Dr. Craig Heller: Using Temperature To Optimize Performance, Brain & Body Health

Huberman Lab

Scicomm Media

Science, Health & Fitness, Life Sciences

4.8 • 26.2K Ratings

🗓️ 4 October 2021

⏱️ 111 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This episode I am joined by Dr. Craig Heller, Professor of Biology at Stanford University and world expert on the science of temperature regulation. We discuss how the body and brain maintain temperature under different conditions and how most everyone uses the wrong approach to cool off or heat up. Dr. Heller teaches us the best ways and in doing so, explains how to offset hyperthermia and hypothermia. He also explains how we can use the precise timing and location of cooling on our body to greatly enhance endurance and weight training performance. He describes how cooling technology discovered and engineered in his laboratory has led to a tripling of anaerobic (weight training) performance and allowed endurance athletes to run further and faster, as well as to eliminate delayed onset muscle soreness. Dr. Heller explains how heat impairs muscular and mental performance, and how to cool the brain to reduce inflammation and to enhance sleep and cognition. We discuss how anyone can apply these principles for themselves, even their dogs! Our conversation includes both many practical tools and mechanistic science. For the full show notes, visit hubermanlab.com. Thank you to our sponsors AG1 (Athletic Greens): https://athleticgreens.com/huberman InsideTracker: https://insidetracker.com/huberman Thesis: https://takethesis.com/huberman Supplements from Momentous https://www.livemomentous.com/huberman Timestamps (00:00:00) Introducing Dr. Craig Heller, Physiology & Performance (00:02:00) Sponsors (00:06:45) Cold Showers, Ice Baths, Cryotherapy (00:10:45) Boundary Layers (00:11:55) Cooling Before Aerobic Activity to Enhance Performance (00:14:45) Anaerobic Activity Locally Increases Muscle Heat (00:16:45) Temperature Gates Our Energy Use (00:19:00) Local Versus Systemic Fatigue: Heat Is Why We Fail (00:22:10) Cooling Off: Most Methods are Counterproductive (00:26:43) Exercise-Induced Brain Fog (00:27:45) Hyperthermia (00:31:50) Best Body Sites for Cooling: Palms, Foot Pads, Upper Face (00:38:00) Cooling Your Brain via The Upper Face; Concussion (00:41:25) Extraordinary (Tripling!) Performance by Cooling the Palms (00:45:35) Enhancing Recovery, Eliminating Soreness w/Intra-workout Cooling (00:50:00) Multiple Sclerosis: Heat Sensitivity & Amelioration with Cooling (00:51:00) Enhancing Endurance with Proper Cooling (00:53:00) Cool Mitt, Ice-Cold Is Too Cold, 3 Minutes Cooling (00:58:20) How You Can Use Palmer Cooling to Enhance Performance (01:01:15) Radiation, Convection, Heat-Transfer, Role of Surface Area (01:04:40) Hypothermia Story, Ideal Re-Heating Strategy (01:11:40) Paw-lmer Cooling for Dog Health & Performance (01:12:45) Warming Up, & Varying Temperature Around the Body (01:17:35) Cooling-Enhanced Performance Is Permanent (01:19:55) Anabolic Steroids versus Palmer Cooling (01:24:00) Female Athletic Performance (01:25:18) Shivering & Cold, Metabolism (01:26:55) Studies of Bears & Hibernation, Brown Fat (01:31:10) Brown Fat Distribution & Activation In Humans (01:34:18) Brain Freeze, Ice Headache: Blood Pressure, Headache (01:37:50) Fidgeters, Non-Exercise Induced Thermogenesis (01:39:44) How Pre-Workout Drinks, & Caffeine May Inhibit Performance (01:43:42) Sleep, Cold, Warm Baths, Screens, & Socks (01:48:44) Synthesis (01:49:30) Supporting the Podcast & Scientific Research Title Card Photo Credit: Mike Blabac Disclaimer

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life.
0:09.1	I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine.
0:14.9	Today I have the pleasure of introducing Dr. Craig Heller as my guest on the Huberman Lab podcast.
0:20.6	Dr. Heller is a professor of biology and neurosciences at Stanford. His laboratory works on a range of topics,
0:27.2	including thermal regulation, down syndrome, and circadian rhythms.
0:32.0	Today we talk about thermal regulation, how the body heats and cools itself and maintains what we call homeostasis,
0:39.6	which is an equilibrium of processes that keeps our neurons healthy, our organs functioning well,
0:45.3	and as Dr. Heller teaches us, thermal regulation can be leveraged in order to greatly increase our performance in athletics and mental performance as well.
0:54.7	Learning to control your core body temperature is one of the most, if not the most powerful thing that you can do to optimize mental and physical performance regardless of the environment that you're in.
1:06.7	He also dispels many common myths about heating and cooling the body, including the idea that putting a cold pack on your head or neck is the optimal way to cool down quickly.
1:16.1	And in fact, as Dr. Heller tells us, it actually can be counterproductive and lead to hyperthermia.
1:21.6	It's a fascinating conversation from which I learned a tremendous amount of new information, and we didn't even get into the other incredibly interesting work that Dr. Heller does on Down syndrome and circadian rhythms and sleep.
1:34.0	So we hope to have him back in the future to discuss those topics.
1:38.0	As you'll soon see, Dr. Heller is a wealth of knowledge on all things human physiology, biology, and human performance.
1:45.6	It's no surprise then that he's been chair of the biology department at Stanford for many years, as well as director of the human biology program.
1:54.0	So if you're interested in human biology and how to improve your performance in any context or setting, athletic or otherwise, I think you'll very much enjoy today's conversation.
2:04.0	Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford.
2:09.2	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.
2:17.2	In keeping with that theme, I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast.
2:20.8	Our first sponsor is Athletic Greens. Athletic Greens is an all-in-one vitamin mineral probiotic drink.
2:27.2	I've been taking Athletic Greens since 2012, so I'm delighted that they're sponsoring the podcast.
2:32.4	The reason I started taking Athletic Greens and the reason I still take Athletic Greens once or twice today is that it helps me cover all of my basic nutritional needs.
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