Tag: Science

scientific approaches to striving for happiness

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Many of our strategies for happiness come from anecdotal evidence from our own lives or from friends’ recommendations. What happens when we apply a scientific lens to the art of striving for happiness?

Approach 1: Chemical Analysis

Scientific studies demonstrate that 1) the presence or absence of specific chemicals corresponds with different emotional states, and 2) actions can change the presence or absence of such chemicals. Based on my hacky research,* here are some actions you can take that have been shown to positively affect your happiness chemicals:

Happiness Chemicals 2.png
Made by the author with draw.io

*Researching these chemicals was more complicated than I expected. Many popular media articles reference these chemicals but don’t cite sources for their statements. I opted neither to rely on these articles, nor to do a rigorous review of the scientific literature; rather, I looked to make claims substantiated by at least one or two reasonably reputable sources, such as abstracts of peer-reviewed scientific papers or articles from well-respected scientific news outlets, to form these conclusions.

Endorphins

  • Humans knew about opium & morphine before we knew anything about endorphins. “Endorphin” is a portmanteau of “endogenous” and “morphine,” meaning morphine that originates internally.1
  • Endorphins work by binding to opioid receptors that 1) cause a cascade of interactions that inhibits the release of a key pain transmission protein, and 2) release a neurotransmitter that results in excess dopamine.2
  • Exercise is commonly linked to higher endorphin levels. Contrary to popular belief, however, endorphins are probably not responsible for “runner’s high.” Endorphins have been shown to take more than an hour to increase, and have also been shown not to cross the blood-brain barrier, making it unlikely that they are responsible for exercise euphoria.3, 4
  • Researchers suggest that laughing causes endorphins to increase because your abs get exhausted. Your body may actually be trying to lower the perceived ab pain from laughing.5
  • I already knew that eating chocolate makes me happy, but apparently it’s not just the taste – eating chocolate triggers the release of endorphins, too.6

Dopamine

  • Dopamine enhances our expectations of pleasure.7 When faced with the choice of a low-effort low-value reward vs. a high-effort high-value reward, higher dopamine levels make you more likely to choose the higher-effort and higher-value reward.8
  • Dopamine also has been shown to improve working memory and better selection of goal-directed actions (i.e. focus).9
  • Pleasurable experiences like food and sex cause dopamine hits.10 “Peak emotional moments” in music— and even the mere anticipation of those moments — also trigger dopamine release.11 You are then motivated to repeat the behaviors that led to those rewards.
  • There aren’t specific scientific studies for this, but a lot of popular media articles suggest that you can game your own dopamine systems by accomplishing smaller tasks or breaking down a large goal into small pieces in order to trigger smaller dopamine hits along the way.
  • Beware: Dopamine is addictive. Also, know that more dopamine is not by itself sufficient for more motivation; dopamine needs specifically to be increased in the reward & motivation center of your brain in order to motivate you. “Slackers” also have elevated dopamine levels, just in other areas of their brain.12 While not backed by scientific literature, my guess is that dopamine reinforces past behaviors, and you have to be careful to only reinforce the behaviors you want to keep.

Serotonin

  • Serotonin has been shown to have a bounty of positive effects: biasing people toward having more positive emotional responses to situations (rather than directly affecting mood), reducing aggression and increasing desire for cooperation and good will toward others, and engendering “a calm yet focused mental outlook.”13, 14, 15
  • Thinking of happy or successful memories, experiencing social success or high social status, exposing oneself to bright light, eating carbs, drinking alcohol non-chronically, and exercising have all been shown to boost serotonin levels.16, 17, 18
  • Popular media often seems to indicate that low serotonin levels cause depression, and that increasing serotonin levels can thus cure depression. However, this claim has not been clearly substantiated. What we do know is that impairing serotonin function can sometimes cause clinical depression, low serotonin function may impair recovery from depression, and serotonin-based drugs do bias people toward more positive emotional responses (as mentioned above).19

Oxytocin

  • Originally perceived only as a facilitating hormone for labor and breastfeeding, oxytocin has since been embraced by popular media as the “cuddle hormone.” Increased dosage of the drug has been found to increase trust in games, improve monetary generosity, improve people’s ability to infer emotional state from subtle expressions, increase time spent gazing at a face’s eye region, and make happy faces more memorable.20, 21, 22, 23, 24
  • Oxytocin appears to promote monogamy for people in monogamous relationships: it leads men in relationships to avoid approaching single women, and leads people to perceive their partner’s touch as especially pleasant while perceiving a stranger’s touch as especially diminished in quality.25, 26
  • Oxytocin may also drive conformity. People with additional oxytocin are more likely to follow a charismatic leader, and are more likely to promote the in-group over the out-group.27, 28
  • Frequently hugging your partner, orgasming, getting a massage, and petting your dog have all been shown to increase oxytocin levels.29, 30, 31, 32 Singing lessons and improvised singing have been shown to increase oxytocin levels as well.33, 34
  • Contrary to what many popular media articles say, I have found no evidence that hugging or touching someone who is not your partner increases oxytocin levels. Nor have I found any evidence that giving gifts or money will increase your oxytocin levels; I have only seen studies showing that people with high oxytocin levels are more generous. This is not to say that hugs and generous gifts are a bad idea or that they won’t make you happy, just that I have not found a peer-reviewed study demonstrating that these activities will naturally increase your oxytocin levels.

A few other chemicals that affect happiness that I won’t go into at this time: adrenaline & noradrenaline, cortisol, endocannabinoids, GABA…

Approach 2: The Scientific Method

The scientific method is the process by which humanity aims to get to an accurate representation of the world. Very briefly, the idea is that when you go about looking for answers in the world, you should 1) form a hypothesis or prediction for how the world works, 2) run experiments testing that hypothesis, and 3) analyze the results in order to draw conclusions. If your experiments aren’t conclusive, you go back to the drawing board, modify your original hypothesis, and the cycle begins again.

It turns out you can apply this to life, too. Basically, 1) write down a hypothesis about what makes you happy, 2) try doing those things, and then 3) analyze how you felt about doing them and decide whether you want to keep doing them.

This is, of course, an oversimplified approach:

  • Some things require expertise or time before becoming likable. We often like things more after we understand them or have become good at doing them, and building skill and understanding takes time. You’ll need to be thoughtful about how you set up your “experiment” to account for that.
  • This approach is also somewhat biased toward valuing in-the-moment happiness while you’re doing the work over the retrospective happiness you gain after hitting a milestone or accomplishment. Again, experiment design, particularly the length and ending conditions of the experiment, is key.
  • Finally, your preferences and values will change over time. You may not like Brussels sprouts today, but you might change your mind in five years. You might enjoy working on engaging assignments at work today, but decide in a few years that you want to do work with a stronger social impact mission, even if it’s less interesting day-to-day. There’s not much you can do here, other than allowing yourself to edit what you know about yourself as time goes by, and acknowledging that some experimental results won’t apply forever.

There will be times when we’re actively running experiments, are impatient to know the results, and need to counsel ourselves to stay the course. But if you don’t currently have a promising active experiment, instead of allowing indecision about your life direction to freeze your activity, try coming up with a possible career path you could be interested in, and figure out a way that you can validate whether you would actually enjoy having that career. Can you talk with 5 people in career x about what their days are like and what they love and hate about their work? What is a side project version of career x you can take on? You need to actually run experiments in order to learn more about yourself and the world. If you don’t know what you want, try something.