Our brains are pretty incredible places – they respond to our environment, perpetuate bodily functions, and impact our emotions and mood all by using what’s known as neurotransmitters. You may have heard the term before but are unfamiliar with their role, not only in your mind, but throughout the rest of your body. We’ve put together a guide to understanding the main types of neurotransmitters, their functions, and the impacts on different parts of your health.
What are Neurotransmitters?
They are essentially chemical messengers that communicate across your brain and your body through neurons (nerve cells) and other specific types of cells. They help you to contract your muscles, move your limbs, and feel sensations throughout your body. Neurotransmitters are the nerves that continue regular bodily functions, like pumping your heart or digesting food. They send messages, or electrical signals, through axons which send messages to specific cells.
Though there are at least 100 known types of neurotransmitters, there are a few main types that all serve different functions.
- Glutamate: This excitatory neurotransmitter is one of the most abundant in your system; it serves your cognitive functions, helping your concentration, memory, learning, and thinking.
- Gamma-aminobutryic acid (GABA): GABA is the most common inhibitory neurotransmitter, preventing issues that would lead to anxiety, depression, irritability, and sleep problems.
- Glycine: Glycine is an inhibitory neurotransmitter in your spinal cord, working to handle metabolism, pain transmission, and hearing processing.
- Serotonin: A fairly well-known inhibitory neurotransmitter, serotonin works to regulate mood, sleep patterns, sexuality, anxiety, pain, and appetite.
- Dopamine: Nicknamed the “happy hormone”, dopamine gives our body rewards of pleasure, heightened arousal, and improved learning. It also helps with focus, memory, sleep, mood, concentration, and motivation.
- Epinephrine (adrenaline): This hormone is released from adrenal glands in response to stressful events, causing what is known as “fight-or-flight” responses. It helps you stay alert by causing your heart rate to increase, heightening your awareness, and speeding up your breathing.
- And Acetylcholine: This excitatory neurotransmitter is involved in your central nervous system and peripheral nervous system. Acetylcholine impacts your autonomic nervous system – connected to gut motility and blood pressure – as well as muscle contractions, sleep, learning, memory, and sexual desire.
How Do Neurotransmitters Impact Health?
Neurotransmitters have a very big role in regulating both your mental and physical health. When there is the right amount of the transmitters, they result in a healthy, functioning body and mind. However, when there is an imbalance, this can have negative consequences.
Mental
When all the neurotransmitters are functioning properly, a person will experience stable emotions and generally positive feelings and reactions to most situations. In the instance of an imbalance, this can result in more extreme emotions and increase feelings of depression, anxiety, insomnia, stress, and fear. The neurotransmitters that most directly impact mental health are endorphins, serotonin, GABA, epinephrine (adrenaline), acetylcholine, and dopamine.
Physical
When your body is in good health, you will have a normal heart rate, blood pressure, digestion, muscle movement, and sleep. Imbalances can cause permanent physical health changes, like Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, Parkinson’s disease, seizures, chronic pain, fibromyalgia, asthma, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, and many other issues. Most neurotransmitters will impact your physical health, but some of the main ones involved are glutamate, glycine, serotonin, histamine, and epinephrine.
How Do I Regulate Neurotransmitters?
To take care of imbalances, various lifestyle changes can regulate the production and release of the different hormones and chemicals. Quality sleep, sufficient nutrition, regular exercise, social interactions, and stress management techniques can all work together to improve the function of neurotransmitters and therefore benefit both mental and physical health. Significant impacts should be talked about with a healthcare professional before discussing potential medications that can help with producing or regulating brain chemicals.
At Regeneration Health, we know the importance of taking care of your entire body – both mentally and physically. We work to address the root of health issues rather than just focusing on the symptoms. Our scientific methods can improve your health and your quality of life. Contact us today to schedule an appointment at our clinic.