Stress less | how to pursuing happiness leaves you stressed
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Everyone has goals
in life – form career to fitness to personal life. Hash tags with goals are a
hit on Instagram, like, #couple goals, #fitness goals, #life goals… the list is
endless. But all these goals have one thing in common. We pursue them in the
hope of achieving happiness.
HAPPINESS vs PLEASURE
The first mistake
we make – which leaves us feelings low – is that we of – ten confuse happiness
with pleasure our addiction to social media, and its constant affirmations,
read ‘’like’’ retweets, compliments, etc., have made us believe that the
pleasure derived out of being
compliments is happiness. So, any deviation form that
makes us feel low.
We have all read
enough to know that happiness cannot be a constant
in anyone’s life. While pursing pleasure can be a daily exercise, happiness
is long term goal.
Now, let’s try and
understand this difference from the perspective of our brains. Our brains
process these two distinctly different feelings in different ways.
Pursuing pleasure
activates the centers of our brain that control the production of dopamine (a chemical directly linked to
addiction). For example, getting likes on social media post pumps dopamine
through our system. It also activates our “fight or flight “Centre, so
adrenaline is coursing through you as well. Sounds great, right? The problem
is, to achieve the same high the next time; you will need the higher dose of
dopamine.
The end result? If
you don’t have enough dopamine (read like, shares, retweets), you start feeling
low.
Happiness, however,
is caused by serotonin, not dopamine. Serotonin is regulated by different parts
of the brains altogether. Unlike dopamine, serotonin is more constant. You
don’t need higher doses of it to feel happy.
ADDICTIONS TRUMPS
As far as our brain
function goes, serotonin, which gives you a feeling of long-term happiness and
contentment, is always overshadowed by dopamine – the hits. More so, these ‘hits’
of pleasure simultaneously reduce our serotonin levels, thereby decreasing our
sense of well-being. Basically, the more you seek pleasure, the less happy you
eventually become.
This is why studies
have shown that people who spend lots of time on social media platform are more
likely to be clinically depressed as compared to who spend less time on it.
JUST ANOTHER EMOTION
In our relentless
pursuit of happiness we forget that it’s just like any other emotion – sadness,
fear, disgust, anger… just like they cannot be a constant. We deceive ourselves
chasing constant happiness. Human bring aren’t designed to be happy all time.
And it is normal.
Please guys if you really like my post so comment you
experience.
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