Do you want to get healthier and happier as you grow older?
Joining Sarah Grynberg this week is renowned neuroscientist and host of the Huberman Lab podcast, Dr Andrew Huberman. As a distinguished Associate Professor of neurobiology, ophthalmology, psychiatry, and behavioural sciences, Andrew is at the forefront of scientific understanding about the brain.
In this exclusive Australian interview recorded in-person in Sydney, Sarah and Andrew discuss how sunlight exposure influences mental health and longevity, Andrew shares his thoughts on sunscreen and the relevance of sunglasses. They discuss the importance of managing blue light exposure, strategies for maintaining vitality and your skin's elasticity and firmness as we age, the importance of honouring your passions, and Sarah finds out if the anti-ageing creams many of us use on our skin are actually doing anything.
Having graced the cover of Time Magazine for his efforts in making science accessible, Andrew’s expertise is unmatched, and this episode promises to offer invaluable insights to help you not just age well, but thrive in the process.
Part 2 of my life changing conversation with Andrew Huberman is available now here!
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
Sarah:
Andrew. Time magazine last year
printed an edition with you on the cover that said how Andrew
Huberman got America to care about science. As a child, how did your
love of science come about?
Andrew:
So as long as I can remember, I've loved animals and nature and
biology. My father also happens to be a scientist. He's a physicist.
So there was a lot of discussion of science and scientists in my
home. And my mother is a writer, but has a deep appreciation for the
natural world. So I was sort of immersed in it from an early age.
And I love and loved animals of all kinds, including the human
animal. So I would pass many hours as a young kid in aquarium stores
reading about fish, reading about different mammals. I was less
interested, frankly, in extinct animals like dinosaurs and and
fantasy animals like dragons that I think a lot of young children
are exposed to and interested in. And I was very interested in
extant animals, and I delighted, and I still delight in kind of
their specialisations. So I loved the platypus, which is very
relevant to, um, folks down here. We don't have them in the States,
but you have them down here because of their unusual combination of
features webbed feet, but mammalian but electric sensing bill, I
just I found it incredible. And so I found the diversity of animals
incredible. And from a young age, I was supported in learning and
thinking about science and the natural world. So my parents didn't
get in my way on that. And I really can't remember a time when I
wasn't interested in learning about live things. I was less
interested in plants, although I love plants, but I found that
animals and their unique abilities and humans to be super
interesting and, um, so much so that I would pass a lot of my time
reading the encyclopedia, reading the Guinness Book of World
Records, anything and all things about animals. I wanted to own all
of them. Of course I was. I was highly disappointed I couldn't, and
even though my dad was a scientist, we didn't spend that much time
talking about physics. But there was one, one story, that very brief
story, I promise, that comes to mind where my dad, when I was about
six years old, used to walk me to school. I would go about halfway
and then I would pick up another student, a young woman who lived
across the street, a woman. She was a six year old girl, and we
would walk to the rest of the way to the cul de sac where the school
was at the end of my street. And one day I was walking with my dad
and he would hang a left into this little pathway to his laboratory.
Yeah, he would walk to work. And I asked him, you know, what do you
do for work? And he started to sort of explain. And then I said, and
I'll never forget this. I said, you know, does it, does it feel
good? And he said, interesting. He said, yes. It's kind of like the
feeling of the night before your birthday every single day. And I
thought, well, that sounds great. And I and I have to credit him. I
mean, what a great way to intrigue a child about a possible career
path. And I said, well, then I want to do what you do. I want to be
a physicist. And he said, no, I don't think you want to be a
physicist, because most of the the great problems in physics are
already worked out. You probably want to work on something where
there's a bit more new information, more low hanging fruit, if you
will. And I said, well, what don't we know much about? And he said,
well, we don't know a lot about the brain. So this would have been
1981. I was born in 75. And I said, well, then I'll study the brain.
And so there was a path set in that discussion. We both remember
that discussion. But then, of course, by the time I got to be 13, I
hit puberty. There were a number of family challenges, a very
unfortunately high conflict divorce, a lot of moving, a lot of a lot
of chaos. Frankly, that took me out of any kind of academic track or
learning from about the age of 13 until the age of 19, when, through
a set of trials and tribulations, I did eventually make my way to
university. And then it was in my second year of university that I
reconnected with that love of learning science, and at that point it
was more or less survival because I had spent so many years not
really functioning well in the classroom setting. But once I got
back to that love of learning and I had a few excellent teachers, I
was just like, gas pedal all the way. Learn. Read. Talk about it all
the time. I knew I wanted to be a scientist. I wanted to be a
professor. I wanted to have a laboratory. And so the childhood seed
of it, there was a hiatus there, an important hiatus, but a
challenging one. And then. Yeah, then it's just been since 19. I'm
48 now, and it's pretty much all I do.
Sarah:
It's an interesting thing, isn't it, when we have, I suppose,
like a dream as such, when we're young, like this is like we know
that that's what you want to be like from the age of four. I just
knew I wanted to work in entertainment. I just knew it. I watched
The Wizard of Oz and it was like it was sold for me. I just wanted
to work in entertainment. And like you, I kind of did a roundabout.
I worked in marketing and PR and all this kind of jazz, but I always
knew that my home was somewhere to do with entertainment, and I
loved talking to people, and it kind of formed naturally. But now
it's like, you know, you wouldn't look back. Like every day I come
and I do this job and it's the most nourishing thing I think I could
do with myself. But I wonder, for people that have children, how do
we allow them to keep that dream alive. I think so much of society
tries to say like, oh no, you can't do that. And I mean, you know,
being a scientist and doing that kind of work is looked upon as
being very high cred. But I think there's something in that that we
should allow our kids to be able to dream big, because when they do,
it's like the rest of their life is completely different. They're
doing stuff that they love, and we see so many people these days who
are just in jobs that they just do not like. And then we see the
rates of depression and all that kind of stuff.
Andrew:
The spark, like that early feeling of of delight in something
that happens before we're thinking practically about income or
whether or not a particular job is considered an attractive job or
an unattractive job. That's an important thing. And I think it's the
feeling, it's the energy that's created in us when we think about
certain things as and that we first come into contact with when
we're young, before we have all these filters up of judgment and
what others are going to think, that's really critical. You know, I
think that being a scientist is considered a fairly respected
profession by most, to be honest. It's not a lucrative profession.
Scientists are often I wouldn't say they struggle financially, but
it's not a lucrative profession. It's not like law, business or
medicine. Yeah, it is really a sort of craft of of deep love and
desire to answer questions, to remain curious. And of course, there
are exceptions to that. You have these, you know, high flying
scientists that are patenting everything and, you know, everything
from drugs to devices and, you know, so it can be profitable for
some people. But what we consider the quote unquote card carrying
scientist is somebody that loves asking questions that is willing to
remain curious. And I define curiosity as a deep interest in knowing
the answer without an attachment to what the answer is. I think it
was Dorothy Parker who said the cure to boredom is curiosity. There
is no cure for curiosity which which I love. I've always been
curious about how things work, how we work, how other animals work.
And that was the spark for me. You know, I think if a child is
exposed to a great number of different options and they are allowed
to sort through that buffet, if you will, sensing their own energy
about what they like and don't like, then one is in the best
position to find those things. And I think for adults that are
perhaps in a job they don't enjoy or a career track that doesn't
feel right for them, I think if we spend a little bit of time
thinking back to the things that we enjoyed when we were younger,
before, these filters come up around expectation, etc., that what
we're looking for is not okay. When I was a kid, I used to like to
build sand castles. Maybe I want to build sand castles, but it's
more about, well, what is it? Is it about creating little miniature
landscapes of real life? You know, it takes some introspection, so
it's hard to apply kind of an across the board set of questions that
if one asks you ask these ten questions, you'll find what your
purpose. I don't think it works that way. I think that people have
to sense into their own energetics. Meaning their own what? What
gives them energy as opposed to what drains them. And and even if we
can't do those things as professionals and get paid for it, that
there's great benefit to accessing those energy states as an adult.
And you see this over and over in the realm of art, music, science,
certainly medicine, that when somebody is well aligned with their
career path, it's just a beautiful thing and only good things can
happen. And when we're not aligned with that, even in subtle ways,
it really can drain our our mental health. I've actually had the
experience and the opportunity, for instance, of I was offered a
very frankly lucrative job in biotech. And I thought, well, that
would be an interesting choice. Many faculty members in the
university go to biotech. The Bay area where I live is full of
biotech companies and the mission of this biotech company was quite,
quite noble. But for me, the idea of being in a cubicle and talking
about the results of clinical trials and, and sort of talking to
lawyers about patents like it's some lands me somewhere between
wanting to take a nap and getting hives. Now it's science. Quote
unquote. It's not that I don't think it's interesting. It's just not
for me. And so I think one of the key things to for anyone thinking
about career or hobby or expanding on this, this, this notion of
purpose is to imagine the daily life in that particular endeavor.
This was one of the best pieces of advice I ever got when I was
considering changing universities, is you think about the name of
the university, you think about who your colleagues are going to be.
You think about, sure, the salary, the benefits, because you have to
be practical, but also think about like take your oneself through a
typical Wednesday at that place. What does it feel like to drive
there? How's the parking? What does it feel like to go into the
building? And in doing that, sensing into how it feels can inform a
lot about whether or not it's the right choice or the wrong choice.
And then the hard part is making that choice and trying to discard
all those judgments like, oh, well, that's the better university.
Or, you know, several times in my career I've left or moved from
universities that were considered by everybody, the rankings and
everybody to be of higher, quote unquote, ranking for a slightly
lower ranking university. And but I did it because of a draw towards
a particular set of people or circumstances. And in every single
case, my productivity went up dramatically. When following these
kind of energetics, I may have a problem in that I can't stay in the
wrong professional situation too long, and I feel like I'm almost
drawn to certain professional situations that are right for me.
Like, I never anticipated having a podcast. But at the end of 2020,
Lex Fridman, who has a wonderful science and technology and culture
podcast, made the suggestion to start a podcast and within three
weeks we were buying cameras and setting something up. I sold my
home, I moved to a rental, we set up my producer, Rob Moore, and I
set up in a closet and brought my bulldog with me, a 16 year old kid
who was an intern with me, and we released our first episode about a
month later, and that was the first episode of the Huberman Lab
podcast. So I have an almost compulsion towards what's right. But it
took a long time, and I made a lot of errors along the way of wrong
turns having to leave circumstances, and that was all uncomfortable.
But I think for me, I just can't stay in the wrong professional
situation. And I acknowledge that there are always practical
constraints. One can't always do that. And at times it was scary. It
was like, I remember my father, who was a scientist, saying when I
was leaving a university voluntarily for what was considered a
lower, quote unquote, lower caliber university. And he said, how
many people are in the graduate class? And I said, two. And he said,
you're kidding me. And he said, well, either you're making the best
decision of your life or you're destroying it all. And I thought,
oh, well, no pressure. But in the end, when I four years later, we
finished with, you know, some great work done that I truly enjoyed.
Yeah. And at that point I think he was like okay. And same thing
with the podcast. I love my dad. But when I started the podcast,
he's like, well, I don't know how is how are people going to view
this? You're doing this public facing stuff and, you know, and then
within six months he's like, well, I guess you I guess it was the
right thing. So you have to be willing to you have to be willing to
take the risk and fail. And, you know, but there it is.
Sarah:
My dad is a doctor, and he said the same thing when I started
this podcast. He's like, so do you make money from podcasts, Sarah?
Do you make money?
Andrew:
It's I mean, I mean.
Andrew:
I think because no parent wants to see their child stricken or
dependent, but the takeaway that I think I'm realising right now is
whatever brings out the best and greatest amount of energy. Yes. And
when we're talking about energy, we're talking about neural energy
that it's clearly relates to things like dopamine and
norepinephrine, the things that get us into an activation state that
we have to have that because money, of course, is necessary for
living. I always say, yes, money can't buy happiness, or I guess it
should be no. Money can't buy happiness, but money absolutely
buffers against stress. Yes, to be honest.
Sarah:
Right? Of course.
Andrew:
So anyone who says differently probably has a lot of money. And
so one needs to be practical. But if one zooms out, you realise that
the most practical thing is to do the thing that gives you the most
energy, provided it's benevolent and it contributes to society and
your own sense of well-being. Well, that's the thing that you're
going to be able to do at the highest level, as opposed to something
else that, you know, makes you feel like you want to take a nap or
gives you hives. There's just no way I could be successful in
biotech. No way. For more than a year, I'd probably end up
physically sick.
Sarah:
Yes, well, that's the thing.
Sarah:
Obviously, a lot of what you talk about is on a range of
different scientific matters, but something that has been a love of
yours and has educated a lot of people that I'd like to talk about
is the importance of sunlight, and especially the morning sun. And
obviously you've been in Australia for a couple of weeks now and our
sun is. It's got a bite to it, as I'm sure you've experienced. So.
Yeah. So compared to other places in the world, like you don't have
to be out there for very long to be able to get burnt and this and
that. But a lot of Aussies we've all had like slip, slop, slap,
which is the slogan about like putting a lot of sunscreen on and a
lot about skin cancer and things like that. And there's a lot of
research that talks to different things to do with sunscreen, to do
with when you should be out getting sun. I'd love to know your views
on that. On sunscreen. Great. Especially being in Australia as well.
Yeah.
Andrew:
Um, well, first off, I do consider light and sunlight in
particular to be one of the six key pillars of mental health and
physical health. The other is just very quickly are sleep,
nutrition, exercise, slash movement. Right? Relationships, including
relationship to self, social interactions and relationship to self
are so key. Stress control or having some means to regulate stress
because stress is inevitable and then light and in particular
sunlight. For a variety of reasons. We know that regular exposure to
sunlight to the eyes, and I'll explain what I mean by regular, is
essential for setting our so-called circadian rhythm, that is,
regular sleep wake cycles, and that is absolutely essential for
mental health. There's a beautiful study out of the UK that was
published recently, with over 86,000 subjects, showing that the
positive effects of getting sunlight, especially early in the day,
on all aspects of mental health, in addition to suppressing certain
symptoms of mental illness, because we don't want to confuse mental
health and mental illness. And this is really key. Getting dark
exposure at night, right? We rarely think about the absence of light
as a positive, but being in the dark or very dim light at night is
absolutely essential for mental health. Essentially, more sunlight
early in the day, provided one doesn't burn. We'll talk about
burning and sunscreen, etc. or damage one's eyes is great for mental
health. The data show that everything from PTSD, depression, etc.
gets the symptoms get better. They might not be cured, but get
better when people are getting sunlight during the day, especially
the morning and in darkness at night. And if you think about what
most people are doing nowadays, they don't tend to get enough
sunlight during the morning. Then they go into environments where
they're under artificial lights thinking those lights are very
bright, but they're actually far dimmer, far less photon energy than
were they to just get a little bit of sunlight outside. And then at
night, people are exposed to those same artificial lights and
screens. But here's the the diabolical thing. The neural retina, the
portion of the eye that that responds to light. It's actually a part
of the brain that lines the back of your eye, is more sensitive to
light at night, so it takes very little artificial light to disrupt
these circadian rhythms. Blood glucose regulation, etc. we can get
into that more. So, one of the six pillars of mental health,
physical health and performance is light and sunlight in particular,
because we know from now hundreds of studies on humans that if
humans get a little bit of sunlight in their eyes early in the day
when the sun is at what's called low solar angle, a couple of things
are key. First of all, it sets in motion the circadian rhythm for
elevated daytime mood, focus and alertness and enhanced immune
system function. And it sets a timer on when one goes to sleep at
night. So it's among the most important things that we can do now.
On overcast days it's especially important, and this is usually the
portion of the conversation where a listener thinks there's no
sunlight where I live. Okay, I'm going to tell you, unless you live
underground, there is always sunlight. There's always sunlight. And
if you look at how bright it is on the worst stormy, overcast day
versus at night, guess what? It's a lot brighter outside. There's
always sunlight. Now, when we say sunlight, people think the sun,
the object. Like you need to go see the sun, the object. But that's
not the case. You need sunlight. You need the photon energy coming
down through the sky. Especially on cloudy days. I always say about
5 minutes to 10 minutes on a clear day, about 10 to 20 minutes on a
partially overcast day, and as much as 30 minutes on an overcast
day. Ideally, you get outside. You don't do this through a window.
You don't wear sunglasses for this, provided you can do that safely.
Contacts and corrective lenses. Eyeglasses are fine you face in the
direction of the sun. If you're in the shade, it's not a big deal,
but if you can get some sunlight in your eyes provided that you
blink to protect your eyes. You'll know when you need to blink
because it will be. You don't want to stare at the sun, but I have
to put all these caveats. Now what does that do? What that does is
it triggers the activation of a set of neurons in the eye, called
the intrinsically photosensitive melanopsin ganglion cells, which is
just a bunch of science speak for the neurons that then communicate
to an area of your brain called the hypothalamus, which then
releases all these hormones and peptides into your system all day
long and sets your melatonin rhythm for nighttime sleep. It is the
most powerful stimulus for all of that stuff. No supplement, no
food, no social engagement, no caffeine, no nothing can do all of
that as well as morning sunlight exposure. Now, if you miss a day,
no big deal. But when do you do it? Well, when the sun is low in the
sky. It has a couple of features that are really important. First of
all, you'll notice on a clear day that there's a lot of yellow and
kind of pink blue contrast when the sun is low in the sky as opposed
to when it's directly overhead, you just kind of see it as bright
white light. Those color contrasts are the best stimulus for those
cells in the back of the eye to do their thing. The other thing
about low solar angle sunlight in the morning and the evening is
that the UV index is very low. When the sun is low in the sky, you
have very little risk of damaging your cornea, damaging your skin
through sunburn. Just look at the sun early in the day, and it's
easier to look at for longer than when it's overhead. And there's a
reason for that. There's some atmospheric interference when it's low
in the sky. But also, as you catch that morning first light and the
sun rising, that is the primordial stimulus for waking up our
system. Now people always say, oh, goodness, you're telling me I
have to watch the sunrise? No. Low solar angle means any time before
it's overhead. Now, if you're a teenager and you're waking up at 11
a.m., sun is already overhead. Okay. You know, you try and get a
little sunlight in your eyes. But here's the deal. Getting those
minutes of sunlight. Exposure to the eyes is oh so important for
mental health and physical health, and again, sets in motion all
sorts of positive things. But then people say, well, what about
sunburn? Okay, well, the best way to avoid sunburn is to avoid
bright sunlight exposure when the sun is directly overhead, sort of
in the middle of the day. And by the way, getting sunlight exposure
to your eyes in the middle of the day. While it can have some
benefits on mood and hormone production by way of exposure to the
skin. We'll talk about what's too much, what's too little. Your
circadian rhythm, that is, these mechanisms controlling sleep.
Wakefulness cannot be impacted by light during the middle of the
day. It's called literally the circadian dead zone. You can't shift
your circadian clock then. But morning sunlight is key and afternoon
sunlight is key as well. Again, when the sun is lowering, you don't
have to see it. Just sink behind the horizon if you can, great. But
if you don't, no big deal. Now, what about sunburn? And what about
sunscreen? I confess I want to just highlight this because on some
previous discussions of this topic. I've had elements clipped out,
and I've been misunderstood as thinking that sunscreen is not good
for us, or maybe even bad for us. And I want to go on record. This
is a wonderful opportunity to say there is definitely a case for
sunscreen. You do not want skin cancer, you do not want to burn, and
the UV index is very high here in Australia. And as you pointed out,
it has a bite to it. The sun has a bite. So I use sunscreen. I will
repeat, I use sunscreen because, um, I do focus on using sunscreens
that are basically where the only active ingredient is zinc oxide,
because these zinc oxide sunscreens. And by the way, I have no
relationship to any sunscreen brand. I just happen to do that
because the most of the sunscreens that do have things in addition
to zinc oxide, not all of them, but many of them, I should say not
most. Many of them include things that are known to go transdermally
through the skin, and that there are studies have shown that they
may may have some potential negative effects on other organs and
systems of the body. And so given that there are excellent mineral
based sunscreens, I prefer to use those. Now, regardless of what
type of sunscreen one feels safe using or not. I think it's worth
mentioning that the best thing to prevent sunburn is a physical
barrier. A long sleeve shirt that's kind of loose. This is known all
over the world, especially in desert cultures. Like a hat, right? A
brimmed hat, if you will. It's fine to combine that with sunscreen
if you need it, but one of the best ways to keep from burning is to
not let the sun reach or reach your skin right through a physical
barrier. And that, and there's no debate about whether or not the
physical barrier causes potential ill effects of, you know, there
are some sunscreens with some nasty stuff in them. Now, how nasty.
And, you know, whether or not it impacts things like fertility, or
whether or not they're precancerous has been debated quite a bit.
I'm of the mind that if one can make a better, clearly safe choice,
why risk the potentially unsafe choice, right? Especially given that
the costs on these things tend to be pretty much equal. And given
that a physical barrier is zero cost, except you need the article of
clothing, well then that makes sense now. So I wear sunscreen,
especially in the middle of the day here. I've been slathering it
on. Yeah, I do think that it's worth noting that we do have a
natural adaptation to sun exposure, which is the addition of some
melanin to the skin. Right? The melanocytes, the cells that that
cause some pigmentation can either turn on or migrate when we get
some sun exposure to the skin. And there's a very close relationship
between sun exposure to the skin and the production of hormones like
testosterone, estrogen and dopamine, which is a neuromodulator.
There's a brief anecdote in the landscape of natural biology that's
relevant here. If there are certain animals like the Arctic fox and
other animals like that that are no surprise. They're white in the
winter and they happen to be darker in the summertime. So pelage
color changes in certain animals by virtue of those same melanocytes
being activated or suppressed in the presence or absence of the sun.
We don't have hair. We have little hairs on us that are remnants of
when we were probably much hairier organisms. But when we get
sunlight in our on our skin, there's the production of dopamine.
Now, why would we say, okay, how does dopamine and pelage color and
all this? Well, it turns out that the same gene pathway, there's an
enzyme called Tyrosinase tyrosinase. Anytime you hear AC, you're
talking about an enzyme. The tyrosinase pathway is the pathway
that's mutated in the albino mutation. In other words, the same
pathways that control pigmentation of the skin and of pelage in
animals that have fur FIR is related to dopamine Y. Tyrosine is the
precursor to dopamine. So I'm throwing out a bunch of things here.
But here's the takeaway. Getting a bit not too much, but a bit of
sun exposure to the skin in the middle of the day is known to
elevate levels of dopamine, and dopamine is a neuromodulator. You
can feel it. And it's known to elevate testosterone and estrogen in
humans. And when people say here elevate testosterone and estrogen,
usually what happens is all the women worry, well, I don't want my
testosterone too high. But guess what? In women, the levels of
testosterone per deciliter are higher than levels of estrogen. They
just so happen to be, on average, lower than the absolute levels of
testosterone in men. So men and women both need testosterone and
estrogen to, quote unquote, feel good, to feel vigorous. And when
this was a beautiful study published in Cell Reports Medicine last
year or the year before, perhaps it was a study done in the Middle
East where they they had people go outside for about 30 minutes in
the kind of late afternoon when the sun was going down. So not going
to burn you too badly or in the early afternoon and make sure that
people got that sun exposure onto their skin, wearing shorts and a
tank top or so. And what they found is that it significantly
elevated levels of those hormones and feelings of well-being,
something that we've known forever. You probably didn't even need
the study, but now that the study is published, we can look to that.
And the feelings of well-being associated with getting some regular
sunlight exposure are related to this activation of this tyrosinase
pathway and the release of dopamine, which again, is a
neuromodulator involved in many things, not just mood, but generally
when we have a little bit higher circulating dopamine or release of
dopamine in the brain, we feel more positive anticipation. We enjoy
things more, we have more energy. It's part of a small group of
molecules called the catecholamines, which is dopamine, epinephrine,
and norepinephrine. Those three act as a kind of cocktail in our
brain and body to make us feel like we have energy. And in the
winter months when we're not getting as much sunlight, especially
when we're not viewing morning sunlight, we're getting less sunlight
onto our skin. That's why in certain locations on the Earth, people
feel malaise. They feel less excited about life. Dopamine levels are
lower, which makes perfect sense given that sunlight is activating
the pathways that trigger dopamine synthesis. So that's a lot of
biology. It's kind of a chapter of biology kind of stuffed into one
rambling sentence. But when you look at the mechanisms of these
things, you start to realize, like sunlight is great for us, but not
too much. Yeah. And the timing of sunlight really matters. And
artificial light, while wonderful. I mean, we all rely on it. It's a
good idea to dim the lights at night. It's a good idea to turn off
the phone when you go to sleep. It's a good idea to look at most
artificial light in the same way that you would view nutrition and
calories. You're not just interested in getting enough calories. You
want nutritious calories, right? That's really, I think, what we've
come to conclude these days, whether or not you're vegan or
vegetarian, omnivore or whatever, artificial lights are mostly blue
light. Short wavelength light. Sunlight is full spectrum. It has
reds. It has oranges. It has pinks. Even on overcast days, it has
all that stuff. Even though you can't see it, it's coming through.
So artificial lights I look at as a bit of like empty calorie light.
It doesn't do much for you. It's not great for you. It's not
necessarily bad, but getting a lot of that without getting enough
full spectrum light is why I believe a lot of people are
experiencing malaise. I think a lot of the mental health issues that
we observe nowadays in kids and adults are not just related to the
content of what they're looking at. It's related to the illumination
format, the the, you know, being in a screen all day, being under
artificial lights all day, not getting outside enough. And as a
final incentive for getting outside a bit, not too much. Each day.
There's some beautiful studies looking at myopia, nearsightedness,
and the fact that kids and adults who who get outside, even if
they're on their laptop or tablet or phone for two hours a day or
more, again, you can be in the shade. Don't get burned. I'm not
suggesting anyone bake themselves in the sun for two hours a day or
more are offsetting the development, in some cases partially
reversing the offset, partially reversing the effects of looking at
things too close and being indoors, which is myopia,
nearsightedness. So there's so many incentives for getting outside a
bit. But yes, avoid getting a sunburn and sunscreen is one way to do
it. Physical barrier is another. And if you want to know what's
enough light. Keep in mind that all of these systems I'm talking
about, they are slow integrating systems. So if you get out on the
weekend quite a bit more Monday and Tuesday, you're probably fine.
Yeah, Wednesday you're probably fine. But then, you know, try and
take a walk in midday, take your lunch outside, get out onto a
balcony midday. You know, if you spend five days indoors, you'll
really notice the negative effects. And if you've been doing that
and you feel lousy, there could be any number of reasons, but lack
of adequate sunlight might be one of them. Too much sunlight is the
amount that burns you or gives you skin cancer, and people differ in
terms of what that level of exposure is. So I can't sit here and
save two hours a day. You need to be able to really gauge what
what's safe for you. But, you know, if you're avoiding sunlight like
the plague, that's not good either.
Sarah:
Do you think sunglasses have a place or are there more of a
fashion item?
Andrew:
Sunglasses have their place. I have very sensitive eyes. We all,
um, you know, vary in terms of how much we can tolerate bright light
of any kind. I need sunglasses during the middle of the day to
drive, in some cases to be out for the morning sunlight viewing. I
don't think you need it, but if you feel you do, maybe you have just
very sensitive eyes. I think they definitely have their place and I
use them for safety reasons. I use them when I'm out, but if you're
constantly in dark sunglasses and then you're going in to artificial
lights indoors, and then in the evening you're watching Netflix or
you're on your computer tablet, you're basically doing everything in
reverse. And what's interesting is, you know, we hear about jet lag,
we hear about shift work. We've known for decades that shift workers
have an immense number of different serious problems with mental
health and physical health. It's just and and thank goodness for
shift workers. They're very beneficial to society. We need them. And
so thank you shift workers. But here's what's interesting. Almost
everybody nowadays, including our young children, qualify as shift
workers based on the definition of shift work, which is doing work
or cognitive engaging stuff for three hours or more past sundown.
That's shift work. You're working into the evening. And I'm not one
to think, okay, we need to go back to our cave dwelling ways, but I
think we just need to be aware of of what we're doing to ourselves.
And these studies that I mentioned earlier out of the UK really
speak to the key importance of light during the day and darkness at
night, not pitch black at night and glaring sunlight burning your
skin during the day. That's not what we're talking about, but in
moderation, these things can be very, very helpful.
Sarah:
For people that are going through midlife, both women and men.
What do you recommend for improving skin elasticity? Collagen food
supplements? Because a lot of people, when they start going through
that time in their life, it can be really hard. I mean, they can do
a lot of exercise, you know, that builds muscle, but it's not
changing the skin elasticity that much. I'd love you to talk to
that.
Andrew:
So aging and offsetting the effects of aging is a multifactorial
thing. Of course. And I'll just, you know, always go back to those
six pillars if you're not sleeping enough. And what is enough?
Enough is the amount that allows you to feel rested during the day,
except for perhaps the need for a brief 10 to 90 minute nap. Some
people don't like naps, some people do. You know, a lot of people
say I have insomnia. Insomnia is defined as excessive daytime
sleepiness, excessive daytime sleepiness. Not getting a great
night's sleep is not insomnia, but getting your sleep right. And
we've done many episodes of the Huberman Lab podcast on this. We
have a series coming out with Matt Walker, who wrote the book Why We
Sleep. Later this year, getting your sleep right is key. And again,
nutrition, movement, controlling stress, relationships, sunlight all
essential to slowing the aging process. We and there are gosh,
hundreds of thousands of studies to support that. Now with respect
to skin specifically, I think there are a couple of things that are
a little, um, less known that I think are particularly powerful. So
I'll mention those first. Right. Um, the first is keeping the gut
microbiome healthy. It's now clear that the trillions of little
microbiota that live in our gut everywhere, you know, all the way
along our gut, are essential for the production of little fatty
acids, which sound bad. Anytime people hear fat, they go, I don't
want fat. But you know, the fatty acids are great that then provide
the substrate for creating neuromodulators neurotransmitters like
dopamine, serotonin, acetylcholine, etc. and those neuromodulators
are absolutely essential for cognitive function maintaining brain
health. In addition, the gut microbiome is but one of the many
microbiomes that we have on us and in us, and one of the primary
microbiomes, and this is rarely discussed, but hopefully this will
be an opportunity for that is the skin microbiome. Many of the
microbiota that I know, it's weird to think about trillions of
things living on our skin actually provide a barrier to bacteria and
viruses that are constantly trying to bombard us get into our
system. The skin microbiome is supported by healthy gut microbiota,
and the best way to support all of these microbiome niches on the
skin, in the gut, on the surface of the eyes, even in the urethra.
ET cetera is clearly through the consumption of enough fiber and
both prebiotic and probiotic fiber. So fruits and veggies kind of
thing, but also to make sure that you're getting at least some
servings of low sugar fermented foods now and again. So this could
be kefir. Yogurt again. Low sugar sauerkraut. Kimchi, natto. You
know. Different cultures have these things. People always say beer,
you know. Okay. Yes, beer. But maybe not the best source given the
negative effects of alcohol and the excess in calories and sugar,
which frankly don't contribute anything to nutrition, etc. but it's
very clear from work by my colleague Justin Sonnenburg at Stanford
School of Medicine and others, that regular consumption of these low
sugar fermented foods 1 to 4 servings per day. It's a fine one that
you like, and just try and have a couple spoonfuls of sauerkraut or
kimchi, or have a pickle or something, and it has to be the stuff
that needs to be refrigerated. The briny taste, that salty taste,
the gut microbiome loves that. And the skin microbiome benefits when
the gut microbiome is healthy and the skin microbiome in particular,
benefits when you're not killing it off with things like, I hate to
say this because we need chlorine in pools, the public pools, but
things like chlorine are and killing the microbiome. That's why it's
in the water, right? Because they're trying to kill off all the
bugs. So does it mean I don't use hand sanitizer? No, of course not.
I'll use some hand sanitizer. But trying to take good care of one's
skin through not using harsh astringents this kind of thing. All of
that gut microbiome stuff. I spent the last five minutes talking
about it because that's providing the milieu, the environment for
the skin microbiome and the skin to flourish. Then there's the stuff
from the inside, like, what are you doing from the inside? Well,
everyone knows if you're not getting enough sleep, the skin suffers.
The bags under the eyes being the least of it, the skin suffers.
You'll notice if you have a cut, it'll heal more slowly. Yeah, many
people get acne when they're not sleeping enough, and that's because
of the intrusion of late evening cortisol, a hormone that's very
valuable and very beneficial that we all manufacture and release
early in the day. It's great to have released early in the day, but
late release of cortisol in our system due to stress due to
excessive consumption of caffeine in the afternoon and evening. I
hate to say it, but consumption of alcohol before sleep? You're not
getting into deep, rapid eye movement sleep. Cortisol levels end up
higher throughout the night and as a consequence, many people
experience, uh, sometimes skin blemishes. But the whole process of
repairing the skin every night, which happens every single night,
the dermis and the epidermis, is occurring during a specific phase
of sleep, the first four hours of sleep. And we all know the
experience of not getting enough sleep and someone just looks
depleted. The pallor of their skin changes. We can see it when
somebody is not rested. We see it in the lack of kind of brightness
in their eyes, and these are all kind of peripheral signals of not
getting enough sleep. So get your sleep right, get your microbiome
right, and that can take some work. But it's something that those
are things that will benefit everything. And then we get to the sort
of collagen question. It's always the collagen. Yes. Collagen is a
critical component of skin. There is some evidence that consumption
of high quality collagen supplements can make a minor. I really want
to highlight this a minor improvement in certain things like
elasticity of skin in wound repair. There's also evidence that red
light, you know, these like nowadays, is very popular that red light
and near-infrared light can accelerate, say, healing from acne can
improve some metrics of skin, quote unquote, quality. These aren't
metrics that are really easy to classify, but none of those even
come close to the essential benefits of sleep and microbiome support
that that other studies support for skin. Now, in addition to that,
you know, as long as we're here, we can talk about the somewhat more
adventurous and esoteric stuff. Like nowadays, there's a lot of
enthusiasm about peptides, peptides, peptides. Everyone's into
peptides. I can tell you where I live in California, there's a lot
of peptide use, right? Some of these are serums that people put on
the skin. Um, some of them are injectable things like BPC 157,
which, by the way, can it seems there aren't a lot of clinical
studies, but it seems that it can help with wound healing and skin
repair. But BPC 157 is essentially a synthetic mimic of what, a gut
peptide. Oh, wow. It's long been known that certain juices within
the gut are help us repair wounds, and if you've ever had a cut in
your mouth, you'll notice something interesting. The mouth is a is a
bacteria filled, moist, warm place perfect for infections. And guess
what? Things in the mouth heal fast. So fast and they heal without a
scar.
Andrew:
There are rare cases. Where it scars.
Sarah:
Yeah.
Andrew:
And that just should blow everyone's mind. It's like, how come a
cut on the body surface heals much slower sometimes with a scar, but
in the mouth where it's all like, like, warm and moist and there's
bacteria. I just breathed in probably trillions of bacteria right
here. Even though the air is clean here, it's everywhere. Why is
that? How is that? Well, there are things within the saliva and
within the juices of the gut, such as what BPC 157 is designed to
mimic that support constant turnover of the cells there. So there
are some interesting things like BPC 157, anything that and I am not
promoting the use of growth hormone or IGF one because that can
promote the growth of tumors and things of that sort. But it is true
that young children, teens, it's amazing, right? First of all,
babies who has better skin than babies? Right. We saw a baby down on
Bondi Beach. Those little babies. And like just looking at you, you
just want to like their cheeks. They look.
Sarah:
So cute.
Andrew:
S3: Right? And they're just like, they're perfect, right? Like, the
kid is perfect. And God forbid if a kid or a baby gets a cut on
their like, heals up as if it was never there. And their system is
chock a block full of what? Full of IGF one insulin like growth
factor. Growth hormone. Now adults think, okay, I'll take IGF one.
I'll take a peptide like Sermorelin or Ipamorelin that will promote
IGF one. And you think, oh, that's is that the right idea? And then
you step back and you think, let's be biologists about this. The
fastest rate of aging that we ever go through is between birth and
age 20. Look at somebody when they're five and look at them when
they're 12. They are developing. But there's another word for
developing. They are aging. So if you look at people who take things
like growth hormone or IGF one or peptides that that push on those
pathways, yes, they feel more vigorous, but they're actually
accelerating their aging. And that's underappreciated. So things to
promote healthy skin should always be of the I think the sort of
foundational things sleep microbiome. Maybe there's a case use case
for collagen. If someone has the disposable income and they kind of
want that edge, avoiding excessive sun exposure for sure. Avoiding
excessive stress. We know that the graying of hair is in part just
age dependent and in part is controlled by stress. We now know that,
right? It's amazing. Down in the hair follicle niche, the little
pocket that the hair follicle lives in, there's a stem cell that
gives rise to the hair. And this is so wild. The stress pathways
release noradrenaline around that niche. And what causes the graying
of hair with stress is the inside of that pocket that niche. It
releases a peroxide, you know, in the 80s when they were like, well,
you wouldn't know from the 80s, but I remember from the 80s, people
were dyeing their hair.
Andrew:
They bleach. You can bleach hair with peroxide. Your body
produces certain peroxides under conditions of stress, which is why
when people stress a lot, yes, their hair grays, grays more. And the
good news is when they're less stressed and there are lots of ways
to reduce stress, their hair, some degree of graying can be
reversed. Now there is, of course, an age related graying of hair
that is related to that same pathway and some other pathways. But
when you start to look at like skin, hair, nails, stuff, it almost
always takes us back to the basics. Now that as long as we're having
fun with this and I'm not, I have no relationship to any company
that makes it. But, you know, there's been a lot of discussion of
the NAD pathway. This is a molecule that's very present in all
cells, especially early in development. It goes down across
development and there's a lot of interest nowadays. Some people get
NAD infusions. Those are very painful, very expensive. They feel
like you're getting stepped on by a donkey. It's uncomfortable. But
then afterwards you feel good. But things like nmn, nr, these have
been sold as supplements for longevity. It's still hotly debated
whether or not they can extend the lifespan. My personal view is
they cannot. But my own experience with NMN and Nr and that of many
other people, and again, I have no financial relationship to this,
is that daily consumption of NMN, which is a precursor to NAD or Nr,
which is also in the NAD pathway, does seem to give one more energy,
physical energy. And people do observe faster growth of hair and
nails. It's a it's a pretty well-established Anecdata set, but
there's been no formal clinical trials of it. So and there's debate
as to whether or not taking NMN or Nr can increase certain kinds of
cancers. So, you know, as soon as you get into this space, there's
always the potential benefit, the potential risk. And so I just
mentioned these things because you asked about supplements. But, you
know, I think the basics are most key. And it's kind of a
disappointing answer perhaps like oh you want great skin, get great
sleep. But I don't care how much nad you're taking if you're not
sleeping well, your skin's going to suffer.
Sarah:
What about for especially women, all those creams that were sold
like anti-aging for wrinkles. Put this on your eyes. Put this on
this. The three things in the morning. Does any of that stuff
actually work?
Andrew:
Yeah, I think.
LISTEN TO PART 2
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