Zero social energy(light headed in public). Plenty of energy for everything else.

[Zellig Pliskin]

Whilst the entire peat philosophy is about rebalancing these neurotransmitters, increasing dopamine and in turn, decreasing seratonin…but what are two or three really low hanging pieces of fruit that someone in this state can do to improve this specific situation?

Waking up early in the morning and seeing the sun. A breakfast with a lot of carbohydrates, a bit of protein and ample coffee. Abstaining from smartphones. Maybe some L-Theanine.

Pretty easy peasy stuff.

 

[Zellig Pliskin]

I do think Socialization takes a lot of Energy, but I also do I think one huge problem being around people, is that people in a Lower Energy state steal your energy even if you guys don't talk or conscious interaction with each other, for someone with a high metabolism, it is difficult to maintain that state when everyone around you is a high-serotonin zombie looking to drain energy from healthier organisms

Amen. Energy vampires.

 

[faust jaeger]

More specifically, incessant internal monologuing, or what Ray called "hyperverbalization," as opposed to more energetic mental processes like daydreaming or visualization, is definitely a symptom of high serotonin.



Serotonin has been linked to rumination in depressed people, and I suspect that invasive, internal chatter is a milder form of the same process:

The bright side of being blue: Depression as an adaptation for analyzing complex problems

"...attentional control is achieved by sustained neuronal activity in the VLPFC during periods of distraction or delay. However, the sustained activation of VLPFC neurons in depression is costly. Roughly 80% of cortical neurons release glutamate, an important neurotransmitter. High levels of glutamate in the synapse are toxic and can induce apoptosis (programmed cell death)...

To reduce this risk, glutamate must be quickly cleared out of the synapse. This function is accomplished by nearby astrocytes... Under these conditions, there is an increasing reliance on the metabolism of astrocytic glycogen, the predominant product of which is lactate...

...support comes from studies of behavioral depression in rats, which is often induced by repeated exposure to uncontrollable stress. Uncontrollable stress triggers sustained release of 5-HT to the mPFCv and sustained firing of mPFCv neurons. As the mPFCv is a likely homologue to the human VLPFC, this may be analogous to sustained VLPFC activity in human depression. Moreover, repeated exposure to uncontrollable stress also causes astrocytic lactate production to increase in the mPFCv via the 5-HT1A autoreceptor...

Sustained 5-HT transmission in depression may reduce apoptosis caused by sustained VLPFC activity by increasing lactate production."

So hyperverbalization may involve an interplay between excess serotonin production upregulating glutamate signaling in the prefrontal cortex and excess astroglial glycolysis. Lactic acid in the muscles feels pretty bad, so I can't imagine it's having good effects on the structure of the brain. The last two sentences go well with the idea of serotonin as the "hibernation hormone," or the "self-preservation hormone," essentially a maladaptive neuroendocrine response to chronic stress.

In addition to lowering serotonin, inhibiting glutamate with progesterone, allopregnanolone (the most potent endogenous GABA agonist), or other GABA agonists would probably also be helpful, and of course lowering other excitotoxic substances like estrogen & PUFA. Actually, we already know allopregnanolone has been used for post-partum depression:

https://raypeatforum.com/community/threads/fda-approves-allopregnanolone-as-a-fast-acting-long-lasting-antidepressant.28167/

You might also be interested in reading Ray's work on P.K. Anokhin and about Pavlov's 2nd signal system:

The second signal system as conceived by Pavlov and his disciples

Thank you for the links. I have no problems visualizing or daydreaming either they coincide with my 24/7 internal monologue. It is mostly verbal for me

More specifically, incessant internal monologuing, or what Ray called "hyperverbalization," as opposed to more energetic mental processes like daydreaming or visualization, is definitely a symptom of high serotonin.



Serotonin has been linked to rumination in depressed people, and I suspect that invasive, internal chatter is a milder form of the same process:

The bright side of being blue: Depression as an adaptation for analyzing complex problems

"...attentional control is achieved by sustained neuronal activity in the VLPFC during periods of distraction or delay. However, the sustained activation of VLPFC neurons in depression is costly. Roughly 80% of cortical neurons release glutamate, an important neurotransmitter. High levels of glutamate in the synapse are toxic and can induce apoptosis (programmed cell death)...

To reduce this risk, glutamate must be quickly cleared out of the synapse. This function is accomplished by nearby astrocytes... Under these conditions, there is an increasing reliance on the metabolism of astrocytic glycogen, the predominant product of which is lactate...

...support comes from studies of behavioral depression in rats, which is often induced by repeated exposure to uncontrollable stress. Uncontrollable stress triggers sustained release of 5-HT to the mPFCv and sustained firing of mPFCv neurons. As the mPFCv is a likely homologue to the human VLPFC, this may be analogous to sustained VLPFC activity in human depression. Moreover, repeated exposure to uncontrollable stress also causes astrocytic lactate production to increase in the mPFCv via the 5-HT1A autoreceptor...

Sustained 5-HT transmission in depression may reduce apoptosis caused by sustained VLPFC activity by increasing lactate production."

So hyperverbalization may involve an interplay between excess serotonin production upregulating glutamate signaling in the prefrontal cortex and excess astroglial glycolysis. Lactic acid in the muscles feels pretty bad, so I can't imagine it's having good effects on the structure of the brain. The last two sentences go well with the idea of serotonin as the "hibernation hormone," or the "self-preservation hormone," essentially a maladaptive neuroendocrine response to chronic stress.

In addition to lowering serotonin, inhibiting glutamate with progesterone, allopregnanolone (the most potent endogenous GABA agonist), or other GABA agonists would probably also be helpful, and of course lowering other excitotoxic substances like estrogen & PUFA. Actually, we already know allopregnanolone has been used for post-partum depression:

https://raypeatforum.com/community/threads/fda-approves-allopregnanolone-as-a-fast-acting-long-lasting-antidepressant.28167/

You might also be interested in reading Ray's work on P.K. Anokhin and about Pavlov's 2nd signal system:

The second signal system as conceived by Pavlov and his disciples

More specifically, incessant internal monologuing, or what Ray called "hyperverbalization," as opposed to more energetic mental processes like daydreaming or visualization, is definitely a symptom of high serotonin.



Serotonin has been linked to rumination in depressed people, and I suspect that invasive, internal chatter is a milder form of the same process:

The bright side of being blue: Depression as an adaptation for analyzing complex problems

"...attentional control is achieved by sustained neuronal activity in the VLPFC during periods of distraction or delay. However, the sustained activation of VLPFC neurons in depression is costly. Roughly 80% of cortical neurons release glutamate, an important neurotransmitter. High levels of glutamate in the synapse are toxic and can induce apoptosis (programmed cell death)...

To reduce this risk, glutamate must be quickly cleared out of the synapse. This function is accomplished by nearby astrocytes... Under these conditions, there is an increasing reliance on the metabolism of astrocytic glycogen, the predominant product of which is lactate...

...support comes from studies of behavioral depression in rats, which is often induced by repeated exposure to uncontrollable stress. Uncontrollable stress triggers sustained release of 5-HT to the mPFCv and sustained firing of mPFCv neurons. As the mPFCv is a likely homologue to the human VLPFC, this may be analogous to sustained VLPFC activity in human depression. Moreover, repeated exposure to uncontrollable stress also causes astrocytic lactate production to increase in the mPFCv via the 5-HT1A autoreceptor...

Sustained 5-HT transmission in depression may reduce apoptosis caused by sustained VLPFC activity by increasing lactate production."

So hyperverbalization may involve an interplay between excess serotonin production upregulating glutamate signaling in the prefrontal cortex and excess astroglial glycolysis. Lactic acid in the muscles feels pretty bad, so I can't imagine it's having good effects on the structure of the brain. The last two sentences go well with the idea of serotonin as the "hibernation hormone," or the "self-preservation hormone," essentially a maladaptive neuroendocrine response to chronic stress.

In addition to lowering serotonin, inhibiting glutamate with progesterone, allopregnanolone (the most potent endogenous GABA agonist), or other GABA agonists would probably also be helpful, and of course lowering other excitotoxic substances like estrogen & PUFA. Actually, we already know allopregnanolone has been used for post-partum depression:

https://raypeatforum.com/community/threads/fda-approves-allopregnanolone-as-a-fast-acting-long-lasting-antidepressant.28167/

You might also be interested in reading Ray's work on P.K. Anokhin and about Pavlov's 2nd signal system:

The second signal system as conceived by Pavlov and his disciples

Thank you for the links. My 24/7 self monologue coincides with daydreaming and other non verbal mental activities. The verbalization portion of socializing is what seems to due me in.

 

[AllThingsPeat]

Interesting stuff

Do you think this same thing happens with too much screen time/reading/scrolling?

Well, reading is obviously a necessary part of studying & learning. I think you just need to do the amount of mental work that your current metabolic state permits you to do effectively. And if you're doing "too much," that implies you've already exceeded your limit. But like William Blake said, "you don't know what's enough until you know what's too much."

When you notice your concentration is starting to wane, it's probably a good idea to take a break and do something else.

I think the social media "doomscrolling" phenomenon is as much of an effect as it is a cause of the low dopamine, high serotonin, ADHD phenotype. Ray has written about how depressed cortical metabolism can cause hyperactivity:

Insomnia and Hyperactivity

"The frontal lobes of the brain, the most highly evolved part, give us the ability to plan and to understand complex things that require prolonged attention. Without this higher part of the brain which has a very high energy requirement, people and animals become hyperactive and unable to concentrate. Ritalin (or coffee) makes anyone, even the brightest students, more attentive and focused. Caffeine and Ritalin temporarily raise the energy level of the brain. Thyroid hormones are essential for providing the energy to keep the brain at a high energy level all the time. If these hormones are deficient, our nerves need stimulants to function normally."

So hyperactivity & trouble concentrating are symptoms of low brain metabolism. And since the depression study shows a mechanism by which serotonin lowers brain metabolism via increased glutamatergic activity and increased glycolysis in the frontal lobes, it's clear that serotonin plays a role in the long-term effects of social media-induced overstimulation.

Histamine also plays a role in mental focus, but I think the proper way to increase it is indirectly by upregulating dopamine signaling, since histamine excess usually occurs concomitantly with serotonin excess, which appears to be why H2 blockers like famotidine function as anti-serotonin drugs:

Famotidine Is A Powerful Anti-serotonin Drug, Can Even Treat Serotonin Syndrome

Mast cell degranulation also involves the release of both histamine and serotonin, which is another reason to avoid allergenic foods:

Serotonin of mast cell origin contributes to hippocampal function

Interestingly, the histaminergic effects of ritalin (methylphenidate) have been proposed to be a consequence of it's dopaminergic properties, which further substantiates the idea that dopamine is what you want to focus on increasing:

Histamine and Motivation

"It is possible that the increase in the histamine levels by methylphenidate is secondary to the increased extracellular concentration of dopamine, as is the case for systemic methamphetamine administration, because D2 brain receptor activation enhances the TMN neuronal firing frequency, histamine release, and wakefulness in freely moving rats."

Overall, I think its important not to be too reductive when thinking about how to treat mental issues which have developed over the entire lifetime of the organism. When Ray writes about Anokhin's acceptor of action, he explains how proper learning involves an organism purposefully changing their model of reality, producing a more powerful and coherent brain in the process, which in turn makes learning easier in a positive feedback loop. Conversely, deleterious mental activities probably produce the opposite effect, making the brain less coherent. These things take time.

And a heck of a lot of energy:

Intention, Learning, and Health

 

[AllThingsPeat]

Thank you for the links. I have no problems visualizing or daydreaming either they coincide with my 24/7 internal monologue. It is mostly verbal for me



Thank you for the links. My 24/7 self monologue coincides with daydreaming and other non verbal mental activities. The verbalization portion of socializing is what seems to due me in.

I don't think imaginative thinking is necessarily an issue. After all, Ray said that perceiving problems or needs and imagining solutions is what motivates appropriate learning. It is, however, an issue when it disrupts concentration. Are your thoughts related to your perception and experience of external reality, or are they more detached and related to past experiences? I've noticed that when I feel good, I rarely think about the past in a way that's detached from present reality but frequently draw upon past experiences to better understand what I'm currently doing.

I read in your other thread that you took SSRIs. It may be the case that you've instinctively become small talk averse since you're trying to recover from a state of chronically elevated serotonin, and too much idle conversation is bad for the brain (highly serotonergic).

In situations where you have to socialize with others, it may be helpful to try to talk about things that are more stimulating and meaningful. Whenever I'm ambulating through meat space and find myself accosted by an an agent of the state (a stranger), I try to take any opportunity they give me to shift the conversation out of the realm of small talk and into the realm of something that actually makes me (and them, hopefully) think. I've found that people almost immediately become more interesting, engaged, and authentic when I do this. I can literally see their eyes light up, and they often become more open, allowing for a more productive, fluid exchange of information & ideas.

 

[Mathgirl]

I do think Socialization takes a lot of Energy, but I also do I think one huge problem being around people, is that people in a Lower Energy state steal your energy even if you guys don't talk or conscious interaction with each other, for someone with a high metabolism, it is difficult to maintain that state when everyone around you is a high-serotonin zombie looking to drain energy from healthier organisms

Agree!!

 

[faust jaeger]

I don't think imaginative thinking is necessarily an issue. After all, Ray said that perceiving problems or needs and imagining solutions is what motivates appropriate learning. It is, however, an issue when it disrupts concentration. Are your thoughts related to your perception and experience of external reality, or are they more detached and related to past experiences? I've noticed that when I feel good, I rarely think about the past in a way that's detached from present reality but frequently draw upon past experiences to better understand what I'm currently doing.

I read in your other thread that you took SSRIs. It may be the case that you've instinctively become small talk averse since you're trying to recover from a state of chronically elevated serotonin, and too much idle conversation is bad for the brain (highly serotonergic).

In situations where you have to socialize with others, it may be helpful to try to talk about things that are more stimulating and meaningful. Whenever I'm ambulating through meat space and find myself accosted by an an agent of the state (a stranger), I try to take any opportunity they give me to shift the conversation out of the realm of small talk and into the realm of something that actually makes me (and them, hopefully) think. I've found that people almost immediately become more interesting, engaged, and authentic when I do this. I can literally see their eyes light up, and they often become more open, allowing for a more productive, fluid exchange of information & ideas.

I haven’t taken ssris in 4 years and I feel as though I have recovered from that era. This summer I’ve really tried to leave the house more for the first time and it just has not gone well. Nothing “bad” has happened it just feels like people think I’m odd and don’t enjoy me approaching them because of my nature and physiognomy (I have a very judgmental/gloomy resting face despite that not usually being my mood) which I don’t care about but touch starvation is real and I’m suffering from it. Between a connectionless childhood and covid ending my senior year of high school early to now I’ve made monumental gains in health, physique, facial looks and knowledge but in the process I haven’t even touched skin with anyone in a meaningful way ever. I’ll always keep trying though.

 

[AllThingsPeat]

I haven’t taken ssris in 4 years and I feel as though I have recovered from that era. This summer I’ve really tried to leave the house more for the first time and it just has not gone well. Nothing “bad” has happened it just feels like people think I’m odd and don’t enjoy me approaching them because of my nature and physiognomy (I have a very judgmental/gloomy resting face despite that not usually being my mood) which I don’t care about but touch starvation is real and I’m suffering from it. Between a connectionless childhood and covid ending my senior year of high school early to now I’ve made monumental gains in health, physique, facial looks and knowledge but in the process I haven’t even touched skin with anyone in a meaningful way ever. I’ll always keep trying though.

Ahh, I can completely relate to the unapproachable facial expression. People used to tell me I had "resting b**** face" all the time lol. I never get that these days, so I think it may have been a postural reflection of an austere environment; I always felt oppressed in school.

I think your concern with others' perception of you while speaking to them may be the issue or at least part of it. I used to have pretty crippling social anxiety, which often made me self conscious in social settings. Self consciousness involves a drawing of ones attention inwards—your attention becomes fixed on your thoughts, your appearance, the things you've been saying, basically on you instead of the person with whom you're conversing, which makes it impossible to connect with people.

In the depression study I posted, the putative function of glutamate was to keep ones attention on the depressive thoughts instead of the outer world, so again GABA agonists might be helpful (I bet if you got drunk and took some ketamine you would be fine lol). However, I think it's important to notice when you become more focused on your thoughts, and try to draw your attention outward by focusing on the other person. When you do this your consciousness expands outwards and self consciousness dissolves. You're no longer thinking about what to say. Rather, thinking and speaking become a singular process, and conversation becomes more like what? Like a reflex. This is why I keep mentioning Anokhin. And If you think back to good conversations you've had, you'll know this is true. Ray has written about this with regard to active perception as a process that integrates "remembering" with seeing:

A Holistic Physiology of Memory

"When we talk about perspectives, we aren't making a distinction between perceiving and remembering."

"Since perception is an active process, it is necessary to consider sensory output, or how consciousness "goes out." This is not mere muscular orientation, and it involves many distinguishable levels: thresholds are adjusted, patterns are sensitized, and the whole perceived world-space is finely adjusted to the flow of perceptions...

...Once we recognize this active perceptual model, we commit ourselves to Anokhin's ""completion of the reflex arc,"" the feedback principle in which motor activity is inseparable from "image," "sense," intention, and consciousness."

Jean Piaget, the famous developmental psychologist, believed thought originates in the organs/bodily structures involved in sense-perception, which agrees with this concept of thought delocalization. Kids think with their mouths:

Origins of Intelligence in Children

"...it is primarily preverbal sensorimotor activity that is responsible for the construction of a series of perceptual schemata the importance of which in the subsequent structuring of thought cannot, without oversimplification, be denied. Thus the perceptual constants of form and size are connected with the sensorimotor construction of the permanent object...

...without preliminary schemata, nascent thought would be reduced to mere verbalism, which would make one suspicious of many of the acts mentioned by Wallon in his latest work. But it is precisely on the concrete plane of action that infancy makes its intelligence most manifest until the age of seven or eight, when coordinated actions are converted into operations, admitting of the logical construction of verbal thought and its application to a coherent structure."

Ray said something similar in Mind & Tissue about how experience is integrated into an organism's structure, enabling them to form mental analogues of sensations experienced in the real world and thus new perceptions of reality. He thought this was a resonance phenomenon involving the construction of holographic representations of real world sensations in the brain through electronic transitions corresponding with the real object/observed phenomenon.

 

[faust jaeger]

Ahh, I can completely relate to the unapproachable facial expression. People used to tell me I had "resting b**** face" all the time lol. I never get that these days, so I think it may have been a postural reflection of an austere environment; I always felt oppressed in school.

I think your concern with others' perception of you while speaking to them may be the issue or at least part of it. I used to have pretty crippling social anxiety, which often made me self conscious in social settings. Self consciousness involves a drawing of ones attention inwards—your attention becomes fixed on your thoughts, your appearance, the things you've been saying, basically on you instead of the person with whom you're conversing, which makes it impossible to connect with people.

In the depression study I posted, the putative function of glutamate was to keep ones attention on the depressive thoughts instead of the outer world, so again GABA agonists might be helpful (I bet if you got drunk and took some ketamine you would be fine lol). However, I think it's important to notice when you become more focused on your thoughts, and try to draw your attention outward by focusing on the other person. When you do this your consciousness expands outwards and self consciousness dissolves. You're no longer thinking about what to say. Rather, thinking and speaking become a singular process, and conversation becomes more like what? Like a reflex. This is why I keep mentioning Anokhin. And If you think back to good conversations you've had, you'll know this is true. Ray has written about this with regard to active perception as a process that integrates "remembering" with seeing:

A Holistic Physiology of Memory

"When we talk about perspectives, we aren't making a distinction between perceiving and remembering."

"Since perception is an active process, it is necessary to consider sensory output, or how consciousness "goes out." This is not mere muscular orientation, and it involves many distinguishable levels: thresholds are adjusted, patterns are sensitized, and the whole perceived world-space is finely adjusted to the flow of perceptions...

...Once we recognize this active perceptual model, we commit ourselves to Anokhin's ""completion of the reflex arc,"" the feedback principle in which motor activity is inseparable from "image," "sense," intention, and consciousness."

Jean Piaget, the famous developmental psychologist, believed thought originates in the organs/bodily structures involved in sense-perception, which agrees with this concept of thought delocalization. Kids think with their mouths:

Origins of Intelligence in Children

"...it is primarily preverbal sensorimotor activity that is responsible for the construction of a series of perceptual schemata the importance of which in the subsequent structuring of thought cannot, without oversimplification, be denied. Thus the perceptual constants of form and size are connected with the sensorimotor construction of the permanent object...

...without preliminary schemata, nascent thought would be reduced to mere verbalism, which would make one suspicious of many of the acts mentioned by Wallon in his latest work. But it is precisely on the concrete plane of action that infancy makes its intelligence most manifest until the age of seven or eight, when coordinated actions are converted into operations, admitting of the logical construction of verbal thought and its application to a coherent structure."

Ray said something similar in Mind & Tissue about how experience is integrated into an organism's structure, enabling them to form mental analogues of sensations experienced in the real world and thus new perceptions of reality. He thought this was a resonance phenomenon involving the construction of holographic representations of real world sensations in the brain through electronic transitions corresponding with the real object/observed phenomenon.

Thank you, you are very knowledgeable. I actually have been drunk and high a few times but it only affected me physically. I never felt anything more than a decreased sense of balance. But I have yet to try any GABA agonists.

Ahh, I can completely relate to the unapproachable facial expression. People used to tell me I had "resting b**** face" all the time lol. I never get that these days, so I think it may have been a postural reflection of an austere environment; I always felt oppressed in school.

I think your concern with others' perception of you while speaking to them may be the issue or at least part of it. I used to have pretty crippling social anxiety, which often made me self conscious in social settings. Self consciousness involves a drawing of ones attention inwards—your attention becomes fixed on your thoughts, your appearance, the things you've been saying, basically on you instead of the person with whom you're conversing, which makes it impossible to connect with people.

In the depression study I posted, the putative function of glutamate was to keep ones attention on the depressive thoughts instead of the outer world, so again GABA agonists might be helpful (I bet if you got drunk and took some ketamine you would be fine lol). However, I think it's important to notice when you become more focused on your thoughts, and try to draw your attention outward by focusing on the other person. When you do this your consciousness expands outwards and self consciousness dissolves. You're no longer thinking about what to say. Rather, thinking and speaking become a singular process, and conversation becomes more like what? Like a reflex. This is why I keep mentioning Anokhin. And If you think back to good conversations you've had, you'll know this is true. Ray has written about this with regard to active perception as a process that integrates "remembering" with seeing:

A Holistic Physiology of Memory

"When we talk about perspectives, we aren't making a distinction between perceiving and remembering."

"Since perception is an active process, it is necessary to consider sensory output, or how consciousness "goes out." This is not mere muscular orientation, and it involves many distinguishable levels: thresholds are adjusted, patterns are sensitized, and the whole perceived world-space is finely adjusted to the flow of perceptions...

...Once we recognize this active perceptual model, we commit ourselves to Anokhin's ""completion of the reflex arc,"" the feedback principle in which motor activity is inseparable from "image," "sense," intention, and consciousness."

Jean Piaget, the famous developmental psychologist, believed thought originates in the organs/bodily structures involved in sense-perception, which agrees with this concept of thought delocalization. Kids think with their mouths:

Origins of Intelligence in Children

"...it is primarily preverbal sensorimotor activity that is responsible for the construction of a series of perceptual schemata the importance of which in the subsequent structuring of thought cannot, without oversimplification, be denied. Thus the perceptual constants of form and size are connected with the sensorimotor construction of the permanent object...

...without preliminary schemata, nascent thought would be reduced to mere verbalism, which would make one suspicious of many of the acts mentioned by Wallon in his latest work. But it is precisely on the concrete plane of action that infancy makes its intelligence most manifest until the age of seven or eight, when coordinated actions are converted into operations, admitting of the logical construction of verbal thought and its application to a coherent structure."

Ray said something similar in Mind & Tissue about how experience is integrated into an organism's structure, enabling them to form mental analogues of sensations experienced in the real world and thus new perceptions of reality. He thought this was a resonance phenomenon involving the construction of holographic representations of real world sensations in the brain through electronic transitions corresponding with the real object/observed phenomenon.

 

[sphenoid]

I do think Socialization takes a lot of Energy, but I also do I think one huge problem being around people, is that people in a Lower Energy state steal your energy even if you guys don't talk or conscious interaction with each other, for someone with a high metabolism, it is difficult to maintain that state when everyone around you is a high-serotonin zombie looking to drain energy from healthier organisms

Socializing with other healthy people is fun and energizing. Being around others who are unhealthy is draining and makes me feel worse every single time. I think it has to do with some equalization of charge. If you are high metabolism you will naturally be drained by people with low metabolisms. At the same time they will be uplifted by yours. I've noticed that the healthier I've become more people want me around, likely for this reason. Unfortunately for them I don't spend time around metabolically sick people anymore. It's not just the people but its the environments as well. Lots of EMF, artificial lighting, artificial scents, and other low metabolic people.

 

[AllThingsPeat]

Thank you, you are very knowledgeable. I actually have been drunk and high a few times but it only affected me physically. I never felt anything more than a decreased sense of balance. But I have yet to try any GABA agonists.

Chronic weed use can increase serotonin signaling in the brain, so I avoid it these days. I used to smoke every day in high school, and I think the sedating effects helped me tune out a lot of the nonsense they were teaching in my classes, but it definitely made my anxiety a lot worse:

Marijuana May Cause Psychosis/schizophrenia By Increasing Serotonin Signaling

I know the topic of weed is controversial but by now the link between heavy and chronic marijuana use and the risk of psychotic conditions like schizophrenia has been well established. Peat mentioned a few times briefly that cannabis has anti-androgenic effects and should not be used chronically but up until now the mechanism of weed causing psychosis was not officially known. This study below shows that the active cannabis ingredient THC increases expression of the psychedelic receptor 5-HT2A, which is responsible for the sensory overload and auditory hallucinations often reported by people with psychosis.

Chronic cannabis promotes pro-hallucinogenic signaling of 5-HT2A receptors through Akt/mTOR pathway
The molecular mechanism linking cannabis consumption to the development of schizophrenia is identified for the first time - Biotech Spain

Pregnenolone can mitigate some of the side effects by antagonizing the CB1 receptor. But considering that the endocannabinoids 2-arachidonoylgylcerol, anandamide, and oleamide are poly- and monounsaturated lipid metabolites, I think the anti-inflammatory effects of CBD in the brain are largely an adaptation to protect against PUFA consumption. 2-AG & anandamide are both arachidonic acid metabolites, which further supports this hypothesis.

When I started Peating, I remember taking theanine and magnesium bicarbonate water had a profoundly relaxing effect that made it easier to socialize. Both are potent GABA agonists, and Georgi has posted a lot of research about theanine:

Theanine Completely Abolishes The Cortisol Response To Stress In Humans

As I mentioned in my recent post on glycine lowering cortisol, I have suspected for a long time that inhibitory amino acids that act as GABA agonists will lower cortisol levels. The reason for this suspicion is that GABA agonist pharma drugs are used for treating the high cortisol of people with Cushing syndrome/disease. I posted an animal study some time ago showing that a hefty dose of theanine (1g+) lowered cortisol in animals. Now, this human study replicated the results and the even better news is that the dose is quite "low" compared to the animal study. The human dose used in this study was only 200mg and the effects were quite long lived as the cortisol lowering did not kick in until 3 hours after the amino acid was administered.

These could be good options if you're not comfortable taking hormones, though I think progesterone & allopregnanolone are very safe, the former maybe requiring some DHEA for males depending on the dose.

 

[AllThingsPeat]

Chronic weed use can increase serotonin signaling in the brain, so I avoid it these days. I used to smoke every day in high school, and I think the sedating effects helped me tune out a lot of the nonsense they were teaching in my classes, but it definitely made my anxiety a lot worse:

Looking back on it, I'm certain this played a role. People complain about how weed impairs memory. But in a stressful, authoritarian environment why would you want to remember? You don't need to remember. That's one of the points Ray was making in the memory article I posted.

We need wholeness. And in Anokhin's model of function systems, rote learning/memorizing information is to brain tissue as eccentric exercise is to muscle tissue—BRAIN DAMAGEEEE

 

[canadianboymike]

Amen. Energy vampires.

Colin Robinson

 

[sweetpeat]

Colin Robinson

I had the same thought!

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Dk1YGQjBo8

 

[nomoreketones]

I have more than enough energy to work everyday, train everyday, and read hours everyday but for some reason socializing just drains me within minutes to the point of yawning and feeling light headed. I have a hard time speaking with any passion no matter how I feel about what I am saying and it just does not make any sense to me. My brain and body can do so much but really any form of conversation/dealing with people feels like a marathon. I have become light headed the past couple days a few times in public but not at the gym or my house. Is social energy a final hurdle in being prometabolic?

One possible explanation could come from polyvagal theory. If your amygdala in your brain perceives a threat you could be experiencing a "freeze" response rather than a fight/flight response that most people experience. If your dorsal vagal pathway gets activated I suppose that could drain all your energy away quickly and make you feel light headed.

I found this online:

Shutdown, or freeze-or-faint, occurs through the dorsal branch of the vagus nerve. This reaction can feel like the fatigued muscles and lightheadedness of a bad flu. When the dorsal vagal nerve shuts down the body, it can move us into immobility or dissociation.

 

[Dapose]

I had the same thought!

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Dk1YGQjBo8

Best show on tell a vision!!
I find this whole thread to be sucking my life force energy.

 

[canadianboymike]

Best show on tell a vision!!
I find this whole thread to be sucking my life force energy.

Whoa…you blew my mind with the “tell a vision” comment

 

[Dapose]

Whoa…you blew my mind with the “tell a vision” comment

Programs, on tell a vision, entertain “inter hold” you.