Neurotransmitter Balancing – – How to Get More Fun and Improve Your Working Productivity
Neurotransmitter Balancing – – How to Get More Fun and Improve Your Working Productivity
Neurotransmitter Balancing
Do you know that the best selling grocery items such as soft drinks, cigarettes, alcohol and coffee are actually mood modifiers? But why do we need them so often? Is there any serious problem with our moods? Or is it too easy to get the mood you want over-the-counter? Or maybe both?
Since ancient times, humans figured out how to make themselves happy when they tried opium for the first time. And it turned out to be too easy: just take it and you will get all of the happiness in the world. But very soon they realized that if they continued to do it, the human race would vanish. This is why they prohibited opium almost everywhere in the world. But lack of opium meant lack of artificial happiness. So they had to look for other ways to get better moods. People were desperate because there was no solution in sight. The solution came unexpectedly.
1951, Seaview Hospital on Staten Island, New York US. Two doctors Irving Selikoff and Edward Robitzek are starting a new clinical trial. It is all about treatment of tuberculosis and it has nothing to do with mood. But when they started the new drug from Hoffman — LaRoche called isoniazid, they noticed something nobody was expected to see and what puzzled all the doctors in the world: patients felt much better not only because their infection became under control, but because of general stimulation. Even though nobody could explain it, in 1952 the psychiatrist from Cincinnati Dr. Max Lurie started giving isoniazid to his mentally ill patients. The treatment was so successful that next year he and Harry Salzer were happy to announce that isoniazid helped about two thirds of their depressed patients. That’s when the term “antidepressant” was invented to describe the action of the isoniazid. After that they went forward pretty fast. In the in the 1987 FDA approved the first antidepressant blockbuster drug, that even now remains to be one of the most often prescribing drugs — Prozac. It generated .92B in revenue from 1996-2000 1 and about .4B in revenue from Prozac from 2002-2005 2. Its name is in the books and movies — “Prozac nation” for example. Prozac brand is as well known as Coca Cola.
But what does this miracle drug do?
It brings up the amount of Neurotransmitter Serotonin in the brain. But how does it change our moods?
1921, Germany. Pharmacologist Otto Loewi endorses the fact, that brain nerve cells, as well as other nerve cells, are communicating with each other not by electric current, but by chemicals called Neurotransmitters. So by changing the concentration of a certain neurotransmitter, responsible for your mood, they can make you happy. That is what Serotonin does.
But is it only for sick people? What about people like you and me? What about big shots?
November 15, 1995, White House Washington DC. The graying but still very handsome president of the United States is standing in the Oval Office. He is not alone. But he is not with a member of his cabinet or staff, foreign ambassador or CIA officer. In front of him is a young brunette with wide-open eyes and gorgeous curves, that cannot be conceived by her dress, in compromising position. What was he thinking about at that moment? Was he thinking about us, American citizens? Was his thinking about the economy? Or his wife? Maybe he was thinking about the danger he put himself by having a relationship with this woman that can lead to disaster? We will never know. But my guess is: he was thinking about this woman, who was just in front of him and nothing else. What was the reason for him to forget everything in the world except this woman? Was it her gorgeous body? Hard to believe, because the president had beautiful women at his disposal. Jennifer Flowers for example. Have you ever seen her? If you had, you would never forget her. Or maybe it was something else that he didn’t have himself and what he desperately needed? Could it be a neurotransmitter imbalance, that he tried to correct?
Let’s try to recreate the way his brain and that woman’s brain where working, using public beta and common sense. Would it be reasonable to say that the president was a highly motivated and hard-working person, who could concentrate on the main task to achieve his goals? I would say so. What are the neurotransmitters that are responsible for those features?
The Dopamine neurotransmitter is the one that is responsible for motivation, enthusiasm, energy, power and implementation of thoughts. Dopamine type personality is usually dominant, social, highly motivated, and future oriented. They are usually high rank executives. What about people who do not have enough dopamine? They’re usually suffering from fatigue, depression, obesity, editions inability to concentrate because of lack of motivation. They usually need coffee to be able to work. They
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