This document discusses how our brain chemistry and behaviors are influenced by our innate mammalian instincts. It explains that humans have inherited brain structures and chemicals like dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphin from earlier mammals that influence our feelings of happiness and bonding. Our brains evolved to promote survival, not happiness, so it saves "happy chemicals" for behaviors that historically aided survival and reproduction. This leads people to do "quirky" things to stimulate these chemicals. Understanding our inner mammal can help with self-acceptance and acceptance of others, as we all struggle with similar drives to feel good and secure threatened feelings from our brain's survival instincts. Building new neural pathways through different experiences and perspectives can help retrain our brain's

1. Know Your Inner Mammal
dopamine endorphinoxytocinserotonin
Loretta G. Breuning, PhD. Inner Mammal Institute
Neuroscience of Happy Relationships

2. Your friends & family are mammals

3. Your coworkers are mammals

4. Your lovers are mammals

5. You are
mammal
too

6. The brain chemicals that make us feel
good are inherited from earlier mammals
dopamine endorphinoxytocinserotonin

7. They’re controlled by brain
structures inherited from
earlier mammals

8. Your limbic system
doesn’t process
language so it
can’t tell you in
words why it
turns the chemicals
on & off

9. The ups & downs of our brain chemicals are
hard to make sense of until you know
how they work in other mammals

10. Happy relationships start with
knowing your happy chemicals

11. Our brain evolved to promote survival,
not to make you feel good

12. Your brain saves the happy chemicals
for things that promote survival

13. But it defines survival in a
quirky way
1. It cares about the
survival of your genes
2. It relies on neural
pathways built in youth

14. Good feelings turn on when
you do things that:
1. Spread your genes in the state of nature
(ie. attracting mates and nurturing children)
2. Triggered happy chemicals in your youth
(because a neural pathway developed)

15. We all do
quirky
things to
stimulate
our happy
chemicals

16. When other people do quirky things
to feel good, you notice

17. But when you do quirky things, it
feels like you are just trying to survive

18. Yikes!
It’s not easy
being
mammal!

19. Our big
human
cortex is
good at
‘splainin’

20. But if you want to feel good,
you have to get it from your
mammal brain

21. Happy = survival
to your mammal brain, so your quest for
happy chemicals always feels urgent

22. When your happy chemicals droop, your
mammal brain thinks it’s a survival threat

23. You don’t think that in words.
You think it by releasing cortisol.

24. To make life even harder,
happy chemicals are released in short spurts,
so you always have to do more to get more

25. And the brain habituates to the
rewards you have, so it takes
“new and improved”
to really trigger them

26. Everyone is trying to do things that
stimulate their happy chemicals
dopamine endorphin oxytocinserotonin

27. With the neural pathways
built from
their unique
life
experience

28. When you know the special
job of each happy chemical,
life makes sense
dopamine endorphinoxytocinserotonin

29. You can feel good about yourself
and others

30. Dopamine
is the great feeling
that a reward is at hand

31. Dopamine
releases energy for the chase

32. When you expect to meet a need,
your dopamine is released

33. Neurons connect when
dopamine flows, which wires you to
seek more in the same way

34. Your expectations are neural
pathways built from your past
dopamine experiences

35. Dopamine
droops
once you
get the
reward,
until
you set
your sights
on another
reward

36. Your brain
habituates to the
rewards you have
so you seek
“new & improved”
for dopamine

37. Oxytocin
is often called
the “love chemical”

38. Oxytocin rewards you with
a good feeling when you find
safety in numbers

39. Oxytocin is stimulated by
touch,
trust,
birth,
and
sex

40. Trusting everyone
does not promote
survival.
Your brain makes
careful decisions
about when to turn
on the oxytocin.

41. Your brain defines trust with
neural pathways built from your
past oxytocin experiences

42. Oxytocin stops when you’re
isolated, which makes it feel like a
survival threat

43. Serotonin
is the pleasure of
social dominance

44. Serotonin
is not
aggression
but calm
confidence in
your strength.
“I will get the
banana.”

45. Serotonin is released when you
believe you can assert and prevail

46. Your brain defines social dominance
with neural pathways built from
your past serotonin experiences

47. Serotonin
is soon
reabsorbed,
so we are
always looking
for ways to
stimulate more

48. Endorphin masks pain
so you can do what
it takes to survive

49. Endorphin is
“endogenous morphine”
it evolved for
emergencies,
not partying

50. Endorphin is triggered by
pain, and vigorous exertion

51. We are NOT designed to
inflict pain on ourselves.
We are designed for survival.

52. We all struggle
• Our happy chemicals droop
• To get more of one,
we risk losing another, or
triggering cortisol
• We feel threatened easily

53. It’s not easy being
mammal!

54. Put two mammals together
and it’s even harder!

55. Blame
• Your inner mammal thinks others are the problem
• You can prove it!
Your cortex is designed to find external evidence
to explain your internal alarm signals
• You feel threatened constantly if you let your
brain do this

56. Relationships improve when
you know your inner mammal

57. Self-acceptance

58. Acceptance of others

59. We all strive to stimulate happy
chemicals and relieve threat
chemicals in whatever way worked
in our unique past experience

60. We all struggle to feel good with
a brain that saves the happy
chemicals for survival moments

61. Self-acceptance
1. I am a mammal
2. My happy chemicals don’t flow all the time
so I am urgently motivated to do things that
trigger them
3. They’re controlled by neural pathways built
from my past experience
4. I can build new pathways by feeding my
brain new experiences- if I invest the effort.

62. Acceptance of others
1. My friends are mammals. My family. My
partner. My co-workers. My fellow citizens.
2. Their happy chemicals don’t flow all the time
so they are urgently motivated to do things
that trigger them
3. Their neural pathways are built from their past
experience.
4. They can build new pathways by feeding their
brain new experiences- if they invest the effort.

63. What new pathways?

64. New happy pathways
dopamine
positive expectations about my own steps
serotonin
stop thinking others are putting me down
oxytocin
build trust actively in small steps instead of
bonding around common enemies

65. 1. Personal agency
• I focus on steps toward
rewards because dopamine
makes me feel good when I
succeed.
• When my path is blocked, it
may feel like a survival threat.
• I can remind myself that my
survival is not actually
threatened. I’m just a
dopamine-seeking mammal.

66. 2. Social comparison
• We mammals keep comparing ourselves to others
• When your one-up position is threatened, it feels
like a survival threat
• You can remind yourself that your survival
is not actually threatened. You are just a
serotonin-seeking mammal.

67. 3. Trust and betrayal
• We mammals seek the safety of social trust.
• When others disappoint our expectations,
it feels like a survival threat.
• I can remind myself that my survival is not
actually threatened. My inner mammal is just
seeking oxytocin.

68. Repeat these new thoughts and
a new pathway will build

69. The electricity in your brain
will have a new place to flow!

70. Step-by-step instructions in
Habits of a Happy Brain
Retrain your
brain to boost
your serotonin,
dopamine,
oxytocin and
endorphin levels

71. Get the full story at
InnerMammalInstitute.org
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