You have power over your emotions, but it’s limited, so you need to understand it. Here is a simple explanation of the chemicals that make us feel good: dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphin. You’ll find out what turns them on in animals, and how you manage them with the animal part of your brain. Then you’ll learn to rewire your happy chemicals by feeding your brain new inputs in a new way. We’ll do the same for the unhappy chemical, cortisol, too.

It’s a step-by-step method with no jargon, based on the work of the Inner Mammal Institute. A more complete presentation of the science is in the companion book, Habits of a Happy Brain: Retrain your brain to boost your serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin and endorphin levels.

With one lesson a day for fourteen days, you will discover your power over your happy brain chemicals. This is not a checklist of activities. It’s a guide to the way your brain got wired long ago, and the way to add on new wiring. We humans get wired by early experience, so we all need updates. You can learn to blaze a new trail through your jungle of neurons to reach your happy chemicals in natural, healthy ways.

Realistic expectations are the key. Our happy chemicals are not designed to flow all the time for no reason. They evolved to reward you for taking a step that meets your needs. Our brain defines “needs” in a quirky way, alas. You will learn about these quirks so you can design realistic steps toward your happy chemicals.

You cannot rewire your whole brain in 14 days. You can build one new neural pathway at a time. You will learn to target the new pathway you want and the steps that will build it. It will build with repetition, so you will flow there as smoothly as you now flow into your old happy-chemical pathways. You can replace an unsustainable habit with a new habit designed by you. You’ll be glad you did!

CONTENTS
Day 1 Your Power Over Your Brain
Day 2 The Joy of Dopamine
Day 3 The Safety of Oxytocin
Day 4 The Pride of Serotonin
Day 5 The Challenge of Endorphin
Day 6 The Pain of Cortisol
Day 7 Your Dopamine Past
Day 8 Your Oxytocin Past
Day 9 Your Serotonin Past
Day 10 Your Cortisol Past
Day 11 Your Dopamine Future
Day 12 Your Oxytocin Future
Day 13 Your Serotonin Future
Day 14 Design Your Sustainable Path


What is the Inner Mammal Institute?
It’s not really about animals.It’s not about happiness as your verbal brain defines it.It’s about the happy brain chemicals we’ve inherited from earlier mammals: dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphin. These chemicals are designed to do a job, not to flow all the time for no reason. When you know how the happy chemicals work in animals, you can find healthy ways to stimulate yours. You can train your mammal brain and your verbal brain to work together. Nothing is wrong with you! Nothing is wrong with us! We’re mammals. Get the whole story at innermammalinstitute.org
Disclaimers: This book is not intended as medical treatment. Nothing in this book is intended to support breaking the law. We all benefit from the rule of law.

Rewire your brain to avoid the trap of comparison and status-seeking to achieve more contentment and satisfaction from life

People care about status despite their best intentions because our brains are inherited from animals who cared about status. The survival value of status in the state of nature helps us understand our intense emotions about status today. Beneath your verbal brain, you have the brain common to all mammals. It rewards you with pleasure hormones when you see yourself in a position of strength, and it alarms you with stress hormones when you see yourself in a position of weakness.

But constant striving for status can be anxiety-provoking and joy-stealing. Nothing feels like enough to our mammal brain. It releases those stress chemicals when you think others are ahead of you.

Here, Loretta Breuning shines a light on the brain processes that encourage us to seek higher status. She teaches us how to rewire those connections for more contentment and less stress. No more worrying about keeping up with the Joneses. Your new way of thinking will blaze new trails to your happy hormones and you will RELAX.

Anxiety is natural. Calm is learned.

If you didn’t learn yesterday, you can learn today.

It’s not easy, of course. Once your natural alarm system is triggered, it’s hard to find the off switch. Indeed, you don’t have an off switch until you build one. Tame Your Anxiety shows you how.

Readers learn about the brain chemicals that make us feel threatened and the chemicals that make us feel safe. You’ll see how your brain turns on these chemicals with neural pathways built from past experience, and, most important, you discover your power to build new pathways, to enjoy more happy chemicals, and reduce threat chemicals.

This book does not tell you to imagine yourself on a tropical beach. That’s the last thing you want when you feel like a lion is chasing you. Instead, you will learn to ask your inner mammal what it wants and how you can get it. Each time you step toward meeting a survival need, you build the neural pathways that expect your needs to be met. You don’t have to wait for a perfect world to feel good. You can feel good right now.

The exercises in this book help you build a self-soothing circuit in steps so small that anyone can do it. Once you learn how it’s done, and how it can help ease your anxiety, you will learn how to handle situations in which you feel threatened or anxious. Understanding the underlying mechanisms will help you stop them before they get ahead of you.

• biology drives political correctness
  
• you can enjoy the rewards of political correctness without it
  
• you can feel good when conformity surrounds you
  

Tú tienes poder sobre tus emociones, pero es limitado, por lo que debes entenderlo. Aquí hay una explicación simple de los químicos que nos hacen sentir bien: dopamina, serotonina, oxitocina y endorfina. Descubrirás qué los enciende en los animales y cómo los manejas con la parte animal de tu cerebro. Luego, aprenderás a reconfigurar tus sustancias químicas felices alimentando a tu cerebro con nuevas entradas. También haremos lo mismo con el cortisol, el químico infeliz.

Es un método paso a paso sin jerga ni lenguaje técnico, basado en el trabajo del Inner Mammal Institute. Una presentación más completa de la ciencia se encuentra en el libro complementario, Los Hábitos de un cerebro feliz: Rentrena tu cerebro para aumentar los niveles de serotonina, dopamina, oxitocina y endorfinas.

Con una lección al día durante catorce días, descubrirás tu poder sobre las sustancias químicas del cerebro feliz. Esta no es una lista de verificación de tareas. Es una guía sobre la forma en que se conectó tu cerebro hace mucho tiempo y la forma de agregar un nuevo cableado. Los seres humanos nos conectamos con la experiencia temprana, por lo que todos necesitamos actualizaciones. Puede aprender a abrir una nueva ruta a través de tu jungla de neuronas para alcanzar tus sustancias químicas felices de manera natural y saludable.

Las expectativas realistas son la clave. Nuestros productos químicos felices no están diseñados para fluir todo el tiempo sin razón alguna. Evolucionaron para recompensarte por dar un paso que satisfaga tus necesidades. Nuestro cerebro define las "necesidades" de una manera peculiar, por infortunio. Aprenderás acerca de estas peculiaridades para que pueda diseñar pasos realistas hacia sus químicos felices.

No es posible volver a cablear todo tu cerebro en 14 días. Puedes construir una nueva ruta neuronal a la vez. Aprenderás a apuntar a la nueva ruta que desea y los pasos que la construirán. Se construirá con la repetición, por lo que fluirás allí tan suavemente como fluyes ahora en tus viejas rutas de químicos felices. Puedes reemplazar un hábito insostenible con un nuevo hábito diseñado por ti. ¡Estarás contento de haberlo logrado!

CONTENIDO

Día 1 Tu poder sobre tu cerebro

Día 2 La alegría de la dopamina

Día 3 La seguridad de la oxitocina

Día 4 El orgullo de la serotonina

Día 5 El desafío de las endorfinas

Día 6 El dolor del cortisol

Día 7 Tu pasado de dopamina

Día 8 Tu pasado de oxitocina

Día 9 Tu pasado de serotonina

Día 10 Tu pasado de cortisol

Día 11 Tu futuro con la dopamina

Día 12 Tu futuro con oxitocina

Día 13 Tu futuro de serotonina

Día 14 Diseña tu camino sostenible

¿Qué es el Instituto del Mamífero Interior?

No se trata realmente de animales. No se trata de la felicidad como la define tu cerebro verbal. Se trata de las sustancias químicas del cerebro que hemos heredado de los mamíferos anteriores: dopamina, serotonina, oxitocina y endorfina. Estos productos químicos están diseñados para hacer un trabajo, no para fluir todo el tiempo sin ningún motivo.