Electric Meat Bags

We're all hormonal

Thanks, AI: “cute hedgehog riding a cute horse that looks like a cute skunk holding out a carrot dangling from the end of a stick as a reward in the style of lisa frank”

Hello, my fellow sentient creatures, I’m here to remind you we’re not just fleshy sacs of meat and bones. More accurately, we’re stardust and electricity and chemicals. And a couple of cheese cubes.

Since we’re all about microdosing our joy, I want to get a wee bit little sciencey with it and talk about our happy hormones. I promise you, this is a very short refresher on your insides. I spent countless hours watching youTube videos, listening to podcasts and reading papers way above my grade level so you don’t have to. 

Hormones are chemical messengers charged with keeping us alive. No biggie. They zip around our insides processing sensory input, and coordinating responses to ensure our survival. In fractions of a second. Faster than dial-up. Faster than a fax. Faster than a text. 

Yes, yes, hormones impact reproduction and sex drive, but that’s only a small part of the story. 

Hormones control our body’s activity. Don’t want to get out of bed? Hormones. Feel like you want to cut a bitch? That’s a hormone sending you that signal. Want to get up from your comfy chair to walk across the room to cut a small chunk of cheese? Hormones.  Love the smell of sidewalks after the rain? Yeah, there’s hormones behind that. 

Dopamine

Dopamine is kind of the captain of the team.  It’s the get-up-and-go, the motivation to not just lay around in bed all day, but to go forth in search of sustenance. 

Dopamine does not inherently make us feel good, instead it teaches us what we need to survive through a system of rewards. Dopamine is positive reinforcement for learning what allows us to survive. This feels good, I want more. 

Going back to ye olden days before our electric meat lump of a brain achieved its current level of sophistication, dopamine is what spurred us on towards survival. There were no influencers telling us to get out of bed, go to the kitchen and make something to eat. Nope, it was dopamine that urged us to scour ye olde savannah for food. Pops of colored berries signifiy nourishment, so dopamine rewards the brain with a little hit o’happy, spurring us closer and closer to the berries. Dopamine leads us to the reward, like a carrot on a stick. Once we get our prize berries, pick the bushes bare, then stuff our gobs, the dopamine relents. How do we get more of that precious dope? Find more berries.

I’m simplifying a very complex system. You’re welcome for me not throwing a bunch of chemical diagrams at you. 

Dopamine still drives our reward system, even though we’re mostly hunting for good deals at Trader Joe’s and on eBay. When our relationship with dopamine gets whack, addiction makes its way in.  I’m not just looking at you alcohol, cocaine and heroin, but you too, sugar, gambling, sex, and social media. 

Marketing and social media have tapped into this arrangement, with their own system of rewards. The most obvious are things like blue checks, likes, buy-10-get-1-free cards, and Spotify Wrapped, but spirals into  other more  insidious techniques.

Collecting is a dopamine-inducing hobby, for example, collecting ye olden butter molds.

Serotonin 

Serotonin is a busy beaver. She’s all about mood regulation, but also digestion, bone density, sleep, blood clotting, memory/learning and sex drive. That’s a lot of work for a wee thing. Most of our serotonin hangs out in our gut with a gazillion different microbes having a party. 

Low serotonin is a huge contributor to depression. You can increase your serotonin levels through sunlight, meditation, exercise, and eating foods with the amino acid tryptophan, which supports serotonin¹. 

But wait, there’s more: researchers are discovering that it’s a really big deal that most of our serotonin is a result of the diversity of our microbiome. Translation:  the more the merrier, in terms of how many different types of good bacteria are partying in our intestines. The best way to increase that guest list is by eating a diverse range of foods. 

On a different level, serotonin also plays a role in social hierarchy. Moral superiority stimulates serotonin without open conflict (which is a physical threat). Our way of imposing dominance in our tribe circa 2024 looks like yelp reviews, comments-section smackdowns, your Uncle Larry on Facebook, and some entire religious factions. 

Endorphins

Endorphins are responsible for “runner’s high.” They don’t eradicate pain, they create a sense of euphoria that masks pain. Like all of the other hormones and neurotransmitters, it evolved to promote survival. Endorphins help hide the pain of a busted shoulder while trying to outrun the dinosaur² that’s chasing you. 

Endorphins last about 20 minutes. 

If you think running sucks, you can get your endorphin rush from other forms of exercise. Or sex. Or a few minutes of solid belly laughing. Also spicy food. 

Oxytocin

Scientists used to think that oxytocin was strictly a lady thing, since a woman’s body floods with oxytocin during childbirth. As a result, the smarty pants science men didn’t think it was worth studying. Then some lab tech was like, wait, what? I think we all have it.  So the smarty pants science guys took a look.

Oxytocin is more than the cuddle and childbirth hormone. It’s a touchy-feely, hippie-dippie chemical that is stimulated through cooperation, communication, and trust, it increases emotional and cognitive empathy.  Group activities encourage the warm fuzzies: dining around a table, sharing dishes, hanging out with friends, touch, hugging, massage, sexy time, meditation, and a general vibe of not being a douche.

Oxytocin is all about group love, but the dark side is that while it allows you to feel a closer bond with your squad, it actually increases your hostility to outsiders. Can you think of any groups that applies to? 

Happy Adjacent

GABA (Gamma-aminobutyric acid)

GABA brings the chill vibe to the party, takes things down a few notches from uptempo dance tracks to Zen lounge sounds. GABA is the calm neurotransmitter that induces relaxation, reduces anxiety,  and regulates sleep. It impacts motor control, vision and body temp. It inhibits the work of other hormones. 

The Gargamel Vibe

Cortisol is the stress hormone that attempts to keep us from doing stupid things. When cortisol first dropped in OG mammals, it was a valuable threat signal. It’s triggered in a threatening situation or when expectations of reward are disappointed. It’s not just  wait, isn’t this the spot we saw lions before? we should leave, it’s also, damn, there were berries on these bushes last week and now there are none, we should look someplace else. It tells us when to stop investing in an unrewarding behavior or choice. 

Cortisol is still at work, trying to keep us safe. Only thing is, cortisol doesn’t know the difference between a charging rhino and an asshole who cuts us off in traffic. With all of our devices beeping and dinging and our Stressful Jobs™ and some troll in his mama’s basement getting all of his serotonin by writing stupid shit at us online, our cortisol is in overdrive.

A burst of cortisol takes two hours to metabolize. It’s a hard worker who doesn’t take a break, the whole time it's on high alert for more threats, real or perceived, and has an itchy trigger finger to shoot out more cortisol.

We can lower our cortisol levels with serotonin, especially through meditation.

For animals, cortisol allows them to focus on external threats. We humans are special, we have big, complicated thinking brains that create and imagine scenarios that don’t exist. 

“When you plug a survival seeking mammal brain into a human cortex that understands its long term survival process, you get a contraption that terrorizes itself.”

Loretta Graziano Breuning, PhD

Thanks for reading this. Go forth and feel like one of the smart kids. I’ll send you some cool links midweek.

1. Salmon, eggs, cheese, turkey, tofu, pineapple, nuts, oats, seeds.

2. Please don’t @ me for your serotonin surge. We all know dinosaurs and humans weren’t around at the same time because they didn’t make it on Noah’s Ark. JK. JK.