I got out of bed this morning well rested, focused and full of ideas of what I needed to do and how I needed to do them. How refreshing it was to have motivation after it seemed like I ran out of gasoline a couple of weeks ago. As I was pouring my obligatory coffee (my morning ritual jump start) I suddenly realized that I was in an unusually good mood for no apparent reason. Then the thought crossed my mind that perhaps I was manic? Was this my ”new” mania? Was this the muted euphoria that I would experience from here on out on medicine or was I simply feeling “normal” and the last two weeks were just less energetic?
We all know that women are cyclical by nature. Okay, so I have noticed that whenever my estrogen crashes at ovulation and then once again right before the onset of menstruation I get headaches, anxious and/or irritable. Sounds like PMS, right? I though I had that for several years. I suspect that instead of being manic this morning, what I was actually noticing was what it feels like to have more normal brain chemistry. It turns out that there is a relationship between estrogen and serotonin. Apparently estrogen keeps the latter from breaking down so quickly. In effect it acts like a typical anti-depressant by inhibiting or at least slowing down the re-uptake of the feel good neurotransmitter. But more on that another time.
