Your house has been falling apart, your teenager is picking a fight every time you talk to her, and your job is in limbo because the economy is also in terrible shape. You have been so stressed out lately that you haven’t quite felt like “yourself”. During long bouts of stress, your body works diligently to keep your brain’s serotonin levels high to protect you from burning out. But serotonin, a chemical that regulates processes like sleep and body temperature, is also susceptible to wearing out over time. This is especially true if your body is burning through your serotonin levels like it is slamming hard on the gas pedal.
Slightly Low Serotonin Levels – As your body burns through its supply of serotonin and your serotonin levels gradually drop, you may begin to feel a bit scatterbrained (“Why did I just come downstairs?” ) and you may have trouble finding the last word to your sentence even though you got plenty of sleep last night. If you have low serotonin levels, you may also begin to feel worn out by small tasks like walking out to your mailbox.
Moderately Low Serotonin Levels – As your serotonin levels continue to decrease, you may begin to feel so sleepy that you want to go to sleep at dusk and wake up at noon. During this sleep, though, you may wake up a lot and worry about small things. You may not feel quite up to hanging out with your friends after work. The article you read about a little boy dying might make you break down into tears. (In fact, the baby diaper commercial could even cause you to get a little teary eyed.) You have no interest in sex, you are hungry all the time or you have no appetite at all, and everything your family says to you seems to make you feel angry or hurt. In addition to all this, if you have low moderately low serotonin levels, you may have unexplained body sensations like hot flashes, stomach pains and headaches. Overall, you feel sad and insecure, but you can’t always put your finger on the reason why.
Extremely Low Serotonin Levels – As your low serotonin levels begin to bottom out, you may feel a shift in your thinking patterns. You may begin to think on super speed about thoughts you can’t control. These thoughts may be about horrible scenes from your past or they may be imagined. In addition to this, you may feel numb to everything around you. You don’t care about your future or the well-being of your own daughter. Extremely low serotonin levels can cause you to overreact to small problems. (For example, you may scream at someone who asked you a polite question or throw a stapler across the room if it stops working.) If your serotonin levels are this low, you likely have scary (“evil”) fantasies, feel like you need to escape by taking off in your car, and become overly obsessive/compulsive about things you used to simply be concerned about (e.g. getting sick by exposure to germs). When you have extremely low serotonin levels your body may continue to feel terrible or worsen: your temperature fluctuates, your stomach hurts, and your head feels like it’s about to explode. You might even over-analyze these problems and think that they are a serious disease.
Lowest Serotonin Levels – When your serotonin levels drop dangerously low, you will most likely be suicidal. You will feel as though the world would be better off without you, and you consider ways to end your life.
Now that you are aware of some of the most common symptoms of low serotonin levels, you will have a better chance of noticing when your own serotonin levels are dropping. If you or those around you begin to wonder if you are depressed, seek help as soon as you can. Depression is extremely common but it is very treatable.
Sources:
http://chronicfatigue.about.com/b/2008/07/27/what-does-low-serotonin-feel-like.htm
http://www.enotalone.com/article/4116.html
