I want to share with you ways to get happy and healthy, naturally. One thing I found out around February, living in St. Louis in the Middle West, is that it is pretty cold, snowy, and grey. And I feel it, I feel the effect of it, I see people getting sick left and right, in my house, and my patients. I realize that when we don’t feel good, it’s not necessarily easy to stay happy and healthy.

So what I want to share with you is how to get your body producing more endorphins.

What Are Endorphins?

They are the hormones that trigger happy feelings in the body. These endorphins give you energy, they aid sleep, they put a smile on your face, and they also help you to deal with stress.

Here are some healthy and unhealthy ways to get your body making more endorphins.

• Exercise

Exercise helps your body to produce more endorphins. More so, exercise gives you energy, makes you healthy, so that you look good. But more importantly, those endorphins produced through exercise help you have happy hormones for up to 48 hours. So, even if you don’t work out every day, try to work out every other day. Some people can relate, in cases whereby they miss working out for a few days and realize that they are feeling kind of edgy, and more irritable. So, exercise is obviously a healthy way of getting your body to produce endorphins.

Others are:

• Sleep

A great night’s sleep will also help your body produce endorphins for up to 24 hours. If you are not sleeping well, ensure you are keeping your blood sugar level stable throughout the day. Also, avoid not drinking alcohol or taking sugar just before bedtime. Doing so would interrupt your sleep. Also, getting some magnesium in you, closer to bedtime, is going to help you fall and stay asleep. You can take magnesium as a supplement, you can also eat pumpkin seeds, or raw cocoa powder, which are high in magnesium.

• Sex

Yes, sex! Having sex helps your body release happy hormones called endorphins. I don’t clinically know exactly for how many hours, but if you are in a happy, healthy relationship, it is a great way to have your body producing more endorphins.

Another way, which is not necessarily healthy, is through eating.

Eating to get happy only works for a short period of time. The problem with putting food in your mouth out of emotion to get endorphins is your body is that your body is going to have this burst of exciting endorphins for about 30 minutes.

You need to also understand that, when your body is having cravings, it’s not craving food per se, it’s craving happy hormones.

When your body is filled with these happy hormones, that make you happy and healthy, the cravings naturally go away. I see cravings sabotaging some people and having control over them. The only way for you to gain control over your cravings is to get happy hormones in your body in a healthy way. Perform great exercise, sleep well, stay happy with the people you love and love you as well.

So get more happy hormones in your life in a healthy way and you won’t have to put food in your mouth out of emotion and letting it get the best of you in order to try to get happy.

(Photo by ThePhotographyMuse on Flickr)