Ancient practices as a treatment for depression: fasting, sweat lodges & long-distance running
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Human beings are exquisitely sensitive to their environment. Although humans are flexible, environmental signals are markedly altered in the modern world and can be disorienting, possibly contributing to depression. Humans have co-evolved with various microorganisms which may have had an immunologic effect on stabilizing our immune system. While sanitation and clean drinking water are critical to survival, the over sterilization of our environment may play a role in modulating the human immune system. In this clip, Dr. Charles Raison highlights how ancient practices such as heat exposure, long-distance running, and fasting may promote well-being in the modern world.
- Rhonda: you know, you were talking about these, some societies, that were doing these running long term, running as a sort of possible treatment for depression, or?
- Charles: Well, not treatment for depression, these are spiritual practices.
- Rhonda: Okay.
- Charles: So one of my interests, and this is what we were talking about off camera, was... It’s complex how I came to this, but, you know. So I was a clinician, saw thousands and thousands of patients a year, and then I became a kind of a researcher and focused on exactly what we’re talking about. This immune brain interface. One thing led to another, and it’s interesting to trace the steps, but I began to realize, you know, we begin to look at interventions based on these things. I begin to realize that the scientific data were pointing to the fact that a number of things that people seem to have repeatedly discovered across human history, in widely different cultures, mostly for healing and spiritual purposes, seem to have biological effects and behavioral effects that might be relevant for depression. And so I, like I said, I’m not the ultimate retread guy. That really, a lot of what I end up doing is looking at what I sometimes call ancient practices and seeing how can we kind of repurpose them for the modern world? So a lot of my work over the last five years is based on this idea, that human beings, although we’re really remarkably flexible animals, we have a lot of species typical behaviors, and we have I think a lot of species typical needs from the environment. There were certain signals across, you know, probably a couple of million years of hominid evolution that reliably signaled either wellbeing and sort of evolutionary success, or danger and failure. We sort of need those signals to orient ourselves rightly in time, space and behavior. A lot of them have been just profoundly disrupted by the modern world, and so what you get in the modern world this is wonderful opportunity to do things you never could have done in any sort of hunter and gatherers society. This is a wonderful time to be alive, but it’s an astoundingly disorienting time to be alive. And so what I’m interested in is trying to, in a sort of intelligent way, bring back some of, ways to bring back these ancient wellbeing inputs, and integrate them more into our lives so that we get the foundation of a felt mind, body sense of stability and wellbeing, right? So it turns out that some of the really interesting ways to do that were co-opted way back. A lot of the easy, low hanging fruit, easy tricks, were discovered, you know, probably in Paleolithic times, but certainly in the last 10,000 years. You can make a list of them. It turns out that there are a lot of things we were talking about. So immune system stuff, not so much, except that humans co-evolved to, you know, we co-evolve with so many different types of microorganisms that really, we should look at ourselves as a sort of, not as individuals but as communities. Now, those connections have been profoundly disrupted in the modern world, and that accounts for a lot of the, sort of allergic, asthmatic, auto immune problems we have, but I also think a lot of depressive problems.
- Rhonda: You’re talking about the gut microbiome?
- Charles: Microbiome, but also not just in the gut, but there’s a lot of pseudo-commensal. So we existed in a world where trillions of environmental organisms pass through us all the time, right? They didn’t live in us, but they’re constantly passing through us. So over time, we become reliant on them to calibrate our immune systems correctly. Of course, things that pass through us also then marginally, they want to live within us, that they form kind of a home in. So in that way, there’s an immunological story around ancient associations, around the fact that really we would do well to sort of recalibrate ourselves. We don’t wanna be hanging out with, you know, we don’t wanna go back to the times when 50% of everybody born was dead by 15 from infection, but we don’t wanna throw the baby out with the bathwater. We want to reintegrate the sort of beneficial bacteria, and not just bacteria, but viruses and fungus, and the whole...We wanna get that. But then if you look at things that humans have done repeatedly to induce well-being, to induce healing, to induce sort of transcendent states, you can make a list, heat, right? It’s astounding, the number of cultures in the world that use phasic exposure to high heat for healing purposes, or for transcendent purposes. I mean, we’re sitting in the new world, and certainly, the use of things like sweat lodges, and Temazcals were just were rampant in new world indigenous cultures, but across the old world too, you know. If you look at the healing rites in the ancient world, you know, hot baths were just a huge part. So it’s a widespread human thing. All around the globe, so many groups recognized, you know, it’s not just living in a chronically hot environment, it’s this outrageous heat for a time limited basis, right? I mean, why would you repeatedly stuff yourself in a smoky, hideous, dark, miserable, sweat lodge, right? Answer, because that’s what sort of face heated exposure induces profound states of positive wellbeing that have antidepressants effects, right? There is one. Fasting. You know, almost every religion worth its salt, both indigenous and the sort of world religions, have fasting is a key element. Well, what does fasting do? Fasting has powerful anti-inflammatory effects. It has powerful beneficial metabolic effects. And although to my knowledge, nobody has rigorously studied fasting as a treatment for depression, there’s a lot of that looking at fasting for related things like pain. And the many studies have given mood questionnaires, fasting has powerful mood elevating effects, and it almost certainly has antidepressant effects. Running. So the reason I’m giving this whole preamble is, it is amazing to me the number of cultures in the world that have used intense, maybe excessive running, as a way of inducing, you know, sort of powerful spiritual states. You see it all around the Native American world, right? I mean, oh, it’s just crazy how many cultures use this. It’s become a movement nowadays in Native American communities to use running as a way to sort of overcome a lot of the challenges: alcoholism and drug use, and those things that exist in those communities. And it’s been very successful, it’s interesting. There’s community for instance, in Navajo land, they’ve got some great things going on where they’re re-exposing kids to long distance running. I have a long connection with Tibetan Buddhism, and that was very much a practice there. In Buddhism, and we were talking about this off camera, but there’s Japanese Zen, they’re the world record holders. They have this seven-year crazy, crazy, crazy running protocol training where at the end of it, people run more than 50 miles a day for 100 days straight. And many people die doing this, because they have to run carrying all their books, and they run in these crazy wooden shoes. Only 48 people have successfully done it since the 1850s. But why would you do this? Well, you do this because it’s believed to be a massive inducer of transcendent states. It’s a way to achieve Buddhahood in one lifetime. And buried deep within very esoteric Tibetan Buddhist Tantra medical texts, are descriptions of natural states that are closest to the mind of the Buddha. So if you ask, you know, what are the states that, these are not states of enlightenment, but if you wanna know as you wander around in your life, what are the states where you come closest to the mind of the Buddha, one of them is running to the point of exhaustion. Now, others are sneezing, urinating, defecating. There’s a whole list of them. It turns out that from a tantric Buddhist perspective, rapid shifts in autonomic nervous system functioning seem to be the sort of simulacrum for, you know, the mind of enlightenment, but running to the point of exhaustion being one of them. So running especially, because you think about across evolutionary time, they didn’t have bicycles, they didn’t have the things we have now so it’s not so surprising. Now, of course, you know, this ties in, because I’m kind of a reductionist. I’m always interested in how these sort of spiritual practices were exacted out of behaviors that were necessary for survival and reproduction. You know, there’s this really interesting, Dan Lieberman is kind of the famous guy at Harvard, but there’s this idea that human brains may have evolved largely in response to long distance running, do you know that? Like persistence hunting.
- Rhonda: Yeah, I know. I didn’t know about this theory.
- Charles: Oh, yeah, yeah. So this is really, really interesting stuff. You ever wanna go do it, I can hook you up with the guys who do this. Humans are the greatest thermal regulators in the animal world, right? It turns out that humans, if you ask, you know, what is the animal that can run 100 miles the fastest? It’s humans, probably. And the hotter it is, the truer that gets, right? There’s not an animal on the face of the earth that can outrun a human being for 100 miles in a hot environment. We know that the human foot evolved long before the human brain. People had modern feet before they had modern brains. The human foot is remarkably evolved for running, the arch, there is a whole huge story on this. So there’s this idea that humans, that one of the reasons humans were able to develop these huge brains which take up 30% of all the energy utilization of our body was that we were first able to stand upright and thermal regulate, that we were able to sweat, that we were able to cool off. And remember we were talking about thermal regulation being abnormal depression. Thermal regulation is one of the royal roads into human consciousness in ways that are really profound, including this. So humans are able to thermoregulate, and are able essentially, to outrun animals, because it turns out that all other animals, especially four-legged animals, can only cool off by panting, and they can’t gallop and pant at the same time. So as long as you can keep an animal just at the pace where they have to gallop every once in a while, they can’t cool off, essentially, humans can outrun them. And outrun them meaning that the animal develops heat stroke and dies, right?
- Rhonda: Wow.
- Charles: There’s some great footage, you can just on Google. If you just type in “Persistent Hunting,” David Attenborough, back now I think 30-40 years ago, went out with a group of song bushman and showed that they could run an eland to death. Astounding, they ran this huge animal. The animal runs but it just, keep it moving enough that it can’t cool off, and then finally just stands there and it goes...
- Rhonda: Because it can’t sweat?
- Charles: It can’t sweat. It’s dying of heat. It’s heat shock. The guy just goes up, kills it, hauls it back and eats it, right? So humans, you know, I think many of these ancient practices that induce heightened states of awareness, evolved out of strategies, unique human strategies for survival and reproduction. But then they become fascinating on their own. Exercise is one of them.
A division of the peripheral nervous system that influences the function of internal organs. The autonomic nervous system regulates bodily functions that occur below the level of consciousness, such as heart rate, digestion, respiratory rate, pupillary response, urination, and sexual arousal. It is the primary mechanism in control of the fight-or-flight response and the freeze-and-dissociate response.
A mood disorder characterized by profound sadness, fatigue, altered sleep and appetite, as well as feelings of guilt or low self-worth. Depression is often accompanied by perturbations in metabolic, hormonal, and immune function. A critical element in the pathophysiology of depression is inflammation. As a result, elevated biomarkers of inflammation, including the proinflammatory cytokines interleukin-6 and tumor necrosis factor-alpha, are commonly observed in depressed people. Although selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and cognitive behavioral therapy typically form the first line of treatment for people who have depression, several non-pharmacological adjunct therapies have demonstrated effectiveness in modulating depressive symptoms, including exercise, dietary modification (especially interventions that capitalize on circadian rhythms), meditation, sauna use, and light therapy, among others.
The collection of genomes of the microorganisms in a given niche. The human microbiome plays key roles in development, immunity, and nutrition. Microbiome dysfunction is associated with the pathology of several conditions, including obesity, depression, and autoimmune disorders such as type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, muscular dystrophy, multiple sclerosis, and fibromyalgia.
Organisms that, although not reproducing and residing permanently in the gut, maintain a persistent presence through continual re-introduction via our environment, including through the food we eat and the water we drink.
A type of sweat lodge which originated with pre-Hispanic Indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica. The word temazcal comes from the Nahuatl word temāzcalli ("house of heat"), or possibly from the Aztec teme (to bathe) and calli (house).
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Depression News
- Exercise improves depression through positive modulation of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF).
- Association of serum interleukin-6 and C-reactive protein in childhood with depression and psychosis in young adult life. (2014)
- Mouse study suggests that blocking the action of interleukin-6 may reduce symptoms of depression. (2010)
- Mouse study suggests that interleukin-6-releasing immune cells outside the brain influence the propensity to develop depression. (2013)
- Microglial interleukin-6 signaling and prostaglandin synthesis may regulate depressive symptoms in neurological disorders. (2021)
