Zenlama Holistic Wellness and Healthy Living for Body, Mind and Spirit
Did you know that more than 100,000 chemical reactions go on in your brain every second!
In addition to that, on an average day, trillions of messages are sent and received by your brain every day. They are carried through the brain’s messaging highways (known as Biogenic Amine/Endorphin System).
Happy, mood elevating messages are carried throughout the brain by happy hormones while sad and sombre messages are carried via mood suppressing hormones.
Now, most of your nerve centres will receive equal amounts of happy and sad messengers. So long as the input is balanced, you and your mood will run on an even keel.
Stress, however, put a spanner in the works. It messes with the brain happiness highway setting up blocks and slowing down the delivery of happy hormones to your brain cells.
The greater the intensity and duration of the stress the more you brain is starved of happy chemicals. Sadly, as the stress continues, the important nerve centres in your body get more and more mood suppressing hormones. Your mood begins to change as your brain becomes overwhelmed by sad messages and hormones
The result is a physiological state of brain chemical imbalance leading to depression and despondency.
So, in today’s stressful environments how can you stay mentally balanced and reverse the downward cycle?
Well, according to Loretta Graziano Breuning, PhD.
Humans have emotional ups and downs because we’ve inherited the operating system of earlier mammals. The mammal brain releases dopamine when we approach a reward, and serotonin when we get respect. Oxytocin gives us a good feeling when we trust, and endorphin makes us feel good when we’re injured. You can stimulate more happy chemicals with fewer side effects when you understand the job your happy chemicals evolved to do. There is a natural way to stimulate happy chemicals, and to avoid unhappy chemicals.
She has a written a great post about how you can feel better fast by learning how to trigger your brain to produce more happy chemicals naturally. In the article she explains the in’s and out’s of:
- Dopamine (Embrace a new goal)
- Serotonin (Believe in yourself)
- Oxytocin (Build trust consciously)
- Endorphin (Make time to stretch and laugh)
- Cortisol (Survive, then thrive)
This is fascinating reading so if you are feeling a little blue (or not) I recommend that you take a look and read the full article here.
What do you think?
Are you great at turning stress around? Do you have a story or a tip to share with others who are struggling with the winter blues (SAD) or depression? What about natural mood enhancing diets or essential oils? What works for you might help someone else.
As always, your interaction with our posts creates a reservoir of wisdom for all our readers to benefit from so please share your thoughts, stories and questions in the comments box below and remember to tweet, like and +1 ~ Thanks.
Additional Resources:
Meet Your Happy Chemicals: by Loretta Graziano Breuning PhD
How To Instantly Relieve Stress & Increase Happy Hormones
Oxytocin The Love Hormone vs.Cortisol the Stress Hormone: A Complete Comparison
