Get Emotionally Fit (and Happy) in 4 Easy Steps

As human beings, we function at many levels in our daily lives. In terms of physical functioning, medical researchers and practitioners are experts at helping us prevent injury and disease, where we can, and treat injury and disease where we must. The physical functioning of our bodies is much more easily addressed, it appears, than the other levels of functioning in life — specifically the emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. Those last three areas have traditionally been more hidden than exposed, in terms of understandinghow they work.

Lately, however, the ability to study and track the brain’s activity have begun to allow scientists to pinpoint with accuracy the regions of our brains that do the stuff they do to oversee these less overt operating systems.

Today, we can explore the ways in which our brain's pleasure center lights up when certain events occur or determine which regions are influenced when things in life just don’t go our way. Neurotransmitters provide an awesome tracking system that has allowed pharmaceutical companies to develop drugs that encourage the production or absorption of some of these “neurotransmitters of happiness.”

Just like everyone might feel a twinge or an ache, we all might also feel a little bit down on life some days or get bummed out when something — like a relationship, a game, a job interview — doesn’t go our way. Times like that don’t necessarily call for a full-out pharmaceutical or self-medicating assault, however. Sure, a beer with the boys or a glass of wine after work with friends may help you get over the initial edge of disappointment, no doubt. But that won’t necessarily help you the next day when you have to roll out of bed and make it through another day with any vestiges of unhappiness bumping around in your brain.

Therefore, the advice from Alex Korb, a neuroscience researcher at UCLA, in his book, The Upward Spiral can really come in handy in times of crisis or maybe when you're just cranky. He provided four options in upping the positive neurotransmitters bouncing around our brains.

1. Seek a reason to be grateful. Yep, the act of rolling through the list of events looking for something good in your life will get the dopamine and serotonin pumping and that will enhance your mood state. The other perk is that when you feel grateful for a kindness shown to you and you actually seek to thank that person, you are enhancing the social dopamine circuits and that makes you feel even better! Even if you don’t find something right away, it appears that just the act of seeking the good in your life enhances your emotional intelligence.

2. When you are struggling with your mood or getting stuck in a negative emotional place, play a game of “label that feeling” or “name that pain.” By cutting through the overall sense of emotional malaise, you are able to reduce the negative arousal — which is a very good thing. It’s been likened to meditation, which is really just labeling a thought/feeling and letting go. In life, sometimes just the ambiguity and not knowing are the cause of our discomfort — by labeling the feeling, we are taking control over the situation and that will help us begin to seek out a way to cope, thus moving us from a place of fearful not knowing to active self-caring.

3. Just make a decision and move on! Committing to a course of action actually brings peace. When we are dealing with indecision, we allow our brains to get caught up in a seemingly endless loop of “what ifs?” This is not a good place to leave your brain. Treadmills may help get your body in shape, but a treadmill of thoughts without action will sabotage your mental processing! Our brains actually do a bit of a “happy dance” once a decision is made. The limbic system can calm down and problem-solving can move forward, which is a more comfortable balance for most of us.

4. Reach out and give someone a “high five,” a hug, or a caress! Touching another person — appropriately — is one of the kindest things you can do for yourself! It creates a joyful sense of connection and belonging, which are essential for our physical well-being. Researchers have found that being excluded from a group can lead to an honest-to-goodness feeling of pain. The parts of the brain that are activated when we are hurt physically are also set off when we are left out of a group to which we long to belong. A supportive touch, however, sets off the opposite reaction — it can actually decrease physical pain as well as build team spirit, and positively influence persuasion and flirtingsuccess. We all need to be touched with care and concern — and for those of us who feel that texting is as close as we have time to get to people, it’s been found to be about as useful as waiting for a letter that never arrives . . . not helpful at all when compared to touch or voice calls.

We are bombarded with suggestions for getting fit, for eating right, for taking care of our bodies. However, we need to remember that our emotional regulation systems can also be toned and strengthened, perhaps even more easily than our bodies, for many of us!

Next time you feel that your emotion regulation system is getting a little soft or losing its flexibility, follow the four “Emotional Work-Out” tips above and see how much better you feel after the work-out!