AMA #14: 2023 Philanthropy, Evening Routine, Light Therapy, Health Metrics & More

Andrew Huberman (0:00)

Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life.

I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. We are now live today with our annual and lifetime members of the Huberman Lab podcast, Premium Channel. And first off, I just want to welcome everyone. Thanks so much for being here. I hope you're having a good holidays, and I'll wish you a happy new year at this point. And again, at the end, I want to kick off our discussion today by just highlighting some of the incredible things that you all have already done. The Premium Channel, as most of you presumably know, provides support for important research. And when I say important research, we can define that as research that is done on humans with humans, with their consent, of course, that we believe stands the highest probability of leading to new quality treatments and improvements in mental health, physical health and performance. So support from the Premium Channel, that is from you, has already allowed us to make several substantial gifts to various laboratories as well as some other endeavors. So I'll just quickly tell you where those funds have gone. And then I'll tell you something really, truly exciting about where we're headed in 2024 We'll get to the questions in a moment, but I think this is important to hear. First of all, we made a year long gift. And when I say year long gift, we're talking gifts that I certainly can say from my perspective as a researcher who's run a laboratory for a very long time. These are the size gifts that allow researchers to do research that they otherwise would not have been able to do. They pay salaries, they pay for materials in the laboratory, they pay for the sorts of things that allow science to happen that would not otherwise happen. We made a gift to Dr. Aliyah Crumb's laboratory at Stanford in the Department of Psychology. She studies mindset. Some of you may have seen the episode with Ali, as she's called, Dr. Crumb on the Huberman Lab podcast. She's studying mindsets and how they affect both mental health and physical health in children and adults. And that work, hopefully, we'll get a report back on at some point soon about how those mindsets can improve performance in schoolwork, athletics and other areas of life. So the idea here is that you supported that work through the premium channel and then that work can happen. And then we can get the information about what the conclusions of that work are out into the general population, meaning into the public, so that people can benefit from that knowledge right away. And in many cases, implement that knowledge. We also made a gift to Dr. Sachin Panda at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Sachin Panda is an expert in circadian biology and intermittent fasting. And the study he is using those funds for relates to intermittent fasting as a specific tool for improving mental health. We also made a gift to Dr. Carla Schatz at Stanford University School of Medicine. She's studying how the immune system and maternal conditions and especially infections or various kinds that pregnant women sometimes encounter or get can affect the developing fetal brain. And that work also relates to stem cells. I know there's a lot of excitement about stem cells nowadays. So I'll give you an update on that as soon as I can. We also made a substantial gift to Dr. Joanna Steinglass at Columbia University School of Medicine. Dr. Steinglass has not yet been on the podcast, but hopefully she will have time to come on the podcast at some point soon. She's studying and developing novel treatments for eating disorders. If you didn't see the episode on healthy and disordered eating, sadly anorexia nervosa is the most deadly of all the psychiatric conditions. That is a great number of patients that have anorexia nervosa unfortunately go on to die of malnourishment and things related to malnourishment. So it's a critical, critical issue that's not talked about enough and frankly is not well funded enough at the level of federal funding. But through your support, there's now funding siphoning into her laboratory and she's directing those funds directly at novel treatments based on neuroscience and habit formation for eating disorders, anorexia and other eating disorders. Dr. Nolan Williams also at Stanford, who does work on transcranial magnetic stimulation, which is a tool to non-invasively alter neural circuits in the brain for purposes of relieving depression and PTSD. And excitingly, Dr. Williams' laboratory also combines TMS, transcranial magnetic stimulation, with psychedelic treatments, in particular ibogaine, but also psilocybin. There's a lot of excitement about that. And then last but certainly not least, we also funded a chronobiology conference. They were desperate for funds, reached out, and we were delighted to provide the funds for that conference. Those funds allowed graduate students and postdocs who come from laboratories that couldn't afford to send those students and postdocs to that conference to attend that conference. And I must say from a lot of years of experience in the scientific community, the ability to attend these high-quality meetings is absolutely critical for those young scientists to be able to glean important information and go back to their own laboratories and to make novel contributions. Also can be the difference between a new collaboration getting sparked up or not. And I should just mention that the research laboratories that we fund were at a much higher level than the conferences, but the conferences I think are also a really important way to direct funds. For those of you that don't know, chronobiology is how the timing of light temperature and exercise and eating affect health. So all things that I think people are interested in. So that's it for what we covered and what we supported in 2023 We're very proud of the support that we were able to provide thanks to your help. And I am very, very excited to announce that while in 2023, it was Scicomm, us, the Huberman Lab podcast, through your premium channel support that allows us to make that support. And we had a matching donation, dollar for dollar donation, from the Tiny Foundation, heading into 2024 Tiny Foundation is going to continue to do a dollar for dollar match, excuse me, which is exciting. And we've brought on, in addition to that, two other donors who are going to also do dollar for dollar donation. So in other words, for every dollar that the Huberman Lab premium channel has or raises in 2024, there will be $3 to match that. So this is phenomenal. And what it means is that the Scicomm and Huberman Lab podcasts are now doing what's considered on university campuses as major philanthropy. So very exciting. And so thank you oh so very much for your support. You are making a difference in the research. And I don't just say that. I know anytime there's fundraisers or things of that sort, by the way, this is not a fundraiser. This is us saying thank you to you. But it's always hard to know where those funds go. And we make sure that the whole process is very streamlined. We cut the fat on it in every dimension so that the money can go to discovering new tools for mental health, physical health and performance. So thank you so much. Okay, first question is up. Carolyn A writes, I am interested in studies about the anterior mid-singulate cortex. Oh yes, such an interesting structure. Would you please share any information regarding those? Thank you for all you do in the Advancement of Science. Thank you for all you do in the Advancement of Science. Carolyn and others listening. Okay, so the anterior mid-singulate cortex, for those of you that may not have seen the episode on willpower and tenacity, but even if you have, is a region of the brain that is involved in leaning into difficult challenges of all kinds. This is an area of the brain that gets larger when we embrace effort that leads to a bit of internal anxiety, but it's something that's good for us, an adaptive thing. And this is an area of the brain that gets smaller when we don't engage in challenging endeavors. Now we need to define challenging endeavors very specifically, challenging endeavors that stimulate the growth of the anterior mid-singulate cortex or challenging endeavors that we would prefer not to do. We may want the end goal, right? So we may want the consequence of the exercise, the consequence of the learning, the consequence of whatever the challenge is, but that the challenge itself feels uncomfortable. And here, of course, we want it to be uncomfortable, but safe challenges is what's going to grow the inter mid-singulate cortex. Now, another thing about the anterior mid-singulate cortex that's important is that for people that end up being successful dieters, successful pursuit of fitness, for people that complete a degree or finish an exam or things of that sort, the anterior mid-singulate cortex gets bigger. For people that fail to do the work required to prepare, so the preparation, that is, the anterior mid-singulate cortex actually shows a bit of atrophy. So the anterior mid-singulate cortex is an anatomical and neural reflection of willpower and tenacity. And I think what people get wrong over and over about these sorts of findings is that the anterior mid-singulate cortex is really responding to a variety of inputs as a lot of different inputs and outputs. We know that based on neural circuit tracing, but it absolutely responds best to things that feel like that they are indeed difficult, that they are a challenge. So if you're like me and you enjoy certain forms of exercise and it's just pure bliss for you the whole way through, that's not going to grow your anterior mid-singulate cortex. However, if you add a bit of, let's say, higher intensity work, I like doing a long run or hike on Sundays. I don't do sprints too often at the end of that. But if I were to do a couple of hill sprints at the end, and I really was like, this is rough, this sucks. That's actually the sort of thing that's going to stimulate the anterior mid-singulate cortex. The anterior mid-singulate cortex, since Carolyn, you asked about studies, was actually discovered in cases where people were stimulating this brain area. And the subjects, these were people receiving neurosurgery for other reasons, reported feeling like something was impending, some, not impending doom, but there was some challenge, like they were going to head into a storm, something challenging was coming. But the other subjective feeling that they reported was feeling like they could lean into it, like they're ready for it, they're ready to meet that challenge. So what you're looking for, when you are interested in growing your interim mid-singulate cortex, and I'll tell you why that's a good thing to do, is you're looking for that feeling of leaning into challenge, that friction. If something's too easy or it's too delightful, that's not going to contribute to your interim mid-singulate cortex function and growth. It might contribute to other things, indeed it will. And life isn't all about leaning into challenge, but why would you want to stimulate your interim mid-singulate cortex in this way? And by the way, those challenges can come from physical endeavors, it can come from language learning, it can come from a hard conversation that you're, you've been putting off, that's hard for you to have. Lord knows we all have those aspects of our lives, the things that we're putting off or that are hard for us or that feel difficult. Again, keep these endeavors safe. Never want to do anything that would damage your mental health or physical health, but leaning into challenge in that way does seem to activate and grow the entire mid-singulate cortex. Now, the advantage of that is that there are studies, excuse me, showing that the so-called superagers, the superagers, I don't like that name so much, it's a bit of a misnomer, they call them superagers, but they really should be called super non-agers because these are people who seem to maintain healthy cognitive function much longer than most individuals. Their memory, their IQ remains stable into their much, much later decades of their life or even improves over time. And then the correlation, and again, this is correlation, but these people's entire mid-singulate cortex does not atrophy. And in general, what the studies point to, and there still needs to be more data collected on this, is that these people are regularly engaging in things that are hard for them and challenging, and they've embraced that challenge. So lots to say about interior mid-singulate cortex, but I think that grabs the top contour. And I'm a big fan of trying to do something difficult, at least one thing, ideally every week, and perhaps even every day, a little bit. It doesn't take much, maybe even just five minutes. It's that friction, that feeling, oh, I don't want to do this, I can't do this. And then continuing to practice or continuing to lean into that challenge. Safely, of course, that is going to grow that interim mid-signalate cortex. And I just think that's amazing, right? We hear so much about brain atrophy and memory loss and et cetera, et cetera, as we get older. A lot of data now about how to preserve healthy physical function. Here, we're really talking about how to maintain healthy cognitive function, and the interim mid-signalate cortex seems to be a barometer of how well we are doing that. Mark S asks, would love to hear more about an evening routine and not just morning, especially when it comes to light. Oh, I love this question. I love this question because I've made a lot of changes in the last year related to this, because there's this guy on the internet that talks about the importance of getting morning sunlight. Just kidding. There are several of us and gals, but I suppose I've been quite vocal about the importance of getting morning sunlight as soon as possible after waking. And of course, of course, of course, unless you have powers I'm not aware of, if you wake up before the sun comes out, people always ask, what do I do? You wait till the sun comes out. If it's overcast, you get outside a bit longer. If you want to wake up before the sun comes out, turn on bright artificial lights. These days I've actually been playing around a little bit with some bright artificial lights before I, because I tend to wake up before the sun is out. It's the winter months. But in any case, I've talked a lot about the morning routine in the early part of the day and a bit about the afternoon part of the day. Evening routine. Okay, well, I'll tell you ideal and then I'll tell you what I do. I'm always shooting for ideal, but I'm human. I think there's this idea on the internet that I've seen that my whole life is protocols, protocol, protocol, protocol. And indeed, sometimes it looks like that. And indeed, sometimes it doesn't. I'm human, things happen. We all encounter different challenges. So to answer your question directly, Mark, I think it's, I know it's very important that if possible, that you get a little splash of sunlight in your eyes in the afternoon and evening. Why? Why is that important? And what we're really talking about here is not necessarily seeing a sunset at the beach, although that would be great if you could do that, but getting some sunlight in your eyes before the sun goes down, maybe for five, 10 minutes. It's not as important as the morning sunlight, but it does have a great benefit. And the benefit is it adjusts the sensitivity of the neurons in your retina and in your brain such that it protects you against brighter artificial lights later in the evening. Now it doesn't protect you completely, but what it does is if normally, and this is true, bright light viewed for 15 seconds or more between the hours of 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. I'm talking about somebody on a standard schedule, not shift worker, bright lights viewed for 15 seconds or more between the hours of 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. can dramatically quash melatonin levels. Melatonin being the hormone that's involved in feeling sleepy and falling asleep, it does other things as well. Of course, it's secreted from the pineal. We know based on a really nice study published in Science Reports that if you view that afternoon, late afternoon, evening sunlight, you don't have to be too strict about the time. Pop your sunglasses off as long as you can do that safely. Get some sunlight in your eyes or if you can't look directly at the sun, and by the way, never stare directly at the sun, at least getting some daylight in your eyes before the sun goes down, that can offset that melatonin reduction by about 50, 50%, which is pretty impressive. Now, you would still do well to dim the lights in the evening. And one thing that I've been playing with recently is using red lights. So, a lot of people, when they hear red lights, they think, oh, you're talking about, you know, red light panel, which that has its uses. Those tend to be very bright red lights or, you know, portable red light. I actually use a small portable red light. It looks like a piece of thick piece of toast. I use that for other reasons. This is not what we're talking about with evening routine. With evening routine, it can be beneficial and very, very cost effective to get some red bulbs and put them in, say, the bedroom where you read before you go to sleep or in a particular room in your house, you tend to spend time in in the evening makes for a nice mellow feel, but it also does several other things. First of all, it, if they're the correct red bulbs, and I'll mention the ones that I've been using in a moment, they eliminate all the blue wavelengths that tend to be stimulating for the, what we call the noradrenergic system. So adrenaline, noradrenaline, cortisol, et cetera. Indeed, there's a study that shows that when shift workers who have to be up at night use red lights of the type that I'm describing, when they work under red light, they have less of a cortisol increase than were they to work under standard fluorescent lights or even standard LED lights. So number one thing would be dim the lights in the evening and at night as much as you safely can to perform whatever functions you need. Don't fall, you know, don't burn yourself with a stove. You know, if you have to write and do work, as I often do, you need light. But to the extent that you can shift to red lights, that can be helpful. And many people, many people, and myself included, find that you get sleepier when you do that. So I might just do this for the last hour of the evening, even if I'm up till 10 or 11 Or if I do it earlier, then I tend to get really sleepy. But those red lights, you know, I put a little lamp above my bed. I'll do that if I'm going to read in bed. I make it much easier to fall asleep, probably because of the reduced cortisol associated with eliminating the blue wavelengths. And they tend to be fairly dim. And now there's one brand of red light that you actually can actually will work on a dimmer. So this is important. I suppose you could use red party lights or Christmas lights. Those could be very affordable. Some people do that, but it's kind of festive feel in the room. Other people like myself will use a red light that's dimmable. I want to mention that what I'm about to say, I don't have any financial relationship to this company in terms of the bulbs. Red light panels are different. I use the Juve, I use Juve type, but for red lights that for the purpose I'm talking about that would go into a standard lamp and that you dim, where that's a very different purpose, right? The red light panels have a very different purpose than red bulbs that you would put into a standard light fixture. The dimmable ones are called, you can find them as red light and just put bond. The technical name of the company is, sorry, forgive me for Googling this now. Yeah, it's a bond charge, B-O-N, separate word charge. And those are dimmable and they have the proper wavelength. So that's what I use. They're not super cheap, but they're not expensive either in comparison to most red light therapies or something. So we're not talking about red light therapy. We're talking about reducing the overall amount of blue light in your environment, et cetera. Now, for many people who don't want to purchase something new, and again, I have no financial relationship to bond charge. So I don't glean anything. I buy them with my own money. And I just have one or two of them. And I dim the lights. Even those red lights, I dim while I'm reading at night and then fall asleep.