Happy Hormones: How do I boost my happiness?
Have you ever wondered what makes you happy in life? We all have our own routines or hobbies that we do everyday. Most of the time, we do this everyday activities to help boost our mood when we’re feeling down or upset or to stay on track in our goals. We spend some quality time with our family and friends, go for a run in the neighborhood or even just listen to music inside the room. We can actually do a lot of things and discover what really brings us happy times in our lives. Accordingly, some of our activities have something to do with our happy hormones.
What are happy hormones?
Happy hormones function in the brain as a chemical messenger that promotes good moods or positive feelings. By focusing on a certain sort of emotion and goal, such as pleasure, joy, and love, it seeks to assist us in having a happy brain and body. Some happy hormones that help to boost our mood include: Oxytocin strengthens feelings of love and connection and helps communities and relationships grow. Serotonin serves as a stabilizer of mood. Dopamine acts as the ‘feel good’ neurotransmitter that powers your brain’s reward system. Endorphin is in charge of acting as the brain’s natural painkiller, lowering stress levels, and elevating feelings of pleasure.
How do I trick my happy hormones?
1. Getting some sunlight
Sunlight helps me to boost my body’s serotonin level. It helps me to improve my energy and motivation in learning and mood to stay calm and focus in a day. As a student who always needs to stay inside the room to finish some projects and requirements, I come to a point when I feel stressed, distracted, and unmotivated to work when I don’t get enough sunlight. The sun cannot get in my room as my room is connected to our storage area. Therefore, even though it is just morning, I must use artificial lighting. That’s why I always make it a point to get some sun each day, even if it’s just for a few minutes.
2. Eating my favorite food
Food is important to me as it gives me the energy that I need to stay productive and happy in a day. More than that, eating my favorite meals is also a reward and comfort that I give myself when I accomplish a work, achieve small wins or even when I feel sad. Thus, having my favorite meals trigger the release of my dopamine; it makes me feel good and boosts my mood.
3. Playing with my dogs
I have five dogs at home and I call them Lobo, Sky, Milo, Mickey and Somin. They are very lovely and playful; they truly make me happy every day. That is why, I always ensure that I play with my dogs as it helps them release their energy and exercise to stay healthy. But they aren’t the only ones benefiting from our playtime activities, like them, I also release oxytocin which makes me feel good. My oxytocin increases my feelings of trust and relaxation while reducing stress as I play with them. It also helps me and my dogs to build a healthy relationship.
4. Exercising in the morning
Starting a workout or exercise journey may be hard at first without a goal. However, we cannot deny the importance of exercise in our life – it keeps us fit and healthy. I used to hate exercising because I didn’t want to sweat. However, I am gaining weight and sometimes I find myself struggling to do physical activities. I figured out I needed to exercise at least three to four times a week. I start my exercise routine at 6:00 in the morning for 30-40 minutes a day. Hence, exercising in the morning did not fail me. As it stimulates the production of endorphins in my body, I started to feel lighter and it also reduced the physical pain I usually feel before, particularly in my knees and back. I feel happier and it improved my ability to do everyday activities.
5. Watching movies and variety shows
After a stressful day at school or work, I always end my day by watching some entertainment shows to boost my endorphins level. I usually watch Korean Variety shows like Running Man, I live Alone, Kang Hyung-wook YouTube Channel, and many more. Watching entertainment shows helps me to relax. I believe laughing is a very therapeutic thing to do to reduce our stress level and make us feel happier.
Happiness is an emotion that we always seek to feel and achieve in our lives. They say that if we are happy, we are doing better and making the most of the good times. People do various things to stay happy as our definition of happiness can mean differently from one another. However, happiness is more than just feeling good; it also involves continuing to be kind, motivated, creative, productive, and healthy. We often encounter adversity in our lives that can also make us feel sad or angry, which is completely natural and normal. Thus, our happy hormones play a huge role in boosting our happiness, mood, health, and behavior.
