The Happy Brain

you’ll know most scientists do not write in this way, so translating impenetrable technical reports of meticulously planned experiments into easily understood copy means a lot of changes have to be made.

oxytocin’s most established role is as a chemical released in high doses during labour and breastfeeding.

Thanks to endorphins, childbirth, no matter how gruelling it is, could be worse.

We have substances five times as powerful as the most intoxicating narcotic just hanging around in our brains – it’s a wonder we get anything done at all.

Expected rewards correspond with an initial dopamine surge, which then tails off. But unexpected rewards correspond with an increased level of dopamine release for a longer period after the reward is experienced.

it typically rewards this behaviour by causing you to experience brief but often intense pleasure triggered by the release of dopamine. And pleasure makes you happy

Everything we perceive, remember, think and imagine. Every facet of human life involves the brain to some degree. Despite massing just a few pounds, the human brain does a ridiculous amount of work and has hundreds of different parts doing thousands of different things on a second-by-second basis, providing us with the rich detailed existence we take for granted.