Releasing Endorphins Quotes

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Near-death experiences release a lot of endorphins, resulting in a natural high," Tod whispered. "And it's totally true that one passion feeds another." "You know we're way past 'near-death', right?" "My endorphins aren't listening to you.
Rachel Vincent (Before I Wake (Soul Screamers, #6))
Remember laughing? Laughter enhances the blood flow to the body’s extremities and improves cardiovascular function. Laughter releases endorphins and other natural mood elevating and pain-killing chemicals, improves the transfer of oxygen and nutrients to internal organs. Laughter boosts the immune system and helps the body fight off disease, cancer cells as well as viral, bacterial and other infections. Being happy is the best cure of all diseases!
Patch Adams
We were quiet for a while, and then I said, "I think my favorite part of Antarctica is just looking out." You know why?" Dad asked. "When your eyes are softly focused on the horizon for sustained periods, your brain releases endorphins. It's the same as a runner's high.
Maria Semple (Where'd You Go, Bernadette)
When your eyes are softly focused on the horizon for sustained periods, your brain releases endorphins. It's the same as a runner's high. These days, we spend our lives staring at screens twelve inches in front of us.
Maria Semple
When your eyes are softly focused on the horizon for sustained periods, your brain releases endorphins. It’s the same as a runner’s high. These days, we all spend our lives staring at screens twelve inches in front of us. It’s a nice change.
Maria Semple (Where'd You Go, Bernadette)
However, when given the chance, many people choose cocaine over love. I wouldn’t say that’s a bad choice. The endorphins released during infatuation are similar to heroin. OxyContin, “the cuddling hormone,” most often found in new mothers and newlyweds, is like ecstasy; every touch tingles. I think I read that somewhere. Love exists in powder. Love exists in pills. We are all addicts.
Pete Wentz (Gray)
We gave away most of our belongings. Interestingly, the more we gave away, the better we felt. Happiness researchers call this a 'helper's high,' in which helping others through volunteering or giving reduces stress and releases endorphins.
Tammy Strobel
Infatuation doesn't last because it's conditional and conditions change, but if it's real love, it turns into mature, unconditional love, and new chemicals are released in the brain, Endorphins that make you feel warm and peaceful and satisfied and content whenever you're with the one you love.... And miserable when you're without him because if he's not there, the brain won't produce chemicals.
Jennifer Crusie
Once you start cutting or burning or fucking because you feel so shitty and unworthy, your body stars to release this neat-feeling shit called endorphins and you feel so fucking high the world is like cotton candy atcthe best and most colorful state fair in the world, only bloody and stuffed with infection. -pg 31
Kathleen Glasgow (Girl in Pieces)
It's called Gelotology. (Because it gives you Gelo Belly?) Beyond a giggle, a titter, a chuckle, and way past groaning (although groaning has its profound effects as well), it shakes your very corpuscles, a good belly laugh. It releases endorphins, stimulates the body's painkillers, increases neuropeptides which boosts the immune system, expands blood vessels. What????? It relaxes tension and makes you feel happier no matter what the current conditions.
Shellen Lubin
The health benefits, both mental and physical, of humor are well documented. A good laugh can diffuse tension, relieve stress, and release endorphins into your system, which act as a natural mood elevator. In Norman Cousin's book, Anatomy of an Illness, Cousin's describes the regimen he followed to overcome a serious debilitating disease he was suffering from. It included large doses of laughter and humor. Published in 1976, his book has been widely accepted by the medical community.
Cherie Carter-Scott (If Life Is a Game, These Are the Rules: Ten Rules for Being Human as Introduced in Chicken Soup for the Soul)
Now that our marriage is over, I know what love is. It's a trick on the brain, the adrenal glands releasing endorphins. It floods the cells that transmit worry and better sense, drowns them with biochemical bliss. You can know all these things about love, yet it remains irresistible, as beguiling as the floating arms of long sleep.
Amy Tan (The Hundred Secret Senses)
You could drink, slice, do meth, snort coke, burn, cut, stab, slash, rip out your eyelashes, or fuck till you bleed and it’s all the same thing: self-harm. She says: whether someone has hurt you or made you feel bad or unworthy or unclean, rather than taking the rational step of realizing that person is an asshole or a psycho and should be shot or strung up and you should stay the fuck away from them, instead we internalize our abuse and begin to blame and punish ourselves and weirdly, once you start cutting or burning or fucking because you feel so shitty and unworthy, your body starts to release this neat-feeling shit called endorphins and you feel so fucking high the world is like cotton candy at the best and most colorful state fair in the world, only bloody and stuffed with infection. But the fucked-up part is once you start self-harming, you can never not be a creepy freak, because your whole body is now a scarred and charred battlefield and nobody likes that on a girl, nobody will love that, and so all of us, every one, is screwed, inside and out. Wash, rinse, fucking repeat.
Kathleen Glasgow (Girl in Pieces)
Love is a form of pleasure. Pleasure is caused by the release of endorphins. The things we believe make a person attractive on pheromones. You respond positively to someone whose pheromones are compatible with your own, making you think you're falling in love. But it's all in your head. Literally." (Avery James)
Shana Norris
The biochemistry of pleasure can counteract the biochemistry of aging. Nitric oxide is the über-neurotransmitter that increases and balances levels of all the others: endorphins, dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin (a bonding neurotransmitter released while breast-feeding, experiencing an orgasm, or even enjoying the company of others), and DMT, which is generated in the pineal gland in the brain and probably plays a role in dreaming.3
Christiane Northrup (Goddesses Never Age: The Secret Prescription for Radiance, Vitality, and Well-Being)
This is the vicious cycle. When we feel pain from our physical debility, that pain amplifies our sense of hopelessness; the less hopeful we feel, the fewer endorphins and enkephalins and the more CCK we release. The more pain we experience due to these neurochemicals, the less able we are to feel hope.
Jerome Groopman (The Anatomy of Hope: How People Prevail in the Face of Illness)
Tears are good for you," Raphael said. When she opened her eyes back up, he knelt down. His large frame seemed to make the room shrink. His face was almost level with hers as his eyes met Emma's. "They are a gift from the Creator to his creation. Tears release endorphins in the mind that help sooth and comfort. They cleanse the eyes and relieve stress, thereby lowering blood pressure and taking strain off of the heart. He created you with tears and nothing he created is bad. Those tears you are holding in are necessary, Emma. Let them fall, let them heal, and let them remind you with each one that you are not alone.
Quinn Loftis (Dream of Me (Dream Maker, #1))
• The effect of laughter on the body is immediate. Laughing actually lowers blood pressure, reduces stress hormones, and increases muscle flexion. • Laughter increases your resistance to infections. • Laughter also triggers the release of endorphins, the body’s natural painkillers, and produces a general sense of well-being.
Joyce Meyer (I Dare You: Embrace Life with Passion)
When your eyes are softly focused on the horizon for sustained periods, your brain releases endorphins.
Maria Semple (Where'd You Go, Bernadette)
When you laugh and play, your body is calmed and energized by the release of natural opiates—endorphins that relax you physically and lift you up the ladder emotionally.
Jeanne Segal (The Language of Emotional Intelligence: The Five Essential Tools for Building Powerful and Effective Relationships)
Grooming releases endorphins--pleasant, reinforcing chemical signals. The pleasure derived from grooming seems to outweigh the pain of the occasional bite.
Ptera Hunter (The Wisdom of Loki: The Art of Lying in the Natural World)
• “I go running. It gives me a better perspective on my problems and helps me find solutions.” • “I allow myself one hour to feel sorry for myself and I cry.” • “I take a bath, read my journal, and sleep.” • “I play ball.” • “I lift weights to release the endorphins.” • “Helping others helps you forget about your own problems.” • “I just get out of the house.
Sean Covey (The 6 Most Important Decisions You'll Ever Make: A Guide for Teens)
Smiling slows the heart and relaxes the body, and it releases endorphins that counteract and diminish stress hormones. It also has been shown to increase productivity while a person performs tasks.
S.J. Scott (10-Minute Mindfulness: 71 Habits for Living in the Present Moment (Mindfulness Books Series Book 2))
When your eyes are softly focused on the horizon for sustained periods, your brain releases endorphins . It's the same as a runner's high. These days we all spend our lives staring at screens twelve inches in front of us. nice change.
Maria Semple (Where'd You Go, Bernadette)
Researchers are learning that a change in mind-set has the power to alter neurochemistry. Belief and expectation—the key elements of hope—can block pain by releasing the brain’s endorphins and enkephalins, mimicking the effects of morphine.
Jerome Groopman (The Anatomy of Hope: How People Prevail in the Face of Illness)
Environmental influences also affect dopamine. From animal studies, we know that social stimulation is necessary for the growth of the nerve endings that release dopamine and for the growth of receptors that dopamine needs to bind to in order to do its work. In four-month-old monkeys, major alterations of dopamine and other neurotransmitter systems were found after only six days of separation from their mothers. “In these experiments,” writes Steven Dubovsky, Professor of Psychiatry and Medicine at the University of Colorado, “loss of an important attachment appears to lead to less of an important neurotransmitter in the brain. Once these circuits stop functioning normally, it becomes more and more difficult to activate the mind.” A neuroscientific study published in 1998 showed that adult rats whose mothers had given them more licking, grooming and other physical-emotional contact during infancy had more efficient brain circuitry for reducing anxiety, as well as more receptors on nerve cells for the brain’s own natural tranquilizing chemicals. In other words, early interactions with the mother shaped the adult rat’s neurophysiological capacity to respond to stress. In another study, newborn animals reared in isolation had reduced dopamine activity in their prefrontal cortex — but not in other areas of the brain. That is, emotional stress particularly affects the chemistry of the prefrontal cortex, the center for selective attention, motivation and self-regulation. Given the relative complexity of human emotional interactions, the influence of the infant-parent relationship on human neurochemistry is bound to be even stronger. In the human infant, the growth of dopamine-rich nerve terminals and the development of dopamine receptors is stimulated by chemicals released in the brain during the experience of joy, the ecstatic joy that comes from the perfectly attuned mother-child mutual gaze interaction. Happy interactions between mother and infant generate motivation and arousal by activating cells in the midbrain that release endorphins, thereby inducing in the infant a joyful, exhilarated state. They also trigger the release of dopamine. Both endorphins and dopamine promote the development of new connections in the prefrontal cortex. Dopamine released from the midbrain also triggers the growth of nerve cells and blood vessels in the right prefrontal cortex and promotes the growth of dopamine receptors. A relative scarcity of such receptors and blood supply is thought to be one of the major physiological dimensions of ADD. The letters ADD may equally well stand for Attunement Deficit Disorder.
Gabor Maté (Scattered: How Attention Deficit Disorder Originates and What You Can Do About It)
In Group, Casper doesn't like us to say cut or cutting or burn or stab. She says it doesn't matter what you do or how you do it: it's all the same. You could drink, slice, do meth, snort coke, burn, cut, stab, slash, rip out your eyelashes, or fuck till you bleed and it's all the same thing: self-harm. She says: whether someone has hurt you or made you feel bad or unworthy or unclean, rather than taking the rational step of realizing that person is an asshole or a psycho and should be shot or strung up and you should stay the fuck away from them, instead we internalize our abuse and begin to blame and punish ourselves and weirdly, once you start cutting or burning or fucking because you feel so shitty and unworthy, your body starts to release this neat-feeling shit called endorphins and you feel so fucking high the world is like cotton candy at the best and most colorful state fair in the world, only bloody and stuffed with infection. But the fucked-up part is once you start self-harming, you can never not be a creepy freak, because your whole body is now a scarred and charred battlefield and nobody likes that on a girl, nobody will love that, and so all of us, every one, is screwed, inside and out. Wash, rinse, fucking repeat.
Kathleen Glasgow (Girl in Pieces)
Emotional interactions stimulate or inhibit the growth of nerve cells and circuits by complicated processes that involve the release of natural chemicals. To give a somewhat simplified example, when “happy” events are experienced by the infant, endorphins—“reward chemicals,” the brain’s natural opioids—are released. Endorphins encourage the growth and connections of nerve cells. Conversely, in animal studies, chronically high levels of stress hormones such as cortisol have been shown to cause important brain centres to shrink.
Gabor Maté (When the Body Says No)
Do you know that scientific teams throughout the world have studied the act of swinging? Studies have shown that repetitive self-stimulatory behavior such as rocking or swaying releases endorphins, which reduce the sensation of pain and have the ability to block pain.
Shelley Coriell (Welcome, Caller, This Is Chloe)
Self-injury is a coping mechanism that BPs use to release or manage overwhelming emotional pain—usually feelings of shame, anger, sadness, and abandonment. Self-mutilation may release the body’s own opiates, known as beta-endorphins. These chemicals lead to a general feeling of well-being.
Paul T. Mason (Stop Walking on Eggshells: Taking Your Life Back When Someone You Care About Has Borderline Personality Disorder)
Humor is located in the center of the brain. When humor is activated it releases a lot of endorphins and other good chemicals of pleasure. Healing inflammation actually takes place in your body when you have a good laugh. The Bible talks about how sadness dries the bones, but a merry heart is like a medicine.
Kerry Kirkwood (The Power of Right Thinking: Transform Your Thoughts, Transform Your World)
Serotonin, a brain neurotransmitter, is known to be low in some depressions; studies show that normal sunlight causes the body to release serotonin, which is one reason people living far from the equator feel rejuvenated and in a good mood on sunny holidays. Laser light also releases serotonin, as well as other important brain chemicals, such as endorphins, which lower pain, and acetylcholine, which is essential for learning—and which might help an injured brain relearn mental abilities that have been lost. Kahn, Naeser, and the Harvard group believe that laser light affects the cerebrospinal fluid as well. Kahn believes that the cerebral spinal fluid and the blood vessels carry the photons into the brain, where they influence the brain cells, as they might other cells. The scientific research on this pathway is in its infancy.
Norman Doidge (The Brain's Way of Healing: Remarkable Discoveries and Recoveries from the Frontiers of Neuroplasticity)
Enjoying the taste of toasted raisin bread or the humor in a cartoon may not seem like much, but simple pleasures like these ease emotional upsets, lift your mood, and enrich your life. They also provide health benefits, by releasing endorphins and natural opioids that shift you out of stressful, draining reactive states and into happier responsive ones. As a bonus, some pleasures—such as dancing, sex, your team winning a game of pick-up basketball, or laughing with friends—come with energizing feelings of vitality or passion that enhance long-term health. Opportunities for pleasure are all around you, especially if you include things like the rainbow glitter of the tiny grains of sand in a sidewalk, the sound of water falling into a tub, the sense of connection in talking with a friend, or the reassurance that comes from the stove working when you need to make dinner.
Rick Hanson (Hardwiring Happiness: The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm, and Confidence)
Of course, dopamine didn’t evolve for crossing arbitrary lines on the ground. It evolved to release energy when you’re about to meet a survival need. If an ape climbs a high tree for a delicious mango, dopamine spurts as he nears the reward. That tells his body to release the reserve tank of energy, which helps him do what it takes to meet his needs. He doesn’t say “I did it!” in words, but neurochemicals create that feeling without need for words.
Loretta Graziano Breuning (Meet Your Happy Chemicals: Dopamine, Endorphin, Oxytocin, Serotonin)
One of the common behaviors seen with a desensitized dissociative response is cutting….Cutting can be very confusing from the outside. We’ve talked about how your stress response systems can become overly reactive, how anyone experiencing inescapable and unavoidable trauma will dissociate-and how, if the pattern of this trauma is prolonged or extreme, the dissociative response becomes sensitized, overactive, and overly reactive. Remember that dissociation releases opioids (enkephalins and endorphins), your own painkillers. If a person with a sensitized dissociative response cuts themselves, their body releases a little bit of these opioids so that they can tolerate the cut; the amount released would be pretty small and proportional to the little cut. But when someone with a desensitized-overly reactive-dissociative response cuts themselves, they release a lot of opioid. It’s almost like taking a little bit of heroin or morphine.
Bruce D. Perry (What Happened To You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing)
The British anthropologist Robin Dunbar represents one exception to the otherwise typical neglect of intoxication. Dunbar and his colleagues see the physiological effects of alcohol, in particular, as a crucial component in social rituals. Specifically, they point to the endorphin release triggered by booze, especially when drinking is combined with music, dance, and ritual, as a crucial factor allowing humans to cooperate on a scale unattainable by our monkey or ape relatives.
Edward Slingerland (Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization)
I think I am advocating for a kind of innovation, or an innovative spirit, which seems often to be occasioned by deprivation, or being broke. Or broke-ass. Which condition I am adamantly not advocating. But I am advocating for the delight one feels making a fire pit with the inside of a dryer, or keeping the dryer door shut with an exercise band, which is probably caused by endorphins released from a bout of cognitive athleticism. Which is also called figuring something out. Which is something we all go to school, some of us for years and years, to forget how to do.
Ross Gay (The Book of Delights: Essays)
With a quick flick, he unhooked her bra, releasing her breasts from their confinement. "You are more beautiful than I imagined." He tossed her bra on the floor. "And your skin... Christ, it shimmers like gold." Before she could respond, his mouth was on her nipple, hot and wet and sucking with gentle pulls. She unraveled in an instant, sliding her fingers through his soft hair as she rocked her hips on his cock. "Fuck, Liam." As a rule, Daisy didn't often use the word fuck. With over a million total words in the English language, there were many better ways to express oneself, but when the man of her teenage fantasies was sucking on her nipples while squeezing her ass and grinding his thick cock against her, fuck was the perfect word to express both her emotional state---impatient, needy, and flying on an endorphin high---and her hopes for the future.
Sara Desai (The Dating Plan (Marriage Game, #2))
As explained in the first chapter, human beings are physically hardwired to constantly move about and exercise. Every day, we build up a lot of stress, and physical exercise provides an outlet to get this out of our system so we can stay healthy. In the modern world, our stress is exacerbated by our incessant consumption of negative news and by rapid changes in our culture and norms. Negativity and confusion add stress to the body. Exercise will help manage this by releasing neurotransmitters, called endorphins, into our body to manage our response. Exercise temporarily mimics the fight-or-flight response that you may feel when you are stressed. But in the long run, it will help calm and de-stress you. Endorphins help calm your responses and ultimately result in removing the built-up stresses from our lives. Studies have shown that people experience positive changes after just one or two cardio sessions. Exercise will also help you sleep, which is directly correlated with lower stress and anxiety.3 Exercise
Paul Uponi (Muscular Christianity: A Case for Spiritual and Physical Fitness)
Flow is an extremely potent response to external events and requires an extraordinary set of signals. The process includes dopamine, which does more than tune signal-to-noise ratios. Emotionally, we feel dopamine as engagement, excitement, creativity, and a desire to investigate and make meaning out of the world. Evolutionarily, it serves a similar function. Human beings are hardwired for exploration, hardwired to push the envelope: dopamine is largely responsible for that wiring. This neurochemical is released whenever we take a risk or encounter something novel. It rewards exploratory behavior. It also helps us survive that behavior. By increasing attention, information flow, and pattern recognition in the brain, and heart rate, blood pressure, and muscle firing timing in the body, dopamine serves as a formidable skill-booster as well. Norepinephrine provides another boost. In the body, it speeds up heart rate, muscle tension, and respiration, and triggers glucose release so we have more energy. In the brain, norepinephrine increases arousal, attention, neural efficiency, and emotional control. In flow, it keeps us locked on target, holding distractions at bay. And as a pleasure-inducer, if dopamine’s drug analog is cocaine, norepinephrine’s is speed, which means this enhancement comes with a hell of a high. Endorphins, our third flow conspirator, also come with a hell of a high. These natural “endogenous” (meaning naturally internal to the body) opiates relieve pain and produce pleasure much like “exogenous” (externally added to the body) opiates like heroin. Potent too. The most commonly produced endorphin is 100 times more powerful than medical morphine. The next neurotransmitter is anandamide, which takes its name from the Sanskrit word for “bliss”—and for good reason. Anandamide is an endogenous cannabinoid, and similarly feels like the psychoactive effect found in marijuana. Known to show up in exercise-induced flow states (and suspected in other kinds), this chemical elevates mood, relieves pain, dilates blood vessels and bronchial tubes (aiding respiration), and amplifies lateral thinking (our ability to link disparate ideas together). More critically, anandamide also inhibits our ability to feel fear, even, possibly, according to research done at Duke, facilitates the extinction of long-term fear memories. Lastly, at the tail end of a flow state, it also appears (more research needs to be done) that the brain releases serotonin, the neurochemical now associated with SSRIs like Prozac. “It’s a molecule involved in helping people cope with adversity,” Oxford University’s Philip Cowen told the New York Times, “to not lose it, to keep going and try to sort everything out.” In flow, serotonin is partly responsible for the afterglow effect, and thus the cause of some confusion. “A lot of people associate serotonin directly with flow,” says high performance psychologist Michael Gervais, “but that’s backward. By the time the serotonin has arrived the state has already happened. It’s a signal things are coming to an end, not just beginning.” These five chemicals are flow’s mighty cocktail. Alone, each packs a punch, together a wallop.
Steven Kotler (The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance)
(Notably, temporary loss of blood or oxygen or excess carbon dioxide in the blood can also cause a disruption in the temporoparietal region and induce out-of-body experiences, which may explain the prevalence of these sensations during accidents, emergencies, heart attacks, etc.) NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES But perhaps the most dramatic category of out-of-body experiences are the near-death stories of individuals who have been declared dead but then mysteriously regained consciousness. In fact, 6 to 12 percent of survivors of cardiac arrest report having near-death experiences. It’s as though they have cheated death itself. When interviewed, they have dramatic tales of the same experience: they left their body and drifted toward a bright light at the end of a long tunnel. The media have seized upon this, with numerous best sellers and TV documentaries devoted to these theatrical stories. Many bizarre theories have been proposed to explain near-death experiences. In a poll of two thousand people, fully 42 percent believed that near-death experiences were proof of contact with the spiritual world that lies beyond death. (Some believe that the body releases endorphins—natural narcotics—before death. This may explain the euphoria that people feel, but not the tunnel and the bright lights.) Carl Sagan even speculated that near-death experiences were a reliving of the trauma of birth. The fact that these individuals recount very similar experiences doesn’t necessarily corroborate their glimpses into the afterlife; in fact, it seems to indicate that there is some deep neurological event happening. Neurologists have looked into this phenomenon seriously and suspect that the key may be the decrease of blood flow to the brain that often accompanies near-death cases, and which also occurs in fainting. Dr. Thomas Lempert, a neurologist at the Castle Park Clinic in Berlin, conducted a series of experiments on forty-two healthy individuals, causing them to faint under controlled laboratory conditions. Sixty percent of them had visual hallucinations (e.g., bright lights and colored patches). Forty-seven percent of them felt that they were entering another world. Twenty percent claimed to have encountered a supernatural being. Seventeen percent saw a bright light. Eight percent saw a tunnel. So fainting can mimic all the sensations people have in near-death experiences
Michio Kaku (The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind)
rule of thumb for patients craving sweet: Start with a big glass of water. Wait fifteen minutes. If you are still wanting sweet, have fat first in the form of a heaping teaspoon of coconut oil with cinnamon, a few macadamia nuts, a hard-boiled egg, or a piece of jerky. Wait another fifteen minutes. If you are still craving sweet, then perhaps go for it (and by that we mean a piece of dark chocolate [85 percent cocoa or higher] or ¼ cup of dark berries). Then go for a walk so as not to start a binge. Exercise regulates the sweet tooth by releasing endorphins. But most important, find the sweetness in your life—with nature, loved ones, or within yourself—not within a bag of M&M’s. For more ideas about this, the book Nourishing Wisdom by Marc David has been a classic in the emotional nutrition world for over fifteen years.
Nasha Winters (The Metabolic Approach to Cancer: Integrating Deep Nutrition, the Ketogenic Diet, and Nontoxic Bio-Individualized Therapies)
Fun is all about our brains feeling good — the release of endorphins* into our system. There are a variety of complex cocktails of chemicals that result in different sensations. Science has shown that the pleasurable chills that we get down the spine after exceptionally powerful music or a really great book are caused by the same sorts of chemicals we get when we have cocaine, an orgasm, or chocolate.
Raph Koster (Theory of Fun for Game Design)
Carbohydrates are as powerfully psychoactive as nicotine, alcohol and opioids, and are as rapidly addictive. Unless you are a performance athlete, most Type 2 diabetics are simply people who over time have transitioned away from eating for the nutritional value of food toward eating primarily for the endorphin release and emotional management effect of a powerful psychoactive drug called sugar.
Tim Noakes (Diabetes Unpacked: Just Science and Sense. No Sugar Coating)
Neuroscientists have observed that several changes in brain function tend to accompany the flow state. The brain’s electrical activity always unfolds in wave patterns. Normal consciousness is associated with a high-frequency beta wave pattern. In the flow state, brain rhythms drop down to the borderline between low-frequency beta and theta waves. Flow is tied also to sharply reduced activity in the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that gives rise to a sense of self and that includes the aforementioned dorsolateral prefrontal cortex—the brain’s internal critic. And at the molecular level, several neurotransmitters, or brain messenger chemicals, are released during flow. Among these are norepinephrine, which enhances mental focus, and endorphins, which are the source of the famous “runner’s high.” It is not necessary to measure brain waves or neurotransmitter levels to figure out if an athlete is operating in the flow state. You can just ask. Athletes know when they are in flow because the feeling is unmistakable—it’s that sense of absolute unity with one’s effort that Siri Lindley
Matt Fitzgerald (How Bad Do You Want It?: Mastering the Psychology of Mind over Muscle)
Orgasms release endorphins leading to feelings of contentment, joy, and satisfaction. Oxytocin promotes pair bonding and attachment.” He scrubs at his face. “It’s called the love hormone for a reason, idiot.” Love?
Leta Blake (Will & Patrick Fight Their Feelings (Wake Up Married, #4))
When you watch TV, the right hemisphere is twice as active as the left, which in itself is a neurological anomaly. “The crossover from left to right releases a surge of the body’s natural opiates: endorphins, which include beta-endorphins and enkephalins. Endorphins are structurally identical to opium and its derivatives (morphine, codeine, heroin, etc.).”1 In other words, your television works as a high-tech drug delivery system, and we all feel its effects. Another effect of watching television is that the “higher brain regions such as the midbrain and the neo-cortex, are shut down, and most activity shifts to the limbic system, your lower brain region. The lower or reptile brain simply stands poised to react to the environment using deeply embedded ‘fight or flight’ response programs. Moreover, these lower brain regions cannot distinguish reality from fabricated images (a job performed by the neo-cortex), so they react to television content as though it were real, releasing appropriate hormones and so on.
Daniel Estulin (Tavistock Institute: Social Engineering the Masses)
There is considerable physical evidence compared to other emotions (pleasure, sadness, anger), and hormonal activity becomes very strong when you feel love. When you fall in love, the brain secretes various chemicals, including pheromones, dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, oxytocin, and vasopressin. Just hugging a loved one or simply looking at a picture of a lover releases a hormone called oxytocin in the body, acting as a painkiller for headaches. Biochemically, phenylethylamine [18] secreted by the brain limbic system works, which is a kind of natural amphetamine, a stimulant. It's because phenylethylamine is the first step, but other hormones work, which are hormones such as adrenaline, dopamine, endorphin, oxytocin, and serotonin that are used in stimulants. The expression "love is a drug" is actually the opposite because drugs imitate love. However, the secretion of phenylethylamine has a shelf life, so it generally does not exceed two years. There are individual differences in this, so many of them are over in three months, and in some cases, it lasts up to three years. If two sparks fly at the same time and one person finishes at three months, and the other goes for two years and three years, tragedy will occur from then on. In other words, after that period, the brain, which had been exhausted by drugs, will regain its grip. Link to bean pods off. From this point on, love ends the chemistry phase and moves on to the sociology phase. Some say that the two-and-a-half years are meant to build and strengthen ties and intimacy with the other, and that the couple who don't become a parrot couple will sink in a moment of excitement and fall into ennui. At this time, the secretion of phenylethylamine decreases, but [19] oxytocin is actively secreted, resulting in comfort with each other. Link
There is considerable physical evidence compared to other emotions (pleasure, sadness, anger), and h
Although that idea is common in popular science writing, it has long been out of date within the scientific community. As a matter of fact, dopamine release doesn’t correspond very well with the experience of pleasure. Experiments have shown that animals appear to experience pleasure without dopamine, and studies in humans back this up. Pleasure is more related to a class of chemicals called endorphins that are often released in the striatum simultaneously with dopamine, although these are probably only one component of the experience of pleasure. Dopamine is the “learning chemical” rather than the “pleasure chemical.
Stephan Guyenet (The Hungry Brain: Outsmarting the Instincts That Make Us Overeat)
Whenever you complete a task of any size or importance, you feel a surge of energy, enthusiasm, and self-esteem. The more important the completed task, the happier, more confident, and more powerful you feel about yourself and your world. The completion of an important task triggers the release of endorphins in your brain.
Brian Tracy (Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time)
The completion of an important task triggers the release of endorphins in your brain. These endorphins give you a natural “high.” The endorphin rush that follows successful completion of any task makes you feel more positive, personable, creative, and confident.
Brian Tracy (Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time)
The chemicals Adam’s brain denied him—the ones that released endorphins or dopamine or whatever it was that tricked people into thinking they were in love—were the same ones that told Noah nobody else mattered, nobody but Adam. Hell, Adam hadn’t even needed those chemicals to choose Noah. He just had. He’d looked at Noah and decided he was his person. The one he’d kill for, die for, choose over any other, including his own family. So, that had to be better, right? Making the decision to do those things without the chemicals. It felt better to Noah. It felt like love. So, that was what Noah would call it. Adam loved Noah in every way he could.
Onley James (Unhinged (Necessary Evils, #1))
The Anatomy of Hope, Jerome Groopman, MD, writes: Researchers are learning that a change in mindset has the power to alter neurochemistry. Belief and expectation—the key elements of hope—can block pain by releasing the brain’s endorphins and enkephalins, mimicking the effect of morphine.
Marie Forleo (Everything is Figureoutable)
It has been proven by multiple studies that physical touch releases the endorphins needed to make you happy.
Chase Hill (How to Stop Overthinking: The 7-Step Plan to Control and Eliminate Negative Thoughts, Declutter Your Mind and Start Thinking Positively in 5 Minutes or ... (Master the Art of Self-Improvement Book 1))
Remember that dissociation releases opioids (enkephalins and endorphins), your own painkillers. If a person without a sensitized dissociative response cuts themselves, their body releases a little bit of these opioids so that they can tolerate the cut; the amount released would be pretty small and proportional to the little cut. But when someone with a sensitized—overly reactive—dissociative response cuts themselves, they release a lot of opioid. It’s almost like taking a little hit of heroin or morphine.
Bruce D. Perry (What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing)
With increasing stress or threat, the dissociative response takes a person deeper and deeper into a protective mode. Whereas the physiology of the arousal response is to optimize fight or flight, the physiology of dissociation is to help us rest, replenish, survive injury, and tolerate pain. Where arousal increases heart rate, dissociation decreases it. Where arousal sends blood to the muscles, dissociation keeps blood in the trunk, to minimize blood loss in case of injury. Arousal releases adrenaline; dissociation releases the body’s own pain killers, enkephalins and endorphins. And dissociation was the only adaptive option available to four-year-old Jesse in abusive moments—the ability to emotionally flee to his inner world.
Bruce D. Perry (What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing)
Also, there are numerous studies that show that our brains release a small amount of endorphins once we cross an item off our to-do list.
Brian Night (Adopting The Minimalist Mindset: How To Live With Less, Downsize, And Get More Fulfillment From Life)
Healthy habits that become second nature are essential for Active Patience. Energy in. Energy out. Ideas, writing and all of our creative energy are slowly and regularly released. Exercise keeps us calm, cool and collected,it releases endorphins and it builds our store of energy.
N.C Harley (Active Patience: A Simple Guide to Productive Writing)
What I wasn’t expecting was the euphoria once my body began releasing endorphins. The mixture of pain and pleasure was ecstasy. Getting my tattoo introduced me to secret, dark pleasures. I would always be a marked prisoner, but I was a liberated soul.
Scarlet Risque (Red Hourglass (Hourglass, #1))
But why are those moments so essential? It's because laughter boosts productivity. It makes a task more manageable. It releases endorphins, forges emotional connections, and can encourage more honest communication. When your staff has fun at work, they work together more collaboratively. Every single day at work becomes a team-building activity.
Ron Clark
(Hint: Smiling will boost your mood no matter what. The act itself will trigger the release of pain-killing, brain-happy endorphins and serotonin. Besides, it’s easier to smile; it takes seventeen muscles to smile and forty-three to frown.) Maybe laugh a little, too.
David B. Agus (A Short Guide to a Long Life)
29 Smile (Hint: Smiling will boost your mood no matter what. The act itself will trigger the release of pain-killing, brain-happy endorphins and serotonin. Besides, it’s easier to smile; it takes seventeen muscles to smile and forty-three to frown.) Maybe laugh a little, too.
David B. Agus (A Short Guide to a Long Life)
Moving through the postures stimulates the release of neurotransmitters called endorphins. These molecules interact with the same receptors in the brain as pain medications such as morphine, producing a sense of well-being and comfort.
Ray Long (Anatomy for Backbends and Twists: Yoga Mat Companion 3)
Research has shown that smiling releases endorphins—the happy hormones that shift your physiology for improved well-being. When you smile and your eyes crinkle, your body releases chemicals that change the chemistry of your brain, lifting spirits, and reducing pain. Even when it is hard to smile and you are forcing it, positive changes take place in your physiology.
Susan C. Young (The Art of Body Language: 8 Ways to Optimize Non-Verbal Communication for Positive Impact (The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #3))
Flow is a rush like no other. If you want grounds for comparison, consider the current use-abuse rates for mood-altering, mind-altering, and performance-enhancing drugs: In America, over 22 percent of the population has an illicit drug problem; one out of ten take antidepressants; 26 percent of kids are on stimulants, purportedly for ADHD, anecdotally for performance enhancement. And prescription drugs? They’ve just surpassed car accidents as the number one cause of accidental death. Add this up and you’ll find a trillion-dollar public-health crisis. Now consider what these abused drugs do. The primary illicit drug of choice is marijuana—that triggers the release of anandamide. Antidepressants are some combination of dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin; tobacco and ADHD drugs affect dopamine and norepinephrine; and prescription drugs of abuse are opioids like Oxycontin—meaning they affect the endorphin system. In other words, Americans are literally killing themselves trying to achieve artificially the same sensations that flow produces naturally. Of course, as a perfect endogenous combination of these drugs, flow is also a major rush. But unlike the dead-end highs currently plaguing public health, flow doesn’t sidetrack one’s life; it revitalizes it.
Anonymous
when people are working together doing the same thing in synchrony with others—e.g., rowing together, dancing together—our bodies release endorphins,
Alex Pentland (Social Physics: How Social Networks Can Make Us Smarter)
You can’t laugh and be afraid at the same time,” he said. And he’d be right. Laughing actually releases endorphins. They are released to mask the pain we’re causing to ourselves as our organs are being convulsed.
Simon Sinek (Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don't)
Research from Denis Dutton, Brian Boyd, V.S. Ramachandran, William Hirstein and E.O. Wilson, among many others, is clear on the subject: we are enticed by forms, shapes, rhythms and movements that are useful to our existence. We find Vermeer’s “The Girl with the Pearl Earring,” beautiful, for example, because her face is symmetrical, a clue to her strong immune system2. As the neuroscientist Eric Kandel suggests in The Age of Insight, we are fascinated by Gustav Klimt’s Judith because “at a base level, the aesthetics of the image’s luminous gold surface, the soft rendering of the body, and the overall harmonious combination of colors could activate the pleasure circuits, triggering the release of dopamine. If Judith’s smooth skin and exposed breast trigger the release of endorphins, oxytocin, and vasopressin, one might feel sexual excitement.
Anonymous
The act of singing releases endorphins, the brain’s “feel good” chemicals. It’s a free hit of positivity for your mind, so whenever you feel inclined to sing, sing away.
Benjamin Chapin (Thinking by Design)
overwhelms you with tingling excitement give you pleasure because of internal molecules. Some researchers believe that thrills occur when molecules called endorphins are released. A drug called naloxone blocks those molecules and prevents music from inspiring
Robert E. Svoboda (Prakriti: Your Ayurvedic Constitution)
Smiles When we smile naturally we use a full set of facial muscles, including the muscles around our eyes. When the smile is forced those eye muscles remain passive and the smile, although superficially the same, is missing something. You can’t put your finger on it, but the look is insincere. A study of marriages in the USA analyzed smiles in wedding photographs. The couples with false smiles divorced much earlier than the genuinely happy couples. Similarly for high school photos; people with genuine smiles at 18 years of age were happier later in life and in more stable relationships. Smiling is really important. It is good to be around people who smile, they are more successful – and nicer. There is also a curious reverse effect. The link between our minds and bodies is much more fundamental than we thought. If you grasp a pencil between your teeth, it forces you to smile. Try it. The mere act of smiling is found to make you happier, it causes the release of the chemicals called endorphins which improve your feeling of well-being.
James Tagg (Are the Androids Dreaming Yet?: Amazing Brain. Human Communication, Creativity & Free Will)
Most certainly carbohydrates are not necessary for human survival because blood glucose levels are very effectively maintained by gluconeogenesis and glucagon. Carbohydrates are an endorphin releasing drug, not a hunger satisfying food.
Tim Noakes (Diabetes Unpacked: Just Science and Sense. No Sugar Coating)
The sharp pinpricks release all kinds of endorphins into my system, and I decide here, and now, that I’m addicted to tattoos.
H.D. Carlton (Does It Hurt?)
But then the unbelievable happened. The barely there smile she'd glimpsed earlier flourished into an all-out grin. It was beyond devastating. "Laughing releases endorphins," she said. "Maybe you should try to do more of it." "Is that why you're still laughing at me?" he asked. "Endorphin rush?" "I was trying not to," Ashanti said. He leaned over and, in a lowered voice, said, "You failed." The amusement dancing in his eyes softened the rest of his features. Goodness.
Farrah Rochon (Pardon My Frenchie)
Our brain responds to intense emotions by activating the sympathetic nervous system: our heart rate goes up, stress hormones and/or endorphins are released depending on the emotion, and (when pressured) we prepare to flee or freeze.
Marc Brackett (Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive)
Ride A Bike (The Sonnet) Ride a bike 'n you get sick less, You pay for the doctor less. Ride a bike 'n you emit carbon less, You pay for the gas less. Ride a bike 'n you release endorphins, Hence you have less stress. Ride a bike 'n the heart pumps better, Thus you feel exhaustion less. Pills in need are pills indeed, To pop pills willy-nilly is to abuse health. Comfort in need is comfort indeed, To abuse comfort beyond need is to abuse oneself. Ride a bike everyday to keep the pills away. Use pills in need but don't make them life's way.
Abhijit Naskar (Ingan Impossible: Handbook of Hatebusting)
Most vertebrates and all of our fellow mammals have similar chemical and neurological mechanisms that transmit and control pain. Under stress or trauma, they display physiological reactions identical to ours - increased heartbeat and perspiration, higher cortisone levels in the blood, a release of endorphins, serotonin, and other natural opiates. Their bodies respond to anesthesia just as our bodies do, and of course they display vocalizations, defensive behavior, and bodily contortions similar to ours. We may add to this physical evidence the fact that veterinarians today routinely prescribe exactly the same antidepressant drugs to dogs, cats, pigs, horses and other animals, including Prozac, Ritalin, Xanax, and beta-blockers, and these drugs have exactly the same soothing effects on them as on us.
Matthew Scully (Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy)
Guide Note: Remembering is generally a two-stage process involving dialogue between the conscious and subconscious parts of the brain. The subconscious opens proceedings by throwing up the relevant memory, an act which releases a spurt of self-congratulatory endorphins. Well done, matey, says the conscious. That memory is really useful right now, and I couldn’t remember where I’d put it. You and me, pal, says the subconscious, delighted to have its contribution acknowledged for once, we’re in this together. Then the conscious reviews the memory in its in-tray and sends a message down to the sphincter telling it to prepare for the worst. Why did you remind me of this? the conscious rails against the subconscious. This is awful. Terrible. I didn’t want to remember this. Why the Zark do you think I shoved it to the back of my brain? That’s the last time I help you out, the subconscious mutters and retreats to the darker sections of itself where nasty thoughts are housed. I don’t need you, it tells itself. I can make myself another personality out of these things you’ve discarded. And so the seeds of schizophrenia are sown with kernels of childhood bullying, neglect, low self-esteem, and prejudice
Eoin Colfer (And Another Thing... (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #6))
In the first, two monkeys sit opposite each other on a branch, both inserting a finger ever deeper into the other’s nostril until the finger vanishes up to the first knuckle. Swaying gently, they sit like this with expressions on their faces described as “trancelike.” The monkeys are normally hyperactive and sociable, but hand-sniffers sit apart from the group, concentrating on each other for up to half an hour. Even more curious is the second game, in which one monkey inserts almost a whole finger between the other’s eyelid and eyeball. Monkey fingers are tiny, but relative to their eyes and noses they aren’t any smaller than ours. Also, their fingers have nails, which obviously aren’t particularly clean, so this behavior potentially scratches the cornea or causes infections. Now, the monkeys really need to sit still; otherwise someone may lose an eye. These games are most painful to watch! The pair keeps its posture for minutes, while the one whose eye is being poked may stick a finger into the other’s nostril. What purpose these weird games serve is unclear, but one idea is that the monkeys are testing their bonds. This explanation has also been offered with respect to human rituals in which we make ourselves vulnerable. Tongue-kissing, for example, carries the risk of disease transmission. Intimate kissing is either pleasurable or totally disgusting depending on the partner: Engaging in it thus says a lot about how we perceive the relationship. In couples, kissing is thought to test the love, enthusiasm, even faithfulness of the partner. Perhaps capuchin monkeys, too, are trying to find out how much they really like each other, which may then help them decide who can be trusted to support them during confrontations within the group. A second explanation is that these games help the monkeys reduce stress, of which they have no shortage. Their group life is full of drama. During eye-poking or hand-sniffing, they seem to enter an unusually calm, dreamy state. Are they exploring the borderline between pain and pleasure, perhaps releasing endorphins in the process?
Frans de Waal (The Age of Empathy: Nature's Lessons for a Kinder Society)
During the deepest, most restful stages of sleep, the pituitary gland, a pea-size ball at the base of the brain, secretes hormones that control the release of adrenaline, endorphins, growth hormone, and other substances, including vasopressin, which communicates with cells to store more water. This is how animals can sleep through the night without feeling thirsty or needing to relieve themselves. But if the body has inadequate time in deep sleep, as it does when it experiences chronic sleep apnea, vasopressin won’t be secreted normally. The kidneys will release water, which triggers the need to urinate and signals to our brains that we should consume more liquid. We get thirsty, and we need to pee more. A lack of vasopressin explains not only my own irritable bladder but the constant, seemingly unquenchable thirst I have every night.
James Nestor (Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art)
So, when did you take up running?” he asks me, glancing up the empty street. It’s just after dawn, and the road is eerily quiet. A heavy mist still shrouds the horizon; the red-roofed homes bordering our cul-de-sac are blurred, like ghosts. I shrug and sink into a lunge. “It was a therapy suggestion from Nina. It’s supposed to release endorphins or something. Raise my mood. Clear my mind.” He grins. “Clear me from your mind, you mean.
Leah Scheier (The Last Words We Said)
Research has shown that the simple act of smiling for as little as twenty seconds can trigger positive emotions, jump-starting joy and happiness. Smiling stimulates the release of neuropeptides that work toward fighting off stress and unleashes a feel-good cocktail of the neurotransmitters serotonin, dopamine, and endorphins. Serotonin acts as a natural antidepressant, dopamine stimulates the reward centers of the brain, and endorphins are natural painkillers.
Dalai Lama XIV (The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World)
Remember that dissociation releases opioids (enkephalins and endorphins), your own painkillers. If a person without a sensitized dissociative response cuts themselves, their body releases a little bit of these opioids so that they can tolerate the cut; the amount released would be pretty small and proportional to the little cut. But when someone with a sensitized-overly reactive-dissociative response cuts themselves, they release a lot of opioid. It’s almost like taking a little hit of heroin or morphine…the opioid “burst” from cutting can actually feel regulating. Soothing. It is rewarding for some. It makes them feel good…it can become their preferred method of self-regulation… This [sensitized dissociative response] usually comes from a history of abuse that was painful, inescapable, and unavoidable-essentially chronic chaos and threat when you were an infant or young child. Or, very often, sexual abuse.
Bruce D. Perry (What Happened To You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing)
The endorphins released during infatuation are similar to heroin. OxyContin, “the cuddling hormone,” most often found in new mothers and newlyweds, is like ecstasy; every touch tingles. I think I read that somewhere. Love exists in powder. Love exists in pills. We are all addicts.
Pete Wentz (Gray)
BREATH 1​While seated or lying down, take 30 to 40 full conscious breaths: Breathe fully in to the belly and the chest, then letting go, without force. 2​On your final exhale, let the air out and hold it out for as long as you can without discomfort. Listen to your body and don’t force it! 3​When you feel the urge to breathe again, take a deep breath in, hold for 10 to 15 seconds. Then release and relax. 4​Repeat the steps above two or three more times, paying attention to how you feel and adjusting your breath as needed. 5​Rest in this elevated state until you are ready to move on with your day. Alternatively, use the energy you just generated for your morning workout or yoga practice. Experiment with what feels right for you. Congratulations! You just influenced key drivers of your health, increased your vitality and focus, busted your stress, reduced inflammation factors, and optimized your immune system. FOR COMPLETE WHM BREATHING INSTRUCTIONS AND SAFETY GUIDELINES, SEE CHAPTER 4. MIND Your post-breathing practice state is the perfect time to program your mindset. Try this: 1​Before you get up from your breathing practice, bring up a thought in your mind like “Today I’m going to stay in the cold shower for 15 more seconds than yesterday,” or “I feel happy, healthy, and strong.” 2​Reflect on this thought and notice how your body feels. 3​If you identify any inner resistance to your intention, just keep breathing steadily until you feel an alignment between your body and mind. With practice, your sense of your inner experience, or interoception, will sharpen, allowing you to more consciously observe and control your body and mind. SEE CHAPTER 12 FOR DETAILS. COLD 1​At the end of your warm shower, turn the water to cold. 2​If you like you can start by first putting your feet and legs, than your arms, then your full torso under the water. 3​Do NOT do the WHM Basic Breathing Exercise while standing in the shower. 4​Gradually extend your exposure every day until you can handle two minutes in the cold. 5​If you are shivering when you get out, try the horse stance exercise. (See “How Long Can You Hold a Horse Stance?” for details.) Success! You just improved your metabolic efficiency, regulated your hormones, further reduced inflammation, and are enjoying the endorphins and endocannabinoids released in response to the cold.
Wim Hof (The Wim Hof Method: Activate Your Full Human Potential)
Endorphin release could be another means by which sun exposure reduces the risk of heart disease: by promoting feelings of relaxation, it may combat the negative effects of stress on the heart. Endorphins also activate the reward system, a pathway in the brain that triggers feelings of pleasure in response to specific stimuli -- in this case sun exposure -- encouraging us to seek them out again. Some regular sunbed users even exhibit physical withdrawal symptoms, similar to those associated with coming off heroin, if they stop tanning.
Linda Geddes (Chasing the Sun: The New Science of Sunlight and How it Shapes Our Bodies and Minds)
They demonstrated that the elevated emotional states described by mystics weren’t just subjective fantasies; they were grounded in objective molecular interactions that could be measured and quantified. INGREDIENTS OF THE BLISS BRAIN COCKTAIL Research has shown that each one of the seven bliss neurochemicals is associated with meditation. A review and synthesis of the research literature found increases in serotonin, GABA, vasopressin, and melatonin. The dopamine levels of meditators rose by 56%. Cortisol dropped, and norepinephrine declined to levels appropriate to focused attention without anxiety. The rhythms of the brain’s production of beta-endorphins changed. Heightened oxytocin mobilized the synthesis of anandamide in the nucleus accumbens. A number of studies and reviews show that meditation stimulates the production of nitric oxide, providing meditators with the health benefits of better circulation and brain neuroplasticity. Nitric oxide release is closely coupled with anandamide production; thus meditation and other stress-reducing activities may stimulate the synthesis of both together. Anandamide can also improve cognitive function, motivation, learning, and memory, while triggering the growth of neurons in the brain centers that govern those functions. A blissed brain is a learning brain; meditation cements our feel-good experiences into brain hardware through increased neuroplasticity. Anandamide also relieves anxiety and depression while stimulating closeness and connection with others. The scientific literature shows that oxytocin is increased by meditation. As we saw earlier, oxytocin triggers the release of nitric oxide and anandamide, providing the meditator with a trifecta of pleasurable brain chemicals. 5.18. The only way to get all the most pleasurable neurochemicals surging through your brain at one time is the ecstatic flow state found in deep meditation. Each of these neurochemicals is pleasurable in its own right, and you can get them from activities that stimulate their production. These activities might get you one or two but not all seven in one package.
Dawson Church (Bliss Brain: The Neuroscience of Remodeling Your Brain for Resilience, Creativity, and Joy)
There’s only one activity that stimulates the brain to produce all seven at the same time, and that’s the ecstatic state of flow. The shortest way there is deep, alpha-driven meditation. When you blend all seven into a single cocktail, the result is euphoria. Let’s see: What might a combination of the first letters of each drug look like? Serotonin, Oxytocin, Norepinephrine, Dopamine, Anandamide, Nitric oxide, and Beta-endorphin? Just for fun, let’s combine them, and call our cocktail’s special blend SONDANoBe. This is the magic formula that, produced inside our own bodies in the proper ratios, bathes the brain in the chemicals of ecstasy. GETTING HIGH ON YOUR OWN SUPPLY When I meditate, I can feel the moment when each drug in the cocktail kicks in. First, I use EFT tapping and release any and every negative thought, emotion, and energy. This drops my level of cortisol, along with suppressing the high beta brain waves of stress. I now have a molecular substrate in my brain upon which I can build a deep and focused meditative experience. Next, I close my eyes and focus. Dopamine kicks in as I anticipate the delicious hormone and neurotransmitter drug cocktail I’m about to be rewarded with. The dopaminergic reward system of my brain fires up and the “body learning” of how to meditate—stored in my basal ganglia, which memorize frequently performed actions—comes online. Ingredient one. My mind starts to wander. My email inbox. The morning’s first meeting. The laugh line of the movie I watched last night. An overdue deadline. Damn, I’m way out of the zone already, cortisol rising, and I haven’t been meditating more than 5 minutes. Dopamine brings me back to focus, aided by norepinephrine. I’m motivated. I want Bliss Brain more than I want an endless loop of the Me Show. I return to center. Cortisol drops. Ahhh, I’m back. Norepinephrine stimulates my attention. Ingredient two. Then I realize that my body is uncomfortable. I have a twinge in my right knee. My lower back hurts. My tummy’s rumbling because it’s empty. I consciously shift my wandering mind back into focus. Back in sync, my neurons secrete beta-endorphin, which masks the pain. The discomfort drops away, and being in a body feels wonderful. Ingredient three. I tune in to each of the archetypal strands that guide me. Mother Mary. Kwan Yin. Healing. Strength. Beauty. Wisdom. I imagine myself meditating in a field of a million saints. I’m lost in Bliss Brain, as serotonin, the satisfaction drug, kicks in. Ingredient four. I feel one with the universe. Oxytocin starts to flow, as I bond with everything. Ingredient five. That releases nitric oxide and anandamide. Ingredients six and seven.
Dawson Church (Bliss Brain: The Neuroscience of Remodeling Your Brain for Resilience, Creativity, and Joy)
When depression controls the mind, its power increases when the mind remains inactive. It is like a computer virus spreading to occupy unused processing space. You can fight it by keeping busy. There are other ways to fight it: exercising releases endorphins to counter it, or manufactured drugs can be used. Those who suffer learn many such techniques to defeat it, or they go under.
Neal Asher (Hilldiggers (Polity Universe #15))
Being out in the sun, we are starting to understand, can lower blood pressure, calm our immune system and even alter our mood. Even without such knowledge, most of us are instinctively drawn to sunlight because sitting in it just feels so great, and there may be a reason for that: when the sunlight hits our skin, our bodies release endorphins, the same 'feel good' hormones that produce a runner's high.
Linda Geddes (Chasing the Sun: The New Science of Sunlight and How it Shapes Our Bodies and Minds)
Getting the body moving every day releases feel-good endorphins that enhance our sense of well-being. It can simultaneously take our mind off our worries, breaking the cycle of negative thoughts that cause us to feel anxious. It is not just anxiety disorders that exercise helps with; other mental health conditions such as depression are positively affected by staying fit.
Gaur Gopal Das (Energize Your Mind: A Monk’s Guide to Mindful Living)
ENDORPHINS SERVE ONE purpose and one purpose only: to mask physical pain. That’s it. Think of endorphins as our own personal opiate. Often released in response to stress or fear, they mask physical pain with pleasure. The experience of a “runner’s high,” the feeling of euphoria many athletes experience during or after a hard workout, is in fact the endorphin chemical surging through their veins.
Simon Sinek (Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don't)
Laughing actually releases endorphins. They are released to mask the pain we’re causing to ourselves as our organs are being convulsed. We like laughing for the same reason runners like running—it feels good. But we’ve all had the experience of laughing so much we want it to stop because it starts to hurt. Like the runner, the hurt actually began earlier, but thanks to the endorphins, we didn’t feel it until later.
Simon Sinek (Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don't)
In fact, the analogy is entirely appropriate physiologically, since among the brain chemicals released when we have moments of feeling loved or valued or accepted are our own internal opiates, or endorphins. And just as an opiate like heroin does not satiate, so the temporary endorphin hit of valuation or appreciation or approval or success cannot possibly resolve the ache in the soul.
Gabor Maté (The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture)
The term “runner’s high” refers to the release of endorphins—chemicals or neurotransmitters—in the brain during and shortly after exercise. Endorphins elevate mood, benefiting mental well-being, and increase happiness.
Brett Blumenthal (52 Small Changes for the Mind: Improve Memory * Minimize Stress * Increase Productivity * Boost Happiness)
triggers the release of endorphins, which are the neurochemicals that relieve pain.
Michael Reed Gach (Acupressure's Potent Points: A Guide to Self-Care for Common Ailments)
Laughter isn’t just fun; it’s also healthy. God created us so that laughing releases endorphins that create a vigorous, energetic and healthier body. I believe any person can become 100 percent better looking in an instant—anytime they choose—without spending a dime on cosmetic surgery. How? Simply, by smiling more often. A single, sincere smile can capture and change hearts and minds.
L.C. Fowler (Dare To Live Greatly)
Singing changes your brain. It reduces cortisol and increases the release of endorphins and oxytocin. Some people have to take drugs to do that. Why not just have a bit of a singalong? Singing in groups is even better. Scientists, not musicians, have found that our heart rates sync up when we sing together. You don’t even have to be any good. Don’t believe me? I refer you to the University of Sheffield’s memorable 2005 paper: ‘Effects of group singing and performance for marginalised and middle-class singers.
Roger Daltrey (Thanks a lot Mr Kibblewhite: My Story)
But I am advocating for the delight one feels making a fire pit with the inside of a dryer, or keeping the dryer door shut with an exercise band, which is probably caused by endorphins released from a bout of cognitive athleticism. Which is also called figuring something out. Which is something we all go to school, some of us for years and years, to forget how to do.
Ross Gay (The Book of Delights: Essays)
Another thing that can make flour and dairy products so pleasurable and addictive, ironically, is their ability to cause more uncomfortable reactions than just about any other foods. . .They can comfort us from both digestive and/or respiratory distress. Remember how endorphins are released when we've had an injury? Same principle here. . .the body begins to comfort us from this chronic allergic irritation and damage. Ironically, this makes these foods irresistible. . . .After the extraction process, most of [the] beneficial nutrients are gone. What's left are the crystallized concentrate, not unlike other plant concentrates we're familiar with, like cocaine or opium . . . . . .[Vegetable oils are] very unstable - that is, they can become dangerously rancid very quickly. Rancid means oxidized, and in your body, oxidized means damage to your cells and tissues. . . If you eat vegetable oils that are already oxidized from heat and light in processing, you are exposing your own healthy tissues to a volatile substance that will damage them,
Julia Ross (The Mood Cure (The 4-Step Program to Rebalance Your Emotional Chemistry and Rediscover Your Natural Sense of Well-Being, 1))