Splitted from another topic:
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=3634&start=10
I don't know if this is the right topic for this.
Let's put it this way. A short summary of my life would be something like:
0-12 years old a quite happy dreamy child
12-18 years old getting labeled like a smart, but terribly lazy kid
Getting huge stress from school, 3 weeks doing nothing, than 1 week of stressing and sleeping 2 hours a night with caffeine drinks
Getting huge stress from finding out being gay.
At 18 years old, I was a subject of a scientific study (for money), and my heart rate was measure 3 times a day. It was always around 28-40.
I guess that means, that I was hypothyroid back then, but doctors told me everything was fine with me.
18-21 years old Promised myself to never stress anymore in my life. Never sleep again for 2 hours a day. Begin experimentating with diets. Did a 4L OJ, egg yolk,salmon diet for months. Beginning to get frustrated that without stress I couldn't achieve anything, and with stress life felt like hell.
21 years old- until now I got a new label. ADD. I get ritalin. My heart rate jumped to 50-60. I began to think forward for more than 1 hour. I began to make plans. Suddenly life became easier and finally I began to achieve (get good study grades). After a couple of months, ritalin had less and less effect. At around this point I discovered the buteyko method. I began to found out that exercising together with ritalin gave me the effects that I initially had. I began to exercising with training masks (to increase CO2 while running). I began to walk for hours. Breathing exercises the whole ***t.
I didn't knew that breathing exercises could ruin your gut. It certainly did with me. It was not good before it, but after some time I had chronic diarhea. I quited the 4L OJ diet, and began with the gaps protocol. This diet was too hard. A little later artour from the buteyko method released there GI health book. This book let me recover my gut. I felt relieved. Diarhea was over, I got the no soiling effect (needing no paper at the toilet).
At around this time, I began to listen to Tony Robbins. Tony Robbins techniques + Exercise with training mask + Ritalin made me really motivated, really doing a lot, grades at university became very high, and life was pretty good. But I guess that this energy comes from stress. There where period that I felt like I was able to do nothing. Needing sometimes a couple of days, some times a week to recover. Some times, I add something new. Like cold shower/cold baths/sauna then I need less time to recover. But I guess I just push my stress hormones to the limit this way. It doesn't really feel like "stress" it feels like excitement and energy.
There are enough downsides of this way of living. I think it is very bad for my digestion. I can get my digestion good, but with techniques that normal people wouldn't need. And the worst thing, I need to do a lot of ***t, to feel energetic, you know running with training mask, cold showers, ritalin, saunas to just act little bit normal and not feeling without energy and motivation. Also, there are some personality changes. I used to make people laugh, with all this stress hormones I'm deficient of any form of humour.
In some sense, I'm gratefull, I mean, I used to be the smart and lazy kid, and now I'm the smart and very motivated kid (that sometimes happen to be at home for a week). I would be absolutely frustrated if I was still not able to get out of my lazy mode at 23 years old. Last couple of months, I began to realize, that I'm probably hypothyroid. And I hope that Ray Peat style of living can gives me energy without needing to do all kind of crazy stuff. But, I'm now somewhere in between. I mean, if I have an exam tomorrow, and I feel absolutely lazy, I go for a cold shower, I jump at my rebounder with a training mask, grasp a cola, and there I am, full of energy.
But if I have less presure, I try to lower my ritalin dosage, I try to do less cold showers, and trying to go the Ray Peat way. After reading this topic, I began to think that maybe sauna and whole body vibration are also driving me in the wrong direction (incrasing GH) in that sense. But I find that hard to believe.
I'm not sure in which way I believe Ray Peat is right for me. I mean I use to be told that running, cold shower, sauna, jumping on rebounder, eating little, etc. etc. are good for you. And it did feel good. But at a price I guess. I'm not sure, I'm just going to experimtate and find out.
RESPONSE FROM HAIDUT
It sounds like pretty hectic life. I was under maybe similar stress in college since I had to get good grades to keep my scholarship (or I get kicked out of the US) while I at the same time working full time to support myself.
Anyways, with couple of broad strokes here is what I would do if I were you. Diagnosis of "ADD" and lack of motivation are virtually signature signs of low dopamine. I know Ray will say it is all from low metabolism but I find that for most people it does help to address their immediate problems first and then work on things that heal generally.
To keep stress under control, nothing comes close to pregnenolone IMHO. You just have to find the right dosage b/c for most people it is all over the range of 50mg to 1g a day. Search the forum for pregnenolone and you will get some good threads and sources. In addition to bringing stress down, it will also NOT remove your motivation and energy to accomplish things. If anything, it may increase them. If you favor the pharmaceutical route, 100mcg of clonidine at night will eliminate your stress like a silver bullet, BUT it will likely also remove your stress energy source so you won't feel like doing much. Cyproheptadine will help with sleep and reducing serotonin. Together, clonidne and cyproheptadine will likely make you feel like a child again - careless, dreamy...and lazy But it will affect your performance at school, so that's why I would go with pregnenolone. Also, the clonidine and cypro will likely fix whatever stress-related gut issues you have.
Once you have stopped the stress reaction, if I were you I would up my protein intake (together with sugar) and try to eliminate starches. Protein intake should not fall below 80g a day but if you slide for a day or two don't sweat it. Without adequate protein, you will NOT have enough dopamine to produce motivation do anything. Remember - certain aminos in the protein are the only precursor to dopamine and without them you will feel like crap. Serotonin, on the other hand, exists in abundance in the gut (e.g. its original name is "enteramine") and it will be "happily" released in your blood stream to poison you and further harm your gut. To summarize - without adequate protein you WILL be serotonin-dominant no matter what drugs you take and how much you breath with masks, etc.
I don't think you need 4L of OJ, and in fact that gives you so much citric acid that it harms both your metabolism and other aspects of health. Citric acid is, counter-intuitively, alkalizing to the stomach, and that's why it is added to a lot of over the counter acid-blockers. I would replace the OJ (for now) with Coke, coffee, etc.
I would take it easy with the caffeine for now. Caffeine is very much like thyroid hormone. If not taken in the proper dosage (which is different for everybody) and with enough sugar, it will cause a very bad adrenalin reaction and will crash your metabolism. It will also increase lypolisys, which will not only harm your metabolism but it will also make you even more serotonin-dominant since free fatty acids will displace tryptophan from albumin and it will to the brain where it will gloriously convert to serotonin and/or other toxic metabolites. So, find out how much caffeine works for you without making you nervous/jittery and stay at that level until you improve metabolism and then you can increase it. Once you start reacting well to caffeine, it is also a good sign that you will react well to thyroid supplement if you are interested in trying.
Up your salt intake. Salt will not only lower adrenalin, it will also lower serotonin. Serotonin is disposed of in sodium-dependent fashion, so more sodium = more serotonin metabolism and excretion. Sodium will also improve metabolism and thermogenesis similar to aspirin.
Overall, my advice is to keep things simple. If you find yourself running around in masks on a daily basis, doing some special "diet protocol", special foods, etc. then it is probably not right. Simple, broadly acting interventions is what works best in the beginning and then you can tailor even more as you improve.
In summary, I would do simple (deceptively) fixes to the diet and take some supplements to limit stress. Food should be at least 80g of protein to support both liver function and dopamine synthesis. Sugar intake should be high (250g-300g) to increase active thyroid hormone (T3), prevent protein from causing a stress response due to hypoglycemic effects of many aminos, starch should be zero (if possible), salt should be at least 5g a day (ideally 15g) to lower serotonin. So, high protein, high sugar, high salt, low starch. Supplemental pregnenolone as needed, usually in the range of 100mg-150mg a day is what works best for most people.
And finally, I would drop the Ritalin. Even though the official stance is that is increases extracellular dopamine by inhibiting its uptake, there is strong evidence that all amphetamine and phenetylamine drugs increase serotonin. Here is a case where Ritalin caused serotonin syndrome, and another study that claims the "stimulant" class of drugs are actually serotonergic:
http://www.eric.vcu.edu/inm/Mire.pdf
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9888856
http://www.australianprescriber.com/mag ... le/663.pdf (Look at Table 1 saying that amphetamines increase 5-HT release and inhibit uptake, so maybe even worse than SSRI drugs that "only" inhibit uptake)
You can increase dopamine much more safely by simply adding about 5g of BCAA to your protein meals, or supplementing on the side with 5g BCAA, 1,500mg of tyrosine and 1,500mg of Phenyalanine. Just make sure to do it during the day as there is evidence that tyrosine is only dopaminergic when the person is exposed to daylight/sunlight.
This is my initial take, but if you have specific questions you can PM me or keep posting on this thread so other people can chime in.
Good luck with getting your health back and getting on with your life.
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=3634&start=10
May I ask - what is it are you trying to achieve? There may be safer ways to do that, so just let us know and we can try to help.
I don't know if this is the right topic for this.
Let's put it this way. A short summary of my life would be something like:
0-12 years old a quite happy dreamy child
12-18 years old getting labeled like a smart, but terribly lazy kid
Getting huge stress from school, 3 weeks doing nothing, than 1 week of stressing and sleeping 2 hours a night with caffeine drinks
Getting huge stress from finding out being gay.
At 18 years old, I was a subject of a scientific study (for money), and my heart rate was measure 3 times a day. It was always around 28-40.
I guess that means, that I was hypothyroid back then, but doctors told me everything was fine with me.
18-21 years old Promised myself to never stress anymore in my life. Never sleep again for 2 hours a day. Begin experimentating with diets. Did a 4L OJ, egg yolk,salmon diet for months. Beginning to get frustrated that without stress I couldn't achieve anything, and with stress life felt like hell.
21 years old- until now I got a new label. ADD. I get ritalin. My heart rate jumped to 50-60. I began to think forward for more than 1 hour. I began to make plans. Suddenly life became easier and finally I began to achieve (get good study grades). After a couple of months, ritalin had less and less effect. At around this point I discovered the buteyko method. I began to found out that exercising together with ritalin gave me the effects that I initially had. I began to exercising with training masks (to increase CO2 while running). I began to walk for hours. Breathing exercises the whole ***t.
I didn't knew that breathing exercises could ruin your gut. It certainly did with me. It was not good before it, but after some time I had chronic diarhea. I quited the 4L OJ diet, and began with the gaps protocol. This diet was too hard. A little later artour from the buteyko method released there GI health book. This book let me recover my gut. I felt relieved. Diarhea was over, I got the no soiling effect (needing no paper at the toilet).
At around this time, I began to listen to Tony Robbins. Tony Robbins techniques + Exercise with training mask + Ritalin made me really motivated, really doing a lot, grades at university became very high, and life was pretty good. But I guess that this energy comes from stress. There where period that I felt like I was able to do nothing. Needing sometimes a couple of days, some times a week to recover. Some times, I add something new. Like cold shower/cold baths/sauna then I need less time to recover. But I guess I just push my stress hormones to the limit this way. It doesn't really feel like "stress" it feels like excitement and energy.
There are enough downsides of this way of living. I think it is very bad for my digestion. I can get my digestion good, but with techniques that normal people wouldn't need. And the worst thing, I need to do a lot of ***t, to feel energetic, you know running with training mask, cold showers, ritalin, saunas to just act little bit normal and not feeling without energy and motivation. Also, there are some personality changes. I used to make people laugh, with all this stress hormones I'm deficient of any form of humour.
In some sense, I'm gratefull, I mean, I used to be the smart and lazy kid, and now I'm the smart and very motivated kid (that sometimes happen to be at home for a week). I would be absolutely frustrated if I was still not able to get out of my lazy mode at 23 years old. Last couple of months, I began to realize, that I'm probably hypothyroid. And I hope that Ray Peat style of living can gives me energy without needing to do all kind of crazy stuff. But, I'm now somewhere in between. I mean, if I have an exam tomorrow, and I feel absolutely lazy, I go for a cold shower, I jump at my rebounder with a training mask, grasp a cola, and there I am, full of energy.
But if I have less presure, I try to lower my ritalin dosage, I try to do less cold showers, and trying to go the Ray Peat way. After reading this topic, I began to think that maybe sauna and whole body vibration are also driving me in the wrong direction (incrasing GH) in that sense. But I find that hard to believe.
I'm not sure in which way I believe Ray Peat is right for me. I mean I use to be told that running, cold shower, sauna, jumping on rebounder, eating little, etc. etc. are good for you. And it did feel good. But at a price I guess. I'm not sure, I'm just going to experimtate and find out.
RESPONSE FROM HAIDUT
It sounds like pretty hectic life. I was under maybe similar stress in college since I had to get good grades to keep my scholarship (or I get kicked out of the US) while I at the same time working full time to support myself.
Anyways, with couple of broad strokes here is what I would do if I were you. Diagnosis of "ADD" and lack of motivation are virtually signature signs of low dopamine. I know Ray will say it is all from low metabolism but I find that for most people it does help to address their immediate problems first and then work on things that heal generally.
To keep stress under control, nothing comes close to pregnenolone IMHO. You just have to find the right dosage b/c for most people it is all over the range of 50mg to 1g a day. Search the forum for pregnenolone and you will get some good threads and sources. In addition to bringing stress down, it will also NOT remove your motivation and energy to accomplish things. If anything, it may increase them. If you favor the pharmaceutical route, 100mcg of clonidine at night will eliminate your stress like a silver bullet, BUT it will likely also remove your stress energy source so you won't feel like doing much. Cyproheptadine will help with sleep and reducing serotonin. Together, clonidne and cyproheptadine will likely make you feel like a child again - careless, dreamy...and lazy But it will affect your performance at school, so that's why I would go with pregnenolone. Also, the clonidine and cypro will likely fix whatever stress-related gut issues you have.
Once you have stopped the stress reaction, if I were you I would up my protein intake (together with sugar) and try to eliminate starches. Protein intake should not fall below 80g a day but if you slide for a day or two don't sweat it. Without adequate protein, you will NOT have enough dopamine to produce motivation do anything. Remember - certain aminos in the protein are the only precursor to dopamine and without them you will feel like crap. Serotonin, on the other hand, exists in abundance in the gut (e.g. its original name is "enteramine") and it will be "happily" released in your blood stream to poison you and further harm your gut. To summarize - without adequate protein you WILL be serotonin-dominant no matter what drugs you take and how much you breath with masks, etc.
I don't think you need 4L of OJ, and in fact that gives you so much citric acid that it harms both your metabolism and other aspects of health. Citric acid is, counter-intuitively, alkalizing to the stomach, and that's why it is added to a lot of over the counter acid-blockers. I would replace the OJ (for now) with Coke, coffee, etc.
I would take it easy with the caffeine for now. Caffeine is very much like thyroid hormone. If not taken in the proper dosage (which is different for everybody) and with enough sugar, it will cause a very bad adrenalin reaction and will crash your metabolism. It will also increase lypolisys, which will not only harm your metabolism but it will also make you even more serotonin-dominant since free fatty acids will displace tryptophan from albumin and it will to the brain where it will gloriously convert to serotonin and/or other toxic metabolites. So, find out how much caffeine works for you without making you nervous/jittery and stay at that level until you improve metabolism and then you can increase it. Once you start reacting well to caffeine, it is also a good sign that you will react well to thyroid supplement if you are interested in trying.
Up your salt intake. Salt will not only lower adrenalin, it will also lower serotonin. Serotonin is disposed of in sodium-dependent fashion, so more sodium = more serotonin metabolism and excretion. Sodium will also improve metabolism and thermogenesis similar to aspirin.
Overall, my advice is to keep things simple. If you find yourself running around in masks on a daily basis, doing some special "diet protocol", special foods, etc. then it is probably not right. Simple, broadly acting interventions is what works best in the beginning and then you can tailor even more as you improve.
In summary, I would do simple (deceptively) fixes to the diet and take some supplements to limit stress. Food should be at least 80g of protein to support both liver function and dopamine synthesis. Sugar intake should be high (250g-300g) to increase active thyroid hormone (T3), prevent protein from causing a stress response due to hypoglycemic effects of many aminos, starch should be zero (if possible), salt should be at least 5g a day (ideally 15g) to lower serotonin. So, high protein, high sugar, high salt, low starch. Supplemental pregnenolone as needed, usually in the range of 100mg-150mg a day is what works best for most people.
And finally, I would drop the Ritalin. Even though the official stance is that is increases extracellular dopamine by inhibiting its uptake, there is strong evidence that all amphetamine and phenetylamine drugs increase serotonin. Here is a case where Ritalin caused serotonin syndrome, and another study that claims the "stimulant" class of drugs are actually serotonergic:
http://www.eric.vcu.edu/inm/Mire.pdf
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9888856
http://www.australianprescriber.com/mag ... le/663.pdf (Look at Table 1 saying that amphetamines increase 5-HT release and inhibit uptake, so maybe even worse than SSRI drugs that "only" inhibit uptake)
You can increase dopamine much more safely by simply adding about 5g of BCAA to your protein meals, or supplementing on the side with 5g BCAA, 1,500mg of tyrosine and 1,500mg of Phenyalanine. Just make sure to do it during the day as there is evidence that tyrosine is only dopaminergic when the person is exposed to daylight/sunlight.
This is my initial take, but if you have specific questions you can PM me or keep posting on this thread so other people can chime in.
Good luck with getting your health back and getting on with your life.