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Ups and downs are natural, but you can have more ups when you know how your brain works. You are managing your and cortisol all the time without realizing it. You can manage them in new ways! Here are 5 surprising ways to boost your mood.

1. Know your dopamine

Excitement about life is caused by the brain chemical, dopamine. When your dopamine dips, you notice a slump. It helps to know the slump is normal and natural, because dopamine is not meant to surge all the time. It spurts when you approach a reward that meets your needs, and then it dips, so you’re ready for the next opportunity. Dopamine motivates a lion to run when it has a good shot at a gazelle, but to save its energy the rest of the time. This explains the curious droop you feel after you get what you seek, until you set your sights on a new quest. Holidays are full of dopamine-stimulating activities, but in when you get back to your routine, the external world stops triggering it for you, and you have to trigger it yourself. Fortunately, that’s the job your brain is designed for!

2. Know your cortisol

, and are caused by the brain chemical, cortisol. It’s nice to know that cortisol protects you. A lion releases cortisol when a gazelle gets away, and that protects the lion from wasting energy on a hopeless chase. Cortisol works by making you feel so bad that you do what it takes to make it stop. Cortisol helped our ancestors explore a world full of potential threats and survive. You have inherited a brain good at seeing potential threats. If your boss raises an eyebrow by a millimeter, your cortisol may surge. You can end up feeling like a lion who hasn’t eaten in a week, or a gazelle who’s about to be eaten alive. It’s great to know that your body eliminates cortisol in two hours if you avoid triggering more. What can you do for two hours that will not trigger any stress? This is a challenge because your brain is designed to scan for threats when your cortisol is flowing. Prepare non-frustrating, healthy activities for those moments. Distraction doesn't work when a lion is chasing you, but when the lion is your neurons, healthy distraction works!

3. Set an immediate goal and reach it

Dopamine soars when you approach a goal, so find one you can accomplish in the next hour and do it! Clean out the drawer that gets on your nerves. Delete 100 items from your Inbox. Write the letter that’s been on your mind. Your brain will reward you, and more important, you will pave a pathway that expects a good feeling when you think about the task in the future. You teach your brain to expect to feel good!

4. Plan steps toward a long-run goal

We can’t reach big all the time, but each step toward a goal triggers dopamine. Your brain doesn’t waste dopamine on pie-in-the-sky ; it only gives you the good stuff when it sees the finish line come closer. So take a step every day and you will build the circuit that triggers your dopamine.

5. Spotlight a medium-term goal

You can’t make visible progress every day, and some days bring obstacles that set you back. That’s why we need some more approachable goals to focus on when our bigger goals are stalled. When you shift your to that realistic goal, you shift your mood from frustration to excitement. You can’t control the world but you control where you invest your energy.

Get to know much more about your dopamine in my book Habits of a Happy Brain: Retrain Your Brain to Boost Your Serotonin, Dopamine, Oxytocin, & Endorphin Levels.

And if you're feeling like the wolrd is going to hell in a hand-basket, my new book is for you!

The Science of Positivity: Stop Negative Thought Patterns by Changing Your Brain Chemistry

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This article originally appeared on www.womenworking.com