Prof Mark Nowacki approached the notion of happiness as human flourishing. He suggested Virtues as a tool of happiness and that it is a special form of habit. As with all habits, virtue requires practice. If we practice virtue in a right environment, we would probably flourish and "be happy". His arguments was elegant, but quite chim for me to grasp. Haha. He was my Analytical Skill prof who tortured me in Year 1.
The second speaker talks about some technique to intervene to make us happier. Prof Tov presented on research that suggests that exercise like think about gratitude, acts of kindness, and positive thinking may help us feel happier. He also touched on the concept of "flow " where one will feel energized, and that the task on hand will be enjoyable and rewarding. Jie chao, reminds me to borrow the book from you when my term ends.
Prof Farber presentation on some of the mechanics of the brain provided me with many new information. We were introduced to some neurotransmitter and its impact on how we feel.
Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that modulates our level of aggression, mood, social behavior, sexuality, appetite, demand for sleep and a whole host of other factors. A level of serotonin that is too low has been linked to clinical depression. Prozac, the famous anti-depressant, targets the level of serotonin and helps reduce occurrence of depression in the patients.
The professor asks the audience that if this neurotransmitter seem to be ‘bad’ human, so why has it not been removed from the process of evolution? A suggestion he made was that Serotonin also acts as a regulator of your point of view of your social status. It was found that in patient that went through traumatic accident, the level of serotonin was low.
Imagine you’re an alpha male ape living in an ape tribe. After an accident that caused you to lose an arm and a lower Serotonin level which will make you think less highly of yourself. If you still think that you are an alpha male, you could get clobbered by the rest of the tribe. So the neurotransmitter ‘helps’ us not over step our social status to ‘protect’ us. Interesting. Dan Humphrey from gossip girl must have out of sync level of serotonin that caused him to hook up with Serena…or maybe he’s just plain dumb, or is he trying to make use of Serena to climb the social ladder to be the alpha male in town???
Oh ya, don’t do drugs. Morphine for instance screws up your level of Opioid. You’ll have that ‘blissful’ happiness feeling when level of Opioid is high. But if you take drugs like morphine, your brain will be so screwed up to appreciated other from of stimulus. Many types of drugs fry up your brain. Ya. So stay away from drugs so we can still appreciate that fresh cup of coffee with kaya toast.
By the way, it seems that Chocolates helps stimulate the level of Serotonin and Dopamine. But over consuming it and our body will convert it into Melatonin, which in large dosage wrecks your sex drive. Not forgetting that it is highly fattening, 294 kcal per Mars bar and 106 kcal for 2 fingers of kit kat.
Oh ya, don’t do drugs. Morphine for instance screws up your level of Opioid. You’ll have that ‘blissful’ happiness feeling when level of Opioid is high. But if you take drugs like morphine, your brain will be so screwed up to appreciated other from of stimulus. Many types of drugs fry up your brain. Ya. So stay away from drugs so we can still appreciate that fresh cup of coffee with kaya toast.
By the way, it seems that Chocolates helps stimulate the level of Serotonin and Dopamine. But over consuming it and our body will convert it into Melatonin, which in large dosage wrecks your sex drive. Not forgetting that it is highly fattening, 294 kcal per Mars bar and 106 kcal for 2 fingers of kit kat.
Will knowing all these make us happy? I don't know. But at least we may be able to better explain why we are...
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