How to Increase Your Emotional Intelligence | Dr. Marc Brackett

**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. My guest today is Dr. Marc Brackett. Dr. Marc Brackett is a Professor of Psychology at Yale University and the Director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. He is one of the world's foremost experts on emotions, meaning what emotions are and how they regulate our relationship to ourselves and others. Today's discussion gets heavily into how we should think about our emotions and the emotional expressions of others and when and how we should regulate those emotions. This is a very important aspect of our life because, as we all know, emotions are present with us from the moment we are born until the moment we die. So much like having a body, we need to learn how to work with our emotions in order to have the best quality of life. We all know that we are supposed to pay attention to our emotions, but at the same time, we are often told that we shouldn't take all of our emotions seriously, nor should we react to all of our emotions with behaviors. And indeed, that is true. What's been lacking, however, and what Dr. Marc Brackett finally delivers to us, is a roadmap to think about our emotions in a very structured way, and thereby to engage with our emotions, sometimes shift our emotions, and certainly to understand the emotional expressions of others in ways that best serve our quality of life. So today's discussion centers very heavily on scientific data that plays out in the real world that we can all use. We talk about conflict resolution. We talk about how to think about and work with emotions. We talk about bullying, both in children and in adults, how to deal with that sort of thing effectively. And we talk about emotional intelligence, which it turns out can be increased at any stage of life. So by the end of today's discussion, you will be armed with a tremendous amount of new knowledge and many new tools, many new protocols that you can immediately apply in your life in order to improve your relationship to yourself and to others. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast. Our first sponsor is BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers professional therapy with a licensed therapist carried out entirely online. I've been doing weekly therapy for well over 30 years. I consider doing regular therapy just as important as getting regular exercise. Now there are essentially three things that great therapy provides. First of all, it provides good rapport with somebody that you can trust and talk to about the issues that are most critical to you. Second of all, it can provide support in the form of emotional support or directed guidance. And third, expert therapy should provide insights. Insights that are useful in allowing you not just to feel better in your emotional life and your relationship life, but of course, to be better, to be better in terms of the relationship to yourself, your professional life and to others, and of course, to things like your career goals. With better help, they make it very easy for you to find an expert therapist with whom you have these critical components of therapy. Also, because better help allows for therapy to be done entirely online, it's very time efficient and easy to fit into your busy schedule with no commuting to a therapist office or looking for parking or sitting in a waiting room. If you'd like to try better help, go to betterhelp.com/huberman to get 10% off your first month. Again, that's betterhelp.com/huberman. Today's episode is also brought to us by 8 Sleep. 8 Sleep makes smart mattress covers with cooling, heating and sleep tracking capacity. Now I've spoken many times before on this podcast about the critical need for us to get adequate amounts of quality sleep each night. One of the best ways to ensure a great night's sleep is to control the temperature of your sleeping environment. And that's because in order to fall and stay deeply asleep, your body temperature actually has to drop by about 1 to 3 degrees. And in order to wake up feeling refreshed and energized, your body temperature actually has to increase by about 1 to 3 degrees. 8 Sleep makes it incredibly easy to control the temperature of your sleeping environment by allowing you to program the temperature of your mattress cover at the beginning, middle and end of the night. I've been sleeping on an 8 Sleep mattress cover for well over 3 years now, and it has completely transformed my sleep for the better. 8 Sleep recently launched their newest generation pod cover, the Pod 4 Ultra. The Pod 4 Ultra has improved cooling and heating capacity, higher fidelity sleep tracking technology, and it also has snoring detection that remarkably will automatically lift your head a few degrees to improve your airflow and stop your snoring. If you'd like to try an 8 Sleep mattress cover, you can go to 8sleep.com/huberman to save $350 off their Pod 4 Ultra. 8 Sleep currently ships to the USA, Canada, UK, select countries in the EU and Australia. Again, that's 8sleep.com/huberman. I'm excited to share that I'll be speaking at a health summit called Udemonia, taking place in West Palm Beach, Florida this November 1st, 2024 through the 3rd of November, 2024 Udemonia is an in-person event that offers science-backed tools, live fitness classes, and a range of treatments and protocols to optimize your physical and your mental health. I'll be giving a keynote talk with none other than Dr. Gabrielle Lyon on Saturday. As some of you may know, she's a former guest on the Huberman Lab podcast and has a terrific podcast of her own. That's going to be on November 2nd, and we will discuss all things neuroscience and neuroplasticity. We'll talk about some of the benefits and protocols related to cognition and mood and much more. Also presenting at Udemonia are other excellent scientists and clinicians who've appeared on the Huberman Lab podcast, including Dr. Sarah Gottfried, Dr. Zachary Knight, and Dr. Robin Carthart-Harris, along with nearly 70 other experts. To see the full lineup of speakers and topics and to register, visit udemonia.net, spelled eudemonia.net.