What is happiness? You might think that it is just one of the emotions that we have. Well,  

while it is an emotion, it is more intricate than that. It is a combination of our biochemical activities of the neurochemicals, such as dopamine and serotonin, inside our brain. And this is observable through our biological responses of our body. In this paper, I would introduce the neurochemicals that can give us happiness and the biological responses to that and possible implications of those observations.

The first neurochemical that I would like to mention is serotonin. It is a neurochemical that regulates our mood and is activated as a response to the stimulus, which is a pleasurable experience or mood. When the mood is enhanced, serotonin is secreted, and when the serotonin is secreted, mood is strengthened once again, creating a positive feedback loop of happiness.

And as a response to the secretion of serotonin, the cardiovascular system of our body experiences hemostasis and regulates shrinkage and relaxation of our vessels, increasing our heart rate variability. Also, our respiratory system regulates the pattern & rhythm of respiration and controls the rate & depth of respiration.

Another neurochemical to introduce is dopamine. When you experience something pleasurable, which is a stimulus for dopamine, your brain secretes a lot of dopamine, or a “feel good” hormone, as a response. This hormone gives you happiness, and makes you find that happiness more often. This means that when you can get happiness in healthier ways, then your dopamine would tell you to seek that way more often so that it can make you a happier and healthier person. As a response to the dopamine secretion, not only mood is improved but also our heart, blood system, and kidney function. As a result, this elevates our heart rate.

Then what would be the possible implications for those observations of biological responses? It can be used to track how our happiness is being improved and strengthened, in a biological way. For example, let’s say that you are doing gratitude practice, which changes a molecular structure of our brain so that it becomes more capable of more happiness by increasing serotonin and dopamine. Then you can collect biological data, such as changes in heart rate or respiration rate, whenever you practice it, analyze trends in data, and see how your happiness is being enhanced in a biological way. 

Happiness is a result of the activities of our biochemical process that neurochemicals are activated and trigger the emotion of pleasure. Therefore, checking the biological responses of our body would be an efficient way to check that you are becoming a happier person.

 

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2077351/ 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1043276024001954 

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/22581-dopamine 

https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/dopamine-the-pathway-to-pleasure 

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10003060/ 

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29668452/#full-view-affiliation-1 

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41746-021-00493-6 

by Hangyul Park