What is happiness from the point of view of psychology. How much people want to be happy

Happiness - one of the basic categories in philosophy, understood by this science as the highest good, a self-valuable and self-sufficient state of life. In psychology, as a science designed to help a person improve the quality of his own life through personal development, much attention is paid to the phenomenon of happiness. The psychology of happiness is known to few, but everyone needs it.

In fact, any appeal to psychological knowledge or to a professional psychologist has one super-goal - achieving personal happiness.

A person wants to get rid of shortcomings, solve intrapersonal or interpersonal conflict, build harmonious relationships in a couple, become more sociable, more creative, more self-confident, and much more for the sake of a single ultimate goal - to become happier.

Questions about what happiness is and how to become happy have arisen and arise in the mind of a person at different periods of life. Since ancient times, an infinite number of answers to these questions have accumulated.

Psychology defines happiness and as a momentary emotion, and as a lasting feeling, and as a constant state that corresponds to the greatest inner satisfaction with living conditions, a sense of its completeness and meaningfulness, combined with a sense of self-realization. Happiness is both a feeling of self-sufficiency and the ultimate goal of human activity.

Despite the fact that the feeling of happiness and the way it manifests itself is the same for all people, it is always subjectively... It is the same in form, it is different in content: for one person, happiness is a favorite job, for another it is love, for a third person a strong family is most important, a fourth dreams of untold wealth. For many people, happiness - this is when everything is excellent in all areas of life at once, this is a kind of balance and harmony of inner and outer life.

Linguists disagree and decipher in different ways the word "happiness"... Most often it is recognized as a derivative of the Proto-Slavic consonant word, or rather the phrase "good destiny" or "joint part", "complicity."

Indeed, happiness is rarely understood as a life in loneliness, more often, it presupposes the presence of a number of like-minded people, relatives, and loved ones. Altruism (selfless help, support, concern for the well-being of other people) is often "assigned" by psychologists to people who feel deeply unhappy.

One of the recipes for happiness: to feel happiness inside, you need to bring it into the outside world, make someone else happy. To be happy, you do not need to selfishly demand for yourself the good, care, attention, love, you need to disinterestedly give them to others.

No wonder the Russian language is considered one of the richest in meanings and even sacred. Depending on how you perceive the phrase "Happiness is", you can either go to look for him in the outside world, or understand that happiness already is within the personality.

The answer to the question of where to look for happiness: whether it is sent from above, is inside, or created by one's own labor - remains in the sphere of personal choice and responsibility of each person.

However, most psychologists agree that one can come to the realization of what happiness is and be able to find it only by self-knowledge and self-development... Taking on trust someone else's understanding of happiness is meaningless.

Awarenessits characteristics, needs, desires, goals, areas of development, vocation, suitable living conditions and other things helps to understand how to bring closer and create the very state when there is a feeling of complete satisfaction with life.

IN facial expressions and gestures happiness manifests itself in the same way in people of different sex, age, race. A happy man smiles and laughs, his eyes seem to glow from the inside, he keeps straight, relaxed, his movements are free, energetic, light.

Happy people:

• calm,
• balanced,
• pacified,
• optimistic,
• self-confident,
• purposeful,
• their emotions are mostly positive and their mood is good.

To paraphrase the beginning of the great novel by L.N. Tolstoy "Anna Karenina" we can say that all happy people similaragainst each other, each unhappy person is unhappy in his own way. Happy people really have a lot in common and similar in their lifestyle, outlook on the world, behavior, thinking, appearance, and so on, regardless of the reasons and content of their personal happiness.

Moreover, the same processes occur inside the body of all people, which cause the chemical reaction of happiness... In the human brain, as well as in the adrenal glands, hormones of happiness:

Depending on how much one or more of these hormones is missing, the mental effects can be minimal (decreased mood) or dire (mental disorder).

Lack of happiness hormones can summon endocrine, infectious, viral diseases and other negative environmental factors. Hormones of happiness "kill": stress, alcohol, nicotine, drugs, some medicines.

Loss of self-confidence, anxiety, apathy, depression and much more can be triggered by a lack of happiness hormones. If the condition is not too critical, you should not rush to take sedatives, it is better to eat "Products of happiness":

• chocolate,
• oranges,
• pineapples,
• bananas,
• strawberries,
• black currant.

Also improve chemistry of happiness such lessons like sports, healthy sleep, walks in the fresh air, aroma and art therapy, the joy of achieving a goal, strong emotions, caring for loved ones, and, undoubtedly, making love.

Happiness index

From 2006 to the present, at intervals of several years, the British Research Center New Economic Foundation, together with a number of other organizations, conducts a worldwide study. Purpose of the study - to show the effectiveness of the use of economic growth and natural resources by the governments of different countries of the world in order to ensure a happy life for their citizens.

Is a metric that measures the achievements of countries in terms of their ability to make people happy.

A longitudinal study that has been going on for more than a decade shows that in those countries where the emphasis is on the development and economic growth of the state, people are usually deeply unhappy!

Today the happiest people live in Costa Rica, Mexico and Colombia (these are the first three places on the list of the Happiness Index). For example, Great Britain ranks 34th in terms of happiness, France - 44th, Germany - 49, Ukraine - 70, Canada - 85, Belarus - 102, USA - 108, Russia - 116. The most unhappy countries are Togo, Luxembourg and Chad (138,139 and 140 places, respectively).

The wealth and prestige of a country does not make its inhabitants happier, and poverty does not mean unhappiness. It all depends on the mentality of the nation, on the ability of people to enjoy life, to pay attention to what is, and not what is lacking.

And not enough for happinessresidents of the post-Soviet space (based on the results of research by Russian scientists in 2011):

• money (47% of men and 40% of women answered),
• confidence in the future (25% of men and 27% of women),
• stability (25 and 20%, respectively),
• love (24 and 29%),
• travel (20 and 27%).

How to feel happiness

It is believed that skill being happy is either an innate talent or an acquired habit.

When there is no formed habit of enjoying life, happiness is a fleeting and short-term miracle that is realized after the fact.

Some people are particularly talented in their misfortune, like to revel in it, to benefit from it and even to brag, but there are people who decided be happy no matter what.

Unhappy people consider the lucky ones to be darlings of fate, lucky ones who have smiled at luck, not even guessing how much work it took them to learn and create personal happiness.

When a person gets used to feeling unhappy, he can independently give up happiness, brush it off. At its worst, unhappiness becomes a way of life and a tool for achieving goals. A conscious or unconscious train of thought may be something like this: "I will suffer on purpose, so that everyone understands how unhappy I am, so that they feel ashamed, then they will do whatever I want."

An unhappy person is unhappy not because something interferes with him or he cannot learn to enjoy life, but because his ideals, worldview, goals and values \u200b\u200bcontradict the possibility of happiness. It is difficult for him to stop complaining about fate, hiding his weakness, ignorance, unwillingness to work on improving his life, to refuse the benefits brought by misfortune.

To feel happiness:

• the first what needs to be done is to sincerely want it,
• second - to realize their right to happiness,
• third - create a habit of being happy.

Form a habit be happy:

• life "here and now", without fixation on the past and worry about the future;
• communication with happy people without envy and anger, but with a desire to learn happiness;
• the ability to notice the positive aspects and sides of anything;
• positive thinking and worldview;
• the ability to give close and loved ones kindness, attention, love;
• doing what you love;
• setting and achieving correctly defined goals;
• the ability to find happiness in small things, to enjoy elementary things, natural phenomena, activities;
• healthy lifestyle (proper nutrition, healthy sleep, keeping fit);
• laughter and smile, you need to smile not only with your lips, but also with your brain and soul;
• refusal to compare with other people;
• treating mistakes as a positive life experience;
• hobbies, creativity;
• acquisition of new knowledge, impressions, skills;
• outdoor recreation, travel.

Thus, happiness is cognized by a person through the disclosure of his inner potential and self-development, but is realized through a combination of reasonable egoism and pure altruism. Happiness - This is the most natural state of a person, which consists of a positive attitude towards oneself, the people around him and the world.

Happiness in terms of positive psychology.

Happiness is a state of lightness and a sense of the unprecedented significance of our existence.

It is a feeling of joyful fulfillment of being.

Each of us dreamed of happiness, as a lasting pleasure, explicitly or secretly. It may seem that happiness is just a myth, a gimmick to get us to work harder or consume more.

Happiness ... What is it and where does it come from? Are we able to hold on to it as it descends on us? And does it always turn out to be similar to how we imagine it? There is neither a universal definition of it, nor a well-defined path to it. That is why positive psychology set out to help each of us build our own happiness.

Dmitry Leontiev, Director of the Institute of Existential Psychology and Life Creativity, summarized the discoveries of modern science to make it easier for us to pave our path to happiness.

Happiness has been talked about and written about since Antiquity. But thinkers and scientists cannot agree on what happiness is and how to achieve it. It was declared both the main goal and the meaning of existence, and a harmful illusion that prevents a person from getting closer to the truth. Psychologists began to seriously study happiness only a quarter of a century ago. This is how positive psychology arose - the science of the good life, or, as it is often called, the science of happiness. And now we can talk about well-being, satisfaction, the joy of life, relying on experimental data and proven facts. Many of them force us to reconsider the generally accepted ideas ...

Overall life assessment

There is nothing more difficult than defining what happiness is. Some of us call happiness short-term, but very intense state of bliss, others - stable feeling of well-being; someone speaks of him as possession of something important or about a special feeling that does not depend on whether there are objective grounds for it ... If, however, we recognize as happiness such a life that we consider the most satisfying and positive, then the facts are indisputable: the happiest are not those who experience the most acute experiences of bliss , and those with a positive attitude are the most stable.

But objective "reasons" for happiness are not always found. Ursula Staudinger, a professor at the University of Bremen (Germany), calls it the paradox of subjective well-being - we are often happy despite the fact that there is no reason for this.

There is more happiness than we think

Even the happiest people get discouraged sometimes, and the most unhappy have delightful moments. Happiness does not arise due to us or circumstances, it obeys only its own logic, and perhaps that is why we tend to underestimate it.

American psychologists asked study participants to rate the level of happiness for those who are deprived of fate (disabled, unemployed, mentally ill, poor African American), and then compared the results with the reality. Most of the respondents believed that such people simply cannot be happy, but in fact it turned out that there are significantly more happy people among them than unhappy people!

In almost all countries and social groups, the average happiness score is well above zero. Even in the most unfavorable and difficult places to survive - in the African jungle, in the snows of Greenland and in the slums of Calcutta - the population is more likely than not happy.

Miscellaneous wellbeing

When talking about happiness, psychologists have in mind several of its varieties, explains Ed Diener, a leading specialist in positive psychology and professor at the University of Illinois (USA).

We usually use the word "happiness" as a general term, but it comes in many varieties.

We distinguish the quality of life (the level of well-being and other objective parameters of our life) and positive emotions, subjective and psychological well-being.

Subjective well-being is how happy a person is from his (subjective) point of view, how he values \u200b\u200bhis life. Subjective well-being means that we can say about ourselves: "I like my life.", "I feel like I'm living well." Subjective well-being involves a combination of life satisfaction and positive emotions.

Psychological well-being is a term coined by American psychologist Carol Rieff. Her model of psychological well-being suggests that, in addition to satisfying basic needs, a person also needs self-acceptance, autonomy, control over his environment, positive relationships, a goal in life and personal growth. In other words, psychological well-being assumes that a person is "fully functioning" psychologically, even if at the moment he does not feel happy.

Happiness depends on us, not on circumstances

What determines how happy we are? American psychologists Sonya Lubomirsky and Ken Sheldon summarized everything that is known to science in this regard, and presented it in the form of a circle divided into three parts of different sizes. The biggest ( 50 % ) - this influence our temperament, personality, that is heredity... Some of us from childhood feel generally happy, no matter what happens to them, while others find it difficult to feel that they are doing well. The smallest part ( about 10%) - this influence external circumstances, including the place where we live, the level of our income, the quality of education, belonging to a particular social circle. So, from the point of view of psychologists, going somewhere in pursuit of happiness is simply pointless. Finally, another big part ( 40% ) - how we ourselves build our lives: what goals we strive for, what people we communicate with, what activities we choose, what kind of life we \u200b\u200blead ...

So that our happiness depends on ourselves much more than we used to think!

Psychologist Ed Diener offers one of the easiest ways to assess your satisfaction with life.

Personal happiness test.

Using a scale of 1 to 7, express your degree of agreement with each of the five statements below.

Try to answer honestly and frankly.

1. In many ways, my life is close to my ideal.

2. The circumstances of my life are wonderful.

3. I am satisfied with my life.

4. In my life I have what I really need.

5. If I could live life anew, I would hardly change anything.

Now add up all five numbers, and you get the overall result: it should be between 5 and 35 points. This test shows how satisfied you are with your life. A score between 15 and 25 is considered average, a score below 14 means your life satisfaction is below average, and if your score is between 26 and 35, you are most likely quite happy with the way you live.

There is little happiness in money

Numerous studies prove that money does not make us happy. But why is this myth so persistent? Actually money brings happiness, but not for long... As the comparison of different countries and people of different incomes in the same countries shows, for poor people, happiness is directly related to material well-being, and this feeling increases with the growth of income. But when the basic needs of life are satisfied (there is a roof over their heads and medical care, a person does not starve, he can afford rest and give a good education to children), further income growth does not make people happier... In general, as wisely noted Sholem Aleichem, not so good with money, as bad without money.

And one more thing: people for whom money is especially important feel more unhappy than those who are philosophical about the material side of life.

When you are understood

This common belief, formulated in the film "We'll Live Until Monday" (directed by Stanislav Rostotsky, 1969), is confirmed in numerous studies of psychologists.

One of the surest foundations for happiness is close, warm, and deep relationships.: family, romantic, friendly. Married and married are definitely happier than single, divorced and widowed. But the very fact of registering a marriage does not lead to a persistent increase in the feeling of life satisfaction in comparison with the previous period. The point is still in the relationship itself, and not in the stamp in the passport.

The value of communicating with other people is one of the main theses of the science of happiness. Almost all of us feel happier with other people. The leaders of positive psychology, Ed Diener and Martin Seligman, found that students with a high (according to test results) level of happiness have only one thing in common - the presence of close relationships in their lives.

Genetic capital

Heredity is an important factor, but our “attitudes” cannot seriously prevent us from enjoying life.

It seems that some of us are born more predisposed to happiness than others. In 1996, American researcher David Lycken published an article on the role of heredity in determining the degree of life satisfaction. By studying identical twins, he concluded that life satisfaction is about 50% dependent on our genes. Indeed, the “settings” inherent in us from birth to some extent limit our capabilities, but how many of us have tried to go beyond the “default” limits? As the famous English writer wrote Gilbert Chesterton, fate is not what happens to us, no matter what we do, but what happens to us if we do nothing. Our inherited genes will not be able to prevent us from feeling happy if we decide to change something.

Different cultures see him differently.

A significant role is played by the fact how much we consider happiness to be necessary, necessary... This is primarily due to the characteristics of the culture, society and ideology in which we live, as well as the influence of fashion.

Western civilization in every possible way promotes the fashion for happiness, because of which people experiencing failures and hardships are simply afraid to admit them. In some countries, people feel happier than they should be based on objective parameters, while in others, on the contrary, the majority of the population feels unhappy people.

The former include, for example, China with a high level of mutual support of people, a habit of a difficult life and low expectations about their happiness, and latin American countrieswhere positive emotions are traditionally cultivated.

The second is rich Japanwhere it is difficult to maintain a positive outlook on life due to the strong pressure of social norms and requirements, and almost all countries of Eastern Europe and the former USSRwhere instability and destruction of the usual way of life affect people's self-awareness.

Russiain the 1990s and early 2000s, it was among the outsiders fortunately, being inferior, according to polls, even to such (economically more disadvantaged) countries as Uzbekistan and Bangladesh. To some extent, this is due to the fact that in our culture it is not customary to demonstrate your happiness and well-being. However, today 77% of Russians say that they feel they are happy people.

Prescription bliss?

Can modern pharmacology help us become happier? Neurologist Zinaida Kolesnikova's opinion.

“It is worth clarifying what drugs are in question. So, relanium, valium and others tranquilizers really can be called "pills of happiness". These drugs actively act on the nervous system, soothe, relieve stress, anxiety. A person relaxes, loses a sense of reality and begins to perceive everything in pink. Those who take these pills, risk get used to them pretty quickly and completely lose the taste for life.

Antidepressants, such as Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Fevarin, help people who live actively, work a lot and cannot cope with overloads - a consequence of their excessive employment. Antidepressants allow them to be calmer, to look at life more soberly, to adequately respond to what is happening, and not to splash emotions. But do they make a person happier? Unlikely: after all no pill can solve the problem of the emptiness of a person's existence, fill his life with meaning».

It is useful to be satisfied

The experience of happiness is wonderful in itself. But happy people find themselvesbesides professionally more successful, they are more appreciated by managers and clients, they are out of work less often and for a shorter period and change it less often. They are generally healthier and miss fewer days of work due to illness.

Happiness, as well as positive emotions, a sense of contentment, a sense of well-being and hope, reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and colds. In the same living conditions happy people live longer, have better immunity and are more likely to recover after a serious operation.

The conclusion about the connection between happiness and longevity was made as a result of an analysis of the lives of 18-year-old girls who entered one monastery. Subsequently, they led an equally modest life and all worked at school. It turned out that the level of happiness predetermines life expectancy. Based on the number of expressions of happiness in the girls' posts, the researchers identified a quarter of the happiest and a quarter of the most unhappy girls. 90% of the happiest nuns were still alive at 85 years old (among the unhappy - only 34%). 54% of the happiest nuns were still alive at 94 years old (among the unhappy - 11%).

Happy people are more altruistic, socially active, perceive others more kindly, and solve creative problems better. Generally, happiness, as science now knows, does not make us selfish; on the contrary, self-obsession and inattention to others is much more characteristic of those who are unhappy.

Happiness can grow

Each of us has an individual range of happiness: although life events affect the feeling of happiness, after a certain time, its level again returns to its starting point.

However, not everyone: possibly a sustained increase in individual happiness... Therefore, knowing the ways to increase the level of happiness, and applying them in our life, we can really become happier.

So happiness is possible. It is influenced by many factors, but it depends to a greater extent not on external circumstances, but on how we build our life... Ed Diener and Martin Seligman compare true happiness with beautiful symphonic music, where many instruments create the sound, but none of them alone are sufficient.

And everyone has their own way to happiness, unique and inimitable.

Based on materials from PSYCHOLOGIES magazine

There are people who are talented to be unhappy, there are people who are talented to be happy. In any case, you can develop your personal characteristics and skills that increase the predisposition to happiness.

Happiness as a skill

Being happy (strong or long) is something you can master. Like any skill, happiness presupposes (there is also the talent to be happy), skill development, skill formation ("I am already more confident in happiness") and the transition of the skill to.

Until there is a developed skill, happiness as an experience of joy is accidental, unstable and situational. In an unsuccessful scenario, the skill, skill and habit of being unhappy can be developed.

Successfully, happiness as a way of being becomes a habit. "Happiness is not a difficult goal, but a natural way to get around."

If you do not know how to be long and very happy, you do not have to seriously set difficult goals that promise your short-term happiness. Learn to be not only successful, but also able to be happy!

The ability to be happy includes:

• possession of the technique of mental insurance and other techniques that increase mental stability,
• active use of the keys of happiness.

Personality and happiness

How much people want to be happy

On a word level, people say they want to be happy. As soon as it starts, people, it turns out, want something different, more important to them, and:

• They give up in favor of something more important or interesting (for money, TV, not to strain or sleep).
• Make themselves unhappy for the sake of certain

There is no universal definition of happiness, the same for representatives of all countries and cultures, and even the words for "happiness" in different languages \u200b\u200bhave different meanings. However, happiness is actually even more subjective.

From the point of view of cognitive sciences, you cannot develop a reliable methodology that would allow you to study what happiness is, because for each person it depends on different factors. Measurable only certain aspects of our behavior and emotional state, but, perhaps, they can provide a clue to what processes occur in the brain of a happy person.

Our good mood is governed by individual stimuli that can cause different intensities of positive emotions in different people (from mild joy to euphoria). Therefore, it is almost impossible to systematically study the brain of a happy person in order to answer the question what happiness is.

For someone, happiness is wealth, for someone it is love, and someone will say that happiness lies in having a purpose in life.

The subjective experience of happiness, however, can be divided into two relatively objective components: emotional (the intensity of good and bad emotions) and cognitive (the integrity of our consciousness). Thus, the “recipe” for a happy life includes two components: positive emotions (and, in particular, the absence of negative emotions) and a sense of meaningfulness of what is happening in the world around us and with ourselves. Below we will focus mainly on the first of them.

Pleasure Lever

Emotion is a mental state (positive or negative) that is largely responsible for a complex set of brain structures - the limbic system (which is also responsible for regulating more basic human functions, such as smell and circadian rhythms). In simple terms, emotion is a person's reaction to a certain external (from the outside world) or internal (for example, mental) stimulus and to what this stimulus may follow.

Negative emotions, such as fear or disgust, can be easily traced in the human brain: the amygdala, or amygdala, is responsible for them. And if fear and disgust are basic emotions developed in the process of evolution, then with positive emotions everything is much more complicated.

Psychologists have long believed Towards a functional neuroanatomy of pleasure and happiness.that positive emotions are largely associated with having fun.

In order to trace the processes taking place in the brain of a happy or happy person, scientists study the emotional response of a happy person.

Research on pleasure and the neural correlates associated with receiving pleasure has its origins in the experiments of early 20th century behaviorists. The object of studying behaviorism as a direction of psychology is behavior, in particular - the behavior of an individual as a reaction to a certain stimulus (external or internal). A famous experiment carried out by American behavioral psychologists James Olds and Peter Milner in 1954 led to the discovery of an important part of the brain, which they called the "pleasure center."

The experiment involved rats that were sitting in a special box Skinner's box. with electrodes implanted in the limbic system. Scientists wanted to find out what reaction of an individual would lead to stimulation of different parts of this area. Low shocks of current were launched across the electrodes each time the rat entered a certain corner of the cage.

Skinner's box

The researchers found that when stimulated, the rat returned to the corner over and over again. Later, scientists tested whether the effect would persist if the animal was responsible for receiving the reward itself, and gave him the opportunity to receive stimulation by pressing a lever. The rat, ignoring the actions necessary for survival, pressed the lever until it died of exhaustion.

Based on this, Olds and Milner concluded that brain stimulation produced pleasure in mice, and that the electrical stimulus itself was a good positive reinforcement. Two areas of the brain that are subject to stimulation have been named by scientists as part of a large collection of brain structures called "pleasure centers": the septal region adjacent to the corpus callosum, and a small part of the striatum - the nucleus accumbens.

Subsequently, experiments with implanting electrodes into the brain in the region of the "pleasure center" were tried to be carried out in humans (the psychology of the 60s was not very ethical by today's standards), but this practice was soon abandoned. Later, the study of "pleasure centers" led to the discovery of a substance released in the brain in the process of obtaining pleasure - dopamine.

There are several “pleasure centers” in the brain: in addition to the above-mentioned parts of the limbic system, scientists also distinguish some parts of the cerebral cortex (for example, the orbitofrontal cortex and insular lobe). The exact functions of each have not yet been established. In addition, "pleasure centers" are most often viewed as parts of a more complex system - a collection of brain structures called the reward system. Such a system is responsible for several aspects related to receiving a reward: the desire for a pleasant stimulus, positive emotions (pleasure) in response to a pleasant stimulus, and the reinforcement of the behavior that led to the receipt of this stimulus.

Molecules of happiness

Several neurotransmitters are responsible for receiving pleasure in the brain - chemicals that transmit a signal between two neurons through a synapse, the point of contact between two neurons. We will cover the properties and functions of the most basic ones.

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter from the monoamine group, a biochemical precursor of norepinephrine. Dopamine has several very different functions, including control over motor and executive (cognitive) activity. Dopamine is also a neurotransmitter involved in activating the reward system.

The neurons of the "pleasure centers" release dopamine in the process of reaction to a certain stimulus pleasant for a person, as well as to the anticipation of receiving it.

The stimulus can be anything: sexual, sensory, external, internal. It may be food, or it may be the face of a loved one. Everything that pleases us gives us pleasure; pleasure, in turn, evokes joy.

Another important neurotransmitter involved in the formation of positive emotions is serotonin... Like dopamine, serotonin comes from the monoamine group. Among the functions for which the production of serotonin is responsible, in addition to regulating mood, are memory and sleep.

Dysfunction of serotonergic pathways is one of the causes of clinical depression and anxiety - a kind of "antonym" of happiness. That is why many antidepressants work on the principle of inhibiting serotonin reuptake: in a mentally unhealthy brain, the production of serotonin as a neurotransmitter slows down, and such drugs are able to restore this process.

Another group of neurotransmitters, endorphins, refers to neuropeptides that act on opioid receptors. Neuropeptides are produced in response to stress as a defense mechanism and also to reduce pain. Some opioids (such as morphine and its analogs) also act on opioid receptors and cause the same response, from pain relief to euphoria. That is why, in pursuit of easy happiness, people begin to use opioid drugs.

The feeling of euphoria from drugs is available only for the first time, then their use is necessary to relieve withdrawal symptoms, or simply "withdrawal".

Also worth noting endocannabinoid neurotransmittersfor example anandamide and 2-arachidonoylglycerol. They are involved in controlling stress responses and regulating the level of arousal. Cannabinoids, the active ingredients in the cannabis from which marijuana is derived, also act on cannabinoid receptors.

Neuropeptide oxytocin, produced in the hypothalamus, is responsible for establishing social bonds and developing warm, positive emotions towards someone. Thus, oxytocin is released in large quantities during childbirth, which contributes to the establishment of a strong bond between the mother and the baby, and also helps the mother during the feeding process. In small amounts, oxytocin is also released during orgasm, so it is believed to play an important role in sexual pleasure.

Finally, the last neurotransmitter we'll look at is norepinephrine (also known as norepinephrine) is a monoamine that is a precursor to adrenaline. This neurotransmitter, along with adrenaline, plays an important role in the regulation of fear and other negative emotions, increases blood pressure and heart rate, and is also the main neurotransmitter responsible for the body's stress response.

For many, stress is associated with negative emotions, and a happy life under constant stress seems impossible. Does this mean that excess norepinephrine production is a barrier to happiness? Definitely not. Some people find their happiness under constant stress: these include both extreme sports and gambling enthusiasts and those for whom the main joy in life is constant work.

Gamma-aminobutyric acid (abbreviated as GABA), the main inhibitory ("inhibitory") neurotransmitter, whose main function is to reduce nervous excitability, also helps control the stress response. GABA receptors are affected by benzodiazepines, psychoactive substances that have anti-anxiety and sedation. Benzodiazepines are found in many drugs prescribed for the treatment of anxiety and panic disorders.

More recently, in 2012, the Swedish scientist Hugo Lövheim proposed A new three-dimensional model for emotions and monoamine neurotransmitters. a three-dimensional model of the relationship between the combined action of three monoamines - dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine - and the manifestation of emotions, called the "emotional cube". According to this model, joy and satisfaction are caused by high levels of dopamine and serotonin and low levels of norepinephrine, while feelings of anxiety and sadness, on the contrary, are caused by high levels of norepinephrine and low levels of the other two. However, in order for a person to experience excitement or excitement, all three monoamines must be produced in large quantities.

Chemistry and will

Different psychoactive substances affect the release of different emotional mediators: for example, cocaine affects the metabolism of dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine, and nicotine can take part in the metabolism of dopamine. The effects of these substances, however, are short-lived, dangerous and are known to lead to addiction.

However, there are also less radical methods of direct action on receptors associated with the work of various neurotransmitters. Exercise, for example, increases Effects of exercise and physical activity on depression. the action of β-endorphins, thereby improving mood.

Increased physical activity can even serve as a good prevention of depression.

Areas of the brain containing dopaminergic neurons are activated Intensely pleasurable responses to music correlate with activity in brain regions implicated in reward and emotion., for example, among people who enjoy listening to music.

Today we can say with confidence that those branches of the cognitive sciences that are responsible for the study of complex emotional states (and happiness belongs to them) are still in the process of development. Many psychologists, in particular Oxford University professor Morten Kringelbach, try The Functional Neuroanatomy of Pleasure and Happiness. trace the systematic connection between receiving pleasure and happiness and identify neural correlates responsible for a happy life and good mood.

Kringelbach and his colleague, American psychologist Kent Berridge, distinguish three components of the work of the reward system: "liking", which is responsible for the objective, "chemical" response of a person to a stimulus; "Wanting", which is responsible for the volitional effort of a person to receive an incentive; and “learning”, which is responsible for building associations associated with receiving stimulus.

The "inclination" to receive a stimulus, being satisfied, provides us with pleasure, but pleasure alone is not enough for happiness. The “desire” of the stimulus provides motivation to receive it, that is, this component brings a goal into our life, but only “desire”, without being restrained, leads to dependence on the incentive. Learning links the two and encourages us to find ways to have fun again.

Happiness, according to Kringelbach and Berridge, boils down to a balance of three components: "inclination", "desire" and "learning."

However, how to achieve this balance, scientists do not write. :(

Thus, modern neuroscience can only give us an idea of \u200b\u200bone component of happiness - a positive emotional response to a stimulus. The second component - a sense of meaningfulness of what is happening, the presence of a goal in life - is a rather philosophical question and at the moment is beyond the scope of systematic objective study.