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

welcome to the huberman Lab podcast

where we discuss science and

science-based tools for everyday

[Music]

life I'm Andrew huberman and I'm a

professor of neurobiology and

Opthalmology at Stanford school of

medicine today we are 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 emotion

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 glean from the four

episode series that I did on Mental

Health with Dr Paul kti 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're 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 6 to 8

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

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access a free 30-day trial okay let's

talk about tools for improving mood and

mental health I think it goes without

saying that these are extremely

important topics for everyone not just

to know about but in my opinion also for

people to implement and the reason is

that we are currently in a worldwide

Mental Health crisis and while we could

debate the reason why we are in a

worldwide Mental Health crisis it's very

very clear that mood disorders and

challenges with mental health about

found and of course there are many

different therapies for the treatment of

mood disorders and mental health

everything from talk therapy with a

psychologist or psychiatrist or social

worker prescription drug treatments

there nutritional approaches sematic

approaches and I want to be clear that I

do believe that there's value in all of

these approaches what tends to matter in

terms of what sorts of tools and

approaches one adopts includes both

access so whether or not people have

access to these type of therapies

whether or not they can afford them on a

consistent basis and also of course the

severity of the mood or mental health

disorder and I'd be remiss of course if

I didn't make the statement and I don't

say this just to protect me I also say

this to protect all of you and those

that you know that if you are concerned

about yourself or somebody else having a

serious mood or mental health disorder

please do seek out help from a licensed

clinical psychologist or psychiatrist or

other healthc care professional who's

qualified to help you in that regard

with that said we can now have a

discussion about tools and protocols for

enhancing mood and mental health that

truly appli to everybody regardless of

age to start off I want to talk about a

fundamental aspect of mood and mental

health enhancement that was discussed

both in the guest episode with Dr Lisa

Feldman Barrett as well as in the guest

series with Dr Paul Ki and that has to

do with what Dr Paul Ki referred to as

the first principles of self-care or

mental health the first principles of

self-care include but are not limited to

taking excellent care of one's biology

which of course includes both the mind

and the body and in order to make this

very simple and actionable I've

distilled out what I refer to as the big

six I've sometimes refer to these as the

six major pillars of Health both mental

health and physical health as well as

performance for that matter but if we're

going to talk about tools for mood and

mental health we absolutely can't

discard discussions about our biology

that is we need to make sure that we're

taking care of our normal biological

function and indeed enhancing the

production of specific neurotransmitters

and neuromodulators that we are

optimizing yes I use the word optimizing

the function of our so-called autonomic

nervous system that aspect of our

nervous system that's humming in the

background all the time it's operating

unconsciously to regulate our sleep wake

Cycles it's regulating how well or

poorly we react to things it's

regulating how much dopamine serotonin

epinephrine acetylcholine we were

producing all of this stuff is humming

in the background and sets the stage for

all the conscious work that we might put

to for instance trying to understand

what our life narrative is what our

unconscious mind is doing what sorts of

defenses it might producing all of the

sort of high level and directed work

that we're going to talk about a little

bit later exists on a background of

autonomic function of neurotransmitter

production of hormone production not

just testosterone and estrogen but

things like cortisol prolactin and on

and on so it's important to understand

that if our goal is to be in the best

possible mood given our life

circumstances and to have the best

possible mental health given our life

circumstances and to improve our mood

and mental health consistently over time

that we have to pay attention to what

I'm referring to here as the big six or

the six pillars of mental health and

those are just to list them off then

I'll go into a little bit more detail

sleep Sun sunlight although I'd like to

modify sunlight because based on some

new data that just came out a couple of

weeks ago I'd like to now make that

second pillar not sunlight but light SL

dark so we could even just think about

it as light when and how much light you

get but what you'll soon learn is that

how much dark you get is also extremely

important so we've got sleep light

movement is the third nutrition social

connection and Stress Control now these

are topics that I've spoken about

extensively on previous huin Lab podcast

episodes so I don't want to go into a

deep dive of each of these six pillars

right now but I am going to just give

you a few highlights of each and then of

course we will provide links in the show

note captions for which you can go on

the Deep dive if you like and I also

would like to mention that if you ever

have questions about specific protocols

or tools and you're seeking those out or

previous episodes or specific timestamps

of previous episodes of this podcast you

can go to our newly revamped hubman

lab.com webbsite and put any topic of

Interest or even several topics of

Interest into the search function and it

will take you to the very specific

timestamps and other resources that

provide information on those topics so

I'm going to go into a few of the key

bullet points about each of the six

pillars or what I also refer to as the

big six of self-care and mental health

again this is a necessary list but is

not sufficient again necessary to do

these things every 24 hours hours indeed

every 24 hours if you want to have the

best possible mood and mental health but

it is not sufficient that means you

still need to do some of the other

things that we're going to talk about in

terms of directed approaches at

improving mood and mental health if you

are to quote unquote optimize your mood

and mental health or if you are let's

just say trying to constantly improve

your mood and mental health but these

are the necessary but not sufficient

pillars of mental health so Under The

Heading of sleep it's safe to say that

most people need between 6 to 8 hours of

sleep per night some people can get away

with five some people need as much as

nine or 10 certainly Growing Kids babies

teenagers and those that are suffering

from some sort of illness are going to

need more as much as 9 10 maybe even 12

hours of sleep per night however most

people do well to get somewhere between

six and8 hours of sleep per night you're

just going to have to experiment and

figure out what's best for you now one

thing I heard recently so I can't claim

this as an original idea but that I

think is a really good way to think

about sleep is that sleep much like

physical fitness is something that we

have to constantly be working on it's

not the sort of thing where you can get

a great night's sleep one night and then

the next night just kind of let all the

protocols go and expect to get a great

night's sleep you don't have to be

neurotic about getting a great night's

sleep indeed I do believe that we should

strive to get enough quality sleep as

many of the nights of our life as

possible and if you can't do do that

hopefully it's for good reasons but of

course things happen in life raising

kids you have emergencies all nighters

to study so you can make sure you get

that best possible grade on exam etc etc

but we should all strive to get the best

quality sleep that we can and as much of

it most nights of our lives so it's

important to look at sleep as a process

that you're going to be working on for

the rest of your life just like Fitness

and I don't say that to overwhelm you I

say that so that if On Any Given night

you get a poor night's sleep you don't

stress that too much you just get back

on the wagon and you try and get the

best possible night sleep the next night

and the next night and the next night

much like Fitness there's no 10-week

program that's going to transform your

physical fitness forever okay just like

there's no sleep program that's going to

transform your sleep forever it's a

daily or rather I should say nightly

investment although some of the things

that are going to positively impact your

sleep or perhaps damage your sleep are

things that you do during the daytime

right so avoid that caffeine too late in

the day get that morning sunlight and on

and on but if you sleep sleep is

something that you're constantly

investing in and it is a critical

investment for your mood and mental

health the other thing that's not often

discussed and I really haven't talked

about terribly much on this podcast is

the importance of having a fairly

consistent sleep routine now I realize

that not everybody can get to sleep at

the exact same time each night and wake

up at the exact same time each morning

and frankly that's not practical I

certainly don't do that however what we

know from the Circadian Health

literature is that everybody strive

again that strive nobody's perfect but

strive to get to sleep at more or less

the same time each night and wake up at

more or less the same time each morning

this turns out to be really important

for regulating mood and mental health

and indeed for improving your overall

levels of sleep getting the optimal

amounts of slow wave sleep AK deep sleep

and rapid eye movement sleep and what we

know is that ideally you're going to get

to sleep within plus or minus 1 hour of

your regular sleep time so if your

regular to bed time is 10:00 you're used

to getting in bed at 10:00 and falling

asleep somewhere around 10:30 well then

if the next night you fall asleep at

9:30 great you're still within the plus

or minus one hour and if the next night

you go to sleep and you don't fall

asleep till 11:30 don't sweat it in fact

you're still within that plus or minus

one hour however if you start getting

into a habit of going to bed at vastly

different times deviating more than or

less than one hour from your normal to

bedtime well then you're going to start

to run into issues such as as waking up

feeling groggy even if you got enough

sleep so even if you slept the full

eight hours that you're used to getting

people who go to sleep much later than

they normally do or much earlier than

they normally do start getting into kind

of issues of mood regulation energy

regulation not just in the morning but

in the afternoon likewise try and wake

up at more or less the same time each

morning plus or minus one hour that's

really going to help you anchor your

overall sleep schedule and it's really

going to help lead to predictability of

your overall levels of energy mood and

focus throughout the day the second

pillar in that big six is light and I

used to refer to this as sunlight right

I'd say and I'm going to say it again

now although I've covered this in a lot

more detail so again just hitting the

top Contour critical

elements try to view sunlight that is

with your eyes view sunlight as early as

possible after waking whenever I say

that the most common question I get is

what do I do if I wake up before the sun

comes out well unless you have

superpowers that I'm not aware of you

can't make the sun come out any earlier

so just flip on artificial lights as

needed until the sun comes out and then

get outside face East in the morning

take off those sunglasses it's perfectly

safe to look at low solar angle sunlight

without sunglasses providing you're not

you know driving into bright light and

you crash this kind of thing get outside

look at the sunlight definitely blink to

protect your eyes as needed but get that

sunlight in your eyes early in the day

this has Myriad positive effects on mood

focus and alertness and nighttime sleep

later that night and it does so through

a number of well-defined biological and

endocrine hormonal Pathways that I've

discussed on many previous podcast

episodes and you want to do this for

about 10 minutes on non- overcast days

and as long as 20 or 30 minutes on

overcast days and that highlights the

second most common question I get which

is what do I do if there's no sun where

I live I live in an area where there's

no sunlight look if you live on planet

Earth there's always sunlight there

might not be very much of it it might be

very overcast where you live it might

seem very dark but trust me there's far

more photons light energy coming through

that cloud cover even in the darkest

mornings of winter than there are at

night in those dark Winters so get that

light in your eyes and do it as

consistently as possible and also do

that in the late afternoon and evening

that's critical for regulating your

circadian clock for reasons that I've

talked about previously but I'll get

into in a future podcast really

explaining how those clock oscillators

and mechanisms work but just to keep it

really simple since this this is a

toolkit episode for mood and mental

health your mood and your mental health

will benefit tremendously from getting

morning sunlight in your eyes now if you

need to get more light in your eyes

because indeed there's just not enough

sunlight or you don't have the

opportunity to get outside and view

sunlight in the morning for whatever

reason you might invest in getting a

bright light source that you can plug in

you probably want one that's as bright

as 10,000 lucks so that's pretty bright

those fall under the category of

so-called sad lamps sad Seasonal

effective disorder lamps and you can

purchase those they can be somewhat

expensive you can also opt to get a 900

Lu drawing tablet by the way I have no

Financial relationship to any of these

sorts of light sources but you can find

them pretty easily and in the case of

the 900 Lux light tablet um fairly

inexpensively online and you can put

that on your desk or where you have your

morning coffee and try and enhance the

total amount of light that you're

getting in the morning but frankly

nothing is as good as sunlight so if you

can't get sunlight you might think about

investing in one of those sad lamps and

indeed those sad lamps aren't as good as

sunlight but they are the next best

thing if you really can't get sunlight

on a consistent basis a few other fine

points that I always get asked about

first of all it is absolutely okay to

wear eyeglasses or contact lenses those

sorts of corrective lenses are actually

going to focus the light to your retina

which is where you want it however this

whole process of viewing morning

sunlight and afternoon light does not

again does not work through a window or

windshield because windows and

windshields filter out the relevant

wavelengths of light that you want to

get directly onto your retina okay so

that's the reality of it in addition

please don't feel that you have to look

directly at the Sun and certainly don't

stare at the Sun never force yourself to

look at any light sunlight or otherwise

that's so bright that it's painful to

look at so if it's comfortable for you

to look directly at the Sun and just

blink every once in a while and you can

do that without any pain or discomfort

or watering of the eyes please do that

you're getting a lot of photons into

your eyes and they're transmitting that

to your brein brain and your brain to

the rest of your body and on and on

however if you find it uncomfortable to

look directly at the sun in that case

what you'll want to do is offset your

gaze to you know 10 or 20 degrees which

is nerd speak for just a little bit to

the right or a little bit to the left

and get the sunlight into your eyes

indirectly okay and I often also get

asked well can I stand in the shade

while I do this what if I have an

overhang in my apartment the best thing

is of course going to be to face

directly to the Sun and look either

directly at it or slightly offset but if

you can only get morning sunlight by

going out onto your balcony and your

balcony doesn't face East rather it

faces West you'll still get a lot of

photons from the Sun Reaching Your Eyes

there but ideally you would find some

way to look toward the sun first thing

in the morning I realize that with kids

and work and other obligations this can

be challenging but it is a challenge

worth meeting meaning don't lose your

job or forget to take care of your kids

to do this but you can bring your kids

to do this and indeed you should it sets

their circadian rhythms also so and

people often will ask well does it work

on dogs you know and indeed dogs and

other animals have these exact same

circuits and Pathways for setting their

circadian rhythm so it's great for them

too now there are also clear and

documented benefits for mood and mental

health to getting bright light in your

eyes ideally from sunlight throughout

the day as much as you safely can please

don't get sunburned don't get cataracts

by getting too much sunlight but getting

outdoors and getting sunlight in your

eyes during your lunch break or a walk

here and there or if you have to remain

indoors during the day getting the

lights in that environment as bright as

possible as safely possible I should say

is known to improve mood and mental

health why well because there's a

special so-called opsin within the cells

of your eyes it's called melanopsin that

doesn't respond to the same differences

in color that are present in sunlight in

the morning and the evening but rather

responds to the overall brightness of

light so very bright lights either from

artificial sources or ideally from

sunlight activate these cells and these

cells project these little wires we call

axons into specific parts of the brain

that improve your mood and feelings of

well-being so I can't give you a

specific number you know of five minutes

a day or 10 minutes a day just get as

much light in your eyes ideally from

sunlight throughout the day as is safe

for you meaning where you're not getting

sunburned and you're not damaging your

retina and if you want to know if you're

damaging your retina well anytime you

have to Blink or turn away from light

because it's really bright that's a

signal that the light is too bright so

while you want to place yourself into

bright environments you don't want to

place yourself into any environment so

bright that it's painful to be in okay

so use that as a metric and you should

be just fine and the last point about

light for mood and mental health is a

relatively recent theme that's emerging

from the scientific literature and that

really was driven home by a recent study

that I mentioned a little bit earlier in

the episode this is the study publish in

nature mental health showing that

Darkness during a particular stage of

your 24-hour cycle your so-called

circadian rhythm is also very beneficial

for mood and mental health and it's

beneficial for mood and mental health in

a way that is independent from light and

from sleep now what do I mean by that

okay well there are a number of

different ways that this can be examined

but in this particular study which I

like oh so much entitled day and night

light exposure are associated with

psychiatric disorders an objective light

study in more than 85,000 people what

the researchers did is they analyzed how

much light and or dark people were

getting across the 24-hour cycle and

correlated that with mental health

outcomes looking at a range of different

mental health challenges including

bipolar disorder schizophrenia

depression PTSD and much more and I'll

go into this study in a lot of detail in

a future episode because it's such an

important study with so many gems

withinin it that we should all know

about but one of the key things from

this study is that the positive effects

of daytime sunlight exposure and the

positive effects of nighttime dark

exposure that means of course the

absence of light are independent of one

another put differently making sure that

you are in very dim to completely dark

environments for a continuous 6 to8

hours within every 24-hour circadian

cycle is correlated with much better

mental health outcomes in other words we

shouldn't just think about the presence

of light in the morning and throughout

the day as positive for mental health

that's all true it's absolutely true and

this study further verifies that but

that's been known for some time indeed

decades from the scientific research and

of course it's been known for thousands

of years intuitively and subjectively

without detailed scientific

measurement but in addition to that this

study shows that people who stay in very

dim to dark environments for eight hours

every 24 hours or I should say

approximately eight hours in every

24-hour cycle they benefit from improved

mood and mental health outcomes in a way

that's independent of how much light

they're getting and independent of how

much sleep they are getting the point is

this the time when you wake up consider

that time zero and then about again you

don't have to be super strict about this

about 16 to 24 hours after that wakeup

time you should be in a very dim to dark

environment for that 16-hour to 24-Hour

period after wake up okay what do I mean

by this I mean if you go to sleep at 10:

p.m. and you wake up at 6:00 a.m. well

that 10: p.m. to 6:00 a.m. phase of your

circadian cycle you should be in very

dim light or entirely dark environment

this is a great opportunity to reference

another study which is published in the

proceeds of the National Academy of

Sciences which shows that even having a

small amount of light in the room which

isn't even that bright while you're

sleeping with eyes closed can disrupt

morning glucose levels so in other words

keep your sleeping environment dark keep

your nighttime environment dim to the

best of your abilities right certainly

go out to dinner every once in a while

go to the movies go out and have a party

enjoy yourself if you have to go to the

hospital God forbid or you have to tend

to some emergency do that but to the

extent that you can control it within

the confines of life and its demands

keep your nighttime environment dim or

dark because that independently of any

sunlight and other bright light that

you're viewing during the daytime and

afternoon is going to positively improve

your mood and mental health now moving

on to the other pillars and these I'm

going to move through a bit more quickly

than I have the previous two because

we've done entire series on these or I

should say serieses serieses is that how

you pronounce it someone put the plural

of serieses in the show in the comments

on YouTube the third pillar is movement

and when I say movement I mean exercise

as you all know we should all strive to

get anywhere from 180 to 220 minutes of

Zone 2 cardio per week that's movement

that allows you to hold a conversation

but where you to do it more intensely or

even a bit more intensely you wouldn't

be able to hold that conversation in

addition we should do some V2 Max work

we should get our heart rate very high

at least once a week doing some sort of

movement that's safe for you so that

could be running or cycling or swimming

or Pilates whatever it is for you

getting your heart rate way way up is

also important and to do that at least

once a week but daily movement either

cardiovascular training or resistance

training and it's very very clear that

we need both maybe not on the same days

in fact I split them to separate days

resistance training done for anywhere

from six to 10 sets per muscle group

either close to or to failure this could

be with weights it could be with bands

it could be with machines all of that

was covered in detail in the podcast

series that I did with Dr Andy Galpin an

exercise physiologist who's expert in

all those areas I also did an episode on

a foundational Fitness protocol that has

been distilled into a very simple

three-page PDF that you can get for

completely zero cost by going to hu

lab.com and just put foundational

Fitness protocol PDF and you'll be taken

to that toolkit so all of the details of

a weekly exercise routine that involves

daily movement but also certainly in my

case includes at least one full day of

rest per week because many people do

indeed need one maybe even two full days

of rest per week so that highlights the

third pillar movement but we know that

cardiovascular training and resistance

training aren't just great for our body

they also improve mood and mental health

that's so very clear from the research

literature so we can't Overlook those in

a conversation about mood and mental

health now the fourth pillar is

nutrition and nutrition is a big topic

it's a very barbed wire topic if you get

involved in this stuff online you know

you you've got your people who believe

that you know carnivore is better than

vegan you have the people who believe

vegan is better than carnivore most

people are omnivores you have your seed

oil debates and on and on and on we're

not going to touch any of that now

indeed if you want to learn more about

nutrition and what works and what

doesn't work for sake of aesthetic

changes weight loss muscle gain Etc I

would refer you to the guest episode

that we did with Dr Lane Norton you can

find that again at huberman lab.com

where we do a deep dive on all the

variations in different nutritional

protocols but suffice to say that

regardless of whether or not you're

vegan omnivore carnivore or keto or

whatever everybody needs to consume

sufficient amounts but not excess

amounts of quality calories per day now

you may do that by intermittent fasting

you may do that by a more traditional

meal scheduling but everybody's going to

need to do that because your body and

brain and indeed the parts of your body

and brain that translate to mood and

mental health require macronutrients

proteins fats and carbohydrates as well

as micronutrients so the key takeaway

with nutrition is to make it quality

nutrition within the bounds of whatever

sort of nutritional program that you're

following and that means getting most of

your food sources from either

nonprocessed or minimally processed

foods so these would be foods that

you're going to need to prepare or foods

that would perish um over time these are

not the sorts of foods that live in

boxes and cans and other uh packages

that would allow them to live on the

shelves forever and ever okay and as I

say that I know many people are shouting

well what about rice you know rice can

live on the shelf for a long time and

yes okay I consider rice a minimally

processed food because of course it can

live on the shelf for a long period of

time and here I'm just going to back out

of the whole conversation about

nutrition at this point because as you

can probably tell it's a deep series of

rabbit holes that we can fall into and

really get distracted the point is make

sure you're getting enough food don't

overeat we know energy toxicity is a

problem for not just body composition

but for mental health so you want to get

enough calories but not too few calories

and you want to make sure that you're

getting them from quality sources and I

say that because of course food is not

just the substrate for the cellular

repair and indeed production of tissues

in your body but it's also the substrate

for all the sorts of neurotransmitters

right which are derived from amino acid

precursors that are derived from food

right all of that dopamine stuff and

serotonin stuff is derived from amino

acids that come from food sources so the

link between nutrition and mental health

should now be an obvious one as we all

know quality nutrition influences of

course our physical health but also our

mental health and our cognitive

functioning our memory our ability to

learn new things and to focus and we

know that one of the most important

features of highquality nutrition is

making sure that we get enough vitamins

and minerals from high quality

unprocessed or minimally processed

sources as well as enough probiotics and

prebiotics and fiber to support

basically all the cellular functions in

our body including the gut microbiome

now I like most everybody try to get

optimal nutrition from Whole Foods

ideally mostly from minimally processed

or non-processed Foods however one of

the challenges that I and so many other

people face is getting enough servings

of high quality fruits and vegetables

per day as well as fiber and probiotics

that often accompany those fruits and

vegetables that's why way back in 2012

long before I ever had a podcast I

started drinking ag1 and so I'm

delighted that ag1 is sponsoring the

huberman Lab podcast the reason I

started taking ag1 and the reason I

still drink ag1 once or twice a day is

that it provides all of my foundational

nutritional needs that is it provides

insurance that I get the proper amounts

of those vitamins minerals probiotics

and fiber to ensure optimal mental

health physical health and performance

if you'd like to try ag1 you can go to

drink a1.com huberman to claim a special

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huberman to claim that special offer the

fifth pillar in the big six is social

connection and we're going to talk a

little bit more about this later in the

episode but let's let's just be very

brief and specific about this we all

need to strive to limit the number of

social interactions that we feel tax or

even Vex us that cause us stress this is

something that was covered in depth in

the episode with Dr Lisa Feldman Barrett

where she talked about the fact that we

don't just have a nervous system that

regulates itself through experience and

through our thoughts and our actions we

are as a species interacting with other

nervous systems both of our own species

other humans as well as non-human

species dogs and cats and if you have

them horses and other animals so we need

to think about our nervous system as

being both regulated from the inside and

through our own actions and choices and

thoughts but also through interaction

with other nervous systems and while we

don't always have as much control over

Which social interactions or work

interactions we have to engage in we

should really strive to understand and

indeed pay some serious attention to

whether or not certain types of social

interactions

are what she referred to as net savings

neutral or taxing right certain types of

social interactions with certain people

or groups of people just make us feel

taxed it makes us feel stressed it leads

to negative affect that is not good

feelings or emotions and often elevated

levels of autonomic arousal that leave

us ruminating and leave us having

challenges with sleep we really should

all strive to limit those interactions

to the extent that we can on the reverse

side of that as Lisa Felman Barrett so

beautifully pointed out we also have the

capability to regulate each other's

nervous systems in ways that produce

savings that is that allow us to feel

and indeed cause physiological changes

that make us feel not just happier not

just relaxed not just happy because we

enjoy interacting with somebody but or a

group but that give us a savings that

give us the kind of resources literally

metabolic and neurochemical resources

that make us feel more capable and give

us a sense of elevated mood and improved

mental health when we are not engaging

with those people and this is highly

subjective of course but you should be

able to distinguish in fact I encourage

you to spend a little bit of time maybe

even just five or 10 minutes thinking

about you know who are the individuals

and groups that I interact with that

leave me feeling taxed you know that

really seem to drain my energy and have

me ruminating and in a not good space

when I leave whatever interaction I had

with them this could be a real

interaction or online interaction indeed

I did this the other day based on Lisa's

suggestion I found it to be tremendously

useful what I did is I decided to and by

the way this was happening on a run

where I was thinking you know a lot of

my mind is in a conversation with people

that aren't even here I was sort of

working through a conversation I was

thinking about what I would say what I

did say what they said in an interaction

that unfortunately was pretty unpleasant

it wasn't extremely unpleasant but it

was pretty unpleasant and I realized

okay that that is a sort of interaction

that I would like to avoid in the future

because it wasn't happening right then

but it was carried forward into a

portion of my day my morning run that

for me is normally very pleasureful and

quite sacred to me actually so paying

some attention to how much of your

internal dialogue is with yourself

versus with others and how much of that

is positive or negative is extremely

beneficial and I'm not talking about

always just thinking about oneself and

not thinking about others to the

contrary we also need to think as Lisa

pointed out about who are the people

with whom we interact with or observe

that lead us to have ongoing dialogue

with them in our mind or think about

those interactions in ways that give us

energy that lead to energetic savings

literally metabolic savings that we can

apply not just in those interactions but

in our work Endeavors and our solo

Endeavors whatever that we're doing when

we are away from those people so while

this concept of savings or neutral or

taxation of our metabolic and our

neurochemical systems might seem a

little bit squishy it is not squishy

this is a neurobiological concept it's

also a psychological concept and it's

one that I'm so glad that Lisa brought

up because social connection social

interaction is so vital to our mood and

mental health but oftentimes we hear

social connection we think oh that means

we have to spend a lot of time with

friends we have to organize dinner

parties well sure that's all fine and

good if you can do that and I do of

course encourage people to spend time

with those that they love but it's also

important to take a step back and just

think a bit maybe even write out a bit

you know who are the groups and sorts of

individuals and interactions that really

tax you who are the people you find kind

of neutral and what are the individuals

and groups that really provide what Lisa

referred to as savings that is they tap

into the metabolic and neurochemical

Pathways that lead us to have improved

mood and mental health not just during

those interactions but away from those

interactions as well and often

pervasively and extremely positively so

so it this is no small de

this is a really important aspect of our

mental health now the sixth pillar in

the big six is stress control and the

reason it's included is that look stress

is going to happen life is filled with

so-called stressors and for a good

number of years in fact the last 15

years there's been a lot of debate in

the field of Psychology and Neuroscience

as well whether or not stress is good

for us whether or not stress is bad for

us whether or not we simply need to

reframe stress as good or bad and to

some extent all of that is true you know

we know that chronic stress is not good

for our memory our immune system or our

health we also know that if you

understand the reality which is that

stress also allows us to harness our

mental and physical resources to perform

better than we would otherwise in

certain circumstances and that provided

we can get to sleep each night that

perhaps stress isn't so bad and perhaps

is even performance enhancing I talked

about this in the guest episode with Dr

Ali Crumb from the psychology department

at Stanford and I've talked about this

in other podcasts as well and I'm not

here to tell you that stress is good for

you I'm not here to tell you that stress

is bad for you what I am going to tell

you is that it is extremely important

that we all have readily accessible

Stress Management tools that work the

first time and every time and these fall

into two categories the first category

are realtime tools so tools that you can

use to reduce your level of stress in

real time and the best way that I'm

aware of that's grounded in excellent

physiology and Neuroscience to reduce

your stress in real time is the

so-called physiological side I did not

invent this pattern of breathing it's

not breath work per se this is a pattern

of breathing that we all naturally do in

our sleep to restore carbon dioxide and

oxygen levels to their proper ratios we

also do it periodically throughout the

day without noticing indeed we have a

defined or specific neural circuit in

our brain that extends to our diaphragm

and communicates with aspects of our

heart Etc that allow physiological size

to calm us down faster at least in my

knowledge than any other directed

protocol and the physiological sigh as

many of you know is very simple and

straightforward anyone can do this you

simply do a big inhale through your nose

try and maximize the inflation of your

lungs and then before you exhale sneak

in another brief inhalation even if it's

just a tiny micro inhalation to

maximally inflate the lungs and that has

an important effect on the little Sachs

in the lungs called the avioli of the

lungs it's going to open up whatever

avioli we collapsed in there and then

you're going to do a long extended

exhale through the mouth and typically

just one although sometimes it requires

two or three but just one physiological

sigh is effective in bringing down one's

level of stress significantly enough

that you don't need to do it again so

this can be done essentially anywhere

and by anyone I suppose probably

couldn't do it if you were underwater or

certainly don't do it if you're

underwater but otherwise it's a very

safe and very effective way to calm down

and reduce your levels of stress in real

time maybe before public speaking or in

whatever circumstance you feel you need

to calm down in real time so I'll

demonstrate the physiological side for

you here I've done this many times

before in previous episodes but for

those of you that haven't heard or seen

those episodes I feel obligated to do it

again now okay so it's a deep inhale

through the nose followed by another

brief inhale through the nose and then a

long exhale through the mouth and before

you start asking questions about what do

I do if I have a deviated septum can it

be just through the mouth do the first

two through the nose do the third

through the mouth so it's like

this and indeed I feel calmer and indeed

if you do it you will feel calmer you'll

notice that second inhale through the

nose was kind of sharp in the sense that

I had to really push um put some

physical effort into making it happen

and you know my shoulders jolted upwards

if you just listening to this and not

watching my shoulders jolted upwards

that second inhale through the nose is

important for a variety of reasons I've

talked about elsewhere so the

physiological sigh is going to be the

go-to protocol for you again not

invented by me this is not huberman

breathing this is a pattern of breathing

discovered in the 1930s by physiologists

it's hardwired into our nervous system

and that's what makes it so great it

works the first time and it works every

time so that's to my knowledge the best

way to control your stress in real time

now why is that important for mood and

mental health well as we'll talk about

later

if you want to access your so-called

generative drive a theme that we're

going to get into in a bit more detail

this is something that came up during

the series with Dr Paul kti you will

learn that stress and anger and negative

emotions while they can be very

motivating very arousing they are not

going to be good for your long-term mood

and mental health period so having tools

to regulate your stress and your levels

of anger your levels of reactivity and

also to elevate your feelings of agency

and control over your life starting with

agency and control over your physiology

your internal state is going to be vital

and what I love about the physiological

sigh is that of course it's completely

zero cost but also there's a dedicated

circuit in your brain and body for this

particular pattern of breathing we do it

spontaneously but you can do it

intentionally and it works just as well

if not better to regulate your levels of

stress that is to bring them down which

has outsize positive effects on your

mood and mental health not just in the

moment but also should improve your

confidence that when stress comes

because the world is filled with

stressors it's not if it's when when

stress comes that you will have a

physiologically scientifically supported

tool to deal with and reduce that stress

now in addition I do believe it's

important for sake of mood and mental

health to also have a tool or a protocol

to raise your stress threshold that is

to increase your capacity to deal with

life stressors without them feeling so

stressful and there are a number of

different ways to do this but they all

center around elevating your levels of

adrenaline epinephrine and

norepinephrine nor adrenaline those are

the same thing just they have multiple

names forgive me I didn't give the same

two things four names so don't blame me

blame the other scientists that did it

the point is there are several ways that

you can self-induce elevations of

noradrenaline and adrenaline and then to

learn to Anchor your mind and your

thinking to stay calm in the elevated

adrenaline States as a practice for when

stressors hit you in the outside world

and your adrenaline and noradrenaline

Spike now one of the best ways to do

this because it works the first time and

every time and is also zero cost in fact

it will save you money is to put

yourself in a cold shower or other

deliberate cold exposure environment but

most everyone has access to a cold

shower not everyone but most people and

of course by turning off the heat you're

going to reduce Heating cost right your

water bill so getting into a cold shower

for a minute or so to elevate your

levels of adrenaline and learning to

either use your breathing you could do

physiological size or to distract

yourself or whatever tools and

approaches you need to be able to stay

calm while you have elevated levels of

adrenaline in your body and the reason

deliberate cold exposure works so well

to do this is that it is pretty

non-negotiable even if you really love

cold showers or cold plunges or things

that sort you're still going to get that

elevated adrenaline and noradrenaline

it's pretty much non-negotiable you know

for the first 10 or 15 seconds that you

get into a cold plunge or a cold shower

you should fully expect yourself to feel

stress and for your breathing to

accelerate and then your goal is to try

and anchor or control your breathing in

that stressful environment the reason

for doing this is that it's a practice

it's a practice that's going to

translate to a better ability to manage

your internal State and therefore your

thinking your cognition and your ability

to make good decisions under stress it's

not about becoming Untouched by stress

it's about being able to better navigate

stress indeed I think of this as

analogous to driving in fog something

that I had to learn to do because I grew

up in the Bay Area and it can be very

foggy there sometimes and of course you

don't learn to drive in fog the first

day you learn how to drive but the first

time you hit heavy fog driving where you

can only see one reflector in front of

you at a time it is truly stressful

right you don't know if you're going to

come up on another vehicle

in an instant which of course can happen

so you have to adjust a number of things

you have to learn how to do that and

while I would never elect to drive in

fog learning to drive in fog teaches you

how to be comfortable driving in

different weather environments same

thing with driving in a rain Stormer for

you East Coasters from the Northeast

learning how to drive in a snowstorm you

would never elect to do that but once

you do it a few times you feel more

comfortable in those extreme conditions

so that's really what raising your

stress threshold is all about of course

do it safely do it under conditions in

which you're not going to get hurt or

anyone else will get hurt but learning

how to do this can be extremely

beneficial and of course deliberate cold

exposure isn't the only way but frankly

it's the most reliable way and it's the

most versatile way to do that because

you can do it in your shower or in a

cold Plunge at home so you can practice

these things again Safety First always

make sure you're not exposing yourself

to cold to the extent that you're going

to damage yourself mentally or

physically but it's a great practice and

you could probably think of other ways

to spike your adrenaline that was safe

and of course life will spike your

adrenaline so you can also use real life

as your uh you know your stress

inoculation tool and we all have to do

that anyway what I'm suggesting is that

you adopt a real-time tool physiological

size and that you adopt at least one

offline tool that you do anywhere from

one to three maybe seven days a week but

at least one day a week that you put

yourself into a cold shower deliberate

cold exposure not for sake of increasing

metabolism or anything else but really

just to learn how to calm yourself and

maintain clear cognition when stress

hits because indeed stress is going to

hit so that's the big six for improving

mood and mental health and the big six

apply that is they are the Cornerstone

for mood and mental health regardless of

who you are regardless of your age

regardless of whether or not you're

dealing with an acute or a severe mood

or mental health disorder or you find

yourself to be reasonably healthy with

respect to mood and mental health and

you simply want your mood and mental

health to be stable and or improve over

time time now the reason why the big six

those six pillars are so important for

mood and mental health and indeed form a

critical component of what Dr Paul kti

referred to as the first principles of

self-care is that those six pillars

establish a millu that is an environment

of neurochemicals including

neuromodulators such as dopamine

serotonin epinephrine norepinephrine

acetylcholine and other neurochemicals

as well as well as hormones to

testosterone estrogen prolactin cortisol

and immune molecules and on and on that

lead to a high degree of predictability

in your brain and nervous system now

what do I mean by that why would

predictability be such a key component

of mood and mental health is it really

just about knowing that you're going to

feel energized in the early part of the

day and tired at the end of the day now

that might be part of it but that's not

the major takeaway the major takeaway is

that as Dr Lisa Feldman Barrett so aptly

point pointed out your brain and indeed

your entire nervous system has a couple

of major jobs you know it has the job of

regulating your breathing and your heart

rate Etc it also has the job of

regulating your thinking and your

planning and your memory those are the

jobs of the brain and nervous system

that we normally hear about but if we

think about the more macro jobs that the

brain has the key function of the brain

certainly the parts of the brain that

are more recently evolved the ones

involved in thinking and planning Etc

are really involved involved in

generating predictions predictions about

what's going to happen next and whether

or not you're going to be prepared for

what's going to happen next and indeed

Dr Lisa Felman Barrett also beautifully

Illustrated this model of the brain as

regulating a brain body budget and moods

and a related topic which she called

affect okay I'll explain what affect is

in a moment setting the stage for being

able to better predict what's going to

happen next and therefore

regulating your mood in the moment let's

just take a moment and explore that

statement in a little bit more detail

essentially what she was saying and what

I'm now again saying is that your brain

and body go through different states

your state at a given moment can be

labeled as your affect your affect

includes a lot of different things

including levels of autonomic arousal

levels of hormones levels of

transmitters all of that stuff but it

falls under the umbrella of affect

affect essentially sets the stage for

particular emotions to be more likely or

less likely to emerge so emotion and

affect aren't the same thing affect is a

bit more General and sort of undergirds

the possibility of having certain moods

like feeling elated happy or sad or

depressed it really sets the general

stage for different types of specific

emotions even highly specific emotions

so in that way when you're taking care

of the big six when you're tending to

these six pillars on a regular basis and

I should point out that we really want

to tend to those six pillars every

single day or every single 24 hours we

really need to make those a regular

investment to the extent that we can

when we do that we create a

neurochemical and a neural milu that

allows the brain to be in a better

predictive state it allows the brain to

give rise to a certain aex spelled

a CS so affex

that lead to certain emotions being more

or less likely to occur put very simply

when we're tending to those six pillars

on a regular basis we feel better more

generally and therefore the emotions

that we tend to have under different

conditions even conditions of a

difficult interaction with a cooworker

or with a family member tend to be more

positive than if we are not tending to

those six pillars now in some sense

that's sort of a duh statement for

instance if you're sleep deprived if

you're not fed well like you haven't

eaten in a few hours of course you're

going to be more irritable you're going

to be more reactive you are going to be

more emotionally labile but sleep and

nutrition are just two of those six core

pillars when we talk about those core

pillars and the necessity for tending to

them on a regular every 24-hour basis

what we're really talking about is

creating a millu within our brain and

nervous system that allows the nervous

system to do what it does best and in

fact what its main job is to do which is

to predict what's going to happen next

because as Lisa Feldman Barrett pointed

out emotions are really context

dependent states that allow us to

navigate not just our present

circumstances but they are our nervous

system and brain's best guess about the

circumstances that we are soon going to

encounter now I don't offer you all of

that as kind of a a bunch of you know

Tangled mess of nerd speak to confuse

you what I'm saying is that by tending

to those six core pillars you are

shifting the likely aects that you will

EXP exp erience and therefore the likely

emotions that you'll experience so

you're biasing your whole system towards

more positive affect and more positive

emotions regardless of what your life

circumstances happen to be and the

stressors that you encounter and indeed

you also are including that six pillar

of stress control so when those

stressors arrive you will be better able

to navigate them now this view of

emotion regulation of mood and mental

health is certainly not a novel concept

people have talked about the

physiological regulation of mood from

the time of William James and even

earlier you know it's been a

long-standing question for instance or

debate in Psychology and philosophy you

know do we feel anxiety in our body and

then label it as anxiety or do we feel

anxiety in our mind and then our body

follows that's been a long-standing

debate and frankly there's evidence on

both sides which leads me to the

conclusion I think most neurobiologists

and psychologists to the conclusion that

those things are interrelated in a way

that we can't really dissociate them

completely at any level right when your

heart rate goes up and you start

breathing thing faster you know if I

were to induce that state in you you'd

probably interpret that as feeling

anxious in addition to that something

can make you anxious before your heart

rate and breathing increases and then

your heart rate and breathing increases

so no need to tease those apart but if

you think about the brain in large part

as a prediction machine and your brain

as a metabolic regulator it's trying to

decide which organs need resources how

much resource can I dedicate to thinking

to creativity to enjoying social

interaction to paying attention to what

somebody else is is saying as opposed to

what's going on inside my body all of

those major functions of the brain as

they relate to affect and emotions are

going to be best supported that is

biased toward positive mood positive

affect positive emotions and therefore

positive mental health outcomes when

we're tending to those six pillars Dr

Lisa feldin Barrett referred to that

whole process as the brain regulating a

brain body budget and she had beautiful

analogies for that budget and that's

what led to the description of social

interactions is either generating

savings or being neutral or generating a

taxed feeling literally taxing that

brain body budget and I love that

concept and it's one that you can keep

in mind and indeed we can inject a lot

of specificity into this whole process

of improving mood and mental health

through specific protocols if you simply

remember if you make a daily investment

in the six core pillars you are building

up that brain body budget you will have

more energetic resources to spend on

whatever life circumstances come your

way now before we move into a discussion

about protocols for how to better

understand your life narrative to

enhance your sense of self and

confidence and things of that theme I

briefly want to mention that of course

there are known tools out there in the

medical community and psychological

Community for improving mood and mental

health and while there are a variety of

tools one of the main tools of the

psychiatrist is prescription drugs that

Target specific neuromodulator systems

in the brain and body for instance SSR

selective serotonin reuptake Inhibitors

or atypical anti-depressants that Target

the dopamine and epinephrine system such

as well Butrin bryone or other types of

anti-depressants or for instance

nowadays there's a lot of growing

excitement about clinical trials using

relatively High dosages of psilocybin

which by the way way closely mimics the

chemical serotonin that's right

psilocybin which is converted to salicin

in the brain if you look at it

chemically it looks very much like

serotonin although it has distinct

effects from serotonin I talked about

psilocybin and what's being done in

terms of the clinical trials safety

considerations I talked about the

potential Hazard considerations and

where the legality and all of that is

going in that episode if you want to

check that out but the reason I'm taking

a moment to mention these drugs things

like ssris prox lat talopram

Wellbutrin cybin and so on is that all

of them Target specific neuromodulator

systems in the brain and body and at the

same time it's fairly clear that mood

disorders such as major depression are

not necessarily deficits in things like

serotonin or dopamine they can be but

most often they are not so why are such

drugs prescribed for mood disorders and

for mental health disorders well because

if specific neuromodulators like

serotonin dopamine or epinephrine are

dramatically increased above

Baseline that affords the brain the

ability to rewire itself really the way

to think about ssris or atypical

anti-depressants or psilocybin for the

treatment of major

depression is really to think about them

as chemical tools to open or access

neuroplasticity and that's why it's oh

so important that those drugs be

combined with talk therapy where people

are actively working through the sources

the real life sources and the historical

sources maybe even the trauma based

sources of their depression and I

mention this because you know there's a

lot of debate nowadays as to whether or

not you know these drugs are useful

whether or not the side effect profiles

justify their use whether or not you

know they are applicable to Young

populations you know there's a lot of

debate about this and certainly in the

case of the psychedelics there's a lot a

lot of debate because this is newly

emerging area and there's still not a

lot of data although it's starting to

you know increase over time but the key

Point here is that all of these drugs

have the potential to work in some

people not others some people you know

they simply don't work for and they

cause more problems than solutions they

solve but they tend to work by

increasing the propensity for

neuroplasticity by changing the

neuromodulator milu in the brain and

this is an important point when thinking

about tool tools for enhancing mood and

mental health that when we think about

tools for enhancing mood and mental

health and next of course we are going

to talk about the tools that are

specifically designed to Target a

specific aspect of one's life story or

concept of self all of that is always

operating on a backdrop of two things

that overall neurochemical millu and

autonomic function that the six pillars

relate to and support if we're tending

to those but any Improvement in mood and

mental health that's it's going to be

significant it's going to be noticeable

and it's going to be stable it's going

to be pervasive over time is going to

require that some degree of neural

plasticity some degree of neural

rewiring occur so I'm not bringing up

the topic of these particular drug tools

to say that they are the best way to

improve mood and mental health I'm

certainly not saying that they are but

one way to potentially improve mood and

mental health and if they are going to

work they always work best when done in

concert with talk therapy because they

are opening the opportunity for

neuroplastic icity but then that

neuroplasticity has to be directed

toward a particular endpoint there has

to be specific work that's being done by

the individual or ideally the individual

with an expert trained clinically

certified therapist or psychologist or

psychiatrist in order to make sure that

the neuroplastic changes that occur lead

to long-standing improvements in mood

and mental health over time indeed the

drugs that I just described were

originally designed as tools to to allow

people to access changes within their

brain that would then allow them to

enhance mood and mental health but not

have to rely on the drugs themselves for

improved mood and mental health and

along those lines I'm sure some of you

out there are thinking about the

supplement based or nutrition-based

approaches to enhancing these

neuromodulators and indeed while they

don't have the same potency as things

like well Butrin and ssris at increasing

things like dopamine and serotonin

respectively there is a growing number

of people out there that are relying on

say daily supplementation with anywhere

from 1 to three grams with of el

tyrosine you know amino acid precursor

to dopamine combined with often you know

300 to 600 milligrams of alpha GPC as a

way to enhance dopamine and

acetylcholine and to set the stage for

elevated levels of neuroplasticity but

it's very important to point out that

the amino acid precursors to the various

neuromodulators like El tyrosine like El

tryptophan so El tyrosine precursor to

dopamine ELP toan precursor to serotonin

and so on that those don't have the same

degree of potency that is ability to

enhance those neuromodulators and so the

extent to which they enrich the

possibility for neuroplasticity Still

Remains somewhat obscure there haven't

been clinical trials on that yet at

least not clinical trials that I am

aware of so I mention all of that stuff

about drugs whether or not it's

psychedelics or whether or not it's

prescription anti-depressants or whether

or not people are using a supplement

based amino acid based protocol for

increasing certain neurom modulators I

feel was important to mention all of

that because well first of all it's

quite prominent out there certainly in

the case of prescription

anti-depressants and there's growing

prominence and use of relatively high do

psilocybin again always in done with

support talk therapy this is done in the

legal setting I said legal not illegal a

legal setting with a board certified

therapist this is being done on

University campuses within research lab

and of course I acknowledge that there

are people who are using these compounds

outside the realm of the University

clinical study environment so I mention

these chemicals not because I'm pointing

to them as the path to improved mood and

mental health they can be but they

aren't always and as I mentioned before

they can sometimes cause problems that

lead people to wish that they hadn't

taken them or to decide to not take them

any further a decision that absolutely

has to be made with a healthc care

professional who's well certified to do

that but I'm mentioning these tools

because I want to understand if they

work why they work and one key point

that was really emphasized by Dr Paul

kti who as I mentioned before is a

psychiatrist so he uses pharmacology in

his practice although he uses other

non-pharmacologic tools as well is that

these pharmacologic tools are never to

be viewed as the Beall endall of

enhancing mood and mental health they

are but one path to improving mood and

mental health and indeed should be

viewed as a path to getting people who

are otherwise unable to engage in those

six core pillars those first principles

of mental health to be able to do those

things on a regular basis and then

perhaps based on a discussion with their

clinician these people could come off

those pharmacologic agents maybe yes

maybe no it depends on the individual it

depends on the circumstances but those

core six pillars those first principles

of mental health that include but are

not limited to those core six pillars

are absolutely essential there's no drug

that can replace those Cor six pillars

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tracker.com huberman okay so setting

aside the core six pillars let's now

talk about other tools for mood and

mental health that center around really

what we more typically think of when we

think of mood and mental health which is

emotions when Dr Lisa Felman Barrett was

a guest on the podcast she said

something that was really incredible and

it's something that's strongly grounded

in excellent scientific data which is

the more specificity that we can put to

labeling our emotions the better off

we're going to be in terms of our

overall mental health let me restate

that the more specific language that we

can put to our own internal emotions

even if that language is just to

ourselves in our own internal narrative

we don't even have to speak out what

those labels are the better that we're

going to feel over time and indeed this

effect can be quite rapid and indeed Dr

Lisa Felman Barrett has done research on

this very specific topic topic it's

something that's referred to as

emotional granularity so while some of

us move through life with a sort of what

I call emogif of emotions you know you

got your happy face happy your sad face

sad you you're angry depressed anxious

you know those are labels for emotional

states or you could think of them as AFF

effects or emotions I think of them as

emotions but they're not very specific

they're pretty broad bins we say sad or

depressed or super depressed or super

sad anxious panic and we think of that

as Nuance but it's not very nuanced and

Lisa's laboratory and other Laboratories

have explored two things first if people

are asked to or encouraged to put more

granularity more specificity on what

they're feeling then it seems that their

levels of emotional processing are

better overall how does that translate

to emotions well it translates to better

overall feelings of well-being when one

is placing more specificity on positive

emotions and the flip side is also true

so this is important to know if one

places more specificity on negative

emotions it also can enhance one's kind

of experience of those negative emotions

now that means that this is a two-sided

blade all right this isn't always a good

thing and if one is thinking about

protocols for improving mood and mental

health the data make very clear that

adding more specificity to our positive

emotion in terms of the language we use

but also just the depth with which we

process and think about those positive

experiences can be very beneficial for

us so there are two studies that I'd

like to highlight that relate to this

the first is entitled effective

self-monitoring through experience

sampling On Emotion differentiation in

depression and the second study is

entitled emotional granularity increases

with intensive ambulatory assessment

methodological and individual factors

influence how much now each of these

studies focus on something slightly

different the first study was mainly

focused on people who have depression

and they were cued several if not many

times per day to just think about and

report on their emotional state and that

was done in order to get people to place

more granularity more specificity on

what they're feeling but also simply to

tap into how they're feeling on a more

regular basis throughout the day the

second study which is one that included

Dr Lisa Felman bear as an author was

slightly different because it focused on

non- depressed individuals and it cued

them to touch into their emotions more

times per day and it also included some

physiological measurements and one in

particular that we're going to talk

about in some detail now I don't have

time to go into all the details of these

studies I may do that in a future

podcast episode but the key takeaways

are very important for all of us to know

which are first of

all the more often that you can ask

yourself you know what am I really

feeling right now how do I feel and and

this is so critical

the more that you force yourself to not

use broad labels or simply veilance

labels veilance labels are good or okay

or bad and instead understand that good

is not an emotion okay is not an emotion

bad is not an emotion but rather saying

you know I feel you know curious but a

little anxious if that happens to be the

case or I feel you know bored um but you

know also a little bit in positive

anticipation about what's going to

happen tomorrow things of that sort

putting more nuance and specificity on

your emotions but also touching into or

thinking about your own emotional states

more times per day clearly has positive

outcomes for mood and mental health and

the reasons for that are incredibly

interesting and this is something

everybody should understand why would it

be that putting more specificity on what

we're feeling so perhaps just in our own

heads like thinking okay how do I feel

right now like if I were to do that

right now I'd say I feel

energized and happy I do I really enjoy

doing what I'm doing so I wouldn't say

I'm like off the chart in awe or Elation

but I'm very happy and I feel energized

you know earlier today I was feeling a

little bit fatigued and a little bit

confused because I was trying to sort

out something and it wasn't making sense

to me um so assessments like that which

can be told to somebody else or that we

just hold internally

done repeatedly throughout the day

anywhere from three to six times

throughout the day just periodically

pinging ourselves maybe you set an alarm

or maybe you just decide to every once

in a while you know maybe every time you

you go into an elevator or every time

you go up a flight of stairs you just

ask yourself yeah how do I feel right

now and thinking about that for a moment

and you don't have to write it down

although I suppose you could it turns

out that just that practice can really

enhance our so-called emotional

granularity that can enhance our

positive emotions and affect and in

addition it provides us a better

sensitivity to better understand those

negative emotions which sounds like it

might be a bad thing but those negative

emotions have information in them right

this is one thing that's often lost in

those broad categorizations of anxious

or sad or depressed and keep in mind of

course that some people are genuinely

clinically depressed and that needs to

be taken extremely seriously just like

some people are genuinely clinically

anxious and that needs to be taken

seriously but most of us when we throw

out the words depressed angry sad we're

not using enough nuance and it doesn't

really apply to our internal States or

the circumstances that we're in and as a

consequence we suffer it's not just

about communicating our emotions we

suffer because the data say that the

more Nuance the more emotional

granularity that we have the richer is

our experience of the positive aspects

of life and the more effectively we can

navigate the negative aspects of life

right again negative emotions perhaps

isn't the best way to even describe

negative emotions because that label

negative implies that we should avoid it

and in fact those negative emotions

provide a lot of information about

perhaps social interactions that we

should seek to avoid in the future and

so on and so forth now one of the most

interesting things about this whole

process of increasing emotional

granularity and touching in several

times per day into how we feel something

that's completely zero cost takes just a

moment to do that we can get much better

at over over time that was clearly seen

in these studies that people get much

better at doing this it becomes more

fasile for them very quickly is that it

correlates with improvements in

physiological metrics that relate to

overall improvements in mood and mental

health and the specific physiological

metric that I'm referring to is

so-called vagal tone some of you have

perhaps heard of the vagus nerve it's

the tenth cranial nerve it's an

extensive peripheral nerve that it goes

out of the brain kind at the level of

the the neck uh it's one of the cranial

nerves that extends um to essentially

all the organs of the body the heart the

lungs Etc but it's a two-way street it's

a super highway of nerves out of the

brain and into the body and it's a super

highway of nerves back from the bodily

organs to the brain and it's involved in

regulating a lot of so-call autonomic

function so how fast our heart rate is

how fast our breathing is rates of

digestion and all of that weaves

together to create those things that we

call aect our internal States so without

going into a ton of detail about the

Vagas nerve there's something that's

called cardiac vagal control cardiac

vagal control is the extent to which

that vagus nerve can impact your heart

rate and your overall feelings of calm

or alertness now the simple way to think

about this is more commonly referred to

as heart rate variability heart rate

variability is simply the distance

between your heartbeats or rather the

time between your Heartbeats which we

know if those timings between your

heartbeats are somewhat variable that is

correlated with positive physical and

mental health outcomes one of the ways

that you can increase heart rate

variability is to get regular

cardiovascular exercise as well as doing

resistance exercise and no surprise

getting sufficient amounts of quality

sleep each night is also going to be

very beneficial for heart rate

variability now exercise and sleep of

course are wonderful but it turns out

that there's also

a very rapid way to increase heart rate

variability by activating the vagal

innervation of the heart and the way

that the heart and some other circuits

within the so-called brain stem interact

and that's through something called

respiratory sinus arhythmia respiratory

sinus arhythmia can be summarized very

simply by saying when you inhale you

speed your heart rate up and when you

exhale you slow your heart rate down and

it's that exhale slowing your heart rate

down that's mediated by the vagus nerve

now there's a more thorough description

of that which I'll just give you now and

it's not that lengthy so here's how it

goes when you inhale your diaphragm

actually moves down and as a consequence

your heart actually gets a little bigger

it has a little more space as a

consequence the fluid in your heart

moves a little more slowly per unit

volume and there's a neural signal to

speed the heart up conversely when you

exhale the diaphragm moves up that means

there's a little less space for the

heart in the general area where it's

sitting so the heart gets a little bit

smaller a little more compact that means

that the fluid in your heart is moving

more quickly through that smaller space

and there's a neural signal mediated by

the Vagas to slow the heart down so

that's why inhal speed your heart up and

exhales slow your heart down that is the

basis of so-called RSA or respiratory

sinus arhythmia now what does any of

that have to do

with the granularity of language that we

place on our emotions turns out there's

several studies showing that when

people place more descriptive

granularity on their emotions that is

correlated with okay it's not causal but

it's correlated with improvements in

respiratory sinus arhythmia which we

know correlate with improvements in

heart rate variability indeed it's one

of the major bases for heart rate

variability which we know is correlated

with not just positive physical health

outcomes but positive mental health

outcomes including lower levels of

anxiety improved sleep and overall

levels of mood this is a topic that I'm

very familiar with because last year my

laboratory at Stanford University School

of Medicine in collaboration with a

colleague of mine Dr David Spiegel our

associate chair of Psychiatry also at

Stanford University School of Medicine

published a clinical trial and cell

reports medicine showing that there's a

particular pattern of breathing that

people can do for just 5 minutes per day

that is effective in significantly

improving various metrics related to

mood and reducing anxiety and also

improving sleep although I should say

the protocol I'm about to describe

didn't uniformly improve all of those

metrics it had a bigger effect on some

versus others I'll provide a link to

that study in the show note captions but

if you're wondering what this protocol

is that people did for 5 minutes a day

that allowed them to by the way

pervasively improve their mood so it

wasn't just their mood while they were

doing this five minute a day protocol it

was improvements in mood Around the

Clock essentially as well as

improvements in other physiological

metrics and other aspects of those six

core pillars it was that physiological

sigh that we talked about earlier

although in this case we didn't have

people do just one physiological sigh we

had people set aside five minutes per

day so set a timer for 5 minutes they

could sit or lie down they could do it

anytime of day and we just had them

repeat that physiological sigh for a

duration of 5 minutes total so that they

would do two inhales through the nose

and then a full exhale to lungs empty

through the mouth then they would do it

again and then they would do it again

and again until those five minutes were

completed again the outcome of that

clinical trial was that that particular

pattern of breathing which we called

cyclic physiological sighing for five

minutes per day again done any time of

day had the most positive outcomes in

terms of improving mood and mental

health and autonomic function those

things related to sleep and heart rate

variability so that's a very simple very

minimal time investment zero cost tool

that anyone can use that again improves

various metrics of physical health but

also improves metrics of mental health

and it ties right back in with what was

observed in the work by Dr Lisa Feldman

Barrett exploring how putting more word

label emotional granularity on one's

emotional states positively impact our

physiological State and the fact that

thinking about our emotions more

frequently throughout the day and

deliberately putting more label

granularity on those emotions frequently

throughout the day is correlated with

this Improvement in respiratory sinus

arhythmia and heart rate variability the

fact that these things all relate to one

another should not surprise us because

indeed there's a previous paper this is

a quite extensive review actually it's a

very nice review it's one that I

encourage anyone who's interested in

these topics to explore especially

psychologists who might have a interest

in physiology or psychiatrists or simply

people who are interested in mindbody

stuff this is a review published in 2017

in the journal biological psychology

entitled cardiac vagal control as a

marker of emotion regulation in healthy

adults a review and again it's a really

wonderful literature review of the

peer-reviewed primary research which

really establishes that this thing vagal

tone our ability to kind of put the

brakes on our autonomic nervous system

and slow our heart rate down

deliberately through our breathing and

perhaps even just by stopping and

reflecting on what our emotional states

are is really beneficial for our overall

mood and mental health and I want to

highlight bold and underline that word

overall because it's not just the case

that people experience elevated mood and

mental health in the moments where they

stop and go oh how am I feeling oh you

know am I feeling you know bored or

agitated do I feel particularly excited

sure that can have some impact on

physiological metrics and mood and

mental health but in all of these

studies the outcome seems to be that

people's overall levels of mood and

mental health are enhanced not just

while they're thinking about their

emotions or doing this five minute a day

cyclic sighing but Around the Clock

which is really terrific because I think

that's what most all of us want which is

improve mood and mental health not just

in the moments when we do a practice or

in the few minutes afterwards but 24

hours a day I suppose we might segment

out sleep during which you know

hopefully we're having great dreams as

opposed to other kinds of dreams but the

point is everyone I have to imagine

would like to feel better and have

elevated mood and mental health during

the times when they're awake and indeed

these sorts of protocols have been shown

to do that or so say the scientific data

now we are going to discuss the tools

for enhancing mood and mental health

gleaned from the four episode guest

series with Dr Paul Ki who is a medical

doctor specializing in Psychiatry he

also has particular expertise in trauma

however the four episode guest series

that we did with Dr kti was really about

exploring the self as well as tools and

protocols for not just gaining a better

understanding of oneself but also for

gaining a better understanding and tools

for relating to others AKA relationships

thread through the series was a model of

the mind and how it works to create

everything from feelings thoughts to

behaviors that Dr Paul Conti described

as an iceberg model and I perhaps should

refer you to the fact that he actually

Drew out this model and we provided it

as a zeroc cost PDF in the show note

captions for every single one of those

episodes in that four episode series we

also provide a link to this model in the

show note captions for this tools

episode the model is called the iceberg

model and as the name suggests it

resembles an iceberg in which the vast

majority of our mind's processing occurs

below our conscious awareness in our

unconscious mind so that's the portion

of the iceberg that resides below the

surface whereas the portion of our

mental processing that we are aware of

resides above the water surface the

so-called conscious mind so a key aspect

of the iceberg model is that the

unconscious mind is responsible for the

vast majority of our feelings thoughts

and behaviors but that we are not aware

of how this unconscious mind is doing

that and by extension the tool and

protocols that Dr Ki described largely

deal with going into the unconscious and

figuring out how the unconscious

processing is influencing our conscious

processing both in healthy and in

unhealthy ways and when we say in

healthy and unhealthy ways we're largely

referring to the presence of defenses so

some of you have perhaps heard of

defenses before some defenses can indeed

be healthy and others are unhealthy

there are defenses such as projection

sublimation denial and during the course

of that four episode series Dr kti

explains how projections are not always

bad for us indeed they can protect us

from Panic from severe trauma but they

also can create difficulties in

processing our own understanding of self

and of our life experiences in ways that

can actually be damaging to us so a key

takeaway from that four episode series

is to understand and acknowledge that

your unconscious mind is driving much of

what you feel think and do however by

doing structured exploration of the self

and we'll talk about how to do that one

can gain better understanding of how

that unconscious processing is

influencing what you think feel believe

and do so once you accept the important

role of the unconscious mind and you

make the decision that you want to

better understand how your unconscious

mind and conscious mind are in this

constant dialogue and how you can have

that dialogue better serve you there are

a series of actionable tools that you

can do that will allow you to better

understand yourself and how you relate

to others

and the first of these tools is to

really understand your self-concept now

of course most all of us know our own

name rarely do we ever forget that name

we have some concept of where we're from

who our parents are what our present and

future goals might be where we've

succeeded where we failed in life and on

and on but the self-concept goes far

beyond that sort of CV list or our

biography of self indeed the

self-concept has a lot to do with our

self-confidence our feeling ings of

ability both to overcome challenges but

also our ability to serve the world that

we're in and our ability to change

ourselves over time now of course the

degree to which somebody might have

confidence or less confidence or the

degree to which somebody feels that they

can exert influence on their environment

and their goals is of course going to

vary based on their personal history but

as Dr kti explained even independent of

all that if one puts in some work to

better understand their self-concept to

to really get a clear picture of

oneself from that one can develop more

agency with which to pursue one's

aspirations and to reach their goals and

the key concept here is one that's

particularly powerful for both exploring

and building up one's concept of self

and that's to consciously and

deliberately build a life narrative now

a simple way to do this that can be very

effective is to create a series of

folders or documents it could even be a

stack of papers I prefer to do this in

electronic form and I confess that even

before learning about this tool from Dr

Ki I had initiated doing this tool

starting back in

2015 and it's fairly straightforward but

as I mentioned before it can be very

powerful and it simply consists of

building out separate folders or pieces

of paper and this could be done

electronically or on real world paper

with paper and pen or paper and pencil

and essentially what you do is you're

going to divide your life history into

some regular increments so for for me

the way that I did this is I created a

folder on my laptop that I actually

called lifetime so that's the title of

the main folder and then within that

folder I have a series of folders Each

of which spans a particular phase of my

life so 0 to 5 years of age 6 to 10

years of age 11 to 15 years of age and

so on and so forth now I'm 48 years old

so I have folders that extend to age 50

currently although I will add folders

going forward very soon and the idea

here is that for each of those folders

you're going to place a single word

document into that folder and then on

that word document you're not going to

journal you're not going to do any sort

of extensive writing rather You're

simply going to put down bullet points

with titles it could be one or two

sentences but typically it's just a few

words describing some of the key

Milestone events that you remember from

that particular phase of your life so

just for sake of example I'll read off

some of the things that are included in

the folders for my particular lifetime

narrative but of course this relates to

my lifetime narrative you should of

course put the milestones and key bullet

points that relate to your lifetime

narrative but again just to give you a

sense of the sorts of things that made

it into this folder in my six years old

to 11 year-old folder um on that

document I put where I was living at

that time the city I was living the

school that I went to I put a couple of

teachers names uh teachers that had a

particular influence on me um a

particular summer camp experience um

that was not a traumatic experience by

the way it was a happy experience but

for me it turned out to be a very

transformative one and then there are a

couple other things in there that are

just Recollections of childhood's

friends names okay so seemingly mundane

information perhaps but it looks more or

less like a biography and yet other

folders so for instance uh the folder

that spans from 25 to 30 years of age is

the time that I was in graduate school

so it includes a note about graduate

school a note about particular hobbies

that I was interested in in addition to

my scientific search at the time a

couple of key relationships a couple of

key relationship challenges as well as

some things that at that time I was

processing about prior years in

particular my teen years in high school

now the key thing here is that whatever

goes into these folders is what's

important to you it could be positive

events it could be negative events it

could be events that for whatever reason

you remember and keep surfacing in your

mind that you think might be interesting

or important at some later time or that

you're concerned you might forget in

fact that might be a really good me for

whether or not you include something in

these folders or not if there's

something that you want to make sure

that you never forget but that you think

you might forget I would encourage you

to put it onto that word document and

put it into that particular folder again

this isn't about creating a coherent

life story this is about creating a

series of segments of small collections

of key life events positive negative

neutral inspiring basically anything

that was Salient for you at that

particular time and of course if you

want to put Reflections about those

particular events into that word

document you're more than welcome to do

that but the basis of this self-concept

developing exercise is just that it's to

develop a historical sense of yourself

of course bringing you up to present day

where you will continue to add things to

whatever Word document goes into that

particular folder for the age you happen

to be now now for some of you this kind

of autobiographical bullet pointing

might seem like it's just that some

attempt to build or write an

autobiography but it's very important to

remember that these folders are for you

these folders are not about writing a

book about your life history although if

you decide to do that with these folders

at some point down the line you know

that sounds great but that's not the

goal here the goal is for you to build a

structured narrative representation of

events that were key in your life and as

described in the series with Dr kti this

goes Way Beyond just understanding your

past this is really about understanding

past it's about understanding yourself

at present and indeed it threads into

your goals and aspirations for the

future an important thing to understand

about this tool or protocol is that it

also has a incredible ability to Anchor

you in your perception of the passage of

time you know some of us track the

passage of time better than others both

within the day and across days and years

and so forth but this exercise in

particular is very good at allowing you

to see you know how much time you

devoted at a given stage of your life to

a given Endeavor whether or not you're

stuck in patterns whereby you're still

engaging in certain types of things

professionally or relationship wise or

in any other number of different ways

that have you in a pattern that may or

may not be serving you well I want to

emphasize again that this exercise is

not about goal setting it's about your

ability to build a structured narrative

pattern from which you can look at it

and then make a determination as to

whether or not you know you feel that

you're currently on the right path for

you but it's not about projecting

forward as to what your goals are we'll

soon talk about that we'll talk about

goals and aspirations in a moment this

is really about better understanding

what led you up to the place that you

are now and it really helps you pinpoint

the keyw work that you need to do in

terms of exploring your unconscious and

conscious mind using some tools that

we're going to get into subsequently so

there's really no strict rules about how

to do this exactly except that I do

encourage you to make those increments

across your lifespan manageable I

wouldn't suggest doing it one for every

year I wouldn't suggest a folder one for

every 10 years I think a 3 to 5 year

increments seem like a more reasonable

and tractable way to go about this so

that's one of the sorts of tools that Dr

Ki referred to as to how to build up

one's self-concept which directly

relates to things such as our confidence

our ability to track our own behavior

understand some of our motivations both

conscious and unconscious but of course

that practice is mainly a conscious

exercise it's it's really not tapping

directly into the unconscious in any

kind of direct way as far as we know now

we can contrast that with the tools and

protocols that are designed to tap into

the unconscious mind and of course there

are a number of different ways to do

this that were discussed in that four

episode series with Dr Ki but one of the

most powerful ways to do this is by

thinking about and indeed sometimes

writing about or even analyzing one's

dreams now dream analysis is something

for which you can find a lot of books

out there there are a lot of theories

there's also a lot of AR arent that

perhaps dream analysis which has roots

in fraudi and psychology as well as

other Traditions is perhaps not accurate

I don't think we want to consider

whether or not dream analysis is

accurate rather I think we should just

acknowledge that when we are dreaming in

particular the dreams that we have

toward the later part of our night which

are the dreams associated with rapid eye

movement sleep that tend to be very

emotionally Laden dreams as compared to

the dreams that we have earlier in the

night well when we consider the content

of those dreams even even if we're not

trying to interpret them it's very clear

that those dreams reflect the

unconscious mind controlling more of our

internal dialogue or what we are

experiencing at that time whereas when

we are awake our conscious mind tends to

take over more of the narrative the