PDF Summary:Habits of a Happy Brain, by Loretta Graziano Breuning

While most people spend their lives chasing happiness, their efforts are often counterproductive. In Habits of a Happy Brain, Loretta Breuning explains that our brains evolved to promote our ancestors’ survival by triggering “happy” chemicals to reward behaviors like eating and hunting for food. In modern times, we’ve replaced those effort-based rewards with quick fixes—such as binge-eating candy or chips—that offer instant gratification but leave us unfulfilled. Over time, these quick fixes become habits that are difficult to break. However, there’s hope: Breuning says that by understanding how your brain achieves happiness, you can rewire it to build positive, sustainable happiness habits instead.

In this guide, we’ll discuss the brain chemistry of happiness, how harmful happiness-seeking patterns develop, and Breuning’s methods for building and maintaining healthier happiness habits. In commentary, we’ll supplement Breuning’s arguments and recommendations with research and additional sources on happiness and productivity, like That Little Voice in Your Head by Mo Gawdat.

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However, Breuning explains that overcoming quick-fixes and replacing them with healthy happiness habits isn’t hopeless—you can do so using two tools: repetition and emotional experiences.

Repetition helps build new neural connections in two ways. First, it forms synapses (the connections between neurons) and allows them to transmit signals more efficiently. If we think of neural pathways as a neighborhood postal service, neurons as postal workers, and synapses as streets, increasing synaptic efficiency is akin to having well-laid-out streets that let postal workers deliver mail quickly. Low synaptic efficiency could prevent or delay the mail delivery. Emotional experiences help build neural connections because they can form synapses instantly—however, these synapses must be maintained through repetition or they’ll diminish.

Second, the brain’s number of neural connections and receptors increases and decreases based on how often they’re used. Increasing neural connections is like adding more postal workers to the network, making it even faster to send mail. Receptors are like mailboxes—they’re the gates where the neurons’ signals (pieces of mail) arrive. The more gates there are, the more signals can arrive to be translated into thoughts and feelings. This helps you better process your emotions, and it creates more “gates” where happiness can be received.

How Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Restructures Neural Networks

Cognitive Behavioral Theory (CBT) relies on repetition to rewire neural networks according to the process Breuning discusses to help people overcome problematic thoughts, behaviors, and actions—the foundation of emotional experiences. Rather than undergoing the process on your own, in CBT, you have the help of a therapist. CBT not only rewires your neural biology; it aims to regulate neurotransmitters (like your happy chemicals), providing you with more stable thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, and helping you overcome patterns that cause you unhappiness. In particular, CBT aims to regulate:

1. Acetylcholine, which in overabundance can cause anxiety and depression, and when deficient, can cause difficulty with spatial awareness, mental calculation, and recognition.

2. Dopamine, which in overabundance can lead to paranoia, agitation, hyperactivity, and impulsivity, and when deficient, can lead to hopelessness, anger, dread, low self-esteem, and irritability.

3. Norepinephrine, which helps regulate cognition, motivation, intellect, and executive functioning.

4. Serotonin, which can cause insomnia, depression, and unhappiness in low levels and anxiety, rapid heart rate, twitches, and poor coordination in high levels.

5. Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid, an antihypersensitive, antidiabetic, and antidepressant.

How to Produce Happiness Chemicals with Good Habits

Now that we know how to form new neural connections that lead to happiness, Breuning recommends a number of healthy behaviors you can start practicing to produce each of the four happiness chemicals and form positive habits over 45 days.

Producing Endorphin

Breuning recommends four strategies to produce endorphin, the chemical linked to increasing pleasure and reducing physical pain:

1. Incorporate things into your life that make you laugh—the kind of laughter that has your shoulders shaking. For example, singing karaoke with your friends.
2. Allow yourself to cry when the urge arises—not only will this release the tension from cortisol, but the exertion will also release endorphin.
3. Find new ways to exercise so you’re using new muscles rather than straining the same ones—this will release small amounts of endorphin.
4. Stretching daily can help release endorphin, and because it feels good, it gives you something to look forward to.

(Shortform note: Experts reiterate Breuning’s methods for increasing endorphin and provide a few additional methods you may want to incorporate into your routine. For example, acupuncture can activate certain pressure points in the body that release endorphin, and spending time under ultraviolet light (like sunlight) releases endorphin in the skin. Further, experts note that watching a dramatic movie can stir up your emotions and help release endorphin in a similar way to crying, and taking a warm bath may produce similar effects to stretching by releasing tension in your muscles.)

Producing Dopamine

Breuning offers three healthy strategies to produce dopamine, the chemical linked most closely with fulfillment and satisfaction.

1. Divide goals and tasks into small steps and take action. Spending a few minutes a day working toward a larger goal produces dopamine from a sense of accomplishing the task and through the anticipation of your goal getting closer. This is especially true if the task is something you were dreading.
2. Keep adjusting your goals—for example, if your goal is to work on something for an hour each day, it may be difficult at first, but eventually it will be easy. When this happens, it will stop feeling like an achievement, and you’ll need to alter your goal to be a bit more difficult.
3. Consistently acknowledge small achievements—for example, waking up on time and eating a healthy breakfast. You can accomplish these small achievements daily to regularly produce dopamine.

(Shortform note: Keeping a daily “small wins journal” or app you can look at will remind you of your goals and the progress you’ve made so far, encouraging you to continue. Likewise, in Building a Second Brain, Tiago Forte recommends creating an external storage system—a digital platform—to help you break down big goals and continuously pursue success, as Breuning recommends. Such a system should contain different folders dedicated to facilitating progress through each stage of achieving your goals. For example, your “current goals” folder is where you’ll list the goals you’re working on and brainstorm how to break those goals into smaller, achievable tasks.)

Producing Serotonin

Breuning discusses four strategies to healthily produce serotonin, the chemical connected to feelings of self-worth:

1. Take pride in yourself and express that pride to others, rather than seeking approval. This will reinforce your self-worth while simultaneously earning respect from others.
2. Look for ways you’ve influenced others rather than ways you’re better than they are. Breuning says to be especially careful not to take pride in being better than others as this creates negative energy.
3. Enjoy whatever social position you’re in at the moment. Social status is always changing, and there are pros and cons for each position. If you’re in a position where you’re in control, enjoy your power of choice and the respect you get from others. If you’re a subordinate, enjoy taking a step back and not having as much responsibility and pressure.
4. Lower stress by letting go of your need for control. Breuning says to identify your control-seeking habits and do the opposite. If you need to have an exact plan every time you meet friends, let others plan or be OK with not having a plan. This will produce more serotonin by helping you feel safe even when you’re not completely in control.

The Dangers of Social Status: Pride and Control

While Breuning goes into some of the dangers of leveraging social status to boost your serotonin, other authors go into more specifics about how to avoid the pitfalls associated with climbing the social ladder: being too prideful and trying to control others.

While expressing pride in yourself and enjoying your social position can boost serotonin, taking these behaviors too far can lead to an attitude of superiority. In High Performance Habits, Brendon Burchard provides a few warning signs that you’re falling into this mentality—for example, thinking things like “I’m better than those around me,” “Others should admire me,” “No one can understand me,” or “I don’t need others’ feedback.” While Breuning says you can avoid these feelings of superiority by looking for ways you’ve influenced others, this might not be enough in itself. Instead, Burchard recommends avoiding superiority by practicing humility.

On the topic of overcoming your need for control, Breuning offers the general advice of doing the opposite of your control-seeking habits, but Oliver Burkeman offers a few more targeted strategies in Meditations for Mortals. He writes that you can release control by changing how you perceive and interact with the world. One strategy is to stop magnifying situations—strive for consistency over perfection, and stop trying to control how other people feel. Further, embrace resonance—learn what you can from your experiences and see the unpredictability of life as a blessing rather than a curse. Finally, be compassionate toward yourself and others.

Producing Oxytocin

Finally, Breuning offers four strategies to help produce oxytocin, the chemical linked to social bonding:

1. Practice simple trust. Building deep, trusting relationships is a complex process, but in the meantime, you can practice smaller acts of trust like interacting with pets, online friends, or random patrons of a coffee shop. When you have these interactions, take notice of the positive feelings you experience to boost your oxytocin production.
2. Take small steps to build trusting relationships with people around you. For example, offer your difficult neighbor a smile every day until you eventually feel comfortable enough to start a conversation, gradually interacting more until you establish a level of trust.
3. Go out of your way to create opportunities for others to trust you. Giving a passing smile is easy, but going out of your way to offer your neighbor a burger from your barbecue is a more effortful sign of goodwill.
4. Learning to trust others by cautiously extending trust to new people and checking that your trust is warranted—did your trust in others get the results you were looking for? Verifying your trust will help you grow more comfortable extending reasonable trust outside of your circle, and more trust equals more oxytocin.

Building and Navigating Trust

In The Speed of Trust, Stephen M.R. Covey offers additional tips on how to build trusting relationships. One is to always be authentic to give people reasons to trust you, as Breuning recommends. This requires you to be transparent about your intentions and motivations, and also to be willing to discuss uncomfortable topics. For example, if your roommate isn’t properly washing dishes, lightheartedly bring up the issue and share that your intention is to avoid future problems while making sure things are hygienic.

Covey also recommends extending trust cautiously by anticipating the potential risks of doing so and safeguarding yourself against them until you know the person is trustworthy. For example, if you’re doing business with a new person, rather than immediately trusting them to do a job perfectly, anticipate areas where they might need feedback or support, and make sure you’re there to help when necessary. This will ensure the job gets done correctly, and you’ll know you can trust them to do the job correctly in the future.

How to Maintain Happiness

Breuning explains that rewiring your neural pathways to establish healthy methods for seeking happiness requires more than just repetition and emotional experiences. You must also overcome obstacles that prevent you from taking action to be happy, and find ways to make happiness a natural part of your inner landscape.

Overcoming Obstacles

Breuning explains that rewiring your neural pathways requires anticipating and overcoming obstacles that could throw you off track. When you start to rewire your neural pathways, you need to make a plan for which happiness-seeking habits you want to form and practice daily. However, there are a number of natural obstacles you might face that could disrupt your momentum and throw you off course.

The first obstacle Breuning discusses is the inability to make choices that support your effort to develop healthy habits. Breuning explains that there will be many dichotomous opportunities for happiness that will arise, and you’ll have to choose one or the other—long-term rewards versus short-term rewards, familiarity versus new experiences, or independence versus being provided for. In each case, you can’t always have both, so you’ll have to sacrifice one opportunity for another. She emphasizes that there’s no inherent right or wrong answer to the dichotomies you’ll face. The key to making the right choice is to weigh the pros and cons of each and decide which is more beneficial—don’t act solely on impulse.

(Shortform note: In The Squiggly Career, Helen Tupper and Sarah Ellis explain that having clear core values is one of the best ways to ensure you make effective decisions—especially when you’re faced with dichotomies in which it’s hard to choose between options. Core values act as a beacon guiding you in the right direction—if something aligns with your values, do it, and if it doesn’t, it’s not the choice for you. For example, if one of your core values is “learning new things” and you have to choose between attending a conference or staying home with your family, your core value will indicate that attending the conference is the right choice.)

Breuning also discusses barriers that could hold you back—false beliefs that impact your ability to implement new habits. These can be either internal or external. Internal barriers are beliefs about yourself that keep you from taking action. For example, you might be so afraid of failing that you never try; you might believe you only deserve happiness once you earn it; or you might make excuses that lead to negative mindsets like rumination. External barriers are beliefs about the world that prevent you from happiness. For example, you might believe that happiness should come naturally, so there’s no point in working for it, or that your unhappiness is due to society or external circumstances and is therefore unchangeable.

(Shortform note: In That Little Voice in Your Head, Mo Gawdat explains that absorbing inaccurate information is the origin of many unhappiness-causing false beliefs. There are four types of information that form beliefs: 1) information we obtain using our physical senses, 2) our interpretations of situations based on past experiences and existing beliefs, 3) recurring thoughts and emotions, and 4) incorrect information from external sources like friends, social media, and the news. According to Gawdat, sensory information is the only information we can fully trust to form beliefs that support happiness because it’s the only type of information that’s objectively true and unbiased.)

To overcome these barriers, Breuning recommends remembering four facts: First, you have autonomy over your mindset, actions, and happiness. Second, you don’t need to earn happiness to deserve it—if you want it, it’s yours. Third, you should focus on yourself rather than comparing yourself to others—you never know the full story behind others’ circumstances, and putting your attention on them diverts attention from your own efforts. Finally, you shouldn’t be afraid of failure and discomfort—failing teaches us what’s necessary to succeed, and success requires pushing your limits, which can be uncomfortable.

(Shortform note: In That Little Voice in Your Head, Gawdat offers a method to help you overcome false beliefs and follow Breuning’s recommendations. He says to regularly check in on your perceptions and reactions—consider whether the information you’re letting into your mind is accurate, whether you’re solving problems and reacting to situations effectively, and whether you’re directing your mind to avoid ruminative thoughts. Taking a pause to check in with yourself gives you the space to notice when negative beliefs are ambushing you and will allow you the opportunity to remind yourself of Breuning’s four facts.)

Rely on Natural Crutches

Finally, Breuning offers a few techniques to help you adopt new habits.

First, Breuning recommends engaging in behaviors that naturally form habits: Spend time around and mimic people who already practice your desired habits; connect new habits to things you enjoy; and connect new habits to ways to leave your legacy—something humans are naturally motivated to do. For example, if one of your dopamine-producing goals is to get better at writing, focus that energy into writing a book that people can read even after you’re gone.

(Shortform note: In Atomic Habits, James Clear provides context for why these behaviors naturally form habits. First, Clear explains that we pick up the habits of those surrounding us as an evolutionary adaptation—fitting in helped our ancestors survive. Second, connecting new habits to things you already enjoy helps form new habits through temptation building—you’ll start craving the new habit when you connect it to something you already enjoy. Third, Clear explains that habits are most motivating when they shape your desired identity, which may be why connecting them to your legacy is beneficial—your legacy is like a permanent snapshot of who you are.)

Second, Breuning says to find ways to make habit formation more manageable for your brain: Break tasks into smaller pieces, learn to accept the good over the perfect, visualize yourself making progress when outward progress isn’t visible, and focus on the positive.

(Shortform note: In Eat That Frog!, Brian Tracy provides additional advice that may make Breuning’s recommendations more effective. Tracy says that once you’ve broken a task into smaller steps, you should prioritize those steps, determine in which order they should be done, and create deadlines. To set yourself up for success without obsessing over perfection, make sure you prepare by gathering everything you need for the task before starting, and move on once you feel it’s 80% right—not perfect. Tracy also recommends regularly visualizing the benefits of achieving your goal to motivate you to make it happen. Finally, focus on the positive by using your inner voice to encourage yourself—repeat things like “I can do it.”)

Third, manage your mental landscape: Create a balance of happy chemicals rather than favoring one chemical or method over others. You can conserve your mental energy by performing new habits and tasks in the morning when you have more energy, or by doing something you enjoy before or after.

(Shortform note: To find new ways to achieve happiness (and stop favoring old methods), open yourself up to new ideas. In The Magic of Thinking Big, David J. Schwartz says you can do so by acknowledging that there’s no “one best way” to do something. Instead, welcome new ideas, experiment, and acknowledge that things change. Further, in Someday Is Today, Matthew Dicks explains that you can create more time in the morning to complete tasks by optimizing your sleep: Waste less time by only getting into bed when you’re ready to sleep and getting up as soon as you’re awake. He also states that sticking to a sleep schedule improves sleep quality and makes you more energized during waking hours.)