4 Things You Can do to Promote More Joy in Your Life
“Joy.” What a topic amidst Covid-19. Joy may not be our first go-to emotion in today's world; however, we can learn how to experience joy and promote more joy, even amongst the range of emotions during this crazy time.
The brain is beautiful and complex. But by understanding brain science, we can actually train our brain to fight depression and find more joy!
Why is it difficult for us to remain in joy? Brain science points to several reasons:
Our brains form neural pathways based on experiences with emotions. These neural pathways become a route that is taken over again and again for each emotion we experience. For example, "When I feel angry, I walk away, slam the door and remove myself from the situation, hoping the problem will go away," or, "When I feel sad, I stuff my feelings and eat my feelings away hoping I won't feel sad anymore." These thoughts and actions form a pathway over time that is repeated every time you feel that emotion. This automatically happens, making it difficult to get to joy. Much like an outward habit based on repetitive actions formed over time--except this habit is happening inside your brain where you don’t see it occurring.
Our beautiful and complex brain functions with a left and a right side. The left side of the brain controls logic while the right-side controls emotion. When we have negative feelings arise, we act out in one of two ways:
We let our emotions take over in a way that seems overwhelming--even hijacked. (right brain)
We shut down our emotions and become overly logical, unfeeling or uncaring. (left brain).
But there is hope!
Being aware of what goes on in our brains is half the battle. The other half is doing something about it!
Growing more joy: While most of the brain stops growing at certain stages of development, the brain’s “joy center”, located in the right orbital prefrontal cortex, is the only section of the brain that never loses its capacity to grow! It grows in response to real, joy-filled relationships.* When we experience negative emotions, we can “return to joy” because of this ability to always “grow” more joy. The more you practice joy-building, the more you will feel joyful, and the easier it is to return to joy from negative emotions. How do you practice joy-building? The following is a short list of examples:
sharing joy through facial expressions
experiencing joy with family members
being quiet together (peace)
telling yourself and others appreciation stories (see below for explanation)
taking “time outs” (peace)
eye connections/eye contact
Becoming more aware of Neural pathways: Recognizing what’s happening in your brain can change your situation and the new neural pathways can be formed by practicing joy-building skills, listed above. The more joy you have, the easier it is to form these new paths.
Synchronizing right & left brain: When we know what's happening, we know what to look out for. When we are aware, we can take action. The goal is to have enough joy strength so when emotions take over you are able to synchronize with a balance of both logic and emotion.
Telling appreciation stories: Think of a time someone did or said something good for you. Something where it made you feel loved, heard or appreciated. Then, making eye contact, tell someone this story. These are important not only to grow our joy strength, but also helps us think about and focus on positive thoughts --- which ultimately get our brains out of the old neuro-pathway ruts and helps in forming the new pathway.
As we build joy and form these new paths we will be hijacked less and less often and able to remain in joy or return to joy more quickly. Growing our joy center is a skill to be practiced over the long haul. The more we practice, the more joy we will experience. Is it not amazing how God designed our brains to handle all that life throws at us? His word comforts us in many ways by reminding us, “the joy of the Lord is our strength.” He designed us to experience joy.
In these uncertain times and always, we can still experience much joy. Now that we know the brain science behind this lovely emotion, joy can begin to grow again.
For an excellent resource on brain science Click Here
Questions:
What are some of your old negative pathways that you’d like to re-route to Joy?
What is one of your appreciation stories?