Habits of a Happy Brain: Retrain Your Brain to Boost Your Serotonin, Dopamine, Oxytocin, & Endorphin Levels

by Loretta Graziano Breuning

I learned about the quirkiness of habits from a hypnotist who helps people quit smoking. He told me to imagine a fourteen-year-old boy at a party. The boy sees a girl he wants to talk to, but he’s afraid. He tries a cigarette to steady his nerves, and it works! The girl returns his affection, and his happy chemicals flow. The reward is huge because it’s so relevant to “reproductive success.” The neurochemical spurt creates a huge link to his mammal brain that says: Cigarettes promote survival. Of course, the boy doesn’t think this in words, but the next time he needs confidence in the face of a “survival challenge,” his brain lights up the idea of smoking. With each cigarette, the pathway builds. Years later, when he tries to quit smoking, the insecurity of the fourteen-year-old boy at a party surges up because it has nowhere to go without the cigarette pathway. His inner mammal feels like he’s threatening his own survival when he resists the urge for a smoke. He must build a new happy habit in order to live without the old one.