AMA #13: Winter Months & Sickness, Wim Hof Breathing & Stressors
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Welcome to the huberman lab podcast, where we discuss science and science space tools for everyday life. I am Andrew huberman and am a professor of neutral logy and optimal gy at stanford school of medicine today. Isn't ask me anything episode or A M A.

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And for those of you that are not human and lab podcast premium subscribers, you can still hear the first twenty minutes of today's episode and determine whether not becoming a premium of subscriber is for you. So without further a do let's get to answering your questions. The first question is about colds and flus.

And the question specifically is, why is IT that we get more colds and floods in the winter months? Is that the temperature outside? Is that the fact of people are spending more time indoors? Or is IT a myth that we get more cold and floods in the winter months? Well, the first thing is that the research very clearly shows that in winter months there is a greater prevalence of cold and floods.

Now, of course, the words in the winter months means many things. For instance, in most areas of the world, unless you live directly near the equator, in the winter months means that days are going to be shorter and nights are longer than in the summer months in general. That's true.

It's, of course, especially true if you live very far from the equator. So imagine somebody living up in thomson, norway, which is very close to the north pole. In winter days are very, very short in trouser.

And conversely, in the summer months, days are very, very long in trumps norway. Now, tromp's norway represents an extreme of daylings th variation according to time of year close. Sure you get to the equator.

The less variation there is in day leave, and therefore nightline's across the year. However, in most locations on earth, days will be significantly shorter by about an hour to at least for certain parts of the year. And in general, shorter days correlate with colder temperatures.

That's what's really important to know, which is that shorter days generally correlate with colder temperatures, regardless of where you live on the planet earth. okay? So in the winter months, as we're calling IT, involves at least two things.

Shorter days, which means what IT means, less sunlight and either more artificial light or more darkness, depending on how much artificial light you rely on. IT also means, as we mention, colder temperatures. Colder temperatures, of course, doesn't necessarily mean that you are exposed to those colder temperatures, because what's the third thing? Shorter days and colder temperatures outside mean that people are spending more time indoors.

So what the research clearly shows is that one of the reasons, not the only, but one of the reasons for the greater prevalence of colds and flus in the short days A K A winter months of the year is that people are spending more time indoors and therefore at closer proximity, which raises a whole bunch of really interesting questions that have been explored in the pure review research about proximately cold and flew transmission. There have been studies, for instance, where people come into the laboratory who are suffer from cold and flew and are sneezing, having them sneeze at different proxim ity to other people. Obviously, people are doing this under consent.

They are Green to participate in these particular experiments. And there does seem to be a very nice relationship between physical distance between you, the uninfected person, and the sneezing. Cuffing knows wiping, ee wiping, get into why I mentioned all of those things in a moment.

Person that is suffering from the flu. In other words, the closer you are to somebody who's sneezing and or coffin, the higher probability that you will contract that cold or flu. okay.

So we've already establish two things. First of all, physical proximity is a key variable in terms of transmission of cold flu. And at some level, that sort of a duh. I mean, if you think about IT, if you're in the next room or down the hallway from or across the street from somebody with a colder flu, you don't expect to contract that colder flu from them. Where as if you're in the same vehicle with them or you're sitting next to the on an airplane or you are on the same boston in the same classroom with them and they are sneezing and coffin, well then the probability that you would get that colder flu from them is increased. That's just obvious.

But the studies that have explored the relationship between physical proximity and transformation of coding flu have actually analyzed things down to the range of, well, if you're standing one fit apart or you're standing three feet apart or six feet apart, what's the probability that you will contract that cold or flu? And IT follows a very direct relationship where the close of the proximity, the more likely that you're going to contract the colder flu from that person. And of course, anything like exchange of skin contact or exchange of saliva, because obviously, in cases of romantic relationships where people will kiss, or in familiar relationships or friendships where people hug, any kind of contact also further increases the transmission of cold and fluid, not just from stuff emitted from the nasal passages and from the mouth when people sneeze and cough, but also when people wipe their eyes, even when people wipe their skin, because often times they have cold or flu virus on their skin, IT doesn't always survive terribly long on the skin.

But if they wipe their face or wipe their nose, or are using tissues and then don't wash their hands through early afterwards, indeed, they can transmit called flu simply through handshake OK. So for all you hypo contacts out there, i'm arming you with a lot of useful knowledge that will justify staying away from people who perhaps have called in flu. Now this particular point about proximity and people being indoors more during the winter months, and that's why there is more cold in fluid transmission, raises a whole bunch of interesting questions.

And in fact, protocols that I plan to cover in a hub ban lab podcast episode solely devoted to colds and flus and how to avoid getting colds and flus. But one brief mention or telegraph of what I planned to cover in that episode is that if people are telling you that they are sneezing and coffin due to a colder flu, but that they are quoted, quote, not contagious, either because they are early in the colder flu or late in the colder flu, and they have these theories or claims that, oh, you know, i'm no longer contagious, uh, keep in mind that anytime someone is sneezing or coughing ing, they are in fact contagious. So i'll get back to that in that follow episode about colds and flus, but I felt IT was too important.

Not to mention right now that people's theories about when they are quoted, quote, contagious or not contagious, are rarely substantiated by the actual data. The actual data point to the fact that when people are sneezing and cuffing, if it's due to a colder flu, they are still contagious. okay? So we've established that cold outside means people tend to be indoors more, which increases physical proxim ity, which is one of the reasons why there is more cold and flu transmission.

One of the other reasons why being indoors more tends to increase cold and flu transmission is that in the cold months of winter when people are indoors, they tend to be not under air conditioning, not at neutral temperatures, but rather they tend to be in heated rooms, and depending on the type of heating that's used. But in general, due to all forms of heating, the heated air tends to be dry er air. Now this is a little bit counter intuitive because if you ever go outside on a really cold winter day, you'll realize that the cold weather outdoors is extremely dry.

You can almost quoted what feel the draining of the air. And if you can't quote what feel the draining of the air, or imagine what that's like, just imagine this, think of yourself outdoors on a very cold winter day, taking a brisk walk. Then think about yourself taking that same brisk walk on a very humid summer day.

Humidity is, of course, the concentration of water in the ambient environment, the air, whereas the drainage is the lack of humidity. And just that little simple get duncan or thought experiment will remind you just how dry the cold air is out of doors during the winter months, where as indoors were heating that air. And indeed, the heating of that air does have the property of drawing the naseer and oral passages, but especially the naseer passages.

So another key reason why there's more transmission of cold influence in the winter months is because people are spending more time indoors, and often times the way those indoor environments are being heated is drawing out the naseer passages, and the nasal passages represent a primary side of defense for viral infections like colds and floods, but also bacterial infections and fung infections for that matter. Now i've talked before on this podcast about the importance of using nasal breathing under any conditions where you don't have to breathe through your mouth. So if you are not eating, if you are not speaking or if you're not exercising hard, which, by the way, often times requires that you be through, but there's nothing wrong with breathing through your mouth.

If you're are exercising hard and you need to breathe your mouth in order to bring an enough oxygen, there are conditions under which that's entirely appropriate. You can learn more about that. In the podcast episode, I did all about breathing and breath work, but for the most part, it's best to be a nasal breathing, except under the conditions.

I just mention why, well, the nasal passages contain a number of physical barriers, including the hairs within your nose. I know that hairs in the nose, especially if they are super numerous, are not considered aesthetically nice. People will trim them at that, but those hairs in your nose actually serve as a barrier toward infection.

This is well established. The lining of the nose, the mu costal lining of the nose contains a lot of things. First of all, IT access its own physical barrier and physical trap for incoming virus, fungal infections and bacterial infections. They literally get trapped in the nasal passages and therefore can't enter deeper into your physiology. And right now, not the time to go into the whole anatomy and physiology of the nasie passages.

But keep in mind, if you saw the episode that I did with non solo, or you listen to the episode that I did on all faction, both of those episodes highlight the fact that your brain sits not far behind your nasal passages. There's A A bony barrier there called the cup perform plays and there's some other things as well. But it's not far from your nostrils to your brain.

And IT is not far from your nostrils to the rest of your respiratory pathway, of course. And so the hairs of your nostrils, the mucus itself and the microbial, the trillions of little microbes tera that thrive in the mu costal lining of nasal passages actually serve to protect against many of the incoming infections. This is why it's so important to keep the mucosal lining, our nail passages, thriving and intact. How do you do that? Well, one of the best ways to do that is to make sure that the air, that your breathing, is sufficiently humidified.

So while there are many different claims out there about how to avoid colds and flus, as long as they're having a discussion about why there are more cold and flu in the winter months because indeed there or it's worth mentioning that if you suffered from colds and flu and you're going to spend a lot of time, in particular indoor environment, you might be wise to find a air humidifier, something that brings more moisture into the air that you're breathing, especially at night while you're sleeping. Now that's not going to prevent the person in your environment who happens to have a colder flu and is snazzy actively from transients that called the flu. But IT will keep your nasal passages in the rest of your respiratory pathways as healthy as they can be and as resistant as they can be to any colds or flus that you might be fighting off.

And this is another key point, which is regardless of whether or not the winter months for the other months of the year, all they long, you're combating different types of infections, different types of viral fungo and bacteria infections are bomb baring your system in your immune system counters that both physical and through neurochemical and hormonal and pure immune mechanisms. OK, there's a whole discuss of this in the episode did on the union system will do more on this. But keeping the air that you breathe, especially at night, sufficiently humidified, is one great way to try and offset code and floods that you might be combatting, because you brought that cold or flu home from work and your immune system needs to ward IT off.

And if you are having a hard time grasping how IT is that, you could bring home a colder flu and then award IT off. If you have IT, you not have IT is sitting there trying to get in your system and you have IT a little bit. Well, this is some of the area around cold and flue.

And viral transmission generally mean we don't know. For instance, if you got a mild sniffle as opposed to a really bad colder flu, whether or not you would have been a really bad colder flu had you slept last, had you not humidified your air Better at sea, probably IT would be. And if you've ever not slept well for a little bit and you're sick, you experience just how much worse that sickness feels.

The symptoms of that sicknes go from very mild to moderate, or from mild to moderate, a very severe when you are sleep deprived. That said, it's also clear that some strains of the colder flu can be more mild than other strings of the colder flu. So this can be pretty new order. And we'll go deeper into this in the episode I do on cold and flu and how to avoid cold and flu. But neither of breathing, whenever possible, day and nighttime, is extremely important for encouraging the overall health and resistance of your respiratory pathways to incoming cold and flu and other types of viruses.

Similarly, humidifying, the air that you breathe, especially at night, but perhaps also during the day, in your office environment or home environment, can also be very beneficial, rewarding off calls and and if you d like to read more about the nzo versus mouth breathing components of colds or flues, i'll just mention one paper now and again or go into the simd depth than the future episode on cold infuse. But I want to mention that this is a by directional effect, meaning people who deliberately break through their nose tend to get fewer calls and flows. Also, people who tend to be through their mouth more tend to get more colds and flus.

And you might think that's the same thing or just two sides of the same coin, but actually it's not there's what we call a double association whereby if people are mouth breathers, they are far more subtitle to cold and floods and other types of respiratory illnesses. I'll put a link to one particular paper that I like a lot in the shown out captions entitled association of oral breathing with dental male inclusions and general health in children. This paper expose a lot of different things about nasal versus mouth breathing, all of which, by the way, point to the fact that naseer breathing, whenever possible, is Better for us healthwise aesthetically, dental health wise, than is mouth breathing.

But one of the key component here, this is why bringing up in the context of this discussion is, quote, oral breathing is related to a significantly higher prevalence of allergies and a significantly more likely getting sick and taking medication for being sick. Okay, so lots in this study, lots and related studies, but being a nail or breather, you ify your air, paying attention to whether not your indoors, with people who are causing fing and sneezing because it's cold outside, all of those things are going to be relevant. Perhaps keeping a little bit distance may be a lot of distance from those people are encouraging them to wash their hands after they wiped their nose.

Maybe even sending them to a little bit of not necessarily isolation, although that might be necessary, but keeping them at a distance, right? I don't think it's too much to ask somebody who's sick to not get you sick. Personally, I think that's the polite thing to try and do.

And there's actually not many things ruder than someone who knows that they're sick showing up to something because they didn't want to miss that particular event in getting everybody all sick. Frankly, that's my opinion. I think that opinion is shared with many of you out there as well.

Now as I mentioned earlier, when it's cold outside, the air tends to be dry. Not always. I mean, you could live in an environment that's very cold and very rainy.

Obviously, very rainy is very humid. It's maximum humidity if you think about IT. But if you are going to spend time out of doors in cold days of winter, which by the way, is a really good thing for other reasons.

Now I get into those reasons in a moment because they relate directly to why there are such a prevalence of coals and floods. Because in general, people are not doing what i'm about to tell you to do. But there are two things to keep in mind if you're going to be out of doors.

First of all, all the things about proxim ity still hold, right? There have been studies of people who have called influence sneezing in indoor environments verses outdoor environment and how much transmission there is. Again, IT boils down to proximity.

Yes, you can get a colder flu from somebody is sneezing out of doors next to you just as well as you can. They sneeze next to indoors. Slightly higher probability that you'll get IT from them if they're sneezing at that same distance. But your indoors is supposed to outdoors, obviously sneezes, coffers, sneeze and cough in the other direction, cover your mouth and knows if you don't have a tisch or something. We are told, and I subscribed the idea that sneezing into your elbow, we're coughing into your, is probably the next best thing to not covering up at all um as supposed to into your hand which then you touch other things in yourself anyway without getting into the mechanics of sneezing and coughing too deeply.

If you are going to be outside in the cold winter months and you're like to avoid getting cold and floods when you run, when you exercise, when you walk, when you're in conversation, try to nail, breathe unless you have to mouth breathe, and if you can sense your nasal passages or your mouth drawing out because of that hard breathing and by the way, exercises during the winter months is still important. So i'm not discouraging people from exercising outdoors during the winter months as long as you can do IT safely. But if you feel those air passages drawing out, just be aware that when you take those dried out air passages indoors and you're around other people that might have called infuses, you are going to be more suspect ble.

So that caused for taking a hot shower, perhaps if you have access to a steam room or humidifier and rehydrating those nasal and al passages. Now, if you're outside and running and your breathing hard in your natural passages are drawing out, does that mean that you're more suspected to called influence that are just outside environment if no one else is around chances or no? However, what we were all told when we were kids, which is if you go outside and you get a chill, it's a good idea when you come back inside to take a hot shower, a hot bath, or if you have access to A A senate to heat back up.

That's also true. why? Well, IT does seem that there's a relationship between core body temperature and suspect ability to cold in flue. And this is something i'm going to go deeply into in the episode on cold and flu.

Keep in mind that fevers that are the response to exposure to a colder flu or being full blown sick with a cold and flu are an attempt of your immune system to heat up that virus and destroy IT. Keep that in mind. If you're considering taking any kind of medication to lower your fever, of course, know that highly elevated body temperatures, A K fever, can be very dangerous to the brain and body.

There's a fairly limited upper range of temperatures that we can go into before we start damaging ourselves. But also keep in mind that fever is an adaptation designed to destroy virus. okay? So if you blunt the fever, you are actually letting a colder virus to deliberate more readily than IT would if you allowed a slight fever to combat that.

okay. So there's a whole discussion that we had there because obviously, you don't want people cooking their brains. Due to elevated fever and not treating that fever. But you also don't want to reduce your core body temperature too much, which raises the question of things like cold lunches.

Should you be taking cold showers and doing coplan ches in the winter months when it's already cold and you are suspected the cold and maybe you're coming down with a cold, should you do that? Uh, well, that segway into the next question that i'm going to answer for the ama, which relates directly to cold exposure and so called the sick c type ventilation breathing, sometimes associated with so called wim half breathing, but other forms of deliberate reading as well, and how specific forms of deliberate breathing and how deliberate cold exposure can indeed be used to offset or even prevent entirely infection due to bacteria or viruses. But if you're already coming down with a bacteria or viral infection, why sick hype, revelation, breathing or why deliberate cold exposure may actually be a the worst thing if you are already contracting or have contracted if you are contracting or have already contracted a cold or virus.

So i'll answer that question next. In the meantime, just know that yes, indeed, in the winter months, you are more except table to cold and floods because there's more of them going around. We talk about some the reasons why they're going around, some of the things you can do to protect yourself against those codes and flues.

There are bunch of other things that you can do that are very valuable that will explore in the falling episode on cold and flues and how to avoid getting them and hoping you all stay clear of cold and flues these winter months. And now you have some tools to try and reduce the duration, severity. Those calls influence should you get one.

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