The Dark Side of Adrenaline

Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional or a trained psychologist and hold no medical credentials. My passion involves mental health and the content of this article is sourced from the internet from real medical professionals and organizations. If you suffer from addiction or any other mental health problem or physical pain, please seek out the assistance of a medical professional or your local physician.

In the past, when I used to think of Adrenaline or Adrenaline Junkies per se, the picture of going on roller coaster rides, rock climbing, and parachute jumping would have jumped into my mind. ‘But is that really all that encompasses Adrenaline’ said my curious mind? One could argue those are the good sides of Adrenaline and it’s certainly the healthy way of being an Adrenaline Junkie.

But as we know, with the good, comes the bad. This article is about the bad side of Adrenaline, or better phrased, The Dark Side of Adrenaline. Let’s dig in!

What is Adrenaline?

Not to be too sciency, Adrenaline is that chemical that our bodies release when we are in danger and we reach the famously known response of “Fight or Flight”. There’s a sea of articles on the web about Adrenaline and I don’t want to waste your time with what is so readily available to us all.

From a scientific point of view:

“Epinephrine (also known as adrenaline) is a neurotransmitter in the sense that, within the brain, it help neurons to communicate with one another. However, because epinephrine is mainly produced by the adrenal glands and has functions peripherally (i.e., outside the brain), it can also be considered a hormone. — taken from ScienceDirect”

So Adrenaline has two names. We should also not forget that Adrenaline has a life-long marriage going on with Cortisol! Something I also stumbled across during my research on the web:

When you encounter a perceived threat — such as a large dog barking at you during your morning walk — your hypothalamus, a tiny region at your brain’s base, sets off an alarm system in your body. Through a combination of nerve and hormonal signals, this system prompts your adrenal glands, located atop your kidneys, to release a surge of hormones, including adrenaline and cortisol. — from the Mayo Clinic

Though my focus in the blog will be predominantly on Adrenaline, there are sections, that cover the Cortisol part.

What’s important is not knowing the Adrenaline part, but simply what we define as “danger or threat” and in what situations Adrenaline is released.

When we think of danger, the term “life-threatening” comes to mind. Meaning, our lives have to be physically endangered, for example, by gunpoint, rape, abuse, altercations, war, famine, pandemics, etc. Those we can say are extreme dangers.

But what about the not-so-extreme dangers? For example:

The loss of a loved one, casual sex with a stranger, an extramarital affair, an argument with your partner, hooting at the car in front of you while driving to work, one could say driving in general even, traveling to a foreign country or traveling in general.

Looking at these not-so-extreme dangers, one starts to see the relationship between the terms “comfort zone or comfort” and “danger”. After all, what is the name of the destination, if that destination isn’t comforting?

Added to that, we all have our own definitions and experiences of what “danger” or “comforting” is, and it’s that individual experiences or definitions of what “danger” or “comforting” is, that we need to pay attention to because that’s where our individual bodies are conditioned to release Adrenaline. That specific conditioning could be domestic abuse to someone or jumping out of a helicopter to another.

The importance is to recognize our conditioned states and tools for getting our Adrenaline “fix” and accepting that those conditioned states and tools are often times unasked for lifetime experiences.

Pros and Cons about Adrenaline?

I know this article is all about the Dark side of Adrenaline, but Adrenaline does have some Pros too!

First and foremost, when it comes to our survival, Andrenaline is the №1 Hero! The second thing that jumps to mind is that Adrenaline helps us get things done! Be it us needing to complete that assignment we left till the very last moment, or pushing through a marathon (for the runners out there), or saving your young infant from a rolling car as Dr. Jon Gaudio recalled from a story he heard.

“Adrenaline is that explosive hormone for flight or fight energy. It helps Marines charge that hill and marathoners make that final push. I’ve heard a story of a small young mother who found superhuman strength to stop a rolling car from running crushing her infant. Adrenaline. Dr. Jon Gaudio”

Let’s face it, Adrenaline sounds so good, why don’t we want to be on it! Hell, if I can stop rolling cars, sign me up! For those that would like to know more about the benefits of Adrenaline, here’s a great article I found on a Skydiving Website no less. Know your audience they say! https://www.skydivecoastalcarolinas.com/blog/5-incredible-benefits-of-adrenaline/

But Alas, with all good things, there are bad things. One of the greatest paradoxes of life!

The first and most important con, or bad thing, about Adrenaline is that it’s Addictive! Can you get addicted to Adrenaline? YES!

Not that I believe you need more convincing, but to quote Marty Nemko, Ph.D. from Psychology Today:

When we hear the word “addiction,” we normally think about drugs, alcohol, or cigarettes. Less discussed but also common is adrenaline addiction: creating stress to get an adrenaline rush. — Marty Nemko Ph.D

Marty Said it so beautifully, I should have called the title of my article; “Ways to Create Stress to Get an Adrenaline Rush”. Not so catchy though. It’s basically the theme of this article.

The addictive part, I would describe as the cherry on the cake. The cake itself has loads of ingredients and here are some of them according to Dr. David Hansom MD from Psychology today:

There are over 30 symptoms that can occur with the sustained “adrenaline bath” from the different organ system reactions. They include:

Smooth muscle

Migraine headaches
Irritable bowel
Spastic bladder
Sweating
A pounding sensation of your heart

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Skeletal muscle

Back pain
Neck pain
Fibromyalgia
Chest pain
Tendinitis

Central nervous system

Burning sensations throughout the body
Can feel like peripheral neuropathy
Rapid heart rate
Itching
Skin rashes
Insomnia
Extreme anxiety/ depression
Obsessive thought patterns
Tinnitus or ringing in the ears
Eating disorders
Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD)
PTSD

Conversion reactions (whole systems shut down)

Paralysis
Blindness
Weakness

All the ingredients to a very unhealthy lifestyle one might say!

Adrenaline and its long-lasting relationship with Sex?

During my research on the work I did for my previous two articles, I came across the webpage of Smarmore Rehab Clinic in Ireland and what I read, essentially started my journey down this Adrenaline rabbit whole:

Here’s what they say about Adrenaline:

“Sex is an activity that changes the body’s neurochemical and hormonal system, which released feel-good chemicals (serotonin and adrenaline) in a similar way to drugs. It’s psychological. Someone addicted to sex, in the same way that heroin users crave the drug, will obsess over the activity, plan it, remember it and fantasise about it.

The nature of addiction is to keep repeating the behaviour. It is a chronic, relapsing disorder characterised by compulsive acting out.

Therefore, sex-addicted patients often take risks, which can expose them to sexually transmitted diseases or spending large amounts of money.” by Benedict Sykes from Smarmore Rehab Clinic

For years I’ve read and understood the effect that sex could have on Dopamine and vice versa and I have also written about this in my previous articles Temptation. Is it Internal or External? , and Post Relapse Rituals and What They Can Mean for Us, but never once thought of Adrenaline, and then it hit me between the eyes. Remember earlier I gave some extreme examples of life-threatening situations and amongst them are rape and abuse and by abuse, I also meant to say child sexual abuse also known as CSA according to the US National Library of Medicine.

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Taking that into account, if you take the example of a child that was sexually abused, a highly violated act that crosses extreme boundaries, that child would at that moment release a high amount of Adrenaline as it would because it perceived the act as dangerous, therefore the body feels its in the fight of flight mode. However, what’s happening psychologically is the brain has immediately made the connection between Sex and Danger ergo, Sex and Adrenaline! Remember, Adrenaline is also a neurotransmitter.

This is an extremely risky business and it would explain why Sex Addicts would put themselves in highly dangerous sexual situations such as Sex Clubs with dark rooms, having unprotected sex with strangers as Benedict from Smarmore confirmed. Am I saying that all sex addicts were sexually abused? No, that’s not what I am saying. However I have come across some statistics based on this topic that was done by Patrick Carnes, Ph.D. a pioneer researcher in sex addiction, and here are his results:

According to Patrick Carnes, Ph.D., the pioneering sex addiction researcher, 97 percent of people with sex addiction suffered emotional abuse in childhood or adolescence, while 81 percent suffered sexual abuse. A further 72 percent suffered from physical abuse; furthermore, frequent abuse was even more strongly associated with sex addiction than occasional abuse.

Here are Marty Nemko Ph.D. thoughts on Adrenaline and Sex:

“In dating, a person can get a rush from too quickly having sex, unsafe sex, or edgy sex.”

This begs the question to many I suppose. When we have a partner and the sex is perhaps a bit boring, does it actually have anything to do with sex? Or is it perhaps not dangerous enough?

The good thing is the Sex industry has expanded so vastly, that it caters to both the addicts positively and negatively I suppose, and to the people (including recovering addicts) who prefer to have safe, but yet dangerous, sex with their loving partners in the comfort of their own homes.

If you feel confused and you’re thinking, what if I could never separate the two! I asked that very same question to my friend and Clinical Psychologist Louis Awerbuck from the Centre For Mental Health in Stellenbosch, South Africa and as it turns out you can, the trick is simply that you need to be very clear in understanding when the need for the adrenaline rush arrives and when the time for rubbing body parts together arise. Once you can clearly identify the two separately, you can pursue them both separately in healthy functional ways. Though the ultimate experience would always be to have the sex and adrenaline together, as a substitute one can artificially recreate the “ultimate experience” by separating them by let’s say example, Sunday go Rockclimbing, come home, and then do some cock climbing (my dirty mouth, not his)!

Here are some other healthy functional ways to get you an Adrenaline fix that won’t get you an STD (Sexual Transmitted Disease) and won’t put your life or other people’s lives in danger:

Riding roller coasters
Skydiving
Ziplining
Bungee jumping
Rock climbing
Whitewater rafting
Cage diving with sharks
Racing on tracks within designated speed limits
Playing escape room games
Watching horror movies

I am sure there are more out there, so be creatively and adventurously safe!

Adrenaline on Arousal and Attraction

Given that I spoke about Adrenaline and Sex, it made sense to add this sub-paragraph as I’ve come across a recent study on the effects of Adrenaline on Arousal and Attraction and the results also proved positive! I mean the word sex and arousal are almost synonymous! I said almost!

The effects that adrenaline has on the levels of attraction and arousal were examined to see if there was any correlation between the two variables. Seventy students at a small MidwesternUniversitywere given a survey asking questions relating to their attraction to a member of the opposite sex approximately 15 minutes after participating in a physical activity. The results of the survey were reviewed to see if the level of adrenaline produced during the physical activity would have any effect on the participant’s attraction to photographs in comparison to those who had not participated in any physical activity. Results indicated a significant positive correlation between adrenaline and attraction, which means as level of adrenaline increased, so did level of attraction.

Another part of the study published by Dutton and Aron (1974) was done to even further prove this theory:

The research originally done for the misattribution of arousal was published by Dutton and Aron (1974). The researchers placed an attractive female interviewer on a suspension bridge or an unsteady/longer bridge. The female interviewer asked male participants to fill out a simple survey which contained Thematic Apperception Test pictures. The interview then gave the males her name as well as her phone number and asked them to call her if they had any questions concerning this survey. The men that had been on the suspension bridge that was less sturdy were more apt to call the interviewer and request a date. The researchers concluded that the arousal was due to fear induced by the bridge and likely caused the elevated levels of attraction for the woman that the males had experienced.

And lastly, the Chone, Waugh, and Place (1989) research about the misattribution by doing fieldwork in a movie theater gave even more promising results:

They went into the theater to analyze the affiliative behavior between couples as they entered and exited two different types of movies. The couple’s levels of attraction were studied while watching a high-arousing suspense movie compared to those in a low-arousing movie. The research indicated that the couples in the high-arousing suspense movie had more afflictive behavior (e.g. touching, talking, etc.) while exiting the movie as oppose to those exiting the low-arousing movie.

The research indicated that by putting couples in a scenario which stimulates their emotional arousal, their affiliative behavior towards each other increase as well. The misattribution of arousal could occur when trying to find out why the affiliative behavior happened. The misattribution could be due to the movie or the fact that the couple was together in the first place. The couples seemed to be more affectionate towards each other when the adrenaline was produced in the body which was aroused by the suspenseful movie.

Voila! No wonder swiping left or right on a dating app is as mundane as bathtub water, and the idea of hooking up with a stranger in a pub gives more buzz. This explains the whole “beautiful stranger in the night” scenario where the prospect of a one-night stand seems more attractive vs seeing that same guy on a dating app with the heading “Looking for a Long Term Relationship” might seem mundane too! This is my own conclusion drawn from these studies, and it would certainly be interesting to see studies involving dating apps and adrenaline.

I know this blog is about the Dark side of Adrenaline, but given that Adrenaline can help us form closer bonds, I’d say, that’s a nifty “Pro” for Adrenaline!

The two AA’s — Anxiety and Anger

The other two “A’s” that is almost synonymous when you say the word Adrenaline, are Anger and Anxiety according to Dr. David Hanscom.

“Anger is turbocharged anxiety and your body’s attempt to regain control.”

This man wrote such a great article, that rewriting it will only scar it, so I will just briefly explain what he is pointing out and then add my 2 cents.

Let’s start with the terms and link them all together!

What is Anxiety?

The way Dr. Hanscom defines anxiety is basically as follows:

The medical profession has viewed anxiety as a psychological problem, whereas anxiety is simply a description of the feelings generated by elevated stress hormones and the autonomic nervous system response. It generates psychological issues, but this survival reaction is not primarily a “psychological” problem.

What is Anger?

“One of the primary reactions to anxiety is control. Once the threat is resolved, the body chemistry normalizes. What happens when the real or perceived threat persists and we feel trapped? This, of course, causes the secretion of even more hormones and the feeling of being angry. Anger and anxiety are the same entity. It is your body’s attempt to increase your efforts to regain control. Anger is anxiety with a chemical kick.”

Now, taking Dr. Hanscom’s definitions of Anxiety and Anger into account, we can see that Anger is essentially Anxiety’s older stronger brother.

The link between Anxiety, Anger, and Adrenaline

Taking Dr. Hanscom’s works into account, the link really lies with the “Feeling Trapped” part. Basically, it’s the response to Anxiety and Anger that puts us in Fight or Flight mode which releases the Adrenaline.

Now, this discovery also opens up a can of worms. Because when we think of Anger and Anxiety — we are conditioned to think of examples where the event is coming from an external party, it’s normally unplanned and involuntarily. For example, you are driving in your car and having a “The Voice” performance, and suddenly someone hoots at you for some reason. You start feeling anxious, you are thinking “Hey dickhead, what’s your problem” which leads to Anger, and the response to Anger and Anxiety is Adrenaline!

But ever wondered, what if the event is “voluntarily, sometimes planned and it comes internally?”

I have often wondered why certain people actively look for trouble, and how that “looking for trouble” leads that very same person to feel anxious and angry which essentially leads them in a state of fight and flight mode, and Dr. Hanscom answers it so cleverly: it’s the need for Adrenaline that actually drives them. We call those people “Shit Stirrers”, a phrase coined by South African Comedian Mark Lottering. But at least I know understand the “Shit Stirrers”. Been one myself if I may say, thank you!

As we know, Adrenaline can be addictive, and to start climbing the road to Adrenaline sobriety we need to start identifying the tools available to satisfy that addiction. Anger and Anxiety, how mild they might sound, are very destructive tools in feeding such an addiction.

For example, you read those stories of people who just get hit by someone out of nowhere as it did with Pedro Andrade, a Brazillian man who was walking home in Dublin minding his own business and got brutally attacked.

“I was walking on the street and I saw two guys crossing the street to my side. When they got close, say about five metres away, I thought that something might be wrong but it was too late. One guy just punched me, he didn’t ask for anything, just punched me,” he said. — Pedro Andrade

Pedro is the victim in this scenario, but as for the two “shit stirrers”, what was their driving force? Drugs? Malice? or Adrenaline? Could be all three together. Addiction, be it sex or drugs, is all about taking risks as Marty Nemko Ph.D. and Benedict Stykes from Smarmore clinic stated. Plus, if the addict is not getting their “fix”, they start getting anxious and angry, and again, Adrenaline being the response then comes swooping in causing more havoc as Dr. Hanscom explained.

Here’s Marty Nemko, Ph.D. thoughts on Adrenaline as it is relevant to what we’ve learned so far:

“Lying, stealing, gambling, and substance abuse also yield an adrenaline rush. So can picking a fight: a physical one or an argument about a controversial subject such as politics or race. Usually, that yields more adrenaline than benefit.”

The upbringing of a person is also something to take into consideration. If Anger, Anxiety, and Domestic abuse were the childhood theme and if that same exposed person spent their minor years in such an environment, by the time they leave, they walk away with a very impressive “Adrenaline High” resume which sets them on a path into Adulthood constantly looking for that high, knowingly or unknowingly.

Here’s Marty’s Stamp on this:

The more a person does such behaviors, the more s/he feels life is boring without the adrenaline hit, and thus is made the adrenaline junkie, seeking ever more and ever higher highs.

PTSD & Adrenaline

Given what we’ve learned so far about Anxiety and Anger, I felt the need to briefly cover the effects that Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder has on Adrenaline. After all, Adrenaline gets released when we experience a stressful situation. Who said those situations can only be in the physical and not in the mind?

“For example, we can help people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) who experience elevated adrenaline levels with memories of traumatic events.” — from Rosglas Recovery

In one of my previous articles Temptation. Is it Internal or External I did a portion where I have covered the effects of Triggers and how only the mere thought or fantasy something can release dopamine? Well, from what the Rosglas Recovery center has to say, one can draw the same conclusion on Adrenaline. Reliving traumatic experiences or even catastrophizing can also release Adrenaline.

In Dr. Hanscome’s article from Psychology Today, he also points out at the start which essentially forms the basis of his article, that thoughts create the same chemical reactions as a physical threat.

“Thoughts create the same chemical reaction as a physical threat and we can’t escape our thoughts. Emotional pain is processed in a similar manner as physical pain (1). Since humans can’t escape from their thoughts, there is a constant elevation of stress hormones. These hormones vary by the matter of degree.”

Just to prove how powerful our thoughts can be and how it affects our whole body, here’s a snippet from Dr. Hansom’s article:

“Dr. Bruce Lipton is a world-renowned cell biologist formerly from Stanford. He has authored several remarkable books including, The Biology of Belief and The Honeymoon Effect. My wife and I had the pleasure of meeting him and his wife. He succinctly pointed out that when he places human cells in a culture medium that contains adrenaline and cortisol, the cells shrivel. When placed in a culture dish that contains oxytocin and growth hormone, the cells flourish. The difference isn’t subtle. Oxytocin is the hormone secreted at birth and is felt to be significant in a mother’s bonding with her infant. It is also nicknamed “the love drug.

He also points out that the human body is essentially one big culture medium contained by the skin, with about 50 trillion cells in the body. Therefore, as adrenaline is in contact with every cell, the effects are profound.”

I mean, the research is right there. This snippet would have added great value in my previous article Temptation. Is it Internal or External?.

To loosely quote Dr. Hanscom, our thought affects our bodily chemistry in a significant way. If catastrophizing thoughts create a toxic chemical environment for our cells, then perhaps loving, nurturing thoughts of forgiveness and acceptance can cal the Love doctor Oxytocin to come to rule the day!

Adrenaline and how it affects our relationships

I oftentimes wondered how being with a stable, secure guy that treats me with respect, ends up feeling unfulfilling, and it’s only because of my most recent interest in Adrenaline that I finally found the answer.

As a person who grew up in chaos with domestic abuse, never knowing when an ambulance will be at my front door, or when I will need to flee to an aunts house for shelter, constantly in fight and flight mode, and riding the Adrenaline wave most days, I suddenly realized how I have a deep psychological need for the Adrenaline rush or as I would term it, the “Crazy”.

Obviously, my highest desire was and still is to have Safety, Protection, and Security in my life, but when things get too safe, secure, the itch for the “crazy” starts to resurface. I raised this discovery to my Clinical Psychologist and agree with these findings.

However, all is not lost, he also agrees that finding constructive healthy safe ways for the “crazy” and separating the self-destructiveness and the need for the adrenaline fix, is possible. You see, if getting the Adrenaline fix was always sourced through unwelcomed self-destructiveness ways and tools, then it’s through that avenue where the adrenaline will continue to flow! Essentially, the “crazy” doesn’t have to cost you a loving relationship or finding a new partner as an adult (sorry to all my ex’s, apparently I’m not that perfect either), or actively create harmful stress in your life as Marty Nemko Ph.D. stated. Obviously, break-ups have many elements and sides to them, I am just highlighting another element wherein I can find peace and understanding and that can hopefully help make the next relationship reach its full potential and with a “Happy Ever-After” success story.

I also mentioned to him the amount of guilt I have for needing the “crazy”. After all, the little me inside deserves stability, safety, and protection given what the little me had to endure in his childhood. How can I possibly give this poor inner child any more pain and suffering?

Acceptance. Therein lies the answer. Accepting that needing the “crazy” is part of the whole me, my inner child, and the adult me, and in my childhood past, the “crazy” was unwillingly sourced through unwelcomed situations of domestic abuse and many other unsettling ways, but through understanding the need for the “crazy” that is there now, done and dusted, identifying that there are healthy tools becomes clearer! Utilizing healthy tools can help create a balanced life where safety, protection, stability, and the “crazy” can live harmoniously together.

One might ask, but can’t we get rid of the need for the “crazy”. Unfortunately not. According to my psychologist, trauma sits in our body, not our mind. This is supported by the following discovery on how long periods of stress can change our actual DNA cell expression.

Here’s what the National Institue on Drug Abuse has to say:

“In addition, exposure to drugs or stress in a person’s social or cultural environment can alter both gene expression and gene function, which, in some cases, may persist throughout a person’s life. Research also suggests that genes can play a part in how a person responds to his or her environment, placing some people at higher risk for disease than others.”

All is not lost. In the same article that was published by the National Institue on Drug Abuse, they also explain the effects of Environmental exposures through the following:

Environmental exposures or choices people make can actually “mark” — or remodel — the structure of DNA at the cell level or even at the level of the whole organism. So, although each cell type in the human body effectively contains the same genetic information, epigenetic regulatory systems enable the development of different cell types (e.g., skin, liver, or nerve cells) in response to the environment. These epigenetic marks can affect health and even the expression of the traits passed to children. For example, when a person uses cocaine, it can mark the DNA, increasing the production of proteins common in addiction. Increased levels of these altered proteins correspond with drug-seeking behaviors in animals.

The good thing is our bodies are adaptable. Over long periods of time, we can teach our bodies to become accustomed to safety, security, and protection with the effect that over time it changes our very DNA cell expression. However, if we keep putting our bodies through an endless amount of stress, be it Relationship break-ups, Sexual Encounters with strangers, Drugs, and many other dangerous activities, and feeding it with Adrenaline, the need for Adrenaline will only get stronger. And with that, if the tools to gain that Adrenaline is through self-destruction, then ultimately, it will be through self-destructive ways that the call for Adrenaline will only get louder.

How long must that period be for our DNA cell expression to change? One might ask. That I am unclear about.

Testosterone… Adrenaline’s shameful Enemy

Reading all about Adrenaline and its pros and cons, I couldn’t help but try and re-examine my own generalized view on men and the generalization of the age of old saying that Testosterone makes men more aggressive.

This is of course true according to a study performed by Brown GL, McGarvey EL, Shirtcliff EA, Keller A, Granger DA, Flavin K. on Salivary cortisol, dehydroepiandrosterone, and testosterone interrelationships in healthy young males: a pilot study with implications for studies of aggressive behavior

Here are their findings:

“In a pilot study of salivary testosterone and cortisol interrelationships it was found that higher testosterone levels and lower cortisol levels are associated with higher levels of anger (33). Testosterone in the hypothalamus exerts an inhibitory action on CRH and the antidiuretic hormone induces a reduction in cortisol production. More pronounced is the inhibitory effect of cortisol on GnRH. Stressful situations, such as trauma and the like, inflict significant inhibition on testosterone secretion. High testosterone levels or an increase in basal concentrations are associated with aggressive manifestations, whereas high cortisol concentrations are linked to submissive behavior. The biological balance between testosterone and cortisol has a psychological equivalent. Motivational drives are mediated by punishment and reward and expressed by approach and avoidance tendencies, sensitivity to punishment is reduced when testosterone levels increase and this means that less fear is manifested in aggressive behavior, whereas the high cortisol levels released in stressful situations increases punishment sensitivity and avoidance, resulting in the choice of flight behavior. Therefore, when a high testosterone/cortisol ratio occurs it is more likely to result in socially aggressive behavior (34).”

Why the re-examining? Remember in the beginning we were taught that Cortisol along with Adrenaline gets released when we experience a threat, well, that’s why? Is it then Testosterone alone that is the culprit for the brutish behavior some men are known for? Given what we learned from the study if you have a high testosterone/cortisol ratio, then socially aggressive behavior is the most likely outcome.

What’s also interesting is that when we refer to Adrenaline, we hear “Fight or “Flight”, however according to the study above, “Cortisol” is the “Flight” in that saying. If there were masculine and feminine energies attached to both Adrenaline and Cortisol, Adrenaline would certainly be masculine, and Cortisol would be feminine.

Why then is Testosterone, Adrenaline’s shameful enemy? Well, next time you see a man get angry or act brutish, just know, Testosterone isn’t the only one to blame, though oftentimes, in my opinion, it gets all of it! Basically, Testosterone or High levels of Testosterone is the hormone that brings the man to the fight, Cortisol along with Testosterone and Adrenaline(from what we’ve learned) are the two that finish the fight.

Cortisol Consumption and how it loops back to Testosterone

In my opinion, the blog would just not be complete if I didn’t add a section on Cortisol consumption. This in itself is such a complex topic that it begs for an article of its own, but I am going to take a stab at it. Why? Remember Cortisol is that hormone that helps to regulate blood pressure and when you’re stressed, your adrenal glands release Cortisol along with Adrenaline.

Here’s where it gets interesting, according to Dr. Michael Gregar M.D from NutionFacts.org eating a high-meat diet cause a spike in Cortisol.

If you feed people lots of eggs and meat, including fish and poultry, and then switch them to a diet with bread, fruit, vegetables, and sugar — but about the same amount of fat — all their testosterone levels go up. Even more importantly, however, all their levels of cortisol, a stress hormone produced by our adrenal glands, go down.

Basically, these spikes in cortisol when we consume a high-meat diet, not only affect our health as women and men but also the health of children for woman who plans to be mothers as Dr. Gregan’s video, Maternal Diet May Affect Stress Responses in Children explains.

Here’s a snippet from his blog:

And indeed, researchers found higher blood cortisol levels “in both the sons and daughters of women who had reported higher meat/fish” consumption, about a 5 percent increase for every meat serving per day. Such diets may present a metabolic stress to the mother and kind of reprogram the adrenal axis of their children, leading to lifelong hypercortisolemia, elevated levels of stress hormones in the blood. This may help explain why every daily portion of meat during late pregnancy may lead to a 1 percent greater fat mass in their children by the time they reach adolescence. So, this could increase the risk of their children becoming obese later in life and thus has “important implications for public health and in terms of prevention of obesity.”

It’s a big snippet, but damn, it’s so interesting, if I could write a book, about it, I would.

The point I am trying to derive from this is that if you find yourself in a place where you might be addicted to adrenaline or as mentioned earlier, brought up in a household where high levels of adrenaline and stress were a constant theme and that might have left you to be more prone to seeking the adrenaline fix, it might be worth rethinking your eating habits then.

After all, if eating a high-meat diet causes a spike in stress hormones, i.e. Cortisol and you decide to meditate and think loving thoughts as Dr. Hanscom advised to curb your need for that adrenaline rush, instead of feeding it, you might be fighting a losing battle if you know what I mean. It’s similar to secondhand smoke, no point in stopping smoking if someone else is just going to blow smoke in your face!

Conclusion

Firstly, thank you for sticking to the end. I know it’s a lot to digest and writing it took a while, as you can see, the topic of Adrenaline overflows in so many areas, that it just goes on! Thank you.

Basically, the title and the design of the article are all about the Dark side of Adrenaline, but really what I would like the reader to take away is the inspired awareness of what tools or methods a person might use in their own personal lives to get their known or unknown Adrenalin fix. As your own eyes will tell you, it’s not Adrenaline itself, which can also be very bad for you by itself, but to tools and methods that are just as dangerous, if not more. Adrenaline addiction is very real and that is the ultimate point I am trying to make, it’s important to understand how we can beat it.

Addiction in my opinion is all about numbing the pain we have inside of us, and there are so many roads to numbing that pain, and only a few that leads to recovery. One of the biggest false premises is that you get different degrees of emotional pain and that it’s measurable, and if the pain doesn’t add up to another person’s pain, that pain can be dismissed. But in truth, it’s our individual experience of the pain we each hold that determines its magnitude. And therein lies the irony, pain can’t be measured, neither can our lives be compared. As unique as each person’s DNA is to a person, so is the experience of each person’s emotional pain. It’s through empathy we can translate and share the experience of that pain. Your pain matters. You Matter!

Acceptance and Understanding are and will remain the start of the road to recovery. Again, if you suffer from addiction, do not rely on self-help books and articles and seek the assistance of a medical professional.

As the Serenity Prayer goes:

God, grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

The End.

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