August 5, 2024

Brain Health And Happiness: The Link Between Emotional Wellbeing And Cognitive Function

Happiness is critical to our emotional well-being as it can help us stay more relaxed and stress-free. Being happy means having positive feelings and mindset and an absence of negative emotions, feelings, or psychological distress.

When you are happy, you have more positive feelings and are not in a constant state of fight or flight mode leaving you more relaxed. When your parasympathetic nervous system is calm due to happiness, you tend to strive and work towards your goals more effectively instead of living on edge because of a perceived danger or threat.

According to a theory called, Broaden and Build, happiness helps meet your physical and psychosocial demands more successfully. This means that happiness is great for your brain health, emotional well-being, and cognitive function among other numerous health benefits like improved cardiovascular health, longevity, and stress reduction.

Moreover, happiness has also been linked to improved brain and cognitive functioning. This positive and dopaminergic effect is because of an increased release of the happy hormone, dopamine, in areas of the brain like the anterior cingulate and prefrontal cortex. This results in an increase in creativity, problem-solving skills, improved attention span, and more flexible information processing. Moreover, staying happy and stress-free can also help you age better and slow down cognitive decline over time.

Happiness can act as a transformative tool for your brain health and cognitive function as it is associated with improved speed and visuospatial memory. On the flip side, it is also associated with more complex processes like worse reasoning. For example, you may sometimes make bad decisions without thinking it through in the spur of the moment when you feel happy and elated.

Staying happy can also help lower your risk of all-cause dementia and vascular dementia as you age. It is also associated with a slower decline in cognitive functioning, an increased interest in life, a decrease in loneliness, and an ease of living with increased life satisfaction.

Overall, happier people tend to perform better in terms of speed and memory over their lives as compared to unhappy individuals. This may be due to their satisfaction in life since happiness improves your emotional well-being so that you take more of an interest in life and various activities and opportunities that come with it along with pursuing your creative endeavors, following your hobbies and passion, and doing what you love.

Research also indicates that happiness is also a driving force behind the motivation to live a healthier life both in terms of physical well-being and cognitive wellness. This ultimately leads to other physical health benefits like improved cardiovascular health as a happier person tends to eat healthy and not fall into unhealthy emotional binge eating as well as staying physically active and fit rather than sitting on the couch all day.

Your brain works better when you feel happy and have more positive emotional well-being in terms of memory, speed, attention, and cognitive flexibility due to the dopamine levels in your brain. Turns out that having a sunny outlook on life can help you intellectually and allows you to be more creative. Moreover, it can also lead to successfully achieving your goals as well as allowing your brain to perceive endless possibilities as it relates to your passions.

Did you know when you apply for jobs, only 25% of the test success is based on your IQ? The other 75% assesses your outlook on life, behavior, connection to others, communication skills, ability to manage stressful situations, and emotional regulation, all of which come down to your happiness and optimism levels.

Given the research, it's safe to say that staying happy and stress-free is the key to a healthier brain, stable emotional well-being, improved cognitive functions, and overall improved satisfaction in life.

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If you liked this article, check out my Substack Newsletter "Brain Poser Boosting Hobbies" at: https://open.substack.com/pub/theunreliablemind/p/brain-power-boosting-hobbies?r=3g6e66&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true