Four tips from neuroscience that will make you happy.
Ed. I first read this article on Flipboard from https://www.bakadesuyo.com/. I found it so inspiring that I’ve summarised it for you below.
PS. all the research cited in the article is from Alex Kolb’s book: “The Upward Spiral” which you can find on Amazon.
Sometimes it feels like your brain doesn’t want you to be happy…
This is because, believe it or not, guilt and shame both activate the brain’s reward center.
Despite their differences, pride, shame, and guilt all activate similar neural circuits, including the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, amygdala, insula, and the nucleus accumbens… This explains why it can be so appealing to heap guilt and shame on ourselves — they’re activating the brain’s reward center.
And you worry a lot too. Why? In the short term, worrying makes your brain feel a little better — at least you’re doing something about your problems.
In fact, worrying can help calm the limbic system by increasing activity in the medial prefrontal cortex and decreasing activity in the amygdala. That might seem counterintuitive, but it just goes to show that if you’re feeling anxiety, doing something about it — even worrying — is better than doing nothing.
But guilt, shame and worry are horrible long-term solutions which don’t make us happy. So what do neuroscientists say you should do?
They say:
1. Ask the question: “What am I grateful for?”
But does gratitude really affect your brain at the biological level?
Yes it does. Similar to antidepressants, gratitude boosts the neurotransmitter dopamine:
The benefits of gratitude start with the dopamine system, because feeling grateful activates the brain stem region that produces dopamine.Additionally, gratitude toward others increases activity in social dopamine circuits, which makes social interactions more enjoyable…
Other antidepressants boost the neurotransmitter serotonin — just like gratitude does.
One powerful effect of gratitude is that it can boost serotonin. Trying to think of things you are grateful for forces you to focus on the positive aspects of your life. This simple act increases serotonin production in the anterior cingulate cortex.
I know, sometimes life lands a really mean punch in the gut and it feels like there’s nothing to be grateful for. Guess what?
Doesn’t matter. You don’t have to find anything. It’s the searching that counts.
It’s not finding gratitude that matters most; it’s remembering to look in the first place. Remembering to be grateful is a form of emotional intelligence. One study found that it actually affected neuron density in both the ventromedial and lateral prefrontal cortex. These density changes suggest that as emotional intelligence increases, the neurons in these areas become more efficient. With higher emotional intelligence, it simply takes less effort to be grateful.
And gratitude doesn’t just make your brain happy — it can also create a positive feedback loop in your relationships. So express that gratitude to the people you care about.
But what happens when bad feelings completely overtake you? When you’re really in the dumps and don’t even know how to deal with it?
There’s an easy answer…
2. Label those negative feelings
If you feel awful give that awfulness a name. Sad? Anxious? Angry?
…in one fMRI study, appropriately titled “Putting Feelings into Words” participants viewed pictures of people with emotional facial expressions. Predictably, each participant’s amygdala activated to the emotions in the picture. But when they were asked to name the emotion, the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex activated and reduced the emotional amygdala reactivity. In other words, consciously recognizing the emotions reduced their impact.
Suppressing emotions doesn’t work and can backfire on you.
Gross found that people who tried to suppress a negative emotional experience failed to do so. While they thought they looked fine outwardly, inwardly their limbic system was just as aroused as without suppression, and in some cases, even more aroused. Kevin Ochsner, at Columbia, repeated these findings using an fMRI. Trying not to feel something doesn’t work, and in some cases even backfires. (From: Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long)
But labeling, on the other hand, makes a big difference.
To reduce arousal, you need to use just a few words to describe an emotion, and ideally use symbolic language, which means using indirect metaphors, metrics, and simplifications of your experience. This requires you to activate your prefrontal cortex, which reduces the arousal in the limbic system. Here’s the bottom line: describe an emotion in just a word or two, and it helps reduce the emotion. (From: Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long)
3. Make that decision
Ever make a decision and then your brain finally feels at rest? That’s no random occurrence.
Brain science shows that making decisions reduces worry and anxiety — as well as helping you solve problems.
Making decisions includes creating intentions and setting goals — all three are part of the same neural circuitry and engage the prefrontal cortex in a positive way, reducing worry and anxiety. Making decisions also helps overcome striatum activity, which usually pulls you toward negative impulses and routines. Finally, making decisions changes your perception of the world — finding solutions to your problems and calming the limbic system.
But deciding can be hard. So what kind of decisions should you make?
Make a “good enough” decision. Don’t sweat making the absolute 100% best decision because trying to be perfect overwhelms your brain with emotions and makes you feel out of control.
Trying for the best, instead of good enough, brings too much emotional ventromedial prefrontal activity into the decision-making process. In contrast, recognizing that good enough is good enough activates more dorsolateral prefrontal areas, which helps you feel more in control…
As Swarthmore professor Barry Schwartz said: “Good enough is almost always good enough.”
So when you make a decision, your brain feels you have control and, a feeling of control reduces stress. But here’s what’s really fascinating: deciding also boosts pleasure.
Actively choosing caused changes in attention circuits and in how the participants felt about the action, and it increased rewarding dopamine activity.
4. Give someone a hug
We need to feel love and acceptance from others.
Neuroscientists did a study where people played a ball-tossing video game. The other players tossed the ball to you and you tossed it back to them. (Actually, there were no other players; that was all done by the computer program).
But the subjects were told the characters were controlled by real people. So what happened when the “other players” stopped playing nice and didn’t share the ball?
Subjects’ brains responded the same way as if they experienced physical pain. Rejection doesn’t just hurt like a broken heart; your brain feels it like a broken leg.
In fact, as demonstrated in an fMRI experiment, social exclusion activates the same circuitry as physical pain… at one point they stopped sharing, only throwing back and forth to each other, ignoring the participant. This small change was enough to elicit feelings of social exclusion, and it activated the anterior cingulate and insula, just like physical pain would.
Relationships are very important to your brain’s feeling of happiness. Want to take that to the next level? Touch people.
One of the primary ways to release oxytocin is through touching. Obviously, it’s not always appropriate to touch most people, but small touches like handshakes and pats on the back are usually okay. For people you’re close with, make more of an effort to touch more often.
Touching is incredibly powerful. We just don’t give it enough credit. It makes you more persuasive, increases team performance and it even boosts math skills.
Touching someone you love actually reduces pain. In fact, when studies were done on married couples, the stronger the marriage, the more powerful the effect.
In addition, holding hands with someone can help comfort you and your brain through painful situations. One fMRI study scanned married women as they were warned that they were about to get a small electric shock. While anticipating the painful shocks, the brain showed a predictable pattern of response in pain and worrying circuits, with activation in the insula, anterior cingulate, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. During a separate scan, the women either held their husbands’ hands or the hand of the experimenter. When a subject held her husband’s hand, the threat of shock had a smaller effect. The brain showed reduced activation in both the anterior cingulate cortex and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex — that is, less activity in the pain and worrying circuits. In addition, the stronger the marriage, the lower the discomfort-related insula activity.
So hug someone today. And do not accept little, quick hugs. No, no, no. Tell them your neuroscientist recommended long hugs.
A hug, especially a long one, releases a neurotransmitter and hormone oxytocin, which reduces the reactivity of the amygdala.
So spend time with other people and give some hugs. Sorry, texting is not enough.
When you put people in a stressful situation and then let them visit loved ones or talk to them on the phone, they felt better. What about when they just texted? Their bodies responded the same as if they had no support at all.
…the text-message group had cortisol and oxytocin levels similar to the no-contact group.
In summary
So in summary, here’s what brain research says will make you happy:
- Ask “What am I grateful for?” No answers? Doesn’t matter. Just searching helps.
- Label any lingering negative emotions. Give it a name and your brain isn’t so bothered by it.
- Make ‘good enough’ decisions. Go for “good enough” instead of “best decision ever made on Earth.”
- Give and receive hugs. Don’t text — touch.
Doing these things can really can start an upward spiral of happiness in your life. UCLA neuroscience researcher Alex Korb explains:
Everything is interconnected. Gratitude improves sleep. Sleep reduces pain. Reduced pain improves your mood. Improved mood reduces anxiety, which improves focus and planning. Focus and planning help with decision making. Decision making further reduces anxiety and improves enjoyment. Enjoyment gives you more to be grateful for, which keeps that loop of the upward spiral going. Enjoyment also makes it more likely you’ll exercise and be social, which, in turn, will make you happier.
Originally published at www.bakadesuyo.com on September 20, 2015.
