Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - BITESIZE | Do This Every Morning to Boost Your Energy and Improve Your Sleep | Dr. Andrew Huberman #328
Episode Date: January 20, 2023There’s a simple, free habit that you can do every morning to improve your health and reduce fatigue, and it only takes 5-10 minutes per day. Feel Better Live More Bitesize is my weekly podcast for... your mind, body, and heart. Each week I’ll be featuring inspirational stories and practical tips from some of my former guests. Today’s clip is from episode 227 of the podcast with Dr. Andrew Huberman, a professor of neuroscience at Stanford University School of Medicine. In this clip he shares a powerful daily habit that you can do to optimise your health, boost your energy and improve your sleep. Thanks to our sponsor http://www.athleticgreens.com/livemore Support the podcast and enjoy Ad-Free episodes. Try FREE for 7 days on Apple Podcasts https://apple.co/feelbetterlivemore. For other podcast platforms go to https://fblm.supercast.com. Show notes and the full podcast are available at drchatterjee.com/227 Follow me on instagram.com/drchatterjee Follow me on facebook.com/DrChatterjee Follow me on twitter.com/drchatterjeeuk DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Welcome to Feel Better Live More Bite Size, your weekly dose of positivity and optimism
to get you ready for the weekend. Today's clip is from episode 227 of the podcast with Dr. Andrew Huberman,
Professor of Neuroscience at Stanford University School of Medicine.
In this clip, Andrew shares a powerful daily habit that you can do to optimize your health,
boost your energy, and improve your sleep.
When I see a patient, I'm always trying to think about what is that
upstream lever that I can turn. And if I can get that right, then automatically,
it's going to take care of a lot of downstream consequences. And when I think about your work,
one of the key things that sort of jumps out to me is that the visual system
may well be one of these key upstream levers. If we can learn how to manipulate it, if we can learn
how to let the right type of light in at the right times of day, that can also have a whole myriad
of downstream consequences. Yeah, absolutely. Digestive issues, mental focus issues,
depression, anxiety, exacerbation of every major psychiatric disorder from OCD to ADHD to
Alzheimer's, which is a neurologic disorder, of course, is closely associated with disruptions
in circadian clock function. So you need to coordinate the cells and systems of the body. How does that happen? Well, the primary way that happens is through the arrival of light
to the eyes at the appropriate times of day and the absence of light at other times.
The visual system, I think, really sits at the top of the list in terms of practical tools in order to lay down the bedrock of their foundation of mental and physical health and high performance for those that already feel as if they're doing well and want to level up their mental or physical practices.
The reason I say that is for the following reason.
The nervous system's job is to coordinate the activities of all the organs of the body,
including our movement and our thought and our emotions, but really coordinate the immune system, coordinate the endocrine system.
It's really the conductor of the whole business that is us.
The visual system is unique in that it's the only piece of the central nervous system that
resides outside the cranial vault.
So our eyes we think of as seeing devices, but they are actually the primary and in some
sense, the only way in which the nervous system has knowledge about external circumstances.
And so lining the back of our eyes is a three layered structure called the neural retina.
And the neural retina is part of the brain proper.
It's a piece of the brain that got extruded out of the cranial vault during development.
So you've got two little bits of brain outside your cranial vault.
And when light lands on those two little bits of brain,
has a profound effect on levels of energy, the function of the immune system,
the timing of sleep, the depth of sleep, the appetite,
and a whole other host of biological processes. And it sounds very complex, but actually,
the system is quite straightforward. It is organized such that if light arrives at the
appropriate times of the 24-hour cycle onto the neural retina, many, many things
go terrifically well and set you up to do very well in mental and physical health. And if light
lands in those two little bits of brain, the eyes at the wrong times, well, everything doesn't go
to disaster right away, but in a day or two, very quickly things start to fall apart at the level of immune system and mood
and functioning so we could talk about the practical tools but I hope that lays the sort of
the the organizational logic behind why we say the visual system is so important.
Yeah I like what you say that the the visual system really is that kind of top-down driver
get that right and lots of things sort of take care of themselves. So compared to when we were sort of evolving, or for the majority of our time on planet Earth,
we have been exposed to light in a very particular way, haven't we? We had
presumably lots of natural light in the daytime and low levels of light in the evening. Yet for many of us,
that's been flipped. So maybe you could talk to how many of us live these days and what are those
practical tips that we can use to get the visual system to start working for us and not against us?
So a couple of just basic facts about the way we are organized. Every cell in our body,
every cell has a 24 hour oscillator, just meaning it's like a clock that counts down
from 24 to zero and then repeats. And though every cell in our body needs to be coordinated
to some master clock in order to, so that the cells of our body work as a coherent whole,
in order to, so that the cells of our body work as a coherent whole. This system when disrupted is what happens in jet lag. It can happen under a number of conditions. A lot of people are what I
call jet lagged at home. The clocks of their cells are out of sync and this causes many problems.
So you need to coordinate the cells and systems of the body. So I'll give the practice and the
tools first, and then I'll flesh it out with some science. So the foundational practice that I truly believe every person should do ideally every day,
but if not every day, most days is to view bright light, ideally sunlight within 30 minutes to an
hour of waking. And ideally it would be even sooner. Now, this is not practical
for many people. You live in certain areas of the world where there isn't a lot of sunlight
and we'll get to that. But the idea is to get up in the morning and within about 30 minutes
to get outside and get sunlight into your eyes. It is fine to wear corrective lenses.
sunlight into your eyes. It is fine to wear corrective lenses. So provided you can safely do it, you get outside and you want to view sunlight. Do you need to be in direct sunlight?
No. Do you need to stare at the sun? No, please don't stare directly at the sun. I always say,
never look at any light, artificial or sunlight that's so bright that it's painful to look at.
You have a blink reflex for a reason, but how much and how long to do that? Well, it's going
to vary because of time of year, people have different sensitivities to light, but in general,
getting outside for about five to 10 minutes every morning is extremely important. If there's cloud
cover, it's still important and it's far better than getting light from artificial sources.
When you look at sunlight, especially early in the day,
there's a special class of neurons, nerve cells in the back of the eye called intrinsically
photosensitive cells. These were discovered by David Burson at Brown University and others.
These cells connect to your hypothalamus. They literally send a wire that we call an axon to
your hypothalamus, which resides over the roof of your mouth. And there resides what we call the master circadian clock. The master circadian clock
also has a name, the suprachiasmatic nucleus. And the suprachiasmatic nucleus acts as a conductor
for all the cells of your body, from your liver to your brain cells, every cell. And it starts
sending out signals to coordinate those clocks. Think about a clock shop where all the clocks
are out of sync. The suprachiasmatic nucleus sets them all to the same correct time so that they all chime at the appropriate time.
Otherwise, it would be chaos. Light early in the day is the primary signal by which that
clock setting mechanism occurs. Now, if it's very dark out, you may have to rely on artificial
lights. I'll mention some low-cost options. If you wake up before the sun
comes out, turn on as many bright artificial lights as you can. But then once the sun is out,
then go outside. People ask, can and should you do this through a window or a car windshield?
And the answer is no, because of the filtration of particular wavelengths of light by windows
and windshields, it will take about 50 times
longer. You'll be spending all day waiting for this clock mechanism to kick on. A couple other
things about positive things that happen when you do this practice. First of all, every 24 hours,
your body will release a hormone called cortisol. We often hear about cortisol as a stress hormone,
and then it's terrible for us. But cortisol, as you know, is vital to life. And it actually provides a lot of the alertness and focus that is wonderful for
so many things. That pulse, as we call that increase in cortisol is going to happen at least
once every 24 hours, regardless of when you view light, but by viewing light early in the day,
that pulse arrives early in the day and gives you energy and focus for a 10 to 12, maybe even 14
hour period. If you do not view light early in the day for a couple of days in a row, what happens
is that cortisol pulse starts to drift later and later into the afternoon. And a late shifted
cortisol peak, I should call it peak or pulse, is closely associated with many forms of chronic depression.
People's mood starts to get worse. They start having evening anxiety. They start having trouble
sleeping. So get as much bright light in your eyes as you can early in the day as is safely possible.
If it's a really bright day or you're on a snow field, it'd probably only take a minute or two
to set this clock. If for instance, it's a today, actually,
it's pretty overcast. It's looking pretty UK here right now. Um, I spent some time over there and
it's, you know, I'll get outside and view light. Um, maybe I'll spend 30 minutes there. Maybe I'll
take my work outside. It's raining a bit. So it's, it's tough, but you, you try and do it most days.
If you miss a day, no big deal. But the next day, you should try and
get twice as much time outside. Now, why would that be? It turns out that this clock mechanism
is what we call a slow integrator. It's actually counting photons over time, light energy.
So this part of our visual system is very different than the visual system components
that we use to see edges and faces and recognize motion, et cetera. It is a clock
setting mechanism for our entire brain and body. So get that morning and early light. If you don't
have access to sunlight for whatever reason, I know there are a lot of daytime simulators that
are for sale out there, so-called sad lamps, seasonal affective disorder lamps. They're quite
expensive, but one low cost alternative is to get
a ring light of the sort that the Instagram or YouTube YouTubers use to make themselves look
good. It's like a blue ring light. It's very, you can find them very low cost and you just put that
at your breakfast table or while you work in the morning. That is bright and will get the system
going. And some people like that on all day, even on a day where it seems
kind of overcast, you're getting far more photon energy than you would from bright indoor lights.
So that's the main thing. And many people report feeling much better immediately.
But in addition to that, as you do this more and more, you'll start to recognize the physiological
response. it's not
a placebo response there are two things that happen that that cortisol pulse starts to
get entrained as we call it synchronized to this behavior into this light viewing
and the other thing that happens is that when you do this morning light viewing it sets about a 16
hour countdown to the release of another hormone called melatonin which is released from the pineal
gland and is the hormone that's responsible for transitioning us into sleep not keeping us asleep to the release of another hormone called melatonin, which is released from the pineal gland,
and is the hormone that's responsible for transitioning us into sleep. Not keeping us asleep, but transitioning us into sleep. So it actually helps establish a better transition
and quality of sleep later that night. Many people who have sleep issues find that just
this simple morning light viewing practice assists their sleep issues tremendously.
just this simple morning light viewing practice assists their sleep issues tremendously.
I would say a close second is to absolutely dim the lights in the evening and late hours.
The hormone melatonin, as I mentioned before, is powerfully inhibited by light. When you view light, even if you go into the bathroom in the middle of the night and you turn on really bright lights, that quashes the levels of melatonin that are released from the pineal.
And many people get a little paranoid about light when they hear that. I wouldn't worry about it. I
would just dim lights as dim as you need in order to safely move about your evening activities.
And basically the time to avoid light would be between about 10 p.m. and 4 a.m.
So avoid bright lights between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m.
As a last point, if you somehow have to run to the store or to a hospital or you turn on the lights in the middle of the night, don't freak out.
Remember, these are slow integrating systems.
It's just that if you're consistently looking at screens late at night or you're consistently turning on bright lights in the middle of the night, you're really messing up your system.
So these are averages. It's a lot like nutrition or exercise. Try and get it right,
or mostly right, about 80% of the time. And don't panic if you happen to violate these tools
every once in a while. You'll be just fine. Yeah, I love that. Very, very thorough. Very,
every once in a while. You'll be just fine. Yeah, I love that. Very, very thorough. Very,
very comprehensive. I just want to echo, Andrew, in my own clinical experience, I have seen natural light exposure, just like you, be game-changing for people.
Hope you enjoyed that bite-sized clip. Hope you have a wonderful weekend. I'll be back next week
with my long-form
conversation on Wednesday and the latest episode of Bite Science next Friday.