The key ideas

Habits of a Happy Brain: Retrain Your Brain to Boost Your Serotonin, Dopamine, Oxytocin, & Endorphin Levels

Loretta Graziano Breuning, 2015

A monkey that loses a banana simply goes looking for another one. A human builds a theory about bananas and suffers. Loretta Breuning explains that happiness comes from four brain chemicals we inherited from ancient mammals, and that each of them was made for survival, not for endless joy. At the end she offers a plan: forty-five days to build a new pathway to good feelings in your brain.

Who it is for

For anyone who notices that joy passes quickly while worry lingers. And for anyone curious about how the mammal brain runs our good and bad feelings, and how to build a new habit that brings joy.

Reality can never live up to your expectations, because you keep building new ones.

The monkey that lost a banana

A rival snatches a banana from a monkey. It feels bad, but it doesn't dwell on it for long: it goes looking for another banana, finds one, and ends up feeling more rewarded than wronged. People in the same spot act differently. They build theories about bananas, replay the hurt again and again, and end up causing themselves pain.

This scene comes from Loretta Breuning, a professor of management who leads tours about animal behaviour at the Oakland Zoo. Her book is about how good feelings come from four brain chemicals: dopamine, endorphin, oxytocin and serotonin. She gives them one shared name: the happy chemicals.

Breuning's main idea is simple. We inherited these chemicals from ancient mammals, and they were not made to keep us happy all the time. They were made to keep us alive. That is why joy switches on and then fades, while worry finds a reason all by itself.

Next you'll learn what each chemical does, why the brain needs cortisol, why joy doesn't last, and how to build a new pathway to good feelings in your brain in forty-five days.

A mango at the top and a zebra in a lion's jaws

A monkey climbs a tall tree for a ripe mango. The closer the fruit, the bigger the surge of dopamine. In Breuning's account, this is a signal to the body: time to open the reserve tank of energy, because the goal is near. The monkey never says “I did it”, but that is exactly what it feels. This is how the author describes dopamine: the joy of finding what you seek.

The second scene comes from a wildlife documentary. A zebra breaks free from a lion's jaws and runs, even though it is wounded. Endorphin saves it: it masks the pain for a short while so the injured animal can get away from danger. People call this feeling euphoria.

This leads to a common mistake. Many people expect a daily “runner's high” from exercise, but Breuning points out that endorphin is released only when you push past your limits to the point of real suffering. It was made to help you escape pain, not to make you hurt yourself for a minute of pleasure.

Each of the two chemicals solves its own survival problem. Dopamine drives you towards a reward. Endorphin helps you ignore pain when you're in trouble.

Read in Livria

About the author

Loretta Graziano Breuning is Professor Emerita of Management at California State University, East Bay, and the founder of the Inner Mammal Institute. She leads tours about animal behaviour at the Oakland Zoo.

All books by this author: Loretta Graziano Breuning

Terms from the book

  • Dopamine
  • Cortisol
  • Myelin
  • Serotonin
  • Oxytocin
  • euphoria
  • Oakland
  • Endorphin: A chemical that briefly masks severe pain so that an injured animal or person has time to escape.
  • Happy chemicals: Breuning's name for four brain chemicals: dopamine, endorphin, oxytocin and serotonin. It is a popular label, not a scientific category.
  • Mammals: Animals that feed their young with milk, from mice to monkeys and humans. Breuning explains human feelings through the brain these animals share.
  • Vervet monkeys: Small African monkeys that live in troops with a clear hierarchy. They were the subjects of an experiment with a troop leader behind a one-way mirror.
  • One-way mirror: Glass that is transparent from one side and looks like a mirror from the other. Through it you can watch while staying unseen.
  • Neurons: The nerve cells the brain is made of. They pass electrical signals to one another.

All terms

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