• Meditate: It has been found that regular meditators have an increase in their dopamine production¹¹. A simple meditative practice need not be about keeping still but can look like this:
• Find a comfortable and quiet place, try to relax into a sitting, lying, or standing posture, whatever works for you, just notice the thoughts – positive or negative – coming and going, try not to judge, or resist them. Simply acknowledge them and note them as mental events. You can start by doing a five-minute routine and gradually increase the time.

• Spend more time with friends, family, and pets:

Spend time with your furry friends. Research studies¹² indicate that dog owners can enhance their dopamine and lower their cortisol by interacting with their dogs. Oxytocin is also known as the ‘love hormone’; spending time with loved ones, hugging, or physical touch contributes to its production and to feeling happy and blissful. It has also been found that laughing with friends and family can boost dopamine and endorphins; it also reduces anxiety and stress¹³.

• Get more sun: Getting more exposure to sunlight has been found to enhance serotonin levels as well¹⁵. Spend time outdoors when you are free (e.g., hiking, playing, walking, etc.) to get more exposure to UV radiation, which enhances serotonin. Remember to use a sunscreen and not to get overexposed as that could lead to skin cancer.

Apart from enhancing our happy hormones, there are also simple steps to calm down our sympathetic nervous system, especially when feeling extremely vulnerable and stressed. These simple steps help us break the feedback loop of stress and bring us back in control of our situation.

• Step 1: Affect labelling: A simple yet effective technique to disrupt the feedback loop of stress, which is running between our brain and body is to name or label our emotions (e.g., anger, fear, or anxiety). Research studies have shown that articulating our negative emotions can actually help minimize our physiological response. Professor Matthew Lieberman calls this “affect labelling”, which, his fMRI (functional MRI) studies show, lead to a decrease in brain activity in the amygdala, which further helps the frontal lobe (reasoning and thinking centre) to take back control and try to solve the problem¹⁴.
• Step 2: Breath control: The other easy strategy is to gradually slow down our breathing by making our exhales longer than the inhales. This can be done by trying to double the time we spend on exhalation compared to inhalation (for e.g., counting till 4 to breath in and till 8 to breath out through the mouth). The longer time taken to exhale sends a message to our vagus nerve to turn up the parasympathetic nervous system and calm the sympathetic nervous system. Dr. Esther Sternberg, research director at the Arizona Centre for Integrative Medicine, says, “Deep breathing turns on the vagus nerve enough that it acts as a brake on the stress response…which in turn powers up the parasympathetic nervous system.”
• Step 3: Relabelling the emotion: Once the feedback loop is interrupted, the final step is to rewire the brain into rethinking about the emotional stimuli causing the initial panic. This process involves re-labelling the emotions as something non-threatening than negative (for e.g., fear as anticipation or worry as concern). The attempt is to convince the amygdala that the stimuli does not need a stress response but is rather something one can control. Slowing down the breath along with re-labelling helps the brain regain its sense of calm.

These steps may seem very easy, but they need to be practiced consistently and can help in contributing profoundly to our wellbeing in the long run. A basic understanding of neuroscience and practising all these simple techniques can change the way we respond to negative circumstances and stressful events. By committing to these straightforward actions regularly, you can build your resilience and enhance your composure even in the most challenging situations.