Klaudia Mitura: Hello, happiness seekers, welcome to the third and final part of the happiness challenge for this month, where I was learning how to kickstart the feel-good chemicals and feel more joy in life. This month's happiness challenge has been inspired by a British journalist and the author of the book, Feeling Blah, Tanith Carey.
If you would like to learn more about the concept of anhedonia, listen to the interview with Tanith in episode 76. If you would like to learn more about how happiness and joy are actually created in our brains, listen to episode 77. But in this short episode, I'm going to share my experience of kickstarting my feel-good chemical, dopamine, with two simple and natural methods, music and cold showers.
Listening to my favourite music in the morning was definitely fun. And I really enjoyed that. From research, we know that listening to music that we love makes our brain release more dopamine. And I guess the best aspect of that is, when I was listening to the songs that were my favourite songs from the past, it really helped me to relive some of my positive memories. So I listened to the tunes that were my favourite from my teenage years. I still remember having those on a mixtape cassette. I listened to top songs that were played at our wedding and some of the songs that I know are really loved by my family and my friends, and this helped me to spend the moment reminiscing about the past, joyful experiences, thinking about good times and, you know, just simply feeling grateful for those.
So that was a fantastic start to the day. So the idea for action here is that even if you only have a few minutes of time and you want to improve your mood instantly, listen to your favourite upbeat music. Listening to music is that really rare activity that makes our entire brain engaged, including the regions that are involved in processing our positive emotions, and also those that are holding autobiographical memories.
So in practice, this means that music has this amazing power to boost our mood and help us travel in time to significant events of our life. And that's why listening to your favourite songs can remind you about positive memories and uplift your mood within seconds providing that natural boost of dopamine which is a feel-good chemical.
But of course, be aware because the same is true for sad songs and very quickly we can be going down the spiral and not feeling really positive so be cautious about what are you listening to.
The second method of kick-starting positive emotions that I was testing this month was cold showers.
And I must say, that was not my favourite part of the challenge. So even though with time, having that 30 seconds of a cold shower at the end of a hot shower got a bit easier, I didn't necessarily enjoy this experience. And I didn't necessarily see any significant changes in my mood. The cold showers definitely helped me to feel more alert and awake much quicker, but it wasn't something that I was looking forward to.
And interestingly, whilst I was trying this challenge, I also had an opportunity to do some wild swimming in the sea and in the lake. And actually, I found that much more enjoyable, even though it was significantly colder. Because I was moving, I was able to feel comfortable after a while in the water.
Whereas when I was standing under a cold shower, I did find that quite challenging. But I guess this challenge inspired me to look into more wild swimming, and I think this is one of those happiness-boosting hacks, which, you know, it might not be pleasurable in itself, but it's definitely something that is good for us.
We know it's good for us from the research. It's just an extra 30 seconds. So I'll be continuing with it. So the idea for action is to try the cold shower by adding that 30 seconds at the end of your normal shower. See how you feel. Think about maybe prolonging it to 60 or 90 seconds to see if you see any differences in the specific benefits.
I'm not sure I'm going to be as brave as go as to 90 seconds, but 30 seconds. I can definitely stick with it.
This month's happiness challenge, in addition to those two methods that I was testing, has also inspired me to dive deeper into the idea of kick-starting our feel-good chemicals. And one way to do so, to experience more joy in life is to actually reintroduce anticipation into your life. So I don't know if you remember, my dear listeners, the times when In order to watch your favourite show, you needed to wait an entire week apart.
So my favourite show of my teenage years was Ally McBeal. And I remember that on Tuesday evening, a few of my friends would come around my house to watch one episode to then discuss it at school for entire week with ideas of what's going to happen in the next one. Now, well, we can watch entire series in one go.
And even though it feels more convenient, the issue is with instant gratification, that it cuts out that important part of joy, anticipation, looking forward to something that is good and that's on horizon. The problem with that is dopamine is also a chemical of seeking.
That is, it is produced when we are anticipating something good that is going to happen. So the idea for action here is that if you want to generate more joy in life, introduce the moments of anticipation back into your life. A few things that I definitely tried are taking breaks in between the episodes of the show that you are watching, planning to book a takeaway, like for two days’ time, buying something nice for yourself, but not choosing the next day delivery, having a countdown to the next holiday or the next event.
And by getting excited that something positive is on the horizon, you are kick-starting that feel-good chemicals, prolonging that feeling of joy. Even more, add an element of surprise to that. So research shows that some unpredictability of what reward you are going to experience in the future actually increases the level of anticipation, which in turn increases the amount of dopamine release.
So if you could also have a little bit of surprise at what that reward is, then definitely you'll be prolonging your joy.
So in summary, to kickstart your feel-good chemicals, to feel more joy in life, listen to your favourite music that reminds you of past good times, start your day with a 30-second cold shower, and introduce anticipation into your life and create those opportunities of looking forward to the good events and good things in the future.
Thank you so much for listening. I do hope that this month's happiness challenge has helped you to kickstart your feel-good chemicals. Let me know how you feel about it and let me know about your experiences. You can find me on LinkedIn under Klaudia Mitura and please, please subscribe to my newsletter.
I see you in the next episode. And as always, I dare you to be happy, but this month I'm also daring you to be joyful. Bye!
