Happy Hormones are chemicals produced by different glands in the body that are responsible for making you feel good. Hormones play a significant role in your moods and how your body processes information.
Since hormones help produce good feelings and happiness, why not create more of these hormones if you can? There are simple things you can do to increase your hormone production.
“It's a helluva start, being able to recognize what makes you happy.”
Lucille Ball
What You Will Learn from this Article
Why You Want to Boost Your Happy Hormones
Some may say that to experience joy; you have to know what real pain feels like. It's the contrast between the two that makes the real stuff feel good. If you lived in a euphoric state of happiness it would become your new normal and not feel right.
We are not talking about gaming your system. That's what drugs do. There are drugs you can take to make these glands produce more hormones. We are merely highlighting everyday habits that you can build to help yourself experience more happiness.
It's worth focusing on because joy is hard to come by now. You have things like social media forcing you to compare your life with others and many other technologies stealing happiness away. You must actively fight back against these evils that take your happiness away.
6 Different Happy Hormones
1. Dopamine - Dopamine is a huge driver in your brains reward system. Its often linked to pleasure learning, motor system function and more. Its often an essential part of how you learn to build habits,.
2. Seratonin - The regulator homone that helps to stablize moods, sleep, appetite and can aid you in your ability to learn.
3. Oxytocin - Often called the love hormone because it shines bright during childbirth and parent- child bonding. The hormone helps to build trust and empathy. It is often produced from showing or being shown affection.
4. Endorphins - The natural pain releiver of the body. When you feel stress or discomfort your body tries to release endorphins to make the pain disappear.
5. Estrogen - Helps to protect you from irrability, anxiety and keeps your moods steady, stress and things like smoking hurt this hormone.
6. Progesterone - Helps with having sound sleep and also prevents irritability and negative mood swings. Horomone drops due to age, stress and unhealthy foods.
9 Ways to Naturally Boost Your Happy Hormones
1. Workout
Working out is a great way to get a rush of hormones at one time. There is a reason that people who work out a lot get addicted to it. They are addicted to pushing their body because they get used to the happy hormones that a good workout will produce.
There is also something very satisfying in finishing a workout. You feel good about yourself, and you get hits of happy hormones to back it up.
2. Listen to Music
There is a reason that music is and will always be a massive industry. There is also an excellent reason to remember the words to songs you have not heard in over a decade.
Music gives off hits of dopamine. You feel great, and your memory works better in these moments. Working out and listening to music together can be a powerful combination.
3. Eat Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates increase serotonin levels. You crave carbs when you're feeling down because of how much the hormone can boost your mood. The key to healthily doing this is to avoid sugary carbs and buy the healthiest forms of carbs you can get your hands on.
4. Spend Time With Family
Being loved on by family is one of the best hormones boosts that you can experience. A hug, cuddling, a back rub, or any other physical contact can go a long way. There is no way to boost your mood quicker but stay away from family that stresses you out.
5. Have Sex
Having sex feels good and is associated with a tonne of happy hormones. It should be used cautiously, though, because having sex with just anyone still creates a bond that is not always healthy. Many of the hormones released during sex can create relationships for life with someone you only want to be with for a few hours.
6. Reduce Stress
Stress will block out a lot of happy hormones. Stress produces cortisol, and that is bad for your overall health. Trying to be satisfied without reducing stress is like trying to be clean without removing dirty on your skin. It just does not work! Stress is the killer of happiness.
7. Finish Something
Simple but true. If you want to release happy hormones, naturally, you need to finish things. It does not matter if its some woodworking project, or a video you're editing. Finishing a project makes you feel accomplished and provides you with a hit of dopamine and other hormones.
8. Laugh Hard
Laughing feels good, and this should not come as a surprise. You're likely to laugh around good friends and family, so we love being around them so much. The setting is just filled with opportunities to release happy hormones.
9. Get In The Sun
The sun naturally provides vitamin D, which helps to boost the immune system and fight depression. If you live in a place with harsh winters, a lack of vitamin D is why you can get the blues in the wintertime.
Any chance you can get to soak in some of the sun's rays, you want to take advantage of. It's going to boost your happy hormones and help you to keep depression far away.
Make Feeding Your Happiness a Habit
Habits are behaviors you engage in daily without having to think much. Think about brushing your teeth; you don't think to do it, its just habit. Imagine all of your behaviors were positive habits. That means you would act pleasingly without having to think about it.
If we can turn the above actions into habits, you will feel more happy hormones without thinking much about it each week. Every day you can workout, listen to music, and get out in the sun simultaneously and boost your happiness.
The key to doing this is that you begin to track your habits. You can use a piece of paper to do it or download an app like Habit Stacker. The whole point is that you can't improve what you do until you know what you do and how often you do it. All you have to do is markdown each day weather you got that habit done or not.
