Science of Happy

https://www.lds.org/church/news/the-surprising-science-behind-supremely-happy-people?lang=eng&cid=facebook-shared

“Through MRI technology over the last 10 years, brain scans have become absolutely wonderful,” said Brother Smith. “Your frontal lobe is where happiness is located.” When someone is really sad, the right side of the frontal lobe lights up. And when someone is happy, the left part of the frontal lobe lights up. Happiness and sadness occur in different places of the brain.

Speaking about things that help the left frontal lobe come alive, Brother Smith said, “Meditation will fire up the left frontal lobe and flood your brain with dopamine.” There are 100 billion neurons in a person’s brain, and they talk to each other. To talk to each other they need neurotransmitters or chemicals. The three that make a person happy are norepinephrine, serotonin, and dopamine. Low levels of these chemicals may make a person unhappy. Returning them to normal levels may help some people.

I was reading a book called Mindsight, that talks about some of this neuroscience. In an oversimplified explanation, feelings  generated by the limbic system move through the right side of the brain, to the left. It's interesting that happiness would be in the prefrontal cortex. So many of the negative emotions that leave us susceptible to temptation come from the limbic system, overriding our higher cortical thinking.

Brains, Technology & Dopamine

Here's a follow up article on the same topic of dopamine...

http://www.glennbeck.com/2014/07/29/what-happens-to-our-brains-when-we-become-dependent-on-technology/

“We know that just like alcohol, gambling, nicotine that we know our cell phones release a burst of dopamine.  And so again a little bit of alcohol is fine too much alcohol is what’s dangerous.  Some gambling is fine.  Too much is dangerous.  Our cell phones are great they’re wonderful machines, but out of balance like all addiction, eventually we will waste resources, waste time and destroy relationships,” Simon said.

Have you ever seen a couple out at a restaurant where both people are on their phones and ignoring one another? That’s a sign of an unhealthy addition to technology.

“ (Smart phones) have addictive qualities and so the concern is that, as teenagers, as they go through adolescence, like alcohol, they have social media and they have their phones and theyaccidentally are forming neural connections, where when they’re going through times of stress and they should be relying on each other, they are turning to machines,” Simon said.

“The fear is that that will develop to addictions and it will exaggerate as we move forward into time.  We are already starting to see a rise in suicides, for example.  I mean, this affects all generations,” he added. ”  The CDC announced about a year ago that more Boomers now die from suicide than car accidents.  In other words, what we’re seeing is a rise of loneliness and isolation.  No one kills themselves when they are hungry.  We kill ourselves when we’re lonely.  In the 1960s, there were one school shooting.  In the 1980s, there were 27.  In the 1990s, there were 58.  In the past decade, there have been over 120.  It has nothing to do with guns.  It has to do with people feeling lonely.”

“The gun lobby and the anti-gun lobby, however they want to define themselves, would best serve society instead of throwing rocks at each other sat, down together and figure out how do we combat the loneliness that people are feeling. 70 percent of the school shooters were born after the year 1980, most of them are about 15 years old.  All of them attacked people within their own community and attack the people they blamed responsible for their own loneliness.”

“I may hug you,” Glenn said. “Thank you for actually saying that.  Something is missing in us.  There have been guns forever.  A kid in the 1960s could go and buy a gun, they didn’t use it.”

“Just recently UC Santa Barbara the shootings there, that kid may made those horribly chilling videos. He felt lonely and isolated because he was a virgin and he sought to find comfort on online support groups.  There is no online support group that can give you the same warmth and comfort and security than real, human, loving relationships.  And you see it’s chilling how he makes this video, how he’s excited, he’s actually excited to go shoot up the sorority, the people he blames for his sense of loneliness and isolation, because it’s the first time he feels a sense of control over his own life,” Simon added.

Simon pointed to the Twelve Step program for alcoholics, and how the final step is help another alcoholic, as an example of the importance of human relationships.

“You know, we have an entire on the bookshelf called self-help we have no section on the bookshelf called help others.  We have become all about ourselves and yet the amazing thing if you want to find the job you love, help somebody find the job they love.  If you want to find somebody they love, help someone who is looking for love.  If you want do find happiness, help somebody else who is looking.  That’s how we do it.  And it feels so good when we do that that it actually encourages us to want to do it more.  We are built for service and when we create — this is the point of leadership.  When we create environments in which we feel safe amongst each other we will look after each other, when we create environments in which we fear each other, we will work to our own interests, we will being paranoid, cynical mistrustful of leadership, and it’s a lonely existence,” Simon said.

What's your 'go to' happy chemical?

This is an interesting article on some of the 'feel good' chemicals our brain produces.

http://www.glennbeck.com/2014/07/29/are-human-beings-biologically-designed-to-be-good/

“So in our brains, in our bodies, there is a system of chemical rewards so when we do things we get a feeling of doing those things that is designed to reward behavior that is in our best interest.  There’s four chemicals that are mainly responsible for all the good feelings that we would have,” Simon explained. “So any kinds of feelings of happiness, joy, success, friendship, trust, love, loyalty can basically be boiled down to endorphins, dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin.”

Simon explained, “Dopamine is something you get when you accomplish something you set out do accomplish so that feeling when you get when you cross off something off your to do list the feeling find something on Google or eBay.  Nobody goes to Google and types in things you’re not looking for.  We have something in mind.  We type it in and the feeling of there it is, that’s dopamine.  Dopamine is also the feeling you get when you win the game.  Yes, that sort of fantastic, we did it.  Or when you feel like you’re making progress.  So that’s why they put mile-markers — if you ran a race without mile-markers it’s actually unnerving so dopamine helps us feel like we’re making progress.  It’s the reason we’re achievement machines.”

“The problem with dopamine is it doesn’t last.  It comes in hits,” he said. 

While dopamine doesn’t last and leave people with strong feelings of accomplishment, the chemicals serotonin and oxytocin are what do last and are what Simon calls “social chemicals”.

“This is the importance — what you’re talking about is the solution to the imbalance of dopamine.  Right?  Which is these other beautiful, beautiful chemicals called serotonin and oxytocin.  Broadly speaking these two chemicals are the selfless chemicals.  They are the social chemicals.  These are the chemicals that reward us — it’s the feeling of trust.  It’s the feeling offriendship.  It’s the reason we like spending time with our friends.  It’s the reason we’d rather sit next to someone that we know and we leave a blank space at the movies because we don’t want to sit next to somebody we don’t know.  That feeling of safety.  That comes from these other two beautiful chemicals and the most important thing about those chemicals is they last.  They take a while to build up.  It takes time to build up trust, but they last,” he said. 

“Now the great thing about serotonin — one of the ways in which we get oxytocin — and there’s a whole bunch.  Oxytocin is the warm and fuzzies.  One of the ways we get it is generosity. Acts of kindness.  Giving of your time and energy with no expectation of return.  Money doesn’t count.  Time and energy,” he explained.

Simon explained that if he goes online and donates a $1,000 to charity, he gets a very different feeling than if he spent a whole weekend afternoon painting a school. While a $1,000 may go further than his physical labor, it is a different mental reward.

When we're having a difficult moment, dopamine is a fast, easy treatment, but doesn't last very long. There's nothing wrong with dopamine, but if it becomes the long term strategy for dealing with emotional pain, we'll find ourselves back in the same situation very quickly. Not to mention we're following a pattern that can lead to turning to addictive sources of dopamine (porn, drugs etc).

My dad's best friend growing up was the local pin ball champ of the small town where they were growing up. Old timers didn't like him 'wasting his time' on things like that. They seemed to sense that the level of involvement wasn't healthy, even if they didn't know the science behind it. I suspect he was getting dopamine hits that were helping him deal with issues from his family. Soon it went from pinball into porn, and later to drugs.

Activities that produce dopamine aren't bad, but I think it's helpful to keep in mind what happens if we don't moderate, or if we're using dopamine for emotional comfort. IMHO a better solution, where possible would be to do service and to interact with loved ones. This will lead to closer interpersonal connections and helps keep your prefrontal cortex in charge of your life.

Micro-habits

One of the strategies employed in the Eternal Warriors and Sons of Helaman programs is to set up behavior goals, which you work towards until you can get 28 perfect days to establish a habit. In doing these daily behaviors, one must choose what they value, over what they feel like. I like the concept of a micro habit from this article.
http://www.artofmanliness.com/2014/10/22/how-to-create-habits-that-stick-giveaway/

Step 1: Create A “Micro-habit” That Helps Achieve Your Big Goal

Not all habits are created equal – and some require much more cognitive power than others.

Simple habits like making breakfast in the morning require relatively few steps: Take out bowl. Pour cereal. Pour milk. Eat.

More complex habits are combinations of several simple habits. Consider all the automation that goes into driving a car. You don’t need to think about how to operate a car because the behaviors are so deeply embedded that it becomes a habit, but it’s actually a fairly complex process.

Think about it:

• You have to get to your car, open the door, and get in.
• You adjust your mirrors and your seat.
• You put on your seat belt.
• You start the car, and use complex spacial awareness of distance and time to leave your driveway…backwards.
• You start driving (even more steps if the car is a stick shift).
• You navigate your destination mentally, or you use part of your brain to both look and listen while a GPS directs you.
• You have to move in speed and synchronicity with other cars. And the occasional idiotic motorcyclist with a death wish.
• Don’t forget to put on your turn signal.
• All this while the radio is playing. And you’re on the phone making dinner plans.

And when you get to work, you don’t even remember how you got there.

So how do we intentionally automate these processes to make even complex tasks less daunting?

In my case, what was the secret to making myself get to the gym?

Rather than try to force myself every day, I simply created a “micro-habit” that I knew would lead to the intended behavior. A micro-habit is a single, tiny action that necessarily leads to a bigger action.

If you want to floss your teeth, just floss one tooth. Commit to flossing just ONE tooth — and make that your goal for the day. If you are able to do that, you’ve accomplished your goal. You can check it off your list.

But here’s the trick: Once you perform the micro-habit enough times, it becomes much harder NOT to complete the entire habit than to simply do the whole thing.

In order to ensure that I got to the gym, my micro-habit was simply to swipe my card at the the entrance.

That’s it. Just swipe.

I picked a gym that was on my way back from work and every time I passed it, all I had to do was walk upstairs and swipe my card. After that, if I wanted to, I could go home.

Funny enough, it worked almost immediately. Some days, all I could do was swipe the card and leave. But 90% of the time I found myself saying, “Well…I’m already here…might as well just walk on the treadmill or something.”

An hour later, I’d completed the workout, and it was entirely because of the micro-habit, which took almost zero effort.

What micro-habit could you try?

If you want to run every morning, maybe you keep your running shoes by the bed and simply commit to putting them on in the morning.

If you want to write more, maybe you commit to writing just five words on a sheet of paper every day with breakfast.

If you want to read more, maybe you commit to just reading one paragraph and putting the book down.

It’s totally fine if all you can do is your micro-habit. But you’ll find that more often than not you end up doing much more.

I used this micro-habit formula to build motivation, and then I enlisted the help of an objective accountability partner to check in with daily to ensure that I stayed on track.

The Science Behind Procrastination

To further illustrate prefrontal cortex vs the limbic system, here's an example of how it works with procrastination
http://www.realsimple.com/work-life/life-strategies/time-management/procrastination

Science explains Charlie Brown’s seesaw sensibility as a fight that is sparked between two parts of the mind when it’s faced with a distasteful activity: a battle of the limbic system (the unconscious zone that includes the pleasure center) and the prefrontal cortex (the internal “planner”). When the limbic system wins, and that’s pretty often, the result is putting off for tomorrow what could (and should) be done today.

Here’s a bit more scientific backup, so you can stop blaming yourself (or your parents, your birth sign, the weather) and start chalking up procrastination to biology. The limbic system, one of the oldest and most dominant portions of the brain, is on automatic. It tells you to, say, pull your hand away from a flame—and also to flee from unpleasant tasks. In other words, it directs you to opt for “immediate mood repair,” explains Timothy A. Pychyl, Ph.D., a psychology professor at Carleton University, in Ottawa, and the author of The Procrastinator’s Digest: A Concise Guide to Solving the Procrastination Puzzle ($16, amazon.com).

The prefrontal cortex is a newer and weaker portion of the brain. It’s what allows you to integrate information and make decisions. “This is the part of the brain that really separates humans from animals, who are just controlled by stimulus,” says Pychyl. The prefrontal cortex, located immediately behind the forehead (where we tap when we’re trying to think, dammit, think), gets the job done. But there’s nothing automatic about its function. You must kick it into gear (“I have to sit down and write this book report!”). And the moment you’re not consciously engaged in a task, your limbic system takes over. You give in to what feels good—you procrastinate.

Living La Vida Limbic

Genesis 6

1 Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

 2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:

 3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

 4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

 5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

 6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

From the beginning of recorded human history we see a struggle between what we know we SHOULD do, versus what we FEEL like doing. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were told they could eat anything in the garden except the fruit from the tree of knowledge. The value system part of their brain wanted and planned on doing what their father told them to do. But there was a part of their brain, a more animalistic and impulsive part of their brain that desired the fruit. Satan tried to leverage this part of their brain to get them to act contrary to their values. Personally I think the final decision to take the fruit wasn't because of the temptations of pleasure, but because they knew to progress it was a necessary step. But regardless we see from the beginning the struggle between values and feelings.

In the Book of Mormon we also learn about this struggle.

Mosiah3:19 For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord

The battle continues today in each of us, and in our society at large. I like to think that most of us desire good, and plan to be happy and successful. What stops us from doing what we plan? Why do we so often trade what we want most in life, for what we want right now?

My hope with this blog is to help myself and others to better understand and control lower road feelings and impulses, so thoughts and behaviors will be aligned with our values.

As I've studied more about this topic I've discovered this battle in the anatomy and physiology of the brain. This is an oversimplification, but you'll get the idea.  I'm lumping the brain into two high level parts, the low road and high road. The low road portion includes the brain stem (reptilian brain) and the limbic system (mammalian brain), found in the middle of the brain. This portion of the brain controls our survival functions like breathing, it is responsible for our fight or flight response, and also our feelings. With only these parts of the brain, we'd be like animals, acting on instinct. The cerebral cortex however, particularly the pre-frontal cortex, is where we find our value system, our problem solving, our planning, thinking etc.

There's an important role for all parts of the brain. But where we run into trouble in our lives is when the messages from our limbic system tells us to do something contrary to our values (prefrontal corext). In this situation, giving into the limbic system is a recipe for failure in the things important to us. When one is 'Living La Vida Limbic' the neurons in the cortex aren't firing and aren't engaged, so you're quite literally not thinking. We've all experienced that before, when we've given into an impulse and after wondered why we'd do something so stupid. Well, we weren't thinking!


One of the best resources I've found to learn these principles and learn strategies for success is Life Changing Services, based out of Farmington Utah. They focus a lot on addiction and pre addiction, but the patterns and strategies they teach are universally applicable and are not just how to avoid addiction, but a recipe for success in life. Check 'em out!
lifechangingservices.org

So here's hoping that we can all learn about how to balance the functions of our brain, and keep from living in our limbic system (Living la vida Limbic). Which will help us to stick to the plans we have and succeeding in our goals in all areas of life.