WHEN THE BODY SCREAMS: Your Neurons Called, They Want Their Dignity Back

“Have you tried exercise?”

If you have ever been sad, anxious, stressed, tired, or just existing in a human body, someone, your doctor, your therapist, your gym teacher, your mom, the random guy on Twitter with #grindset in his bio, has probably offered this advice¹. It is so baked into our culture it is practically the medical version of “just drink water.”

And there is a reason it is repeated so much. The benefits are obvious: stronger muscles, better cardio, that smug post gym glow that makes you look like you are about to star in a Nike commercial². But under the surface, the effects are much more dramatic. Neurotransmitters spike, neurons grow, inflammation falls, and the whole brain recalibrates³.

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Neurotransmitters: The Brain’s Group Chat

When you move, your brain lights up like it is gossiping with itself. Four major neurotransmitters chime in: serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine, and endorphins⁴.

• Increase in serotonin after aerobic exercise: up to 50%
• Percent of antidepressants that work by boosting serotonin: 100
• Cost of a month of Prozac: $10 to $30
• Cost of taking a walk: $0
• Rise in dopamine after moderate exercise: 15% to 20%
• Percent of people who feel motivated after a workout: about 70%

“Exercise is psychiatry’s best kept secret,” says Scott Shannon, MD, co founder of the Integrative Psychiatry Institute¹¹. “If we could bottle the neurochemical effects of movement, it would outsell any medication we have.”

Today’s pre workout rituals, scooping neon powder into a shaker cup, chugging iced coffee, blasting music, are just ways of hacking the neurotransmitter surge that exercise provides naturally.

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BDNF: Miracle Gro for Your Neurons

If neurotransmitters are the texts, BDNF is the construction crew. Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) is a protein that acts like Miracle Gro for the brain. It helps neurons grow, strengthens the synapses that connect them, and even repairs damage caused by stress and trauma⁵.

• Rise in BDNF after exercise: 30% to 40%
• Decrease in BDNF in untreated depression: about 25%
• Percent of antidepressants that increase BDNF as part of their action: nearly all of them

When BDNF levels are low, memory, mood regulation, and learning take a hit. Low BDNF is common in people with chronic depression, PTSD, and Alzheimer’s disease. The brain becomes less plastic, meaning less able to adapt, recover, and form new pathways, which is why depression can feel like being stuck in a mental rut.

“When you exercise, you are literally growing brain cells,” says Will Van Derveer, MD. “That is not a metaphor.” In other words, going for a run is not just about burning calories. It is about remodeling the brain in a way that makes recovery possible. Many researchers now see BDNF as one of the keys to treating mood disorders without medication, or making medication work better.

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Stress Hormones and Inflammation: Putting Out Fires

Chronic stress is like leaving a car alarm on all day⁶. Eventually you stop noticing, but the damage keeps building. When cortisol stays high for too long, it starts to harm the very systems it was designed to protect. Inflammation is part of the body’s natural defense system, but when it stays switched on, it turns into friendly fire.

Over the past 20 years, researchers have discovered that this overactive inflammatory response is not just a body problem, it is a brain problem. Elevated markers like C reactive protein and interleukin 6 are linked to depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and even suicidal thinking. Patients with treatment resistant depression show up to 50% higher inflammatory markers than those who respond to antidepressants. People with autoimmune conditions such as lupus or rheumatoid arthritis are nearly twice as likely to develop depression.

“Inflammation is where mind and body meet,” says Charles Raison, MD, psychiatrist and researcher. “When we turn down inflammation, we often see mood improve, even in people who have suffered for years.”⁷

Exercise lowers baseline cortisol by 15% to 20% and reduces inflammation markers by up to 30%. It not only calms you but also reduces immune system activity. Scientists now talk about depression as, in some cases, an inflammatory disorder as much as a chemical one.

And yes, telling someone with severe arthritis to go for a brisk walk can feel like asking them to stick needles in their eyes. Movement has to be realistic. Gentle yoga, stretching in a chair, aquatic therapy, or just shifting positions throughout the day can begin to regulate the stress response.

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The Natural High and the Sleep Reset

That “runner’s high” is not folklore. It is a measurable rise in endorphins and endocannabinoids like anandamide⁸. Endorphins are the brain’s built in morphine, blunting pain and creating a floaty, euphoric feeling. Anandamide, named after the Sanskrit word for bliss, taps the same system cannabis targets.

This is why some people get hooked on running, cycling, or CrossFit the way others get hooked on slot machines. The brain rewards movement with a chemical cocktail that says, do that again.

• Time it takes for anandamide to spike: 20 to 30 minutes
• Improvement in sleep quality with regular exercise: 30% to 40%
• Reduction in time it takes to fall asleep: up to 55%

Improved sleep is associated with positive changes in mood, immune function, metabolism, and memory. Exercise helps re sync the circadian rhythm, lowers nighttime cortisol, and tells the brain it is safe to power down. As Friedrich Nietzsche, the 19th century German philosopher known for writing about meaning, resilience, and suffering, put it, “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” Exercise is choosing the pain that makes you stronger, instead of waiting for the pain that breaks you²⁰.

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Caffeine: The Legal Performance Enhancer

Caffeine is the socially acceptable drug that 85% of U.S. adults consume daily⁹. And it is not just for mornings anymore. It is the pregame for the gym.

• Percent of athletes who use caffeine before competition: 73% to 90%
• Percent increase in strength or endurance with moderate caffeine dosing: 5% to 12%
• Men under 40 who use caffeine specifically before workouts: nearly 60%
• Women under 40 who do the same: about 45%
• Average dose in popular pre workout powders: 200 to 300 mg, about three cups of coffee

Coffee is the second most traded commodity in the world after oil. Tea is consumed daily by more than 2 billion people. Chocolate contains caffeine too, as do energy drinks, soda, yerba mate, matcha, and some painkillers.

“Caffeine improves attention and vigilance,” says Nora Volkow, MD, director of NIDA, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, “and unlike many stimulants, its risk profile is relatively mild.”¹⁰

• Reduction in risk of depression among moderate coffee drinkers: 20% to 30%
• Reduction in suicide risk with moderate caffeine intake: up to 45%⁹

And yes, the mug that says “Do not talk to me until I have had my coffee” exists because we have collectively agreed that this socially accepted drug is what keeps civilization on time.

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Other “Bad Habits”: The Good, the Bad, and the No Seriously Stop

Humans are good at rationalizing. But eventually the numbers catch up with us.

“Sugar is not just empty calories,” says Robert Lustig, MD, pediatric endocrinologist and author of “Fat Chance”. “It is a chronic, dose dependent liver toxin. The more you eat, the more you drive metabolic disease.”¹¹

• Grams of sugar in one cup of orange juice: 21
• Grams of sugar in a can of cola: 26
• Increased risk of diabetes with one sugary drink per day: 26%
• Increased risk of depression with daily soda use: about 30%¹⁹

Even diet sodas are linked to microbiome disruption and weight gain risk.

• Average THC in marijuana in 1970: 3% to 4%
• Average THC today: 20% to 30%
• Increase in ER visits for cannabis hyperemesis syndrome since 2005: nearly 1000%¹⁵

“Psychedelics are not toys. They are medicines,” says Rick Doblin, PhD, founder of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. “Dose and setting determine whether they heal or harm.”¹⁷

• Psilocybin trial participants who improved: about 70%¹⁶
• Estimated prevalence of hallucinogen persisting perception disorder: 1% to 5% among regular users
• Percent of adult smokers who started before 18: about 90%
• Heavy metals detected in vape aerosol: nickel, chromium, lead¹⁵
• Percent of U.S. gun deaths that are suicides: about 55%
• Increased suicide risk in homes with firearms: about 5 times higher¹⁸

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Why Humans Always Want “More”

Humanity’s obsession with more is not a moral failing. It is an evolutionary survival strategy. Our ancestors survived by seeking more food, more security, more reproduction. The brain rewards more with dopamine. In a world of scarcity, that was helpful.

The problem is that the modern world delivers more constantly: sugar, streaming, notifications, cannabis potency, pre workout powders that could wake the dead, and the brain does not know how to say enough.

• Increase in global sugar consumption since 1960: about 50%
• Increase in average U.S. portion sizes since 1970: about 200%
• Increase in global cannabis potency since 1995: greater than 300%
• Increase in average daily screen time since 2010: nearly 50%

“The systems are designed to keep you hooked,” says Matt Bernstein, cultural commentator and educator known for his viral Instagram explainers. “If you feel like you cannot stop scrolling or snacking, it is not a personal failing. It is by design.”¹¹

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The Commentary We Cannot Avoid

These statistics are not just curiosities. They are warning lights. We see the evidence: the widening of airplane seats, the debates over buying two tickets, the redesign of movie theaters to fit a heavier population. These are not just culture wars. They are metrics of a society whose inputs have gone badly wrong.

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And Then There Are the Messengers

For a while, RFK Jr. seemed like he might be one of the good guys. He said out loud what many were thinking: that our food systems are broken, that corporate greed shapes environmental policy, and that public health authorities sometimes make mistakes they never admit to¹⁰. He won followers by appearing to speak truth to power, and for a moment, it felt like someone from the inside was pulling back the curtain.

But there is a difference between asking hard questions and setting fire to the lab. Conspiracy thinking hijacks dopamine, giving a little hit of pleasure every time you uncover a new villain. Before long, the hunt for answers becomes the reward in itself. RFK Jr. shifted from being a critic of corruption to rejecting science wholesale. The narrative became about plots, cover ups, and shadowy cabals, until there was no room left for evidence that did not fit the story¹⁰.

• Percent of Americans who believe at least one health-related conspiracy theory: over 40%¹⁰
• Percent who think scientists fudge data for funding: around 30%¹⁰
• Percent who believe in a secret government population control plan: about 20%¹⁰

The problem is not just RFK Jr. The problem is that outrage sells. Politicians, podcasters, media outlets, and social media algorithms profit when you are angry and distrustful. They need you to stay hooked. If you feel like you cannot look away, it is because you are inside a reward loop that is as addictive as sugar or doomscrolling.

This is the tragedy: some of what he said was true. We should question how pharmaceutical companies market drugs. We should talk about toxins in food and water. We should hold public health institutions accountable when they fail. But when legitimate concerns are welded to conspiracy theories, the entire conversation gets dismissed as fringe, and the real problems go unsolved.

The numbers are real. The crises are real. But we need better voices, grounded, curious, and evidence based, who can keep asking hard questions without burning down the entire scientific process to do it.

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The Final Word

If the data tell us anything, it is this: we already know much of what would make us healthier. Move more. Eat real food. Sleep enough to let your brain repair itself. Say no to what is actively making us sick. And demand better from those who claim to speak for us.

I invite you to keep this conversation going. Share your thoughts in the comments below, or join me at www.boulderpsychiatryassociates.com. And if you happen to be in Boulder, stop by the office. There is always something home baked waiting, including at least one keto friendly option, because healing is easier when it comes with cookies.