0:11
June Coffee Chat
Welcome back to my monthly coffee chat! This is where I share my life in a personal, unfiltered way that you don’t get on my primary recipe site Well Plated, or even on Instagram. No ads, no algorithms, no AI. It’s just me, your friend Erin. Let’s catch up!
June in Wisconsin plays hard to get.
The signs point to summer—the sun stays out to play until 9:30 p.m.; the farmers markets reopen; cravings for ice cream demand to be satisfied—but thanks to the cool Lake Michigan breezes, in June, it’s often too chilly to leave the house without a jacket.
Do we let that stop us taking out the boat, tailgating at baseball games, attending outdoor concerts, and ordering the second scoop? We do not.
It will be warmer in July, we assure ourselves. Then we throw on a sweatshirt, wrap a blanket around ourselves, and eat dinner on the patio anyway.
This last month, we were away from Milwaukee more than home, so I spent our short bursts in town packing in as much “summer” as I could, weather be damned.
I cooked from my cookbooks, indulged in ice cream multiple times a week (both homemade and at my favorite local shop), visited the farmers market, and hit up as many Milwaukee-area festivities as I could, including trivia and live music.
Since winter here is essentially November through May (with June being iffy), Wisconsin goes HARD in the summer. Nothing exemplifies that spirit more than Summerfest, a three-weekend music festival.
In the span of 8 days, I saw Garth Brooks (I was raised on ‘90s country and it did my soul so much good), Ed Sheeran (incredible live, 11,000/10 recommend), Third Eye Blind (my forever band with my sisters and late dad), and the Millennial back-to-back palooza of Vertical Horizon, Spin Doctors, Sister Hazel, and Sean Paul.
My feet hurt, my voice is hoarse, and my regrets are none.
**EDITOR’S NOTE** After I wrote this, the weather hit 95°F. Be careful what you wish for (but really, could we just have a few days in the upper 70s/lower 80s? Please?)
Ben’s 94-year-old Nonna treasures nothing more than her whole family (her six children, grandchildren, and a great grandson) being together, so for the second consecutive year, she rented a great big house and requested we all make an appearance.
When Nonna says “come,” you say “what can I bring?”
Ben and I cooked breakfast the first morning: my Healthy Breakfast Casserole and King Arthur Flour’s cinnamon rolls.
Twenty-four of us gathered just outside of Traverse City, Michigan for three days. Top activities included intergenerational family Olympics, cooking, eating, and seeing how many people we could safely fit onto a pontoon boat.
Northern Michigan is one of my favorite places in the world. This was my fourth visit to the area, and I hope to return again and again. The trickiest part is getting there.
Along with Ben’s parents and sister, we drove our car onto a ferry, crossed Lake Michigan for 2.5 hours, then drove the remaining three hours to Traverse City. It’s a haul but worth it!
You truly cannot fathom the majesty of the Great Lakes until you see them in person.
Even though I gripe about the weather up here, I feel lucky when I’m near such a magnificent natural resource.
As soon as we returned from Traverse City, it was off to Charleston for my annual professional retreat with the company that manages the advertisements on Well Plated.
I adore Charleston (see my guide here!) and was pleased to wander its colorful streets once more.
The highlight of this annual retreat is spending time with fellow creators in person.
I’ve been blogging almost 15 years and have formed wonderful friendships along the way. It’s a unique opportunity to talk with people who understand exactly what your day-to-day work is like, including how unsettling AI is making everything feel.
After all, why click through to a website when Google AI gives you the recipe for free? Gatherings like these remind me that I’m not alone.
Courtesy of the universe’s sense of humor, I—who literally just confessed to heading into this conference with uncertainty about my business—was asked to speak on a panel about staying real and relevant in the face of AI.
My immediate reaction was, “Who, ME?!?!” Surely, there must be a mistake.
The panel went very well, and I spent a lot of time reflecting on imposter syndrome—why we do it and how to overcome it. Thank you for your thoughts and comments on the post. If you haven’t had a chance to read it yet, today’s a great day.
I am not a one-woman show. The reason I’m able to consistently create and share high quality recipes you can trust is my fantastic Well Plated team.
Since we are all remote, once a year Ben and I like to get everyone together in person.
In years past, we’ve done business and activity-focused trips, but this year, we decided that what we all really needed was to CHILL.
Lake Austin Resort was a perfect spot for us.
5:52
Come to Africa With Me: Spilled Milk #471
Today’s Newsletter Includes:
Why South Africa keeps pulling me back, and why it might do the same for you.
Safari mornings, unforgettable meals and a few bottles of Chenin Blanc along the way.
The kind of trip that changes how you think long after you’ve unpacked.
There are trips that entertain you.
There are trips that educate you.
And then there are the handful of journeys that quietly rearrange the furniture in your mind.
This is one of those.
Over the course of my career I’ve been fortunate enough to eat everywhere from roadside markets to the finest dining rooms on earth. I’ve hunted, fished, foraged, cooked with grandmothers, shared meals with shepherds, fishermen, farmers, scientists, Indigenous communities and Michelin-starred chefs. I’ve learned that the best way to understand any place is never through a guidebook.
It’s through its table.
That idea became the foundation of The Blue Food Cookbook. It’s the heartbeat of Hope in the Water. It’s the reason I’ve spent decades pointing my compass toward cultures that still understand the connection between land, water, wildlife and what eventually lands on the plate.
Now I’d like to invite a small group of you to experience that philosophy firsthand.
Not as tourists.
As travelers.
South Africa has long been one of the places I return to again and again because nowhere else combines spectacular wildlife, extraordinary wine, world-class restaurants, Indigenous food traditions, breathtaking scenery and serious conservation quite like it.
We’re going to experience all of it.
We’ll begin in Cape Town, one of the world’s great food cities, where Table Mountain rises behind a city whose cooking tells the story of Africa, Europe and Asia all at once. We’ll wander neighborhoods where history lives on every block, stand on cliffs where two oceans meet and eat some of the most exciting food being cooked anywhere today.
We’ll visit the Cape Peninsula, watch African penguins on windswept beaches, explore the Cape of Good Hope and spend time with one of South Africa’s great food visionaries, Roushanna Gray of Veld & Sea, whose work connecting wild landscapes to the dinner table has inspired chefs around the world. We’ll forage, taste, learn and, perhaps most importantly, change the way we think about what “wild food” really means.
Then we head into the Cape Winelands.
I’ve visited wine regions across the globe, yet Franschhoek and Stellenbosch remain among the most extraordinary because they are still places where wine is inseparable from the landscape that created it. Vineyards tumble toward mountains. Historic estates sit beside modern architecture. The restaurants are among the finest in Africa. Every meal becomes an argument for why South Africa deserves to be spoken of in the same breath as Tuscany, Burgundy or Napa.
We’ll spend time tasting extraordinary wines, meeting the people behind them and enjoying one of the most beautiful agricultural landscapes anywhere in the world.
Then everything changes.
We leave the vineyards behind and head into the bush.
Our home becomes Sabi Sand, arguably the finest private wildlife reserve in Africa. Here the pace slows. The noise disappears. Dawn begins with coffee around the fire before heading into the veld in search of lions, leopards, elephants, rhinos, buffalo, wild dogs and countless other species that most people know only from documentaries.
I’ve been lucky enough to experience safari many times.
It never gets old.
The first elephant that silently appears from behind an acacia tree still stops my breathing. Watching a leopard move through golden grass at sunset still feels impossible. Sitting around the fire after dinner under a sky so crowded with stars that it barely resembles the one back home reminds you how astonishing this planet really is.
That perspective is worth crossing an ocean for.
This trip isn’t about checking animals off a list.
It’s about understanding the relationship between biodiversity, conservation, food systems and culture. The same ecosystems that sustain wildlife also sustain people. That connection has become central to my work over the last decade, and nowhere is it easier to understand than here.
Of course, we’ll eat very well.
Exceptionally well.
The hotels themselves are destinations. Ellerman House is one of the finest culinary hotels in South Africa. Leeu Estates pairs extraordinary hospitality with remarkable wine and restaurants. Earth Lodge has become legendary among safari lodges for its food, wine and hospitality. None of these places were selected simply because they are luxurious, although they certainly are.
11:17
Mint Chocolate Brownie Ice Cream Cake
Two of my biggest problems with ice cream cake: One, I don’t like the texture of frozen whipped cream and stores will heap so much on it! Two, there is far too little of the best component of most ice cream cakes: the fudge-y chocolate cookie ripple. So we’re fixing both of those here with this recipe. This recipe was for a partner post on socials, but it’s such a banger I had to also share it here so y’all wouldn’t miss it ahead of the holiday.
We’re using store-bought mint-chip ice cream, a homemade brownie base (a variation on my Best-Ever Brownies 2.0), homemade hot fudge draped over a layer of crushed Oreos…. sorry, I drifted off into my food-vision there. When I tell you It tastes just like a certain mint cookies sold by certain scouts… who are young ladies… I have told you the truth.
The brownie and the hot fudge are both very easy on the teeth and the fork thanks to their sugar content. Please ensure, though, that you give the ice cream lots of time to re-freeze and set up, otherwise it’s going to be a slippery mess cutting in. Here’s me, the week of an historic heatwave, giving you an ice cream cake recipe. Good luck out there!
Serves 12 to 14
Ingredients
Brownie base
2 large eggs
1/2 cup granulated sugar (105 grams)
1/3 cup dark brown sugar (70 grams)
3 tablespoons unsalted butter (56 grams)
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/3 cup bittersweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup Dutch-process cocoa powder ( grams)
1 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt (about 1/4 teaspoon Morton table salt)
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup all-purpose flour (65 grams)
Fudge sauce topping/filling
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into tablespoon slices (85 grams)
1/2 cup granulated sugar (110 grams)
1/3 cup natural or Dutch-process cocoa powder (44 grams)
2 tablespoons light corn syrup (38 grams)
1/2 cup Lactaid whole milk (150 grams)
1 teaspoon Diamond Crystal Kosher salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
3 ounces chocolate sandwich cookies, creme removed and crushed
Directions
Preheat oven to 325°F and place one rack in the middle position. Grease a 9x5-inch loaf tin and line with foil. Lightly grease the surface of the foil.
In a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment or in a large mixing bowl with a hand mixer, beat eggs until fluffy and pale.
Add the butter, oil and chocolate chips to a large, microwave-safe mixing bowl and heat in the microwave for in 15 second intervals until the butter is melted and hot, but not sizzling. Stir until the chocolate melts and the mixture is smooth. While the mixture is still hot, whisk in the cocoa powder, vanilla extract and salt until smooth.
With the mixer on low speed, pour in the butter-cocoa-chocolate mixture while still warm (heat it up again in the microwave if necessary) and beat until completely combined, ensuring to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl. Sprinkle the baking powder over the batter and beat it in.
Fold in the flour just until the last remaining streaks of white disappear.
Pour the batter into the prepared tin and smooth it out so it’s level. Bake for 38 to 40 minutes or until the edges are set and a wooden toothpick inserted into the center of the brownies comes out with just a few moist crumbs.
Allow the brownie layer to cool in the tin for about 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Make the hot fudge sauce. In a saucepan or small pot, stir together the sugar, cocoa and salt until combined. Add and corn syrup and butter and cook over medium heat until the mixture is melted. Pour in the heavy cream and continue cooking and stirring until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture is smooth and glossy. Once it begins to bubble, continue cooking and stirring until the mixture hits 220°F and immediately remove from heat. Whisk in the vanilla and chocolate until melted, smooth and homogenous. Set aside and allow to cool to around room temperature.
Once the brownie is cool, turn on its side and slice evenly to create two thinner layers.
Assemble the ice cream cake. Take the bottom half of the brownie layer and place it, cut-side up in the still-lined tin. Dollop half of the quart of Lactaid Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream onto the brownie base and spread it out evenly. Carve out a small divot down the center of the ice cream and fill with the crushed chocolate cookies, also spreading some on the sides of the divot.
Pour about half the hot fudge onto the crushed cookies, trying to not disturb them, focusing on the line where you carved out the divot.
Return to the freezer to set. Dollop half of the quart of Lactaid Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream onto the set fudge, spread it out evenly, then top with the second brownie base. Return to the freezer for one hour, then unmould it from its tin, invert it onto a serving tray or cutting board so the bottom is now the top, and spread on a layer of the remaining fudge.
17:02
In search of a full, yet slow summer...
If a full life means filling the calendar with experiences, trips, celebrations, and milestones… and yet a slow and present life means doing less, then is it possible to have both a full life and a slow one at the same time?
The kicker is that our brains use life landmarks to measure the passage of time. So to me, having slow weeks with not much going on makes for a fast year because all of that time compresses into a huge blur. (A “Where did the time even go?!” kind of thing.)
On the contrary, my experience is that a slower year is one where there’s a lot happening in life to really fill up the weeks. Each month has several benchmark moments that stand out, making the year feel like it had a lot of life to it. The problem here is that this often means the days & weeks are super busy and therefore go by fast and can feel frazzled.
So what do we want—to slow down the years or slow down the weeks? Do we want a full life or a slow and present life? And can we have both at once?!
Oh, hi! …and welcome to my brain.
I got started thinking about this because, well, it’s honestly on my mind all the time. But it has especially been a present thought when thinking about the summertime and how quickly my children are growing. I want to slow down time as much as possible… and what better season to try to do so than the summer?
The dream is a slow, but lively summer. BBQs with friends, restful days, farmer’s markets, swimming pools, and toes in the sand. But the reality is that the rest of life doesn’t stop. There is still work, chores, places to be, and oh yeah—kids! And they are around all. the. time. Because of that, those easy days suddenly aren’t quite so easy. There’s more laundry, more messes, and more daily schedules to plan. But I love having my kids in the house with us as much as they want to be there. And you better believe we’ve implemented a pretty great chore chart system this summer, which helps.
Two summers ago, we had our children do a lot of camps to keep them having dedicated fun and to give us all a little routine, but they honestly got fatigued by always having to be here and there. Last summer, we skipped the camps entirely and did six combined weeks of travel thanks to being able to work from anywhere, but then we headed back to school not really feeling like we got to enjoy the slow paced ease of summer that we all crave.
So this year, we are staying put a good bit and trying to strike that balance.
With the exception of a few two to three night trips sprinkled throughout, our days are here at home with honestly no big plans. And I’m so excited about it. We actually had a trip to Italy booked and canceled it last week to help foster a simple summer. No camps (except a last minute one the other week for Rosie that she wanted to do), just a whole lot of playing in the neighborhood, scraped knees, and corndogs for lunch on paper plates.
You honestly might not even notice, but I’ve chosen to cut my workload down quite a bit in terms of campaigns I’ve agreed to during the summer months. This is hard for me to do because when you run your own business and aren’t working, then no income is coming in, but also, I genuinely love all of the brands I get to work with and as a creative person, I think it’s actually super fun to create content for them. But my hope is that this gives me more chances to soak up my kids, especially without the distractions of nonstop travel, camp after camp, or work getting in the way (too much, at least). I’m also imagining that this will open up my heart and mind a bit, take a load off, and allow me to do more of the creative things that I love, like writing here on Substack.
My summary is this... Time doesn’t feel slow when you’re doing less. Time feels slow when you’re making memories. The really good ones. But those memories don’t have to be extravagant. They can be simple markers of time that still feel very special.
Our theme for summer 2026 is to create meaningful markers of time without the fuss of overpacked schedules.
Our days have looked a lot like this so far — We’ve been enjoying having slow mornings, lunch and an activity out a few days per week, followed by naptime for Patrick, and then trying to get out in the late afternoon once he’s up. Sometimes that’s visiting the bookstore, going to pick out beads for necklaces at the local craft store, going to swim practice, etc. An early, routined bedtime has kind of gone out the window, but that’s what summer is all about, right? The kids have been playing with neighbors until dark and then after getting all ready for bed, we’ve been watching an episode of Survivor as a family after Patrick goes down. I know this might seem like an odd show to watch with your 10 and 8 year old, but they are both into it and it’s something we can turn on every night, giving us an hour of dedicated couch snuggles—something we rarely get during the busy school year.
22:47
USC scientists just unlocked an endless supply of cancer-fighting immune cells
A new stem-cell-inspired technique allows scientists to grow vast numbers of immune-cell progenitors that can be engineered to hunt cancer and strengthen immune responses. In animal studies, the cells fought tumors, restored immune function, and showed promise as a durable, off-the-shelf therapy platform.
23:17
Scientists discover an unexpected way to make pancreatic cancer cells self-destruct
Researchers tested experimental PCAI compounds against pancreatic cancer cells and found they had powerful anticancer effects. One leading compound blocked more than 90% of cancer cell migration, suggesting it could help prevent the spread of tumors. Rather than suppressing cancer signaling, the treatment hyperactivated key pathways until the cells essentially self-destructed.
23:52
STAT+: AstraZeneca to pay $34 million to settle kickback charges filed by Texas attorney general
AstraZeneca agreed to pay $34 million to settle claims that the company paid kickbacks to improperly influence prescriptions paid for by Texas Medicaid.
The state had alleged that the drugmaker paid the kickbacks in the form of a free network of nurses and insurance support services to boost prescriptions of its medicines. By doing so, AstraZeneca allegedly helped manage key aspects of patient care that a physician would otherwise have to handle or pay staff to perform.
As a result, the company prompted pharmacies, pharmacy benefit managers, and others to submit claims to Texas Medicaid for its medicines. Those claims caused the state health care program to disburse millions of dollars in reimbursements that were not authorized under the Texas Health Care Program Fraud Prevention Act.
24:56
STAT+: FDA’s top gene therapy regulator is leaving his role
WASHINGTON — Vijay Kumar, acting director of the office that reviews cell and gene therapies at the Food and Drug Administration, is stepping down from his role, according to an email obtained by STAT.
“After careful reflection, I decided the time has come for me to move on,” Kumar wrote. “I discussed with Center and Agency leadership; we mutually decided not to renew my detail.”
Kumar’s departure follows a broader leadership shake-up inside the agency and a particularly rocky year of turnover in the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research where the cell and gene therapy office is housed. CBER Director Vinay Prasad promoted Kumar to director of the Office of Therapeutic Products after pushing former director Nicole Verdun out of the role a little over a year ago. Before that, Kumar was a lead physician in the office.
26:01
2026 06 29 Off-grid with Marjory
Minerals & Microbes Soil Kit a bit of not entirely shameless promotion LOL
Legacy Drive is the other thingy.
The “free bunnies” pop in for an appearance interrupting our admiring the ducks. And Mr. Cow gets his morning mango. I am sure his amorous ways will stop when mango season ends.
The experiment with a grass log roll is really working out. The rabbits love hanging out in there and the ducks are laying eggs in it.
The Drey Dossier reports that passports.gov has switched over from the State Dept. to White House control. A huge online takeover of the US Gov’t is underway. I just ordered an update for my passport - maybe in the nick of time?
Crimea stops gas sales to everyone except “authorities”. So 2.5 million people cannot buy gas right now. Is that an outlier or an indication of what is to come?
The rumors of the July 4th financial reset abound. I am guessing that something big will happen - it is too prodigious of a date.
Hormuz has 3 lanes: the middle one is mined so no one goes through that. The ‘southern’ route the US says is open and escorts some ships through - but Iran says that route doesn’t exist. The northern route is controlled by Iran and is closed or tolled or something.
So is the Straight open? Nope, not really. War risk premiums are still way up (8X to 25X depending on which source you read). And the 4 biggest shipping giants are going around the Cape of Good Hope until 2027.
The sites I like to watch to see what is going on in the oil world:
https://marinetraffic.com
https://hormuzstraightmonitor.com
https://EIA.gov
The US SPR went down another 9 million barrels to 331 million. Remember that the SPR needs a minimum of 150 million barrels to keep structural integrity. Tick Tock.
From UnShadowed (on Substack) A massive fire in LA destroyed the largest cold food storage facility. 85 million pounds of meat destroyed.
I bet they would like to know how to compost meat!
But don’t worry… “officials” say there won’t be any shortages.
Rushing the fleecing: SpaceX is going to be listed in the Nasdaq 100 starting July 6th. The Nasdaq made a specil exemption rule just for Spacey. And the Russel 1000. Part of the bigger pump and dump to wipe out the normies. I was very surprised that the S&P held to their rules and said SpaceX would have to wait a year before they would list them. How worthless will SpaceX be in a year? We shall see.
Wal-Mart will have digital price tags on everything in every store before the end of the year. Not only do the tags do facial recognition but emotional recognition too. So funny watching videos of people exaggerating emotions in front of Wal-Mart tags to mess with the algorithms.
Jason Saylor had a relative that became severely allergic to red meat after being bitten by a tick.
SCOTUS (not to be confused with SCROTUM) has given Bayer legal immunity from any problems with it’s Glyphosate products. Hmmm, where have we seen that before? Oh yeah, Reagan giving big pharma legal immunity for vaccines.
Cushing, OK. Never heard of it? Me neither. But it is a hugely important place. It is where almost all of the oil pipelines east of the Rockies meet up. Huge, huge facility. It is where WTI - West Texas Intermediate crude - gets priced. And guess what? They’ve hit tank bottoms. Turns out that even though the US is producing huge amounts of oil - we are shipping it off overseas faster than we pump it and our own supply is dwindling. Will we cut back on exports? Will Force Majuere be put into play? And if so, what does that look like? This is going to be one to watch. unfortunately, it could be one to be felt…
Looks like you really liked the “composting meat” video.
Nah, I won’t eat humans. They are way too toxic.
Mark Shyrock says the Earth Lay Lines got activated on June 21st. In a good way. I feel he is correct. I feel some very positive shifts. Subtle… but good.
If you are someone who really needs even just a bit of money… I have not tried this but it looks promising. claimmoney.com says there are lots of class action lawsuits where you don’t have to provide evidence. It’s an idea.
Mary Patrick reminded me - and everyone - of the need to for lots of electrolytes. She’s right.
I riff on some other comments sent in.
I really do enjoy your comments!
31:01
You're not depressed. Your dopamine baseline was stolen.
A Stanford psychiatrist spent 20 years studying why people can’t stop.
Not addiction in the clinical sense.
The everyday version.
The scroll that turns into 45 minutes.
The snack that happens when you’re not hungry.
The Netflix episode that becomes four.
Her conclusion:
We are more depressed and anxious than we were 30 years ago
not because our lives are objectively harder —
but because we live permanently hooked on easy pleasure.
And easy pleasure doesn’t fill the tank.
It drains it.
Every fast hit — every scroll, every sugar spike, every notification — produces a dopamine peak followed by a crash that lands you slightly below where you started.
Do that enough times per day, across enough years,
and your baseline drops.
The flat feeling that’s become normal.
The inability to feel motivated by things that used to matter.
The low-grade restlessness that no amount of rest resolves.
That’s not burnout.
That’s a depleted dopamine baseline.
And it resets. But not the way most people think.
Here’s what’s actually happening in your brain.
Your dopamine system doesn’t just produce pleasure.
It sets your baseline — the resting level of motivation, satisfaction, and emotional resilience you wake up with every morning.
When you get a fast hit — a scroll, a sugar spike, a notification — dopamine spikes sharply above baseline. That’s the reward. But what follows is a crash that lands you slightly below where you started. Your brain compensates by reducing its sensitivity to dopamine — producing fewer receptors, firing less readily — to account for the excess.
This is why the second scroll session feels less satisfying than the first.
Why the snack that worked last Tuesday feels less rewarding today.
Why you need more of everything to feel the same effect.
Anna Lembke — Stanford psychiatrist and author of Dopamine Nation — calls this the pain-pleasure balance. The brain maintains equilibrium. Every pleasure creates an equal and opposite dip. Do this enough times, with hits strong enough and frequent enough, and the baseline shifts permanently downward.
The flatness isn’t you.
It’s a biological adaptation to chronic overstimulation.
And the reset is physical, not psychological.
→ 8 daily habits that reset the dopamine baseline — reordered by the mechanism that makes the reset possible
→ Why stacking pleasures is more damaging than any single one
→ The morning habit that determines your dopamine baseline for the entire day (paid section)
→ The specific exposure that raises dopamine by up to 250% without a crash (paid section)
→ Read time: 5 min
The two that surprise you most are usually the ones that move the needle fastest.
Your brain hasn’t encountered those inputs in a long time.
New signals produce the clearest shifts.
Reordered by surprise — starting with the ones nobody does.
Boredom barely exists anymore. Every gap — the queue, the lift, the red light, the 90 seconds waiting for the kettle — gets filled with a screen. And that elimination of boredom is doing more damage to the dopamine baseline than almost anything else on this list.
Boredom is not an absence of stimulation. It’s a neurological state the brain requires for specific functions — processing recent experience, consolidating memory, generating internally-directed thought, and crucially, allowing the dopamine system to return to baseline after stimulation. When every gap is filled with a fast hit, the system never reaches the recovery phase. The dopamine baseline has no floor to rest on. The brain stays in a state of chronic low-level stimulation that progressively desensitises its own reward circuitry.
Boredom eliminated
→ no recovery phase between dopamine hits
→ baseline progressively depresses
→ dopamine receptors reduce sensitivity
→ ordinary pleasures stop registering
→ flatness becomes the default state.
Every parent knows this gap — the 60 seconds in the school pickup queue before the phone appears. The moment at the dinner table after the kids leave when the hand moves toward the device without a conscious decision. These aren’t failures of discipline. They’re the automated response of a system that has been trained to fill every gap. The boredom that appears in those moments is exactly what the dopamine system needs. Sitting with it — even for 60 seconds — is the reset.
Let the queue be a queue. Let the lift be a lift. Let the kettle boil without picking up the phone. The discomfort that appears in those gaps is the system recalibrating. That discomfort is the protocol working.
Phone while eating. Series while scrolling. Music and snacks and a screen at the same time. Each combination multiplies the dopamine hit. And a multiplied hit means a proportionally deeper crash — and a faster decline in baseline sensitivity.
The brain’s reward system responds to salience — the degree to which a stimulus stands out from its background.
