Swapping Stress for Happiness: Understanding the 'Happy' Brain Chemicals
Swapping Stress for Happiness: Understanding the 'Happy' Brain Chemicals
Stress is at the centre of many mental health campaigns, workplace initiatives and Government messages; whether that’s increasing the awareness of it, how to reduce it or how to prevent it. But what if we swapped the word ‘stress’ for ‘happiness’? National Happiness Awareness Week sounds much better than National Stress Awareness Week; even though, in essence, they’re sending the same message. In this blog post, we’re going to concentrate on the happiness chemicals in our brains and what we can do to trigger their release.
There are 4 main ‘happy’ brain chemicals:
Dopamine
Oxytocin
Serotonin
Endorphin
Dopamine
Dopamine is linked with reward and self-fulfilment and is released when we have desire, drive and motivation. If you enjoy dancing, sport or watching films for example, these activities are likely to release dopamine and you will experience a sense of joy, contentment and fulfilment. Your brain will be getting a hit of dopamine when you carry out the activity and it increases your motivation to do it again.
Oxytocin
Dubbed the ‘love hormone’, Oxytocin levels rise when we make physical contact with another human. It is the brain chemical that triggers the bond between a mother and an infant, and has been found to play a role in recognition, sexual arousal and trust. Hugging a loved one, holding someones hand and giving someone a compliment are all actions that can trigger the release of Oxytocin in the brain.
Serotonin
Primarily, serotonin is linked to our sleep patterns and to our intestines and digestive system, but from a social aspect, serotonin is released when we feel significant, powerful and influential within a group. It helps to maintain our confidence. Low levels of serotonin in the brain are linked to depression and feelings of insignificance, worthlessness, inferiority and a lack of confidence. In fact, medications used to treat conditions such as depression and anxiety, work by inhibiting the reuptake of serotonin in the brain so the levels in the brain remain at a constant level.
Endorphins
Endorphins reduce pain and boost pleasure, resulting in positive feelings. Endorphins are involved in our natural reward circuits and are related to important activities like eating, drinking, physical fitness, and sexual intercourse. They also minimise discomfort and pain and maximise pleasure. This helps us to continue functioning despite injury or stress.
So how do we trigger the release of these ‘happy’ chemicals in our brains? The image below will give you some pointers.
In Summary: going forward, try and put more emphasis on increasing the ‘happy’ chemicals in the brain, rather than decreasing the negative ones. Adopting this mindset will help you engage more in the activities and actions that trigger the release of these chemicals in the brain, rather than trying to avoid the things that trigger release of the negative ones. We can’t always avoid the things that trigger the release of the negative brain chemicals, but we can always do things that trigger the release of the positive ones.