10 science based habits i'm trying to build to improve my life🍃

Habits are building blocks of your life. If you want to change your life, or if you want to change who you are, the first step always should be looking at your current habits and determining which of them are bad and which of them are good. Changing those habits is essential. As James Clear says, success is a product of daily habits, not once-in-a-lifetime transformations. So the habits are a compound interest of self-improvement and self-development.

Today, I want to share with you guys the five habits I'm trying to build to be more productive, to be more happy, and to be more effective in my life. The first very important thing that I'm trying to do is focusing on serotonin and oxidizing happiness rather than on dopamine happiness. You might be thinking, "What the heck is this girl talking about?" Today, I'm going to talk about some of the tips and tricks I learned from the book "The Three Happiness," which is from my favorite psychiatrist and author, Kabusabashiyan.

The book is only in Japanese; unfortunately, it doesn't have an English translation. So let me explain some of the gems from this book. Basically, when it comes to happiness, we have three main types: serotonin, oxytocin, and dopamine happiness. All of these three things are related to your happiness; however, they provide a different type of happiness.

Let's start with the dopamine happiness and talk about why we should not focus on dopamine happiness if we want to achieve a fulfilling, happy life. There is an order that we should focus on for our happiness. First, we have to make the base with serotonin happiness, then oxytocin happiness, and then dopamine happiness. All of these three things are important for our happiness, but focusing on dopamine happiness will not give us long-lasting happiness.

Let me explain why. Dopamine enables motivation, learning, and pleasure. It gives you the determination to achieve goals, desires, and needs. It's similar to the feeling you get when you achieve something or when you’re about to do something. Once you achieve your goals or desires, dopamine gives a surge of reinforcing pleasure. However, overstimulation of dopamine can really cause some problems because it's usually tied with building bad habits. Moreover, dopamine is naturally really addicting.

The other problem with dopamine is that it's not long-lasting when compared to serotonin and oxytocin happiness. After it decreases and since it's addictive, you want more dopamine. You will need more money, more fame, more gambling, or more drugs to maintain that level. Over time, your threshold will also increase. You'll need more dopamine to get to this happiness. So if you focus on dopamine happiness rather than on oxytocin and serotonin, it will cause a lot of problems and result in bad habits.

Therefore, we should focus more on serotonin and oxytocin happiness, which are more long-lasting and calming. The first building block of our happiness should be serotonin. Serotonin happiness is tied with well-being and happiness; of course, it's also a mood stabilizer. It's the feeling when you go outside and see the sun. It's like the nice feeling you feel in your body and mental state. That's serotonin. After a workout, you feel really refreshed and happy—that's serotonin too.

To increase serotonin, it's actually not that hard. Sun exposure plays a huge role in the levels of serotonin. Getting 10 to 15 minutes of sun exposure just by walking outside can really improve your serotonin levels. Another thing that is crucial for increasing serotonin levels is, of course, sleeping. As I said, serotonin happiness is tied with well-being, so your physical and mental state is really important to increase your serotonin levels.

Therefore, you should get at least seven to eight hours of good quality sleep. To do that, I track my sleep with my Apple Watch and also my Oura Ring. I use Oura Ring because it's much more accurate compared to the Apple Watch when it comes to tracking sleep. I really recommend it; I will link it down below so that you guys can check it out.

When you track your sleep, it doesn't necessarily increase your sleep quality, but over time, since you track it, you start to think like, "Oh, I didn't get my sleep well last night. Maybe I should focus on my sleep more tonight." It really encouraged me to sleep more, and after buying the Oura Ring, I'm sleeping more regularly and I believe my sleep quality has really increased.

The third thing I'm focusing on to increase my happiness is eating foods such as bananas, eggs, omega-3 fish, nuts, seeds, leafy greens, and probiotics. All of these foods are scientifically proven to increase serotonin. I make sure that I eat those foods more regularly.

Now, let’s talk about oxytocin happiness. Oxytocin gives a feeling of trust, motivates you to build intimate relationships, and helps sustain them. It’s also known as the cuddle hormone or love hormone because it’s most of the time released when you connect with another person or even with an animal. You have that bond with the other person, and that increases oxytocin.

This hormone gives you the desire to stick with those you trust, creating a feeling of safety or comfort. It helps your body to adapt to several different emotional and social situations. Oxytocin can also boost your immune system, making you more resistant to the addictive qualities of dopamine. Unlike dopamine, oxytocin gives a long-lasting feeling of calm and safety.

Remember, dopamine is like getting excited. It’s that motivation, that drive, that hustle. On the other hand, oxytocin is more about comfort, safety, and feeling secure, calm, and zen. It can fight stress, improve relationships, and promote long-lasting positive emotions.

As I said, there's nothing wrong with dopamine happiness, but it's not long-lasting and over time, you will need more and more. To increase my oxytocin happiness, I have been really focusing on physical touch with my loved ones. One of my love languages is physical touch, so I'm naturally a really touchy person. I like to hug my mom, my friends, the people I love, you know, my dad—and tell them I love them and that I appreciate them.

Whenever I talk with my friends, I make sure that I tell them that I love them and appreciate them. I'm really glad to have them in my life because those things remind me of how much and why I like them, and it also increases my oxytocin levels. It increases the other person's oxytocin levels too. By expressing love, you can make yourself happy as well as others.

Cuddling, physical touch, making eye contact, and even shaking hands can increase your oxytocin. In Japan, physical touch is not really a part of the culture, but I don't really care about it. I hug my Japanese grandma and she loves it. So make sure that you’re cuddling with your loved ones, showing your love with physical touch, and making sure that they know you appreciate them. You don’t know when somebody will pass away, so it’s always better to show your love when they’re alive.

Another thing I'm trying to do more these days to increase my oxytocin levels is socializing. I'm trying to actively see more friends because when you have a YouTube channel and are also at university, it’s really easy to feel like you constantly need to work. I try to get more and more done, post more videos, do this and that, and be more productive. But it’s also important to build human relationships for your happiness, for your well-being.

The last thing that I'm really focusing on in oxytocin happiness is helping other people. It can be donations, charity, or anything. One thing I realized that I can do easily is give my seat on the bus or in the metro to older people. First of all, it’s such a nice thing. If I think about it, if I were a grandma and I was really tired with my knees shaking, I would really appreciate someone giving me their seat.

By doing that, not only do I make them happy, but I also make myself happy by increasing my oxytocin levels. We should always help people, but by making this a habit and focusing more on it, I think I'm more able to realize other people or any opportunity to help someone else because I'm actively trying to seek opportunities. So make sure you help people around you. It doesn’t have to be elderly people; you can help your mom, your siblings, or someone you don’t know—like a stranger crossing the street or a grandma who’s hanging on to something. Help them.

Most of the habits that I do are really tied to oxytocin and serotonin rather than to dopamine. Another thing that I have been doing is exercising regularly. Not only does it balance dopamine and serotonin levels, but exercising, especially aerobic exercise, can increase the BDNF levels in your brain. BDNF is a key molecule for learning new things and memorizing them.

I'm currently preparing myself for a very important exam, and I procrastinated on it for several months. Even though I had exactly one year, I didn’t study until this point and I only have two weeks until that exam. I don’t know if I will pass, but I’m trying to optimize my life in every aspect so that I will pass this exam.

Increasing BDNF levels will allow you to learn things more easily and also enhance your memory. It will be much easier for you to memorize the things that you want to learn. BDNF especially increases after aerobic exercise. Even though I prefer weight training because I want to grow a peachy butt, I also do cardio to increase my BDNF levels.

Combining strength training and cardio increases BDNF levels even more, so I recommend combining weight training with cardio to enhance your memory and improve your learning. Another great thing about resistance training is that it also increases your dopamine levels in a healthy way. Bad ways to increase dopamine include drugs, gambling, and other negative things, but weight training can increase your dopamine levels. It also helps release adrenaline because over time, the weight you lift increases, giving you a feeling of success and fulfillment in a healthy way.

The other thing is that I am trying to read regularly. I have realized that I have been scrolling on social media really unconsciously and consuming unrelated content that I'm not interested in. I’m not saying that spending time on social media is bad, because if you’re using it in your favor, it can be life-changing. I have learned so many things from social media, but with YouTube shorts or Instagram reels, you see a lot of content from people that you do not care about, on topics that you’re not interested in.

This can be really time-consuming as you scroll unconsciously and don’t realize the time passing. I decided to actively focus on retaining information and just learning things I would like to know. I try to read more books using the Kindle Oasis. My brother gifted me a Kindle Oasis and it’s probably the best gift I’ve ever received. It is so comfortable to read and just makes the reading experience so nice.

By reading books, I think I’ve been reading like an hour or two per day. I was scrolling on social media for hours—five hours a day—and I decided to shift it to reading. Now I’m reading at least an hour every day. It allows me to expand my knowledge, and I feel like I can create more interesting videos. Since then, my creativity and productivity have really increased because I’m getting inspired by people whom I really respect. This makes me more intentional about the things I do, and I feel like my knowledge is expanding on topics that truly interest me.

Another way you can expand your knowledge is by using Skillshare. Skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of classes and members across 150 countries who come together to find inspiration and take their creativity journey to the next level. If you have a specific skill you want to learn, Skillshare is the perfect place to get started. From productivity to making YouTube videos, cooking, or well-being, everything you want to learn can be found on Skillshare.

If you want to find a new hobby to spend your time more productively, there are so many classes on cooking, drawing, or even classes on how to play the piano. Want to learn about storytelling? Check out Thomas Stager’s class. Now is the time to do the things that you have always wanted to do.

I’m also planning to release Skillshare classes at the end of this year, so stay tuned. The first thousand people to use the link will get a one-month free trial of Skillshare. Thank you, Skillshare, for sponsoring this video.

The other thing that I’m focusing on these days is gratitude practice. It actually comes from the law of attraction. We tend to realize the things that we seek. Let’s say you are planning to buy a white car specifically from Toyota, and I don’t know about the model, but a Toyota Corolla or something.

After you decide to buy it and think about it, you realize more Toyota Corollas on the street than you were seeing before. It’s not that the number of Toyota Corollas increased, but you become more conscious and focused. You’re unconsciously more interested in the Toyota Corolla, so you’re seeing more of them on the street. You will attract whatever you focus on.

So I decided to focus on more positive things that are happening in my life, especially in interpersonal relationships. At the end of the day, I try to make a list of three things that I appreciate from that day. I actively say these things to the people who have done them, and I also try to write them down so that I actively focus on positive rather than negative things.

Kabusabashiyan recommends doing this gratitude practice—three things you appreciate about that day, three things that make you happy—so that your serotonin and oxytocin levels will increase over time. It also helps with depression. Depression is linked to low levels of serotonin. If you increase your serotonin levels, it can help prevent and also pull you out of depression.

The last thing that I do, as I mentioned, is using less social media. However, when it comes to using less social media, you know when you have the Instagram app or YouTube app, it’s so easy to scroll unconsciously. I deleted all these social media apps and only use them on Safari. If I want to pause, like, or interact with something, I download the app. Then, after every usage, I delete the app and continue to use it on Safari because the experience on Safari is not as pleasant as in the app; it’s not as comfortable.

It takes a bit of time, everything is a bit slower and lagging, and that friction annoys me. So I’ve been using social media less and less. I also have a full dedicated video about using less social media, which you can check right here. I would highly recommend watching that video.

So these are the things that I have been trying to do in order to increase my happiness and productivity. If you're interested in the three types of happiness—serotonin, oxytocin, and dopamine—let me know in the comments down below. I can make a full dedicated video about it because there's actually so much to talk about that I haven't mentioned yet.

Just let me know in the comments down below. I will link Kabusabashiyan’s book "The Three Happiness"; it's only in Japanese and doesn't have an English translation. I’m really sorry for that, but if you're Japanese or if you know Japanese, you can check the book.

Bye!