Amir Tesla's Reviews > Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence

Short Summary: From simple pleasure such as eating food to watching porn and using drugs, the desire we fill is fueled by a hormone called Dopamine.

Consider a scale in the brain. Whenever we indulge in a pleasure-seeking behavior such as scrolling through the Instagram feed to using drugs, it's like putting pleasure weights on this scale in the brain. The problem is that the brain always seeks to put this scale in equilibrium and balance. When you put pleasure on one side of the scale, the brain compensates by putting pain molecules on the other side of the scale.

The problem is that when the pleasure device is absent, you will have a lot of pain and craving. Why? Because the pleasure is absent on the scale, and the balance has tipped to the side of pain.

What's fascinating is that the other side of the story is also true. Namely, if you induce moderate pains onto yourself through activities such as a cold bath, or running in sprints, the brain tries to store the balance of the scale again. This time, by putting pleasure on the other side of the scale. What happens is that your biological set point for happiness is enhanced. In other words, you will generally have happier and more motivated in life.

Dopamine Fasting: The biggest takeaway for me is the concept of dopamine fasting. If we are addicted to destructive habits such as social media, alcohol, port, etc., since the balance is tipped to the side of pain, we will generally feel less motivated in life. We will have a hard time getting out of bed in the mornings. The way to restore this balance in the brain is by going on a Dopamine fasting. Namely, staying away from the addictive pleasure-seeking behavior that we have. It takes a maximum of one month for the brain to recover.

After that, we will feel much more lively and more importantly, we will derive more pleasure from more productive but maybe less pleasurable activities such as exercise or reading books.