If you are interested in why people 'do what they do' and what's behind most adult and child behaviour - read on ....
Inside the body there are lots of chemicals that are trying to get us to do things that are in our best interest. These chemicals control why humans behave as they do, why one person exercises a lot, why another eats a lot, but they don't just influence short term decision making either, they also influence long term decisions with regard to what jobs we choose, what sports we play even what cars we drive! Lets look at the 4 main chemicals that control all your happy feelings.
These are released when you are in pain or stressed. The 'happy or 'high' feeling they produce makes sure that you don't have to stop what you are doing when you are in pain or stressed as that ability to keep going is a great asset for survival. Its why we can get an 'exercise high'.
This is released when you have done something. It's why you feel that accomplishment feeling when you complete a task, it's even why we get that 'Great, that's another task ticked off the list' feeling'. The body rewards task completion with happiness, its a genetic way of making humans do things. If we don't do things we don't survive as a race. We even get dopamine for completing the task of eating, so it motivates us to go looking for food before we get hungry, which in cave man times was very important for survival. Also importantly you get Dopamine from smoking, alcohol, gambling and the task achievement in computer games and answering texts on mobile phones .)
These two chemicals will give you the happy feelings of accomplishment, and all you have to do to get it is go for a run or tick off your shopping list! However, they won't give you fulllfillment, love or trust. (That's where the next two chemicals come in) Additionally Dopamine is highly highly addictive, and this is at the root of all addictions, its why people talk about 'addictive personality types'. The chosen addiction is secondary to the root cause which is the brain's need for dopamine.
Serotonin is released when we feel pride and status, we are social animals, and if we didn't interact with each other society would break down. We are safer and more successful as a race when we work together and that's why the body rewards us with Seratonin - so that we are motivated to work together and look out for each other. A deficit of Seratonin can lead to depression, it's why nearly all anti-depressant drugs target the action of Serotonin. Now unlike Dopamine and Endorphin you can't get Serotonin on your own. If you think about it, pride and status are only possible if you have other people around you, its why we celebrate success in a social situations whether that's at the end of school, the 'industry awards' or the degree ceremony. - getting an email with your award wouldn't feel the same - you want others to be around to share in the experience. But the best thing about Serotonin is that we can experience it though others, if you see your child get an award you will get a seratonin release. In fact if you identify in any way with the person getting the award, getting the status, you'll get the seratonin. That's why we love it when our home country athletes to do well at the Olympics! So what serotonin is trying to do is to re-inforce positive relationships between people so that as a race we work together.
This is released when we feel love trust & friendship - it's why we like to hang with our friends and family even if we are doing nothing but just hanging out. We feel safer when we are around these people that we trust - that's the oxytocin working its magic. We also can get it through physical contact - shaking hands is one example. Its why its a sign of trust and if someone refuses to shake hands it has more influence than what they say on how you feel about them. Additionally During child birth there is a huge release in oxytocin and its responsible for the bond between mum and baby. The interesting thing about oxytocin is you also get it through acts of generosity - and it works both ways if you give you get it and also if you receive you get it. And additionally even if you aren't giving or receiving but you just witness an act of generosity you also get it! Smart chemical - as it makes society work well helps the race survive! It also has lots of other benefits such as boosting the immune system and increasing creativity and problem solving and it also decreases the risk of addiction.
This is the chemical related to stress, fear & anxiety – its involved in the flight/fright response, among other things it increases your heart rate and shuts down your digestion. Also what's really important is that if a person next to you has a cortisol spike and starts to get anxious, then you will also experience a rise in cortisol, so unless you notice that happening the 2 of you will start to feed each other's anxiety even if you are saying nothing to each other! Again this is a primal response its so that if one gazelle hears something, cortisol spikes, that spreads down the herd and it might be a gazelle that's 30 down from the original one that can spot the lion and get the herd to run away from that direction So cortisol is good for survival but if it's there too much of the time its bad for your health, I will write a completely separate blog on this subject as its important to know how it links to digestive problem, chronic health problems and additionally how it can severely impacts on children's ability to learn in school. Here we will concentrate more on one aspect of it and that is that cortisol inhibits oxytocin and additionally it has also been implicated in inhibiting serotonin transmission.
Now its obvious to everyone that we are living in a highly stressful world, and that over the last 50 years society has changed in many ways including less family time less time with friends more work more computers more phones etc. You get the picture, now in the light of the chemicals we have discussed that's less oxytocin and less serotonin - which will push us to replace them with the easily found quick fix of dopamine and endorphine. (Hence the rise of Facebook, Candy Crush, Cross Fit, Cardio classes etc.) Its also why we try to trick our bodies into giving us seratonin by purchasing designer labels or a flash car, as we feel more 'status' so we get a small seratonin release. But it won't last, there is no true relationship to sustain that seratonin. It's the same for cheering on the Olympics, you will get a seratonin release, it will last longer than the Designer Sun glasses as you have more of a relationship with the athlete than the sun glasses, but it won't sustain you the way it would if you had a deep emotional human connection with the event or the person. So what's the outcome of all of this - its the society we live in, one that is outwardly focused on task achievement (dopamine), even though most of those tasks aren't real and are substitute tasks (eg computer games, facebook etc) outwardly focused on fear (high cortisol) - fear about the economy. losing our job, not making a sales target or whatever. That means relationships, family, heath, education basically everything suffers. So that's the gloomy news! So what's the answer, well I think coming up with an answer is easy. Although of course putting it into practice is the harder part. And in fact you already know the answer and that's more emphasis on relationships, on friends, on family, less on technology and gaming etc. And we start simply - build 'inward' looking time into your day - start with just 10 minutes of no technology, no interruptions purely inward reflection, is that tough - damn right - your brain will try to consume itself! But step by step, little by little, lets turn the balance of our lives back to where its should be. And If you've got kids just spend 10 min with them, absolutely focused on them, no phones, just them. You'll be amazed at how this can help the family dynamic. It won't change the world, but it will start to change your world - Jonathan x