Why do you often feel sad and depressed? Did you know you are lacking serotonin in your brain? There are many natural ways to increase serotonin, the happiness hormone. Serotonin, the chemical, one of the happy hormones, produced in your brain is helping you experience happiness and feel satisfied. The interesting about serotonin is that it has the power to up screen your mood. Low levels of serotonin lead to health problems like stress, depression, impulsive cravings, interrupted sleep, and many other issues. In this post, let us discuss easy and natural ways to increase serotonin levels and make you feel always happy.
Natural Ways To Increase Serotonin
You must have seen some people are always happy, smiling and laughing, no matter what they are going through in their life. You might have wondered how can they feel happy hiding their problems, which are well-known to you as well. Their brains are probably making enough serotonin, a happy hormone, to keep them always in a happy state of mind.
What is Serotonin?
Serotonin is a monoamine neurotransmitter. Serotonin helps to feel cheerful, happy and in a state of well-being. It’s involved with keeping your mood stable, helping you to focus, stay calm and pay attention.
As a neurotransmitter, serotonin carries messages between nerve cells in your brain (your central nervous system) and throughout your body (your peripheral nervous system). These chemical messages tell your body how to work.
Read Why You Are Not Happy In Life?
What does serotonin do in your body?
Serotonin plays a role in many of your body’s functions:
- Mood – Regulates your mood.
- Digestion – Helps control your bowel function and plays a role in protecting your gut.
- Nausea – When serotonin is released into your gut faster than it can be digested nausea is triggered.
- Sleep – Serotonin, together with another neurotransmitter dopamine, plays a role in the quality of your sleep
- Wound healing – Serotonin is released by platelets in your blood to help heal wounds.
- Bone health – Serotonin levels may play a role in the density of your bones.
Reference: Cleveland Clinic
What are the natural ways to increase serotonin?
If you are not too fortunate to be happy, here are some easy ways to boost your serotonin level.
- Get plenty of sunlight
- Eat foods with tryptophan
- Practice meditation
- Enjoy a relaxing massage
- Do selfless work
- Do your favourite activities
- Do adventurous activities
- Exercise regularly
- Manage stress
- Good sleep
- Recall happy events
- Trust in your faith
Get plenty of sunlight – natural ways to increase serotonin
One of the best and no-cost natural ways to increase serotonin is getting plenty of sunlight on your body. Why do many people feel down, sad and depressed in the winter? It is because they aren’t getting enough sunshine on their bodies. Perhaps this will explain the importance and benefits of getting plenty of sunlight on your body.
When sunlight enters through the eyes, it stimulates parts of your retina that tell your brain to produce and store more serotonin (the happy hormone). The UV rays of contact skin trigger the production of Vitamin D, reduces stress hormones (cortisol) and raise serotonin.
Do you know simple morning routine can change your life? Starting your day with a morning walk outside for at least 45 minutes is good for your health. You might have noticed some people walking through the trees and plants. They know they get more oxygen and the essential oils released from the plants and trees also have a soothing effect that can help to balance out the nervous system. Do you know what are the benefits of walking every day?
According to Yoga experts, one excellent technique to instantly boost serotonin levels is performing Surya namaskar by facing the sun. If done in a series this is an excellent cardiovascular exercise.
Eat foods with tryptophan – natural ways to increase serotonin
Experts say eating lots of prebiotic and probiotic-rich foods is a natural way to increase serotonin. According to health experts, 95% of the serotonin is made by EC Cells in the gut. In order to activate these EC cells, lots of friendly bacteria and other healthy microbes are needed in the digestive tract. Junk foods, medications, artificial sweeteners and stress can cause imbalances in these bacteria. This lead to depression, anxiety and mood disorders.
You can easily fix your microbiome by eating lots of prebiotic and probiotic-rich foods like asparagus, onions, garlic, berries, and watermelon. You can also boost serotonin by eating food which has tryptophan. This includes milk, ragi, bananas, dark green and leafy vegetables and nuts. Add lots of healthy nutritious vegetables, proteins and fats to help normalise your hormones and neurotransmitters. Do you know the importance of brain food for keeping your mind and body healthy?
Read How To Make Your Own Powerful Probiotic At Home
Practice meditation
Regularly practising meditation even for a few minutes can also keep your mind calm, balanced and joyful. As you experience life’s ups and down laughing out loud too triggers the feeling of happiness.
Enjoy a relaxing massage
Sometimes, a relaxing massage preferably given by a family member or your loved one definitely makes you blissful. A soft massage will relax your body and loving hands give relaxation and happiness to your mind.
Do selfless work
When you do any selfless work like free service, helping others or volunteering for a good cause, a feeling of great happiness comes to your mind.
Do your favourite activities
Other natural ways to increase serotonin levels rapidly are by doing your favourite activities regularly such as dancing, listening to music, singing, painting, swimming, cooking or whatever you like. When you enjoy what you are doing that gives happiness to your mind and relaxation to your body.
Do adventurous activities
If you are interested, adventurous activities like forest bathing and climbing a mountain will help to increase serotonin. Even just walking in the freshness of nature and breathing fresh air will boost serotonin and automatically make you feel blissful.
Exercise regularly
Many people do not know the importance of exercise in maintaining good health. Many doctors recommend exercises and any type of small physical activities like gardening, vehicle washing, and cleaning rooms for mental health problems. When you do physical activities, you focus on that work and your mind becomes free from stress and tension. When you see the plants growing, flowers and fruits in your garden, that is a reward for your brain and that makes you feel happy. This triggers reward centres in your brain by boosting dopamine (another happy hormone) which makes you feel more pleasure and less depressed. You can do simple exercises at home.
Manage stress
Managing stress is a natural way to increase serotonin levels. When you are stressed or anxious, your adrenal glands release the cortisol hormone. Cortisol works with serotonin to keep you alert and ready to escape in a life-threatening situation. Over time, too much cortisol lowers serotonin, causing a chemical imbalance in the brain. Do you know how to overcome stress?
So it is important to manage your stress. Taking long walks, drinking herbal teas, relaxing massage, listening to favourite music, meditation and cutting out caffeine and stimulants from your diet will help you relieve stress.
Good sleep
Good sleep is the best way to lower stress and make the mind calm to increase serotonin. At least 1 hour before going to bed, give yourself time to relax and reprogram your subconscious mind before you sleep. Turn off all digital devices and block as much light in the room as possible. Make a routine of the same bedtime and wake-up time. This will help to synchronise your body’s internal clock (circadian rhythm) and regulate the amount of serotonin that your brain stores and uses. There are some best foods for sound sleep through the night. Try to have an ultimate sleep routine because good sleep at night is important for your good physical and mental health. Learn to get better sleep at night. If you have sleep problems at night, there are easy ways to get good sleep at night.
Read Best Sleeping Positions To Sleep At Night For Good Health
Recall happy events
Health experts say that people who spend more time recalling happy memories have lower rates of depression. Most people recall their unpleasant incidents rather than happy moments and feel sad about them. It is better if you maintain a journal of happy moments. When you feel depressed, you can read them to train your brain by focusing on positivity rather than negativity. This will help to stimulate the release of endorphins and other happy hormones that improve your mood.
Trust in your faith
if you are blessed with a working faith, a complete trust in a higher reality or God or however you perceive this power also results in the devotional satisfaction that increases serotonin. Spirituality will help you to make your mind calm and free of stress and tension and that will bring happiness to your mind.
As you know contentment comes when you are satisfied with everything that you have and do in life. Make your physical and mental health a priority. Mindfully strive to increase your serotonin level and find happiness wherever you are or in whatever state you are.
Here are four happiness hormones
Endorphins, Dopamine, Serotonin, and Oxytocin are the 4 happiness hormones. You can get all these hormones free.
Read How To Get Happiness Hormones Free
Natural Ways To Increase Serotonin (The Happy Hormone)
How To Increase Serotonin Happiness Hormone
Conclusion
From the above, you understood serotonin plays a key role in such bodily functions as mood, sleep, appetite, anxiety, digestion, and other. You learned natural ways to increase serotonin levels to feel always happy. Always happy doesn’t mean you will not have to face problems or sadness in life. Human life is mixed with happiness and sorrow. Everyone faces happy and sad moments. But it depends on how each one handles things. Discover the chemical secret of inducing a happy mood. Feel blissed out and on top of the world by increasing the serotonin levels and other happiness hormones in your brain.
This post is only for educational purposes only. Do speak to your doctor if you have any medical or mental health concerns.
How do you manage your sad moments?
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Mathukutty P. V. is the founder of Simply Life Tips. He is a Blogger, Content Writer, Influencer, and YouTuber. He is passionate about learning new skills. He is the Director of PokketCFO.
He lives with the notion of “SIMPLE LIVING, CREATIVE THINKING”. He Believes – “Sharing is caring.” and “Learning never ends.”
