How to Feel Happier in Minutes: 15 Ways to Naturally Boost Endorphins & Serotonin in Your Brain
Happiness Solution: Spike Your Thalamic GABA levels
Feel like a glass of wine at the end of a hard day to reduce stress and relieve anxiety?
Roll out your yoga mat to produce an even better chemical reaction in your brain and body.
Sure, you’ve heard it before. Yoga will do everything from improving your sex life to improve your ability to focus. You know that yoga will lower your stress levels and relieve anxiety while boosting your well-being.
You’re keen to try this yoga thing after work.
It’s just that you’re exhausted. The kids are hungry. You’re overwhelmed. Your willpower was used up hours ago at work, and it’s unavailable to pull you to a yoga studio.
What if I told you that after just 30 days, you could get your brain and body addicted to yoga, so you start craving a yoga vinyasa flow session instead of that beer?
Doubtful? Well did you know that there is a positive correlation between practicing yoga and an increase in thalamic GABA levels in your brain?
Scientists discovered in a clinical trial that yoga worked better than walking over 12 weeks to boost mood, well-being and lower anxiety than walking. The combination of breath work and movement in yoga increases GABA levels, which bind to receptors to produce an effect similar to how you feel after drinking a glass of wine. Unlike the glass of wine, the positive impact continues for hours after a yoga session.
To earn yourself a natural boost in calming chemicals, grab your yoga mat instead of that bottle of wine and turn on one of the free yoga classes available on youtube, like a favorite of mine: Yoga with Tim.
Are you yearning to amplify your happiness and well-being? Follow a 30-Day Yoga challenge to reap the many rewards of yoga.
Arms Wide Open to Bring the Joy
Throw those arms wide open and get ready to get and give eight hugs a day. Hugs release the hormone oxytocin, which functions as a neurotransmitter in the brain.
Hold off on hugging it out with your arch rival or that energy vampire just yet.
You’ll experience a boost in mood and wellbeing if you hug and are hugged by someone you like and trust.
Light Up Your Joy
Ever notice how everyone is more cheerful on a sunny day?
I’m sure it doesn’t it surprise you that studies correlate the amount of time spent outside with cheerfulness and positive emotions. Instinctively, we understand the power of the sun to infuse our lives with happiness.
So why do most of us spend up to 90% of our lives inside?
Walk outside during your morning break and over lunch time and let the power of the sun stimulate your serotonin production and boost your levels of vitamin D.
Making a conscious effort to step outside many times each day, even if it’s just for one to two minutes at a time, can increase your well-being and lower your stress and anxiety.
Invest in a sun lamp to mimic the natural sunlight in the winter months. Just ten minutes in front of the map can re-charge you with a better mood.
Happy Every day: Break it Down. List it Out. Celebrate.
Do you have some stretch goals set for the upcoming months and years?
Happy high performers are proactive in shaping their lives. They envision where they want to go with their lives and what they need to do to make the life they imagine a reality.
A setting of goals is one part of the solution. To charge your life with more happiness and success, you have two more steps to go.
First, break down the goals into steps and actions on a year, month, week, and daily level. List out the activities you’ll need to do each day to reach your goals. As you finish your mini-finish lines on the path to your big goal, take time to check them off the list and celebrate your small wins.
Each time you meet your daily, weekly, and monthly goals, a pause and a mini-reward celebration will give you a kick of dopamine. Small, regular kicks of dopamine can give you the energy and positive reinforcement to continue forwards toward achieving big goals.
Dopamine is our feel-good motivation fuel. A surge of dopamine gives us the desire and will to continue towards the far off finish line.
Imagine John set a goal of doing the design and planting involved in a new landscaping of their garden. Instead of celebrating when the garden is complete, he should break down the project it monthly and weekly actions and then list out the daily, weekly, and monthly goals. A mini-finish line reward can be enjoyed along the way towards the final garden completion.