Dopamine Part 1 - How Does Dopamine Affect Us?

Brain power is the fire that keeps your mind alive, awake, alert, and aware. However, when your brain is not producing enough dopamine, brainpower diminishes and you spiral down into a low-energy state. Without the brainpower that dopamine provides, you’ll notice that your body begins to slow down in every imaginable way. At first, you might feel fatigue, look pale, or even experience light- headedness. Then more complicated symptoms arrive, including a decreased libido, sexual dysfunction, weight gain, and difficulty performing the most routine tasks. You may also experience a decreased level of energy for physical activity or even self-destructive thoughts. Feeling tired all day is often too much to bear. Fatigue is a serious medical problem and a huge age accelerator. We seem to know this inherently because when we feel tired, we tend to respond; to compensate for a loss of energy, we unknowingly find ourselves self-medicating with food. Your brain and body begin to crave the energy they lack, and you become attracted to foods that will offer a similar energy rush, namely sugary foods, simple carbohydrates, and caffeine. Before you know it, you’ve gained weight and are literally addicted to these junk foods; without them, you will feel the symptoms of withdrawal. And each time you turn to them, you’ll need larger quantities to keep your energy and dopamine levels high.

Fatigue

The fact is a simple one: as you age, you will feel tired. Your dopamine production slows, your metabolism decreases, and you lose energy. Feeding your energy need with food only slows you down more. When fatigue is combined with illness and general aging, you have a recipe for disaster. The good news is that your energy can be restored so you won’t feel as tired.

Low Dopamine Levels

Low dopamine levels affect every pause in your body. This is one of the most powerful age accelerators, sending a code to the rest of the systems in your body that it’s time to stop functioning. Lack of dopamine can cause a cascade of poor health in every part of your body. The following pauses may be triggered by conditions that result from a dopamine deficiency:

Cardiopause:

The aging heart affects the rhythm of your heart by disrupting its electrical signals. The weight gain and fatigue that result because of a lack of dopamine raises your blood pressure, causing strain on the heart as it has to work harder than it used to. What’s more, poor food choices because of this lack of dopamine can lead to fatigue, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure, further affecting the vascular system by clogging blood vessels all over your body, leading to plaque and blockages, and stroke.

Immunopause:

The immune system is like the sanitation engineers of the body, going around and cleaning up the garbage that makes you sick. When it’s compromised by excess weight caused by a lack of dopamine, it loses the ability to do this job properly. This is where all the diseases start: sinusitis, arthritis, dermatitis, to name a few. The excess fat interferes with the immune system’s ability to fight viruses and bacteria and to recognize and regulate our own cell overgrowth. Our bodies are constantly making precancerous cells that we have to control as we try to grow and repair. Obesity also accelerates every form of cancer in every organ, be it your brain, bladder, prostate, ovaries, colon, lungs, or thyroid.

Menopause:

A lack of dopamine might actually accelerate the onset of menopause so that heavier women may begin menopause earlier. Remember, hormonal loss is a major age accelerator, so early menopause would begin a second cascade of spiraling health as well as the more recognizable symptoms and conditions. For example, you may experience either hair loss or increased hair growth, often in unsightly spots, particularly the face. Excessive weight gain, fatigue, disturbed sleep cycles, depression, anxiety, and addiction can each cause a loss of sexual interest and feelings of low self-worth. All this is a result of a dopamine deficiency. Early menopause may also occur in women who are too thin.

Andropause:

For men, obesity resulting from a lack of dopamine can make detecting prostate cancer more difficult and results in a faster loss of genital size, sexual dysfunctions of all types, and loss of libido.

Osteopause:

Fat seeps into your bones during the development of osteoporosis, replacing normal bone. As a result of obesity, your bone structure thickens, making it all the more difficult to lose weight. Your skeletal structure was not meant to hold excess weight, and without a proper level of dopamine, you’ll feel the pain this burden causes on your back, knees, and hips, accelerating arthritis.

Dermatopause:

An increased size literally stretches your skin, damaging its texture. As anyone who has gained and lost weight knows, stretch marks are a constant reminder of your once larger size. Couple obesity with smoking, and dry skin and even psoriasis often show the world that your dopamine voltage is off.

Go to Next Dopamine Part 2 

Posted in: Disorders,Health Conditions,Science