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What neurotransmitters are you missing?

WereBear

License to Weird
V.I.P Member
On this page, Julia Ross outlines:

The Four False Mood Types

Each of the four mood engines in your brain needs a different amino acid fuel. The lower your levels of amino fuel, the more False Mood symptoms you develop. The four emotion-generators in your brain are called neurotransmitters. Each one powers a different emotional zone and each has a distinctly different effect on your mood:



The Dark Cloud of Depression
If you’re high in serotonin – you’re positive, confident, flexible, and easy-going.
If you’re sinking in serotonin – you’ll tend to be negative, obsessive, worried, irritable, and sleepless.


The Blahs
If you’re high in catecholamines – you’re energized, upbeat, and alert.
If your catecholamines have crashed – you’ll sink into a flat apathetic funk.


Anxiety and Stress
If you’re high in GABA – you’re relaxed and stress-free.
If there’s a gap in your GABA – you’ll be wired, stressed, and overwhelmed.


Oversensitive Feelings
If you’re high in endorphins – you’re full of cozy feelings of comfort, pleasure, and euphoria.
If you’re near the end of your endorphins – you’ll be crying during commercials, overly sensitive to hurt, and reaching for comfort to sugar, starch, alcohol, or other drugs or behaviors.


You can replenish any deficiency in your own neurotransmitters using the amino acids as described in The Mood Cure. (book: Amazon link if needed.)
I know what you are thinking: what if I have trouble with ALL of these? Well, my friend, you are way too low on neurotransmitters.

I understand. I started getting better from some pretty serious stuff when I began making sure I had what is needed to make this all important brain fuel. Something of a hormone, something of a chemical switch, something that makes our brains work; that's our friends, the neurotransmitters.

I figured out that I was burning through my neurotransmitter tank like a nitro-ed funny car. I was under so much pressure and stress, along with the challenge of my body losing its ability to make certain vital hormones, that by 2 pm, my tank was empty.

Now, nothing would work right. Not just thinking itself, but stress handling, energy to move around, and the ability of my brain to direct all the body stuff that needs to get done to keep me alive. I couldn't digest food, sleep, or heal. Core implosion.

I started getting better when I not only started removing sources of stress (job, living situation, business plans) but also started supplying my brain with what it needed. In my case, steady protein sources with a full amino acid profile, circadian rhythm strategies to help my sleep, steady blood sugar from a low carb diet, and trampoline bouncing to reorient my body and deliver brain feedback. But I also "cut to the chase" with supplemental amino acids like niacin and neurotransmitter precursors like pregnenolone.

My particular combination might not work for you. But I am thinking some combination that works for you is out there.

I just love dealing with issues by removing the cause of the issues.
 
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This Julia Ross sure has a lot of books she's willing to sell. She's a psychotherapist, not a scientist, and her four false moods types sounds like plain old junk science.
 
This Julia Ross sure has a lot of books she's willing to sell. She's a psychotherapist, not a scientist, and her four false moods types sounds like plain old junk science.

Except... it's been working for me for years. Which is how deep a hole I got in, being undiagnosed and sick for years, with less than zero help from the scientists that are tasked with helping people like me.

If you want to wait for enough peer-reviewed papers to filter into general medical practice so you can have a doctor tell you to do this, your call. I don't have that kind of time. I have to be pro-active!

Also, you are doing yourself a disservice by reflexively dismissing information on a website that also sells books or supplements or other ways of implementing the advice. Because:

  • people are offering information freely to see if you want to delve into something complicated that needs instruction or it would help to have easy ways of implementing it
  • they offer it freely, but keeping up a website, paying bandwidth and hosting, and dealing with/preventing malicious attacks all costs money and time
  • if people offering such a helpful system do not create instructions and products, they will be bombarded with emails asking questions, wanting personal instruction, and wanting to know where they can buy things that are perhaps needed. Creating products works better for implementing their advice.
  • I am doing this very thing myself: on my cat site. Which is full of free information that helps people with their cats. I get emails asking me to write a book. I am. Problem?
If you really want to know if her advice is useful, do what I did: follow her links to scientific papers that support her theories. Act like a scientist. Or wait for other scientists to reach your level of evidence.

In the meantime, I'll be over here, getting my life back.
 
Simple answer: If you eat a healthy, balanced diet, your body will produce all the transmitters you need. You also need a healthy lifestyle, which includes reducing stress, which doesn't necessarily require changing your diet.

To the general public: Over and over again, people are warned that when someone produces a "scientific" theory outside their own education and professional practice, and also writes books to promote it, and uses a website to heavily promote sales of the books, you are in danger of being taken for a ride, and often a very expensive ride. Ross fits the junk science promoter in every possible way, including sales of "special" nutritional supplements. Supplements put out by these people will always cost far more than they are worth, more than normal supplements, and are invariably not tested for effectiveness by any licensed lab.
 
Simple answer: If you eat a healthy, balanced diet, your body will produce all the transmitters you need. You also need a healthy lifestyle, which includes reducing stress, which doesn't necessarily require changing your diet.

What is a "healthy, balanced diet"? Because once I stopped listening to the food pyramid, I got better.
 
Sorry, there's no single definition for a healthy, balanced diet. Everyone's needs are different. If you're a vegan or vegetarian, it will be different than if you're a meat eater. Looking at the food pyramid, I'd agree that it isn't very useful except in a general way. What works for me might not work for you. And what works for you might not work for most people. A good start is to eliminate highly processed foods, and cut down on meat, especially red meat. Experiment, and read as much as you can about nutrition. There's plenty of legitimate information on the web, that will keep you from falling for junk science diets, and spending money that is simply making people like Ross rich. Believe me, her web maintenance expenses are just a blip compared to her profits.
 
What works for me might not work for you.

Do things your way, and I'll do mine, eh? Fine with me.

I have found neurotransmitter supplementation to be invaluable, and medical science useless, for my particular problems. If I thought your way, I'd be in an asylum by now. Just FYI.
 
I actually didn't offer any "way," but I'm glad you found something that works for you, regardless of what I think of the source.
 
I actually didn't offer any "way," but I'm glad you found something that works for you, regardless of what I think of the source.

Thanks. And it wasn't the only source, by any means: it is simply a nice summing up of the power of neurotransmitters; and the havoc wreaked by the lack thereof.
 

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