1:47 DOPAMINE. People say that dopamine is pleasure. That's a lie. It's way completely false. Dopamine dysregulation is the cause of Parkinson's. It has nothing to do with pleasure. So Dopamine is misunderstood. Dopamine is the signal that something is worth moving toward. So when dopamine is healthy, when I make some effort, it feels meaningful. If I make some progress in my life, it feels real. And the actions that I'm taking towards a goal or whatever, feel really obvious. If Dopamine is low in the brain, shit feels pointless, a goal or whatever feel really obvious. If Dopamine is low in the brain, shit feels pointless. Planning replaces action. I'm going to do all these journals and one-year plans, little white boards. The word "tomorrow" becomes kind of a lifestyle for us.
2:31 SEROTONIN. The second neurotransmitter is serotonin.
Cholesterol and saturated fats make up more than 50% of your cell membranes.
— Sama Hoole (@SamaHoole) August 18, 2024
Cholesterol is an important antioxidant, enhances serotonin, maintains gut integrity, and is the precursor to many major hormones.
Why would you want to lower something that's so crucial to life?
And the 3 words that I want you just to think about with Serotonin is control, stability, and restraint. Serotonin is not happiness. I want you to think of Serotonin as impulse control. It's the chemical that lets you pause instead of just reacting to something. It lets you delay gratification. It lets you stick with something when it gets uncomfortable. So when your serotonin is low, it looks like emotional volatility. You have more anxiety. You get pissed off more easily. It's the "I know exactly what I should do, but I can't make myself do it."
3:10 NOREPINEPHRINE. The 3rd chemical is norepinephrine. Norepinephrine. And the three words I want you to associate with this are readiness, energy, and backbone. This is the one that people confuse with stress. But if you look at norepinephrine, it's regulated intensity. Healthy levels of norepinephrine feel like an alert sense of calm, like you're more resilient to stress and like a readiness to act if something happens. Low norepinephrine is brain fog, avoidance, learned helplessness, fatigue that sleep won't fix. And if your norepinephrine is too high, we have anxiety, and panic and burnout, and definitely, definitely going to get some insomnia there.
Let me kill one more myth here, and this is a big one I had written down. Vitamin and mineral deficiencies don't just happen to malnourished kids in Somalia. They happen to people that are stressed, that live a busy life, that are disciplined, people who push through stuff, people who skip meals, people who sleep like shit, people who live on a whole lot of caffeine, adrenaline. I want you to write this one thing down: Stress burns nutrients. And if I had [fewer] nutrients, I have inflammation. And inflammation blocks the absorption even further, and then sleep deprivation wrecks our receptor sensitivity, the receptors that we need to absorb all this good stuff. So you can eat the most perfect diet ever and still be super depleted.
