Your brain turns on the excitement of dopamine when you approach a reward, but it defines "rewards" with neural pathways built from your dopamine past. New paths to dopamine await.
Mammals live in herds for protection from predators, and we've inherited a brain that rewards you with oxytocin when you stick with the herd. But herd life is not all warm and fuzzy.
Your brain evolved to protect you from touching a hot stove twice. It alarms you when you see anything similar to a past threat. You can accept old pathways and flow into new ones.
Clinging to others promotes survival in nature but it frustrates us in daily life. You can manage this frustration when you know how you produce it inside you.
Instead of focusing on the threats lurking everywhere, you can discover new pastures. You can train your brain to feel safe when you know how it creates alarm.
Whether you're cheering a new year, a sports team, or a birthday, it feels good. There may be lasting benefits too, so it's worth finding authentic opportunities to cheer.
The man who discovered the synapse wrote a book of career advice a century ago. His advice helps you stimulate your happy chemicals (dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin).
Dopamine motivates us to seek novelty. Oxytocin motives us to fit in. Serotonin to be special. Fashion trends are natural for us mammals and you may find them in grandma's closet.
Love is a powerful motivator because it stimulates all your happy chemicals at once. But our brain evolved to motivate reproduction, not to make you feel good all the time. Alas.
Here are some curious childhood stress relievers that will help you identify your own. Your early habits are pathways in your brain that you can build onto today.
Loretta Graziano Breuning, Ph.D., a professor emerita of management at California State University East Bay, is the author of Habits of a Happy Brain.
About Your Neurochemical Self
Happiness is a surge of dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin or endorphin. These brain chemicals evolved to do a job, not to surge all the time. When you know the job they do in earlier animals, you can make peace with your inner mammal. You can wire yourself to enjoy more happy chemicals and relieve more unhappy chemicals. Your old wiring was built by accidents of experience in your youth. It will shape your ups and downs until you build a new place for your electricity to flow. It's not easy being a mammal, but we’re lucky to live in a time when our operating system is increasingly well understood.
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