Hacking Dopamine Naturally: Pain, Focus, and Performance : 1320
The Human Upgrade: Biohacking for Longevity & Performance
Dave Asprey
4.6 • 7.3K Ratings
🗓️ 28 August 2025
⏱️ 80 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Your dopamine system is being hijacked every day, and the way to reclaim it might surprise you. This episode reveals how pain, pleasure, and addiction are wired in your brain, and how to use that knowledge for real brain optimization, resilience, and longevity. You’ll discover why your dopamine levels control motivation, focus, mood, and even cravings—and the science-backed strategies that reset your neuroplasticity, metabolism, and reward system.
Watch this episode on YouTube for the full video experience:
https://www.youtube.com/@DaveAspreyBPR
Host Dave Asprey sits down with Dr. Anna Lembke, Stanford psychiatrist and bestselling author of Dopamine Nation. She is one of the world’s leading experts on addiction, compulsive behavior, and the neuroscience of reward pathways. With decades of clinical work and groundbreaking research, she explains why dopamine has become the modern lens for understanding desire, distraction, and dysfunction—and how we can hack it to upgrade human performance.
They break down how dopamine drives addiction, why pain can reset your reward system, and how simple practices like fasting, cold therapy, and supplements affect your brain chemistry. You’ll learn how nicotine, GLP-1 drugs, and even nootropics alter dopamine sensitivity, and why overstimulation from social media, pornography, and ultra-processed food is creating an epidemic of anhedonia. The conversation also covers how functional medicine and biohacking can protect your mitochondria, restore your natural dopamine balance, and make your brain more resilient.
You’ll Learn:
• Why dopamine itself is not addictive—and what really drives addiction
• How pain, hormesis, and “dopamine fasting” can reset your reward system
• Why social media and digital overstimulation create chronic dopamine deficit states
• The role of GLP-1 drugs, nicotine, psychedelics, and other substances in rewiring dopamine
• How functional medicine and supplements help restore dopamine balance
• The connection between dopamine, mitochondria, fasting, cold therapy, and longevity
• Why radical honesty and self-binding are powerful anti-addiction hacks
This is essential listening for anyone serious about hacking dopamine for better focus, sleep optimization, metabolism, and long-term brain health. Whether you’re curious about the link between dopamine and neuroplasticity, looking to upgrade human performance with smarter not harder tools, or just want to know how to stop dopamine hijacks from ruling your life, this episode gives you the science and strategies you need.
Dave Asprey is a four-time New York Times bestselling author, founder of Bulletproof Coffee, and the father of biohacking. With over 1,000 interviews and 1 million monthly listeners, The Human Upgrade is the top podcast for people who want to take control of their biology, extend their longevity, and optimize every system in the body and mind. Each episode features cutting-edge insights in health, performance, neuroscience, supplements, nutrition, hacking, emotional intelligence, and conscious living.
Episodes are released every Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday (audio-only) where Dave asks the questions no one else dares, and brings you real tools to become more resilient, aware, and high performing.
Keywords: dopamine fasting, pleasure-pain balance, dopamine deficit state, addiction neurobiology, anhedonia treatment, dopamine receptors, neuroadaptation gremlins, endogenous opioids, cold plunge dopamine, hormesis neuroscience, nucleus accumbens dopamine, L-Dopa addiction, GLP-1 and dopamine, social media addiction neuroscience, dopamine reward pathway, compulsive behavior psychiatry, dopamine and neuroplasticity, anhedonia supplements, functional medicine addiction, dopamine repair party
Thank you to our sponsors!
- Zbiotics | Go to https://zbiotics.com/DAVE for 15% off your first order.
- ARMRA | Go to https://tryarmra.com/ and use the code DAVE to get 15% off your first order.
Resources:
• Anna’s Website: https://www.annalembke.com/
• Danger Coffee: https://dangercoffee.com/DAVE15
• Dave Asprey’s BEYOND Conference: https://beyondconference.com
• Dave Asprey’s New Book – Heavily Meditated: https://daveasprey.com/heavily-meditated
• Upgrade Collective: https://www.ourupgradecollective.com
• Upgrade Labs: https://upgradelabs.com
• 40 Years of Zen: https://40yearsofzen.com
Timestamps:
0:00 — Trailer
1:10 — Introduction
5:47 — Pleasure–Pain Balance
6:45 — Homeostasis & Adaptation
8:22 — Addiction & Dopamine Deficit
10:14 — BICEP: Conscious Pain Exposure
14:26 — Adapting to Pleasure & Pain
20:20 — GLP-1s and Joy
21:39 — Modern Anhedonia
34:32 — Resilience in Young People
42:00 — Social Media & Mental Health
44:46 — Control & Addiction
55:14 — Dopamine Fasting
1:03:18 — Self-Binding Tools
1:07:56 — Psychedelics & Addiction
1:12:25 — Parenting in the Digital Age
1:14:39 — Progress & Outlook
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Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | If you're a founder or product creator in the biohacking and longevity space, listen up. |
| 0:04.6 | Our industry will hit $100 billion in the next four years. |
| 0:09.0 | Innovation is accelerating and someone is going to own your market. |
| 0:13.5 | The question is, will it be you? |
| 0:15.5 | That's why I created the Business of Biohacking Summit, happening October 21st to 23rd in Austin. |
| 0:21.7 | It is exclusive, it's interactive. |
| 0:23.9 | We're talking hands-on workshops, expert-led mastermind tables, and real-time pitching. |
| 0:29.1 | You'll leave with an action plan because we want to see you succeed. |
| 0:32.5 | If you're serious about scaling smarter, not harder, and turning your mission into a movement the way I did, |
| 0:39.3 | go to businessofbiohacking.com to apply to get in now. Let's hack your business to billions. |
| 0:45.3 | I want to teach you directly. I'll see you in Austin. People often wonder, why would someone |
| 0:51.1 | cut themselves? Well, people cut themselves because they get a little high from that. Our body senses injury and in response to injury starts to upregulate, feel-good |
| 1:00.3 | neurotransmitters, like dopamine. Dr. Anna Lemke is a psychiatrist and best-selling author at the forefront |
| 1:06.3 | of understanding addiction in the modern age. Her groundbreaking work on dopamine and compulsive |
| 1:10.8 | behaviors reveals how everyday pleasures can hijack the brain and how to tell you. understanding addiction in the modern age. Her groundbreaking work on dopamine and compulsive behaviors |
| 1:11.3 | reveals how everyday pleasures can hijack the brain and how to take back control. |
| 1:16.5 | There are experiments showing that with ice cold water immersion, there's a gradual increase of |
| 1:22.1 | dopamine levels over the latter half of the ice cold water bath. And then dopamine levels will |
| 1:26.9 | remain elevated for hours after getting out of the bath cold water bath and then dopamine levels will remain elevated for hours after |
| 1:29.2 | getting out of the bath before going back down to baseline levels so it's really a wonderful way to |
| 1:36.0 | get our reward so how do i live feeling amazing with adequate dopamine the whole time |
| 1:41.6 | you're listening to the human Upgrade with Dave Asprey. |
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