What is happiness and how can it be achieved? Is there a magic formula or a secret to being happy? Science has tried to answer these questions and has discovered that happiness depends on several factors, both internal and external, that influence our mood and well-being.
One of those internal factors is our brain chemistry, which produces substances called happiness hormones, such as serotonin, dopamine or endorphins. These hormones are released when we experience positive emotions, such as love, pleasure, satisfaction, or purpose. But how can we stimulate the production of these hormones and what habits can we follow to be happier?
These are the 10 qualities that all happy people have in common. Arthur Brooks, a social scientist at Harvard University who is dedicated to studying how we can live happier lives based on scientific evidence, tells us that happiness “It’s not a place to get to, but a direction to go.” This is great news, because it means that we can all be a little happier if we follow that path.
To do this, we need to have three essential components in our lives that we must balance and cultivate: enjoyment, satisfaction and purpose. These are the “macronutrients” of happiness, and there are ways to incorporate them into our daily lives. The purpose is what they call in Japan ‘Ikigai’, which means having a reason for being. Having an ikigai not only makes us happier, but also longer-lived.
“Happiness hormones” are neurotransmitters that affect our mood and well-being. Researchers have found that there are certain habits and emotions that cause chemical changes that increase or decrease those neurotransmitters.
What can we do to promote the release of these hormones? National Geographic magazine has selected five actions that have increasing scientific support:
Identify emotions and name them
Arthur Brooks explains in an interview with the communicator Rich Roll that we should not reject unhappiness, but live all the emotions that exist and manage them in a healthy way.
To manage emotions in a healthy way, it is important to know how to recognize them. One way to do this is to name them. This is something that is often advised to improve our mental health, and that is repeated a lot in child psychology, along with the validation of emotions. Naming emotions helps us understand what happens to us, accept it and then, if necessary, act. consequently. But it is also one of the keys to regulating our emotions.
A study from the University of California published in Psychology Science supports this advice by showing that naming emotions reduces the emotional intensity of what happens to us as it decreases the activity of the amygdala and other areas of the limbic system when faced with negative stimuli.
Take care of social relationships
The psychiatrist Marian Rojas tells us in her book ‘How to make good things happen to you’ (Ed. Planeta) that one of the keys to happiness is feeling loved and accompanied.
This is because we are social beings and we need to relate with other human beings creating healthy bonds. Relationships give us enjoyment, satisfaction and purpose, the three essential components of happiness that Arthur Brooks mentioned.
The Harvard University Study of Adult Development, the largest happiness study ever done, has shown that the quality of relationships that one has is a key factor to being happy. According to the study, people who have more connection with their friends and family they live longer, have better health and achieve more of their life goals.
Practice physical exercise
Exercise is beneficial not only for our body, which produces endorphins that make us feel more euphoric, but also for our brain, which protects itself and stays in shape.
There are many studies that link the regular physical activity with better mental health, confirming the famous Latin phrase ‘Mens sana in corpore sana’. A large study, published in ‘The Lancet’, found that people who did some sport said they had more satisfaction in the previous month than sedentary people.
Team sports were those associated with better mental health, followed by aerobic exercise and gym exercises.
Give and receive hugs
Hugs make us feel good, but the benefits are also reflected in the biochemistry of our body, which generates feelings of satisfaction. This occurs because, when giving or receiving a hug, contact with the other causes us to produce oxytocin, a hormone linked to happiness. A study from the University of London has even investigated where is it best to put your arms when hugging the appropriate duration and the ideal pressure of a hug.
Speak to yourself positively and in the second person
Our self-talk impacts not only how we feel, but also how we behave in our lives. If we speak to ourselves with too much demand, criticism or defense, we increase the mental noise that prevents us from living in the present and we create an image of ourselves that weakens our confidence.
There are many ways to change our internal dialogue and make it more positive, but the key is not only in what we say, but also in how we say it, according to a study from the University of Michigan.
The researchers of the study claim that using the second person when we talk to ourselves makes us we tend to say less negative phrases than when we use the first person, since it allows us to take more distance from emotions and have a more rational and optimistic attitude (“you can overcome this”, “this mistake does not define you”, “I trust you”…).