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The Happy Brain
The Happy Brain episodes
- Oxytocin and Special Guest Paul ZakResearch perspectives on boosting oxytocin with Paul Zak, Center for Neuroeconomic Studies with Loretta Breuning, PhD.
Happiness is caused by four special brain chemicals: dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphin. When you know how they work in animals, you can find your power over them in daily life. The happy chemicals are not designed to flow all the time for no reason. They evolved to reward behaviors that promote survival in the state of nature. They are only released in short spurts, so you always have to do more to get more.
Our chemicals are controlled by neural pathways built from life experience. Neurons connect when your happy chemicals flow, which wires you to repeat behaviors that felt good before. Fortunately, you can re-wire yourself, but it’s not easy. That’s why we keep discussing and asking questions.
The Inner Mammal Institute has resources that help you make peace with your inner mammal: books, videos, blogs, graphics, and podcasts. You’ll find out what turns on your happy chemicals in the state of nature, and how you can turn them on today. It’s not easy being mammal! But you can build your power over your mammalian brain chemicals.
Music from Sonatina Soleil by W.M. Sharp. Hear more of it at InnerMammalInstitute.org/musicbywmsharp.39 min - When Your Happy Chemicals DroopHappy chemicals naturally droop after they spurt. Questions about the “after the party” letdown feeling, about food obsessions, and about classical virtues.
This podcast is a live call-in with Loretta Breuning, PhD, author of Habits of a Happy Brain: Retrain your brain to boost your serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin and endorphin levels. Questions? InnerMammalInstitute.org/podcast.
Happiness is caused by four special brain chemicals: dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphin. When you know how they work in animals, you can find your power over them in daily life.
The happy chemicals are not designed to flow all the time for no reason. They evolved to reward behaviors that promote survival in the state of nature. They are only released in short spurts, so you always have to do more to get more. This makes life frustrating!
Our chemicals are controlled by neural pathways built from life experience. Neurons connect when your happy chemicals flow, which wires you to repeat behaviors that felt good before. Fortunately, you can re-wire yourself, but it’s not easy. That’s why we keep discussing and asking questions.
The Inner Mammal Institute has resources that help you make peace with your inner mammal: books, videos, blogs, graphics, and podcasts. You’ll find out what turns on your happy chemicals in the state of nature, and how you can turn them on today. InnerMammalInstitute.org
It’s not easy being mammal! But you can build your power over your mammalian brain chemicals. Listen! Read! Join the conversation! Music from Sonatina Soleil by W.M. Sharp. Hear more of it at InnerMammalInstitute.org/musicbywmsharp.47 min - Compassion and Happy Chemicals“Compassion” is a word often used to point blame and avoid responsibility; here’s my take on the problem and my answer to readers’ questions about how to deal with negative people.
This podcast is a live call-in with Loretta Breuning, PhD, author of Habits of a Happy Brain: Retrain your brain to boost your serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin and endorphin levels. Questions? InnerMammalInstitute.org/podcast.
Happiness is caused by four special brain chemicals: dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphin. When you know how they work in animals, you can find your power over them in daily life. The happy chemicals are not designed to flow all the time for no reason. They evolved to reward behaviors that promote survival in the state of nature. They are only released in short spurts, so you always have to do more to get more. This makes life frustrating!
Our chemicals are controlled by neural pathways built from life experience. Neurons connect when your happy chemicals flow, which wires you to repeat behaviors that felt good before. Fortunately, you can re-wire yourself, but it’s not easy. That’s why we keep discussing and asking questions.
The Inner Mammal Institute has resources that help you make peace with your inner mammal: books, videos, blogs, graphics, and podcasts. You’ll find out what turns on your happy chemicals in the state of nature, and how you can turn them on today. It’s not easy being mammal! But you can build your power over your mammalian brain chemicals.
Listen! Read! Join the conversation! Music from Sonatina Soleil by W.M. Sharp. Hear more of it at InnerMammalInstitute.org/musicbywmsharp.38 min - Oxytocin: Acceptance and BelongingOxytocin causes the good feeling of acceptance and belonging, but that animal urge for safety in numbers causes the frustrating in-group/out-group dynamics of daily life, such as gossip.
This podcast is a live call-in with Loretta Breuning, PhD, author of Habits of a Happy Brain: Retrain your brain to boost your serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin and endorphin levels. Questions? InnerMammalInstitute.org/podcast.
Happiness is caused by four special brain chemicals: dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphin. When you know how they work in animals, you can find your power over them in daily life.
The happy chemicals are not designed to flow all the time for no reason. They evolved to reward behaviors that promote survival in the state of nature. They are only released in short spurts, so you always have to do more to get more. This makes life frustrating!
Our chemicals are controlled by neural pathways built from life experience. Neurons connect when your happy chemicals flow, which wires you to repeat behaviors that felt good before. Fortunately, you can re-wire yourself, but it’s not easy. That’s why we keep discussing and asking questions.
The Inner Mammal Institute has resources that help you make peace with your inner mammal: books, videos, blogs, graphics, and podcasts. You’ll find out what turns on your happy chemicals in the state of nature, and how you can turn them on today. InnerMammalInstitute.org
It’s not easy being mammal! But you can build your power over your mammalian brain chemicals. Listen! Read! Join the conversation! Music from Sonatina Soleil by W.M. Sharp. Hear more of it at InnerMammalInstitute.org/musicbywmsharp.46 min - Cortisol and ClutterCortisol can spiral when you have many triggers at once – like the time I was triggered by the clutter around my house.
This podcast is a live call-in with Loretta Breuning, PhD, author of Habits of a Happy Brain: Retrain your brain to boost your serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin and endorphin levels. Questions? InnerMammalInstitute.org/podcast.
Happiness is caused by four special brain chemicals: dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphin. When you know how they work in animals, you can find your power over them in daily life.
The happy chemicals are not designed to flow all the time for no reason. They evolved to reward behaviors that promote survival in the state of nature. They are only released in short spurts, so you always have to do more to get more. This makes life frustrating!
Our chemicals are controlled by neural pathways built from life experience. Neurons connect when your happy chemicals flow, which wires you to repeat behaviors that felt good before. Fortunately, you can re-wire yourself, but it’s not easy. That’s why we keep discussing and asking questions.
The Inner Mammal Institute has resources that help you make peace with your inner mammal: books, videos, blogs, graphics, and podcasts. You’ll find out what turns on your happy chemicals in the state of nature, and how you can turn them on today. InnerMammalInstitute.org
It’s not easy being mammal! But you can build your power over your mammalian brain chemicals. Listen! Read! Join the conversation! Music from Sonatina Soleil by W.M. Sharp. Hear more of it at InnerMammalInstitute.org/musicbywmsharp.43 min - Serotonin and CompetitivenessSerotonin creates the feeling of social importance, so how does it affect competitiveness at work?
This podcast is a live call-in with Loretta Breuning, PhD, author of Habits of a Happy Brain: Retrain your brain to boost your serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin and endorphin levels. Questions? InnerMammalInstitute.org/podcast.
Happiness is caused by four special brain chemicals: dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphin. When you know how they work in animals, you can find your power over them in daily life.
The happy chemicals are not designed to flow all the time for no reason. They evolved to reward behaviors that promote survival in the state of nature. They are only released in short spurts, so you always have to do more to get more. This makes life frustrating!
Our chemicals are controlled by neural pathways built from life experience. Neurons connect when your happy chemicals flow, which wires you to repeat behaviors that felt good before. Fortunately, you can re-wire yourself, but it’s not easy. That’s why we keep discussing and asking questions.
The Inner Mammal Institute has resources that help you make peace with your inner mammal: books, videos, blogs, graphics, and podcasts. You’ll find out what turns on your happy chemicals in the state of nature, and how you can turn them on today. InnerMammalInstitute.org
It’s not easy being mammal! But you can build your power over your mammalian brain chemicals. Listen! Read! Join the conversation! Music from Sonatina Soleil by W.M. Sharp. Hear more of it at InnerMammalInstitute.org/musicbywmsharp.40 min
About The Happy Brain
From the publisher's feed
Do you wonder what stimulates your happy brain chemicals- dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, endorphin? Answer your questions with these lively conversations between Loretta Breuning and real readers of…
her book, Habits of a Happy Brain: Retrain your brain to boost your serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin and endorphin levels. Still have more questions? Read the book and be a guest on the show yourself! Contact Dr. Breuning and learn more about her work at the Inner Mammal Institute at: InnerMammalInstitute.org.
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 of each chemical 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.
But it’s hard. Our brain is designed to release happy chemicals to reward 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 books illuminate the big picture and help you plot your course. You can find new ways to feel good, wherever you are right now.
Music from Sonatina Soleil by W.M. Sharp. Hear more of it at InnerMammalInstitute.org/musicbywmsharp
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 of each chemical 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.
But it’s hard. Our brain is designed to release happy chemicals to reward 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 books illuminate the big picture and help you plot your course. You can find new ways to feel good, wherever you are right now.
Music from Sonatina Soleil by W.M. Sharp. Hear more of it at InnerMammalInstitute.org/musicbywmsharp
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