What Did We Miss? Happy Pills

I’ve become very interested in my mood recently. Recognizing my current emotions and accepting them makes it easier to deal with unhappy thoughts, tiredness, boredom and other negative emotions. Everyone on the planet experiences these emotions daily, and many people are discontented on a daily basis. There are certainly strategies for dealing with normal, everyday unhappiness... but what if you didn’t need to deal with it?

Scientists are already using technology to read emotions in the brain, and many of the hormones that affect emotion are already known. Much as people use recreational drugs to feel good, it makes sense that some of the hormones that invoke happiness could become commercially available in pill form.

If it was legal and socially acceptable to take these pills, everyone who could afford them would buy them. The most common pill would be happy pills, which might be made of dopamine, which does invoke such emotions but is common in illegal drugs and could be addictive. The happy pills might be addictive but if enough people were hooked it could be acceptable to be constantly taking these pills. If the pills were widespread and seen as the norm, it could become socially unacceptable to be sad, and if you shared sad emotions with other people they would just tell you to pop a dopamine pill. Also, it could lead to higher rates of depression or bi-polarity and people would be unsatisfied in between taking the pills, unless it got so extreme that people were constantly high on happiness.

Another possible pill might be norepinephrine, a type of adrenaline that makes people more alert and focused. Made into pill form, it could be used for aerobic exercises like running, biking, and swimming to increase performance. With how advanced science is already becoming, there are assuredly other hormones and neurochemicals that will be developed that could affect one’s emotions.

I don’t know if being able to alter how you feel at will is a good idea. It would definitely be enjoyable to an extent, but I imagine that it would be abused by many people. I can’t imagine that easy access to happiness drugs wouldn’t pose health problems, and I don’t think this would be a beneficial thing. Happiness should be found in the things one does, interpersonal connections, love, creativity, from inside sources. If someone (excluding those with clinical depression) need drugs to be happy then they should change how they see the world or their lifestyle rather than rely on self-medication. Happiness pills would just be an advancement of the recreational drugs of today, and I doubt they would be beneficial to mankind.