Hacking Your Happiness Hormones

Certain hormones are known to help promote positive feelings, including happiness and pleasure. In this track, you will learn about the four key hormones responsible for happiness and how to increase their production with simple activities. Enjoy listening!

Transcript

The topic is hacking your happiness hormone.

Hacking has a lot of negative kind of connotation about it.

So what we are doing is we are going to teach you certain simple practices which can help you kind of create some kind of short circuit way of achieving better mood,

Better sleep and getting understanding of how the biology of your body works and how you can cultivate happiness by doing certain things.

Right.

So what I am going to teach you or talk about is first of all is there are four happy hormones which we call one is dopamine,

Serotonin,

Oxytocin and endorphin.

So I am going to tell you about what is the function of each of them and how they help you manage your mood little bit better.

So we start with dopamine is the feel good hormone and dopamine is associated with pleasurable sensations along with learning,

Memory,

Motor system functions and more.

It's kind of the brain's reward system.

It's a neurotransmitter and a hormone.

So it makes you feel good.

So that's kind of the function of dopamine.

Serotonin,

This hormone helps regulate your mood.

It works with your sleep,

Your digestion as well.

So it is very important to manage serotonin if you want to manage your digestion as well.

Oxytocin is the third one which is related with your mood and happiness.

So oxytocin often called the love hormone.

Oxytocin is essential for childbirth,

Breastfeeding and strong parent-child bonding.

So this hormone can also help promote trust,

Empathy and bonding.

So that's why it's called the love hormone.

So when this gets released,

It gets released when you are kissing,

Cuddling,

Hugging and having sex.

So oxytocin is also important to feel good.

Endorphin is the fourth one which is a pain reliever.

So endorphin is pain reliever.

When your body is going through stress,

Endorphin comes to rescue and help you reduce the stress level.

And it is when you engage in reward producing activities such as eating,

Working out and having sex that's when endorphin gets released for you.

So these four hormones,

They work in different ways.

What I'm going to tell you is there are ways which we can naturally,

Okay.

So I'm not going to talk about medication and drugs and things like that to increase the levels of these four hormones.

But there are natural ways you can boost your mood,

Right.

The first one and which is very important,

Which we are not doing much who are staying in cities,

Right.

So it's getting outside.

The first one is having exposure to the sunlight.

It is one of the great ways to boost your endorphins and serotonin levels,

Right.

So according to 2008 research exposure to this sunlight,

What you can do is it can increase production of both serotonin and endorphin.

So just 10 to 15 minutes if you spend outside in the sunlight,

It can increase these hormone levels and it can keep you happier.

Not a big thing to ask for,

I assume.

The other one which is the best medicine for anything which is physical or mental issues which is exercise.

The second one recommendation is to exercise,

Right.

Exercise when you engage yourself in physical activity,

Right.

Endorphin gets released,

Right.

And as we know endorphin is one of the happy hormones,

Right.

Other physical activity can also increase your dopamine and serotonin level,

Right.

So you might be doing work,

But these are two or three more hacks or tips which can help you get more of the happier hormones.

So when you are working out,

There was a study done in 2009 and what they have found is if you are working out with friends,

It can increase your happy hormones more rather than working out alone.

If you are working out outdoors,

Serotonin levels do increase.

So first is friends,

Second is sunlight and timing of your workout.

Try to not do short bursts of exercise.

So if you do it for longer term,

It is going to help you.

So endorphin gets released when you are doing physical activity for sustained time.

So around like 20 to 30 minutes.

So short bursts of activity does not help that way.

Okay.

So exercise is a second option to increase your happy hormones.

The third one is laughing out,

Laughing out,

Watching videos,

Silly videos on YouTube,

Watching some funny comedy movies.

According to research in 2017,

Right,

What they have found laughter triggers endorphin.

And another research also in 2011 finds that laughing releases endorphin,

Right.

An added bonus,

Bonding over something hilarious with loved one does trigger oxytocin as well.

So laughing with friends,

So you get endorphin and oxytocin both.

So when you're laughing alone,

You just get endorphin.

But with the group,

You get oxytocin as well.

The other thing is cooking and enjoying your favorite meal with people.

So certain foods can also have impact on hormonal levels,

Right.

So spicy food does increase or releases endorphin.

So spicy food does help that way.

Yogurt,

Beans,

Eggs,

And almonds.

The foods are linked to dopamine release.

Foods high in tryptophan.

Tryptophan is one of the major source which we get from food.

It is linked to serotonin level.

So if you search on Google,

How do I increase my serotonin level with food,

You will get a lot of options from tryptophan.

Foods containing probiotic that also helps release and also influences releasing of these hormones.

So cooking and trying different type of foods as I mentioned also does increase happiness level.

Okay.

There are a lot of supplements as well,

But we are not going to get into supplements.

So that's not something I would suggest you get into.

If you can do all these practices and skills,

Obviously it is easier and it is without side effects,

Right.

Listening to music as well is another way to increase your dopamine production in your brain,

Right.

So when you're listening to instrumental music,

There has been some research which suggests it helps you increase your dopamine levels.

According to 2012 research,

Creating and performing music by dancing,

Singing,

Or drumming led to endorphin release as well.

So when you are creating something related to music also helps release endorphin.

Meditate when I work with my clients and when I use this word meditation,

Most of them try to run away from it.

But meditation,

There has been a lot of research which has suggested meditation is strongly linked to increase in your dopamine production.

There has been a lot of research about it.

So what I would strongly suggest you to do is think about trying to meditate,

Right.

There are a lot of meditation ways.

There are videos I have created about mindfulness meditation.

There are blogs on manageyourmind.

Co which will help you learn how to meditate.

And there are audios as well which you can utilize which can help you with guided meditation.

Romantic evening as I have said earlier,

Oxytocin is the love hormone.

So planning romantic dinners and meetings and talks and things like that,

It does help you create and increase the level of endorphin in your body.

Having a pet also helps.

So petting your dog,

Having a cat,

It also helps.

Sleep is very important.

Seven to nine hours of quality sleep,

Not lying in bed,

But quality sleep is really helpful to increase the happy hormone and reduce the unhealthy hormones of stress and things like that.

The other hack or a tip is getting a massage.

According to 2004 research,

Both serotonin and dopamine levels increased after getting a massage.

Massage is also known to boost endorphin and oxytocin.

So getting a massage is also helpful in increasing your level of happiness.

The other one which you might like it if you are a chocolate lover,

There are studies which has found if you eat dark chocolate in moderation,

So around 50 grams one or two times a week,

It can help reduce the kind of unhelpful or unhappy moods.

Chocolate does contain some of the chemicals which can increase your happy hormones as well.

Although happiness means different things to different people,

These are some of the very simple and basic things which can be done to increase our mood in the positive side.

So as we have seen,

Happiness is all about joy,

Containment,

Love,

Kindness.

So trying these things in various forms is going to definitely help you so you can hack your happy hormone.

Good luck with it.

If you have any questions,

You know how to reach me.

So thank you very much and I'll see you soon.

Take care.

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