The Paradox of Pleasure

Do you ever struggle to communicate with your mom? Or feel like you and your spouse sometimes speak different languages? This week, we revisit a favorite conversation with linguist Deborah Tannen. She shows how our conversational styles can cause unintended conflicts, and what we ...  Show more

Have you ever had a flash of insight that hit you when you least expected it? How did it change your life? Psychologist Anthony Klotz studies the "jolts" that shake us out of our routines, and how these moments can help us make more intentional decisions about the people we want ...  Show more

Dr. Anna Lembke, psychiatrist and author, explains when too much pleasure-triggering dopamine upsets the delicate balance of pleasure and pain our brains need to feel "normal," which can lead to long-term pain and addiction. In today's dopamine-filled world, here's how keep that ...  Show more

The relentless pursuit of pleasure always leads to pain. As the world evolves from one of scarcity to overabundance, we increasingly orient our lives around the pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain—an instinct that has produced a myriad of unprecedented types of addiction, a ...  Show more

This week, Anna Lembke, addiction specialist at Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic, and author of “Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence,” provides the clinical definition of addiction and says it’s becoming easier than ever adopt addictive beha ...  Show more

When the behaviors we thought would make us happy don’t, we’re forced to bridge the gap between where we are and where we want to be. But our happiness goals are often stifled by the disease of addiction—and its complex neurochemical influence on our desires. A conversation with ...  Show more