#TBT - How To Optimize Your Thoughts and Habits For Happiness w/ Dr. Loretta Breuning

It's the thought, the negative thoughts that trigger the chemicals. It's not the chemicals themselves that are just attacking you. Like if people say our society is so stressful, it's like, no, you're choosing those stressful thoughts.

Hey capitalists. In traditional throwback Thursday fashion, we're re releasing one of our most popular episodes that we've had on capitalism.com enj today.

We'Re going to be joined by Dr. Loretta Bruning, who wrote the book Habits of a Healthy Brain, which has been.

One of my most recommended books over the last several months, maybe over the last year.

What I loved about the book was its breakdown of the different brain chemicals and how to optimize your life so that you're getting the proper doses, if you will, of each one. And so in this episode of the.

Podcast, I bring on Dr. Loretta to.

Talk about some pieces of the book that I had questions about and how we as hard charging entrepreneurs can optimize our lifestyles to get the happy chemicals, dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin. What I discovered after reading the book was how all of the things that I thought were intentional habits of my own were actually unconscious habits to get some certain chemicals to make me feel good or to avoid feeling bad. Wow, that was an interesting realization. It's kind of the idea of do we have free will or not? Because really we're being controlled by our hormones and our chemicals.

Woo woo.

Anyway, I asked her a couple questions.

As well about can we do anything to optimize these physiologically so we go deep into the things that control these chemicals and how to get more of them so that we can live happier, more fulfilling lives. Now you'll have to deal with a little bit of a lull in the beginning at the middle of the podcast because I asked Dr. Loretta a couple of questions that I thought would be interesting and they didn't go in the direction that I thought they would. But we come full circle at the end with a huge braingasm where we talk about why entrepreneurs have a hard time taking a step back from work, where I would have called it workaholism or I would have called it addiction to work, which is also called workaholism. She has a little bit of a different approach and I won't spoil it for you, but I had a huge, huge realization while she was talking. And so towards the end of the episode I go really deep into that piece and what I didn't know is she had written an entire book on that specific topic. So we spend some time at the end and it's worth trudging through the bit of the mud in the middle in order to get to this big braingasm. This is a concept, the idea of optimizing for brain chemicals that has really shifted my perspective on the things that we do, why we do them, and how to intentionally create more meaningful lives. So if you haven't read the book or if you have been turned on to Dr. Loretta's work, you're really gonna enjoy this episode about optimizing for Happy Chemicals with Dr. Loretta Brun.

Doctor Loretta Bruning, thanks so much for hanging out with us. You're the author of Habits of a Happy Brain, which has been my most recommended book probably of the last year. Thanks so much for hanging out with.

Us on the show.

Thanks so much for having me. I'm looking forward to it.

Me too. I have been looking forward to this ever since I read the book. Loved it. I also read the book faster than I have read any other book in last year just because I enjoyed it so much. And I wanted to start by kind of starting summarizing my understanding of the happy chemicals in our brain. And I want you to tell me if I have a. If I'm understanding them correctly. We have basically three primary drivers of happiness and they're dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin. Dopamine being the. I have called it the distraction chemical. It's the thing that unlocks new levels. I've referred to it as the video game chemical. It's the progress, the oh, a piece of candy kind of chemical. It's the excitement chemical. And then there's serotonin, which is, I'm doing pretty well in life. I'm measuring up against my peers, I'm getting more resources, I'm growing. And then oxytocin, which is connection. I love you, I feel for you. I want to be with you. I touch you. And we're always playing trade offs to get these different chemicals in contrast to our pain chemicals like cortisol. And so what was interesting to me is what I learned in your book was that there seems to be a constant trade off of pursuing, feeling good and avoiding pain. Am I doing a fair summary of how our brain is unconsciously working at all times?

That's very good. There are a few things I would differ with and I have to try to remember them. Okay, so the first thing, all of these chemicals have a good side and a bad side. So. So I wouldn't represent any of them. As like the bad guy or the good guy. So dopamine, yes, it can be the distractor, but it's also the motivator. So if you think of some movie where some people are in some terrible circumstance and they keep trying and trying to save themselves, and dopamine is what makes you feel good when you believe that there's a reward at the end that motivates you to put in the effort. So that's the good side. So of course it can be abused with this concept of going after trivial distractions, but it's also used for that motivating a long term pursuit of something difficult. Right, get it?

Yeah, sort of. Explain to me how that's firing. Because if you are pursuing something that's not working, is it the desire for one day I will get some big dopamine Rush?

Great question. So it's the expectation of a reward, which is understood from animals and rats and things. So where does this expectation come from? It comes from past experience. So one person may have an expectation of something very huge and very distant and everyone laughs at them and says you'll never get it, but they do. Another person can have a big expectation and be delusional and they don't get it, but. But they're still invested in that goal. Whereas another person has no big expectations. So they only go after, as you put it, the piece of candy or the video game. And the example I used in the book is if you were a 10 year old child and a doctor, saved your mother's life, then you might build a circuit that says, wow, I want to be a doctor. Because life and death is what motivates the brain. So for a 10 year old child to be a doctor, there's like a million steps from here to being a doctor. But dopamine makes you feel good with each step closer because you expect that you're on the path towards something that will be life saving.

Got it. So it's basically the, is the brain's way of giving you rewarding feelings of what it perceives will make you survive.

Exactly, exactly, exactly. The simple example I always use is if you were an animal and you had to find food to survive because there's no refrigerator, dopamine makes it feel good when you're looking for food. Once you find it, the dopamine stops because it's not done, its job is done. It's motivating you to climb, climb, climb toward that piece of fruit, despite the fact that you know you're tired and you have other monkeys competing with you. And then after a few hours, you're hungry again, you look around for something to eat, and dopamine motivates that whole cycle again. But in between sleep, no dopamine. So that's why I'm totally not into this thing about the dopamine type or person who is a low dopamine type, because it's meant to have ups and downs and we're all meant to need all of them.

A side rant here for a second. Doctor.

Sure.

In today's world, it's so easy to feel bad because we're comparing ourselves on social media. There's almost like a demonization of feeling bad. If anyone feels bad for any moment of time, there's something wrong with us. At least that's my perception. And I'm curious, if all brain chemicals have a positive and a negative side, how do you consult with people of either when they feel bad to start feeling good or to look at a different way of processing why they feel bad?

Okay, another gigantic question.

Get ready for a lot of those.

So in terms of the expectation that we can have a peak positive feeling at every moment, that's not realistic. That is what has been sold to us by modern medicine. So I don't think it's really helpful to a person to believe that. I think they're better off understanding the job that their brain chemicals evolved to do so that they can feel comfortable with the natural ups and downs and take small steps to stimulating them only when a healthy way of stimulating them is available rather than everybody else is happy all the time. It's not fair. I should. You know what I'm saying? So that's the first thing. And the second thing I just want to be upfront about when you said when I consult with people. So my PhD is in international management. I'm not a neuroscientist. I don't consult with patients, and I'm happy to discuss how I got from X to Y. But I am a researcher and a writer on this topic and not a practitioner in the medical field.

And when I say consult, I mean someone comes to you and is having a bad day because they feel like their life should be different. What advice are you giving them in order to get them to start moving in the right direction?

Yeah, that's such a good question. So the first thing is that the real people in my real life do not come to me for this because.

They know what I would say already. And not everyone wants to hear this, which is why I wrote the books. So if Someone comes to me that I don't know. I would say read the books. I would start them off, obviously, with something smaller, like blog posts and videos. But if someone has read all the books and still is not feeling it.

I am not in the counseling profession. There's a certain degree of intentionality that a person has to want to take responsibility for their happiness. And as long as someone believes that there's an external fix, it's hard to take responsibility. You know what I'm saying?

I do. So we talked a little bit about dopamine's role in driving you to make what we might call good decisions in order to increase survival and get that flood of happy feelings. Would you mention the positives and the negatives of the other chemicals as well?

Okay, great. Let's start with oxytocin. You had mentioned that it's often called the love chemical or the bonding hormone. But the core motivator is trust. Trust is what turns it on. And in the animal world, it's not safe to trust everyone all the time because anyone you let close to you can kill you in an instant. So our brain evolved to make careful decisions about when to trust and when not to trust. Now, mammals are always looking for safety in numbers because that protects them from predators. And when you are in a group, then you can lower your guard a little bit because they're all sharing the burden of. Of scanning for predators. So that's what we're really always doing. It's like, I want a group of individuals that I can trust to help me scan for predators. But in our human brain, we can see, you know, that's not really a realistic picture of reality, because we all know that herd behavior can lead to waste a lot of energy in pursuing goals that are not right for you. And so that's why we're always making this decision. How much do I invest in following the herd and getting that sense of safety versus separating from the herd and getting more of just, let's call it the dopamine or the serotonin.

And that's what you would call a trade off, correct?

Yeah, exactly. So trade offs are uncomfortable and they're hard for everyone. And some people always lean toward X, maybe, and some people more often lean toward. Yeah, but we all need all of them. So that's why I'm not saying that there is a certain type, because whichever one you're ignoring, maybe that's the one that would benefit you the most. And also that there's no easy way to get trust.

I'm Curious. Does this understanding affect how you personally make decisions? Because you must know consciously that you're weighing the trade off of different chemicals. And I'm curious if, well, does that make you get into your own head about the decisions that you're facing?

Oh, yeah, totally, totally.

Would you tell us a little bit about that?

Well, I always have to make a decision about how much time I invest in one project versus another and how much I invest in work versus play and how much I invest in trusting people who are on my nerves in the moment. Because in the long run I think the bond is worth nurturing. So all of those, you know, those are so hard. And it's all about, we're always trying to predict, will this be a reward in the future rather than just doing what feels good in the moment.

Does understanding the different trade offs allow you to make different decisions than if you didn't understand them?

This is what I worked on over the years. And.

So we all see the world through the lens of the neural pathways we built when we were young. And it's different for each of us depending on what we experienced, but it's similar for each of us in the sense that we're all born helpless and so we're all born like absolutely dependent for our survival. Pleasing others. So I have my sort of pleasing others lens and you have your pleasing others lens. So what I had to constantly do is to say, okay, if I rely on the lens that I already have, then I'm going to constantly worry that I'm a bad person because I didn't go along with whatever is the popular thing among people around me and that they're going to shift, shun me and then I'm going to be eaten by a predator from my mammal brain's perspective. So if I ignore that and then I say, well, you know, following that herd is really not going to be good for me in the long run, so I would rather do something else. But if I go and do this something else, I could be wrong about the rewards I predict or I could be eaten by a predator on the way and I could be constantly activating that feeling of like you're a bad person for abandoning this other thing that everyone else is doing. So that's the trade offs that I'm constantly making. And by practicing this all the time, I've updated my neural pathways. So that sense of am I a bad person for doing this is no longer fueled by all that cortisol of my horrible childhood. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, yeah. So, so basically the way the routes in which we're getting happy chemicals versus pain chemicals are different for all of us based on what happened when we were helpless babies and children, is that what you're saying?

Absolutely. And also teenagers, because we have another period of peak neuroplasticity in our teen years and at that point where very motivated by social rewards because in the animal world, every mammal has to transfer their attachment from their parent to their peers in order to keep their genes alive. Let's just say that.

So I'm going to get super vulnerable and personal here for a second, Loretta, and I want to use this kind of as a case study. So in my own understanding, and this is kind of a. A revel revelation I've had myself through self reflection, personal development and therapy over the last year. I've learned that, you know, when I was between the ages of 10 and 13, my parents were on and off and on and off until they finally split. And what I learned during that time was I started attaching myself to peers and friends during that time and kind of got a lot of my parental or specifically paternal needs met through peers. And I remember one specific person that I attached to turned to me one day and said, I'm really only friends with you because I feel sorry for you. And that was, you know, like my friend at the lunch table, like my buddy. And I ended up never going back to the lunch table and hanging out in the computer lab for the rest of the year, which drove me to start businesses. And it drove me to. It drove me to figure things out on my own. It made me a really good person on my own. But what I learned is during that time, I did not develop the ability to trust other peers during that time.

Maybe you're making wiser decisions about how much to trust other people. I don't know. But I'm sorry for interrupting.

Yeah. So what ultimately I'm piecing together is from a physiological standpoint. There's an area of neuroplasticity in the early teens where I might have wired, it's dangerous to trust people. It's better to go on our own. That's not safe. It's safe to work on computers. Which made me a great business owner, great Internet entrepreneur. It benefited me greatly. But also I now have to work at developing the trust to get the oxytocin release. And so that's how I'm kind of personally actualizing what it is that you're saying.

I think that's fabulous example. Now, my experience was very Similar. And I see pieces of that in my kids. But the bottom line is, we all do. It's slightly different based on once you went to the computer room, what were the rewards you experienced in the computer room? So some people had X and some people had Y. But what I think is so interesting is if you would have not had that experience and you would have been a follow the crowd kind of guy, would you have been better off in the long run? And I don't think so. So that's what's so fascinating, is we're all born mammals, but we all have to get to a point where we say, well, I need some social support, but if I invest my whole self into the group, that's not really satisfying in a total way. In modern America, we have that choice, whereas in the past and in other cultures, people don't necessarily perceive that choice. They feel like they have to put the group first. So we learn at that early age, often with great pain, that depending on our own judgment is an option.

Got it.

Dr. Bruuning. Where I wanted to go next was something that kind of, well, scared me and frustrated me inside of Habits of a Happy Brain, which was the statement that in time, we basically develop a tolerance for the chemicals that are released. So in kind of a silly example, the first bite of chocolate cake is more rewarding than the second bite of chocolate cake. And so. And we're always seeking bigger and bigger rewards in order to get the same release. What the heck do we do about that? Because it seems like today we have so many opportunities to get distracted, and we're almost tolerant to the release of potential feelings of happiness. So tell me what to do about this problem.

Oh, it's absolutely very, very real. So I'll give you a funny example of that. I have this friend who runs marathons, and if you can imagine, once you run a marathon, first you get a steady dopamine while you're training. You get huge dopamine when you reach the finish line, and then the dopamine totally stops and you need a way to get more. And we were talking about. The similarity for me is that when I write a book, you know, I get dopamine, dopamine while I'm doing it, and then when I'm almost done, you know, and then the dopamine stops. So he and I were both at the point where I was done with a book and I was. He was done with a marathon, and he was tempted to sign up for another marathon and I was tempted to write another book. And we discussed it, and we both said, you know, I think I'd really be better off finding some other goal rather than doing another. And guess what happened? We both failed. He read, ran another marathon, and I wrote another book. So a brain has the expectation of reward. So what can I do that would be more rewarding than writing another book? I don't know, because that's the reward I've experienced. And he can't think of what would be more rewarding than running a marathon because that's the reward he's experienced. So unless something changes and you get injured or something happens to you, most of us tend to repeat ourselves and keep questing after the same reward. But I have actually, I just finished a book, and I'm not writing another book for now. So I have managed to focus on another reward. And this person I'm telling you about, he actually has focused on another reward, too. So it just took us a little longer than we thought.

Is it the case that the reward that comes after the second marathon or the second book is not as great as the first, and we develop a tolerance to that? Is that a correct statement?

I think so. And that's why you want the next book to be bigger and better, and you want the next marathon to be a biathlon or a triathlon.

This is a problem to me because that ultimately is going to be an endless pursuit of more, which can be kind of exhausting. At what point does it become unhealthy, and what do we do about that?

That's the real challenge, because.

When you decide, okay, I need other ways of having a good feeling, it's hard to get those going at first. And that's why my book is about how to build new pathways to stimulate your chemicals in new ways. Otherwise we just repeat the things that we know. And I never did the serotonin you asked me. Yeah, the pros and cons, the goods and bads of each of them. And that really comes to play here. So serotonin is the chemical that gives you a good feeling when you feel like you measure up to use your expression. And in the animal world, this is a huge motivator, even though most people don't realize that animals are extremely competitive, and humans have known this for generations, but it's suddenly become politically correct. And now we're being taught that animals are cooperative and nurturing, etc.

So one's feeling about how one measures up is part of this driver of wanting more of a good feeling. And a person can rewire themselves. And many are doing that today to take pride in. In how much time they take off. You've heard a lot of those holier than thou people. I don't answer emails on the weekend or, you know, like, showing off about what they did on the weekend, which is good, you know, but the point is that people show off. And if you're driving yourself crazy on one goal, you can learn to take pride in a different goal. And a currently trendy one is parenting and specifically fathering. You know, so taking pride in being a good father as opposed to the next, Whatever.

Would you explain that a little bit further? Are you suggesting that culturally there are trends that people will use in order to feel like they're stacking up and right now that is parenting? Or what else might you mean by that?

Yes. This is another huge subject. Many people say speak as if they're victims of the culture, and I don't agree with that. Of course we are influenced by culture. We're always making decisions to how much time we allow the culture into our brain and how much we allow our electricity to flow into that way of thinking versus a circuit of our own creation. But it can help us if we're trying to change a habit and build a new habit. There may be a trend. Well, I'll give you another obvious example. If a person has bad eating habits, you may know, people say, oh, it's not my fault. It's the cookie industrial complex. But then there is the broccoli complex. They could put more of their time into people who are excited about healthy food. However, that has become a mania as well. And I'm surrounded by people who obsess over, you know, did I eat the right broccoli? You know, and this kind of vegetable is not as good as that kind of vegetable. So everything can become an obsession because finding a better one stimulates dopamine. Taking pride in like, my diet is healthier than your diet stimulates oxytocin. And hanging out with people who have the new habit that you want stimulates oxytocin. So we're always motivated in this way.

Got it. So you could use the serotonin release as a way of developing a new habit by almost measuring your ability to develop that new habit against others. So it's showing off the broccoli and feeling like you're doing something good and getting rewards for that as a way of generating the habit of eating better. Is that a fair summary?

Yeah, I guess. I'm not saying necessarily that a person should show off, but people do show off. So a person who is maybe spending too much time at their desk and eating junk food in order to have a result that they're proud of can redefine pride and thus change whether it's their eating habit or any other habit they have.

Now, I wanted to go into a discussion over some things that I didn't see in the book that I had some questions about. And the first was, I'm curious if there are ways, either through diet, through exercise, through lifestyle, is there a way to train the brain or train the body to have more of these chemicals available? For example, could you eat to be happier? Could you exercise to be happier? Or are these chemicals only released or created as a response to social signals or decisions? Are there ways that we could physiologically prep our bodies to have more of these chemicals available?

I'm not a huge advocate of the path that you're mentioning, this idea that diet and exercise equals happiness. And in fact, I'm surrounded by people who have absorbed that view. And then when doesn't make them happy, they think, oh, my diet's not good enough. Maybe I need to eliminate one more food and eliminate another food and obsess over that. Or exercise more and more and more because they don't want to look deeper and acknowledge that they are driven by not just social comparison, but resentment about social comparison and not just hurt impulse, but anger and resentment about herd impulse. So that's why I think it's so valuable to be honest with ourselves about these real mammalian conundrums instead of believing in some kind of external hack. But what I'm saying is completely at odds with the whole major trend from the psychology profession.

What about just from a physiological standpoint, can the body produce more.

Happy chemicals as the result of having certain fuels or certain physiological inputs?

Okay, good question. Well, the first thing, shocking maybe or maybe not, that these chemicals are mostly produced from fat. So a person who eliminates fat is making it harder to make these hormones. That's the first thing. Of course, it's important to have a good diet.

If a person is living on junk food, then I do think that will increase that up and down feeling. And part of that, though, is the lack of other tools that when a spurt of good feeling ends, if a person doesn't have another strategy for activating a good feeling, they'll go to junk food. And then the junk food is quickly metabolized, the bad feeling comes back, they'll go to more junk food. And so the solution to that is understanding your real needs rather than just Food. So yes, get rid of the junk food habit, but it goes far beyond food, in my opinion. It's getting real about your mammal brain. So maybe you're frustrated with the goal. Maybe you're eating junk food because you're frustrated with your choices. Or maybe when you do a life review, you decide, no, I really am on the right path. I need to spend more time investing in what I've chosen. And if I'm frustrated, I need to learn to relieve that frustration. So that's more the topic of my second book, the Science of Positivity.

And I heard you kind of tip your cap at this and I'd like to go deeper here. The mention of most of these chemicals being released or made through fat. This is interesting too. In a world where a high fat diet is kind of all the rage, it's the current trend of the day. And I'm curious if in your research if there are signs that point to a thumbs up in going in that direction and. Or if there are other, what we might call optimizers, supplements, sunlight, other what we might call biohacks that we could be thinking about that will make it easier to release more of these chemicals.

I wish I knew. My husband has gone on the eliminating carbs and not worrying about fat. I'm sort of partway on that, but I really have always done that. So I've never obsessed over fat and I never liked sugar that much. But I don't want to demonize sugar and obsess over getting rid of every tiny scrap of it. Sunlight, I think is great. So what I started doing, for example, when I go out for a walk, I make sure to have my sleeves rolled up so that more of my skin is exposed to the sun. And I even stopped wearing, I don't know, I stopped wearing sunglasses because they say that your eyeballs are actually your brain's measure of how much sun you're getting. But I have to say that I wear automatic sunscreen lenses, so that's maybe the same as sunglasses. I don't know. When I go for my walk, I go out of my way to be on the sunny side of the street rather than the non sunny. So I keep crossing back and forth depending where the sun is. Now my doctor laughs because he's from Mexico and he says that unless you walk around in a bikini that it's in this latitude that we're at, that it's irrelevant. But I don't know. Doctors don't know everything.

Dr. Rooting, I would like to ask you next about Some of the rage that is in terms of, well, we call them brain altering compounds in terms of SSRIs that increase serotonin production. There is a huge movement for psychedelic, both research and recreational use or even therapeutic use. There is talk of MDMA and its use of therapy, but also just as it's. I've been fascinated by what some people will say is its effect on dumping happy chemicals into the system but then depleting them after. There's, there's supplements like 5 HTP, which some will say are a precursor to, to serotonin. And then there's things like the Racetam family, the supposed cognitive enhancers that are supposed to be precursors for different neurons. So I'm curious if you have any experience or fascination with the different chemical effects on what the brain can do and the happy chemicals that would be released.

Yeah. Another giant question. Okay, first, I think anything that you're putting in your mouth in that way is less impactful than your thought process. And the thought process specifically is if you have this like, oh, life is unfair. Everybody gets all the goodies and not me, I'm left out. It's all so unfair. Or constantly feeling judged and having to prove yourself. I think anyone can help themselves so much more by saying to themselves, you know what? That's an old pathway. I have the power to build a new pathway. And you could say, well, what new pathway can you build because life is so unfair? You know, what is to say? I am going to focus on what I have control over. I have control over my next step. I'm going to choose a next step that I enjoy. I am going to appreciate my own power and my own skill at choosing my next step. And I'm going to focus on the rewards I get instead of focusing either on other people's rewards or focusing on what I messed up. And just then I'm going to go to my next step and how can I make fun out of that? And anything that goes wrong, I tell myself, okay, how can I make something good out of this? And how can I have a good day and get pleasure out of my day? And if you're getting that from a pillow, it's temporary, it's not going to last. And you may be, I think, robbing it from, you know, depleting it and then it's harder to get later on having said that, yes, I was in the past, like I, I took the 5 HTP for a while and I always have a hard time deciding if it's having an effect and Then someone told me that it can be depleting your dopamine. And so I decided not to take that. I have a few others that I take. Like, there's so many. And once you start reading about them, it's endless, endless, endless. A lot of people do this in order to have more energy. So one thing I've done is to come to terms with the fact that we need rest. There's nothing wrong with resting. So here's the problem about rest. The second you stop chasing, every bad feeling that you've ever had rushes in, because those are the neural pathways that you have. So learning to rest without being overwhelmed by bad feelings is the most valuable skill you can have. And that rest is going to be something that gives you. It's a skill. You can think of it as a skill that you get so much out of.

So I'm sorry to interrupt, but I really want to jump into that because you just said. You just gave me what we call a braingasm here on the show. And what I just heard you say was that the minute we rest, we are basically pausing the pathways. We're not allowing the pathways to do what they're used to doing, which is chasing after the next high. So someone like me or an entrepreneur who's a little bit of a workaholic, who gets a lot of needs met through work, the minute they shut off, they go, hey, I'm not getting the reward that I'm used to getting, so where do I go? And so there's a lull, Is that what you're saying?

Yes. And as soon as there's a lull, then your brain goes. You know from the book that your electricity flows into the pathways that you have, the pathways that are most developed from your past. So as soon as you're not doing that chase the bunny pathway, then your brain, like you're blocking it, then your brain flows into your next most developed pathway. So the simple example I use is if you are a baboon and you're being chased by a lion and you save your life by running up a tree, then you spend a lot of time scanning for trees. So what would happen when you're not scanning for a tree? Then you feel like you're being chased by a lion and a line is about to get you. So you have to say to yourself, this is just a circuit from my past experience. I'm going to replace it with a new circuit. I can design the circuit however I want.

Okay, so this is big. I didn't have this shift when I was reading the book. But I know that myself and other hard charging high achievers have a very hard time giving themselves the permission to step back. And what I'm deducing from what you just said is that's physiologically because there is a rush of feel bad chemicals that will come in saying, you're now under threat. Based on something that I learned in the past.

Yes, exactly. But don't blame the chemicals, blame the pathways. Okay, go on. Your brain is always taking in information from the world around you and it's saying, how can I meet my needs and how can I be safe? So opportunities and threats. When you stop reacting by running after your usual reward, then you have to use all of your other circuits to say, what are my opportunities and threats? But what are your other circuits? You haven't developed them because you spent your whole life on that circuit of running after that particular reward. So again, this is the topic of my second book and you can create the alternative, but if you don't create create it, then it's the thought, the negative thoughts that trigger the chemicals. It's not the chemicals themselves that are just attacking you. Like if people say our society is so stressful, it's like, no, you're choosing those stressful thoughts.

So tell us what we can do about that. Because just like a marathon runner is going to feel like they're losing their edge if they stop training for a marathon, or bodybuilder is going to feel like they're getting fat in the off season, an entrepreneur is going to beat themselves up if they're not working towards their next reward. So when and if we give ourselves the room to rest and the negative chemicals come in and our thought patterns reinforce that and trigger them, what do we do in order to get out of that rut? Because the natural thing would be to say, well, I guess I'll just start a new project or I'll start training for the next marathon or I'll start training for the next bodybuilding show and I'm going to be even bigger and I'm going to make even more money. I'm going to be even faster. What do you do instead?

Good question. So I think a new project is always good. So that is a good dopamine stimulator. But it can be a different project. Now when you have a different project, you may find it less rewarding at first because your ability to expect rewards depends on your old dopamine circuits and you haven't built the new circuit yet. So that's the Conundrum or the catch 22. How can I learn to focus on a different way of enjoying rewards if I haven't enjoyed them yet? And the enjoyment is what creates the circuit. And that's the whole point of my book. And the simple answer, of course, is to do it in small steps, to repeat the steps every day and design the steps carefully so that you're repeating the same behavior, because that builds the circuit. And I'll just. I could give you an example from my own life. So when I am with a group of people, I often don't enjoy the topic, whatever it is. Like, I just. And I was just like you, like, in high school and younger. Like, I just never shared the perceptions of other people. And I felt ignored and left out on the one hand. But if I take responsibility, it's like, also, I didn't like these people, and I'm not pointing to any particular people. I happen to have had a bad experience that taught me not to trust like you. But now I'm like, is this the moment that I want to hang around hearing this repeated theme that I think is unhealthy? And then I try another group of people, and they're repeating another theme that I think is unhealthy? So I have not been much of a herd creature. So I have to make a decision now. Am I going to constantly feel bad about not having a herd, or am I going to train myself to expect a herd or just train myself to feel okay without a herd? So that's what I decided to do, is to train myself to feel okay without a herd. But, like, once a year, I think, oh, I should try, you know, I should spend more time with the herd. So I just dabble in both.

So you decided that it was okay for you to be okay without the herd?

Yes, exactly. I decided that I was making it worse by criticizing myself for it. Like, there's something wrong with you. Why aren't you with the herd? And I had the power, since that was coming from me, I had the power to just say, well, I've chosen this. Anytime I want to be with the herd, I can. But if I'm not, then obviously it's because I don't want to. Because anytime I am with the herd, I. I hate it. And I'm looking at the clock and I can't wait to get away from it.

You mentioned you kind of tipped your cap to the next book that you're writing. I'm super fascinated about this topic that we're talking about right now. I Never realized for myself that unconsciously when I slowed down from work or I was afraid of taking time off, that really it was my circuit saying we can't slow down. That's when we're under threat. And so we need to keep pushing and driving forward. So I'm super interested to kind of retrain myself to have a different experience or different expectations. And you made mention of your second book that. The second book being a maybe a surrounded around that topic. Would you clarify that?

Yeah. Yes. So. And when I said a new book, so that's not this one because it's a new, new book. So the second book is called the Science of Positivity. Stop negative thought patterns by changing your brain Chemistry. And that's been available for the past couple of years. And the new book is called Tame youe Anxiety and that's coming out next spring. And then I have a couple of other self published books that are, let's just say, maybe not so commercial. So one of them is called how to Make Peace with the Animal Urge for Social Power. And then I have another one called How I Escaped Political Correctness and you can too.

Okay, noted. Well, I just bought the Science of Positivity on Kindle as you were saying that. So that's going to be my next read. Dr. Bruning, this is just my jam. I just love this topic. I could talk about it all day. And I'm glad that you do. Where can people follow you, find you and immerse themselves in your work?

So the Inner Mammal Institute has everything@innermammalinstitute.org and and it has lots of free resources like videos and all my blogs and podcasts and links to all my books and my social media. And also a free five day happy chemical jumpstart that you can opt in for.

Beautiful. Well, Loretta, thank you so much. I'm fascinated by your work and I'm excited to keep diving in. Thanks for hanging out with us here on the show. Keep on changing the world.

Thank you so much for having me.

Obviously you heard my big takeaway from this episode, which was I had never considered the idea of the reason we feel bad when we stop doing certain behaviors is because the brain doesn't know where to go in order to have its circuits now get their needs met. We've been wired to do a job. That job is to survive. And if we stop doing the things that help us survive, well, what do we do? We're gonna get eaten by a tiger. That was such a breakthrough for me. And in her book Habits of the happy brain. She mentions how powerful it is to just stop and notice the brain going on overload when it starts to feel fear. And that has been a habit that I have practiced when I start to feel that fight or flight kick in of just stopping and being with it. It's also why I practice and regularly stay in care at a network chiropractor, which is probably the most woo woo thing I do. But it also has helped me achieve some of the greatest breakthroughs I've had. Network chiropractic is something I've talked about here on the show as a really weird thing that I got into as a skeptic, but is basically designed to turn down the fight or flight response in the nervous system. And I've seen really good responses from staying in that type of care because we're always being bombarded with stressors on our nervous system. So this type of a rabbit hole is something that I've really enjoyed going down of diving into this science and the actual chemical responses that our brains and our bodies are giving us when we are doing things that make us happy versus things that don't make us feel good. Now one of my big realizations over the last couple years in this topic has been that our brains are not wired to make us happy. They're made to make us survive. And the things that give us happiness are actually the things that help us survive. We're wired to survive, not to be happy. And survival sometimes flies in the face of being happy. And if we counter that trend for a while, we're going to feel bad and we have to develop the new habit in order to get those good feelings again. It has caused a little bit of a question of like is there real meaning in life or are we just here to survive and feel good? I don't know what I think about that just yet, but I'm sure we'll continue to explore it. As always, I think you as an entrepreneur, as somebody who is optimizing all areas of your life, I think you are a trailblazer for those who will follow in your footsteps. And I just want to honor what you are doing in the world and appreciate you for listening to the show. I'll talk to you soon.

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