Hierarchy & Health
Humans (and most animals) organize themselves in hierarchies, based on brute-force (lower animals) & Competence-corporation (higher animals). Where the higher status individuals often are the healthiest, strongest and have greater options in terms of mate selection, opportunities, superior food, and standard of living. While lower-status (entirely bottom of hierarchy) are chronically depressed and anxious, to such an extent that if a disease spreads through a hierarchy it is the lower-status that die first. It is evident that brain has developed a structure & mechanism to dictate our position in status hierarchy, that also somehow influences your well-being.
This structure modulates a large portion of your perception of reality, Jordan Peterson outlines this thoroughly in his book 12 Rules for life. He points
A part of brain is a master control system, modulating our perceptions, values, emotions, thoughts and actions. It powerfully affects every aspect of our Being, conscious and unconscious alike. This is why, when we are defeated Our posture droops. We face the ground. We feel threatened, hurt, anxious and weak. If things do not improve, we become chronically depressed. Under such conditions, we can’t easily put up the kind of fight that life demands, and we become easy targets for harder-shelled bullies.”
At the lower-levels you have zero-no dating options, your food is shit. You are more prone to addiction & criminal behavior. An environment open to temptation leaves a man with lot of options to end up miserable. At the higher standards, you are subject to social criticism so you must behave. While, at lower standards everybody is just as miserable. A person will smoke a joint or two at the highest standard and leave it at that, but at the lower standard he has incentive & social proof to continue such behavior, needless to mention the minor dopamine hits he gets relieve the tension for short while & but beginning the endless loop of addiction.
How does serotonin effects the mind
Serotonin is neurochemical that animals secrete in order to keep their tabs on their position in the dominance hierarchy. Interestingly, research has found that humans that are bottom of the hierarchy secrete lower levels of serotonin than their fair counterpart. Serotonin is a mood stabilizer it regulates confidence, anxiety & calmness. People higher in serotonin are generally calm, happier & more focused. A person with higher serotonin will see a ‘risk’ as an ‘opportunity’ while the same person lower levels of serotonin will perceive the same risk as imminent ‘danger.’
Lower levels of serotonin correlate with depression, anxiety, stress and frustration. A person at the bottom of hierarchy, perceives any event to be threateningly dangerous, because one wrong move can spiral into a negative feedback resulting in certain death. This anxiety is called death anxiety. Low serotonin also marks the heightened propensity for illness and death. Additionally, the status mechanism in your brain restricts or promotes serotonin availability on the basis of you are treated. Studies found that higher status animals had higher levels of serotonin, and vice versa.
Natural ways to increase serotonin
Correct your posture. Back straight. Chess out. Shoulders back.
Exercise, not only elevates serotonin levels but it also helps in raising endorphin levels
Breathing - Stress often overwhelms the brain & shuts down all the autonomous stress-relieving functions, but the body & mind are interconnected. Deep & slow breaths will make you lower your heartbeats
Learn to fight - A lot problems at the lower-end of hierarchy stem from being unable to deal with stress, learning to fight will give you the extra needed defense mechanism.
Warm water baths & Aswagnadha also relieve stress
The testosterone crisis
Your father had more testosterone than you at your age, and your grandfather had more than your father. There seems to be an ongoing war on Testosterone, the society seems to be hell-bent on reducing testosterone levels with the help of estrogenic foods, condemning physical activity, and over-supply of porn.
Additionally, Normal testosterone levels are derived from group consensus and the standards have been lowering for two decades. For example - The normal testosterone range in India around 2007 was 600-1000 ng-dl while in 2022 it is around 260-800 ng-dl. Any physician in 2007 would have recommended you TRT or some other ways to increase testosterone. Now, the physician would disregard your lowered testosterone under guise being “normal”
What can you do about it rather than taking matters in your own hands? Look after your well-being
Endorphins
Endorphin is a neurotransmitter that acts as a natural pain reliever of the body. The way it works is by attaching itself to opioid receptors of the body, it can be said that endorphins are the body’s natural pain relivers and pleasure promotors. If you ever experienced a sense of pleasure after an intense exercise or a workout session it was due to an endorphin rush. Optimum levels of endorphin are also indirectly linked with higher-energy.
These chemicals act as antidepressants in your brain, also are potent motivators, building resilience to stress & propensity towards action.
Lower levels to endorphins lead to variety of problems:
Prone to anxiety & depression
Impulsive behavior
Negative health effects (weakened immune system)
Lowered levels of self-esteem
While on the flip-side endorphins promote;
longevity
Pain-relievers & promote pleasure
Better self-esteem (positive addition to halo effect)
Supports increase in cognition
Lower levels of stress & anxiety
Might promote positive risk-taking behavior
Natural ways to increase endorphins
Exercise - Probably the easiest & greatest way to increase endorphins is to exercise. Additionally, it helps with serotonin & adds to the halo-effect. 4-5 sessions per week of moderate intensity for an hour
Music - The kind of music you listen as a profound impact on the mind, some music can make you depressive, while some can make you energetic. 432Hz music comes around the range of feel good music.
Socialize - If you are chronically anxious & depressed isolating yourself should be the last thing you should do, try to socialize more
Sex - Sex releases a variety of neurotransmitters/modulators such as endorphin, oxytocin, dopamine, etc.
Fixing habits with dopamine
What is dopamine?
Dopamine is a neuromodulator, that is, it works on variety of neurons & influencing their receptivity. Dopamine determines the drive, motivation, time-perceptivity, and desire to complete a task. Dopamine influences you to act, that is chase pleasure while avoid pain. But, the level of dopamine secretion or influence varies from individual to individual, someone may be more motivated to chase a certain thing while other may not.
Think of any pleasurable activity - eating good food, winning at something, etc. It causes your dopamine level to surge, the brain uses these signals to reinforce behaviors that promote survival & seek pleasure. Let’s say you are excited about a certain activity or you have planned a vacation, as you get closure to the due date the dopamine increases, plateaus and once you engage in that activity it slows surges down. If you continue certain activity over time, you need more & more dopamine to get excited, dopamine loves novelty once it’s diminished it needs new novel experiences to surge up again. This is why constant dopamine regulation is necessary.
Dopamine works on a pain-pleasure basis, whenever you engage in activity over long time, pain increases & pleasure drops, this is the science behind addiction. It makes you chase more & more of it to minimize the pain experienced
The answer is to modulate between dopamine
There’s counter-mechanism for dopamine, every bit of dopamine released it is followed by a fall of motivation due to release of prolactin - it is the reason for lethargy & a serious energy drain.
On modulating
Dr. Andrew Huberman Suggests:
Intermittent schedules can keep you motivated and engaged: make sure dopamine peaks don’t occur too often and vary how much dopamine you experience with that activity
Whatever activities you’d like to continue over time, pay attention to how much dopamine you get and modulate accordingly –
Examples of how to modulate dopamine: maybe do something alone that you usually would do in a group so it’s a different experience, don’t listen to music when exercising if it’s part of why you enjoy exercise, change the colors on your phone so it’s less pleasurable, etc.
Dopamine controls the perception of time: when we engage in activity for the sole purpose of reward, time will feel longer because we are not releasing dopamine during the effort – only the reward
Access reward from the process and associate dopamine release from friction and challenge you are in during effort instead of only once goal is achieved – convince yourself the effort part is the good part (e.g., intermittent fasting)
Disclaimer: None of this is to be deemed medical advice of any kind. This only meant for *educational* purpose