Neuroscientist: You Will NEVER Feel Stressed Again | Andrew Huberman

Summary

The script discusses the effectiveness of mindfulness, meditation, and exercise in reducing stress but highlights the challenge of using these top-down mechanisms during high-stress periods. It introduces 'physiological sighing' as a scientifically-backed, real-time stress reduction technique. By manipulating the autonomic nervous system through breathing patterns—specifically, making exhales longer than inhales—the script explains how this method can rapidly calm the body's stress response. The physiological sigh, a natural response to stress or sleep, is shown to be a powerful tool for immediate stress relief, bypassing the need for mental control.

Takeaways

• 🧘 Mindfulness and meditation, exercise, and adequate sleep are commonly known stress reducers, but they can be difficult to implement during stressful moments.
• 🌪 Life's unpredictability often makes it challenging to use top-down mechanisms like intention and gratitude to manage stress effectively.
• 🔄 The physiological response is a fast and hard-wired way to eliminate the stress response in real time, which is often activated involuntarily but can also be engaged consciously.
• 🏥 Scientific studies, including those conducted at Jack Feldman's Lab at UCLA, have shown the effectiveness of physiological techniques in reducing stress.
• 🤔 The autonomic nervous system, which controls general features of alertness or calmness, can be influenced by certain breathing techniques.
• 💨 Breath work is a method of deliberately breathing in a specific way to shift physiology and access certain states, but it's not the focus of the script's discussion on stress reduction.
• 🫁 The diaphragm's movement during inhalation and exhalation directly affects heart rate through the interaction of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.
• 📉 To slow the heart rate and reduce stress, one should exhale more than they inhale, which capitalizes on the relationship between the body, heart, and brain.
• 🛑 The physiological sigh, a technique involving a double inhale and long exhale, is a powerful tool for calming down quickly and is grounded in physiology and neuroscience.
• 💤 The physiological sigh is a natural response that occurs when we are about to fall asleep, during sleep, or when trying to recover from intense emotions or environments.
• 🔄 The diaphragm is a unique internal organ that can be controlled voluntarily, allowing for the intentional manipulation of the physiological sigh to manage stress.

Q & A

What are the common methods mentioned for reducing stress?

The script mentions mindfulness, meditation, exercise, and getting enough sleep as common methods for reducing stress.

What is the physiological response to stress as described in the script?

The physiological response to stress includes the heart beating faster, blood being shuttled to the big muscles, and a flushed face, among other things.

How does the autonomic nervous system relate to stress?

The autonomic nervous system is responsible for the general features of alertness or calmness in the body, and it plays a role in the stress response by controlling automatic bodily functions like heart rate.

What is the relationship between breathing and heart rate as explained in the script?

The script explains that inhaling can speed up the heart rate by causing the heart to expand and blood to move more slowly, while exhaling can slow down the heart rate by making the heart more compact and blood to flow more quickly.

What is the physiological sigh and how is it used to reduce stress?

The physiological sigh is a breathing technique where a double inhale is followed by a long exhale. It is used to reduce stress by re-inflating the lungs' alveoli and effectively ridding the body of carbon dioxide, which can help to calm down quickly.

How does the diaphragm play a role in controlling heart rate?

The diaphragm, when it moves down during inhalation, causes the heart to expand, leading to slower blood flow and a subsequent signal from the sinoatrial node to speed up the heart rate. Conversely, when the diaphragm moves up during exhalation, it causes the heart to become more compact, leading to faster blood flow and a signal to slow down the heart rate.

What is the significance of the sinoatrial node in the context of the script?

The sinoatrial node is a group of neurons in the heart that register changes in blood flow rate through the heart and send signals to the brain, which then sends signals back to adjust the heart rate accordingly.

How does the script differentiate between regular breath work and physiological sighing?

Regular breath work involves deliberate breathing for a series of minutes to shift physiology, while physiological sighing is a more spontaneous and involuntary response that can be consciously utilized to quickly reduce stress.

What are the benefits of using physiological sighing as a stress reduction tool according to the script?

The benefits of using physiological sighing include its ability to work in real time, requiring no separate practice or learning, and its effectiveness in modulating the stress response quickly.

How does the script suggest using the physiological sigh to manage stress in daily life?

The script suggests using the physiological sigh by doing a double inhale followed by a long exhale one to three times when feeling stressed, which can quickly reduce the level of stress.

What ongoing research is mentioned in the script regarding the physiological sigh and stress response?

The script mentions ongoing research in collaboration with David Spiegel's lab at Stanford, exploring how physiological sighing and other deliberate breathing patterns can modulate the stress response and emotionality.

Outlines

00:00

🧘‍♂️ Harnessing Physiological Breathing for Stress Relief

This paragraph discusses the importance of mindfulness, meditation, and exercise for overall well-being and the challenges of maintaining these practices amidst life's stressors. It introduces the concept of 'physiological Psy' as a powerful, scientifically-backed technique for reducing stress in real time. The autonomic nervous system, which controls involuntary body functions like heart rate, is directly influenced by breathing patterns. The speaker explains how inhaling more than exhaling can speed up the heart rate, while the opposite can slow it down, providing a method to control the body's stress response. The paragraph emphasizes the immediacy and effectiveness of this technique, contrasting it with other stress-relief methods that require more time and practice.

05:02

💡 Real-Time Stress Management with Physiological Breathing Techniques

Building on the previous paragraph, this section delves deeper into the physiological underpinnings of stress management through breathing. It highlights the real-time applicability of these techniques, which do not require separate practice and can be utilized immediately during moments of stress. The speaker describes the 'physiological sigh' as a natural response to stress, sleep, and emotional recovery, which can be harnessed voluntarily to calm down. The diaphragm's unique role as a controllable internal organ is emphasized, along with its connection to the brain via the phrenic nerve. The paragraph also explains how a double inhale followed by a long exhale can reinflate lung sacs and expel carbon dioxide, leading to rapid relaxation. Ongoing research is mentioned, indicating the potential of these techniques in modulating the stress response and emotional states.

10:04

🛑 Immediate Stress Reduction with the Physiological Sigh

The final paragraph emphasizes the practicality of the physiological sigh as an immediate tool for stress reduction. It acknowledges the difficulty of using top-down mechanisms like intention and gratitude when highly stressed or tired. The physiological sigh is presented as a powerful alternative that can quickly lower autonomic activation and reduce alertness levels. The speaker suggests performing the double inhale and exhale technique one to three times to rapidly decrease stress levels. The paragraph concludes by reinforcing the effectiveness of this method as the fastest known way to alleviate stress in real-time, bypassing the challenges of controlling the mind during heightened states of activation.

Keywords

💡Mindfulness

Mindfulness refers to the practice of being fully present and engaged in the moment without judgment. It is a key concept in the video as it is mentioned alongside meditation and exercise as beneficial for well-being. However, the script emphasizes that while mindfulness is important, it can be challenging to employ during high-stress situations, which is where physiological techniques come into play.

💡Meditation

Meditation is a practice where an individual uses a technique to focus their mind, often aiming to achieve mental clarity and emotional calmness. In the video, it is highlighted as a beneficial activity for reducing stress but also noted that it may not be immediately accessible during times of acute stress, contrasting with the more immediate physiological techniques discussed.

💡Exercise

Exercise is any bodily activity that enhances or maintains physical fitness and overall health. The script mentions it as a positive activity for health, but like mindfulness and meditation, it may not offer immediate relief during stressful moments. The video suggests that physiological techniques can provide a faster, real-time response to stress.

💡Sleep

Sleep is a naturally recurring state of mind and body, characterized by altered consciousness, reduced sensory activity, inhibition of nearly all voluntary muscle activity, and decreased interactions with surroundings. The video script notes the importance of getting enough sleep for overall health but also points out that life's challenges can interfere with this basic need.

💡Stress Response

The stress response is the body's reaction to a stimulus or stressor and can manifest through physiological, emotional, or behavioral changes. In the context of the video, it is the rapid and automatic reaction the body has to stress, which can include an increased heart rate and other 'fight or flight' responses. The video discusses how physiological techniques can help manage this response in real time.

💡Autonomic Nervous System

The autonomic nervous system (ANS) is a part of the peripheral nervous system that regulates involuntary bodily functions such as heartbeat, digestion, and respiration. The video explains that the ANS is involved in the body's stress response and that certain breathing techniques can influence its activity, thereby helping to control stress.

💡Diaphragm

The diaphragm is a dome-shaped muscle that separates the thoracic cavity from the abdominal cavity and plays a crucial role in the breathing process. The script explains how the movement of the diaphragm during inhalation and exhalation directly affects the heart rate and, by extension, the body's stress response.

💡Sinoatrial Node

The sinoatrial node, or SA node, is a group of cells in the heart that act as the heart's natural pacemaker, regulating the heart rate. The video describes how the SA node responds to the volume and speed of blood flow within the heart, which can be influenced by breathing patterns.

💡Physiological Breathing

Physiological breathing refers to the natural breathing patterns that occur in response to the body's needs, such as during sleep or when crying. The video discusses how these patterns can be utilized consciously to manage stress and promote relaxation, particularly through the technique of double inhale and long exhale.

💡Parasympathetic Nervous System

The parasympathetic nervous system is a part of the ANS that is responsible for the 'rest and digest' response, which conserves energy and promotes digestion. In the video, it is mentioned that the parasympathetic nervous system is engaged when exhaling more than inhaling, which can help to slow the heart rate and reduce stress.

💡Real-Time Tools

Real-time tools, in the context of the video, are techniques or methods that provide immediate relief or results without delay. The script emphasizes the importance of having tools that can be used in the moment to reduce stress, such as the physiological breathing techniques discussed.

Highlights

Mindfulness, meditation, and exercise are beneficial for reducing stress, but they can be challenging to apply in stressful situations.

The physiological response is the fastest and most direct way to eliminate stress in real time.

Stressful situations often cause involuntary physiological reactions that can be activated voluntarily to reduce stress.

Scientific studies from labs at UCLA and Stanford support the effectiveness of physiological techniques for stress reduction.

The autonomic nervous system, which controls alertness and calmness, can be influenced by breathing techniques.

Breathing exercises, specifically controlling the duration of inhales and exhales, can directly affect heart rate and stress response.

The diaphragm's movement during breathing influences the heart's size and blood flow, which in turn affects heart rate.

Inhaling more than exhaling speeds up the heart rate, while exhaling more slows it down, providing a method to control stress.

The physiological sigh, a deep breathing pattern, is a powerful tool for stress reduction and is naturally used in sleep and recovery.

The diaphragm is a unique internal organ that can be controlled voluntarily, unlike other organs.

The physiological sigh involves a double inhale and long exhale, which is effective in reducing stress and agitation.

Breathing patterns can modulate the stress response and emotionality, as being studied in ongoing research.

The physiological sigh is a fast and effective method to reduce stress, bypassing the need for top-down mental control.

Using the physiological sigh can quickly lower the level of autonomic activation, or alertness, during stressful situations.

The physiological sigh can be performed one to three times to rapidly reduce stress in various situations.

The physiological response provides a practical tool for managing stress in real time without the need for separate practice or learning.

Transcripts

I think most people have heard that

mindfulness and meditation is good

exercise is good for us we all need to

be getting enough sleep Etc but life

happens we are very alert we're very

sleepy it is very hard to use these

so-called top-down mechanisms of

intention and gratitude but it's very

clear that the physiological Psy is the

fastest

hard-wired way for us to eliminate this

stressful response in our body quickly

in real time

it turns out you're all doing this all

the time but you are doing it

involuntarily and when you stress you

tend to forget that you can also

activate these systems voluntarily this

is an extremely powerful set of

techniques that we know from scientific

studies that are being done in my lab

Jack Feldman's Lab at UCLA and others

that are very very useful for reducing

your stress response in real time and

here's how they work as far as I am

aware of the best tools to reduce stress

quickly so-called real-time tools are

going to be tools that have a direct

line to the so-called autonomic nervous

system the autonomic nervous system is a

name given to the kind of General

features of alertness or calmness in the

body typically it means automatic

although we do have some control over it

certain what so-called levers or entry

points and the tool that at least to my

knowledge is the fastest and most

thoroughly grounded in physiology

Neuroscience for calming down in a

self-directed way is What's called the

physiological Psy these days there seems

to be a lot of interest in breath work

breath work typically is when you go and

you sit down or you lie down and you

deliberately breathe in a particular way

for a series of minutes in order to

shift your physiology access some states

and it does have some utility that we're

going to talk about that is not what I'm

talking about now

what I'm talking about when I refer to

physiological size is the very real

medical school textbook relationship

between the brain

the body and the Heart let's take the

Hallmark of the stress response the

heart starts beating faster blood is

shuttled to the big muscles of the body

to move you away from whatever it is the

stressor is or just make you feel like

you need to move or talk your face goes

flushed Etc

heart rate many of us feel is

involuntary just kind of functions

whether or not we're moving fast or

moving slow if you think about it it's

not really

purely autonomic because you can speed

up your heart rate by running or you can

slow it down by slowing down but that's

indirect control there is however a way

in which you can breathe that directly

controls your heart rate through the

interactions between the sympathetic and

the parasympathetic nervous system

here's how it works

when you inhale

so whether or not it's through the nose

or through the mouth

this skeletal muscle that's inside your

body called the diaphragm

it moves down and that's because the

lungs expand the diaphragm moves down

your heart actually gets a little bit

bigger in that expanded space there's

more space for the heart and as a

consequence whatever blood is in there

is now at a lower volume we're moving a

little bit more slowly in that larger

volume then it was a before you inhaled

okay so more space heart gets bigger

blood moves more slowly and there's a

little group of neurons called the

sinoatrial node in the heart that

registers it's believe it or not those

neurons pay attention to the rate of

blood flow through the heart and send a

signal up to the brain that blood is

moving more slowly through the heart

the brain then sends a signal back to

the heart to speed the heart up so what

this means is if you want your heart to

beat faster inhale longer

inhale more vigorously

than your exhales now there are a

variety of ways that one could do that

but it doesn't matter if it's through

the nose or through the mouth if your

inhales are longer than your exhales

you're speeding up your heart now the

opposite is also true if you want to

slow your heart rate down so stress

response hits you want to slow your

heart rate down what you want to do is

again capitalize on this relationship

between the body the meaning the

diaphragm and the heart and the Brain

here's how it works when you exhale

the diaphragm moves up which makes the

heart a little bit smaller it actually

gets a little more compact blood flows

more quickly through that compact space

sort of like just a pipe getting smaller

the sinoatrial node registers that blood

is going more quickly sends a signal up

to the brain and the parasympathetic

nervous system some neurons in your

brain stem send a signal back to the

heart to slow the heart down

so if you want to calm down quickly you

need to make your exhales longer

and or more vigorous than your inhales

now the reason this is so attractive as

a tool for controlling stress is that it

works in real time this doesn't involve

a practice that you have to go and sit

there and do anything separate from life

and we are going to get to emotion

emotions and stress happen in real time

and so while it's wonderful to have a

breath work practice or to have the

opportunity to get a massage or sit in a

sauna or do whatever it is that you do

in order to set your stress controls in

the right direction having tools that

you can reach to in real time that

require no learning I mean I had to

teach it to you you had to learn that

but it doesn't require any plasticity to

activate these Pathways so if you're

feeling stressed you still need to

inhale of course but you need to

lengthen your exhales

now there's a tool that capitalizes on

this in a kind of unique way a kind of a

Twist which is the physiological PSI the

physiological side was discovered in the

30s it's now been explored at the

neurobiological level and

mechanistically in far more detail by

Jack Feldman's Lab at UCLA also Mark

krasno's Lab at Stanford and the

physiological side is something that

humans and animals do anytime they are

about to fall asleep

you also do it throughout sleep from

time to time when carbon dioxide which

we'll talk about in a moment builds up

too much in your system and the

physiological side is something that

people naturally start doing when

they've been crying and they're trying

to recover some air or calm down when

they've been sobbing very hard or when

they are in claustrophobic environments

however

the amazing thing about this thing that

we call the diaphragm the skeletal

muscle is that it's an internal organ

that you can control voluntarily unlike

your spleen or your heart or your uh

your pancreas where you can't just say

oh I want to make my pancreas turn out a

little more insulin right now I'm just

going to do that with my mind directly

you can't do that you could do that by

smelling a really good donut or

something but you can't just do it

directly you can move your diaphragm

intentionally right you can do it

anytime you want and it'll run in the

background if you're not thinking about

it so this incredible pathway that goes

from brain to diaphragm through What's

called the phrenic nerve

p-h-r-e-n-i-c phrenic the phrenic nerve

innervates the diaphragm you control

anytime you want you can double up your

inhales or triple up your inhales you

can exhale more than your inhales

whatever you want to do

such an incredible organ and the

physiological Psy is something that we

do spontaneously but when you're feeling

stressed you can do a double inhale

long exhale now I just told you a minute

ago that if you inhale more than you

exhale you're going to speed the heart

rate up which would promote more stress

and activation now I'm telling you to do

a double inhale exhale in order to calm

down and the reason is the double inhale

exhale which is the physiological PSI

and

takes advantage of the fact that when we

do a double inhale even if the second

inhale is sneaking in just a tiny bit

more air because it's kind of hard to

get two deep inhales back to back you do

big deep inhale and then another little

one sneaking it in the little sacks in

your lungs if you only have the lungs

your lungs aren't just two big bags but

you've got millions of little sacks

throughout the lungs that actually make

the surface area of your lungs as big as

a tennis court it's amazing if we just

spread that out what those tend to

collapse as we get stressed and carbon

carbon dioxide builds up in our

bloodstream and that's one of the

reasons we feel agitated as well so and

it makes us very jittery I mean there's

some other effects of carbon dioxide I

want to get into but when you do the

double inhale exhale the double inhale

reinflates those little sacks of the

lungs and then when you do the long

exhale

that long exhale is now much more

effective at ridding your body and

bloodstream of carbon dioxide which

relaxes you very quickly my lab in

collaboration with David Spiegel's lab

David's the associate chair of

Psychiatry at Stanford are doing a study

right now exploring how physiological

size and other patterns of breathing

done deliberately can modulate the

stress response and other things related

to emotionality those work are ongoing I

want to be clear those studies aren't

done but it's very clear

from work in our Labs from working Jack

Feldman's lab and others that the

physiological Psy is the fastest

hard-wired way for us to eliminate this

stressful response in our body quickly

in real time and so I'm excited to give

you this tool because I think most

people have heard that mindfulness and

meditation is good exercise is good for

us we all need to be getting enough

sleep Etc but life happens and when you

find yourself in a position where you

are more alert and activated than you

would like to be regardless of whether

or not the stressor is relationship

based or it's Financial or it's physical

or anything like that you can look to

the physiological side because it

bypasses

a very important feature of how we

function which is that it's very hard to

control the mind with the Mind

especially when we are in heightened

states of activation we are very alert

we're very sleepy it is very hard to use

these so-called top-down mechanisms of

intention and gratitude and all these

things that are really powerful tools

when we are not super activated and

stressed or not super tired but when we

are anywhere in the range of very alert

and stress to very sleepy physiological

size are a powerful way of bringing our

level of so-called autonomic activation

which just means our level of alertness

down and so whether or not it's in line

at the bank or whether or not you're

wearing a mask nowadays or you're not

whatever you know whatever the

conditions may be where you're at and

your needs when you're feeling stressed

the physiological side done just one to

three times so it'd be double inhale

exhale double inhale exhale maybe just

two times we'll bring down your level of

stress very very fast and as far as I

know it's the fastest way to accomplish

that

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