First up, you guys need to grab a pen and paper, open another tab or access your working
memory, because you need to choose 6 numbers between 1 and 55.
These are very special numbers because they will be your BrainCraft lottery numbers.
Up for grabs is – hypothetically – this jar of 100 million dollars.
And before I draw the lottery, I want you to think about how you would feel if you won.
What would you do with the next week or year of your life?
And would you be happy?
Or at least would be happier than how you’re feeling right now?
Take a second to write down your numbers.
And good luck!
How do you go?
Well, even if you did “win”, it wouldn’t necessarily make you happy.
In a classic 1978 study, researchers found that the happiness levels of state lottery
winners spiked when they won, but after a few months they returned to their pre-winning
level of happiness.
Some researchers call this the Hedonic treadmill, where good and bad events temporarily affect
our happiness, but we return to a set-point of well-being relatively quickly.
What does make us happy is complicated.
In our brain there’s no one area or chemical responsible for happiness.
In fact, happiness isn’t even a single emotion, there are over 30 different types of happiness,
including contentment, connection, love, hope and gratitude.
So where do these feelings come from?
And why do we experience them?
In general, emotions come from chemicals in the brain called neurotransmitters.
Take dopamine: when good things happen, like, maybe winning the lottery, your brain releases
dopamine and it makes you feel good.
It’s like an internal reward – you want play more games to maintain that happiness.
Or there’s oxytocin – it’s released through positive social interactions, like
hugging a person you love.
Or a labradoodle.
The happiness people feel from oxytocin increases social collaboration; when people help each
other, everyone’s happier.
And there’s serotonin – it’s released when you exercise or eat a delicious meal.
That’s why it’s hard to be sad when you’re eating biscuits.
More importantly, serotonin levels are thought to be responsible for your long-term mood,
or how happy you are on a day to day basis.
Everyone has these chemicals in their brain, but not everyone is the same level of happy.
So to find out why this is, scientists went further and looked at the genetic makeup of
a massive number of people.
Like two hundred and ninety eight thousand, four hundred and twenty people.
First, they looked at the level of general happiness for each person and then they tried
to find genetic differences related to that level of happiness.
What they found was 3 separate places where small differences in DNA seem to be responsible
for general well-being or happiness.
They also found that the genetic effects on mood mostly come from genes specifically in
the brain.
This means, to some extent, your baseline level of happiness may be encoded in your
DNA from birth.
But, even if that baseline level of happiness is low, it doesn’t mean you’re destined
to be a sad panda your entire life.
Studies also show that your environment and actions can have a much bigger impact.
You can improve happiness!
One recent study showed that practicing mindfulness can be as effective as medication at improving
emotional well-being in those suffering from depression.
Other studies have shown that smiling or acting like you’re happy, even if you’re not,
can improve your overall mood in the long term [smile].
Expressing gratitude, playing with a pet and volunteering can also help boost happiness.
And we’re still trying to understand more about our emotions.
There may not be a single solution for making everyone happy, so the important thing is
to find what works for you.
You know you’re more likely to die from flesh eating bacteria than to win the Saturday
Lotto?
Makes me sad.