Why Misunderstanding Happiness Can Be Dangerous
By: Cheshire Chaton
Tags: Neuroscience, Pleasure, Mind, Happiness, Improvement

Endorphin is the neurotransmitter linked to euphoria. It is triggered by physical pain. The original use of this neurotransmitter was to make you forget everything about your pain so that you can escape dangerous situations. Ever wondered why Indiana Jones still manages to get a bad guy out of a truck after getting shot in the shoulder? Easy, endorphin. You might experience it sometimes with the “runner’s high,” but as you can know, it doesn’t happen every day. It only happens once you have gone far beyond your abilities. Pain is useful to survive because it is our nervous system’s way of communicating that something is wrong in our body. It means that endorphins can only work for a short amount of time because it is not supposed to hide the pain away.

Key Takeaways :

Your brain makes you feel happy to ensure your survival.

The cortex takes care of the analysis.

takes care of the analysis. The limbic system takes direct action.

takes direct action. Dopamine helps you direct your efforts to achieve the best reward.

helps you direct your efforts to achieve the best reward. Serotonin makes you feel good when you are respected or dominating in your group.

makes you feel good when you are respected or dominating in your group. Oxytocin makes you feel good when you are bonding in a social group. It explains the “parental instinct”.

makes you feel good when you are bonding in a social group. It explains the “parental instinct”. Endorphins make you forget about pain to help you save your ass.

Okay, but why is it dangerous?

Do not become a “happy hormones junkie”

As you might have noticed, each neurotransmitter has a survival purpose. They are here to help you peak in certain situations but they are also here to fade away. You are not supposed to feel high on happy neurotransmitters all the time.

However, once their purpose is fulfilled, the constant quest for a shoot can trigger toxic behaviors. Let’s see what they are for each :

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Photo by Frida Bredesen on Unsplash

The search for dopamine will make you need to be rewarded more quickly while accomplishing the least possible effort. You will take current rewards for granted and always want more. It is linked to addictions. The reason behind it is that you will try to reproduce your “first shoot” of any experience. Dopamine is meant to look for novelty, and you will not achieve the first high with the same experience. You need more. We can directly see how it leads to deep dissatisfaction and potentially harmful behaviors.

The reason behind it is that you will try to reproduce your “first shoot” of any experience. Dopamine is meant to look for novelty, and you will not achieve the first high with the same experience. You need more. The search for serotonin can trigger the need for more respect and a higher status. It can lead to fights within a group for leadership. When it is not used for direct survival, it is dangerous for the integrity of the group. It can lead to toxic habits like envying other members of your group or constant comparison. These behaviors can be harmful to the group and for yourself, it turns you into an ego junkie.

can trigger the need for more respect and a higher status. It can lead to fights within a group for leadership. When it is not used for direct survival, it is dangerous for the integrity of the group. It can lead to toxic habits like envying other members of your group or constant comparison. The search for oxytocin leads to looking for more social approval. It could lead you to try to please as many people as you can. However, oxytocin is the hormone that triggers the least harmful behaviors compared to the three others when you look for too much of them.

leads to looking for more social approval. It could lead you to try to please as many people as you can. However, oxytocin is the hormone that triggers the least harmful behaviors compared to the three others when you look for too much of them. The search for endorphins is going to make you push yourself always further. You can see how you can’t possibly always exercise harder without it being dangerous for your body. If you’re caught in the junkie search of more endorphins, you can have behavior that will inflict self-harm.

You can see from this that too much of a good thing can definitely be a bad thing. Each of those neurotransmitters is meant to peak during rare occasions in our lives, it is not supposed to be a stable state. Trying to look for those neurotransmitters shoot and defining this as a goal makes us enter a vicious circle that leads to bad behaviors. It is even more true that those neurotransmitters have a huge role in the formation of habits. You need to be conscious of that pitfall so that you avoid it at all costs.

The vicious circle of avoiding pain through Happiness

As we saw previously, the neurotransmitters responsible for the “happy feel” are not meant to be in our brains 24/7. On the opposite, they are intended to come in a big spurt to motivate you and then disappear so that you can function normally again.

Another neurotransmitter that is normal to exist in our body is cortisol. This is one of the neurotransmitters meant to warn you against potential threats and discourage dangerous behaviors. As for the “happy neurotransmitters”, the cortisol context is less evident in today’s world than at our ancestors’ time. We are not faced with explicit threats on a daily basis. However, for the sake of survival, our brain is always scanning for potential threats. It is one of the causes of chronic anxiety, for instance.

The feeling given by cortisol is one of great unease. It is meant to force us to avoid dangerous situations. However, when triggered for no explicit reason, it gives a painful feeling that we need to get rid of.

To get rid of this feeling, we try to trigger our happy chemicals to make a diversion from the uneasy feeling. For instance, you can be stressed at work for no apparent reason. You will seek instant comfort in something that you know boosts your serotonin levels by experience, like eating candy. And before you know it, you will always respond to that feeling of uneasiness by eating candy.

Eating candy once in a while is not harmful, but it could be worse habits, like smoking, drinking alcohol, or eating so many sweets that you have health issues. You see here that you can quickly enter a vicious circle when you try to run away from pain all the time.

Key Takeaways :

Looking for the “happiness hormones” just for the sake of it can trigger harmful behaviors such as addiction, social conflict, or self-harm.

Not accepting that suffering is also part of the human experience can lead to vicious circles of habits that do not solve the cause issues.

So, we can’t be happy?

Actually, we can be, but it can come at several conditions:

Know that you are not meant to be on an ecstatic state 24/7

Happiness neurotransmitters are, first and foremost, a tool for your survival. It is okay if they are not here in your brain all the time. They are not meant for this. Your brain is more suited to scan potential threats and be on the look-out than to feel high on happy neurotransmitters. The sooner you realize this, the sooner you give a better meaning to your quest for Happiness.

It is normal to experience pain. Sometimes, running away from it can lead to bad habits.

Your body is meant to warn you against threats. Sometimes you’ll feel bad, and that is okay! Your way to cope with this is going to determine your ability to be happy or not. You need to try to cultivate a mindset where feeling unokay sometimes is actually okay.

Use your neuroplasticity to rewire your brain.

Everything in the world changes, including your brain and how it works, and it is terrific news! You can actually develop your brain to achieve a more stable mindset when it comes to Happiness.

It is shown that Happiness can also be a mindset and comes with some inherent qualities that we can develop. You can use strengthening exercises to “rewire your brain” to feel more Happiness.

You can use your brain as a muscle. There are two regions of your brain particularly involved in Happiness; the prefrontal cortex and the nucleus accumbens. Happy individuals use both of those regions more often.

High activity in both of those areas triggers feelings of optimism and gratefulness. Not only can you increase your brain activity in those regions, but you can also create neural connections between both of these regions by doing the following brain work-outs:

Exercise your gratitude and say “thank-you”: You might have seen journals of gratitude pass by and wondered why gratitude is so elemental. Acknowledging the good around you and the niceness of the people around you can increase your well-being by creating a healthy oxytocin production habit.

You can feel grateful about little things in life and allow yourself to dial down your expectations instead of entering the circle of always wanting more.

An excellent way to achieve that is to thank at least 5 people a week and spend a couple of minutes at the end of the day to identify what you are grateful for.

Image by Ryan McGuire from Pixabay

Train yourself to wait before gratification: Have you ever heard of the marshmallow test? It is about putting a kid in front of a marshmallow and leaving them alone in a room, and tell them that if they wait 30 minutes without touching the marshmallow, they’ll get a second one.

The result shows that the kids who wait tend to achieve more things than the kids who don’t wait because they have self-control and know how to act rationally.

I wouldn’t go as far as determining a child’s future based on a test because everything can be taught, and everything can be learned. The takeaway from this, however, is that you can train yourself to wait for this gratification.

It is imperative to try this if you have an issue with the dopamine circle. For instance, if you suffer from addictions, eating disorders, or compulsive buying.

A good exercise is to try to delay your rewards. For example, if you have an issue with compulsive eating, you can try to skip your treat once in a while to teach yourself how to wait for your reward.

This exercise allows you to shift your activity from your ventral striatum, which triggers the dopamine circle towards your prefrontal cortex, allowing you to take a step back.

Meditate to take a step back

Meditation is always healthy, but especially in our case. It allows us to accept the downs so that we can enjoy the ups. It is also an excellent way to take a step back and break the vicious circles and unhealthy habits.

Key Takeaways :