Shadowing Practice: How Foods & Nutrients Control Our Moods | Huberman Lab Essentials - Learn English Speaking with Video
Choose a practice mode
Each mode opens a full-screen practice room.
379 sentences
If sentences are too short or too long, click Edit to adjust them.
1
Welcome to Huberman Lab Essentials, where we revisit past episodes for the most potent and actionable science -based tools for mental health, physical health, and performance.
2
My name is Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine.
3
This podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford.
4
Today, we're talking all about emotions.
5
Emotions are central to our entire experience of life.
6
Whether or not we're happy or sad or depressed or angry is our life experience.
7
And yet I think with all the importance that we've placed on emotions, very few people actually understand how emotions arise in our brain and body.
8
And I mentioned brain and body because as you'll see today, emotions really capture the brain -body relationship.
9
We cannot say that emotions arise just from what happens in our head.
10
The other thing about emotions is that there's no real agreement as to what's a good emotion or a bad emotion.
11
Today, we're going to talk about the biology of the chemicals
12
and pathways that give rise to emotions in the context of food and nutrition.
13
The discussion around emotions has a long and rich history going back to Darwin and even long before Darwin.
14
You know, this is a conversation that philosophers and scientists have been having for hundreds, if not thousands of years.
15
You know, the idea that Darwin put forth and
16
that was really attractive for about the last hundred years was
17
that emotions are universal and that some of the facial expressions around emotion are universal.
18
And other people have, you know, capitalized on that idea.
19
And to some extent it's true.
20
I mean, I think that the two most robust examples of
21
that would be when we see something or we smell something or we taste something that we like, there does tend to be a postural leaning in.
22
We tend to inhale air at that time we tend to bring in more of whatever chemical substance is there.
23
So we tend to do these and, you know, and kind of lean in closer to things that are attractive to us.
24
And when we see and experience things that we don't like, sometimes it's a mild aversion.
25
We just kind of lean back or look away.
26
Other times it's an intense aversion of disgust and we tend to cringe our face.
27
We tend to avoid inhaling any of the chemicals.
28
This probably has roots in ancient biological mechanisms that are to prevent us from ingesting things that are bad for us,
29
chemical compounds and tastes that might be poisonous.
30
So much of the foundation of any discussion about emotion has
31
to center around this kind of push -pull of attraction to things or aversion from things.
32
Now, that's a very basic way of thinking about emotions, but if you think about it, it works for a lot of different circumstances.
33
And in the brain, everywhere from the deep circuits of the brain to the more kind of what we call higher order
34
or evolved centers of the brain, we have this push -pull thing.
35
We're either, in a previous episode, I talked about go, the circuits that allow you to emphasize action, and then no -go circuits,
36
the circuits in the basal ganglia that allow you to de -emphasize action and prevent action.
37
And so we can break down the discussion about emotions into these simpler versions of themselves
38
but at the core of that of attraction
39
or aversion is an important theme that you might realize already
40
but most people tend to overlook which is
41
that there's an action there you're either moving forward
42
or you're moving away from something the brain has a body
43
so that the organism can move and the body has a brain
44
so that the organism you can move toward or away from things
45
that you deem to be good or bad for you
46
so there are circuits in the brain for a and for attraction toward things.
47
And the body is governing a lot of that.
48
And so immediately in this conversation, I want to raise an important point, which is about a nerve pathway that many,
49
many people have heard of that gets discussed all the time.
50
And that is one of the most kind of oversold for the wrong reasons and undersold, unfortunately, for its real power, which is the vagus nerve.
51
So the vagus nerve is one, not the only, but one way in which our brain and body are connected and regulates our emotional states.
52
So what is the vagus nerve?
53
Vagus is the 10th cranial nerve, which basically means that the neurons,
54
the kind of the control center of each of those neurons in the vagus lives just kind of near the neck, right?
55
And a branch of the vagus goes into the brain.
56
The other branch goes into the periphery, but not just the gut.
57
It goes into the stomach, the intestines, the heart, the lungs, and the immune system.
58
So the way to think about the Vegas is the same way I would think about the eyes.
59
The eyes are looking at colors, they're looking at motion, they're looking how bright it is.
60
And each one of those - things, those features is telling the brain something different so the brain can decide when to be awake or asleep, whether or not it's looking at somebody attractive or unattractive.
61
The vagus nerve is also analyzing many features within the body
62
and informing the brain of how to feel about that and what to do.
63
So a really good example that I think is an exciting one is as it relates to sugar.
64
So we all know that sweet things generally taste good.
65
So that makes sense, right? you eat something, it tastes sweet, you want more of it.
66
Well, it turns out that it's much more interesting than that.
67
When you eat something sweet, within your stomach, you have cells, neurons, that sense the presence of sugary foods,
68
independent of their taste, and signal to the brain.
69
So those sensors, those neurons, send information up the vagus to your brain, goes through a series of stations and then you release dopamine,
70
this molecule that makes you want more of whatever it is that you just ingested.
71
In fact, this pathway is so powerful
72
that they've done experiments where they completely numb all the taste and feeling in somebody's mouth.
73
They're blindfolded so they don't know what they're eating and they're eating a food that's either sugary or not sugary.
74
And what they find is that even though people can't taste the sugary food.
75
They crave more of the food that contains sugar because of the sensors in the gut that sense sugar.
76
And what it tells us is that we have circuits in our body
77
that are driving us towards certain behaviors and making us feel good, even though we can't perceive them.
78
Now, for those of you that are really interested in gut intuition and kind of gut feelings, this is a gut feeling, except this is a chemical gut feeling.
79
This is a particular set of neurons detecting that something in your body has a particular feature.
80
In this case, the presence of sugars and sending information to the brain to essentially to control your behavior.
81
And I find this remarkable.
82
I mean, this should completely reframe the way that we think about the sort of so -called hidden sugars in foods.
83
What this means is that even if a food is very savory, like a piece of pizza or a piece of bread or even like a salad dressing.
84
If there's sugar snuck into that and you can't taste it, you will still crave more of that thing without knowing that you crave it because it has sugar.
85
So I find this to be a fascinating aspect of our biology.
86
A lot of how we feel while we eat
87
and after we eat is because of this vagus sensing of what's in our gut.
88
It's sending information all the time.
89
Is there sugar?
90
Are there fats?
91
Are there contaminants?
92
There are a lot of information, these so -called parallel pathways that are going up into our brain
93
that regulate whether or not we want to eat more of something or not.
94
And there are accelerators, things that make us want to eat more, like sugar and fats, because those are nutrient dense and they helps generally, at least in the short term,
95
support the survival of animals, but also amino acids.
96
And this is very important.
97
There are a lot of data, but much of what comes from the data on what people eat
98
and how much they eat is from a subconscious detection of how many amino acids and what the array,
99
meaning the constellation of amino acids is in a given food.
100
And it's fair to say
101
that the sum total of these studies point in a direction
102
where people will basically eat not until their stomach is full
103
but until the brain perceives that they have adequate intake of amino acids.
104
It's amino acids, of course, are important because they are the building blocks of, sure, muscle and the other things in our body that need repair.
105
But what most people don't realize is that amino acids are what the neurochemicals in the brain are made from.
106
Now, this is vitally important, okay?
107
So we've heard dopamine is this molecule that makes you feel good.
108
Dopamine release is caused by surprise, excitement, events that you're looking forward to and that turn out well.
109
It is inhibited by events you're looking forward to that don't work out.
110
It's called reward prediction error.
111
Your expectation of something releases dopamine and the actual event releases dopamine.
112
And if the event -related dopamine does not exceed the expectation or at least match it,
113
there's a much higher tendency and see that you won't pursue that thing again.
114
Dopamine is what's going to lead us to want to eat more of something
115
or to not want more of something because dopamine really is about craving.
116
It's about motivation and it's about desire.
117
And as I mentioned, these amino acid sensors in our gut are detecting how many amino acids, but they're also detecting which amino acids.
118
And there's a particular amino acid called L -tyrosine, which comes from food.
119
It is in meats, it is in nuts, it is also in some plant -based foods.
120
L -tyrosine is the precursor to a couple other molecules like L -DOPA, et cetera, that make dopamine.
121
However, the dopamine neurons that give rise to these feelings of good or wanting more or desire and motivation, those reside in the brain.
122
So we don't want to get too confused.
123
We want to respect and honor the power of the gut and this vagal pathway, but it's really neurons within your brain that drive the pursuit and decision -making.
124
So what does this mean?
125
Well, some people make too little dopamine.
126
Some people make so little dopamine that they need prescription dopamine.
127
They need L -dopa.
128
People with Parkinson's take L -dopa and other compounds to increase dopamine because Parkinson's is associated with deficits in movement.
129
Parkinson's is a depression.
130
It's a blunting of motivation and mood and affect, and it's a tremor.
131
And then eventually in severe conditions, it's challenges in speaking and walking.
132
So that some famous examples would be, you know, Muhammad Ali, Michael J.
133
Fox, the great boxing trainer, Freddie Roach, like these people have Parkinson's and they at least later in their life had challenges speaking.
134
Now, some people immediately ask, well, should I supplement L -tyrosine?
135
It does increase kind of mood and elevation and alertness.
136
It is over the counter.
137
You have to check with your doctor.
138
I'm not responsible for your healthcare and I'm not a doctor, whether or not it's safe for you.
139
People with preexisting hyper -dopaminergic conditions like mania should probably not take L -tyrosine.
140
The other thing about taking L -tyrosine is there is a crash, okay?
141
It's not a massive crash if you take it at appropriate doses and it's right for you,
142
but it can produce a crash and a lethargy and a kind of brain fog after the next day or so.
143
And so L -tyrosine, however, can be ingested through foods or through supplementation to increase dopamine levels.
144
That's well -known.
145
Taken chronically, however, it can disrupt those dopamine pathways.
146
Let's just kind of take stock of where we're at.
147
We have a brain -body connection.
148
There are many of them, but one of the main ones is the vagus nerve.
149
The vagus collects information about a lot of things, breathing, heart rate, stuff that's happening in the gut, et cetera.
150
And gut, by the way, includes the stomach and the intestines, sends that information up to the brain.
151
The brain is using that information to decide one of two things, move toward something or move away.
152
You can also pause, but essentially pausing is not moving toward.
153
So that's the dopamine pathway
154
and foods rich in L -tyrosine generally give us an elevated mood
155
and make us want to do more of whatever it is that we happen to be doing as well as other things.
156
Motivation generalizes to other things.
157
It's not unique to just ingesting foods, But foods that give us a big pulse of dopamine will make us crave more of that food.
158
It will make us crave more of the activity that led to the ingestion of that food.
159
And as I mentioned earlier, a lot of that is happening at a subconscious level that you're not even aware of.
160
So the other neuromodulator that's really interesting in the context of the vagus is serotonin.
161
Serotonin, just to remind you, is a neuromodulator.
162
Therefore, it creates a bias in which neural circuits, which neurons in the brain and body are going to be active
163
and it makes it less likely that other ones are going to be active.
164
And serotonin, when it's elevated, tends to make us feel really comfortable and kind of blissed out wherever we are.
165
And that contrasts with dopamine and epinephrine, which mainly put us in pursuit of things.
166
Motivation is pursuit.
167
The conversation around the brain -body relationship and mood and serotonin for many years was, well, you eat a big meal, the gut is distended, you've got all the nutrients you need,
168
you rest and digest and serotonin is released.
169
That's sort of true, but there's a lot more going on and a lot more that's interesting and actionable that's going on.
170
First of all, some of you, but perhaps not all, have heard that more than 90 % of the serotonin that we make is in our gut.
171
And indeed, we have a lot of serotonin in our gut.
172
But here's the deal.
173
Most of the serotonin that it impacts our mood and our mental state is not in our gut.
174
Most of it is in the neurons of the brain in an area called the raphae nucleus of the brain.
175
There are a few other locations too.
176
You can't have a discussion about serotonin without having discussion about antidepressants because during the late 80s and early 90s,
177
there was this explosion in the number of prescription drugs that were released.
178
Things like first one and most famous one is Prozac, Zoloft, and Paxil, a number of other ones that are so -called SSRI, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors.
179
Basically, those drugs work by preventing the gobbling up of serotonin.
180
or reuptake of serotonin into neurons after it's been released, which leads to more serotonin overall, which means to elevate serotonin.
181
And indeed, those drugs were
182
and can be very useful for certain people to feel better in cases of depression and some other clinical disorders as well.
183
Not everyone responds well to them, as I'm sure you've all heard, and their side effect profile has effects like blunting affect.
184
It can make people feel kind of flat, kind of meh.
185
Many people adjust their serotonin by just eating more food and carbohydrate -rich foods will increase serotonin.
186
I eat a relatively high protein and moderate fat, zero carb or low carb meal at lunch
187
and in the afternoon to stay alert because those foods tend to favor dopamine production, acetylcholine production, epinephrine production, and alertness.
188
My mood is generally pretty good most of the time.
189
And then as evening comes around and I'm concerned about sleep and a good night's sleep, not concerned in an anxious way, but I want to get a good night's sleep,
190
I will ingest foods that promote serotonin release because they contain a lot of tryptophan.
191
So as you're seeing, this isn't really a discussion about nutrition per se, this is a discussion about food which contains amino acids,
192
amino acids being the precursors to neuromodulators and neuromodulators having a profound effect on your overall state of alertness or calmness,
193
happiness, sadness, and wellbeing being so now you understand the relationship i hope between foods
194
and dopamine foods and serotonin and
195
that they're both being communicated to the brain via the vagus right
196
so let's talk a little bit more about things
197
that we ingest in our body
198
and then allow our body to inform our brain to shift our mood
199
but i don't think most people know this simple fact
200
which is that the omega -3 to omega -6 fatty acid ratio has a profound effect on depression.
201
First of all, in an experiment done in animals, they found there's a model of learned helplessness in animals.
202
It's not very kind to the animals, but they put rats or mice in a jar, they let them swim, and they'll swim, swim, swim to try and save their life.
203
And eventually they give up.
204
It's a learned helplessness.
205
They don't let them drown, they take them out.
206
Adjusting the omega -3 omega -6 ratio so that the omega -3s are higher led to less learned helplessness, meaning these animals would swim longer.
207
But that same study was essentially done in humans.
208
What they did is they took people who were clinically depressed, major depression.
209
Okay, major depression is severe maladaptive state, meaning it inhibits job, relationships, appetite, all sorts of negative health effects.
210
And they did a comparison of 1 ,000 milligrams a day of EPA,
211
so EPA is one of the elements that contains high levels of omega -3s that's in things like fish oil, but it wasn't 1 ,000 milligrams of fish oil,
212
it was 1 ,000 milligrams of EPA.
213
Compared that to 20 milligrams of fluoxetine,
214
which is Prozac, they found that they were equally effective in reducing depressive symptoms.
215
And what was really interesting, in addition to that, is that the combination of 1 ,000 milligrams of EPA
216
and fluoxetine had a synergistic effect in lowering depressive symptoms.
217
And now there are lots of studies.
218
If you go into PubMed and you were to put EPA or fish oil and depression,
219
you would find that there were a number of really impressive results showing that it's at least as effective as certain SSRIs, antidepressants, at these dosages.
220
And it can amplify or improve the effect of low dosages of some of these SSRIs.
221
You can discuss it with your doctor and family and make the choices that are right for you.
222
Now, of course, I really want to emphasize something, which is that no one compound or nutrient or supplement
223
or drug or behavior for
224
that matter is going to be the be -all end -all of shifting out of depression
225
or improving one's mood or improving sleep.
226
You cannot expect to take a compound, regardless of source or potency
227
and have it completely shift your experience of life without having to continue to engage in the proper behaviors, all the things we know,
228
proper sleep, exercise, social connection, food, et cetera.
229
Okay, so now let's turn to another aspect of the gut -brain relationship that will surprise you, in some cases might shock you,
230
and that has some really cool and actionable biology and that's the gut microbiome, probiotics and prebiotics.
231
So what's the deal with the gut microbiome and the gut brain axis?
232
Today, we've actually been talking a lot already about the gut brain axis that has nothing to do with microbiomes.
233
We've been talking about this vagus nerve that connects providing sensory information from the body to the brain.
234
And then the brain also sends in the same nerve motor information to control the motility, the gut, the heart rate,
235
how fast we breathe and deployment of immune stuff.
236
But oftentimes when we hear about the gut brain axis these days, it's a discussion about the gut microbiome.
237
I'm very happy there's so much discussion about the gut microbiome.
238
I am somewhat dismayed and concerned that most of what I hear out there is either false or partially false.
239
So we're going to clear up some of the misconceptions first by understanding the biology, and then we're going to talk about some of the actionable items.
240
It is true that we have a lot of these little microorganisms living in our gut.
241
They're not there because they want to help us.
242
They don't have brains.
243
They are adaptive, however.
244
They try and find and create environments that make it easier for them to proliferate.
245
So they don't care about you and me, but they are perfectly willing to exploit you and me in order to make more of themselves.
246
The microbiota that live in us vary along the length of our digestive tract.
247
So we are one long tube for digestion.
248
And inside of that tube is a mucosal lining.
249
And the conditions of that mucosal lining set a number of different things.
250
It sets the rate of our digestion and the quality of our digestion.
251
It sets, for instance, our immune system.
252
We're ingesting things all the time.
253
Think about air, bacteria, viruses, they're making their way into our gut.
254
And some of those bacteria live in the gut.
255
And some of those bacteria bias the mucosal lining in the gut,
256
stomach and intestines, to be more acidic or more basic so that they can make more of themselves, so they can replicate.
257
Now, some of those mucosal linings that they promote make us feel better.
258
They make us feel more alert.
259
They bolster our immune system and others make us feel worse.
260
So first rule, the microbiome isn't good or bad.
261
Some of these little bugs that live in us do bad things to us.
262
They make us feel worse.
263
They lower our immunity.
264
They affect us in negative ways.
265
Some of them make us feel better.
266
And they do that mainly by changing the conditions of our gut environment.
267
In addition to that, they do impact
268
the neurotransmitters and the neurons that live in the gut and
269
that signal up to the brain to impact things like dopamine and serotonin that we've been talking about previously.
270
So there's a vast world now devoted to trying to understand what sources of food,
271
what kinds of foods are good or not good for the gut microbiome.
272
Here's a few things that I think you might find surprising.
273
First of all, supporting a healthy gut microbiome is good for mood, great for digestion, and great for immune system function.
274
However, that does not mean maxing out or taking the most probiotic and prebiotic that you can possibly manage.
275
As I mentioned many times before, I do believe in probiotics.
276
I take probiotics, but there are studies that show that
277
if you take lots and lots of certain probiotics like lactobacillus and you really ramp up the levels more, it is not a case of more is better.
278
There are things like brain fog that can come from that.
279
Brain fog is just this inability to focus.
280
People feel really not well generally.
281
Some of those studies are a little bit controversial, but I think it's fair to say that
282
if people really increase the amount of probiotic that they're taking beyond a certain amount,
283
then they start feeling foggy in the mind.
284
The ingestion of fermented foods is one of the best ways
285
to support healthy levels of gut microbiota without exceeding the threshold that would cause things like brain fog.
286
so much so that some people report that when they start eating small bits, because it doesn't require a lot of fermented foods, that their overall mood is better, not unlike the effects of EPA,
287
although I don't think it's been looked at directly in the context of clinical depression yet.
288
There are some things that you can do to really damage your gut microbiome, and this is where there's a huge misconception that I want to clear up.
289
There was a study that showed that artificial sweeteners, but a particular artificial sweetener,
290
which was saccharin, can disrupt the gut microbiome in ways that is detrimental to a number of different health markers,
291
increasing inflammatory cytokines and all the other bad things that happen
292
when the gut microbiome is.. thrown off kilter saccharin is not
293
the most typical artificial sweetener that's used the most typical sweetener artificial sweeteners
294
that are used are things like aspartame so -called nutrasweet or sucralose
295
or these days stevia to my knowledge the negative effects of
296
these artificial of artificial sweeteners on the gut microbiome were restricted to saccharin so what What happens is certain artificial sweeteners,
297
in particular saccharin, disrupt the microbiome and make the environment within the gut,
298
that mucosal lining, more favorable to bacteria microbiota that are not good for the organism, okay?
299
This is an important distinction.
300
It's not just that a language thing where people say, oh, you know, it kills the microbiome.
301
It doesn't kill the microbiome, it shifts the microbiome.
302
and shifts in the microbiome can be good or they can be bad.
303
And that takes us to another topic.
304
That's a bit of a hot button topic, but I'm willing to go there because I think it deserves conversation, which is nowadays,
305
there are many examples out there where people have switched from a kind of standard diet
306
or even a vegetarian diet or vegan diet to a keto diet.
307
Now, keto doesn't necessarily have to mean the ingestion of meats, but it can.
308
And they experience positive effects for themselves.
309
But the ketogenic diet is interesting because when one shifts to the ketogenic diet, there is a shift in the gut microbiome and some people end up feeling better.
310
Some people end up feeling worse.
311
Likewise, some people go from ingesting animal products,
312
including meat or they're vegetarian and they go to vegan and they experience positive shifts in mood and affect.
313
So the point of all this is that when I say you have to find what's right for you, That's not a throwaway statement.
314
Some people's microbiome and the mucosal lining of their throat, of their gut, of their nose,
315
everything is improved by diets that are heavily meat -based and don't have many plants.
316
Other people do much better on a plant -based diet without many meat products or animal products.
317
It's highly individual.
318
And this probably has roots in genetic makeup.
319
This probably has roots in what people were raised on because remember the nervous system, of course, is set up by your genes,
320
your genetic program, but your nervous system, it adapts early in life to your conditions.
321
That's what it's for.
322
The reason you have a nervous system is to move your body appropriately towards things
323
that are good for you and away from things that are not, but also it was designed to adapt.
324
So that yes, indeed, some people may like certain foods
325
and react to certain foods better than others because of the way that their nervous system was wired, this enteric, as it's called, nervous system that lines the gut and that communicates with the brain.
326
So most of what I've talked about today is black and white.
327
These are things that are present in all of us, the sugar -sensing neurons of the gut, the way the vagus is wired, the fact that omega -3, omega -6s tend to improve,
328
the ratios tend to impact mood with high omega -3, omega -6 ratios improving mood.
329
We talked about all sorts of things in the gut -brain and body -brain axis.
330
But when it comes to the microbiome, the key thing is that we all have a microbiome.
331
You want a microbiome, but you want to promote the microbiome that is right for you.
332
And that can be shifted and steered by ingesting certain categories of foods and not others.
333
It's very clear that these fermented foods support the microbiome, that we should be ingesting at least two servings per day, which is quite a lot.
334
That supplementation at low levels can be good.
335
Supplementation at high levels can create this brain fog.
336
Even though some people say that result is controversial, I've experienced this myself and the data looked to me pretty darn solid.
337
So that's one thing to think about as well.
338
And the other thing about the gut microbiome is that it's highly contextual based on other things that you're doing.
339
So even things like exercise and social wellbeing and connection, those things are also impacting the gut microbiome.
340
So find the diet that's right for you and
341
that works for you in the context of the other ethical and lifestyle choices that are are important to you, that's my advice.
342
So as we round up, I want to share some results with you
343
that without question will impact the way that you respond to food mentally and even physically.
344
I have a colleague at Stanford, Aaliyah Crum, who's done some remarkable experiments on mindset.
345
Two that are particularly interesting to me, I want to share with you now because they really emphasize
346
how our beliefs can really impact the way that our brain and body work together.
347
I think the most famous of these is an experiment they did where they had two groups of individuals.
348
They were each given a milkshake
349
and they had some factors measured from their blood by an IV while they ingested the milkshake and then afterwards as well.
350
And one of the factors that they were looking at was something called ghrelin, G -H -R -E -L -I -N.
351
Ghrelin is a peptide that increases with hunger.
352
So the longer you haven't eaten, the ghrelin goes up.
353
One group got a shake that they were told was a low calorie, healthy shake.
354
The other group got a milkshake that they were told was the very decadent high calorie shake.
355
And what they found was that the high calorie shake had a much more robust effect on blunting ghrelin and reducing ghrelin.
356
But the interesting thing you probably guessed already is that it was the exact same shake given to both groups.
357
And this speaks to these so -called top -down mechanisms or modulation of our physiology.
358
In a previous episode about pain, we talked about the effects of obsessive infatuation and love on pain responses and pain thresholds.
359
This is yet another example where beliefs
360
or subjective feelings can impact physiology at the level of the periphery because ghrelin is released in the periphery in the body.
361
And so this is not just the placebo effect, this is an incredible set of findings that illustrate the extent to
362
which whether or not we believe a food is going to be good for us or not good for us, these belief effects are not about lying to yourself.
363
So in order for them to work, you have to be naive to the information, right?
364
You can't simply lie to yourself and tell yourself, what you want to believe and that's important but also important is
365
that the mind and the body are in this fascinating interplay
366
and today we've talked mainly about how the body and things
367
that we put inside this tube this uh
368
that runs from our mouth to to the other end to
369
our rectum basically is impacting all these cells these neurons microbiota in their um mucosal lining heart,
370
lungs, and how all that information is feeding up to the brain to impact how we feel up here.
371
But also how we feel up here is impacting how our body reacts at levels of very core physiology
372
that you couldn't just tell yourself that this was going to work, but what you believe about certain substances, certain foods,
373
certain nutrients does have a profound effect on the magnitude of their impact
374
and sometimes even the quality and direction of that impact.
375
So today's episode, we took a full journey into the brain -body relationship
376
and discussed a lot of the mechanisms and the actionable items
377
that you can approach if you want to explore this aspect of your biology and psychology further.
378
Last, but certainly not least, I want to thank everybody for your time and attention today.
379
And as always, thank you for your interest in science.
Download App
Everything you need to speak fluently
AI PronunciationScore every sentence
IPA PracticeMaster every sound
VocabularyBuild your word bank
Vocab GameLearn while playing
📺 Same Channel
C11,316
Why Reading (Books) Makes Us Better at Speaking
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C18
Build Muscle Size, Increase Strength & Improve Recovery | Huberman Lab Essentials
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
C13
Essentials: Neuralink & Technologies to Enhance Human Brains | Dr. Matt MacDougall
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C157
Why Women Over 30 Should Consider Freezing Their Eggs
University StudentsWorking Adults
C13
Your Memories & Emotions Impact Immune Status
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B2Dr. Arthur Brooks: The 3 Macronutrients of True Happiness
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C13
The Science & Treatment of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) | Huberman Lab Essentials
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C129
The Cure for Addiction
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C134
Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C117
You Can Learn New Habits Very Fast: Brain Circuits Rewire Faster With Urgency
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C13
Essentials: Science of Mindsets for Health & Performance | Dr. Alia Crum
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C12
Food & Supplements for Brain Health & Cognitive Performance | Huberman Lab Essentials
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
Tools for Managing Stress & Anxiety | Huberman Lab Essentials
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
C11
Essentials: The Biology of Slowing & Reversing Aging | Dr. David Sinclair
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C12
Essentials: How to Assess & Improve All Aspects of Your Fitness | Dr. Andy Galpin
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C12
The Science of Making & Breaking Habits | Huberman Lab Essentials
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C121
Tools to Improve Your Focus & Concentration | Huberman Lab Essentials
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C14
Essentials: Micronutrients for Health & Longevity | Dr. Rhonda Patrick
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C120
Tools to Set Your Cortisol Rhythm
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C15
Essentials: Optimal Protocols to Build Strength & Grow Muscles | Dr. Andy Galpin
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
✨ Recommend Video
C130
64 sentences
How our expectations shape what we see, hear, and feel
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C11
430 sentences
Essentials: Diet & Nutrition for Mental Health | Dr. Chris Palmer
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C116
426 sentences
How to Increase Motivation & Drive | Huberman Lab Essentials
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
![Harvard Professor reveals the Science of Happiness in 15 minutes | Arthur Brooks [ARC 2025]](https://img.youtube.com/vi/w8a0T5XLrXc/mqdefault.jpg)
C12
258 sentences
Harvard Professor reveals the Science of Happiness in 15 minutes | Arthur Brooks [ARC 2025]
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C12
544 sentences
30+ C1 Level Vocabulary (Human Body) 🧠 || Learn Advanced English with Podcast
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C18
105 sentences
Emotional and mental health needs
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C12
319 sentences
Junk food, sugar and additives - The dark side of the food industry | DW Documentary
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
C11
96 sentences
Peter Fonagy: What is Mentalization?
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C19
74 sentences
The Psychology of People Who Love Staying At Home
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C12
42 sentences
Managing your Mood: Tips for Staying Present | The School of Life
British AccentBusiness EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C169
14 sentences
Huberman Lab Podcast #1: Multi Tasking and Attention
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C13
68 sentences
The positive effects of positive emotions
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This C1 speaking lesson is built on the video “How Foods & Nutrients Control Our Moods”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: brain, gut, microbiome, dopamine. This video has 379 sentences and 5546 words to shadow. The speech runs for 32:28. The speaker talks at a natural 171 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. Only 80% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| microbiome noun | The genetic information (genomes) of a microbiota. | |
| dopamine noun | /ˈdoʊ.pəˌmin/ | A monoamine C₈H₁₁NO₂ that is a decarboxylated form of dopa, present in the body as a neurotransmitter and a precursor of other substances including adrenalin. |
| serotonin noun | /ˌsɛɹəˈtoʊnɪn/ | An indoleamine neurotransmitter, 5-hydroxytryptamine, that is involved in depression, appetite, etc., and is crucial in maintaining a sense of well-being… |
| vagus noun | /ˈveɪ.ɡəs/ | A homeless person or vagrant. |
| neuron noun | /ˈn(j)ʊɹɑn/ | A cell of the nervous system, which conducts nerve impulses; consisting of an axon and several dendrites. Neurons are connected by synapses. |
| amino noun | /əˈminoʊ/ | The amine functional group. |
| ingest verb | /ɪnˈd͡ʒɛst/ | To take (a substance, e.g., food) into the body of an organism, especially through the mouth and into the gastrointestinal tract. |
| omega noun | /oʊˈmeɪ.ɡə/ | The twenty-fourth letter of the Classical and the Modern Greek alphabet, and the twenty-eighth letter of the Old and the Ancient Greek alphabet, i.e. the last… |
| mucosal adjective | Of or pertaining to the mucous membranes (mucosae). | |
| sweetener noun | Something added to food to sweeten its taste, especially an artificial substitute for sugar. | |
| tyrosine noun | A nonessential amino acid 2-amino-3-(4-hydroxyphenyl)propanoic acid found in most animal proteins, especially casein | |
| pathway noun | /ˈpæθˌweɪ/ | A footpath or other path or track. |
| ghrelin noun | /ˈɡɹɛlɪn/ | A peptide hormone, secreted in the stomach when empty, that increases appetite and secretion of growth hormone from the pituitary gland. |
| probiotic adjective | /ˌpɹoʊ.baɪˈɑ.tɪk/ | Of, or relating to probiosis; ecologic facilitation. |
| actionable adjective | /ˈæk.ʃə.nə.bəl/ | Able to be acted on; able to be used as the basis for taking action. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| clear up verb | /klɪəˈɹʌp/ | To clarify, to correct a misconception. |
| end up verb | To bring to a conclusion. | |
| look forward to verb | To anticipate, expect, or wait for, especially with a feeling of approval or pleasure; to be excited or eager to. | |
| turn out verb | To end up; to result. | |
| break down verb | To stop functioning. | |
| come around verb | /kʌ.məˈɹaʊnd/ | To change one's mind, especially to begin to agree or appreciate what one was reluctant to accept at first. |
| give up verb | To surrender (someone or something); to inform on (someone). | |
| go back to verb | To stem from; to originate in. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- Today, we're talking all about emotions.
- They're not there because they want to help us.
- We're ingesting things all the time.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | have been having · we've actually been talking · We've been talking |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | we've placed · have heard · they've done |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | are connected · are made · is caused |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | overlook which is · point, which is · power, which is |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 71 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, they're, we're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: actionable /ˈæk.ʃə.nə.bəl/, aversion /əˈvɜːʒən/, milkshake /ˈmɪlk.ʃeɪk/, subconscious /sʌbˈkɑn.ʃəs/, expectation /ˌɛk.spɛkˈteɪ.ʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: serotonin /ˌsɛɹəˈtoʊnɪn/, probiotic /ˌpɹoʊ.baɪˈɑ.tɪk/, actionable /ˈæk.ʃə.nə.bəl/, periphery /pəˈɹɪf.ə.ɹi/, organism /ˈɔɹ.ɡəˌnɪz.əm/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like microbiome, dopamine, serotonin.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.