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Understanding Dopamine Addiction and How to Manage It, with Anna Lembke (SHE MD)

Jun 2025 🇺🇸 SHE MD Podcast

In this June 2025 episode of the SHE MD podcast, hosts Mary Alice Haney and Dr. Thais Aliabadi interview Stanford addiction psychiatrist Anna Lembke about dopamine and digital-media use. Lembke explains how constant access to highly stimulating digital content can shift the brain's reward balance toward craving, and the conversation turns specifically to how heavy social-media and digital-media use may be associated with mood and attention difficulties in children. She recommends a structured period of abstinence from a specific digital habit as a way to rebalance the reward system, while also noting genetic and family-history factors that can make some people more susceptible to compulsive use. TechKids Foundation cites this interview for its direct discussion of digital media's association with children's dopamine regulation.

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Haney, Mary Alice, and Thais Aliabadi, hosts. "Understanding Dopamine Addiction and How to Manage It, with Anna Lembke." SHE MD, 17 Jun. 2025.

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