#606: How to Activate Your Brain's Happy Chemicals

#606: How to Activate Your Brain's Happy Chemicals

Everyone has experienced the way our feelings fluctuate day by day, and even hour by hour. Sometimes we're feeling up and sometimes we're feeling down.

My guest today says these oscillations are a result of nature's operating system and that you can learn to better manage these emotional peaks and valleys. Her name is Loretta Breuning and she's the author of several books on happiness and the human brain, including her latest, Tame Your Anxiety: Rewiring Your Brain for Happiness. We begin our conversation by discussing the similarities between human brains and the brains of other mammals, and how our brains release happiness-producing chemicals like dopamine, oxytocin, and serotonin to spur us to seek rewards related to our survival needs. We also talk about the unhappy chemical of cortisol which is released in response to perceived threats, and the factors that have increased our stress and anxiety in the modern world. Loretta then explains that the boost we get whenever the brain's happy chemicals are activated doesn't last, and how we need to plan and execute healthy options for proactively stimulating these chemicals, including creating expectations for rewards and finding small, positive ways of increasing our status. We end our conversation with how to manage spikes of cortisol in yourself, as well as help other people manage their emotional troughs.

Get the show notes at aom.is/happychemicals.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Jaksot(1158)

Ecclesiastes on Enjoying Our Weirdly Unsatisfying Lives

Ecclesiastes on Enjoying Our Weirdly Unsatisfying Lives

Of all the books in the Bible, Ecclesiastes is arguably the most philosophical. Dark, experiential, existential, and unsparingly honest about the human condition, it wrestles with work, money, ambitio...

10 Helmi 55min

How to Help Disengaged Young Men Reclaim Drive and Direction

How to Help Disengaged Young Men Reclaim Drive and Direction

Not long ago, the primary concern people had about boys was that they were wild, impulsive, and out of control — getting into fights, pushing limits, and stirring up trouble. Today, the problem has fl...

3 Helmi 44min

The Click Effect — Inside the Science and Magic of Social Chemistry

The Click Effect — Inside the Science and Magic of Social Chemistry

We’ve all had that feeling — you meet someone new, and the conversation just flows. You’re in sync. You click. But what’s really happening when that magic occurs?My guest today is journalist Kate Murp...

27 Tammi 54min

How Football Took Over America — and Could Collapse

How Football Took Over America — and Could Collapse

American football is so big — so braided into our weekends, our language, and our culture — that it can be hard to see it clearly as a whole.In his new book, Football, Chuck Klosterman helps us see th...

20 Tammi 57min

Money and Meaning — What Faith Traditions Teach Us About Personal Finance

Money and Meaning — What Faith Traditions Teach Us About Personal Finance

We usually think of money as something very practical, concrete, and secular; we earn it, save it, spend it, and crunch the numbers behind it. But money is never just about money: it reflects our valu...

13 Tammi 45min

Strong, Conditioned, and Ready for Anything — How to Become a Hybrid Athlete

Strong, Conditioned, and Ready for Anything — How to Become a Hybrid Athlete

For decades, fitness culture has tended to break people into two categories: you’re either a strength guy or an endurance guy. You lift heavy or run far — but not both.But my guest today says you don'...

6 Tammi 59min

How to Use Probability Hacking to Achieve Your Goals

How to Use Probability Hacking to Achieve Your Goals

Most of us chase goals — starting a business, running a marathon, getting a promotion — without ever asking: What are the actual odds this will work?My guest today says those odds aren’t just graspabl...

30 Joulu 202550min

Escape the Happiness Trap

Escape the Happiness Trap

Note: This is a rebroadcast. Happiness is the subject of thousands of articles, podcasts, and scientific studies. Yet all this focus on happiness doesn’t seem to be making people any happier. In fact,...

23 Joulu 202551min

Suosittua kategoriassa Koulutus

rss-murhan-anatomia
psykopodiaa-podcast
voi-hyvin-meditaatiot-2
rss-narsisti
adhd-podi
rss-rahamania
psykologia
kesken
ihminen-tavattavissa-tommy-hellsten-instituutti
rss-valo-minussa-2
rss-vapaudu-voimaasi
leikitaanko-laakaria
jari-sarasvuo-podcast
rss-duodecim-lehti
rss-tietoinen-yhteys-podcast-2
mielipaivakirja
rss-turun-yliopisto
rahapuhetta
rss-niinku-asia-on
rss-liian-kuuma-peruna