This episode is just me. I get so many questions about parenting that I wanted to address them. In short, we are tempted to reward bad behavior without consciously intending to. The child pays the price because it wires them to repeat the bad behavior over and over. The next time you are tempted to reward a bad behavior by giving it power, ask yourself whether you're really doing it for yourself, to make you feel like a good person.

The HAPPY BRAIN PODCAST helps you spark your happy brain chemicals in healthy ways. Your host is Loretta G. Breuning PhD, founder of the Inner Mammal Institute and author of "Habits of a Happy Brain: Retrain your brain to boost your serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin and endorphin levels.” Details at: https://innermammalinstitute.org.

Check out our new video course, Train Your Inner Mammal to Feel Good Now. (https://innermammalinstitute.org/course — 10% off with the code ReaderDiscount at the checkout.) You will learn to rewire your happy chemicals with small simple steps!

Our dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphin are inherited from earlier mammals. We control them with the limbic brain we’ve inherited from animals. The verbal human part of the brain doesn’t understand what makes the animal part feel good, and that’s why we do things to feel good that we later regret. When you understand the job that each happy chemical evolved to do, you can find healthy ways to spark them.

Dr. Breuning’s new book, Why You’re Unhappy: Biology vs Politics, shows why unhappiness comes so easily to our brain. Why do they tell us that happiness is the natural state and unhappiness is a disorder? It’s politics. The kind of politics that all mammals have. Find out more at: https://innermammalinstitute.org/why

See video clips from this episode and others at: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1hyR2RHXp04OmVhFUKNh81FT5gffvplq If you like The Happy Brain Podcast, please rate and review it to help others make peace with their inner mammal.

Our happy chemicals evolved to reward survival behavior, not to make you feel good all the time.

Your brain chemicals are like paving on your neural pathways, which wires you to repeat behaviors that spark good feelings and avoid behaviors that spark bad feelings. That’s why we keep repeating or avoiding things without quite knowing why. To change these patterns, you have to blaze a new trail through your jungle of neurons.

It’s hard because it takes so much repetition. The Inner Mammal Institute shows you how to design and build the new neural pathway that’s right for you, and motivate yourself to do the repetitions.

Rewiring your brain is like learning a foreign language: we all know it’s possible, but most people don’t. You can be someone who does! You can build new paths to your happy chemicals so you flow there more easily.

The Inner Mammal Institute has the resources you need to do that. It offers free resources, including videos, blogs, infographics, and podcasts. Dr. Breuning’s books explain the big picture and help you plot your course step by step. No matter where you are right now, you can enjoy more happy chemicals in healthy ways. Get the details at https://InnerMammalInstitute.org.

Music from Sonatina Soleil by W.M. Sharp. Hear more of it at https://InnerMammalInstitute.org/musicbywmsharp