Stress

Serotonin lets you sleep. If this chemical is in short supply, you have trouble sleeping. Serotonin is converted to melatonin and back again - this cycle is what sets your body clock. Why is this cycle important? Your body clock sets your body up ready for sleep, and then sets it for waking. You only have to go a few hours without sleep to feel terrible, but after just one night without sleep, your reasoning is impaired and your memory only functions at 50% (read this in some research a few years back). If you're regularly missing sleep due to stress, this doesn't take long to accumulate and within weeks it has a detrimental affect on your life. It takes over three weeks for your body clock to adjust to it's normal cycle.. that's if the stress has been relieved, and if it hasn't, things get progressively worse. This isn't all doom and gloom however, as there are ways to help to you get to sleep naturally - without resorting to sleeping tablets. (More on these methods is in the 'Help Yourself' section).

There is a hormone at work during times of stress, and it's called cortisol - it's stess fighting hormone. This is vital for your survival in times of great stress. It prepares you for 'fight or flight' - it's useful in times when you are physically in danger. The cycle of cortisol is as out of control, as serotonin is in times of stress, this also interferes with sleep and makes you feel on edge constantly (anxiety). Sleep is vital for wellbeing. Even if you're not seriously sleep deprived, if you're cortisol and serotonin are out of cycle, you still can suffer the effects of stress on your sleep patterns as you will spend less time in deep sleep and dreaming. Deep sleep is when the body regenerates itself - if you're not sleeping well the body isn't able to function at it's best and you will notice things such as cuts taking longer to heal for example. If your sleeping pattern is disturbed you will dream less frequently too. This may not sound like it's important, but when you realise that your mind works on problems you don't want to deal with while you're dreaming, you can see how important dreaming actually is. Serotonin is usually the first casualty of high stress, so being unable to obtain adequate and restful sleep is usually the fisrt indicator that you've reached too much stress.

Noradrenaline is respsonsible for your energy levels. It's when you have insufficient levels or this neurotransmitter, that you will notice you're becoming lethargic. You won't want to do anything when levels of noradrenaline are low.

Dopamine- to understand how dopamine works, you have to understand about endorphins. These are responsible for regulating pain awareness (as you may have already guessed, dopamine is morphine-like - morphine being one of the most powerful pain relievers available). Endorphins are so strong that it's been known for sports people with an injury to carry on with a game, and not even know that they've done anything until they're finished and then suddenly notice the pain!).
If endorphin levels are low, you'll find yourself more sensitive to pain. What has this got to do with dopamine? Dopamine is concentrated in areas of your brain where endorphins are released. When dopamine levels decline, so do your endorphin levels. Dopamine is also responsible for your enjoyment, so if stress knocks down your dopamine production, endorphin levles drop too, which makes pain more noticeable. As dopamine is responsible for your enjoyment of life, when these levels drop, so does your ability to enjoy yourself.

All this sounds pretty grim, but you've come here for help as well as all the info, so click below to find out what you can do to help yourself - I have a lot of practical advice as well as information on standard medication.