Learn about the important role of norepinephrine in mental health

You tell yourself that today won’t happen, that today will be a good day. However, it happens. Because When you suffer from chronic anxiety, fear is always there, latent, and when it arrives, you are lost.. It takes your breath away, makes you shake, break out in a cold sweat, and experience endless thoughts and catastrophic ideas. All of these processes are mediated by a unique molecule: norepinephrine.

For those who have not heard of this neurotransmitter, which in turn acts as a hormone, we will first give a small example. Let’s imagine that we are going to cross a street and, suddenly, we hear the horn of a car. We forgot to look at the traffic light and we react to the second by jumping back. While we do it, we feel our hearts pounding, our stomachs tightening, and our breathing has accelerated almost unbearably.

Norepinephrine acts directly on the sympathetic nervous system, and is responsible for mediating those situations where our brain interprets that there is danger.. It is what helps us to react, to flee, to fight, and in essence, to survive. It does this by increasing heart rate, blood pressure, the passage of air through the lungs, and the contraction of nutrients in the muscles. All that neurochemical and physiological magic allows us to react much better to everyday risks.

Now, the problem with our modern world is that most of us react to stress factors that have nothing to do with real physical risks. Our psychological fears, our anxieties and phobias, activate this catecholamine with an excitatory effect in the same way. And so If we cannot manage these anxiety states, the effect of norepinephrine on our body can be devastating..

I suffer from chronic anxiety, what can happen to me?

They say chronic anxiety is the disease of 100 symptoms. The most curious thing about all this is that, despite presenting so much physical, emotional and cognitive evidence, the majority of people with this disorder come to live with their fears on a regular basis. What one day began as a common and even manageable anxiety, ended up becoming chronic, becoming a much more serious pathological state.

The most complex thing about anxiety is that it is a fearsome liar. It makes us believe that we are about to lose control, that we have to listen to our phobias because they are always right, It will convince us to worry about everything because the worst can happen when we least expect it.. As we see, it is not easy to get out of these hermetic circles of suffering. And it is not primarily due to the effect of that brain biochemistry that subjugates us, where norepinephrine is of key importance.

Chronic anxiety affects your cardiovascular health

A study from the University of Iowa revealed the close relationship between norepinephrine and the risk of cardiovascular accidents in people with chronic anxiety. Stress sustained over time leads to very important physiological changes. One of them is blood pressure, tachycardia, arrhythmias… All of them processes that put our health at risk.

Norepinephrine and alterations in the adrenal glands

Something that should be remembered is that norepinephrine is not produced only at the brain level. Outside the brain, norepinephrine or norepinephrine is also produced in the endocrine system, and specifically in the adrenal glands.. What does this mean? That chronic anxiety generates a hyperproduction of this type of catecholamine, and this translates into the following effects:

Headache. Poor digestion. Insomnia. Loss of appetite. Tiredness. Sweating. Constant feeling of general malaise.

Norepinephrine and cognitive effects

There are very interesting studies that demonstrate, for example, the relationship between a high level of norepinephrine and ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). As a neurotransmitter, this compound is essential to help us focus attention, remember data, learn, and process information. However, Their levels must be adequate for our cognitive processes to function effectively.

A high or too low level translates into memory loss, problems focusing our attention, difficulties learning new things.… It is undoubtedly a very exhausting and complicated state.

Norepinephrine and its relationship with chronic anxiety and depression

We already know that people with chronic anxiety have an excess of norepinephrine. However, there is one fact that we cannot leave aside and that should invite us to reflect. Catecholamines, such as norepinephrine and dopamine, are known to be of key importance in the pathophysiology underlying certain depressive disorders. Any imbalance, whether hyperproduction or, where appropriate, a deficit, translates into serious changes in mood.

So, It is common, for example, that many patients who currently live trapped in the cyclone of fear and negative thoughts generated by their anxiety sometimes lead to major depression. This fact, that it is norepinephrine and not serotonin that causes us to develop this clinical condition on various occasions, is something that Dr. Joseph J. Schildkraut, from Harvard University, speculated in the 1960s.

To conclude, whatever the origin of these disorders, If at this moment what we experience is this same symptomatology, it is important to remember that we can get out of it. We can choose between two situations. The first, staying on the edge of the abyss and experiencing the same fear day after day, that of falling into the abyss again.

The second option is simple. We can choose to be a jet, a plane that flies over that abyss to see it from above and understand it better, avoid it and leave it behind. Cognitive-behavioral therapy can help us do this, to understand the root of our anxiety.. Likewise, we cannot leave aside the pharmacological approach to balance the production of norepinephrine. Finally, remember that diets rich in vitamin C, copper and omega 3 fatty acids promote good levels of this neurotransmitter.

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