1. Japan Stocks Beating China Stocks Since 2004 on Annualized Basis
2. Nvidia Forward P/E Lower than Semiconductor Index?
WSJ Nvidia currently trades about 26 times projected per-share earnings—near its lowest range in at least five years and well below its average of 40 times over that period, according to FactSet. Stacy Rasgon of Bernstein noted last week that Nvidia was also recently trading at a discount to the peer PHLX Semiconductor Index “for the first time in almost a decade, and is now (amazingly) the cheapest AI play, and likely already pricing in some prospect for an ‘air pocket’ scenario.”
3. Record Spread in P/E Ratios Between S&P vs. International Makes New Highs. Reversion to Mean for International has not Worked
Torsten Slok Apollo Comparing the P/E ratio of the S&P500 with the P/E ratio of the rest of the world shows a record difference, see chart below. In other words, US equities have never been more expensive relative to international equities
4. Crypto Trading Volume Post New ETFs
The Daily Shot Brief–Cryptocurrency: Trading volumes surged for US spot-bitcoin ETFs on Thursday.
Lumber is the number one material for homebuilding
6. If Americans are Working, Then They are Spending
Irrelevant Investor Blog Total spending from BofA customers was $4.1 trillion in 2023, 4% higher than it was in 2022, and 35% higher than it was in 2019, the full year before the pandemic.
8. Ecuador Conflict…Murder Rate Rise Leading into Current Drug War
Zerohedge Blog The following chart tries to capture a sense of where Ecuador sits within the context of its Latin American neighbors.
Venezuela’s homicide rate was the highest of the region in 2022 at 40.4 people killed per 100,000 inhabitants – that’s even with a fall of 20 percent since the 2019 figure, when it had been a rate of 50.6 per 100,000 people.
As indicated here, many of the countries in Latin America have seen decreases between 2019 and 2022, with Ecuador as an outlier for its 288% increase from 6.9 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants in 2019 up to 26.7 deaths per 100,000 in 2022.
By Ashleigh Jackson A new study has identified the region with the unhealthiest population in the United States.
Forbes Advisor conducted the analysis and ranked each state based on several factors, including rates of drug abuse, unhealthy lifestyle habits, and chronic disease.
The CDC notes that these illnesses – such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes – are the nation’s leading causes of death and disability.
As for the unhealthiest state in America, West Virginia claims the No. 1 spot. The Mountain State, considered ground-zero for America’s opioid crisis, stands out with the highest drug overdose death rate in the U.S., according to the Forbes Advisor analysis. Lately, the use of fentanyl and the so-called “zombie drug” xylazine has fueled the state’s epidemic, NewsNation reported.
West Virginia also has the highest percentage of adults who smoke (21%), the highest percentage of adults who are obese (41%), and the second shortest life expectancy nationwide (73.9 years).
Mississippi, deemed the second unhealthiest state, has the shortest life expectancy at 73.63 years, the study found. The Magnolia State faces elevated rates of chronic diseases, including the highest cancer mortality rate in the country (17.37 deaths per 100,000 state residents).
The data also shows that Mississippi has higher rates of diabetes and hypertension, with 43.9% of adults in the state diagnosed with high blood pressure and 13.7% diagnosed with diabetes.
Aside from West Virginia and Mississippi, six other southern states are among the top 10 unhealthiest:
@Callum Thomas (Weekly S&P500 #ChartStorm)Bullish Consensus: The aptly named Consensus Inc conducts weekly surveys of futures market newsletters/brokerage reports and aggregates the percentage that is bullish. At this point their stock index series is the most bullish since 2018.
6. China Sold 5 Times as Many Cars to Russia Last Year Compared to 2022
WSJ While China has become acknowledged as a world leader in electric vehicles, traditional gas-powered autos were the main driver of the increase, with demand surging especially in Russia. Chinese carmakers seized the void left in the country by the departure of Western carmakers following the war in Ukraine, selling at least five times as many vehicles there last year than the 160,000 it sold in 2022, according to the China Passenger Car Association. By
The governors of New York and California are proposing new laws and funding to address retail theft in 2024.
Both governors, who represent the country’s largest Democratic strongholds, want stiffer penalties for retail crime offenses and increased police funding.
The announcements come as voters from both sides of the aisle point to crime as one of their biggest concerns ahead of the 2024 election.
The governors of New York and California announced sweeping plans to crack down on retail crime this week, as trade associations and police departments lobby for government action to curb theft.
The plans include new legislation designed to increase the penalties for retail crime offenses and more funding for police departments and district attorney’s offices to help them tackle theft.
Both Govs. Kathy Hochul of New York and Gavin Newsom of California, who represent the country’s largest Democratic strongholds, made preventing retail theft a top priority this year as voters from both sides of the aisle point to crime as one of their biggest concerns ahead of the 2024 election. The sheer fact that major “tough on crime” platforms are coming from Democratic governors of progressive states also threatens to upend decades of partisan political fault lines. In the modern era, Republicans have traditionally fought to stiffen criminal penalties, while Democrats have sought to address deeper causes of crime, like poverty, inequality and urban unemployment.
But not anymore. Since 2022, at least nine states — including six in 2023 — passed laws to impose harsher penalties for organized retail crime offenses, and New York and California could join that list. Retailers and trade associations around the country have worked to get the bills written and past the finish line.
It’s tough to determine whether theft offenses are up nationally, as it’s a crime that often goes unreported and undetected. It’s also unclear how effective the proposed legislation will be.
Experts previously told CNBC that laws that increase penalties for retail crime offenses may not actually reduce theft offenses, and could disproportionately harm marginalized groups. Similar strategies implemented to address the drug trade have done little to reduce the use or availability of illegal narcotics. Similar to low-level drug dealers, many serial thieves face mental illness, poverty or drug addiction, law enforcement agents previously told CNBC.
Hochul in her State of the State address Tuesday said she is planning to introduce bills that would create criminal penalties for online marketplaces and third-party sellers that contribute to the sale of stolen goods. She also aims to work with the legislature to strengthen penalties for those who assault retail employees.
In addition, Hochul plans to set up two new task forces dedicated to tackling theft – one for building cases against organized retail theft rings and another that addresses so-called smash-and-grab robberies.
As part of the initiatives, Hochul called for expanded funding for state police departments and district attorney’s offices to better equip them to tackle retail theft and other property crimes like burglary. She also wants to establish a tax credit for business owners who implement store security measures to help them offset those costs.
“Across our nation and our state, retail theft has surged, creating fear among customers and workers. Thieves brazenly tear items off shelves and menace employees. Owners go broke replacing broken windows and stolen goods, driving many out of business,” Hochul said in her address.
“These attacks are nothing less than a breakdown in the social order. I say: no more. The chaos must end.”
Newsom said on Wednesday that California will invest $1.1 billion over the next four years to address “safety and security” – $373.5 million of which will be dedicated to combating organized retail theft, according to his office.
In his state budget address, Newsom said 52 sheriff’s and police departments have already received upward of $250 million in new grants to combat retail theft. He added district attorney’s offices are receiving assistance to advance prosecution efforts.
“We mean business in this space,” Newsom said.
Newsom this week also called for new legislation that would address organized retail crime. He wants to target in particular people who are accused of repeatedly stealing from the same stores and “professional thieves” who resell stolen goods.
The proposals include new penalties that target people who engage in retail theft, including by increasing felony penalties and prison time, and bolstering existing laws so police can arrest theft suspects even if they didn’t witness the crime as it was happening.
Newsom is also calling for changes to the state penal code that would allow police to aggregate theft incidents within a given time period so it’s easier to charge repeat offenders with grand theft and other felonies. Currently, someone has to steal more than $950 in goods in a single incident to be charged with grand theft in California.
Farnam Street Blog A different take on what makes us feel so busy, stressed, and anxious.
As a rule, the larger your surface area, the more energy you have to expend maintaining it. Of course, when most of us think of surface area, we think of the area of a rectangle or how much grass we have to mow. But there is a surface area of life, and most of us never realize how much it consumes.
If you have one house, you have a relatively small surface area to maintain (depending on the age and size of the house, of course). If you buy another one, your surface area expands. But it doesn’t expand linearly – it expands slightly above that. It’s all the same work plus more.
Friends are another type of surface area. You have a finite amount of time to spend with friends before you die. The more friends you have, the less time you can spend with each one individually.
Money is another form of surface area. The more money you have, the more you have to keep track of different types of assets and investments.
When your surface area expands too much, you hire people to help you scale. Assistants, property managers, family offices, etc. They’re scaling you – but they’re also scaling the surface area of responsibility. This, of course, only masks the rapidly expanding surface area by abstracting it.
Beliefs are another type of surface area.
The thing about surface area is that the more you have, the more you have to defend and maintain. The larger your surface area, the more you are burdened with mentally and physically.
If you think in terms of surface area, it’s easy to see why we are so anxious, stressed, and constantly behind.
We feel like we need more time, but what we’re craving is more focus. What we need is a smaller surface area.
Your surface area becomes part of your identity. She’s the ‘busy person’ with her hand in every project. He’s the guy with four houses.
Competition can drive expansion. Most people want a bigger house to compete with someone else who has a nicer house. We are animals, after all. On a group level, this causes great benefits. On an individual level, it can cause unhappiness.
Most of the really happy people I know have a relatively small surface area. I know billionaires with two houses. Most of my close friends only have 4-5 close friends – everyone else is a friend in the loose sense of the word. Most of the productive people I know at work are focused on one or two things, not 5.
The way to maximize your enjoyment in life is to keep your surface area small. It’s a lot of work but if the happiest people I know are any indication, it’s a lot less work to keep it small than to maintain it when it’s large. https://fs.blog
Torsten Slok Apollo The market cap of the Magnificent Seven is now four times the market cap of the entire Russell 2000, see the first chart below.
And the market cap of the Magnificent Seven is the same size as the market cap of the stock markets in the UK, Canada, and China combined, see the second chart below. Microsoft alone is the size of the entire stock market in Canada.
3. Hedge Funds are Least Long Banks in 5 Years.
Dave Lutz Jones Trading And Hedge Funds are the least long Bank stocks they’ve been in AT LEAST 5 years according to Goldman
4. Same with Energy Stocks.
The Daily Shot Brief Energy: Hedge funds remain very cautious on energy shares.
It’s easy to let shame write the story of the last year. You think back on the last twelve months of meals (and the sheer amount of sugar you consumed in December) and decide: This year, I’ll eat healthy. You think about your lack of productivity during the workday and resolve: This year, I’ll use my phone less. You reflect on the important moments you’ve missed with your family and tell yourself: This year, I’ll work fewer hours.
They’re all great aspirations. In fact, they’re all great examples of learning from the past. But living to avoid shame or regret stops short of pursuing a flourishing life.
Regret and shame often arise because we have acted in way out of step with who we aspire to be. As a result, shame and regret can simultaneously reveal what we desire and who we desire to be.
“I’ll eat healthy.” A little digging reveals you want to steward your health well and want to be someone who chooses what’s better instead of what’s easy. “I’ll use my phone less.” Really, you want to make your highest contribution and become a person who has the grit to stick it out when it’s hard. “I’ll work fewer hours.” You want to spend more time fully present with your family and become someone who lives an integrated life.
The distinctions might seem insignificant, but they’re not. Desire is the great mover of the human heart. Fear, regret, and shame might get us started, but they don’t nurture the sustained effort, flexibility, and transformation we need to stay the course. They drive us to operate from a place of scarcity instead of abundance.
Spend enough time with the past to let it teach you. But let your desire shape what you decide to dare for the coming year.
Trap 2: Dreaming Instead of Strategizing
We begin by noticing what we want. But dreaming without acting can cripple us. Not simply because we fail to make progress but because we set ourselves up to fall prey to the limiting belief, “I’ll never really change.” When we dream without acting, we’re more likely to stop dreaming in the future.
Your dreams need to push you to act. But there’s a bridge between dreaming and acting.
Simply put, you need to turn your dreams into goals. Good goals follow the SMARTER framework: They are specific, measurable, actionable, risky, timebound, exciting, and relevant. Goals drive us to act. They move us to change. As we progress, our confidence grows. And when we achieve our goals, we become more likely to believe change is possible.
Do you see the positive feedback loop? Setting good goals empowers achievement. Achievement changes you. As a result, you become convinced you can achieve bigger goals, trusting yourself to rise to the challenge.
Trap 3: Doing Too Much
Reinvention is alluring, isn’t it? “New year, new me.” Who doesn’t want to leave their bad habits and painful experiences behind, accumulate all their favorite qualities, and wake up the person they’ve always wanted to be?
We can change. We do change all the time. But change in the right direction almost always takes effort and time. Both are finite resources. We need to guard against too much.
We don’t want to live in our comfort zone. But we also don’t want to cross from our discomfort zone into our delusional zone. We don’t want to create a plan out of step with reality. We need to consider the real constraints of our time and energy.
That’s why we recommend you set eight goals for the entire year, focusing on just two to three goals per quarter. This limitation focuses your energy and prevents you from becoming overwhelmed. A handful of changes that stick will better serve you than a dozen simultaneous changes you give up after one week.
Constraints can feel confining. But constraints are your friend. When you give up reinvention, you enable true growth. And this growth will linger with you lifelong.
As you think about your future, take note of your desire. Set goals that point the way. And pursue growth rather than reinvention.
Welcome to a new year. It’s full of possibility. What will you make of it?
@Charlie Bilello The top three sectors in 2022 (Energy, Utilities, and Consumer Staples) were the bottom three in 2023 while the bottom three sectors in 2022 (Tech, Communications Services, and Consumer Discretionary) were the top three performers in 2023.
3. First Crypto ETF Could Be Approved this Week.
A dozen or so companies have applied to the SEC to offer spot Bitcoin ETFs. Competiton may be fierce.
VIX spent almost all of 2022 above 200-day……..All of 2023 below 200day…
5. Amazon has Gone the Longest Among the Mag 7 Without New Highs.
Amazon has gone the longest among the so-called Magnificent Seven without posting a record, in contrast to Apple, Microsoft Corp., and Nvidia, all of which set new highs last year. The seven largest stocks in the S&P 500 Index by market value — a group that also includes Google parent Alphabet Inc., Tesla Inc. and Facebook owner Meta Platforms Inc., have faltered in January, after driving the market’s strength last year. Amazon’s 4.4% drop is among the steepest of the group.
9. Record one-third of Japan’s unmarried adults under 50 have never dated
The Japan Times More than one-third of unmarried adults in their 20s to 40s have never been in a relationship and one-fourth have no intention of ever getting married, a recent survey found.
At 34.1%, the ratio of single men and women who have never had a romantic relationship was at a record high since Recruit Holdings Co., a staffing service group, began conducting surveys on people’s views on marriage in 2017.
The figure of 25.6% for people not seeking marriage nearly matches the finding in last year’s gender equality survey by the Japanese government, which has been struggling to deal with the country’s low birthrate and labor shortage. But Recruit said the number was notably up from 2021 when it stood at 21.1%.
The latest survey was conducted in September and released this month. It covered 1,200 single adults who have never been married. Among the respondents in their 20s, 19.4% of women and 23.7% of men said having a romantic relationship is a waste of time and money. The percentage was lower among older male respondents, but it was notably higher among female respondents in their 30s at 23.6%, rising sharply from 14.6% in the previous survey in 2021.
Among men of all age groups who do not want to marry, the top reason, given by 42.5%, was the financial strain of married life. As for women, 40.5% said they do not want to compromise their freedom and independence.While 46.1% of all respondents said they want to marry eventually, the number has been on the downtrend, falling from 55.4% in 2017 and 52.6% in 2021.
Among the respondents in their 20s, 44.3% of females and 34.6% of males said they would only date someone for the purpose of finding a marriage partner.
Fear that they won’t be as professionally successful as they’d like.
Fear that they won’t do an effective and honorable job of contributing to their families.
Fear that they’ll face health challenges and old age — including memory loss.
Let’s talk about that last fear. Over the past 12 months, I’ve reviewed dozens of scientific studies from researchers trying to determine how memory works, how to stave off cognitive decline, and what types of habits might help.
As we wrap up the year, it’s a good time to take a look back at what we’ve found.
Stay extremely busy (especially in retirement).
Writing in the peer-reviewed Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, researchers reviewed two big troves of data on literally millions of Chinese workers, along with data on their performance on various cognitive tests and memory assessments:
First, they examined a group that retired early, thanks to a government pension program, and Second, they examined a similar group that wasn’t eligible for the program, and that therefore kept working later in life.
The data was striking. In short, the new pension program led to “led to significant adverse effects on cognitive functioning.”
As Plamen Nikolov of Binghamton University told me in an interview, he and his co-authors found that “if you rest, you rust … Retiring and doing nothing, not using your brain because you don’t work anymore, leads to other [unintended] consequences.”
Enjoy the right kinds of games, part 1.
Professors in the departments of psychiatry, neurology, and medicine at Columbia and Duke universities recruited 107 volunteers with an average age of 71 and asked them to do crossword puzzles, or to play computer video games over a period of many weeks.
The results, as published in the journal NEJM Evidence, were that over a period of 78 weeks, participants in the crossword puzzle cohort did much better in terms of (lack of) memory loss than the ones in the video game cohort.
Sure enough, in a test that had to do with classifying birds and then remembering them, they found the ones who were active bird watchers had better-developed memories that enabled them to recall more accurately.
Read for pleasure.
Researchers in Illinois partnered with a library to recruit two groups of adults, and divided them into two groups:
Half were loaned iPads with a pre-selected list of books that were considered likely to suck readers in. Half were loaned iPads with games like word puzzles.
As the study authors summarized: “The results were incontrovertible: in comparison to the puzzle group, the group that read books for eight weeks showed significant improvements to working memory and episodic memory. In other words, the study demonstrated that regular, engaged reading strengthened older adults’ memory skills.”
Get enough sleep.
You know this, so I’ll keep this one short. But, writing in the journal Trends in Neurosciences, authors from Chronobiology and Sleep Institute at the University of Pennsylvania synthesized decades of research on what happens to our brains when we accumulate a sleep debt.
In short, three things for our purposes:
First, when we accumulate a sleep debt, we lose some of the subjective ability to judge how that lack of sleep affects us. Second, even though we don’t realize it, objective tests show that we continue to have “deficits … in vigilance and episodic memory” even after “2-3 nights of recovery sleep.” Key: The deficits persist even if we feel “less tired” after recovery sleep. Finally, and perhaps most alarmingly, studies suggest that this persistent sleep loss — even when we try to catch up on it — can lead to “heightened susceptibility to neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer’s disease … and Parkinson’s disease (PD).”
Don’t be afraid to take naps.
Writing in the journal Sleep Health, researchers from University College, London, and Uruguay’s University of the Republic looked at data from adults aged 40 to 69, “and found a causal link between habitual napping and larger total brain volume,” according to an official statement.
The result? After looking at data associated with 378,932 people from the study, they concluded that the habit was associated with less brain shrinkage over time — the equivalent of between 2.6 to 6.5 years of aging.
Wear a sleep mask at night.
This was a long study with a simple takeaway. Writing in the monthly peer-reviewed journal Sleep, a research team spanning universities in the U.S., the U.K., and Italy studied 122 human subjects. They determined that those who wore sleep masks at night had better episodic memory and alertness.
Improve your lighting.
This one was simple, too. Researchers at Michigan State University studied whether lab rats’ memories were affected by the quality of light around them — specifically bright lights like a sunny day, or dimmer, fluorescent lights like in a stereotypical office.
You can probably guess the results: rats in dim lights had about 30 percent less brainpower and were more likely to “perfor[m] poorly on a spatial task they had trained on previously.”
Writing in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they said they determined that those who recorded and watched the videos had a 50 percent better memory performance when asked to recall events six months earlier.
Walk backward.
I’d love to meet the scientist who came up with the theory on this one, but in short, researchers in London tested whether people could trigger memories by walking backward. Sure enough, it worked — at least often enough to be published in the journal Cognition.
“We have named this a ‘mnemonic time-travel effect,'” said one of the lead researchers.
There are many more, and I’ll look forward what what we’ll learn in 2024.
1. Trend Following Traders at Close to Record Net Long.
At the same time, the HSBC strategists say, sentiment and positioning is now very stretched. Some examples include the strong rise in equity long positions from the trend-following CTAs, as well as close to record high net longs in U.S. equity futures of asset managers. By Steve Goldstein Marketwatch.
2. Popular Energy ETF USO -18% from Highs…Laggard Sector 2023
50-day approaching 200-day to downside.
3. How Many Investors Would Get this Trivia Question Right? USO Still Beating QQQ on 2-Year Basis by Wide Margin
4. Best Performing U.S. ETF 4th Quarter 2023 ARKK +32%
Long-Term Chart still way below highs.
5. FANG+ -5% From Highs…..Zuckenberg Sold $428m of Stock at End of 2023
6. Investor Stock Allocation.
BLACKROCK
7. S&P Pure Growth…We Showed this Chart Multiple Times Last Year.
8. Bridgewater’s Flagship Macro Fund Lost 7.6% Last Year-Bloomberg
The fund had been up 7.5% through October before bonds jumped
The firm’s long-only All Weather fund climbed 10.6% last year
By Katherine BurtonBridgewater Associates’s flagship hedge fund lost 7.6% last year, with all of the drop coming in the last two months of 2023, according to people familiar with its performance.
The losses for the world’s biggest hedge fund corresponded to the biggest two-month gain in global bonds since at least 1990 and a roughly 14% gain in US shares.
The Pure Alpha II fund was up 7.5% through October before dropping about 14% in the following two months.
The firm’s long-only All Weather fund returned 10.6% last year, one of the people said. A Bridgewater spokesperson declined to comment.This marked the second-straight instance that Bridgewater’s flagship fund gave up gains at year-end. Pure Alpha II tumbled in October and November 2022 after having been up 22%. It ended that year up 9.4%.
9. Does running cause arthritis? Mounting evidence suggests the answer is no.
Harvard Health Blog By Robert H. Shmerling, MD, Senior Faculty Editor, Harvard Health Publishing; Editorial Advisory Board Member, Harvard Health Publishing
What is the relationship between running and arthritis?
Mounting evidence suggests that that running does not cause osteoarthritis, or any other joint disease.
These are just a few of the published medical studies on the subject. Overall, research suggests that running is an unlikely cause of arthritis — and might even be protective.
Why is it hard to study running and arthritis?
Osteoarthritis takes many years to develop. Convincing research would require a long time, perhaps a decade or more.
It’s impossible to perform an ideal study. The most powerful type of research study is a double-blind, randomized, controlled trial. Participants in these studies are assigned to a treatment group (perhaps taking a new drug) or a control group (often taking a placebo). Double-blind means neither researchers nor participants know which people are in the treatment group and which people are getting a placebo. When the treatment being studied is running, there’s no way to conduct this kind of trial.
Beware the confounders. A confounder is a factor or variable you can’t account for in a study. There may be important differences between people who run and those who don’t that have nothing to do with running. For example, runners may follow a healthier diet, maintain a healthier weight, or smoke less than nonrunners. They may differ with respect to how their joints are aligned, the strength of their ligaments, or genes that direct development of the musculoskeletal system. These factors could affect the risk of arthritis and make study results hard to interpret clearly. In fact, they may explain why some studies find that running is protective.
The effect of running may vary between people. For example, it’s possible, though not proven, that people with obesity who run regularly are at increased risk of arthritis due to the stress of excess weight on the joints.
The bottom line
Trends in recent research suggest that running does not wear out your joints. That should be reassuring for those of us who enjoy running. And if you don’t like to run, that’s fine: try to find forms of exercise that you enjoy more. Just don’t base your decision — or excuse — for not running on the idea that it will ruin your joints.
Psychology Today Learn more about dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins. Tchiki Davis, Ph.D.
KEY POINTS
Even a small amount of a hormone can have profound effects on body functions.
The sp-called “happiness hormones”—dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins—are essential for well-being.
You may increase levels of these hormones with simple lifestyle changes.
Before talking about happiness hormones, it is important to understand what hormones are and how they are produced.
The endocrine system works together with the nervous system to influence many aspects of human behavior. Hormones are chemicals produced by different glands in your body. They are chemical messengers and travel through the bloodstream to tissues or organs. Hormones work slowly and over time, impacting processes including:
Hormones are powerful chemicals that can lead to big changes in our bodies, which means that even a small amount of a hormone can have profound effects on body functions, either in a positive or negative way.
When you do things that make you feel good, such as connecting with a friend or eating ice cream, your brain releases what scientists call “happy hormones.” These hormones got their nickname because of the positive feelings they produce.
These hormones include:
Dopamine, which helps us feel pleasure and is involved in the brain’s reward system.
Serotonin, which helps us boost our mood and regulate our sleep.
Oxytocin, which is produced when we bond with others and is often called “the love hormone.”
Endorphins, which are nicknamed the brain’s natural pain reliever.
These feel-good hormones promote happiness, pleasure, and positive emotions. The cool thing about them is that you have a say in when they are released. Whether you have a good laugh with your friend or do some exercise, your brain is releasing these feel-good hormones.
How to Boost Happiness Hormones
Dopamine
Eat well. Dopamine is created from tyrosine, an amino acid. Tyrosine-rich foods may boost dopamine levels in your brain and even improve memory. Some foods high in tyrosine include meat, dairy, legumes, soy, and eggs.
Sleep. Sleep deprivation has many serious side effects and can even impact dopamine receptors. Getting enough high-quality sleep keeps your dopamine levels balanced (Korshunov, 2017), which has the potential to increase positive feelings.
Meditate. Studies show that mediation has positive effects on dopamine. Specifically, in a study with meditation teachers, dopamine levels increased by 64 percent after meditating for only one hour (Kjaer et al., 2002).
Listen to music. Music is a great addition to alone time or social activities. Listening to music increases brain activity in areas that are rich in dopamine receptors (Koelsch, 2014). Also, the brain releases dopamine when the emotional state is at its highest level (Salimpoor et al., 2011). So go and listen to your favorite song.
Serotonin
Exercise. Serotonin levels significantly increase after doing any workout exercises, such as biking, dancing, or weightlifting. Research clearly shows the antidepressant and anxiolytic effects between mood and exercise (Young, 2007).
Get some light. When you spend at least 15 minutes outside every day, your serotonin levels significantly increase (Sansone & Sansone, 2013).
Eat well. Tryptophan, an amino acid, increases brain serotonin and can be an effective antidepressant for mild depression. One food containing more tryptophan than other proteins is milk, so consuming milk derivates, such as yogurt or kefir, may increase your serotonin levels (Young, 2007).
Oxytocin
Show affection. As per its reputation as “the love hormone,” physical intimacy boosts this hormone. You can hug, cuddle, kiss, or hold hands to increase oxytocin production (Uvnas et al., 2015).
Connect. Your oxytocin levels increase when you talk to your loved ones or even think about them. You can also give compliments to them or do small random acts of kindness, which can not only make their days better but can make yours better, too (Uvnas et al., 2015).
Share. In wild chimpanzees, food-sharing increases oxytocin levels regardless of whether they were close before or not (Wittig et al., 2014). So why not cook with your friend? Cooking is a great way to bond over something delicious and a fun way to potentially increase oxytocin levels.
Endorphins
Eat dark chocolate. If you’re a fan of dark chocolate, you should know that eating a piece can stimulate the release of endorphins (Nehlig, 2013).
Laugh. Who doesn’t like a good laugh? Laughing is a good way to connect with others and destress. You can watch your favorite comedy show, go to a stand-up comedy jam, or call a friend to catch up. All these activities boost the body’s endorphins and also play a role in social bonding (Dunbar et al., 2012).
Be active. Although moderate-intensity exercise is best for boosting endorphins, it’s not the only type of activity that has this potential. You can dance at home or go on a short hike, anything that keeps you active (Tarr et al., 2015).
The happiness hormones—dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins—are essential for your well-being. You may increase the levels of these hormones without any medication by making simple changes in your lifestyle, such as exercise, diet, and meditation. In the end, these things can make a big impact.
