Essentials: Erasing Fears & Traumas Using Modern Neuroscience

**Andrew Huberman** (0:00)
Welcome to Huberman Lab Essentials, where we revisit past episodes for the most potent and actionable science-based tools for mental health, physical health and performance.
I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. Today, we're going to talk about the neuroscience of fear. We are also going to talk about trauma and post-traumatic stress disorders. I think it's fair to say that in the last 10 years, the field of neuroscience has shed light on not just the neural circuits, meaning the areas of the brain that control the fear response and the ways that it does it, but some important ways to extinguish fears using behavioral therapies, drug therapies, and what we call brain machine interfaces. Today, we are going to talk about all of those, and you are going to come away with both an understanding of the biology of fear and trauma, as well as many practical tools to confront fear and trauma. To give you a sense of where we are going, I'll just lay out the framework for today's podcast. First, I'm going to teach you about the biology of fear and trauma, literally the cells and circuits and connections in the body and chemicals in the body that give rise to the so called fear response and why sometimes, but not always, fear can turn into trauma. I will also describe the biology of how fear is unlearned or what we call extinguished. You're going to learn, for instance, that we can't just eliminate fears. We actually have to replace fears with a new positive event. So what is fear? Well, fear falls into a category of nervous system phenomenon that we can reliably call an emotion. I think it's fair to say that emotions include responses within our body, quickening of heart rate, changes in blood flow, things that we experience as a warming or a cooling of our skin, but that there's also a cognitive component. There are thoughts, there are memories. There's all sorts of stuff that goes on in our mind and in our body that together we call an emotion. So let's talk first about what fear isn't. Most people are familiar with stress, both as a concept and as an experience. Stress is a physiological response. And it is fair to say that we cannot have fear without having several, if not all of the elements of the stress response. However, we can have stress without having fear. Likewise, people are familiar with the phrase or the word rather, anxiety. Anxiety tends to be stress about some future event, although it can mean other things as well.
We can't really have fear without seeing or observing or experiencing some of the elements of anxiety, but we can have anxiety without having fear. So what you're starting to realize is that fear is built up from certain basic elements that include stress and anxiety. And then there is trauma. The operational definition of trauma is that some fear took place, which of course includes stress and anxiety. And that fear somehow gets embedded or activated in our nervous system such that it shows up at times when it's maladaptive, meaning that fear doesn't serve us well and it gets reactivated at various times. The reason I'm putting all this word soup around fear out onto the table is not to complicate the issue. Rather it is to simplify the issue because now that we acknowledge that there are many different phrases to describe this thing that we call fear and related phenomenon. We can start to just focus on two of these issues, fear and trauma as it relates to specific biological processes, specific cognitive processes. And we can start to dissect how fears are formed, how fears are unformed and how new memories can come to replace previously fearful experiences. We've known for a long time that there are things that we can do to improve our sleep. And that includes things that we can take, things like magnesium threonate, theanine, chamomile extract and glycine, along with lesser known things like saffron and valerian root. These are all clinically supported ingredients that can help you fall asleep, stay asleep, and wake up feeling more refreshed. I'm excited to share that our longtime sponsor AG1 just created a new product called AGZ, a nightly drink designed to help you get better sleep and have you wake up feeling super refreshed. Over the past few years, I've worked with the team at AG1 to help create this new AGZ formula. It has the best sleep supporting compounds in exactly the right ratios in one easy to drink mix. This removes all the complexity of trying to forge the vast landscape of supplements focused on sleep and figuring out the right dosages and which ones to take for you. AGZ is, to my knowledge, the most comprehensive sleep supplement on the market. I take it 30 to 60 minutes before sleep. It's delicious, by the way. And it dramatically increases both the quality and the depth of my sleep. I know that both from my subjective experience of my sleep and because I track my sleep. I'm excited for everyone to try this new AGZ formulation and to enjoy the benefits of better sleep. AGZ is available in chocolate, chocolate mint and mixed berry flavors. And as I mentioned before, they're all extremely delicious. My favorite of the three has to be, I think, chocolate mint, but I really like them all. If you'd like to try AGZ, go to drinkagz.com/huberman to get a special offer. Again, that's drinkagz.com/huberman.