Stress and Happiness

Stress and Happiness have trouble existing in the same space. Stress stimulates cortisol, adrenaline, and norepinephrine. Happiness stimulates dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphin. Our days can have a mixture of these stimulants, but often its mostly stress. Happiness for most of us has to be planned. We have to plan in advance the behaviors, habits, or activities, that will stimulate the happiness brain chemicals.

The significance is that while you are experiencing stress, you rarely are experiencing happiness. Yet, happiness seems to be a big goal for most people. What they usually select are various achievements, purchases, goals, and negative behaviors to create some happiness.

An exception may be to have chosen work that is exciting but is stressful and while engaged there is tension, but when successfully completed, there is satisfaction and happiness. An important distinction is to be engaged in chosen work where there is high tension, like brain surgery or extreme sports, but the tension is managed in a state of flow.

The majority of the work force is engaged in processes where they are not responsible for the final outcome, but just pieces,. There is a lot of pressure to complete their piece and at the end of the day they are often just left with either the feeling they survived another day or were bored once again.

Stress wants relief. If there are not positive behaviors for engagement, then negative behaviors will have to do. Most people will work harder for stress or pain relief before they will consider habits of happiness. This is why it is very difficult to convert people to healthy habits if they are living with stress. They may start for a month or two but the risk of relapse is very high.

The Choice of Happiness

Since happiness and stress can rarely exist in the same space, happiness is often a choice more than an achievement. Happiness is more the journey than the destination. Happiness habits squeeze out the amount of time we spend stressed. We are not going to eliminate stress because we are hard wired for it, but we can choose to reduce its impact and longevity.

We find that the work place is often a stress factory. By nature of most jobs there are expectations and measurements for continued employment. Employment is usually important for our survival in meeting our obligations, taking care of our families, and enjoying material possessions. Therefore, we are engaged in meeting someone else’s expectations for our survival.

Happiness behaviors can be the path to meeting our obligations and preparing us for future advancement while also give us the feeling of work life balance. Happiness is created in the process of growing that makes us more valuable in our work and personal lives and adds to our vitality through health and fitness. We might have to inject happiness behaviors into our schedules where we think we don’t have the time.

Why don’t stress and happiness fit in the same space? Sometimes they do. It might depend on the work culture or our independence, or our autonomy. We should feel autonomy and independence to direct our lives and be responsible for our happiness, but it might depend on us arranging our priorities.

5 Happiness Behaviors

5 great behaviors that stimulate happiness brain chemicals are:

• Learning
• Creativity
• Contribution
• Health
• Fitness

Growth in each of these areas is looked upon by Nature as “survival opportunities” for which she rewards us in stimulating certain neurotransmitters and hormones I mentioned above as happiness chemicals.

Survival of species started 3 billion years ago and we have evolved into homosapiens in the last several million years. Our systems are not used to Self-driving cars and cell phones. What we are used to is starving and being prey. The above 5 behaviors are translations to modern behaviors from what early man did to survive.

He needed to eat, find mates, form community, develop social status, and stay healthy. Our brain stimulates happiness for each of the behaviors necessary to survive. BMW’s are not Nature’s happiness, but learning new skills. creating solutions, improving our social status, contributing to the whole, and optimizing health are all survival paths.

Blending Obligations and Happiness

How do we mix our obligations with spending time on survival behaviors that deliver happiness? Is this work life balance? Is this living a more purposeful life? Is this prioritizing productivity in our time management?

These are important questions and the answer to each is yes. A mentor once said we are either acting on our environment or living at the affect of it. What he meant is we can be proactive to affect our lives. The question becomes how committed we are to the outcomes we desire.

People might say we have to love what we do. Sometimes we are more focused on success than happiness because we have a drive. The drive might ignore what we need to be human. The drive might ignore spending time with family, sustaining health, relaxation, and connecting with ourselves and Nature.

This particular focus is not Natural to enjoying daily happiness, but might lead to reaching other goals. We might have choice or we might be so driven our priorities are set. Often when in the hands of a hospice worker, it has been found that seniors say they wish that they had loved more and spent less time at work. This is not a judgment but a choice.

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