Minimalism has been a fashionable trend lately. Many blogs, youtube channels, and websites capitalize on the wave of interest in simplifying our extremely complex lives. I like it. I hope more and more people realize the value of restraint. Especially in the material sphere. For me, personally, minimalism is about efficiency, optimization, and contentment. We own too much, eat too much, stress out too much, worry too much etc. How do we eat just enough? Own no more than we need? Work or exercise in an optimal way? Of course, there is no one, simple answer to these questions but the very fact that we start asking them can potentially lead us in the right direction. We all have the responsibility of looking into ourselves and learning about our real needs, about how we can function in the best possible way, about our natural inclinations. When we begin to get rid of clutter in our lives and by clutter I don’t mean only the stuff that we own but also negative people we spend too much time with, old habits that lower our quality of life, thinking patterns that cater to experiences from the past that are no longer applicable etc etc, – only then we have a chance to see clearly what holds real importance to us. What gives us a long lasting satisfaction and contentment. What it means to be happy. ...
Use it or lose it!
Maintaining health is similar to riding a bike. You cannot ride a bike and then just stop and expect you will maintain balance. The moment we stop moving our balance is compromised. The moment we stop practicing healthy habits, our health, sometimes unnoticeably, starts declining. The moment we stop using our muscles – they start getting weaker and weaker. The moment we stop stretching – we start getting tighter and begin losing our mobility. The moment we stop making a mental effort to remember, to create solutions, to recognize and react – our mental capabilities’ decline begins. The main weapon we have to prevent this from happening or at the very least, to slow it down, is our effort to continue performing or maybe even improving our ability to perform various actions so that we maintain this ability as long as possible. WE DO TO BE. Idle pleasures like watching television or playing computer games, while ok in small doses, can quickly turn into “preferable” way of spending time, developing strongly addictive habits that do not challenge our mental or physical capabilities, thus contributing to the decrease of our well being. The gradual limiting of our social interactions, relying on patterns and solutions that we are very comfortable with, even practicing the very same practices without seeking improvement can and frequently does bring a slow decline. Is it only because we are getting “older”? Or is it because we are getting lazy? If we look at examples of those in later stages of their lives, who continue working in their field, studying, practicing, researching, it is easy to notice that their abilities do not correspond to their chronological age. In a positive sense. One more reason not to stop DOING! ...
Accepting life’s changes.
I am extremely grateful for my teachers, my wife, my family, and friends and all my life’s experiences that have led me to this moment. I can not imagine being able to be who I am without them all. It is a challenging time for me now. My dearest mother’s ability to take care of herself is slowly decreasing. Just like I needed her for a big part of my life, she needs me now. The choice is not difficult. I need to be here for her. Traveling or not – makes not much difference. My practice continues in the place where it is needed the most. Surprisingly, I am comfortable with this change. Life continues to amaze and surprise me. In a good way. Thank you all who’ve helped me to get to this place. ...
A simple thing to remember.
How many times a day do we expect something from our children, spouse, family, friends, coworkers, bosses, or the world in general?! How many times we are deeply disappointed when our expectations are not fulfilled right away?! I want my partner to be like this. I want my children to behave like this. I want people to be like this. The question is: what do I give? What is My behavior? How can I expect something from others when not doing it myself?! It is not a difficult concept. The consequences of its applications are remarkable though. It doesn’t mean that the world will automatically follow your lead. However your understanding of others can vastly improve. Try it. Before you look for purity in someone else – first find it in yourself! Before you look for kindness in someone else – first find it in yourself! Before you look for understanding from someone else – first find it in yourself! Before you look for generosity in someone else – first find it in yourself! Before you look for selflessness in someone else – first find it in yourself! Etc etc. to be used daily ...
Relativity of perception. Challenges and opportunities.
It is often difficult to call something “positive” or “negative”. What we call bad is frequently the result of misunderstanding and not following the natural order of things which results in what we generally refer to as ” negative” occurrences. For example: “bad weather”, rain, being tired, cold etc. Complaining about it is like complaining about the fact that we have to breathe. Without these things we simply wouldn’t be able to survive. Imagine that it is sunny and warm all the time. Without rain, the area could quickly turn into a dry, hot desert. What if we don’t do any physical work? We would end up with a weak and underdeveloped body. If we always insulate ourselves from the environment, trying to maintain a comfortable temperature all the time, any sudden change becomes too much for our immune system and we get ill very easily. How come we do not appreciate the gifts of life given to us everyday!? The”bad” or “negative” is nothing but our perception of a lack of harmony, being out of sync with God, Tao, our Inner Voice, our True Nature etc. What do you see around you? Good or bad? Positive or negative? Do you understand why difficulties happen in your life? Do you take advantage of these challenges to work on your own strengths and weaknesses? ...
Hiding in Tao.
When we follow the Tao/God/our True Nature/ Inner Voice… and manage to let go of our ego, even for a moment, Everything becomes easier. There is no longer a need to worry about anything. Everything is the way it is supposed to be. We know our place on earth. Here. We know why we are here. Because. We know what to do. Whatever needs to be done. We don’t even ask ourselves these questions anymore. Empty mind. Happy heart. Joyful smile. When our energy level goes down. When our mood is low. Hide in positive. Hide in good. Hide in love. Hide in Tao. There is no space for anything else when you’re full of love. Blue sky. Sunshine mind. ...
Get yourself unstuck
This morning I was sitting and drinking my hot lemon water. It was still a bit dark outside as I was looking out of the window, enjoying the moment of quiet contentment. I looked at the window sill that had something on it that I could not recognize. A shape of an object I could not identify. Intrigued I was staring at it and straining my mind to no avail. I just couldn’t figure out what it was. It was too dark in the room and my brain couldn’t make out anything out of it. I decided to shift my body to the left and right, providing my vision with a slightly different angle and an enhanced depth perception. It took seconds for me to realize I was looking at a half opened, glossy book reflecting the window light outside. It seemed so obvious and simple that I couldn’t understand how I had not seen it a minute ago. Sometimes when we are stuck, we need to change the angle a little bit, change the perspective on the situation we are having difficulty with. It is like looking at something from the distance. I look and I don’t know what I am looking at. What is it? No recognition. The brain is trying to process it, to remember but it can’t. It is stuck. In order to move on, I need to adjust, to change my way of looking at it, interpreting it. Sometimes all it takes is taking a couple of steps to the side, climbing a little higher or stooping down. Suddenly we realize what it is we are looking at and we marvel at our inability to see it just a moment ago. When stuck – change something. It doesn’t have to be a big change. You are not trying to completely change the situation. Just your way of looking at it and understanding it. Practice it on small things in your life first. Small challenges are your great chance to train and develop the ability to find solutions. ...
Every day is a test.
Whether one is a lawyer, doctor, worker in the factory or an artist, black or white, poor or rich it is of little consequence for the level of happiness that can be experienced by that person. It only determines the kinds of challenges our soul/personality/character will face in the course of one’s life. Challenges and difficulties that have a potential to shape the essence of what we consider our core being. How do you choose to react to your daily tests? Do you realize that you have a choice whether you react one way or another? Do you know that you can train these reactions?! What you practice is what you develop! We don’t want to concentrate on what we don’t want to do or be. We want to concentrate on what we want to do or be. It doesn’t matter that you can’t do this or that. The very act of trying activates our body and mind in the ways we cannot perceive yet but already significantly changing our reality. ...
Now is all we have.
We tend to worry, consciously or unconsciously almost all the time. When we’re in a “good place”, we worry it might end soon, when we’re in a “bad place” we worry it will never end. When we have stability we worry about instability. When we have instability we still worry about it. We spend a lot of time in the past, future and inside our imaginary world that never actually happens. In the meantime we are missing almost everything that is. Here and now. We forget to appreciate. We are unable to notice the good and beautiful. Our time slips away unnoticed and the imagined moment of happiness gets pushed further away again and again. The moment we turn our attention to the present moment the possibility to find contentment opens up. Just by observing what is, without emotional or intellectual involvement we begin to perceive the magic of our everyday existence. The precious little moments of joy and wonder. The appreciation for what we have. The great satisfaction from sharing and giving. Do you remember to be here and now? Slow down. Take a deep breath. Release all the tension. Appreciate this moment. Smile. ...
Science of Happiness Course Starts today
Today, on 5th of January, starts a new EdX course prepared by teachers from University of Berkeley and The Greater Good Science Center titled “The Science of Happiness”. It’s going to explore with scientific and experimental evidence some of the most important factors and practices of happiness. The course will cover the power of social connection, the role of compassion and kindness in leading a happy life. It will teach the importance of mindfulness, mental habits of happiness, happiness-promoting techniques of cooperation and reconciliation, importance of positive thoughts, and “the benefits of awe and feeling of being in the presence of something bigger than yourself, and beauty”. Being yoga, tai chi, and generally healthy lifestyle teachers, Tom and I are engaged into this pursuit of happiness. All our search is aimed toward uncovering, exploring and cultivating practice of being happy and helping other people to get happy. Therefore this course is particularly interesting for me as it looks at the same topic from the scientific point of view, citing some documented and properly examined evidences, and definitely providing some broader set of tools and techniques of cultivating happiness. So let’s take this course together and share our experiences at how implementing tips from this course affects our happiness It’s free and online https://www.edx.org/course/science-happiness-uc-berkeleyx-gg101x-2 ...
Cultivating happiness in marriage.
Today I stumbled upon this cute infographics on cultivating happiness in relationship and decided to share it with you. Some statistical data behind happy marriage can be quite revealing! Courtesy of: Milkwhale ...
How our mind “makes future happen”
Today I want to share with you wonderful ideas of Tomas Hanna on the role of mind and mental attitude in shaping our life and well-being. In his recognition of vital importance of psychological and mental processes on health and well-being, Hanna follows in the footsteps of Hans Selye, an Austrian-Canadian endocrinologist who formulated the concepts of stress and researched its effect on human system. While Selye was focusing mostly on endocrine response to stress leaving aside neuromuscular aspects of organism’s stress adaptation, Selye’s outstanding contribution was, among others, in singling out two kinds of stress: the one that is potentially harmful for the body (distress) and its “healthy” counterpart, the one that causes about body’s adaptation and strengthening (eustress). It was Selye who first expressed this empowering insight into nature of stress: “Adopting the right attitude to stress can convert a negative stress into a positive one”. The following excerpt from Thomas’ Hanna’s book further expands Selye’s concepts on importance of mental attitude in cultivating one’s health, well-being and shaping one’s life events. Hanna’s research and reasoning is so complete and so in line with what I inherently believe about the power of mind to manifest material reality, that I will just paste pieces of text here without any interpretation or addition on my own. The text is taken from Chapter 12 of Somatics, titled “Expectation: the role of mental attitude”. To read this chapter and the rest of the book, go get the book on any of the ebook stores, it’s available for immediate download. You can also read parts of the book on Google Books ” Expectation is not only a prediction of the future, it also directly contributes to making it happen. This proactive role which expectation plays is crucial to our well-being. Consider the placebo effect. This curious word is Latin. It means “I shall please,” and it was taken from the liturgy of the Catholic Church, in which the priest said, “I shall please the lord . . . ” Later, it came to be applied more generally to any attempt to flatter or please another person. By the nineteenth century it was being used by physicians to refer to any ineffective substance given as “medicine,” not to cure, but merely to please, the patient. Soon, however, physicians began to notice an odd thing. These substances, which were not supposed to have any effect, actually succeeded if the physician cajoled the patient into believing it would. If the patient expected that the sugar pill would help, it did. This is the placebo effect. F. J. Evans conducted a series of carefully controlled studies in pain reduction, which compared the effects of morphine to the effects of a “worthless” placebo pill. The findings were startling: The placebo was 56 percent as effective as a dose of morphine. l What could cause such a powerful analgesic effect? Only one thing: expectation. Almost the same results were obtained in comparing placebo effects with those of aspirin (54 percent), codeine (56 percent), and Darvon (45 percent). It was extraordinary to learn that the placebo effect was constant. No matter what the analgesic drug, the effectiveness of the placebo was always proportional. But, as the information poured in, physicians learned that the placebo effect was not at all limited to pain reduction; it was found in studies of adrenal gland secretion, angina, asthma, blood cell counts, blood pressure, cancer, the com- mon cold, the cough reflex, diabetes, emesis, fever, gastric secretion and motility, headache, insomnia, multiple sclerosis, oral contraceptives, parkinsonism, pupil dilation and constriction, respiration, rheumatoid arthritis, seasickness, ulcers, vaccines, vasomotor function, and warts. Such a list constitutes a massive confirmation of the somatic viewpoint-that human consciousness is an integral part of the human body’s self-regulation. … Because the placebo is so prevalent in clinical medicine, a science called psychoneuroimmunology has emerged. This promising research area presumes something that not too long ago was deemed impossible: that the immune system is not isolated in its functions, but has a working relation with the central nervous system. In addition, emotions, attitudes, and other conscious states trigger certain neurotransmittors which, in turn, affect the immune system- hence, the young science’s name, psychoneuroimmunology. The working thesis of psychoneuroimmunology is that a state of consciousness, such as an expectation, can cause changes in both the central nervous system and the immune system. This is essentially the somatic viewpoint: that the attitudes and beliefs we have about our bodies and our health vitally affect the ongoing state of our bodies and our health. If we expect our bodies to be resilient and healthy, then they will tend to remain so. On the other hand, ex- pectation may be predicated on the myth of aging; that is, a belief in inevitable structural breakdown and functional loss. In this case, breakdown and loss will eventually occur. The prophecy becomes self-fulfilling: What we expect to happen does happen. If we are at a certain age and feel within our bodies certain discomforts, how we interpret them becomes crucial. If we take them as a sign of serious disease and breakdown expected at this age in life, then we are accepting and giving in to a presumed fatality. To anticipate pathology is, functionally, tantamount to intending it. This unleashes dangerous reactions in the brain and in the immune system, dangerous because apparently the mere feeling of “giving in” to an ailment immobilizes our self-healing capacities. Professor Ian Wickramasekera is a medical research scientist. In his general analysis of the placebo as a conditioned response, he says the following about this aspect of negative expectation: This analysis may be particularly relevant to chronic diseases and functional disorders such as low back pain, diabetes, cardiovascular disorders, musculoskeletal disorders, and cancer, in which the long-term and intermittent reinforcements of the unconditioned disease process, injury, or dysfunction increase the probability of negative conditioned effects that sustain the disorder. In such cases, the chronic intermittent activation of the disease mechanisms by unconditioned physiochemical causes may lead to increasingly strong aversive anticipatory responses that inhibit the motor system even when the unconditioned stimulus is inactive. It is a well-established fact that intermittent reinforcement by unconditioned stimuli will make a maladaptive response maximally resistant to improvement. This statement makes it clear that the myth of aging is not merely a belief about the diseases of aging; it can also be an active cause of these diseases. Thus, by responding to bodily discomforts with intelligent awareness and positive countermeasures, we can directly prevent such a “disease process, injury, or dysfunction” from becoming a permanent condition The word “age” means, quite simply, “a period of existence”. Moreover, even though “age” means simply “a period of existence,” it refers more broadly to that which characterizes a period of existence. It is particularly interesting when it becomes a verb -to age – for then it means “to grow old.” What, we should ask, does it mean “to grow old”? “Old,” in its Latin root, alo, and in its ancient Germanic form, aft, means – quite surprisingly – “to nourish” and “to bring up.” More generally, alo means to strengthen, increase, and advance. It means to become taller and to become deeper. In its root meaning, then, “to age,” and to get older, means “to grow up.” In view of the etymology of “old,” it is fascinating to note that “growing old” has come to mean exactly the opposite of the original meaning of “old”: that is, “old” has come to mean worn out, deteriorated, decayed, dilapidated, and no longer useful. Thus, in plumbing the meaning of the simple but curious word, “age,” we come upon a fundamental ambiguity: “To age” means either to grow, increase, and become both taller and deeper or to decrease, decay, wear out, and become decrepit and discarded. It is most provocative that a word as basic to human life as “aging” can mean either of two opposite possibilities: growth or degeneration. It suggests that what is characteristic to the period of existence of a human’s lifetime is neither programmed nor predictable. It implies that the direction of human life is not fixed but open. If we think of the coming years of our life as a continuing process of advancement and strengthening, it is more than likely we shall experience just that. And it is just as likely that a constant, daily expectation of wearing out and becoming decrepit will be a self-fulfilling prophecy. … We see in this situation an extraordinary truth about human life: Whether we will grow or degenerate during the course of our lives is a question not of known fact but of expected possibility. Time, as the currency of life, is always futurity; it is not yet spent. How we expect it to be spent predetermines the plan for its expenditure. Once we realize that the investment we make in our lives is the same as any other investment, we may adopt a very different attitude about what possibilities we expect for our future years. I do not think it improper to say that what we invest in life determines how much we get out of it. It is a question of whether we think that our lives are at least as important an investment as, for example, real estate or stocks. It is my observation that many humans do not value their personal bodily future as highly as they value the future of their material possessions. The human who knows that his or her being is growing is a human who usually has the strength and endurance to prevail over the defeats and stresses and traumas that occur in each and every life. Such a person knows that the inevitable pains and dysfunctions occurring in the body are not “inevitable signs of degeneration,” but typical adjustments that all bodies go through in regulating and readapting themselves for the future. ” With such thoughts for the day, I wish you to spend it nicely! ...
Changing mood with movement and posture
Today I stumbled upon a TED talk on influence of body activity (movement and posture) on mental states and emotions It’s an interesting talk and compelling topic for me as Tom and I have been exploring this connection between body, mind and breath for quite some time. In the talk, Tal Shafir explains in simple terms some findings of her research: just like the brain uses information of physiological change in the body like lowering glucose levels to elicit feeling of hunger, information about posture, position and angles of joints and contraction of muscles is similarly interpreted by brain to produce neural or endocrine response. Seemingly put, the brain interprets information on the posture or physical activity and responds to it by generating what can be simplistically described as appropriate feeling or emotion. So not only our emotional state affects our posture (like slouched posture characteristic for depression), but the relation can be flipped over: our posture and movement affect our emotional state. This is what I have been teaching for a long time in our yoga classes. For instance, very popular in yoga classes “chest-opening” sequences produce the feeling of lightness and well-being, gently activate parasympathetic nervous system, providing more energy and awareness. Youtube comments under that TED talk included recommendation of some useful book on the topic of achieving desired mental states through body manipulation. The book is titled “The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma”. So I went to check the book on Amazon, and thus fell into the rabbit hole of book browsing which left me with a few excellent books on my laptop: the above-mentioned book by Bessel van der Kolk, “Somatics” by Thomas Hanna and “Sensorimotor Psychotherapy” by Pat Ogden. While I don’t work with traumatic patients per se, the insights in these sources on connection of our psychological world, brain function and mind is a very interesting sphere to me which I have been exploring in my own practice of yoga and meditation. At the moment I’m devouring Thomas Hanna’s Somatics. Especially interesting and empowering are Somatic approaches to treating chronic pains and physical disabilities through educating people to regain sensory-motor control over their bodies. What Hanna wants us to understand is that human beings are not just mechanical dolls with anatomical structures performing defined functions. We are self-regulating systems, equipped with internal sensory and feedback instruments, and we need to learn to use them to live a healthy life. “The reason that physiology and medicine have failed to perceive the myths behind aging is that they have failed to recognize the fundamental fact that all human beings are self-aware, self-sensing, and self-moving: They are self-responsible somas. The somatic viewpoint recognizes not only that human beings are bodily beings who can become victims of physical and organic forces, but also that they are equally somatic beings who can change themselves. Humans can learn to perceive their internal functions and improve their control of their somatic functions.” So our role as instructors or movement educators is not to “cure” people but teach people to cure themselves by listening to their bodies and understanding what is going on inside. So again, it all starts with self-observation. It was a good useful find for my day which gives even more motivation to go do some yoga poses to see what is going on inside and how my body feels today. Resources: Bessel van del Kolk “The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma” Pat Ogden & Janina “Fisher Sensorimotor Psychotherapy: Interventions for Trauma and Attachment” Thomas Hanna “Somatics: Reawakening The Mind’s Control Of Movement, Flexibility, And Health” Tal Shafir. Ted Talk “How Your Body Affects Your Happiness” ...
The chemistry of happiness: physiological principles of shaping wholesome personality
What you practice is what you develop. To become the way you want to be, just start doing it. We’re talking about this on all our seminars and retreats: our mind is like a muscle; to develop it in a certain direction, you just need to practice this certain direction. Just do it Like we perform exercise to develop our muscle, and the more we practice the stronger it gets, everything that we do in our mind reinforces this quality of the mind that is being practiced, creating mental habits, positive or negative. The more often you feel irritated, the easier it gets for you to get irritated with or without any reason; the more often you feel angry, the more naturally anger appears in your daily reactions, making you “angry person”, or “irritated person”. Because states of mind and emotions, repeated with certain frequency, are not transient and casual, they’re your practice. By having these or that emotions, you make yourself more likely to get them next time. We’re not aware that we’re practicing every moment, and it can be practice of being unhappy, agitated, worried, irritated, anxious, lazy and apathetic, indifferent, rude, short-tempered, depressed, or it can be a practice of being happy, content, satisfied, grateful, joyful, confident, peaceful, etc. When we teach these simple principles to people, some understand the connection, but there are many who think that this mechanism is not real, that it’s just another kind of philosophy or theory. Others defend their current state of unhappiness by explaining that they have hard life situation and a lot of responsibility, and therefore their state of unhappiness is duly justified. Yes and no. Of course, external circumstances influence the way we feel about life and ourselves, but if we really want to make our life better, we need to try not only to change external factors, but to adjust the way we feel as well, not depending on these or that external factors. Because if we allow ourselves to feel unhappy, anxious, victimized, etc., for a long time, we run into danger of creating real, physical, hormonal and neurological mechanisms that support our habits of being miserable. Even when external circumstances have already changed. In this post I want to discuss physiological and chemical mechanisms of creating mental habits and states to demonstrate that principle “what you practice is what you develop” is not a philosophy or theory, it’s a mechanism embedded in our body and mind. There are two systems that regulate all functions and organs in our body: nervous and endocrine. Nervous system regulates all activity by commands delivered by electrochemical signals via body cells called neurons. The delivery of electochemical signal across the body is possible due to the action of neurotransmitters, special chemicals that transmit electric or chemical signals from one neuron to another or from a neuron to a target cell. Thus these neurotransmitters play important role in the way our nervous system works, shaping our everyday life and functions. Another regulatory system of our body is endocrine. It acts in a purely chemical way, through production of hormones – special chemicals that initiate, facilitate or inhibit chemical reactions in the body and regulate physiological and behavioral activities such as digestion, metabolism, respiration, tissue function, sensory perception, sleep, excretion, stress, growth and development, movement, reproduction and mood. In a word, if you think that hormonal, as well as nervous system, regulate “pretty much everything”, you will not be far from truth. Hormones are transported by our circulatory system and their action, compared to nerve signals, takes longer to take effect, but these effects are more prolonged, lasting from few hours to weeks. There are several chemicals that are particularly interesting to us in our discussion of mechanisms of happiness and unhappiness. These are: serotonin, dopamine and endorphins. Interestingly enough, all these chemicals are both neurotransmitters (meaning they carry out the signals within nervous system) and hormones (they also perform long term regulatory function on body organs and systems). Serotonin regulates mood, feeling of anxiety, libido, maniacal states, appetite, social disfunctions, fobias, sleep, memory and learning process, circulatory and endocrine function. It’s very important in regulation of sleep and mood. Secretion of serotonin induces relaxation. Low levels of serotonin may lead to depression, anxiety, low energy, migraine, sleep disorder, maniacal states, feeling of tension and irritation, memory and attention problems, compulsive eating, aggression and anger, decrease of sex drive. High level of serotonin causes calmness, higher pain tolerance, feeling of well-being, bliss and unity with universe. We can increase level of serotonin in three ways: cultivating positive moods, exposure to bright light, and exercise (think yoga, aerobic exercise, running, chi gong, tai chi, dancing, any exercise routine and movement therapies). Another family of substances, endorphins, are sometimes called “hormones of happiness” because they induce the state of happiness, euphoria and contentment, increase tolerance to pain, reduce stress effects and tiredness and increase body’s resistance to internal and external stress-factors. The name of the substance is translated from Latin as “morphine-like substance originating from within of the body”. The level of endorphin is increased by experiencing emotions of love, creativity, bliss, contentment. Endorphins are also produced during long and strenuous exercises to decrease pain, heighten reaction speed and boost body’s stress adaptation (think of high intensity long duration exercises, static yoga practices that require stamina, etc.). Also production of endorphins is triggered by immobilization and cold-temperature stress (think of Vipassana and other long-immobilisation meditation practices, and temperature tempering). Other factors to stimulate endorphin production are pleasant music, new positive impressions, sex, and chocolate. The last hormone-neurotransmitter to be discussed here is dopamine. Dopamine is responsible for good mood. Dopamine performs many important functions that influence memory, control of motor processes and pleasure. It makes us feel alive, motivated and content. The chemical is part of positive encouragement system, creating feeling of contentment and pleasure when we do the things we like, eat delicious food or make love. Such drugs as cocaine, nicotine, opiates, heroin and alcohol, as well as delicious food and sex, increase dopamine level. Therefore researches assume that such behaviors as smoking, drug and alcohol addictions, indiscrimination in sex partners, gambling and overeating are connected to dopamine deficiency. Low levels of dopamine in motor areas of brain causes Parkinson disease, whereas low dopamine in cognitive areas of brain impairs cognitive functions and leads to poor memory and inability to learn, poor concentration, scattered attention in performing tasks and conversations, low energy, absence of motivation, inability to enjoy life, addictions, manias, absence of satisfaction from activities that used to be gratifying. Dopamine production is stimulated by states of positive stress such as being in love, listening to pleasant music, performing physical exercise and having sex. The feeling of enjoyment in itself stimulates production of dopamine, which in turn enhances feeling of enjoyment and happiness. Research shows that meditation increases dopamine levels as well. In studying all this information, we cannot help noticing striking similarities: increase of all three chemicals is attained by developing positive attitude to oneself and to life, cultivating positive mood states, enjoying whatever we do. Also, notice that all three substances are stimulated by physical exercise. So it seems like healthy physical activity plus positive mindset is the way to go in creating a “happy body chemistry”. Add to this plenty of daily sunlight, gratifying sex life, body tempering, outdoors activities, meditation, pleasant music and a little bit of chocolate (if you need it at all provided you do everything else), and your internal “laboratory of happiness” is bound to work abundantly. As all the three chemicals induce the state of well-being, happiness, contentment, pleasure and joy, the moment you start “practicing” contentment and satisfaction to stimulate their production, you will get a gratification of these states lasting in your body and mind more naturally and effortlessly. While it seems that we derive a great deal of satisfaction and pleasure connected with things happening outside of ourselves (for instance, you have got yourself a limousine), these feelings are not created from these outside world events. They are created by specific substances in our body and the external events can only trigger production of this or that substance. Therefore, why even bother trying to shape what happens around us (that very often is hard or impossible to do) if you can directly orchestrate the chemistry in your body by some substance manipulation and get exactly the same results?! Did the drug addicts find an ultimate solution? Happines comes from within… with a liitle chemical help.. .Well, let’s not go too far. With biochemistry in mind, the mechanisms behind drug, tobacco or alcohol addictions seem to be much easier to understand. As it was mentioned before, the effect of most drugs and alcohol on subjective sense of pleasure is explained by heightened levels of dopamine and other neurotransmitters. However the drawbacks of drug addiction are numerous, starting from messing with body mechanisms of natural production of these chemicals and developing drug tolerance leading to psychological, physiological and chemical drug addiction, finishing with negative effects foreign substances have on our body systems and organs. And even though the idea we’re trying to put into practice: creating a faculty of being happy in any situation in life, with or without a limousine; also disregards the influence of the outside circumstances and instead, it focuses on what can be done from the inside out. The difference is: no side effect and no need for drug dealers ;-). The implication of the existence of these chemical processes are extremely straightforward: the more we cultivate feelings of contentment and happiness in everyday life, the more we develop our natural capacity to be happy, without any efforts and conscious involvement. The more we enjoy life and whatever it brings and learn to view any situation as good to us in this or that way, the more life is enjoyable and filled with joy. So, what do you practice today? I used the sources: Young How to increase serotonin in the human brain without drugs Berry, Lerner, Meier & Yang The chemistry of happiness Neurotransmitters, depression and anxiety ...
