Are You Feeling Happy at Work?

Most of us have experienced a desire for the same thing twice — that one song that beats our hearts out or that delicious cookie that literally melts in the mouth. Our human brain tricks us by having feel-good sensations that nudge us into wanting more of the same thing.

In the workplace, our happiness realm stretches beyond personal space into a circle of influence where we associate with a different set of people and sometimes, with our separate selves.

Our brain is brilliant — it secures our survival in the workplace through feel-good hormones.

Consider a typical day of your work life. When do you feel good and replenished? Could it be the morning hug that boosts your lovey dubby oxytocin or that hilarious joke that lightens up your day with endorphin? Could it be the lunch gathering that fuels your soul with serotonin or that hallway chat that gets you out of a funk with dopamine? Could it be the adrenaline rush that helps you through those grueling review meetings? At times, you forget the reasons for existence, as though you have justified your presence with those feel-good hormones. An occasional shot of cortisol is more than enough to keep your head in check to meet those dreadful deadlines.

A twin study conducted in the Neverlands a decade ago suggested that genetic factors contribute to our level of happiness, at an estimated 22% for males and 41% for females. Since then, 5-HTT (the ‘Happy Gene’) has been identified as a prime candidate responsible for the level of serotonin that regulates our emotions. Three genetic variants for happiness have been found in genome research conducted by VU Amsterdam professors Meike Bartels and Philipp Koellinger in 2016. A further study conducted by Ph.D. student Bart Baselmans and Professor Meike Bartels in 2018 found two genetic variants for meaning in life and six genetic variants for happiness. What do all these mean?

Put simply, some of us are hard-wired to be more easily content and happy in life than others. Are you one of them?

Professor Morten Kringelbach of the University of Oxford and Professor Kent Berridge of Michigan put the happiness debate to rest. In the paper titled “The Neuroscience of Happiness and Pleasure,”they concluded that while it remains unclear how pleasure and happiness are strictly linked, it may be safe to say the lack of pleasure would probably amount to a formidable obstacle to happiness. Meanwhile, the emotions evoked from pleasure (hedonia) can be so intertwined with our perception of meaning (eudaimonia) in life that the two terms deem inseparable.

For us to get to the bottom of this happiness problem, it sounds like all we need is plenty of pleasurable moments to jack up those happy hormones. If that’s not enough, take cues from Positive Psychology where the recipe for happiness, among other things, is to be engaged, think positively, and savor our pleasure moments. To top that off with a daily gratitude letter to remind ourselves being happy may be helpful too. Others argue happiness at work is practically impossible.

Work happiness is indeed a bit more complicated. While our feel-good hormones are responsible for tuning our happy emotions, the cognitive side of the brain holds the keys to happiness at work. Our primal desire for self-identity is what puts us to work in the first place (other than for putting food on the table). And until that self-identity is fulfilled, we won’t feel ‘complete’ and, therefore, truly happy from the inside.

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Previously Published on medium

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