Welcome to the Huberman Lab guest series where I and an expert guest discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life.

I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine.

Today marks the third episode in our four episode series about mental health with Dr. Paul Conti.

Today's episode deals with the topic of healthy relationships, how to define what a healthy relationship is, and how to achieve healthy relationships of all kinds, including romantic relationships,

romantic relationships, interpersonal relationships at work, friendships with family, and of course with one self.

This episode builds on the framework of the psychology of self and mental health that was established in the first and second episodes of this series.

However, even if you didn't listen to the first or second episode in this series, today's episode will still contain a lot of information and protocols that you will find valuable for improving your relationships.

That said, if you have the opportunity to listen to the first and second episodes in this series, I think you'll find those to be tremendously beneficial at any point.

During today's episode, Dr. Conti discusses what makes for a successful relationship of any kind, as well as tools to improve those relationships.

He discusses various types of bonds, including healthy bonds and trauma bonds, not just in the context of romantic relationships, but in the context of all types of relationships.

We also discuss different challenges that people face in relationships, including abusive relationships, and we discuss the role of power dynamics, anxiety, and boundaries in relationships, both from the perspective of unhealthy relationships, but more importantly from the understanding and protocols to cultivate healthy relationships.

While there is an abundance of opinions and information out there on the internet these days about relationships, both healthy and unhealthy, today's discussion approaches the topic of relationships through an entirely different lens,

which is the lens of the self in terms of one's conscious and subconscious mind, and how multiple conscious and subconscious minds through different individuals interact with one another in ways that we can see and ways that we can't see, and all of that framed within the actionable steps that any of us can take to improve our relationship to ourselves and to others.

Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford.

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.

In keeping with that theme, I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast.

Our first sponsor is Better Help.

Better Help offers professional therapy with a licensed therapist carried out all online.

I've been doing therapy for more than 30 years, and while I confess that initially, I was forced to do that therapy as a condition for being let back into high school.

Over time, I learned that therapy is a tremendously valuable practice.

In fact, I consider doing regular weekly therapy as just as important as doing regular physical exercise in order to improve one's health.

The beauty of Better Help is that it makes it extremely easy to find a therapist that's excellent for you, and we can define an excellent therapist to somebody who's going to give you a lot of support, but in an objective way, as well as somebody with whom you can have excellent rapport,

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