Sometimes people forget how much of our life is based on brain chemistry. Our lives, and our perception as to how well those lives are going, are not based on other people’s opinions. It is not based on knowledge gained or facts collected. It is based largely on how all of those impressions and facts are processed between our ears.

We know that our brains have the ability to properly process information, opinions, and concepts as well as every other emotional and mental fragment that crosses into the mind. We are generally aware that the brain’s ability to do all that would be dependent on the quality and condition and overall health of that brain. So far, so good. That all makes sense.

When your brain itself needs help?

The challenge and the problem come into play when someone is trying to figure all of this out with the same damaged or tired brain that needs the figuring out.

The brain processes information and emotions and insights and everything else. Under normal conditions, it then sets a mood based on what it perceives, both consciously and unconsciously. For example, a person may intellectually feel confident in giving a speech or presentation. However, they often still feel anxious or nervous inside. They may have the ability to mask it in front of others, but the feeling exists nonetheless.

This happens in large part because the brain is reviewing and processing everything that has placed into it. It is processing information and insights that the person may consciously feel are unimportant. But the information or insight may grow in prominence based on old thinking patterns. If, for example, the person is trying to address and resolve a personal history of being nervous in public, they may attempt some positive “self-talk” and assure themselves that they are really just fine, but the brain still retains memories of perceived past failures or frustrations which the self-talk cannot eliminate.

Self-Talk is temporary

This is where chemical use comes in for some people. If the self-talk does not do what the person wants it to do, they may decide that short term chemical use may at least temporarily resolve that anxiety.

It can work, in the short term. Mind altering chemicals by definition enter the brain through the blood and they stimulate chemical changes inside the parts of the brain that determine how the person responds to what happens next.

Some mind altering chemicals directly stimulate chemicals that directly lead to pleasant emotion. Other chemicals are more indirect. They will simply block the production or distribution of chemicals that would stimulate alarm, panic or concern.

We all know then that sometimes people continue to use these mind altering chemicals frequently enough so that brain chemistry becomes consistently altered by the introduction of mind altering chemicals from outside the body.

The brain undergoes the chemical changes these drugs will trigger, and then the brain will experience at least temporary some depletion of those chemicals. Then, other medications or drugs that the person adds to the mix could exacerbate that depletion.