When you eat dark chocolate, running, use marijuana, or release the hormone oxytocin through sex, touch or staring into the eyes internally, they all stimulate the production of Anandamide, a motivation, pleasure and happy/bliss neurotransmitter in the brain. Oxytocin is known as the love and bonding molecule. Feelings of love ratchet up your oxytocin levels for example, which in turn dial up your bodys anandamide effects giving us that pleasure.
When scientists stimulated oxytocin release, it increased anandamide creation in the brain. When they blocked anandamide, it also blocked the pleasure and pro social effects of oxytocin which means that oxytocin reinforces social bonding/trust and pleasure by anandamide creation. Interrupting anandamide breakdown further enhanced the pleasure of social contact, and animals treated with a drug that stops anandamide breakdown increasing it behaved as though they enjoyed spending time with their cage mates much more then animals treated with placebo.
Anandamide (AEA) increases in the brain during and following exercise and may be mostly responsible for why exercise makes you happy. A recent animal study similarly found that anandamide might be responsible for producing the “runner’s high” in mice.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26438875
In the late 1980s, receptors were found in the brain for THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), the primary psychoactive component in marijuana. But since THC doesnt naturally occur in the body, the presence of these receptors puzzled scientists. The mystery was solved a few years later with the discovery of arachidonylethanolamide, later called anandamide.
Anandamide is a natural neurotransmitter produced in the brain that binds to the CB1 Cb2 THC receptors. Its been called the bliss molecule aptly named after ananda, the Sanskrit word for joy, bliss, or happiness. It is considered an endocannabinoid a substance produced in the body that binds to cannabinoid receptors and now seems to be responsible for much of the natural normal positive feelings in social interactions, bonding, touch, sex, exercise, and love.
Anandamide molecular weight is only 347.53 g/mol, much closer to ‘pheromones’ most use which are around 270-330. Oxytocin is 3 times that weight. It also should not have negative effects on pregnant women as oxytocin can, and is found naturally in quality dark chocolate for example.
https://medium.com/@mary_c_biles/anandamide-the-bodys-own-antidepressant-and-how-to-boost-it-naturally-895cdafcf7fe
Those who are ‘extra happy’ people produce less of the enzyme FAAH (fatty acid amide hydrolase) which is responsible for breaking down a chemical in the body called anandamide
Study: Cannabis Produces the Same Pleasure as Having Sex Regularly
Researchers from the Faculty of Medicine of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, discovered that the use of cannabis (also) activates the same receptor as sexual pleasure, CB1 and releases oxytocin and both activate dopamine, responsible for the sensation of pleasure same as intercourse. They studied how various activities provide us with pleasure, and came to the conclusion that the feelings yielded by marijuana and sex are more similar than previously thought. This pleasure is not obtained only by smoking marijuana, but with other types of consumption, such as ingestion or the application of balms. Cannabis is a potent aphrodisiac, increasing body awareness, greater concentration or an increase in climax. Marijuana just also blocks the breakdown (lessening) after the fact increasing the potency of the effect.
Anandamide may also be involved in increasing a protein called Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF). BDNF not only preserves existing brain cells, it also activates brain stem cells to convert into new neurons and effectively makes your brain grow larger, so it has potential for other benefits, as well as for a novel depression therapy.