Book SummaryHabits of a Happy Brain, by Loretta Graziano Breuning

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of Habits of a Happy Brain

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 reward behaviors that helped our ancestors survive. Activities like eating triggered “happy” chemicals, encouraging them to engage in activities that promoted survival, like hunting for food. In modern times, we’ve replaced those effort-based rewards with quick fixes—like binge-eating candy—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...

Habits of a Happy Brain Summary Why and How We Pursue Happiness

According to Breuning, happiness is a survival mechanism—things that ensure survival make us happy, so we seek them out, and things that threaten us make us unhappy, so we avoid them. For example, eating makes us happy because it provides nutrition for survival, and the happiness we get from eating encourages us to regularly seek food so we can continue eating (and surviving). Going somewhere alone might cause unhappiness because of your fear of social isolation—something that threatened our ancestors’ survival by making them vulnerable to predators.

(Shortform note: The mere exposure effect complicates Breuning’s assertion that happiness is purely a survival mechanism. This psychological phenomenon demonstrates that familiarity breeds attraction—even toward things that don’t help our survival. Research shows repeated exposure to stimuli, even if it’s threatening, can cause us to seek out and draw positive feelings from those stimuli. For example, one experiment found that participants approached familiar angry faces faster than unfamiliar faces, even...

Habits of a Happy Brain Summary Our Constant Desire for Happiness Is Problematic

Breuning explains that because happiness and unhappiness are both caused by temporary chemical releases, neither state is constant. Happiness chemicals are released as a direct result of an experience and quickly fade. Likewise, cortisol eventually returns to its normal level to help us handle and anticipate threats, as we discussed in the previous section. This system evolved to encourage our ancestors to seek happiness by doing things that would ensure their survival—planting food, building shelter, enjoying a warm fire, finding a mate, and so on. If their happiness from doing those things once were to last, they wouldn’t have been encouraged to keep doing them.

(Shortform note: In That Little Voice in Your Head, Mo Gawdat reiterates that while unhappiness (or cortisol, as Breuning explains) naturally returns to help us survive, this evolutionary trait isn’t helpful in our modern environment. Most of the dangers that stress protected our ancestors from, like predators...

Habits of a Happy Brain Summary 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...

Habits of a Happy Brain Summary 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...

Shortform Exercise: Brainstorm New Happiness Habits

Breuning explains that the key to achieving sustainable happiness is to replace happiness quick-fixes with healthy and rewarding habits. In this section, we’ll identify some of the not-so-healthy ways you might be triggering dopamine, and we’ll brainstorm healthier habits you can adopt instead.

In the box below, list some dopamine-seeking habits you want to replace. For example, these might include picking up fast food on your way home from work, eating candy throughout the day, or doomscrolling on social media.