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welcome to hubman Labb Essentials where
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we revisit past episodes for the most
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potent and actionable science-based
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tools for mental health physical health
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and
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performance I'm Andrew huberman and I'm
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a professor of neurobiology and
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Opthalmology at Stanford school of
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medicine this podcast is separate from
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my teaching and research roles at
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Stanford it is however part of my desire
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and effort to bring zero cost to
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Consumer information about science and
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science related tools to the general
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public today we're going to focus on how
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particular hormones influence our energy
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levels and our immune system we're going
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to talk about the hormones cortisol and
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epinephrine also called adrenaline if
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you're somebody who has challenges with
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sleep or you're somebody who has
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challenges getting your energy level up
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throughout the day and getting your
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energy level down when you want to sleep
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today's episode is also for you and we
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are going to talk about the immune
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system and how to enhance the function
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of your immune system I think it's fair
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to say that most people would like to
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have a lot of energy during the day if
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you work during the day and they'd like
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their energy to taper off at night and I
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think it's fair to say that most people
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don't enjoy being sick and it turns out
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that the two hormones that dominate
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those processes of having enough energy
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and having a healthy immune system are
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cortisol and epinephrine I just want to
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cover a little bit about what cortisol
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and epinephrine are where they are
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released in the body and brain because
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if you can understand understand that
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you will understand better how to
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control
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them first of all cortisol is a steroid
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hormone much like estrogen and
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testosterone in that it is derived from
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cholesterol so understand that
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cholesterol is a precursor molecule
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meaning it's the substrate from which a
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lot of things like testosterone and
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estrogen are made please also understand
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that cholesterol can be made into
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estrogen or testosterone or cortisol and
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that cortisol is sort of the competitive
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partner to estrogen and testosterone
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what this means is no matter how much
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cholesterol you're eating or you produce
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whether not it's low or it's high if you
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are stressed more of that cholesterol is
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going to be devoted toward creating
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cortisol which is indeed a stress
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hormone however the word stress
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shouldn't stress you out because you
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need cortisol cortisol is vit you don't
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want your cortisol levels to be too low
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it's very important for immune system
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function for memory for not getting
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depressed you just don't want your
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cortisol levels to be too high and you
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don't want them to be elevated even to
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normal levels at the wrong time of day
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epinephrine or
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adrenaline has also been demonized a bit
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we think of it as this stress hormone
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this thing that makes us anxious fight
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or flight the fact of the matter is that
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epinephrine is your best friend when it
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comes to your immunity when it comes to
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protecting you from infection and
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epinephrine adrenaline is your best
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friend when it comes to remembering
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things and learning and activating
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neuroplasticity we're going to talk
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about that as well once again it's a
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question of how much and how long and
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the specific timing of release of
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cortisol and epinephrine as opposed to
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cortisol and adrenaline being good or
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bad they're terrific when they're
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regulated they are terrible when they're
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misregulated and we will give you lots
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of tools to regulate them better
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cortisol biology 101 in less than 2
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minutes your brain makes what we call
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releasing hormones and in this case
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there's corticotropin releasing hormone
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CR is made by neurons in your brain it
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causes the pituitary this gland that
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sits about an inch in front of the roof
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of your mouth and the base of your brain
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to release
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act act then goes and causes your
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adrenals which sit above your kidneys
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and your lower back to release cortisol
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a so-called stress hormone but I would
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like you to think about cortisol not as
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a stress hormone but as a hormone of
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energy it produces a situation in the
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brain and body whereby you want to move
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and whereby you don't want to rest and
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whereby you don't want to eat at least
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at
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first epinephrine or adrenaline 101 in
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less than 2
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minutes when you sense a stressor with
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your mind or your body senses a stress
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stressor excuse me from a wound or
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something of that
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sort a signal is sent to neurons that
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are in the middle of your body they
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called the sympathetic chain ganglia the
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name doesn't necessarily matter they
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release norepinephrine very quickly it's
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almost like a a sprinkler system that
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Just Hoses your body with epinephrine
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that will increase heart rate will
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increase Brea breathing rate it will
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also increase the size of vessels and
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arteries that are giving blood flow to
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your vital organs you also release
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adrenaline from your adrenals again s
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riding at top your kidneys and you
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release it from an area of your brain
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called Locus cerus and that creates
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alertness in your brain okay so we have
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cortisol and we have epinephrine and
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their net effect is to increase energy
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so the first tool is to make sure that
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your highest levels of cortisol are
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first thing in the morning when you wake
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up one way or another every 24 hours you
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will get an increase in cortisol it's to
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stimulate movement from being sleep
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presumably horizontal to getting up and
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starting to move about your day the best
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way to stimulate that increasing
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cortisol at the appropriate time is that
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very soon after waking within 30 minutes
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or so after waking get outside view some
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sunlight even if it's overcast get
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outside view some some sunlight no
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sunglasses do that because in the early
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part of the day you have the opportunity
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to time that cortisol release to the
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early part of the day it will will
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improve your focus it will impr improve
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your energy levels and it will improve
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your learning throughout the day so
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here's how it works on a sunny day so no
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cloud cover provided that the sun is not
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yet overhead it's somewhere low in the
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sky could have just crossed the horizon
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or if you wake up a little bit later it
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could be somewhat low in the
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Sky basically the intensity of light the
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brightness is somewhere around 100,000
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Lux Lux is just a measurement of
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brightness on a cloudy day it's about
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10,000 luxs okay so tenfold reduction
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but bright artificial light very bright
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artificial light is somewhere around a
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thousand
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luxs and ordinary room light is
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somewhere around 100 to 200 lucks so
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even if you have a very bright bulb
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sitting right next to you that's not
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going to do the job your phone will not
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do the job not early in the day to get
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the cortisol released at the appropriate
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time you need to get outside so let's
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just set a couple General parameters if
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it's bright outside and no cloud cover
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get outside for 10 minutes if it's a
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cloudy day dense overcast you're
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probably going to need about 30 minutes
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if it's light Cloud broken cloud cover
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it's probably going to be somewhere
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between 10 and 20 minutes this is why
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it's vital to get this light on a
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regular basis to get that cortisol
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released early in the day that sets you
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up for optimal levels of energy now
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throughout the day you're going to
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experience different things most of you
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are not spending your entire day trying
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to optimize your health you know some of
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you might be but most of you have jobs
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and you have families and you have
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commitments life enters the picture and
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provides you stressors those will cause
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increases in cortisol and
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epinephrine the key is these blips and
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cortisol and epinephrine need to be
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brief you can't have them so often or
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lasting so long that you are in a state
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of chronic cortisol elevation or chronic
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epinephrine elevation this system of
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stress was designed to increase your
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alertness and mobilize you towards
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things get you frustrated and provide
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the opportunity to change Behavior and
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the reason it works is that cortisol
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when it's released into the bloodstream
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it actually can bind to receptors in the
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brain it can bind receptors in the
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amydala fear centers and threat
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detection centers but also areas of the
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brain that are involved in learning and
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memory and neuroplasticity and this is
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why I say that neuroplasticity the
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brain's ability to change itself in
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response to experience is first
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stimulated by attention and focus and
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often a low-level state of agitation so
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understand that and you won't be quite
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so troubled about the little stress
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increases that you experience throughout
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the day now there are ways to leverage
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stress epinephrine and cortisol in ways
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that serve you and to do it in a
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deliberate way there are also ways to do
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that that increase your level of stress
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threshold meaning they make it less
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likely that epinephrine and cortisol
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will be released so I want to talk about
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the science of those practices because I
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get asked about these practices a lot
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things like Wim Hoff breathing which is
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also called Tumo breathing things like
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ice baths things like high-intensity
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interval training
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all of those things have
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utility the question is how you use them
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and how often you use them those tools
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just like stress from a life event can
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either enhance your immunity or deplete
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it that's right those same practices of
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ice baths Tumo breathing high-intensity
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interval training or training of any
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kind can deplete your immune system or
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it can improve them excuse me they can
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improve it meaning they can improve your
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immune system
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the key is how often you use them and
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when and so I want to review that now in
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light of the scientific literature
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because in doing that you can build
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practices into your daily or maybe every
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other day routine that can really help
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buffer you against
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unhealthy levels of cortisol and
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epinephrine meaning cortisol increases
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that are much too great or that last
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much too long epinephrine increases that
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are much too great or that last much too
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long let's say somebody tells you
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something very troubling or you look at
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your phone and you see a text message
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that's really upsetting to you that will
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cause an immediate increase in
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epinephrine adrenaline in your brain and
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body and chances are it's going to
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increase your levels of cortisol as well
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let's say you get into an ice bath or a
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cold shower that will cause an
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equivalent increase in epinephrine and
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cortisol let's say you go out for
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high-intensity interval training you
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decide you're going to run some Sprints
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you do some repeats or you're going to
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do some weightlifting in the gym or you
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decide that you want to do some hot yoga
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you're going to increase your
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epinephrine and cortisol levels and
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guess what they increase your levels of
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energy and alertness so if you're
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somebody who struggles with energy and
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alertness it can be beneficial provided
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you get clearance from your doctor to
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have some sort of protocol built into
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your day where you deliberately increase
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your levels of epinephrine and your
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levels of cortisol so it's really
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important to understand that the body
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doesn't distinguish between a troubling
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text message ICE Tumo breathing or
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high-intensity interval training or any
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other kind of exercise it's all
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stress cognitively reframing that and
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telling yourself I like this I enjoy it
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is not going to change the way that that
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molecule impacts your body and brain I
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sort of chuckle because people would
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love to tell you that all you have to do
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is say oh this is good for me no what it
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does to tell yourself that it's good for
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you or that you enjoy it is it that it
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liberates other molecules like dopam
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dopamine and serotonin that help buffer
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the epinephrine response now the way
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that it does that I've talked about
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previous episode but I'll just mention
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that dopamine is the precursor to
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epinephrine epinephrine is made from
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dopamine and that's why if you tell
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yourself you're enjoying something and
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because dopamine is so subjective that
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you can in some ways as long as you're
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not completely lying to yourself you can
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get more epinephrine you get more or
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more ability to push through something
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and you can sort of reframe it but it's
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not really cognitive reframing the
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cognitive part is the trigger but the
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it's a chemical substance that's
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actually occurring there it's dopamine
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giving you more
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epinephrine a bigger amplitude
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epinephrine release and it gives you
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some sense of control so here's a
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protocol that anyone can use if you want
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to increase levels of energy if you
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suffer from low energy during the
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daytime or whenever it is you'd like to
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be alert pick a practice that you can do
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fairly consistently maybe every day but
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maybe every third day or every fourth
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day maybe it's an ice bath or a cold
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bath maybe it's a cold shower maybe it's
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the cyclic in inhale exhale breathing
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protocol I described if that wasn't
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clear and people always ask for a demo
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I'm not going to do the whole thing
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right now but I'm willing to do a few
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rounds of this or a few Cycles I should
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say so it's
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inhale I would do that more deeply more
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like
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like you do that 25 30 times repeatedly
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you will start to feel warm people in
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the yoga Community they say you're
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generating heat you're not generating
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heat you're releasing adrenaline inhale
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exhale inhale exhale 25 or 30 times you
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will feel agitated and stressed that's
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because you're releasing adrenaline in
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your body and that's because you're
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releasing norepinephrine in your brain
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and you'll be more alert so if all these
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protocols all these activities are just
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equivalent they're just stress then how
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do we make them good for us how do we
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actually benefit from them now of course
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the cold itself can have some health
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promoting effects it can increase Brown
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fat thermogenesis and Metabolism
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high-intensity interval training or
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other forms of exercise of course has
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cardiovascular effects that can be good
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for us as does weight training Etc but
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what we're talking about here are ways
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to increase energy and to teach our
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brain and body to teach ourselves how to
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regulate the stress response so in
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addition to the benefits of the actual
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practices what we're talking about is
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building a system so that when you
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experience increases in epinephrine and
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cortisol from Life events you're able to
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better buffer those and we are also
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talking about ways that you can increase
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energy overall because that's what
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today's episode is all about energy in
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the immune system there's a biological
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mechanism that's very important if you
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want to do those things increase energy
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and your immune system on demand learn
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learn to buffer stress on demand in real
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time and it means taking these
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protocols these practices whether or not
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it's cold water or ice bath or exercise
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or any of those and making one small but
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very powerful adjustment in how you
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perform them but in order to make that
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adjustment I can't just tell you the
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adjustment I have to tell you the
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mechanism so that you know if you're
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doing it correctly or not this is really
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a case where if you can understand a
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little bit of mechanis M you will be far
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better off than just adopting
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protocols cortisol as I mentioned is
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released from the adrenals it can have
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action both in the body and in the brain
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cortisol can cross the blood brain
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barrier epinephrine cannot that's one of
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the reasons why it's released both from
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the adrenals in your body and released
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from this brain stem area the locus
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culus in your brain that's a powerful
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thing because what it means is that the
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body can enter states of Readiness and
00:16:02
alertness while the Mind remains calm so
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I'm presuming at this point that you're
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getting your morning light to time your
00:16:09
cortisol increase I'm presuming that you
00:16:13
want more energy or that you want to
00:16:15
increase your immune system's function
00:16:17
and its ability to combat infections of
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various kinds now the simplest way to
00:16:23
describe how to do that would be in the
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context of cold water or a breathing
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protocol let's presume cold water so
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let's say you decide you're going to
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take a cold shower you get into the cold
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shower and if it's cold enough that will
00:16:34
be stressful you will experience an
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increase in epinephrine it will increase
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your alertness now you're using this as
00:16:41
a practice as a tool to build you could
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call it resilience but the ability to
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stay calm in the mind while being
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stressed in the body epinephrine in the
00:16:50
body and you do that by subjectively
00:16:53
trying to calm yourself now you can do
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that by telling yourself it's good for
00:16:56
you by emphasizing your exhales anything
00:17:00
that you can do to try and stay calm
00:17:02
despite the fact that you are in a
00:17:03
heightened state of alertness you do
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this with exercise you could do this
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with music pretty much anything that
00:17:09
will give you a really heightened state
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of
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alertness offers you the opportunity to
00:17:14
try and stay calm in the mind what
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you're trying to do at a mechanistic
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level is to have adrenaline released
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from the adrenals but not have
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adrenaline epinephrine released from the
00:17:25
brain stem to the same degree so you're
00:17:28
not just trying to buffer this you're
00:17:29
not trying to say oh this is good for me
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this is good for me I'm going to grind
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this out you're not trying to grind it
00:17:33
out you're trying to move through this
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calmly while maintaining alertness in
00:17:38
the immediate period following that
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practice your system your entire brain
00:17:44
and body are different your body is
00:17:47
actually primed to resist infection when
00:17:51
you have high levels of epinephrine in
00:17:53
it for short periods of time so the
00:17:55
scientific study that explored how
00:17:57
increasing adrenaline in the body can
00:18:00
improve immune resistance is grounded in
00:18:02
a well-known phenomenon that increases
00:18:06
in stress actually protect you against
00:18:09
infection in the short term so I want to
00:18:12
look at the classic data first describe
00:18:15
what was done and then I want to talk
00:18:16
about the more recent study which is
00:18:18
immediately actionable there are a
00:18:20
classic set of studies that are really
00:18:22
based mainly on the work of somebody
00:18:24
named Bruce mckuin who was at the
00:18:25
Rockefeller University in New York I'm
00:18:28
not going to go through all the details
00:18:29
of the study but essentially what they
00:18:30
were doing was exposing subjects to some
00:18:34
sort of infection either bacterial or
00:18:37
viral infection and inducing stress
00:18:40
sounds like a double whammy right you'd
00:18:42
think that maybe getting a little
00:18:43
electric foot shock or cold water
00:18:45
exposure or something to increase your
00:18:48
levels of stress and adrenaline would
00:18:50
just make the effects of the infection
00:18:52
worse but no quite the
00:18:54
opposite brief bouts of stress which now
00:18:58
you should be thinking about in terms of
00:18:59
cortisol and epinephrine release we
00:19:02
actually able to increase immune system
00:19:05
function the duration here is really
00:19:07
important because if stress stayed too
00:19:10
high for too long then yes indeed stress
00:19:13
can hinder the immune response but for a
00:19:17
period of about 1 to 4 days it actually
00:19:19
can protect you by way of increasing the
00:19:22
immune response there's a human study
00:19:24
that I definitely want to point out to
00:19:26
you because it it was published more
00:19:29
recently than the mchan work the title
00:19:31
of the paper is voluntary activation of
00:19:33
the sympathetic nervous system that's
00:19:34
the system that causes figh ORF flight
00:19:36
and AKA stress this is Cox Kox at all PN
00:19:41
proceedings of the National Academy of
00:19:42
Sciences 2014 and they incorporate the
00:19:45
ever famous Wim Hoff breathing here's
00:19:47
what they
00:19:48
did they injected people with
00:19:53
eoli and they had groups that either did
00:19:57
the sorts of breathing I've been
00:19:58
described ring that increase adrenaline
00:20:00
release although I should say I don't
00:20:02
think you need that breathing to get
00:20:05
adrenaline release you could do it with
00:20:06
cold exposure you could do it with other
00:20:08
things high-intensity interval training
00:20:10
as well and what they found was that
00:20:15
the response to the ecoli was quite
00:20:18
different in the people that had a
00:20:20
protocol in this case breathing to
00:20:22
increase adrenaline so this is a
00:20:26
remarkable study because what they found
00:20:27
was that The Fever The vomiting all the
00:20:30
negative effects of eoli many of them
00:20:34
and some cases all of them were greatly
00:20:36
attenuated by way of engaging the
00:20:39
adrenaline system the point is you can
00:20:42
control your immune system by finding a
00:20:44
way that you can increase adrenaline and
00:20:47
this runs counter to what we always hear
00:20:50
which is don't get too stressed or you
00:20:51
will get sick learn to control
00:20:54
adrenaline turn it on and turn it off
00:20:56
learn to control cortisol turn it on
00:20:59
with light in the morning try and turn
00:21:00
it off and then when it spikes because
00:21:02
of Life events learn to turn it off
00:21:06
learning to turn on and off
00:21:08
adrenaline AKA epinephrine and learning
00:21:12
to turn on and off
00:21:14
cortisol affords you the ability to turn
00:21:16
on energy and focus and your immune
00:21:19
system that's the most important point
00:21:21
from today's podcast and understanding
00:21:24
that it doesn't matter what protocol you
00:21:26
use maybe it's a cup of coffee and
00:21:28
running up a Hill five or six times that
00:21:29
will improve your immune system function
00:21:31
if you get adrenaline in your system you
00:21:33
can use a ice bath you can use a cold
00:21:35
bath it really doesn't matter so up
00:21:37
until now we've been talking about
00:21:39
increasing energy and increasing the
00:21:41
immune system by way of cortisol and
00:21:44
epinephrine but I'd be totally remiss if
00:21:47
I didn't cover how cortisol and
00:21:50
epinephrine if chronically elevated or
00:21:53
if elevated too high can have a lot of
00:21:56
detrimental effects your immune system
00:21:58
over time will get battered and you
00:22:00
won't be able to fight infection off as
00:22:01
well right you can start laying down the
00:22:05
sort of classic pattern of cortisol
00:22:07
induced body fat why do we seek high fat
00:22:11
Andor high sugar foods when we are
00:22:14
stressed for a while why would that be
00:22:17
and the reason is that the so-call
00:22:19
glucocorticoids of which cortisol is a
00:22:24
glucocorticoid it's caused as we've
00:22:26
mentioned before by releasing hormones
00:22:27
from the brain and AC th from the
00:22:29
pituitary Etc but normally high levels
00:22:32
of glucocorticoid shut off the releasing
00:22:36
hormones in the brain and in the
00:22:37
pituitary they shut down in a so-called
00:22:40
negative feedback loop chronic stress
00:22:43
however stress that lasts more than four
00:22:46
to seven days causes changes in the
00:22:50
feedback loop between the adrenals and
00:22:54
the brain and the pituitary such that
00:22:57
now the brain and the tary respond to
00:22:59
high levels of glucocorticoids cortisol
00:23:01
by releasing more of them it becomes a
00:23:03
positive feedback loop and that's bad
00:23:06
it's a Cascade of stress equals more
00:23:09
stress equals more stress so this is why
00:23:11
it's very important to learn to turn off
00:23:13
the stress response so there's one study
00:23:15
that doin her colleagues did where they
00:23:17
stimulate chronic stress by increasing
00:23:19
corticosterone but
00:23:21
cortisol and they found that subjects
00:23:24
would in increase their consumption of
00:23:26
sugar and fat in fact they would even
00:23:29
eat lard and that led to all sorts of
00:23:30
things like type 2 diabetes um that led
00:23:34
to dysfunction in the adrenal output Etc
00:23:38
and so the real key is to learn to shut
00:23:40
off the stress response and you should
00:23:42
uh watch yourself next time you
00:23:44
experience stress if it's a short-term
00:23:45
bow of stress typically it blocks hunger
00:23:49
if it's a longer bow of stress typically
00:23:52
it triggers hunger in particular for
00:23:53
these so-called Comfort Foods sugary and
00:23:55
fatty foods other bad effects of stress
00:23:58
is that yes indeed stress can make you
00:24:01
go gray pigmentation of hair just like
00:24:04
pigmentation of skin is controlled by
00:24:07
melanocytes well it turns out that
00:24:10
activation of the so-called sympathetic
00:24:13
nervous system which is really just
00:24:14
another name for the system that
00:24:16
liberates adrenaline from the adrenals
00:24:19
and epinephrine in the brain drives
00:24:22
depletion of melanocytes in hair stem
00:24:25
cells so indeed there's a rate of age
00:24:28
that we will undergo based on our
00:24:30
genetics but stress will make us go
00:24:32
great how do I know the difference
00:24:34
between chronic and AC acute stress and
00:24:36
how do I keep chronic stress at Bay once
00:24:40
again getting your light and your
00:24:43
feeding and your exercise and your sleep
00:24:47
on a consistent schedule or consistent
00:24:50
is is going to be the most powerful
00:24:52
thing you can do in order to buffer
00:24:54
yourself against negative effects on
00:24:57
Mental Health and phys physical health
00:24:58
for that matter there are things that
00:25:01
one can take supplements prescription
00:25:03
drugs Etc all supplements of course have
00:25:06
to be checked out for their safety
00:25:07
margins for you because it's going to
00:25:09
differ from person to person you're
00:25:10
responsible for making sure they're safe
00:25:12
for you if you decide to use them one of
00:25:14
the most common ones is
00:25:17
ashwagandha it has a very strong effect
00:25:20
on cortisol itself how strong the
00:25:23
decrease in cortisol noted in humans is
00:25:26
14.5 to 27.9 9% reduction in otherwise
00:25:30
healthy but stressed humans the other
00:25:33
compound that I think deserves attention
00:25:35
is appenine a p i GE n i n appenine
00:25:40
which is what's found in chamomile I
00:25:45
take it before bedtime 50 milligrams the
00:25:47
major source of action is to calm the
00:25:50
nervous system and it does that
00:25:52
primarily by adjusting things like Gaba
00:25:55
and chloride channels but also has a
00:25:56
mild effect in reducing cortisol so
00:25:59
asoag gandha and Aenon together sort of
00:26:02
uh I would consider the most
00:26:05
potent commercial compounds that are in
00:26:07
supplement non-prescription form that
00:26:10
one could use if they were interested in
00:26:12
reducing chronic stress especially late
00:26:15
in the day by way of reducing cortisol
00:26:17
late in the day so you're probably
00:26:18
getting the impression that cortisol and
00:26:20
epinephrine are a bit of a double-edged
00:26:21
sword you want them elevated but not for
00:26:24
too long or too much you don't want them
00:26:27
up for days and days and days but you do
00:26:29
want to have a practice in order to
00:26:31
increase them in the short term
00:26:35
so we should talk about protocols that
00:26:38
can set a foundation of of cortisol and
00:26:42
epinephrine that is headed towards
00:26:44
optimal optimization is always going to
00:26:46
be a series of regular practices that
00:26:48
you do every day so sleeping at certain
00:26:50
times light at specific times food at
00:26:52
specific times certain foods Etc and
00:26:54
that's highly individual but there are
00:26:55
some universals and we've covered a
00:26:57
number of those in the discussion today
00:27:00
meal timing meal schedules has a
00:27:03
profound effect on energy levels and as
00:27:06
I mentioned before the energy I'm
00:27:08
referring to is not glucose energy so
00:27:11
what I'm talking about is neural energy
00:27:12
epinephrine and
00:27:14
cortisol fasting and timing ones eating
00:27:18
are two sides of the same coin when our
00:27:20
blood glucose is low cortisol and
00:27:22
epinephrine are going to go up anytime
00:27:24
we hav't eaten for 4 to 6 hours levels
00:27:27
of epinephrine and cortisol are going to
00:27:28
go up pretty substantially one thing
00:27:30
that many people do to great benefit is
00:27:33
they follow a so-called circadian eating
00:27:35
schedule they eat only when the Sun is
00:27:38
up they stop when the sun is down more
00:27:40
or less the other way to think about
00:27:43
this is they stop eating a couple hours
00:27:44
before sleep and they eat more or less
00:27:46
upon waking assuming that they're waking
00:27:48
up more or less around the time the sun
00:27:50
rises maybe plus or minus 2 hours now
00:27:53
let's say you decide to do what I do
00:27:56
which is I skip breakfast I drink water
00:27:58
I delay my caffeine for 90 minutes to 2
00:28:00
hours and then I drink my caffeine and
00:28:02
then my first meal is typically around
00:28:04
lunchtime 11:30 or 12 so I've got a
00:28:06
cortisol increase I've got my sunlight
00:28:08
in the morning so I'm getting a big
00:28:10
pulse in energy early in the day and yes
00:28:12
there's a little bit of agitation I am
00:28:13
hungry sometimes early in the day
00:28:15
sometimes no but my grillin system is
00:28:17
used to kicking in right around noon at
00:28:21
the point where I eat as long as I don't
00:28:23
eat
00:28:24
carbohydrate in my case I know that my
00:28:26
epinephrine levels are going to stay
00:28:28
stay pretty high so for me it's usually
00:28:30
meat and salad or something of that sort
00:28:32
or fish and salad so fasting is a tool
00:28:36
for many reasons can increase growth
00:28:38
hormone Etc but today I'm talking about
00:28:41
fasting as a tool to bias your system
00:28:44
toward more epinephrine adrenaline
00:28:46
release and toward more cortisol release
00:28:48
but still low enough that it's not
00:28:50
chronic stress that it's not causing
00:28:52
negative health effects one has to learn
00:28:54
how to regulate these hormones with
00:28:56
behavior with nutrition perhaps with
00:28:58
supplementation I also want to mention
00:29:00
again that I think there's great benefit
00:29:01
to having a practice that perhaps you do
00:29:03
every other day but if you can't maybe
00:29:05
every third day or every other day of
00:29:08
deliberately increasing your adrenaline
00:29:10
in your body while learning to stay calm
00:29:12
in the mind so that you learn to
00:29:14
separate the brain body experience the
00:29:16
idea is to stay calm in your mind so
00:29:18
that then you can regulate your action
00:29:20
so once again we've covered a ton of
00:29:23
material I hope right now you're
00:29:25
thinking okay am I in a state of chronic
00:29:28
stress am I under activated or could I
00:29:30
afford to increase my levels of
00:29:32
adrenaline cortisol to improve my
00:29:34
relationship to my immune system and to
00:29:37
energy neural energy and I hope that
00:29:40
you'll think about some of the ways in
00:29:42
which cortisol and adrenaline are not
00:29:46
good or bad that stress isn't good or
00:29:48
bad but short-term stress is healthy
00:29:50
alertness and energy is healthy even if
00:29:51
it puts you at the edge of agitation
00:29:54
that's an opportunity to learn how to
00:29:55
control these hormones better and I hope
00:29:58
hope that if you're in a state of
00:29:59
chronic stress that you'll do things to
00:30:01
start tamping down some of that stress
00:30:04
and that you realize that your nervous
00:30:06
system and your hormone system are
00:30:07
linked but they're linked in ways that
00:30:09
you can control that we don't have to be
00:30:11
slaves to our hormones and certainly not
00:30:13
the hormones that cause us stress we can
00:30:14
learn to control those both to the
00:30:16
benefit of our body and benefit of mind
00:30:19
thank you for joining me for what I hope
00:30:21
was an informative discussion and an
00:30:23
actionable discussion about how to
00:30:25
increase energy and the immune system by
00:30:28
way of cortisol and adrenaline
00:30:30
epinephrine I really appreciate your
00:30:33
willingness to learn new topics as well
00:30:35
as to embrace and think about new tools
00:30:37
and whether or not they're right for you
00:30:39
and as always thank you for your
00:30:41
interest in science
00:30:44
[Music]
