--- ## Highlights Part Why We Are Driven to Overindulge ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/4dac0043-275a-472b-8919-2e03f993c295)) . Industrialization provides abundance ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/4567de76-9431-4c37-b395-4222c490e176)) your brain still behaves as if you could run out of these pleasurable goods at any moment, and encourages excessive pursuit ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/a622e256-3c8c-4fc1-9099-37a0f9a1a648)) The consequent increase in leisure time creates opportunities for compulsive consumption—when you don’t have to spend your time on basic survival, you can redirect that time to pleasurable activities. Hunter-gatherers didn't have time to play video games all day, but people in industrial societies often do. ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/abefc541-3a5d-4c66-a473-91c3d3fbec79)) These three factors work together to create a dangerous cycle of overindulgence: Your brain is fine-tuned to keep consuming pleasurable goods—and now you have an abundance of these goods and plenty of time to consume them. ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/6d2482c2-f93c-45b8-bdbe-9fab47b188a1)) Studies have revealed a kind of “goldilocks zone” of free time that increases happiness. Fewer than two hours of free time per day makes people less happy—but so does more than five hours. Between two and five hours seems like the optimal range. ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/6b49d29a-8a64-4721-8c14-b76b682f0267)) ^xau4iz That said, using excess free time wisely can mitigate its ill effects. Filling your excess free time with meaningful hobbies or socializing can make you much happier than activities that feel hollow, repetitive, or lonely, such as the repetitive consumption of abundantly pleasurable goods like social media or junk food. ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/4b73c9d7-a9a3-4095-a787-c223f970970d)) Lembke draws a clear link between excess leisure time and overindulgence. She also suggests this may be a cause for rising unhappiness in industrialized nations. ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/bc9f0868-d131-4fe1-9381-2cfd5a4f244a)) Part How Your Brain Chemistry Encourages Overindulgence ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/63e767a4-dbfe-4f42-ba73-88bbb4db09c3)) the chemical that motivates you to seek out pleasure. ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/ae58154c-e333-482f-9ba6-d302eb0918db)) many of the activities people engage with every day are designed to manipulate their brains and keep them in a state of overindulgence. ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/49ede1a8-c63b-415b-bd25-f91a254bf306)) . Dangling a large unobtainable reward. If you are constantly reminded that you have a chance to hit the jackpot, ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/45360ff9-901e-4d1b-a184-93e02729d5c3)) The "near miss" effect. Players are likely to experience a rush of dopamine if they feel they almost got a reward, and might get it on their next try ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/7646507f-2a47-48dd-94e8-c92e8c60ce5e)) Unpredictable rewards. ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/135add61-3163-4696-b8fc-c749e7544b2f)) pain and pleasure are processed in the same parts of the brain ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/8a52fb5d-6f82-4e9e-823c-a3186c1333b6)) imagine this system as a seesaw that tilts in either the direction of pleasure or pain. ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/c2c16556-eac9-42b7-8c72-ba08272b840b)) the brain has a natural tendency to balance out the seesaw, seeking what neuroscientists call “homeostasis.” ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/8b03d044-ba3b-432b-8a91-2e6e478b008b)) You build up a tolerance to pleasure. Each repeated experience of pleasure will have less of an impact because it must push against more weight on the pain side. ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/18d31b1c-ae0d-40c0-857f-3cca06aea62d)) As you build up "pain weight" over time, it will keep weighing down the pain side of your seesaw ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/142a12cd-02fa-4a88-9db5-ac977a373707)) If you press constantly on the pleasure side by overindulging in pleasurable things, the brain will naturally heap more “weight” on the pain side of the seesaw to keep your system in balance. ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/3027ba93-932e-4082-a6a6-0b651867faf6)) Your brain avoids having to expend this additional energy by counterbalancing environmental changes—remaining in a neutral, predictable state.) ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/5514e65e-2849-4012-beeb-2e2ddb6a914b)) These two factors have a cyclical effect: You feel pain when you stop consuming because of the extra weight placed on the pain side. This pain creates an incentive to consume again and go back to feeling okay. ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/b4c2754b-3b4b-4e75-a6f3-aef6acd73640)) Part Working With Your Brain to Overcome Overindulgence ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/b813ddf3-1696-4e48-9788-ef65efcf99f2)) abstain from your high-dopamine activities for two to four weeks. ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/be955399-a221-41d2-969a-e47d1f3b4cd9)) you let your brain recalibrate and take the pain weight off. ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/31a176d8-e0d2-4f24-96b1-b601a8b6472a)) There are accounts of people avoiding eye contact, conversations, busy streets, and even the smell of food—all to avoid the release of dopamine in their brains. ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/a575d3f2-6c6e-42b5-b062-72becd518f65)) Strategies for Abstaining From Pleasure ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/14db7a8f-46aa-47c2-b22b-f74fd2f4827b)) Make it physically harder to engage in your high-dopamine activity ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/1c10f958-37cb-4066-afbe-808181ac4620)) setting time limits on when, how often, and for how long you can indulge. ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/33b18f32-f7ed-4f6f-b76d-3119e53d194f)) intentionally press on the “pain” side of the seesaw. Because your brain strives for equilibrium, feeling pain will cause your brain to take weight away from the pain side. This will undo the effects of your high tolerance for pleasure, ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/27c3336d-8091-435d-a1bf-3c8c8b189456)) ^tvqymr treat chronic pain with acute pain: The "pain weight" on your seesaw is internal and long-term (chronic), whereas the ice water bath is external and short-term (acute). Each experience of acute pain causes your brain to rebalance itself through homeostasis. This takes weight off the pain side so that a chronic experience of "pain weight" is no longer your default ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/70216557-2cf6-44f4-8356-4bc0c41e56c3)) Part Overcoming Emotional Obstacles ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/26f2d94b-4274-4938-97d8-3dfb531b6b26)) overindulging rewires their brains over time. ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/2779b192-9cff-4cef-a44a-16660cf373ad)) when your brain is flooded with dopamine—it’s difficult to ignore your emotions or act rationally ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/f5e1caac-f61f-4d0a-9fcc-b95a5abe7be9)) prevent yourself from having to make decisions in a warm state at all. ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/bd4da16f-ac4d-4e28-906c-0ed73b1724c8)) think about your future. Lembke found that just thinking about what you want your life to look like 10 years down the road activates your prefrontal cortex, ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/c490d405-3ca9-4834-9165-ad369da9728e)) When you have higher-quality relationships, you will feel less of a need to pursue dopamine-heavy rewards to cope with loneliness. ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/0f3e3583-1ba7-4b51-981f-521e2e3e4d61)) Raph Koster describes boredom as the opposite of learning. You are bored when you aren’t receiving new information to reinforce new habits or ways of being ([View Highlight](https://www.shortform.com/app/highlights/ea75e1d5-538c-4e03-8e7b-9ccbafe5d9f2))