes
@Hexanitrobenzene
"Dopamine fasting" or 'dopamine detox" is actually dopamine resensitization - removing tolerance to dopamine, so that low levels, and thus modest activities can again bring some pleasure.
1 likes
@-jamie-9896
Such a good question. A vital one I'm so curious about.
1 likes
@dankoepp68
…..am back, half way through the podcast i wanted to organize the purchase of the book „Dopamine Nation“. got it now! 6:48