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Dr. David DeSteno on Huberman Lab: Why Prayer Cuts Cortisol

Prayer mechanics slow breathing and raise vagal tone directly. DeSteno cites 30% lower all-cause mortality over 15 years in large longitudinal cohorts.

Andrew HubermanhostDr. David DeStenoguest
Aug 25, 20252h 24mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 2:10

    David DeSteno

    1. AH

      Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Dr. David DeSteno. Dr. David DeSteno is a professor of psychology at Northeastern University and an expert on the science of morality, religion, and the health benefits of belief in God and religion. Many people, perhaps most people actually, view science and religion as mutually exclusive. Today, Dr. DeSteno explains why that view is actually incorrect, and he also shares the data showing that religion and prayer have tremendous mental and physical benefits. We discuss the brain mechanisms that often lead people to embrace faith in God and religion, and we attempt to tackle some of the big questions that often come up around science and religion. For instance, can the existence of God actually be proven? Can it be disproven? If not, how should we think about miracles, the origin of life, and the afterlife? So, small questions like that. We also discuss where the line between rituals and suspicions resides and what distinguishes religions from cults. He also shares that despite the fact that more than 100 new religions surface every year, that was surprising to me, very few are able to last. That was not surprising. He also shares amazing data on when and how people lie for personal gain and the simple practices that convert liars into truth-tellers and that make people more empathic overall. To be clear, Dr. DeSteno is not promoting religion. He's a scientist, and his approach is to study in an unbiased way how belief in God and religious practices can benefit individuals and groups. Thanks to him, it's a remarkable conversation that I also believe is important, especially in this time of rapidly evolving AI technology and social media. I learned a ton speaking with him about science, God, and religion, and I'm certain that you will too. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero-cost-to-consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, today's episode does include sponsors. And now for my discussion with Dr. David DeSteno.

  2. 2:10 – 7:06

    Science & Belief in God, Does God Exist?

    1. AH

      Dr. David DeSteno, welcome.

    2. DD

      Thanks for having me, Andrew.

    3. AH

      For so many people, the idea of science and religion or science and God are opposite one another and maybe even, um, mutually antagonistic to one another, depending on who you're talking to and how it's framed. Uh, that makes sense, I think, to a lot of people, religious or not, just because on the face of it, science is supposed to be about disproving hypotheses. And religion, in most people's minds, is based on belief and faith in things that are difficult to disprove. Um, not impossible, perhaps, but difficult to disprove. And people go back and forth trying to prove the existence of God, trying to disprove the existence of God. This is going on for, um, many, many thousands of years.

    4. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    5. AH

      To start, I just want to know, what is your view on the compatibility of science and, let's just say, belief in God? Because religion and belief in God are somewhat separable-

    6. DD

      Sure.

    7. AH

      ... and we'll get into that. Uh, but to keep things simple, what do we know for sure about the compatibility or lack of compatibility between what we call science and a belief in God?

    8. DD

      To me, the question of belief in God, and you're right, it gets in the way of this, because people will say, "Well, if I believe in God, then I can't embrace science." And, and I think that's wrong. But let me start at the beginning and say why I think the question of "Does God exist?" isn't a useful question. It doesn't mean it's not an important question. As you said, people have been debating this for millennia. But it's not useful because as scientists, we can't prove it. Any scientist who tells you they know for sure God doesn't exist, you shouldn't listen to. Um, the reason I say that is oftentimes, we, you and I, as scientists, live by the data. We run experiments, and what's behind any experiment is we try to manipulate a variable, and we see if it produces a change. When you're talking about God, you can't do an experiment. And so, you know, I'll say the, the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Y- People hear that a lot, and it sounds like a cop-out. But in this case, it's not really. So, if I'm testing a new drug, I can have people take the drug and see if it combats a pathogen. And if it doesn't combat a pathogen, I can say, "Oh, all right, well, it doesn't seem to be working in this experiment." Any one experiment can fail for lots of reasons, and maybe people didn't take their medication the right way. Maybe it only works for a certain type of people. And so you can try it again and again in different cases, and you can kind of build up a sense of is there evidence here that this drug works or doesn't over time? And if it doesn't in any case, you might say, "Eh, maybe there's nothing there." With God, you can't even run the experiment. So, I'm a psychologist, and so most of what I do is I bring people into my lab. I study how emotions change their behavior, and so I'll bring people in, and I'll create two groups, um, of balanced gender and ideology and intelligence and all of those things. And to one of them, we'll change their emotional state, and I'll see if it'll do something. With God, you can't run an experiment. You can't manipulate God if God exists, right? People say, "Oh, Dave, I prayed for X, Y, and Z, and it didn't come true. So therefore, God must not exist." And I'm like, "Well, do you know the mind of God?" Maybe God only helps people God likes.

    9. AH

      (laughs)

    10. DD

      Maybe God only helps people on every third Tuesday, right? I don't know, and if I can't manipulate something about the mind of God, then I can't infer causality if God exists or doesn't exist. And so I think this question of "Does God exist?" is one science can't answer. I mean, I'm happy to say as a scientist I see no empirical evidence that God exists. But without being able to run an experiment to prove it, it's beyond the realm of science, and all it does is polarize us, right? It polarizes people into the camps that you're saying-But I think most people, the ones on, on X, are fundamentalists who are shouting, "Science is bad," or hardcore new atheists who are saying, "Religion is bad." I think most people live in the middle somewhere, and most people accept the view that there could be something there, and they're not in tension. And I think for a lot of history that was the... I mean, the Catholic Church funds research. They have a wonderful observatory, uh, to look at astronomical behavior. The Dalai Lama funds neuroscience, right, to understand how the mind works. And so, we had Francis Collins on the show, one of the, you know, great geneticists of our time. And for him, there's no tension. He says, "God..." He's a believer. "God created the human mind so that we could learn about the wonders of God's creation and how the world works." They don't need to be in tension. So, for me, I like to put that question to the side. What I'm interested in is the data that we'll talk about that shows engaging with religion makes life better for people, and why is that.

  3. 7:06 – 15:16

    Universe Origins & Scientific Questions; Religion & Life/Health Benefits

    1. DD

    2. AH

      I definitely want to go into all the practices that people can embrace, should they choose, that can indeed, according to the research, make life better, not just for them, but for many people.

    3. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    4. AH

      To ask a second version of the first question again, I'm wondering how you reconcile the argument that I've often heard where someone will say, "Okay, well, it's creation," and someone else will say, "No, it's evolution." And someone will say, "Well, who created evolution? It must have been God that created evolution." And... or we could be talking about the origins of the universe. Um, my dad's a theoretical physicist, and, uh, we've talked about this before. And, um, you know, he'll say, "Well, okay, so you have the Big Bang Theory, and then, uh, but, you know, we had to start from some place. And then, okay, well, then you had, um, you know, this, uh, soup of, of things that when combined started to create some sort of order that built on a structure which buil-... Okay, well, then what started that?" And, and basically, it seems to me, whoever is willing to stay in the argument longest-

    5. DD

      (laughs)

    6. AH

      ... and, and, and peel back the layers further and further-

    7. DD

      Yeah.

    8. AH

      ... they don't win, but they're sort of last person standing in the argument.

    9. DD

      Yeah.

    10. AH

      And, uh, you know, I'm sure this has been debated formally, um, and I'm sure it's been debated formally for centuries, if not thousands and thousands of years. And here we are, 2025, and people still debate this.

    11. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    12. AH

      And we're seeing a resurgence in re- religious belief. You also see that on X, you see it on social media.

    13. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    14. AH

      You see it lots of places, and I think there's also great interest in science and belief in science. So, the question I have is, you know, if it's merely a matter of who's willing to peel back the layers furthest (laughs) , um, I don't think we're ever going to get to an answer.

    15. DD

      Yeah.

    16. AH

      But is there some sort of a rational argument or irrational argument that one can either choose to adopt or not choose to adopt, that it c- at least can give an individual a sense that they've arrived at an answer for them?

    17. DD

      Sure.

    18. AH

      Right? Because it seems to me that it's either you take the stance that, "Well, if it can't be disproven, then there's a possibility, and if there's a possibility, there's a possibility." Or you take the stance, "Unless you can prove it to me, forget it." Um, "I'm, I'm not going to believe that." And it just becomes an endless cycle of, of humans arguing with humans, which is maybe what God wants.

    19. DD

      (laughs)

    20. AH

      (laughs)

    21. DD

      Well, you know, you're, you're hitting on the point there, this is why I say it's not a useful scientific question, because when you can raise a finding, say evolution, which we know is true, um, and then say, "Oh, well, maybe that's the way God works." If you, if you keep creating a carve-out to explain something, it becomes very difficult to make a strong case, right? I mean, scientists live by falsifiability. Can we falsify something? But if you say, "Oh, yeah, okay, that falsified, but there's a reason why that falsified, because God did it a different way," it becomes just, as you say, an endless debate. So, when I was a, an undergraduate in college, I was always interested in the questions of, you know, what does it mean to be a good person? How do you flourish? How do you find happiness? And I was trying to decide between being a history of religions major and a psychologist. I ultimately decided to be a psychologist 'cause I could get data and not just argue (laughs) about the things that you're saying. But what I've realized over time is that the things that we're finding that make life better for people, these traditions, they, they couldn't run randomized control trials, but they had intuited long ago. And so, for me, what I like to tell people is, "Yeah, religion is about belief, but it's also about what you do, you know?" And so, yes, there are lots of people who really don't believe in God. There are lots of Jews who are atheists, yet are deeply engaged in their practices, and it tends to make life better. So, let me, let me tell you why I think it's rational, you can make a rational case to believe this. So, the thing you're hinting at comes from something called Pascal's wager, Pascal being one of the greatest mathematicians and, and philosophers. And he argued that if God exists, and you choose to believe in God, you can have everlasting life, right? This is... Pascal was Christian, so this was the Christian God that we were talking about. And he said, "By nature of being born, you're forced into this bet. You have to play the game. Should you be religious or not? Well, if there's a chance that you could have everlasting life i- in a pleasurable way, even the smallest chance of that outweighs any joy you'd have on Earth." So, if you chose not to believe in God, yeah, you might have a more libertine lifestyle here, but the joy you would gain from that pales in comparison. And so, it makes sense from a decision theory, right? The expected value of happiness is larger if happiness is infinite. And so, Pascal said, "You should believe in God." But people say, "Well, what if I believe the probability that there's everlasting life is zero?"Or what if there's, I choose the wrong religion, there are lots of religions out there, or the wrong god? And what Pascal realized at the time was that you could solve this problem if religion also brought benefits in the here and now too. And what we're seeing is it does exactly that. So let me give you an example. Epidemiological data show that people who engage with religion, not just say, "I believe in God," but actually engage with faith, over a 15 to 20-year period, it cuts all told mor-, all cause mortality by 30%. Cuts death due to cancer and cardiovascular disease by 25%. Reduces anxiety and depression. Increases people's sense of meaning and feeling that their life is flourishing. This is what brought me to my kind of mission today of trying to find and, and, and curate conversations between science and religion. You can't argue with those data. Now, for a long time, people would say those studies were done cross-sectionally, right? And so you would say, uh, you'd look at people who are going to services and people who are not, and you'd find people are healthier when they go to services. So you could say, "Oh, religion makes people healthier." But there was an important alternative, right? Maybe the people who were really sick or really depressed can't get out of bed to go to services, right? So th- that was always an issue. Now, there's wonderful work by an epidemiologist, uh, Tyler VanderWeele from Harvard School of Public Health. He follows thousands and thousands of people longitudinally, 'cause you can't run a randomized control trial. I can't say, "Andrew, tomorrow, if you believe in God, I want you to stop." Or, you know, "Dave, tomorrow, you don't believe in God, start going to church." Ethically, you can't do that. But what you can do is follow people through time as they become more religious or stop becoming religious and leave the faith, et cetera. And that's what he finds. And it's not just community. You know, another kind of criticism that has been, "Well, Dave, you know, these health benefits, it's just community." If they joined a bowling club, right, to use Robert Putnam's analogy of bowling alone, they would get the same health benefits. What you see in the data is that the effect size, which is basically the degree, how much bang for the buck you get, yeah, being in, in community, joining clubs, having tighter social networks makes you healthier and happier. But the effect size is larger for religious community, right? They're doing something in those communities, and I think it's the practices they do that matter. And even among young adults, where we're seeing increasing levels of anxiety and depression, even private practices, things like prayer and meditation are showing up as ways to, to buffer those and protect against them.

    22. AH

      Do you observe those effects across religions? Are they the same for Christianity, Judaism, for Muslims? And, uh, and also we could talk about the subdivisions within each of those.

    23. DD

      Yeah. It's a good question. So these aren't my data. These, these are data from Tyler VanderWeele and other folks. Um, they haven't examined every religion, but when they do look across some faiths, it's, it's a pretty stable finding.

  4. 15:16 – 18:23

    Sponsors: Our Place & LMNT

    1. DD

    2. AH

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  5. 18:23 – 26:49

    Russell's Teapot, “Overbelief”, Faith; Religio-prospecting, Traditional Practices

    1. AH

      was planning to ask you this later, but, um, I'm gonna ask you now. It seems appropriate to ask you now, uh, what your thoughts are on, uh, this Russell's teapot business, uh, which was taught to me by my postdoc advisor, who was a staunch atheist.

    2. DD

      Okay.

    3. AH

      And, um, he, I- I'll never forget this conversation. He said, uh, you know, uh, he said he was an atheist. Uh, I had questions about that. Um, I believe in God. I should be, uh, you know, uh, just clear about that now. Um, back then, I wa- I was probably a bit more, uh, in the question of that.

    4. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    5. AH

      Um, but deep down, I, I would've written in my journal, I, I believe in God. I have since I was a kid. I, and I do now. Um, he said, "Well, there's this..." Um, he described it as a celestial teapot, and he gave me this, this example of this celestial teapot, which was, for him, a rational argument as to, um, why he was an atheist. Um, I looked it up. It's not called the celestial teapot. It's called Russell's teapot. So, he got it wrong. Russell was right. So, here it is, and I- and I'm paraphrasing here from something I pulled from the internet, but I verified this is, uh, accurate to Russell's teapot. "Russell's teapot is an analogy formulated by the philosopher, uh, Bertrand Russell to illustrate the philosophic burden of proof lies on the person making empirically unfalsifiable claims, as opposed to shifting the burden of disproof to others. So, Russell specifically applied his analogy in the context reli- of religion. He wrote that, uh, if he were to assert, without offering proof, that a teapot too small to be seen by telescopes orbits the sun somewhere in space between the Earth and Mars, he could not expect anyone to believe him solely because his assertion could not be proven wrong."

    6. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    7. AH

      So, this sort of brings us back to, uh, the first, uh, part of our conversation. You know, what do you think about this? People are walking around with Russell's teapot in their mind, saying, "You know, it, the burden of proof is on the person making the assertion, not on, um, other people to, uh, to carry a belief because it can't be falsified."

    8. DD

      It depends on your philosophy of science. Um, for me, I- I tend to think about this, so I'm a psychologist. So, you know, William James, the father of psychology-

    9. AH

      Mm-hmm.

    10. DD

      ... had a real interest in, in religion, and he phrased this slightly differently. He had this notion of something he called an overbelief. And an overbelief is a belief for which the evidence is lacking, not, it's not disconfirmed, right? But it's lacking. But which nonetheless feels right and leads to positive outcomes. And for him, if those two criteria were, were true, then it is rational to embrace that belief, and that's how he basically, uh, came to embrace religion. And so I think, again, you know, where we are is, is either of those philosophies-

    11. AH

      Mm-hmm.

    12. DD

      ... can be valid. You have to make a choice. It's- One is not more valid than the other. It's based on your philosophy of science. And for me, the question is always gonna be one of faith, right? You know, there are a lot of people who are trying to make a case. Uh, I'm thinking of, of, of Ross Douthat's book, Believe. They're trying to make a case for- that it's rational to believe in religion because, oh, it's called the, the fine-tuning argument. Look at all the parameters in the world for, for gravity and, and other, um, um, physical coefficients. If they weren't tuned just exactly right, life could never have evolved here, and the probability against them being tuned just exactly right is low. And then people say, "Well, sure, but there can be hundreds of millions of other universes," right? That we don't... In the multiverse. And so it's not that weird that we have here. And so I just, I think it's never gonna be the case that you're gonna have proof. You know, these arguments, these philosophies can bring you up to a certain point, but to take that final step of belief or disbelief, it's faith one way or the other. And again, it's why I think scientists need to stay in their lane. And even Richard Dawkins, right? The most famous atheist around will say he cannot be absolutely sure that God doesn't exist, yet he acts like he does and he urges you to not believe. (laughs)

    13. AH

      And so for me, I think let's not do that. You know, I- when we talk about these practices, how they lead to health and well-being, I can't tell you if they are divinely inspired from a creator who cares about his creations and kind of gave them a roadmap or a user's guide to make life better or if they're cultural adaptations of people figuring stuff out over millennia. But we don't need to answer that to have respect for them and to study how they work and to see what we can learn from them. And if we're not willing to do that, we're slowing down the science of human flourishing, in my view.

    14. DD

      Mm-hmm. In a similar vein, I think, um, in the position that I found myself in the last few years of doing public health education-

    15. AH

      Mm-hmm.

    16. DD

      ... public science education, you know, I- I've embraced for a long time the idea that there are behavioral tools that really help, things like meditation-

    17. AH

      Mm-hmm.

    18. DD

      ... breath work-

    19. AH

      Mm-hmm. Um, certainly exercise, um, maybe even deliberate cold exposure, heat exposure- Mm-hmm.

    20. DD

      ... sauna, et cetera. I also embrace prescription drugs and their-

    21. AH

      Mm-hmm. ... utility in some instances, right?

    22. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    23. AH

      Um, and I embrace certain over-the-counter compounds. We call them supplements, but they're, um, compounds that nowadays more and more people would say, "Yeah, maybe taking some vitamin D." People are j- maybe taking omega-3s. Maybe they're not. Maybe they think anything that a doctor doesn't prescribe is, or that your mother didn't prescribe is, is not worthwhile. But I take the view that all of these are, uh, are useful for promoting health. I sort of, um, take the same view when it comes to, uh, the notion that, uh, religious belief or, uh, stro- or even strong belief in God, praying, et cetera, could be useful. Now, to me, these aren't mutually exclusive. Um, and I think for some reason, and it may be generational, uh, I do think that there's a certain generation......um, above, uh, m- mine, that for them, if a pill was not prescribed by a doctor, it must be snake oil. And that's crazy if you think about the fact that, you know, in the 1970s and 80s, there was this big movement to try and get meditation into universities.

    24. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    25. AH

      And those people were kind of shunned, psychedelics.

    26. DD

      Mm-hmm. They were working with the devil, yeah.

    27. AH

      Shunned. People were, were fired.

    28. DD

      Yeah.

    29. AH

      Now, I can tell you that tens, if not hundreds of millions, of taxpayer dollars are being used to study psychedelics-

    30. DD

      Mm-hmm.

  6. 26:49 – 34:40

    Mediation & Compassion, Prayer & Stress Relief, Tools: Meditation, Prayer

    1. DD

    2. AH

      Tell us about some of those findings, because they're really striking, um, in terms of what specific practices and belief systems, um, can do in terms of improving our physical and mental health. And I'm curious as we have that conversation, if you could emphasize where sometimes it's a positive effect, a, a new positive thing created.

    3. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    4. AH

      As opposed to where you personally might, uh, view the data as more pointing to, uh, when one does those practices, it doesn't allow the brain to go into its default pathway of worry, et cetera.

    5. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    6. AH

      Right? 'Cause I think most people can accept that stress is bad for the brain and body, excessive stress-

    7. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    8. AH

      ...is bad for the brain and body. And so, anytime we replace a thought or a behavior with something, you're-

    9. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    10. AH

      ...potentially are removing the, the possibility that that default state was stress, right?

    11. DD

      Sure.

    12. AH

      So, I, I, I'm, I'm asking you to do this now because I think that positive effects in science, um, sometimes seem obvious, like, oh-

    13. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    14. AH

      ...you, you know, maybe pray for a certain number of minutes or meditate-

    15. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    16. AH

      ...you get an effect. But there's also a question of what, what the opportunity cost was. What, what weren't you doing in that, uh, five minutes-

    17. DD

      Sure.

    18. AH

      ...that might have, that might have been detrimental?

    19. DD

      Sure.

    20. AH

      And there's a reason I'm setting it up this way, um, that we'll get to a little bit later.

    21. DD

      Okay. Let me-

    22. AH

      Yeah.

    23. DD

      ...let me give you two examples. And I'll, and I'll start with one that actually really started me down this road. Um, I had a student, uh, named Paul Condon, who's now a professor, uh, in Oregon, and he was very interested in, in meditation. And even if you read The New York Times or The Atlantic, it'll tell you, "Oh, meditation will lower your blood, blood pressure. It'll increase your standardized test scores. It'll increase your executive control." Does all those things, and that's great. But if you talk to the monks, they'll say, "That's not why it was created," right? It's probably apocryphal, but, but, you know, the, the saying goes that the Buddha said, "I, I teach one thing and one thing only, which is the end of suffering." And meditation was a tool that the Buddha believed would help people do this. And so, when we looked around, I'm a social psychologist so I study behavior, there was no evidence of this. And so, we decided we were going to put this to the test. And so, we recruited people who had never meditated before, and they were either put on a, on a wait list or they came for eight weeks to, uh, a sacred space on campus where they were led in meditation at the, at the feet of a Buddhist lama. And she created, you know, practices for them in MP3s so they can go home and practice. After eight weeks, we invited each of them individually back to the lab and we told them, "We're going to measure your memory. We're going to measure your executive control, which is basically your ability to override your, your own impulses." That wasn't the experiment. The experiment actually happened in the waiting room to the lab. So, when you come into the lab, there's a room with three chairs. And, um, people were sitting in two of them, and these were actors that we hired. P- you know, these people coming into the study thought they were just other people waiting in the room. And so, there was one chair left, and so the person would take the last chair. About two or three minutes later, a person would come down the hallway, also an actor who worked for us, who was on crutches and wearing one of those, you know, boots you put on your foot when it's, when it's broken, wasn't really broken, looking like she was in, in a good amount of pain. She came into the room. All the three chairs were taken. At that point, um, she would kind of lean back against the wall, let out a little whimper of pain. And what we wanted to look at is, would somebody help her? Now, the two actors in the chairs, we told, "Do what you'd do when you're on the subway," right? "You don't want to give up your seat. Don't look at the person. Thumb your phone. Ignore them," right? So, we're creating a situation where people aren't helping. And our question was, would the person who was in the study in the third chair actually help this person?In the control condition, people who weren't meditating, about 15% of them got up and said, "Oh, do you want my chair? Can I help you? Can I hold something for you?" In the meditation condition, it was close to 50% of people who did this, right? We tripled the rate at which s- somebody felt compassion for somebody else in pain and was willing to help them. That's a pretty big effect in terms of behavioral science. So, that was a small study. So, so we've replicated it. We've also done it in a, in a situation where someone is, is provoking you. So, in this situation, people who had been meditating or not came to the lab, and there's a paradigm that's designed to evoke anger, and the way it works is you create a, um... You spend five minutes to write a story about your life's goals. You have to then present this to the other subject, who they didn't know was an actor for us. He listens to this and he says, "Really? That's your plan? That doesn't make any sense," right? And this was a, a, a, um, paradigm developed by an anger researcher named Ton, Ton, uh, named Tom Denson, and we know it creates, you know, the HPA axis anger response, and so it's really well-validated. And people either meditated, or in this case, the control was an active control. They had done Lumosity brain training for, for a while. Um, and what we found is that those who ha- they were then given the chance to cause punishment to this person. I don't, I won't go into it all, but they thought there was a way for them to cause this person pain. The people who didn't meditate were willing to cause this guy a good amount of pain. Now, it didn't actually happen, of course, but they thought it would. Um, those who had meditated refused to cause him any pain. They still said what he did was wrong, and they wanted to talk to him and tell him what he did was wrong, but they thought that creating more pain and suffering was not the way to go about it. And so for us, you know, right here was evidence that these practices make you kinder and make you more compassionate. The other way, what does it save you from in terms of stress? This isn't my work, but there's a lot of work on prayer, and so when people pray, especially if you're reciting formal prayers, not so much if you're just having a conversation with God, but if you're saying the rosary or you're reciting, you know, Hindu sutras or any formulaic prayer, what it typically does is it reduces your respiration rate. Not only does it reduce your respiration rate, but it also tends to increase the duration of the exhalations, and this is for meditation as well. What does that do? I mean, you talk about breathwork a lot on your show, right? What it does is it, um, increases vagal tone, reduces heart rate. It puts the body in a state where it is not expecting, um, threat or challenge in the environment, where it wants to engage and be more open to socialization. It reduces cortisol responses. And so what it's basically doing there is, yes, you're saying the words, but it's reducing the stress in your body. And even if you're praying about things that are bothering you, things that you're sad or anxious about, by saying those prayers over and over again, stuff travels up the vagus, right? And so by increasing exhalations, by slowing the respiration rate, it's telling your mind, "You're safe. Things are okay." And then thereby, it's reducing the stress, and so when you look at that data from Tyler VanderWeel that I mentioned on young adults who pray, why does it reduce stress? It's basically a way of increasing vagal tone in that, in that moment.

    24. AH

      Mm-hmm.

    25. DD

      And it helps you sit with the ideas of the things that are bothering you while physiologically your body's telling you you're safe.

    26. AH

      Thank you for reminding everyone that signals travel up the vagus-

    27. DD

      Yeah.

    28. AH

      ... in addition to the vagus nerve c- uh, controlling slowing of the heart rate when you exhale, because I think we hear a lot about the vagus pathway, and, um, most people get it wrong. You got it exactly right. Um, there's a lot of information flowing out from the body, and that actually

  7. 34:40 – 43:58

    Superstition, Prayers & Rituals; Mourning Rituals, Eulogies, Shiva, Connection

    1. AH

      helps answer the question that was, um, in the back of my mind heading into this conversation, which was, um... Well, I'll, I'll tell by way of anecdote how I arrived there. Um, my high school girlfriend was Greek Orthodox.

    2. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    3. AH

      A lot of Greeks in our family, and it, it wasn't like that movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding-

    4. DD

      (laughs)

    5. AH

      ... but it wasn't dissimilar either-

    6. DD

      Yeah.

    7. AH

      ... to go over there, you know, and Greek Easter and, like, people were breaking plates and all the festivities, but one thing I learned spending time with people in the Greek Orthodox community is, um, there's a lot of prayer-

    8. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    9. AH

      ... um, in their family. Uh, there were also a lot of use of worry beads.

    10. DD

      Mm.

    11. AH

      Um, you know, these, like, beads that people would, um, would use.

    12. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    13. AH

      So, not unlike spinners, right? (laughs)

    14. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    15. AH

      Um, but, uh, often while reciting prayer. This was more in the older generation in, in her family and, and friends, um, and there was also a lot of superstition that comes up in that movie, but there, there was a lot of superstition, so I asked her, I was like, "Why, why all the superstition? Uh, why the worry beads?" And she said, "Oh, because, um, that replaces what the mind would be doing-"

    16. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    17. AH

      "... if you weren't manipulating these beads and, and, um, carrying out, you know, kind of superstitious activities." Like, the superstitious activities, as long as they don't t- take over your life-

    18. DD

      Right.

    19. AH

      ... um, replace the things that are much worse. Darker thoughts, m- more terrifying ideas about terrifying things that, that you don't want to happen. So, it's about, it's about replacing-

    20. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    21. AH

      ... all, all of that with, uh, with repeating themes, li- literally loops of, of thought-

    22. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    23. AH

      ... that, um, of course they could break out of and in- interact. I'm not suggesting all Greeks are like this, by the way.

    24. DD

      Yeah.

    25. AH

      I love Greek culture. I love the food. I love the, I think they're wonderful people. Um, but it's very interesting that, at least within that culture, they've adopted su- quote, unquote, "superstitions" are somewhat accepted.

    26. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    27. AH

      Again, this somewhat generational, um-...worry beads and prayer and ritual, you know, and all these things sort of blend together seamlessly. Like, you wouldn't say, "Oh, you know, they're over there using worry beads, then they're doing superstitious activities or, um, or reciting things in a superstitious way." But, you know, it's all kind of blended into the culture in a way that they seem like very happy people, I must say.

    28. DD

      Yeah. (laughs)

    29. AH

      Very jo- joyful a lot of the time, a lot of the time.

    30. DD

      Yeah. I mean, I, the way I like to think about these rituals that, as you're mentioning, is they're really sophisticated mind/body practices. Like, you know, we are, we're a culture that wants the life hack. "Give me the life hack so that I can study more. Give me the life hack so that I can save money or lose weight." Rituals are like sophisticated packages of life hacks, where a life hack is like playing a single note on a piano, a ritual is like a symphony. So, let me give you an example that kind of picks up on what you're saying. So, one other thing that cuts across everybody's lives, unfortunately, is that we have to, we will grieve at some point. We will lose somebody, and we will have the pain. Um, and so I was interested in looking at, at mourning rituals, right? And what is one thing that almost all religions do when somebody passes? You, you eulogize this person. And it seems normal, but when you think about it, it's kind of strange, because if I just lost a job that I loved, or if my wife just decided she was going to leave me, I wouldn't want to think about, daily, how wonderful this person was or this job was, because it would increase the pain. But with someone passing, it does the opposite. So, George Bonanno, who's one of the nation's leading, um, bereavement researchers at Columbia, he says one of the biggest predictors of who can move through grief successfully, and by that I mean it doesn't get too intense or it doesn't go on too long that it becomes paralyzing, is who can consolidate positive memories of the deceased person? The better you are able at doing that, the more you'll move through grief successfully. And then you talking about superstitions, you know, if you look at, at the Jewish mourning ritual of, of Shiva, and I won't say this is a superstition, but there are elements to it that some people think are strange, like when someone passes, you cover your mirror. Why would you cover your mirror? Well, there's lots of research in psychology that shows when you look into a mirror, whatever emotion you were feeling becomes intensified. So, if you're happy and you look into a mirror, you'll feel more happy. If you're sad, you'll feel more sad.

  8. 43:58 – 47:15

    Grieving & Different Religious Traditions

    1. AH

      Um, you mentioned, um, people, uh, sitting shiva in, in Judaism. What other sorts of, um, activities that, in other religions that you see around grieving seem to serve this kind of purpose? I've been to an Irish wake. That was definitely a different experience. People laughing and telling s- uh, jokes and stories. There was some crying too.

    2. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    3. AH

      Um, certainly grieving was happening, but in a very different way. Um, I believe you grew up Catholic, is that right?

    4. DD

      I did, yeah.

    5. AH

      Okay, so what about some of the other forms of grieving in other religions?

    6. DD

      Yeah, so, uh, you know, it's funny, um, f- friends of mine who are Jewish will always say, "Yeah, we, we do death well." (laughs) And I think it's true. As I look at it, the practice of shiva, to me, has all of the right pieces. And, and for me, so like, eulogizing happens in all faiths, and what I like to say is there are convergences in these, right? If you're, if you're a cultural anthropologist, you're seeing convergent evolution in terms of the cultural things that we can do to put our bodies in the right, in the right way. Uh, or if you're a person of faith, you can say, "Well, you know, God cares about God's creations," and so we're all embodied in the same way, and so the same practices are gonna matter, but some groups may have figured things out more than another. I think, I mean, eulogizing is the big one. At Irish wakes, at some Irish wakes, they do cover mirrors. They have a completely different theological story for why they do it.

    7. AH

      Yeah, why do, what do they say?

    8. DD

      I think it's something about keeping evil spirits away? I, I don't know. But, and in Hindu ceremonies, they do it as well, in certain Hindu ceremonies. Um, and so I think it is, it is, uh, always about coming together. In, in, in Chinese, uh, grieving rituals, there is this focus on ancestor worship, and so when someone dies, yes, they go to a different domain, like heaven, but there what they do is they keep the relationship going. So there's something called, uh, they call it, uh, I don't know what the word in Chinese, but it's called ghost money. And so what you can do, uh, if you wanna honor an ancestor and be in connection with them, is you can go to the store and it's this paper money that looks like real money, but it's not real money, it's paper currency, and you, and you burn that. And as the smoke rises, it goes to them where they are, and they can use it to buy stuff. You can buy cell phones that are kind of origami shaped as paper, burn that, and it goes to them. And that might sound strange, but what it really does, it's a way of keeping that relationship there, of not totally losing that person, of having that positive memory, and still feeling like you have them in your life, because one of the biggest difficulties of humans, you know, we're social creatures. When we experience loneliness, when we lose someone, it is painful psychologically. It's also bad for us physiologically if it goes on. Well, anything that we can do to feel like that relationship is still maintained as opposed to just loss helps us avoid the stress and loneliness that comes with it. And so that's another kind of grieving ritual I've seen.

  9. 47:15 – 50:12

    Sponsors: AG1 & Eight Sleep

    1. DD

    2. AH

      I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge our sponsor, AG1. AG1 is a vitamin mineral probiotic drink that also includes prebiotics and adaptogens. As many of you know, I've been taking AG1 for more than 13 years now. I discovered it way back in 2012, long before I ever had a podcast, and I've been drinking it every day since. For the past 13 years, AG1 has been the same original flavor. They've updated the formulation, but the flavor has always remained the same. And now for the first time, AG1 is available in three new flavors, berry, citrus, and tropical. All the flavors include the highest quality ingredients in exactly the right doses to together provide support for your gut microbiome, support for your immune health, and support for better energy and more. So now you can find the flavor of AG1 that you like the most. While I've always loved the AG1 original flavor, especially when I mix it with water and a little bit of lemon or lime juice, that's how I've been doing it for basically 13 years, now I really enjoy the new berry flavor in particular. It tastes great and I don't have to add any lemon or lime juice. I just mix it up with water. If you'd like to try AG1 and these new flavors, you can go to drinkag1.com/huberman to claim a special offer. Right now, AG1 is giving away an AG1 welcome kit that includes five free travel packs and a free bottle of vitamin D3 K2. Again, go to drinkag1.com/huberman to claim the special welcome kit of five free travel packs and a free bottle of vitamin D3 K2.Today's episode is also brought to us by Eight Sleep. Eight Sleep makes smart mattress covers with cooling, heating, and sleep tracking capacity. One of the best ways to ensure a great night's sleep is to make sure that the temperature of your sleeping environment is correct, and that's because in order to fall and stay deeply asleep, your body temperature actually has to drop by about one to three degrees, and in order to wake up feeling refreshed and energized, your body temperature actually has to increase by about one to three degrees. Eight Sleep automatically regulates the temperature of your bed throughout the night according to your unique needs. Eight Sleep has just launched their latest model, the Pod 5, and the Pod 5 has several new important features. One of these new features is called Auto Pilot. Auto Pilot is an AI engine that learns your sleep patterns to adjust the temperature of your sleeping environment across different sleep stages. It also elevates your head if you're snoring, and it makes other shifts to optimize your sleep. The base on the Pod 5 also has an integrated speaker that syncs to the Eight Sleep app and can play audio to support relaxation and recovery. The audio catalog includes several NSDR, non-sleep deep rest, scripts that I worked on with Eight Sleep to record. If you're not familiar, NSDR involves listening to an audio script that walks you through a deep body relaxation combined with some very simple breathing exercises. It's an extremely powerful tool that anyone can benefit from the first time and every time. If you'd like to try Eight Sleep, go to eightsleep.com/huberman to get up to $350 off the new Pod 5. Eight Sleep ships to many countries worldwide, including Mexico and the UAE. Again, that's eightsleep.com/huberman to save up to $350.

  10. 50:12 – 56:17

    God vs Religion?; Prayer, Community, Religious Rituals & Ideals

    1. AH

      We're talking about God and religion.

    2. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    3. AH

      How separable are those in terms of-

    4. DD

      Yeah.

    5. AH

      ... the, uh, benefits of belief? So, for instance, uh, has the experiment ever been done to find a group of people who pray regularly to God, but not in the context of any one specific religious practice? Maybe they identify as Christian or Jewish or whatever, um, but they pray regularly. They'll tell you, "Yeah, I pray every night," or, "I pray every morning," versus people who, um, really adopt prayer, as y- as you mentioned before, not as just a conversation-

    6. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    7. AH

      ... with God and listening. I always think of prayer, it can be two things. It can be a conversation with God.

    8. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    9. AH

      It can also just be listening, which some people-

    10. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    11. AH

      ... might say, "Well, that's just meditation," but I don't know, maybe you ping God with a question and you see what comes back. (laughs)

    12. DD

      Yeah. No, there are-

    13. AH

      This kind of thing.

    14. DD

      ... there are forms of prayer that are just-

    15. AH

      Yeah.

    16. DD

      ... deep listening and sitting in silence. Yeah.

    17. AH

      Mm-hmm. Versus, uh, reading the Bible.

    18. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    19. AH

      Um, versus, uh, reading Torah or scripture of any kind.

    20. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    21. AH

      Um, what- what's known about that?

    22. DD

      There have been studies, as I've said, that, that look at prayer, um, in general for formalized prayer. I mean, there is a sense that... So two questions. L- let me deal with the first one first, which is there a difference between God and, and religion? So because the US is a Christian country, I think most of us, when we think of religion, tend to think of it in terms of Christianity, where, where belief, where the creed is really important. In most of the world, religion is more about what you do than what you believe, right? It's what are the rituals? How do they infuse your daily life? Um, and that's why, you know, as I said, there, there are many Jews who are atheists. There are many Hindus I know who are atheists, yet they engage in the practices and they get the benefits from them. So, I think those two are, are separable. There are also people who believe in God, yet don't go to any services and don't practice at all. They say, "Oh, yeah, I believe in God, but I don't engage in this," and when you look at the health benefits for those people, they're not there. Y- you have to be actively engaged in the practices. So I think those two can be separated. Um, in terms of, um, prayer, so remember I was telling you about the motor synchrony stuff. There is... And how it makes you feel more compassion toward other people. There is work that shows that y- when you do motor synchrony on its own versus motor synchrony in prayer, and so these are studies where people were just listening to music and dancing together or moving together, versus where they were, uh, chanting together, um, chants that are meaningful to them and their faith, and that set forth principles of the faith. What you find is an increase, a greater magnitude of the effect of the, uh, motor synchrony when those meaningful parts of prayer are included. Why is that? As I said before, it's a mind/body practice, so the moving in time, the motor synchrony, is putting your body in a state where it's more receptive to messages about community or coming together, as opposed to feeling tense where your body is saying, "No, no, no. There's a threat here," but your mind is saying, "No, Dave, be good and reach out to these people." And so in that sense, combining the creedal elements, the belief elements with the practice leads to a greater effect than the practice on its own. You see the same thing with meditation, right? Meditation, we're all sitting at home with our apps, right? By ourselves. That's not the way meditation is supposed to be done. Traditionally, it was done in a sangha, in a community, and as you said before, why is that important? Because as we're breathing together, our respirations are in training upon one another, and it's creating that sense of synchrony to build community. So I think adding the message elements of what religions value to the mind/body practice puts you in a situation where you get a synergism, and this is what worries me when we try to extract certain elements. So psychedelics is one great example. Um, psychedelics traditionally, w- with ayahuasca or psilocybin, were taken in the context of a ceremony where you had a shaman who through chanting, or drum beats, or whatever it might be, created a situation where the body was very relaxed and felt safe.And then at that point, you would take the psychedelic. And we had Michael Pollan on my show, and when he said, he, he told me, he said, "David, the one thing that's really important when you take psilocybin is you have to feel supremely safe. Because when that moment of self-dissolution comes or ego death comes, it can be beautiful or it can be terrifying. And if you don't feel safe, it can go the wrong way." You know, the data show about 25% of trips are bad. About 8% are so bad that they necessitate some type of mental health intervention. And so, you have the shaman with you. You have the experience of ego death, you see whatever you're going to see, and that person helps you reintegrate that and make sense of it. So, you know, at, at Hopkins where they're doing great work, they don't have a religious shaman, but they have a guide, right? The guide is with you. You form a relationship with this person during your trip. The person is there with you. They'll put their hand on your hand. They'll, they're there to help make sense and keep you feeling safe. They're doing the same role as a shaman. But if you're in Brooklyn, you know, dropping psilocybin with your local Brooklyn hipsters without the container around to keep you safe, there's a good chance you may have a bad outcome. And so for me, you know, long an- long answer to your question about prayer, I think we have these containers of the rituals and the ideals of the religions that work together synergistically, and when you extract those, the question is, will they work as well? Or if not, is there actually even, in some cases, a danger?

  11. 56:17 – 1:01:24

    Psychedelics, Ego Death, Right vs Left-Handed Roots

    1. AH

      A couple of things. First of all, um, yes, psilocybin can be terrifying.

    2. DD

      (laughs)

    3. AH

      I can attest to that, uh, as can LSD. Um-

    4. DD

      Did you have a bad trip or...

    5. AH

      Well, I, I, I don't recommend this, but when I was young, uh, far too young, I experimented with psilocybin and LSD, had some good experiences and then a couple of really bad experiences that led me to just basically write them off-

    6. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    7. AH

      ... for a long period of time. Then later, um, revisited that in the proper context with therapeutic support there.

    8. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    9. AH

      Completely different experience.

    10. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    11. AH

      But still, p- psilocybin terrifying-

    12. DD

      (laughs)

    13. AH

      ... every single time. But the integration piece is really critical.

    14. DD

      Mm-hmm. It's critical.

    15. AH

      Critical, critical. Uh, we could have a, a long conversation about psychedelics, but, um, I'll just mention now 'cause I'll come back to this, uh, in a little bit. A, a friend of mine who's, um, quite religious, he's Christian, quite religious, and very versed in the Bible-

    16. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    17. AH

      ... studies the Bible, um, is very skeptical of psychedelics or even, um, concerned about people's use of psychedelics. Uh, not because they're, quote unquote, "anti-Christian," but because there's this idea, uh, that during psychedelic journeys that evil forces actually can see into your unconscious mind.

    18. DD

      Hmm.

    19. AH

      Now, that might seem like a wild and crazy idea. We could also talk about psychedelics as, like, which serotonin receptors they happen-

    20. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    21. AH

      ... to be, um, activating. So, we could, like, we could move around, like, the, the topic from different perspectives. But it is interesting in the sense that when people talk about psychedelic journeys, you just did, I am, it always seems to be this divergent road. You can either have a very meaningful and positive experience, or it can include elements that are terrifying, that if not integrated-

    22. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    23. AH

      ... properly, can be, uh, potentially destructive.

    24. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    25. AH

      So, the idea that, uh, maybe certain, um, components of religion, uh, would see it as hazardous-

    26. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    27. AH

      ... assign that to evil spirits, devil, et cetera, is, isn't outside what we've observed scientifically or clinically either, so.

    28. DD

      No, that's true. And I, and I think you may know this better than me being a neuroscientist. I think some of the most recent work on psychedelics suggests, to use a poor metaphor, what it's basically doing is, is loosening the mind, right? It, it, it reopens up periods of, of critical learning.

    29. AH

      Mm-hmm.

    30. DD

      And so things that have become kind of rigid and reified in your brain, suddenly there's flexibility again. Um, and so the messages that you're getting at that time can have much more influence and situational influences, um, than they would at any other time. And if you don't have that safe container for the religion, yeah, it can take you in really problematic ways. But what I find interesting about it, you know, is, is people often talk about that, that moment of when it's good, of, of ego death as kind of being this transcendent experience where you feel this sense of connection to everything and, and, and great love. And if you look at mystical traditions where they're all designed to kind of get you to this point, there are what are traditionally called right-handed roots and left-handed roots. Right-handed roots are the ones that are kind of deeply embedded in religions that we normally don't see as much because they're for people who are kind of living a, a contemplative lifestyle. So, Christian traditions have them, Buddhist tradition more, we're more familiar with, et cetera. And so you can, by virtue of engaging in long practices of meditation, building your skill over many years, get your mind to that point where you can have this sense of ego death. Left-handed traditions, they're the quick and easy way, right? So, rather (laughs) than learn the practice, you can take the drug, uh, and, and get there as well. And so it's, what's interesting to me is that they're both roots and religions themselves, even outside of the chemicals, have a way for those who want to follow it to gain this transcendent experience. But they're always a little more worried about the left-hand roots for the reasons you're saying, because they don't have the practice and the guidance long term, and they can go badly for people and lead you to problematics. With that, I could see people interpreting as-

  12. 1:01:24 – 1:11:03

    Good & Evil; Lies & Cheating; Gratitude & Prayer

    1. AH

      The reason I brought up this notion of evil spirits-

    2. DD

      Hmm.

    3. AH

      ... is that many religions have a component of good and evil, and we tend to assume that those forces are presented as things outside of us. You know, you have a god and a devil, right? And they're, they're battling one another. I have to assume that some of that is borne out of the idea that we also understand that the human brain has circuits that, uh, hold the potential for good and the potential for evil, and those exist in all of us.

    4. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    5. AH

      In some people, there's enough top-down inhibition or enough, uh, that comes from good, you know, good parenting and good childhood experiences and so on, um, or just default wiring that makes, uh, people behaving terribly, very unlikely. But lots of experiments done in the wake of World War II, in your field, your field of psychology, were focused on, um, demonstrating really that under the right conditions, most anybody can engage in evil behavior-

    6. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    7. AH

      ... or at least sadistic behavior. Uh, we don't talk about those experiments so much lately because-

    8. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    9. AH

      ... um, they're not politically correct, but, uh, was it the Milgram experiments? Is, these ones that... Or which are the experiments, I think they were done at Yale, where people-

    10. DD

      The Milgram experiments, yeah.

    11. AH

      ... where they, the Milgram experience, where people literally believed, um, that they were causing intense pain in others-

    12. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    13. AH

      ... and they would get people to ratchet up to, um, the point where they were inducing, um, extreme pain on others, um, to the point where people later were shocked, no pun intended-

    14. DD

      (laughs)

    15. AH

      ... uh, that they themselves had been, had-

    16. DD

      Yeah.

    17. AH

      ... had done that, had, that they had been, um, the person controlling the amount and intensity of that much pain-

    18. DD

      Yeah.

    19. AH

      ... over someone else, for no other reason except that they were told to. Um-

    20. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    21. AH

      Now, I realize those experiments are a little bit controversial-

    22. DD

      Yeah.

    23. AH

      ... um, but I think there have been enough demonstrations that humans hold the potential to do bad things to other humans-

    24. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    25. AH

      ... under the right conditions that we can accept that the human brain at least has the wiring to go there.

    26. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    27. AH

      What are the data on this notion of good and evil? Why do religions present good and evil outside of us? Is there any evidence that a bias toward accepting that there's good and evil in us is helpful? Um, because I can think of, you know, when I think about Buddhism, for instance, I think about love and kindness meditation-

    28. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    29. AH

      ... I think about, um, mindfulness-

    30. DD

      Mm-hmm.

  13. 1:11:03 – 1:16:25

    Loneliness, Community & Religion, Relationship with God & “3AM Friend”

    1. DD

    2. AH

      When it comes to discussions around religion and religious practices, you can see a lot of, uh, commonalities among religious practices when you kind of take a step back-

    3. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    4. AH

      ... um, whether or not it's around gratitude or it's around, uh, grieving, uh, celebrating birth of children-

    5. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    6. AH

      ... et cetera. Um, there's a lot of discussion nowadays how, at least in the United States but I think elsewhere in the world as well, people are more isolated.

    7. DD

      Yeah.

    8. AH

      Um, people are feeling, um, probably p- more pulled into their phones, really. Uh, there was an interesting, uh, picture published recently, or a series of pictures, I forget exactly where, but we'll provide a link to it, where, um, someone took pictures of, real pictures of humans in a natural environment-

    9. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    10. AH

      ... in cities, et cetera, but deleted the phone, uh, the phones, any time they were holding their phones, and everyone's just staring-

    11. DD

      (laughs)

    12. AH

      ... at their palms, at the beach with their kids.

    13. DD

      Uh-huh.

    14. AH

      Their kids like, (laughs) kids on the subway. I don't know if there was a subway one, but it's just, every- we're all staring at our palms-

    15. DD

      Yeah.

    16. AH

      ... all the time. It's a very bizarre point in human history.

    17. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    18. AH

      So, the question I have is, when people pray, uh, when people have a belief in God, uh, presumably they feel less alone.

    19. DD

      Yeah.

    20. AH

      It's a- it certainly makes me feel less alone, uh, to pray. In fact, um, at some point, I found anyway, that if you pray regularly, that you never feel lonely. You never feel alone.

    21. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    22. AH

      Because you realize that people come, people go. Ideally, they, uh, you don't lose people close to you quickly or too soon. But everyone dies eventually.

    23. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    24. AH

      But your relationship with God, if you have one, is a permanent thing.

    25. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    26. AH

      From the, it- it's just the... And the more you lean in to that c- component and a faith in that, the less lonely you feel, ever.

    27. DD

      Yeah.

    28. AH

      It's kind of remarkable. And, uh, you know, in this age of like AI and digital twins and smartphones, where everyone's got at least one smartphone, um, I- I think this is not a, uh, a trivial aspect to all of it. I mean, the- the notion of not being alone is so fundamental to feeling safe as a human.

    29. DD

      Yeah.

    30. AH

      So, um, I don't know what the research on loneliness and religion says, um, but oftentimes, we hear about these things in the- in the context of community. What about just-

  14. 1:16:25 – 1:18:12

    Sponsor: Function

    1. DD

    2. AH

      I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge one of our sponsors, Function. Last year, I became a Function member after searching for the most comprehensive approach to lab testing. Function provides over 100 advanced lab tests that give you a key snapshot of your entire bodily health. This snapshot offers you with insights on your heart health, hormone health, immune functioning, nutrient levels, and much more. They've also recently added tests for toxins such as BPA exposure from harmful plastics and tests for PFASs or forever chemicals. Function not only provides testing of over 100 biomarkers key to your physical and mental health, but it also analyzes these results and provides insights from top doctors who are expert in the relevant areas. For example, in one of my first tests with Function, I learned that I had elevated levels of mercury in my blood. Function not only helped me detect that, but offered insights into how best to reduce my mercury levels, which included limiting my tuna consumption, I'd been eating a lot of tuna, while also making an effort to eat more leafy greens and supplementing with NAC, N-acetylcysteine, both of which can support glutathione production and detoxification. And I should say, by taking a second Function test, that approach worked. Comprehensive blood testing is vitally important. There's so many things related to your mental and physical health that can only be detected in a blood test. The problem is, blood testing has always been very expensive and complicated. In contrast, I've been super impressed by Function's simplicity and at the level of cost. It is very affordable. As a consequence, I decided to join their scientific advisory board, and I'm thrilled that they're sponsoring the podcast. If you'd like to try Function, you can go to functionhealth.com/huberman. Function currently has a wait list of over 250,000 people, but they're offering early access to Huberman podcast listeners. Again, that's functionhealth.com/huberman to get early access to Function.

  15. 1:18:12 – 1:25:21

    Feeling God; Intelligent Design, Evolution, Eye; Awe

    1. AH

      And people will sometimes talk about being able to really feel him. That's usually the language that's used.

    2. DD

      Yeah.

    3. AH

      Uh, I mean, people close to me are, like-

    4. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    5. AH

      ... really got it up seems like more and more these days. And, and I have some friends who are, you know, um, who are clearly atheists.

    6. DD

      Yeah.

    7. AH

      And I have friends that aren't. But this notion that you can feel God-

    8. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    9. AH

      ... right? As a presence, not just, um, you know, like some being that you're in conversation with.

    10. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    11. AH

      It's, it's an, obviously an internal feeling, but then people often, I've experienced this, will, will experience it kind of around you as well.

    12. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    13. AH

      And then, of course, I can step back and go, "Okay, well, that's my insular cortex," and, you know, the-

    14. DD

      Right.

    15. AH

      Like, of course, right? But the, the argument that, um, anyone who believes in God or religion would make was, "Okay, well, how did that all get placed there?"

    16. DD

      Right.

    17. AH

      And then, and then we get back to the beginning of the conversation.

Episode duration: 2:24:18

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