Home /
About the Inner Mammal Institute & Loretta Breuning
The Institute
The Inner Mammal Institute helps people build their power over their mammalian brain chemistry. Happiness comes from chemicals we’ve inherited from earlier mammals: dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin and endorphin. When you know how they work in animals, your ups and downs make sense. Our happy chemicals evolved to reward survival behaviors, not to make us feel good all the time. But you can feel good more often when you understand nature’s operating system.
The IMI has all the resources you need to make peace with your inner mammal: books, videos, podcasts, social media, blogs, infographics, a training program, and a zoo tour. And check out our media page and praise page to find out what people are saying about the Inner Mammal Method. It’s not easy being mammal, but you can build your power over the quirky brain we’ve inherited.
The Inner Mammal Method
Your happy brain chemicals are controlled by neural pathways built from past experience. You can build new pathways by feeding your brain a new experience, repeatedly. If you don’t, you’ll keep defaulting to old impulses because those pathways are so efficient.
I accept the brain I have, including my mammalian limbic system, which talks to me in chemicals rather than words.
My brain evolved to promote survival, not to make me happy.
My dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphin evolved to do a job, not to flow all the time for no reason.
Happy chemicals pave neural pathways that turn them on faster in similar future.
I can build new paths to my happy chemicals by feeding my brain new experiences.
The Inner Mammal Method
Your happy brain chemicals are controlled by neural pathways built from past experience. You can build new pathways by feeding your brain a new experience, repeatedly. If you don’t, you’ll keep defaulting to old impulses because those pathways are so efficient.
I accept the brain I have, including my mammalian limbic system, which talks to me in chemicals rather than words.
My brain evolved to promote survival, not to make me happy.
My dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphin evolved to do a job, not to flow all the time for no reason.
Happy chemicals pave neural pathways that turn them on faster in similar future.
I can build new paths to my happy chemicals by feeding my brain new experiences.
Loretta Graziano Breuning Ph.D
Founder and Author
I am Professor Emerita of Management at California State University. As a teacher and a mom, I was not convinced by prevailing theories of human motivation. Then I learned about the brain chemistry of animals, and everything made sense. I knew this information could help people, so I set about creating resources. I’m thrilled that they’ve helped thousands of people around the world, and have been translated into twelve languages.
Problems the Method Can Help You With
Check out the dedicated pages for:
Core Concepts of
the Inner Mammal Institute
The brain chemicals that make you feel good are not designed to flow all the time for no reason. They reward you with good feelings when you do things that meet survival needs. But our brain defines survival in a quirky way…
Empirical Research
Animal behavior was deeply investigated by field researchers in the 20th century. They found a lot of competitiveness in animals, and uncovered the biological mechanisms that create it. The facts made some people uncomfortable, alas, so 21st century researchers have replaced that work with studies portraying animals in a more progressive light. The IMI is committed to the facts whether or not they make us comfortable, because that helps us…
Reading List
If you want to learn more about the biology of mammalian behavior, here is a list of the more readable of the books that launched me. First, I explain the nature videos that helped me see the truth about the mammal brain.
