Ever wonder why we get a warm feeling when we come home? Or why laughter makes us feel so good? Or why, even though exercise is good for us, so many of us tend to avoid it?
If so, you may want to pick up Dean Burnettâs book Happy Brain: Where Happiness Comes From, and Why. Burnett, a neuroscientist and standup comic, explores some of the inner workings of our brains to reveal how our neural networks support us in experiencing happiness so we can move forward in life and love.
Neuroscience is a fascinating field, but, as Burnett warns, itâs also a relatively new science, and many of its âfindingsâ are exploratory in nature rather than conclusive. He points to the expense of running fMRI studies, which limits the number of study participants and the certainty about results. And, as so much of our brain activity can be influenced by individual personalities or environmental circumstances, itâs hard to make any grand proclamations about what happiness looks like in the brain.
Add to that some pretty weird anomaliesâlike the neurotransmitter serotonin, which modulates mood, being produced primarily by our gut bacteriaâand it becomes clear that we donât understand everything about our brains and happiness. Much of it may be out of our conscious control.
âJust embrace the important point: The things that influence our brainâs ability to make us happy extend far beyond just our experiences and personal preferences,â warns Burnett.
Inside the happy brain
Instead of a grand summary, Burnett seems bent on meandering through neuroscience, following unexpected tangents, pointing out incongruent findings, and taking us through some unusual territory.
For example, I hadnât thought much about the influence of âhomeâ on our brains. Why do we feel good when we enter our house at the end of the day or feel nostalgic for it when we leave? This has to do with the connection between home and safety, and the fact that our brains have evolved to help us recognize and enjoy things that are biologically relevant to us through the release of feel-good hormones. It also explains why we get homesicknessâit can be dangerous to be far from home, so our brains let us know thatâand why we donât always have a sound sleep the first night away from homeâto keep us vigilant in our strange, potentially unsafe surroundings.
But how do we know âhomeâ from ânot homeâ? Burnett writes about âboundary cellsâ in our brains and how they activate when we get to environmental boundariesâlike a river at the edge of our property, or a door to the outside of our houseâand help us recognize our safety zones. Though we need to go beyond these boundaries to exploreâand curiosity is a relevant biological drive, tooâwe will feel less anxious exploring if we have a safety zone to retreat to (aka home).
Burnett goes on to explain how work, laughter, love, lust, and our age all impact happiness, too, and how thatâs mapped in the brain. For example, humor happens when we find something unexpected and incongruentâlike an elephant shopping in a supermarketâand can resolve whatâs going on by âgettingâ the joke or solving the puzzle. Perhaps because the ability to come up with novel solutions is a survival skill, our brains reward this activity with the pleasant feeling of being amused. And we have parts of our brains devoted to understanding jokesânamely, the temporal, occipital, and parietal lobes, from which laugher apparently originates.
The book is full of fun tidbits like this, too numerous to name them all. But they help explain things like why we might fall in love with someone who isnât necessarily good for us and be blind to their flaws, and why something that makes us happy in our adolescence doesnât move us nearly as much in adulthood.
Not all the things that make us feel good are benign, unfortunately, and the book also explores some of the darker findings around happinessâlike schadenfreude, our pleasure at anotherâs misfortune, and the desire to put others down to make ourselves feel good. Clearly, the reward systems in our brains are not always kind toward others, which is important, if distressing, to know.
If youâre expecting a neat formula about what makes you happy, you wonât find it here. Still, there is at least one take-home message from the book: Other people are central to our happiness. As a highly social species, we are finely tuned to how others feel and think about us, and our brains are well-equipped to read whatâs going on in our social environment and reward or punish us accordingly. People influence every aspect of our happiness: If we get along with our boss or coworker, weâre likely to find joy in our work; and if we have a troubled marriage, coming home will bring tension rather than happiness.
âIf you held a gun to my head and insisted that I identify the overarching theme that connects everything Iâve found out about how the brain deals with happiness, itâs that so much of what makes us happy depends on other people,â admits Burnett. Which suggests we should cherish our relationships and try to make them workâa âkey to happinessâ that even Burnett might endorse.
source https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/where_does_happiness_reside_in_the_brain