Favorite Neurotransmitter/Peptide

[mr715]

12. Supplements, no

But some Rx/drugs. Beer will hit up your GABA receptors and context may tune up some dopamine too.

Benedryl blocks histamine and makes people sleepy and, from experience, have a blunted cognition.

Cigarettes and nicotine are fascinating to me. I consider myself a non-smoker, but I do smoke socially - 1-2 a month, say. And even at that low frequency, I crave them all the time but the physiological experience I get is nauseous regret. Yet, I want more! Brain chemistry is an amazing thing.

With supplements you have to remember that most stuff taken via oral route is going to be either degraded in digestion or then detoxified by the liver before it gets anywhere. Then, it has to also be able to get through the blood brain barrier, which ain't so easy.

You can certainly end up with more or less actual receptors as a consequence of regular exposure. Supplements are probably somewhat less likely to result in up or down regulation of receptors than Rx's or other drugs, but hey, I'm not a doctor.

My understanding is that tryptophan gets converted to 5-HTP which gets to the brain and helps build serotonin molecules. Also melatonin molecules.