How harnessing “happy hormones” can boost your sense of well-being.
Have you felt sluggish, anxious, or just plain stressed out by your everyday routine? It’s not your fault, says neuroscientist TJ Power.
Blame modern living and creature comforts like the iPhone, Netflix, and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. According to Power, these things are literally rewiring our brains and limiting our supply of four essential chemicals within our bodies that have an outsized impact on our mood: dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins, or DOSE.
“We spent 300,000 years running around as hunter-gatherers, living a very different life than we do now, but our brains are still designed for a lifestyle of surviving out in the wild,” Power tells us. “Today, we don’t have to hunt for hours or work to build a fire or shelter, which are all activities that produce dopamine, for example. Instead, we can get quick access to dopamine through social media, and that’s causing these significant imbalances in these chemicals.”
The good news is that by making small lifestyle changes, we can optimize our levels of these hormones, Power argues in his new book, The DOSE Effect. We spoke to him about this innovative approach to self-care, why the simple act of making your bed can boost your sense of well-being, and other tips for bio-hacking your way to better mental health.
Katie Couric Media: We produce lots of hormones. Why did you decide to focus on this group?
TJ Power: These four are fascinating because they all have such unique functions. In popular media, they’re all lumped together as the “happy hormones,” and we think of them as all kind of doing the same thing. But when you come to see that they all serve different purposes, it allows you to better interpret why you’re feeling a certain way and what’s going on in your body.
If you find yourself procrastinating, for instance, it may be because your levels of dopamine — which is responsible for creating our sense of drive — are low. And there are certain things you can do to deliberately up those levels, instead of what most of us do, which is turn to social media or a glass of wine when we’re struggling. There’s a much more effective way to jolt yourself out of a rut.
Let’s start with dopamine. What does it do for us and how can we harness it?
Dopamine creates your sense of motivation, and it evolved to make accomplishing hard things pleasurable. In today’s world, an annoying task like changing and washing your bedding is an example of building dopamine in a sustainable way. It’s not fun, but we feel good having done it, and that’s because dopamine rewards effortful actions that improve our lives. Things like exercising, hiking, reading difficult books — things that challenge you and create a sense of satisfaction afterwards.
What about oxytocin?
Oxytocin is a magical chemical. It evolved to connect humans together. When a mom gives birth, the mom and the baby both receive this huge surge of oxytocin. And then as we grow up and form a variety of relationships, with our family and friends and romantic partners, oxytocin is driving that connection. In our modern world, our addiction to our phones is really disrupting our ability to properly connect with one another. We’ve all experienced going and hanging out with a friend and feeling like they’re not giving you their full attention because they’re looking at their phone.
And serotonin?
The majority of our serotonin is generated in our gut, and we have a clever system called the vagus nerve that reads the state of our gut and sends that information to our brain. This chemical impacts both our mood and our energy levels, which are very connected. You’ll notice that when your energy dips, your mood often does too — and vice versa. One of the biggest things disrupting our levels of serotonin is ultra-processed foods. We eat so much of it, and it’s making it harder for our bodies to produce serotonin in the gut.
Last but not least, tell us about endorphins.
Endorphins evolved to help us de-stress in moments where our bodies are being pushed to the brink. If we’re out in the wild and being chased by animals or fighting or starving, these hormones are released to help us cope and focus on the task at hand. So if you’re stressed, you can harness these chemicals through rigorous physical activity — it’s a beautiful way to calm the brain down.
Can you give us one or two simple activities that we can do that will raise our levels of these chemicals?
For dopamine, what we’ve found in our research lab is that one of the best things you can do is resist the urge to grab your phone first thing in the morning. Ideally, you’d go first to the bathroom, brush your teeth, maybe have a shower, and make your bed before you get that quick dopamine hit of scrolling through social media. By building up that slow dopamine we get through accomplishing these small tasks, your levels are going to be better optimized.
For oxytocin, there’s some research behind this concept of fleeting connection. When humans interact with people in their communities — even for a very short period of time — whether it’s just nodding and smiling at someone while you’re out walking the dog or talking to a barista, it’s magic for your mental health. Sadly, so many of us have our headphones on or are staring at our phones, that we’re missing out on these little interactions, but if you can do this and get out of your own head, it can help build oxytocin.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
