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The Molecule of More: How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity--and Will Determine the Fate of the Human Race Paperback – September 3, 2019

4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 3,462 ratings

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Winner of the Next Generation Indie Award

Why are we obsessed with the things we want only to be bored when we get them? 
Why is addiction perfectly logical to an addict? 
Why does love change so quickly from passion to indifference? 
Why are some people die-hard liberals and others hardcore conservatives? 
Why are we always hopeful for solutions even in the darkest times--and so good at figuring them out? 
The answer is found in a single chemical in your brain:
dopamine. Dopamine ensured the survival of early man. Thousands of years later, it is the source of our most basic behaviors and cultural ideas--and progress itself. 
Dopamine is the chemical of desire that always asks for more--more stuff, more stimulation, and more surprises. In pursuit of these things, it is undeterred by emotion, fear, or morality. Dopamine is the source of our every urge, that little bit of biology that makes an ambitious business professional sacrifice everything in pursuit of success, or that drives a satisfied spouse to risk it all for the thrill of someone new. Simply put, it is why we seek and succeed; it is why we discover and prosper. Yet, at the same time, it's why we gamble and squander. 
From dopamine's point of view, it's not the
having that matters. It's getting something--anything--that's new. From this understanding--the difference between possessing something versus anticipating it--we can understand in a revolutionary new way why we behave as we do in love, business, addiction, politics, religion--and we can even predict those behaviors in ourselves and others. 
In
The Molecule of More: How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity--and will Determine the Fate of the Human Race, George Washington University professor and psychiatrist Daniel Z. Lieberman, MD, and Georgetown University lecturer Michael E. Long present a potentially life-changing proposal: Much of human life has an unconsidered component that explains an array of behaviors previously thought to be unrelated, including why winners cheat, why geniuses often suffer with mental illness, why nearly all diets fail, and why the brains of liberals and conservatives really are different.
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Popular Highlights in this book

From the Publisher

Daniel H. Pink

David Eagleman

Thomas F. Wilson

Gregg Easterbrook

Editorial Reviews

Review

"
""Daniel Lieberman and Michael Long have pulled off an amazing feat. They have made a biography of a neurotransmitter a riveting read. Once you understand the power and peril of dopamine, you'll better understand the human condition itself.""

—Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive and When

""Meet a molecule whose fingerprint rests upon every aspect of human nature—from desire and drugs to politics and progress. Lieberman and Long tell the epic saga of dopamine as a page-turner that you simply can't put down.""??

—David Eagleman, PhD, neuroscientist at Stanford and New York Times bestselling author

""I've worked as an artist for forty years, and the question ‘Why am I like this?' has been a puzzle, a mystery, a plea, and an occasional cry to the heavens. Lieberman and Long have created a road map for all those wrestling between insatiable longing and the here and now.""

—Thomas F. Wilson, actor and comedian

""Why do we crave what we don't have rather than feel good about what we do—and why do fools fall in love? Haunting questions of human biology are answered by
The Molecule of More, a must-read about the human condition.""

—Gregg Easterbrook, author of It's Better Than It Looks

""As a guy who creates musical stuff for a living and reads science books for kicks, I was doubly hooked by
The Molecule of More. Lieberman and Long lay out the astoundingly wide-ranging effects of dopamine with nimble metaphors and fat-free sentences. And the research linking creativity and madness, with dopamine as the hidden culprit—let's just say it hit home. Reading each chapter, I felt myself fitting a key smoothly into a locked door, opening onto a fresh-yet-familiar room.""

—Robbie Fulks, Grammy-nominated recording artist

""Jim Watson, who deciphered the genetic code, famously said, ‘There are only molecules; the rest is sociology,' adding fuel to C. P. Snow's complaint that Science and the humanities are two fundamentally different ""cultures"" which will never meet. The authors argue provocatively, yet convincingly, that the molecule that allows us to bridge the chasm between them is dopamine. Though written for ordinary people, the narrative is sprinkled throughout with dazzling new insights that will appeal equally to specialists.""

—V.S. Ramachandran, PhD, professor at the University of California, San Diego, and at Salk Institute and author of TheEmerging Mind
"

About the Author

Daniel Z. Lieberman, MD, is a clinical professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at George Washington University and SVP of mental health at Hims & Hers Health. Dr. Lieberman is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, a recipient of the Caron Foundation Research Award, and he has published over 50 scientific reports on behavioral science. He has provided insight on psychiatric issues for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the US Department of Commerce, and the Office of Drug and Alcohol Policy, and has discussed mental health in interviews on CNN, C-SPAN, and PBS. Dr. Lieberman studied the Great Books at St. John's College. He received his medical degree and completed his psychiatric training at New York University.

Michael E. Long is an award-winning speechwriter, screenwriter, and playwright. As a playwright, more than 20 of his shows have been produced, most on New York stages. As a screenwriter, his honors include finalist for the grand prize in screenwriting at the Slamdance Film Festival. As a speechwriter, Mr. Long has written for members of Congress, U.S. cabinet secretaries, governors, diplomats, business executives, and presidential candidates. A popular speaker and educator, Mr. Long has addressed audiences around the world, including in a keynote at Oxford University. He teaches writing at Georgetown University, where he is a former director of writing. Mr. Long pursued undergraduate studies at Murray State University and graduate studies at Vanderbilt University.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ BenBella Books; Reprint edition (September 3, 2019)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 240 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1948836580
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1948836586
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.4 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.66 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 3,462 ratings

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Customers find the book easy to read and engaging. It provides useful insights and helps them understand the brain's functions. They describe it as concise, well-written, and easy to understand. The pacing is described as thought-provoking and spellbinding.

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76 customers mention "Readability"71 positive5 negative

Customers find the book easy to read and engaging. They describe it as a page-turner that reads like a fiction novel. Many readers recommend the book as an excellent choice and say it's an enjoyable learning experience.

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"Simple and well written, informative and academic. An excellent choice, for all readers! I would totally recommend it! Thank you!" Read more

"A very readable book which gives fascinating insights into how the human mind works and just how much of our behaviour is influenced by biology...." Read more

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Customers find the book provides good insights into neuroscience and psychology. It helps them understand aspects of themselves in a profound and simple way. The book covers neuroscience and addiction, providing information presented in an approachable way. Readers appreciate that the book presents information well and provides insight into how to apply this understanding into thoughts and practices.

"...planet by giving our ancestors “the ability to create tools, invent abstract sciences, and plan far into the future.”..." Read more

"Simple and well written, informative and academic. An excellent choice, for all readers! I would totally recommend it! Thank you!" Read more

"...The authors also give some very straightforward and practical ideas for achieving balance, with the potential to improve our individual happiness as..." Read more

"...The main idea of the book, balancing our Here and Now enjoyment with our dopamine-driven plan to have a happier life...." Read more

31 customers mention "Ease of reading"31 positive0 negative

Customers find the book easy to read and understand. They find the information clear, concise, and straightforward. The book is well-written and presented in an approachable way. Readers say it's fun to read and recommend everyone should read it.

"Simple and well written, informative and academic. An excellent choice, for all readers! I would totally recommend it! Thank you!" Read more

"...The authors also give some very straightforward and practical ideas for achieving balance, with the potential to improve our individual happiness as..." Read more

"...The book is also written in a very accessible way and is a very pleasant read...." Read more

"Full of easy to understand examples of this elusive molecule dopamine an essential part of our humanity and our evolutionary success on this planet" Read more

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Customers find the book engaging and thought-provoking. They say the authors weave a spellbinding narrative that is relatable and easy to understand. The book makes a dry subject interesting and approachable, making it relatable and useful.

"...Topics of this book are my favorite. The seven chapters are about love, drug, domain, creativeness, politics, progress, and harmony...." Read more

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"This is a fascinating exploration into how a single chemical in our brain not only drives so much of our behavior, but is helping to determine the..." Read more

"...Fascinating science that is delivered in both an approachable and passionate way. I am inspired and enlightened. Truly a life changing book." Read more

When is more a good thing, and when is it detrimental?
5 out of 5 stars
When is more a good thing, and when is it detrimental?
This book review took me a full week to write. Every time I sat down to collect my thoughts my phone would ping with a message from a friend and I would get swept up in whatever their drama was. One of those days I got a message from a young woman on a dating app, and the idea of meeting her for dinner consumed my mind to the point where I wrote nothing at all. Although frustrating, now that I am on day five of attempting to write this review, I have come to find it precisely appropriate that the dopamine mechanism in my brain kept me distracted for a full week. But let’s get to it.Look at everything in your immediate vicinity. The chair you’re sitting on, the screen you’re reading this off of, the few other things you can smell and touch; this is your here and now. Everything else is inspired and manipulated by dopamine. Even an object that is across the room (one that you can see), the desire to go and pick it up is driven by dopamine, because dopamine is the molecule that allows us to imagine a potential future. It makes you believe that whatever you have at present is not as good as what you could potentially have later. Is the steak you’re eating for dinner right now really that good, or will the pizza you’ve got planned for tomorrow night be better? Have you finally found love, or is there a person even more suitable to you still out there waiting to be met and courted? Is this book review a good one, or will the next book be more interesting?One of the most intriguing lessons I learned from this book was the connection between dopamine and creativity. Dopamine is the all important chemical for planning things in the future, and creativity is literally the process of imagining something new and creating it, therefore it makes sense that creative people have been found to have larger (or more populous) dopamine receptors in their brains. The world of science is similar. Scientists ask questions, imagine potential futures, and go in search of answers. Scientists have similarly been found to have more dopamine in their brains than the average person. Sometimes this can be a scary thing; how many great artists and scientists from history do we know who have had addictions or compulsions they were perpetually unable to overcome? Picasso and Einstein, both geniuses in their respective fields, are known to have philandered about with a variety of women (despite both being married several times throughout their lives). The line between madness and genius can indeed be a thin one. Nobel Prize winning mathematician John Nash made fundamental contributions to game theory, differential geometry, and economics, and also lived with schizophrenia (he is portrayed by Russell Crowe in the 2001 film A Beautiful Mind based on the book of the same name). There is a story about Nash in which he is asked how he can possibly believe that he is being contacted by aliens, to which he responds: “the ideas I have about supernatural beings come to me the same way that my mathematical ideas do.”Another interesting anecdote is the idea that almost anything can become addicting if it triggers your dopamine circuits. I experienced this myself one year when I went on four separate multi-day vacations each precisely one month apart. After returning home from the fourth trip, I spent an entire week planning number five until I eventually talked myself out of it. I have personally found it true that any repeated behavior that gives me a positive hit of dopamine can become something that I crave again and again. For some people it’s an injection of heroin, for others it’s getting on an airplane to a vacation destination.Here’s a question: Does Steven King still enjoy writing scary books? Or is he just chasing another dopamine hit? Do you think Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks still enjoy making movies, or are they simply looking for the rush of excitement they get from the next great script to be sent their way? Does Bob Dylan still get the same satisfaction from performing that he used to? Or is his dopamine drip firmly in control, always pushing him to play another show?Our authors mirror all of this research with a study done on happiness, in which they found that people were less happy when their mind was wandering. “It didn’t matter what the activity was. Whether they were eating, working, watching TV, or socializing, they were happier if they were paying attention to what they were doing.” Especially with the rise of social media platforms, a lot of time spent mentally wandering is time spent comparing yourself to others who probably have more of what you want (or what you think you want). These platforms, and our cell phones in general, are the most addicting things ever invented—every ping triggers our dopamine receptors. The researchers concluded that “a human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind.” Living in the moment makes a human happy, as does appreciating what you already have and doing your best not to pine for more. Turns out all of those spiritual gurus really are on to something!On the one hand, dopamine has made us Homo Sapiens the dominate species on the planet by giving our ancestors “the ability to create tools, invent abstract sciences, and plan far into the future.” We have brought into being a world in which buildings scrape the skies, the internet unites communities across the oceans, and 8 billion humans coexist relatively peacefully. We have achieved wondrous accomplishments thanks to our internal desires for a better and more comfortable life. The question on the other hand, however, is where does it end? Our authors cautious us, noting that “in an environment of plenty in which we have mastered our world and developed sophisticated technology—in a time when more is no longer a matter of survival—dopamine continues to drive us forward, perhaps to our own destruction.”Obviously we cannot renounce all sensual pleasures and plans for the future, we are not Buddha. We want things in life for ourselves and our loved ones and we want to contribute to the betterment and advancement of society. But we can recognize our addictions and find balance. Personally, I have gotten into the habit of leaving my phone on silent. In the past it was only when I was watching a movie or at the Thanksgiving dinner table, but now I leave it silenced almost exclusively. I don’t want my phone to be in charge of telling me when some ‘important’ message comes my way; I check my phone when I want to, not the other way around. It’s one small step towards living in the moment. (Don’t worry Mom, I got all six of your voicemails and I will call you back.) Are there areas of your life that you keep going back to, despite the knowledge that it is unhealthy for your mind or body? Dopamine is the molecule of more, which means the most important question to answer is this: When is more a good thing, and when is it detrimental? That is stability.
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Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on November 5, 2021
    This book review took me a full week to write. Every time I sat down to collect my thoughts my phone would ping with a message from a friend and I would get swept up in whatever their drama was. One of those days I got a message from a young woman on a dating app, and the idea of meeting her for dinner consumed my mind to the point where I wrote nothing at all. Although frustrating, now that I am on day five of attempting to write this review, I have come to find it precisely appropriate that the dopamine mechanism in my brain kept me distracted for a full week. But let’s get to it.

    Look at everything in your immediate vicinity. The chair you’re sitting on, the screen you’re reading this off of, the few other things you can smell and touch; this is your here and now. Everything else is inspired and manipulated by dopamine. Even an object that is across the room (one that you can see), the desire to go and pick it up is driven by dopamine, because dopamine is the molecule that allows us to imagine a potential future. It makes you believe that whatever you have at present is not as good as what you could potentially have later. Is the steak you’re eating for dinner right now really that good, or will the pizza you’ve got planned for tomorrow night be better? Have you finally found love, or is there a person even more suitable to you still out there waiting to be met and courted? Is this book review a good one, or will the next book be more interesting?

    One of the most intriguing lessons I learned from this book was the connection between dopamine and creativity. Dopamine is the all important chemical for planning things in the future, and creativity is literally the process of imagining something new and creating it, therefore it makes sense that creative people have been found to have larger (or more populous) dopamine receptors in their brains. The world of science is similar. Scientists ask questions, imagine potential futures, and go in search of answers. Scientists have similarly been found to have more dopamine in their brains than the average person. Sometimes this can be a scary thing; how many great artists and scientists from history do we know who have had addictions or compulsions they were perpetually unable to overcome? Picasso and Einstein, both geniuses in their respective fields, are known to have philandered about with a variety of women (despite both being married several times throughout their lives). The line between madness and genius can indeed be a thin one. Nobel Prize winning mathematician John Nash made fundamental contributions to game theory, differential geometry, and economics, and also lived with schizophrenia (he is portrayed by Russell Crowe in the 2001 film A Beautiful Mind based on the book of the same name). There is a story about Nash in which he is asked how he can possibly believe that he is being contacted by aliens, to which he responds: “the ideas I have about supernatural beings come to me the same way that my mathematical ideas do.”

    Another interesting anecdote is the idea that almost anything can become addicting if it triggers your dopamine circuits. I experienced this myself one year when I went on four separate multi-day vacations each precisely one month apart. After returning home from the fourth trip, I spent an entire week planning number five until I eventually talked myself out of it. I have personally found it true that any repeated behavior that gives me a positive hit of dopamine can become something that I crave again and again. For some people it’s an injection of heroin, for others it’s getting on an airplane to a vacation destination.

    Here’s a question: Does Steven King still enjoy writing scary books? Or is he just chasing another dopamine hit? Do you think Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks still enjoy making movies, or are they simply looking for the rush of excitement they get from the next great script to be sent their way? Does Bob Dylan still get the same satisfaction from performing that he used to? Or is his dopamine drip firmly in control, always pushing him to play another show?

    Our authors mirror all of this research with a study done on happiness, in which they found that people were less happy when their mind was wandering. “It didn’t matter what the activity was. Whether they were eating, working, watching TV, or socializing, they were happier if they were paying attention to what they were doing.” Especially with the rise of social media platforms, a lot of time spent mentally wandering is time spent comparing yourself to others who probably have more of what you want (or what you think you want). These platforms, and our cell phones in general, are the most addicting things ever invented—every ping triggers our dopamine receptors. The researchers concluded that “a human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind.” Living in the moment makes a human happy, as does appreciating what you already have and doing your best not to pine for more. Turns out all of those spiritual gurus really are on to something!

    On the one hand, dopamine has made us Homo Sapiens the dominate species on the planet by giving our ancestors “the ability to create tools, invent abstract sciences, and plan far into the future.” We have brought into being a world in which buildings scrape the skies, the internet unites communities across the oceans, and 8 billion humans coexist relatively peacefully. We have achieved wondrous accomplishments thanks to our internal desires for a better and more comfortable life. The question on the other hand, however, is where does it end? Our authors cautious us, noting that “in an environment of plenty in which we have mastered our world and developed sophisticated technology—in a time when more is no longer a matter of survival—dopamine continues to drive us forward, perhaps to our own destruction.”

    Obviously we cannot renounce all sensual pleasures and plans for the future, we are not Buddha. We want things in life for ourselves and our loved ones and we want to contribute to the betterment and advancement of society. But we can recognize our addictions and find balance. Personally, I have gotten into the habit of leaving my phone on silent. In the past it was only when I was watching a movie or at the Thanksgiving dinner table, but now I leave it silenced almost exclusively. I don’t want my phone to be in charge of telling me when some ‘important’ message comes my way; I check my phone when I want to, not the other way around. It’s one small step towards living in the moment. (Don’t worry Mom, I got all six of your voicemails and I will call you back.) Are there areas of your life that you keep going back to, despite the knowledge that it is unhealthy for your mind or body? Dopamine is the molecule of more, which means the most important question to answer is this: When is more a good thing, and when is it detrimental? That is stability.
    Customer image
    5.0 out of 5 stars
    When is more a good thing, and when is it detrimental?

    Reviewed in the United States on November 5, 2021
    This book review took me a full week to write. Every time I sat down to collect my thoughts my phone would ping with a message from a friend and I would get swept up in whatever their drama was. One of those days I got a message from a young woman on a dating app, and the idea of meeting her for dinner consumed my mind to the point where I wrote nothing at all. Although frustrating, now that I am on day five of attempting to write this review, I have come to find it precisely appropriate that the dopamine mechanism in my brain kept me distracted for a full week. But let’s get to it.

    Look at everything in your immediate vicinity. The chair you’re sitting on, the screen you’re reading this off of, the few other things you can smell and touch; this is your here and now. Everything else is inspired and manipulated by dopamine. Even an object that is across the room (one that you can see), the desire to go and pick it up is driven by dopamine, because dopamine is the molecule that allows us to imagine a potential future. It makes you believe that whatever you have at present is not as good as what you could potentially have later. Is the steak you’re eating for dinner right now really that good, or will the pizza you’ve got planned for tomorrow night be better? Have you finally found love, or is there a person even more suitable to you still out there waiting to be met and courted? Is this book review a good one, or will the next book be more interesting?

    One of the most intriguing lessons I learned from this book was the connection between dopamine and creativity. Dopamine is the all important chemical for planning things in the future, and creativity is literally the process of imagining something new and creating it, therefore it makes sense that creative people have been found to have larger (or more populous) dopamine receptors in their brains. The world of science is similar. Scientists ask questions, imagine potential futures, and go in search of answers. Scientists have similarly been found to have more dopamine in their brains than the average person. Sometimes this can be a scary thing; how many great artists and scientists from history do we know who have had addictions or compulsions they were perpetually unable to overcome? Picasso and Einstein, both geniuses in their respective fields, are known to have philandered about with a variety of women (despite both being married several times throughout their lives). The line between madness and genius can indeed be a thin one. Nobel Prize winning mathematician John Nash made fundamental contributions to game theory, differential geometry, and economics, and also lived with schizophrenia (he is portrayed by Russell Crowe in the 2001 film A Beautiful Mind based on the book of the same name). There is a story about Nash in which he is asked how he can possibly believe that he is being contacted by aliens, to which he responds: “the ideas I have about supernatural beings come to me the same way that my mathematical ideas do.”

    Another interesting anecdote is the idea that almost anything can become addicting if it triggers your dopamine circuits. I experienced this myself one year when I went on four separate multi-day vacations each precisely one month apart. After returning home from the fourth trip, I spent an entire week planning number five until I eventually talked myself out of it. I have personally found it true that any repeated behavior that gives me a positive hit of dopamine can become something that I crave again and again. For some people it’s an injection of heroin, for others it’s getting on an airplane to a vacation destination.

    Here’s a question: Does Steven King still enjoy writing scary books? Or is he just chasing another dopamine hit? Do you think Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks still enjoy making movies, or are they simply looking for the rush of excitement they get from the next great script to be sent their way? Does Bob Dylan still get the same satisfaction from performing that he used to? Or is his dopamine drip firmly in control, always pushing him to play another show?

    Our authors mirror all of this research with a study done on happiness, in which they found that people were less happy when their mind was wandering. “It didn’t matter what the activity was. Whether they were eating, working, watching TV, or socializing, they were happier if they were paying attention to what they were doing.” Especially with the rise of social media platforms, a lot of time spent mentally wandering is time spent comparing yourself to others who probably have more of what you want (or what you think you want). These platforms, and our cell phones in general, are the most addicting things ever invented—every ping triggers our dopamine receptors. The researchers concluded that “a human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind.” Living in the moment makes a human happy, as does appreciating what you already have and doing your best not to pine for more. Turns out all of those spiritual gurus really are on to something!

    On the one hand, dopamine has made us Homo Sapiens the dominate species on the planet by giving our ancestors “the ability to create tools, invent abstract sciences, and plan far into the future.” We have brought into being a world in which buildings scrape the skies, the internet unites communities across the oceans, and 8 billion humans coexist relatively peacefully. We have achieved wondrous accomplishments thanks to our internal desires for a better and more comfortable life. The question on the other hand, however, is where does it end? Our authors cautious us, noting that “in an environment of plenty in which we have mastered our world and developed sophisticated technology—in a time when more is no longer a matter of survival—dopamine continues to drive us forward, perhaps to our own destruction.”

    Obviously we cannot renounce all sensual pleasures and plans for the future, we are not Buddha. We want things in life for ourselves and our loved ones and we want to contribute to the betterment and advancement of society. But we can recognize our addictions and find balance. Personally, I have gotten into the habit of leaving my phone on silent. In the past it was only when I was watching a movie or at the Thanksgiving dinner table, but now I leave it silenced almost exclusively. I don’t want my phone to be in charge of telling me when some ‘important’ message comes my way; I check my phone when I want to, not the other way around. It’s one small step towards living in the moment. (Don’t worry Mom, I got all six of your voicemails and I will call you back.) Are there areas of your life that you keep going back to, despite the knowledge that it is unhealthy for your mind or body? Dopamine is the molecule of more, which means the most important question to answer is this: When is more a good thing, and when is it detrimental? That is stability.
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  • Reviewed in the United States on November 24, 2024
    Simple and well written, informative and academic. An excellent choice, for all readers! I would totally recommend it! Thank you!
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  • Reviewed in the United States on February 24, 2024
    A very readable book which gives fascinating insights into how the human mind works and just how much of our behaviour is influenced by biology. Here's a scientific basis for why we often feel unsatisfied and keep chasing more - more things, more thrills, more success. The authors also give some very straightforward and practical ideas for achieving balance, with the potential to improve our individual happiness as well as the health of the planet.

    My only complaint was that I wanted more details about how dopamine circuits actually work; the book glossed over the technical details to focus on the practical effects. Having said that, they give lots of recommendations for further reading should you want to delve deeper into the technicalities.
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  • Reviewed in the United States on January 2, 2022
    Excerpts from the Molecule of More

    The main idea of the book, balancing our Here and Now enjoyment with our dopamine-driven plan to have a happier life.

    Topics of this book are my favorite. The seven chapters are about love, drug, domain, creativeness, politics, progress, and harmony.

    Love that lasts shift the emphasis from anticipation to experience; from the fantasy of anything being possible to engagement with reality and all its imperfections. P 13
    The transition is difficult. P13
    Highly driven women and men sometimes find it a significant challenge to turn off their thoughts and just experience the sensations of intimacy — to think less and feel more. P21

    The sensation of wanting is not a choice you make. It is a reaction to the things you encounter. P31

    Government is about control. [Law is the least tyranny. but ] Many laws benefit some people but harm others. P174
    Politics is about change. Change is stressful. P175 / P187

    Identifying ourselves with our dopamine circuits traps us in a world of speculation and possibility, The concrete world of here and now is disdained, ignored, or even feared, because we cannot control it. We can only control the future, and giving up control is not something dopaminergic creatures like to do. But none of it is real. Even a future one second away is unreal. It is only the stark facts of the present that are real, facts that must be accepted as they are, facts that cannot be modified by a hair's breadth to suit our needs. This is the world of reality. The future, where dopaminergic creatures live their lives, is a world of phantoms. P201-202
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  • Reviewed in the United States on January 23, 2023
    This book is what I want more nonfiction books to be like. A bunch of studies related to dopamine are explained. Each study's underlying scientific principles, original hypotheses, and possible interpretations are summarized, and each study is used to demonstrate how dopamine affects the many facets of humanity. I appreciated how the equipment used in the research or how the data is collected was always explained. The book is also written in a very accessible way and is a very pleasant read.

    The book goes over a broad range of topics, such as politics, culture, mental disorders, creativity, and achieving happiness. It slowly builds evidence that much of what we see in our lives is the result of dopamine or the lack thereof. I personally see the subjects brought up upon in the book through the lens the book is written in now, and I am glad that I have a more informed and nuanced interpretation. The book uncovers the hidden world of dopamine very well, and I am eager to try out the lessons taught in the book for myself.
    24 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on November 21, 2024
    So many things I didn't understand before reading this. What great joy of learning and enlightening came from my reading this.
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  • Reviewed in the United States on August 17, 2024
    Everyone should read this book. It’ll help you understand what decisions you make and why and it’s all about dopamine!!! Are you a dopamine junkie? If so, this is the book for you 🤪
    6 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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  • Louise Carreon
    5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book
    Reviewed in Canada on November 12, 2024
    started reading for a week, great book 👍
  • Regiane Rocha Santana Lopes
    5.0 out of 5 stars Interessante
    Reviewed in Brazil on October 14, 2024
    Interessante entender de fato o que é a Dopamina e como ela funciona em nosso corpo. E como é maravilhoso que nosso corpo precisa sempre do equilíbrio das coisas. Tudo que é em excesso ou há falta, é ruim.
  • Octavio
    5.0 out of 5 stars Interesante
    Reviewed in Mexico on February 7, 2023
    El autor explora el tema de una manera muy digerible y fácil de entender sin demasiados términos técnicos.
  • Aranya Roy Choudhury
    5.0 out of 5 stars The journey of humans in the light of neurochemistry
    Reviewed in India on November 10, 2024
    One of the best books I have had in my life. It may be a bit difficult for people who are not well versed in neurochemistry and/or psychology, but if you can comprehend this work, it can potentially change your life.
  • N
    5.0 out of 5 stars good book
    Reviewed in the Netherlands on November 7, 2024
    good book, but wondering about how valid it still is today.