Dr. Andrew Huberman: How Interoception Shapes Your Health

How sensing your heartbeat, gut stretch, and breath patterns steers mood and focus; Huberman explains interoception tools you can use to improve wellbeing.

Andrew Hubermanhost

Jun 5, 202535mWatch on YouTube ↗

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

Train your inner senses: How interoception reshapes health and performance

Andrew Huberman explains interoception—the brain’s sensing of internal bodily signals—and how it underpins emotions, health, and performance. He details the two main information streams (mechanical and chemical) flowing between organs and brain via the vagus nerve and related circuits. Practical examples span breathing, gut fullness and nutrients, microbiome health, nausea, fever, and emotional states. He emphasizes simple tools—like specific breathing patterns, fermented foods, and heartbeat awareness—to deliberately tune brain-body communication for better stress regulation, cognition, mood, and recovery.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

You can rapidly shift your mental state by changing your breathing mechanics.

Longer, emphasized exhales (e.g., physiological sigh: two inhales, long exhale) slow heart rate and promote calm, while vigorous or prolonged inhales with shorter exhales increase alertness and adrenaline.

Your gut’s mechanical and chemical signals strongly drive hunger and food-seeking.

Stretch receptors and nutrient-sensing neurons in the stomach and intestines tell the brain when to keep eating or stop, which means deliberately pausing to sense gut fullness can help override impulsive eating patterns.

Nutrient content—not taste—controls powerful gut-brain reward circuits linked to cravings.

GLP1R and other gut neurons respond to amino acids, fatty acids, and sugars even without taste input, so increasing omega-3 and protein-rich foods can reduce sugar cravings by satisfying these nutrient-sensing pathways.

Supporting a healthy gut microbiome with fermented foods reduces inflammation and boosts brain function.

Research comparing high-fiber versus fermented-food-enriched diets shows fermented foods more robustly lower inflammatory and autoimmune markers, which is associated with better cognition, sleep, immunity, and wound healing.

Nausea and vomiting are protective brain responses to dangerous blood chemistry—and can be modulated.

Specialized brainstem areas without full blood-brain barrier access blood chemistry and trigger vomiting; evidence shows 1–3 grams of ginger (and in some cases THC/CBD) can lower nausea by altering these circuits.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

Of all the topics I could cover, this thing that we call sense of self, which is also called interoception, has perhaps the most foundational level of importance for all that we feel, all that we do, and all that we are capable of doing.

— Andrew Huberman

If you want to be more calm, emphasize exhales.

— Andrew Huberman

One of the best things that you can do to have a healthy brain and a well-functioning body is to maintain proper gut chemistry.

— Andrew Huberman

The vagus nerve is not a calming system, it's a communication system.

— Andrew Huberman

Your sense of your internal landscape is linked to others.

— Andrew Huberman

Definition and importance of interoception (sense of internal bodily state)Brain–body communication via the vagus nerve and other pathwaysBreathing mechanics, heart rate control, and state regulationGut mechanics, nutrient sensing, microbiome, and inflammationChemical sensing of blood and cerebrospinal fluid (nausea and fever)Stress, emotion, and how bodily states shape mood and facial expressionPractical training of interoceptive awareness (e.g., sensing heartbeat)

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