Dopamine is a neurotransmitter generated in our brain. Dopamine consists of not more than 1 percent of the brain hormones, yet it plays a highly crucial role. It is responsible for the three key roles including cognitive skills, motor skills, and reproduction.
Dopamine is the hormone that plays the “fight or flight” role in our bodies. Other functions of dopamine include changes in our mood, changes in behavior, learning, lactation, pleasurable reward and motivation, memory, sleep, and arousal and movement of the body.
Whenever a person has a high level of dopamine, he or she will feel euphoric, energized, have a high sex drive, have poor impulse control, become more aggressive than usual, and starts facing troubles in their sleep cycle.
On the other hand, the signs of low dopamine include tiredness, unmotivated, unhappiness, loss of memory, low sex drive, messed up sleep cycle, mood swings, and even problems in concentrative.
The above mentioned are the signs to notice if the level of your dopamine is high or low, now comes the symptoms of the same which will help us understand it even better.
What are the signs of low dopamine?
Sleep Deprivation
Do you feel that every morning you are waking up all refreshed but it’s not the same for others? This happens because of the level of dopamine in your body.
Low dopamine makes you feel low on energy which makes you feel sleep deprived. Just like the morning coffee of your routine refreshes you, dopamine helps in the same way.
There are several receptors that help in maintaining the level of dopamine in our bodies. One of such receptors is the D2 receptor, which leads to weakness in our body.
Eating Saturated Food
Eating pleasurable food items like chocolate, candies, pizza, burger, noodles, and others helps you feel relaxed and calm, how? It helps in increasing your level of dopamine. Whenever our level of dopamine decreases our body craves pleasurable food. Even females crave junk food when they are undergoing periods for the same reason.
Moreover, these food items bring short-term relief only, in the long term they can cause issues and distort the functioning of the central nervous system of our body.
Obesity
Obesity can be the causal factor for lots of health diseases but one of them is reducing the level of dopamine hormone which plays a crucial role in important bodily functions, further causing major disruption.
D2 receptors are reduced here, just like what happens when there is a deprivation of sleep.
Substance abuse
Whenever a person indulges in any substance like cocaine, in the initial phase they might feel euphoric and high on energy and relieved because in the initial period such drugs help in increasing the level of dopamine.
Although that’s not how it always remains. As time goes by the brain starts to intervene and reduces the production of the dopamine hormone.
In the long term, it’s huge damage to the brain and causes major hormonal issues.
Causes of Low Dopamine Levels
Low dopamine levels can cause several mental health issues including the following-
- Major depressive disorder
- Schizophrenia
- Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
- Parkin’s disease
- Restless legs syndrome
Mental health issues like major depressive disorder and schizophrenia can lead a person to lose interest in all their day to activities and they don’t feel like doing anything. Severe cases of schizophrenia can start a person to cause hallucinations and delusions too, be it auditory, visual, or olfactory.
Parkin’s disease on the other hand is a physical issue, causing issues in our nervous system. It happens because of multiple factors, one of which is the deficit of the hormone dopamine. Parkin’s disease leads to problems in bodily movement, even restrictions in bowel movements, and further reduces the level of dopamine in the brain.
How to treat low dopamine levels?
The level of dopamine can be taken care of by doing the following-
Regular work out
Whenever you indulge in a workout, be it any kind of exercise, including any sport like cricket, football, badminton or gyming or just regular exercise, your level of dopamine gets to a good level and helps your mind calm down and feel relaxed.
There have been several condition tests on the animals to confirm the same, the results had shown that the brain releases the hormone dopamine when indulged in exercise.
Natural food items
There are several natural sources around us that help restores the level of the hormone. Avocados, bananas, and plantain are seen to help in generating the level of dopamine gradually. Spinach, eggplants, tomatoes, and even apples are known to be good sources of dopamine.
Music
Listening to music can be very helpful and make you feel emotions, there is no certain proof of how it happens but music can give you joy and calm you down in harsh situations.
Conclusion
The ways to treat dopamine may or may not be useful for you. Just know that these ways are highly psychological. Let me settle in for you, find your own ways to find your happiness and calm yourself down like yoga and meditation.
Low dopamine can cause extreme issues, so it is better to avoid any such situation for yourself. Go out there, speak up about what you feel, and stop worrying about what others feel. Most importantly, be kind, and love yourself.
