Science of Mindsets for Health & Performance | Dr. Alia Crum

(uptempo music) 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. Today, my guest is Dr. Alia Crum. Dr. Crum is a tenured professor of psychology at Stanford University, and the founder and director of the Stanford Mind & Body Lab. Her work focuses on mindsets, how what we think and what we believe shapes the way that our physiology, our biology reacts to things like what we eat, or stress, or exercise. Indeed, as you will soon learn from my discussion with Dr. Crum, what you believe about the nutritional content of your food changes the way that food impacts your brain and body to a remarkable degree, and the same is true for mindsets about exercise, and stress, and even medication. For instance, recent work from Dr. Crum's laboratory shows that what we believe about the side effect profiles of different drug treatments or different behavioral treatments has a profound impact on how quickly those treatments work, and the effectiveness of those treatments. I just want to mention one particular study that just came out from a graduate student in Dr. Crum's laboratory, Lauren Howe, H-O-W-E, showed that how kids react to a treatment for peanut allergies can be profoundly shaped by whether or not those kids were educated about the side effects of the treatment, such that if they learned that the side effects were a byproduct of a treatment that would help them, and they learned a little bit about why those side effects arose, and that the side effects might even help them en route to overcoming their peanut allergy, had an enormous impact on how quickly they moved through the treatment, and indeed how much they suffered, or in this case, did not suffer from those side effects. And that is but one example that you will learn about today as we discuss what mindsets are, the number of different mindsets that exist, and how we can adopt mindsets that make us more adaptive, more effective, allow us to suffer less, and to perform better in all aspects of life. I personally find the work of Dr. Alia Crum to be among the most important work being done in the fields of biology and psychology, and the interface of mind/body. Everything that she's done up until now and published, and indeed the work that she continues to do, has shaped everything within my daily routines, within my work routines, within my athletic routines, and we probably shouldn't be surprised by the fact that Dr. Crum works on all these things. She was not only an incredibly accomplished tenured research professor, she's also a clinical psychologist, and she was also a Division I athlete and ele- elite gymnast at one period in her life. So, she really walks the walk, uh, in terms of understanding what mindsets are and applying them in different aspects of life. I'm sure you're going to learn a ton from this conversation, as did I, and come away with many, many actionable items that you can apply in your own life. In fact, as we march into today's conversation, you might want to just put in the back of your mind the question, "What is my mindset about blank?" So for instance, ask yourself, what is my mindset about stress? What is my mindset about food? What is my mindset about exercise? What is my mindset about relationships of different kinds? Because in doing that, you'll be in a great position to extract the best of the information that Dr. Crum presents, and indeed to adapt those mindsets in the way that is going to be most beneficial for you. 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, I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast. Our first sponsor is Thesis. Thesis makes custom nootropics that are ideal for the particular brain states that you want to be in. The term nootropic means smart drug, and it is not a term that I like, because there's no such thing as a universally useful smart drug. The reason for that is that our brain can be creative, we can be focused, we can be good at task switching, and each of those different things, creativity, focus, and task switching, involves different neurochemicals in different states of mind and body. So, the notion that there's one best nootropic is just not accurate. There's just no way that could possibly be. 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That's takethesis.com/huberman, and use the code "Huberman" at checkout to get 10% off your first box. Today's episode is also brought to us by ROKA. ROKA makes eyeglasses and sunglasses that are of the absolute highest quality. I've spent a lifetime working on the visual system, and I can tell you that our visual system has to contend with a huge number of different challenges, not the least of which is when we go from a very bright, sunny spot outside into the shade, our visual system has to adapt in order for us to continue to see clearly.Many sunglasses out there just don't allow that adaptation to occur in a seamless way. ROKA eyeglasses and sunglasses are designed with all of the biology of the visual system in mind, so that you always see things with crystal clarity, no matter what environment you're in. They also have a terrific aesthetic. They have many, many different styles to choose from, so their eyeglasses can be worn to dinner or out to lunch or to work. 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And nowadays, with the advent of modern DNA tests, you can also get a window into how your genes are impacting your health in the short and long term, and the various things that you should do in order to adjust your health in the right direction. Now, one of the major issues with a lot of blood tests and DNA tests out there, is you get numbers back and you learn whether or not your lipids or your hormones, et cetera, are within the proper range or not. But there aren't a lot of directives about what to do with that information. InsideTracker makes all of that very easy. They have a personalized dashboard that allows you to, of course, see the numbers that come back to you, and to make various changes in nutrition, various changes in exercise, various changes in all sorts of lifestyle factors that can bring those numbers into range. And so if you have a particular value for a particular metabolic factor or hormone or so forth, you click on that, and it will actually bring up the full menu of things that you can do in order to adjust that factor into the ranges that you like, all based on quality peer-reviewed research. If you'd like to try InsideTracker, you can visit insidetracker.com/huberman to get 25% off any of InsideTracker's plans. Just use the code Huberman at checkout. And now my conversation with Dr. Alia Crum. Well, great to have you here.