I have this pattern where I take a supplement for months or sometimes years and then I stop taking it just to see if I can tell whether it was actually doing anything and I have done this with every supplement I have ever taken because the idea of paying for something that is not working bothers me more than the risk of feeling bad for a couple of weeks. I have been taking Vitamin D and Omega 3s for a long time and I have cycled off them more times than I can count and every time the same thing happens where the first few days I feel fine and I tell myself that this time I have finally caught the placebo in the act and then around day seven things start feeling a little heavier and by day ten I am waking up with that familiar low hum of sadness that I have gotten to know very well over the years and by day thirteen every thought finds its way to something bleak and the filter through which I experience everything has shifted and the world looks grey and I cannot find the energy to care about the things that usually pull me out of it. And I always know somewhere in the back of my mind that it is the supplements and I always wait a couple extra days anyway because I want to be sure.

When I start taking them again it is never dramatic and there is no switch flipping but by evening I notice that I laughed at something and it was the first genuine laugh I had felt in days and the next morning I wake up and the world looks normal again and it is such a clear signal that I feel stupid for needing to prove it to myself again. The thing about Vitamin D is that it is not really a vitamin the way we think of vitamins because it functions as a steroid hormone that binds to receptors spread throughout the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus and the limbic system and it directly regulates the expression of tryptophan hydroxylase 2 which is the rate-limiting enzyme that converts tryptophan into serotonin so without enough Vitamin D your brain literally cannot manufacture enough serotonin no matter how many SSRIs you throw at it because the enzyme that makes the neurotransmitter is not being turned on. And Omega 3s work through a completely different but complementary pathway where they integrate into neuronal membranes and change how signals propagate across synapses and they produce specialized molecules that actively resolve inflammation in the brain and they modulate the HPA axis so your cortisol response does not stay stuck in the on position and they shape the gut microbiome in ways that signal back up the vagus nerve to influence mood. So Vitamin D turns up the serotonin synthesis and Omega 3s quiet the inflammatory noise and stabilize the neural architecture and when you take them together they cover both sides of the equation in a way that neither can do alone.

I think the reason I keep running the same experiment over and over is that supplements work slowly and invisibly and you cannot feel the slope of a gradual improvement the way you can feel the shock of a sudden decline so every few months I forget what the decline feels like and I need to rediscover it. I am back on both supplements now and I will stay on them until the next time I convince myself that they are probably placebo and I stop again and feel terrible again and learn the same lesson again because that is just how I am wired and I have made peace with it. I think about how the sun is the original source of all this because Vitamin D is what your skin makes when light hits it and your brain uses it to make serotonin and without enough light the mind starts to grow things it should not and sunlight is the disinfectant of the mind in a way that is literal and not just poetic.

If any of this hit close to home find me on Twitter. I am @troysk704.