Scarcity Brain: Fix Your Craving Mindset and Rewire Your Habits to Thrive with Enough

by Michael Easter

Unpredictability makes us obsessive and far more likely to quickly repeat the behavior.

“The expectation of possibly receiving a reward really excites the dopamine system far more,”

Unpredictable rewards suck us into a vort...

So the tweak to the basic learning and behavior formula is this: We do a thing. But we’re not sure when we’ll get the rewarding thing or just how rewarding it’ll be. This makes us really, really want the rewarding thing. So we’re likely to keep trying and trying and trying and trying for the rewarding thing.

This is essentially what salaried or hourly wage jobs are. We repeat a behavior, and an employer gives us a predictable reward.

Opportunity—> Unpredictable Rewards—> Quick Repeatability

Scarcity loop

The finance world, the analysts believe, will continue seeking novel ways to exploit the scarcity loop.

Given WHOOP’s success, other health trackers like Oura Ring, Fitbit, Apple Watch, and Lumen have adopted similar approaches that leverage unpredictability. It leads to more of a perceived reliance on the device. Which is why these devices have now introduced monthly subscription fees of anywhere from $5 to $30.

As the Times put it, the takeaway is that “pulling psychological levers may eventually become the reigning approach to managing the American worker.”

Psychological Levers

In the end, he said, our life is ultimately a collection of what we pay attention to.

Brands are becoming a fundamental part of narrative arcs.

These religious teachings and ancient myths warn us of the same phenomenon: when we give in to our boundless appetite for more, we end up devouring ourselves.

Once we’ve met our desire of the moment—no matter how big or small—our brains seem to produce the next one.

In the human brain less equals bad, worse, unproductive. More equals good, better, productive. Our scarcity brain defaults to more and rarely considers less. And when we do consider less, we often think it sucks.

“People systematically overlook subtraction,”

This is arguably the most fundamental question about how we change and make things better. Am I going to add, do more, or am I going to take away, do less?

Reflect

“time scarcity.” It’s a feeling that we don’t have enough time.

What is time scarcity?

Scientists call this an evolutionary mismatch. It happens when behaviors and traits that help us in one environment hurt us in another.

problems or just be satisfied and enjoy our present condition gets sucked into a vortex of craving. “This deprivation,” wrote the scientists, “can lead to a life absorbed by preoccupations that impose ongoing cognitive deficits and reinforce self-defeating actions.” That’s scientist-speak for “we obsess over and do dumb stuff and that hurts us.”

We’re designed to habituate and move the goalpost. We want even more, even better everything.

But our frequent human tragedy is that the more we consume, the hungrier we get.

By defaulting to adding, we often make choices that are, at best, not optimal. Or, at worst, just plain dumb.

Less can lead to its own set of problems. We need to

ask the deeper question and consider how we can find enough. Not too ...

How can we find enough ?

optimal stimulation model. It says that animals and we humans have a level of stimulation that we prefer. And when it gets below that, we search for stimulation.

Optimal stimulation model

“When our needs aren’t met,” said Zentall, “we gamble, we shop online, we eat just to eat, we overuse social media, or even do drugs.”

At the extreme end of scarcity brain, said Zentall, lies addiction.

In 1961, a German pharmaceutical company invented the drug Captagon.

Captagon increased focus and induced euphoria, so it was used to treat children with ADHD and adults with depression.

Captagon worked too well. Its tendency for abuse and addiction outweighed...

Utah, for example, has one of the highest prescription drug abuse rates because Mormons aren’t allowed to drink alcohol or coffee or use nicotine.

Interesting Fact

“ISIS fighters would take it to kill fear, to feel stronger, and stay up longer. They took it to be ready to die. Many suicide bombers would take Captagon.”

Mad Max Movie

Western media began calling Captagon the “Jihadi pill.”

“If the conditions are right and drugs are available, drug use rises. People use drugs for good reasons. Drugs are an easy way to escape, feel empowered, cope with life, and survive.

Addiction is chronically seeking a reward despite negative consequences.

“You’d never maintain a relationship with a partner or deal with all the diapers and crying and frustrations that come with raising a kid if there wasn’t some deeper reward that allowed us to persist despite negative consequences.”

“So drug compounds did not evolve to be directed at us humans,” van Staaden said. “They were directed at insects.” But the genes that first appeared in insects spread over hundreds of millions of years and were passed down to us.

Eating this boozy fruit triggered what scientists call the “aperitif effect.” Studies show that people eat anywhere from 10 to 30 percent more food after drinking alcohol.

relatively recently, we took each of these plants’ psychoactive components, concentrated them, and scaled up their availability.

nonusers’. Recall that dopamine isn’t the pleasure chemical. Instead, one of its roles is to help us pursue pleasure by creating cravings. Neuroscientists call the brain system that does produce the pleasure our “liking” system.

The scans suggested that drug addicts craved the drugs but didn’t like them once they took them.

But people are capable of breaking through the neurochemical storm and changing their behavior. It’s possible to change.

“vital spiritual experience” that kicked them out of the cycle of addiction.

stories to laugh about for years? I’m not alone. Scientists now know that the scarcity loop is a crucial reason substance use continues despite adverse consequences.

Without the loop, addiction rates plummet. This is one reason medically dosed drugs have much lower addiction rates.

“forbidden fruit” effect. Eating forbidden fruit is far more exciting than unforbidden fruit.

optimal stimulation model. “It says that animals and we humans have a level of stimulation that we prefer,” he said. “And when it gets below that, we search for stimulation.”

And then the phrase is always “It worked until it didn’t.”

Addiction, in other words, is a learned behavior that once worked well but begins to backfire. Using a drug or drinking still relieves discomfort, provides stimulation, and solves problems in the short term. But it starts creating long-term problems. The more often we repeat it, the deeper we learn it,

the harder it is to break.