Mental Health Toolkit: Tools to Bolster Your Mood & Mental Health

**Andrew D. 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. Today, we're discussing tools for mood and mental health. I will include tools and resources taken from the guest episode that I did with Dr. Lisa Feldman-Barrett, who is a psychologist and neuroscientist whose laboratory focuses on mood and emotions. During that episode, she mentioned several important tools that I do believe everybody should apply and that indeed I've been applying to my own life and have found to be extremely beneficial. I will also highlight some of the specific research articles those tools are based on, which were not covered in the podcast with Lisa. I will also discuss tools gleaned from the four episode series that I did on mental health with Dr. Paul Conti, who is a medical doctor specializing in psychiatry. And that episode, as some of you may already know, focused on mental health and the self, as well as relationships. And it included a deep discussion of what is the self. We talked about the unconscious mind and the conscious mind. And we also covered a lot of tools for understanding oneself, both within the context of therapy, but also within the context of things that one can do alone and that require zero cost. In addition, we talked about tools for improving relationships. We talked about first principles of self care. So I will provide highlights and takeaways of those tools during today's episode. And thirdly, I will include tools, what we often refer to as protocols gleaned from some recent publications, indeed publications that came out as recently as two weeks ago, which really emphasize specific things that we can all do that again, are zero cost that have been shown in quality peer reviewed research to significantly improve mood and mental health. For instance, if you are a regular listener of this podcast, you are probably familiar with my nearly constant reminder that people should view morning sunlight and afternoon sunlight, and if you can't, to embrace some alternatives, like looking at bright artificial light, although sunlight is best. Well, there was a recent paper published in the journal, Nature Mental Health, an excellent journal, focusing on not just the positive effects of viewing light at those times of day and indeed throughout the day, but also the independent and positive effects of being in darkness for six to eight hours every night. That's right. Not only is light during the day correlated with significantly improved mental health outcomes, but darkness at night, that is avoiding lights, not just bright lights, but lights for up to eight hours at certain periods of your 24 hour circadian cycle has been correlated with improved mental health outcomes and indeed has been shown to significantly offset certain negative mental health outcomes. This is a spectacular study. Again, it involved a enormous number of research subjects, more than 85,000 research subjects. And it touches on a large number of actionable protocols that I've distilled down to just one or two things that all of us can easily do to improve our mood and mental health on a consistent basis. 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 Plunge. Plunge makes what I believe is the most versatile at-home self-cooling cold plunge for deliberate cold exposure. I've covered the topic of deliberate cold exposure several times on this podcast. Indeed, we did an entire episode about deliberate cold exposure. And what's very clear from the research literature is that deliberate cold exposure can induce dramatic positive shifts in so-called catecholamines, that is dopamine, norepinephrine and epinephrine. This is a small collection of molecules that are released in the brain and body when we do deliberate cold exposure and that subjectively lead to greatly enhanced feelings of mood, alertness and focus for many hours afterwards. That's perhaps the best substantiated reason and the most popular reason why people who get into deliberate cold exposure, no pun intended, continue to do deliberate cold exposure on a consistent basis. Plunge uses a powerful and very easy to use cooling, filtration and sanitation unit to give you access to deliberate cold exposure in clean water whenever you want. I've used a Plunge for several years now and I really like it because first of all, it can use a standard outlet. You don't have to modify the electricity in your home or yard and it's very easy to clean. In fact, it stays clean for long periods of time, which makes it very easy to maintain as well. Plunge has several different models to select from, including their new all-in cold plunge, which offers faster cooling, smartphone connectivity and more. If you're interested in getting a plunge, you can go to plunge spelled plunge.com/huberman to get $150 off your cold plunge. Again, that's plunge.com/huberman to get $150 off. Today's episode is also brought to us by 8 Sleep. 8 Sleep makes smart mattress covers with cooling, heating and sleep tracking capacity. I've spoken many times before in this podcast about the fact that sleep, that is getting enough quality sleep on a consistent basis is the foundation of mental health, physical health and performance. Now one of the key things to getting the best possible 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 needs to drop by about one to three degrees. And in order to wake up feeling refreshed and energized, your body temperature actually has to increase by about one to three degrees. With 8 Sleep, controlling the temperature of your sleeping environment is made extremely easy. 8 Sleep mattress covers allow you to program the temperature of your sleeping environment at the beginning, middle, and end of your night. It can even divide the temperature on the two sides of the bed for different people. It also has sleep tracking capacity. It will tell you how much slow wave sleep and rapid eye movement sleep you're getting, and really help you dial in the exact parameters so you can get the best possible night's sleep. I've been sleeping on an 8 Sleep mattress cover for well over two years now, and it has significantly improved my sleep, and therefore my daytime mood focus and alertness. If you'd like to try 8 Sleep, you can go to 8sleep.com/huberman and save up to $150 off their Pod 3 covers. 8 Sleep currently ships in the USA, Canada, UK, select countries in the EU and Australia. Again, that's 8sleep.com/huberman.