More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Alex Korb
Serotonin—improves willpower, motivation, and mood
Norepinephrine—enhances thinking, focus, and dealing with stress Dopamine—increases enjoyment and is necessary for changing bad habits Oxytocin—promotes feelings of trust, love, and connection, and reduces anxiety GABA—increases feelings of relaxation and reduces anxiety Melatonin—enhances the quality of sleep Endorphins—provide pain relief and feelings of elation
Endocannabinoids—improve your appetite and increase feelings of peace...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
Try to think of one happy memory before you go to sleep—write it in a journal or just reflect on it.
paying more attention to what is in your control, which helps modulate your brain activity and quickly reduces anxiety.
Take a deep breath. Taking a slow, deep breath—inhaling and then exhaling slowly—actually calms down the sympathetic nervous system and reduces stress
The first step is simply to recognize your anxiety or worrying when it occurs. Becoming aware of your emotional state activates the prefrontal cortex and allows it to suppress the amygdala.
If you have shortness of breath, dizziness, muscle tension, an upset stomach, chest pain, or just a general feeling of dread, it might be anxiety.
Pay attention to the things that are happening now, and don’t pay attention to the things that aren’t happening now.
to understand the underlying anxiety.
Only you can figure it out, and you can do this by examining your feelings.
Putting emotions into words—however hokey that sounds—actually rewires your brain circuits and makes you feel better.
All of this means that to be happy in our daily lives, we need a high ratio of positive to negative. And it turns out, after considerable study, that ratio is three to one.
how moods can change perception—a process called the mood congruent attentional bias.
context-dependent memory, mentioned in chapter 1, which, in certain contexts, makes you less likely to remember happy events and more likely to remember sad ones.
Noticing Mistakes
But you can start to notice your biases.
Nonjudgmental awareness is a form of mindfulness that simply means noticing without reacting emotionally, even when things don’t turn out as you expected.
Being Pessimistic
imagine the possibility of positive future events.
just recognizing that good things could happen, but expecting that they will happen.
it’s a habit that helps us deal with any form of stress.
Instead, you have to replace it with another habit.
At the end of the day, repeating actions is the only way to get them encoded into the dorsal striatum.
exercising (chapter 5), making decisions (chapter 6), improving your sleep (chapter 7), creating good habits (chapter 8), using your body (chapter 9), becoming more grateful (chapter 10), and relying on other people (chapter 11), as well as getting professional help (chapter 12).
You might think, I already tried that, and it didn’t work. But in complex systems like the brain, the same actions can cause different reactions at different times in your life.
We are often under the impression that we are happy when good things happen to us. But in actuality, we are happiest when we decide to pursue a particular goal and then achieve it.
If you decide to get out of bed, it will be more empowering than waiting until you have to go to the bathroom.
On top of that, not believing you can achieve your goals increases feelings of hopelessness.
The important thing here is not actual control, but perceived control. Making decisions may not increase your actual control over a situation, but it will likely increase your perceived control. And when you increase your perceived control, you increase your confidence, mood, and future decision-making capabilities.
A bedtime ritual might involve brushing your teeth, washing your face, going to the bathroom, then reading for a few minutes. Or you could include having a cup of herbal tea, or reading to your kids, or saying your prayers—any relaxing activity. Meditation can also be helpful. Again, sex is okay, but probably
Self-affirmation. Before thinking about which habits you’d like to change, answer this list of questions with a yes or a no. If you answer yes to any questions, please elaborate. Have you ever forgiven another person when he or she has hurt you? Have you ever been considerate of another person’s feelings? Have you ever given money or items to someone less fortunate than you?
Have you ever tried to cheer someone up who had had a bad day? Have you ever encouraged a friend to pursue a goal?
Reducing your stress levels can be accomplished through many means: exercise (chapter 5), decision making (chapter 6), improving sleep hygiene (chapter 7), biofeedback (chapter 9), gratitude (chapter 10), and social interactions (chapter 11).
if someone compliments you, act like you believe it.
A confident posture makes people more confident in you.
With gratitude, it is often the searching, the looking, the fishing for gratitude that activates the circuitry.
Be around people. Downward spirals are more likely when you’re alone. If you start to feel your mood sliding downhill, try going somewhere where there are other people around, like a library or coffee shop.
You don’t need to interact with others; just being in the same physical space can help.
selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs).
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a technology that uses magnetic pulses to change neural activity.
Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) is a technology that, as you may have guessed, stimulates the vagus nerve and helps treat depression.
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a technique in which electricity is delivered to the head in order to cause a therapeutic seizure.
You now know dozens of ways to modulate all the important circuits. You can change dopamine and the dorsal striatum with exercise. You can boost serotonin with a massage. You can make decisions and set goals to activate the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. You can reduce amygdala activity with a hug and increase anterior cingulate activity with gratitude. You can enhance prefrontal norepinephrine with sleep. The list goes on and on, and these benefits create a feedback loop that causes even more positive changes.
Don’t feel like hanging out with people? Go for a run. Don’t feel like doing work? Go outside. Can’t sleep? Think about what you’re grateful for. Worrying too much? Stretch.
Real action items
Next time you’re feeling down, just remember that it’s your brain stuck in a certain pattern of activity. Do something to change the pattern—anything. Can’t find a reason to get out of bed? Stop looking for a reason; just get out of bed.
