This week we’re chatting with Dr Anna Lembke, a psychiatrist and the author of Dopamine Nation.

Hi, Anna! If you could recommend One Good Thing everyone can do to improve their mental health, what would it be?

Do something that is hard. Move your body, take a cold shower, read a challenging book, write a thank-you note, clean out your closet, say you’re sorry, order your coffee by talking to the barista rather than using the app.

Interesting. Why is this your One Good Thing?

Conventional wisdom tells us that when we are struggling, we should reward ourselves with some kind of treat: a nap, a piece of cake, a Netflix binge. But the truth is that the pursuit of pleasure leads to pain, and pain, in all its myriad forms, enhances our ability to feel pleasure.

Wait, so we should be pursuing pain? How does this work?

This is the science of hormesis. Hormesis is Greek for ‘to set in motion’. This branch of science shows that when a living organism is exposed to mild to moderate doses of noxious (painful) stimuli, the painful stimulus sets in motion the body’s own healing mechanisms, which in turn increases the transmission of feel-good chemicals like dopamine, serotonin, our endogenous opioid system and our endogenous cannabinoid system.

By paying for these chemicals up front, we avoid the dopamine-deficit state that is triggered by easy pleasures, which in turn perpetuates a cycle of intoxication and craving that leads to pain.

One Good Thing: do something that feels hard to reboot your brain