What exactly is happiness? This term, although popularly used, doesn’t have a subjective meaning as its definition is extremely subjective. Nevertheless, we all strive to be “happy”, whatever that may mean for each individual. According to the Britannica Dictionary, “Happiness in psychology, a state of emotional well-being that a person experiences either in a narrow sense, when good things happen in a specific moment, or more broadly, as a positive evaluation of one’s life and accomplishments overall—that is, subjective well-being”(Britannica). This brings the question of how we can cultivate a positive evaluation of our lives? With various mental illnesses such as depression or anxiety on the rise, it is crucial to ask these questions so that our society can understand how to halt this rapid increase. Working towards one’s ultimate goal of happiness is not an easy feat, but neuroscientists and psychologists have investigated the functional neuroanatomy of happiness and pleasure. Allowing people to take a scientific route of understanding happiness and work towards potential theories can be groundbreaking for the mental wellbeing of many.
Mental health appears to be such a strong priority in the United States, yet, it remains a significant struggle for many. Upon being diagnosed, people often still go through relapses and struggle with issues such as depression. In “ Regulating Positive Emotions: Implications for Promoting Well-Being in Individuals With Depression”, researchers looked into potentially shifting the focus of depression therapy to include focusing on the regulation of positive emotions. Individuals with depression often deal with issues regulating both their positive and negative emotions, yet therapy mainly focuses on negative emotion regulation. So what about positive emotional regulation? The article discusses how a key factor of being happy is being able to regulate positive emotions, as the various benefits that come with being emotionally positive include improved levels of, “sleep quality, increased exercise, and lower levels of cortisol as well as decreased levels of depression and pain resilience” (Silton et al. 93). Research has pointed towards a lack of positive emotional regulation resulting in a lack of “frequency, duration, intensity, and quality of positive emotions” (Silton et al. 94). The impact of understanding how to regulate one’s positive emotions is dramatic, with it having polar effects when included versus not included. So what is the science behind emotional regulation and being an overall happier individual?
Being happy often is a complex emotion, with part of it dealing with a lack of negative emotion and the other aspect dealing with an influx of positive emotion. In the study “The Neuroscience of Happiness and Pleasure”, researchers have driven into what networks of the brain and involved neurotransmitters contribute to an increase of positive emotion. Two highly relevant factors to one’s happiness in cognitive terms are their levels of reward and pleasure. There are a handful of brain circuits that are associated with an individual's reward and pleasure levels, some being the OFC, ACC, NAc, and amygdala. Although the brain has an extensive array of circuitry that deals with one’s reward level, there are not nearly as many mechanisms involved. Scattered throughout the brain are “hedonic hotspots'' that generate positive reactions to pleasures. These hotspots are found in the “nucleus accumbens shell and ventral pallidum, and possibly other forebrain and limbic cortical regions, and also in deep brainstem regions, including the parabrachial nucleus in the pons'' (Kringelbach and Berridge). Research also points to the midanterior subregion of the orbitofrontal cortex as a significant coder of the pleasure experience. Although researchers have not been able to clearly discover all of the brain regions that are essential for pleasure that get disrupted by anhedonia, there is a possibility that the ventral pallidum may be linked to a lack of happiness and pleasure. Researchers have gotten to this conclusion through conducting studies whereas a result of damage to the ventral pallidum, one’s capacity for positive hedonic reactions was abolished (Kringelback and Berridge). Now that we understand key factors of maintaining one’s happiness as well as the science behind it, how can we implement methods in treatment and in our daily lives to cultivate more happiness?
Savoring is key. Savor the moments of love in your lives. Savor the moments of happiness in your lives. Savor the bright moments of your lives. By properly savoring positive moments in one’s life, there can be more happiness cultivated from a single moment, allowing someone to fully absorb the positive energy. In the reading, “Regulating Positive Emotions: Implications for Promoting Well-Being in Individuals With Depression”, the researchers discuss how savoring moments goes hand in hand with “poly regulation and can involve activating a variety of cognitive and behavioral emotion regulation strategies (e.g., amplification or positive rumination) that increase frequency, intensity, and duration of positive feelings” (Silton et al. 94). By increasing positive feelings, one can decrease emotions that deal with anhedonia, which can lead people to reaching higher happiness levels as a whole. Savoring can be practiced in various ways, with people savoring moments through sharing with others, congratulating oneself, building memories, expressing behaviors, counting blessings, expressing behavior, and avoiding killjoy thinking (Silton et al. 95). By savoring moments, one is able to enjoy the sweetness of a happy moment and therefore continue to generate more positive reactions to the pleasures of life. Through working to savor moments in one’s life, an individual can develop better savoring skills, leading to an overall decrease of negative emotions. The presented reading also suggests other methods of increasing one’s happiness levels, one being mindful meditation practices. Research points to the practice of mindful meditation resulting in an increased capacity for positive emotions. Mindfulness is theorized to help increase positive emotions through broadening “cognitive scope, which in turn bolsters the capacity for savoring” (Silton et al. 95). Next time you are experiencing an amazing day, make sure to savor it. If your day frees up and you have extra time, take a moment to slow down and meditate. Incorporating these steps into a lifestyle allows us to take in the world more and as a result, increased positive emotions will stem.
As we continue to look towards understanding happiness more and work to achieve our goals of happiness, it is important to implement these methods on one’s lifestyle. Although happiness does not have a subjective definition, we are all human beings that strive towards positivity in our lives. Learning more about the processes that underlie happiness from a neuronal perspective gives us the opportunity not only to understand ourselves more but also achieve mental health goals quicker and easier.
Resources:
Kringelbach, M. L., & Berridge, K. C. (2010). The Neuroscience of Happiness and Pleasure. Social research, 77(2), 659–678.
Silton, R. L., Kahrilas, I. J., Skymba, H. V., Smith, J., Bryant, F. B., & Heller, W. (2020). Regulating positive emotions: Implications for promoting well-being in individuals with depression. Emotion, 20(1), 93–97. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000675
