It’s Lockdown and by now low mood and irritability must have taken a toll on many of us. When was the last time you felt really happy?
“With some 2.6 billion people around the world in some kind of lockdown, we are conducting arguably the largest psychological experiment ever; this will result in a secondary epidemic of burnouts and stress-related absenteeism in the latter half of 2020;”
World Economic Forum
So now, its high time that we really give a serious thought regarding our mental health, and we are going to tell you how you can trick your brain to stay Happy (because when you are happy, u can’t be sad, right?! )
As a first step let’s see what actually happiness is. When analysed biologically, it turns out that happiness is not governed by external stimuli but rather it is caused by the pleasant sensations in the body, which basically are the reactions to various Biochemical substances called serotonin, dopamine, and oxytocin. So if you can trick your brain to release more of these hormones, yeah, you are going to be happy no matter what happens around.
Let’s see how we can do this-
1. Exercise, well it does increase the dopamine levels in your body. The Pituitary Gland releases endorphins which elevate the mood
2. Got problem’s all around? Well, take them one at a time. Take note of all your worries and solve them one at a time, rather than making your Brain unresponsive just like a Computer having many programs running simultaneously.
3. Talk to your loved ones – some worries are beyond one’s control, but talking about them triggers the production of serotonin and can help.
4. Stay curious, Learn new things – Brain rewards the attempts to absorb and process new information with dopamine.
5. Sleep Well – while sleeping, Melatonin is released, which slows down all processes in the body, helping it to recover and increasing the level of serotonin in the Hypothalamus.
And at last, take time to look around and be grateful to all the privileges you have. We tend to have millions of reasons to be happy, focus your attention on them.
– Archana P Mallya
Read our article on “The Blistering Cause“
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