Shankar Vedantam

Here he is.

So what do you think the reason is, Anna, that some of us seem to have a greater tendency towards addiction and others have much less?

When we come back, where's the line between a healthy passion and an unhealthy addiction?

You're listening to Hidden Brain.

I'm Shankar Vedantam.

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This is Hidden Brain.

I'm Shankar Vedantam.

Psychiatrist Anna Lemke argues that pleasure and pain exist on opposite ends of a seesaw in our minds.

Many of us are pressing down too hard and too often on the pleasure side of the seesaw.

We give ourselves little jolts of pleasure through shopping, gaming, and gambling.

That can force our brains to compensate by pressing down on the pain side of the seesaw, leading to higher rates of addiction, self-harm, and anxiety.

Now, Anna Lembke is answering your questions about how to balance that seesaw.

Ana, one of the things that jumped out at me in our initial conversation is that it can be very hard to recognize that you're in the grip of an addiction when you are in fact addicted.

Here's a message we received from a listener named Hannah.