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While performing the Yoga postures as well as practicing all the other techniques and tips that this ancient science offers increase the level of inner pleasure, serenity, great peace of mind and fruitful silence. This is how the hormones of happiness and the proper practice of Yoga are connected:
Endorphin is one chemical in the brain and spinal cord that is always found in our body when positive emotions are found in our mind and heart.
This interesting chemical reduces fears, anxiety and is a natural painkiller. Some German websites say that only 20 seconds laughing produces the same amount of endorphins as five minutes of rowing. The level of this hormone also increases when we do any sport but the difference between sports and practice of proper Yoga postures is great for many reasons. One is that asanas and their proper performance lowers both heart rate and blood pressure. During sports as well as practicing Yoga postures, when these are practiced in the way that sport is practiced, the pulse is accelerated.
Again, when there are too many of these chemicals in our body, it brings great confusion to our entire system, just like any doping.
Further, thanks to endorphins, it happens that when we experience an accident or suddenly find ourselves in a situation that occurs suddenly and too quickly, we feel neither the reality of the situation nor the severity of the pain immediately but often only when we are already far from the place that disturbed our body, psyche and everything else in us.
Endorphin is an endogenous opiate, the term opiate refers to any opium or similar drug. Endo means “mean” and genis “that comes from something”.
Unlike exogenous opiates, pharmaceuticals or street drugs that must be taken externally (Greek, exo ), endorphin naturally exists in our body.
This courier is produced by our pituitary gland, a small “hooked” organ in our brain which sends it to our body. Thus, endorphins reach our enteric nervous system (enteron is ancient Greek for the “intestine”). We call this, like other interesting couriers of happiness, the happiness hormones.
Fell-good hormones are also at the same time the couriers who carry news from one cell to another and miniature stunt performers that leap through small windows into our blood vessels.
These miniature stunt performers go through really many places in our body, from the parts of the brain that decide how we react in a second, through the heart and blood, to the intestine.
Another such courier and stunt performer is serotonin.
That some substances that constrict our blood vessels arrive in our blood, was first noticed by the German anatomist as early as the 19th century. The same was noticed by an Italian pharmacologist in 1930 who called this substance “enteramine“. Then, in 1948, one Italian and two Americans reaffirmed the substance and called it serotonin.
However, when we allow it, this stunt courier cheers us up. It gives us a sense of calm, inner peace and relaxation.
This little courier lives naturally in all living things.
Also, everyone who talks about cooking or blogging about chocolate knows that feeling of… happiness.
When it happens that this hormone does not walk so often through our cells and the windows of the blood vessels, then we get depressed, aggressive, anxious (we measure every little thing) and we usually start visiting the fridge and drawers more often, especially the ones where we keep chocolates.
And we don’t go bananas so easily.
Chocolate and cocoa, of course, do not contain serotonin, but tryptophan, through which this “happiness hormone” is excreted.
One professor of organic chemistry at the University of Berlin has expressed himself that, although there is much more of that tryptophan in eggs than in chocolate, none of his boiled eggs at breakfast has so far evoked a feeling of happiness like chocolate.
Whether all about tryptophan is true, whether the cause of our happiness after a piece of chocolate or a whole chocolate is just a large amount of carbohydrates, fats and proteins in such a small place, or is chocolate just our psycho-mental best friend, we will leave to the researchers who themselves feel good after a piece or two of chocolate to find out.
The myth that chocolate makes “real lions in bed” is unfortunately just a myth. However, the biggest fantasies play in the head, not in the tryptophan and chocolate, or theobromine and cocoa.
Massages with chocolate and cocoa are known, however, because cocoa beans promote cell growth in the skin and act against wrinkles (one of the studies at the faculty in Münster, Germany).
What the German in the 19th century and his colleagues probably did not know yet about serotonin is that it moisturizes our eyes, rejuvenates our muscles, soothes our heartbeats, relieves our pain.
They probably didn’t even know that serotonin is there to keep us warm when it is cold and vice versa, to put in order our sleep and wakefulness, and that before darkness, serotonin actually becomes melatonin (this substance is secreted by the small organ in the middle of our head that responds to light and darkness, see more on this page under “beta waves”). Most likely, at the time, they were also unaware that unlike any other courier, a serotonin courier can sometimes also deprive our desire for another dessert, sex.
One other interesting and, therefore, well-known and favorite courier that walks through our bodies is dopamine.
We know and love it even when we have enough motive and inner stimulation for new attempts in our lives, or when this chemical in our body drives us crazy when we do not know how to manage too many ideas about new attempts in our heads.
If all ideas and attempts eventually lead us to a sense of happiness, then we can certainly say that dopamine is one of the happiness hormones. If in our body there is a small amount of this hormone then we have no desire for anything and we pull into the shell. When there is too many of it, then our behavior is exaggerated.
A person suffering from a mental disorder called bipolarity (the old name is manic depression) is a person with very variable moods (though some horoscope signs seem to have these characteristics in their nature in great presence). Such a person’s moods range from a few days / months of crying and depression, to a few hours / days of overstated happiness and a sense of strength. Just in the phase of mania, when a person thinks that he is the strongest, the best and unbeatable, the level of dopamine is increased.
The next, if not our most favorite courier, is oxytocin.
He is the herald of the tenderness of touching the baby, or of the warmth of the cuddle of the person we love unconditionally. It is the messenger of trust and faith in humanity and the bearer of peace and calm happiness. One German term describes it very nicely in one single word: Geborgenheit which means a feeling of warmth and belonging to that warmth, a feeling of protection.
Oxytocin is also the substance that encourages us to tell our partner during or shortly after sexual intercourse, that we love her or him (even though we had a great war with him just a few hours ago and did not love him).
When we have just fallen in love, or when we start “love from the beginning” oxytocin is there. Relationships and marriages, however, often die prematurely because people give neither time, love nor goodness a chance for a fresh start and a new amorousness.
The word oxytocin comes from the Greek word ὠκύς and the ancient Greek word τόκος and means “rapid birth”.
Pharmacy today also made a nasal spray with this hormone that alleviates social anxiety and helps with autism (acknowledgment from the 2018 Congress of German Endocrinologists in Bonn).
Money, of course, does not have the strength that has a simple, free, warm touch of the man, woman or pet we love.
That’s why happiness can’t (so easily) be bought.
Just in the course of writing this article and in my effort to convey the most accurate information about the topic of happiness hormones, I came across the text on the website of the endowment of a very famous German researcher, oceanologist, cosmopolitan, ecologist, climatologist and lecturer Alexander von Humboldt in Bonn. The text is written in 2011 and talks about what happiness is. Among other things, in that text, as well as on the entire website you are reading right now, it says that my house, my car, my yacht do not give any happiness to a person and that in fact the happiest people are those who managed to bring in balance all what they have, or a balance between what they are realistically capable to create for themselves and what they want.
(this entire website talks about what human happiness is, how to make a difference in life and how to develop those most beautiful, most valuable but hidden powers in a person)
This hormone is not exactly one of the happiness hormones because it is closely linked to adrenaline, which is a stress hormone, but it is involved when we are highly motivated, increases our readiness for mental activity, participates in the burning of fat in our body.
This is another courier that brings us a sense of happiness and it is like all other happiness hormones found naturally in all living beings as well as in plants. This hormone is not one of real happiness hormones because it is there where stress is there, like adrenaline, noradrenaline and dopamine. But when its level in our body is balanced and when our stress eventually becomes an internal pleasure, then it is a happiness hormone.
So the researchers found that these substances are especially found in cocoa beans and bitter almond oil, and also present when there is a strong motivation, for example in athletes in training or, again, in those freshly in love. (source: May 2019 expert text)
Proper practice of asanas normalizes our need for frequent opening of refrigerators and drawers with chocolate, brings harmony to our faith in humanity, love for children and adults, strengthens our willpower and ability to make differences rather than illusions in life.
By practicing asana, all the hormones of happiness are brought into balance. Blood pressure is also normalized (a result of my personal research in classes with the elderly long ago), cholesterol levels, improves breathing, blood circulation and oxygen absorption. The secretion of glands such as the pancreas, thyroid gland and adrenal glands changes affecting the whole behavior of humans.
Practicing asanas gives you a sense of satisfaction, happiness and it calms the mind in the most natural way without harming the body or mind.
My recommendation is that once you start practicing yoga asana, certainly in combination with breathing techniques or pranayama and other Hatha Yoga principles (see also the extensions of these pages), you should practice regularly and without interruption.
There are many advantages to this.
Your practice, and finally, the hormones of happiness, will, in addition, get you exactly where you need to be.