The Science of Happiness: How Adam Brownlie Uses Brain Chemistry, Lifestyle, and Perspective to Transform Well-Being

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Science of Happiness—How Adam Brownlee Uses Brain Chemistry, Lifestyle, and Perspective to Transform Well-Being

Podcast: The Amazing Authorities Podcast
Host: Mitch Carson
Guest: Adam Brownlee (Author of Happypedia)
Date: December 8, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the science behind happiness with Adam Brownlee, author of Happypedia. Drawing from extensive global research into well-being, Adam shares the actionable, science-based pillars of happiness, how brain chemistry and perspective shape our daily joy, and strategies for resilience—even after life’s toughest setbacks. The discussion balances research insights, practical tips, and personal stories, revealing a holistic view of happiness that listeners can immediately apply.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Defining 'Modern Philosophy' of Happiness (01:24–02:00)

• Adam’s Approach:
  • Modern philosophy is rooted in science, demanding proof and data.
  • The book offers a holistic (all-encompassing) approach, not just focusing on one niche but covering all factors needed for happiness.
  • The term “holistic” is clarified to mean “comprehensive,” not spiritual.

"Modern philosophy, it's a real science based philosophy...We want proof, we want data to support it." — Adam (01:37)

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2. The Six Pillars of Happiness (03:12–03:37)

• Adam's Foundational Model:
  • Eating well
  • Sleeping well
  • Socializing well
  • Exercising well
  • Novelty
  • Hope

"The six pillars are eating well, sleeping well, socializing well, exercising well, having novelty, and hope." — Adam (03:17)

• The first four pillars are common sense; the last two (Novelty and Hope) are less commonly recognized and discussed in depth.

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3. Novelty: The Power of New Experiences (04:03–08:14)

• Why Novelty Matters:
  • Novelty is about learning and experiencing new things; without it, we get bored and stressed.
  • Examples: traveling, trying new food, even taking a new route to work.
  • Both minor and major new experiences stimulate positive hormones.

"Novelty is basically learning... When we have these new experiences, we are learning. The body loves that." — Adam (05:13)

• Balancing Novelty with Comfort:
  • New experiences can be anxiety-provoking, depending on temperament.
  • The “positive stress” of novelty leads to growth and happiness.

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4. Hope: Perspective as a Pillar (09:41–11:02)

• Understanding Hope:
  • Hope is a judgment that what we have or will have is good.
  • It works just like tangible actions: “If we make that judgment, it releases dopamine...”
  • People with different perspectives can experience the same event with opposite feelings.

"Hope is the judgment that what we have or what we're soon going to have is good. If we make that judgment, it releases dopamine the same as if we eat." — Adam (10:26)

• How to Build Hope:
  • Change brain structure through long-term behaviors.
  • Enhance hormone balance (through the six pillars).
  • Acceptance of bad things, not just reframing.

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5. The Science of Happiness: Brain Chemistry & Hormones (04:26–13:53)

• Core Hormones:
  • Happiness arises from the right balance of serotonin, dopamine, and oxytocin.
  • These can be regulated by lifestyle choices and perspective.
  • Cortisol is the “stress hormone,” lowered by positive social or novel experiences.

"If you've got serotonin, dopamine, and oxytocin in the right level, we're happy." — Adam (11:31)

• Real-Life Examples:
  • Finding $100 (“unexpected bonus”): produces dopamine. (12:07)
  • Flirtation or positive social interaction: both dopamine and oxytocin, depending on your interpretation.

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6. Practical Resilience: Acceptance in Adversity (16:28–22:49)

• Dealing with Major Setbacks (ex: divorce):
  • The importance of changing perspectives, reframing negatives as opportunities.
  • If genuine reframing isn’t possible, strive for acceptance by viewing events as unavoidable (“it’s not my fault”).
  • Accepting the inevitability of hardships helps resolve resentment and accelerate recovery.

"If we can find a perspective that both of those situations were just as unavoidable, each as each other, then they cause us the same level of stress." — Adam (22:09)

• Long-Term Strategy:
  • Build foundational beliefs about the nature of events (“everything happens as it must”).
  • Acceptance fosters resilience and a faster return to happiness.

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7. What Happypedia Provides (23:22–23:52)

• A Guide to Rewiring Your Well-Being:
  • Instructions to change your brain structure and chemical makeup through the six pillars.
  • Covers psychology, neurology, and (under-discussed) philosophy of happiness.
  • Explains how personal philosophy affects acceptance and happiness.

"You'll learn how to change your brain structure and chemical makeup. ...By working on the six pillars, you will change your brain structure and you will be more optimistic." — Adam (23:26)

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8. Adam’s Motivation for Writing Happypedia (24:37–26:20)

• Personal Mission:
  • Adam found happiness easy and wanted to share his method.
  • Seeks to shift forgiveness from a spiritual to a scientific basis—believing it could reduce conflict and stress globally.
  • Stress is more deadly than war, making happiness and acceptance a life-saving pursuit.

"More people die of stress than from wars... Stress is like the catalyst for so many diseases." — Adam (25:59)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “A healthy body is a happy body. Maybe I should work that into my book somewhere.” — Adam (02:59)
• “Even just walking a different route... You'll feel a little bit of positivity when you see something new.” — Adam (07:35)
• “Our body does this thing where it can also release oxytocin...that mediates this cortisol that might be in our system.” — Adam (13:31)
• “If we just can't turn it around... what we can do is find a perspective that it was unavoidable.” — Adam (19:51)
• “The spiritual reasons to forgive weren't, weren't enough... We needed a new reason to forgive. And so that was a big part of it.” — Adam (24:54)

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Important Timestamps

• 01:37 – Defining 'modern philosophy' in the context of happiness
• 03:12–03:37 – Introduction of the six pillars of happiness
• 05:13 – Explaining novelty and its importance
• 10:26 – Science of hope, optimism, and dopamine
• 11:31 – Role of serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin
• 16:28–19:40 – Acceptance as a tool for resilience
• 22:09 – Accepting the unavoidable to move through hardship
• 23:26 – What the book teaches: brain structure, optimism, and philosophy
• 25:59 – Stress as a greater killer than war
• 26:20 – Closing thoughts on happiness as a roadmap for life

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Final Reflections

Adam Brownlee’s research distills happiness into practical, science-backed steps. The pillars—especially novelty and hope—reveal often-overlooked levers of well-being. Listeners leave with clear actions: cultivate healthy routines, embrace new experiences big and small, shift perspective, and practice acceptance. Above all, Adam reiterates that happiness is not a mystery but a process of nurturing the right chemistry, perspective, and philosophy—a hopeful message for anyone seeking a happier, more resilient life.

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Transcript

[A]

Welcome to the Amazing Authorities podcast where game changers, visionaries and category leaders share how they built their brands, platforms and global influence. Your host is Mitch Carson, international speaker, media strategist and creator of the Instant Authority system. If you're ready to learn from those who've done it and want to become the go to expert in your space, you're in the right place.

[B]

Adam Brownlee is in the house. Adam hails from Brisbane, Australia. Believe it or not, we're not too far apart with our time zones because the American is living in Thailand. As some of you know, Adam is two hours ahead of me, but he is light years ahead of me about the area of happiness because he's the author of Happy Pedia and he's going to let us know today based on his research and extensive research on how to be happy all over the world. Welcome to the show, Adam.

[C]

Thanks, Mitch. Looking forward to talking about it.

[B]

Yeah, let's take a picture. Show us the COVID of the book that's going to be released very, very soon. It's a large compilation of.

[C]

Yeah, this is, this is the design Happypedia.

Very.

[B]

A holistic guide to happiness with the modern philosophy. I love that subtitle. What does that mean? Modern philosophy and about happiness.

[C]

So modern philosophy, it's a real science based philosophy. You know, modern day society, we're all about science. We want proof, we want. I know you're a data guy. We want data to support it. So it's a philosophy really drawn from, from science.

The holistic part that when the final cover comes out in a couple of weeks, it's going to be different. It's going to be a guide to happiness. The holistic was throwing a few pe. A few people as in like it's a bit, sounds a bit spiritual or something like that. Holistic means like it's. We're not focusing on one thing. A lot of happiness books really dive into one niche area. Whereas this book, it covers a very wide range of, of what's needed to be happy. So that's where the holistic.

[B]

Well, you mentioned the happiness and I've got a friend named Ken Honda who's a very well known international author, Japanese based. He wrote a book on happy money. His is very specific to how to make your money happy. Therefore you make money and are comfortable with it. Do you cover finances? Do you cover health? I mean you're a very fit guy yourself. So I would imagine that's important to you to be happy. Is that a fair assessment?

[C]

Yeah, yeah. Health 100% ties into happiness. You know, you could say a happy body is a healthy body. A healthy body is a happy body. Maybe I should work that into my book somewhere.

The. The book starts off with the six pillars of happiness.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

You'll see a big correlation here with what any health person would say. So the six pillars are eating well, sleeping well, socializing well, exercising well, having novelty, and hope. So obviously, you can see if you've got these six pillars, you're going to be a pretty healthy person.

[B]

Well, the two that I hadn't heard before. Adam, I want to get a little. Let's unpack those a little bit. You said novelty, and what was the other.

Hope? Tell me about those two, because I've heard. We've heard about health, and so we. We could certainly spend time in those, but those were two unique pillars I have not heard before.

[C]

Yeah, yeah. So novelty kind of threw me to it. But I'll just tell you how I got to there.

[B]

Sure.

[C]

When I started writing this book, first thing we needed to do was define what happiness was. And so it's. It's obviously an emotion. But then to talk about how to be happy, we need something more tangible. And so what I came to is, happiness is when you have the right balance of serotonin, dopamine, and oxytocin.

[B]

Ooh.

[C]

Basically, if you've got these three hormones in balance, you have your. You are happy. You can't not be happy if you've got them in balance in that right balance. And if you don't have them in that right balance, you're unhappy and there's nothing. You. You just can't be happy. So how do we get those hormones into the right balance? So I just started researching, and that's what I've done over the last few years. Just research what gives us these hormones. And after I found all these things that give us these hormones, I then grouped them into those six pillars. And when I first saw novelty come up, I was like, that doesn't sound right. So I sort of brushed it aside, but just kept on coming up again and again.

So I was like, you know what? We gotta. We've got to include this. So novelty is basically learning. We, we love learning. And without learning, we get bored and. And stressed. So learning could be just learning a new instrument, it could be learning a new language, but it's also can be just traveling, so seeing new sites. When we have these new experiences, we are learning. We mightn't be learning a new skill, but we're learning. And the body Loves that.

[B]

And when you say the body loves that, what, what is the. How does that play out?

[C]

Well, it gives us the, the hormones we need to be happy. And without it, you know, if we, if we're in the mundane, if we do the same thing every day, it can become a little stressful.

[B]

And travel.

I remember when I came to Australia the first time, I took a little time for tourism because I went to, I went to Melbourne and then I went around. I, I saw the Great Barrier, not the Great Barrier Reef. I saw the Great Ocean Road, and that was a long bus ride. And I sat up front. Beautiful window, you know, opaque, gigantic window in the bus where I got to see that and fly to see the pillars, those things in the. So that is a fort. And I was happy because I got to see something very, very cool in your country. And then I took a little helicopter and went up and they, you know, I got to see this. I think it's the seven apostles. Is that right? Maybe. I think there are six now. One got 12.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

And it was, it was cool. So is that a good example of travel and being happy and, and having that release for the body?

[C]

Yeah, yeah, that's a perfect example.

[B]

It was, you know, and then seeing Fraser island in Australia, those. Because the travel part, because the novelty. And that's why I said it was so people become happier when they are able to travel and. Or learn an instrument. Is that part of the novelty or.

[C]

These are big ticket items. But we don't always have to do something that big, like even just taking it, you know, if we walk the same route to work every day, just walking a different route. Okay, you'll feel it. You'll feel a little bit of positivity when you see something new. And you know, when you try a new food for lunch, you know, every day you've been having the same takeout or you've been bringing your same lunch, and then you try something new and you're like, oh, that's. That was good. I enjoyed that, that little bit of novelty in my day.

So. Yeah, they can be small but big things.

[B]

Yeah, no, I like that. So it, it. How about walking backwards?

[C]

Each to their own, you know, each to their own. The other. The other thing with novelty is it can be a little bit anxiety provoking. You know, when we try new things, there's always the risk of failure.

It depends on your, you know, your temperament. How novel a thing you want to try.

You know, going into a new community and meeting new people. Can be really.

Fun.

But it can also be anxiety provoking. Traveling. The same thing like traveling and seeing the new sites, maybe going to.

The pyramids could be a really fun experience, but it's also could be a little bit scary if you're, you know, you haven't done something like that before.

So. Yeah, that's often our challenge in experiencing novelty.

[B]

Okay, and did you find, did this come up in your research? Because you had, I think, researched over 500 sources, I read.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that, that when I started researching what gives us these hormones, novelty was one of those. The other one you're asking about was hope.

[B]

Yes.

[C]

So it's also interesting one to talk about. So the first five, they're very, you could say tangible, right? Like food, it's very tangible. Exercise, it's very, you know, black and white. Sleep, getting, you know, seven to nine hours of sleep, it's very black and white. Hope. It's all about perspective, Right. You know, two people can be in the same situation and one is like excited, like so glad to be in this situation. Someone else is like, damn, this sucks. Because they're looking at it from a different angle.

So hope is the judgment that what we have or what we're soon going to have is good. If we make that judgment, it releases dopamine the same as if we eat, you know, food, we release dopamine. If we go for a run, we can release dopamine. If we have a perspective that something is good.

We release dopamine. And so.

This is a big deal for happiness. And it can be challenging finding this new perspective.

[B]

So is the happiness. In order to achieve happiness, you have to have dopamine. I'm linking my, your, your statements here or connecting them better.

[C]

Well, well, I've said the three hormones. So serotonin like it is.

Some people might say oversimplifying it, but.

It works. So if we've got serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin in the right level.

We'Re happy. And so generally if we've got those in the right level, then we're also managing cortisol because all cortisol is the one that can.

Make us feel less comfortable.

[B]

If I pick up $100 bill on the ground that was just left behind, what, what reacts in my body when I say, oh my. As I know it's a temporary deal, will be gone in five minutes, or I mean, I could use a larger denomination. Sure. But if you find, if found money, something like that, an unexpected.

Bonus.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, you're going to get a little hit of dopamine, for sure.

I. Most people judge money as good.

Yeah. You're most likely going to make that judgment, that that's good.

[B]

And if beautiful woman flirts with you. All right, let's use that then. All right, forget about the money part. A beautiful woman all of a sudden says, Adam, I find you so handsome. Adam, you're so interesting. What is. What's the. Is that also part of happiness? Getting a. A flirtatious affirmation?

[C]

Yeah. So this probably we could tie this back into socializing.

[B]

Okay. Okay.

[C]

If we're just gonna. If we're just going to stick with hope, it really depends on the situation. You know, is she my type? Who's looking? Am I in a relationship? All these things are going to change my judgment of if this is good or bad. And so if I judge this flirtation as good. Yeah. 100. It's going to release that dopamine. But if I judge this as not something I'm really wanting right now, then it might make me feel a little bit uncomfortable.

But then because it's a human.

Our body does this thing where it can also release oxytocin.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

We. If we judge that, you know, someone.

You know, likes us, trusts us, if we. If we see similarities. So if we see this person who's flirting with us as. As similar to us, maybe they've got similar beliefs, similar looks, similar.

Appearance, then all these things can trigger oxytocin. And that also feels good. That also, like, mediates cortisol. So if we've just had a bad experience and then we have this release of oxytocin that mediates this cortisol that might be in our system.

[B]

Let me ask this. So when you say that one of the pillars is this hope, that's the one that's probably not as objective or is not as defined as health. It's very black and white, as you said.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

The hope category is almost a slippery eel. What. How do you define hope? You know, there is a definition that you gave which was great, but it's. How do you grab it?

[C]

So with hope, we said it's a judgment that something's. That we're going to continue or soon have something good. Right now.

If we want to have more hope, there's a few different ways we can go about it. One is changing our brain structure. So people with a certain brain structure are more optimistic. They're more likely to walk into a room and be like, I like this. Or they're more likely to Walk outside and be like, what a beautiful day. People with this brain structure are just more optimistic. And so if you can make changes in your life that are conducive to creating that brain structure, then you will become more optimistic and you'll have more hope in your day to day. The other way is to improve our.

Hormones. Like people who are happier, who have more serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin, are more optimistic. And so if you can build the pillars in your life like you, you probably could reflect on a time in your life where you've just gone for a run. Before the run, you're a little bit down. After the run, you know, you, you've still got these same problems in your life, but that you don't feel so bad, you're not so stressed anymore, or maybe you've just gone out for dinner with your friends. You know, before dinner you're stressing about what's happening at work or some other challenge that you're facing when you're with your friends and you're eating a good meal. That stress is often greatly mediated. So just by having the right hormones, it can make us more optimistic.

Something that is very powerful in having enduring hope is finding acceptance of bad things. So say something bad happens in our life. If we dwell on that and that keeps on producing cortisol, we're going to feel down for a long time. And then that just puts us on a spiral. Like when we're feeling down, we don't feel like running, we just want to sit on the couch. We don't feel like cooking a healthy meal. We just want to just order takeaway. And we really couldn't be stuff going and seeing our friends because, you know, we're just not in that mood. And so it can put us on this spiral. But if we can find acceptance of these challenging things, then we can more quickly move on from it and, you know, start climbing that, that happiness helix.

[B]

Well, let's bring, let's bring a practical or a real unfortunate or.

An unplanned event, but meets the statistic. Now, I don't know if it's the same in Australia, but in america There's a 58 divorce rate.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

How does someone recover from that? Tying into your book or what have you found as the quickest way to recover from, you know, a traumatic event? That's a big event. Big for most people.

[C]

Yeah, let's say you're getting a divorce.

What we're wanting to do is change our perspective. So.

One way that people try to uplift themselves is to reframe the situation so it no longer seems bad.

If, if what happened isn't bad, we're not going to feel bad. So if we can look at this divorce or separation as a good thing, we're going to feel better. We're going to, you know, so if we can see it as like, oh, I'm so glad I've separated from that person because now I have time to do what I love, which I never could do before, or now I have the opportunity to go and meet someone who I actually connect with.

You're going to be like, this is a really good thing, this separation. And you're going to, you're not going to feel down because you're no longer making a judgment that what I have is bad. Because what you have now is good. Now that's all well and good. If you have a perspective that what happened is good, but sometimes it's just bad and we just can't find a perspective. Like we might even find. We might even say, you know what, it's good that I broke up and maybe I'll find someone better. But we don't really believe it. And because we don't believe it, when there's no tricking our body, we produce the hormones based on what we actually believe. So we don't actually believe that it's good we broke up. We actually believe we're never going to find someone that good again in our life. We actually believe that we've made a big mistake that we could have avoided. We're. We're going to feel bad.

So if we just can't turn it around and find a new perspective that it's good, what we can do is find a perspective that it was unavoidable.

So things that are unavoidable, we're more likely to accept.

[B]

I mean, that's the real world example that you're. You're explaining. And I tend to agree with you. It's a matter of framing it. But when you're in the throes of it and it's right in your face. Yeah, I. The compartmentalizing of that experience can be challenging. What, what would you suggest? What are some processes in order for people to compartmentalize and then look at it, okay. And frame it correctly, this is a good thing because I'm not compatible with this person anymore.

[C]

Or so what I would recommend for people to do now before something bad happens, or if something's bad happens, you can do it now. But this takes time. We need to change Our foundational beliefs about how we explain the unexplained, how we explain, you know, what causes things to happen as they do. And if we can understand that everything that happens in our life is unavoidable, then when something bad happens like that, like, we get a sep. We separate from our partner, we get a divorce. We can be like, well, this is bad. It's not what I want, but it's unavoidable. There's nothing I could have done to prevent this.

When we. When we don't blame ourselves for what happened or blame someone else for what happened, then we've got much more acceptance. So, like, the example I like to give is, let's say a branch falls from a tree and breaks your windscreen.

[B]

Mm.

[C]

You're gonna feel bad. Like, you're like, this is bad. I've got a broken windscreen. But you're not gonna resent that tree. You're not gonna be up late at night not being able to sleep because of that tree. You're gonna be like, that's bad.

I'll move on. But let's imagine that your partner did that. You know, you broke up with your partner, and she come and took a hammer and caused the same damage to your car. Quite often, we get a lot more resentful because we're like, they could have avoided that.

And we really resent them. It seems different, but if we can find a perspective that both of those.

Situations were just as unavoidable, each as each other, then they cause us the same level of stress. We're just like, you know, it's just bad that our partner did what. What they did. It was sure as unavoidable as a tree dropping its branch on our car. And so can. You can imagine the peace that we have because now it doesn't matter what happens in our life, whether we make a mistake, whether someone else does something that hurts us. We have this enduring acceptance, and we can move on quicker from. From bad things that happen. Awesome.

[B]

Well, so this. So your book has all these pillars, and I would imagine there are ways that they can apply them in their life. I haven't had the. The opportunity to read the book yet, but is it more? Tell us about what the. Each. Each pillar will provide people. Is it the data and the solution? Is it the data itself or examples?

[C]

What each pillar will provide people?

[B]

Well, what. What will they learn when they consume the information about themselves?

[C]

So you'll learn.

How to change your brain structure and chemical makeup. Okay. So that you're more optimistic in the end, it's all about hope.

So by working on the six pillars, you will change your brain structure and your chemical makeup and you will be more optimistic.

You'll also learn about our like in my book, I cover the psychology, neurology and philosophy of happiness. Philosophy is under, I don't know, under, under prescribed or maybe even for.

Achieving happiness. And so I talk about how our philosophy accepts, affects our degree of acceptance of bad things and what qualities you could look for in your philosophy to find more acceptance.

[B]

Adam, why did you write this book?

[C]

Because I found happiness easy and I wanted to share it. Well, there's a lot of reasons why I, I wrote it. I've always been big on forgiveness. I've always wanted forgiveness to be done for a scientific reason rather than.

A spiritual reason.

I felt like wars could be stopped if people just forgave and the spiritual reasons to forgive weren't, weren't enough. You know, people were often fighting over religion, religions that told them they should be forgiving. So this wasn't working. We needed a new reason to forgive. And so that was a big part of it.

Another big part. Part of it was that I.

Knew that this was a good, like this scientific founded reason to forgive.

Could help people find that acceptance.

Yeah. So that, that's my goal. My goal is to, well, originally it was to stop wars.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

These are evil things, these are bad things. We should do what we can to stop them.

Now, I know that you know they are bad, but, you know, a lot more people die of stress than from wars.

[B]

I didn't know that.

[C]

Wow. Stress is like the catalyst for so many diseases. If you're stressed, you're more prone to just about every known disease. So if you can reduce your stress.

You'Re going to be less likely to, you're going to live longer.

[B]

What a hook right there. More people die from stress than, than the wars in the world. Yeah, that's a headline. I'm always thinking of this. That's a good hook for the press, Adam. And explaining that data and the research. Wow, that's great. Well, let's take a, let's take a look at your book again real quick. I know the copy isn't available yet. It's, it's out with the printers, but. Happy Pedia A guide. I'll leave out the holistic A Guide to Happiness with a Modern Philosophy. I love it. Adam, you've been a great guest today. Thank you so much for being on the amazing Authorities podcast. I wish you the best with your book and I'M looking at it because there are times when I'm not at 100% and if there are a couple things that I can learn, a couple of gems to apply to my life in order to be happier because I'm in total agreement Stress free is happiness getting rid of stress. Why? There's a reason I live in Thailand. It's an easy, simple life. I love it. And stress is bad. And if you can find as a roadmap for us to have more happiness in our life. Hence you wrote the book Happy Pedia. Oh my gosh. This is the roadmap for a good existence. Way more than an existence. A happy life. And thank you for taking the time to write about a crucial topic and I hope you find success stories throughout the world when it's out there in the marketplace.

[A]

Thanks for tuning in to the Amazing Authorities podcast. If today's episode inspired you, take a moment to subscribe, rate and leave a review. It helps more experts like you rise to the top for behind the scenes access and free resources to boost your authority. Head to MitchCarson.com until next time, stay amazing.