What Happens if Things Go Wrong?

All movement outside the green zone puts the brain and body in “protection mode” rather than “growth & development” mode. So how can you tell if you start to slip out of the green zone?

Q: What happens if networks 1 & 2 are underused? (left-hand column of the green zone table)

A: As you already should know if you've done all the tutorials, parts of networks in nonuse idle for a while and then begin to atrophy [that means you’re losing brain cells], just like unused muscles get smaller and weaker. As networks get smaller, your mental abilities deteriorate. N1&2 are largely employed in body/brain interface and if they are underused you will lack physical energy. You may lose your appetite, your desire for sex, and any interest you might once have had in your work or your hobbies. Your brain will be short of quite a few transmitters, among them norepinephrine, dopamine, serotonin and acetylcholine, so you'll begin to find it harder to pay attention to things, even stuff you were interested in will seem more boring. Concentration will become a chore, and you’ll find yourself making excuses not to get involved in anything new. Fatigue will become a constant drag and you’ll wake up feeling like you haven’t slept. More and more you’ll feel you ‘can’t be bothered’ to do very much at all, and you may also start feeling sorry for yourself and blaming other people. It’s a short step from there to depression, ADD, personality disorders or constant apathy.

Other abilities that may reduce in performance or be lost: Your sense of direction, your awareness of rhythm and pitch in music, hand/eye coordination, response time & reflexes, self care & hygiene, physical grace, agility, spatial skills, balance, sensuality, satisfaction, sensorimotor and spatial memory, perception of details. You may also notice a change in attitude and behavior and find you get embarrassed more easily and your confidence is low.

A sense of timing and rhythm is an essential component of intelligence partly because it is an essential aspect of memory, but as we go on you’ll find it’s necessary for many other things too, including [perhaps surprisingly] your sex appeal and your self esteem!

Dopamine Deficiency

Fewer than 1 percent of all neurons generate dopamine, most of them in N2 structures like the substantia nigra, which helps control movement; (it is the shortage of dopamine cells here that results in symptoms of Parkinson’s disease).

Wherever they are, brain cells respond to the release of dopamine through one or more of five distinct dopamine receptors poking up from their surface, proteins designed to lock onto dopamine and respond accordingly. A shortage or downregulation of these or of cells on the production line will result in dopamine deficiency.

Another factor affecting levels is the dopamine transporter, a chemical that 'mops up' dopamine molecules once they have signaled cells. Drugs like cocaine block that transporter, allowing dopamine to remain in interaction for longer and signal more cells.

Individuals differ in every aspect of dopamine production and metabolism, and it’s often a lot easier to tell that someone is short of dopamine from their behavior than it is to find out physiologically why they are short of dopamine. It's easy to spot Parkinson's because there are clear physical symptoms, and some other conditions have scannable traits (for example low delivery of prefrontal dopamine is thought to contribute to schizophrenia, and low dopamine in N2 is marked by attention problems and lack of motivation.)

Prevention is always preferable to cure, and it's now becoming apparent that coercion downgrades the dopamine system. Healthy amounts of dopamine simply make a relevant object almost impossible to ignore, and in the conflict between following intelligence's promptings and society's redirection of attention through coercion, something's got to lose. Told enough times to ignore our own urges, interests and desires, we suppress them by downregulating dopamine. Unconsciously aware we're out of balance, we then try to put it back with recreational drugs, sugar and medication.

As you get used to practicing anxiety reduction you may find any craving for things like alcohol or sugary food reduces along with the anxiety. If you experience such cravings and they don't go away with anxiety reduction, you may want to work on building up dopamine production naturally and/or looking for the safest, most effective drug or method for you personally. It's hard working with low dopamine because your energy seems low, but it's well worth the effort for how much better you feel when it's up and running well.

Q: What hapens if networks 1 & 2 are used wrongly? (right-hand column of the green zone table)

A: Your mental abilities will again deteriorate if ‘wrong use’ habits push you out of the green zone. Wrong use in a network will also increase ‘non use’ in the other networks it is connected to, so the performance of the whole brain will decrease. Your perception is particularly subject to damage by ‘wrong use’; we'll discuss this later on in this tutorial and others.

If networks 1&2 are used wrongly, you can become ‘driven by drives’ –you’ll be overrun by too much dopamine and norepinephrine, and may be plagued with cravings leading to addictions or obsessions, which may be for food, sex, alcohol/drugs, gambling, sugar, violence, or any combination of these, and these drives will slowly override your common sense. Compulsively seeking input for one or more of them will obviously affect your physical as well as mental health, and will limit your intelligence accordingly. The malfunctioning networks will turn to more and more extreme desires, with an accompanying lack of real satisfaction that creates a vicious circle of attempted fulfillment. The more you get, the more you will want, yet the less you will be able to enjoy it; and it never seems enough. You may notice a shift in attitude and behavior towards authoritarianism. You may experience mood swings between arrogance and paranoia, or compulsive risk taking and guilt. You’ll be susceptible to ADHD, selective memory loss, and bipolar disorder if the condition continues.