It’s not your heart that controls your happiness. It’s your brain.
There are four main hormones — chemicals your body produces — that trigger feelings of happiness, and each chemical is connected to specific events or rewards. Understanding these chemicals and how they work can help you figure out ways to boost their production and give yourself the mood lift you’ve been looking for.
To explain exactly how these “happiness” chemicals work, I spoke to Loretta Breuning, founder of the Inner Mammal Institute and author of Habits of a Happy Brain.
Happy chemicals: The secret to a happy brain
Almost everything that makes you feel “happy” is linked to one of the four happiness hormones: dopamine, serotonin, endorphin and oxytocin. Here are some ways you can boost them naturally.
Dopamine
The hormone dopamine is associated with motivation and reward. It’s why you feel gumption when you set an exciting or important goal, and why it feels good to reach that goal. On the flip side, if you have low dopamine (which experts say can occur with depression), it can explain feelings of low motivation or loss of interest in something you used to enjoy.
Playing or cuddling with a pet can give you a big oxytocin boost.
How to boost oxytocin
You can boost oxytocin by being physically intimate with others. Besides the physical aspect, it’s important to know that there’s an emotional connection to how oxytocin is released.
“Social trust is what triggers oxytocin. If you hug someone you don’t trust, it doesn’t feel good. Trust comes first. You can build social trust by taking small positive steps toward people,” Breuning says.
You can reach out to a friend or contact you’d like to get to know better. Send someone a thank you note or a card just to tell them you’re thinking about them. “Take a small step toward someone each day, and they may reciprocate months later, but if you keep doing it you will build trust networks,” Breuning says.
Endorphins
Endorphins are notoriously linked with exercise: It’s the phenomenon that explains the runner’s high or post-workout endorphin “rush.” They function as “natural painkillers” that help minimize pain and maximize pleasure. This chemical experience can explain why a runner may be able to push through a race with an injury that they don’t notice until it’s over.
“In the state of nature, it helps an injured animal escape from a predator. It helped our ancestors run for help when injured. Endorphins evolved for survival, not for partying. If you were high on endorphins all the time, you would touch hot stoves and walk on broken legs,” Breuning explains.
