Dopamine Expert: Short Form Videos Are Frying Your Brain! This Is A Dopamine Disaster!

Steven Bartlett (0:00)

The thing I think about most, especially when I'm on the go, but also when I'm sat here in the Diary Of A CEO studio, is the wifi and internet that we have to work with. In fact, anytime I'm filming away from the studio, one of the first things I do is when I arrive, I open up an app and do a speed test to see how strong the signal is. And the number of screenshots I've sent to my team about wifi signals at different locations is actually pretty crazy. It matters that much to me because it's such a competitive advantage to have fast wifi. Because on any given day, if I'm recording, let's say hours and hours of footage with a podcast guest, I then often have to have my team send that across to our London team who then do the edit. So fast wifi and internet is not a nice to have. It is absolutely business mission critical. So when it came to finding the best provider who could supply internet and wifi to our new LA studio, which I'm setting right now, we looked at every single option. And of all the providers, the one that came back with the steadiest connection, as well as being the cheapest, was today's sponsor, Spectrum Business. Spectrum Business keeps businesses of all sizes connected with fast, reliable internet, advanced wifi, phone, TV and mobile services. Millions of business owners already rely on Spectrum to keep their operations connected. So if you want to join them, head to spectrum.com/business to learn more. That's spectrum.com/business.

Just give me 30 seconds of your time. Two things I wanted to say. The first thing is a huge thank you for listening and tuning in to the show week after week. It means the world to all of us, and this really is a dream that we absolutely never had and couldn't have imagined getting to this place. But secondly, it's a dream where we feel like we're only just getting started. And if you enjoy what we do here, please join the 24% of people that listen to this podcast regularly and follow us on this app. Here's a promise I'm gonna make to you. I'm gonna do everything in my power to make this show as good as I can now and into the future. We're gonna deliver the guests that you want me to speak to and we're gonna continue to keep doing all of the things you love about this show. Thank you. Dr. Anna Lembke. For anyone that might not know you, and they didn't watch our conversation last time, which was a fantastic conversation, one of my favorites of all time and also, I know Jack has said to me as well that it was one of his favorites of all time. Who are you and what have you spent your career doing if you had to summarize it? What are the reference points that your wisdom draws upon and the experiences you've had and the people you've worked with?

Anna Lembke (4:04)

I'm a psychiatrist. I did a residency in psychiatry at Stanford University, and then I stayed on, joined the faculty. I see patients, I do research, and I teach.

Steven Bartlett (4:17)

You wrote this iconic book about this word dopamine. Why does it matter so much? Why does this idea of dopamine matter so much?

Anna Lembke (4:25)

Dopamine is a chemical we make in our brain, but I use it in the book as really an extended metaphor for the ways in which overabundance itself is a human stressor. We are living in a time and place where we have more access to luxury goods, more disposable income, more leisure time, even for the poorest of the poor ever before in recorded history. And it turns out that is stressful for our brains, and it's stressful in a brand new way that we really haven't confronted before, making us all more vulnerable to the problem of compulsive over consumption and addiction. And I do think that addiction is the modern plague. I think we're going to be struggling with the problem of compulsive over consumption and addiction in a world of abundance for the foreseeable future, as in centuries. And our survival will depend on figuring out how to live in a world of abundance, even though we have brains that evolved for a world of scarcity.

Steven Bartlett (5:33)

At this time of the year, people are thinking a lot about making changes in their life. They want to get in shape. They want to lose a couple of pounds. They want to save their money. They want to knock the addiction. They want to stop the smoking, the drugs, and the alcohol. So as it relates to the subject of dopamine, how do these two things link, our habits and dopamine? What is the link or the connection there? Because I think most people listening right now have probably made a New Year's resolution, even if it's just in their mind. And I'm wondering how everything you write about in Dopamine Nation is related to and critical to understand if I am going to shake some of these bad habits that I have or pick up some new ones.