Optimizing Brain Health for Well Being, Vitality, and Incredible Physical Performance part 4
By Mike Mahler
Source: Dr. Eric Braverman's "Younger You"
Serotonin
Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that allows you to experience pleasure and self-confidence. It manages the biochemical messages leaving the brain. It creates the electricity for sight and rest and also controls cravings. Serotonin keeps the right and left hemispheres of your brain in balance. You will become depressed when this balance is compromised.
If your brain is out of sync, the left and right sides of your brain will be off balance and your brain’s ability to recharge itself is hampered. A serotonin loss creates a disconnect between the brain’s left side’s rationality and the right side’s creativity. When this occurs you can’t think clearly which affects mood and sleep.
When your serotonin levels are optimal you are excited and ready to take charge of your life. You welcome new challenges and are in a personal growth phase. When your serotonin is high, you experience a great mood during the day and restful sleep at night.
When your serotonin levels are low so is your self-confidence. You don’t feel vibrant and ready to take on life. People with low serotonin are often risk adverse and have trouble sleeping at night. When you do not feel right for too long depression inevitably follows. Anxiety and living in fear from low serotonin are major age accelerators.
In addition to requiring serotonin to feel good we need night serotonin for restoration. Serotonin helps you relax and wind down in the evening so that you can restore fully for the next day.
As we get older serotonin levels start declining and having a good mood is often the first sign. When your dopamine levels are low you have a feeling of fatigue. When your GABA levels are low you feel anxious. However, when your serotonin levels are low you do not feel much at all. As a result you will become withdrawn and depressed.
Food cravings for simple carbs and salty foods often stem from low serotonin levels. These foods may offer a quick fix but it is one that does not last. Thus a viscous cycle of more food cravings occurs in order to get your fix. Foods that are high in sugar, sodium, fat, and chemical additives are extremely addictive. The more you have the more you want. These kinds of “food” (they contain nothing healthy to sustain you and can hardly be called food) increase bodyfat rapidly, which is very hard to take off.
Increasing Serotonin Levels
1. Get more sleep
Sleep is the ultimate ant-aging protocol. Lying in bed tossing and turning does not cut it. You must get into a deep sleep (sign of deep sleep is vivid dreaming) to reap the restorative benefits of sleep. When you do not sleep in a deep state, all your fears, phobias, obsessions, compulsions, become intensified. This will make being at your best when awake very difficult to say the least. You need seven hours of deep sleep to boost serotonin levels.
You need sleep for optimal serotonin levels but the catch is your need optimal serotonin levels in order to sleep deeply.
When sleep is poor, stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline go up. This increases your blood pressure. Studies show that women are more sensitive to the deleterious effects of poor sleep. Women have an increased risk for hypertension from sleep deprivation.
The Brain needs sleep in order to reset. Poor sleep ultimately results in poor memory, slower reaction time, and poor concentration. Prolonged lack of sleep will result in irritability, anxiety, and depression.
Your immune system repairs your brain and body when you are sleeping. When you do not get enough quality sleep you are hampering this critical process.
When serotonin levels are low leptin levels will be low as well and the message that you are full takes much longer to reach the brain. If serotonin levels are really low the message may never reach the brain leaving you in a state of constant hunger no matter how much you eat. This is knows as leptin resistance.
Interestingly the amount you need to eat to feel satisfied has more to with your brain (balance in the brain) than how much you weigh. Your brain has to be nourished from food in order to send out the signal to stop eating. The wrong food choices will not nourish your brain.
When you are sleep deprived you lower the levels of leptin and increase the levels of ghrelin. One of the most effective ways to control hunger is to attain adequate sleep.
When sleep is low growth hormones levels are also compromised. GH is needed to control the ratio of muscle to fat. When you do not have enough GH, you are more likely to increase bodyfat rather than building muscle.
2. Food choices for increased Serotonin
Broccoli, pears, brown rice, oatmeal, increase serotonin and also soak up excess estrogens.
Increase the amino acid tryptophan. The body needs tryptophan from food and uses it to make serotonin. Eating foods high in tryptophan can improve your mood rapidly. Some examples of high tryptophan food include: Avocado, chocolate, rolled oats, wheat germ, organic yogurt made from raw milk, and whole raw milk.
3. Add Spices
Saffron, marjoram, peppermint, spearmint, dill, nutmeg, turmeric are all great antidepressants that boost serotonin. Nutmeg in particular was shown to be comparable to Prozac.
Cinnamon has also been shown to reduce carbohydrate cravings and increase insulin sensitivity. Have a teaspoon of three spices which each meal (including protein shakes, homemade protein bars).
4. Take Magnesium
According to Dr Carolyn Dean author of “The Magnesium Miracle” magnesium is required for the release and uptake of serotonin in the brain cells. Stress depletes magnesium rapidly. If the magnesium is not replenished then serotonin is not picked up and depression results. (400-500mg twice per day. I think the best option for magnesium supplementation is magnesium oil which also raises the hormone DHEA which is also a mood elevator and helps with stress management.)
5. Meditation and restoration exercise
Meditate daily for 30 minutes. After workouts and before bedtime are good options. (I like the holosync program) and practice forms of restorative exercise such as tai chi, yoga, chi kung. For every hard training session you have balance it with a form of restorative exercise.
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Why take transdermal magnesium oil over oral magnesium?
One very important unique component of magnesium oil is that it increases DHEA levels big time and is an overall hormone optimizer. According to Dr Carolyn Dean, author of The Magnesium Miracle “as magnesium is absorbed through the skin and underlying fatty tissues of the body it sets off many chain reactions, one of which ends in the production of DHEA.”
DHEA is a critical hormone for stress management and balancing the actions of the stress hormone cortisol. DHEA also acts as a back up reserve for testosterone production. Depleted levels of DHEA adversely affect testosterone levels.
Oral forms of magnesium do not increase DHEA levels.
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