Tag: happiness

discipline, exercise, habits, motivation, nutrition, sleep, stress

How to naturally increase your dopamine levels.

Our hormones have a big impact on our emotional state, causing both good and bad mood patterns.

Regulating your hormones significantly improves and balances your emotional health.

There are a lot of things that you are doing throughout the day that have an affect on your hormones. Without you even realising.

Dopamine is a hormone that has a massive effect on us. It’s the chemical messenger in your brain that creates feelings of pleasure and reward. Which motivates you to repeat a specific behaviour.

And modern day temptations are very effective at giving us cheap dopamine hits. They are designed to elicit this ‘feel good’ sensation. It’s at the crux of their design and marketing.

Junk food, Porn, Social media, Booze, Nicotine. All elicit these cheap dopamine hits. And these temporary feel goods are very effective.

They target your weakness and keep you coming back for more.

Alcohol for confidence.

Nicotine anxiety.

Social media for boredom.

Junk food for lethargy.

Porn for arousal.

These acute ‘feel goods’ are so common yet so dangerous. Because use of these cheap dopamine hits results in;

Excessive binge eating,

Poor relationships,

Chronic stress,

High blood pressure,

and poor health.

These cheap dopamine hits are killing you!

And without without discipline, it can be very hard to turn down these temptations because they are so effective and immediate. They offer instant gratification to a problem.

And when you start to depend on them, it’s harder to rid yourself of them.

So rather than going cold turkey – which is incredibly hard. Replace them with natural things that you natural dopamine hits.

Swapping them, so your brain doesn’t really notice.

Imagine yourself as Indiana Jones, in Raiders of the Lost Ark, in the tomb swapping that Golden Idol for a bag of sand.

(but much easier and without the tomb kicking off and trying to kill you).

Here are some easy ways to do that!

Eat a high protein diet.

Proteins are made up of smaller building blocks called amino acids. One amino acid, called tyrosine, plays a critical role in the production of dopamine!

Probiotics

The gut and brain are closely linked. Certain species of bacteria that live in your gut are also capable of producing dopamine.

Exercise

Exercise can boost dopamine levels in the brain. Improvements in mood can be seen after as little as 10 minutes of activity but tend to be highest after at least 20 minutes.

Quality sleep

After poor sleep the availability of dopamine receptors in their brains is dramatically reduced by the next morning.

Getting regular, high quality sleep helps keep your dopamine levels balanced. And help you feel more alert and high functioning during the day

Music

Listening to music is an enjoyable way to stimulate dopamine release in your brain.

Listening to music increases activity in the reward and pleasure areas of the brain, rich with dopamine receptors.

Sunlight

Periods of low sunshine exposure can lead to reduced levels of mood-boosting neurotransmitters. Including dopamine. Sunlight exposure can increase them.

Start swapping the unnatural for the natural and I promise you’ll start to feel better.

testosterone

How to increase your testosterone levels.

High testosterone is essential for a man, and if you aren’t optimising yours you’re leaving happiness and success on the table!

Healthy levels of testosterone are so important. For general health, disease risk, body composition, sexual function and just about everything else.

Additionally, increasing your testosterone levels can cause rapid gains in muscle mass and vitality in only a matter of weeks.

But how can you boost your testosterone levels? And how can you do it naturally so you can avoid hormone replacement therapy?

Let’s have a look at some lifestyle factors that will remedy the situation.

First up is exercise, to be more specific resistance training/weights.

People who lift have higher testosterone levels. Not does exercise increase testosterone levels, and fitness but also reaction times.

Factor into your week a minimum effective dosage. Resistance the urge to go full banana and instead commit to an amount of sessions you can realistically stick to. Even if only 2 sessions per week.

A Balanced diet,

to clarify, is eating enough protein, to aid satiety to aid weight loss, and muscle repair. Having enough carbohydrates also optimize testosterone levels during resistance training. And a balance of fats which are also beneficial for testosterone and health.

Combined with an energy target for your goal you will have a ‘REAL’ healthy diet.

Stress management

Natural elevations in cortisol can reduce testosterone. These hormones work in a seesaw-like manner: as one goes up, the other comes down.

Chronic stress and high cortisol can also increase food intake, weight gain, and the storage of fat around your organs.

This is why it is paramount you input into your day time for actions that will see you decompress, away from stressors and stimulation.

Sleep

Getting good sleep is as, if not more important for your health as diet and exercise. It also has major effects on your testosterone levels.

The ideal amount of sleep varies from person to person. But one study found sleeping only 5 hours per night caused a 15% reduction in testosterone levels!

This is why it would be prudent to implement a bedtime routine that will improve the duration and quality of your sleep. Why not set an alarm at the same time each day to start your bedtime routine

For more help with these lifestyle factors download a free copy of my guide The Gentleman’s Vitality Handbook

career goals

The secret to happiness

We must keep growing!

Everything in life either grows or dies, relationships, businesses, and anything else.

If you don’t keep growing you’ll become frustrated and miserable no matter how much money you have in the bank (or rather invested in stocks and shares).

So the secret to happiness, according to Andrew, can be summed up in one word.

Progress.

Progress equals happiness!

Even if you are not there/where you want to be, but if you are making progress with the things that matter you will start to feel more fulfilled.

The second principle, if it were, is that you have to give to feel truly happy.

If you don’t give you’re limiting your happiness. You’ll never feel absolutely alive.

‘You make a living from by you get, you make a life by what you give!’.

– W. Churchill.

Sharing your gifts, your knowledge and experience to help others taps into the true nature of a human being. It isn’t to be selfish. We are driven by our desire to contribute, we want to share, it makes our lives richer to share.

If you don’t have that sense of contribution you’ll never feel truly fulfilled.

It’s also worth reminding ourselves of the obvious truth that becoming financially rich isn’t the key to fulfilment.

People often chase after money in the delusional belief that it is some kind of magic elixir that will give joy and meaning to their lives.

But money alone will never give you an extraordinary life.

I know millionaires that are miserable.

And if you’re not happy you you can’t have a magnificent life no matter how big your net worth.

Remember money doesn’t change people it just amplifies their nature.

If you have a lot of money and you’re sad and mean money will exacerbate that.

But if you have a lot of money and you are generous you’ll naturally give more.

Now there is one thing to point out here. If you are are someone that contributes to the world and gives a lot to others. There is something to be cognisant of.

That is; making everyone else happy but yourself!

You know the safety instruction the flight attendant gives you on an airplane:

‘Fix your own safety mask before helping others‘.

Well, it’s worth thinking about!

Unless you help yourself first how can you help others?

You can’t! You’ll be in trouble and you wont be able to help the people you care about!

So in order to help others, you must first help yourself. It’s imperative that you are fit, strong, and healthy so you have the energy to keep on doing what you do!