Mapping the Avenues of Addiction in our Brains

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Maybe you like food, maybe it's gaming, or perhaps it's social media. The truth is, we all have our addictive tendencies and in today's episode, we will be exploring addiction, how it develops, why it develops, and how to overcome it.

In this episode of the Brains Byte Back podcast, will be looking at addiction in a general sense, but for the sake of this podcast and its technology focus, we will mainly be focusing on addiction relating to social media, while briefly touching on some other areas such as addiction to gambling, and even crypto.

To do this we are joined by Dr. Gail Saltz, the Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the NY Presbyterian Hospital Weill-Cornell School of medicine and host of the “How Can I Help?" podcast from iHeartRadio.

We discuss the difference is between compulsive behavior and substance addiction and their impact on our brains, what constitutes an addiction, and what you can do if you feel you have an addiction.

Dr. Saltz also explains why most addicts don't go to psychiatrists because of their addiction, but because of the negative consequences produced by these addictions such as depression or anxiety.

In addition, we also discuss why buying and checking crypto has the potential to be an addictive compulsive behavior.

On top of that, we go into how willpower is like a muscle that you exercise and make stronger, but it takes a lot more than willpower to overcome addiction.

And finally, Dr. Saltz shares how our neurons are like roads, and when we start an addictive habit that rewards us with dopamine, like winning when gambling, this pathway is small like a country road.

But as the habit is repeated, this road becomes larger like a highway and becomes an easier road for your brain to take.