Control Stress for Healthy Eating, Metabolism & Aging | Dr. Elissa Epel

(instrumental 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. Elissa Epel. Dr. Epel is a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. She is also the director of the Center on Aging, Metabolism, and Emotions. Dr. Epel's laboratory focuses on stress and the many impacts that it has on our brain and body, both negative and positive. For instance, her laboratory has shown that particular forms of stress change our telomeres, which are a component of the genetic machinery of our cells that impacts how quickly our cells, and therefore we, age. We also discuss exciting work from Dr. Epel's laboratory exploring how stress impacts our behavioral choices, in particular which foods we elect to eat and how we experience those foods. Today you'll learn how stress and your interpretation of your stress impacts the different aspects of your biology and psychology. You'll also learn about several important stress interventions that Dr. Epel's laboratory has explored, including meditation and breathwork can profoundly influence the way that stress impacts your brain and body, both for better or for worse. She's also explored how specific dietary interventions such as omega-3 fatty acid intake impacts stress and our response to stress. And a key and important feature, I believe, of Dr. Epel's work is how stress and stress interventions vary in their effectiveness depending on whether or not the subjects in her experiments are male versus female and their social status. By the end of today's episode, I assure you, you will have a much more thorough understanding of what stress is and how it changes our biology and psychology, as well as the specific stress interventions that are going to be most optimal for you in reducing the negative effects of stress on the aging process and on negative behavioral choices, and also how to leverage stress in order to maximize the positive effects that stress can have on cellular metabolism, mental health, physical health, and performance. To learn more about the work from Dr. Epel's laboratory, as well as to learn more about her books entitled The Telomere Effect and now, more recently, The Stress Prescription, you can find links to those in the show note captions. 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, and frankly I'm not a fan of the word nootropics because it translates to smart drugs. And as a neurobiologist, I can tell you that our brain has neural circuits and chemicals that underlie, for instance, our ability to focus or to task switch or to be creative. There is no one specific circuit or category of chemicals in the brain that allow us to be smart. Thesis understands this and has developed nootropics that are customized to different types of mental operations. What do I mean by that? Well, they have formulas that can put your brain into a state of increased clarity or focus or creativity, or that can give you more overall energy for things like physical exercise. I often take the Thesis Clarity formula prior to long bouts of cognitive work, and I'll use their Energy formula prior to doing any kind of really intense physical exercise. If you'd like to try your own personalized nootropic starter kit, go online to takethesis.com/huberman. You'll take a brief three-minute quiz, and Thesis will send you four different formulas to try in your first month. Again, that's takethesis.com/huberman, and if you use the code Huberman at checkout, you'll get 10% off your order. Today's episode is also brought to us by Eight Sleep. Eight Sleep makes smart mattress covers with cooling, heating, and sleep tracking capacity. Now, I've talked many times before on this podcast and on other podcasts about the critical relationship between sleep and body temperature. Put simply, in order to fall asleep and stay asleep deeply throughout the night, your body needs to drop by about one to three degrees in its core body temperature. And conversely, waking up involves one- to three-degree increases in your core body temperature. So it's very important that you control the temperature of your sleeping environment, which also includes the temperature of your mattress. That's what Eight Sleep mattress covers allow you to do. So for instance, I tend to run hot during the night, so I have my mattress set to be pretty cool at the beginning of the night and then to get progressively cooler and then warm toward morning when I want to wake up. And in doing this, it's allowed me to really optimize my sleep, meaning I sleep much more deeply and I get far more rapid eye movement sleep than I ever did prior to using Eight Sleep. If you'd like to try Eight Sleep, you can go to eightsleep.com/huberman to save $150 off their Pod 3 cover. Eight Sleep currently ships in the USA, Canada, UK, select countries in the EU, and Australia. Again, that's eightsleep.com/huberman. Today's episode is also brought to us by HVMN Ketone IQ. Ketone IQ is a supplement that increases blood ketones. I think most people out there have heard of the ketogenic diet. However, most people out there, including myself, do not follow a ketogenic diet. Despite not following a ketogenic diet, I make it a point to increase my blood ketones through the use of Ketone IQ. The reason for that is that ketones are one of the brain's preferred sources of fuel. I find that by taking Ketone IQ, I have elevated levels of focus for several hours afterwards. It also allows me to do physical training or mental work fasted, and in addition to that, I focus much better when I take Ketone IQ as opposed to fasted alone. So many people like me find that whether or not they follow a ketogenic diet or a more typical diet, supplementing with Ketone IQ and thereby increasing their blood ketones allows them to do more focused mental work and physical work even when fasted or when a bit hungry. So if you'd like to try Ketone IQ, go to hvmn.com and use the code Huberman to get 20% off your order. Again, that's hvmn.com and use the code Huberman to get 20% off. The Huberman Lab Podcast is now partnered with Momentous Supplements. To find the supplements we discuss on the Huberman Lab Podcast, you can go to livemomentous, spelled O-U-S, livemomentous.com/huberman. And I should just mention that the library of those supplements is constantly expanding. Again, that's livemomentous.com/huberman. And now for my discussion with Dr. Elissa Epel.Dr. Epel, welcome.