Dopamine/overall Advice Needed

[Jsaute21]

I am at a point where I am getting frustrated due to what feels like a major halt in progress. This may be long winded but I would love some opinions. I found Peat in August and noticed noticeable improvements initially, particularly in libido and mood.

Prior to Peat, I hit what felt like a major anxiety/depression wall in early 2014 at 25 years old. It felt like out of nowhere. I have always had occasional bouts with OCD symptoms and relationship anxiety. (Parents had a terrible divorce when I was young and had pretty severe ADD growing up.) However, for the most part I excelled athletically and did well enough academically. I even ended up getting a division one scholarship for lacrosse and excelling on that level. I couldn't have been a happier, more sexually active dude. I know this seems unnecessary but I believe all background and childhood info is relevant.

Here I am as a 28 year old with normal/high testosterone (as of 2 months ago.), good job, beautiful girlfriend and I am still battling occasional OCD towards intimacy, particularly sex with her. I know it is deeply correlative with thyroid health as I have gotten to the point where I can almost predict my pulse. I.E. "I feel good, I bet I'm at 70-75." Or "Jesus I feel shitty, bet I'm at 55-62." Always spot on. My relationship with coffee is perplexing as sometimes I feel phenomenal on it and it raises pulse and libido while other times I feel like I just took an estrogen/depression pill. I have never had DHT tested but I am very strong for my body weight, have high libido when not ingesting caffeine so I don't suspect it is low. Some other notes are that Haidut's great supps helped greatly at first but I think my body has gotten used to them. I take concerts occasionally and when I do I feel crazy good, I'm assuming because of the dopamine surge. To the point where I had very sore muscles and joints for about 2 months, I took concerta one morning and I felt so good I went for some sprints and felt phenomenal. This tells me that neurotransmitters impact so much more than we realize.

I just started tyromix at a minimal dose (2 drops a day.) I take taurine, aspirin, gelatin, energin, estroban, tocovit as well. I usually feel somewhat weird on MB when I take orally. Sometimes I get a bit angry when I take it. I apologize for how jumbled this is but I figure some of you can offer some helpful advice that have been on the Peat journey longer than myself. It took years to get me into this state so I am sure it will take some time to get me out of it but I am getting impatient. I have too much natural potential to be feeling like this.

 

[AJC]

What is it specifically that you are feeling or not feeling that you would like to change?

 

[Jsaute21]

Health/recovery/positivity/outlook. I firmly believe that each is related to thyroid. When my pulse is low I am down, negative, low libido, etc. when pulse is up I am a productive, healthy machine. This I want to figure out how to sustainably raise pulse and thyroid health. I understand adderall and concerts is frowned upon from a health perspective but it certainly raises pulse and thus dopamine.

 

[Jsaute21]

To make this post more concise -my current frustration lies within the fact that my pulse has trouble raising despite following Peaty principles pretty consistently. It seems like a much more difficult proposition for highly trained athletes to raise pulse. I have been "over training" since i have been 6 years old pretty much. I guess patience is a virtue...Have any other peatarians only had success raising pulse with big, salty, potato filled meals? That is my go to for getting past 70-75 currently. Dairy, Fruit & coffee though delicious does not get me past 65 or raise my temp significantly. Im wondering if this is a process, and my body will continue to get better at digesting and using these foods as fuel, or if they just simply don't get me going.

 

[whit]

Magnesium is needed for many of the reactions to move forward and lack of it can cause anxiety.
Tyroid and mag work together. Sport can greatly reduce magnesium reserves.
We use mag. chloride on the skin.
Coming from sport myself.
I can relate to the importance of metabolic support when using something that can rev it up.
It's important to be patient with your recovery start slow and build up.
If there's a plateau us it to review and establish.
I find gratitude to be quite therapeutic.
Hope this helps.
Cheers!

 

[lampofred]

My hunch is that the most beneficial step you could take to raise pulse is increase caloric intake.

 

[AJC]

As a third consideration I'd like to pose the question: what are the "productive" things you do when your pulse is high that bring you joy that you don't do when your pulse is low? Since you mention dopamine--you should know that it is released as part of the REWARD system--psychologically speaking-- so that doing those things we truly love or know we need to get done (being productive and/or having fun) will cause it to be released. In my opinion this is a positive feedback cycle, so the more we do those things, the greater health and energy we have to do more of them (provided we're eating correctly, resting, etc.)

"Attacking" health issues from the ground-up (food, supplements, etc.) is great, but we can also go top-down too (psychology, life choices, etc.), and I know that for myself personally both are ultimately necessary.

 

[lampofred]

As a third consideration I'd like to pose the question: what are the "productive" things you do when your pulse is high that bring you joy that you don't do when your pulse is low? Since you mention dopamine--you should know that it is released as part of the REWARD system--psychologically speaking-- so that doing those things we truly love or know we need to get done (being productive and/or having fun) will cause it to be released. In my opinion this is a positive feedback cycle, so the more we do those things, the greater health and energy we have to do more of them (provided we're eating correctly, resting, etc.)

"Attacking" health issues from the ground-up (food, supplements, etc.) is great, but we can also go top-down too (psychology, life choices, etc.), and I know that for myself personally both are ultimately necessary.

I think that theory of dopamine has been disproven. Now, the theory is that the anticipation of reward results in dopamine increases, and people who don't experience an increase in dopamine when anticipating rewards have no motivation to do any goal-oriented work. In other words, the more dopamine you have, the more you work for a particular reward and the less dopamine you have, the less you are willing to work for a reward. If you are totally dopamine deficient, you won't even want to get food for yourself, but you experience the same pleasure after eating if you are force-fed as someone who is not dopamine deficient. So current theory is that dopamine is a motivation neurotransmitter, not a pleasure neurotransmitter.

 

[AJC]

I think that theory of dopamine has been disproven. Now, the theory is that the anticipation of reward results in dopamine increases, and people who don't experience an increase in dopamine when anticipating rewards have no motivation to do any goal-oriented work. In other words, the more dopamine you have, the more you work for a particular reward and the less dopamine you have, the less you are willing to work for a reward. If you are totally dopamine deficient, you won't even want to get food for yourself, but you experience the same pleasure after eating if you are force-fed as someone who is not dopamine deficient. So current theory is that dopamine is a motivation neurotransmitter, not a pleasure neurotransmitter.

Nice post. I did not mean to imply that dopamine was a "pleasure" neurotransmitter, I meant exactly that dopamine is a "motivation" neurotransmitter.

As far as "that theory of dopamine has been disproven"--what theory are you referring to? My understanding of dopamine's function is that it is the DRIVE or MOTIVATOR to go after goals, whether this be food, sex, writing a good paper for school, completing a good workout, etc. It's necessary to drive these goal-related behaviors (it's "anticipatory" function), but it is also the accomplishment of these outcomes which causes the dopamine release which makes such behaviors "rewarding" (not "pleasurable") and drives our desire to do them again. Dopamine is also released when we are learning new things, experiencing new things, going new places, etc. The release of dopamine in this case facilitates learning.

I worked in a neuroscience/psychology research lab for a couple years where we studied this exact topic in rats as it relates to learning and eating behavior. The main project I worked was built on the theory that the "pleasure" peptides are in fact opioids rather than dopamine. I enjoy this topic a lot.

If you have any relevant research papers for your positions I'd love to take a look.