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September 25, 2024 16 mins

When my communications coach asked me how I come down off the high of giving a keynote, I was perplexed because I had never tried to actively come down off that feeling. That discussion got me thinking about natural highs, which I explore in this episode of If I’m Honest with Julia Landauer. I talk about the euphoric feeling of a natural high, the science behind how our brains produce this sensation, and things we can do in our day-to-day lives to capture that feeling. I also explain things like where the word “endorphin” comes from, what endocannabinoids are, and things to watch out for. I then pivot to a broader discussion around pleasure; specifically, our cultural tendency to minimize pleasure, why I think that’s problematic, and the greater impact it has on our lives. Because why would we try to minimize things that bring us joy and happiness, especially when the world can be so cruel and dark? Lastly, I share a call to action for how to maximize our chances of feeling joy, happiness, and pleasure.

If you or someone you know is struggling with addition, contact The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) 1-800-662-HELP (4357) and https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline

You can also call 988 or 911 in the case of an emergency.

Research for this episode:

https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/careers/you-had-a-big-win-at-work-but-that-was-last-month-6a9a0039?mod=djem10point https://www.chapmanrehab.com/post/whats-a-natural-high#:~:text=A%20natural%20high%20is%20actually,without%20the%20use%20of%20drugs.

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/the-truth-behind-runners-high-and-other-mental-benefits-of-running

 

Learn more about Julia Landauer at https://julialandauer.com/

 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello everybody, and welcome back to another episode of If
I'm Honest with Julia Landauer. I don't do drugs, but
I do know that it is really hard to beat
the feeling of an incredible high that you get after
you've accomplished something amazing, whether that's the high of winning
a race, or the high of falling in love, or

(00:26):
the high of getting a promotion, or the high of
performing something and coming off stage and feeling that you fork,
feeling of applause and knowing that you killed it. It's
incredible and our brains organically do something that makes us
feel so euphoric, and because it is truly truly a
great feeling, I am going to explain how our brains

(00:49):
produce this natural high, what we can do in our
day to day lives to achieve it, and then also
a greater discussion around pleasure in general. So I hope
you enjoy this discussion. I originally started thinking about the
natural highs that we get a couple of years ago.
I was discussing my keynote with my communications coach, and

(01:11):
she's incredible and she has helped me navigate how to
create fun narratives for different audiences. And we were talking
about how great it feels to get off the stage,
how great it feels to know that you've inspired and
that you've entertained and you've made people laugh. And I
remember she said that, yeah, it was a really great feeling.
But she said, I know it's not real life. So

(01:33):
I try to stop that feeling and get off of
that high as soon as I can, because how can
I go back to my family or my real life
if I'm on this high. And she asked me what
I do to get off of that high, and I
looked at her, and I thought about it, and I
realized I didn't try to get off that high. I

(01:54):
never once thought that I would try to minimize the
incredible feeling I felt after doing a great job. And
so we had this conversation, and I understood her point
that when you're feeling you fork and incredible and everyone
else around you isn't that it can be a bit
of a mismatch on energies. But I also feel that

(02:15):
one the world is so miserable a lot of the time,
and there's so much negativity out there, and there are
constantly people trying to bring you down or take away
credit or minimize your feeling of goodness that I'm going
to ride that wave of that natural high as long
as I can. I understand that the elevated heart rate

(02:35):
and the high positive stress levels of that is not sustainable,
not something you want to have all the time, But
why would you want to stop that? And it got
me thinking And I hadn't even started my podcast yet
when I started thinking about this, and then with this
theme that we have this season of human performance and
excellence and all of that, it seems like it makes

(02:58):
sense because you know, I love the feeling of winning.
Many people do. I love the feeling of doing a
great job. And so that's why I wanted to jump
into some of the science behind this natural high, recognizing
that it can also be addicting. Right, using substances to
get a high is not the only way that we

(03:18):
might get addicted to something. And so I do want
to preface this discussion by saying that if you are
struggling with substance abuse, or you think you might be
struggling with some addictions, you can call the Substance Abuse
and Mental Health Services Administration National Helpline at one eight
hundred sixty six two four three five seven. Again, that's
one eight hundred sixty six two four three five seven.

(03:41):
You can always also call nine eight eight or nine
to one one in the event of emergency. But back
to the discussion of the natural high. It can be addicting,
and I'm not advocating for that. I think that compulsory
or compulsionary activities of any type, whether that is compulsively
exercising to get that high or doing other things to

(04:03):
get the high, isn't healthy either. But a good dose
of it, I think is important. I think as humans,
we need to feel happy, we need to feel joy,
we need to feel pleasure. So first I'm going to
jump into the science of this natural high and what
technically happens in our bodies and brains, and then I'll
pivot to the greater discussion around pleasure. So a natural

(04:26):
high comes from the release of endorphins, and if you've
watched Legally Blonde, you know that endorphins make you happy,
and happy people just don't kill their husbands. But the
more scientific explanation of what happens is that during times
of stress or pain, the body releases the chemical endorphin
into the brain and it's near the hypothalamus and the

(04:48):
pituitary glands, and endorphins are the natural pain killers. They
are what make you feel desensitized to pain or minimize
anxiety and make you feel better. The word endorphins actually
comes from two different words, endogenious which means inside the body,
and morphine, which is the medication that doctors prescribed to

(05:11):
relieve pain. And so endogenious morphine endorphin. It doesn't quite
work with the iny sound at the end, but it's
close enough. But yeah. The body releases the chemical endorphin
into the brain, and this can happen from things as
simple as laughing or eating a delicious meal, bigger things

(05:33):
like falling in love, going for a run, and getting
the runners higher, rigorous exercise, having sex. Ultraviolet light apparently
can increase release of endorphins. But interestingly enough, and I
did not know this before doing research for this episode,
the endorphins are not what causes euphoria because endorphins don't

(05:53):
pass the blood brain barrier, which was a new concept
for me. Maybe I learned it in high school. I
don't remember. Because that, in addition to endorphins, the body
also produces endocannabinoids, which are like a natural cannabis that
comes in the body, and endocannabinoids also get released during

(06:14):
that time of exercise or when your heart rate is elevated,
and it leaves that temporary feeling of calm and content
and minimized anxiety that you fork feeling that we think about.
The endocannabinoids also serve as regulatory functions for other parts
of the body, such as for sleep and for mood, appetite, learning, memory,

(06:37):
body temperature, pain, immune functions, and fertility and fun fact,
the first endocannabinoid to be discovered, which was in nineteen
ninety two, was called nandamide. I think I pronounced that incorrectly,
but that's okay, a noondamide nandamide, and that name comes
from the Sanskrit word ananda, which means bliss or delight,

(07:01):
so quite appropriately named in terms of the first cannabis
natural high release or feeling. So anyway, when we do
something that involves a high heart rate stress, the combination
of endorphins and endocannabinoids and probably adrenaline and quartisol, all
of that going produces this feeling of high and again

(07:25):
on a personal level, I have felt that a lot
at the racetrack, whether it's winning a race or doing
significantly better or you know, the best that I had
done to that point, or that feeling of hitting perfect
marks and hitting the apex perfectly and running that perfect
lap where just everything flows and it kind of feels

(07:45):
like you're on this subconscious level, You're in the zone.
It's just it's so hard to explain, but you kind
of just feel like you're levitating above everything that's happening,
and it's intoxicating. It's incredible. I love it so so much.
And then I also so have felt that I do
get the runners high, not if I go past like
four miles. If I go past four miles, I'm like,

(08:06):
this is now just painful, but the runner's high and
that feeling of satisfaction afterwards, and certainly when I'm on stage,
that's the place where I'm getting that feeling of incredible
high the most I think and the most intense version
of that when I know that I've entertained and made
people laugh and hopefully inspired. But I also realize how

(08:31):
many ways we can find it in our day to
day lives. And maybe it's a slightly different intensity level.
But back to the list I read, you know, laughing
letting our guard down enough to welcome in humor and
to react to situations even if it's not what's socially acceptable.
Like letting our guards down so that we can really

(08:51):
experience in the moment, I think can provide some of
that feeling of euphoria. I also will die on this
hill that it is important to have little joys, and
so really taking a moment to appreciate that perfect culinary
of experience of breathing in as you're taking the bite
and all of your sensories are overloaded. It's that perfect

(09:11):
bite of whatever it is, whether it's ice cream or
whether it's a you know, Michelin star meal, Like really
taking the time to appreciate that. Meditating is another way
where I haven't gotten into it, but I've heard from
a lot of people firsthand that you can kind of
have this out of body mind experience when you're going
through meditation to be able to have that calmness and

(09:35):
that delight and that stress free moment. There are also
other things like having intercourse or flirting with people and
you know, building up that tension. So there are a
lot of different ways that you can have this high.
And so again, please be responsible. Please reach out if
you need help. But that is a summary of the

(09:57):
science behind the fork feeling of a natural high and
different ways that you can go about finding it. I
will also link resources in the description if anyone needs them.
So back to my discussion with my communications coach when
she said that the natural high is not real life

(10:17):
and that she should get back to real life, I
want to revisit a subtext that I picked up on,
which was the minimization of pleasure, focusing in on the
US specifically, I think we have a big problem when
it comes to our cultural desire to minimize pleasure, and
this spans a lot of different areas. Right. We minimize

(10:40):
vacation time if we have any at all. We don't
emphasize the importance of meal time or healthy and pleasurable eating.
We don't have comprehensive sex education, and we shame people
for not being productive. Silliness as adults is not considered
professional or good, and I think this is a really

(11:01):
problematic thing. Life is so dense, Life has so many
things out of our control. Why would we try to
minimize things that make us feel better? Why would we
try to minimize things that bring joy or make us happy.
It spans a lot of different things that we do
in our culture, and I think it really hurts personal expression.

(11:25):
I think it really hurts a feeling of contentness and
being proud of who you are. And I hate that.
I really really hate that. I want people to feel
like they are enjoying themselves, and I think minimizing that
or shaming that. I don't have the answer to it,
but I really do notice a difference between being in

(11:46):
Europe and being in the US. And I'm sure there
are other countries that also have that shift, but it
really is a big difference. And that's part of the
reason I love New York so much. You can be
as expressive, weird, silly, in love with yourself whatever it is,
as you want, and everyone else is like that too,

(12:07):
and so it doesn't stick out. And I think there's
this desire to fit a mold, to be respectable, to
do what's culturally deemed right. But what's the point of that.
Who are we doing that for? Are we deriving joy
and satisfaction from minimizing our own feelings of pleasure and

(12:32):
joy and happiness. I know that I don't when I'm
doing that. I know that I feel much much better
when I am living my true self. I've noticed recently
that I'll listen to music in the car on the
way to work, and then I'll keep humming it to myself.
I don't want to, you know, I don't want to
impose on someone else's space or someone else's ear drums.

(12:55):
But I will keep singing it to myself, and people
will hear me singing it to myself. People's see me
doing that, and it's okay. My call to action for everyone,
including myself, is to try to stop censoring ourselves. Try
to lean into expressing how we're feeling. Try to lean
into feelings of joy and sharing those joys with other people.

(13:18):
Try not to worry about what other people are thinking.
Try not to fit into the mold or do what's
deemed appropriate. Obviously, don't cause harm to people. But this
idea of running with your feelings and letting the world
be as colorful and bright and engaging as you can
make it will make each moment that much more enjoyable.

(13:41):
It will make the hard times more manageable, it will
make the great times even better. And I think that's
a much happier way and a much more joyous way
to go through life. Life is tough enough as it is, right,
you know, plenty of people will try to get in
the way and make us feel bad and make us
feel minsas and so if there are moments that really

(14:03):
light us up in the best way possible, we need
to latch onto them. To summarize our discussion today, the
feeling of a natural high is incredible. Our bodies are
so cool that we produce these chemical reactions so that
we can feel really great in times that are otherwise
stressful and high intensity. It's a feeling that doesn't last forever.

(14:24):
It's not sustainable. It is fleeting, and therefore we have
to be careful that we don't kind of actively seek
it just for the sake of seeking it, but rather
through the whole process that we're working on and feeling
that high is allowing ourselves to let our guard down
and feel pleasure. And that's something that I think we
don't emphasize the importance of pleasure and happiness and joy

(14:46):
enough in our day to day lives. And so I
really encourage you to look at your life and think,
how can we make this better? We have one life
to live, and it's really important to take it by
the reins and make our own choices and not be
wor worried about the norms that we might not be
fitting in. Obviously, we don't want to cause harm to
ourselves or other people, but for the most part, that's

(15:09):
not going to be an issue to close out. Because
the incredibly euphoric feeling of a natural high is fleeting.
I want you to let yourself ride that wave. I
want you to feel good. I want you to express
yourself and to savor those moments because they won't always
be there. And the more that we can tap into
that joy and happiness, the easier the hard times will be,

(15:33):
and the even better and brighter the good times will be.
Everyone that is our show. I hope that you enjoyed
this episode. Would love to get your feedback in the
reviews comments on social You can follow me at Julia Landauer,
and if you have any additional thoughts, please let me know.
I'd love to hear them. And again, I hope that

(15:53):
you enjoy the little things in life and savor those
great moments. As always, Thank you for letting me be
honest with you, and I look forward to seeing you
in two weeks
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