Loretta Graziano Breuning
California State Univeristy, USA
Keynote: J Psychol Psychother
The brain chemicals that make us feel good are inherited from earlier mammals. They evolved to do a job, not to flow for no reason. They reward a mammal for behaviors that promote survival. But the mammal brain defines survival in a quirky way: it cares about the survival of your genes, and it relies on neural pathways built in youth. When you know why the mammal brain turns on dopamine, oxytocin, and serotonin, you can find healthy ways to stimulate them. Simple examples are provided. The goal is not endless ecstasy because the happy chemicals are not meant to be on all the time. They reset to neutral when their job is done and you have to do more to get more. The goal is tranquility and self-acceptance. Old ways of triggering these chemicals make sense when you know how they work in the state of nature. But you build new neural pathways to turn them on in new ways.
Loretta Graziano Breuning, PhD is Founder of the Inner Mammal Institute and author of Habits of a Happy Brain: Retrain your brain to boost your serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin and endorphin levels. She’s Professor Emerita of Management at California State University, East Bay. As a teacher and mom, she was not convinced by prevailing theories of human motivation. Then she learned about the brain chemistry we share with earlier mammals, and everything made sense. She created the Inner Mammal Institute to provide resources that help people manage their mammal brain. Her books have been translated into Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Arabic, French, and Turkish.
E-mail: Loretta@InnerMammalInstitute.org
