Pick Me Ups

When you don’t feel well, you normally try to do something to make yourself feel better. It turns out that all around you are substances which can temporarily make you feel better. Nature has provided a host of these Pick-Me-Up’s that you can eat, drink, inhale or inject. All these Pick-Me-Up’s work by chemically boosting one or more of your Happy Messenger levels, thus helping to temporarily restore balance to your OVERSTRESSED brain. A Pick-Me-Up can temporarily let you sleep better, help relieve an ache or pain, or give you energy. Here is a list of common Pick-Me-Up’s that OVERSTRESSED people use. All of these work by virtue of causing an increase in Happy Messenger levels.

Sugar

The sugars: glucose (honey), lactose (milk sugar), fructose (fruit sugar), and sucrose (cane sugar) are called simple sugars. They are relatively tiny sugar molecules which are easily absorbed by the body. These sugars are absorbed so readily that placing honey under your tongue will cause an increase in blood sugar practically identical to injecting it intravenously. A sudden rise in blood sugar leads to an immediate boost in Happy Messenger levels. Simple sugars are, by far, the most popular and most widely used Pick-Me-Up.

Caffeine

Caffeine is a brain active drug that leaves your general blood circulation, enters your brain, and causes a boost in your brain Happy Messengers. We all are aware of caffeine’s energizing capabilities, as caffeine is probably our second most widely used Pick-Me-Up. It is important to note that caffeine is found not only in coffee, but in chocolate, in sodas, and many teas.

Alcohol

Drinking alcohol is a powerful booster of brain Happy Messengers. It helps the Body Clock function, which helps people sleep. It helps people feel energized and aggressive. It diminishes pain sensation and increases pleasure. Thus, it should not be surprising that the alcoholic may take a drink to fall asleep, take an “eye opener” to get going in the morning, have a drink to feel more assertive when he goes in to see the boss, take a drink so he is “feeling no pain”, or drink to make social gatherings “more fun”. Alcohol is the third most widely used Pick-Me-Up.

Interestingly, solvents of various kinds can act as a Pick-Me-Up, having an effect similar to alcohol. The solvent vapors, when inhaled, enter the blood and act directly on the brain. There, they cause a boost in brain messenger levels and act as a Pick-Me-Up. Many solvents will do this: glues, cleaning fluids, nail polish remover, oil based paint. We mention these because most people who work around these solvents will not even realize that these solvents are directly affecting their brain, and acting as Pick-Me-Up’s.

Tobacco, Marijuana, Cocaine, Amphetamines, Heroine

Tobacco, marijuana, cocaine, amphetamines, and heroine are chemicals that directly boost brain Happy Messenger function. They are widely used and extremely potent.

Your Own Adrenaline

As we mentioned earlier, when the body prepares to either fight, or run, a hormone called Adrenaline is released from the adrenal glands. Adrenaline is a cousin of Noradrenalin. Adrenaline release instantly boots brain Noradrenalin function.

Remember how you almost fell asleep while driving? You caught yourself just before you crossed over the center divider to hit an oncoming car. Boy, did your heart beat, and you were certainly awake after that!

Another example is found among the persons who engage in high risk, “high excitement” sports or gambling. Here will be found many who are suffering from OVERSTRESS, and who use the sport or the gambling as their major Pick-Me-Up. Instead of reducing their stress level, these persons use their own Adrenaline to boost their brain Happy Messenger levels back toward normal.

HOW MANY OF THESE PICK-ME-UP’S DO YOU USE EVERYDAY?

• Sugar

• Milk (LACTOSE)

• Fruit (FRUCTOSE)

• Honey (GLUCOSE)

• Cane or Beet Sugar (SUCROSE)

• Corn Sweeteners (FRUCTOSE) (Eating whole fruit is OK. Fruit is beneficial for fiber and vitamins. But watch out for fruit juices and high fructose corn sweeteners, both of which are POTENT Pick-Me-Up’s)

• Caffeine

• Coffee

• Black Tea

• Chocolate

• Colas

• Alcohol

• Beer

• Wine

• Whiskey

• Liquor

• Other Solvents

• Nail Polish Remover

• Paint Thinner

• Oil Based Paints

• Glues

• Gasoline Fumes

• Your Own Adrenaline

• Workaholic

• Shopping Sprees

• Gambling Sprees

• Thrill Seeking Hobbies

• Drugs

• Marijuana

• Cocaine

• Amphetamine

• Heroine

• Tobacco

• Cigarettes

• Chewing Tobacco

• Snuff

Now note how often they are all combined in the same product, i.e., a chocolate bar (sugar and caffeine), a chocolate rum cake (sugar, caffeine, and alcohol), Kahlua with coffee and cream (sugar, caffeine, and alcohol). And often these are combined with a cigarette.

Cue Reactions

An important feature of Pick-Me-Up use is the so-called “Cue Reaction”. If you talk to binge chocolate eaters, or binge drinkers, or binge cookie eaters, they will often tell you that they really had no desire to have anything at all. They were just passing the kitchen and noticed a bag of cookies that their roommate had brought for the picnic tomorrow. The next thing they knew, half the cookies were gone.

The smell of cookies baking, going over to mother’s house, or even seeing a cookie advertisement in a magazine, can trigger cookie eating. In this case the trigger for eating was the mere sight of the cookies. In essence, a Cue Reaction is a type of conditioned reaction. Every time you are in a situation in which you take a Pick-Me-Up, be it a cookie or an alcoholic beverage, you forge a link in your brain between the situation and the Pick-Me-Up. Then, when you are in a similar situation, your body will automatically reach for the Pick-Me-Up. The beer industry has spent billions of dollars associating beer and professional sports. Can you imagine sports on television without beer advertisements?

When football comes on the air, the beer commercials cause Cue Reactions all over the country. Viewers head towards the refrigerator for a can of beer. These reactions are automatic. Usually the person is unaware of any association between the Cue and the Reaction. You are watching television, talking and joking, and suddenly there is a beer in your hand.

You see, the actual decision to drink the beer has been made at a deep and primitive area of the brain. Thinking occurs in our outer brain layers known as the CORTEX. But the inner SUB-CORTICAL layer is responsible for coordinating AUTOMATIC functions of the body. When you walk, your sub-cortical brain swings your arms to balance you, it adjusts the blood flow to your muscles, it regulates your body’s temperature, and breathing. All of this is automatic. You never have to think about it.

Pavlov demonstrated how easily one may condition the sub-cortical brain. He trained dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell. The sound of a bell was not food, but he trained the dogs to salivate at the sound. Likewise, the beer companies have trained much of the public to grab a beer when they hear the sound of football. Football has nothing to do with beer, but people have been trained to associate the two. And the association occurs at a deep level, distinct from our consciousness. Turn on the TV, out comes the beer. No thinking involved, it’s all automatic. If it were not effective, the beer companies would not spend billions each year on such viewer training.

The Maintenance Pick-Me-Up user will develop a set of very strong Cue Reactions. For instance, after breakfast must be coffee. The first work break, more coffee. Lunch includes a soft drink. Arrive home and take a glass of Chablis. Wine with dinner and another glass before bed. Because the conditioned use of Pick-Me-Up’s is ingrained at a sub-cortical level, it becomes just as automatic as breathing in or out, or swinging your arms while walking. The Maintenance Pick-Me-Up user is no more aware of his use of Pick-Me-Up’s than you are of your breathing right now. In fact, Pick-Me-Up’s are so much a part of our life, and they are so automatic, that the Maintenance Pick-Me-Up user is totally unaware that consumption of large amounts of simple sugar, caffeine, and alcohol are not “normal” or healthy for the body.

The Binge Pick-Me-Up user, on the other hand, may not use Pick-Me-Up’s at all for long periods. But when OVERSTRESS conditions cause severe messenger imbalance in the brain, the stage is set for the binge. There, on the table, is a bag of cookies. Or here are the guys to watch the big football game. Boom, you have a binge. It is quick, and it is automatic.

DRAW BACKS OF USING PICK ME UP’S

The symptoms of Happy Messenger failure: sleeping problems, aches and pains, lack of energy, lack of enjoyment of life, crying, depression, and panic attacks are brought on by conditions of OVERSTRESS – TEN PERCENT OF OUR POPULATION IS FUNCTIONING IN OVERSTRESS RIGHT NOW. Many persons in our society feel “out of balance” quite regularly. The common Pick-Me-Up’s simple sugars, caffeine, alcohol, and tobacco are available all around us. In the United States at least twenty million people use them regularly to try and get themselves to feel “normal” again; to sleep well, to have enough energy, enjoy life, stop the anxiety or depression. Unfortunately, Pick-Me-Up’s do not work very well.

The major drawback of the Pick-Me-Up’s is the fact that: YOU CAN NEVER ACCURATELY REBALANCE YOUR BRAIN MESSENGERS USING PICK-ME-UP’S. That is something only your own body can do. It is just too delicate a chemical adjustment. Try as you will, you will never be able to make yourself feel right using Pick-Me-Up’s.

DESPITE THE USE OF PICK-ME-UP’S, A PERSON WHO IS SUFFERING FROM OVERSTRESS WILL CONTINUE TO FEEL “UNBALANCED”.

By using Pick-Me-Up’s, the person merely puts himself into a shaky equilibrium where he tries to balance a host of stressors, on the one hand, against a variety of Pick-Me-Up’s on the other. Since it is impossible for a person to accurately rebalance his brain chemistry this way, he will sometimes feel “OK”, but much of the time will have the mood swings, poor sleep, depression or anxiety of Happy Messenger failure. His will be a constant up-and-down roller coaster of feeling well and feeling ill.