UEA INDIAN SOCIETY

I’ve explored mental health in poorer areas in India, as well as the stigmas faced in the Bollywood industry. However, it is important for us to understand the science behind our body that impacts our mental health. There are essentially two ways mental health is affected: physiologically (deficiencies of substances or faulty enzymes) or psychologically (which isn’t as well understood but can be as simple as your self-talk).

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Psychologically, depression gets even more messy as it can't be defined by this hormone or that. It involves exploring one's mind and finding out what makes them 'tick', but in the wrong ways. Psychological depression can be spontaneous in that a person's general negative thoughts spiral out of control and become dominant or as a result of physiological factors. Probably the best example is where someone gets frustrated with the physiological effects and resulting negative thoughts spiral out of control. The main problem with psychological depression is that it is unique to everyone who suffers it and can't necessarily be treated with drugs. Steps to overcoming it simply include making small positive changes to your behaviour. Such as if you catch yourself thinking negatively, step back, take a deep breath and say something supportive yourself, such as 'you can do this' It's slower and harder to deal with, but can be done.

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There are many chemicals our body produces which signify different moods and behaviours. If we have too much or too little of these chemicals, they would have adverse impacts on your mental health. One example is dopamine. It is a type of neurotransmitter that the body produces, and our nervous system uses it to send messages between nerve cells. Dopamine is produced in several areas of the brain. Dopamine plays a role in how we feel pleasure. It's a big part of our unique human ability to think and plan. It helps us to strive, focus, and find things interesting. If you have too much too much dopamine in your brain, it leads to schizophrenia, causing hallucinations. If you have too little dopamine, it can lead to depression, due to lack of motivation and desire. It also leads to tremors and muscular rigidity.

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Another example of a neurotransmitter is serotonin. Serotonin is primarily found in the enteric nervous system located in the gastrointestinal tract (the digestive system). However, it is also produced in the central nervous system, specifically in the Raphe nuclei located in the brainstem. As a neurotransmitter, serotonin sends messages between nerve cells in the brain. That makes serotonin an important molecule for influencing mental health and brain function. Serotonin is known as the happy chemical, because it appears to play an important role in regulating mood, so if you have low levels of serotonin in your brain, it will lead to depression. For example, the cells producing serotonin have faulty enzymes, thus can’t produce a sufficient amount of it, or the release mechanism for the hormone is faulty preventing it even leaving the source. This means there is less overall serotonin in the body, which can lead to depression.

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Norepinephrine is a naturally occurring chemical in the body that acts as both a stress hormone and neurotransmitter. It's released into the blood as a stress hormone when the brain perceives that a stressful event has occurred. In the brain, this is caused in part by activation of an area of the brain stem called the locus ceruleus. This nucleus is the origin of most norepinephrine pathways in the brain. Having too much norepinephrine can cause high blood pressure and anxiety. Low levels of these chemicals in the brain may make it harder to focus, causing symptoms of ADHD. Norepinephrine is sometimes given to treat hypotension (very low blood pressure), because too little of this neurotransmitter decreases your blood pressure. Also, low levels of norepinephrine increase depression as a knock on effect of its other effects. For example, lower blood pressure causes lethargy. If the lethargy persists over a period of time, this physiological cause can lead to the psychological form of depression where one struggles to come to terms with their inability to function.

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The amount of chemicals in your brains should stay in an equilibrium (a balanced state). If not, it can cause a chemical imbalance. This occurs when there is too much or too little of a chemical in your body. The most common evidence used to support the chemical imbalance theory is the effectiveness of antidepressant medications. These medications work by increasing the amounts of serotonin and other neurotransmitters in the brain. However, just because a person’s mood can be elevated with drugs that increase brain chemicals doesn’t mean that their symptoms were caused by a deficiency in that chemical in the first place. It’s also possible that low serotonin levels are just another symptom of depression, not the cause. Many people with depression don’t get better after being treated with these types of medications, but they can be a step in the right direction to deal with the psychological aspect of depression. With a lot of these neurotransmitters, they hold more than one function, so where it causes negative feelings, it will also cause negative physical effects. It is also important to understand that depression is a messy and complex thing, and it is not often the cause is simply a lack of a certain hormone. It is a mess of a lot of different factors spanning psychological to physiological.

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For some people, depression and other mental health conditions are episodic, which means that the symptoms come and go. Medications might be able to help manage your symptoms, but the disorder may take a long time to go into remission. Symptoms can also come back later on. There are several medications available that are thought to work by changing the levels of certain brain chemicals. These drugs alter levels of either dopamine, adrenaline, serotonin, or norepinephrine. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors block the reabsorption of serotonin, whereas norepinephrine-dopamine reuptake inhibitors prevent your brain from reabsorbing norepinephrine and dopamine. In some of these cases, there can be certain triggers in the person’s life that causes episodic depression.

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We all know the effects mental health has on emotional changes and behavioural differences. However, we can see why people get depressed, or why people suffer from trauma or anxiety. It is partially to do with the secretion of neurotransmitters in your body that has an effect on your mood and behaviour. Having a state of equilibrium of these substances is the best way to control your mental health, as well as people to talk to and support you.

As to why these hormones make us ‘feel good’ isn’t 100% known either. It is however, widely accepted it’s an evolutionary schematic to reinforce good behaviours to help us survive. For example, social interaction makes us feel good because we’re more likely to survive in a group than by ourselves. It goes to show how although we live in 2020, we live in a body still designed for life in the stone age.

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By Rhiyan Patel

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