How easy is it to go from trusted science voice to wellbeing woo woo advocate? What does it take to make that switch, and what drives that switch?
If you don’t know who I’m talking about, it’s none other than Andrew Huberman, Stanford academic and science communicator. Originally a scientist working in optic nerve research, Huberman has become a huge influencer in the wellbeing space over the past few years through his Huberman lab podcast, which aimed to bring wellbeing science to the masses in an accessible way.
Sounds great, right?
I was never a big fan of his – there’s something about the macho tech bro image he emits that really doesn’t do it for me, but as a science communicator and passionate advocate for the discipline, I did appreciate what he was trying to do. Until the nonsense about NSDR, the sleep aid ‘protocol’ he invented that isn’t yoga nidra (but is) came about, and then I went off him completely.
Which means I completely missed the dubious science (or non-science) until I suddenly got bombarded on social media when an immunologist called Dr Andrea Love made it her mission to alert the world of his nonsense. Apparently this wasn’t an isolated incident – he’s now officially inducted into the Conspirituality world and has been featured on Decoding the gurus. I honestly have no idea how I missed all of this. Maybe I need to spend more time on social media, not less!
So, what happened? Some people talked about the importance of staying in one’s lane – stick to talking about your scientific expertise, which in his case is optic nerve development.
I don’t agree with this. I do believe that it’s possible to talk about areas that you are not an expert in, as long as you are humble about what you do and don’t know (apparently, in his case immunology). At the very least, you should have the critical ability to look at a piece of research and judge it by the same criteria you would judge something from your own field of expertise. This is why so often I write sceptically about yoga research – sample sizes are tiny, effect sizes are small, design is flawed in other ways etc.
Personally, I feel like he basically ran out of good content and escalated into very weak information or misinformation in an effort to to produce more and more wellbeing content to maintain the Huberman lab brand. If you believe the Conspirituality video, by becoming an influencer Huberman has sacrificed scientific integrity to promote either his own brand or other brands.
Not that I’m ever likely to get to his level of celebrity, but if I do escalate to nonsense at any point, please tell me! No one is immune to the switch, under the right circumstances.
New workshop alert! Join me on the 28th of April for 2 hours of yin and yoga nidra – Moreyoga Harringay, near Turnpike Lane.
Relevant reading from the blog
Yoga nidra vs NSDR – what’s the difference? This is my rant exploration of what Huberman’s NSDR is and my conclusion that it’s basically yoga nidra re-branded.
Why I thought “Breath” was disappointing (and even a little worrying) Here’s another example of when science communication goes viral, and wrong!
Is yoga guilty of perpetuating the ‘natural is best’ fallacy? Am I? The Huberman story is an example of what is known as ‘authority bias’ in behavioural science. Here’s a blog post about another yoga-relevant behavioural science principle.
Mind–body science highlights
I’ve become even less trusting of what little research is coming out, but here are a couple of highlights.
Exercise (and yoga) effective for major depression
This systematic review and meta-analysis synthesised the findings of 218 studies. What’s super interesting is that SSRIs (selective serotonin receptor inhibitors, ie antidepressants) was less effective that all of the exercise modalities (a simplistic way to explain the graph below is the more to the left of zero, the better). Yoga and walking or jogging were the most effective forms of physical activity.
Yoga and other mind–body activities for cancer-related fatigue.
Another systematic review and meta-analysis, this time evaluating interventions to improve fatigue among women living with breast cancer. Cognitive behavioural therapy was the most effect intervention, but yoga and Chinese traditional exercises (Tai chi, Qi Gong and Baduanjin) also had beneficial effects. BUT, worth nothing that most interventions reviewed (which included music, exercise and relaxation) were better than control ie doing nothing.
Until next month!