Understanding & Controlling Aggression

**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 are discussing aggression. I'm going to explain to you that there are several different types of aggression. For instance, reactive aggression versus proactive aggression, meaning sometimes people will be aggressive because they feel threatened or they are protecting those that they love who also feel threatened. There's also proactive aggression where people go out of their way to deliberately try and harm others. And there is indirect aggression, which is aggression not involving physical violence. For instance, shaming people and things of that sort. It turns out that there are different biological mechanisms underlying each of the different types of aggression. And today I will define those for you. I'll talk about the neural circuits in the brain and body that mediate each of the different kinds of aggression. Talk about some of the hormones and peptides and neurotransmitters involved. I promise to make it all accessible to you, even if you do not have any biology or science background. I will also discuss tools, psychological tools and biological tools that one can use to better control aggression. Now, right here at the outset, I want to acknowledge that any discussion about aggression has to have an element of context within it. To be fair, human beings invest a lot of money, a lot of time and a lot of energy, and indeed can even derive pleasure from aggression. Later, I'll talk about neural circuits in the brain and body that reinforce, in other words, reward through the release of chemicals that make people feel good, acts of aggression. However, what I'm mainly referring to is the context in which human beings will pay money in order to derive what we call vicarious aggression. To put it simply, people spend an enormous amount of money and time and energy watching other people engage in, for instance, aggressive sports. And we know that observing your team winning over another team causes the release of neurochemicals in your brain and body that make you feel good. And yes, that can make you feel more aggressive. We also know, of course, that most governments invest many billions, if not trillions of dollars, in infrastructure technologies and human beings in order to engage in aggression if needed, so-called military warfare, et cetera. So today's discussion will include a description of aggression in the pathological sense. We'll actually talk about an explosive aggressive disorder that most of you probably haven't heard of, but is actually far more common than perhaps you know. We'll talk about the role of things like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and how that can relate to aggression through the relationship between impulsivity and aggression. And we'll talk about verbal aggression, physical aggression, proactive aggression, as mentioned before, and reactive aggression. I'm certain that by the end of the episode, you will come away with a much more thorough understanding of what this thing that we call aggression really is. And when you see it in other people, I think it will make more sense to you. And when you observe it in yourself or the impulse to engage in aggression, verbal or physical or otherwise, I hope that you'll understand it better as well. And of course, the tools that I will describe should allow you to modulate and control aggressive tendencies or predispositions to aggressiveness and just generally to be able to engage with people in a more adaptive way overall. 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 Athletic Greens. Athletic Greens is an all in one vitamin mineral probiotic drink. I've been taking Athletic Greens since 2012 So I'm delighted that they're sponsoring the podcast. The reason I started taking Athletic Greens and the reason I still take Athletic Greens once or twice a day is that it helps me cover all of my basic nutritional needs. It makes up for any deficiencies that I might have. In addition, it has probiotics, which are vital for microbiome health. I've done a couple of episodes now on the so-called gut microbiome and the ways in which the microbiome interacts with your immune system, with your brain to regulate mood, and essentially with every biological system relevant to health throughout your brain and body. With Athletic Greens, I get the vitamins I need, the minerals I need and the probiotics to support my microbiome. If you'd like to try Athletic Greens, you can go to athleticgreens.com/huberman and claim a special offer. They'll give you five free travel packs plus a year supply of vitamin D3 K2. There are a ton of data now showing that vitamin D3 is essential for various aspects of our brain and body health. Even if we're getting a lot of sunshine, many of us are still deficient in vitamin D3. And K2 is also important because it regulates things like cardiovascular function, calcium in the body and so on. Again, go to athleticgreens.com/huberman to claim the special offer of the five free travel packs and the year supply of vitamin D3 K2. Today's episode is also brought to us by Element. Element is an electrolyte drink that has everything you need and nothing you don't. 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