hormones

Are You Choosing Your Day or Is Your Monkey Brain in Control?

| johnas9000

We all have those days. You start with good intentions, maybe even drink a nootropic beverage to boost your focus. But without a clear plan in mind, you find yourself drifting towards the TV, small cleaning chores, playing video games, or scrolling through social media for hours. What happened? Your monkey brain, driven by dopamine cues and habits, took over.

The Monkey Brain and Dopamine

The monkey brain is a term often used to describe the part of our mind that seeks immediate gratification and jumps from one distraction to another. It’s heavily influenced by dopamine, the neurotransmitter responsible for pleasure and reward. When we engage in activities that are enjoyable or provide a quick hit of satisfaction, dopamine is released, reinforcing those behaviors and making us more likely to repeat them.

This is why, without a clear plan or focus, we tend to drift towards activities that are easy and instantly gratifying. Watching TV, tidying up, playing video games, or endlessly scrolling through social media are common go-to’s because they require minimal effort and provide quick dopamine rewards.

The Importance of Visualizing Your Day

To counteract the influence of the monkey brain, it’s crucial to visualize and plan your day. When you have a clear idea of what you want to accomplish, you set a direction for your energy and focus. Here’s how visualizing your day can help:

  1. Provides Structure: A visualized plan gives your day a structure, making it easier to stay on track and avoid distractions.
  2. Boosts Productivity: With a clear outline of tasks, you’re more likely to dive into meaningful work rather than defaulting to easy, habitual activities.
  3. Reduces Stress: Knowing what to expect can reduce the anxiety that comes with uncertainty, helping you to feel more in control.
  4. Increases Satisfaction: Accomplishing planned tasks provides a sense of achievement and boosts your overall satisfaction with the day.

The Drift Towards Dopamine

Even with good habits, such as daily running or regular exercise, it’s easy to fall into the dopamine trap when there’s no specific plan. For 20 years, I’ve been saying I need to find a replacement for running. Yet, without a structured goal or a clear vision of what that replacement should look like, I often find myself drifting back to less productive activities.

This isn’t unique to me. Many people mindlessly engage in activities like cleaning, arranging, or organizing when they don’t have a clear plan. Or, they might find themselves endlessly scrolling through social media feeds, seeking the instant gratification of likes, comments, and new posts. While these tasks can be satisfying and provide a quick sense of accomplishment, they often serve as distractions from more meaningful work.

Are You Choosing, or Is Your Monkey Brain Choosing?

The key question is: Are you actively choosing how to spend your day, or is your monkey brain making the choices for you? The monkey brain will always gravitate towards whatever is easy and immediately rewarding. This could be something as simple as arranging your makeup, cleaning out a closet, or scrolling through social media. These tasks, while seemingly productive, are often ways to avoid more challenging or important work.

Strategies to Take Control of Your Day

  1. Start with Visualization: Spend a few minutes each morning visualizing your day. Outline your key tasks and goals. Imagine yourself completing them successfully. This sets a mental map and prepares you to follow through.
  2. Set Clear Intentions: Write down your top priorities for the day. Keep this list visible to remind yourself of your goals and keep your monkey brain in check.
  3. Break Tasks into Small Steps: Large tasks can feel overwhelming, leading to procrastination. Break them down into smaller, manageable steps to make them less daunting.
  4. Use Time Blocks: Allocate specific time blocks for different activities. This can help you stay focused on one task at a time and reduce the temptation to drift.
  5. Limit Dopamine-Inducing Distractions: Be aware of the activities that provide quick dopamine hits, like social media, and limit them. For example, set a timer for breaks to prevent them from turning into long TV sessions or social media marathons.
  6. Reflect and Adjust: At the end of the day, reflect on what went well and where you drifted. Adjust your strategies accordingly for the next day.
  7. Establish Routines: Routines provide a framework that can keep you on track, especially when your willpower is low. Incorporate healthy habits into your daily schedule to build a foundation of productive behavior.

Conclusion

Our monkey brains are powerful and will always seek the path of least resistance and the highest dopamine reward. Without a clear plan, we’re likely to drift into easy and habitual activities, losing sight of our more meaningful goals. Social media, in particular, can be a significant distraction, pulling us away from productive tasks with its constant flow of dopamine hits.

By visualizing your day, setting clear intentions, and creating structured routines, you can take control and make conscious choices about how to spend your time. Remember, it’s about actively choosing your actions rather than letting your monkey brain dictate them. With intention and focus, you can navigate your day with purpose and productivity.

Deviant from the Norm or Pet Peeve?

| johnas9000

I dont know about you but I almost never get angry when its expected, but unexpected is another issue. How do you like it when you decide to leave late to avoid traffic and the road is completely closed and there is a three hour back up? I expect snow in the winter, but what the hell is going on today, Its late April? I guess I am just like Brad Pitt (heart throb). Or is it Larry David (angry old fart)? Or maybe I am just an anti nihilist.

The world does need order. As Brad Pitt said how can we survive when some Bozo is in the fast lane going slow? Or maybe its just survival. OK this is a big can of worms now opened can crawl in any direction. But I am OK with that, how about you? I love to “THINK” vs regurgitating the same thoughts as yesterday.

You do know that most of your thoughts, all 50,000 or 90,000, are the same as yesterday, right? So why did you even bother waking up if that was all you were going to do with today? Seriously the quality of your life is the quality of your thoughts. If your thoughts today are the same as yesterday, why did you even bother to wake up today? PS it gets worse. Not only are the thoughts the same, they are mostly negative. They actually have to be negative or you would’nt be reading this.

Sorry to repeat, but we need a basic understanding of our brain, as it relates to evolution, and being here, as a predicate to this conversation. So whether you believe in evolution, millions of years, or religion, thousands of years. You are not the first of your family line to be here.

Every one of your ancestors, maybe hundreds or thousands, needed a sweet tooth so they didnt eat poison and die, and they needed to store fat efficiently, and not waste energy ( be lazy). They also needed to worry about predators. We didnt always have guns, so you better worry all the time 24/7 about getting eaten

So we have established that you are a fat, lazy ice cream eating neurotic sitting on the couch, because you had to be. Its in your genes.

Today lets explore why you are fat, lazy, anxious and angry to boot. PS almost forgot, probably alcoholic too. Talk about getting glucose into your blood stream. Although a yo yo effect, hmm addicted anyone?

Sorry my brain is a little ADD. But so is yours. It is all wired together so every thought leads to another thought? The only difference is my brain is thinking. Your brain is jumping from one problem to another. Cant believe how much the brain actually does creative thinking when its not involved in protecting you by worrying about that animal ready to pounce on you. You do know that todays animal is not a lion, tiger or bear, its next months mortgage payment, the kid’s tuition, your boss, or if you are lucky, huge business loans, and your retirement account or lack of.

Wow what a bunch of interesting ideas to pursue. I believe I just gave myself a years worth of blogs. However lets finish this thought. As you can tell I have gotten good at not thinking of the dozens of real life challenges I could be worried, about and the expected doesnt make me angry, but I, and I am willing to bet a lot of us, get angry when people deviate from the norm or violate societal norms.

Heck Larry David’s whole persona on Curb Your Enthusiasm is based on that guy. 47 Emmy Nominations and 5 million viewers, and thats behind an HBO pay wall.

So here is my theory. Society does’nt exist without order. Seriously it is as big a threat to your life as the predator, running out of fuel (dont lose fat its the most efficient fuel) and your brain needing glucose or avoiding bitter, potentially poisons.

For me it feels like an aha moment. I know for all of you with what you think is bigger problems maybe not. I am totally vexed why I can be happy all day except for when that one asshole calls to sell me something and refuses to identify himself. I also agree with Larry David when the person on line for ice cream is trying 5 different ones. What the hell? that is a complete break down of society.

I expect murderers to murder, crooks to steal. But I dont expect District Attorneys to let them out of jail.

(the whole raison d’etre for Fox News. We might be on to something a lot bigger here. We all want society to work so we dont get killed. So when something deviates from the normal we absolutely are triggered to worry. It is existential.

Now if I can just remember that, so the next time I get a spam call selling solar and I ask three times what he is selling, just spit it out and he insists he is not selling he is offering me something great, I dont have to yell at him. Nor do I have to tell the next caller, “didnt your mother teach you manners? You are supposed to identify yourself when you call another person, or are you merely a bastard”. Hey Larry David, your protege is waiting, or is it Brad?

But seriously what do you think? I am going to start welcoming and publishing comments. We have a lot to think about. And I seriously wonder if others think or should I say feel, the same.

I think its wired into survival there must be some order and asking for 7 samples at the ice cream counter or driving slow in the fast lane will surely kill us. OK maybe not the ice cream samples. But if you have ever driven on the no speed limit autobahns in Europe, driving slow in the fast lane will kill you.

Google it. To this day people drive on the average 150 mph on the autobahn. I remember driving there when I was 17 and just wished when I got home that the asshole in the left lane here driving 49 miles an hour tried that shit in Germany and experienced the near death experience of someone coming up his butt at 150mph or more, and just maybe was able to slow down without killing him or her. Maybe they would think twice about self righteously sitting in the left lane even at 59 mph thinking they are the traffic cop of the word.

Life needs order and meaning it is not Nihilistic. In fact I prefer flow.

Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi takes on the problem of how to live a happier life. A meaningful life is one where the person spends his time in a state of optimal experience called Flow. To live a great life, all your goals must be unified in a way that produces the maximum amount of flow.

Flow doesnt happen when people deviate from the norms or sit and shit in the left lane of your life while you are trying to finally get in the flow and enjoy your life.

Killer Hormones

| johnas9000

Feel free to read into that any way you want. I am finally of the age where I am measuring my hormones and I’ve noticed certain ones declining.

Let’s put it this way  you know how difficult it is to get an insurance company to pay for anything yet mine is happily paying out thousands of dollars a month to pay for my growth hormone.  They know that if your body is not repairing itself you’re going to decline rapidly. My testosterone also declined. However the most amazing thing about it is that its not the sex drive that suffered its the mental drive.

I still always wanted sex and was ready and willing but my numbers declined and so did my mood and desire to do anything. PS after i started supplementing I ran for US Congress. There is so much that you need to know about this.

First of all if you don’t have a baseline or youthful numbers you wouldn’t even know where to begin.  For example a mans testosterone can range anywhere from 200 to 800. So as a hairy Armenian, who could part the hair on my back with a comb, before laser hair removal. My numbers were always 900. Not saying this to brag, but if I declined to 400 that would be a disaster, a decline of half and I would be depressed at the very least.  So go get a doctor to write a cpt code so you can get it tested for free.

Yet a normal white Irish guy who’s been four or 500 his whole life would be happily functioning at four or 500. So if we both went to the doctor he would say we are both normal given the 200 800 range.  So if you don’t have a test get one, because you’ll need to refer to it 20 30 or 40 years from now because your endocrinologist is going want to know what your normal was. And we’re not even getting started.

Women also have a small amount of testosterone which is responsible for their sex drive. And if men are too low in estrogen they would have heart issues so we all need a test consisting of a full sex hormone panel  including estradiol progesterone and testosterone free and total for men.  In addition to that you need to know your inhibitory and excitatory hormones meaning the ones that wake you up and the ones that keep you calm and help you fall asleep.

Obviously your thyroid  needs to be measured and you need a comprehensive blood test.  But in addition there are companies like neuroscience that will measure your inhibitory and excitatory hormones.  You may have heard of epinephrine and norepinephrine or dopamine, those are all excitatory hormones which can be measured.  And you want to make sure that chemicals like serotonin, your happy sleepy neurotransmitter is abundant at night, As well as melatonin.  There are companies like neuroscience that actually measure a number of different hormones and neurotransmitters in urine and your saliva at various times of the day and night to get an indication of whether you’re hormones are helping or hurting you.

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They then recommend TAAT or Targeted Amino Acids Therapy.  So they would give you various amino acids (high school biology amino acids make up proteins and are more or less abundant in different foods) for example you’ve all heard that turkey is abundant in tryptophan which many claim is the reason for the nap after Thanksgiving Turkey dinner.

Again apologies but impossible to not segue when explaining all of this even superficially.  But the bottom line is you can’t fight against your hormones I’ll even relate my personal experience if that helps you to understand a little better how much it can affect you.  I take testosterone as a shot once a week. Ironically what I’ve noticed is that towards the end of the week when my testosterone is low I am for a lack of a better word bitchy, but when my testosterone is high and I am strong I am much more confident and able to deal with pretty much anything. Men who take testosterone are also given an aromatase inhibitor, in simple terms if a man has too much testosterone he could convert the excess testosterone into estrogen ( voila man boobs)   As we get older we are not as efficient in utilizing testosterone. So some of our testosterone becomes dihdrotestosterone which causes male pattern baldness and some  actually converts into estrogen. So an aromatase inhibitor like anastrozole is taken to reduce the amount of estrogen slightly, Again not too much because we do need estrogen to protect our hearts. That’s why we measure everything. Women are given aromatase inhibitors to reduce the amount of estrogen in the case of estrogen positive cancers or cancerous thought to be fed by estrogen.

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So my first suggestion as always is to start with your family doctor. Anytime you’re not feeling well it could be because of a serious illness. They will probably do a CBC short for a complete blood test.  However you probably want a full hormone panel as part of that blood test. Word of caution if your doctor doesn’t right a proper CPT code your insurance will not pay for.  If your insurance doesn’t pay for it you could be looking at a $2000 bill if you’re measuring all the hormones as well.   So always check first.  If your doctor’s knowledge is less than mine you need to find a new doctor.

Now in all fairness my dear friend who’s a heart surgeon doesn’t know the difference between an amino acid and a vitamin because he never studied it. But he’s the guy you want if you need open heart surgery so everyone has their specialty. If you want to approach this problem conventionally you need to see an endocrinologist but at the very least you need to have an idea if your hormones are normal by the numbers.  Something as simple as low serotonin could cause sleep difficulties, anxiousness, weight or mood issues (Pharmassan Labs) Low cortisol in the morning could mean your thyroid is not functioning properly. However once serious issues are ruled out and the conventional doctors, including the endocrinologists have given up on you, you can actually take care of yourself with certain amino acids to assist in “waking yourself” up in the morning and helping you relax at night.  But always test first and check with your doctor for more serious issues, before you go on to your own vitamin or amino acid protocol.

Once you are in range the conventional doctors will send you home and tell you you are normal and that’s where you might want to intervene. In fact another famous New York doctor who wrote the book The Natural Hormone Solution was constantly criticized for not telling patients “exactly what to take”  It’s not a simple matter of treating to the numbers the range is too large.   That  is why I offered my personal information.   If it  helps you to understand and explain why the final exact amounts are determined by how you feel.  Even after administering a lot of tests she offers women progesterone and estrogen cream and tells them to adjust what they take depending on how they feel

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Melatonin

| johnas9000

Melatonin deserves a blog unto itself.  It  is a hormone secreted by the pineal gland. It is believed to regulate other hormones and maintains the body’s sleep wake cycle or rhythm. You produces more melatonin at night, and it drops from light. Exposure to bright lights or shift work or travel can interrupt your circadium rhythm.

Some scientists believe melatonin levels may be related to aging since the these levels drop as we age. They believe that is why  older adults have sleep problems.  Melatonin also has strong antioxidant effects. Evidence suggests that it may help strengthen the immune system.

If you are considering using melatonin supplements you should talk to your doctor first. In fact you need to look no further then something as innocuous as vitamin E. Its among the list to avoid before surgery since it would slow the clotting time.

People use melatonin for jet lag and studies suggest that for short periods of time melatonin is more effective than a placebo in reducing the time it takes to fall asleep, increasing the number of sleeping hours, and boosting daytime alertness.Heart Disease

Several studies show melatonin has cardioprotective properties, including antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects. Research also suggests that melatonin may help lower blood pressure levels and improve cholesterol profiles. More research is needed.

PS beauty sleep is a real thing. If you are not getting your sleep it will affect your appearance.  In fact another supplement based on magnolia flower is extremely popular and so helpful we call it beauty sleep.  Two of our patients told us it helped them get off Ambien ( another long story people have hurt themselves sleep walking on Ambien)

More on that and other beauty supplements here

Also in one of the most underappreciated but favorite book of mine Stopping the Clock by Klatz and Goldman it has a list of over one hundred of the top anti aging scientists in the world and what their vitamin regimens were.  I was astounded that the most common “Supplement:” was melatonin, because of their belief that of its anti aging properties.