Essentials: Science of Building Strong Social Bonds with Family, Friends & Romantic Partners
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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. Today's episode is about the biology, psychology, and practices of social bonding. From the day we are born until the day we die, the quality of our social bonds dictates much of our quality of life. It should therefore be no surprise that our brain and indeed much of our entire nervous system is wired for social bonds. Today, we are going to talk about those brain and nervous system circuitries. We are also going to talk about the neurochemicals and hormones that underlie their function.
And we are going to touch on a number of important and actionable tools that you can apply in everyday life. And I'm confident that you will come away from today's episode with tremendous knowledge about how you function. For instance, if you're an introvert or an extrovert, why is that? Turns out there may be a neurochemical basis for that. Believe it or not, there's biology around that now, and it's excellent peer reviewed work. Now, an important feature of biology generally, but in particular, as it relates to social bonding is that the neural circuits, meaning the brain areas and neurons and the hormones, things like oxytocin, which we'll talk about today, and the other chemicals in the brain and body that are responsible for the process we call social bonding are not unique to particular social bonds.
They are generic. What I mean by that is that the same brain circuits that are responsible for establishing a bond between parent and child are actually repurposed in romantic relationships. Before we talk about social bonding, I want to talk about its mirror image, which is lack of social bonding or social isolation. Well, many people like time alone, but when we talk about social isolation, what we're referring to is when animals or humans are restricted from having the social contacts that they would prefer to have. And to just briefly touch on the major takeaways from this literature, which spans back a hundred years or more, Being socially isolated is stressful. And one of the hallmark features of social isolation is chronically elevated stress hormones, like adrenaline, also called epinephrine, like cortisol, a stress hormone that at healthy levels is good for combating inflammation, helps us have energy early in the day, focus throughout the day.
But if cortisol is elevated for too long, which is the consequence of social isolation. The immune system suffers and other chemicals start to be released in the brain and body that are designed to motivate the organism, animal or human, to seek out social bonds. So if you're somebody who's socially isolated and is craving social contact, that is a healthy craving. And as we'll learn next, The healthy craving for social contact has a very specific brain circuit, has a very specific neurochemical signature associated with it, and has some remarkable features that you can leverage in social contacts of all kinds. 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.
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