The Happy Brain

Health coach Lily Potter tells me how she helps clients discover their old pathways and build new paths to their happy chemicals; the Inner Mammal Method she mentions is at InnerMammalInstitute.org/method

THE HAPPY BRAIN PODCAST is a frank conversation between Loretta Breuning and a real reader of her book, Habits of a Happy Brain: Retrain your brain to boost your serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin and endorphin levels. Read the book and send your questions to Dr. Breuning on the contact form at the Inner Mammal Institute at: InnerMammalInstitute.org. You may be a guest on the show yourself!

The brain chemicals that make us feel good are inherited from earlier mammals. They evolved to do a job, not to make you feel good all the time. When you know the job each chemical does in the state of nature, your ups and downs make sense. More important, you can re-wire yourself to enjoy more of them in sustainable ways.

It’s not easy, alas. Our brain is designed to release happy chemicals when you take steps that promote survival. But our brain defines survival in a quirky way: it cares about the survival of your genes and it relies on neural pathways built in youth. To make things even harder, our brain habituates to the rewards it has so you always have to do more to get more happy chemicals.

We are not born with survival skills like our animal ancestors. Each newborn human wires itself from its own early experience. Happy chemicals are like paving on your neural pathways, wiring you to repeat behaviors that made you feel good before. This is why our urgent motivations don’t make sense to our verbal brain. It’s not easy being mammal!

When you know how your brain works, you can find healthier ways to enjoy happy chemicals and relieve unhappy chemicals. You can build new neural pathways by feeding your brain new experiences. But you have to design the new experiences carefully and repeat them— a lot!

The Inner Mammal Institute has free resources to help you make peace with your inner mammal: videos, blogs, infographics, and podcasts. Dr. Breuning’s manyt books illuminate the big picture and help you plot your course. You can feel good in new ways, no matter where you are right now. Get the details at InnerMammalInstitute.org.

Music from Sonatina Soleil by W.M. Sharp. Hear more of it at InnerMammalInstitute.org/musicbywmsharp

HR expert Mitchell Langbert discusses the pros and cons of employee mental health programs with me, as these programs grow rapidly.


THE HAPPY BRAIN PODCAST is a frank conversation between Loretta Breuning and a real reader of her book, Habits of a Happy Brain: Retrain your brain to boost your serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin and endorphin levels. Read the book and send your questions to Dr. Breuning on the contact form at the Inner Mammal Institute at: InnerMammalInstitute.org. You may be a guest on the show yourself!

The brain chemicals that make us feel good are inherited from earlier mammals. They evolved to do a job, not to make you feel good all the time. When you know the job each chemical does in the state of nature, your ups and downs make sense. More important, you can re-wire yourself to enjoy more of them in sustainable ways.

It’s not easy, alas. Our brain is designed to release happy chemicals when you take steps that promote survival. But our brain defines survival in a quirky way: it cares about the survival of your genes and it relies on neural pathways built in youth. To make things even harder, our brain habituates to the rewards it has so you always have to do more to get more happy chemicals.

We are not born with survival skills like our animal ancestors. Each newborn human wires itself from its own early experience. Happy chemicals are like paving on your neural pathways, wiring you to repeat behaviors that made you feel good before. This is why our urgent motivations don’t make sense to our verbal brain. It’s not easy being mammal!

When you know how your brain works, you can find healthier ways to enjoy happy chemicals and relieve unhappy chemicals. You can build new neural pathways by feeding your brain new experiences. But you have to design the new experiences carefully and repeat them— a lot!

The Inner Mammal Institute has free resources to help you make peace with your inner mammal: videos, blogs, infographics, and podcasts. Dr. Breuning’s manyt books illuminate the big picture and help you plot your course. You can feel good in new ways, no matter where you are right now. Get the details at InnerMammalInstitute.org.

Music from Sonatina Soleil by W.M. Sharp. Hear more of it at InnerMammalInstitute.org/musicbywmsharp

A recruiter chats with me about managing your one-up/one-down feelings during a job interview.

THE HAPPY BRAIN PODCAST is a frank conversation between Loretta Breuning and a real reader of her book, Habits of a Happy Brain: Retrain your brain to boost your serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin and endorphin levels. Read the book and send your questions to Dr. Breuning on the contact form at the Inner Mammal Institute at: InnerMammalInstitute.org. You may be a guest on the show yourself!

The brain chemicals that make us feel good are inherited from earlier mammals. They evolved to do a job, not to make you feel good all the time. When you know the job each chemical does in the state of nature, your ups and downs make sense. More important, you can re-wire yourself to enjoy more of them in sustainable ways.

It’s not easy, alas. Our brain is designed to release happy chemicals when you take steps that promote survival. But our brain defines survival in a quirky way: it cares about the survival of your genes and it relies on neural pathways built in youth. To make things even harder, our brain habituates to the rewards it has so you always have to do more to get more happy chemicals.

We are not born with survival skills like our animal ancestors. Each newborn human wires itself from its own early experience. Happy chemicals are like paving on your neural pathways, wiring you to repeat behaviors that made you feel good before. This is why our urgent motivations don’t make sense to our verbal brain. It’s not easy being mammal!

When you know how your brain works, you can find healthier ways to enjoy happy chemicals and relieve unhappy chemicals. You can build new neural pathways by feeding your brain new experiences. But you have to design the new experiences carefully and repeat them— a lot!

The Inner Mammal Institute has free resources to help you make peace with your inner mammal: videos, blogs, infographics, and podcasts. Dr. Breuning’s manyt books illuminate the big picture and help you plot your course. You can feel good in new ways, no matter where you are right now. Get the details at InnerMammalInstitute.org.

Music from Sonatina Soleil by W.M. Sharp. Hear more of it at InnerMammalInstitute.org/musicbywmsharp

I discover the amazing work of Zing Performance with its founder, Wynford Dore, who built tools to reprogram the cerebellum and make astonishing improvements in performance.


THE HAPPY BRAIN PODCAST is a frank conversation between Loretta Breuning and a real reader of her book, Habits of a Happy Brain: Retrain your brain to boost your serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin and endorphin levels. Read the book and send your questions to Dr. Breuning on the contact form at the Inner Mammal Institute at: InnerMammalInstitute.org. You may be a guest on the show yourself!

The brain chemicals that make us feel good are inherited from earlier mammals. They evolved to do a job, not to make you feel good all the time. When you know the job each chemical does in the state of nature, your ups and downs make sense. More important, you can re-wire yourself to enjoy more of them in sustainable ways.

It’s not easy, alas. Our brain is designed to release happy chemicals when you take steps that promote survival. But our brain defines survival in a quirky way: it cares about the survival of your genes and it relies on neural pathways built in youth. To make things even harder, our brain habituates to the rewards it has so you always have to do more to get more happy chemicals.

We are not born with survival skills like our animal ancestors. Each newborn human wires itself from its own early experience. Happy chemicals are like paving on your neural pathways, wiring you to repeat behaviors that made you feel good before. This is why our urgent motivations don’t make sense to our verbal brain. It’s not easy being mammal!

When you know how your brain works, you can find healthier ways to enjoy happy chemicals and relieve unhappy chemicals. You can build new neural pathways by feeding your brain new experiences. But you have to design the new experiences carefully and repeat them— a lot!

The Inner Mammal Institute has free resources to help you make peace with your inner mammal: videos, blogs, infographics, and podcasts. Dr. Breuning’s manyt books illuminate the big picture and help you plot your course. You can feel good in new ways, no matter where you are right now. Get the details at InnerMammalInstitute.org.

Music from Sonatina Soleil by W.M. Sharp. Hear more of it at InnerMammalInstitute.org/musicbywmsharp

I want to hear how Robert Labayen pushes positivity onto colleagues, friends and family because I find it hard to do that.

THE HAPPY BRAIN PODCAST is a frank conversation between Loretta Breuning and a real reader of her book, Habits of a Happy Brain: Retrain your brain to boost your serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin and endorphin levels. Read the book and send your questions to Dr. Breuning on the contact form at the Inner Mammal Institute at: InnerMammalInstitute.org. You may be a guest on the show yourself!

The brain chemicals that make us feel good are inherited from earlier mammals. They evolved to do a job, not to make you feel good all the time. When you know the job each chemical does in the state of nature, your ups and downs make sense. More important, you can re-wire yourself to enjoy more of them in sustainable ways.

It’s not easy, alas. Our brain is designed to release happy chemicals when you take steps that promote survival. But our brain defines survival in a quirky way: it cares about the survival of your genes and it relies on neural pathways built in youth. To make things even harder, our brain habituates to the rewards it has so you always have to do more to get more happy chemicals.

We are not born with survival skills like our animal ancestors. Each newborn human wires itself from its own early experience. Happy chemicals are like paving on your neural pathways, wiring you to repeat behaviors that made you feel good before. This is why our urgent motivations don’t make sense to our verbal brain. It’s not easy being mammal!

When you know how your brain works, you can find healthier ways to enjoy happy chemicals and relieve unhappy chemicals. You can build new neural pathways by feeding your brain new experiences. But you have to design the new experiences carefully and repeat them— a lot!

The Inner Mammal Institute has free resources to help you make peace with your inner mammal: videos, blogs, infographics, and podcasts. Dr. Breuning’s manyt books illuminate the big picture and help you plot your course. You can feel good in new ways, no matter where you are right now. Get the details at InnerMammalInstitute.org.

Music from Sonatina Soleil by W.M. Sharp. Hear more of it at InnerMammalInstitute.org/musicbywmsharp

Yumi Tsui of Psych2Go.net asked me questions about the human/animal bond that came from her young readers.

THE HAPPY BRAIN PODCAST is a frank conversation between Loretta Breuning and a real reader of her book, Habits of a Happy Brain: Retrain your brain to boost your serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin and endorphin levels. Read the book and send your questions to Dr. Breuning on the contact form at the Inner Mammal Institute at: InnerMammalInstitute.org. You may be a guest on the show yourself!

The brain chemicals that make us feel good are inherited from earlier mammals. They evolved to do a job, not to make you feel good all the time. When you know the job each chemical does in the state of nature, your ups and downs make sense. More important, you can re-wire yourself to enjoy more of them in sustainable ways.

It’s not easy, alas. Our brain is designed to release happy chemicals when you take steps that promote survival. But our brain defines survival in a quirky way: it cares about the survival of your genes and it relies on neural pathways built in youth. To make things even harder, our brain habituates to the rewards it has so you always have to do more to get more happy chemicals.

We are not born with survival skills like our animal ancestors. Each newborn human wires itself from its own early experience. Happy chemicals are like paving on your neural pathways, wiring you to repeat behaviors that made you feel good before. This is why our urgent motivations don’t make sense to our verbal brain. It’s not easy being mammal!

When you know how your brain works, you can find healthier ways to enjoy happy chemicals and relieve unhappy chemicals. You can build new neural pathways by feeding your brain new experiences. But you have to design the new experiences carefully and repeat them— a lot!

The Inner Mammal Institute has free resources to help you make peace with your inner mammal: videos, blogs, infographics, and podcasts. Dr. Breuning’s manyt books illuminate the big picture and help you plot your course. You can feel good in new ways, no matter where you are right now. Get the details at InnerMammalInstitute.org.

Music from Sonatina Soleil by W.M. Sharp. Hear more of it at InnerMammalInstitute.org/musicbywmsharp

Gabriella Cordero asks me great questions to help launch her bibliotherapy project.

THE HAPPY BRAIN PODCAST is a frank conversation between Loretta Breuning and a real reader of her book, Habits of a Happy Brain: Retrain your brain to boost your serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin and endorphin levels. Read the book and send your questions to Dr. Breuning on the contact form at the Inner Mammal Institute at: InnerMammalInstitute.org. You may be a guest on the show yourself!

The brain chemicals that make us feel good are inherited from earlier mammals. They evolved to do a job, not to make you feel good all the time. When you know the job each chemical does in the state of nature, your ups and downs make sense. More important, you can re-wire yourself to enjoy more of them in sustainable ways.

It’s not easy, alas. Our brain is designed to release happy chemicals when you take steps that promote survival. But our brain defines survival in a quirky way: it cares about the survival of your genes and it relies on neural pathways built in youth. To make things even harder, our brain habituates to the rewards it has so you always have to do more to get more happy chemicals.

We are not born with survival skills like our animal ancestors. Each newborn human wires itself from its own early experience. Happy chemicals are like paving on your neural pathways, wiring you to repeat behaviors that made you feel good before. This is why our urgent motivations don’t make sense to our verbal brain. It’s not easy being mammal!

When you know how your brain works, you can find healthier ways to enjoy happy chemicals and relieve unhappy chemicals. You can build new neural pathways by feeding your brain new experiences. But you have to design the new experiences carefully and repeat them— a lot!

The Inner Mammal Institute has free resources to help you make peace with your inner mammal: videos, blogs, infographics, and podcasts. Dr. Breuning’s manyt books illuminate the big picture and help you plot your course. You can feel good in new ways, no matter where you are right now. Get the details at InnerMammalInstitute.org.

Music from Sonatina Soleil by W.M. Sharp. Hear more of it at InnerMammalInstitute.org/musicbywmsharp

A longtime reader faces the challenge of being an authoritative teacher/parent when she’d rather just be “nice."

THE HAPPY BRAIN PODCAST is a frank conversation between Loretta Breuning and a real reader of her book, Habits of a Happy Brain: Retrain your brain to boost your serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin and endorphin levels. Read the book and send your questions to Dr. Breuning on the contact form at the Inner Mammal Institute at: InnerMammalInstitute.org. You may be a guest on the show yourself!

The brain chemicals that make us feel good are inherited from earlier mammals. They evolved to do a job, not to make you feel good all the time. When you know the job each chemical does in the state of nature, your ups and downs make sense. More important, you can re-wire yourself to enjoy more of them in sustainable ways.

It’s not easy, alas. Our brain is designed to release happy chemicals when you take steps that promote survival. But our brain defines survival in a quirky way: it cares about the survival of your genes and it relies on neural pathways built in youth. To make things even harder, our brain habituates to the rewards it has so you always have to do more to get more happy chemicals.

We are not born with survival skills like our animal ancestors. Each newborn human wires itself from its own early experience. Happy chemicals are like paving on your neural pathways, wiring you to repeat behaviors that made you feel good before. This is why our urgent motivations don’t make sense to our verbal brain. It’s not easy being mammal!

When you know how your brain works, you can find healthier ways to enjoy happy chemicals and relieve unhappy chemicals. You can build new neural pathways by feeding your brain new experiences. But you have to design the new experiences carefully and repeat them— a lot!

The Inner Mammal Institute has free resources to help you make peace with your inner mammal: videos, blogs, infographics, and podcasts. Dr. Breuning’s manyt books illuminate the big picture and help you plot your course. You can feel good in new ways, no matter where you are right now. Get the details at InnerMammalInstitute.org.

Music from Sonatina Soleil by W.M. Sharp. Hear more of it at InnerMammalInstitute.org/musicbywmsharp

Even when the world has changed or come to a stop, you can keep directing your brain toward reward chemicals and feel good.

THE HAPPY BRAIN PODCAST is a frank conversation between Loretta Breuning and a real reader of her book, Habits of a Happy Brain: Retrain your brain to boost your serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin and endorphin levels. Read the book and send your questions to Dr. Breuning on the contact form at the Inner Mammal Institute at: InnerMammalInstitute.org. You may be a guest on the show yourself!

The brain chemicals that make us feel good are inherited from earlier mammals. They evolved to do a job, not to make you feel good all the time. When you know the job each chemical does in the state of nature, your ups and downs make sense. More important, you can re-wire yourself to enjoy more of them in sustainable ways.

It’s not easy, alas. Our brain is designed to release happy chemicals when you take steps that promote survival. But our brain defines survival in a quirky way: it cares about the survival of your genes and it relies on neural pathways built in youth. To make things even harder, our brain habituates to the rewards it has so you always have to do more to get more happy chemicals.

We are not born with survival skills like our animal ancestors. Each newborn human wires itself from its own early experience. Happy chemicals are like paving on your neural pathways, wiring you to repeat behaviors that made you feel good before. This is why our urgent motivations don’t make sense to our verbal brain. It’s not easy being mammal!

When you know how your brain works, you can find healthier ways to enjoy happy chemicals and relieve unhappy chemicals. You can build new neural pathways by feeding your brain new experiences. But you have to design the new experiences carefully and repeat them— a lot!

The Inner Mammal Institute has free resources to help you make peace with your inner mammal: videos, blogs, infographics, and podcasts. Dr. Breuning’s manyt books illuminate the big picture and help you plot your course. You can feel good in new ways, no matter where you are right now. Get the details at InnerMammalInstitute.org.

Music from Sonatina Soleil by W.M. Sharp. Hear more of it at InnerMammalInstitute.org/musicbywmsharp

"Claire the Soberholic" tells me how she re-wired a lifelong drinking habit, and now helps others to do the same.

THE HAPPY BRAIN PODCAST is a frank conversation between Loretta Breuning and a real reader of her book, Habits of a Happy Brain: Retrain your brain to boost your serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin and endorphin levels. Read the book and send your questions to Dr. Breuning on the contact form at the Inner Mammal Institute at: InnerMammalInstitute.org. You may be a guest on the show yourself!

The brain chemicals that make us feel good are inherited from earlier mammals. They evolved to do a job, not to make you feel good all the time. When you know the job each chemical does in the state of nature, your ups and downs make sense. More important, you can re-wire yourself to enjoy more of them in sustainable ways.

It’s not easy, alas. Our brain is designed to release happy chemicals when you take steps that promote survival. But our brain defines survival in a quirky way: it cares about the survival of your genes and it relies on neural pathways built in youth. To make things even harder, our brain habituates to the rewards it has so you always have to do more to get more happy chemicals.

We are not born with survival skills like our animal ancestors. Each newborn human wires itself from its own early experience. Happy chemicals are like paving on your neural pathways, wiring you to repeat behaviors that made you feel good before. This is why our urgent motivations don’t make sense to our verbal brain. It’s not easy being mammal!

When you know how your brain works, you can find healthier ways to enjoy happy chemicals and relieve unhappy chemicals. You can build new neural pathways by feeding your brain new experiences. But you have to design the new experiences carefully and repeat them— a lot!

The Inner Mammal Institute has free resources to help you make peace with your inner mammal: videos, blogs, infographics, and podcasts. Dr. Breuning’s manyt books illuminate the big picture and help you plot your course. You can feel good in new ways, no matter where you are right now. Get the details at InnerMammalInstitute.org.

Music from Sonatina Soleil by W.M. Sharp. Hear more of it at InnerMammalInstitute.org/musicbywmsharp