Alcohol's Impact on Health and Social Dynamics

Dr. Huberman's insights empower individuals to rethink their relationship with alcohol for better health and productivity.

### The Impact of Alcohol on Health and Productivity
* 🍷 There is a growing awareness of the risks associated with alcohol consumption, with some individuals choosing to **reduce or eliminate alcohol from their lives** for health and productivity reasons.
* 🧠 Dr. Huberman emphasizes the importance of understanding the health risks of alcohol, especially for women, who face **elevated risks of certain cancers**.
* 🎉 While alcohol is often seen as a social lubricant, Dr. Huberman challenges the notion that it is **necessary for a good time**, suggesting that there are many other ways to socialize and have fun.
* 🌞 He highlights the benefits of getting morning sunlight for **mood, mental health, and sleep**, suggesting that it is a **simple and cost-effective way to improve overall well-being**.
* 🌙 Dr. Huberman discusses the impact of artificial light exposure at night on circadian rhythms and mental health, recommending strategies like **using red light modes on devices** to mitigate these effects.
* He shares his personal experiences with alcohol, including **occasional binge drinking in college** and **periods of sobriety for productivity reasons**.
* 💊 Dr. Huberman compares the effects of alcohol and psilocybin microdosing, noting that the latter often leaves him **feeling better the next day** and questioning the **appeal of alcohol**.
* 🍹 The conversation touches on societal norms around alcohol consumption, the marketing of alcohol, and the ritualistic aspects of drinking, highlighting the **complex cultural factors** that influence alcohol use.

coming back to the discussion about alcohol, which is one that you tried to interject with Berton. I think your episode that you released last year, yeah, back end of last summer, yeah. I think that really opened a lot of people's eyes to some of the risks of alcohol. I've been kind of flying the flag of it as a tool for productivity for quite a while to avoid alcohol. Yeah, that I think when you entirely or do drink at all. Uh, I've brought it back into my life now, but I did six months sober three times and then thousand days without alcohol too. Um, but yeah, I'm seeing right now a huge push back against unseen unintentional drinking. And I think that, yeah, your episode last year opened a lot of people's eyes to it. Thanks. I mean, again, I, I don't tell people what to do. I give them the facts so they can make the best decisions for them. I mean, it's very clear that unless you're an alcoholic and provided you're an adult that you know, two drinks per week.

maximum um is about the upper threshold beyond which you're going to start getting some health. That's called a warm-up in England. Yeah, so I, you know, I've never been a big drinker. I don't drink. I'm lucky that it's not something that's a strong draw for me. You know, I have friends that are recovered alcoholics, and you know, their lives are so much better as a function of being sober. But for non-alcoholics, I mean, I think everyone should just know the health risks, especially women, where the risks for breast cancer and other types of cancers are elevated so very much. And what was interesting to me about the response to that episode is that I think many people took it, the impression I got, was that many people took it as permission to finally stop drinking or drink less because they didn't enjoy drinking. And as you so beautifully put out on social media, you know, drinking is one of the few

activities that if you don't partake, people assume or accuse you of having a problem, and it's just wild. I mean, like, why would that be? And I think that I think also make once actually I was out to dinner with a colleague years ago, and I declined drinking that even. I was just talking to the visiting speaker, and um, she said, God, that's so boring. And I, well, first of all, I don't have a problem saying what's on my mind without alcohol, right? I don't have, I don't have a excessive gabic inhibition um, so I'll say what I want to say um, you know, as uh, as best I can. But you know, I think drinkers don't like people who don't drink because it takes the fun out of it for them because there is this idea that's, you know, prolific on college campuses like if everyone's drunk that somehow like the entire like vibe of the party is going to take on a new new flavor. And frankly, I remember I went to

a college UC Santa Barbara where at the time people drank a ton, a ton, discovered alcoholics. You right um, and I used to go to parties. Sometimes I look around, I'm thinking like everyone here is just blasted. Like if anything happens, drinking. Did you drink in college? Yeah, I drank in college but not that often. I had a habit, and I don't recommend this. I had a habit of going out about once a month, and I would tie one on, you know, absolutely infrequent but binge. Yeah, I never, you know, my tolerance to alcohol was always such that I would get drunk quickly and then sober up really fast. So I was drinking late into the night, um, but then I'd sober up really fast. Now, of course, we know the sleep you get after even one drink is vastly diminished. Every single person that's got a aura or a whoop strap, something is feeling you right now, um, and I think that alcohol to me, um, never felt good. I never liked it, and it was a recipe for you know, there

was a lot of fights. There was a lot of, you know, there were a lot of bad stuff happens when people are drinking too much, drunk driving, to say nothing of poor decision-making. I mean, to me, it just feels like there are so many better ways to have a good time that alcohol isn't necessary. But I do understand that it's a big part of many cultures, and I do understand that for many people, it's so part and parcel with relaxing and with festivities and with feeling comfortable and with drawing a boundary between the normal day and the rest of the day. That's interesting, there's a ritualistic aspect to it. Yeah, there's a sort of, it divides the day in an interesting way. So I'm not judgmental of it, but for me, I mean, I'll go to a party where people are drinking and just hang out. I'm perfectly good, dude. I've stood on the door of a thousand club nights in my career, right, as a club promoter, and I

can promise you for the people that are thinking I like the sound of this justification, this excuse that I don't need to drink anymore. Dr. Hubman has said that, you know, maybe it's not for you, maybe it's not as enjoyable. Nothing good happens in nightclubs after 1 in the morning. I am patient zero. I have the I Am the Doctor of late-night parties, okay? Like, that's one of my expertise. Nothing good happens in the nightclub. It's this sort of messy, sloppy fights and kissing people you shouldn't and stumbling all over the place and stuff. If you go out and you don't drink and you go home at 1 in the morning, I think you probably get to capture about 80% of the enjoyment of the event that you would have done had you have drank pre-drinks, gone out, done the whole thing. And I got a bit of push. I got quite a bit of push back from a sobriety community a few years ago. I did this

thousand days sober as a club promoter, which was, I guess, a kind of big deal in some regards for pushing the sobriety community forward. But I was never doing it because I had a problem. I was doing it because it gave me more consistency, more time, and more money to spend on things that I cared about. So, it was a productivity tool, like the Pomodoro technique, right, or going to bed on time or something. And um, they had a little bit of a problem. They had a big problem with the fact that I said there is something to the enjoyment of drinking on a night out. I think anybody that says alcohol has no role in improving the quality of a night out ever just hasn't been on enough good nights out, right? There are ways that it can improve, kind of loosens people up, can reduce their inhibitions. If you want to go and dance, you know, you're dancing at a rave or at a festival, which I think there's one

going on quite close to here. Um, if you're there, it's really great. But if alcohol wasn't so widely distributed, I think people would ask a lot more questions. It's like you can't see the wood for the trees, right? You don't question. It's such a, it's baked into the fabric of just human life. Every single time that I take a macro dose, but low of psilocybin, one where I can still function. What is, um, 75, 75 to one gram of. So that's about, it's a little less than half of the macro therapeutic dose for intractable depression, which is something like 2.2 grams or so. So you can still hold a conversation depending on what strain you've got. But every single time that I do it, without fail, a thought comes into my mind, which is why does anyone drink alcohol? Why does anybody do it? Because I'll go to bed, my HRV, my recovery is fine. The next day, maybe I'm a little bit

tired like I've had a lot of activation. I've been super energetic, very little hangover on the evening. I don't do stupid things. It makes me want to say nice things to all of my friends. My thoughts are sharper than they were before. Sometimes they're silly, but they're sharper. And then you compare it with alcohol, and it's this kind of sloppy, muddy, very un-ill. It's just I totally get what you mean when you've taken a little bit of time away from it, and you look at it in the harsh light of day. The effect that alcohol gives you just isn't that enjoyable. And it's been folded into people's lives through tradition and through just anchoring bias and continuation. Yeah, and marketing, you know, the idea that someone can quote-unquote hold their liquor is such like a... It's been made synonymous with, you know, masculine ideals. It's like, I mean, it's kind of crazy because we know it also crushes testosterone.

levels. What's interesting is that, um, you know, I forget who said this, but you know, there's a very different picture of a young drunk versus an old drunk. You know, someone who's been just drinking for too many years, it's not a pretty picture, sus. They become infantile, they become really infantile, and um, you know, again, I'm not the anti-alcohol crusader. We did, I did that episode not expecting much of a response, actually, um, that CHS just how out of uh, out of touch sometimes I can be. I think just to reiterate it, man, I think it gave people the excuse, MH. What you did is you gave people the justification, you legitimized them. It's like the best bucks tell you something that you already know. It was like they, everyone always, lots of people always had an idea, I probably shouldn't be drinking, maybe I don't enjoy it that much, maybe these aren't my friends, they're just my drinking partners, maybe I don't like the way that I feel the next day, maybe my life could be better.

if I stop drinking, there's the justification. Well, I'm happy to hear that for those folks, you know, now the information is out there. I've um, I was accused several times uh on Twitter SLX of um taking all the fun out of parties in the at least in the Bay Area. But I'll tell you, I grew up in the Bay Area. The good parties ended a long time ago, but they still exist, you know. I mean, I think there, you know, and when I say other ways to have fun, I don't mean like, Oh, everyone should sit around and do math or read Neuroscience, although for me that's fun um, you know. I think, I think in a broader sense, I think there's a shi nowadays that people really think about, you know, how to engage socially in ways that are interesting. I mean, perhaps it's a again a sampling bias because of the topics that I cover and who talks to me, but like in the Bay Area, there are these Russian Bas. In New York, there's spy 88, by the way, they don't pay me a

say this by I like to go this uh Russian B down in Wall Street. You go there and you know got hot saunas and cold plunge and people are you know young people are there enjoying themselves and they actually serve alcohol so they'll have sometimes they'll do like little gimlets of vodka or something there and so you know people sometimes that's part of the tradition the most Russian thing that I can think of shot of vodka whilst hot right so that and you know and they've got theories as to how that can help and listen I think some of those traditions can really be wonderful but you know people are starting to combine socializing with health promoting protocols and you know going out and eating good food together like eating really wonderful food um with the social component the you know I I'll go into the grave talking about getting morning sunlight something that maybe we should talk a little bit more about and people like roll their eyes I'll just say there's this incredible study now just out in nature um mental health published

about 80 that has 85,000 85,000 subjects showing that the ratio of getting a lot of sunlight during the day to getting minimal artificial light exposure at night. It really sets the tone of your overall system and is associated with brain and body. That is associated with better mental health outcomes across the board and the inverse, right? If you're getting too much artificial light at night or not enough sunlight or both, is associated with everything bad. Elevate depression, anxiety, etc. Now, I do believe people should get out and have a good time. Don't avoid the bright lights of a city or a club. Have a great time like dancing, socializing. Those are great reasons to stay up too late and get minimal sleep or sleep in the next day. Great reasons. So, every once in a while, sure, 20% of your life, you're going to do that. And probably some percentage of time is also going to be raising kids, so you're up because you have to to keep them alive, which is important to

our species. So, thank you. But I think people, you know, forget that yes, you can go outside and get morning sunlight, which I highly recommend people do that, as most people know. But I mean, so many benefits on mood and mental health and improved sleep that just, and it's completely zero cost, you know. But I often get accused of, okay, well, but what if you have kids? Like, how do you do this? Well, you take the kids with you because guess what? They need it too. You take them outside, you eat breakfast outside, or at least facing a window indoors. It's not going to be as good as having the window open or being outdoors, but even if the sun's on the other side of your apartment building, I mean, these things have an outsized positive effect on health. And I'll wager both upper limbs anyway, uh, that many, many, many of the mental health issues that we see nowadays in young people and in adults is the consequence of disrupted circadian rhythms because of a lot of time in a

two-dimensional screen space, which I'm not condemning. I spend time on and put out most of my content on social media and YouTube, Apple, Spotify, right? Um, and in addition to that, the lights are too bright at night, and they're not getting enough sunlight during the day. An important thing to understand about our circadian health, you know, circadian system in health, is that throughout the morning and throughout the day, your eyes are less sensitive to light, and you need more of it in order to get what you need, okay, broadly speaking. And at night, your eyes are far more sensitive to artificial lighting, and you need far less of it in order to disrupt your circadian system in bad ways, disrupt your mental health. Now, does that mean you have to walk around with sunglasses at night and, you know, dim all the lights in your house? Well, no, but you could afford to dim them a little bit. Um, you could afford to switch to the red light function on your phone. There's actually a triple-click red light function on every phone that um

maybe I'll pass the throughput of what to do to your phone. It's which allows you to flexibility functions on iPhone. Mine goes to grayscale when I do that. Yeah, you can. Yeah, so you can have it switch to grayscale or to purely red. You know, eliminate the blue. It's a trick that my friend Rick Rubin taught me. I was like, Oh, this is great. You know, you don't necessarily have to purchase blue-block glasses or anything like that. We'll get back to talking to Andrew in one minute, but first, I need to tell you about AG1. AG1 is a product that I've been using every single day for over three years now. Dr. Huberman himself is a massive fan because it is the most comprehensive foundational daily nutrition supplement on the market. My digestion is so much better since I've started using AG1, and I genuinely can't remember what life used to be like. But when I stopped using it, I do not like the way that my body feels since 2010.

ag1 has led the foundational nutrition revolution, continually refining their formula to create better, smarter ways to elevate your health. Ag1 is the supplement I trust to provide the support that my body needs every single day, and that's why they've been a partner for so long. If you want to take ownership of your health, it starts with ag1. You can get all of this with your first purchase: a free supply of vitamin D, five free travel packs, free pots, shakers, and that 90-day money-back guarantee by going to the link in the description below or heading to drinkag1.com/wisdom. That's drinkag1.com/wisdom. Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that clip with Dr. Huberman, you will love the 3-hour episode that you can watch right here. Go on, press it.

“Alcohol Is Much Worse For You Than You Think” - Andrew Huberman

Bonjour I'm Chris, Host of the Modern Wisdom Podcast. Understanding the world is hard, this channel should help.

Chris Williamson

The speaker acknowledges the risks of alcohol and shares their personal journey of sobriety and moderate drinking.

They emphasize the importance of providing facts about alcohol's health risks, particularly for non-alcoholics and women.

The response to the speaker's previous episode on alcohol showed that many people felt empowered to drink less or stop altogether, challenging the social stigma around not drinking.

The speaker reflects on their college experience at UC Santa Barbara, noting the prevalence of heavy drinking and its negative consequences.

They share their own infrequent binge drinking habits and the quick sobering effect of alcohol on them.

While acknowledging the cultural significance of alcohol, the speaker emphasizes that there are better ways to have a good time and believes that one can still enjoy social events without drinking.

The Complexity of Alcohol's Role in Social Life

The speaker promoted sobriety for a thousand days, viewing it as a productivity tool rather than a personal struggle.

They acknowledge the positive effects of alcohol in social settings, questioning its widespread acceptance and impact on people's lives.

The speaker contrasts their experiences with psilocybin, highlighting its positive effects compared to alcohol's negative impact, and critiques the traditional and cultural associations with drinking.

The difference between a young and old drunk is striking, with long-term drinking leading to infantile behavior.

The discussion around alcohol has provided justification for many to reconsider their drinking habits.

Socializing is evolving, with young people seeking health-promoting activities and combining them with fun, such as hot saunas and good food, while also incorporating traditional practices like having a shot of vodka.

The Impact of Sunlight and Artificial Light on Mental Health

Getting ample sunlight during the day and minimal artificial light at night is crucial for better mental health outcomes.

Disrupted circadian rhythms, caused by too much screen time and bright lights at night, are linked to mental health issues.

Morning sunlight exposure, even with kids, can have a positive effect on overall health and well-being.

Flexibility Functions on iPhone and AG1's Impact

The iPhone offers flexibility functions, such as switching to grayscale or red, to help eliminate blue light.

AG1 is a comprehensive daily nutrition supplement that has improved digestion and overall health for the user over three years.

The product offers a free supply of vitamin D, travel packs, shakers, and a 90-day money-back guarantee with the first purchase.