Reddit reviews Habits of a Happy Brain: Retrain Your Brain to Boost Your Serotonin, Dopamine, Oxytocin, & Endorphin Levels

Sorry for the wall of text. I'm reading "Habits of a Happy Brain" (another redditor recommended it, and it's a good primer on dopamine, endorphin, oxytocin, and cortisol).

The author outlines and then goes into detail on what these brain chemicals do, and how the brain has not evolved to deal with the amount of stimulation available today.

I'm rereading the book now, this time taking notes and doing the exercises. And it's hard but there's hope. Some of the other posters have written that we lose dopamine receptors because the brain becomes accustomed to the large amounts of brain chemicals released during super-stimulation (like porn, or even junk foods). They are absolutely right.

It takes time to let those receptors rebuild, and to build new neuronal pathways and let the old ones go fallow. Abstinence from PMO is probably the most effective way, while at the same time replacing the PMO habit with something else. The problem is you will be fighting your own brain! It has built a superhighway to satisfy what it sees as a survival strategy - a way to ensure the survival of your genes (even though masturbating to porn is the exact opposite of procreation, your lizard brain and limbic system don't know that).

The suck factor: When you are "building a streak" your brain is fighting what it sees as a survival threat. Can you say cortisol (sad pain)?

The good news, according to the author, is that if you stop the old habit cold turkey, and start to build a new one, you can gradually rebuild your dopamine receptors and new neuronal pathways. The key is repetition and time. And you will feel a difference... in 45 days. Another way to build a new "super highway" almost instantly is with an intense emotional experience (but we can't count on those happening on a regular basis).

The bad news is, if you don't repeat the new habit every day, and slip into the old one, you'll be right back at day one.

The good news is that your huge cortex can decide not to do the old bad habit, but then the limbic system and the lizard brain will keep pestering until you come up with an alternative. They won't take "No!" for an answer, so it's time to kick in the alternative "survival strategy" habit.

The bad news is that the new habit(s) will not provide what the brain regards as an adequate chemical reward.

So, what's good for survival today? I use different things at different times. I'm a pretty shallow guy, and I've found I enjoy knowing that my physique is good (it wasn't a few years ago, I was chubby and had bad posture). I made running a habit, and I made body-weight exercises a habit, and I made posture exercises a habit. And the first time I happened to look in the mirror and saw the beginning of some abs, the dopamine turned ON! I wanted to do more sittups, run farther, and stop eating ice cream, and get nice arms and sculpted abs. And I paired that with cutting way back on PMO (yeah, I'm still trying to quit) because there was no way I could do anything strenuous after a binge.

I still haven't hit 45 days of no PMO, but it doesn't have the allure it used to. And the other "good" habits have gotten stronger.

OK, I have to go get to work, but I hope this rambling helps! The book is pretty cheap online.

"Habits of a Happy Brain" gets into the nuts & bolts of how our brains get wired, and how to re-wire them. Part one deals with the four "happy chemicals" that our brains produce (including Dopamine!), and the "sad" chemical Cortisol.

Anyway, if you want, check out the Look Inside Intro at that humongous bookstore.

I HIGHLY recommend reading "Meet Your Happy Chemicals" or it's new title "Habits of a Happy Brain" by Loretta G. Breuning. It's written at sort of a middle school level, but it pretty well explains why our brains are basically out to get us because in the wild contentment = death. So we are always a little agitated to keep ourselves propelled toward working on whatever the our brain tells us that we need to do to bridge the gap between our present and some imagined greener pasture. I haven't even done some of the exercises, and yet reading the book has made me SO MUCH MORE CHILL. My favorite was one of the "postcards to your brain" at the end which said "People are secretly respecting you behind your back. You might as well feel good about it."

Not at all surprised to hear this after reading this book: https://www.amazon.com/Habits-Happy-Brain-Serotonin-Endorphin/dp/1440590508

Some of what we do has been hard-coded into our brains many centuries.