Top 8 Ways to Feel Amazing
Written By Livia Fekiacova
Wouldn't it be great to feel amazing all the time? Sadly, however, modern life gets in the way! Bills need to be paid, little Johnny has to be taken to soccer practice, the grocery shopping needs to be done, there is a leak in the bathroom, your boss is making your life a misery and on and on and on! STOP! Life is not meant to be so stressful, life is to be enjoyed, the be wondered at, to be wholeheartedly experienced in the most amazing way and our brains have a built in instinct and desire to seek out activities and surroundings that give us the natural feelings of elation and euphoria we desire. Kind of like life’s natural highs. As we get caught up in the whirlwind of modern day life we forget to take a step back and smell the roses along the way. We think that once we have just got this or that out of the way then we’ll be happy. ‘As soon as I get the promotion, lose the weight, get married, buy the house, the kids leave home, I retire……then I’ll be happy’ and before you know it life has passed you by and you look back and think, ‘Wow the last 40 years went quick!’ So enough of the depressing thoughts and lets look at some natural ways in which we can boost our serotonin (happy, mood enhancing hormones) on a regular basis so that life just becomes one big party! Physical Exercise OK, so being a nutritionist and personal trainer obviously I’m going to start with this one but hear me out. You may well have hear the expression,‘the runner’s high’, but you don’t have to actually run to feel the feel good factor from exercise. Good news if you ask me as I’m not a great fan of running personally. However, one of the reasons so many people favour endurance types of exercise as the choice of fitness regime is because it releases some extremely powerful natural chemicals into the system. These chemicals are responsible for the effects of pain reduction, relaxation and a sense of euphoria. These effects soon become addictive and often is the only reason people keep up their exercise routines even though there are some negative effects to long term, endurance activities in the form of oxidative stress (premature aging) and muscle wastage. From an evolutionary point of view the exercise high probably played a major role in human evolution. When the going got tough (like when a saber tooth tiger was right on their heels or when they were chasing down dinner), euphoria and pain reduction would have been invaluable so as you can see, from very early on, man has used the genetic instinct of inducing pleasurable and beneficial chemicals into the brain. To achieve the release of these chemicals it takes about an hour of endurance training but the good news is that short-term anaerobic training also produces significant levels of the pain reducing feel good chemicals. Olympic weightlifting also causes elevations in endorphins, so low-volume resistance training, no more than ten or fifteen seconds of actual honest work, but the intensity must be high, is also an option so as you can see, there is an exercise for everyone to choose from! Overall, it’s high intensity anaerobic work that produces the biggest endorphin rush. Spicy Food OK, so we are going to take a slight detour from what we do WITH our body and look at how what we put IN our body can influence the way our brains produce feel good chemicals. While it's true that some people despise spicy foods, a good portion of us love the food and crave it on a daily basis. We live for hot peppers, fiery-hot wings and spicy seasonings on top of just about everything, you can even get chocolate with chilli for the more adventurous among us. Thankfully, spicy foods are generally good for us. Though heart health, cancer prevention and weight loss are reasons enough to add more spice to your life, there are some smaller, hidden benefits to eating spicy foods as well. These include: Boosts mood. Spicy foods increase serotonin in your brain, which makes you feel happier. Serotonin also helps you relax and feel less stressed. Helps relieve common cold symptoms by increasing your metabolism and working up a sweat. Promotes restful sleep. Those who consume spicy foods regularly have a faster and easier time falling asleep and staying asleep. Capsaicin (the main spicy component in peppers) can release beta-endorphins and adrenaline. It also has analgesic properties which may induce a pain relief effect in the body Do something exhilarating! Ever thought of jumping off a bridge with some elastic rope tied to your feet? Or driving at breakneck speed around a race track? How about diving off a high cliff or snowboarding down a treacherous mountain side testing your ability to control the uncontrollable? If you have then you will know exactly the feeling you get, one of huge excitement mixed with the feeling of potential death! The result is a rush of powerful hormones, including adrenaline, dopamine, and beta-endorphins (which correlate closely with reports of euphoria). Your heart works harder and faster, sending more blood, more quickly to the muscles as well as the brain. Your senses are heightened. Time slows down. Moments linger longer than ever before. It’s all a stop-gap mechanism to help you survive the situation. What we’re drawn to is the intense, hyper-real focus and awareness that our body produces as a response to the incredible insanity of the situation. It’s not about the risk itself as much as a testing of skill against the very immediate, potent backdrop of survival. Be loving to yourself and others. Do you remember the first time you ‘fell in love’? Now I have put quotation marks here because as young teens we rarely know what ‘love’ is but it’s the feeling that I’m talking about. Falling in love is the ultimate high in most people’s book. Your behaviour becomes totally irrational, you feel invincible and walk around with a big grin on your face for days on end. You want to spend every waking moment with this person and feel broken when you are apart. Remember those days of heady summer romances? Well, a review of studies has shown that at least twelve different brain regions are activated during these times by a cascade of chemicals like dopamine, adrenaline, vasopression, serotonin, and oxytocin when we fall in love. Endorphins and PEA (the chocolate/love drug) also play a big role in the neurochemistry of love. As a result, we feel happy and dopey. Confused and excited. Anxious and confident. We’re a mess, basically, but somehow it feels amazing. Now make sure you hear me here, I am not encouraging you to go and search for a new relationship if you are already in one. But if you are already settled down with someone now is the chance to make the most of that relationship. Spoil your partner, act like it is the early days. Experience them in the fullest possible way. Recall those initial romantic days and do it over again. Relish good memories. Make new ones. In a couple words: be present. Nature Have you ever really thought about how you feel when you are outdoors in a beautiful setting? How does it feel to spend time in nature among trees and open spaces? It seems that just being out in nature does your body, mind and soul some good. According to a 2009 study published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, the closer you live to nature, the healthieryou're likely to be. The study took an objective look at 345,143 Dutch people's medical records, assessing health status for 24 conditions, including cardiovascular, respiratory and neurological diseases. The records were then correlated with how much green space was located within 1 kilometer and 3 kilometers of a person's postal code. And what did researchers find? People who lived within 1 kilometer of a park or a wooded area experienced less anxiety and depression than those who lived farther away from green space. You will have probably experienced the tranquil and relaxed feeling that a walk in nature gives you, spending time on the coast, breathing in fresh sea air. It is one of the most popular reasons people go on holiday, even if they do just spend time by the pool. Nature is a great energy and mood booster, here is something you can do today to get some benefit; find a patch of grass, take off your shoes and socks and just walk around for about twenty minutes feeling the grass beneath your feet. Just doing this promotes a feeling of calm relaxation, it grounds you to the earth and helps re-establish your electrical balance, a kind of bodily reset. Try it, you will feel very at peace. Sex OK, fine, sex had to come into it at some point and why not! Having sex releases anabundance of drugs, hormones and neurotransmitters. During arousal, your body secretes the powerful stimulants adrenaline and noradrenaline. Your heart is racing, your blood pressure rises, all in the service of delivering extra blood to various important body parts. Upon climax, your bloodstream is treated to an intoxicating cocktail of prolactin, oxytocin (a.k.a. cuddle time), phenethylamine (levels of this love and chocolate chemical peak at orgasm), and dopaminefor all around opiate-induced bliss. There is also an abundance of pain relieving chemicals released into the body creating a euphoric sensation. All in all, not a bad way to spend some time with a loved one. Listen to your favourite music What is your favourite piece of music? How do you feel when you hear it? How does your mind and body react? Do you get goose bumps and chills? Are you utterly struck by it, held by it, entranced and touched in such a deep way that we feel moved physically and spiritually?Many people experience these emotions and more when they hear music that appeals to them. Music has been shown to actually improve physical performance if listened too whilst training, it gets people focussed and energised more than just training alone. Often, music is the go too method for people who want to just relax, the sound washes over them and the brain releases chemicals that take them somehow to a place far away from the madding crowd. A questions I have long pondered is this. Why is it that sounds played in a particular order are soothing and appealing to us but the exact same sounds played in a different order just comes across as irritating noise? After all, they are just sounds but for some reason the order of them is of vital importance to our brain. I am sure that I could research this further but if you have any experience in this field then feel free to get in contact and enlighten me! Have you ever seen an ad on the TV with a baby laughing or giggling? Do you find yourself smiling at the TV and maybe even laughing along with them? Laughter is contagious and there’s nothing better than laughing so hard you can hardly breathe. Do you remember the last time you laughed like that? If you can’t then you need to start to bring more of it into your life. The weirdest part of all is that it has a mind of its own and you cannot control it. If something is really, truly funny, you’re going to laugh and there’s not a thing you can do about it. You know how it is – we all have that memory that makes us laugh just thinking of it. Aside from the intensive abdominal workout it gives us, laughing releases endorphins and opiates into our bodies which have been shown to promote health and wellbeing. Researchers have found that depression can be improved, not by using drugs, but by watching films that make patients laugh on a regular basis. People who were manic depressives were soon given a new lease of life just by laughing. Find what makes you laugh and pursue it with a passion, you will live a much happier life! Paul Burgess SAC dip. (cn) SAC Dip. (pt) SAC Dip. (AnAg)
Laugh then laugh some more!
