Dr. Anna Lembke

Exercise is a super healthy source of dopamine.

And it also importantly reintegrates the function of dopamine for movement as the function of dopamine to go and get our rewards.

Or just watching short form video, right?

Watching those short form videos that absolutely lights up that reward pathway, releases dopamine.

And the difference between things that are addictive for a given individual

is that they release a lot of dopamine all at once.

So we're always releasing dopamine at a baseline tonic level in our reward pathway.

When we eat something or smoke something or drink something or go on digital media, that temporarily increases dopamine firing above baseline along with other, you know, chemical changes.

And then you go back to normal, yeah.

Well, yes.

We always want to go back to our set point, right?

Or our homeostatic baseline.

But what happens is that through that process of the brain adapting to that temporary increase in dopamine firing, that essentially what can happen with addiction is that the brain over-adapts, over-compensates and ends up in a chronic dopamine deficit state.

So now we have below healthy levels of dopamine firing in the reward pathway.

And when we get into that state, now we need to keep using our drug, not to get high, but just to bring those levels back up to normal and feel normal.

That's exactly right.

That's exactly right.

Okay, great.

Well, thank you for being willing to, you know, share something about your experiences.

You're certainly not alone.