Help with chronic stress

[narouz]

Also, doesn't masturbation raise prolactin? I masturbate on a daily basis but am willing to stop if it interferes with health.

I was gonna venture a response,
but...natedawgghh is definitely The Man on this topic.

 

[natedawggh]

Also, doesn't masturbation raise prolactin? I masturbate on a daily basis but am willing to stop if it interferes with health.

I was gonna venture a response,
but...natedawgghh is definitely The Man on this topic.

LOL

 

[natedawggh]

I have dealt with chronic stress over the past 5 years and am really fearful of the long term effects it is having on me. I have deeply ingrained negative thinking patterns and paranoia that I cannot seem to break free from. Life just seems to be too much for me to handle. There has been a lot of drama and conflict in my life, which has led to constant adrenaline rushes. I'm incredibly weakened and depleted. Any attempt to exert myself leaves me feeling awful. This is impacting many of my relationships. I feel this constant pressure in my head and fear my brain is shrinking. I am young and feel like alzheimers is a legitimate possibility for me in the near future. All I want is a simple life where I'm happy. I want to be able to handle life's stressors. I'm not living right now, I'm coping. I appreciate any advice or help in advance. My mind is too powerful. It is destroying me. It's always racing and I'm in a constant state of fear.

hey looking...
take a deep breath. :)
I looked through your old posts to get an idea of what you've tried and what your other symptoms are. You mentioned an elevated prolactin and high serum calcium. you also mentioned marijuana use and SSRIs.

A couple thoughts:

You sound like you are actually in learned helplessness. This is something I was in a bit ago. If you are drinking ANY alcohol or smoking any pot, you are actually manually elevating the stress hormones that are causing this stress reaction that you are feeling. Pot increases cortisol and alcohol increases estrogen, prolactin, and serotonin CHRONICALLY. There is no way around these effects and they cannot be counteracted by any supplement, therapy, or diet. They just must be eliminated and if you cannot do it on your own you can go to alcoholics anonymous. I've been a member for five months because I could not stop drinking no matter how hard I tried to do it. I have found AA to be a whole lot of fun and really fulfilling, so if you have these habits I encourage you to do something about them.

IF you do not have these habits, you still obviously have learned helplessness which is characterized by excessive stress hormones, most notably serotonin. If you have hair loss (I think I read that you do) this is from high prolactin. You can fix these problems with two methods (again, assuming you do not drink or smoke AT ALL, cause otherwise these will not work) get high dietary calcium from dairy products or eggshell. Get at least 2000mg a day (work up to this level). This will definitely suppress prolactin. You had high serum calcium not because of your diet, because high serum calcium in correlation to high prolactin means you are not getting enough in your diet, so your body is compensating by driving up the PTH, to liberate calcium from your bones. For a healthy person, getting adequate calcium from a few glasses of milk will work. For someone who is sick an experiencing stress... the calcium in a few glasses will not be enough. This is what is causing you so much stress. Increasing your dietary calcium intake will ironically lower your serum calcium as well suppress your PTH and prolactin back to normal levels, which will in turn reduce serotonin. You need to be diligent in figuring out exactly how much you are getting, and making sure that level is at least 2g across the day.

You can also take L-Lysine to reduce serotonin even more, and this will give you a sense of calm. You must take lysine regularly but not at high dose. If you eat foods with high tryptophan content (such as milk) you may experience a migraine from the resurgence of serotonin. If this is the case you need to get your protein from a source low in tryptophan such as casein, potato, etc.

Okay thank you natedawgh...my PTH is actually pretty low because of all the milk I take but the tryptophan has probably been haulting progress.

Also, doesn't masturbation raise prolactin? I masturbate on a daily basis but am willing to stop if it interferes with health.

I think masturbation, though it raises PTH temporarily, is obviously a stress reducer, and there are many studies that show men who masturbate have a lower incidence of prostate cancer, so this would go against any idea that masturbation and the related PTH is harmful for your heath. I think the urge to do it often is indicative of the already existing stress levels, hence the reflex to self-soothe. Also, to focus on a fleeting, trivial incident like jerking off is not seeing the forest through the trees. High iron, alcohol use, smoking, marijuana, and polyunsaturated fat are immensely more destructive and if any of these are true for you, resisting some extra whack time is just a distraction and certainly not helpful.

Your PTH is not low. A doctor would consider that low only because the medical standard is so high. Also, it would rise significantly at night and unless you tested it late at night it would not accurately reflect your body's pattern of stress adaptation. It is clear from your symptoms that you have high stress hormones, specifically the ones related to serotonin dominance, and you should make efforts to improve your diet and personal enrichment.

 

[Blinkyrocket]

On evil: if you could do anything you wanted and made for yourself a friend that did everything you wanted him too and said "I love you" all the time would you eventually get bored and realize it/he/she doesn't really love you, you just made it say that? Well, then free will was born, I'm not RELIGIOUS per se, but the just because evil exists doesn't mean God doesn't, besides then the real questions come like what IS evil? Because evil seems to be anything that makes us not feel good, if I were to tell you you could take my tv there would be no harm but if you were to steal it, NOW suddenly it's illegal... Why? Only because it's not what I want, all of our laws are based on selfish insecurities "please don't kill me, I don't wanna live in fear" "please don't take my stuff" if I were to get angry at you for not killing me, would it be illegal now for you to spare my life?

Evil is not killing someone, evil is killing someone in front of there loved ones and then letting their loved ones live with that image for the rest of their lives. As soon as you have experienced pain of that magnitude, the memory itself is what's pure evil.

Maybe evil is a society that allows us to befriend ppl who would betray us gladly if not for the laws that they're afraid of breaking. I'm not saying everyone is like that, I'm just saying not everyone is our friend and you can't know who's your true friend until your friendship is tested and in our society nothing ever happens to test friendships, and then there's the evil of the media, with movies that preach loyalty, so it's now popular and cool to be loyal to your friends, now there's even less of a way to know who's your real friend, because we all just copy what's in the movies now. For example, with boyfriend/girlfriend relationships, you can tell it's ALL copy/paste, and then there's the million dollar hallmark card business to keep ppl from having to express feelings in their own words. Evil is a relative term but I think evil pertains more to lifestyle than to death, or murder.

Oh and btw, don't take these arguments to mean I'm against hallmark cards specifically but instead the way we copy and paste every part of our lives from something else, usually something "popular" in the media. So my argument is a little more generally geared towards modern life. Plus there's the fact that once something is famous in the media, if you're like me or for whatever other reasons you might also be deprived of the ability to enjoy that certain thing because your thought process is like mine. So, moral of the story is, everything has a butterfly effect, good things can do bad down the road and bad things can do good. It's just the way of life, so if you wanna sell-out to the media, enjoy it while realizing what you're doing, it'll make you look at it in a sort of joking way. the question of whether or not we're happy with technology and media is irrelevant because the situations it produces are real. If only we were more like dogs or cats, they seem to come up to you wagging their tail/purring no matter what, as soon as they see you they just instantly light up and come running to you. they don't think "how excited should I look so he/she isn't scared off by how excited I am to see them?"

 

[Blinkyrocket]

But anyway, a suggestion to add that I have found is incredibly effective but also INCREDIBLY hard to obtain is to just relax... Ohhhhh man right now my neck and back are sore as crap and if I could just stop using those muscles to breathe all the pain would go away, that's what you need to try, try focusing on JUST breathing with your stomach, or somehow find out what it feels like to relax all your muscles and try to emulate that feeling, I've found that when my mind is racing the ONLY thing that's causing it is an inability to relax, and it seems easy enough to relax muscles until you realize they aren't relaxing because you're USING THEM TO BREATHE INSTEAD OF YOUR DIAPHRAGM, man it's frustrating, but lemme tell yah it feels good when you finally release that tension.

There's probably a better way but I just tried this out and it works so in order to find out if you're breathing with your neck you need to get in the cobra pose from yoga (the one that stretched the lower back and you look like a snake ready to strike) and look up at the ceiling and if you feel a sharp pain in your neck when you take a breath than bingo.

Course just doing that can tense your neck regardless of breathing, dang, well you're on your own until I find a better way to know if you're breathing with your neck, I just know because of my incredibly introspective powers.

Got it! Maybe, try forcing your shoulders down if they aren't already, if it hurts like crap, bingo.

Also, take the deepest breath you possibly can, do your shoulders raise and your neck hurts? Bingo. I might be placing way more importance on this than I should because this is my experience only and I don't socialize much (at all, working on that) so this might only apply to me.

 

[sugar daddy]

Great advice natedawghh and also Mittir

lookingforanswers i would do what natedawggh suggests if you already aren't.
Do you smoke or drink?

Also do you have access to to brief solutions therapy or human givens?
Both these therapeutic approaches are very useful at quickly helping without ruminating on problems.
I would also suggest reading The Chimp Paradox Dr Steve Peters.

 

[sugar daddy]

Also Let Go by Martine Batchelor is a great book on mindfulness and meditation.

 

[Blinkyrocket]

Also Let Go by Martine Batchelor is a great book on mindfulness and meditation.

Idk about mindfulness, I may not be talking about the same thing but in my experience, paying attention to my breathing has yeilded disatrous results in the form of weird disorders like sniffing when I dont need to and making weird faces with every breath. I am prone to anxiety though, but I think if you do things that relax you muscles and show you what it feels like to breathe only with your stomach you can eventually make it a bhabit to do that, like another way I just remembered to make yourself feel what it feels like to exclude all your accesory breathing muscles and only breathe with your stomach is to clasp your hands behind your back and stretch them out away from your body as much as you can, this will make it only possible to breathe with your stomach, if it feels painful and innefficient welcome to the club, you probably arent breathing right.

It probably will help for people who aren't as neurotic as I am.

 

[Giraffe]

Re: Bicarbonate vs. PaCO2 blood tests

Sodium increases tissue CO2 amiright? Estrogen is high during teen years and Ray peat said it causes fibrosis of smooth muscle like the diaphragm in my case, I'm inclined to believe him seen as I can barely breathe with my diaphragm, it's nearly immovable and I get a pain in my side if I try to isolate it as my main breathing muscle.

Blinky, you can't isolate the diaphragm as your main breathing musle. And you don't want to; breathing happens passively 24/7. Here you can find quite useful explanations/exercises and also here:

I think you can solve your problem with globus sensations (= the lump in the throat you mentioned in another thread) when you allow your ribcage to expand.
_____

Edit: I moved post from other thread.

 

[Blinkyrocket]

Re: Bicarbonate vs. PaCO2 blood tests

Sodium increases tissue CO2 amiright? Estrogen is high during teen years and Ray peat said it causes fibrosis of smooth muscle like the diaphragm in my case, I'm inclined to believe him seen as I can barely breathe with my diaphragm, it's nearly immovable and I get a pain in my side if I try to isolate it as my main breathing muscle.

Blinky, you can't isolate the diaphragm as your main breathing musle. And you don't want to; breathing happens passively 24/7. Here you can find quite useful explanations/exercises and also here:

I think you can solve your problem with globus sensations (= the lump in the throat you mentioned in another thread) when you allow your ribcage to expand.

Why is it even there if it's not the primary resting breathing muscle? If I allow myself to use my chest I get a stuffed nose.

 

[Giraffe]

It's offtopic in the original thread therefore I moved it here...

Sodium increases tissue CO2 amiright? Estrogen is high during teen years and Ray peat said it causes fibrosis of smooth muscle like the diaphragm in my case, I'm inclined to believe him seen as I can barely breathe with my diaphragm, it's nearly immovable and I get a pain in my side if I try to isolate it as my main breathing muscle.

Blinky, you can't isolate the diaphragm as your main breathing musle. And you don't want to; breathing happens passively 24/7. Here you can find quite useful explanations/exercises and also here:

I think you can solve your problem with globus sensations (= the lump in the throat you mentioned in another thread) when you allow your ribcage to expand.

Why is it even there if it's not the primary resting breathing muscle? If I allow myself to use my chest I get a stuffed nose.

Search "diaphragm autonomic nervous system".

-----

The expansion of the ripcage is what happens automatically (if you're not too tense).

There are two things you can try to get a better feeling how breathing should feel (in addition to the tips you can get in the videos I linked:

(1) Put your hand above the belly button and imagine the breath flows in your hand; this should prevent the shoulders going up.
(2) Bend forward, rest your arms on your legs or a table. When you breath in you should feel what happens in your back.

 

[Blinkyrocket]

It's offtopic in the original thread therefore I moved it here...

Sodium increases tissue CO2 amiright? Estrogen is high during teen years and Ray peat said it causes fibrosis of smooth muscle like the diaphragm in my case, I'm inclined to believe him seen as I can barely breathe with my diaphragm, it's nearly immovable and I get a pain in my side if I try to isolate it as my main breathing muscle.

Blinky, you can't isolate the diaphragm as your main breathing musle. And you don't want to; breathing happens passively 24/7. Here you can find quite useful explanations/exercises and also here:

I think you can solve your problem with globus sensations (= the lump in the throat you mentioned in another thread) when you allow your ribcage to expand.

Why is it even there if it's not the primary resting breathing muscle? If I allow myself to use my chest I get a stuffed nose.

Search "diaphragm autonomic nervous system".

-----

The expansion of the ripcage is what happens automatically (if you're not too tense).

There are two things you can try to get a better feeling how breathing should feel (in addition to the tips you can get in the videos I linked:

(1) Put your hand above the belly button and imagine the breath flows in your hand; this should prevent the shoulders going up.
(2) Bend forward, rest your arms on your legs or a table. When you breath in you should feel what happens in your back.

I think I know what you're talking about now, the intercostal muscles, I think I've been tensing those all this time.

 

[Stuart]

He dodged that question.

Crap.
I need a beer.

Maybe that was his point. The human mind is wired in such a way that the 'why' of troubling things assumes a debilitating importance. I just thank the Lord I'm not religious Spirituality has always proved far more rewarding than God bothering of any flavour. Just my opinion of course.
But I do almost envy the certainty of religious people's convictions.

 

[tara]

Re: Bicarbonate vs. PaCO2 blood tests

Sodium increases tissue CO2 amiright? Estrogen is high during teen years and Ray peat said it causes fibrosis of smooth muscle like the diaphragm in my case, I'm inclined to believe him seen as I can barely breathe with my diaphragm, it's nearly immovable and I get a pain in my side if I try to isolate it as my main breathing muscle.

Blinky, you can't isolate the diaphragm as your main breathing musle. And you don't want to; breathing happens passively 24/7. Here you can find quite useful explanations/exercises and also here:

I think you can solve your problem with globus sensations (= the lump in the throat you mentioned in another thread) when you allow your ribcage to expand.

I think Blinky has some structural chest architecture issues that may may his chest function differently than the average. But for me, I found it very useful to at least somewhat isolate my diaphragm muscles to reactivate and retrain diaphragmatic breathing after years of habitual chest breathing. I did that by putting a belt round my chest to restrict chest expansion. I'm not recommending it to Blinky, because I don't know how your prior issues affect your breathing. But for others out of the habit of diaphragmatic breathing who do not have ventilation-perfussion issues, I'd recommend trying it.

 

[Blinkyrocket]

Re: Bicarbonate vs. PaCO2 blood tests

Sodium increases tissue CO2 amiright? Estrogen is high during teen years and Ray peat said it causes fibrosis of smooth muscle like the diaphragm in my case, I'm inclined to believe him seen as I can barely breathe with my diaphragm, it's nearly immovable and I get a pain in my side if I try to isolate it as my main breathing muscle.

Blinky, you can't isolate the diaphragm as your main breathing musle. And you don't want to; breathing happens passively 24/7. Here you can find quite useful explanations/exercises and also here:

I think you can solve your problem with globus sensations (= the lump in the throat you mentioned in another thread) when you allow your ribcage to expand.

I think Blinky has some structural chest architecture issues that may may his chest function differently than the average. But for me, I found it very useful to at least somewhat isolate my diaphragm muscles to reactivate and retrain diaphragmatic breathing after years of habitual chest breathing. I did that by putting a belt round my chest to restrict chest expansion. I'm not recommending it to Blinky, because I don't know how your prior issues affect your breathing. But for others out of the habit of diaphragmatic breathing who do not have ventilation-perfussion issues, I'd recommend trying it.

I realized that giraffe is probably talking about the intercostals which allow the rib cage to expand, I didn't realize that in an effort to control my breathing I have been tensing these muscles.
Also, I don't see much talk about respiratory disease. 2 times in the past, I've had air hunger that didn't feel good, trust me. What causes supposedly irreversible stuff like pulmonary fibrosis for example? Obviously if it were air pollution and stuff everybody would have it.

 

[tara]

It's offtopic in the original thread therefore I moved it here...

Sodium increases tissue CO2 amiright? Estrogen is high during teen years and Ray peat said it causes fibrosis of smooth muscle like the diaphragm in my case, I'm inclined to believe him seen as I can barely breathe with my diaphragm, it's nearly immovable and I get a pain in my side if I try to isolate it as my main breathing muscle.

Blinky, you can't isolate the diaphragm as your main breathing musle. And you don't want to; breathing happens passively 24/7. Here you can find quite useful explanations/exercises and also here:

I think you can solve your problem with globus sensations (= the lump in the throat you mentioned in another thread) when you allow your ribcage to expand.

Why is it even there if it's not the primary resting breathing muscle? If I allow myself to use my chest I get a stuffed nose.

Search "diaphragm autonomic nervous system".

-----

The expansion of the ripcage is what happens automatically (if you're not too tense).

There are two things you can try to get a better feeling how breathing should feel (in addition to the tips you can get in the videos I linked:

(1) Put your hand above the belly button and imagine the breath flows in your hand; this should prevent the shoulders going up.
(2) Bend forward, rest your arms on your legs or a table. When you breath in you should feel what happens in your back.

My understanding was that normal/ideal resting breathing is primarily diaphragmatic, with very little chest expansion. Exertion can require more air, and then the chest breathing is useful. Constant use of the intercostals for breathing can cause tension itself (as well as whatever tension from holding them rigid). If the diaphragm is out of the habit, it takes a bit to reactivate it. Forcing it for an hour or so by constraining the chest got my diaphragm muscles activated. There are other ways, but this was quick and easy. Once the diaphragm is relaxedly working again, there will be less stress on the intercostals, and they can relax more easily. I can also imagine that occasional slow breathing into the full lung capacity using diaphragm, thorax and clavicles could have benefits too.

 

[Blinkyrocket]

It's offtopic in the original thread therefore I moved it here...

Sodium increases tissue CO2 amiright? Estrogen is high during teen years and Ray peat said it causes fibrosis of smooth muscle like the diaphragm in my case, I'm inclined to believe him seen as I can barely breathe with my diaphragm, it's nearly immovable and I get a pain in my side if I try to isolate it as my main breathing muscle.

Blinky, you can't isolate the diaphragm as your main breathing musle. And you don't want to; breathing happens passively 24/7. Here you can find quite useful explanations/exercises and also here:

I think you can solve your problem with globus sensations (= the lump in the throat you mentioned in another thread) when you allow your ribcage to expand.

Why is it even there if it's not the primary resting breathing muscle? If I allow myself to use my chest I get a stuffed nose.

Search "diaphragm autonomic nervous system".

-----

The expansion of the ripcage is what happens automatically (if you're not too tense).

There are two things you can try to get a better feeling how breathing should feel (in addition to the tips you can get in the videos I linked:

(1) Put your hand above the belly button and imagine the breath flows in your hand; this should prevent the shoulders going up.
(2) Bend forward, rest your arms on your legs or a table. When you breath in you should feel what happens in your back.

My understanding was that normal/ideal resting breathing is primarily diaphragmatic, with very little chest expansion. Exertion can require more air, and then the chest breathing is useful. Constant use of the intercostals for breathing can cause tension itself (as well as whatever tension from holding them rigid). If the diaphragm is out of the habit, it takes a bit to reactivate it. Forcing it for an hour or so by constraining the chest got my diaphragm muscles activated. There are other ways, but this was quick and easy. Once the diaphragm is relaxedly working again, there will be less stress on the intercostals, and they can relax more easily. I can also imagine that occasional slow breathing into the full lung capacity using diaphragm, thorax and clavicles could have benefits too.

It seems now that I've relaxed my intercostals (never even thought about 'em until now) I can actually move my diaphragm, so expanding the rib cage might make it easier to use your diaphragm. And if I just expand my rib cage with the intercostals it barely does anything to actually breathe in air so it's more for creating room for the diaphragm to expand I think. Course, like you said, my rib cage and chest are sorta weird.

 

[InChristAlone]

Re: Bicarbonate vs. PaCO2 blood tests

Feeling like you can't breath can also be silent reflux I guess. I've been getting it lately again.

 

[Giraffe]

It seems now that I've relaxed my intercostals (never even thought about 'em until now) I can actually move my diaphragm, so expanding the rib cage might make it easier to use your diaphragm. And if I just expand my rib cage with the intercostals it barely does anything to actually breathe in air so it's more for creating room for the diaphragm to expand I think. Course, like you said, my rib cage and chest are sorta weird.

If you search youtube for "heart opening yoga" or "yoga chest and shoulders" or "chest openers" you will find many useful stretching exercises.

 

[Giraffe]

I realized that giraffe is probably talking about the intercostals which allow the rib cage to expand, I didn't realize that in an effort to control my breathing I have been tensing these muscles.

Yes, this is what I hoped to achieve... to make you realize that you tense those muscles.