Brain Chemistry Chronicles: February 2012

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Chasing the Blues Away

Some days are harder than others to chase the blues away. It's funny--I've heard that expression all my life but never before this moment really thought about it as being a real struggle. When you think about what people do to chase the blues away, it usually involves having a party, or maybe going for a trip, or watching a comedy show, or even singing the blues. People do have to work at keeping sadness at bay, and the blues are usually thought of as something that happens without warning or even sometimes without reason.

In the middle ages and the Renaissance, people thought melancholia was a condition brought on by the wrong combination of bodily fluids--too much black bile, they surmised. (In fact, the word melancholy can be translated as black [melan] bile [chole].) Hamlet was thought to be suffering from the condition. If you think about it, they weren't too far off with their theory; they just picked the wrong organ. The blues always results from an imbalance, but it's of brain chemicals. Chasing away the blues can only be done by correcting that imbalance, whether through chemicals or diet or exercise or some other activity that triggers the change.

Sometimes I have a hard time finding the right activity to fix my brain chemistry. Today I tried staying home from work, reading a mystery novel, and now writing. None of these techniques are working too well. What to do? I'm not really sure. Keep trying, I guess. Maybe I'll have lunch, see if that works.

About this blog . . .

I created this blog as a place to write about my day to day struggles with what I call bad brain chemistry. In discussing those struggles, I also share my theories about bad brain chemistry and how its effects can be mitigated.

I started this project about 20 years ago, when depression and other bad moods were making my life miserable. A man I met during that time (now my husband) convinced me that I had to change; a therapist who offered medication scared me into finding a way to change. The result was my theory of brain chemistry, which goes beyond merely labeling mood disorders as physical phenomena and finding medication to fix them. I seek to explain bad brain chemistry in a way that shows the disorder to be rational and naturally human, and dealing with it something that a human can do through rational thought.

As I go along with this blog, I'll talk more about this theory and how I think people who have this condition tend to deal with it.

You're welcome to join me!

My Theory of Bad Brain Chemistry, Part I

My theories are based on how my mind works, but I think that I'm not alone, that other people share this problem with brain chemistry that doesn't work well in the modern world. My idea is that the way my brain works was advantageous at some point in the history of humanity. People like me, hyperalert people, were useful to human society because they were extremely aware of their environment.

In a situation where people are in constant danger of being devoured by predators, or attacked by human enemies, those who are hyperalert make good scouts, good watchers, good guards. Also useful to people who must hunt for food every day in order to eat are those who are good at seeing animal prey, noticing and remembering their patterns, their behavior, their defenses, their smell. And those who know how to find edible plants or other important items such as reeds or flints or underground sources of water will also be valued by their group.

Unfortunately, in modern society (especially middle class Western society), there's less need for hyperalert people because there's less danger from predators. And there's very little need to hunt down food or water or tools in one's surroundings--we can simply go to a store to get all those things, or even better, have them brought to us.

In this situation, being hyperalert is not only no longer an advantage; it seems instead a disadvantage. In fact, it's often thought of as a disability instead of a highly valued ability. I have only to cite the disruptive effect of hyperalertness on the modern elementary classroom to make my point. What has been termed ADD--attention deficit disorder--is to me hyperalertness, a condition of the brain that is not so much an inability to pay attention, as it is an inability to stop paying attention.

And it is this condition of hyperalertness, I believe, that can lead to depression, anger and other moods that make life quite difficult for many people, including me. What was once good brain chemistry is now deemed bad and in need of fixing.