by
Katrina Welch
“
Hi? How are you?”
In our society it is a norm to greet a friend with these words in passing, but take some time to think about it: how are feeling right now? Emotions are quite complicated. As human beings, we all feel them and they play a critical role in governing how we interact with other people and the world around us.
Sometimes we feel happy, sometimes we feel sad, sometimes we feel angry and other times we feel anxious. At times, we even feel multiple emotions all at once, depending on the situation we’re facing at a given time. These emotions are innate, they are controlled by four key chemicals in the brain: serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin, and endorphins. Let’s take a closer look at each of the natural drugs produced by our bodies.
Serotonin
Serotonin is a neurotransmitter.
This simply means that this chemical is responsible for relaying messages between the different parts of the brain. This chemical is quite important because beyond its brain functions, it is also found in other areas of the body, such as the digestive system. Here are some of its main roles:
• Controlling aspects of your mood, particularly feelings of happiness and anxiety.
• Regulating your sleep-wake cycle to control when you fall asleep and when you wake up.
• Stimulating feelings of nausea when the stomach becomes upset by something which was consumed.
• Facilitating the healing of wounds by narrowing the arteries to form blood clots.
• Regulating your bowel movements.
When serotonin is at a good level in your body, it is likely that you will feel calmer and happier. Moreover, your emotions will be better balanced and your level of focus will increase.
Conversely, low serotonin levels have been associated with anxiety, depression and even insomnia.
Even though there are circumstances in life which can lead to these negative emotions, there are steps which you can take to stimulate and increase the production of serotonin in your body:
• Exercise regularly, go running, swimming or cycling
• Spend time in quiet meditation
• Go for walks in the sunshine and take in nature • Eat foods such as pineapple, turkey, eggs, nuts, cheese, salmon and tofu
Dopamine
Dopamine is also a neurotransmitter produced by the body. Nerve cells transmit messages to each other using this chemical. In the body, dopamine is released when the body is anticipating a reward. The reward can simply be the anticipation of something you like or find very pleasurable, such as your favourite food, a certain type of music, or even sexual activity.
Much like serotonin, this chemical affects both physical and behavioural aspects of your functioning. Some of these functions include:
• Facilitating your ability to learn and feel motivation.
• Processing pain
• Controlling motor functions
• Influencing moods, emotions, sleep, memory and the ability to focus
• Regulating insulin and the functions of the pancreas, heart and kidneys
• Improving blood flow and digestion
• Causing the response to stress and the behaviours associated with pleasure and rewards Commonly known as a “feel-good” chemical, dopamine exerts its influence on your feelings of happiness, alertness, motivation and focus. When dopamine is at a high level within the body, your level of happiness can escalate to euphoria.
So what happens when the body is low on dopamine? Depression, psychosis, schizophrenia and even Parkinson’s Disease can affect a person. To increase your dopamine levels there are a few things you can do:
• Achieve goals you set for yourself
• Engage in self-care by doing activities you enjoy
• Eat foods you like
• Celebrate your personal achievement, no matter how small
• Be sure to sleep and stay well rested Even though dopamine is important to helping a person to experience happiness and ultimately feel good, too much of it in the body has negative effects. When this happens, you can become aggressive and competitive and experience poor impulse control.
Delusions, mania and hallucinations have also been attributed to too much dopamine.
Next month we’ll discuss the other two natural drugs, oxytocin and endorphins.
