Our brains naturally have this urge to chase happiness because of a little system in our brain called the "reward system." McGonigal proclaims in her book that Neuroscientists have discovered an area in our brain that promises happiness and encourages us to get whatever can make us happy(112). When our brain acknowledges a possibility for happiness, it releases a neurotransmitter called dopamine. Dopamine creates this feeling of alertness and excitement and just wants us to obtain anything that triggers anticipation. Kirkey also mentions in her article that the nucleus accumbens and the "reward center" propels us to pursue rewards. Our brains have evolved to keep us working and active through the promise of happiness. When we see something …show more content…
Kirkey states, Jamie Gruman, chair of the Canadian Psychology Association argues that all emotions serve a purpose in life. Even negative emotions can be beneficial to human life, given that they are motivating because they influence us to do better. Negative emotions also give us a better outlook on life. For example, we become more grateful for all the little things and we also learn to be more tolerating. Kirkey also suggests that we should keep our expectations realistic so we don’t self criticize ourselves when we fail to achieve them. Instead we should forgive ourselves and try again to avoid creating more guilt as McGonigal states "It’s the feelings of shame, guilt, loss of control, and loss of hope that follow the first relapse, Once you're stuck in the cycle, it can seem like there is nor way out except to keep going."(145) She suggests that we shouldn't suppress our emotions, instead we should accept them and be more self compassionate toward ourselves when we fail. So when we start over again, we can put in more effort and make progress which is what will make us happy. Sometimes it does become difficult to focus on activities that improve our quality of life when we are under stress just like Csikzentmihaly states in his book(22), that psychic entropy interferes with the state of flow because our mind is focused on our problems rather than the activity. However, Kirkey implies that negative emotions can actually be motivating because it gives you this energy to try to increase performance more. So maybe we can use stress as a motivator to do better instead of complaining or overthinking