Today we talk about happiness very frequently. How to achieve it? How to maintain it? And, without a doubt, it is one of our greatest desires, to achieve happiness.
But thinking about it and talking about it doesn’t help us change anything in our lives enough to feel it. When you don’t feel happy and satisfied with yourself, when you feel sad, or stressed, or even anxious, it is because, among other things, you have low levels of some brain hormones.
Did you know your brain has a group of hormones that you can very easily stimulate to be happier?
There are several ways to stimulate the secretion of these hormones, for example, eating spicy food, watching sad movies, consuming foods with tryptophan (legumes, or chocolate high in cocoa), setting goals and objectives and going after them, establishing healthy and lasting bonds with others.
These hormones are dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin and endorphins, the “quartet of happiness.” since they stimulate your brain naturally, without the need for drugs or harmful substances.
Loretta G. Breuning, researcher and author of the book Habits of a happy brain, explains that “when your brain emits one of these brain chemicals, you feel good.”
Below, you will find the function of each of these hormones, and the activities that you can implement in your daily routine so that your brain produces them in greater quantities, and thus fills itself with them.
Dopamine is related to the experience of pleasure and guides us towards achieving goals linked to our desires To stimulate its production, follow these guidelines.
2. Oxytocin
It helps us reduce stress and increases libido and is related to intimacy, and the affective and emotional ties we establish. Here are some tips to boost your production:
3. Serotonin
Regulates mood and is related to self-esteem, self-confidence, increasing when we feel important. To make your body generate it in large quantities, follow these guidelines:
4. Endorphins
They are considered the morphine of the body, a natural pain reliever, helps us reduce pain, stress and fear. If you are interested in stimulating its production, do the following:
You may be interested: “Endorphins (neurotransmitters): functions and characteristics”
Certain foods also help its production
Another way to produce these hormones naturally is by eating some foods that will help you release these hormones.
The pleasure we feel when we eat is not only physical, but also chemical; our body intensifies that sensation thanks to the production of these hormones.
Below you will find how to stimulate these happiness hormones through food. The best foods to achieve this goal are:
1. Dopamine
Legumes provide many amino acids that help brain activity and internal balance.
Bananas contain vitamin B6 and magnesium which help make dopamine and other neurotransmitters.
Fish produces tyrosine, which is later converted to dopamine.
Related article: “The 5 best healthy diet apps”
2. Serotonin
Legumes are especially important with the production of this hormone Chickpeas, for example, intervene directly in our body by producing serotonin, a natural antidepressant that helps combat the emotional ups and downs that are so unpredictable today.
Having a little chocolate is beneficial, since it contains tyrosine, a substance that helps produce oxytocin and dopamine. But be careful, we are talking about dark chocolate, we must ensure that it has a high percentage of cocoa, 70% or more is ideal (there are many chocolates that are more milk and sugar than anything else).
You may be interested: “What happens in your brain when you eat chocolate or cocoa?”
4. Endorphins
Healthy sweets, for example fruits in general, which are rich in sugars (and remember that dark chocolate too), contribute to generating this feeling of well-being.
Vitamin C and B, pineapple, cereals or pepper for example, are optimal foods to include in our diet, because they produce cobalamin and folic acid, two components that are involved in the production of endorphins.
Eating slightly spicy foods will also help the production of endorphins, but again we must be cautious, since strong spicy foods can be very harmful to our body.
Other foods help produce neurotransmitters and/or happiness hormones
Oats are considered a smart carbohydrate because it has a calming effect on the brain. It helps control sugar and cholesterol levels, maintains and balances the functioning of the nervous system.
Walnuts contain L-phenylalanine, which helps produce hormones that will generate many of the neurotransmitters mentioned.
Yogurt or kefir, since probiotics improve intestinal flora, and today it is more than proven that intestinal health is closely related to physical and mental well-being. One of its functions is to correctly absorb the nutrients in our body (vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, fats and proteins).
