2025-03-13
36 分钟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.
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.
Today we're going to focus on how particular hormones influence our energy levels and our immune system.
We are going to talk about the hormones cortisol and epinephrine, also called adrenaline.
If you're somebody who has challenges with sleep, or you're somebody who has challenges getting your energy level up throughout the day and getting your energy level down when you want to sleep, today's episode is also for you and we are going to talk about the immune system and how to enhance the function of your immune system.
I think it's fair to say that most people would like to have a lot of energy during the day if you work during the day, and they'd like their energy to taper off at night.
And I think it's fair to say that most people don't enjoy being sick.
And it turns out that the two hormones that dominate those processes of having enough energy and having a healthy immune system are cortisol and epinephrine.
I just want to cover a little bit about what cortisol and epinephrine are, where they are released in the body and brain, because if you can understand that, you will understand better how to control them.
First of all, cortisol is a steroid hormone, much like estrogen and testosterone in that it is derived from cholesterol.
So understand that cholesterol is a precursor molecule, meaning it's the substrate from which a lot of things like testosterone and estrogen are made.
Please also understand that cholesterol can be made into estrogen or testosterone or cortisol, and that cortisol is sort of the competitive partner to estrogen and testosterone.
What this means is no matter how much cholesterol you're eating or you produce, whether or not it's low or it's high, if you are stressed, more of that cholesterol is going to be devoted toward creating cortisol, which is indeed a stress hormone.
However, the word stress shouldn't stress you out because you need cortisol.
Cortisol is vital.
You don't want your cortisol levels to be too low.
It's very important for immune system function, for memory, for not getting depressed.
You just don't want your cortisol levels to be too high and you don't want them to be elevated even to normal levels at the wrong time of day.