Hormones have a few roles to play in the body. One thing they can do is to enhance your mood and emotions; as the body’s primary chemical messengers, hormones and neurotransmitters are necessary for happiness. It is a proven fact that some hormones can make people happier. That’s why they are called happy hormones. You can derive joy and fun from several things with enough of these, including playing Book of Ra Deluxe. To understand the happy hormones further, read on.
Which Body Hormones Are Considered Happy?
From your biology class, you’ve already known how to define a hormone. You may not know that each hormone in your body was designed to serve a unique purpose. More to the point, hormone levels tend to fluctuate. Hormones that cause happiness should be at high levels all the time. Your endocrine system makes all hormones, and the pituitary gland in the brain controls their levels.
It includes the hormones that regulate your mood, pleasure, and bonding. These stay in your brain’s CNS (central nervous system). They don’t travel via the bloodstream to various organs and tissues. Different hormones produce happiness and an overall better mood. These are:
- Serotonin – This hormone is an essential stabilizer of our moods. It can boost our happiness and overall health.
- Dopamine – This is a hormone that causes pleasure. It is indeed the authentic feel-good hormone. When people abuse drugs or drink alcohol, they trigger the production of more dopamine. It creates that euphoric feeling that these people cannot get enough of.
- Oxytocin – This hormone is associated with feelings of love and trust. It can trigger bonding too.
Serotonin controls moods and other things. However, researchers have found that increasing its levels does not help a depressed person feel better. On the other hand, dopamine keeps you alive, alert, and happy. Just like serotonin, it has several other tasks it does in the brain. If something is wrong with the system that produces dopamine, some health problems can emerge.
For instance, your brain’s motivation and reward system can be ruined. Memory, attention, decision making, impulse control, motor control, cognitive function, and related things can all be lost. Dopamine is very responsible for happy moods and sensations. Naturally, the system produces dopamine when something good to be enjoyed, such as food, beverage, or intercourse.
As with serotonin, at least half your dopamine hormone levels are made in the stomach. Hence, it would help if you took proper care of your gut’s microbiome to boost your mental health and increase your brain’s dopamine levels. Unlike serotonin levels that can be increased by eating particular foods, dopamine levels don’t depend on diet.
Oxytocin is a hormone that causes cuddling and bonding. It stimulates contractions in the uterus during childbirth. Oxytocin can also help regulate how you respond to stress by calming down your nerves. It is thought to enhance relationships between men and women. High levels of oxytocin in the blood have been associated with a heightened sense of gratitude and responsiveness between lovers. It is produced as a reaction to touch or direct eye contact. Oxytocin is also produced when you are profoundly depressed, and your body is producing high levels of a bad hormone called cortisol. It counters the side effects of cortisol.
When the levels of these hormones are low, you will have a clumsy mood and day. Experts think that happy hormone levels are affected by your environment, exercise routine, diet, relationships, wellbeing, and other personal things. When these are not all right, these hormones’ levels will go down, and you will have bad moods. You should influence and change your moods to have higher levels of happy hormones.