Learning Challenge: Health and Happiness

Article title: New neuroscience reveals 4 rituals that will make you happy

Author: Erik Baker

Source: Ladders

My notes:

This article discusses four findings from neuroscience that can help us all to be happier. As a stressed, burnt-out graduate student, finding a bit of happiness is always welcome. I actually suffer from clinical depression, and one of the awful things about that is sometimes I can't even muster the energy to look for happiness in my everyday life. I'm generally of the attitude that you can't trust self-help books that tell you they have the key to happiness, because I think that a) actively looking for it makes it harder to find, and b) each person's version of happy is different, and might require a different journey to get to it. That being said, these findings do come from neuroscience, which literally studies the human brain and how it functions. If anyone has the most accurate tips on how to feel happier in our lives, it's a neuroscientist.

The importance of gratitude is something I've seen floating around the internet a lot. Mindfulness accounts on Pinterest are always posting something about the importance of including gratitude practices in our self-care. I try to do those practices occasionally, but not all the time. According to neuroscientists, being grateful is actually really great for our emotional wellbeing. Practicing gratefulness has been found to activate both the brain stem region that produces dopamine (a neurotransmitter that makes us feel happy) and can increase serotonin production (another happy neurotransmitter). The great thing about this is, even if you can't find something to be grateful for (and I think usually we all can, if we look hard enough), it is the act of searching for something to be grateful for that activates the production of these neurotransmitters. The connection between gratefulness and neurotransmitters was something I hadn't known about, and learning this, I might try to practice it more regularly.

"Happy" Neurotransmitters (Source: Inner Mammal Institute)

Another lesson from neuroscience shows us the importance of labeling our negative feelings, especially in a simplistic, metaphorical manner. The neuroscientists at The Upward Spiral explain it best:

…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.

This is something I do try to practice regularly. I've always been a journal-lover, and whenever I'm feeling particularly stressed out, or angry, or sad, I just go and do a brain dump in my journal of whatever I'm feeling. Expressing my feelings and labeling my emotions usually makes me feel infinitely better, and sometimes even helps me to come to the root cause of my emotions, which may have nothing to do with whatever thing upset me. It's always been a really helpful practice for me, and it's great to see that neuroscience confirms the value of it. 

I'm running out of room, but I want to briefly address the final two findings: make a decision, and touch people. Have you ever made a decision you've been ruminating over for a while, and felt so much better? Apparently, it's a neurological response, meant to decrease anxiety and stress. And, the last finding seems pretty straightforward to me. We are social creatures, and physical contact with people we care about (obviously within reason, please don't go around touching strangers indiscriminately) is a deep-rooted way of creating oxytocin, another chemical that makes us happy. Apparently, a long hug with someone can give you a burst of oxytocin, which reduces activity in the amygdala and make you feel happier. Social exclusion can actually cause our brains to react like we are in pain, so engaging in some kind of social contact helps us mitigate that, and physical touch, as I've said, is even more powerful.