
Originally Posted by
The God Himself
What is your job? If your job is mainly based on money, it could be the reason you find happiness on stimulants.
For example, a research shows that those who expect praise to be happy at work (engineers, doctors etc) mostly get their amygdala activated when they are satisfied. And that section of brain is also contains opioid receptors. And that people with such professions mostly abuse opiates, nicotine and cannabis.
Not promoting drug usage here, just sharing a research detail.
I think its mostly because of the brain chemistry. You can be sensitive to estrogenic compounds. Estrogen is very well known to regulate serotonin production.
Your bad mood after sex is not due to prolactin. During sex, you get heavily stimulated with endorphins and in return with dopamine. This simply shutdowns your prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for your decision making. Our brains are hedonist. You make decisions based on what gives you pleasure the most. So, after sex, your prefrontal cortex takes the wheel and you notice what you did afterwards. It is not related to prolactin at all. In fact, your dopamine levels are highly elevated after sex and that will downregulate prolactin production in the pituitary. However, there is some evidence that shows prolactin elevation in the post ejaculatory period and I don’t know the exact mechanism. And also your oxytocin gets elevated and you feel so satisfied that you can say “enough”.
Yes, sex hormones play crucial role in our mood, but don’t blame the compounds for any bad mood you have. You have a full control on your brain. Try to relax and understand what is happening. Prolactin is not responsible for unhappiness, actually the women who are lactating are pretty much happy with that.
The worst mental state comes from progesterone itself directly. Women have a lot of mood swings in their premenstrual period due to their elevated progesterone levels.