This article was taken from a blog post site and I think there are good point to explore.
"You get all kinds of happiness advice on the internet from
people who don’t know what they’re talking about. Don’t trust them.
Actually, don’t trust me either. Trust neuroscientists. They
study that gray blob in your head all day and have learned a lot about what
truly will make you happy.
UCLA neuroscience researcher Alex Korb has
some insights that can create an upward spiral of happiness in your life.
Here’s what you and I can learn from the people who really have answers:
1) The Most Important
Question To Ask When You Feel Down
Sometimes it doesn’t feel like your brain wants you to be happy.
You may feel guilty or shameful. Why?
Believe it or not, guilt and shame activate the brain’s
reward center.
Despite their
differences, pride, shame, and guilt all activate similar neural circuits, including
the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, amygdala, insula, and the nucleus accumbens.
Interestingly, pride is the most powerful of these emotions at triggering
activity in these regions — except in the nucleus accumbens, where guilt and
shame win out. This explains why it can be so appealing to heap guilt and shame
on ourselves — they’re activating the brain’s reward center.
And you worry a lot too. Why? In the short term, worrying
makes your brain feel a little better — at least you’re doing something about
your problems.
In fact, worrying can
help calm the limbic system by increasing activity in the medial prefrontal
cortex and decreasing activity in the amygdala. That might seem counterintuitive,
but it just goes to show that if you’re feeling anxiety, doing something about
it — even worrying — is better than doing nothing.
But guilt, shame and worry are horrible long-term solutions. So
what do neuroscientists say you should do? Ask yourself this question:
What am I grateful for?
You know what the antidepressant Wellbutrin does? Boosts the
neurotransmitter dopamine. So does gratitude.
The benefits of gratitude
start with the dopamine system, because feeling grateful activates the brain
stem region that produces dopamine. Additionally, gratitude toward others
increases activity in social dopamine circuits, which makes social interactions
more enjoyable…
Know what Prozac does? Boosts the neurotransmitter serotonin. So
does gratitude.
One powerful effect of
gratitude is that it can boost serotonin. Trying to think of things you are
grateful for forces you to focus on the positive aspects of your life. This
simple act increases serotonin production in the anterior cingulate cortex.
I know, sometimes life lands a really mean punch in the gut and
it feels like there’s nothing to be grateful for. Guess what?
Doesn’t matter. You don’t have to find anything. It’s the searching that
counts.
It’s not finding
gratitude that matters most; it’s remembering to look in the first place.
Remembering to be grateful is a form of emotional intelligence. One study found
that it actually affected neuron density in both the ventromedial and lateral
prefrontal cortex. These density changes suggest that as emotional intelligence
increases, the neurons in these areas become more efficient. With higher
emotional intelligence, it simply takes less effort to be grateful.
And gratitude doesn’t just make your brain happy — it can also create a positive feedback loop in your relationships. So express that gratitude to the
people you care about.
But what happens when bad feelings completely overtake you? When
you’re really in the dumps and don’t even know how to deal with it? There’s an
easy answer…
2) Label Negative
Feelings
You feel awful. Okay, give that awfulness a name. Sad? Anxious?
Angry?
Boom. It’s that simple. Sound stupid? Your noggin disagrees.
…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.
Suppressing emotions doesn’t work and can backfire on you.
Gross found that people
who tried to suppress a negative emotional experience failed to do so. While
they thought they looked fine outwardly, inwardly their limbic system was just
as aroused as without suppression, and in some cases, even more aroused. Kevin
Ochsner, at Columbia, repeated these findings using an fMRI. Trying not to feel
something doesn’t work, and in some cases even backfires.
But labeling, on the other hand, makes a big difference.
To reduce arousal, you
need to use just a few words to describe an emotion, and ideally use symbolic
language, which means using indirect metaphors, metrics, and simplifications of
your experience. This requires you to activate your prefrontal cortex, which
reduces the arousal in the limbic system. Here’s the bottom line: describe an
emotion in just a word or two, and it helps reduce the emotion.
Ancient methods were way ahead of us on this one. Meditation has employed this
for centuries. Labeling is a fundamental tool of mindfulness.
In fact, labeling affects the brain so powerfully it works with
other people too. Labeling emotions is one of the primary tools used by FBI hostage negotiators.
Okay, hopefully you’re not reading this and labeling your
current emotional state as “Bored.” Maybe you’re not feeling awful but
you probably have things going on in your life that are causing you some
stress. Here’s a simple way to beat them…
3) Make That Decision
Ever make a decision and then your brain finally feels at rest?
That’s no random occurrence.
Brain science shows that making decisions reduces worry and
anxiety — as well as helping you solve problems.
Making decisions includes
creating intentions and setting goals — all three are part of the same neural
circuitry and engage the prefrontal cortex in a positive way, reducing worry
and anxiety. Making decisions also helps overcome striatum activity, which
usually pulls you toward negative impulses and routines. Finally, making
decisions changes your perception of the world — finding solutions to your
problems and calming the limbic system.
But deciding can be hard. I agree. So what kind
of decisions should you make? Neuroscience has an answer…
Make a “good enough” decision. Don’t sweat making the absolute
100% best decision. We all know being a perfectionist can be stressful. And
brain studies back this up.
Trying to be perfect overwhelms your brain with emotions and
makes you feel out of control.
Trying for the best,
instead of good enough, brings too much emotional ventromedial prefrontal
activity into the decision-making process. In contrast, recognizing that good
enough is good enough activates more dorsolateral prefrontal areas, which helps
you feel more in control…
As Swarthmore professor Barry Schwartz said in my
interview with him: “Good enough is almost always good enough.”
So when you make a decision, your brain feels you have control.
And, as I’ve talked about before, a feeling of control reduces stress. But
here’s what’s really fascinating: Deciding also boosts pleasure.
Actively choosing caused
changes in attention circuits and in how the participants felt about the
action, and it increased rewarding dopamine activity.
Want proof? No problem. Let’s talk about cocaine.
You give 2 rats injections of cocaine. Rat A had to pull a lever
first. Rat B didn’t have to do anything. Any difference? Yup: rat A gets a
bigger boost of dopamine.
So they both got the same
injections of cocaine at the same time, but rat A had to actively press the
lever, and rat B didn’t have to do anything. And you guessed it — rat A
released more dopamine in its nucleus accumbens.
So what’s the lesson here? Next time you buy cocaine… whoops,
wrong lesson. Point is, when you make a decision on a goal and then
achieve it, you feel better than when good stuff just happens by chance.
And this answers the eternal mystery of why dragging your
butt to the gym can be so hard.
If you go because you feel you have to or you should,
well, it’s not really a voluntary decision. Your brain doesn’t get the pleasure
boost. It just feels stress. And that’s no way to build a good exercise habit.
Interestingly, if they
are forced to exercise, they don’t get the same benefits, because without
choice, the exercise itself is a source of stress.
We don’t just choose the
things we like; we also like the things we choose.
Okay, you’re being grateful, labeling negative emotions and
making more decisions. Great. But this is feeling kinda lonely for a happiness
prescription. Let’s get some other people in here.
What’s something you can do with others that neuroscience says
is a path to mucho happiness? And something that’s stupidly simple so you don’t
get lazy and skip it? Brain docs have an answer for you…
4) Touch People
No, not indiscriminately; that can get you in a lot of trouble.
But we need to feel love and acceptance from others. When we
don’t it’s painful. And I don’t mean “awkward” or “disappointing.” I mean
actually painful.
Neuroscientists did a study where people played a ball-tossing
video game. The other players tossed the ball to you and you tossed it back to
them. Actually, there were no other players; that was all done by the computer
program.
But the subjects were told the characters were controlled by
real people. So what happened when the “other players” stopped playing nice and
didn’t share the ball?
Subjects’ brains responded the same way as if they experienced physical
pain. Rejection doesn’t just hurt like a broken heart; your brain
feels it like a broken leg.
In fact, as demonstrated
in an fMRI experiment, social exclusion activates the same circuitry as
physical pain… at one point they stopped sharing, only throwing back and forth
to each other, ignoring the participant. This small change was enough to elicit
feelings of social exclusion, and it activated the anterior cingulate and
insula, just like physical pain would.
Relationships are very important to your brain’s feeling of
happiness. Want to take that to the next level? Touch people.
One of the primary ways
to release oxytocin is through touching. Obviously, it’s not always appropriate
to touch most people, but small touches like handshakes and pats on the back
are usually okay. For people you’re close with, make more of an effort to touch
more often.
Touching is incredibly powerful. We just don’t give it enough
credit. It makes you more persuasive,
increases team performance, improves your flirting…
heck, it even boosts math skills.
Touching someone you love actually reduces pain. In fact, when
studies were done on married couples, the stronger the marriage, the more
powerful the effect.
In addition, holding
hands with someone can help comfort you and your brain through painful situations.
One fMRI study scanned married women as they were warned that they were about
to get a small electric shock. While anticipating the painful shocks, the brain
showed a predictable pattern of response in pain and worrying circuits, with
activation in the insula, anterior cingulate, and dorsolateral prefrontal
cortex. During a separate scan, the women either held their husbands’ hands or
the hand of the experimenter. When a subject held her husband’s hand, the
threat of shock had a smaller effect. The brain showed reduced activation in
both the anterior cingulate cortex and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex— that is,
less activity in the pain and worrying circuits. In addition, the stronger the
marriage, the lower the discomfort-related insula activity.
So hug someone today. And do not accept little, quick
hugs. No, no, no. Tell them your neuroscientist recommended long hugs.
A hug, especially a long
one, releases a neurotransmitter and hormone oxytocin, which reduces the
reactivity of the amygdala.
Don’t have anyone to hug right now? No? (I’m sorry to hear
that. I would give you a hug right now if I could.) But there’s an answer:
neuroscience says you should go get a massage.
The results are fairly
clear that massage boosts your serotonin by as much as 30 percent. Massage also
decreases stress hormones and raises dopamine levels, which helps you create
new good habits… Massage reduces pain because the oxytocin system
activates painkilling endorphins. Massage also improves sleep and reduces
fatigue by increasing serotonin and dopamine and decreasing the stress hormone
cortisol.
So spend time with other people and give some hugs. Sorry,
texting is not enough.
When you put people in a stressful situation and then let them
visit loved ones or talk to them on the phone, they felt better. What about
when they just texted? Their bodies responded the same as if they had no
support at all.
…the text-message group
had cortisol and oxytocin levels similar to the no-contact group.
Author’s note: I totally approve of texting if you make a
hug appointment.
Okay, I don’t want to strain your brain with too much info.
Let’s round it up and learn the quickest and easiest way to start
that upward spiral of neuroscience-inspired happiness…
Sum Up
Here’s what brain research says will make you happy:
- Ask “What am I grateful for?” No answers? Doesn’t matter.
Just searching helps.
- Label those negative emotions. Give it a name and your
brain isn’t so bothered by it.
- Decide. Go for “good enough” instead
of “best decision ever made on Earth.”
- Hugs, hugs, hugs. Don’t text — touch.
So what’s the dead simple way to start that upward spiral
of happiness?
Just send someone a thank you email. If you feel awkward
about it, you can send them this post to tell them why.
This really can start an upward spiral of happiness in your
life. UCLA neuroscience researcher Alex Korb explains:
Everything is
interconnected. Gratitude improves sleep. Sleep reduces pain. Reduced pain
improves your mood. Improved mood reduces anxiety, which improves focus and
planning. Focus and planning help with decision making. Decision making further
reduces anxiety and improves enjoyment. Enjoyment gives you more to be grateful
for, which keeps that loop of the upward spiral going. Enjoyment also makes it
more likely you’ll exercise and be social, which, in turn, will make you
happier.
So thank you for reading this.
And send that thank you email now to
make you and someone you care about very happy."
Con amor,
Vero
No comments:
Post a Comment