Essentials: How to Control Your Sense of Pain & Pleasure

Cold Exposure: How To

This can come in useful in a variety of contexts, but I think it's important because what it illustrates is that it absolutely cannot be just the pattern of signals that are arriving from the...

"Now, first off, I want to tell you what was told to me by our director or chief of the pain division and it's... and work very well for the treatment of certain forms of pain. Now, first off, I want to tell you what was told to me by our director or chief of the pain division at Stanford School of Medicine, Dr. Sean Mackey, which was that a fraction of people experienced tremendous pain relief from acupuncture, and others experienced none at all or very little. A number of laboratories have started to explore how acupuncture works. And one of the premier laboratories for this is Chufu Ma's lab at Harvard Medical School. Now, the form of acupuncture that they explored was one that's commonly in use called electroacupuncture. So this isn't just putting little needles into different parts of the body. These needles are able to pass an electrical current, not magically, but because they have a little wire going back to a device and you can pass electrical current. So what Chufu Ma's lab found was that if electroacupuncture is provided to the abdomen, to the stomach area, it creates activation of what are called the sympathetic ganglia and the activation of these neurons involves noradrenaline and something called NPY, neuropeptide Y. The long and short of it is that stimulating the abdomen with electroacupuncture was either anti-inflammatory or it could cause inflammation. It could actually exacerbate inflammation depending on whether or not it was of low or high intensity. Now that makes it a very precarious technique. And this may speak to some of the reason why some people report relief from acupuncture and others do not. However, they went a step further and stimulated other areas of the body using electroacupuncture. And what they found is that stimulation of the legs caused a circuit, a neural circuit to be activated that goes from the legs up to an area of the base of the brain called the DMV and activated the adrenal glands which sit atop your kidneys and caused the release of what are called catecholamines. And those were strongly anti-inflammatory. In other words, electroacupuncture of the legs and feet can, if done correctly, be anti-inflammatory and reduce symptoms of pain and perhaps accelerate wound healing because activations of these catecholaminergic pathways can accelerate wound healing as well. I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge one of our sponsors, Element. Element is an electrolyte drink that has everything you need and nothing you don't. That means the electrolytes, sodium, magnesium, and potassium in the correct amounts, but no sugar. Proper hydration is critical for optimal brain and body function. Even a slight degree of dehydration can diminish cognitive and physical performance. It's also important that you get adequate electrolytes. The electrolytes, sodium, magnesium, and potassium, are vital for functioning of all the cells in your body, especially your neurons or your nerve cells. Drinking Element dissolved in water makes it very easy to ensure that you're getting adequate hydration and adequate electrolytes. To make sure that I'm getting proper amounts of hydration and electrolytes, I dissolve one packet of Element in about 16 to 32 ounces of water when I first wake up in the morning, and I drink that basically first thing in the morning. I'll also drink Element dissolved in water during any kind of physical exercise that I'm doing, especially on hot days when I'm sweating a lot and losing water and electrolytes. Element has a bunch of great tasting flavors. I love the raspberry. I love the citrus flavor. Right now, Element has a limited edition lemonade flavor that is absolutely delicious. I hate to say that I love one more than all the others, but this lemonade flavor is right up there with my favorite other one, which is raspberry or watermelon. Again, I can't pick just one flavor. I love them all. If you'd like to try Element, you can go to drinkelement.com slash Huberman, spelled drin L-M-N-T dot com slash Huberman to claim a free Element sample pack with a purchase of any Element drink mix. Again, that's drinkelement.com slash Huberman to claim a free sample pack."

Acupuncture Discussion

and work very well for the treatment of certain forms of pain.

"And there is terrific mechanistic science to now explain how and why acupuncture can work very well for the treatment of certain forms of pain."

Electrolytes Discussion

and work very well for the treatment of certain forms of pain.

"Now, first off, I want to tell you what was told to me by our director or chief of the pain division and it's... and work very well for the treatment of certain forms of pain."