Excellent article from Business Insider on techniques for helping with happiness: practicing gratitude, labeling emotions particularly negative ones to diffuse them, making “good enough” decisions rather than stressing over perfection, and incorporating loving touch into our daily lives. The author, Alex Korb, of a new book called The Upward Spiral is a neuroscientist who cites the research and talks about what parts of our brains respond to these various practices. Also talks about how guilt and shame activate the brain’s reward center but of course are not good long-term habits.

Here’s an intriguing quote from his book:

Despite their differences, pride, shame, and guilt all activate similar neural circuits, including the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, amygdala, insula, and the nucleus accumbens. Interestingly, pride is the most powerful of these emotions at triggering activity in these regions — except in the nucleus accumbens, where guilt and shame win out. This explains why it can be so appealing to heap guilt and shame on ourselves — they’re activating the brain’s reward center.

Here’s the link to the article called “A Neuroscience Researcher Reveals 4 Rituals That Will Make You Happier“.