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. I'm Andrew Huberman,

and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. And now for my

discussion with Dr. Paul Conti.

Paul, thank you so much for being here today.

Thank you so much for having me.

We could just start off very basic and just get everyone oriented.

How should we define trauma?

I think we have to look at trauma as not anything negative that happens to us, right? But something that overwhelms our coping skills and then leaves us

different as we move forward. So it changes the way that our brains function, right? And then that

change is evident in us as we move forward through life. We can see it in mood, anxiety,

behavior, sleep, physical health. So we can identify it and we can also see it in brain

changes. If trauma rises to the level of changing the functioning of our brains, then there's

almost always a reflex of guilt and shame around the trauma that can lead us, it often leads us

to bury it, to avoid it,

which is exactly the opposite of what needs to be done. We need to communicate and put words

to what's gone on inside of us. And very often a person knows, but they're not admitting

to themselves because they're afraid of it, right? They don't know what to do, but if they start

talking,

then they'll talk about the event or the situation. It could be something acute or it could

be something chronic that really has been harmful to them. And then they feel different

afterwards. But that doesn't always happen. Sometimes it's a process of exploration, you know,

...