Drug-Free Ways to Change Your Neurochemistry
Image courtesy of Alex Perez via Unsplash.
I know, I lured you into this post like this was something difficult to do. The truth is that your brain changes its structure, chemistry, and function every second of every day in response to your actions, thoughts, and environment.
Changing your brain chemistry really comes down to changing your behaviors. Yes there are a great many drugs available that could do the heavy lifting for you, but there is no true substitute for making the change yourself. It will last far longer, be far more resilient, and come with far fewer side effects.
Why? Drugs focus on one pathway, one chemical reaction in the body, one single hormone or neurotransmitter. In reality, chemicals are coordinated with each other in the body in an uncountable number of nuanced ways AND they each have innumerable functions in the body—they can’t be separated out into siloed, simple tasks (i.e. serotonin isn’t just for mood-boosting; it also supports blow flow and digestion).
Attempting to affect one of these chemicals alone may produce immediate and noticeable results (like the high, numb feeling of opioids, which mimic dopamine), but it fails to consider the myriad other pathways that are tied to that one chemical.
This one-track concept fits in well with the western world’s black-and-white definitions and boundaries. We love the ability to find the one root cause of a dysfunction or disorder (one chemical that’s at the wrong level, one physical joint that’s out of alignment, etc.), and treat it with the one best drug, surgery, or therapy.
In healthcare, this is called allopathy (essentially one cause, one cure medicine). While this makes for lovely teachable textbooks, standardized tests, and magazine quizzes, it doesn’t hold up to the nuances of real life. Any function of the body has multiple systems supporting its process. Each function is chemical, AND physical, AND electrical, AND mental—they all contribute to forming a complete view of that function.
Looking at hormones and neurotransmitters is looking at things from a chemical perspective, but I’ve found that it can help draw a through line between each of the other perspectives. It is only recently that we’ve had the ability to track these chemicals, see what parts of the brain light up when they’re high, what body functions happen when they are present, etc. In many cases, we only have a very vague idea of what they do and how they function.
That means that indiscriminately increasing one chemical throughout the body can and does have effects FAR removed from one isolated “cure.”
So how do we circumvent that? How do we get the desired effects without all of the unintended consequences? We work through your body’s built-in systems.
Work through your body’s built-in systems.
Neurotransmitters and hormones are chemicals used to send messages. One part of the body makes them in response to a certain stimulus in order to signal another part of the body to do something. Their “messages” rise and fall in the human body in all manner of ways that are related to other chemicals, to the time of day or month, your age, your mental state, what you ate for breakfast, if you’ve exercised, slept, had sex, eaten, or had a good bowel movement recently.
If you want the positive side effects of a chemical messenger, without all of the unintended consequences, learn how to prompt your brain to use that whole pathway more. This will help increase the levels of the targeted chemical, while also increasing the number of neurons that make it and the number of receptors that receive it—and decrease the number of enzymes that break it down. It will also fine tune all of the other chemical pathways that are affected by it.
When talking about chemical signals it’s about the change in amount, not the reference range. Let’s use serotonin as an example: If you typically have low levels of serotonin, but have a lot of receptors on each of your target cells, then your amount of circulating serotonin may be very low, but you’ll be super sensitive to a small increase in the level. The opposite is also true. If you have very few receptors for serotonin, the amount of circulating serotonin has to change significantly more to have any effect at all.
So what are the practical steps?
To help demonstrate how straightforward it can be to change your neurochemistry, let’s take serotonin as a “case study” (and know that I’ll be expanding on different chemicals soon!).
1 - Identify what it feels like when the chemical messenger is low.
Each chemical receptor will have some distinct characteristics. Take serotonin: Low serotonin levels in the brain, for example, will feel like discontent, high emotional reactivity, and thoughts of scarcity, instability, and lack of resources. Depending on the person and the situation, this can also manifest as anxiety or depression.
2 - Make sure your body has what it needs to make the chemical.
In almost all cases, these are proteins, fats, vitamins, and minerals. For our serotonin example, its production starts with the amino acid, tryptophan. Tryptophan is the foundation that your body builds serotonin (and melatonin) from. You can get this by simply eating enough protein—1 gram of protein for every 2 pounds of body weight IF you’re not recovering from something significant or exercising very heavy (in which case you could need significantly more—like 1.3 to 1.5 grams per pound).
Then to support the process of making serotonin from tryptophan you need a few other vitamins: B-6, B-9 (folate), B-12, and vitamin D.
3 - Tell your body what you want it to do with those resources.
This is the step that is almost always overlooked and the one that I spend the most time talking with my patients about. If you eat more of those things without giving your body instructions, then there’s no telling what it will choose to do with them. It needs some direction.
Keep in mind, these actions are like making a request of your body. Your body has a hierarchy of needs that will always take priority for resources like protein and vitamins. For example, if you have a major wound, or are recovering from surgery your body will prioritize that over producing feel-good hormones (like serotonin) any day.
For most hormones and neurotransmitters, these processes take about 45 days of practice to become habitual. Some, especially the cyclical sex hormones, will take longer. It will become more ingrained and easier to stick with the longer you maintain the habit (thank you, neuroplasticity).
Self-Driven Serotonin Habits
Do something that you’re good at—something that you’ve done a million times before. The aim is to do something that is so familiar to you that you feel like you could do it in your sleep and to acknowledge to yourself that you’re good at it (bonus points if you enjoy it in the process). Sing a song you’ve known the words to for years, play an instrument that you know extremely well, spend time on a familiar hobby, or play a game that you’re inherently good at especially if you know you can win.
Express pride in something that you’ve done. I recommend pride journaling, just like someone would do a gratitude journal. At the end of your day, reflect back and pick 1 to 3 things that you accomplished that day that you can feel proud of and write them down. Writing them down is actually important for the emotional impact of this action.
Make peace with something that you can’t control. The goal is to use serotonin to feel safe, even when you’re not in charge. To do that, practice a habit that opposes one of your current comfort habits. For example:
If you usually meticulously follow a recipe, practice cooking without recipes.
If you usually color inside the lines, practice free-hand drawing.
If you are usually meticulously organized, allow yourself to not file or sort things.
4 - Identify what it feels like when you’ve succeeded (when the chemical is high).
For our serotonin example, that’s a feeling of calm contentment and satisfaction—like you have all that you need, especially socially. Historically, this means secure access to food, shelter, community and resources. Now it could be knowing that you have a job with a steady paycheck. It’s that calm, secure sensation you have when you know you can get what you need. It’s worth noting that these important resources can be different things for different people and may be unrelated to formal wealth and status symbols.
5 - Troubleshoot.
If you try some of the basic behavior changes and are not seeing the results that you’re after, then begin troubleshooting. This process is different for every hormone and neurotransmitter, for every person, and for every phase of life. Sometimes they’re simple and sometimes they’re tricky. This is usually the best time to call in professional help or get very good at interpreting scientific research.
What I’m really saying here is consult with someone who knows about these things for details — maybe your friendly neighborhood dietitian or chiropractor (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). There are things you can do on your own, drug-free, to change your neurochemistry.