In part 1 of this series, I wrote about the role of serotonin in mood. Now it's time to talk about another neurotransmitter group that affects your mood and energy - catecholamines. One of my favorite teachers, Dr. Julia Ross, likes to call these "the cats".This group includes epinephrine, norepinephrine and dopamine. Epinephrine is produced in the adrenal gland and then changed into norepinephrine. We are all familiar with having a sudden surge of adrenaline (epinephrine) in a stressful frightening situation. We're also familiar with using caffeine every morning to replace a shortage of one or more of these catecholamines or "cats"..
Dopamine is created from noreinephrine or can be produced on its own from a natural substance called L-dopa. Tyrosine, an amino acid, is another building block for the cats. Tyrrosine also is the principal amino acid in thyroid hormone. If you have longterm stress affecting you and your adrenals, your production of epinephrine can begin to falter, leading to drops in the brain levels of catecholamines and mood symptoms. "Your cats" also help with focus and concentration.
The symptoms of low cats include depression, apathy, lack of energy, lack of motivation or interest and a general feeling of what is well-known to many, "the blahs". This is a different type of depressive feeling than caused by low serotonin. This type of feeling could also be caused by low levels of your thyroid hormones, so that should be evaluated also.
Catecholamines are made from tyrosine, or phenylalanine. Best sources of tyrosine are pork, chicken, cottage cheese, ricotta, wheat germ and wild game. It's important to start each day with some protein and not just the quick carb type foods we all like. If you start each day with caffeine it is especially important to have proteins for breakfast, as the caffeine will quickly wear off and you can then feel the effects of low catecholamines and want more coffee just to get through the day.
A pair of essential supplements to help with catecholamine production are the omega-3 essential fatty acids known as DHA and EPA found in wild-caught fish and codliver oil. Research also shows adequate levels of Vitamin D promote the production of catecholamines. All these supplements increase the conversion of tyrosine to catecholamines. SAMe also supports the production of catecholamines and could be added if the other supplements do not help enough.
Catecholamines are uplifting to our mood and energy. What if we have too many cats relative to serotonin or other neurotransmitters? Then we may feel depressed from low serotonin but somewhat wired and edgy from too many cats. It's important to balance all the neurotransmitters that affect mood. A feel ing high cats can occur with too much caffeine taken all day long but this is not the same as actually having too many of the catecholamines in play.
While serotonin can dampen the over-stimulation caused by too many cats, there is another very important neurotransmitter to help with this, which will be the subject of Part 3.
At the end of this series I will summarize the various drugs, foods and supplements that support each of these neurotransmitters.
drBob
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