Productive Reading: Dopamine Nation, by Dr. Anna Lembke – TPW474

There is a delicate balance between pleasure and pain. Finding that balance is esssential for our leading our best quality of life. This week we're continuing our Productive Reading recurring series. In the past, we’ve talked about the lessons and key takeaways I found in books about productivity-related topics that I’ve found helpful and thought-provoking, including books by authors like Gary Keller, Charles Duhigg Brené Brown, Courtney Carver, Jeff Sanders, James Clear, Michael Hyatt, Maura Nevel Thomas, Joshua Becker, Greg McKeown, Cal Newport, Dominique Sachse, Laura Vanderkam, and most recently talking about Nir Eyal’s interesting book Indistractablle (episode 454). We’ll include links to past episodes of the Productive Reading series below. This time I’m sharing some of my most important takeaways from an intriguing book by Dr. Anna Lembke, called Dopamine Nation.  Who is Anna Lembke? Book cover flap copy: “Anna Lembke is the medical director of Stanford Addiction Medicine, program director for the Stanford Addiction Medicine Fellowship, and chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic. She is the recipient of numerous awards for outstanding research in mental illness, for excellence in teaching, and for clinical innovation in treatment. A clinician scholar, she has published more than a hundred peer-reviewed papers, book chapters, and commentaries in prestigious outlets such as The New England Journal of Medicine and JAMA. She sits on the board of several state and national addiction-focused organizations, has testified before various committees in the United States House of Representatives and Senate, keeps an active speaking calendar, and maintains a thriving clinical practice.” Why did I read this book? I don’t recall where I first heard of the book, but the title and description intrigued me, as one of my ongoing interests is puzzling out the reasons we so often struggle to do the things we need and want to do, including achieving goals we so meticulously and hopefully set for ourselves. On our last installment of the Productive Reading series we looked at Nir Eyal’s intriguing book, Indistractable, subtitled How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life. As we discussed in that episode, the book asks us: “What could you accomplish if you could stay focused?” and then goes on to discuss the psychology of distraction and offer solutions to help us manage and maintain the focus needed to achieve our goals.  This episode’s book digs even deeper into similar issues, looking at both the psychology and the physiology of addictive behavior that can interfere with our ability to accomplish the things that are important to us. The book is subtitled: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence. This was intriguing to me, as I seek a better sense of balance in my own life. The book is divided into several parts The introduction introduces the problem the book is intended to address: “This book is about pleasure. It’s also about pain. Most important, it’s about the relationship between pleasure and pain, and how understanding that relationship has become essential for a life well lived.”  The reason for this necessity?