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November 1 - December 25, 2021
That’s why it’s hard to build new trails: You don’t know how you built the old ones.
Adrenaline amplifies the positive or negative message conveyed by the other neurochemicals.
Serotonin is the sensation that it’s safe to go ahead and meet your needs.
But it fails sometimes, and its serotonin falls. That motivates it to submit and conserve energy.
When a mammal sees that it’s weaker, it restrains itself until the other has eaten. When a mammal sees that it’s stronger, its serotonin surges and it lunges at food.
A person who has set her sights differently may feel satisfied with the respect she is getting from her world, and thus enjoy the calm, secure feeling of serotonin.
Antidepressants, like Prozac, are known for raising serotonin levels in the brain. The function of serotonin was not understood when antidepressants were introduced to the public, in the same way that aspirin was used before anyone knew how it worked. They may have created the impression that ingesting some “correct level” of serotonin can make a person happy independent of their thoughts and actions. We are only at the first stages of understanding the link between serotonin and happiness. Animals offer insight into our neurochemical ups and downs, but these insights are unsettling. The
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When cortisol surges, we call it “fear,” but when cortisol dribbles, we call it “anxiety” or “stress.” These bad feelings tell you that pain will come if you don’t act fast. Your reptile brain can’t say why it released the cortisol. Electricity just flowed down a pathway. When you understand how this happens, you can distinguish more easily between internal alarms and external threats.
Explore your threatened feelings and find examples of: A threatened feeling that fits the pattern of your adolescent threats A threatened feeling that fits the pattern of your early childhood threats A threatened feeling that fits the pattern of a parent’s sense of threat A threatened feeling that fits the pattern of threats that bond your social circle
These bad feelings do not mean the world is bad. They are just a tool.
If you feel that things are falling apart, for example, you will find evidence that things are falling apart and overlook evidence of things going well.
When a pattern-seeking human cortex is hooked up to a dominance-seeking mammal brain and a danger-avoiding reptile brain, it’s not surprising that we end up with a lot of cortisol alarms.
Accepting the bad feelings cortisol creates sounds harsh, but the alternative is worse. You can end up unhappy about being unhappy. Instead, you can accept your own warning system, though it sometimes overreacts to patterns that resemble past threats.
You can trigger the strengths you were meant to have when you understand your threat responses.
The brain triggers joy when it encounters any new way to meet its needs. New food. New love. New places. New techniques. After a while, the new thing doesn’t measure up. “It’s not the way I remember it.” You may wish you could trade it in for another new thing. But when you understand your brain, you realize the disappointment comes from you rather than the thing itself.
A person who controls others wants them to comply faster to more arbitrary commands.
He must build a new happy habit in order to live without the old one.
You can stop a vicious cycle in one instant, simply by doing nothing. That teaches your brain that you will not actually die without the old habit. You learn that threatened feelings do not kill you. A virtuous circle begins the moment you do nothing and live with the threatened feeling instead of doing the usual something.
The first step to happier habits is to do nothing when your cortisol starts giving you a threatened feeling. Doing nothing goes against your body’s deepest impulse, but it empowers you to make changes in your life. Once you do nothing, you have time to generate an alternative. At first, no alternative looks as good as the habit does, but positive expectations build if you give a new pathway a chance to grow. Each time you divert your electricity in a new direction, you strengthen your new circuit. It all starts when you accept a bad feeling for a moment instead of rushing to make it go away.
When you know that your threatened feeling is just a connection between neurons, you free yourself to build new connections.
When patterns in the world match the patterns in your synapses, electricity flows and you feel like you know what’s going on.
When you feel flooded by emotion, you are releasing more chemicals than those receptors can process. You feel overwhelmed and disoriented until your brain builds more receptors. That’s how you adapt when you are “going through something.”
We are not powerless servants of our impulses
If you invest a lot of energy seeking approval from people who reject you, that habit probably helped you survive in your youth.
Then I realized that my happy-chemical pathways are just accidents rather than eternal truths.
I redirect my circuits toward today’s needs instead of the needs of my past.
even breathing requires social support to develop properly.
Your accidents will shape you unless you start repeating things by choice.
With trial and error, you can find a habit that works for you.
Dig into practical realities
EXERCISE: WHAT ARE YOUR NEW DOPAMINE STRATEGIES? Make a list of remodeling projects that can work for you in each of the following categories: Celebrate small victories Take steps toward a new goal Divide an unpleasant task into small parts Keep adjusting the bar
EXERCISE: WHAT ARE YOUR NEW ENDORPHIN STRATEGIES? Make a list of remodeling projects that can work for you in each of the following categories: Laugh Cry Exercise differently Stretch Make exercise fun
EXERCISE: WHAT ARE YOUR NEW OXYTOCIN STRATEGIES? Make a list of remodeling projects that can work for you in each of the following categories: Build on “proxy” trust Place stepping stones Be trustworthy Build a trust verification system Get a massage
EXERCISE: WHAT ARE YOUR NEW SEROTONIN STRATEGIES? Make a list of remodeling projects that can work for you in each of the following categories: Express pride in what I’ve done Enjoy my social position in each moment Notice my influence Make peace with something I can’t control
if you only attack your decisions, you will never make a choice unless there’s absolute certainty. Celebrate your ability to live with uncertainty and you will broaden your options.
But this habit never really makes up for the personal power you lose when you make others responsible for meeting your needs.
You can think of life as a series of tradeoffs rather than an optimization function with one correct solution.
Your brain will never stop trying to promote your survival. It takes what you have for granted and looks for ways to get more—more rewards (dopamine), more physical security (endorphin), more social support (oxytocin), more respect (serotonin).
If you take an idealized view of happiness, it will always be out of reach. But you are free to be happy with small things instead of waiting for the world to meet your idealized requirements.
Preparing for the kind of threat you’ve already experienced is just a habit that you could replace with a new habit.
Error is not a sign of incompetence; it’s a sign that you are facing an unknown that must be explored before it can be mastered.
EXERCISE: FINDING YOUR OBSTACLES AND ELIMINATING THEM Are you letting these thoughts deprive you of happiness? How? I can’t lower my standards. I shouldn’t have to do this. It’s selfish to focus on your own happiness. I want to be prepared for the worst. I won’t be able to do this. Who can be happy in such a flawed society? I’ll be happy when . . .
THESE TOOLS WILL HELP YOU TRAIN YOUR BRAIN Mirror: find someone with the habit you want and mirror them. Balance: develop the happy chemicals you’re not already best at. Graft: build new happy circuits onto old happy roots. Energy: save your energy for tough challenges. Legacy: preserve your unique individual essence to please your inner mammal. Fun: find the fun in a new behavior and you will repeat it. Chunk: divide difficult challenges into smaller parts. Satisfice: a satisfactory solution may be better than an endless quest for optimal. Plan: start building circuits now so they’re ready
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You could spend your whole life lamenting your choices if you don’t make a habit of seeing the good in what you’ve chosen.
Your happy chemicals will not surge all the time, but you do not need to be having a “peak” experience at every moment. You can accept the inevitable dips in your happy chemicals instead of believing something is wrong. You don’t have to mask the dips with unhealthy habits. You can just take them as evidence that your inner mammal is looking out for you in the best way it knows how. It’s not easy to manage this brain we’ve inherited from our ancestors. It’s the challenge that comes with the gift of life.
