u/Civil-Access8287

I saw a post online from someone talking about his experience with retatrutide and how it essentially “reset” his dopamine reward system. He mentioned that this reset was not exclusive to food; it also helped him kick bad habits such as gambling and smoking. I understand that the GLP-1 component of reta is primarily responsible for the reduction of food-related reward cues, which is part of the reason why reta is so effective. I have also heard about people’s experiences with reta and anhedonia.

I do not mean to come off as condescending or anything, but I do not necessarily need reta for the weight-loss effects. However, I am interested in taking a low dose to essentially reset my dopamine reward system. I do not eat processed food, I am very strict with my workout and school/work routine, and I do not use Instagram or TikTok, but I am always looking for ways to improve different aspects of my life.

If anyone is willing to share their experience with reta in regard to this idea of dopamine “resetting,” it would be much appreciated.

I’m up early 3 out of 5 weekday mornings to get my morning swim in, and the other 2 days I’m usually up around 7 getting ready for class. My morning routine typically starts with water + electrolytes. I know influencers have kind of turned that into a joke, but honestly, I really do feel better when I start my day that way.

After that, I sit down for a few minutes and just breathe. I often find myself feeling stressed or rushed in the morning, which I kind of attribute to that morning cortisol spike, and taking a few minutes to slow down seems to help a lot.

Next is supplements and breakfast. Most mornings I’ll have a yogurt bowl with honey and frozen fruit, along with magnesium threonate, vitamin D, creatine, and zinc. I usually have my coffee about 45 minutes to an hour after waking up, usually black, or sometimes with milk if I have any in the fridge.

My question for the Reddit community is: what have you done to optimize your mornings? Any habits, supplements, or small changes that have helped you feel better physically or mentally? I feel like my mornings are already in a pretty good place, but there’s always room for improvement, and I’d love to hear what’s worked for other people.

As someone who has been in the endurance training/racing game for about three years now, I was really intrigued when I first heard about MOTS-c. Endogenous MOTS-c is produced/released during training (the “~30 minutes in” idea is not exact, just an approximation based on what I’ve seen in research and how people discuss it). Your muscles essentially create an internal environment in response to exercise by producing MOTS-c, a mitochondrial-derived peptide. This environment includes improved metabolic flexibility, allowing your muscles to switch between glucose and fat as fuel, and increased efficiency in glucose handling, often discussed alongside improved insulin sensitivity and glucose uptake, therefore supporting energy use and recovery. Finally, MOTS-c may also help the body handle the stress of exercise, allowing for better adaptation and recovery. In other words, it’s part of the broader “stress → signal → adapt” cycle that endurance training is built on.

Admittedly, I wasn’t aware of endogenous MOTS-c and its role in exercise until I heard about the peptide variant. Adding MOTS-c exogenously essentially aims to replicate and amplify what endogenous MOTS-c already does (considering they share the same amino acid sequence). From a framework perspective (again, not medical advice), this may support improved glucose uptake and insulin sensitivity, plus increased fat oxidation capacity, potentially providing a steadier energy supply and helping you avoid the “bonk” many endurance athletes are familiar with. Exogenous MOTS-c is also framed as helping cells better tolerate exercise stress through antioxidant responses and decreased NF-κB inflammatory signaling. The benefits of exogenous MOTS-c likely won’t show up immediately, but rather over time when paired with endurance training. For instance, improved metabolic efficiency and better utilization of glucose are adaptations that build over weeks, not just in a single session. Overall, I’d label MOTS-c as a peptide (if taken) that’s meant to build on the endurance work you’re already doing, more of an “adaptation support” tool than a replacement for training fundamentals like volume, fueling, and recovery.

Personally, it’s hard to make absolute statements about almost anything. I would never say, “This supplement solely improved my sleep quality by x amount.” However, from a framework standpoint, MOTS-c does have a plausible mechanism for supporting endurance fitness, which is why I end up going to communities like Reddit to ask what other people’s experiences have been. That said, I try to treat anecdotes as a starting point not proof because training load, sleep, diet, and baseline fitness can completely change how someone responds or what they think they’re feeling.

I wanted to share an update on one change I have made to my routine recently. After posting my discussion on cortisol, I received some feedback that gave me a better understanding of why cortisol can stay elevated during times of stress. To keep it short, the person explained how cortisol is regulated during sleep, which led to a more important question in the context of lowering cortisol: why is my cortisol not being properly managed while I sleep?

For some background, cortisol is normally lower during the early and middle stages of sleep, before it begins to rise again closer to waking in order to help us get up and feel alert. That drop is supposed to happen, but stress, circadian rhythm disruption, illness, and other factors can interfere with it. When that happens, it suggests the HPA axis, or hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, may not be suppressing as it should during sleep, which can contribute to cortisol remaining elevated. I went into more detail on that in my previous cortisol post, but the main point is that chronically elevated cortisol can negatively affect many aspects of our lives. As always, this is not medical advice, and this is just a subjective discussion. Everyone should practice organized skepticism when reading claims made online.

I feel like I already have most of my bases covered. I keep consistent sleep and wake times, cut out food and caffeine at appropriate times, keep my room cold, and try to do the basic things right. Even with that in place, I still felt that life stress was keeping my cortisol elevated and that it was affecting how I felt day to day, which is part of why I made that original discussion in the first place.

This is where Selank comes into the conversation. I had tried Selank during the day before, and honestly I just did not feel great on it. I cannot fully explain why, but it just did not seem like it was working for me, so I stopped using it. However, from a framework perspective, taking Selank before bed may help reduce pre-sleep hyperarousal and anxiety. The idea is that if the nervous system is calmer before sleep, there may be less HPA-axis activation, which could allow for better regulation of cortisol during the night. It is not something that would put you to sleep like melatonin or act like something such as DSIP that people associate with sleep depth. Rather, the possible value would be in helping the body settle into a state where cortisol is managed more appropriately during sleep.

To be clear, this is a theoretical framework, not a proven statement. The idea is simply that lowering pre-sleep stress and hyperarousal may help support healthier overnight cortisol regulation, and that could potentially help people who feel like elevated cortisol is affecting their lives in ways that are hard to get under control. High cortisol is not something we want hanging around all the time, and I think a lot of people may be dealing with it more than they realize.

This is a shorter discussion than some of my other ones, but I still wanted to put it out there. I think a lot of people, myself included, probably deal with elevated cortisol affecting day-to-day life without fully understanding why it is happening or what angle to approach it from. This is just one framework-based perspective on how Selank may fit into that conversation. Again, this is not medical advice, just something I wanted to share so people can do their own research and think about the issue from another angle.