Dr. Samer Hattar: Timing Your Light, Food, & Exercise for Optimal Sleep, Energy & Mood

Huberman Lab

Scicomm Media

Science, Health & Fitness, Life Sciences

4.8 • 26.2K Ratings

🗓️ 25 October 2021

⏱️ 135 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode, I host Dr. Samer Hattar, Chief of the Section on Light and Circadian Rhythms at the National Institute of Mental Health. Dr. Hattar is a world-renowned expert on how viewing light at particular times adjusts our mood, ability to learn, stress and hormone levels, appetite, and mental health. We discuss how to determine and use your individual light sensitivity to determine the optimal sleep-wake cycle for you. We also discuss how to combine your light viewing and waking time with the timing of your food intake and exercise in order to maximize mental and physical functioning. Dr. Hattar is credited with co-discovering the neurons in the eye that set our circadian clocks and regulate mood and appetite. He explains why even a small shift in daylight savings leads to outsized effects on our biking because of the way that our cells and circadian clocks integrate across many days. And he offers precise tools to rapidly adjust to jetlag, shift work, and reset your clock after a late night of work or socializing. This episode is filled with cutting-edge data on the biological mechanisms of human physiology and practical tools for people of all ages. 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. Samer Hattar, Ph.D. (00:02:17) Sponsors (00:06:15) Light, Circadian (24 hour) & Circannual (365 day) “Photoentrainment” (00:14:30) Neurons in Our Eyes That Set Our Body Clocks: Similar to Frog Skin (00:18:55) What Blind People See (00:20:15) When, How & How Long to View Light for Optimal Sleep & Wakefulness (00:30:20) Sunlight Simulators, Afternoon Light Viewing, Naps (00:33:48) Are You Jetlagged at Home? Chronotypes & Why Early Risers Succeed (00:38:33) How to Decide Your Best Sleep-Wake Schedule; Minimal Light Test (00:42:16) Viewing Light in Middle of Day: Mood & “Light Hunger” (00:44:55) Evening Sunlight; Blueblocker Warning (00:48:57) Blue Light Is Not the Issue; Samer’s Cave; Complete Darkness (00:53:58) Screens at Night (00:56:03) Dangers of Bright Light Between 10 pm and 4 am: Mood & Learning (01:01:05) The Tripartite Model: Circadian, Sleep Drive, Feeding Schedules (01:05:05) Using Light to Enhance Your Mood; & The Hattar-Hernandez Nucleus (01:07:19) Why Do We Sleep? (01:08:17) Effects of Light on Appetite; Regular Light & Meal Times (01:18:08) Samer’s Experience with Adjusting Meal Timing (01:22:51) Using Light to Align Sleep, Mood, Feeding, Exercise & Cognition (01:30:15) Age-Related Changes in Timing of Mental & Physical Vigor (01:31:44) “Chrono-Attraction” in Relationships; Social-Rhythms (01:33:40) Re-setting Our Clock Schedule; Screen Devices Revisited (01:37:50) How Samer Got into the Study of Light (01:39:33) Clock Gene mRNAs & More Accurate Biomarkers (01:41:08) Light as Medicine (01:42:48) ADHD (Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) (01:43:35) How to Beat Jetlag: Light, Temperature, Eating (01:50:44) Vigor: The Consequence of Proper Timing (01:52:15) Waking in the Middle of the Night: When Your Nightly Sleep Becomes a Nap (01:54:10) Melatonin, Pineal Calcification (01:55:25) Our Seasonal Rhythms: Mood, Depression, Lethargy & Reproduction (01:59:08) Daylight Savings: Much Worse Than It Might Seem (02:05:27) Eye Color & Sensitivity to Light, Bipolar Disorder (02:09:28) Spicy Food, Genetic Variations in Sensory Sensitivity (02:10:52) Synthesizing This Information, Samer on Twitter, Instagram (02:13:00) Conclusions, Ways To Support the Huberman Lab Podcast & 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.
0:09.0	I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine.
0:15.0	Today I have the pleasure of introducing Dr. Samer Hattar as my guest on the Huberman Lab Podcast.
0:21.0	Dr. Hattar is the chief of the section on light and circadian rhythms at the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland.
0:29.0	Dr. Hattar has many important discoveries to his name. He was one of a handful of groups that discovered the light sensing neurons in the eye that set the circadian clock.
0:40.0	This was a fundamental discovery made in the early 2000s that has led to an enormous number of additional discoveries on how light regulates our sleep, our immune system, our mood, mental health, metabolism, feeding, and many other important processes.
0:58.0	If ever there was somebody who understands how all of these processes interact and can inform best practices for our daily behaviors, it's Dr. Hattar.
1:08.0	During our discussion today, Dr. Hattar answers questions that are absolutely essential for us to know about our health and well-being.
1:16.0	For instance, how to align our sleep schedule with our activity schedule such as exercise and how to align light activity and exercise with our feeding rhythms.
1:28.0	He presents a new model of how light activity and feeding rhythms converge to support optimal health and when those are not aligned correctly, how our mental and physical health can suffer.
1:41.0	It's a discussion that is rich with scientific mechanism, made clearly, of course, so everybody can understand, as well as specific protocols to deal with shifts in day length, shifts in activity, and in order to optimize sleep, metabolism, and well-being of various kinds.
1:59.0	I learned so much from Samar as I always do. He is an absolute wealth of knowledge on all things related to light and circadian rhythms, physiology and neuroscience.
2:09.0	I don't think you'll find anyone else as knowledgeable about these topics as Samar, and so I'm delighted that he joined us here on the podcast to share this information.
2:17.0	Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford.
2:22.0	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.
2:30.0	In keeping with that theme, I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast.
2:34.0	Our first sponsor is Athletic Greens. Athletic Greens is an all-in-one vitamin mineral probiotic drink.
2:40.0	I've been taking Athletic Greens since 2012, so I'm delighted that they're sponsoring the podcast.
2:45.0	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.
2:52.0	It makes up for any deficiencies that I might have.
2:55.0	In addition, it has probiotics, which are vital for microbiome health.
2:59.0	I've done a couple of episodes now on the so-called gut microbiome and the ways in which the microbiome interacts with your immune system, with your brain to regulate mood, and essentially with every biological system relevant to health throughout your brain and body.
	...

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