How Is Your Happiness Tied to Your Hormones?

There is a difference between instant gratifications and happiness!

I might need to start this article by specifying we will not be talking about human reproduction involving Estrogen and Testosterone in this article. I will leave this part for another time, or not!😊.

Having clarified this detail, I would like to inform you we will be exploring the well-being/happiness hormones, and we would categorize them into two types: instant gratification and long-term happiness.

The instant gratification hormones

We may distinguish two hormones in this category: the Endorphins and the Dopamine.

The Endorphins

The only function of the Endorphins is to mask the physical pain. The trigger to this pain could be an indoor or outdoor workout, sex, some physical job (not sure though why people are not confirming feeling good in such a scenario, but most probably because they’re stressed out and having some pressure in parallel), etc.

There’s nothing like the endorphins from being fit, and the incredible endorphin rush that goes with that. It beats drugs, drink, and almost anything else I know ~Richard Branson

You got it! Wanna have some instant gratification? Move your body!

The dopamine

The dopamine is what makes you feel good when finishing a goal, a TO-DO list. It’s also what is released in the veins when smoking, drinking alcohol, using drugs, and being in a romantic relationship when you’re not self-resilient and don’t love yourself enough in the first place.

That’s why addiction is the side effect of dopamine. Cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs’ addiction are already a known arena by society. Relationship addiction is not yet that easily recognized, though. It is even confused with high levels of romanticism like those sentences are stipulating for addicted people:

I can’t stop thinking about him!

I don’t know why I love her, and this is probably a sign of true love, right!

I can’t imagine my life without him!

I will die if she leaves me!

I can’t see my future without him!

The cure to Dopamine’s addiction is true self-love — not the fragile one created through mapping the positive affirmations. Because only then would we be able to prevent hurting ourselves no matter the way. We’re engaging in different kinds of addictions to protect ourselves from all our insecurities.

The long-term happiness hormones

Just like the instant gratification hormones, we can distinguish two hormones in this category as well: the Serotonin and the Oxytocin.

Serotonin

Serotonin is the hormone responsible for making you feel proud & fulfilled because you’re contributing, giving back to the world, and feeling important (a basic human need). This chemical is continuously released in your veins only when you become a servant leader.

You become this servant leader whenever you commit to growing as a person, or shall I say unbecoming the filter and reconnecting with the original great being we all were before the conditioning by the grownups started.

The transformation adventure implies you know where you are in terms of distortion first. It requires humility and honesty to break the denial circle.

Then you meet your demons — the constructs of the never-enough invasive subconscious program — and dig to understand the root causes that are the limiting beliefs. Only then could you break them and consequently kill your demons. It requires considerable amounts of:

• Openness to challenge what you have been taking for the absolute truth your whole life,
• Patience as re-writing the program is not a quick fix,
• Consistency to defeat the difference between the conscious and subconscious minds: while the former is learning creatively, the latter is repetitive and habit-based.

The major barrier to developing new perspectives isn’t intellectual. More than ever, it’s emotional.

We have access to as much information as we want, but nobody wants to do the work required to have an opinion.

Nobody wants to bear the emotional labor that is required in challenging your own personal beliefs. Nobody wants to introduce uncertainty into their lives. It’s a terrible feeling to know that you could be absolutely wrong about something you stood for.” ~ Louis Chew

Developing shame resilience also leads to releasing compassion for others, which helps progressively raise the Emotional Intelligence level if combined with intellectual intelligence and practicing a daily self-awareness exercise!

This one is a unique skill making you able to build trust and healthy relationships. When doing so, people with whom you are interacting produce the Oxytocin (we will be discovering below), and the leader releases the Serotonin. Bonus: the circle never stops!

It is possible to trick the system by centering your life on either your social status or belongings, though. Your body would be releasing this Serotonin for a short period.

That’s why we can notice some people are feeling awesome when buying a new fancy car or boat or jet — you name it — and that everybody is speaking about it. Then, when nobody would mention it, those same people would feel like cr*p and buy the next fancy thing.

Takeaway: The only way to keep the Serotonin production continuous is through relationships and what we give to others while we are a person of integrity.

Oxytocin

When you start gradually moving from the ego sphere to the self-love arena — in other words, when you become emotionally healthy, you will be able to genuinely love others instead of being attached to your unhealthy expectations from the relationship.

The other way I introduced above to release the Oxytocin in your body is when a person is giving you enough reasons to trust them — namely making enough deposits in your Emotional Bank Account (your trust reserve).

That’s what servant leaders can do so well! Servant leadership has nothing to do with the position in an organization, formal authority, or social status. It has everything to do with the capacity of inspiring instead of manipulating.

Servant leadership agenda is seeking to guide people in their growth, empower them to accomplish themselves, and transform a bunch of individuals into a community, a tribe believing in some shared principled mission!

Last thoughts

Do you want to get access to instant gratifications? Continue operating from your distorted subconscious program, preventing you from loving yourself fully and feeling lasting and irreversible happiness.

Do you want to learn to become truly happy? Put in the hard work. Re-write your program. Destroy your patterns and limiting beliefs about yourself & the world. Own the spirit. Move from the personality sphere to the character arena.

Unbecome the filter, unleash the servant leader in you, and start creating heaven on earth!