About Dr. Anna Lembke
Anna Lembke, MD is a professor of psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine and chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic. A clinician scholar, she has published more than a hundred peer-reviewed papers, book chapters, and commentaries.
Episode Segments
How can we navigate a world that is increasingly designed to addict us?
Human Brains Have Evolved Unique 'Feel-Good' Circuits
Lembke is the medical director of addiction medicine at Stanford University and chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic. Her new book, Dopamine Nation, explores the interconnection of pleasure and pain in the brain and helps explain addictive behaviors — not just to drugs and alcohol, but also to food, sex and smart phones.
Interview Highlights
Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that sends signals from one neuron to another, and it's probably the most important neurotransmitter in our experience of pleasure, motivation and reward. ... Dopamine is the final common pathway for all pleasurable, intoxicating, rewarding experiences. ...
Smartphone Detox: How To Power Down In A Wired World
It's important to recognize that addiction is a spectrum disorder, and it is possible to be a little bit addicted. Also, the same brain mechanisms that mediate severe addiction also mediate our minor addictions. ... I don't think that anybody is immune from this problem. And I do believe that smartphones are addictive.
Opioid Addiction Is 'A Disease Of Isolation,' So Pandemic Puts Recovery At Risk
I think it's important for me to tell you that I've also had a lot of patients who have done better during quarantine. And what they tell me is that the world is kind of a hyperstimulated, triggering place for them.