15 Ways to Give Yourself a Natural Endorphin Boost

Get the feel-good hormone flowing

Endorphins are neurotransmitters that are released in your body when you experience stress, are injured, or do something especially rewarding. They exist to make you feel good. But you don’t have to break a leg or win an award to enjoy an endorphin boost. Here are a few easier ways to get the feel-good hormone flowing.

1. Take a group exercise class

The endorphin-boosting effects of exercise are well known, but humans are social animals and research has shown that people who exercise in groups show a significant improvement in their stress levels and their perception of their quality of life, whereas solo exercisers, for the most part, don’t, even when they exercise twice as long.

2. Get some sun

Natural sunlight offers us several health benefits, notably by helping our skin to produce vitamin D, which is needed to keep our bones, teeth, and muscles healthy, and may protect us from illnesses like heart disease and COVID-19. But, on top of that, the ultraviolet radiation in sunlight also stimulates the production of mood-boosting compounds, including endorphins. Of course, too much sunlight also increases the risk of skin cancer, so be careful and don’t forget the sunscreen!

3. Take a cold shower

You’ve probably heard about the soothing benefits of a hot bath after a tiring day, but research suggests that cold showers can have mood-boosting effects, too. The cold water activates the sympathetic nervous system and stimulates the production of noradrenaline and beta-endorphins, and may also activate the high density of cold receptors in our skin, sending a large number of electrical impulses to our brain and producing an anti-depressive effect. Showering once or twice a day, starting at a warm temperature before going down to 68F (20C) for 2–3 minutes, should do the job.

4. Eat some chocolate

If you’re a chocoholic, you won’t be surprised to hear that, as well as being high in heart-healthy and brain-boosting antioxidants, dark chocolate also stimulates the production of feel-good chemicals in your brain, including endorphins. Sadly, you only need to eat one square a day for this effect. If you find it difficult to stop at one piece, try going for a brisk 15-minute walk — this has been shown to be an effective cure against cravings.

5. Feel the (chili) burn

The burn you feel when you eat hot food isn’t a taste sensation, it’s actually a feeling of pain. Capsaicin, the main active compound in chili peppers, is a chemical irritant that binds to pain receptors in our mouth and produces a burning sensation. This tricks our brain into thinking that we’re hurting ourselves, so it releases endorphins to help us deal with the pain, just the same as it would if we had, for example, twisted an ankle. The same pain receptors also react to heat, so eating a hot chili will produce an even more intense effect.

6. Make music

Listening to music can make you feel good, but performing triggers the release of endorphins and makes you feel even better. It’s probably the active performance of music that generates the endorphin high, rather than the music itself. Singing in a choir — be it a large or small one — both triggers the release of endorphins and increases feelings of social bonding, as does group dancing, further increasing that feeling of well-being.

7. Laugh

Laughter has many potential health benefits: it may reduce levels of stress hormones like cortisol and epinephrine, help to lower blood pressure, and boost immune function, among other things. It also triggers feel-good hormones like serotonin, dopamine, and endorphins. Its beneficial effects may be even greater if you laugh with other people. It’s not for nothing that yoga laughter groups exist. For an extra mood boost, having a laugh with a loved one could also trigger the production of oxytocin and make you feel even better.

8. Watch a drama

If comedy isn’t your thing, research suggests that dramas and stories that stir you emotionally can boost your endorphin levels, too. In one study, participants who watched the made-for-TV film Stuart: A Life Backwards, a story about a disabled and homeless child abuse survivor, showed higher pain threshold levels — the standard method of detecting increased endorphins in the brain, because they can’t be measured directly — than participants who watched less harrowing documentaries about museums or landscapes. The researchers theorized that emotional pain causes your brain to release endorphins much in the same way that it would if you were in physical pain.

9. Have sex

Alternatively, you could switch off the TV and do the horizontal tango instead. Sexual intercourse generally involves physical exercise, touching, and bonding with another person. It therefore increases the release of all sorts of feel-good hormones, including serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin, and endorphins. Alternatively, you could just tell yourself that you probably have more sex than the average person, which will also boost your mood.

10. Stop and smell the essential oils

Aromatherapy is a well-known mood booster. A small 2017 study on sleep-deprived patients found that a drop or two of essential oils — including lavender, orange, cypress, and cedarwood — placed on a towel and wrapped around a pillow resulted in better sleep. The researchers surmised that this was because the soothing essential oils triggered both endorphins, which have sedative effects, and serotonin, which binds to enzymes during the night to produce melatonin, thereby promoting sleep.

11. Meditate

The benefits of meditation are numerous, and they may include increased endorphin production. Some research has found that people who meditate frequently have greater pain thresholds, and some has not, leading some researchers to think that the effect is related to a person’s acceptance or anticipation of pain, rather than the production of endorphins. Still, meditation is undoubtedly good for you, so why not give it a go? It only takes a few minutes of regular practice to reap the benefits.

12. Book a session at the sauna

Like meditation, there’s a long list of benefits associated with having a sauna, including relieving stress, decreasing pain, reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease, enhancing exercise performance, improving sleep, and, yes, raising endorphin levels, probably because of discomfort due to the heat.

13. Give acupuncture a try

Acupuncture is one of the most important components of traditional Chinese medicine and is gaining attention in Western medicine as an effective treatment for pain. Though the mechanisms by which it works aren’t yet fully understood, the two main theories put forward by researchers to explain how acupuncture relieves pain are 1) that the needle stimulates pain-sensing nerves, which trigger the brain to release endorphins, or 2) that acupuncture works through a placebo effect, in which the patient’s belief that their pain is about to decline triggers a release of endorphins. Either way, you end up with more of the mood-boosting hormone in your system.

14. Spend time with friends

Spending time with your favorite people may also boost your endorphin levels, according to a study which found that, as a person’s social network increased in size, so did their tolerance for pain. Their results provide evidence for the “brain opioid theory of social attachment”, which states that the production of endogenous opioids like endorphin is essential for the establishment and maintenance of social bonds.

15. Perform a random act of kindness

Acts of kindness have been shown to produce both oxytocin and endorphins — it’s called a “helper’s high”. The production of these feel-good chemicals is thought to make kindness a self-reinforcing habit. So, do something nice for someone else today, and make two people happier.

From exercising to doing someone a favor, there are many simple ways to give yourself an endorphin boost. Of course, although these activities have been shown to trigger the release of endorphins in some people, they may not all work for everyone. But there are many worse ways to spend your time.

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