Our brain is naturally inclined toward frustration because it’s designed to constantly seek rewards. When you approach a reward, dopamine surges and you feel great. But when you see an obstacle in your path to rewards, your brain releases cortisol and it feels like a survival threat. You can end up with a lot of cortisol on your path to rewards. Here’s a simple strategy to ease that natural sense of threat and stimulate the chemicals that make us feel good.

1. Manage Frustration
and Enjoy More Happy Chemicals
Loretta Graziano Breuning, PhD
Inner Mammal Institute

2. Brian is frustrated

3. He sees obstacles on
the path to his goals

4. Brian thinks Ryan and Jain
are the obstacles

5. Brian can relieve his frustration by
understanding his mammal brain

6. Our neurochemical
ups and downs
are controlled by
brain structures
inherited from
earlier
animals

7. Your mammal brain rewards you with
a good-feeling chemical when you
see a way to meet a survival need

8. It alarms you with a bad feeling
when you see a survival threat

9. But it defines survival in a quirky way
It cares about the survival of your genes, and
it relies on neural pathways you built in youth

10. You can end up feeling that your survival is threatened
A LOT

11. Brian can enjoy
more happy chemicals
Dopamine Serotonin Oxytocin Endorphin

12. and relieve the bad
feeling of
cortisol

13. if he makes peace with his
inner mammal

14. Brian’s frustration #1
The brain releases the great feeling of
dopamine when you approach a reward
but your dopamine soon returns to neutral
and you have to do more to get more

15. Brian’s frustration #2
The mammal brain cares about your
status as if your life depended on it.
It rewards you with
serotonin each time
you boost your
status, but it alarms
you with cortisol
when you see a
status threat.

16. Brian’s frustration #3
The brain releases the nice calm feeling of oxytocin
when you enjoy the safety of social support.
But your oxytocin
droops with each
step away from
the herd, and that
feels like a
survival threat.

17. Brian’s frustration #4
The brain releases the bad feeling
of cortisol when you see an
obstacle to meeting your needs.
A disappointment of expectations
= cortisol = threat.

18. dopamine oxytocin endorphinserotonin
Happy chemicals
are not designed to flow all the time
They evolved to reward you
with a good feeling when you meet a need
(physical or social)

19. Cortisol creates an
urgent sense of
survival threat
even when you don’t
consciously
think that.

20. Frustration is natural
•Rewards are unpredictable so our quest for
happy chemicals is often disappointed.
•Disappointment triggers cortisol, which alerts
your brain to recalibrate with new information.
•Frustration is your inner mammal’s way to
redirect energy to best meet survival needs.

21. The neurochemical roller coaster does not mean
something is wrong with your or your world
It means your brain is
doing the job it evolved for

22. It helps to know that monkeys had the
same frustrations 50 million years ago

23. How can Brian rewire himself
to feel good with a brain so
inclined to frustration?

24. 1. Self- acceptance
2. Focus on what you want
instead of what you don’t want
3. Build a frustration plan

25. 1. Self- acceptance
Happy chemicals evolved to promote survival,
not to make you happy all the time

26. The brain evolved to
make tough choices
•When you step toward
greener pasture (dopamine),
you move away from the safety
of social bonds (oxytocin).
•When you step toward social importance (serotonin)
you may get disappointment (cortisol)
or a strain on social bonds (oxytocin).
•Expecting these recalibration is more realistic
than expecting a steady surge of happy chemicals.

27. You are doing it
You are
using
your brain
for the tough job
it was designed for.

28. If Brian accepts his inner mammal,
he remembers that he’s safe,
even while feeling threatened

29. Survival rates are low
in the state of nature,
yet your ancestors
did what it took to
keep their genes alive.
Celebrate your
inner survivor.

30. 2. Focus on what you want
instead of what you don’t want

31. It’s natural to
focus on
what you don’t
want because
past cortisol
builds huge
neural circuits

32. The electricity in your brain
flows like water in a storm,
finding the paths of least resistance

33. You were born with
billions of neurons and
very few connections between them

34. You built connections
from experience

35. Each time something felt good or bad,
your brain made a connection

36. Good and bad feelings are brain chemicals
that pave neural pathways.

37. We all get
wired to
feel good in
ways that
felt good
before

38. And
feel bad
in ways that
felt bad
before

39. Anything that hurt you in the past
built a big pathway that turns on your
cortisol when you see something similar

40. Your electricity will keep flowing down
your old paths unless you build new ones

41. You can build a new path by
repeating a new behavior for 45 days

42. You can see a world of
opportunity instead of a world
of threat

43. Your electricity will flow toward
what you want instead of
what you don’t want

44. 3. Plan for frustration
a. realistic expectations
b. variety
c. focus

45. a. realistic expectations
I can survive
without that expected
reward; it just feels
urgent because my brain
evolved to work that way.

46. b. variety
Wire in many different
happy chemical
stimulators so no one
is used to excess.

47. c. focus
You can train your
inner mammal to
focus on the rewards
you have instead of
the rewards you lack

48. Now Brian knows that Ryan and Jain
are not his problem

49. He enjoys his power to build
new neural pathways based on
realistic expectations

50. When his expectations are disappointed,
his inner mammal feels threatened
but he knows that’s
not necessarily a threat

51. He helps his
inner mammal feel good
Dopamine Serotonin Oxytocin Endorphin

52. free resources from the Inner Mammal Institute
learn more about
your happy chemicals
podcasts
videos
infographics
training certification
slide shows (incl this)
5-day Happy-Chemical Jumpstart
www.InnerMammalInstitute.org

53. Habits of a Happy Brain
Retrain your brain to boost your serotonin,
dopamine, oxytocin and endorphin
Beyond Cynical
Transcend Your Mammalian Negativity
I, Mammal
Why Your Brain Links Status
and Happiness
Books by L. Breuning, PhD

54. Loretta@InnerMammalInstitute.org
contact me

55. one more thing

56. Don’t compare
yourself to others

57. Don’t compare
yourself to others

58. Don’t compare
yourself to others

59. Don’t compare
yourself to others

60. Don’t compare
yourself to others

61. Don’t compare
yourself to others

62. Don’t compare
yourself to others