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

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4.08  ·  Rating details ·  1,282 ratings  ·  137 reviews
A revolutionary approach to enhancing your happiness level!

Get ready to boost your happiness in just 45 days! Habits of a Happy Brain shows you how to retrain your brain to turn on the chemicals that make you happy. Each page offers simple activities that help you understand the roles of your "happy chemicals"--serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin, and endorphin. You'll also
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Paperback, 238 pages
Published December 16th 2015 by Adams Media
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Start your review of Habits of a Happy Brain: Retrain Your Brain to Boost Your Serotonin, Dopamine, Oxytocin, Endorphin Levels
Diane  Holcomb
Jan 27, 2016 rated it really liked it
I've read several books on rewiring the brain to overcome anxiety and depression by changing our thoughts, and goodness knows there's a plethora of books on happiness. So I was pleased to discover a new angle on both subjects.

Imagine being able to train your brain to switch on happy chemicals that increase your feelings of well-being. Wouldn't that be a nifty trick? Well, it turns out you can!

Your brain has a big job to do: ensuring your survival. When it sees something good for you, it shoots
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Silje
Jul 24, 2016 rated it liked it
Shelves: yoga
So I guess I got another selfhelp book even if I promised not to... However, this must be the most no-nonsense happiness guide ever written! There is absolutely no spirituality, neither psychotherapeutic theory and complicated case histories nor poetry in here, just plain description of four hormones and how they work in a layman's language. To me obviously, this became at times rather boring read. However, I will recommend this book to anyone of a more "rationalist" inclination than myself. ...more
Chris
May 20, 2018 rated it it was ok
Oof. I have very mixed feelings about this book. My summary: a fascinating, but flawed, glimpse of how neurochemistry influences our daily lives. On the one hand, it's a really handy new way of thinking about emotions, habits, and physiological responses that has immediate practical implications. On the other hand...

The book makes a lot of claims about the relationship between neurochemistry and evolution, most of which sound like the kind of just-so stories that result in the field of
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Brian Jones
Dec 08, 2015 rated it it was amazing
This book is a great guide to building better habits. New habits are hard to create, but not impossible to create. As the author shows, what is needed is reinforcement through repetition and emotion.

The book does an excellent job of explaining what drives behavior, and how to control it with happy habits. There are numerous exercises throughout the book to help you understand and create new habits. Included are tools to train your brain plus practical suggestions.

The author also provides
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☘Misericordia☘ ~ The Serendipity Aegis ~  ⚡ϟ⚡ϟ⚡⛈ ✺❂❤❣
Nifty serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin & endorphins regulation tricks. Highly recommended.
Artyom Morozov
Mar 26, 2017 rated it did not like it
This book, highly rated by multiple reviewers, to me came as a huge disappointment. The text is pseudo-scientific, devoid of real ideas or deep understanding of human behavior.

The author claims to explain our behavior from evolutionary and hormonal points of view, and to propose an effective algorithm to change unwanted patterns of behavior. I think she does a poor job on these fronts. The book's explanatory part can be summed up as follows: "we behave a certain way because we evolved to behave
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Matt
Mar 20, 2017 rated it it was ok  ·  review of another edition
Habits of a Happy Brain purports to assist readers with enhancing their happiness through neuroscience. Breuning advocates the cultivation of neural "circuits" that favor the dispersion of your "happy" chemicals, namely serotonin, oxytocin, endorphin, and dopamine.

Breuning provides the reader a basic, comprehensible primer to the neuroscience of "happiness." Readers will come away from Habits of a Happy Brain understanding what dopamine is and what it does, how neural "circuits" are formed, and
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Tomas Laurinavicius
Jan 08, 2017 rated it really liked it
We have mammalian brain that is designed to seek survival. We're not meant to be happy but understanding emotional chemicals can help us become happier. Understanding serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin and endorphin will explain why it's natural to have emotional ups and downs. The author explains how to use habit theory to rewire our brain and produce happiness from within.
Elliedakota
Mar 02, 2018 rated it it was amazing
I am very familiar with neurons and neurotransmitters, it being a significant part of my job to lecture about them. However, relating them to behavior is more challenging. This book is practical and clear in that regard. I highlighted at least one passage on nearly every page.
Juli
Aug 07, 2018 rated it it was amazing
This book was exceptional in both enjoyability and usefulness.

The author, Loretta Graziano Breuning, has a smooth writing style that makes learning about neurochemistry fun and easy. She introduces you to each of the hormones of happiness, explains how they work, and guides you in establishing new habits that will release each one.

Breuning also has a gift for helping you understand that, in some ways, your brain is dependent on these hits, and will operate to get them (one way or another). She
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Madison Mega-Mara...: #55 Habits of a Happy Brain 1 5 Oct 20, 2016 12:43PM  

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Loretta Graziano Breuning, PhD is founder of the Inner Mammal Institute, which helps people get the best from their mammal brain. As Professor of Management at California State University, and as a mom, she learned to question the presumption that happiness is our natural default state. She learned from studying animals that unhappiness is part of our survival system, and happiness is a learned ...more
“When a monkey loses a banana to a rival, he feels bad, but he doesn't expand the problem by thinking about it over and over. He looks for another banana. He ends up feeling rewarded rather than harmed. Humans use their extra neurons to construct theories about bananas and end up constructing pain.” 3 likes
“Identifying a potential threat feels curiously good. You’re like a gazelle that smells a lion and can’t relax until it sees where the lion is. Seeing a lion feels good when the alternative is worse. We seek evidence of threats to feel safe, and we get a dopamine boost when we find what we seek. You can also get a serotonin boost from the feeling of being right, and an oxytocin boost from bonding with those who sense the same threat. This is why people seem oddly pleased to find evidence of doom and gloom. But the pleasure doesn’t last because the “do something” feeling commands your attention again. You can end up feeling bad a lot even if you’re successful in your survival efforts.” 2 likes
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