Survival of the Happiest

 by Joy Ding

Who doesn’t want to be happy all the time? But as Dr. Loretta Breuning explains in Meet Your Happy Chemicals, constant happiness is simply not the point. The happiness reward system that we humans have inherited from our primate ancestors (and which we share with all mammals) is just that: a reward system meant to encourage us to take actions that promote survival. If it were always on, it would lose its effectiveness to flag survival-positive actions.

What, then, can we do about being happy more often, and less frequently unhappy? While happiness self-help books have often come up with lists of “good actions” such as the creation and maintenance of close and trustworthy relationships and the availability of meaningful work, Dr. Breuning puts it into a new context: that of brain chemistry.

The four happiness chemicals – dopamine, endorphin, oxytocin, and serotonin – are released respectively when we approach an award, are in pain, bond with and/or trust another, and accrue respect. While in prehistoric times, the chemicals may have released for more obvious survival needs such as hunting food (dopamine) or masking immediate pain from injury so we could escape a dangerous situation (endorphin), the release of the happiness chemicals in a modern life may seem more cryptic.

Here is where Dr. Breuning’s narrative really shines. The particular wisdom of the book is its ability to distinguish each of the four happiness chemicals, provide examples for when they are released, and how we can build new happiness circuits – basically new ways that we can be happier. While most triggers for happiness are built at a young age, adults are able to build more happiness circuits, it will just take a little effort. Specifically, 45 days. That’s the amount of time it takes to build a new and persistent neural pathway in the brain, one that will release happy chemicals when triggered.

Dr. Breuning also provides interesting material on the usefulness of unhappiness as nature’s alarm system (Chapter 2: Good Reasons to be Unhappy) and exercises to create more circuits for each of the happiness chemicals (Chapter 5: Building New Happy Circuits.) While a lot of these tips are not necessarily novel–for instance, one of the exercises for building new dopamine circuits is to celebrate small steps and adjust expectations so they are more realistic–the neurochemical context which Dr. Breuning uses to frame the exercises is very refreshing. In contrast to most self-help books, in which exercises for improvement are justified on the basis of anecdotal information, and a certain well-of-course reasoning, Dr. Breuning’s book grounds the exercises in neurochemical fact, giving exercises like “laugh” and “break an unpleasant task into smaller parts” new life.

In brief, the biggest gift that Meet Your Happy Chemicals gives us is a greater understanding of our own brains, the kind of understanding that will hopefully lead to happier lives: better acceptance of unhappiness, and ways to pave our own ways to more happiness.

As Dr. Breuning says, and I quote: “This brain we’ve inherited is frustrating. In its quest for survival it often turns unhappy chemicals on and happy chemicals off. When my neurochemistry frustrates me, I remind myself that it has succeeded at promoting survival for millions of years.”

Joy Ding is a free-lance writer and marketer living in San Francisco. You can reach her at joy.j.ding@gmail.com.