AMA #16: Sleep, Vertigo, TBI, OCD, Tips for Travelers, Gut-Brain Axis & More

00:00:00.000 | - Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast,

00:00:02.280 | where we discuss science and science-based tools

00:00:04.880 | for everyday life.

00:00:05.880 | Hello everybody and welcome.

00:00:11.100 | I want to thank all of you

00:00:14.980 | premium Huberman Lab Podcast subscribers for joining.

00:00:18.320 | This is an exciting one,

00:00:19.440 | even though the backdrop here looks very much

00:00:22.000 | like the studio back in the United States.

00:00:24.980 | I am doing this AMA live from Sydney, Australia.

00:00:29.980 | Where I and the Huberman Lab Podcast team have been

00:00:33.540 | for well over a week.

00:00:34.720 | We were in Melbourne

00:00:36.400 | and we just did two live shows here in Sydney

00:00:39.140 | and we're headed off to Brisbane tomorrow.

00:00:41.820 | And it's been absolutely delightful.

00:00:44.140 | We've had so much fun talking science,

00:00:46.700 | learning from people, and it's a wonderful place.

00:00:49.660 | I want to get right into your questions

00:00:52.620 | and do my best to answer as many of them as possible,

00:00:54.920 | as thoroughly, clearly, and succinctly as possible

00:00:58.840 | over the next hour.

00:01:00.500 | So I'm going to dive into those in just a moment.

00:01:03.580 | Just one last important thing before I do that,

00:01:06.900 | which is that I want to thank everyone

00:01:08.600 | for being a premium subscriber

00:01:10.580 | and let you know that we,

00:01:13.740 | based on your contributions to the premium channel,

00:01:17.140 | have already, as you know, supported four laboratories

00:01:20.600 | at Stanford, Columbia University, Salk Institute,

00:01:22.740 | and elsewhere for important projects on humans

00:01:25.660 | that are already leading to important

00:01:27.540 | therapeutic breakthroughs that we will soon share with you

00:01:30.020 | on the Huberman Lab podcast.

00:01:31.900 | But that this year, 2024,

00:01:34.280 | we were fortunate enough to secure

00:01:36.620 | no fewer than three dollar for dollar match donors

00:01:40.060 | who have generously agreed to match our contributions

00:01:43.460 | from the premium channel to additional projects.

00:01:47.040 | Those are going to head out

00:01:48.720 | to a number of different universities

00:01:50.740 | and researchers working, again, on human studies,

00:01:53.320 | so no animal studies, human studies on important projects,

00:01:55.880 | everything from novel treatments for mental health issues,

00:02:00.400 | headache and migraine,

00:02:02.400 | some interesting stuff on immunology and cancer,

00:02:04.980 | mindsets and immune system function,

00:02:08.320 | and much, much more also nutrition,

00:02:10.920 | physiology, exercise physiology, et cetera.

00:02:13.860 | So your contributions to the premium channel

00:02:16.900 | really do make a difference.

00:02:18.240 | I can say this because I'm familiar with the challenges

00:02:21.200 | of raising funding for doing truly breakthrough work

00:02:23.800 | and getting things quickly out to the general public.

00:02:26.120 | So thank you, thank you, thank you.

00:02:29.760 | And now without further ado, let's get to your questions.

00:02:34.360 | The first question was, is how are you managing

00:02:38.080 | to achieve your key health pillars while in Australia

00:02:41.240 | and any other place you've enjoyed doing so,

00:02:43.520 | all while working so hard?

00:02:45.760 | Well, thanks for the question.

00:02:46.740 | I'll answer this question in the context

00:02:48.240 | of what I think we all can and should and really will do,

00:02:53.280 | because if you're a premium channel subscriber,

00:02:56.000 | certainly you're taking your health seriously.

00:02:58.320 | So first off, I think there's a bit of a misconception

00:03:02.080 | about the protocols on the Huberman Lab Podcast

00:03:04.080 | being that we are all, including myself,

00:03:07.380 | super, super regimented about them to the point

00:03:09.640 | where we don't enjoy other things in life,

00:03:11.220 | and that's simply not true.

00:03:12.860 | So I view the protocols of the Huberman Lab Podcast

00:03:16.500 | as science-based, actionable, low cost, zero cost,

00:03:20.000 | minimal cost in almost all situations.

00:03:22.120 | There are a few exceptions to that,

00:03:23.700 | but they're really designed to mesh with the rest of life

00:03:25.780 | and enhance mental health and physical health,

00:03:28.600 | which of course means remaining social,

00:03:30.640 | staying on typical sleep schedules, et cetera.

00:03:33.180 | So the big ones for me when arriving here

00:03:35.200 | were of course to get morning sunlight as often as possible.

00:03:39.280 | We saw a beautiful sunrise this morning over Sydney,

00:03:41.560 | but even on the overcast days,

00:03:42.720 | we've had a few rainy overcast days

00:03:44.120 | to really make it a point to get outside

00:03:45.640 | and to get that morning sunlight.

00:03:47.140 | Also, our crew did travel in with a red light,

00:03:51.800 | not a red light panel,

00:03:53.200 | although I do have a couple of red light panels,

00:03:55.120 | those little portable ones that I use from time to time.

00:03:58.520 | The red lights I'm referring to

00:04:00.640 | in reference to answering this question are the red lights,

00:04:03.240 | which are just red light bulb that we,

00:04:04.840 | I actually travel with a little red light bulb unit.

00:04:08.740 | It's just like a small screwing unit.

00:04:10.800 | You plug it in here with an adapter, of course,

00:04:13.160 | and then in the evening,

00:04:14.160 | we've switched off the lights

00:04:15.200 | in the place where we're staying,

00:04:16.400 | and it just brings the overall levels of cortisol down low

00:04:20.240 | very quickly, and it makes it very easy

00:04:22.100 | to get to sleep each night.

00:04:23.820 | It makes a big, big difference,

00:04:25.240 | and this is a very low cost tool.

00:04:27.400 | You could essentially purchase any red light,

00:04:30.100 | even red party lights, and put those up,

00:04:31.940 | and then switch off the regular overhead lights.

00:04:33.760 | It makes a big difference,

00:04:35.380 | and it's probably even cost saving.

00:04:37.180 | We've also stayed fairly regimented about exercise.

00:04:40.860 | So this morning, took a great jog down to the ocean,

00:04:44.160 | jumped in the ocean.

00:04:45.000 | If you don't have access to an ocean on vacation,

00:04:46.760 | just getting outside and getting some movement

00:04:48.520 | early in the day can help shift your rhythm.

00:04:50.660 | Really the quadfecta of shifting your circadian rhythm

00:04:54.400 | in a new place or becoming an early riser

00:04:56.740 | if you want to do that is morning sunlight movement,

00:04:59.280 | social engagement, and in my case, caffeine.

00:05:02.400 | Although some people would opt for eating breakfast,

00:05:04.800 | I just happen to prefer to eat

00:05:06.080 | a little bit later in the day.

00:05:07.400 | So when you combine those things,

00:05:08.800 | you are really amplifying that morning cortisol increase

00:05:11.400 | that I've talked about on the podcast,

00:05:13.080 | morning catecholamine release,

00:05:14.480 | so dopamine epinephrine and norepinephrine,

00:05:16.840 | and those act in synergy to create more early day

00:05:21.480 | and daytime mood focus and alertness

00:05:23.360 | and enhance the transition to nighttime sleep.

00:05:25.280 | But of course, that dimming of the lights

00:05:27.500 | and maybe even red light in the evening

00:05:29.680 | really, really can help.

00:05:31.120 | And so those are the biggies.

00:05:32.360 | And then of course,

00:05:33.200 | if you want to shift your circadian rhythm really quickly

00:05:35.000 | to be on a local schedule,

00:05:36.860 | it helps to hop on the local meal schedule.

00:05:38.600 | But for me, that always means skipping breakfast.

00:05:40.400 | I'm not a big breakfast eater.

00:05:41.480 | I like lunch and afternoon snacks sometimes and dinner.

00:05:44.460 | So when you do all of those things,

00:05:46.360 | makes it very easy to stay with the health pillars.

00:05:48.440 | And of course, stress control is important.

00:05:50.560 | We're doing lives, there's a lot of work to do.

00:05:52.240 | So there's a daily for me,

00:05:54.900 | non-sleep deep rest or yoga nidra protocol.

00:05:56.880 | By the way, you may be familiar with non-sleep deep rest

00:06:00.360 | and yoga nidra, terrific zero cost practice

00:06:02.480 | for reducing stress, replacing or replenishing dopamine

00:06:05.760 | and mental and physical vigor.

00:06:07.360 | I've talked about this in the studies

00:06:08.600 | that support this on the podcast.

00:06:10.480 | There's a Huberman NSDR script on YouTube

00:06:13.680 | that's again, zero cost.

00:06:16.120 | But while down here, we recorded a 10 minute,

00:06:18.640 | 20 minute and 30 minute NSDR script

00:06:22.160 | with a view of a beautiful Sydney sunrise.

00:06:25.360 | Those should be posted to our Huberman Lab Clips channel

00:06:27.980 | in the not too distant future,

00:06:29.320 | probably in the next couple of weeks.

00:06:31.440 | And then you can have different duration NSDR scripts

00:06:34.840 | that you can use, again, completely zero cost

00:06:36.640 | anytime you like.

00:06:38.280 | We've recorded also some additional meditations

00:06:40.820 | and we're considering putting out a Spotify album,

00:06:44.580 | if you will, of NSDR and meditations

00:06:47.500 | that are science-based of different duration.

00:06:49.700 | So if you like that idea,

00:06:50.900 | maybe just give a shout into the internet

00:06:54.220 | and hopefully we'll hear it

00:06:55.160 | or put a comment on the latest episode

00:06:57.840 | of the Huberman Lab podcast on YouTube.

00:06:59.500 | And if that sounds like a good idea to you,

00:07:01.360 | we will do more of that.

00:07:02.540 | These are again, zero cost, zero to access tools

00:07:05.440 | for enhancing mental health and physical health.

00:07:07.520 | So combining all of those is really what we've done.

00:07:11.080 | Next question was, is I have followed your sleep advice

00:07:15.040 | and I have seen a huge improvement.

00:07:16.860 | Great, happy to hear that.

00:07:18.660 | Wonderful.

00:07:20.220 | But I still wake up at night

00:07:21.300 | and only get five or six hours.

00:07:23.500 | Is that enough?

00:07:24.340 | Can you please give more advice if possible?

00:07:27.100 | Well, first of all, thanks for tuning into the sleep advice.

00:07:32.020 | So the question of whether or not five or six hours

00:07:34.020 | is enough really depends on person context.

00:07:37.720 | And by context, I mean, it can even change

00:07:39.620 | across the course of the year by life circumstances.

00:07:42.260 | The criteria for insomnia are very clear.

00:07:45.080 | Insomnia is excessive daytime sleepiness

00:07:48.220 | due to lack of sleep at night.

00:07:49.840 | Excessive daytime sleepiness due to lack of sleep at night.

00:07:53.420 | So if you're not falling asleep during the day

00:07:55.400 | or you feel reasonably good throughout the day,

00:07:57.060 | maybe only need a brief 10 minute to 30 minute nap

00:07:59.500 | in the afternoon, some people nap,

00:08:00.740 | some people don't like to nap, doesn't matter.

00:08:03.220 | But if you feel pretty good throughout the day

00:08:04.660 | and you have enough mental and physical energy

00:08:06.600 | and focus to complete the activities

00:08:08.340 | that you need to complete,

00:08:09.480 | then I wouldn't worry so much about five to six hours.

00:08:11.620 | And I wouldn't obsess over these kind of scary things

00:08:15.500 | that we hear, oh, if we're not getting seven to eight hours

00:08:17.520 | that we get dementia, et cetera,

00:08:19.080 | because that's not necessarily the case.

00:08:20.360 | Everyone has different sleep needs.

00:08:21.580 | The other thing, and this is perhaps the most important thing

00:08:24.600 | for everybody listening to this really to think about

00:08:28.200 | is QQRT, which is quality, quantity, timing,

00:08:33.200 | excuse me, quality, quantity, regularity, and timing.

00:08:36.820 | QQRT, QQRT, which is an acronym coined

00:08:41.820 | by the great Matt Walker, author of the book,

00:08:43.960 | "Why We Sleep."

00:08:44.800 | He has our own terrific podcast in his own right.

00:08:46.880 | He has a series on the human lab podcast coming out soon.

00:08:50.440 | QQRT is what you really need to think about

00:08:53.560 | when you think about your sleep.

00:08:54.640 | So you want to think about the quantity.

00:08:55.960 | How much are you getting?

00:08:56.800 | Well, you Rima, who asked this question,

00:08:59.780 | are getting five to six hours a night.

00:09:01.480 | Okay, what about the quality of that sleep?

00:09:03.220 | Is it consistently five to six hours with no breaks

00:09:06.340 | or is there a break in the middle?

00:09:07.360 | One trip to the restroom in the middle of the night

00:09:09.080 | is considered normal and healthy for most people.

00:09:11.440 | If you're making multiple trips to the restroom

00:09:12.980 | in the middle of the night,

00:09:14.080 | you're waking up multiple times throughout the night

00:09:15.720 | on a regular basis, that's something to try and overcome.

00:09:18.680 | So the quality piece is important.

00:09:21.920 | Also, whether or not you remember your dreams or you don't,

00:09:26.040 | you want to make sure that you're getting ample amounts

00:09:29.140 | of slow wave sleep, which dominates the first half

00:09:31.300 | of your sleep night and rapid eye movement sleep,

00:09:33.560 | which dominates the second half of your sleep night

00:09:35.920 | because they have different roles in recovery

00:09:39.260 | of brain and body, namely slow wave,

00:09:42.480 | AKA deep sleep is responsible for growth hormone release,

00:09:45.480 | rapid eye movement sleep responsible for the unpacking

00:09:48.960 | or the uncoupling of emotions to prior day

00:09:52.120 | and previous day experiences.

00:09:54.040 | And in that way acts as a kind of a scrubbing out

00:09:56.800 | or a therapy for your emotional state.

00:09:59.140 | So are you feeling emotionally rested when you wake up

00:10:03.200 | is a good indication of whether or not

00:10:04.840 | you're getting enough rapid eye movement sleep.

00:10:06.440 | Some people like sleep trackers using their aid sleep

00:10:09.480 | or their whoop or their aura ring or something like that.

00:10:11.720 | I'm a fan of sleep trackers,

00:10:13.300 | but I think that relying too heavily on sleep scores

00:10:16.740 | can be risky.

00:10:17.600 | There are data from Ali Krum's lab at Stanford

00:10:20.320 | showing that if people receive a poor sleep score,

00:10:22.680 | even though they sleep well, their performance will drop.

00:10:25.000 | If people get a good sleep score,

00:10:26.840 | even though their sleep was lousy,

00:10:30.580 | their performance is maintained or even enhanced.

00:10:32.600 | So you don't want to take any one sleep score

00:10:35.280 | and over-interpret it.

00:10:36.320 | You want to look at the average

00:10:38.000 | and compare that to your subjective experience of sleep.

00:10:41.280 | Maybe I would say go about halfway through your day

00:10:43.600 | if you can bear to do it before looking at your sleep score

00:10:46.000 | and see how you feel, then look at your sleep score

00:10:47.960 | as opposed to the other way around.

00:10:49.200 | That might be a good way to adjust for that belief effect

00:10:51.800 | I just mentioned.

00:10:52.920 | But if you're getting enough quantity,

00:10:55.400 | let's say you get five to six hours

00:10:57.100 | and quality you're sleeping through that bout,

00:10:59.720 | maybe with one epoch of waking up.

00:11:02.820 | And then the regularity of your sleep

00:11:05.560 | is that you're going to sleep

00:11:06.600 | more or less at the same time each night,

00:11:08.200 | plus or minus an hour on let's say five to six days per week,

00:11:11.700 | because sometimes we like to stay up on a weekend night

00:11:14.200 | and have some fun or something like that.

00:11:15.920 | And then the timing, where that sleep is falling

00:11:19.960 | in your 24 hour schedule is really key.

00:11:22.060 | And here's what we're learning as a field,

00:11:24.880 | that for many people who are early to bed,

00:11:29.440 | early to rise types, if they go to bed around 9 p.m., 9.30,

00:11:34.160 | and they only get six hours of sleep, they feel great.

00:11:36.980 | Whereas if they get the equivalent amount of sleep,

00:11:38.960 | but go to bed at 11 p.m. or midnight, they feel lousy.

00:11:42.800 | Similarly, if you're a night owl,

00:11:44.220 | you're somebody that really prefers to go to bed

00:11:46.780 | around one or 2 a.m. and wake up around, let's say 10 a.m.

00:11:51.220 | If you take that equivalent amount of sleep

00:11:53.240 | and you go to bed earlier, you're going to feel not so good.

00:11:56.120 | So getting the timing of your sleep

00:11:58.120 | in the 24 hour cycle correct and fairly consistent,

00:12:01.220 | that's the R part of QQRT correct, is going to be beneficial.

00:12:05.740 | So I wouldn't worry so much about five to six hours only.

00:12:08.520 | Here's what I would do, Rima.

00:12:10.500 | I would take that five to six hours.

00:12:13.080 | And before getting out of bed each morning,

00:12:14.920 | I would do a 10 to 30 minute NSDR,

00:12:17.280 | non-sleep deep rest protocol,

00:12:18.820 | which will allow you to feel deeply rested

00:12:22.040 | and frankly, to recover whatever bits of sleep

00:12:25.520 | that you perhaps missed during the night.

00:12:27.760 | I found that to be a tremendously beneficial practice.

00:12:30.940 | Waking up, if I don't feel thoroughly rested,

00:12:33.880 | doing a 10 to 30 minute NSDR,

00:12:35.960 | then getting out of bed and continuing the day.

00:12:37.680 | And if you don't have time to do that,

00:12:38.920 | do that 10 minute, maybe 20 minute NSDR

00:12:41.400 | later in the day at any point.

00:12:43.440 | And I think you'll see terrific results,

00:12:46.680 | not just because you're recovering some sleep that you lost,

00:12:50.100 | perhaps during the night,

00:12:51.560 | or maybe you just need five to six hours,

00:12:53.080 | but also because you'll get better at falling

00:12:55.420 | and staying deeply asleep through the practice of NSDR

00:12:59.380 | in the morning or at some point throughout the day.

00:13:01.760 | I wouldn't recommend anything else elaborate

00:13:03.640 | unless you're feeling really exhausted during the day,

00:13:05.480 | in which case, then I would move

00:13:06.980 | to some of the more advanced sleep tools.

00:13:09.680 | I've had vertigo, I should announce, this is a question.

00:13:14.200 | I'm not just telling you about my vertigo.

00:13:15.920 | I've had vertigo on and off and wonder what causes it.

00:13:20.040 | Is it hormones, adrenals, autolysts moving around?

00:13:22.720 | Ah, this person knows about the cochlea.

00:13:24.540 | Hydration virus exposure.

00:13:26.980 | Zenana, I think is how you pronounce your name.

00:13:28.960 | Forgive me if that's not the correct pronunciation, Zenana.

00:13:32.100 | So vertigo is very interesting.

00:13:33.880 | Unfortunately, it's uncomfortable,

00:13:36.320 | but we can learn a thing or two right now

00:13:37.880 | that should be able to help you, Zenana, and others,

00:13:41.440 | even if they haven't had vertigo.

00:13:44.040 | So vertigo, this perception of falling or dizziness,

00:13:48.920 | needs to be distinguished from lightheadedness.

00:13:51.360 | So if you're ever feeling dizzy,

00:13:53.780 | it's worth stopping and sitting, or if you can't sit,

00:13:57.760 | standing and closing your eyes

00:14:01.160 | and asking yourself a question,

00:14:03.840 | do I feel like I'm ready to fall straight down,

00:14:07.920 | or do I feel like I'm going to spin and fall down?

00:14:11.500 | Because in answering that question,

00:14:14.080 | you can determine whether or not you are lightheaded,

00:14:16.760 | that would be the straight falling down,

00:14:18.440 | or you have vertigo, which is you're dizzy,

00:14:22.200 | which is that you're going to spin and fall down.

00:14:23.720 | Now, do this in a safe place, please.

00:14:25.940 | You can do this while bracing yourself against a wall,

00:14:27.780 | or that's why I said ideally seated,

00:14:29.420 | so you don't actually fall.

00:14:31.260 | But in most cases, if you're feeling that spin,

00:14:35.260 | if you're feeling truly dizzy, you're feeling vertigo,

00:14:37.660 | and I'm moving my head around on my own purpose,

00:14:40.120 | then chances are you've got some issue

00:14:43.560 | in either your visual system or your inner ear.

00:14:47.380 | Okay, so since this is being recorded on video,

00:14:49.500 | I can display what I'm about to say.

00:14:51.800 | So your visual system and your inner ear system for balance

00:14:56.800 | have some really important features.

00:14:59.000 | I'm going to make this a very quick tutorial.

00:15:01.160 | Your head, as you move through space,

00:15:04.200 | is experiencing visual images going by all the time.

00:15:07.160 | Your retinas, your eyes, are essentially exposed

00:15:10.900 | to a lot of what's called visual slip.

00:15:12.660 | Imagine you're walking and you're trying to take a picture

00:15:15.180 | on your iPhone, or if you have an Android phone

00:15:17.340 | on your Android phone, and you're moving,

00:15:19.400 | it's going to be blurry, right?

00:15:20.700 | Well, there's a stabilization process

00:15:23.140 | in your body and brain.

00:15:24.300 | It's a magnificent one that, frankly,

00:15:26.740 | is built into all jawed animals,

00:15:29.640 | whereby your head, because it can move forward,

00:15:32.800 | so think nodding, right?

00:15:34.540 | So this is pitch for you, pilots, right?

00:15:38.560 | Yaw, moving from side to side, this would be the no.

00:15:42.060 | This would be the no, no.

00:15:44.180 | So pitch, yaw, and roll,

00:15:46.180 | which would be like the puppy look, right?

00:15:48.540 | Pitch, yaw, and roll.

00:15:50.000 | Pitch, yaw, and roll.

00:15:52.140 | Those are the three major angles of visual slip.

00:15:57.060 | And in an absolutely magnificent set of things,

00:16:02.060 | your inner ear has three hula hoop-like shaped structures,

00:16:06.760 | one that's arranged vertically, so up on its end,

00:16:09.980 | one that's at an angle of about 45 degrees to that,

00:16:13.560 | and another that sits like a hula hoop flat on the ground.

00:16:16.620 | And inside of each of those little hula hoop-like tubes,

00:16:19.640 | there are little stones called otoliths,

00:16:22.860 | okay, you heard that word earlier,

00:16:24.220 | that roll around on the bottom,

00:16:25.720 | just like marbles at the bottom of a hula hoop,

00:16:28.140 | such that when you pitch, nod,

00:16:31.640 | the marbles in the vertical hula hoop slide back and forth.

00:16:34.740 | When you say no,

00:16:38.220 | the marbles in that hula hoop lying essentially parallel

00:16:41.500 | to the floor move around.

00:16:44.180 | And then the one at 45 degrees,

00:16:45.860 | when you roll your head from side to side, those move.

00:16:49.620 | And each of those sends neural signals

00:16:51.740 | that converge on the neural signals coming from the eye,

00:16:55.660 | and get this, when you move through space,

00:16:59.360 | there is a precise offset of whatever visual slip

00:17:02.980 | you happen to be experiencing by walking,

00:17:04.820 | the images are moving, you're looking up,

00:17:06.200 | you're looking at buildings, you're looking around,

00:17:07.700 | you're talking to somebody, they're moving their head,

00:17:09.780 | and your eye is making little tiny movements,

00:17:12.820 | little microsaccades on the millisecond timescale

00:17:15.880 | that act as a perfect image stabilizer.

00:17:18.900 | So what this means,

00:17:21.540 | this is by the way called the vestibulo-ocular reflex,

00:17:24.380 | vestibular system ocular reflex.

00:17:26.500 | And it's mediated through a structure called the cerebellum

00:17:28.460 | in the back of the brain.

00:17:29.700 | This is why when you're on a boat,

00:17:33.540 | when the horizon is tipping back and forth,

00:17:35.600 | I have to be careful with this

00:17:36.440 | because I have such a prominent seasickness

00:17:38.760 | based on a prior experience

00:17:39.880 | that if I think about this too much, I might get nauseous.

00:17:42.300 | When that horizon is moving around,

00:17:44.820 | your system becomes uncalibrated

00:17:47.540 | because you can't really keep the system jolting about

00:17:51.020 | in a regular way.

00:17:52.100 | I have to be really careful here, I'm getting dizzy.

00:17:54.660 | Notice I said dizzy, not lightheaded.

00:17:56.500 | And you will end up disrupting that slip process

00:18:01.260 | and you'll essentially overcompensate,

00:18:03.860 | which is why whenever you feel sick on a boat,

00:18:06.080 | they say, look at the horizon,

00:18:07.580 | fixate to something at a distance.

00:18:09.920 | Okay, so if you have vertigo,

00:18:12.300 | almost certainly there's something going on

00:18:15.480 | in your inner ear.

00:18:16.460 | Yes, it can be caused by viruses.

00:18:17.980 | Yes, it can be caused by hormones.

00:18:20.560 | These things tend to be transient,

00:18:22.800 | but the most important thing is going to be to anchor

00:18:25.700 | the visual part of the vestibular ocular reflex.

00:18:28.720 | So what you're going to want to do

00:18:30.220 | is you're going to want to fixate on a point

00:18:32.200 | maybe three or four feet away.

00:18:34.180 | And then you're going to actually want to move closer

00:18:37.200 | to that point, or if you don't have access to it,

00:18:39.060 | you would want to look at your hand,

00:18:40.860 | your finger out in front of you,

00:18:42.940 | and then slowly move it in toward your nose.

00:18:46.820 | At some point, you'll feel like you're going to go cross-eyed

00:18:48.900 | and you can stop at that point,

00:18:50.540 | then move out again, then in again.

00:18:53.260 | What are you doing when you're doing this?

00:18:54.780 | What you're doing is you're overriding the error signals,

00:18:58.260 | the incorrect error signals

00:19:00.460 | that exist in your kind of default setting

00:19:03.780 | at that when you have vertigo,

00:19:05.420 | and you're forcing the visual component to dominate,

00:19:07.860 | and then your inner ear mechanisms will adjust to that.

00:19:11.020 | So this is a very powerful tool if you ever feel nauseous

00:19:13.560 | or seasick, it's a very powerful tool.

00:19:14.860 | If you ever, and like me, you sit in the back of an Uber

00:19:16.860 | and the Uber is too small, you get out

00:19:18.300 | and you're like walk into a building

00:19:19.500 | where there are no windows.

00:19:21.100 | I don't really feel good.

00:19:22.180 | Get outside and look at a fixation point some distance away.

00:19:25.100 | This actually happened the other day.

00:19:26.140 | We went to the gym.

00:19:27.260 | We went inside this gym.

00:19:28.260 | We'd been in a van and then went inside

00:19:32.020 | and weren't feeling well.

00:19:34.420 | So we decided to get out and just take a walk

00:19:36.420 | and fixate to the longest distance possible.

00:19:38.300 | The fresh air probably helped as well.

00:19:40.140 | But when doing that, you are anchoring the visual part

00:19:43.780 | of the vestibulocular reflex.

00:19:45.900 | Now that's far and away better

00:19:47.700 | than trying to avoid moving your head

00:19:49.700 | to not get those little stones moving around

00:19:51.980 | in the semicircular canals.

00:19:53.860 | Lots to say about this.

00:19:55.500 | I could go on and on, but hopefully you learned some biology

00:19:57.660 | and you learned how to not be nauseous

00:19:59.660 | if ever you feel dizzy or nauseous based on movement,

00:20:05.180 | motion sick.

00:20:06.500 | And we can talk about why you get motion sick,

00:20:08.500 | what is through the vagus nerve, et cetera, et cetera.

00:20:10.500 | But this is a very useful tool.

00:20:12.020 | And if you're ever just not feeling well,

00:20:14.420 | you know, unless you have a fever or something like that,

00:20:16.260 | I recommend getting outside

00:20:17.740 | and looking at the furthest fixation point

00:20:19.460 | with your vision that you possibly can

00:20:21.020 | and then walking toward it as far as you can safely.

00:20:23.980 | If not, by actually just doing a few of these exercises

00:20:27.580 | of looking at your finger up close,

00:20:29.340 | that's going to be very good

00:20:30.820 | for anchoring the vestibular ocular reflex.

00:20:33.580 | And not every time,

00:20:35.020 | but many times people report feeling better,

00:20:37.020 | especially if you've moved from one closed environment

00:20:39.300 | to another closed environment,

00:20:40.420 | to another closed environment, and so on.

00:20:43.060 | Okay, next question is,

00:20:45.060 | what can be done to improve brain function

00:20:46.780 | for people that have been negatively impacted by things

00:20:48.900 | such as poor sleep, poor diet, and TBI early in life?

00:20:52.460 | James.

00:20:53.300 | Yeah, this is a great question and I get this a lot.

00:20:55.260 | I think that it reminds me that a lot of the conversation

00:20:58.420 | that we have on the podcast is about the good things

00:21:01.500 | that happen when you do things right

00:21:02.780 | and the bad things that happen when you do things wrong.

00:21:05.260 | And while I think that's an important conversation,

00:21:07.080 | what I've frankly failed to do enough,

00:21:10.260 | and that's why I'm grateful for this question,

00:21:12.800 | because it gives me the opportunity

00:21:14.860 | to talk more about the fact

00:21:16.500 | that your system is very robust.

00:21:19.900 | There is neuroplasticity.

00:21:21.380 | And also, as my graduate advisor used to say,

00:21:24.340 | time machine's broken,

00:21:25.500 | which is not to say you're out of luck,

00:21:27.700 | but I wouldn't spend any extra energy

00:21:30.500 | thinking about how many, not seeds, excuse me,

00:21:34.300 | how many, I have to be careful,

00:21:35.780 | the seed oil debate is still a debate, it's unclear,

00:21:38.300 | how many trans fats you were exposed to in childhood.

00:21:41.900 | We know trans fats are bad.

00:21:43.260 | Everyone agrees they're bad, governments agree they're bad.

00:21:45.380 | This is perhaps one of the few things

00:21:46.580 | that everybody agrees on in the nutrition space.

00:21:48.460 | Trans fats are bad.

00:21:49.940 | When I was growing up, trans fats were abundant in foods.

00:21:53.140 | There were probably fewer of certain things

00:21:56.060 | that we have more of now that are bad,

00:21:57.500 | but we ate a lot of trans fats.

00:21:59.340 | We had margarine in our fridge.

00:22:01.540 | There were other things that probably weren't good for us

00:22:03.380 | that we consumed.

00:22:04.420 | And every once in a while, I'll think, gosh,

00:22:06.100 | if I had only been eating grass-fed meats

00:22:08.340 | and fruits and vegetables and healthy grains,

00:22:11.800 | as I do now, back then, imagine how much healthier I'd be,

00:22:14.660 | but I really don't spend too much time on it,

00:22:16.620 | and I don't think you should either.

00:22:18.020 | I think the most important thing to remember

00:22:20.240 | is that biological systems, unless they're really damaged,

00:22:24.580 | you're talking about a major injury, and even then,

00:22:29.580 | they're very robust.

00:22:31.520 | You can overcome years, decades of poor use

00:22:36.320 | or misuse of those systems.

00:22:37.720 | That said, if you have the opportunity

00:22:39.620 | to take care of them now, I highly suggest you do.

00:22:42.240 | So for instance, if you haven't slept well for years,

00:22:45.160 | now's the time to get it right.

00:22:46.340 | I wouldn't worry about the past, truly.

00:22:48.280 | You can always rescue some of your health

00:22:51.320 | and healthspan and lifespan.

00:22:53.440 | Poor diet, same thing.

00:22:55.360 | It's a just do it kind of thing.

00:22:56.720 | Just hop on the train of getting things right

00:22:59.020 | 80 to 90% of the time.

00:23:00.820 | TBI, traumatic brain injury.

00:23:02.440 | Well, the episode of the Huberman Lab Podcast

00:23:04.220 | is out right now with Dr. Mark Desposito.

00:23:06.180 | He's an MD, a neurologist,

00:23:08.380 | originally trained at University of Pennsylvania,

00:23:11.180 | now at University of California, Berkeley.

00:23:12.700 | We talk about TBI.

00:23:14.460 | You know, there are a lot of different forms of TBI,

00:23:17.060 | different origins, you know,

00:23:20.260 | everything from bomb blasts to car accident

00:23:22.280 | to construction work to just, you know,

00:23:23.780 | slipped on the stairs at a party.

00:23:25.400 | I know someone that slipped on some wet floor at a party

00:23:29.540 | and, you know, has a brain injury.

00:23:32.060 | What do we know?

00:23:33.180 | Well, you get back to the basics.

00:23:35.660 | Sleep is going to be important,

00:23:38.380 | but there are some things

00:23:40.420 | like transcranial magnetic stimulation,

00:23:43.080 | certainly things that reduce brain inflammation

00:23:45.400 | like glymphatic outflow.

00:23:47.640 | So glymphatic outflow is this washing of the brain at night

00:23:50.860 | that removes debris.

00:23:52.260 | Very, very important in the weeks and months

00:23:55.780 | after traumatic brain injury

00:23:57.140 | to get adequate sleep for that reason.

00:23:59.400 | But then there are things

00:24:00.240 | that also seem to perhaps improve outcomes

00:24:03.060 | from traumatic brain injury,

00:24:04.100 | such as hyperbaric chamber,

00:24:05.380 | so hyperoxygenation treatments,

00:24:07.460 | if you have access to those.

00:24:09.500 | Even things like elevating the feet slightly

00:24:12.100 | when you sleep by about five to 15 degrees

00:24:14.100 | is known to increase glymphatic flow during sleep,

00:24:17.300 | which can, we believe,

00:24:20.060 | by way of increased clearance

00:24:22.540 | of a bunch of basically debris,

00:24:25.140 | reactive oxygen species within the cells,

00:24:26.920 | but also debris outside the cells

00:24:28.400 | in the extracellular space.

00:24:29.500 | So between neurons, there isn't just empty space.

00:24:31.480 | There's all this like heavily glycosylated stuff,

00:24:34.760 | which basically just means

00:24:35.740 | this kind of like spongy carbohydrate stuff

00:24:37.540 | that fills in the spaces.

00:24:38.900 | The clearance of some of the metabolites

00:24:41.780 | and some of the debris that's accumulated there

00:24:43.300 | by just sleeping with feet slightly elevated,

00:24:45.580 | definitely not falling asleep in a chair upright.

00:24:47.520 | That's the worst thing for glymphatic flow.

00:24:49.460 | Things like that.

00:24:50.540 | Some people will go kind of bonkers

00:24:52.380 | on all things anti-inflammation.

00:24:54.140 | They start taking tons of curcumin,

00:24:55.700 | and they kind of get obsessed with inflammation

00:24:57.660 | as the enemy.

00:24:59.220 | I wouldn't do that.

00:25:00.160 | In fact, there's some negative effects

00:25:01.480 | of things like curcumin, turmeric.

00:25:04.300 | If you take it in high doses,

00:25:05.480 | like limiting the amount of dehydrotestosterone production,

00:25:08.740 | which is not good, you don't want that.

00:25:11.500 | Male or female, you don't want to take too much turmeric

00:25:13.940 | or curcumin.

00:25:15.100 | There are real issues with that.

00:25:17.020 | To say nothing of the studies

00:25:18.580 | that have shown lead contamination in a lot of turmeric,

00:25:20.780 | so you want to check the sourcing very carefully.

00:25:22.760 | If you do consume any turmeric,

00:25:24.420 | a little bit is probably fine.

00:25:25.980 | Cooking with it is fine.

00:25:27.420 | But we're here, we're talking about supplementation,

00:25:29.100 | and just really not trying to turn inflammation

00:25:32.060 | into this terrible thing to the point

00:25:34.140 | where you're starting to do other things

00:25:35.380 | that are potentially damaging.

00:25:36.780 | There's some really interesting evidence

00:25:38.080 | that five grams, maybe 10 grams,

00:25:39.740 | depending on your body weight,

00:25:41.300 | of creatine monohydrate per day

00:25:43.520 | can enhance creatine phosphate metabolism in the forebrain

00:25:47.980 | and enhance brain function

00:25:49.460 | under conditions of high altitude or TBI.

00:25:52.100 | I take five to 10 grams of creatine,

00:25:54.180 | just creatine monohydrate powder.

00:25:56.420 | And frankly, any creatine monohydrate powder

00:25:58.440 | should be sufficient.

00:25:59.280 | There are other forms of creatine.

00:26:00.380 | They are not any better.

00:26:01.700 | Creatine monohydrate is the least expensive, fortunately.

00:26:04.600 | That mixed in water, you take it with or without food.

00:26:06.740 | Some people ask, "Does creatine make your hair fall out?"

00:26:08.980 | No, it does not make your hair fall out.

00:26:10.860 | But some people do experience an increase in DHT

00:26:13.500 | with creatine monohydrate,

00:26:15.420 | and there can be a DHT hair loss link.

00:26:17.860 | So if you think you're losing your hair from taking creatine,

00:26:20.020 | then stop and see, do the control experiment.

00:26:22.000 | It should grow back.

00:26:22.840 | But five to 10 grams of creatine monohydrate,

00:26:25.620 | something to explore hyperbaric chambers,

00:26:27.340 | something to explore excellent sleep, definitely do that.

00:26:30.640 | And I just wouldn't obsess over past ills or wrongs

00:26:34.880 | to the extent that it impacts your ability

00:26:38.340 | to try and correct those in the present.

00:26:40.100 | I would say that about most everything.

00:26:41.300 | But then again, I understand that as humans,

00:26:44.060 | because we can remember the past, the present,

00:26:46.380 | and the future, that sometimes, you know,

00:26:49.460 | it's difficult to let go of the mistakes of past

00:26:51.860 | that we made, but that's just simply being human,

00:26:54.860 | and I don't have a solution to that.

00:26:56.880 | Are we any closer to finding the cause of OCD?

00:27:01.260 | Well, I think we know what causes OCD.

00:27:03.140 | I think it's pretty clear that OCD is some form

00:27:07.220 | of miswiring in the basal ganglia,

00:27:10.740 | the structures of the brain that are involved in GO,

00:27:13.900 | action and NO-GO, withholding action type behaviors.

00:27:18.580 | And some malwiring of those structures

00:27:23.540 | to the dopamine reward system,

00:27:24.900 | because here's what's interesting about OCD.

00:27:26.660 | OCD involves obsessions, obviously, that's the O in OCD,

00:27:31.220 | compulsions, the actions, that's the C in OCD,

00:27:34.740 | but in a kind of a weird twist of the neurology,

00:27:38.280 | OCD is a situation where the compulsion

00:27:42.760 | does not remove the obsession, rather it exacerbates it.

00:27:46.900 | Okay, the compulsion does not remove the obsession,

00:27:49.180 | it exacerbates it.

00:27:50.100 | So unlike an itch that you scratch,

00:27:53.300 | with OCD, the scratching of the itch makes it worse,

00:27:55.760 | which is actually what we experience

00:27:57.040 | when we have a mosquito bite,

00:27:59.180 | which by the way, I have absolutely loathe mosquito bites.

00:28:01.620 | It's one of my least favorite things in life.

00:28:04.820 | I have about 3,600 and counting pet peeves,

00:28:07.900 | that's definitely high on the list of those.

00:28:09.960 | The obsessive compulsive disorder

00:28:13.420 | is one that really needs to be treated,

00:28:16.100 | frankly, neurologically.

00:28:17.420 | It's one for which there are behavioral interventions,

00:28:20.480 | but it's clear that adjusting the pharmacology

00:28:24.040 | of the neural circuits involved in OCD really can help.

00:28:27.960 | Again, there are behavioral treatments,

00:28:29.520 | but for severe cases of OCD,

00:28:32.200 | it's just very, very clear that interventions,

00:28:34.800 | which include SSRIs, which have been demonized,

00:28:37.080 | a lot of people say,

00:28:37.920 | "Oh, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors are terrible,

00:28:41.240 | blah, blah, blah.

00:28:42.080 | The serotonin hypothesis of depression isn't true."

00:28:45.440 | Well, listen, the reality is this,

00:28:48.100 | that all treatments for depression that are effective,

00:28:51.260 | which include SSRIs in some cases,

00:28:54.380 | cognitive behavioral treatments,

00:28:55.640 | all of these sorts of things which have shown efficacy,

00:28:58.160 | are all about what?

00:28:59.220 | They're not about serotonin, they're about neuroplasticity.

00:29:02.040 | That's why some antidepressants center

00:29:03.620 | on dopamine and norepinephrine,

00:29:04.920 | others center on serotonin, they're about neuroplasticity.

00:29:08.740 | They're about changing neural networks.

00:29:10.900 | They're not about a neurochemical per se,

00:29:13.300 | but the neuromodulators such as serotonin

00:29:16.300 | allow an access point, they are a wedge

00:29:18.720 | into the neuroplasticity process.

00:29:20.820 | Now with OCD, in order to overcome these malwirings,

00:29:25.680 | it's very important to get plasticity.

00:29:28.360 | How do you get plasticity?

00:29:29.400 | Well, you, in my belief,

00:29:31.200 | you work with an excellent psychiatrist

00:29:32.900 | who can prescribe the appropriate dose of drug

00:29:36.680 | to release the appropriate amount of neuromodulator.

00:29:40.240 | Then, and this is really key,

00:29:42.280 | you have opened up the window for plasticity,

00:29:44.580 | but then it's really important that the proper behaviors

00:29:47.360 | are engaged in.

00:29:48.200 | And when I did an episode on OCD,

00:29:49.720 | I talked about what some of these are.

00:29:51.120 | For instance, the person is exposed to the stimulus

00:29:55.480 | that causes the obsession,

00:29:56.600 | or maybe this obsession arises spontaneously.

00:29:59.440 | They feel the impulse to complete the compulsion,

00:30:02.160 | the behavior, and they resist

00:30:04.200 | with the support of a therapist,

00:30:05.440 | but they're doing this in the context

00:30:07.080 | of having elevated levels of serotonin

00:30:09.840 | or some other neuromodulator

00:30:11.480 | that then allows fewer trials of resistance,

00:30:15.060 | fewer times of needing to withhold the behavior

00:30:19.180 | that this person so badly wants to perform

00:30:22.300 | because it's coming from within,

00:30:23.460 | it's this compulsion, literally,

00:30:25.700 | then they are able to achieve plasticity more quickly,

00:30:28.860 | perhaps also transcranial magnetic stimulation.

00:30:31.420 | So a conjunction of the correct behavior,

00:30:35.020 | the withholding behavior,

00:30:36.460 | maybe a replacement behavior that's often used,

00:30:38.700 | use a replacement behavior

00:30:39.780 | with the appropriate neurochemical milieu

00:30:42.480 | is the solution to OCD.

00:30:45.000 | Okay, next question is,

00:30:46.760 | if I'm just going to New York City from San Francisco,

00:30:50.280 | how do I control shifting my circadian rhythm

00:30:52.280 | by only three hours?

00:30:54.000 | So if you're going to New York City from San Francisco,

00:30:56.600 | the best way, frankly,

00:30:58.040 | would be to get up an hour earlier,

00:31:00.440 | two days before you head off to New York,

00:31:03.160 | and then another day you might try and shift by two hours

00:31:07.120 | before you go and then head to New York

00:31:09.080 | and do the last shift on the last day.

00:31:10.980 | Most people won't do that.

00:31:13.140 | It's just, you know, it takes a little bit of work,

00:31:14.860 | but they just don't have the time ability

00:31:18.060 | or your discipline to do that,

00:31:19.260 | but it is perhaps the best way.

00:31:22.300 | I would say the best thing to do

00:31:24.220 | is to know your temperature minimum,

00:31:27.200 | and I'll try and keep this pretty simple.

00:31:28.960 | If you typically wake up at 8 a.m.,

00:31:32.120 | let's say, just by way of example,

00:31:33.740 | that means that your minimum body temperature is at 6 a.m.,

00:31:36.820 | which means that if you want to get up earlier

00:31:39.720 | in the days where you travel to New York,

00:31:41.840 | well, in the couple of days before you leave,

00:31:44.140 | anytime between 6 a.m. and 10 a.m.,

00:31:47.720 | get some bright light in your eyes,

00:31:48.960 | even if you go back to sleep.

00:31:50.180 | So for instance, get up at 6 a.m., set an alarm clock.

00:31:52.940 | I know you normally like to get up at 8 a.m.,

00:31:54.540 | get up at 6 a.m., get some bright light in your eyes

00:31:56.900 | from artificial sources or from sunlight,

00:31:59.380 | maybe 5, 10 minutes, then go back to sleep until 8 a.m.

00:32:02.420 | You do that again the next night,

00:32:03.540 | and then you head off to New York,

00:32:04.540 | you'll find the shift to be much easier.

00:32:06.320 | Now, here's what you don't want to do.

00:32:07.660 | You want to make sure that you do not

00:32:10.380 | view bright light before 6 a.m.,

00:32:14.300 | so in the middle of the night, if you get up,

00:32:16.440 | you need to use the restroom, try and use dim lights,

00:32:18.300 | as dim as is safely possible, et cetera.

00:32:20.860 | And what are you doing when you're doing this?

00:32:23.120 | I could get into a long description

00:32:24.420 | of the science behind this,

00:32:25.400 | and I'll probably do a podcast all about this at some point,

00:32:27.860 | but really what you're doing if you get up at 6 a.m.

00:32:30.460 | and getting some bright light exposure is,

00:32:32.340 | you think about it,

00:32:33.180 | you're kind of looking at a New York sunrise of sorts, okay?

00:32:36.060 | If it's not a sunrise, you're getting some bright light

00:32:37.860 | that mimics sunrise, at least to some extent.

00:32:39.800 | Nothing's quite like sunrise, but to some extent.

00:32:42.460 | So in that sense, even if you go back to sleep,

00:32:44.540 | what you're doing is you're sending the light signal,

00:32:46.560 | the zeitgeber, the time signal,

00:32:49.140 | to your circadian clock of your hypothalamus

00:32:51.400 | that it should shift, that you'd need to get up earlier,

00:32:53.900 | and indeed, that will happen

00:32:55.860 | over the course of about two, three days.

00:32:57.820 | The other thing you can do,

00:32:58.700 | and I know this is kind of rare these days

00:33:02.460 | to get an answer like this,

00:33:03.340 | the other thing you can do is just fly to New York

00:33:05.140 | and force yourself to get up and just drink caffeine

00:33:08.660 | and get out and exercise and use the social rhythm

00:33:11.260 | of the activity of the city in order to get up earlier,

00:33:14.140 | but you will feel lousy late morning.

00:33:17.220 | And so you would only want to do that

00:33:19.380 | if you could access a brief nap

00:33:21.660 | of anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes late morning,

00:33:24.740 | and then you'll feel fine.

00:33:26.140 | But my suggestion would be to,

00:33:28.760 | something back there, like some animal or something,

00:33:32.740 | likes that answer so much, so like that, yeah,

00:33:34.540 | would be to just try and get a little bit of light exposure

00:33:37.960 | a couple hours before your normal wake-up time,

00:33:39.860 | then go back to sleep in the two days

00:33:41.700 | before you head off to New York City.

00:33:44.540 | And of course, everything here was set

00:33:46.420 | in the context of the New York City,

00:33:48.880 | it's a flight from San Francisco to New York City,

00:33:51.660 | but the principle, the logic holds.

00:33:54.620 | And if you have any questions

00:33:55.580 | about this temperature minimum and wake-up time

00:33:57.780 | and you want to get your circadian clock right for travel,

00:34:00.920 | check out the episode that we did on jet lag and shift work,

00:34:03.140 | and I'm realizing now as I say this,

00:34:04.540 | and my team's here and they're listening,

00:34:07.080 | that I will do a video on the Human Lab Clips channel

00:34:10.700 | where I explain temperature minimum

00:34:12.660 | and how to plug in your normal wake-up time

00:34:16.740 | in order to essentially arrive

00:34:18.260 | at whatever time shift you want.

00:34:19.740 | We should probably put that out as a newsletter too,

00:34:21.420 | where it's a little chart where it says,

00:34:22.660 | I currently wake up at 8 a.m.,

00:34:25.420 | and then, which means my,

00:34:27.020 | and then it'll say subtract two hours,

00:34:28.260 | my temperature minimum is 6 a.m.,

00:34:30.220 | and I want to travel to whatever it is,

00:34:32.920 | I don't know, Sydney, Australia on this date from this city,

00:34:35.800 | and then we know the time change,

00:34:37.480 | and then I can tell you exactly what to do

00:34:38.880 | for a couple of days.

00:34:39.720 | I've done this for various military groups.

00:34:42.260 | I've done this for people and close friends

00:34:44.720 | and who travel a lot, and it works fabulously well.

00:34:47.800 | I can't eliminate jet lag for you.

00:34:49.440 | Don't I wish I could just eliminate jet lag?

00:34:52.200 | I can't do that, but I definitely can have the time

00:34:55.260 | that it takes for you to shift maybe more.

00:34:57.360 | Hi, hi.

00:35:00.540 | I love "The Sydney Show."

00:35:01.560 | Thank you, thanks for coming out.

00:35:03.160 | Thanks for coming to Australia.

00:35:04.380 | Thanks for having us.

00:35:05.860 | I take fish oil, but I'm not sure

00:35:07.340 | I'm getting the dose right.

00:35:08.500 | What are your thoughts on fish oil and dose?

00:35:11.240 | I have lots of thoughts on fish oil.

00:35:12.600 | I think it's a terrific tool.

00:35:13.860 | I think every time I see a study

00:35:15.700 | or a news article saying fish oil not shown to,

00:35:18.520 | I just go, oh gosh, all right, well, listen,

00:35:19.960 | whoever's reading, wrote that article,

00:35:22.080 | you know, I take no pleasure

00:35:24.800 | in your declining health span or lifespan whatsoever,

00:35:29.240 | but the rest of us are going to be taking fish oil.

00:35:32.500 | And here's why.

00:35:33.340 | There's just, oh, so much evidence

00:35:35.120 | that getting enough omega-3 fatty acids

00:35:37.040 | is great for brain health, body health.

00:35:39.760 | And I think that the issue around fish oil

00:35:43.080 | is typically around contaminants.

00:35:44.880 | So you want to make sure

00:35:45.720 | that it doesn't have loads of mercury.

00:35:47.080 | So things like sardines, cod liver oil, et cetera,

00:35:51.200 | you can get those from natural sources,

00:35:53.080 | except there's one problem.

00:35:54.840 | I hate sardines, and I don't want to slurp down

00:35:59.000 | a bunch of cod fat.

00:36:00.400 | I'm just not interested in that.

00:36:01.800 | So if you eat a lot of fatty ocean fish

00:36:03.680 | and it's really clean fish, great.

00:36:06.480 | I don't, most people don't.

00:36:08.960 | So I believe in taking a high quality fish oil.

00:36:11.680 | There are a lot of different sources of these.

00:36:14.040 | In fact, in the episode that we did with Dr. Rhonda Patrick,

00:36:16.760 | there's a link in the show note captions, I believe,

00:36:19.040 | that takes you to a chart of the different fish oil sources

00:36:22.600 | and their relative levels of contaminants, et cetera.

00:36:26.000 | But most of the reputable brands out there

00:36:28.360 | are not going to have any contaminants

00:36:30.800 | because they've been cleaned out.

00:36:32.260 | It's been checked for.

00:36:33.160 | So I take the fish oil from AG1 or from Momentus.

00:36:37.060 | That's just me.

00:36:37.900 | There are a lot of other great sources out there,

00:36:39.440 | but I will say this.

00:36:40.280 | That's when I'm traveling and I take capsules.

00:36:42.000 | Typically, I like to take it in liquid form,

00:36:44.800 | and I will take it in liquid form.

00:36:46.840 | I have no financial relationship

00:36:48.360 | to the liquid non-capsule forms of fish oil,

00:36:51.120 | and I get the one that has a lemon flavor

00:36:53.120 | to overcome the absolutely disgusting flavor

00:36:55.280 | of cod liver oil.

00:36:56.560 | I guess, I don't know, presumably cod,

00:36:58.240 | like the taste of cod liver oil, but I don't.

00:37:01.040 | So that's what I do.

00:37:02.920 | I'll take a tablespoon of that once a day

00:37:05.000 | and a protein shake.

00:37:05.820 | It tastes like lemon.

00:37:06.660 | It doesn't taste like cod, thank goodness.

00:37:09.320 | And when I travel, I take the capsules from AG1 or Momentus,

00:37:13.120 | or there are excellent ones from other sources.

00:37:14.960 | I mean, lots of great sources out there.

00:37:16.580 | Now, what are we trying to do when we take fish oil?

00:37:19.680 | Yes, it can reduce inflammation.

00:37:22.700 | Yes, it can do a number of different things,

00:37:24.200 | but that's all by way of omega-3 fatty acid intake, right?

00:37:27.700 | Most people get far too much omega-6, right?

00:37:30.320 | This is why there's a seed oil debate.

00:37:32.860 | We're not going to have that debate now.

00:37:34.700 | We put us all to sleep, frankly.

00:37:37.700 | The key thing is to get enough omega-3s,

00:37:40.120 | and they're hard to get unless you're eating krill.

00:37:42.360 | So unless you're a large, you know, baleen whale,

00:37:45.400 | you're probably not eating that much krill.

00:37:47.480 | If you're getting fatty fish, great.

00:37:49.180 | But when you take an omega-3 fatty acid

00:37:51.240 | in the form of fish oil,

00:37:53.180 | or you eat sardines for that matter,

00:37:55.100 | what you're getting essentially is the substrate

00:37:57.380 | for a lot of other important building blocks,

00:38:00.400 | not the least of which is the lipid bilayer

00:38:02.760 | that surrounds the neurons of your brain.

00:38:06.840 | And so basically the omega-3 fatty acids

00:38:09.240 | provide the substrate for some key building blocks

00:38:11.920 | of nerve cells and other cells in the brain and body.

00:38:14.960 | And, and this is perhaps the most important reason

00:38:18.120 | I can think of,

00:38:18.960 | when you get out past one gram of the EPA form of omega-3,

00:38:23.640 | okay, one gram of EPA form of omega-3 per day,

00:38:26.420 | it's clear there's a either mild

00:38:28.340 | to moderate antidepressant effect,

00:38:30.180 | so much so that one can, in some cases,

00:38:32.620 | talk to your psychiatrist or psychologist,

00:38:34.200 | partially offset the dosage of any antidepressant.

00:38:38.520 | I am not telling you to go off antidepressant medication

00:38:40.780 | and go on to fish oil.

00:38:41.740 | That is not what I'm saying.

00:38:42.700 | I'm just saying that there's some impressive clinical trials

00:38:45.100 | showing that fish oil, if taken at dosages

00:38:49.520 | of one to three grams of EPA per day,

00:38:52.780 | can have a mild to moderate antidepressant effect.

00:38:55.620 | And I don't know anyone

00:38:56.460 | that wouldn't want to have better mood.

00:38:57.820 | So I take one and a half grams of EPA,

00:39:00.540 | which is not to say one and a half grams of fish oil.

00:39:02.620 | You need to look at the package and see how much fish oil,

00:39:05.260 | but then look at how much EPA.

00:39:06.740 | And typically it's less than one gram per serving,

00:39:09.720 | so you may have to take two servings.

00:39:11.700 | Some people say, well, is it safe to take two servings?

00:39:13.760 | I don't see any reason why not.

00:39:16.160 | And then of course there are the high potency fish oils

00:39:18.640 | for which there is certainly one gram or more of EPA.

00:39:22.160 | Keep in mind that all this discussion about fish oil

00:39:24.140 | might sound kind of health food, hippie store,

00:39:26.740 | forgive me hippies, health food store kind of stuff.

00:39:30.080 | But the reality is that EPA, high concentration EPA,

00:39:34.020 | is actually a prescription drug

00:39:35.900 | in the United States and elsewhere,

00:39:37.980 | prescribed often for enhancing mental health,

00:39:41.220 | enhancing cardiovascular health and on and on.

00:39:43.940 | So we're not out on a limb or out on a fin as it were.

00:39:48.900 | When we're having this discussion,

00:39:50.220 | we're actually just talking about something

00:39:52.600 | for which there's a lot of clinical evidence,

00:39:54.300 | there's a lot of biochemical evidence,

00:39:55.640 | there's a lot of mechanisms.

00:39:56.600 | So I take anywhere from one to two grams of EPA per day,

00:39:59.540 | even if that requires taking six

00:40:01.500 | rather than the suggested three capsules per day

00:40:03.940 | or taking a full tablespoon

00:40:05.180 | or even two tablespoons of fish oil.

00:40:07.520 | And frankly, most people are getting too much omega-6,

00:40:11.040 | fatty acids, and not enough omega-3.

00:40:13.300 | So shout out to the fish oils.

00:40:16.460 | What is the recommended protocol

00:40:19.000 | for measuring hormone levels?

00:40:21.300 | Interesting.

00:40:22.140 | How frequently do you advise monitoring these levels

00:40:23.940 | to accurately determine their typical range?

00:40:26.420 | And I just have to try and pronounce your name,

00:40:28.180 | Volod Reznichenko.

00:40:30.260 | What a cool name, Volod Reznichenko.

00:40:33.180 | I'm a big fan of like two syllable first and then today.

00:40:36.260 | All right.

00:40:37.420 | So Volod Reznichenko, thank you for this question

00:40:40.960 | and the opportunity to try and pronounce your name.

00:40:43.900 | So hormone levels.

00:40:45.900 | I think a good thing to do

00:40:48.180 | is in the absence of any apparent

00:40:50.520 | or suspected endocrine dysfunction, right?

00:40:53.360 | So we're talking about you feel pretty good,

00:40:55.180 | you're wondering if you're good under,

00:40:57.260 | if I say good under the hood,

00:40:58.460 | that just sounds like weird, it rhymes.

00:41:00.500 | So if you're feeling pretty good,

00:41:02.700 | I recommend getting your hormone levels checked once,

00:41:06.580 | if you can, if you're still in your teens,

00:41:09.620 | in your late teens, after you've gone through puberty,

00:41:12.340 | to establish a sort of baseline.

00:41:13.940 | Most people won't do that because it's too late,

00:41:15.540 | I didn't do that.

00:41:16.520 | Once in your mid 20s,

00:41:19.380 | again, we're talking about no suspected

00:41:21.420 | or apparent endocrine dysfunction, okay?

00:41:25.620 | In your mid 20s, so you have a baseline,

00:41:27.000 | something to compare to when you were in your,

00:41:28.800 | say 18 to 20 and again, and when you're 25,

00:41:31.580 | that would be ideal.

00:41:32.940 | And then again, I would say when you're 30

00:41:37.160 | and then start once a year,

00:41:40.920 | starting when you are 40 or older.

00:41:45.220 | I think that just, you know, just logically,

00:41:47.260 | I would love to know what my hormone levels were

00:41:48.900 | when I was 25, when I was 30,

00:41:51.420 | maybe when I was, yeah, when I was 18, 25, 30, 35,

00:41:57.620 | and actually 35 is when I got my first blood draw

00:42:01.940 | for just getting a look under the hood.

00:42:03.980 | Like what's there?

00:42:04.820 | What are my estrogen levels, what are my testosterone levels,

00:42:07.520 | what are my growth hormone levels, this kind of thing.

00:42:10.200 | And then once you're 40 and older,

00:42:12.080 | I think once a year minimum,

00:42:14.680 | and I realized that some people out there are going to say,

00:42:17.080 | well, that's ridiculous.

00:42:18.280 | What are you going to do with that information?

00:42:19.560 | Well, you're going to do a lot with that information.

00:42:21.080 | You're going to figure out whether or not

00:42:22.060 | your LDL cholesterol is in healthy range.

00:42:24.480 | You're going to figure out whether or not

00:42:25.480 | your ALT is in healthy range.

00:42:27.520 | You're going to figure out whether or not

00:42:28.360 | your ApoB is in healthy range.

00:42:29.920 | You're going to figure out a lot more

00:42:31.800 | than just whether or not your testosterone is 400, 600,

00:42:35.020 | 800 or 1200.

00:42:37.580 | And I think we also need to be careful

00:42:39.220 | about over-interpreting results of hormones

00:42:42.780 | because a lot of it has to do

00:42:44.820 | with the ratio of testosterone to estrogen

00:42:47.460 | or the ratio of free testosterone to testosterone,

00:42:51.060 | both in men and women.

00:42:52.580 | So for instance, if your testosterone level is 900,

00:42:56.580 | but your free testosterone level is two,

00:42:59.140 | well, then you have a problem.

00:43:00.500 | Whereas if your total testosterone level is 500 or 600,

00:43:05.500 | but your free testosterone level is 15,

00:43:09.260 | well, then you're probably doing pretty well.

00:43:12.240 | So I would say getting your hormone levels checked

00:43:15.220 | once a year after age 40,

00:43:17.480 | and prior to that, once every three to five years,

00:43:19.320 | starting at about age 18 would be ideal.

00:43:22.040 | But most people don't do that.

00:43:23.120 | They either don't have the disposable income.

00:43:24.680 | I certainly didn't when I was 18, 20, 25.

00:43:27.200 | And at that time, it was really hard to get that measured

00:43:29.680 | unless you had a clinical problem.

00:43:30.780 | Now, if anyone has a clinical problem

00:43:32.880 | that they suspect or is real, then obviously more testing.

00:43:38.340 | I think great sources for endocrine profiling

00:43:40.960 | are things like InsideTracker, full disclosure,

00:43:43.000 | they are a sponsor of the podcast,

00:43:44.780 | but they do an excellent job.

00:43:45.820 | They'll even come to your house.

00:43:47.060 | The phlembotomist will come to your house if you want,

00:43:48.920 | or you can go to a clinic.

00:43:49.840 | So they make it all very easy.

00:43:51.580 | But there are other sources as well, right?

00:43:53.720 | I'll never make these AMAs or anything else

00:43:56.480 | about specific companies for its own sake.

00:43:59.360 | I just think InsideTracker does a great job.

00:44:01.600 | There are a number of clinics like Meric Health

00:44:03.560 | and others online clinics that will do that,

00:44:05.380 | but it's part of a more comprehensive package

00:44:07.520 | of agreeing to work with them.

00:44:09.080 | At least that's how I understand it.

00:44:10.480 | I hope I didn't get that wrong, but check and see.

00:44:12.600 | Nowadays, it's pretty easy to find ways

00:44:15.720 | to get your hormones checked,

00:44:17.200 | but I would suggest that the following things

00:44:19.920 | at least beyond there.

00:44:21.000 | Growth hormone, or IGF-1, rather, IGF-1, testosterone,

00:44:26.040 | estrogen, this is true for women and men, by the way.

00:44:28.880 | So IGF-1, testosterone, estrogen,

00:44:32.060 | they'll show up as estradiol on there.

00:44:34.040 | Free testosterone, dihydrotestosterone, cortisol.

00:44:37.640 | Keep in mind, morning cortisol is always elevated

00:44:39.640 | relative to afternoon cortisol.

00:44:41.240 | It will be impacted by food.

00:44:43.960 | So you want to go in fasted in the morning,

00:44:47.240 | ideally get this done early.

00:44:49.100 | Your creatinine levels, which by the way, will be elevated

00:44:51.520 | if you're taking creatine or you're exercising hard,

00:44:53.880 | your doctor will say, "Your creatinine levels are elevated."

00:44:55.800 | And you say, "Well, great.

00:44:56.620 | Well, my creatine intake is elevated too."

00:44:58.400 | So, you know, take that.

00:45:01.440 | It's not going to be a problem necessarily

00:45:03.400 | to check with your doctor.

00:45:05.080 | LDL cholesterol, ApoB, and there are probably a few others

00:45:09.320 | that would be good to have in there for men and women,

00:45:13.400 | sex hormone binding globulin, SHBG,

00:45:16.320 | and for women, especially progesterone and prolactin,

00:45:21.320 | and any of the progestins are going to be important.

00:45:25.620 | And of course, for women, the trick is going to be

00:45:28.100 | when you get your blood taken with respect

00:45:30.920 | to your hormone cycle, your ovulatory cycle,

00:45:33.760 | and to try and make that at least consistent

00:45:35.460 | from test to test, not necessarily having to go in

00:45:38.200 | both during the follicular and the luteal phase

00:45:41.120 | of your cycle, but always going in during, you know,

00:45:43.640 | mid follicular or mid luteal.

00:45:45.060 | And that can be challenging to do perhaps,

00:45:47.320 | but that's going to be important because of course,

00:45:48.820 | those are widely fluctuating levels across the cycle.

00:45:52.520 | But unless you're really obsessed with your hormone levels

00:45:56.360 | and analyzing them, taking them at multiple times

00:45:59.680 | throughout your menstrual cycle,

00:46:01.320 | probably not necessary unless you're starting to think

00:46:03.660 | about conceiving or there's some issue, PCOS or other issue.

00:46:08.660 | Okay, I find that I need to do NSDR after working out.

00:46:12.320 | Any thoughts on this?

00:46:13.440 | Yes, well, first of all, I'm glad you're using NSDR,

00:46:16.920 | a zero cost tool known to replenish mental

00:46:19.280 | and physical vigor, works oh so well.

00:46:21.760 | I think it's great.

00:46:22.600 | I think it probably is accelerating your recovery.

00:46:24.440 | I think this tells me that you're probably working out

00:46:26.640 | really hard and hopefully not too long.

00:46:30.520 | If you find that you work out in the morning

00:46:32.440 | and then you're really, really sleepy in the afternoon

00:46:34.560 | and the next day, you might be working out too long

00:46:37.400 | or too hard.

00:46:39.120 | So maybe ratchet back the intensity a little bit

00:46:41.200 | or the duration.

00:46:42.100 | It's amazing how great we can feel when we work out

00:46:46.020 | to like 80 to 90% of our maximum output and duration.

00:46:51.020 | We did this the other day.

00:46:52.320 | We went out for a little jog, run, bounding, skipping,

00:46:57.320 | jumping jack thing and stopped at like 80 to 90% of maximum

00:47:04.320 | and then went about the rest of the day

00:47:05.940 | and evening feeling great.

00:47:07.560 | If you do this consistently,

00:47:10.000 | you'll find you have more energy

00:47:11.320 | and there's actually a lot of solid physiology

00:47:14.240 | and physics to support why that is,

00:47:15.920 | as opposed to if you go to the gym

00:47:17.380 | and you do every set to failure or even every exercise,

00:47:21.200 | you include one set to failure

00:47:22.500 | and you're grinding out four straps

00:47:24.120 | or I don't know what kind of exercise you're doing

00:47:25.980 | or you're running more and more distance each day

00:47:28.680 | or with more intensity.

00:47:30.940 | It's understandable how one gets kind of drawn to

00:47:33.720 | or addicted to that burn or the effort,

00:47:35.600 | but keep in mind that is stress.

00:47:37.000 | You're stressing the body to produce

00:47:39.200 | a certain kind of adaptation,

00:47:40.360 | either endurance or strength or hypertrophy

00:47:42.840 | or et cetera, adaptation.

00:47:44.040 | So there's real beauty in learning to love working out hard,

00:47:50.000 | but to leaving the gym or ending the run

00:47:53.720 | with 10 to 20% of the gas in the tank

00:47:57.120 | and knowing that you can come back and do more

00:47:59.200 | and you actually kind of want to do more.

00:48:00.840 | There's, it increases vigor

00:48:02.920 | as opposed to taking yourself over that cliff

00:48:04.600 | even a slight 10 to 20%

00:48:06.300 | and then finding that you're kind of depleted.

00:48:08.680 | And this is something that we don't hear enough about

00:48:10.620 | because we, most people that are into fitness

00:48:12.820 | are into pushing themselves.

00:48:14.020 | It's also true for work.

00:48:14.960 | I think some of the best advice I ever got

00:48:16.880 | in the professional landscape

00:48:18.100 | was when I was a graduate student

00:48:19.920 | at UC Berkeley and an excellent neurologist

00:48:22.040 | by the name of Bob Knight said,

00:48:23.420 | "The key is to figure out

00:48:24.640 | "how much can you work each day consistently?

00:48:27.660 | "If that's four hours a day, fine.

00:48:29.760 | "If that's eight hours a day, fine."

00:48:31.400 | We're talking with weekend breaks

00:48:32.820 | 'cause that was in the era of weekend breaks.

00:48:34.820 | Maybe a weekend every once in a while

00:48:36.260 | where you have a deadline.

00:48:37.460 | But by thinking about what you personally

00:48:39.260 | can really do consistently while maintaining sleep

00:48:41.620 | and mental health and physical health,

00:48:43.140 | you're going to go a lot further

00:48:44.920 | than doing like, for instance, what I did,

00:48:46.540 | which is, you know, maniac

00:48:47.760 | and working hundred hour weeks as a graduate student.

00:48:49.600 | And then ending up sick four times a year

00:48:51.660 | and missing out on a bunch of days

00:48:54.140 | when I could have been in labs.

00:48:55.220 | So these days I try and get as much focused work

00:48:58.300 | done as possible,

00:48:59.140 | but trying to make that as consistent as possible,

00:49:01.260 | if not from every day to the next over time.

00:49:04.220 | You know, figure out what those averages are

00:49:05.660 | and don't be ashamed of those averages.

00:49:07.540 | I would say declare those averages to people

00:49:09.360 | so they know what to expect.

00:49:10.740 | And the fact that you can do more

00:49:12.220 | does not necessarily mean that you should do more

00:49:15.020 | because I think one of the best pieces of advice

00:49:18.140 | I ever got in the world of fitness

00:49:20.040 | is more important than training hard,

00:49:22.340 | more important than doing any particular exercises,

00:49:24.560 | more important than anything is to not get hurt.

00:49:27.380 | Because if you get hurt, you can't train.

00:49:29.200 | So I love that you're doing NSDR after training.

00:49:32.120 | I love that you're making that part of your practice,

00:49:34.840 | but maybe also throttle back a little bit

00:49:36.920 | 'cause you said I have to do it after training.

00:49:38.860 | Maybe throttle back a little bit

00:49:39.940 | on the duration or intensity of exercise

00:49:42.660 | and see how you feel.

00:49:44.220 | What can we do to optimize the function

00:49:46.780 | of our gut brain axis?

00:49:47.700 | That's very simple.

00:49:48.820 | Get enough sleep in addition to that.

00:49:51.180 | Avoid excessive intake of antibiotics,

00:49:52.860 | but if your doctor prescribes them, take them.

00:49:55.180 | IMAB, lever, and antibiotics, okay?

00:49:57.320 | Before the internet jumps on me, I'm not anti-antibiotic.

00:50:01.980 | I always want to say that.

00:50:04.480 | I'm not anti-antibiotic.

00:50:06.140 | I am not pro-antibiotic, but I am pro-probiotics.

00:50:10.700 | I'm probiotic.

00:50:11.700 | So I think you should ingest one to four servings

00:50:15.980 | of low-sugar fermented foods per day.

00:50:17.480 | So sauerkraut, kimchi, natto, or kefir, or otherwise,

00:50:20.780 | whatever you like and fits

00:50:21.940 | with your nutrition preferences and plan.

00:50:25.600 | I think it's also very important

00:50:26.860 | that you don't overuse antiseptics,

00:50:29.820 | like antiseptic mouthwashes and hand rinses

00:50:32.260 | and all that stuff.

00:50:33.100 | This was all discussed on a podcast episode I did

00:50:35.180 | with Dr. Justin Sonnenberg on the Huberman Lab Podcast,

00:50:37.540 | which is just to say that Justin,

00:50:39.580 | who's a professor at Stanford and is amazing,

00:50:41.660 | even said that he lets his kids eat lunch

00:50:43.860 | when they've been playing outside

00:50:45.060 | without washing their hands before eating lunch

00:50:47.400 | because he wants the probiotic makeup of their gut

00:50:50.580 | to be diverse, including from outside.

00:50:53.160 | Now, I'm presuming that's not a public park.

00:50:54.820 | I'm assuming it's their yard.

00:50:55.960 | So we're not talking about gross stuff being on their hands.

00:50:58.820 | We're talking about a little dirt here and there.

00:51:00.540 | Turns out owning a pet increases the diversity

00:51:03.780 | of your microbiome.

00:51:04.880 | Lots of things like that.

00:51:07.580 | I mean, you don't want to go around, you know,

00:51:09.100 | licking people's pets.

00:51:10.620 | It's okay to let them lick you

00:51:12.580 | depending on what your preferences are, but don't lick them.

00:51:16.220 | But when you interact with people,

00:51:17.860 | you shake their hands or pets,

00:51:19.240 | you're increasing the diversity of your microbiome.

00:51:22.220 | When you eat low sugar fermented foods,

00:51:24.340 | you want to make sure also you get enough fiber,

00:51:26.760 | both prebiotic and probiotic fiber,

00:51:28.800 | so fruits and vegetables.

00:51:30.700 | The fiber debate for me just like makes me roll my eyes.

00:51:33.800 | I mean, it's so clear that fiber is good for us,

00:51:36.360 | for gut motility and for offsetting cancers of the gut.

00:51:39.820 | I mean, I realize there are the people out there

00:51:41.360 | who are really into elimination diets

00:51:43.100 | where they just only eat meat,

00:51:44.460 | but I mean, there's just so much good data on fiber,

00:51:49.460 | especially from fibrous vegetables.

00:51:51.100 | It just seems like, yes.

00:51:53.820 | I mean, it's almost silly that we have the debate frankly,

00:51:56.200 | but I'm sure someone out there who's pure carnivore

00:51:58.380 | will be shouting, but guess what?

00:52:00.780 | You're shouting and you're constipated.

00:52:02.720 | Last question.

00:52:05.640 | Regarding the subject on tongue cleaning

00:52:11.060 | from the oral health episode,

00:52:13.300 | can you please share a bit on brushing tongue,

00:52:15.180 | scraping tongue and generally how best to clean the tongue?

00:52:18.540 | So tongue cleaning came up on the oral health episode.

00:52:23.720 | I talked to four different dentists and a periodontist

00:52:27.800 | in preparation for that episode.

00:52:29.220 | Almost all of them remarkably extraordinarily converged

00:52:33.300 | on the same advice, except for some slight deviations

00:52:35.660 | around frequency of flossing.

00:52:37.500 | It's kind of cool, right?

00:52:38.440 | A field where almost everybody seems to agree.

00:52:40.420 | I realize that isn't the usual sample size,

00:52:42.180 | but I picked them from diverse locations,

00:52:44.180 | backgrounds, trainings, et cetera.

00:52:45.880 | Every one of them said brush and floss your teeth.

00:52:49.540 | Every one of them said antiseptic alcohol-based

00:52:51.860 | mouthwashes are bad.

00:52:53.220 | And every single one of them said that brushing your teeth

00:52:55.100 | before sleep is especially important because at night

00:52:57.740 | you produce less saliva and you want to be able

00:52:59.420 | to remineralize your teeth, that is fill in cavities

00:53:02.500 | that are starting to form while you sleep.

00:53:05.240 | So brush your teeth floss ideally as well before sleep,

00:53:08.180 | but at least brush.

00:53:09.020 | And of course in the morning too, for everyone's sake.

00:53:12.080 | But if we're talking about tongue brushing and scraping,

00:53:17.080 | it was clear that the tongue scraping was advised

00:53:20.640 | if done correctly, okay?

00:53:23.000 | Because there are certain bacteria that grow on the tongue

00:53:25.340 | that you don't want there and that scraping can help

00:53:27.800 | with the turnover of healthy bacteria there

00:53:29.720 | in addition to removing some of the bad bacteria,

00:53:33.540 | but that most people scrape their tongue too hard.

00:53:37.040 | And rather it would be wise to brush your tongue gently

00:53:41.680 | with a soft toothbrush.

00:53:42.940 | And by the way, you should also use a soft brush

00:53:44.700 | for your teeth, but not the same one that you use

00:53:47.540 | for tongue brushing.

00:53:48.380 | So the takeaway that I was told and it makes a lot of sense

00:53:51.320 | to me based on what I know now about the biology,

00:53:53.260 | physiology and care of the mouth is that you want to use

00:53:57.860 | a different soft toothbrush to brush your tongue

00:54:00.960 | than the soft brush that you use to brush your teeth.

00:54:04.860 | And that you do not need to use anything on it,

00:54:08.080 | but if you wanted to put a little bit of salt

00:54:10.400 | and baking soda, that is perfectly fine.

00:54:12.820 | A lot of people wonder whether or not baking soda

00:54:14.400 | scrapes the enamel off the teeth.

00:54:15.900 | It actually is low on the abrasion scale dentists have,

00:54:18.960 | believe it or not, an abrasion scale with a list of things

00:54:21.500 | of how much enamel it scrapes off at a given pressure.

00:54:24.360 | These dentists have done their work.

00:54:26.080 | It's really, really cool.

00:54:27.320 | I can't say I always liked dentists.

00:54:29.640 | I didn't like going to the dentist.

00:54:30.840 | They always seem like nice people,

00:54:31.860 | but now I have newfound respect for dentists.

00:54:34.080 | They really care about their craft and oral health

00:54:36.300 | has been kind of pushed to the backseat

00:54:38.220 | of the different aspects of health.

00:54:39.280 | I consider it one of the major pillars of mental health

00:54:42.080 | and physical health, because taking care of your teeth,

00:54:43.960 | your gums, your mouth, including your oral microbiome

00:54:47.640 | is critical for cardiovascular health.

00:54:49.280 | It's critical for brain health.

00:54:51.240 | One of the bad bacteria is streptococcus mutans

00:54:53.920 | that can proliferate in the mouth,

00:54:55.440 | especially after eating sugary foods,

00:54:58.300 | can make it through the blood-brain barrier.

00:54:59.800 | And maybe it's thought one of the causes of dementia

00:55:03.040 | can disrupt your neurons.

00:55:04.680 | Your brain and body is a system.

00:55:05.840 | Everything's talking to everything else.

00:55:07.700 | And so, yeah, brush your tongue,

00:55:09.220 | but use a separate soft brush to do that

00:55:11.160 | and replace it every few weeks to months.

00:55:14.540 | That can, I suppose, get expensive,

00:55:16.080 | but probably not as expensive

00:55:18.380 | as some of the other health issues that were just described.

00:55:21.720 | So I appreciate that question.

00:55:23.680 | We didn't talk about oil pulling on the podcast.

00:55:26.000 | A lot of people asked about that.

00:55:26.980 | Some people like to swish oil and then spit it out.

00:55:29.280 | That's the way that's oil pulling for oral health.

00:55:32.900 | All the dentists I spoke to said,

00:55:34.440 | nah, not big fans of oil pulling, but none of them said

00:55:38.260 | it would be particularly bad.

00:55:39.940 | But, you know, so if you enjoy it

00:55:43.360 | or you think it works for you, great.

00:55:44.920 | But none of them really pointed to any clear evidence

00:55:47.980 | that it was going to be beneficial.

00:55:50.300 | So I was told that was the last question,

00:55:51.920 | and we are coming up on the hour.

00:55:53.580 | Again, I want to thank everybody for joining this AMA.

00:55:58.060 | I'm doing this from Australia, Sydney, Australia.

00:56:01.580 | What's interesting down here is,

00:56:03.340 | because we are below the equator,

00:56:05.280 | everything is reversed, right?

00:56:07.080 | So this was actually, it's being presented to you upside.

00:56:09.920 | I'm actually upside down, but they turned the camera,

00:56:12.060 | so I would appear right side up to you.

00:56:13.660 | I also, when I'm down here, I drink my AG1.

00:56:15.960 | Normally I swish it counterclockwise,

00:56:18.240 | but I notice here reflexively I'm swishing it clockwise.

00:56:20.680 | So anyway, lots of interesting stuff going on.

00:56:22.760 | We'll talk about how that all works.

00:56:24.120 | It's not through the vestibular ocular reflex, it turns out,

00:56:26.520 | but maybe on a future episode of the podcast

00:56:28.920 | about the relationship between location

00:56:31.900 | relative to the equator and neural functioning,

00:56:34.360 | and I'm just kidding.

00:56:35.800 | But what I'm not kidding about

00:56:36.960 | is they appreciate that you tuned in.

00:56:38.960 | And last, but certainly not least,

00:56:41.440 | thank you for your interest in science.

00:56:43.240 | [upbeat music]

00:56:45.820 | (upbeat music)

AMA #16: Sleep, Vertigo, TBI, OCD, Tips for Travelers, Gut-Brain Axis & More

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