Have you ever wondered if happiness is an inherent gift we either have or don’t have? Are you born naturally happy or do you create it for yourself? Maybe you believe that happiness depends on the circumstances of your life or the occurrences of your day. External factors such as landing your dream job or driving a luxury car are solely responsible.
Nevertheless, your happiness is produced by a complex system of neurotransmitters working together to flood your nervous system. They surge your brain and body with hormones that can motivate and excite you.
Every human’s brain chemistry is slightly different. A person with chronic depression could be deficient in certain neurochemicals. This makes it significantly harder to feel happiness, contentment, motivation, and an overall sense of well-being.
When a woman is pregnant or before or during her period, her emotions can fluctuate a lot. The same can be said for someone taking a heavy dose of steroids. This is due to hormones which have a huge effect on our overall mental and emotional state.
Obviously, to hit a baseline of happiness, your basic needs need to be met with, food, clothing, shelter, etc. A 2010 study cites that your emotional well-being plateaus after making around $ 75,000 per year. With today’s inflation rates, that number would need to be higher especially depending on where you live for you to live comfortably, but you get the gist.
Disclaimer:
If you suffer from depression, ensure that you’re seeking out the appropriate sources of help. Whether that’s from a medical professional or counselor. Don’t wait to get yourself the adequate support you need.
DOSE-
If you’ve caught the blues or have been feeling a little blah lately, you can perform small habits to trick your brain into releasing feel-good chemicals into your body. These happiness chemicals are available in a DOSE.
Dopamine, Oxytocin, Serotonin, and Endorphins are readily available to us when we perform the actions that release these hormones. A little dose of happiness is always within reach for you. Be willing to take these steps regularly to uplift your mood and enrich your life.
Here we’ll go over how you can induce happiness and hack your brain to be more positive and fulfilled. This can benefit every area of your life from your relationships, work, overall well-being, diet, exercise, etc.
When you feel good, you’re more likely to perform the habits that keep you feeling good. If you’re in a slump, it’s tougher to dig yourself out and get yourself on a path to feeling good. That’s why hacking your brain into happiness should give you a better shot at continuously performing the acts that will bring you more happiness and joy.
All of these happiness chemicals are intertwined. Focus on making sure your brain and body receive a balance of them all. If you have a sufficient amount of these hormones but are severely lacking in serotonin, you won’t feel your best. When hacking your happiness chemicals, make sure to include each one.
Dopamine-
Dopamine is known as the reward chemical. When we finish a task or get praised for a job well done, dopamine will flood our system. It signals our brain that whatever task we just performed should be repeated. That’s why it’s important to perform beneficial and not detrimental dopamine-inducing activities.
Break up your bigger goals into smaller more easily achievable goals. This will help you receive small dopamine hits along the way. By hitting these smaller goals it’ll keep you on track of your bigger goals. Performing regular healthy habits like meditating, exercising, eating healthy foods, and getting enough sleep will give you healthy hits of dopamine.
Dopamine also gets released when partaking in unhealthy activities like drinking alcohol, gambling, excessive social media scrolling, smoking, or drug use. This is why these activities are so addicting.
For example, social media apps are designed to give you small hits of dopamine to keep you coming back. Getting ahead and limiting these activities is crucial in making sure an addiction doesn’t consume you. Remember that an addiction can happen to anyone, regardless of who you are or where you come from.
Foods that increase dopamine levels: Coffee, chocolate, apples, bananas, avocados, strawberries, spinach, milk, yogurt, cheese, nuts, seeds, fatty fish.
Essential Oils: Bergamot, Lavender, Lemon, Rose, Peppermint.
Oxytocin-
Oxytocin is known as the love hormone and gets released as a way to strengthen bonds. It’s released during childbirth, breastfeeding, close intimate relationships, and while petting a cute puppy or animal. Oxytocin is responsible for those warm and fuzzies you feel when you’re around humans or pets that you love.
It helps to strengthen trust in a relationship and helps us to be more compassionate and empathetic to others. You can release oxytocin by performing good deeds for those around you or volunteering to help people or animals in need.
Produce more oxytocin for yourself by practicing self-love. When you practice loving and taking good care of yourself, you’ll become better at loving those around you. This will lead to more oxytocin for everyone!
Foods that increase oxytocin: Dark chocolate, salmon, orange juice, fatty fish, broccoli, egg yolks, chia seeds, soy milk, almonds, mushrooms, butter.
Essential Oils: Cedarwood, Ylang Ylang, Chamomile, Rose, Sandalwood.
Serotonin-
Serotonin regulates your mood, appetite, sleep, and memory. This happiness chemical is found in most antidepressant medications and assists in balancing your mood so that you’re better equipped to get through the day.
Serotonin is formed in the gut which is why it’s critical to maintain good gut health. Probiotics like yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, kombucha, kimchi, tempeh, miso, pickles, and pickled vegetables can benefit the overall health of your gut. Tryptophan, the amino acid found in turkey, which gives you that post-Thanksgiving meal “sleepy feeling” also converts into serotonin. Other tryptophan-containing foods include canned tuna, eggs, oats, apples, and bananas.
An easy way to boost your serotonin is by getting vitamin D. Aim to spend 15-20 minutes outside either going for a walk or basking in the sun as long as you have on SPF.
Did you know that having a certain level of confidence can boost your serotonin? Not everyone is born with natural confidence but just like anything, it’s a skill you can practice and master.
Foods that increase serotonin: Pumpkin seeds, turkey, pineapple, nuts, oily fish, green tea, leafy green vegetables, kimchi, miso, oats, avocado.
Essential Oils: Cedarwood, Ylang Ylang, Chamomile, Rose, Sandalwood.
Endorphins-
Endorphins are famous for being released after moderate to vigorous physical activity. They’re the “feel good” hormones responsible for the “runner’s high”. If you’ve ever finished a run or solid workout and felt like you could take on the world and accomplish anything immediately following, you’ve felt an endorphin rush.
They’re a natural painkiller and are involved in our body’s “fight or flight” system. If you’re an animal or human who’s been injured and needed to run from a predator, your body would flood with endorphins to help you safely escape. Even eating spicy foods, drinking wine, and eating dark chocolate can trigger the release of endorphins in your body.
Foods that increase endorphins: Hot peppers, oysters, ginseng, berries, walnuts, grapes, oranges, vanilla bean, cacao.
Essential Oils: Citrus, Ginger, Peppermint, Rosemary, Jasmine.
What is Happiness-
Your day-to-day happiness relies on a complex combo of neurochemicals that work in conjunction with one another to generate your mood. While you require your basic survival needs to be met like food, shelter, etc. to give you a baseline level of happiness, after that, regardless of your income or status, your likeliness of being the happiest person in the room, isn’t necessarily correlated with your accomplishments or money.
We’ve seen it all before, sometimes the happiest-looking people can be going through the most internally. Don’t let appearances fool you. Don’t let the images of someone’s seemingly “perfect” life cause you to compare your own and drain you emotionally.
We’re all fighting our own battles, but hopefully by hacking your happiness chemicals, it can make the battles a little easier to bear.
Conclusion-
The four happiness chemicals we need to focus on producing in our daily lives are Dopamine, Oxytocin, Serotonin, and Endorphins. Ensure you’re making regular healthy choices like exercising, spending time outside, meditating, eating a healthy and whole foods diet, and fostering personal relationships.
Set smaller, achievable goals so that you’ll always have something to work towards. Practice self-love by treating your brain and body like someone you love and care for.
If you’re looking to become happier in your day-to-day life then seeking out empty sources like drugs, alcohol, gambling, smoking, or mindless social media scrolling, while giving you an instant rush of dopamine, won’t last and will leave you feeling worse off than before.
Aim to spend at least a little time every day tending to your inner well-being. The more positive habits you can fall into, the easier they’ll be to sustain, leading to even more happiness chemicals flooding your system regularly.
If you’re someone who feels depressed no matter what good habits you complete, reach out to support immediately, whether that’s through family, friends, psychologists, or medical professionals. Your brain might be lacking in certain chemicals and need extra reinforcements.
Test out these hacks for happiness chemicals and see if they make a difference in your overall mental and emotional well-being. Comment below which of these hacks is the most effective in bringing you more happiness.
