The Secret of Happiness Medicine

The Erasmus University in Rotterdam is a concrete desert. Not exactly a place that puts you in a good mood. But right here, in building M, 6th floor, around 14,000 research results on the subject of happiness are stored – the “World Database of Happiness “ . It was founded in 1980 by the sociologist Prof. Ruut Veenhoven . His 14 employees now end up with an average of one or two new studies every day. Ascending trend. With so much luck, caution is advised. According to experts, what exactly makes people happy with life ?

Hardly any other question is currently driving scientists around the world more. In the bookstores, more and more guides that are supposed to make you happy are now filling several meters of shelves. Prof. Tobias Esch, 41, from the University of Coburg, specialist in general medicine and expert in integrative health promotion, knows that. “It’s not about this ‘Tschaka! You can do it,” he says emphatically. He also wrote a book about happiness. However, one looks in vain for quick solutions. “For me, it’s about the participation of the self in one’s own healing process, about the integration of healthy self-healing potential,” Esch summarizes his concern. “ Body, mind and soul are one, work and belong together. Modern medicine has still not fully understood this in some disciplines.” Feelings of happiness

act like medicine in our body . The database in Rotterdam only allows this conclusion. And doctors and patients alike should take advantage of this. So the time is ripe for a new happiness medicine. For example, participants in a long-term study at Columbia University in New York who were dissatisfied with their lives had 22 percent more heart attacks than those who were satisfied with their lives. Their blood turned out to be thinner and less loaded with stress hormones. Prof. Ruut Veenhoven compared the effect of not smoking and happiness on life expectancy. The result:Happy people live up to ten years longer , gaining as many years as non-smokers do over smokers. “Happiness acts like a green traffic light on the body,” says Veenhoven.
Prof. Sheldon Cohen from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh in the USA can only confirm that. He also asked subjects how “happy” they were and then infected them with flu viruses. It was again shown that those who were happy caught colds less often or less severely. Prof. Esch has compiled almost 30 diseases for his book, in which feelings of happiness and positive thoughts have been proven to accelerate the healing processor support. The great thing: the doctor who can prescribe happiness for us is ourselves! More precisely: our brain. It has several systems that distinguish between three forms of happiness. Each of these “happiness networks” pours out highly effective messenger substances, all of which are real health boosters.

The body’s own motivation and reward systems promote health
. B. the feeling of happiness “I’ve arrived, I’m in the right place”, the brain releases endogenous morphine , which strengthens our cardiovascular system, allows the fear center in the head to shrink and inhibits various inflammations in the body. With a short “lucky kick”, e.g. B. a roller coaster ride, the gray cells are flooded with the reward neurotransmitter dopamine . This makes them more adaptable and strengthens the immune system .
“The good news is: we can practice that,” says Prof. Esch. Doctors and other therapists who know this message and implement it in everyday life treat their patients more successfully than colleagues who leave their luck to chance.
Moment! Does that mean that if you get sick, it’s your own fault because you haven’t trained enough? “No,” says Prof. Esch. “Guilt and innocence are inappropriate categories in this context. But science does confirm that engaging the body’s motivation and reward systems promotes health. It reduces the patient’s experience of powerlessness and helplessness. That’s not a moral pointing finger, but a sober insight, from which you can never derive flat templates for life.” Happiness medicine is just as little about whitewashing. “It is by no means ignoring the unhappiness in the world,” emphasizes Prof. Esch. Among other things, it was Holocaust survivors who were interviewed in the 1970s at the Applied Social Research Institute in Jerusalem for the first studies on happiness and life satisfaction. Today, four decades later, one thing is certain: Even after the worst experiences, the happiness systems in the brain can still be activated.Our “inner doctor” never gives up.

Happiness depends on genes

The talent for happiness is about half dependent on genes. Another ten percent are determined by external circumstances that we cannot control. But at least 40 percent is in our hands! “For a long time, trying to be happier was considered just as promising as trying to become even taller as an adult,” explains Prof. Gert G. Wagner from the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) in Berlin. However, after he recently evaluated a survey of more than 20,000 Germans with colleagues from Australia and the Netherlands, he is certain: “We are not pure slaves to our genes and our early childhood imprints.” So everyone can actively promote the release of happiness messengersand thus strengthen his “inner doctor” in a targeted manner.

Triad of Happiness

Our brain distinguishes between three types of contentment (“happiness”). Each is processed by its own system. This releases certain messenger substances that work not only in the head but in the whole body.
The happiness of excitement: A ride on the roller coaster, winning a competition, the premiere kiss, first sex – everything that has to do with excitement, adventure and lust triggers a short but violent “kick of happiness”. . The messenger substance dopamine is released, endorphins create euphoria.
The happiness of relief: It spreads when a “threat” or the stresssubsides. A project is completed, a difficult conversation has been held or a heated argument has been settled – then the cortisol and adrenaline levels in the blood drop. We relax.
The happiness of contentment: when we have everything we need, are loved, feel that we have arrived at the “right” place, and the soul drops anchor, the body produces morphine. That makes you happy. The messenger substance serotonin calms, the “cuddling hormone” oxytocin conveys a connection with others.
“There is some evidence that people experience the different forms of happiness in the course of their lives, so to speak, mature,” explains Prof. Tobias Esch. “The happiness of excitement belongs more in youth, the happiness of contentment usually only comes with age. Nevertheless, ‘steps backwards’ are also possible in every phase of life. There is no hierarchy here, one happiness is not better than the other.”