Huberman Mental Health Protocols

Huberman tattoos, mental health tools, and a habit to pursue

Author

Betterdo
November 06, 2023

Hey, what’s up?

These insights will help you upgrade and maintain your mental health and performance even when you’re crazy busy.

Here, you’ll get:

  1. A summary of the latest Huberman episode (so you can know what he said in case you missed it)

  2. Some Huberman memes

  3. An action for the week that you may have overlooked

Alright, let’s get into it.

#1 - Mental Health Toolkit episode (released Last Monday)

There’s a mental health crisis. Let’s help ourselves live it better.

Huberman merged all his episodes about mental health into one masterclass.

The tools include advice from Paul Conti’s guest series, Lisa Feldmann Barett’s episode, and Andrew’s foundational ideas for health.

Here are 3 lessons from this episode:

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1) Your mood depends on what you predict about the future

I used to think that how I feel is based on what’s going on around me. Like the mean thing someone says or the overwhelming amount of work.

But our bodies often react with feelings in anticipation of events before they occur.

So for example, when you look at sadness, the feeling might arise because you expect an event (like a breakup), will make your life way worse. So you get uneasy.

Or when you have a lot of tasks, you worry about not being able to finish them in the future, so you worry now. But if you were 100% certain you’d achieve it, you wouldn’t feel that.

So, your mood is based on how you predict things will be in the future. And when you recognize that, you realize you have more control over how you act. Because it’s not ‘in the past’. It’s about the future.

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2) Your unconscious mind controls your conscious mind, but you don’t realize it

You think the way you act is created by conscious choice. But it isn’t. Won’t get into ‘free will’ and stuff. But here’s an idea by Paul Conti.

The bulk beneath represents the unconscious mind

He calls this the iceberg model. Everything below the tip is invisible.

For example, you believe you’re a bad driver. But buried in your unconscious is that one time your close friend told you you’re a very slow driver.

There are tons of these patterns. And you can identify them with some cool ways.

  • Record your dreams. They can represent unconscious thoughts. Pro tip: plug it into chatgpt and ask it to interpret them.

  • Consider asking yourself important questions in the moments after you wake up. You have a few moments before the conscious mind arises and filters everything through its lens

  • Develop a life narrative

Mini action for this at the end.

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3) A large part of mental health is actually physical health

You already know this. Mental & physical health naturally improve when you have the 6 basic pillars. Sleep, light, movement, nutrition, social connection, stress-control.

A quick note about light, you need to get as much as you can in the day and as little as possible at night. Here are 2 very new articles about light’s impact on health.

And concerning the other stuff. It can also be really simple. Talk to a few people, remove a stressor, ensure adequate sleep, exercise, and eat healthy stuff, at least once a day. Do that consistently for two weeks and see the results.

So, maybe choose one of the basics to work on, and start. Today.

🧠

Here are a few more ideas from the episode:

  • Recent research suggests that depression is not caused by low serotonin. SSRIs work because you need a minimum level of serotonin to enable the neuroplasticity required to get over depression.

  • Good mental health = a state of agency and gratitude during most of the time we’re alive. We should enter states of autonomy and gratitude, they don’t come to us.

  • Trauma processing: you should talk about it and think about it. If not addressed, these experiences can become part of the unconscious.

Is this episode worth listening to?

6/10 for me. It’s not bad. Works well at 1.75x on a commute. But not worth deliberate listening to since it’s mostly revision.

#2 Memes of the week!

Okay, not all are ‘memes’, but they’re cool. Caution for the first one, don’t lose control.

That’s 10 hours of my life out the window. I wish I learned something here!

#3 Action for the week

From the mental health episode, most tools are ‘habits’. Most of them are tiny actions every day. But there’s one thing that helps even if it’s done only once.

And that’s journaling.

Journaling takes you from living in a passive state to living in an active state. Where you get to analyze your life from a bird’s eye view.

You bring your unconscious to the surface.

So you get to understand what’s really going on that your conscious just wasn’t aware of. You’ll understand what’s really bothering you. Or why you just feel life has stagnated lately.

That’s what happened to me. I noticed I’m now ‘writing content’. And I hate that. I don’t want to give more and more content to people. I wish I help with the ‘doing’ side. And it kinda makes me sad.

For you, it might be something else. It could be that you’re too scared to take the risk you’ve been considering. Or you’re not cutting a relationship because you’re scared of being alone.

A journal brings that to your awareness and lets you decide how you want to live your life.

You’ll know who are the people you want around you, what hobbies you want to pick up, and what goals you want to reach.

And no, you can’t just ‘think about it’. Externalizing it helps rationalize it.

You can write about whatever you want: past, present, or future. In this clip, Andrew tells you how to journal. (His main idea is: write about whatever you want)

I won’t and can’t force you. But I can help you plan it.

Hubermanner. Can you find the time to journal today?

It doesn’t have to take more than 10 minutes.

Do it in the morning, afternoon, or evening.

pro tip: use voice memos or record a selfie video if you don’t like typing.

I’m counting on you to help yourself. It takes 10 minutes.

Immediate action: Pick a time to journal.

It’s worth it.

Action for the week: Journal for 10 minutes

Do it for your own well-being.

P.S. I’m not a therapist but if you want to try this, press reply to this email now and start writing. You don’t even have to press send. Just start and don’t think about it too much.

Or do it anytime you want!

Good luck !

P.P.S: I read all of the comments from this poll so if you have any constructive criticism or thoughts, I’d love to hear from you.

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