Super Stimulated: How Our Biology Is Being Manipulated to Create Bad Habits and What We Can Do About It

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Modern society is plagued by health epidemics: obesity, record levels of loneliness, increasing mental health problems and various forms of addiction. From the outside, all these issues might not seem related. But a single phenomenon actually ties them all together: superstimuli.

Superstimuli are behaviours, objects and social cues that are exaggerated, unnatural versions of things we have evolved to want and need. This hard-wired evolutionary response is why we lust after airbrushed people online, binge on fake ultra processed food and struggle to stop scrolling on social media, even when it makes us feel bad.

This lack of control isn't because we are weak. It's because powerful companies spend billions creating superstimuli that manipulate our biology for profit, leaving us unhealthy and unhappy as a consequence. The more we do things that are bad for us, the harder it is to stop, and the more money they make.

In Super Stimulated, international bestselling author and scientist Nicklas Brendborg shows how we can resist this hijacking of our natural instincts, recognise superstimulus traps, and take control of our bad habits to live longer, healthier lives.

Author Bio

Nicklas Brendborg (1995) is a Danish scientist and author. His international bestseller Jellyfish Age Backwards, has been translated to more than 25 languages and was shortlisted for the Royal Society Science Book Prize. Brendborg holds a master's degree in biotechnology from the University of Copenhagen and is now a PhD student in molecular biology. He has been recognized by, among others, the Novo Nordisk International Talent Program and the Novo Nordisk Scholarship Program. The second book in his series of popular science books about longevity, Super Stimulated (Vanedyr) was a bestseller in Denmark in 2023.