Thanks for the input guys.
Been thinking a lot about circadian inputs as strong aggravating factors for my personal DPDR.
I did a few experiments and came to the following conclusions so far.
There's a natural cortisol rythm every day... Basically it starts spiking at 6 am or so and peaks at 9 am... and slowly drops... basically cortisol is lowest from 11 am till 1:30 pm... then goes up from there again... then thre's a major crash from 4 to 6 pm again... then at 6:30 till 8 there's another big wind of cortisol.. and after that it REALLY drops... that's all so the same time where it gets dark... and my DP gets consistently worse at exactly that time... and then at around 10:30 pm or so there is another wind where it's getting a lot better. This might not apply to all of you but for me the severity of my dp depends a lot on those rythms.
Another thing I noticed is this:
Carbs turn into serotonin... I noticed if I have lots of carbs I get very drowsy and basically carbs shut down cortisol & raise serotonin, so if I suspect high serotonin levels it makes a lot of sense that DP gets worse after that...
Here's what I tested yesterday...
Normally I have my last big meal with moderate amounts of carbs at around 7 or 7:30 pm... meaning cortisol drops after eating & serotonin rises... and I feel dramatically worse at 8 pm compared to the whole day...
So yesterday I tried an experiment... and delayed my meal and instead had it at 9:30 pm.... and guess what... my DP was 50% less and much more bearable...
Now since it's just started getting warmer here & the days get longer I thought maybe that's the reason I felt better and not that I had my last meal later in the day...
Well so I did a test today... and ate a higher carb meal today again at around 7:30 pm combined with 1/3 of dark chocolate which is known to raise serotonin too & sure enough half an hour later my dp got very severe again and lasted for hours and is still strong right now...
Other things I've noticed:
I have chronically low dopamine levels too and depression associated with that... When I take L-Dopa though my depression just goes away and I become very social & confident & the DP doesn't affect me nearly as much as low dopamine causes lots of cognitive issues.
On the other hand I always remember that I got suicidal from taking 5-htp & things that are supposed to raise serotonin...
My DP has been chronic for almost 7 months now... it really started when I took an antidepressant for sleep issues, withdrew from it and then got on an antipsychotic & stopped cold turkey after severe reactions..
Since then my sleep cycle broke.... I do have around 6,5 hours of sleep a night but it feels like I am in stage 1 sleep all the time and not getting any deep sleep phases... basically I feel like I have totally messed up sleep architecture...
But I don't know if it's DP related or if it's sleep related or vice versa... But going on an antidepressant & quitting when you've been high serotonin & getting an antipsychotic if you're low dopamine is pretty much guaranteed to bring about these kinds of issues...
Anyway... I am trying to really figure this thing out... I think DP has lots of different causes & everybody has to adress his particular issues.
Another thing:
Alcohol makes me feel worse when I have it... but the next day afterglow basically makes me feel completely normal for the whole day... then I crash again, this is called glutamate rebound from what I've read. I've read that NMDA receptors seem to be a problem too with DPDR.
Other things I've tried:
Thyroid hormone supplementation: Gave me extreme panic attacks & restlessness but improved my brain function a lot.
High Dose Fish Oil: Gave me strong panic attacks too...
Btw... i always have social anxiety & background nervousness which seems to correlated with high serotonin levels too...
There are posts here that masturbation & porn causes DPDR... which makes sense as it depleted dopamine... I stopped watching porn and masturbating 3 weeks ago... I did it before... I can definately tell you, it helped.
I normally don't make the effort to write and communicate in forums but I thought fuck it... maybe it helps somebody & maybe others have made similar connections & have some ideas to share.
Been thinking a lot about circadian inputs as strong aggravating factors for my personal DPDR.
I did a few experiments and came to the following conclusions so far.
There's a natural cortisol rythm every day... Basically it starts spiking at 6 am or so and peaks at 9 am... and slowly drops... basically cortisol is lowest from 11 am till 1:30 pm... then goes up from there again... then thre's a major crash from 4 to 6 pm again... then at 6:30 till 8 there's another big wind of cortisol.. and after that it REALLY drops... that's all so the same time where it gets dark... and my DP gets consistently worse at exactly that time... and then at around 10:30 pm or so there is another wind where it's getting a lot better. This might not apply to all of you but for me the severity of my dp depends a lot on those rythms.
Another thing I noticed is this:
Carbs turn into serotonin... I noticed if I have lots of carbs I get very drowsy and basically carbs shut down cortisol & raise serotonin, so if I suspect high serotonin levels it makes a lot of sense that DP gets worse after that...
Here's what I tested yesterday...
Normally I have my last big meal with moderate amounts of carbs at around 7 or 7:30 pm... meaning cortisol drops after eating & serotonin rises... and I feel dramatically worse at 8 pm compared to the whole day...
So yesterday I tried an experiment... and delayed my meal and instead had it at 9:30 pm.... and guess what... my DP was 50% less and much more bearable...
Now since it's just started getting warmer here & the days get longer I thought maybe that's the reason I felt better and not that I had my last meal later in the day...
Well so I did a test today... and ate a higher carb meal today again at around 7:30 pm combined with 1/3 of dark chocolate which is known to raise serotonin too & sure enough half an hour later my dp got very severe again and lasted for hours and is still strong right now...
Other things I've noticed:
I have chronically low dopamine levels too and depression associated with that... When I take L-Dopa though my depression just goes away and I become very social & confident & the DP doesn't affect me nearly as much as low dopamine causes lots of cognitive issues.
On the other hand I always remember that I got suicidal from taking 5-htp & things that are supposed to raise serotonin...
My DP has been chronic for almost 7 months now... it really started when I took an antidepressant for sleep issues, withdrew from it and then got on an antipsychotic & stopped cold turkey after severe reactions..
Since then my sleep cycle broke.... I do have around 6,5 hours of sleep a night but it feels like I am in stage 1 sleep all the time and not getting any deep sleep phases... basically I feel like I have totally messed up sleep architecture...
But I don't know if it's DP related or if it's sleep related or vice versa... But going on an antidepressant & quitting when you've been high serotonin & getting an antipsychotic if you're low dopamine is pretty much guaranteed to bring about these kinds of issues...
Anyway... I am trying to really figure this thing out... I think DP has lots of different causes & everybody has to adress his particular issues.
Another thing:
Alcohol makes me feel worse when I have it... but the next day afterglow basically makes me feel completely normal for the whole day... then I crash again, this is called glutamate rebound from what I've read. I've read that NMDA receptors seem to be a problem too with DPDR.
Other things I've tried:
Thyroid hormone supplementation: Gave me extreme panic attacks & restlessness but improved my brain function a lot.
High Dose Fish Oil: Gave me strong panic attacks too...
Btw... i always have social anxiety & background nervousness which seems to correlated with high serotonin levels too...
There are posts here that masturbation & porn causes DPDR... which makes sense as it depleted dopamine... I stopped watching porn and masturbating 3 weeks ago... I did it before... I can definately tell you, it helped.
I normally don't make the effort to write and communicate in forums but I thought fuck it... maybe it helps somebody & maybe others have made similar connections & have some ideas to share.
