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Top 25 Anna Lembke Quotes (2026 Update)

Anna Lembke Quote: “The reason we’re all so miserable may be because we’re working so hard to avoid being miserable.”

1. “The reason we’re all so miserable may be because we’re working so hard to avoid being miserable.”

— Anna Lembke

Anna Lembke Quote: “As the neuroscientist, Daniel Freedman, who studies the foraging practices of Red Harvester ants, once remarked to me: “The world is sensory rich and causal poor”. That is to say, we know the donut tastes good in the moment, but we are less aware that eating a donut every day for a month, adds 5 pounds to our waistline.”

2. “As the neuroscientist, Daniel Freedman, who studies the foraging practices of Red Harvester ants, once remarked to me: “The world is sensory rich and causal poor”. That is to say, we know the donut tastes good in the moment, but we are less aware that eating a donut every day for a month, adds 5 pounds to our waistline.”

— Anna Lembke

Anna Lembke Quote: “I urge you to find a way to immerse yourself fully in the life that you’ve been given. To stop running from whatever you’re trying to escape, and instead to stop, and turn, and face whatever it is.”

3. “I urge you to find a way to immerse yourself fully in the life that you’ve been given. To stop running from whatever you’re trying to escape, and instead to stop, and turn, and face whatever it is.”

— Anna Lembke

Anna Lembke Quote: “With intermittent exposure to pain, our natural hedonic set point gets weighted to the side of pleasure, such that we become less vulnerable to pain and more able to feel pleasure over time.”

4. “With intermittent exposure to pain, our natural hedonic set point gets weighted to the side of pleasure, such that we become less vulnerable to pain and more able to feel pleasure over time.”

— Anna Lembke

Anna Lembke Quote: “We’re all running from pain. Some of us take pills. Some of us couch surf while binge-watching Netflix. Some of us read romance novels. We’ll do almost anything to distract ourselves from ourselves. Yet all this trying to insulate ourselves from pain seems only to have made our pain worse.”

5. “We’re all running from pain. Some of us take pills. Some of us couch surf while binge-watching Netflix. Some of us read romance novels. We’ll do almost anything to distract ourselves from ourselves. Yet all this trying to insulate ourselves from pain seems only to have made our pain worse.”

— Anna Lembke

Anna Lembke Quote: “Binding ourselves is a way to be free.”

6. “Binding ourselves is a way to be free.”

— Anna Lembke

Anna Lembke Quote: “Doctors and health care institutions are complicit in the medicalization of poverty that encourages the creation of professional patients.”

7. “Doctors and health care institutions are complicit in the medicalization of poverty that encourages the creation of professional patients.”

— Anna Lembke

Anna Lembke Quote: “But, there is a cost to medicating away every type of human suffering, and as we shall see, there is an alternative path that might work better: embracing pain.”

8. “But, there is a cost to medicating away every type of human suffering, and as we shall see, there is an alternative path that might work better: embracing pain.”

— Anna Lembke

Anna Lembke Quote: “I urge you to find a way to immerse yourself fully in the life that you’ve been given. To stop running from whatever you’re trying to escape, and instead to stop, and turn, and face whatever it is. Then I dare you to walk toward it. In this way, the world may reveal itself to you as something magical and awe-inspiring that does not require escape. Instead, the world may become something worth paying attention to.”

9. “I urge you to find a way to immerse yourself fully in the life that you’ve been given. To stop running from whatever you’re trying to escape, and instead to stop, and turn, and face whatever it is. Then I dare you to walk toward it. In this way, the world may reveal itself to you as something magical and awe-inspiring that does not require escape. Instead, the world may become something worth paying attention to.”

— Anna Lembke

Anna Lembke Quote: “The victim narrative reflects a wider societal trend in which we’re all prone to seeing ourselves as the victims of circumstance and deserving of compensation or reward for our suffering. Even when people have been victimized, if the narrative never moves beyond victimhood, it’s difficult for healing to occur.”

10. “The victim narrative reflects a wider societal trend in which we’re all prone to seeing ourselves as the victims of circumstance and deserving of compensation or reward for our suffering. Even when people have been victimized, if the narrative never moves beyond victimhood, it’s difficult for healing to occur.”

— Anna Lembke

Anna Lembke Quote: “We’ve all experienced the letdown of unmet expectations. An expected reward that fails to materialize is worse than a reward that was never anticipated in the first place.”

11. “We’ve all experienced the letdown of unmet expectations. An expected reward that fails to materialize is worse than a reward that was never anticipated in the first place.”

— Anna Lembke

Anna Lembke Quote: “Experiments show that a free rat will instinctively work to free another rat trapped inside a plastic bottle. But once that free rat has been allowed to self-administer heroin, it is no longer interested in helping out the caged rat, presumably too caught up in an opioid haze to care about a fellow member of its species.”

12. “Experiments show that a free rat will instinctively work to free another rat trapped inside a plastic bottle. But once that free rat has been allowed to self-administer heroin, it is no longer interested in helping out the caged rat, presumably too caught up in an opioid haze to care about a fellow member of its species.”

— Anna Lembke

Anna Lembke Quote: “The enormous pressures on doctors today to prescribe pills, perform procedures, and please patients, all within a disjointed medical bureaucracy and all with an eye on the bottom line, has contributed to the current prescription drug epidemic.”

13. “The enormous pressures on doctors today to prescribe pills, perform procedures, and please patients, all within a disjointed medical bureaucracy and all with an eye on the bottom line, has contributed to the current prescription drug epidemic.”

— Anna Lembke

Anna Lembke Quote: “For increasing numbers of people, especially young people, prescription drugs are the first exposure to addictive substances and the first stepping-stone to future addictive use.”

14. “For increasing numbers of people, especially young people, prescription drugs are the first exposure to addictive substances and the first stepping-stone to future addictive use.”

— Anna Lembke

Anna Lembke Quote: “It is not our perfection but our willingness to work together to remedy our mistakes that creates the intimacy we crave.”

15. “It is not our perfection but our willingness to work together to remedy our mistakes that creates the intimacy we crave.”

— Anna Lembke

Anna Lembke Quote: “When the people around us lie and don’t keep their promises, we feel less confident about the future. The world becomes a dangerous place that can’t be relied upon to be orderly, predictable, or safe. We go into competitive survival mode and favor short-term gains over long-term ones, independent of actual material wealth. This is a scarcity mindset.”

16. “When the people around us lie and don’t keep their promises, we feel less confident about the future. The world becomes a dangerous place that can’t be relied upon to be orderly, predictable, or safe. We go into competitive survival mode and favor short-term gains over long-term ones, independent of actual material wealth. This is a scarcity mindset.”

— Anna Lembke

Anna Lembke Quote: “With a wry smile, he went on to hypothesize more generally – and, I suspect, only half-jokingly – that addicts are bored or frustrated problem-solvers who instinctively contrive Houdini-like situations from which to disentangle themselves when no other challenge happens to present itself. The drug becomes the reward when they succeed and the consolation prize when they fail.”

17. “With a wry smile, he went on to hypothesize more generally – and, I suspect, only half-jokingly – that addicts are bored or frustrated problem-solvers who instinctively contrive Houdini-like situations from which to disentangle themselves when no other challenge happens to present itself. The drug becomes the reward when they succeed and the consolation prize when they fail.”

— Anna Lembke

Anna Lembke Quote: “All that distracting yourself with devices may be contributing to your depression and anxiety. It’s pretty exhausting avoiding yourself all the time. I wonder if experiencing yourself in a different way might give you access to new thoughts and feelings, and help you feel more connected to yourself, to others, and to the world.”

18. “All that distracting yourself with devices may be contributing to your depression and anxiety. It’s pretty exhausting avoiding yourself all the time. I wonder if experiencing yourself in a different way might give you access to new thoughts and feelings, and help you feel more connected to yourself, to others, and to the world.”

— Anna Lembke

Anna Lembke Quote: “Shame makes us feel bad about ourselves as people, whereas guilt makes us feel bad about our actions while preserving a positive sense of self.”

19. “Shame makes us feel bad about ourselves as people, whereas guilt makes us feel bad about our actions while preserving a positive sense of self.”

— Anna Lembke

Anna Lembke Quote: “Nora Volkow, showing that dopamine transmission is still below normal two weeks after quitting drugs. Her study is consistent with my clinical experience that two weeks of abstinence is not enough. At two weeks, patients are usually still experiencing withdrawal. They are still in a dopamine deficit state. On the other hand, four weeks is often sufficient.”

20. “Nora Volkow, showing that dopamine transmission is still below normal two weeks after quitting drugs. Her study is consistent with my clinical experience that two weeks of abstinence is not enough. At two weeks, patients are usually still experiencing withdrawal. They are still in a dopamine deficit state. On the other hand, four weeks is often sufficient.”

— Anna Lembke

Anna Lembke Quote: “The implication here is that we are all now vulnerable to prefrontal cortical atrophy as our reward pathway has become the dominant driver of our lives.”

21. “The implication here is that we are all now vulnerable to prefrontal cortical atrophy as our reward pathway has become the dominant driver of our lives.”

— Anna Lembke

Anna Lembke Quote: “Mindfulness practices are especially important in the early days of abstinence. Many of us use high-dopamine substances and behaviors to distract ourselves from our own thoughts. When we first stop using dopamine to escape, those painful thoughts, emotions, and sensations come crashing down on us.”

22. “Mindfulness practices are especially important in the early days of abstinence. Many of us use high-dopamine substances and behaviors to distract ourselves from our own thoughts. When we first stop using dopamine to escape, those painful thoughts, emotions, and sensations come crashing down on us.”

— Anna Lembke

Anna Lembke Quote: “Our brains are not evolved for this world of plenty. As Dr. Tom Finucane, who studies diabetes in the setting of chronic sedentary feeding, said, “We are cacti in the rain forest.” And like cacti adapted to an arid climate, we are drowning in dopamine.”

23. “Our brains are not evolved for this world of plenty. As Dr. Tom Finucane, who studies diabetes in the setting of chronic sedentary feeding, said, “We are cacti in the rain forest.” And like cacti adapted to an arid climate, we are drowning in dopamine.”

— Anna Lembke

Anna Lembke Quote: “That’s because the evidence is indisputable: Exercise has a more profound and sustained positive effect on mood, anxiety, cognition, energy, and sleep than any pill I can prescribe.”

24. “That’s because the evidence is indisputable: Exercise has a more profound and sustained positive effect on mood, anxiety, cognition, energy, and sleep than any pill I can prescribe.”

— Anna Lembke

Anna Lembke Quote: “One of the jobs of good psychotherapy is to help people tell healing stories. If autobiographical narrative is a river, psychotherapy is the means by which that river is mapped and in some cases rerouted.”

25. “One of the jobs of good psychotherapy is to help people tell healing stories. If autobiographical narrative is a river, psychotherapy is the means by which that river is mapped and in some cases rerouted.”

— Anna Lembke

Anna Lembke Quote: “Abstinence is necessary to restore homeostasis, and with it our ability to get pleasure from less potent rewards, as well as see, the true cause and effect between our substance use and the way we’re feeling.”

26. “Abstinence is necessary to restore homeostasis, and with it our ability to get pleasure from less potent rewards, as well as see, the true cause and effect between our substance use and the way we’re feeling.”

— Anna Lembke

Anna Lembke Quote: “The motivation to gamble is based largely on the inability to predict the reward occurrence, rather than on financial gain.”

27. “The motivation to gamble is based largely on the inability to predict the reward occurrence, rather than on financial gain.”

— Anna Lembke

Anna Lembke Quote: “When the people around us are reliable and tell us the truth, including keeping promises they’ve made to us, we feel more confident about the world and our own future in it. We feel we can rely not just on them but also on the world to be an orderly, predictable, safe kind of a place. Even in the midst of scarcity, we feel confident that things will turn out okay. This is a plenty mindset.”

28. “When the people around us are reliable and tell us the truth, including keeping promises they’ve made to us, we feel more confident about the world and our own future in it. We feel we can rely not just on them but also on the world to be an orderly, predictable, safe kind of a place. Even in the midst of scarcity, we feel confident that things will turn out okay. This is a plenty mindset.”

— Anna Lembke

Anna Lembke Quote: “But I worry that we have both oversanitized and overpathologized childhood, raising our children in the equivalent of a padded cell, with no way to injure themselves but also no means to ready themselves for the world.”

29. “But I worry that we have both oversanitized and overpathologized childhood, raising our children in the equivalent of a padded cell, with no way to injure themselves but also no means to ready themselves for the world.”

— Anna Lembke

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