How to finally feel good about yourself
Most people are not happy.
I hope you are. But perhaps you could be happier.
Today I wanted to write based on what I've learned, how to be the happiest.
I'll go through personal examples - and methods based on studies.
We'll start with biology - and go through finding purpose.
But 1st - why do I write about this to you?
Because most of us do want to be happier.
And I thought you'd find it valuable to know the science behind how to be the happiest.
I want to help you have the best life possible.
And being happier is one important thing I can help you with.
OK, let's start, my friend.
1) What makes us humans happy (biologically)
As one of my mentors says:
"You're having a biological experience." - Tom Bileyu
Everything we feel and experience is based on biology.
Emotions don't come out of nowhere. They're the by-product of something.
It can be external - maybe something tough happened.
Or then it's internal - you ate something bad and now you feel ill.
(When you're ill, you often also feel bad mentally. You don't want to do anything and so on.)
All emotions are feelings you can feel in your body.
To be the happiest, we must pay attention to how we can optimize our bodies.
I'm not talking just about eating well and exercising.
But also taking care of our "happy hormones": Dopamine, Serotonin, Oxytocin & Endorphins.
Let's go through each.
Dopamine
is known as the "feel-good" hormone. It's a part of our brain's reward system.
(When we do something "good", we'll get a rush of dopamine as a reward. But - sometimes you can get this by doing something not so intelligent - such as scrolling social media.)
Serotonin
helps regulate your mood - and experience happiness.
This also affects your sleep, digestion and appetite.
You could say that dopamine is a short-term pleasure - and serotonin helps with long-term happiness.
When dopamine spikes, you'll feel good. But it'll crash below your baseline.
What this means, is that you'll feel worse than before you got that spike.
Saying this because it's important to pay attention to all of these 4 hormones.
Oxytocin
is a "love hormone". This helps us humans bond - and can greatly impact our emotions.
Many of these hormones can be produced together.
As an example:
When you're attracted to someone, your:
1) brain will release dopamine
2) your serotonin levels increase - and
3) oxytocin is produced.
And as a result, you'll feel positive.
Endorphins
are known as mood boosters and natural pain relievers.
These'll get produced during pleasurable experiences - such as laughing, sex, exercise and so on.
But also, when you'd get physically injured - such as hurting your knee.
(Obviously, don't go break your body to get endorphins.)
Endorphins:
increase pleasure
improves mood
boosts self-esteem
reduces stress, depression and anxiety...
And much more.
When you don't have enough endorphins, you'll feel worse as a result.
And when you lack the other hormones too, you'll feel worse too.
We want to make sure we have enough of these - and boost them.
Boosting the hormones:
1st of all, when it comes to dopamine, be mindful of how you boost it.
Ideally, you'd reward yourself for doing something difficult.
I'd avoid boosting it a ton with something that isn't beneficial for you.
Such as unhealthy food (boosts your dopamine by 100% above baseline).
Or smoking (boosts your dopamine by 200% above baseline).
This "happiness" won't last long - and you'll feel worse afterwards.
Ideally, you shouldn't surge yourself with dopamine that you haven't "deserved".
This will result in you having a harder time doing the harder things.
And it's harder to achieve what you want.
Dopamine = short-term feel-good hormone.
Boosting Serotonin:
There are many ways to do this. But I would absolutely avoid antidepressants.
(I'm not a doctor - but I've learned there are a ton of downsides for that - so be mindful.)
You can also use supplements to boost it - but I've not got experience with that - so I can't say whether that's good or not.
But here are some natural ways to boost your serotonin levels:
1) Exercise
As you'll come to see, exercise does wonders for our mood.
You can go to the gym sad and stressed, and come away with feeling great.
(Speaking from experience.)
Exercise as a whole is required to feel the best possible.
We humans aren't meant to be sitting around the whole day and not doing difficult things.
We're meant to move and do physically tough things.
That's why, it's crucial to dedicate time for some kind of exercise weekly.
Currently, I'm doing 3x a week strength training - and 4 times a week cardio to improve my VO2 max levels.
(That's outside the scope of this Letter. But here's a Podcast if you want to learn more on that.)
There are many ways to plan your exercise. There's no 1 correct way. But do make sure to exercise if you want to feel as good as possible.
2) Sunlight
If I can be honest with you, last January I felt quite sh*t.
Not all the time, but a lot.
Why?
I was spending a month in Norway photographing.
Yes, it was gorgeous.
Yes, I had a blast when photographing.
But something was missing...
Yes, the sunlight.
Before not seeing the sun for around 2-3 weeks, I didn't realize how much sun actually affects the mood.
Now in the summer, it's so much easier to feel good.
Lesson: Take in a lot of sunlight. It'll make you feel good - and also get you Vitamin D.
(Vitamin D supplements alone won't result in you boosting serotonin.)
3) Meditation
You might roll your eyes.
You might see meditation as a little stupid thing.
(I know I did before I tried it out.)
Nowadays, I aim to meditate daily. If not twice a day.
It might sound weird, but meditation is one of my favourite things every day.
It makes me feel at peace, relieve stress - and this results me feeling better.
Also, there is studies done that it boosts your serotonin levels directly - but more evidence is needed to tell for sure.
4) Food
This one was new to me when researching this all.
However certain foods could directly increase your serotonin levels.
What foods?
Basically, foods that are rich in tryptophan.
Don't worry, I'll give you some examples now, lol.
1) Eggs
2) Tofu
3) Pineapple
4) Salmon
5) Cheese
6) Turkey
7) Nuts and seeds
Now, obviously, you want to think about what fits into your diet.
And all foods with lots of tryptophan aren't necessarily good for you.
(Such as certain kinds of cheeses.)
Other unhealthy food will affect more the dopamine side of things - as you'll 1st feel a boost - and then a big crash afterwards.
And if you eat in a way that spikes your blood sugar a lot, that can affect your mood a lot too.
(I eat veggies 1st, then fats and protein. Yes, I don't eat carbs apart from veggies. But that's a topic for another day.)
Eating a lot of fibre can also help with your serotonin levels - as it fuels healthy gut bacteria.
Boosting oxytocin:
Simply, have more human connection. Especially physical connection.
It can be simply just hugging more people. Or making eye contact, and shaking hands.
Touch is something that has a lot of science behind it.
But simply, when we're connected physically with others, we feel better.
Massages, cuddling and making love increase oxytocin too, of course.
Seek physical connection - whatever that is for you.
Touch has a tooon of benefits.
But also just hanging out with people makes us happier.
It's been studied a lot.
We humans are social creatures.
We all should spend a good amount of time with other humans.
(Yes, even if you're an introvert. We just aren't made to be alone.)
Loneliness kills people.
Being with other people could be seen as even more important as exercising.
Exercising does give you many boosts - and expands your lifespan.
But having good relationships seems to do it even more.
What about food? Could it affect your oxytocin levels?
It seems like it could.
The foods include:
Eggs
Salmon
Nuts
Bananas
Beans
Legumes
Also, caffeine could affect it.
There are links to caffeine affecting it - but there's no direct proof.
Boosting endorphins:
1) Exercise
Yep, here it is again.
I will keep this brief as I mentioned earlier.
But already as little as 20-30 minutes of exercise daily can boost your endorphin levels.
2) Laughing
Go to a comedy show, watch funny stuff online - or hang out with friends who often make you laugh.
3) Music
Music can boost both endorphins and dopamine.
This is upbeat music that can have this effect.
Music is a funny thing.
Listen to upbeat music -> feel better.
Listen to sad music -> feel more sad.
Pay attention to what you're listening to.
4) Eat dark chocolate
This can boost your endorphins and give other good stuff to your body.
But - make sure it's indeed dark chocolate.
And that it's at least 70% cacao.
You want to minimize the amount of sugar you get.
Overall when it comes to endorphins, they're often boosted with the same things as the other ones:
Meditation
Sex
Etc
Many of these go hand in hand.
2) Have a purpose
Even if you have other things nailed down - if you don't know what to do with your life, you can feel bad.
I must say I've had my own challenges with finding what to do with my life.
And I constantly check in with myself am I taking the correct path - and do changes accordingly.
I've made a large Letter with some questions to help you to figure out what do you want from life.
But - here are some extra questions for you to understand better are you living "as you should" to be the happiest:
"If I lived today on repeat, would I enjoy my life? If not, what would need to change?"
"When looking at tomorrow's tasks, how do you feel? Excited? Bad? Frustrated?"
"If nobody would know what you did with the rest of your life, what would you do?" - Brienna Wiest
"If you died yesterday, what would you most regret?" - Brianne Wiest
"What are you struggling with the most right now? The things that plague you the most deeply are signals toward where you must move next...
The things you're struggling with the most right now can tell you what you really want and toward which direction you should step." - Brianne Wiest
3) Comparing & your story
No matter how good your life your life is, comparing can f*ck it up.
Most likely, there'll always be someone better at your craft, who is better looking, who has more money than you do... and so on.
Comparison steals the joy from your life.
Don't compare.
I know it's not easy. And I do fall to that trap at times too.
But understand people have different paths.
Someone might have got somewhere faster than you.
But that doesn't mean you can't get there.
Stay focused on your path. Keep going. And perhaps you reach the same destination as them.
Ideally, you'd see someone else better than you as inspiration.
If they can do it, so can you.
This leads us to your story.
Pay attention to what kind of story you're telling yourself.
We all are storytellers.
We all tell stories to ourselves.
But is your story good or bad - that's the question.
Let's say this is the story you tell yourself:
"I'm bad. I'm ugly. I'll never achieve this thing because of X, Y & Z"... it's not good.
But if you'd tell yourself instead:
"I'm a work in progress. I can improve my looks (if you aren't happy with your looks) - and I can achieve X, Y & Z by doing A, B & C" - it's wildly different.
Pay attention to the dialogue in your mind.
And understand that emotions aren't always true.
Have you ever had "stupid" thoughts?
I know I have. Some have not made any sense. And the thing is, sometimes they're lies.
Maybe you're standing on a cliff - and a part of your mind is curious how would it feel to jump.
Now, that doesn't make sense. And if it's a big cliff espcially, you shouldn't listen to your mind.
Understand emotions are by-products of something.
Perhaps your subconscious mind has mixed up thoughts you heard from the news - or something similar.
And that's the origin of the thought.
Your thoughts don't equal to who you are.
Pay attention to your thoughts. And if you do notice a bad dialogue, change it up.
To learn how to change it up better, read this Letter next.
4) Do difficult things
When you do something difficult, you'll feel amazing.
And this comes back to the biology side of things.
We humans are meant to be doing difficult things.
Whether physically - or mentally.
And when you do that, you're rewarded biologically with "happy hormones".
Whether this is exercise, a cold shower, waking up for a sunrise shoot, hiking on top of a mountain, carrying something heavy...
Doing difficult stuff will make your life better.
And one could say...
Doing difficult stuff will make your life easier. Especially in the long run.
One could do only easy things, but the result would be that they feel worse as the result.
One could also do difficult things, and feel amazing as a result.
Whatever the difficult thing is, do something difficult every day.
As I have written on my whiteboard for myself:
"What are 3 things that f*cking suck that I can/must do today?"
For me, they could be:
Going to the gym
Cold shower
Waking up for a sunrise (2am wake ups in the summer are not my thing, lol.)
Even if it's just 1 thing, that's great!
Do difficult stuff.
Your mind - and future self - will thank you.
5) When you feel bad, do this
Sometimes we do feel sad, pissed off or bad overall.
There are different ways to get out of this state.
Some ways, being what I've mentioned above, such as exercising or cold showers.
But I also wanted to mention 2 other ways to do this (for the short-term boost).
1) Change your state with physiology.
Simply, change what you're doing with your body.
When someone is sad, their body posture is slumped down, they talk more quietly and so on.
What if you'd do the opposite, pretend to be happy, even though you don't feel like so.
This actually will change your mood.
If you have :
1) happy facial expression - and
2) make fast movements with your body
in that scenario, it's very difficult to feel sad.
Our bodies have made associations to certain things.
Most of the time when you've smiled in the past, you have actually felt happy.
This has created an association.
When you smile = you're happy.
Even if you force a smile when you're sad, you'll be happier.
(Try it out.)
2) Try out Priming
I've learned a ton from Tony Robbins.
Something that always changes my state is doing his priming.
It takes 13 minutes. But it's incredible how useful it is.
He goes through a lot of things, such as gratitude practice.
Here's the link to it. (It's free. You won't regret trying it out.)
Last words
My friend, I hope you found this interesting.
I wanted to write about this as I've been searching even for more clarity. And somehow this topic connected well to finding purpose.
I hope you found this interesting.
Feel free to answer to this email. I read them all. I'd love to hear would you like to see more Letters like this.
Now, feel free to go read the other Letters I linked above. I bet they can help you forward even better.
And if you did enjoy this Letter, feel free to forward it to your friend.
If you were forwarded & would like to receive these to your own inbox in the future, subscribe here.
Till next Saturday my friends,
Hugo
P.S. Whenever you're ready, there are 4 other ways I can help you:
#1: Ready to crush it on social media in 2024? Click here to apply to my 1-1 Social Media Coaching Program.
#2: Have you seen my YouTube channel? I've put stuff out there too. I bet you'd find it valuable. Check out my latest videos and come give me a like and subscribe. :)
#3 Have you already joined my Lightroom Presets waitlist? If not, join here.
#4: I have a lot of free resources out there. Read the past Letters here.
