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-welcome to the huberman Lab podcast
-where we discuss science and
-science-based tools for everyday
-[Music]
-life I'm Andrew huberman and I'm a
-professor of neurobiology and
-Opthalmology at Stanford School of
-Medicine recently the hubman Lab podcast
-hosted a live event at the Great Hall in
-Brisbane Australia the event was called
-the brain body contract and featured a
-lecture followed by a question and
-answer session with the audience we
-wanted to make the question and answer
-session available to everyone regardless
-if you could attend I also would like to
-thank the sponsors for the event they
-are eight sleep and ag1 eight sleep
-makes Smart mattress covers with cooling
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-I've spoken many times before on this
-podcast about the fact that sleep is the
-critical foundation for mental health
-physical health and performance now one
-of the key things to getting the best
-possible night sleep is to control the
-temperature of your sleeping environment
-and that's because in order to fall and
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-cover for about 3 years now and it has
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-sleep for the better eight sleep
-recently launched their newest
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-the Pod 4 cover has improved cooling and
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-has snoring detection that will
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-your snoring if you'd like to try an
-eights Sleep mattress cover you can go
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-huberman to save $350 off their pod 4
-ultra eight sleep currently ships to the
-USA Canada UK select countries in the EU
-and Australia again that's eights
-sleep.com
-huberman the other live event sponsor
-ag1 is a vitamin mineral prob drink that
-also contains adaptogens and other
-critical micronutrients I've been taking
-ag1 daily since 2012 so I'm delighted
-that they decided to sponsor the live
-event I started taking ag1 and I still
-take ag1 once or twice a day because it
-gives me vitamins and minerals that I
-might not be getting enough of from
-Whole Foods that I eat as well as
-adaptogens and micronutrients those
-adaptogens and micronutrients are really
-critical because even though I strive to
-eat most of my foods from unprocessed or
-minimally processed Whole Foods it's
-often hard to do so especially when I'm
-traveling and especially when I'm busy
-so by drinking a packet of ag1 in the
-morning and often times also again in
-the afternoon or evening I'm ensuring
-that I'm getting everything I need I'm
-covering all of my foundational
-nutritional needs and I like so many
-other people that take ag1 regularly
-just report feeling better and that
-shouldn't be surprising because it
-supports gut health and of course gut
-health supports immune system health and
-brain health and it's supporting a ton
-of different cellular and organ
-processes that all interact with one
-another so while certain supplements are
-really directed towards one specific
-outcome like sleeping better or being
-more alert ag1 really is foundational
-nutritional support it's really designed
-to support all of the systems of your
-brain and body that relate to mental
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-to try ag1 you can go to drink a1.com
-huberman to claim a special offer
-they'll give you five free travel packs
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-huberman and now for the live event at
-the Great Hall in Brisbane
-[Music]
-[Applause]
-[Music]
-Australia what are my thoughts on
-nicotine um nicotine causes cancer when
-it's consumed in the form of smoking
-vaping dipping or snuffing so don't do
-that um there's a debate now about
-vaping is it bad is it good it's bad um
-is it is is it worse for you than
-smoking probably not is it better
-probably slightly um you know what's
-better just not doing it um but if you
-need to do it and you have to pick you
-know I suppose um you know I'm not going
-to tell you what to do but I think that
-vaping has allowed a good number of
-people to smoke less I'll acknowledge
-that um and it's also clear it's not
-good for you so if you're going to going
-to do something that's bad for you do a
-bunch of things to offset the thing
-that's bad for you that's always my
-advice um but now in terms of nicotine
-itself nicotine doesn't cause cancer the
-mode of consumption causes cancer that's
-important
-nicotine um binds to so-called nicotinic
-acetycholine receptors so these exist
-naturally in your body and on your
-muscles they're the way that actually
-your nerves control contraction of your
-muscles um so the consumption of
-nicotine let's just say in um in I don't
-know about down here but in Europe it's
-becoming fairly common and in the Middle
-East also for people that take little
-pouches of nicotine can be absorbed um
-you know sublingually or through the gum
-gets into the bloodstream and it is
-truly a cognitive enhancer it's a
-cognitive enhancer not going to lie to
-you it will raise attention focus
-cognitive performance this is
-wellestablished the problem is it also
-raises blood pressure and causes vasil
-constriction this is well
-established so you know you have to ask
-yourself is it worth it do I do
-sometimes do I do it often do I choose
-to not do it at all I I don't think the
-young brain should be consuming nicotine
-even in these non-cancer uh causing uh
-forms like pouches um for a variety of
-reasons but mostly because the brain is
-so plastic at a young age anyway um but
-I actually am familiar with the use of
-nicotine for offsetting certain
-neurologic diseases when I was visiting
-Columbia Medical University in New York
-City some years ago I was in the office
-of a no Prize winner um won't tell you
-uh who it was necessarily um and he
-proceeded to consume no fewer than six
-pieces of Nicorette gum in our half hour
-meeting I like whoa at the time he was
-in his late 70s he's now in his 80s and
-I was like Hey listen like what's the
-deal with the nicotine and he said oh
-well it offsets Parkinson and
-Alzheimer's I said really he said yeah
-yeah you can increase cognitive function
-I used to smoke but I don't want to get
-cancer so I just chew a lot and a lot of
-neck rat okay really he's like yeah yeah
-yeah la nicet you know it it it can
-increase the amount of acetylcholine
-activation Through The Binding of these
-nicotinic acetylcholine receptors might
-even maintain some um dopaminergic
-neurons which are the neurons that one
-tends to lose with age and uh is rampant
-in diseases like Parkinson's I thought
-whoa okay so there's something there the
-fact of the matter is that nicotine can
-enhance focus alertness and learning but
-it does have those other issues so you
-want to be considerate of those other
-other issues and not become dependent on
-it and my experience is that people who
-taste the nicotine Focus From A Zin
-patch are those people who are buying
-those things pretty regularly I know
-somebody that went from one Zin patch
-twice a week to a canister a morning in
-about a month because the effect will
-wear off if you keep consuming it uh
-every day um you have to consume more
-and more so take that into consideration
-probably best to um avoid unless you
-need really need the Boost and you can
-afford the increase in blood pressure
-that would be my suggestion I've never
-taken nicotine and I don't
-smoke what's the best you can do for
-managing ADH if not taking medication
-okay so we did two episodes of The
-hubman L podcast on ADHD the first was
-on behavioral nutritional and supplement
-based tools 50% of the comments like
-thank you so much this is very helpful
-um can't wait to try some of the stuff
-the other will like get your evil um um
-you are you're trying to persuade people
-to not take Pharmaceuticals which is not
-true I I I'm interested in all of it I
-just covered that stuff in the first
-episode and then the second one we did
-on H ADHD was about things like viance
-adderal rlin Etc most of which by the
-way are
-amphetamines are we putting our kids on
-speed yes yeah they're amphetamines but
-I don't think that we should walk away
-from those things in every case they do
-have real clinical value in many cases
-and their clinical value comes from the
-fact that one not all but one of the
-major effects of amphetamines is that it
-can increase dopaminergic and nergic
-meaning dopamine and norrine release in
-the brain which can increase attention
-and focus which is actually beneficial
-in some cases for the brain to learn to
-focus to get neuroplasticity of those
-very circuits so it's a you know you
-know consideration then 50% of the
-comments of that second episode were why
-don't you talk about the behavioral
-tools the suppl based tools and the
-nutrition tools and um and that everyone
-else said thank you for talking about
-the prescription drugs so the point
-being several fold one is that certainly
-a combination of Behavioral nutritional
-supplement based and prescription tools
-is viable for most every situation and
-it's worth thinking about all of those
-when considering a treatment for ADHD
-and think we really need to get out of
-these silos of thinking you know like
-big Pharma is evil listen there are
-drugs that can help
-people is it evil I don't know is it
-going away no okay is there value there
-sometimes is it overprescribed sometimes
-what about nutritional tools well in
-some cases it can really help in other
-cases it one still needs prescription
-drug Tools in some cases doing
-behavioral nutritional or supplement
-based tools can allow one to take lower
-doses of pharmaceuticals if that's your
-goal I think it really needs to be
-tailored to the individual what I would
-like to see is more of a tailoring to
-the individual than the simple write a
-script send people off or tell people
-that it's all bad if it comes out of a
-prescription uh drug label format now it
-is very clear that the original dosing
-schedule for things like Aderall viance
-Etc was during the week weekday but not
-the weekends that somehow has moved to
-uh no weekends off so there's been a lot
-of changing in the the dosing schedules
-um and the way these drugs are taken are
-we creating a dependency on these drugs
-is always a big question and the answer
-seems to be a sort of very few people
-for whom these drugs work decide to come
-off them there's nothing magical about
-turning 25 after which you don't need
-these these enhancements but sometimes
-people don't need them or need as much
-of them because the neural circuits can
-be built up one thing that I would like
-to see more of is attention to the
-behavioral tools for ADHD not the least
-of which is what's being carried out in
-many schools and Clinics in China where
-people are being encour children are
-being encouraged to teach themselves how
-to maintain visual focus on a Target
-some distance away from them which then
-allows them to maintain cognitive focus
-when they move to their work the
-relationship between visual Focus as
-we've talked about a bunch of times
-tonight in the case of the cuddlefish
-ETC and cognitive focus is a an intimate
-one such that if you expect yourself to
-focus you you can't really expect
-yourself to drop into Focus as an
-immediate State you know so it's not a
-square wave function as you say you
-don't just sit down and drop into a
-state of Focus right we're so attracted
-to these Notions of of focus and we have
-these Concepts like flow and by the way
-I'm I'm not disparaging of those
-Concepts I know Stephen Cotler I have
-respect for him and his books um about
-flow but from a neuros psychiatric
-neuros pychological
-standpoint you know what we can really
-say about flow is that backwards spells
-wolf we don't really know that much
-about it um and so I think that if you
-expect yourself to focus you need to
-give yourself some warm-up time to focus
-don't assume that you have attention
-issues if you sit down and it takes five
-or 10 minutes to drop into a state of
-focus just like you wouldn't expect
-yourself to go out for a hard run
-without some sort of warm-up jog
-beforehand so the behavioral tools such
-as focusing on a visual Target are
-underexplored at least in most countries
-but in China and elsewhere they are
-being explored pretty extensively so I
-would encourage a full exploration of
-all the tools in this case it says not
-taking medication then obviously heavier
-Reliance on the behavioral tools is
-going to be
-helpful while I'm getting more sleep now
-I neglected sleep for many years me too
-and at least 15 years of getting just
-five or so am I doomed or can I offset
-this past damage you can offset the past
-damage one of the things that's really
-um wonderful about the brain and body is
-that it can compensate you know there's
-certain things that I get asked a lot I
-don't know why I get this question a lot
-but people say you know I smoked meth
-for years and then um can I get my
-neurons back and I'm like well you know
-it's neurotoxic but the fact that you're
-asking the question is reassuring um you
-know so don't start um but if you did
-you know I mean you can always do better
-than you're doing and you certainly can
-do better than you did in your past or
-at least that's what they tell me um um
-so really when it comes to sleep
-deprivation you know I spent many all
-nighters um I I wouldn't talk about
-sleep so much if I didn't have
-challenges with sleep I mean for a long
-time I slept like a bulldog I would
-sleep anywhere any time by the way folks
-if you ever walk down the street and you
-see a bulldog and you stop you'll notice
-they always stop they always seem so
-friendly they always stop they always
-stop and they look up at you and you pet
-them and like the reason they seem to
-like you so much is because they love to
-stop I owned one they're all about the
-stopping it's all it's not you it's
-about the
-stopping anyway
-the the goal is not necessarily to sleep
-as much as a bulldog actually it's the
-only animal see can't help myself it's
-the only animal for which there's a
-genetically induced apnea they're bracky
-calic which means they have a short
-snout they all those folds you know you
-know when the folds are there the folds
-are there because they have a genetic
-mutation they bred out the pain
-receptors in the face because they used
-to like have them like they would bull
-bait they bite on the face of the bull
-they kill all the pain they bred out the
-pain receptors gave them a floppy face
-short
-snout English Bulldog thank you for the
-specificity a biologist loves the
-specificity the Frenchies are pretty
-cool the Frenchies are pretty cool they
-have a little more kicking them right
-the Bulldogs little less and costell was
-a bulldog master so he was s of more or
-less like a sea turtle you know just
-slow movement stopping and he's going
-forward and you can move aside or in
-fact Costello was so mellow that when he
-would lie down on the floor had one of
-those you know kind of robot vacuums
-things we call a Roomba in our country
-it would come up to his face and he
-would just and it would bounce off his
-nose and he wouldn't even take the
-opportunity to
-Blink it's the Bulldog is sort of the
-essence of a om of effort and actually
-if you look at people people resemble
-different dog breeds I spent a lot of
-time thinking about this some dogs and
-some people have a bit more kind of
-reverberation in them they've got a
-higher RPM all the time all the time all
-the time and then they're the
-Bulldogs right Rick Rubin right there
-are these people that are just more
-still and we look at these people that
-are more still and think well there
-probably isn't that much going on in
-there but now we know from the Rick
-thing and the Carl thing that they're
-thinking a lot but in the case of
-Costello they don't don't get much done
-you know I maybe Costello wanted to get
-things done but I he if he woke up on
-New Year's Day and said all right 50
-rabbits this year he never actually
-achieved that but listen the point is
-some of us sleep like Bulldogs some of
-us tend to go to sleep and wake up in
-the middle of the
-night I'm one of those people go to
-sleep four hours wake up I hate it it
-but I figured out that non-sleep deep
-breast or yoga needra has taught me how
-to fall back asleep really quickly and I
-can recover some sleep I haven't gotten
-through non-sleep deep breast some
-people are waking up in the middle of
-the night because they don't have their
-sleep timing right we have a series on
-sleep coming out soon with the great
-Matt Walker we record a six episode
-series with Matt and he talks about
-something I take no credit for this this
-is Matt's acronym qqr T quality quantity
-regularity and timing you want to pay
-attention to to the amount of sleep some
-people need six some people need eight
-if you only got seven for years and
-you're reading that you need eight or
-else you'll get dementia please don't
-worry about it it is simply not the case
-some people need less some people need
-more this varies across the lifespan
-then there's the quality how much of
-that sleep is
-continuous did you drink caffeine in the
-afternoon or alcohol in the evening in
-which case the quality will be
-diminished the regularity is very
-interesting going to sleep more or less
-five nights a week at least going to
-sleep more or less at the same time
-every night plus or minus an hour it's
-fine on the weekends I'm not just saying
-that so you don't all leave at once or a
-third of you leave um some people do
-Best by going to bed at 800 or 900 p.m.
-and waking up at 3:00 or 4 in the
-morning and that's where you would feel
-best in fact if you're somebody that
-wakes up at 3:00 or 4 in the morning you
-might be going to sleep too late and you
-have this intrinsic chronotype as it's
-called and you can shift your clock a
-bit later but most people want to go to
-bed sometime between 10:00 p.m. and
-midnight wake up sometime between 6:00
-a.m. and 800 a.m. am and there's great
-variation there too um but you know qqr
-T so think about the quality the
-quantity the regularity and the timing
-once you dial those in everything is
-much much better so much so that even if
-you're not getting enough sleep as long
-as you're going to bed more or less the
-same time each night you'll you'll Faire
-better so if you didn't do any of this
-stuff for years like I didn't uh in when
-I was in graduate school Etc I don't
-despair don't despair um it's very clear
-that the brain can recover um and I
-wouldn't waste a single moment thinking
-about what you didn't do um also my time
-machine's broken your time machine's
-broken I realize that doesn't create a
-lot of comfort but it's unlikely that
-you did substantial damage unlikely you
-did substantial damage unless you did
-that your whole life and we're talking
-about a conversation that's happening
-late late in life but even then more
-sleep would be better do you believe in
-Burnout H if so what would be your
-recommendation protocol relinquish
-burnout once it's already occurred this
-is a very interesting question you know
-we don't quite know what burnout is and
-it can come from a combination of things
-um and typically burnout comes not
-during the stress period but several
-months afterwards you know that the
-adrenals you know these two little
-nuggets above our kidneys and our lower
-back are capable of driving so much
-neural energy in us that that we can do
-all sorts of things for a very long time
-even in the absence of food as long as
-we have water and salt you know that the
-adrenals because they kick out
-adrenaline and cortisol and by the way
-are involved in salt appetite there's a
-reason for that because you need that
-the adrenals can keep us going and there
-is no such thing as true adrenal burnout
-because the adrenals don't burn out
-you've got enough adrenaline in your
-adrenals for two lifetimes but there is
-an adrenal insufficiency syndrome so
-that's a real thing it's rare but it
-exists but burnout seems to be in my
-mind more related to psychological
-burnout and I'm not a psychologist but
-I'm a fan of the poet David White and he
-has this beautiful poem that is either
-entitled or somehow
-includes um the word
-wholeheartedness I think that where we
-recover ourselves is by relating to and
-engaging with things and people that we
-wholeheartedly enjoy even if that is
-simply relaxation or gardening or
-drawing or maybe just doing nothing for
-a bit I think burnout is very real and I
-think burnout as pushed through the
-filter of what we've been talking about
-earlier in the evening is when we are
-not
-getting
-periodic experiences if you will of
-delight or excitement or a sense of
-meaning and and here we're starting to
-drift into kind of abstract you know not
-everyone gets to do a job that they
-Delight in um certainly there were years
-where I didn't Delight in the sorts of
-things I had to do for certain jobs but
-finding some areas of life that create
-those neural energy states that carry
-forward that Wick out into other aspects
-of what we're doing and I don't know if
-I made this point clear enough earlier
-but those moments of you know really
-feeling excited about something in a way
-that really lights you up in
-particular are not just about that
-moment and seeking out more of those
-moments but in the way that it lifts our
-nervous system the way it carries us
-forward and allows us to do the other
-things that we have to do which frankly
-sometimes can be um not as exciting or
-even drudgery so if you've burnt out um
-I know the feeling I I have burnt out
-before and I encourage a combination of
-rest but also exploration of things that
-can evoke that kind of internal
-excitement or sense of meaning and one
-has to be a bit of a forager in in order
-to do that try new things and that can
-be difficult um but burnout is real and
-I encourage you to take it seriously
-because unfortunately typically what
-follows burnout is depression and then
-um things can really uh run ashore what
-types of food do you try to eat every
-day and why oh I love to eat um I do I
-love to eat I even like the mere Act of
-chewing so much so um it just yeah um
-that's why I buy those Persian cucumbers
-you just munch on those things all the
-time the um I tend to eat according to
-how alert or asleep I want to be it
-violates a
-few kind of popular thoughts about
-nutrition but that's what I do uh
-generally for me I like water caffeine
-um in early in the day and eat sometime
-around 11:00 or noon I'm not really
-strict about these things if I'm hungry
-I'll have a plate of eggs in the morning
-or something or a handful of macadamias
-by the way the macadamias down in
-Australia are awesome on they're so good
-in the states they like Infuse them with
-all these Palm kernel oils and stuff and
-so when I first tasted the ones and they
-taste good but they're I'm not like
-going to get into the seed oil debate I
-think a better ways to hang myself like
-with this micro microphone cord it's l
-like you know I don't I guess I do sort
-of avoid the seed oils but you know I
-feel best um I love the oh the
-macadamias see told you always find my
-way back the
-macadamias down here tastes as if
-they've been in infused with all sorts
-of stuff but then you look at the
-packaging it's just like macadamias and
-salt I don't know what is so good the
-coffee down here is amazing I know why
-it tastes so good it's so good the
-produce I mean basically I eat like you
-guys gals I that's what I do that's what
-I do I basically eat meat and eggs and
-fruit and vegetables and I do like rice
-and oatmeal and like there are people on
-social media tell you like oatmeal is
-going to kill you and I'm like if
-oatmeal were going to kill me I'd be
-dead like I eat so much oatmeal but
-that's not to say that some people feel
-better if they don't eat oatmeal I kind
-of find the nutrition debates to be kind
-of like like funny they're so
-non-scientific they're funny but I also
-know that and here I have a theory that
-when you eat most of your foods from
-unprocessed or minimally processed
-sources something magical happens not
-only are
-you let's say eating healthier foods
-quote unquote but we should Define
-healthier foods that for which their
-macronutrients proteins fats and
-carbohydrates also and calories tend to
-be matched pretty well with high
-micronutrient content something that
-doesn't exist in highly processed foods
-right but probably also better for the
-planet but which is great I'm not being
-planet's important we want to keep that
-around the um but the other thing is
-that neurally when you eat Foods as
-their main ingredients which is not say
-you can't have a soup or a stew or a
-salad every once in a while but closer
-to their original form and I do cook my
-meat unlike other people on the internet
-the there's the guy eating chicken raw
-for like 28 days I was in the barber
-shop the other day they're like what
-about the raw chicken guy and I was like
-not a good idea like the so when you eat
-Foods in their kind of basic
-state the brain can associate The Taste
-with the
-macronutrient and amino acid cont
-content and micronutrient content and we
-know that the gut is sensing a lot of
-that unconsciously subconsciously we
-know this through neural Pathways
-beautiful work being done by people here
-in Australia and in the states and
-elsewhere about the signaling of for the
-gut is actually tasting the food or it's
-it's measuring the amount of amino acids
-fatty acids Etc and so when you eat
-Foods in their kind of more original
-form nonprocessed or minimally processed
-it's clear that the brain starts to
-develop a more specific Intuition or
-appetite for what you need you start to
-know oh like I need some fat or I need
-some protein or I'm crave you start to
-Crave the things according to what's
-actually in them and highly processed
-foods and Rich combinations of foods
-don't allow you to do that so and that
-hasn't really been explored there's a
-little bit of work that's coming out on
-this by Dana small at Yale and um Kevin
-Hall elsewhere you know but it's we sort
-of starting to get there so this is why
-I believe when people go on these
-elimination diets where they like I'm
-only eating meat like the lion DED or
-whatever like Costello meat only and
-like that they many of those people
-quote unquote feel better I think
-because they're starting to form a
-relationship with the nutrient content
-of the food the chloric content and the
-taste in a way that after that they like
-see a cracker and they're like no you
-know they can kind of reset the neural
-circuits around appetite and all of this
-stuff but for me because I'm an omore
-like a normal person and sorry no
-disrespect to the carnivores I just kind
-of like the blood drinking like liver
-chomping car like come on like the um
-I'm going to catch a bullet or like a
-you know someone's going to thr a bone
-at me so I I I fear them more than I
-fear the vegans they'll just be like a
-bunch of you know the vegans will attack
-you online but in person they'll just
-like hit you with a parsley so it's not
-as you know the the um I'm going to get
-myself in trouble the
-um I'm an omav War like most people and
-the and so for me between 11:00 a.m. and
-8:00 p.m. is typically when to eat but
-sometimes eat at 9: I didn't eat before
-this cuz I don't like to eat right
-before I do this sort of thing so I'll
-eat a meal before I go to sleep tonight
-I'm not super strict about this stuff
-I'm not super super strict but in
-general it's some sort of intermittent
-is fasting thing and it tends to be Meat
-and Fish and eggs and love parmesan
-cheese and coffee and oranges and
-cucumbers and lettuce and and and food
-like food and pasta and um and I I
-suppose that having done that for so
-many years I do you know adjust it like
-if I do a hard resistance training
-workout I'll eat a few more starchy
-carbohydrates to replenish glycogen but
-but I tend to avoid extremes with all
-that stuff and I love a great slice of
-pizza and I've sort of lost my taste for
-sweets but occasionally I'll I'll do
-that and I love vegetables like
-croissants and things of that sort
-so but you know all kidding aside um you
-know I do try and eat pretty healthy
-every day with a ton of info out there
-about health and wellness Andrew I love
-the way uh nikil um what are your top
-health and fitness style recommendations
-for someone who has a busy lifestyle
-this is a great question and you know I
-get accused a lot I can accuse a lot of
-a lot of things um but you know one of
-them is well no one can do all this
-stuff but we talked about it earlier we
-do the best with what we have and the
-time we have try and get some bright
-sunlight even through cloud cover
-especially through cloud cover every day
-I try and dim the lights or you know get
-under red light not Red Light Panel
-necessarily but just put in like red
-party light I've done that this whole
-trip when we traveled in the evening
-just it's just a red light bulb there
-it's not fancy just a red light bulb
-screws in this little pedestal turn that
-on all the other lights go off and then
-makes for a nice easy taper into sleep
-because you know the the blue the blue
-and bright fluorescent lights those
-short wavelength light really is
-activating for the nervous system
-especially late in the day so light is a
-big one for me try and get a few walks
-in I think if you were going to exercise
-just two days a week it's very clear
-that those two days per week should be
-include some resistance training
-exercise and then maybe follow up with
-some easy cardiovascular training or
-something like that um hopefully one
-could get out in about maybe three days
-or or exercise sometimes not outside one
-can only exercise indoors maybe three
-days per week so I don't think it takes
-a ton of time necessarily but that might
-even be excessive so with busy lifestyle
-I think it's those little carve outs of
-five or 10 minute walk um when we had
-Andy Galpin on the podcast and did a
-series and by the way Andy's launching
-his own podcast through our podcast um
-Channel um which is scom uh which Rob
-and I started um he's got the perform
-podcast with Andy Galpin he talked a
-little bit about these exercise snacks
-these are actually pretty cool um in the
-sense that if you just take 60 seconds
-and do you know like an near allout you
-know run up the stairs but be careful or
-jumping jacks for a minute as fast as
-you can that raises heart rate in a way
-and adjusts your physiology in a way
-that really does carry over to better
-performance including even things like
-V2 Max in other endeavors so it's
-probably not the case that that's all
-you should do but even small bouts of
-exercise can be very very valuable um so
-that that's reassuring and then I am a
-huge fan of non-sleep deep breast AKA
-Yoga Nidra which means yoga sleep which
-is just lying there as uh we talked
-about before but it's slightly different
-than what we were talking about for
-creativity lying there and deliberately
-inducing using your mind to deeply relax
-the different muscles of your body stay
-calm long exhale breathing this kind of
-thing there's a 10-minute nstr with my
-voice on YouTube that you can simply
-find and at zero cost there are many
-with other voices female voices Etc that
-you can find on YouTube as well
-and if you don't like those we're soon
-to release on our human lab Clips
-Channel a number of different
-meditations and nsdr again all zero cost
-of 10 minute 20 minute 30 minute I would
-say that for limiting stress improving
-sleep and restoring mental and physical
-Vigor nsdr is perhaps the best tool out
-there and again I didn't create it I
-simply took yoga Nedra I started calling
-it nsdr and by the way I was aware that
-I was going to upset some people when I
-did that I was not trying to appropriate
-anything I promise the problem was I
-would talk about Yoga Nidra and studies
-of yoga
-showing that it replenishes dopamine in
-the basil ganglia can restore mental and
-physical Vigor and then people would
-back away from me slowly like yoga I
-don't want to do yoga I'm like no no
-this is Yoga sleep you don't actually
-move and they're like well that sounds
-pretty different and I'm like I know it
-sounds different I'd go on and on and
-then I just decid to call it non-sleep
-deep rest and when you call something
-what it is or what it can accomplish you
-move away from nomenclature and um I
-have very mixed feelings about renaming
-things but I figured as long as I don't
-call it like the huberman protocol at
-least I'm distancing myself from it and
-it's a zeroc cost protocol so non-sleep
-deep rest is valuable for restoring
-mental and physical Vigor it can
-potentially help offset sleep that you
-didn't get it can help you fall back
-asleep at night if you do in the middle
-of the night it can help you get better
-at falling asleep if you do do it during
-the day I did it for 20 minutes just
-prior to coming out here I always do
-that um prior to any event that or thing
-that requires a lot of focus this kind
-of thing otherwise the jokes I tell are
-really you know just not okay and um so
-I do think it's quite valuable and it's
-something to explore at what age would
-you consider testosterone replacement
-therapy wow and what are the risk versus
-benefits of starting it sooner rather
-than later we got shouts well so one of
-the major effects of testosterone
-replacement therapy is is spontaneous
-shouting out in crowds
-um just kidding
-um you know there've been number of
-studies of testosterone in males and
-females by the way females have more
-testosterone than they do estrogen you
-know that right per deciliter of blood
-higher testosterone than estrogen just
-on average on average they tend to have
-lower testosterone than men per
-deciliter of blood so it's important in
-both males and females um I think you're
-referring James to the use of so-called
-trt in males but I'll touch on it in
-females as well because lowd dose trt
-therapy
-oop sorry I just did that I get in
-trouble in in if you say like PCR
-reaction ATM machine is there a name for
-that okay T the T at the end of trt is
-therapy testosterone replacement therapy
-testosterone replacement therapy
-technically means that someone's levels
-prior to that therapy fall outside the
-reference range so low lower than 300
-nanograms per deciliter typically or
-some other array of symptoms at and they
-replace it replacement therapy many many
-people nowadays in my opin opinion for
-far too many and Too Young take what I
-call testosterone augmentation therapy
-where their levels are within normal
-range and then they take it to get out
-of range and look there's nothing wrong
-with that I'm not going to tell you what
-to do I'm not a cop you do what you want
-to do um there a couple things trt or
-tat augmentation and here we're just
-setting aside high do steroid use um cuz
-that's just a whole other Biz and and
-frankly the bodybuilders will get upset
-but um but I'll get away from you
-because you'll be waddling and I'll be
-running
-um the that's just like a whole other
-business so
-um testosterone replacement therapy is
-um widely used nowadays I think far too
-young basically it will lower your sperm
-count dramatically if you're a male so
-so you'd have if you want children um
-you want to conceive children you will
-need to offset that by taking something
-like human chonic gonadotrope and HCG um
-which is available synthetically they
-used to sell it in the form of pregnant
-women's urine um there was a black
-market for it we could really go off
-into the sticks with this question um my
-in my opinion if you want
-to explore this I would say first get
-your behaviors right sleep exercise
-nutrition stress control training get
-that right don't train too hard or too
-long get that right then there are
-certain supplements and we've talked
-about this on the podcast some are
-debated a little bit more than others
-things like zinc Tong Ali Etc that can
-probably provide a boost Beyond normal
-without shutting down the goads um and
-then and only then if you feel you
-really want to do this and it's in line
-with your ethics or you know I don't
-know if you're playing a drug tested
-sport Etc
-um then just minimal effective dose and
-then if you want to have kids someday or
-if you don't know if you want to have
-kids someday make sure you're taking the
-appropriate things to offset that that's
-basically what I would say and the major
-effect of testosterone in men and women
-is not libido per se and it's not
-aggression per se it tends to make
-people more like them if you're a jerk
-you're going become more of a jerk if
-you're calm you're become more calm if
-you're kind you're GNA I don't know if
-you become Kinder but there actually
-been studies of altruistic behavior and
-administration of testosterone by nasal
-spray or other means and frankly people
-will become more they'll become
-competitively
-altruistic um I think the major effect
-also could be described as it makes
-effort feel good so um we could go on
-and on about this I'll just toss in that
-nowadays there's a lot of excitement
-about peptides I'm going to do an
-episode about peptides a lot of the
-young people I run into um here and in
-the states are like what are you what
-are your thoughts on bpc c57 what do you
-think about this peptide or that peptide
-peptides are simply small proteins um
-amino acid chains um so there are lots
-of things called peptides but typically
-these are things that increase growth
-hormone that keep in mind that anything
-that increases growth hormone will
-increase the growth of any and all
-tissues so if you have a small tumor
-that you're not aware of that will grow
-also so just keep in mind if you're
-going to tickle these Pathways you're
-you're playing some with some serious
-biology but there are safe ways to do it
-sorry you said What are the benefits of
-star it sooner rather than later uh
-start it
-later what are the physiological and
-practical differences between breathing
-techniques can do Wim Hoff and the
-physiological side relation stress Focus
-Etc okay we can make this pretty
-straightforward first of all I know whim
-we go way back to 2015 I went over to
-the Pyrenees and visited him and hung
-out and then brought him to the states
-and you wiim Hof breathing is Tumo
-breathing but in science speak we call
-it cyclic hyperventilation it's just
-cyclic hyperventilation
-so
-um if you inhale vigorously and
-long your heart rate goes up if you
-exhale vigorously and
-long heart rate goes down through a
-process called respiratory sinus
-arhythmia volume of the heart changes
-when you breathe in versus breathe out
-speed at which blood moves through the
-heart changes as the blood gets bigger
-or smaller according to inhales exhales
-and basically the net effect is inhale
-heart speeds up a little bit exhale
-heart slows down a little bit so so if
-you do Wim Hof AKA Tumo breathing and
-you inhale
-vigorously and let it fall out of your
-mouth and
-then you're going to increase heart rate
-increase autonomic activation Etc if you
-do a pattern of breathing like inhale
-inhale long exhale inhale inhale long
-exhale cyclic
-sighing over time you're going to slow
-the heart rate down and you're going to
-calm down that's just how it works so
-when I hear about box breathing or now
-you hear about box breathing okay it's
-relatively equal ratios of inhale exhale
-so a little bit of pause in there that's
-the Box inhale hold exhale hold inhale
-hold exhale hold of varying durations
-depending on your so-called carbon
-dioxide tolerance but at the end of the
-day you're maintaining kind of even
-heart rate when you do big cyclic
-hyperventilation AK Wim Hoff Tumo
-breathing your increasing heart rate in
-autonomic arousal release of adrenaline
-do cyclic sighing a lot of exhales the
-opposite is true okay so that should
-give you a framework for thinking about
-breathing and how to apply different
-breathing techniques and get us away
-from some of the naming of things but
-I'm not trying to take anything away
-from so-called Wim Hoff breathing um by
-the way if you're going to do Wim Hoff
-breathing be very very careful to not do
-cyclic hyperventilation or whm Hoff
-breathing and then do breath holds and
-don't do it and anywhere don't do that
-anywhere near water there have been
-cases of people drowning dying from
-combining cyclic hyperventilation and
-breathholds with water because it
-changes the threshold for shallow water
-blockout when you exhale a lot or when
-you
-hyperventilate you remove a lot of
-carbon dioxide and carbon dioxide is the
-stimulus to gasp so what will happen is
-indeed if you
-do you're blowing off a lot of carbon
-dioxide and you go right that's a whim
-exhale and then you hold and you go
-underwater yeah you'll hold your breath
-longer than you normally would but
-instead of feeling that impulse to
-breathe like the that gas reflex and you
-shoot for the surface you'll just BL
-done so it's a serious thing and you
-want to be really careful to not combine
-cyclic hyperventilation and breath holds
-and especially both
-with cold water frankly any water
-exposure I always say don't do Wim Hoff
-Tumo or cyclic hyperventilation
-breathing even standing or seated in a
-puddle okay so in response to stress
-it's really if you want to be more alert
-increase the Vigor and duration of your
-inhales if you want to be more calm
-increase the duration of your
-exhales would you recommend that
-children also get morning sunlight yes
-and your pets too unless they're
-nocturnal pets right for anyone that had
-the not so smart idea of getting a
-hamster
-you realize they're nocturnal right
-they're going to run all night long on
-the wheel in fact rodents like to run on
-Wheels so much that hoppy Hofer at
-Harvard has shown that if you put a
-little running wheel like you know
-little wheels that the mice like to run
-in there in a field animals will run to
-the wheel and run in the
-field which tells you everything you
-need to know about rodents but really um
-children need that but obviously babies
-have sensitive eyes you you know we all
-can potentially hurt ourselves with
-sunlight and down here the UV index is
-very high when the sun is low in the Sky
-so-call low solar angle sunlight in the
-morning and in the evening the UV index
-and be mostly because of atmospheric
-interference but some other things as
-well it does it's not as damaging to the
-eyes that's why it's easier to watch a
-sunrise or a Sun closer to the Horizon
-it is to you know please don't stare at
-the sun in any case but an overhead Sun
-so I I think it's really important for
-circadian rhythms but of course kids
-need their sleep so if they're going to
-sleep in a little bit that's fine just
-get them outside afterwards it's the
-staying inside and staying on a phone
-that's problematic and then leaving that
-room at noon really shift your circadian
-rhythm in unhealthy ways and that's true
-for children perhaps especially true for
-children as a father what can I be doing
-to give my children the best start in
-life what a great question I hope my
-parents ask that um they abandoned me at
-the pet store no I'm kidding they didn't
-they didn't abandon me they didn't
-abandon me at the bed store um if they
-did I didn't notice I was among my
-friends the fishes and the birds um I
-think this question probably should be
-I'm going to I'm going to edit just say
-what can we all be doing to give our
-children the best start in life and and
-what does that mean for those of us that
-have already started in life um so first
-of all we have a episode of The hubman
-Lab podcast with an absolutely
-magnificent guest Dr Becky Kennedy
-um coming out on I guess it' be Tuesday
-down here so this coming week all about
-this and you know we could talk about
-things for learning encourage them to
-play an instrument um I would think that
-we perhaps should teach kids some tools
-to modulate their stress in real time
-like physiological size I don't see why
-not um I certainly wish I had tools to
-regulate my stress when I was younger
-now they didn't teach us that stuff they
-didn't know it where it the knowledge
-was there but as I mentioned earlier
-they didn't teach us that stuff they
-taught us all sorts of stuff in high
-school health and stuff I mean they they
-taught us that you know drunk driving's
-bad um they taught us it just takes one
-sperm one time they um they taught us
-all sorts of stuff but they didn't teach
-us the uh this business of physiological
-size or stress thresholds or about the
-intering L cortex because a lot of that
-stuff wasn't known or just wasn't
-discussed so I think some tools to
-control one 's inner landscape play
-music I certainly am going to encourage
-the exploration of these energy states
-that you know letting kids explore I
-mean they need rules and Regulation and
-boundaries of course but there's this
-concept of impingement that I find very
-interesting that the classic
-psychologists used to talk about you
-know when we when a kid says they like
-something or don't like things like yes
-they need to be doing certain things for
-their normal life progression but kids
-are very good sensors of what works for
-them and what doesn't work for them we
-don't want to impinge on certainly their
-healthy loves and desires things that
-don't endanger them right things that
-are really reflect their unique loves
-and desires don't force them to play
-Suzuki violin if they want to play the
-drums right let let them bang on stuff
-and let the kids that want to play
-Suzuki violin do that don't make them
-play the drums so these impingements
-actually I think are are problematic
-they they lead to a lot of Confusion And
-if anything else they you know they they
-take us away from that unique wiring to
-be our own unique expression um Becky
-Kennedy does describe a few key
-principles of parenting that I think are
-really interesting that extend to all
-kinds of relationships she talks about
-the main role of parenting and to some
-extent all
-relationships is to create
-boundaries and to make kids feel safe
-seems pretty good to me um the other
-kind of
-short list of two things and she
-describes how to do this in in ways that
-um are highly actionable is that every
-child I found this really interesting
-every child wants to feel real like they
-want to feel like they're real like
-they're seen they exist and they want to
-feel safe and so that one of the things
-that really rung in my ears and still
-does from that episode recording again
-out this week is that when a kid or an
-adult says something about how they feel
-that perhaps one of the best responses
-we can give them is you know I believe
-you like that it doesn't you're not
-saying that like you don't want to go to
-school don't go to school right we're
-not saying you don't you don't enjoy
-doing something don't do it or or you
-want like a you know a fifth serving of
-candy like you can say like I believe
-you you know no um you know and so I
-think that a lot of it is is is you know
-we get confused with terms like
-validation and listening I mean what I
-like so much about what Becky offers um
-and I'm I do hope to do a Child
-Development series and the not too
-distant future um what what I like so
-much about what Becky offers is that you
-know it boils down to simple
-Concepts like we want to
-be real which I guess is a kind of an
-analog for scene and we want to feel
-safe not unlike when we did the podcast
-series on Mental Health with Dr Paul kti
-he said you know it's really about
-mental health is really about agency and
-gratitude but there are a lot of things
-that siphon up into those feelings or
-those moments of or that state of agency
-and gratitude so I I would say that's
-perhaps the most important thing is you
-know boundaries make kids feel safe and
-then make them feel real like their
-feelings and and what they're reporting
-matters um and then of course the
-impingement thing becomes a little bit
-complicated because they do need
-boundaries so we have to constrain their
-wishes sometimes and their behavior but
-we don't want to do it in a way that
-takes them away from that unique wiring
-that makes them who they are so they can
-become you know the the characters and
-people and professionals and creatives
-and scientists and Poets and just you
-know good people right everyday good
-people so that's the best answer I can
-provide at this time
-they're not going to give me another
-question but I can keep going just
-briefly if I may um by just first of all
-saying that um again I'm very very
-grateful for the opportunity to convene
-with all of you here tonight I realized
-it was me speaking and you listening
-except for the guy on testosterone and
-um and I and I certainly um you know I I
-can't really express it enough in words
-what um the podcast means to me you know
-it's uh it's a it's a bizarre uh it's a
-bizarre thing it's completely
-transformed my life it's um made it you
-know incredible um I never dreamed of
-anything like this but for me it's
-really not about hearing my own voice
-it's it's this compulsion that came at
-an early age and and it's really my wish
-frankly that um the tools the protocols
-the knowledge whatever it inspires you
-to do or to think um you know we don't
-have to agree on everything I would hope
-we don't agree on everything the ways we
-disagree um with me and with each other
-and with others that you know that we
-start maybe thinking about ourselves as
-through a lens of science um and think
-about health and and and really trying
-to meet those discussions with with the
-kind of benevolence and curiosity and
-you know Vigor you know a good argument
-every once in a while it's healthy too
-um that it really deserves you know I
-think we're we're in very interesting
-and kind of sometimes scary time um I
-often feel scared frankly um because of
-what I see and and even my own position
-in this whole landscape I sometimes
-think like I feel like a lot of times
-things are just kind of hanging on by a
-thread but I actually have a lot of
-optimism I think our species is very
-smart I think that um we've managed to
-navigate tricky places before and I
-think that through the learning and
-teaching of things that work for us that
-we learned from this these kinds of
-things and from each other that pretty
-soon we're going to start to fill in the
-gaps between the silos that are the yoga
-Traditions the chiropractic massage
-health and fitness traditional medicine
-non-traditional medicine functional
-medicine I mean I really encourage all
-of you to try and you know stand back
-from it all and try and identify the
-common themes that may exist across
-these things and and really try and
-identify some of the the links and
-points of convergence more than the
-differences and and at the very least to
-explore things if you don't like them
-you know that's great and if you do to
-pass them on to other people um
-especially the behavioral tools that we
-all Harbor within us that I think can
-really uh enhance our mental health and
-vigor um our physical health and
-hopefully our longevity too so I could
-go on and on but I really just want to
-say thank you so much for coming out
-tonight um this is our last night in
-Australia and I'm certainly going to
-miss being here and we intend to come
-back again soon thank you so much for
-paying tuning into
-the podcast paying attention to and
-tuning into the podcast and for being
-willing to learn you're all amazing
-students and you're also amazing
-teachers I learned from you all uh in
-comments and feedback so um if you have
-that please keep that coming and last
-but certainly not least thank you for
-your interest in
-[Applause]
-science actually I've never done this
-before
-but because it's my last night here I've
-I've always seen people do this and I've
-never done it but I'm going to do it can
-we get the house lights up I want to get
-one of these like I'm going to do this
-as a video and you don't have to do it
-your faces will show up but don't worry
-we won't um it will on the internet but
-this is not for me I just want
-to I'm going to send my mother this okay
-there we
-go thank you that's on you
-thank you you made my mother very happy
-[Music]

Data/transcripts/0Dtt95_xabw_20241225194252.txt

@@ -1,37 +0,0 @@
-So it's very clear that smoking,
-vaping, dipping or snuffing
-is bad for skin appearance and health.
-Bad, bad, bad.
-Every dermatologist said this.
-Why?
-Well, with smoking, you
-can imagine why, okay?
-A lot of carcinogens
-and toxic end products
-generated from smoking,
-even from vaping.
-Yes, even from vaping,
-it will make your skin
-age faster, that's clear.
-But it's also the substance itself.
-Why all of those things,
-in addition to increasing inflammation,
-nicotine itself is a vasoconstrictor,
-so you're doing the exact
-opposite of what you want
-when it comes to skin
-health and appearance.
-And that's why people
-take things like BPC-157,
-that's why people take nicotinamide,
-that's why people are trying to improve
-the hydration status of their skin.
-So if you're somebody
-that's vaping nicotine,
-or even taking nicotine
-in some other form,
-pouch or smoking nicotine,
-and you're interested in
-having youthful-appearing skin,
-you are really shooting yourself
-in the, I don't know, face?

Data/transcripts/1SXDXdngX2M_20241225194316.txt

@@ -1,41 +0,0 @@
-A lot of people think that
-the key to feeling better
-is to vent your emotions.
-There's research on this.
-Venting is good for strengthening
-bonds between people.
-It's good to know that, you
-know, we're buddies now.
-I could call you up if I'm struggling.
-You're going to listen to
-me and empathize with me.
-That's great for our relationship,
-but if all you do is just
-validate what I'm going through
-and you don't take the next step
-to additionally help me
-look at that bigger picture
-and problem solve, I
-leave the conversation
-feeling really good about
-my relationship with you,
-but the problem is still there.
-So just venting ends up leading
-to what we call co-rumination,
-which can be pretty harmful.
-The people on my Chatter Advisory Board,
-they know to first
-validate, empathize with me,
-learn about what I'm going through.
-They've got my back.
-They communicate that powerfully,
-but then once they do that,
-they start working with me
-to broaden the perspective,
-to try to think through that problem,
-which I'm having
-difficulty doing sometimes
-when the chatter is really, really loud
-and you know, typically
-when I get to that stage,
-I'm in pretty good shape.

Data/transcripts/2Ds1m5gflCI_20241225194849.txt

@@ -1,1945 +0,0 @@
-- Welcome to The Huberman Lab Podcast,
-where we discuss science
-and science based tools for everyday life.
-I'm Andrew Huberman,
-and I'm a Professor of
-Neurobiology and Ophthalmology
-at Stanford School of Medicine.
-Recently, I had the pleasure
-of hosting two live events:
-one in Seattle, Washington
-and one in Portland, Oregon,
-both entitled, "The Brain Body Contract,"
-where I discussed science
-and science related tools
-for mental health, physical
-health, and performance.
-My favorite part of each
-evening, however, was the
-question and answer period
-that followed the lecture.
-I love the question and answer period
-because it gives me an opportunity
-to hear directly from the audience
-to what they want to know most,
-and indeed to get into a bit of dialogue
-so we really clarify
-what are the underlying
-mechanisms of particular tools,
-how best to use the tools for
-things like focus and sleep,
-we also touched on some things related to
-mental health and physical health.
-It was a delight for me
-and I like to think that
-the audience learned a lot.
-I know that many of you weren't
-able to attend those events,
-but we wanted to make the
-information available to you.
-So what follows this
-is a recording of the
-question and answer period,
-from the lecture in Seattle, Washington.
-I hope you'll find it
-to be both interesting and informative.
-I'd also like to thank our
-sponsors of these live events.
-The first is Momentous supplements,
-which is our partner with
-The Huberman Lab Podcast,
-providing supplements that
-are the very highest quality,
-that ship international,
-and that are arranged
-in dosages and single
-ingredient formulations
-that make it possible for you
-to develop the optimal
-supplement strategy for you.
-And I'd also like to
-thank our other sponsor,
-which is InsideTracker,
-which provides blood tests and DNA tests
-so you can monitor
-your immediate and
-long-term health progress.
-I'd also like to announce
-that there are two, new
-live events scheduled.
-The first one is going
-to take place Sunday,
-October 16th at The Wiltern
-theater in Los Angeles.
-The other live event will
-take place Wednesday,
-November 9th at the Beacon
-Theatre in New York City.
-Tickets to both of those
-events are now available
-online at hubermanlab.com/tour;
-that's hubermanlab.com/tour.
-I do hope that you learn from an enjoy
-the recording of the
-question and answer period
-that follows this, and last,
-but certainly not least,
-thank you for your interest in science.
-[upbeat music plays]
-"What is your most used protocol?"
-I'm assuming that you mean the
-protocol that I use the most.
-I genuinely do the
-morning sunlight viewing.
-And this evening I went
-and looked at the sunset,
-every single evening,
-and I absolutely do 10 to 30 minutes
-of some Non-Sleep Deep Rest
-protocol, every single day,
-every single day!
-The reason I called it Non-Sleep Deep Rest
-is because while I love
-the classic traditions of,
-and things like Yoga Nidra,
-my fear was that if I
-called things Yoga Nidra,
-that people would get spooked.
-But I also have to say
-that I rather loathe
-the fact that scientists
-use so many fancy terms,
-that it also vaults information
-from the very people that fund the work.
-So I have a kind of an ax to grind
-with the scientific community too.
-So Non-Sleep Deep Rest was my attempt
-to kind of put my arms around
-a number of different things
-like Yoga Nidra, which I
-have great reverence for,
-and other tools like that.
-I do that usually in the early afternoon,
-or if I wake up first thing in the morning
-and I haven't slept
-enough, or not that well,
-I'll do 30 minutes of Yoga Nidra
-and I feel terrific after that.
-I'll just mention a brief anecdote.
-I learned about Yoga Nidra
-while researching a book
-that I never wrote, that may
-or may not ever be published.
-I went and spent a week
-in a trauma center and addiction
-treatment center in Florida
-and saw some amazing work,
-of some amazing people,
-and some amazing transformations
-and it was a big part
-of their daily routine,
-for these people to do Yoga
-Nidra and Non-Sleep Deep Rest
-and I thought they're
-really onto something here.
-So almost religiously for me,
-every day, 10 to 30 minutes.
-Not that it matters,
-but the CEO of Google's really into NSDR.
-I don't know him,
-but he's written about
-that a number of times.
-"In Seattle, sunrise varies
-from 4:30 AM to 9:00 AM,
-depending on season,
-are you recommending to vary
-your wake-up/outside
-time with the seasons?"
-Somewhat.
-You know, you don't need to
-see the sun cross the horizon.
-That would be great,
-but not everyone can wake up with the sun.
-You want to get so-called
-low solar angle sunlight.
-Why?
-'Cause of that yellow-blue contrast
-that we talked about before.
-Many people wake up before the sun is out.
-If that case, if you want to be awake,
-turn on as many bright lights as you can.
-Up here, I don't know, does anyone here,
-you don't have to admit
-this if you don't want to,
-but maybe nod or raise your hand
-if you're comfortable with doing that.
-In the winter you feel less well,
-or typically in the transition,
-yeah, it's huge up here.
-[audience laughing]
-It's really, it's amazing.
-And then when you're on campus
-or that's where I've spent time
-and you see Rainier and it's like,
-the blossoms are out
-and you feel almost high
-because that's dopamine, you know,
-animals that have white
-pelage in the winter,
-and then it turns dark in
-the summer and spring months
-that pathway, the melanin
-pathway, is from tyrosine,
-which is the precursor to dopamine
-and also to melanin production in the fur.
-So the whole system is linked.
-It's not rigged, it's linked.
-So what do I suggest?
-I suggest in the winter months,
-getting 30 minutes of sunlight viewing.
-I know it's a lot,
-but it's much better than
-feeling lousy all day.
-And then the real key in the winter
-is to try and catch some
-sunlight before it goes down.
-If you're indoors and it goes down
-and then you go outside and it's dark,
-your brain and body
-don't really know where they are in time.
-And then you flip on "Ozark"
-and you're watching "Ozark",
-and then you really don't
-know where you are in time.
-I have one more episode.
-Don't tell me what happened.
-That show is, when I was a postdoc,
-I used to recommend, "The
-Wire," to my competitors.
-[audience laughing]
-True.
-"I go to sleep fired up,
-ready and excited to do whatever it takes.
-When I wake up, that drive is depleted.
-Why, and what can I do?"
-Interesting.
-Have not heard that one before,
-but if I were to venture
-a guess, you know,
-we didn't spend much time tonight
-talking about the
-autonomic nervous system,
-this kind of seesaw that
-takes us from very alert,
-potentially panicked, but
-to very, very deep sleep;
-even, you know, God
-forbid we go into a coma.
-It's 'cause the
-parasympathetic nervous system
-is overactive relative to the
-sympathetic nervous system;
-the seesaw of autonomic function.
-You may be sleeping very, very deeply.
-And when you are in deep, deep rest,
-the last thing you want to do
-is get into that forward center of mass
-thinking, planning, predicting, right?
-In, you know, again in Yoga Nidra again,
-Non-Sleep Deep Rest,
-there's this common theme in the script
-of going from thinking
-and doing and predicting
-to being and feeling, they say.
-And I'm not making fun of them
-as the moment I hear that,
-I go, "Oh, just I want to be and feel."
-What are you doing?
-You're actually just
-moving into sensation,
-but no planning, right?
-There's nothing mysterious about it.
-Sensation, but no planning.
-Now in sleep,
-a very deeply parasympathetic
-sleep state, what's happening?
-You actually, that visual aperture
-is actually so big, you're
-not in panoramic vision,
-your eyes are actually closed.
-Space and time are from
-past, present, and future
-are invited into your thinking.
-You're in a deep, deep state of relaxation
-and it may be, Dustin,
-that when you're waking up,
-you're having a hard time
-transitioning out of that
-because you're sleeping so deeply.
-You may be waking up mid-sleep cycle.
-Many people find it useful to set an alarm
-so that they wake up
-at the end of a 90 minute
-so-called ultradian cycle.
-There's some sleep apps
-that do this on the phone.
-I can't recall their names,
-but so rather than sleeping seven hours,
-you might be better off sleeping six
-or seven and a half hours, right?
-Waking up at the end of one
-of these 90 minute cycles.
-Try that.
-That would be consistent
-with what we know about the biology.
-But I think it's common to,
-if you sleep very deeply,
-to wake up and not necessarily
-want to spring out of bed.
-I've heard of these people
-that just want to spring out
-of bed and attack the day;
-Jocko Willink, 4:30 in the morning,
-his Casio phone, and his watch.
-I'm seeing his watch when,
-and it's like eight for me.
-I'm like, "Wow," like again,
-these people are amazing.
-I must be doing something wrong.
-But these are, you know,
-I don't wake up that way.
-You know?
-Like Tiger, I'm like, I
-want water, I want sunlight,
-90 minutes later I want caffeine.
-Yeah.
-"What are some of your favorite books
-that have had the biggest impact on you?"
-Kyle G, thank you, Kyle.
-Gosh, so many!
-You know, for non-fiction, well,
-Oliver Sack's autobiography,
-"On the Move,"
-had a profound impact on me.
-You know, people hated him?
-The scientific community
-tried to kick him out.
-They said horrible things about him;
-created all sorts of scandals.
-It wasn't until "Awakenings"
-became a blockbuster movie
-that suddenly he got
-appointments at NYU and Columbia.
-Ha!
-Then now they wanted him
-back; the revered neurologist.
-Like incredible, right?
-But he was also a real seeker
-in the cuttlefish thing.
-And he had a lot of
-internal struggles too,
-some of which I relate
-to, some of which I don't.
-Actually, I've been in touch
-with his former partner
-because I actually moved to
-Topanga Canyon for a short while
-just 'cause Oliver lived there.
-I thought, "If I go there, I'll
-actually finish this book."
-Guess what?
-Just moving someplace doesn't
-allow you to finish a book.
-He lived in Topanga so I
-was like, "That's the key."
-It didn't work.
-And people were wondering why
-I was hanging around
-their house all the time
-'cause it was Oliver's former home.
-So that's an amazing book,
-and tells you my obsessive nature.
-The other books that have had
-a profound influence on me,
-I would say in the non-fiction realm,
-well I learned how to make a decent steak
-and a few other simple recipes, not well,
-from Tim Ferris's book,
-"The Four Hour Chef,"
-'cause I really needed help.
-That was a fun one.
-I like Robert Greene's book, "Mastery,"
-because I've had amazing mentors
-and that book is all about finding mentors
-and assigning mentors to you,
-even if you don't know them.
-And as you can tell from
-my stories about Oliver,
-who I never met, and a few other folks,
-that I've just decided
-that they don't know it,
-but I'm mentoring them,
-that they're mentoring me, excuse me,
-that book was really important for me.
-And that mentor-mentee relationships
-always involve a breakup,
-either by death, or by
-decision, or by consequence,
-to your circumstance rather.
-There's, something happens,
-and they're supposed to break.
-You're not supposed to
-apprentice with somebody forever.
-That was an interesting book for me.
-I would say in the fiction realm,
-[Andrew sighs]
-I would say in the fiction
-realm, it's all childhood books
-'cause it's been a long time
-since I've read fiction.
-I read a lot of poetry. I'm
-a big Wendell Berry fan.
-I like poetry because poetry to me is,
-is like the subconscious, it,
-the structure is all messed up
-and you think you understand
-what they're talking about
-but you don't really know.
-And so it always feels
-important and consequential,
-even though, you know, it's
-your own interpretation.
-And then I love the
-psychologists. I love Jung.
-I love Erikson.
-I love the psychologists
-and could read endlessly
-about the early days of attachment theory
-and things like that
-because I find that
-stuff to be fascinating.
-So those books have been a lot of fun
-and I love picture books with animals.
-[audience laughing]
-And so if you can get a hold of
-Joel Sartore's Instagram
-account, the "Photo Ark,"
-he decided to take pictures
-of every animal on the planet,
-especially the ones that are endangered.
-He's a amazing photographer,
-but his books are even better
-so if you like animal books.
-"What excites you most
-about the future research
-of mental health treatment,
-particularly anxiety and depression?"
-Oi! Michael, thank you, Michael.
-Well there, I think that
-we're in an exciting time.
-I am, I'll just reveal my biases,
-I'm quite pessimistic at the idea
-that we're going to have
-better medication soon for most things.
-What I do think we are
-starting to approach
-is a time in which we understand
-how broad categories of drugs
-impact broad categories of chemicals,
-which kind of shift our mind
-in broad categories of directions.
-What does all that mean?
-I think we're starting to
-realize that because there are
-different receptors
-for all these chemicals
-all over the brain and body,
-that that side effect-less drug
-is unlikely to exist for mental health,
-but that the combination of,
-maybe some pharmacology,
-but especially behavioral
-tools, people actually learning
-how to drive this thing that
-we call our nervous system
-is potentially helpful,
-maybe very helpful.
-Now in cases like schizophrenia, autism,
-and I didn't put those next
-to one another for any reason
-by the way, OCD,
-eating disorders,
-and I'm very mindful of the fact that,
-you know, anorexia is
-the most lethal of all the
-psychiatric disorders, right?
-Amazing and sad fact.
-I think for those conditions,
-we are soon going to enter a time
-in which it's going to be
-combination behavioral,
-drug therapy, and yes,
-brain-machine interface.
-I don't mean putting chips
-down below the skull.
-I think there's going to be,
-and there are things happening now
-of people using devices
-like virtual reality,
-as well as transcranial
-magnetic stimulation,
-placing a magnet on a
-particular location on the head
-combined with a particular,
-maybe drugs, maybe psychedelics,
-maybe not, to enhance plasticity.
-I urge a vote for psychedelics
-and I want to make a serious
-point about psychedelics.
-Five years ago, when
-I, well, four years ago
-when I started doing a bit
-of public-facing stuff,
-I was absolutely terrified
-to say that word; terrified.
-I thought I'd lose my job.
-I really did. I thought,
-"Don't say psychedelics."
-And I'll be very honest, you know,
-I, for me,
-I think that the clinical data
-on MDMA and on psilocybin
-are very interesting, very interesting.
-I don't think they are
-the first and only pass
-at rewiring the brain,
-but it is clear that the brain
-can enter a state of
-heightened learning capacity,
-but it needs to be
-directed towards something.
-The goal of opening plasticity,
-just, it opens plasticity.
-That's not the goal.
-It's like running; the goal isn't running.
-The goal is to run in
-a particular direction.
-So what I think is really needed
-is to drive that plasticity
-in particular directions.
-And I would love to see more
-directed use of those in,
-of course, the safe clinical
-setting where it's appropriate.
-And a guest on the
-podcast, Matthew Johnson,
-who's at Johns Hopkins,
-I asked him, "What's the
-deal with the microdosing?"
-And you know what his answer
-was? I was very surprised.
-He said, "Macrodose."
-And I thought, okay, I'm
-not a guy who, you know,
-I'm not into, I'm not,
-I'm not a pushing this.
-I'm not a proponent. I said,
-"You're kidding me. Why?
-Why would you say this?"
-This guy runs an NIH funded lab
-at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
-I thought, "Why?"
-And he said,
-"Because the one session
-with a trained professional
-that's triggering rewiring plasticity,
-that's guided, is," as far
-as they know from the data,
-you can go back and listen
-to, these are his words,
-not mine, but he's the
-expert in this area,
-"are encouraging plasticity
-in a particular direction."
-And he thinks that that's far more useful
-than just kind of nudging
-the system a little bit
-without any particular goal or outcome.
-Very interesting, and very surprising.
-And again, a trained academic
-at one of the most elite
-institutions in the world.
-I think we're in very exciting
-times, for those compounds.
-And they're like,
-there are studies at
-Stanford and elsewhere
-on ketamine and other
-things, but it's early days.
-Young people should be very cautious,
-young, young people,
-and adults should be cautious,
-especially people with
-preexisting psychiatric issues
-and people who have a
-propensity for addiction
-although some of those compounds
-are being used to treat addiction.
-So I'd be an idiot and I would be lying,
-if I didn't say
-that it is a very exciting
-time for psychedelic therapies.
-[audience cheering and applauding]
-"Where do you see the biggest area?"
-and I've done only one clinical trial.
-True. I was a part I took
-part in one clinical trial.
-So I don't speak from a
-lot of experience there,
-just a little bit.
-I was a subject in that trial.
-"Where do you see the biggest area
-for performance enhancement
-within the elite athletes and operators
-that already hit marks of
-proper sleep and nutrition?"
-Meg Young, thanks for your question, Meg.
-Yeah, I think that, well, first of all,
-very few of them hit
-marks for proper sleep.
-But for those that do, so once
-you have your sleep dialed in
-and you got your nutrition dialed in,
-and the motivational component is there,
-I think where there's a lot
-of work still to be done
-and where people can really
-get outsized effects,
-is in this weird little
-cavern of human existence
-that we call creativity.
-And I didn't have time to
-talk about it tonight, but
-there's a very unique brain
-state that we call creativity,
-which is taking preexisting neural maps
-and starting to combine
-them in unique ways
-to create new ways of performance.
-Performance can be basically
-summarized in any domain
-as essentially four stages.
-You have unskilled, skilled, mastery,
-which is when the brain
-can generate movements
-or cognitive computations that are,
-create very predictable outcomes
-and then there's this fourth
-tier, this fourth layer,
-which is virtuosity.
-And virtuosity, by definition,
-means inviting back in a
-component of uncertainty.
-What this looks like in terms of operators
-or this looks like in terms of athletes,
-or even we can say musicians,
-or people who are in the cognitive fields,
-or poets, or writers,
-is what it means is introducing that
-uncertainty about what's
-going to happen next
-and the way to do that is
-to destabilize the system.
-In other words, to create states of mind
-in which there are literally
-sensory disruptions.
-It's like, like what I would
-like to see is more training
-in a kind of "funhouse of
-mirrors" type environment.
-That's when you start to see
-incredible performances emerge.
-And virtuosos invite in uncertainty,
-they actually don't know what
-they're going to do next.
-And so this becomes a little
-bit of a vague concept
-and what I'm about to tell you next
-might seem a little silly,
-but one of the best ways
-to access creative states
-is to, no surprise, use your visual system
-to view things that are
-highly unstable and uncertain.
-I don't just love fish tanks;
-I love staring at videos
-of aquariums in Tokyo,
-and actually watching the fish
-because it's completely unpredictable.
-There's some evidence that
-doing things like that
-or people would say,
-"Oh, I was in the shower,"
-or, "I took a walk in nature
-and then I had this idea."
-I actually don't think it
-was the walk or the shower,
-it's that nature is
-filled with unpredictable
-visual stimuli, auditory stimuli.
-When you can predict what's
-going to happen next,
-you have very little opportunity
-to uplevel your game so to speak.
-It's only by way of
-unpredictable sensory input
-that you can do that.
-So if you're a coach,
-or you're working with people
-who are very high level performers,
-do you want them to stand
-on one leg and spin around
-and then do what they're doing?
-Not necessarily.
-What you want to do
-is try and get them into brain states
-that are different than the
-brain states that they're in
-when they normally enter their practice.
-The liminal state between
-sleep and waking, excuse me,
-the liminal state between sleep and waking
-is a very powerful one
-for accessing creativity.
-Many people access ideas
-as they're waking up in the morning,
-they have great insights,
-other people while strolling in nature.
-I don't think it's the
-strolling or the waking up.
-I think it's the lack of,
-as we call it top-down
-regulation on rules.
-You are able to access
-combinations of neural maps
-that are unusual.
-So you can play with this a little bit.
-A lot of people throughout history
-have used compounds,
-drugs, to do this, right?
-Great writers would get
-drunk and then try and write
-or wake up and they would,
-the amount of self-abuse
-that people including
-athletes and creatives
-put themselves through to try and capture
-these windows of cognitive
-ability is pretty intense.
-And I don't think that's a good idea.
-I think one should be an explorer
-and try and find these cognitive states
-in ways that are non-destructive.
-I'm starting to sound like
-my mother, with all this.
-[audience laughing]
-Heel flips on lock. No kick flips.
-Next question.
-[audience laughing]
-[scattered applause]
-There's some skateboarders
-in the audience;
-my first non-biologic family.
-There's some amazing
-skateboarders in this audience
-and I'm not going to be the one
-doing a kick flip anytime soon,
-but they're great to have.
-One of the reasons we built the podcast
-with the help of the great Mike Blabac
-is because I learned a long time ago
-that if you want things done right,
-and you want to do them
-outside the lane lines,
-and you want to have control
-over how things come across,
-you do it with skateboarders,
-'cause I didn't come from a
-community where, you know,
-I didn't have parents at my sports games
-and things like that
-so, thanks to the
-skateboarders and the misfits
-and the those folks.
-"Do you have any tips on
-how to improve memory?"
-Yes, Ron Vered. Yes!
-Okay.
-This is a wild literature and I love it
-and it's changing the
-way that I do things.
-I thought that to remember things
-you're supposed to get
-really, really excited,
-really focused, and remember them.
-Guess what? That's not how you do it.
-There are data,
-and there are stories going
-back to medieval times
-that they used to teach kids things
-and then throw them in the river.
-There's a beautiful Annual
-Review of Neuroscience
-written by the late James McGaugh,
-a brilliant researcher who
-taught me that, in this review.
-And it turns out that if you
-want to remember something
-you want to spike adrenaline
-after you acquired that
-information, after!
-That means the double
-espresso and the ice bath
-after you study for
-math, immediately after.
-And you think about this, you know,
-that makes perfect sense, right?
-Think about the one trial learning
-that nobody wants to experience,
-which is a car accident
-or some traumatic thing.
-You didn't get the spike
-of adrenaline first.
-You got the spike of adrenaline after.
-So again, you know,
-I discourage the use
-of excessive stimulants
-or you know, anything like that.
-But if you're going to try
-and remember information,
-you need to get your brain and body
-into a high autonomic arousal state.
-Literally you need to deploy
-adrenaline into your system
-after you have made the attempt
-to learn some information.
-So much so that if you
-give people a beta blocker
-after learning emotional information,
-they don't learn it as well.
-Incredible, just incredible
-data in animals and humans.
-This is the beautiful work
-of Larry Cahill at UC Irvine
-and James McGaugh.
-So that's how I would focus
-on remembering things better.
-And it's also true that
-if you tell yourself
-that something's really important to you,
-you'll be able to learn it better.
-If you meet people and
-they tell you their name
-and you forget it two seconds later, well,
-you should probably be
-thinking, and now I do this,
-I meet people and I think,
-"Okay, what terrible
-thing did this person do?"
-Just try and spike my adrenaline
-or something like that.
-It's a terrible trick, but
-haven't figured out a better way,
-but that's actually one
-data-supported way to do that.
-Easily a dozen or more studies
-in humans on that very topic.
-"How do you manage
-social media addiction?"
-Paul.
-Oi, well we should be careful
-with the use of the word addiction
-because here, I think
-it's entirely appropriate.
-When you are engaging in
-a behavior over, and over. and over again,
-and you're thinking to yourself,
-"This isn't even that interesting,"
-you're officially addicted.
-That's the litmus test for addiction.
-Not, "This feels so good."
-People talk about the
-dopamine hits of social media.
-Those only come at the beginning,
-but then when you find yourself scrolling,
-you're like, "What am I doing?"
-Maybe it's that narrow visual aperture;
-you're a hypnotized chicken,
-but maybe also you are
-seeking more dopamine hits
-because guess what?
-That dopamine wave pool is depleted,
-at least for that activity.
-It is true that dopamine,
-you have a baseline and
-then you have peaks on,
-on that ride on that baseline.
-I do think that we can have
-dopamine for one behavior,
-and not for another,
-but it's a generalized phenomenon.
-So how do you manage it?
-You have to stop seeking
-within social media.
-And so I've taken on the
-practice of turning off my phone
-for a couple hours each day.
-It's incredibly hard.
-People get really upset too, by the way,
-cause if you haven't noticed
-these tethers that people expect.
-We recorded a podcast
-recently and it, so I,
-I don't want to go into
-too much depth now,
-about attachment and grief.
-And, you know, we all have a map now,
-you know, you understand
-what the maps are,
-of space, time, and a dimension called
-closeness to everyone that we know
-space, where they are,
-time, when they are,
-dead, alive, when will I
-see them again et cetera,
-and closeness.
-And the phone has allowed us to tap into
-space, time, and this closeness map,
-which define all our attachments,
-on a very regular basis.
-So you can understand why
-it's so valuable to people.
-You know, the plane lands
-and everyone's texting.
-The planes, take off, everyone's texting.
-It's like, "Where are you?"
-Well, the plane's in the air,
-there's this thing called flight tracker.
-No one cares about that anymore.
-You want to hear from the person.
-So I do think that,
-I used to do an every odd hour of the day
-my phone was off,
-and like half the relationships
-in my life disappeared.
-They couldn't talk, they
-couldn't tolerate it.
-I loved it, but I loved them too.
-So I would say take breaks.
-And I would say at least an hour.
-And if you find yourself excited
-to get back on the phone,
-that excitement, that
-is the dopamine system.
-So you can kind of learn
-where it is for you.
-But if you find yourself
-scrolling mindlessly
-and it's not doing anything for you,
-you are driving that wave pool
-down, down, down, down, down,
-so hopefully that analogy will help.
-It's weird to call myself Dr. Huberman.
-In my business if you refer to
-yourself in the third person,
-it means you're officially a narcissist.
-[audience laughing]
-So I'm just going to start with,
-"Were you nervous tonight and if so,
-what did you do to prepare?"
-Brianne, you saw my
-nervousness, didn't you?
-No, the, I asked myself that question.
-I was excited, and I think
-I'm good at lying to myself
-and telling myself that autonomic arousal
-that might be nervousness is excitement.
-But in truth, I wasn't, I
-was and am really excited
-to tell you all these
-stories and about biology.
-I know this might sound
-like a little bit of a line,
-but I actually don't feel myself as a,
-like a person when I do the
-podcast or I do this stuff.
-I took a walk before I got
-here and I have to be careful.
-There are only two
-topics that make me cry.
-One is talking about my bulldog.
-The other is talking
-about my graduate advisor.
-So I have to be very careful,
-but I took a walk and I
-imagined that they were here
-and, I know, and don't make me cry.
-Lex Friedman made me cry on a podcast
-and it was really unfair.
-And he was like digging and digging and
-there are a few people in the
-audience that know Costello.
-And it's like, you know,
-and I just kept thinking to
-myself before coming in here,
-like, you know, I love
-them and miss them and I,
-Costello would be entirely
-bored with this whole thing.
-So I distracted myself a
-bit and not so nervous.
-I do get nervous about
-things, sure, I'm human.
-But when it comes to biology,
-I think I still feel like that little kid
-who just wants to tell you
-all this stuff, you know, so,
-you know, I can't help it.
-"Is learning from failure
-equal to learning from success?
-Is one more efficient than the other?"
-Rachel, thanks for your question.
-Well, on a trial-by-trial basis,
-we know that when you fail at an attempt,
-on the next attempt,
-your forebrain is in a
-position to engage better.
-And this makes total sense, right?
-You feel that frustration [alarm buzzer]
-and you want to get the next one, right?
-Well, you're harboring,
-or I should say funneling
-more neural resources,
-your focus, that aperture tightens.
-Now you have to be mindful of that too,
-because when you have a
-failure and then you're like,
-you're going to hit the bulls.
-I'm thinking about a dart board,
-'cause I'm terrible at darts, you know,
-sober I'm terrible at darts.
-I don't even drink.
-So that next trial,
-part of the problem is,
-is that focus can narrow
-so much that you can start
-to lose access to information
-that might help you.
-If you were just to relax a little bit
-and dilate that focus a
-little bit, but in general,
-on a trial-by-trial basis focus is the cue
-that your nervous system
-is going to be positioned
-to learn better on the next trial.
-Now in terms of life experiences, gosh,
-I wish for everyone fewer
-failures and more successes,
-but you know, failures keep you humble.
-And I've had a lot of 'em.
-I mean, if people ever
-wanted and they, you know,
-I'd be happy to tell you about, I mean,
-I've made a ton of mistakes
-in life, a ton of mistakes.
-Some of those were
-mistakes of persistence,
-like dumb decisions.
-I kept like, "It's going to
-change. It's going to change."
-And it's clearly never going to change.
-And then some were failures of misjudgment
-about other people or situations.
-And a lot of them were just plain failures
-like the experiment didn't work,
-or the, it just wasn't the right thing.
-And you try and reframe those.
-I do think that we owe it to ourselves
-and to the people that we know
-to try and generate
-some wins here and there
-and try and help other
-people generate wins.
-You know, in running a lab over the years
-and I still do,
-you realize that you want your
-students to publish a paper
-and feel that success pretty early
-so that they can experience,
-A, how much work it is
-so they pick problems wisely,
-but, B, so they can feel that,
-like, "Oh, I can do this."
-And I think that, you know,
-this gets into the psychological as well.
-I think that yes, failures
-help, but successes help.
-And there, I think, you know,
-I function best in a team.
-And I think that for those of you that are
-feel like you're fighting
-some challenge alone,
-I do think that there are
-great resources to be had
-in trying to access other, you know,
-other people as sources of support.
-I think that that's a great tool.
-There's this whole literature,
-scientific literature,
-around social connection
-and how that can help us
-reframe motivation and goals.
-Anyway, maybe that's a topic
-to expand on another time.
-But failure is important
-on a trial, trial by basis.
-People who
-don't experience enough wins
-for a long period of time,
-the brain is a prediction
-machine after all
-and they start to predict failure
-so takes a bit more work to
-wedge oneself out of that.
-"When are you going to
-start training jiu-jitsu?
-Lex made me ask."
-Ryan Flores.
-Okay. Here's the story with that.
-Lex said, "Do you want to try jiu-jitsu?"
-I said, "Sure."
-Lex said,
-"Okay, it'll be great to
-show people beginner's mind."
-I said, "Sure."
-We went and did a jiu-jitsu class.
-He was very nice; nice,
-nice, Russian, nice.
-Like, "Oh yeah, yeah, yeah."
-Then he puts it on the internet
-with me in a rear naked,
-him putting me in a rear naked choke,
-it was actually Lex Friedman
-choking out Andrew Huberman,
-There, I just talked about
-myself in the third person,
-dammit, edit that one.
-I have not had the time for jiu-jitsu.
-I like my ears the way they are, you know.
-Have you ever seen these
-people that do jiu-jitsu?
-Their ears literally look like
-stumps. No, I should do it.
-It looks like a great sport.
-And unlike the other sports
-I've been involved in my life,
-boxing, please don't do it.
-It's not healthy.
-Skateboarding and all this,
-you don't really damage
-your head doing jiu-jitsu.
-So no.
-I'm going to get you
-back for that one Lex.
-Okay.
-"Can you go through,"
-oh wow, John Edwards.
-There's a joke that my
-friends used to tell
-about the supplements I take.
-They used to say, someone would say,
-"What supplements do you take?"
-And they would just go, "All of them."
-I don't take all of them, but
-I have been very systematic.
-For about 30 years,
-I've been interested in
-compounds that change the nervous system.
-And I do think that the,
-the events of the last few years
-have changed the way that
-people view supplements.
-I think that more people
-are starting to think about
-how to take better care of their health.
-And they, people are realizing that
-obviously, great sleep, mindsets,
-social connection, exercise,
-nutrition and so forth
-are very important.
-But I, I actually don't know anybody,
-granted, I run with a strange crowd,
-but I don't know anybody
-that doesn't take something nowadays.
-You know, I could go
-through the whole list,
-but I would say the
-most fundamental things
-and there's no product pitch here,
-the most fundamental things are
-the things that are going to support
-your kind of foundational health.
-So for that's going to mean mainly
-getting either by food
-sources or supplements
-is going to be getting
-sufficient amounts of these
-essential fatty acids.
-So important.
-For some people that's
-taking liquid fish oil,
-for some people it's a capsule,
-for somebody that's eating fish.
-I don't like the way fish
-tastes unless I'm in Seattle,
-by the way, the seafood here is amazing,
-not so much in California.
-So I think the essential fatty acids,
-and then I'm big on the data,
-dare I say, out of Stanford,
-Justin Sonnenburg's lab
-and Chris Gardner's lab
-that these fermented foods
-of which all these cultures
-have interesting fermented foods,
-kefir, and sauerkraut, and kimchi, and,
-you know, pick your fermented food.
-That those seem to really encourage
-health of the gut microbiome.
-So I started eating a lot of those
-and taking no probiotics
-except in, you know,
-a few of the supplements
-that I was already taking.
-So I'm not trying to dodge the question,
-but I think, by and large,
-if you're eating well
-and doing the other
-foundational behaviors as well,
-you can get it way with
-a minimum of supplements.
-D3, it seems to be a lot
-of people deficient in D3,
-but not everybody.
-So I think that those are the main ones.
-However, I do think that nutrition
-should be the primary entry point.
-Again, it should be behaviors
-first, then nutrition,
-then supplements, then prescription drugs,
-only if you need them.
-And then, you know, for some people,
-their brain-machine interface
-like TMS and things like
-that are going to be useful,
-but behaviors change your nervous system,
-no supplement actually rewires you
-or changes your nervous
-system: behaviors do that.
-I hope I didn't dodge
-that question entirely.
-I do take some of the things
-that we talk about on the
-podcast to do some focused work,
-sometimes alpha-GPC,
-but lately I've been
-doing this whole thing
-of cold water exposure
-to spike my adrenaline,
-'cause I hate it,
-and it spikes my adrenaline after learning
-based on the McGaugh and Cahill data.
-"What would be your best
-one or two pieces of advice
-or recommended protocol for
-improving learning and retention
-for graduate students
-in science and medicine?
-We try to sleep sometimes."
-Thank you, JD.
-Oh great. You're at UW, JD.
-So, you know,
-I used to teach this course
-at Cold Spring Harbor
-on career development for scientists
-and the there's a lot in there,
-but the two things that
-are most important are,
-I, for sake of answering this
-question, I would say, are,
-find non-destructive ways
-to reset your dopamine
-and your energy levels
-and do those at least every three days.
-So for me, it was kind of a,
-a tough thing to take a
-long walk, or to spend,
-I used to work really hard on Mondays,
-really hard on Tuesdays,
-and I would not go in until
-the afternoon on Wednesdays
-and sometimes not at all.
-And then I go in Thursday, Friday,
-and work really, really hard
-and then not at all on Saturday
-and then maybe do a little bit
-of work from home on Sunday.
-And I was very productive that way.
-But those breaks are absolutely key
-and it's not encouraged so
-much in academic or tech
-or maybe anything now.
-I hear about so much stress and overwork.
-I say, you just do it
-and define the culture
-and let the results and your focus
-be the thing that defines you,
-not how many hours you're in there.
-But I realize there's
-a huge cognitive load
-and energetic load and for that,
-I do think these Non-Sleep
-Deep Rest protocols
-are where it comes in really handy.
-There are at least two
-faculty I know at Stanford.
-One whose a so-called
-Howard Hughes investigator,
-who is big, those are
-big deal appointments.
-They get tons of money,
-et cetera, et cetera,
-and they do amazing
-science most of the time.
-These individuals certainly do.
-And they take two 20 minute
-naps, per day, in their office.
-When this guy came and visited me,
-years ago when I was at
-a different university,
-he took the time that we were
-supposed to meet in my office
-and talk about data, he
-asked if he could take a nap.
-[audience laughs]
-And he gave a great talk that afternoon.
-So there you go.
-I do think you have to take
-control of your schedule
-and do those things.
-And I hope that helps.
-And then of course,
-for some people, exercise and
-so on is the way they reset.
-"What research or work are you doing
-or that your colleagues are doing
-that you're most excited about lately?"
-Glen, yeah.
-One project in particular,
-I hope this paper gets accepted soon,
-it's been out for review forever
-and so if the reviewers
-are in the audience,
-please just tell us one
-way or the other, you know?
-We did a very large scale
-study during the pandemic,
-we meaning David Spiegel and I,
-and an amazing PhD named Melis
-she now has two last names, excuse me,
-Balban, Yilmaz Balban.
-And Melis
-we essentially equipped people
-with remote monitoring devices
-and measured sleep and
-heart rate variability
-and a bunch of stress and
-bunch of other things.
-And we gave them
-a very brief set of breathing protocols
-and it turns out
-that this thing that I'm talking
-about a lot on the podcast,
-these days of this double
-inhale, long exhale,
-the so-called, "physiological sigh,"
-was the most effective breathing practice
-for allowing people to control
-their heart rate variability,
-reduce overall heart
-rate, access better sleep,
-and these were extremely short protocols.
-So I'm very excited about this.
-I didn't discover physiological sighs.
-I love the idea
-that people can do a very
-brief protocol, once a day,
-maybe even just while
-walking down the street
-or in the moment
-and actually learn to control
-that autonomic seesaw better.
-So I'm very excited about that.
-And then we are gearing
-up to do some studies
-on people who have more
-severe forms of anxiety
-and panic attack, using
-mainly respiration,
-but also looking at some of these eye,
-vision-related ways of
-controlling the nervous system.
-I love that stuff.
-If I keep talking about it,
-I'm going to give you a data presentation
-so I'm going to turn around.
-"How does dopamine
-factor into neuroplasticity if at all?"
-Colin, great question.
-It's a very strong trigger of plasticity,
-so much so in fact that
-there's some work that shows
-if you stimulate with an electrode,
-the brain area that releases dopamine,
-and you pair that with anything,
-anything, even just like
-an eight kilohertz tone,
-[vocalizes a high tone]
-the brain remaps and it's like,
-"Oh, I love that eight kilohertz tone."
-Remember dopamine is
-dumb, and is just dumb.
-And it is just, you
-know, it's like Costello
-when he sits this dog,
-I could hang a rope from a tree.
-This dog was so lazy he wouldn't
-cross a room for a steak.
-You had to give the steak to him,
-[audience laughing]
-but it would run across a field.
-He would run and jump on
-and hold onto that rope,
-and he would sometimes
-bite through his lip
-with like blood dripping down.
-And I was like, "Oh my gosh,"
-it was like breaking my heart.
-He loved every sit, that's
-dopamine; turns us into idiots.
-He was as smart about what
-he needed to be smart about.
-Dopamine.
-So if you trigger dopamine
-release with Ritalin, Adderall,
-to a lesser extent L-Tyrosine,
-and certainly please don't do this,
-but cocaine, amphetamine,
-whatever you're doing
-seems super interesting.
-It's true. And that's why
-it's such a slippery slope.
-It makes anything you're doing
-seem interesting and important.
-And actually I'll use this
-as an opportunity to say
-something about the
-psychedelic thing earlier.
-One of the issues with MDMA,
-it's a very unusual brain
-state: it's high dopamine,
-high serotonin, completely
-synthetic compound.
-There are other things in
-there that it does as well.
-One of the problems with people I see
-with the problem with
-people just taking MDMA,
-just at a basic level,
-is that if you're not pushing that
-towards some therapeutic
-outcome, music sounds amazing.
-Everything feels and sounds amazing,
-but it's a very neurochemically,
-you know, severe state.
-So that's why I think
-if people are going to
-explore those things,
-do it as part of
-one of the university-supported
-clinical trials.
-One of the reas-
-those drugs make everything
-seem interesting,
-even stuff that's not
-terribly interesting.
-Now they also have
-the potential for trauma healing capacity.
-These are the MAPS studies and so on.
-So you have to be very careful
-with what you pair with dopamine
-and what you pair dopamine with.
-And for those of you
-that are high sensation
-seeking, novelty seeking,
-and everything's interesting to you,
-and you want more, and
-more, and more, experiences,
-I, you basically have a
-eight cylinder car in you
-and you need to be very careful
-how you drive that thing.
-Like any high performance automobile,
-it's going to spend more time in the shop,
-[audience laughing]
-so learn to drive appropriately.
-"What advice can you
-offer to future scientists
-who want to make an impact like you have?"
-Ryan O'Boyle, get tenure first.
-No, I'm kidding.
-So I have this weird history in science
-and I'm not looking for sympathy here,
-but my undergraduate
-advisor, who I adored,
-he's like a father to me,
-my graduate advisor,
-and my postdoc advisor,
-who I also adored, all three of them died:
-suicide, cancer, cancer, really young.
-So the joke in my field is
-you don't want me to work for you.
-But in all seriousness,
-all three of them had a
-really morbid sense of humor,
-all amazing people,
-but it is this kind of
-weird curse that I've had.
-So what scientists, you
-know, what advice, you know,
-well, Ben Barres,
-the late Ben Barres died
-of pancreatic cancer,
-an amazing individual.
-They're actually making a
-documentary about Ben's life.
-He's transgendered. He
-was a totally irreverent.
-He said whatever he thought.
-He offended everybody.
-He was awesome. Brilliant too.
-Ben and I had a conversation
-as he was dying.
-I recorded a lot of conversations with him
-and I told him I was interested in doing
-public-facing education.
-And he said,
-"Well, you're tenured now and,
-people are going to be upset,
-and they're not going to like it,
-and your colleagues are
-probably going to hate it
-so whatever you do and
-you better make it good."
-And I was like, "Wow, that
-doesn't really help much, Ben."
-And he said,
-"You know, you seem to
-have a compulsion for it."
-So, he was right.
-I think that if you are
-excited about science,
-and sharing what you know, then do that.
-And even if it seems super nerdy,
-I mean, there are these ento-
-I think they call
-themselves entomologists,
-the insect people,
-they, I mean they make insects
-seem really, really cool.
-And if you are excited about
-spindle kinetics or whatever,
-you know, tell people
-about it, I really mean it.
-I think that the one caveat is that
-I do think it's important
-to get a formal, rigorous
-training in it first.
-I think that you'll go further
-and faster in the long run.
-And there's some amazing people out there.
-There's a postdoc at Stanford.
-I think his name is Ben Rein,
-I think if you shorten it up on Instagram,
-it's actually brain,
-brein, 'cause he works out
-he talks about brain science
-so that's why it's weird:
-B B R E I N.
-He does a great job.
-And he's a really good example of someone
-who's still on the ascent with his career,
-doing serious science, and
-doing science communication.
-But you have to be careful,
-it's time consuming.
-Look, you, people will
-dislike you for whatever.
-I made the mistake once of
-saying that I eat butter.
-Apparently that's a sin on the internet.
-I like little bits of
-actually like a lot of butter,
-but try and eat little bits of butter.
-But somehow it's like,
-there's this idea that
-I eat sticks of butter.
-So you have to be careful.
-[audience laughing]
-Like, I mean, the things I've
-heard, I heard I was dead.
-That was cool.
-So you have to be careful
-and remember everything
-is stamped into the,
-the cloud now and the metaverse
-or whatever it's called.
-So I would say, here are
-the rules that we have
-at the podcast and on
-here's the rules that
-I created for myself.
-I truly don't do it for me.
-I do it 'cause I think
-people want to hear about it,
-but I've been telling myself
-that since I was six years old.
-The other thing is never, ever, ever do it
-just for your own gratification.
-You should really try and think,
-"Is anyone going to get
-anything useful out of this,
-potentially?"
-That's the goal.
-If you're doing that,
-it'll work out for you.
-If you are thinking about
-how to get followers
-or something like that,
-it ain't going to work out.
-That's my advice.
-"Is age 66 too old for neuroplasticity?"
-No, no, I'll cut myself off,
-"to begin learning again?"
-Sandra Trazzare, no!
-Did I pronounce that right?
-Thank you, Sandra.
-No, Richard Feynman, the
-great Richard Feynman,
-taught himself to draw later in life.
-He was also really into flotation tanks.
-Did you know that?
-Yeah, he was also into bongo drumming
-naked on the roof at Caltech.
-Richard Feynman, you
-know, did so many things
-that would get most people fired nowadays.
-He's just lucky he was alive when he was.
-You can absolutely learn
-at 66 and way beyond.
-There's an amazing study
-from Rusty Gage's lab at the
-Salk Institute years ago,
-showing that even people
-who are very late in life,
-terminally ill in fact,
-are still producing new neurons
-in the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus.
-These people that were gracious enough
-to allow researchers to
-inject them with dyes
-that would label these neurons
-for analysis postmortem, after they died.
-Absolutely you can learn.
-What's harder is focus.
-Oftentimes what's harder is sleep as well,
-but the same mechanisms apply.
-There's no evidence whatsoever
-that neuroplasticity
-disappears at any stage
-despite what Hubel and
-Wiesel told the BBC.
-"How do you tackle
-reading research papers?
-Do you have a specific strategy?"
-Anne Hun, yes I do.
-I do. I take notes on everything.
-I try and so I there's four
-questions that we teach students
-and that I think that I use.
-The first one is:
-"What's the question they're asking,
-major and more specific?"
-Second is: "What did they do?
-What are they, like
-methods-wise, what did they do?"
-You don't have to know all
-the details in the methods
-necessarily, but be
-versed in those methods,
-but you have to kind of understand like,
-are they looking at mice?
-Are they looking at humans?
-Is this a, you know, did they have people
-in two different conditions or just one?
-You have to understand what did they do,
-then you ask, "What did they find?"
-And then the last question
-is the most important one
-and you should write down
-the answer to this is:
-"What did they conclude?"
-And then you look back
-at the first question
-and you go,
-"Did they actually answer that question,
-or is it something unrelated?"
-And those four questions
-are essentially the way
-that I parse each paper.
-Learning to parse papers
-is tricky for the podcast.
-I use the telephone.
-I call people and I badger
-them and I ask them, you know,
-"Like who's doing the really
-good work in this area?"
-And I spend a lot of hours doing it.
-And then the best way to remember science
-is to tell someone about it.
-So before each podcast I'll
-call someone and be like,
-"Hey, did you know
-that they used to throw
-kids in the river?"
-After, I do this, and my
-sister, my poor sister,
-and she's like, "Yeah."
-My sister, by the way,
-does not watch the podcast.
-I, she's a therapist.
-And she's like,
-"Hey, I learned this amazing
-breathing technique."
-I was like,
-"Oh yeah, really? Tell me about it."
-And it's like, someone else is there.
-I'm like, "You know, I have a podcast."
-She's like, "I don't like your podcast."
-You know, it's older
-sister, it's older sister.
-It's, she's not lying.
-"What is your favorite
-sauce, condiment, seasoning?
-Sauce.
-There's one in every audience.
-I like the spicy stuff.
-We've been fermenting
-our own food at home.
-It's kind of cool.
-You put the cabbage and the stuff
-in the little ceramic thing outside,
-and then it, it goes
-[popping]
-It makes this amazing sound.
-And then you can like
-make your own sauerkraut and you know,
-with peppers and like
-fermenting that stuff,
-it's really good.
-Okay.
-They're telling me one more
-question so we'll do two.
-"What's most important from your ADH, ah."
-Gabriel, a lot of questions about ADHD,
-for people on medication
-or not on medication,
-so I'll answer both.
-For people on medication,
-I think work with somebody really good
-who's willing to work with you
-to allow you to find that
-minimal effective dose,
-and also timing that dose.
-One of the key things that we know now
-is that from that waking
-up point in your morning
-until about eight or nine hours later,
-we've sort of named that
-phase one of the day
-for lack of a better naming protocol.
-The systems that release cortisol,
-dopamine, and epinephrine,
-are essentially more
-effective at producing those
-than they are in the
-later periods of the day.
-Which makes sense if you think about
-the way that the autonomic
-nervous system works, et cetera.
-So there's an important question
-that I can't answer for you,
-but you can answer for you,
-which is if you're using
-Ritalin, Adderall, Vyvanse,
-these things that enhance
-dopaminergic transmission,
-Modafinil, Armodafinil, by the way,
-for the people in the audience like me,
-who didn't go to college when
-these things were all in use,
-the numbers of people
-that use these compounds,
-on and off prescription, is astronomical.
-It's incredible.
-I didn't realize it.
-I think something like
-80% of college students
-use these at some point.
-Incredible, 'cause they put you
-into a narrow aperture
-tunnel of concentration.
-So you want to, with a
-physician's support of course,
-to help, get permission or not,
-to figure out what time of
-day to take your medication.
-Now for people who are not on medication,
-I'll just go right back
-to what I said earlier,
-which is that you can train focus,
-but it feels terrible to train it.
-It is hard.
-Again there are these large
-scale studies in China
-and elsewhere of people
-literally teaching themselves,
-and yes, they blink, although less often,
-to focus their vision on a narrow aperture
-and to really battle
-through that agitation,
-stress, and learn how to keep their focus.
-Now focus will drift, right?
-Focus is not a constant; focus will drift,
-and you pop out of focused states
-and then refocus, and
-pop out, and refocus.
-That's something that you can train up.
-I've heard from many people
-who have managed to train
-themselves off medication
-or to lower doses of medication,
-and look, some people can't do that.
-They absolutely have to maintain
-their standard medication protocols.
-This is a larger discussion, obviously,
-as it relates to ADHD.
-We're going to do another episode on ADHD
-because the data are
-coming out so so fast.
-"What future episodes
-are in the pipeline?"
-David Nguyen. Okay, thank
-you for that question.
-We have one on grief.
-We have an amazing episode with
-a guy from the Rockefeller University
-on the, this is,
-am I allowed to say it's going
-to be my favorite episode?
-I love all the guests,
-but this episode just blew me away.
-It's on the relationship
-between language,
-speech, dance, and music.
-And I have no musical talent
-and I'm not a very good dancer.
-So that's being generous.
-Amazing interplay between those things,
-exercise in the brain, OCD,
-bulimia, binge-eating disorder,
-Peter Attia's coming on.
-He'll teach us about everything
-medicine, and longevity.
-And I'm kind of blanking at the moment.
-David Anderson from Caltech
-on aggression and emotional states.
-Amazing.
-And then there are a number of people,
-Lisa Feldman Barrett, or Barrett Feldman.
-I always get it backwards.
-Sorry, Lisa, on emotions in the brain.
-And really we do take suggestions
-about who to bring on the
-podcast very seriously.
-What we're mostly looking for
-are the people that no one else has heard,
-that people haven't heard of,
-who are not going on podcasts every week
-and that people should
-absolutely hear from.
-And then I will tell you,
-they're going to kill me for saying this,
-but I'm going to do it anyway,
-we have some short series coming up
-with expert professionals.
-I'm going to do a short series on trauma.
-And my hope for this series
-is that you'll actually get to
-see an exquisitely
-skilled trauma therapist,
-take someone through, excuse me,
-I seem so excited I'm spitting
-on the audience, excuse me.
-So it, to take someone
-through actual trauma therapy.
-This isn't staged.
-This is somebody who's actually
-in a point of near
-suicidal grief and trauma,
-taking them through it in
-the course of the podcast,
-as people can see what this
-process actually entails.
-That's a very meaningful project to me
-for a number of reasons
-so we're really excited about that.
-And you know, to be
-honest, I feel like there's
-just such a treasure trove
-of information out there
-I just want to grab it all,
-and tell you all about it,
-until, I always say, "If nothing
-else, I'll cure insomnia."
-So, the, yeah.
-[audience applauding vigorously]
-Thank you. Appreciate it.
-[applause continuing]
-Thank you so much for your time.
-I really appreciate everyone
-coming out on a weekday
-and I'd be remiss if I didn't say,
-Thank you for your interest in science.
-[audience cheering and applauding]
-[upbeat music playing]

Data/transcripts/3_auLYOilb8_20241225194826.txt

@@ -1,1854 +0,0 @@
-- Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast,
-where we discuss science
-and science based-tools for everyday life.
-[light music]
-I'm Andrew Huberman,
-and I'm a Professor of
-Neurobiology in Ophthalmology
-at Stanford School of Medicine.
-Recently, I had the pleasure
-of hosting two live events,
-one in Seattle, Washington,
-and one in Portland, Oregon,
-both entitled "The Brain Body Contract,"
-where I discussed science
-and science-related tools
-for mental health, physical
-health and performance.
-My favorite part of each evening, however,
-was the question and answer period
-that followed the lecture.
-I love the question and answer period
-because it gives me an
-opportunity to hear directly
-from the audience as to
-what they want to know most,
-and indeed to get into a bit of dialogue.
-So we really clarify what
-are the underlying mechanisms
-of particular tools,
-how best to use the tools for
-things like focus and sleep.
-We also touched on some things
-related to mental health
-and physical health.
-It was a delight for me,
-and I like to think that
-the audience learned a lot.
-I know that many of you weren't
-able to attend those events,
-but we wanted to make the
-information available to you.
-Therefore, what follows
-this is a recording
-of the question and answer period
-from the lecture in Portland, Oregon.
-I hope you'll find it to be
-both interesting and informative.
-I'd also like to thank our
-sponsors of these live events.
-The first is Momentous Supplements,
-which is our partner with
-the "Huberman Lab Podcast,"
-providing supplements that are
-of the very highest quality
-that ship international and
-that are arranged in dosages
-and single ingredient
-formulations that make it possible
-for you to develop the optimal
-supplement strategy for you.
-And I'd also like to
-thank our other sponsor,
-which is InsideTracker,
-which provides blood tests and DNA tests
-so you can monitor your immediate
-and long-term health progress.
-I'd also like to announce that there are
-two new live events scheduled.
-The first one is going to take
-place Sunday, October 16th,
-at The Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles.
-The other live event will take place
-Wednesday, November 9th,
-at the Beacon Theatre in New York City.
-Tickets to both of those
-events are now available online
-at hubermanlab.com/tour.
-That's hubermanlab.com/tour.
-I do hope that you learn
-from and enjoy the recording
-of the question and answer
-period that follows this.
-And last, but certainly not least,
-thank you for your interest in science.
-[light music]
-"What are the current best
-practices for post TBIs,"
-traumatic brain injuries for those of you
-that aren't familiar with TBIs,
-"Especially long term,
-multiple," ooh, "et cetera."
-"Thoughts on hyperbaric O?"
-I'm so glad you asked
-this, Danny Morledge,
-"As treatment for TBIs?"
-Okay, TBI...
-Now, one thing about TBI and concussion,
-everyone thinks football.
-Guess what?
-Most of the TBI is not football.
-There aren't that many football players,
-they're just large so they stand out.
-There might be a few here this evening.
-[audience laughing]
-Of course, football players are a concern
-when it comes to TBI.
-Most head injuries are going
-to be construction workers.
-Have you ever seen the
-hard hats they wear?
-Those, I don't even know if
-they are just there for show.
-It doesn't make sense.
-And that we actually
-have a lab at Stanford
-that's focused very hard on
-trying to solve this problem.
-So, construction workers, car
-accidents, bicycle accidents.
-Portland, amazing city to cycle;
-I'm frankly afraid to cycle.
-You're a small moving object
-around these big objects
-and people are staring
-into their little aperture
-on their phone while driving.
-I mean, whatever happened
-to that by the way,
-of not texting while driving?
-Somehow that just disappeared.
-It's like, it really has just disappeared.
-There was all this science
-showing that it's worse
-than drunk driving.
-TBI.
-Well, the basic rules
-of the "don'ts" apply.
-If you get a head injury,
-don't get a second head injury.
-But that often isn't feasible
-for people that need to work,
-continue working in construction,
-or that are struggling.
-What do we know?
-Well, this is a great
-opportunity for me to distinguish
-modulatory foundational tools
-from things that directly
-change your brain
-and nervous system the
-way that you want to.
-What do I mean by modulatory?
-We hear so much and
-there's so many studies
-showing that great
-sleep, quality nutrition,
-good social interactions,
-avoiding chronic stress,
-and on and on and on are
-important for everything;
-they're related to Alzheimer's,
-they're related to ADHD.
-I mean, we could do
-thousands of podcast episodes
-just returning to the same 10 things:
-Sleep, don't stress too much or too long,
-good social connection, avoid
-toxic people, eat good food,
-not too much processed food;
-We could have an argument all night
-and I don't want to have one about whether
-or not it's mainly plants or this.
-I mean, this is obviously
-eating high quality food
-is something that we should all be doing,
-which foods you select is a
-topic that is very barbed wire,
-and I can give only my opinions.
-All of that modulates your brain function,
-but it doesn't mediate or
-change anything directly.
-It's setting a foundation
-of what's possible.
-So we should all be doing those things,
-and especially people who have TBI.
-Now, this question relates
-to hyperbaric chamber.
-Hyperbaric chamber, there's
-some very interesting data.
-It's essentially a
-hyperoxygenation of the brain
-for very brief periods of time.
-I think the data on
-hyperbaric chamber and TBI
-are very encouraging.
-The problem is, much in the
-way that a few years ago,
-cryo was only available in a few places.
-And now people are doing ice baths
-and cold showers on their own.
-It's hard to find a hyperbaric chamber.
-They aren't just laying around,
-and they don't have
-them at spas typically,
-and they are quite expensive.
-So, yes, there are
-interesting and important data
-I think on hyperbaric chamber.
-You definitely want to
-work with a physician
-or somebody who is very skilled,
-a practitioner who's very
-skilled in hyperbaric chamber.
-They do seem to improve brain
-function by hyperoxygenating
-the brain for brief periods of time.
-It seems to improve a number
-of things, but above all,
-it seems to improve the
-quality and duration of sleep,
-which indirectly allows
-the brain to repair itself,
-because as I mentioned earlier,
-brain change largely occurs in sleep.
-So if you don't have access
-to a hyperbaric chamber,
-but you do have TBI, what
-are some of the other data?
-What do those point to?
-Well, I'd go on and on,
-and you don't have to get
-this from supplements,
-you can get it from food,
-but this threshold level of
-these EPA essential fatty acids.
-There are now so many data,
-so much data on the valuable role
-of these essential EPA fatty acids.
-Thresholds being somewhere
-between one and two grams
-per day of the EPA.
-So much so, actually, that
-there are now prescription forms
-of EPA that doctors are
-starting to prescribe
-for people with TBI.
-Although for most people
-you can get this through...
-You can look up and we've
-done podcast episodes
-about different ways to access this.
-Also functions as an antidepressant;
-equally good, believe it or not,
-in clinical trials to SSRIs
-once one gets over the one or
-basically two grams per day
-of the EPA.
-The resident expert on
-the internet about this
-is pretty extreme about the dosages,
-and that's Dr. Rhonda
-Patrick, who by the way,
-deserves a nod of
-acknowledgement and support
-because it turns out that
-before me or David Sinclair
-or Matt Walker or any of these guys
-were blabbing to the world about
-stuff that they had learned
-in the archives of science
-and in their laboratories,
-the first person in was this
-woman named Rhonda Patrick.
-As far as I know, the first
-public facing formerly trained
-scientist to start going
-on all these podcasts
-and risk her reputation
-and this kind of stuff
-that you deal with when
-you put your neck out
-there like that.
-And Rhonda's, I think, terrific.
-We don't agree on everything
-and it would be weird if we did,
-but I think she's really
-been the proponent
-of these higher doses of EPAs for TBI
-and for cognitive function into all ages.
-"We often hear about ways
-to increase dopamine.
-However, are there effective
-ways to decrease dopamine
-when you get too much of
-it for certain behaviors
-or habits we want to break?"
-Katie Hamm, I think is the last name.
-Thank you, Katie, for your question.
-Yeah, dopamine is a slippery slope.
-And Dr. Anna Lembke is the expert in this,
-and we've had a lot of conversations.
-She's one of my closer
-friends on the faculty.
-Unfortunately for her,
-our coffee discussions
-often last four hours or more.
-Her poor patients and family.
-Here's the thing,
-when dopamine is higher
-in your brain and body,
-when you've deployed it through excitement
-or pharmacology or otherwise,
-it tends to narrow your focus
-and make you seek more of it
-in that general theme that
-you happen to be focused on.
-It could be anything.
-That's the scary thing about dopamine.
-What can you do to control
-it and to reduce it?
-Well, for those of you
-that are engaging in habits
-that are healthy,
-maybe that doesn't
-require reducing dopamine.
-How do you define
-healthy versus unhealthy?
-Well, I think the simplest
-way to define addiction,
-at least by my mind,
-is that addiction is a
-progressive narrowing
-of the things that bring you pleasure.
-And a good life is a progressive expansion
-of the things that bring you pleasure.
-A rather simple definition,
-and yet when we think about
-the biology of dopamine,
-dopamine is not unique to one pursuit.
-It's not unique to the pursuit of sex
-or the pursuit of warmth when you're cold
-or cool environments when you're too warm
-or food or social media,
-it's just a dumb molecule that puts you
-into this forward state of
-mass, small visual aperture,
-and a kind of obsessive-like nature.
-What can you do to counter that?
-Well, the best thing to do
-is to not get into that state too long,
-but if you do, the best
-thing you can do is to try
-and switch off that system,
-not through pharmacology,
-but by not pursuing more dopamine.
-The day after a big event,
-the so-called postpartum depression,
-named of course because of true postpartum
-after the delivery of a child.
-It's quite common for people
-to get very, very depressed.
-There's a lot of neurochemical
-and hormonal adjustments
-that are occurring,
-but different types of
-postpartum depression occur;
-after a big party, the Monday
-blues, the Sunday blues,
-the post-whatever blues.
-The four month mark in a
-relationship is typically
-when dopamine starts to drop.
-I always tell people, just wait.
-I'm telling somebody very
-close to me right now,
-just wait four months,
-four months, four months,
-and also spend as much time
-with that person as possible.
-I don't know what this deal is
-about not spending as
-much time with people.
-I think people are afraid
-that the dopamine wave pool
-is just going to pull them both under.
-I think they've called that
-the escalator model of relationship,
-where you just sort of find
-yourself in the relationship
-because you went through
-the stages without
-actually deciding on them.
-In any event, four months
-seems to be the stage in which
-the dopamine crescendo
-starts to relax a little bit,
-not in a long distance
-relationship, however.
-We know this, right?
-Anticipation is dopamine,
-that positive anticipation,
-and there's a whole
-beautiful science of this,
-and I should say psychology of this.
-There's a wonderful book actually.
-The name of the book
-is embarrassing always,
-I don't know why, for me to say.
-It's by a psychologist
-called "Can Love Last?",
-which is a psychoanalytic book
-about this dopamine-serotonin system
-and the kind of seesawing back and forth.
-And the fact that in relationships,
-people often just slam on
-the dopamine side of things
-and then they hit a wall
-and want to break up.
-Or they go into this like warm,
-cozy, fuzzy feeling thing,
-and they go, "Well, I guess
-the exciting part is over."
-And this idea that one could actually,
-or two people or however
-many people were in Portland
-could oscillate this seesaw.
-[audience laughing]
-I don't think that you
-want to use pharmacology
-to turn off the dopamine system,
-but for people that have
-a hard time sleeping
-and that are really in
-a state of agitation
-and constantly obsessing,
-the psychiatrists...
-One of the oldest and
-most effective treatments
-is that the psychiatrists,
-and this does have to be prescribed,
-we use a very, very low dose
-of a dopamine receptor blocker,
-like Haloperidol, which is
-used to treat schizophrenia.
-A very low dose to shut down
-the obsession component.
-The smart, well-educated psychiatrists
-know this as a useful tool,
-but this is a one time
-thing with a very low dose
-because having your
-dopamine blocked sucks.
-It does not feel good,.
-But not being able to sleep
-and being in an obsessive mode also sucks.
-So it's actually a very
-potent clinical tool.
-So pharmacology is one tool,
-but really at the far end of things.
-I believe that one should try and modulate
-their own dopamine by
-not rewarding one's self
-on a regular basis, but only randomly.
-Random intermittent reward
-is truly the best schedule
-of reward, hence slot machines and so on.
-And you should engage
-random intermittent reward.
-And I think this is also the
-way that we should train kids.
-I call it training kids.
-You can tell I don't have kids.
-[audience laughing]
-You don't reward them every time.
-I don't believe everyone
-should get a trophy every time,
-nor should you always
-just reward the winners
-because those winners often,
-we see cases of this, high
-profile cases of this,
-they often crash and burn.
-I mean the number of high performers
-that crash and burn publicly
-and Lord knows how many do
-it privately is remarkable.
-It's 'cause their dopamine
-system is all messed up.
-So random intermittent reward
-is the schedule of reward
-that we should impart on ourselves.
-"If you had 10 minutes a day to improve
-your brain plasticity, what would you do?
-And when would you do it?"
-Richard Conlin, thank you.
-Well, I'm going to say again,
-I would absolutely anchor my physiology
-with morning sunlight viewing.
-I can't help it.
-Do you know what's interesting?
-And I'll tell you very briefly,
-you know what's special
-about morning sunlight?
-This low solar angle sunlight.
-I don't think I've talked
-about this much on social media
-or on the podcast.
-There's a group at the
-University of Washington,
-a couple, Jay and Maureen Neitz.
-They run a lab together.
-That sounds like a horrible thing,
-but they do it and they
-get along very well.
-And they've discovered
-that the cells in your eye,
-the neurons that set your circadian clock
-make you alert during the day
-and make you sleepy at night,
-and so on.
-Those cells respond best
-to yellow-blue contrast
-and orange tones.
-Now, this is important
-because when you go out
-in the morning, even
-if it's not at sunrise,
-but it's close to sunrise
-or you look at the sun in the evening,
-what you'll see is yellow-blue
-contrast or orange;
-yellow, blue, orange,
-that old thing from
-kindergarten or first grade.
-That's not the color of light
-that you're going to see
-when the sun is overhead.
-Now, this also is really interesting
-because artificial lights,
-at least to my understanding,
-even the daylight simulators
-have not picked up on this.
-It's just about bright light.
-Someone ought to design
-something that can mimic this,
-but nature has done
-this beautifully for us.
-And so viewing low solar
-angle sunlight in the morning
-and in the evening is most effective
-because of those yellow-blue contrasts.
-Now here's the really wild thing.
-Those circuits that set your
-levels of alertness and sleep,
-yes, they respond best
-to yellow-blue contrast,
-but what that tells us is crazy.
-What that means is that color vision
-was probably not related
-to color perception first
-because all of that is
-completely subconscious.
-The pathways that do this
-are present in people
-who are pattern vision blind.
-So, what do I mean?
-I mean that color vision likely evolved
-from a need to synchronize
-your internal state
-with the external world.
-And the best stimulus in the outside world
-to do that is yellow-blue contrast.
-In other words, our
-ability to detect color
-was first and foremost, and
-we understand this based on
-evolutionary genomics and so forth,
-to extract time of day information,
-not color of fruit or color
-of skin or anything like that.
-That's all secondary,
-which is wild and crazy.
-And this is yet another example of the way
-we think things work is
-not the way they work.
-It's completely 180 degrees opposite.
-I'm just going to give
-you a little teaser.
-I had a guest on the podcast,
-we haven't aired the episode yet.
-His name is Erich Jarvis,
-he works on speech and language.
-He also was admitted into
-Alvin Ailey Dance Company.
-Again, who are these people?
-He's a professor at the Rockefeller.
-Anyway, I learned from Erich,
-and you'll learn when
-that episode comes out,
-that you only find elaborate
-speech and language
-in species that also
-engage in dance and song.
-And the genomics point to the
-fact that song and singing
-came first and language came second.
-And that led me during that
-episode of the podcast,
-I wrote down in my notes,
-I was listening to him talk and
-I wrote down in my notebook,
-it's just scrawled in big letters.
-It says, "I am so happy right now."
-I was just blown away.
-And it makes so much
-sense when you hear it,
-that the colors in the
-sky were what our system
-is trying to extract,
-not a perception of
-those colors in the sky,
-'cause they're informing us about time
-and orienting us in time.
-That song and the communication
-of emotional states
-would be simpler and more foundational
-than communication about
-specific patterns of language.
-When you hear it, suddenly it makes sense.
-But of course we're human beings,
-and unless you're Erich Jarvis
-or Alia Crum or Anna Lembke,
-you think about all this
-stuff backwards, as I do.
-"How can I navigate my way
-through taking supplements
-to optimize my health
-when my career demands,
-Army infantry, prevent me
-from being able to establish
-consistent routines?"
-Andrew Yagen, well thank
-you for doing what you do.
-Andrew, so the consistent
-routine thing is tough.
-Here's what I can say
-without going into a long
-two and a half hour episode
-about jet lag and shift work,
-which we've done.
-The most powerful way to anchor
-your brain and body in time
-is indeed viewing sunlight
-at consistent times of day.
-That's not something I made up.
-We know this based on a
-lot of work that dates back
-to the 1930s.
-The second most powerful
-stimulus is going to be movement
-and changes in body temperature.
-In particular, increases
-in body temperature
-tend to make us alert,
-and decreases in body temperature
-tend to make us sleepy.
-Body temperature drops
-one to three degrees
-to get us into sleep.
-Why does a cold shower wake you up?
-Adrenaline is released
-and believe it or not,
-your body is heating up
-internally to combat that cold,
-unless you make yourself hypothermic.
-So, sauna, hot baths to get sleepy,
-cold showers, ice baths,
-et cetera to wake up.
-Sort of obvious when you hear it,
-but it's counterintuitive
-because you think,
-oh, heating up the body to wake up
-and cooling down the body to go to sleep.
-So getting into cold
-ought to cool me down,
-but your body compensates
-just like if you threw a
-cold towel on a thermostat,
-you'd crank up the temperature in the room
-and vice versa for heat.
-Okay, so what do you do?
-You want to try and use
-as many of these things,
-light, temperature, exercise, food.
-When you eat is typically
-associated with waking.
-Very few of us are capable
-of eating in our sleep.
-And then the other one is
-social activity and rhythms.
-Now the discombobulated person
-is going to be the person
-that has not aligned these
-things in a consistent way.
-So while schedules vary,
-and Andrew, I don't know
-your exact schedule,
-what I can say is if you
-suddenly go from daytime behavior
-and sleeping at night to
-the so-called vampire shift,
-as it's called in the military,
-and suddenly you're up in
-the middle of the night
-and you're sleeping during the day,
-then when you come off that shift,
-what you want to do is try
-and combine as many of those
-same things at one time.
-So it would be get your sunlight,
-so go jogging without your sunglasses,
-drink your coffee, engage with
-other people and communicate,
-eat a meal afterwards or
-as the case may be before.
-Try and bring as many
-of those things together
-at the same time of day for a few days
-and pretty soon your system
-will map around that.
-So the reason I encourage for those of us
-that are not doing shift work
-to try and be fairly consistent
-about sunlight viewing
-is it sets in motion
-everything else that's correct,
-in terms of timing of
-eating, appetite will follow,
-when your alert will follow.
-You'll start to learn your own rhythms.
-When you can't control your schedule,
-try and combine as many of those cues;
-again, light, temperature, exercise, food,
-social engagement into one period of time
-and try and lock that into a more or less
-a one or two hour period or
-plus or minus one or two hours
-at a particular time of day
-for at least two or three days.
-And your schedule, meaning
-your internal clocks
-will lock to that.
-"How is social media changing our brains?"
-Thomas Adcock.
-Well, you hear all the terrible ways
-in which it's changing our brains.
-And I think that again,
-we go back to this thing,
-is it the aperture that we're looking at?
-So is it the format that
-we're engaging in things?
-Or is it the content?
-Well, the way I like to
-think about the phone
-is the way that we've been
-engaging with the phone
-and the laptop for that matter,
-in staring into the small
-visual aperture each day
-is sort of like walking like
-this all day long, right?
-We have this amazing
-ability to shuffle our feet
-and take small steps
-or to take big strides,
-to run, to move...
-I think that's the sagittal
-plane for movement.
-I know it for the brain,
-but I always mess it.
-The PTs are vicious
-people online, by the way.
-The PTs and nutrition people,
-I've learned to just not
-say anything about that.
-I'm not a PT and I'm not
-a physical therapist.
-And they do incredible
-work, but they're like,
-it's a very spirited crowd.
-[audience laughing]
-And the nutrition thing is really weird.
-I mean, it's just incredible.
-People are either throwing liver at you
-or they're throwing celery at you
-or they're fasting or they're not fasting.
-It's nuts.
-In any case, the social media
-and staring at a small visual aperture
-is changing our brains.
-Here's one way I know in
-which it's changing our brains
-and then I'll tell you how to fix it.
-If you stare or look at
-something within two feet of you
-for a certain number of hours each day,
-your eyeball actually gets longer.
-And the visual image then is focused
-in front of your neural retina,
-not onto your neural retina,
-and you are becoming myopic; nearsighted.
-And if you look at things
-in the distance enough,
-guess what?
-Your eyeball changes shape
-and your lens will focus
-appropriately the image onto your retina.
-It takes some work.
-Kids that look at things
-up close too much,
-and adults that look at
-things up close too much
-become nearsighted.
-And there's a beautiful
-set of clinical trials now
-where mainly in kids,
-if kids get outside for two hours a day,
-getting a lot of this UVB and blue light
-that we're told is so terrible for us,
-but they get it from sunlight,
-they actually can reverse myopia,
-or reduce the incidence of
-myopia, maybe even glaucoma.
-Although that's a big maybe.
-So, how much staring into
-a small visual aperture
-is too much?
-I don't know.
-But what we do know is that we
-are literally becoming myopic
-in terms of our vision
-and we're becoming myopic
-in terms of our cognition.
-And then there's the whole business
-of what's actually
-contained in those Tweets
-and those social media feeds
-and those news stories.
-Which frankly, I feel
-like you lose either way,
-whether or not you're
-in one political camp
-or another political camp,
-you're upset about half of
-the information out there.
-So I feel like, and I'm
-not someone who knows
-how to talk about politics
-without stumbling,
-I didn't do well in social
-studies in this sort of thing.
-It just never made sense to me.
-It just felt like the
-prize goes to the person
-who can shout the loudest
-and the most coherently
-for a moment.
-But I encourage, of course,
-people to be politically active.
-And I vote.
-[audience laughing]
-But the content is tricky to navigate.
-And I can't really speak to that,
-except that it seems to
-be bothering everybody
-on one side or the other or in the middle.
-And the format is something
-that we really understand.
-And again, I don't know of
-many people that are talking
-about this narrow visual
-window format thing.
-It came up more during the
-lockdowns when we were all inside
-a lot and not looking out at a distance.
-The data say really to try
-and get at least 10 minutes
-of long distance viewing,
-so longer than 10 feet away from us,
-for every 30 minutes of closeup viewing.
-And not a lot of us are doing that.
-If you're walking to your
-car looking at your phone,
-you're definitely losing an opportunity.
-"What new piece of neurological research
-are you most excited about?
-Mateo Minato.
-Ooh.
-I think the piece of
-neurological research that I...
-All right, the weird stuff.
-I've got this colleague at Stanford,
-Tony Wyss-Coray, and they're
-really into literally taking
-proteins from young blood
-and young spinal cord
-cerebral spinal fluid
-and putting it into
-older people and animals,
-and they get younger.
-That stuff's pretty wild.
-The fecal transplant stuff is pretty wild.
-You take the microbiome from
-one person and as it sounds,
-you transplant it to somebody else
-and they take on the physical
-characteristics of the donor.
-It's crazy.
-Until I talk to my [chuckling]...
-There's some shouts for fecal transplant.
-Nice.
-[audience laughing]
-I have never read the method
-sections of those papers.
-I'm actually afraid to
-read the method sections.
-I would say this is not neurological,
-but the work from Chris
-Gardner and Justin Sonnenburg,
-also at Stanford,
-it makes it sound like I just like,
-"Stanford, Stanford, Stanford."
-But these are the people I'm
-closest to and surrounded by.
-There are excellent places
-everywhere, of course,
-including OHSU and I'm not just
-saying that 'cause I'm here.
-I actually close colleagues
-here and friends here at OHSU.
-Also an amazing, although
-that tram thing freaks me out,
-it's like I always just
-have all these ideas
-about what's going to
-happen if that thing breaks.
-But the microbiome data
-are really interesting.
-I never understood why
-getting your gut microbiome
-was important.
-And it turns out it's because
-your gut actually makes
-many of the neurotransmitter precursors
-that your brain uses.
-So that's pretty cool.
-And I always thought it
-would be a complicated thing
-to get your gut microbiome right,
-but it turns out that it's fermented foods
-that seem to have the biggest effect.
-There was all this argument
-about fiber and yes,
-fiber is important and
-here I'm getting nervous
-talking about nutrition,
-'cause the people are going
-to come at me with fiber.
-But it's very clear from
-Justin and Chris's data
-that people who are
-getting four servings a day
-of fermented foods,
-whether or not it's kimchi
-or sauerkraut or kombucha,
-that stuff actually seems to encourage
-a healthy gut microbiome
-and people feel better,
-and their immune system works better.
-And I like this because it actually,
-it resolves an issue which
-is that high dose probiotics,
-these very expensive need
-to be refrigerated things,
-those actually can create brain
-fog and other issues there
-for real severe cases of dysbiosis.
-So I always like an instance
-where one can look to foods
-which are good, 'cause I like to eat,
-in order to resolve these issues.
-In terms of other neurologic issues,
-frankly, I think the stuff on dopamine
-is fundamentally important.
-So much addiction, that's a severe case,
-but also so much waxing
-and waning of motivation.
-And once you understand the
-dopamine system and you say,
-"What activities am I engaging in
-or pharmacology am I engaging in?
-What am I doing to spike dopamine?"
-You start to go, "Oh, I get it.
-The waves in this wave pool are too high
-and that's why I can't
-do this consistently."
-And then you do the counterintuitive thing
-of approaching things with
-a little less excitement,
-but then you're able to
-do them more consistently.
-It's like, "Ah!"
-And maybe with some luck, I'll
-end up finishing this book
-that I've been working on
-for four and a half years
-as a consequence 'cause I can't seem to.
-"Thinking about the Wim Hof Method.
-Do you believe it?
-How is it really working?
-What process is happening in his brain?"
-Oh, boy.
-Madison Cameron and everyone
-here probably familiar
-with Wim Hof.
-Whose occupation on Wikipedia
-used to be "Daredevil."
-That was cool.
-It's like Evel Knievel
-had it and Wim had it.
-I got a story about Wim.
-Actually in 2016, I heard
-about this guy, Wim Hof,
-and I got a hold of him,
-actually his children.
-And I had one vacation that
-year and I flew to Spain
-and I spent some time
-mountaineering with Wim,
-which was absolutely terrifying.
-I almost lost a leg legitimately.
-I tied in wrong on a bridge sling.
-He told me it was good for me.
-He told me to, "Stare
-into the lizard's eyes."
-And I stared into the lizard's eyes.
-I jumped backwards off this
-homemade bridge sling thing.
-And I had the rope wrapped through my leg
-and I came back with basically the tendon
-on the back of my knee exposed.
-And sitting next to me on the plane
-was our Vice Dean of Research at Stanford.
-And I had to explain to him
-what I was doing and why.
-It was very embarrassing.
-What did we do on that trip?
-Well, a couple of things that will help me
-answer your question.
-First of all, when I arrived,
-I suffered terribly from jet lag,
-but the moment I got there,
-Wim did not say hello.
-He literally told me to
-get into the ice bath.
-And I did 10 minutes in the
-ice bath not because I'm tough,
-but because he held me
-down in the ice bath.
-He is indeed one of the
-strongest human beings.
-He reminds me of the bus
-driver on "The Simpsons"
-or the janitor, excuse me.
-No, Otto is the bus driver, right?
-The janitor on "The Simpsons,"
-like [grunts] that guy.
-That's Wim.
-Incredibly physically strong guy.
-What do I think's going
-on with Wim Hof stuff?
-Well, Wim Hof, whether or
-not he understands it or not,
-I always think he's sort of
-the Bob Dylan of breathwork.
-Like everything he says seems
-to have some intuitive sense,
-but you don't really
-understand what in the world
-he's saying.
-[audience laughing]
-He's going to come after me now.
-We've had a good but
-complicated relationship,
-I'll just confess.
-Maybe someday we'll resolve that.
-No big scandal or story there,
-just we communicate very differently.
-Wim has a couple methods.
-One is to deliberately hyperventilate.
-This is also called Tummo breathing.
-My lab actually studies this.
-We have a paper that I'm happy
-to share with you the results
-although they're not published yet,
-where people do deliberate
-cyclic hyperventilation.
-Which as the name suggests,
-you just breathe really deeply in
-and really deeply out 25 times.
-Or if you're Wim, you'd say, "In and out.
-In and out."
-I just tell people, here's how it works.
-You go [deeply breathing].
-You do that 25 times and you heat up
-and you feel really agitated,
-and that's because of adrenaline.
-If you throw yourself into an ice bath
-or a cold shower, adrenaline.
-If somebody upsets you
-or you get a triggering text, adrenaline.
-Adrenaline sounds like a terrible thing,
-except when you deliberately induce it.
-As my colleague, David Spiegel says,
-"There's a big difference
-between going into a state
-and you controlling your
-entry into a state."
-So it's not just about
-the state you're in,
-it's about how you got
-there and whether or not
-you had anything to do with it.
-States of high adrenaline
-are very powerful.
-When you self induce
-adrenaline by cold shower,
-cyclic hyperventilation,
-AKA Wim Hof breathing
-or Tummo breathing,
-you then have an opportunity to create
-a very distinct mind-body relationship.
-We all hear that interoception
-and the mind-body relationship.
-Interoception just your ability
-to sense your heartbeats
-and what's going on in your body.
-Powerful, right?
-Terrible if how you feel sucks.
-So interoception is wonderful,
-but when you're anxious it
-actually is more adaptive
-to be able to maintain your thinking
-and get yourself out
-of that anxious state.
-So if you're trembling and
-your body's freaking out
-and your cheeks are flushing
-and your brain is following
-your bodily state,
-well, that's not good.
-And if you're somebody and sadly,
-this happens a lot where you've
-experienced a lot of trauma
-or typically this is people
-that have been bombarded
-with extreme criticism or physical abuse
-or other kinds of abuse
-during development.
-They actually can seem very calm,
-but internally they're
-freaking out in their head.
-And they're just thinking,
-just get me through this.
-And they just go into a state
-where no one knows they're upset.
-I've known people like
-this and it's eerie to me
-because I've never had
-that response to stress,
-but it's very common.
-And so we should learn and
-be careful about deciding
-that people are in one state or another
-based on their bodily or
-their mental response.
-Vim Hof breathing, cold
-showers, et cetera,
-are a great practice in my opinion,
-because they allow you
-to spike your adrenaline.
-And you can do that, for instance,
-by making the water colder
-if you want more adrenaline,
-staying in longer if you
-want more adrenaline,
-moving your limbs around in the water
-will give you more adrenaline
-'cause it breaks up that thermal layer.
-It makes it a lot colder.
-Or doing 50 deep inhales and exhales.
-That is very useful because
-then you have the opportunity
-to use that prefrontal cortex and to stop
-and sense all that adrenaline in your body
-and yet maintain clarity of mind.
-And that's an absolutely powerful tool.
-I would even call it a power tool.
-And Wim figured this out.
-I don't know if you know this,
-but the way that Wim discovered all this
-was he was in deep grief about
-the tragic death of his wife.
-She committed suicide, jumped
-off an eight story building.
-Just truly tragic death.
-And he was in situation, he
-had four children at the time.
-Now, he has five.
-And he was in a state of depression
-and he ended up going into
-the canal in Amsterdam
-and it was very cold and
-it shocked his system.
-And in that shock to his system,
-which is caused by adrenaline,
-he somehow was able to anchor his thinking
-and in kind of genius
-of sorts, Wim thought,
-"Wow, I can intervene in my physiology
-with this strange activity."
-And then he realized that
-breathing would do it as well.
-You didn't have to get into cold water.
-And then, years later, we discovered,
-not we meaning my lab, but other labs,
-that when you get into cold water,
-even just 60 degree water,
-that there's a very long
-lasting increase in dopamine.
-That is 2.5x above baseline,
-which is on par with
-some prescription drugs
-for increasing dopamine.
-So when people laugh at me and go,
-"Oh this cold water thing,"
-I get teased a lot on the internet.
-I've heard on the internet
-that I eat sticks of butter,
-which I never said.
-I said, "I like butter."
-[audience laughing]
-I've been told all sorts of things.
-I've been told I eat sticks of butter.
-I don't know why.
-I've been told that I'm dead.
-That was an interesting one.
-That was one of the cooler ones.
-But when I was going out
-there as a serious scientist
-and saying, "Using
-deliberate cold exposure."
-You can use all sorts of things.
-Or if you come to my lab,
-I'd be happy to put you in VR
-and expose you to all
-sorts of scary stuff.
-Or we can inject you with adrenaline
-or you can inject yourself with adrenaline
-and titrate that, adjust
-the levels of that.
-So it's a very powerful tool.
-And I think that Wim and
-others deserve credit
-for really tapping into that.
-And as a last point,
-there's a beautiful study
-in the Proceedings of the
-National Academy of Sciences
-years ago using this deliberate
-cyclic hyperventilation
-thing; 25 breath [deeply breathing].
-And then another group meditates.
-And then they inject
-them both with E. coli.
-And the people injected
-with E. coli who meditate
-get nauseous, vomit, diarrhea,
-and they get a fever.
-And the people who
-[deeply breathing] first,
-far fewer symptoms, if any.
-Why?
-Because adrenaline actually
-suppresses a lot of these
-innate immune responses
-in a way that's healthy
-in the short term.
-This is why you can work,
-work, work, work, work,
-where you can study for finals,
-or you can take care of a loved one
-and then you finally stop
-and rest and go on vacation,
-and then you get sick.
-Stress activates your nervous
-system and in doing so,
-it activates your immune system.
-Makes perfect sense
-when you think about it.
-How would we ever go through famine
-if you're just getting flus
-whenever you're stressed?
-We can deal with a lot.
-My suggestion is if you're coming off
-a period of high stress,
-to do some sort of
-adrenaline spiking behavior
-as you taper out of that stressful period,
-not going strictly to massage, vacation,
-and yoga nidra all day long,
-as I would reflexively do.
-"Can red light therapy help
-treat exercise intolerance
-and fatigue in mitochondrial disease?"
-Allison, I'm glad you brought this up.
-This is another case where I thought,
-"Oh no, this red light stuff is crazy."
-And then I went into the
-literature and it turns out
-that in 1908, the Nobel
-Prize was actually given
-for phototherapy.
-So, there we go again.
-And I have this slide,
-I chose not to use slides tonight,
-but I have this slide that shows Ken Kesey
-and the magic bus and
-stuff from the 1930s,
-and psychedelics and people
-getting into cold water.
-And then here we are, 2019,
-2020, you've got Wim Hof,
-and Matt Johnson giving people
-macro doses of psilocybin.
-We're right back where we were.
-And one of my major goals is to really try
-and create some scientific
-discussion around these things.
-This stuff is crazy on the face of it,
-but there are mechanisms that
-are real that underlie it.
-Red light, because it's
-long wavelength light,
-longer literally as opposed
-to a short wavelength light,
-can penetrate through things like skin
-and can indeed change mitochondria.
-One of the more impressive
-results on red light
-comes from my good
-friend, Glen Jeffery's Lab
-at the University College London.
-I've known Glen for years,
-and a few years, he was
-a basic vision scientist.
-And a few years ago he
-started using red light.
-He'd have people look at red light
-at a distance of about
-two feet in the morning.
-So is long wavelength light.
-And sometimes even just take a flashlight,
-a torch as they call it in England,
-and cover it with a red film.
-And they would look at this stuff
-for a few minutes each morning,
-and it can reverse some forms
-of age-related vision loss
-and macular degeneration.
-How we now know it can
-prove mitochondrial function
-in photoreceptors by
-reducing what are called
-reactive oxygen species.
-Here's what's interesting,
-it only seems to work
-in people older than 40,
-and it seems to only
-work if you do it within
-the first three hours of waking.
-And the incredible
-thing is you can do this
-for one or two minutes a week,
-and some of the positive effects last
-as long as three weeks.
-And it's affecting a very specific form
-of visual improvement, which is acuity,
-kind of fine detail stuff
-in a particular wavelength.
-So, particular colors
-and objects and things.
-Pretty impressive.
-So, yes, red light can
-improve mitochondrial function
-to the photo receptors.
-If you are going to try and do this stuff,
-don't put it too close.
-I don't have any affiliation
-to any red light panel company.
-So I can't say anything there.
-They are rather expensive.
-Nowadays, people are putting
-red light everywhere,
-and I do mean everywhere.
-People are putting red
-light on their stomach
-for improving ovarian function,
-whether or not it can
-penetrate isn't clear to me
-all the way down there.
-People are trying to do this.
-I have a friend, I won't name him.
-Recently, he told me he is really into
-the red light therapy.
-He's putting it on his testicles
-to try and increase testosterone.
-But he told me that after
-he handed me the red light.
-[audience laughing]
-True story.
-My team knows who this is.
-It's no one on my team.
-Thank goodness.
-I was like, "Oh, that's
-super interesting."
-I actually don't think you
-want to contact the red lights
-directly to your skin.
-So red light is powerful.
-I don't think we have, aside
-from the vision protocol,
-I don't think that it's clear
-which protocols are best.
-I will say if you're into
-red light infrared sauna.
-Typically those don't get hot enough.
-Typically if you want to
-get the benefits of sauna,
-you want to get between 80
-and 100 degrees Celsius,
-which is 176 to 210 or 208 Fahrenheit.
-And I don't actually do
-the conversion in my head.
-I memorize it.
-"You mentioned the consequences
-of blasting your brain
-with too much dopamine.
-Is it possible to overdo
-ice baths while following
-the same line of thinking?
-Will you experience an
-extreme low in dopamine
-with too many ice baths?"
-Lucas Ancke, thank you for the question.
-Any behavior that spikes adrenaline,
-you will eventually get
-better at tolerating it.
-You will become cold adapted
-and you'll become comfortable
-at high adrenaline states.
-And you just have to ask yourself this,
-it's just like lifting
-weights in the gym or running.
-You need to leave some
-space for improvement.
-So if you run, as people do,
-and you do your 5k, then you're 10k,
-then you're half marathon,
-maybe a 10k is a half marathon.
-I don't know.
-But anyway, then you're
-doing your marathon.
-Then you're doing ultras that
-are 50 miles and 100 miles.
-I mean, eventually you're going
-to start doing damage, right?
-And eventually you look
-at every ultra runner
-and typically these are
-people who are very much
-on the dopamine pursuit system.
-I mean, I don't think that he would mind;
-my good friend and a podcaster
-who I have tremendous
-respect for is Rich Roll,
-amazing human being,
-and also has an amazing
-story about addiction.
-He was an alcoholic.
-And I'm not sharing anything
-that he hasn't already shared
-in his amazing book, "Finding Ultra."
-He got really into running,
-running, running all the time
-and there's a dopamine
-history there for him.
-Some of us can use ice
-baths so consistently
-and making it so cold and
-doing them longer and longer
-that indeed you're playing
-with the dopamine system.
-Is it bad?
-Well, it depends on what
-you're trading that in for,
-at the expense of what?
-Is it giving up cocaine?
-Yeah, great, stick with the ice bath.
-But you know, can only make it so cold
-and you can only stay in there so long
-before you become Wim Hof, right?
-And it worked out for Wim,
-but there's really only one Wim Hof.
-And in general, that
-speaks to a larger theme,
-which is I love the idea
-of people using tools
-and understanding mechanism.
-I mean, of course I love that.
-It's what I talk about and
-think about so much in my life.
-But for most of us,
-we don't make a living doing those things.
-And so I do think that the ideal situation
-is to have behaviors and
-tools that you intersperse
-throughout your day and
-throughout the week.
-For instance, I think
-three times a week is fine
-for the ice bath.
-No one said you had to do it every day,
-but you should see sunlight
-every morning if you can.
-Just because if you miss a
-day, your system will be fine,
-just spend twice as long
-outside the next day.
-Seriously, 'cause it's a
-slow integrating system.
-But for most of these
-high intensity things,
-the less often you do them,
-the more powerful they are.
-In fact, if you get into a very hot sauna
-for four 30 minute sessions on one day.
-So you go 30 minutes,
-get out for five minutes.
-30 minutes, get out for five minutes.
-30 minutes, get out for five.
-Two hours a day in the
-sauna, that's a lot of sauna,
-but the growth hormone release
-from that type of protocol
-is a 16x increase in growth hormone.
-This has been measured in humans.
-Whereas if you do it every day
-or three or four times a week,
-you get diminishing returns on that.
-So I actually am a big fan
-of doing really intense stuff
-only every once in a while.
-This is also why I only
-take one long run per week
-or one long hike.
-First of all, I don't have time for it.
-I'm not an ultra runner.
-I got other things to do.
-And second of all, it's a strong stimulus.
-I'm sore until Tuesday,
-or I don't want to run
-until Tuesday anyway.
-I actually think that's fine.
-And I actually encourage
-kind of more healthy,
-rational schedules of
-these kinds of behaviors.
-There's no rule that says
-you have to do something
-every day, even if you're trying
-to engage neuroplasticity.
-You can learn French or an
-instrument by practicing
-three times a week.
-As long as your practice
-is very focused, right?
-Daily perhaps would be better,
-but very few of us have the opportunity
-to do things every day consistently.
-And I really want to encourage
-a more balanced approach.
-"Before working for
-Thrasher, what's the best..."
-Oh, goodness gracious.
-The skateboarders are always in the house.
-My first non-biological family
-was a skateboarding community.
-When I have great relationship
-with my parents now,
-but because there was a
-time when there was no one
-to go to soccer games
-or do any of that stuff,
-the skateboard community took me in
-'cause there were no parents involved.
-It was great.
-There were no referees or coaches
-'cause I didn't like
-authority and it was awesome.
-And there was no nutritional plan.
-You drank your slurpy
-and you sat on the curb,
-and it was fantastic.
-I don't do that anymore.
-But the skateboarding community's
-one that I've remained close with.
-I did write for Thrasher
-under a different name
-while I was a postdoc
-to make some extra cash.
-You won't find those
-articles anywhere, I hope.
-They're not very good.
-And the best skate trick?
-Well, I was involved in it
-enough that this will only
-makes sense like three
-people in the audience,
-but I had decent heel flip.
-I could nollie better than I could ollie.
-And I was never very good.
-Oh, there's more
-skateboarders in the audience.
-What I will say though,
-is you have to be very
-careful with skateboarders,
-'cause I don't want to
-claim that I was any good.
-Any success that I had was
-out of sympathy of others
-for letting me hang around.
-It's a great community.
-And it gave me great
-appreciation for indeed
-communities of kids that
-don't have structure
-and sports leagues and teams
-and all that kind of stuff.
-Nowadays, it's actually a
-much different landscape.
-And I have to also say that
-it's really amazing to see
-all the incredible girls and
-women skateboarders also.
-There were none.
-It's an Olympic sport
-now for women and girls,
-and it's an Olympic sport
-for boys of men too.
-So, it's awesome to see that community.
-Okay, "What are your favorite brain hacks
-for doing hard things?
-Ranging from cold exposure to
-getting through selection?"
-Hoby Darling, thanks for the question.
-Yeah, hard things.
-Well, I'll be honest.
-I learned how to hack
-into my adrenaline system
-a long time ago through the
-worst possible mechanism,
-which is that I would set
-up battles in my mind.
-I would get into competition
-with people, imagined or real,
-or I would get into states of
-fearing shame and screwing up.
-So, this is what a lot
-of people do I think,
-you end up scaring
-yourself into trying to do
-the hard thing, and it works.
-The problem is it feels
-rather like a downward spiral
-because those negative states of mind
-work to liberate adrenaline and
-get you through hard things.
-So being a kind of rebellious
-kid, resistance was...
-If someone told me I couldn't
-do something, I was like,
-"Yeah, try me" and this kind of thing.
-And as I mentioned before, I
-wasn't crazy about authority.
-And so, that was the
-method for a long time.
-And then, I started reading
-Oliver Sacks's books
-and I started learning
-from people who seemed
-to access things through
-this whole love thing.
-And I tried that love and
-kindness meditation thing,
-and that didn't work.
-And what I started doing was I actually,
-I'll just tell you before
-I came out here tonight
-and before I do anything challenging,
-I just actually like to imagine the people
-that have supported me.
-It's a weird tool.
-I don't think I've ever shared.
-I'm actually slightly
-embarrassed to share this out.
-'Cause there are only two
-things that make me cry,
-and that's talking about my bulldog
-and talking about my graduate advisor.
-And if I talk it about any
-longer, I'll probably cry.
-But I think about them a lot
-because they were kind of similar.
-They were kind of ornery
-and they were hard on me,
-and I adored them both.
-And so these days I try
-and think about people
-that really, that I love.
-And so I have been trying
-to do this whole, like,
-doing things from a place of love thing.
-And so, for me, that's animals
-and people that I love.
-And okay, now, I better move on.
-Ah, thank you.
-[audience applauding]
-Okay, they're telling
-me one more question.
-So I'm going to answer one more.
-"What do I fear?
-How do you manage your fear?"
-KB, oh, gosh.
-This is going to turn into a
-no one's going to be satisfied
-until I cry.
-I get it, I get it.
-[audience laughing]
-I do cry, but again about the
-things I mentioned before.
-I realized something, by the way.
-We just recorded an episode on grief.
-It hasn't come out yet.
-Fascinating topic.
-I realized at one point, by the way,
-I'll just give this away,
-that I thought I was really
-sad about losing them.
-I thought I would tear up really easily
-because I was sad about them.
-But then I realized that this,
-gosh, I can't believe
-I'm going to do this.
-But I realized that
-feeling that I was feeling
-is the exact same feeling of love
-that I had when they were alive.
-So, grief is love.
-And when you look at the literature,
-it's basically that, but
-your brain is freaking out
-because that map of knowing
-where people are in space
-and time, grief is basically
-a remapping of the space:
-Where are they?
-Time: When are they?
-And then, this kind of
-abstract map representation
-that we call closeness.
-And grief is this process of
-ripping ourselves off of that.
-So, in any event, what do I fear?
-Talking about things like this.
-What do I fear?
-Quite honestly, my biggest fear,
-the thing that would just
-make me feel just horrible
-is I fear letting down my friends.
-I have an amazing...
-I love my family and they're wonderful,
-but I have this incredible
-relationship to friendship,
-and I adore my friends
-and I would sooner give up
-all my limbs and die before I would
-deliberately let them down.
-So, there you go, that's what I fear most.
-[audience applauding]
-Thank you.
-Thank you.
-I also fear I've gone long.
-And so my team has shut this down.
-I just want to just briefly, two things.
-First of all, I of course
-want to thank everyone
-for coming here tonight.
-I realize it's the middle of the week
-and to commit some hours of your life
-to thinking about these brain mechanisms,
-we got pretty nerdy there for a minute,
-and hopefully the tools redeemed those
-who were only interested
-or mostly interested
-in practical tools,
-but hopefully some of the
-insights about how you work
-were useful as well.
-I do want to just make brief
-mention of the sponsors
-that made this possible, 'cause
-they did make this possible.
-And we made every effort to
-try and keep the ticket prices
-manageable for people.
-And thanks to InsideTracker and Momentous
-for making this possible.
-And then, of course I
-would be completely remiss
-if I didn't say thank you
-for your interest in science.
-[audience applauding]
-[audience cheering]
-Thank you.
-Thank you.
-Oh, wow, thank you.
-Thank you.
-Thank you.
-Thank you.
-[light music]
-Thanks so much.
-Everyone be sure to get
-home safely tonight.

Data/transcripts/4AwyVTHEU3s_20241225194904.txt

@@ -1,1458 +0,0 @@
-ANDREW HUBERMAN: 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.
-[MUSIC PLAYING]
-My name is Andrew
-Huberman, and I'm
-a professor of neurobiology
-and ophthalmology
-at Stanford School of Medicine.
-Today we're talking
-about neuroplasticity,
-which is this incredible feature
-of our nervous system's that
-allows it to change in
-response to experience.
-Neuroplasticity is arguably one
-of the most important aspects
-of our biology.
-It holds the promise
-for each and all of us
-to think differently,
-to learn new things,
-to forget painful experiences,
-and to essentially
-adapt to anything that life
-brings us by becoming better.
-So let's get started.
-Most people are familiar with
-the word "neuroplasticity,"
-which is the brain and nervous
-system's ability to change
-itself.
-All of us were born
-with a nervous system
-that isn't just
-capable of change
-but was designed to change.
-When we enter the world,
-our nervous system
-is primed for learning.
-The brain and nervous system of
-a baby is wired very crudely.
-The connections are
-not precise, and we
-can see evidence
-of that in the fact
-that babies are kind of flopping
-there, like a little potato
-bug with limbs.
-They can't really do much in
-terms of coordinated movement.
-They certainly can't speak,
-and they can't really
-do anything with precision.
-So I want you to
-imagine in your mind
-that when you were
-brought into this world,
-you were essentially a widely
-connected web of connections
-that was really poor
-at doing any one thing,
-and that through your
-experience, what you were
-exposed to by your parents
-or other caretakers,
-through your social
-interactions,
-through your thoughts, through
-the languages that you learned,
-through the places you
-traveled or didn't travel,
-your nervous system
-became customized
-to your unique experience.
-Now, that's true for
-certain parts of your brain
-that are involved in what
-we call representations
-of the outside world.
-A lot of your brain is designed
-to represent the visual world,
-or represent the auditory
-world, or represent
-the gallery of smells that
-are possible in the world.
-However, there are aspects
-of your nervous system
-that were designed
-not to be plastic.
-They were wired so that
-plasticity or changes
-in those circuits
-is very unlikely.
-Those circuits include
-things like the ones
-that control your heartbeat.
-The ones that control
-your breathing.
-The ones that control
-your digestion.
-And thank goodness that
-those circuits were set up
-that way, because you want
-those circuits to be extremely
-reliable.
-So many nervous system features,
-like digestion and breathing
-and heart rate,
-are hard to change.
-Other aspects of
-our nervous system
-are actually quite
-easy to change.
-And one of the great gifts
-of childhood, adolescence,
-and young adulthood is that
-we can learn through almost
-passive experience.
-We don't have to focus that hard
-in order to learn new things.
-And then after
-age 25, if we want
-to change those connections,
-those superhighways
-of connectivity, we have to
-engage in some very specific
-processes.
-And those processes,
-as we'll soon learn,
-are gated, meaning
-you can't just
-decide to change your brain.
-You actually have to go
-through a series of steps
-to change your internal
-state in ways that will
-allow you to change your brain.
-Many of us have been
-captivated by the stories
-in the popular press about
-the addition of new neurons,
-this idea, oh, if you go
-running or you exercise,
-your brain actually
-makes new neurons.
-Well, I'm going to give
-you the bad news, which
-is that after puberty, the
-human brain and nervous system
-adds very few, if
-any, new neurons.
-So even though we can't add new
-neurons throughout our lifespan,
-at least not in
-very great numbers,
-it's clear that we can
-change our nervous system,
-that the nervous system
-is available for change,
-that if we create the
-right set of circumstances
-in our brain, chemical
-circumstances,
-and if we create the right
-environmental circumstances
-around us, our
-nervous system will
-shift into a mode in which
-change isn't just possible,
-but it's probable.
-As I mentioned
-before, the hallmark
-of the child nervous
-system is change.
-It wants to change.
-One of the ways in which
-we can all get plasticity
-at any stage
-throughout the lifespan
-is through deficits
-and impairments
-in what we call our sensory
-apparati-- our eyes, our ears,
-our nose, our mouth.
-In individuals that
-are blind from birth,
-the so-called occipital cortex,
-the visual cortex in the back,
-becomes overtaken by hearing.
-The neurons there will start
-to respond to sounds as well
-as Braille touch.
-And actually, there is one
-particularly tragic incident
-where a woman who
-was blind since birth
-and, because of
-neuroimaging studies,
-we knew her visual cortex
-was no longer visual.
-It was responsible for Braille
-reading and for hearing.
-She had a stroke that
-actually took out
-most of the function
-of her visual cortex.
-So then she was blind, she
-couldn't Braille read, or hear.
-She did recover some
-aspect of function.
-Now, most people, they don't end
-up in that highly unfortunate
-situation.
-And what we know is that, for
-instance, blind people who
-use their visual cortex for
-Braille reading and for hearing
-have much better
-auditory acuity and touch
-acuity, meaning they can sense
-things with their fingers
-and they can sense
-things with their hearing
-that typical sighted
-folks wouldn't be able to.
-In fact, you will find
-a much greater incidence
-of perfect pitch in
-people that are blind.
-And that tells us that the brain
-and, in particular, this area
-we call the neocortex,
-which is the outer part,
-is really designed to be a
-map of our own individual
-experience.
-So these, what I
-call experiments
-of impairment or
-loss, where somebody
-is blind from birth
-or deaf from birth
-or maybe has a limb development
-impairment where they have
-a stump instead of an entire
-limb with a functioning hand,
-their brain will represent the
-body plan that they have, not
-some other body plan.
-But the beauty of the situation
-is that the real estate
-up in the skull, that
-neocortex, the essence of it
-is to be a customized
-map of experience.
-A few years ago,
-I was at a course,
-and a woman came up to me
-and she said, you know, I--
-I wasn't teaching the course.
-I was in the course.
-And she said, I just
-have to tell you
-that every time you speak,
-it really stresses me out.
-And I said, well, I've
-heard that before.
-But do you want to
-be more specific?
-And she said, yeah,
-your tone of voice
-reminds me of somebody that I
-had a really terrible experience
-with.
-I said, well, OK, well,
-I can't change my voice,
-but I really appreciate
-that you acknowledge that.
-And it also will
-help explain why
-you seem to cringe
-every time I speak,
-which I hadn't
-noticed until then.
-But after that, I
-did notice she had
-a very immediate and kind of
-visceral response to my speech.
-But in any event, over the
-period of this two-week course,
-she would come back every
-once in a while and say,
-you know what?
-I think just by telling you that
-your voice was really difficult
-for me to listen
-to, it's actually
-becoming more tolerable to me.
-And by the end, we actually
-became pretty good friends,
-and we're still in touch.
-And so what this says is that
-the recognition of something,
-whether or not that's an
-emotional thing or a desire
-to learn something else,
-is actually the first step
-in neuroplasticity.
-If I get up out of this chair
-and walk out of the door,
-I don't think about each
-step that I'm taking.
-And that's because I learned
-how to walk during development.
-But when we decide
-that we're going
-to shift some sort of
-behavior or some reaction
-or some new piece of information
-that we want to learn
-is something that we want to
-bring into our consciousness,
-that awareness is
-a remarkable thing
-because it cues the brain and
-the rest of the nervous system
-that when we engage in those
-reflexive actions going forward,
-that those reflexive actions are
-no longer fated to be reflexive.
-Now, if this sounds a
-little bit abstract,
-we're going to talk about
-protocols for how to do this.
-But the first step
-in neuroplasticity
-is recognizing that you
-want to change something.
-We have to know what it is
-exactly that we want to change.
-Or if we don't know exactly what
-it is that we want to change,
-we at least have to know that
-we want to change something
-about some specific experience.
-Now, there are
-specific protocols
-that science tells us
-we have to follow if we
-want those changes to occur.
-What it is, is
-it's our forebrain,
-in particular our
-prefrontal cortex,
-signaling the rest
-of our nervous system
-that something that we're about
-to do, hear, feel, or experience
-is worth paying attention to.
-So we'll pause there, and then
-I'm going to move forward.
-One of the biggest lies
-in the universe that
-seems quite prominent right now
-is that every experience you
-have changes your brain.
-People love to say this.
-They love to say,
-your brain is going
-to be different
-after this lecture,
-or your brain is going to be
-different after today's class
-than it was two days ago.
-And that's absolutely not true.
-The nervous system
-doesn't just change
-because you experience
-something unless you're
-a very young child.
-The nervous system changes
-when certain neurochemicals
-are released and
-allow whatever neurons
-are active in the period in
-which those chemicals are
-swimming around to
-strengthen or weaken
-the connections
-of those neurons.
-So when people tell you, oh,
-at the end of today's lecture,
-at the end of
-something, your brain
-is going to be completely
-different, that's simply not
-true.
-If you're older
-than 25, your brain
-will not change unless
-there's a selective shift
-in your attention or a selective
-shift in your experience
-that tells the brain
-it's time to change.
-And those changes occur through
-strengthening and weakening
-of particular connections.
-But the important
-thing to understand
-is that if we want
-something to change,
-we really need to bring an
-immense amount of attention
-to whatever it is that
-we want to change.
-This is very much
-linked to the statement
-I made earlier about it all
-starts with an awareness.
-Now, why is that
-attention important?
-In the early '90s, a graduate
-student by the name of Gregg
-Recanzone was in the laboratory
-of a guy named Mike Merzenich
-at UCSF.
-And they set out
-to test this idea
-that if one wants to
-change their brain,
-they need to do it early in life
-because the adult brain simply
-isn't plastic.
-It's not available
-for these changes.
-And they did a series
-of absolutely beautiful
-experiments, by
-now, I think we can
-say proving that the
-adult brain can change,
-provided certain
-conditions are met.
-Now, the experiments
-they did are tough.
-They were tough on
-the experimenter,
-and they were tough
-on the subject.
-I'll just describe one.
-Let's say you were a subject
-in one of their experiments.
-You would come into the lab,
-and you'd sit down at a table,
-and they would record
-from or image your brain
-and look at the representation
-of your fingers, the digits,
-as we call them.
-And there would be a spinning
-drum, literally like a stone
-drum in front of you, or metal
-drum, that had little bumps.
-Some of the bumps were spaced
-close together, some of them
-were spaced far apart.
-And they would do
-these experiments
-where they would
-expect their subjects
-to press a lever whenever, for
-instance, the bumps got closer
-together or further apart.
-And these were very
-subtle differences.
-So in order to do
-this, you really
-have to pay attention to the
-distance between the bumps.
-And these were not
-Braille readers or anyone
-skilled in doing these
-kinds of experiments.
-What they found
-was that as people
-paid more and more
-attention to the distance
-between these bumps--
-and they would
-signal when there was
-a change by pressing a lever.
-As they did that, there
-was very rapid changes,
-plasticity in the
-representation of the fingers.
-And it could go in
-either direction.
-You could get people
-very good at detecting
-the distance between bumps that
-the distance was getting smaller
-or the distance was
-getting greater.
-So people could get very
-good at these tasks that
-are kind of hard
-to imagine how they
-would translate to the real
-world for a non-Braille reader.
-But what it told us is
-that these maps of touch
-were very much available
-for plasticity,
-and these were fully
-adult subjects.
-What it proved is that the
-adult brain is very plastic.
-And they did some beautiful
-control experiments
-that are important for
-everyone to understand,
-which is that sometimes
-they would bring people in
-and they would have
-them touch these bumps
-on this spinning drum, but
-they would have the person pay
-attention to an auditory cue.
-Every time a tone
-would go off or there
-was a shift in the
-pitch of that tone,
-they would have to signal that.
-So the subject thought
-they were doing something
-related to touch and hearing.
-And all that showed
-was that it wasn't just
-the mere action of
-touching these bumps;
-they had to pay attention
-to the bumps themselves.
-If they were placing their
-attention on the auditory cue,
-on the tone, well,
-then there was
-plasticity in the auditory
-portion of the brain,
-but not on the touch
-portion of the brain.
-And this really spits in
-the face of this thing
-that you hear so often,
-which is, every experience
-that you have is going to
-change the way your brain works.
-Absolutely not.
-The experiences that you pay
-super careful attention to
-are what open up plasticity,
-and it opens up plasticity
-to that specific experience.
-So the question then is, why?
-And Merzenich and his
-graduate students and postdocs
-went on to address
-this question of why.
-And it turns out, the answer
-is a very straightforward
-neurochemical answer.
-And the first neurochemical is
-epinephrine, also adrenaline.
-We call it adrenaline when it's
-released from the adrenal glands
-above our kidneys.
-That's in the body.
-We call it epinephrine
-in the brain,
-but they are chemically
-identical substances.
-Epinephrine is released from a
-region in the brainstem called
-locus ceruleus.
-Epinephrine is released
-when we pay attention
-and when we are alert.
-But the most important
-thing for getting plasticity
-is that there be
-epinephrine, which
-equates to alertness, plus the
-release of this neuromodulator
-acetylcholine.
-Now, acetylcholine is released
-from two sites in the brain.
-One is also in the brainstem,
-and it's named different things
-in different animals.
-But in humans, the most rich
-site of acetylcholine neurons,
-or neurons that
-make acetylcholine,
-is the parabigeminal nucleus
-or the parabrachial region.
-All you need to know is that you
-have an area in your brainstem,
-and that area sends wires,
-these axons, up into the area
-of the brain that
-filters sensory input.
-So we have this area of the
-brain called the thalamus,
-and it is getting bombarded
-with all sorts of sensory input
-all the time.
-But when I pay
-attention to something,
-I create a cone of attention,
-and what we call signal to noise
-goes up.
-So those of you with an
-engineering background
-will be familiar
-with signal to noise.
-Those of you who do not have
-an engineering background,
-don't worry about it.
-All it means is that one
-particular shout in the crowd
-comes through.
-Acetylcholine acts
-as a spotlight.
-But epinephrine for alertness,
-acetylcholine spotlighting
-these inputs, those
-two things alone
-are not enough to
-get plasticity.
-There needs to be
-this third component,
-and the third component
-is acetylcholine
-released from an area
-of the forebrain called
-nucleus basalis.
-If you really want
-to get technical,
-it's called nucleus
-basalis of Meynert.
-For any of you that are
-budding physicians or going
-to medical school,
-you should know that.
-If you have acetylcholine
-released from the brainstem,
-acetylcholine released
-from nucleus basalis,
-and epinephrine, you
-can change your brain.
-And this has been shown
-again and again and again
-in a variety of
-papers, and it is now
-considered a fundamental
-principle of how
-the nervous system works.
-If you can access these
-three things of epinephrine,
-acetylcholine from
-these two sources,
-not only will the nervous
-system change, it has to change.
-It absolutely will change.
-And that is the
-most important thing
-for people to understand if
-they want to change their brain.
-So now let's talk about
-how we would translate
-all this scientific
-information into some protocols
-that you can actually apply
-because I think that's what
-many of you are interested in.
-What you do with your health and
-your medical care is up to you.
-You're responsible for
-your health and well-being.
-So I'm not going to tell you
-what to do or what to take,
-I'm going to describe what the
-literature tells us and suggests
-about ways to access plasticity.
-We know we need epinephrine.
-That means alertness.
-Most people accomplish this
-through a cup of coffee
-and a good night's sleep.
-So I will say you should
-master your sleep schedule,
-and you should figure out how
-much sleep you need in order
-to achieve alertness when
-you sit down to learn.
-But once that's in
-place, the question
-then is, how do I
-access this alertness?
-Well, there are
-a number of ways.
-Some people use some pretty
-elaborate psychological
-gymnastics.
-They will tell
-people that they're
-going to do something and
-create some accountability.
-That could be really good.
-Or they'll post a picture
-of themselves online,
-and they'll commit to
-learning a certain amount--
-losing, excuse me, a certain
-amount of weight or something
-like this.
-So they can use either
-shame-based practices
-to potentially
-embarrass themselves
-if they don't follow through.
-They'll write checks
-to organizations
-that they hate and
-insist that they'll
-cash them if they don't
-actually follow through.
-Or they'll do it out of love.
-They'll decide that they're
-going to run a marathon
-or learn a language or something
-because of somebody they love,
-or they want to
-devote it to somebody.
-The truth is that from the
-standpoint of epinephrine
-and getting alert and activated,
-it doesn't really matter.
-Epinephrine is a
-chemical, and your brain
-does not distinguish
-between doing things out
-of love or hate, anger, or fear.
-It really doesn't.
-All of those promote
-autonomic arousal
-and the release of epinephrine.
-So I think for most
-people, if you're
-feeling not motivated to make
-these changes, the key thing is
-to identify not just one, but
-probably a kit of reasons,
-several reasons as
-to why you would want
-to make this particular change.
-And being drawn toward
-a particular goal
-that you're excited
-about can be one.
-Also being motivated to not
-be completely afraid, ashamed,
-or humiliated for not following
-through on a goal is another.
-Come up with two
-or three things,
-fear-based, perhaps, love-based,
-perhaps, or perhaps several
-of those in order to ensure
-alertness, energy, and attention
-for the task.
-And that brings us to
-the attention part.
-Now, it's one thing to
-have an electrode embedded
-into your brain and increase
-the amount of acetylcholine.
-It's another to exist
-in the real world
-outside the laboratory and have
-trouble focusing, having trouble
-bringing your attention to a
-particular location in space
-for a particular event.
-And there's a lot of discussion
-nowadays about smartphones
-and devices creating a
-sort of attention deficit,
-almost at a clinical level for
-many people, including adults.
-I think that's largely true.
-And what it means,
-however, is that we all
-are responsible for learning
-how to create depth of focus.
-There are some important
-neuroscience principles
-to get depth of focus.
-I want to briefly talk
-about the pharmacology first
-because I always get
-asked about this.
-People say, what can
-I take to increase
-my levels of acetylcholine?
-Well, there are
-things you can take.
-Nicotine is called nicotine
-because acetylcholine binds
-to the nicotinic receptor.
-There are two kinds of
-acetylcholine receptors,
-muscarinic and nicotinic.
-But the nicotinic
-ones are involved
-in attention and alertness.
-I have colleagues-- these are
-not my kind of like bro science
-buddies.
-I have those friends, too.
-This is a Nobel
-Prize-winning colleague who
-chews Nicorette while he works.
-But when I asked him,
-why are you doing this,
-he said, well, it increases
-my alertness and focus.
-Now, I've tried
-chewing Nicorette.
-It makes me super jittery.
-I don't like it because
-I can't focus very well.
-It kind of takes me too far up
-the level of autonomic arousal.
-I've got friends that
-dip Nicorette all day.
-If you're going to
-go down that route,
-you want to be very
-careful how much you rely
-on those all the time because
-the essence of plasticity
-is to create a window
-of attention and focus
-that's distinct from
-the rest of your day.
-So what are some ways that you
-can increase acetylcholine?
-How do you increase focus?
-The best way to get
-better at focusing
-is to use the mechanisms of
-focus that you were born with.
-And the key principle
-here is that mental focus
-follows visual focus.
-We are all familiar
-with the fact
-that our visual system can be
-unfocused, blurry, or jumping
-around, or we can be
-very laser-focused
-on one location in space.
-What's interesting and vitally
-important to understanding
-how to access
-neuroplasticity is that you
-can use your visual
-focus, and you
-can increase your
-visual focus as a way
-of increasing your mental
-focus abilities more broadly.
-So I'm going to
-explain how to do that.
-Plasticity starts
-with alertness.
-That alertness can come from a
-sense of love, a sense of joy,
-a sense of fear.
-Doesn't matter.
-There are pharmacologic ways
-to access alertness, too.
-The most common one is,
-of course, caffeine.
-Many people are now
-also using Adderall.
-Adderall will not
-increase focus.
-It increases alertness.
-It does not touch the
-acetylcholine system.
-The acetylcholine system
-and the focus that it brings
-is available, as I mentioned,
-through pharmacology, but also
-through these
-behavioral practices.
-And the behavioral
-practices that
-are anchored in
-visual focus are going
-to be the ones that are going to
-allow you to develop great depth
-and duration of focus.
-So let's think about
-visual focus for a second.
-When we focus on something
-visually, we have two options.
-We can either look at a
-very small region of space
-with a lot of detail
-and a lot of precision,
-or we can dilate
-our gaze and we can
-see big pieces of visual
-space with very little detail.
-It's a trade-off.
-We can't look at everything
-at high resolution.
-This is why we have these.
-The pupil more or less
-relates to the fovea
-of the eye, which is the area
-in which we have the most
-receptors, the highest
-density of receptors
-that perceive light.
-And so our acuity is
-much better in the center
-of our visual field
-than in our periphery.
-When we focus our eyes,
-we do a couple of things.
-First of all, we tend
-to do that in the center
-of our visual field,
-and our two eyes
-tend to align in what's
-called a vergence eye movement
-towards a common point.
-The other thing that happens
-is the lens of our eye moves,
-so that our brain,
-now, no longer sees
-the entire visual
-world, but is seeing
-a small cone of visual imagery.
-That small cone
-of visual imagery,
-or soda straw view of the world,
-has much higher acuity, higher
-resolution, than if I were
-to look at everything.
-Now you say, of course,
-this makes perfect sense.
-But that's about visual
-attention, not mental attention.
-Well, it turns out
-that focus in the brain
-is anchored to
-our visual system.
-I'll talk about blind
-people in a moment.
-But assuming that
-somebody is sighted,
-the key is to learn how to
-focus better visually if you
-want to bring about higher
-levels of cognitive or mental
-focus.
-When we move our eyes
-slightly inward--
-maybe you can tell that I'm
-doing this-- like so, basically
-shortening or making the
-interpupillary distance,
-as it's called, smaller,
-two things happen.
-Not only do we develop a smaller
-visual window into the world,
-but we activate a set
-of neurons in our brain
-stem that trigger the release
-of both norepinephrine,
-epinephrine, and acetylcholine.
-Norepinephrine is kind of
-similar to epinephrine.
-So in other words,
-when our eyes are
-relaxed in our head,
-when we're just
-kind of looking at our
-entire visual environment,
-moving our head around,
-moving through space,
-we're in optic flow,
-things moving past us,
-we're sitting still, we're
-looking broadly at our space,
-we're relaxed.
-When our eyes move
-slightly inward
-toward a particular
-visual target,
-our visual world shrinks, our
-level of visual focus goes up,
-and we know that this relates
-to the release of acetylcholine
-and epinephrine at
-the relevant sites
-in the brain for plasticity.
-Now, what this means is that if
-you have a hard time focusing
-your mind for sake of
-reading or for listening,
-you need to practice--
-and you can practice--
-focusing your visual system.
-Now, this works
-best if you practice
-focusing your visual system
-at the precise distance
-from the work that you intend
-to do for sake of plasticity.
-So how would this look
-in the real world?
-Let's say I am trying to
-concentrate on something related
-to, I don't know, science.
-I'm reading a science paper
-and I'm having a hard time.
-It's not absorbing.
-Spending just 60 to 120 seconds
-focusing my visual attention
-on a small window of my screen,
-meaning just on my screen
-with nothing on it,
-but bringing my eyes
-to that particular
-location increases not just
-my visual acuity
-for that location,
-but it brings about an
-increase in activity
-in a bunch of other
-brain areas that
-are associated with gathering
-information from this location.
-So, put simply, if you want to
-improve your ability to focus,
-practice visual focus.
-Now, you may ask, well,
-what about the experiment
-where people were feeling
-this rotating drum
-or listening to
-the auditory cue?
-That does involve vision at all.
-Ah.
-If you look at people
-who are learning things
-with their auditory system, they
-will often close their eyes.
-And that's not a coincidence.
-If somebody is
-listening very hard,
-please don't ask them to
-look you directly in the eye
-while also asking that
-they listen to you.
-That's actually one
-of the worst ways
-to get somebody
-to listen to you.
-If you say, now listen to
-me and look me in the eye,
-the visual system will take over
-and they'll see your mouth move,
-but they're going to hear their
-thoughts more than they're going
-to hear what you're saying.
-Closing the eyes is
-one of the best ways
-to create a cone of
-auditory attention.
-And this is what low-vision
-or no-vision folks do.
-They have tremendous capacity
-to focus their attention
-in particular locations.
-And for most people,
-vision is the primary way
-to train up this focus ability
-and these cones of attention.
-So you absolutely have
-to focus on the thing
-that you're trying
-to learn, and you
-will feel some agitation
-because of the epinephrine
-in your system.
-If you're feeling agitation
-and it's challenging to focus
-and you're feeling like
-you're not doing it right,
-chances are you're
-doing it right.
-So once you get this
-epinephrine, this alertness,
-you get the acetylcholine
-released and you
-can focus your attention, then
-the question is, for how long?
-And in an earlier
-podcast, I talked
-about these ultradian cycles
-that last about 90 minutes.
-The typical learning bout
-should be about 90 minutes.
-I think that learning bout will
-no doubt include 5 to 10 minutes
-of a warm-up period.
-I think everyone
-should give themselves
-permission to not
-be fully focused
-in the early part of that
-bout, but that in the middle
-of that bout for the
-middle hour or so,
-you should be able to maintain
-focus for about an hour or so.
-So that, for me, means
-eliminating distractions.
-That means turning
-off the Wi-Fi.
-I put my phone in
-the other room.
-I encourage you to
-try experiencing
-what it is to be completely
-immersed in an activity
-where you feel the agitation
-that your attention is drifting,
-but you continually
-bring it back.
-And that's an important point,
-which is that attention drifts,
-but we have to re-anchor it.
-We have to keep
-grabbing it back.
-And the way to do that,
-if you're sighted,
-is with your eyes, that as your
-attention drifts and you look
-away, you want to
-try and literally
-maintain visual
-focus on the thing
-that you're trying to learn.
-That's the trigger
-for plasticity.
-But the real secret is
-that neuroplasticity
-doesn't occur
-during wakefulness,
-it occurs during sleep.
-We now know that if you
-focus very hard on something
-for about 90 minutes
-or so, maybe you even
-do several bouts
-of that per day,
-if you can do that--
-some people can.
-Some people can only do one
-focus bout of learning--
-that night and the following
-nights while you sleep,
-the neural circuits that were
-highlighted, if you will,
-with acetylcholine
-transmission, will strengthen.
-And other ones
-will be lost, which
-is wonderful because that's
-the essence of plasticity.
-And what it means is
-that when you eventually
-wake up a couple of
-days or a week later,
-you will have acquired
-the knowledge forever,
-unless you go through some
-process to actively unlearn it.
-So mastering sleep
-is key in order
-to reinforce the
-learning that occurs.
-But let's say you get a
-really poor night of sleep
-after a bout of learning.
-Chances are, if you sleep the
-next night or the following
-night, that learning will occur.
-There's a stamp in the brain
-where this acetylcholine was
-released.
-It actually marks those
-synapses neurochemically and
-metabolically so that
-those synapses are more
-biased to change.
-Now, if you don't ever
-get that deep sleep,
-then you probably won't
-get those changes.
-There is also a way
-in which you can
-bypass the need for
-deep sleep, at least
-partially, by engaging in what
-I call non-sleep deep rest,
-these NSDR protocols.
-But I just want to discuss
-the science of this.
-There was a paper
-that was published
-in Cell Reports last year that
-shows that if people did--
-it was a spatial memory task,
-actually quite difficult one,
-where they had to remember the
-sequence of lights lighting up.
-And if there were just
-two or three lights
-in a particular
-sequence, it's easy.
-But as you get up to 15
-or 16 lights and numbers
-in the sequence, it actually
-gets quite challenging.
-If immediately after-- and
-it was immediately after
-the learning, the actual
-performance of this task,
-people took a 20-minute
-non-sleep deep-rest protocol
-or took a shallow nap, so lying
-down, feet slightly elevated,
-perhaps, just closing their
-eyes, no sensory input,
-the rates of learning were
-significantly higher for that
-information than were they to
-just had a good night's sleep
-the following night.
-So you can actually
-accelerate learning
-with these NSDR protocols or
-with brief naps, 90 minutes
-or less.
-For many people,
-letting the mind drift,
-where it's not
-organized in thought,
-after a period of very
-deliberate, focused effort,
-is the best way to accelerate
-learning and depth of learning.
-I want to synthesize
-some of the information
-that we've covered up until now.
-Today, I want to make sure
-that these key elements that
-form the backbone
-of neuroplasticity
-are really embedded
-in people's minds.
-First of all, plasticity
-occurs throughout the lifespan.
-If you want to learn as an
-adult, you have to be alert.
-It might seem so obvious,
-but I think a lot of people
-don't think about when in their
-24-hour cycle they're most
-alert.
-Just ask yourself
-when during the day
-do you typically tend
-to be most alert?
-That will afford
-you an advantage
-in learning specific things
-during that period of time.
-So don't give up
-that period of time
-for things that are meaningless,
-useless, or not aligned
-with your goals.
-That epinephrine released
-from your brain stem is going
-to occur more readily
-at particular phases
-of your 24-hour
-cycle than others--
-during the waking
-phase, of course.
-You should know when those are.
-Increasing acetylcholine can be
-accomplished pharmacologically
-through nicotine.
-However, there are certain
-dangers for many people
-to do that, as well as a cost.
-financial cost.
-Learning how to engage
-the cholinergic system
-through the use of
-the visual system.
-Practicing; how long
-can you maintain focus
-with blinks as you need them.
-But how long can you maintain
-visual focus on a target,
-just on a piece of paper set
-a few feet away in the room,
-or at the level of
-your computer screen.
-These are actually
-things that people
-do in communities where
-high levels of visual focus
-are necessary.
-What we're really
-talking about here
-is trying to harness the
-mechanisms of attention
-and get better at
-paying attention.
-You may want to do that with
-your auditory system, not
-with your visual system,
-either because you're
-low-vision or no-vision,
-or because you're
-trying to learn something
-that relates more to sounds.
-You should also ask
-yourself whether or not
-you're trying to focus too much
-for too long during the day.
-I know some very
-high-performing individuals,
-very high-performing in
-a variety of contexts,
-and none of them are
-focused all day long.
-Many of them take
-walks down the hallway,
-sometimes mumbling to themselves
-or not paying attention
-to anything else.
-They go for bike
-rides, they take walks.
-They are not trying to engage
-their mind at maximum focus
-all the time.
-Very few people do that because
-we learn best in these 90-minute
-bouts inside of one of
-these ultradian cycles.
-And I should repeat again that
-within that 90-minute cycle,
-you should not expect yourself
-to focus for the entire period
-of one 90-minute cycle.
-The beginning and end are
-going to be a little bit
-flickering in and out of focus.
-How do you know when one of
-these 90-minute cycles is
-starting?
-Well, typically when you wake
-up is the beginning of the first
-90-minute cycle, but it's
-not down to the minute.
-You'll be able to tap into your
-sense of these 90-minute cycles
-as you start to engage in
-these learning practices,
-should you choose.
-And then, of course, getting
-some non-sleep deep rest
-or just deliberate
-disengagement,
-such as walking or
-running or just sitting,
-eyes closed or eyes open, kind
-of mindlessly, it might seem,
-in a chair.
-Just letting your
-thoughts move around
-after a learning
-bout will accelerate
-the rate of plasticity.
-And then, of course, deep sleep.
-Many of you have
-very graciously asked
-how you can help support
-the Huberman Lab podcast.
-The best way to do that is
-to subscribe on YouTube.
-You might want to also hit
-the Notification button
-so that you don't miss
-any upcoming episodes.
-Leave a comment as well.
-If you go to Apple, you can
-give us a five-star rating,
-and there's a place there where
-also you can leave a comment.
-And if you prefer to
-listen on Spotify,
-subscribe and
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-In addition, it's always helpful
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-And as well, please
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-That's a great way to help us.
-Thanks so much for your time
-and attention, and as always,
-thank you for your
-interest in science.
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-Step number one is suffering.
-Okay.
-We all have that.
-You may have never felt
-good in your life, listener,
-but you have suffered.
-That's for sure.
-That's the first noble truth of Buddhism.
-There is suffering in this life.
-Pay attention to your
-suffering without fighting it.
-Allow it to be there.
-I did this meditation.
-If something's physically
-painful or emotionally painful,
-I used to say, let go, let go to myself.
-Didn't work.
-So one day I said, all
-right, you can stay.
-Let it stay.
-And so I do a let stay meditation.
-If there's pain, let it stay.
-If there's sorrow, let it stay.
-And as soon as I let it
-stay, it begins to change.
-So, first step is suffering,
-second step is compassionate
-attention to one's suffering
-with no resistance.
-And the third step is
-to follow the compassion
-that is naturally being
-directed toward that suffering
-until you find yourself centered in it.
-And that is a huge relief.
-And I've done this in
-massive physical pain.

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-The purpose of the glucose
-monitor is curiosity.
-It's essentially an MRI for how
-all of our different dietary
-and lifestyle strategies
-are creating this readout
-of glucose in our body,
-which I think can be really interesting,
-and in a world where so many
-cards are stacked against us
-with diet and lifestyle
-and where there's a lot of
-confusion about what's right
-for us, that can be like very
-helpful in actually reducing
-the confusion and the
-cognitive load of our choices.
-We know that keeping your
-blood sugar through the course
-of a lifetime in a low and
-healthy range, so I don't mean up
-and down spikes during the day,
-but keeping your blood sugar
-healthy throughout the course
-of your lifetime is
-probably the best thing
-we can do for longevity.
-Staying insulin sensitive,
-staying out of the diabetic range.
-And so one thing that
-the glucose monitor does
-for us is just give us more awareness
-and agency into like what the trends
-of our glucose are over time, as opposed
-to a literally one data
-point snapshot once a year
-in the doctor's office,
-which is what the majority
-of us are used to.

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-When it comes to reducing BPA exposure
-and some of these forever
-chemicals that you mentioned,
-seems like reducing fluid intake
-from plastic vessels
-is going to be number one.
-The primary source of BPA
-is in the lining of cans.
-So any drink, or soup, or
-anything that comes in a can.
-Any can, all cans?
-Any can, unless it's a high-end,
-you know, elite company
-that's made the change from
-BPA to an alternative lining,
-and they'll say that.
-So, and by the way,
-BPA has some bad relatives
-such as BPS and BPF.
-And maybe you'd be
-interested in this story.
-So when it came out
-that BPA was estrogenic,
-which is what it is.
-And by the way,
-it's kind of the evil twin of
-phthalates because phthalates
-are anti-androgenic and BPA is estrogenic,
-and phthalates make plastic
-soft and BPA makes plastic hard.
-You don't want either, okay.
-So when this came out
-that this was a bad thing,
-the manufacturer started selling
-things that say BPA-free.
-I'm sure you've seen that.
-The trick is that instead
-of BPA, they use BPS.
-Sneaky rats.
-And BPF.
-That's so sneaky.
-And these are chemicals,
-these are lookalikes,
-they're analogs, and
-they're just as harmful.

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@@ -1,17 +0,0 @@
-I don't want to use the word happy.
-I want to see you joyful.
-Joy.
-Joy is more important than happiness.
-Joy is a state of mind.
-Happiness is okay,
-yeah, I said a list of
-things I want to have,
-and I have them, and I smile a lot.
-Joyfulness is this sense
-of being in yourself,
-and I would like that.
-I would personally like
-to see you enjoying today
-and this weekend, and that's it,
-and everything else is
-going to come to you.

Data/transcripts/7TkGDj4LaOU_20241225194244.txt

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-Two benefits that I find from fasting.
-Number one, calorie restriction.
-Number two, bowel rest.
-Many individuals have
-gastrointestinal challenges.
-When they're in a time-restricted window,
-they're not feeding all day long.
-Great point.
-And those are the two
-benefits that I often see.
-An individual who is older or
-struggling to put on muscle,
-fasting would not be my primary go-to.
-I think that as individuals age,
-there's a bit of a negative
-because you have to balance
-this muscle protein synthesis.
-They're always going through a synthesis
-and a catabolism.
-So an an anabolic process
-and a catabolic process.
-As you age, it becomes more difficult
-to regulate that process.
-And if you add in additional fasting,
-go through long periods of time
-where let's say you're not training,
-you're not protecting skeletal tissue,
-that would be a place
-where I don't necessarily
-recommend fasting.

Data/transcripts/C3X0bUAiluE_20241225194259.txt

@@ -1,46 +0,0 @@
-There are a lot of
-studies now really showing
-pretty significant
-effects of e-cigarette use
-on heart and lungs.
-Not only all the
-chemicals we've mentioned,
-but also the flavorants.
-There's cinnamon aldehyde,
-another aldehyde,
-there's vanillin, there's
-the buttery flavor
-that's in there is also a lot of concern.
-You then take it and really
-inhale the resulting aerosol,
-and then we're seeing
-the lesions on the lungs.
-We're seeing young people who
-have been using e-cigarettes
-having lung collapses, pneumonia,
-asthma amongst people
-who've not had, seizures.
-One of the teens I know who
-was using four pods a day
-was having seizures.
-Makes sense because
-nicotine is a stimulant.
-Yes.
-So it can cause runaway
-excitability in the brain
-if too much is taken.
-So if that's happening
-in the living child,
-that can't be good.
-Yeah.
-That can't be good.
-That can't be good.
-Lungs, bloodstream,
-everything.
-And all the aldehydes
-are carcinogens.
-Correct.
-We know they cause cancer.
-Right, right.
-And so that's why there's
-a lot of concern there.

Data/transcripts/CVh3_8e5u8I_20241225194246.txt

@@ -1,35 +0,0 @@
-Now the diabolical thing
-about the flu virus
-is that just like the diabolical
-thing about the cold virus,
-you start shedding virus,
-that is you are contagious
-about 24 hours prior to the
-onset of first symptoms for you.
-So that means that you
-can be a flu viral vector
-even when you aren't having symptoms.
-That's just the unfortunate
-aspect of these viruses.
-They're very clever,
-they don't have brains,
-but these viruses have adapted
-to propagate from host to host to host.
-They have a drive to
-continue to stay alive
-and to infect more hosts.
-So even though they don't have a brain,
-they have a sort of, let's
-call it viral intelligence.
-And as I've said several times now,
-if you are still exhibiting symptoms
-of the cold or flu, you are contagious.
-However, with respect to the flu,
-you are most contagious
-during the three days when
-you feel the absolute worst,
-when your fever is at its worst,
-when you are coughing, and
-sneezing, headache, all of that,
-when that is at its peak,
-that is when you are most contagious.

Data/transcripts/CuzL1qxUyHw_20241225194312.txt

@@ -1,41 +0,0 @@
-You have all these voices
-that are telling you you're fucked up,
-and this is going to be hard.
-But for some reason, you put
-so much practice into you
-that you can ignore every one of 'em
-that are telling you you're
-not going to fucking make it
-and still be able to fucking make it
-because you have put the practice in
-that you know this is the process.
-It's such a daunting task that
-all the voices are saying no,
-but you still had the conviction that,
-"I know I can do this,"
-and that's what it took
-for me to get here.
-When you put that practice in,
-every day you lace 'em up...
-And I don't mean run. It's
-just a metaphor for life.
-When you lace them
-motherfuckers up every day,
-pretty soon you win.
-You have the courage and
-the heart and the dedication
-and the mindset about everybody
-can go fuck themselves.
-I know what I know.
-I've listened to myself enough
-to know I know what I know.
-None of you can hear what I'm hearing.
-And that's what people don't do enough of.
-They don't listen to their journey.
-They listen to everybody else's shit.
-You're not looking at the
-truth in front of you.
-The truth in front of you is it sucks.
-This is what it takes,
-creating another voice
-and sometimes going at it alone.

Data/transcripts/DtmwtjOoSYU_20241225194633.txt

@@ -1,2737 +0,0 @@
-- [Andrew Huberman] Welcome
-to the Huberman Lab Podcast
-where we discuss science
-and science-based tools
-for everyday life.
-- I'm Andrew Huberman,
-and I'm a Professor of Neurobiology
-and Ophthalmology at
-Stanford School of Medicine.
-Today I have the pleasure of introducing
-Dr. Robert Sapolsky.
-Dr. Sapolsky is a Professor of Biology
-and Neurosurgery at Stanford University.
-His laboratory has worked on
-a large variety of topics,
-including stress, hormones,
-including testosterone and estrogen,
-and how the different members
-of a given species interact
-according to factors like hormones,
-hierarchy within primate troops,
-and how things like stress, reproduction
-and competition impact behavior.
-One of the things that
-makes Dr. Sapolsky's work
-so unique is that it combines
-elements from primatology,
-including field studies
-with human behavior,
-in essence trying to unveil how
-humans as old world primates
-are controlled by different
-elements of our biology
-as well as our psychology.
-Dr. Sapolsky is also a prolific
-author of popular books,
-such as "Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers",
-"The Trouble with Testosterone",
-and "Behave: The Biology of
-Humans at Our Best and Worst".
-During the course of our discussion today,
-Robert also revealed to me
-that he is close to completing
-a new book entitled,
-"Determined: The Science
-of Life Without Freewill."
-And indeed we discuss the science of life
-without freewill during this episode.
-We also discuss stress and
-how best to control stress
-and how stress controls us at both,
-conscious and subconscious levels.
-We talk about testosterone and estrogen
-and hormone replacement therapy
-and how those impact
-our mind, our psychology
-and our interactions with others.
-As with any discussion with Dr. Sapolsky,
-we learn about scientific mechanisms
-that make us who we are.
-And today we also discuss tools
-and how we can leverage
-those scientific mechanisms
-in order to be better
-versions of ourselves.
-I should mention that
-unlike most guest interviews
-on the Huberman Lab podcast,
-this one had to be carried out remotely
-due to various constraints,
-so you may hear the
-occasional audio artifact,
-please excuse that.
-We felt that the value of a
-conversation with Dr. Sapolsky
-was well-worth those
-minor, minor glitches.
-And indeed the information
-that he delivers us
-is tremendously valuable, interesting,
-and in many cases actionable as well.
-Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize
-that this podcast is
-separate from my teaching
-and research roles at Stanford.
-It is, however, part of my desire
-and effort to bring zero
-cost to consumer information
-about science and science related tools
-to the general public.
-In keeping with that theme,
-I'd like to thank the
-sponsors of today's podcast.
-Our first sponsor is ROKA,
-ROKA makes sunglasses and eyeglasses
-that are of the absolute highest quality.
-The company was founded by
-two All-American swimmers from Stanford,
-and everything about the
-design of the sunglasses
-and eyeglasses was created
-with performance in mind.
-There are several things I like
-about ROKA glasses so much.
-One of them is that the aesthetic
-of the glasses is great.
-Unlike a lot of performance
-glasses out there
-that you can wear while swimming
-and running but also indoors,
-these glasses don't make
-you look like a cyborg.
-The aesthetic of them is really terrific,
-and they have a lot of
-different styles to select from.
-In addition to that, the
-quality of the lenses
-on both the sunglasses
-and eyeglasses are superb.
-The optical clarity is great,
-you can move from brightly
-lit areas to shadowed areas,
-and you don't get any degradation
-in the quality of the visual image.
-And that's absolutely essential.
-If you'd like to try ROKA glasses,
-you can go to roka.com and
-enter the code Huberman
-to save 20% off your first order.
-That's ROKA.com and enter the
-code Huberman at checkout.
-Today's podcast is also
-brought to us by InsideTracker.
-InsideTracker is a
-personalized nutrition platform
-that analyzes data from your blood
-and DNA to help you better
-understand your body
-and help you reach your health goals.
-I've long been a believer
-in getting regular blood work done.
-And now with the advent
-of quality DNA tests,
-you can get a lot of
-information about your genetics
-and how that also impacts your immediate
-and long-term health.
-The reason I'm such a fan of
-getting blood work done is
-that it is really the
-only way to understand
-what's going on in your system at a level
-that can really inform your decisions
-about your immediate and long-term health.
-The problem with a lot of
-blood and DNA tests, however,
-is that you get numbers
-back about your hormones
-and your metabolic factors, etc.,
-but you don't know what to
-do with that information.
-With InsideTracker, they have
-a very easy to use dashboard
-that gives you that information,
-and then gives you some
-suggestions and directives
-about things you could
-change about your nutrition,
-about your exercise and
-other lifestyle factors
-that can help you move those
-numbers in the direction
-that's best for you and for your health.
-If you'd like to try InsideTracker,
-you can go to InsideTracker.com/Huberman
-to get 25% off
-any of InsideTracker plans,
-just use the code Huberman at checkout.
-Today's podcast is also
-brought to us by Belcampo.
-Belcampo is a regenerative
-farm in Northern California
-that raises organic grass-fed
-and finished certified humane meats.
-I eat meat about once a day,
-in general my lunch or my
-breakfast consists of some meat,
-and that meat has to be
-of very high-quality,
-and generally I'll eat
-some vegetable as well.
-And then I tend to eat pastas and rice
-and things of that sort later
-in the day or in the evening
-in order to facilitate
-the transition to sleep.
-So I'm eating meat about once a day,
-and I always insist
-that the meat that I eat
-be of the very highest quality
-and that the animals were
-raised and maintained humanely.
-While conventionally raised
-animals are confined to feedlots
-and eat a diet of inflammatory grains,
-Belcampo's animals graze on open pastures
-and seasonal grasses resulting in meat
-that's higher in nutrients
-and healthy fats.
-In addition, they raise
-their animals in a way
-that's not just better for our health,
-but also has a positive
-impact on the environment.
-They practice regenerative agriculture,
-which means the meat is climate positive
-and carbon negative.
-So you can feel good
-about what you're eating
-at the environmental level
-and for sake of your health.
-You can order Belcampo's
-sustainably raised meats
-to be delivered to you
-by using my code Huberman
-at Belcampo.com/Huberman and
-entering my code Huberman
-to get 20% off your first time order.
-I'm partial to the ribeyes
-or the New York steaks,
-so on one day I might have a ribeye,
-the next day I might
-have a New York steak,
-I also really like the meatballs,
-I'm a particular fan of the meatballs.
-So, again, that's Belcampo.com/Huberman
-and enter the code Huberman
-at checkout to get 20% off your order.
-And now without further ado,
-my conversation with Dr. Robert Sapolsky.
-Great, well, thank you so much,
-Robert, for joining us today.
-I've been looking forward
-to this for a very long time
-and I appreciate it.
-- Oh yes, glad to be here.
-- There is an enormous range of topics
-that we could drill into,
-but just to start off,
-I want to return to a topic that is
-near and dear to your
-heart, which is stress.
-And one of the questions
-that I get most commonly is,
-what is the difference between
-short and long-term stress
-in terms of their benefits
-and their drawbacks?
-And the reason I say benefits is that,
-obviously stress and the stress
-response can keep us alive,
-but stress, of course, can
-also sharpen our mental acuity
-and things of that sort.
-So how should we conceptualize stress
-and how should we conceptualize stress
-in the short-term and in the long-term?
-- Well, basically sort of two
-graphs that one would draw.
-The first one is just all
-sorts of beneficial effects
-of stress short-term,
-and then once we get into chronicity,
-it's just downhill from there.
-Short-term because it saves
-you from the predator,
-short-term because you're
-giving a presentation
-and you think more clearly
-or your focus is better,
-all sorts of aspects of that.
-And what then winds up
-being an argument is,
-how long does it take to go
-from short-term to long-term?
-And that's somewhat arbitrary,
-but the sorts of chronic stressors
-that most people deal
-with are just undeniably
-in the chronic range, like
-having spent the last 20 years,
-daily traffic jams or abusive
-boss or some such thing.
-The other curve that's sort
-of perpendicular to this
-is dealing with the fact
-that sometimes stress is a great thing.
-Like our goal is not to
-cure people of stress
-because if it's a right kind, we love it.
-We pay good money to be stressed that way
-by a scary movie or a rollercoaster ride.
-What you wind up seeing is
-when it's the right amount of stress,
-it's what we call stimulation.
-And the basic curve there is,
-here is an optimal level of
-stimulation and too little,
-and function goes down with
-what we would call boredom,
-and too much and function goes down
-with what we would call stress.
-And the optimum is what all of us aim for.
-- In terms of the benefits
-of stress in the short-term,
-one thing that's really striking to me is,
-how physiologically the stress response
-looks so much like the excitement response
-to a positive event.
-And we can speculate that
-the fundamental difference
-between short-term stress
-and short-term excitement
-is some neuromodulator like
-dopamine or something like that.
-But is there anything else that we know
-about the biology that reveals to us?
-What really creates this
-thing we call valence
-that an experience can be
-terrible or feel awful,
-or it can feel wonderful,
-exhilarating depending on
-this somewhat subjective
-feature we call valence?
-Do we know what valence
-is or where it resides?
-- On a really mechanical level,
-if you're in a circumstance
-that is requiring
-that your heart races and
-you're breathing as fast
-and you're using your
-muscles and some such thing,
-you're going to to be
-having roughly the same
-brain activation profile,
-whether this is for something wonderful
-or something terrible with
-the one exception being
-that if the amygdala is
-part of the activation,
-this is something that's going
-to be counting as adverse.
-Whether that's the circumstance,
-an adverse circumstance
-recruiting the amygdala into it,
-and how much it's the
-amygdala being involved,
-biases you towards interpreting
-it as even more awful.
-The amygdala in some ways
-is kind of the checkpoint
-as to whether we're talking
-about excitement or terror.
-- Let's use the amygdala
-as a transition point
-to another topic that you've
-spent many years working on
-and thinking about, which is testosterone
-and other sex steroid hormones.
-I heard you say once before that
-among all the brain areas
-that bind testosterone,
-that where testosterone
-can park and create effects
-that the amygdala is among
-the most chockablock full
-of these parking spots,
-these receptors.
-I realize there's a lot here,
-but how should we think
-about the role of
-testosterone in the amygdala
-given that the engagement of
-the amygdala is fundamental
-in this transition point
-between a exhilarating,
-positive response and a
-negative stressful response?
-Or maybe just broadly,
-how should we think about testosterone
-and its effects on the brain?
-- And pertinent to the transition from
-whether this is a stressor
-that's evoking fear
-or revoking aggression in
-terms of that continuum,
-also because the amygdala
-is in the center of all
-four points on those axes.
-Basically, almost everybody out there
-has a completely wrong idea
-as to what testosterone does,
-which is testosterone makes you aggressive
-because males, virtually
-every species out there
-have more testosterone
-and a more aggressive
-and seasonal measures
-have testosterone surging
-at the time of year, they're
-punching it out over territory.
-And you take testosterone
-out of the picture,
-you castrate any mammal
-out there, including us,
-and levels of aggression will go down.
-And the easy thing then tends to conclude
-that testosterone causes aggression.
-And the reality is testosterone
-does no such thing,
-it doesn't cause aggression.
-And you can see this both
-behaviorally and in the amygdala.
-What does testosterone do?
-It lowers the threshold
-for the sort of things
-that would normally provoke
-you into being [mumbles]
-so that it happens more easily.
-It makes systems that are
-already turned on, turn on louder
-rather than turning on aggressive
-music or some such thing.
-What does that look like behaviorally?
-You take five male
-monkeys, put them together,
-they form a dominance hierarchy.
-Number one is great,
-number five is miserable,
-number three is right in between.
-Now take number three
-and shoot the guy up
-with tons of testosterone
-and he's going to be
-involved in more fights.
-Aha, testosterone uniformly
-causes aggression,
-but you look closely and
-there's a pattern to it,
-is number three now
-challenging numbers two and one
-for their place in the hierarchy.
-Absolutely not, he is brown-nosing them
-exactly as much as he used to.
-What's going on is he's
-just a miserable terror
-to poor number four and five.
-And in that case, what
-testosterone is doing
-is amplifying the preexisting
-patterns of aggression.
-Amplifying the social learning,
-that's where it'd gone into there.
-Now on sort of the more reductive level,
-so how does that translate
-into the amygdala?
-Does testosterone make amygdaloid neurons
-have action potentials?
-Does it cause those
-neurons to suddenly speak
-about fear and aggression spontaneously?
-Absolutely not.
-What they do is,
-if the amygdala is
-already being stimulated,
-it increases the rate of neuronal firing.
-What its worth?
-It shortens after-hyperpolarizations.
-So the theme there exactly is,
-it's not creating your aggression,
-it's just upping the volume of
-whatever aggression is already there.
-And once you factor that in,
-it's impossible to say anything
-about what testosterone does
-outside the context of what
-testosterone related behaviors,
-how they get treated [laughs]
-in your social settings.
-- Mm-hmm, yeah.
-And in terms of status
-and the relationship
-between individuals, either
-nonhuman primates or humans,
-can we say that testosterone
-and levels of testosterone?
-Or I should say, can we say
-that relative levels of
-testosterone between individuals
-is correlated to status
-within the hierarchy?
-- Yes, but in a way that winds up
-being totally uninteresting.
-Like you go back on
-whatever number of decades,
-the endocrinology texts,
-and there were two totally
-reliable findings in there.
-Let's see, I have a dog in here that's-
-- Oh, good, we like dogs at
-the Huberman Lab podcast.
-- Oh, okay, it is jingling with that.
-- They are welcome, they are
-absolutely welcome, yeah.
-- And there'd be two truisms,
-which is higher levels of testosterone
-predict higher levels of aggression
-in humans and other animals.
-Higher levels of testosterone
-predict higher levels of sexual activity.
-Whoa, testosterone causing both,
-and the correlation is there.
-And when you look closely, we've
-got cause and effect stuff,
-sexual behavior raises
-testosterone levels,
-aggression raises testosterone levels.
-Your levels before had
-were barely predictive
-of what's going to happen,
-so it's a response rather than a cause.
-When you look at that though
-in terms of making sense
-of individual differences,
-they don't matter a whole lot.
-You can spend an entire career
-on the social circumstances
-that produce 3.5% more
-testosterone in the circulation,
-and expect to see all sorts
-of interesting implications.
-And that's not really the case,
-it's somewhat of a yes or no modulator
-of the much more subtle social
-stuff that's already there.
-- Very interesting.
-I think that there are
-a lot of misconceptions
-about human biology, but
-testosterone seems to be one area
-where at least from what I
-can find on the internet,
-it's sort of at the peak
-of misunderstanding.
-Maybe we could just ask
-a few more questions
-about testosterone and sexual behavior
-because there's an interesting story there
-about castration versus non-castration
-and the causality, again.
-But before you address that,
-I just want to highlight
-something that you said
-that I think is so vital,
-which is that behaviors,
-such as aggressive behaviors
-and sexual behaviors
-can actually increase testosterone.
-Did I hear that correctly?
-- Yeah.
-- And the reverse is sort of
-true, but not in a causal way.
-Is that right?
-- The opposite direction
-of the causality, yeah.
-- Yeah, yeah, so if I were to increase
-somebody's testosterone by 30%,
-male or female doesn't matter,
-their sexual behavior
-may or may not change.
-- Essentially zero effect at all.
-Your brain is not that sensitive
-to fluctuations in testosterone levels.
-In terms of things like aggression,
-raising testosterone,
-this is a great footnote.
-If you have the right type of
-willing to die on the trenches
-devotion sort of thing,
-watching your favorite team play a sport
-will raise your testosterone levels
-as you sit there with the
-potato chips in your armchair.
-So it's not the physicality of aggression,
-it's the psychological framing of it.
-So, yeah, testosterone
-is not causing that.
-And a great way to appreciate that is,
-okay, so you had all these testosterone
-sexual behavior correlations,
-and you do the definitive
-endocrine intervention,
-which is you do a subtraction study,
-you've removed the testes.
-And as I said before, levels
-of sexual behavior goes down.
-Good, we've just shown
-that testosterone is
-somehow have caused it.
-Critically they go down,
-but not down to zero,
-whether you are a rat or a
-monkey or a human, whatever.
-And what predicts how much residual
-sexual behavior is there,
-how much sexual behavior
-there was before castration?
-What that's telling you is by then
-that's behavior that's being
-carried by social learning
-and context rather than by the hormone,
-exact same thing with aggression.
-Drops after castration,
-doesn't go to zero,
-the more prior history of it,
-the more it just keeps
-coasting along on its own
-even without testosterone.
-- Very interesting.
-Can we say that there is an exception
-in terms of the early
-organizing effects of hormones?
-Like, for instance, if a
-developing animal is deprived of
-a testosterone or estrogen
-or aromatized testosterone into estrogen,
-there's a whole story there is, you know.
-But then I could imagine that
-the circuits of the brain
-that are responsible for
-initiating sexual behavior
-in the first place might not emerge,
-and therefore not be sensitive
-to the testosterone later in life.
-Is that right?
-Okay.
-- Yeah, exactly.
-And a great way of seeing that
-is this totally nutty biological factoid,
-which is the second to
-fourth digit ratio enhanced.
-- Oh yeah.
-- Totally obscure thing, the
-ratio of one to the other
-in some way reflects
-levels of testosterone,
-androgen exposure during fetal life.
-And I can't remember which
-way it goes and it's minuscule
-and you need a thousand
-people in your sample size
-to be able to see anything,
-but you see it in other primates,
-it's already there in fetal
-sonograms, all of that.
-So that's a readout of subtle differences
-in prenatal exposure,
-and that winds up being a
-predictor of a whole range of
-sort of stuff in adult behavior.
-So, yeah, at the fetal end,
-when you're still building everything,
-testosterone and the amount of that
-is making a huge difference.
-By the time you're an adult,
-it's just somewhat of
-an old and a non-signal.
-- Yeah, I have a confession,
-which is that I was a
-master's student at Berkeley
-in Marc Breedlove's arena, so
-I'm an author on that paper,
-although I'm deep within the author line,
-and you got the description
-of it exactly right
-that it's the D2, the index
-finger to the ring finger ratio
-is more similar in females
-than it is in males.
-In males, the index finger
-tends to be shorter.
-And for people out there
-who are listening to this
-who are now freaking out or measuring,
-that there is a proper way
-to measure this, which is,
-eyeballing it doesn't work all the time
-unless at the extremes.
-And there's some very
-interesting stories there.
-It actually has been replicated
-no fewer than five times,
-Marc Breedlove tells me.
-But yes, in terms of these
-early organizing effects,
-those seem very robust in most studies.
-These later effects are
-sort of activation of
-neural circuits by hormones.
-I'm absolutely fascinated by this.
-And I do have a couple other questions,
-which is, we normally associate
-testosterone with males,
-but of course, females
-make testosterone as well
-from the adrenals and
-presumably elsewhere too.
-I'm guessing if we looked hard enough,
-we'd probably find that
-there were other sources
-of androgens in females.
-Can we say
-that these general contours
-of effects on aggression
-also pertain to females?
-And I suppose I should ask in particular
-about female-female aggression,
-which does exist in many species,
-female-male agregression as
-well as maternal aggression,
-which is a robust aspect of
-our evolution, of course,
-that the mother will,
-an angry mother animal
-of any kind protecting her
-young is truly dangerous,
-in the best sense of the word.
-- And that type of post-parturition,
-period after birth aggression
-is all about estrogen,
-progesterone, those sorts of things.
-Female aggression, the rest of the time
-has testosterone as a major
-player at a much lower level
-on the average.
-On the average, one always has to say,
-but it's basically the same punchlines.
-In females, the lower levels
-of testosterone are essential
-for typical levels of
-aggression and sexual behavior.
-Nonetheless, they're not causing it,
-it's not sensitive to small
-individual differences.
-Same exact thing.
-You can get way over-impressed
-with the importance of
-androgens in females
-just as readily as in males.
-- So in line with that,
-how should we conceptualize testosterone?
-I realize there isn't a single sentence
-that can capture a
-hormone in all its effects
-because hormones have
-so many different slow
-and fast effects on the brain,
-on other glands on their own,
-on the very glands that produce them.
-But as I've heard you talk
-about testosterone today
-and over the years, I
-start to get the impression
-that as the most misunderstood molecule
-[laughs] in human health in the universe,
-it's clearly doing
-something very powerful.
-It's shifting the way that
-certain neural circuits work,
-adjusting the gain on the
-amygdala, as you described,
-and certainly other things as well.
-Is there any truism
-about testosterone like,
-and its relationship to effort
-or its relationship to resilience,
-and in a way that maybe will
-help me and other people
-to sort of think about how
-to think about testosterone?
-- Yeah.
-Maybe three separate answers to that.
-The first one is, I think
-it's a fair summary to think
-that when it comes to
-motivated strong behaviors,
-what testosterone does is make you
-more of whatever you already are.
-And that to me, sexual arousal,
-libido, aggressiveness,
-spontaneous aggression,
-reactive aggression, things of that sort.
-It's upping the volume of things
-that are already strongly there.
-Second way to think about it is,
-well, here's like my favorite
-finding about testosterone.
-And this was some wonderful
-work by a guy, John Wingfield,
-who's one of the best behavioral
-endocrinologists out there.
-And about 20 years ago he
-formulated what was called
-The Challenge Hypothesis
-of Testosterone in Action.
-What does testosterone do?
-Testosterone is what you secrete
-when your status is being challenged,
-and it makes it more likely that you'll do
-the behaviors needed to
-hold onto your status.
-Okay, so that's totally
-boringly straightforward
-if you are a baboon.
-If somebody is challenging your high rank,
-the appropriate response on your part
-is going to be aggression.
-All right, so we've just got
-in through the back door,
-testosterone and aggression, again.
-But then you get to humans,
-and humans have lots of
-different ways of achieving
-or maintaining status.
-And all you need to do is go to like some
-fancy private school's annual auction,
-and you will see all these
-half-drunk alpha males
-competing to see who can
-give the most money away
-as a show of conspicuous like
-property that they have.
-And in a setting like that, I mean,
-I haven't been able to take urine samples,
-if there's times, unfortunately,
-but that shows the flip side of it.
-If you have a species
-that hands out status
-in a very different sort of way,
-testosterone is going to boost that also.
-Okay, so that generates a
-totally nutty prediction.
-Wow, take people in a circumstance,
-say playing an economic game
-where you get status by being trustworthy
-and being generous in your
-interactions with the game.
-If you give people testosterone,
-does that make them more generous?
-And that's absolutely the case.
-Totally cool finding.
-I'm showing you, I don't know,
-basically if you took a
-whole bunch of Buddhist monks
-and shot them up with testosterone,
-they'd get all competitive with each other
-as to who could do the most
-random acts of kindness.
-And if we have a societal
-problem with too much aggression,
-the first culprit to look
-at is not testosterone,
-the first to look at is
-that we hand out so much
-damn elevated status
-for aggression in so many circumstances.
-So I find that finding to be fantastic.
-Third thing about
-subtlety of testosterone.
-Okay, so like some subtler
-behavioral effects,
-you give testosterone to people
-and they become more confident,
-they become more self-confident.
-Well, that's good, people pay to take
-all sorts of nonsensical self-help courses
-that will boost your self-esteem.
-And that's a good thing
-unless testosterone
-makes you more confident,
-that is inaccurate,
-and you're more likely to
-barrel into wrong decisions.
-What's shown in economic game
-play is that testosterone
-by making you more confident
-makes you less cooperative
-because who needs to cooperate
-because I'm on top of this all on my own.
-Testosterone makes people
-cocky and impulsive.
-And that might be great in one setting,
-but if and the other is,
-you're absolutely sure your army is to
-get over on the other
-country in three days.
-So hell, let's start World War I,
-and you get a big surprise out of it.
-Testosterone altering
-risk assessment beforehand
-probably played a big role in
-that kind of miscalculation.
-- Super-interesting.
-I always think about testosterone
-and dopamine being close
-cousins in the brain,
-not just because of their relationship
-through the pituitary and hypothalamus.
-That, of course, but also because
-of dopamine's salient role
-in creating this bias
-towards exteroception.
-When somebody takes a drug,
-with it increases dopamine,
-or they're chockablock full of dopamine.
-They tend, I want to highlight 'tend'
-because this is, I'm
-really generalizing here,
-but they tend to focus on outward goals,
-things beyond the
-boundaries of their skin.
-And testosterone seems
-to do a bit of the same,
-it tends to put us into a similar mode of
-perceiving the outside world in ways
-that we're asking questions like,
-how do I relate to this
-other of my species?
-How do I relate to these goals?
-Is there anything that we can
-do to better conceptualize
-the relationship between testosterone
-and dopamine and motivation?
-Or would that just take
-us down the alleyways of,
-of neural pathways and the hypothalamus?
-Which is fine too.
-- Well, I think it's got lots to do with
-sort of this massive
-revisionism about dopamine.
-Everyone, since the pharaohs
-got brought up being taught
-that dopamine is about
-pleasure and reward.
-It turns out it isn't, it's
-about anticipation of reward,
-and it's about generating the motivation,
-the goal-directed behavior
-needed to go get that reward.
-And before you know it, you're
-using like elevated dopamine,
-your entire life to motivate you to do
-whatever is going to get
-you like entry into heaven
-after-life kind of, it's
-doing that sort of thing.
-So it's really about the motivation.
-And what testosterone
-does even in individuals
-who are not aggressive and
-why testosterone replacement
-is often a very helpful
-thing for aging males is
-it increases energy, it
-increases a sense of thereness,
-a presence of alertness
-that increases motivation.
-So that's a whole aspect,
-which then takes us into
-is your motivation to get up and like go,
-hand out lots of soup in a soup
-kitchen for homeless people,
-or is it to get up and go
-ethnically cleanse a village.
-It's got much to do with
-what your makeup was
-before the testosterone got onboard.
-So it's activating in an energetic sense,
-testosterone within minutes
-increases glucose uptake
-into skeletal muscle.
-You're just more awake
-and alert and all of that,
-and that has a lot to do
-with what dopamine does.
-And as one might predict then,
-getting just the right
-levels of testosterone
-infused into your bloodstream
-feels great to lab rats.
-They will lever press to
-get infused into the range
-that optimizes dopamine release.
-So there is, you are absolutely right,
-they're deeply intertwined.
-- Yeah, such beautiful biology there.
-And I love the way you
-encapsulate their relationship.
-I want to ask about estrogen,
-we don't hear about estrogen as often,
-and it's always
-interesting to me now doing
-some public facing education,
-that testosterone is this
-very controversial molecule,
-just to say it is almost
-controversial. [laughs]
-[Robert laughs]
-But estrogen doesn't seem
-to hold the same controversial weight,
-and yet estrogen has a
-very powerful effects
-on both the animal brain
-and on the human brain
-of males and females.
-Men do not want their
-estrogen to go too low.
-Terrible things happen, they
-will lose cognitive function,
-libido can drop.
-So men need estrogen as well,
-but perhaps maybe we can put
-the same filter on estrogen
-as we did on testosterone.
-Are there any general themes of estrogen
-that people should be aware of
-or that you think that are
-generally misunderstood?
-Is it really all about
-feelings and empathy
-and making us more sensitive?
-I sense not.
-- No, and it's once again
-very context dependent.
-And if estrogen after giving
-birth is playing a central role
-in you wanting to shred
-the face of somebody
-getting too close to your
-kittens kind of thing,
-we know it's not just warm,
-fuzzy, empathic kind of stuff.
-Estrogen in lots of ways
-could be summarized by,
-if you've got a choice in the matter
-between having a lot of estrogen
-in your bloodstream or not,
-go for having a lot of estrogen.
-It enhances cognition,
-exactly as you said,
-it stimulates neurogenesis
-in the hippocampus,
-it increases glucose and oxygen delivery,
-it protects you from dementia,
-it decreases inflammatory
-oxidative damage to blood vessels,
-which is why it's good for protecting
-from cardiovascular disease
-in contrast to testosterone,
-which is making everyone
-of those things worse.
-This springs up this
-minefield with a question,
-which is, so what about
-post-menopausal estrogen?
-And all sorts of lab studies
-with non-human primates
-suggested that you keep
-estrogen levels high
-after a monkey's equivalent of menopause.
-And you're going to keep
-brain health a lot better
-or decreasing the risk
-of dementia, stroke,
-every such thing.
-Estrogen is a great
-antioxidant, all of that.
-So in the 90s I think
-when Healy, I'm forgetting her name,
-but when there was the first
-female head of the NIH,
-Bernadine Healy set up this
-massive prospective human study,
-what was going to be the
-biggest one of all times,
-looking at the pluses and minuses
-of post-menopausal estrogen.
-And tens of thousands of
-women, and this was...
-And they had to cut the study short
-because what they were seeing was,
-estrogen was not only
-doing the normal bad stuff
-that you expect in terms of
-some decalcification stuff,
-but it was increasing the risk
-of cardiovascular disease,
-and it was increasing the risk of stroke,
-and it was increasing
-the risk of dementia.
-And this ground to a halt and everybody,
-they stopped the study and front page news
-and everybody panned at that point.
-And nobody could make sense of it
-who had been spending the
-last 20 years studying
-the exact same thing in primates
-and seeing all the protective effects.
-And the explanation turned
-out to be one of those things
-where like the law of
-unexpected consequences.
-Okay, menopause in women,
-it lasts different lengths of time,
-that may be a factor that's going to come.
-You know what, let's not start
-giving our study subjects
-more estrogen until they're
-totally past menopause.
-And when you've got that
-lag time in between,
-you shift all sorts of
-estrogen receptor patterns,
-and that's where all of
-the bad effects come from.
-- Wow!
-- All of the monkey studies
-had involved just maintaining
-ovulatory levels into the
-post-menopausal period.
-And you do that and you get great effects.
-Estrogen is one of the
-greatest predictors of
-protection from Alzheimer's
-disease, all of that,
-but it needs to be physiological.
-Just keep continuing what
-your body has been doing
-for a long time versus let
-the whole thing shutdown
-and suddenly like try to
-fire up the coal stoves
-at the bottom of the
-basement kind of thing,
-and get that going,
-there you get utterly different outcomes.
-And that caused a lot of
-human health consequences
-when people suddenly decided that estrogen
-is in fact neurologically
-endangering post-menopausally.
-- Wow, that's fascinating.
-And I never thought that these
-steroid hormone receptors
-could by not binding estrogen,
-being devoid of estrogen
-binding, I should say,
-could then set off opposite
-biochemical cascades.
-Fascinating.
-I guess it raises the question
-about testosterone replacement too,
-whether or not people should
-[laughs] talk to their
-doctor before too long.
-Men and women talk to your
-physicians before too long
-to avoid these, whatever is
-happening in these periods
-where there isn't sufficient
-testosterone and/or estrogen.
-It sounds like could
-cause longer-term problems
-even when therapies are introduced.
-- Two additional misery
-slash complications.
-So, okay, you're trying to understand,
-you look at women with a history
-with or without post-menopausal
-estrogen replacement
-where it's done great.
-And you're seeing 20 years later,
-estrogen is a predictor of a
-decreased risk of Alzheimer's.
-Then you got to start
-trying to do the unpacking
-prospective type studies.
-How much estrogen?
-At which times?
-Estrogen is a catchall term
-for a bunch of hormones,
-estrone, estradiol, estriol.
-How much of each one of them?
-Natural or synthetic?
-Go try to figure all of that out.
-And the second complication is,
-it's often hard to say anything
-about what estrogen does
-outside the context of
-what progesterone is doing.
-And often it's not the
-absolute levels of either,
-it's the ratio of the two.
-This is such a more
-complicated endocrine system
-than testosterone.
-And because you have to
-generate dramatic cyclicity
-that like no male hypothalamus
-ever has to dream off.
-It's a much, much more complicated system,
-thus, it's a lot more
-complicated to understand,
-let alone like figure out what
-the ideal benefits are of it.
-- Yeah.
-I don't know what to
-make of the literature on
-dropping rates of testosterone
-and endocrine disruptors.
-I was at Berkeley when Tyrone Hayes
-published his data on these frogs
-that were drinking water
-from various locations
-throughout the United States,
-not just in California,
-and seeing very severe
-endocrine disruption
-through blockade or,
-and of androgen receptors
-and all sorts of issues.
-And you hear this all the time now
-that sperm counts are dropping,
-that there are all these
-endocrine disruptors
-that there's birth control in the water,
-in the drinking water.
-It all starts to sound a little crazy,
-and yet I've also been fooled before by,
-I guess a good example would be,
-there's a lot of crazy
-stuff in the world online
-about all the terrible stuff
-in highly processed foods.
-And yet you've got very
-respectable people,
-endocrinologists at UCSF
-like Robert Lustig saying,
-yeah, a lot of these hidden sugars
-and these emulsifiers,
-they're causing real problems.
-So I've become more
-open-minded about the question.
-And so, are we suffering
-from drops in sperm counts
-and testosterone and
-estrogen and fertility
-as a consequence of endocrine disruptors
-in the environments and food,
-or because of social reasons?
-Is there anything that
-we can hang our hat on
-like real data that you're confident in?
-Or is it just a mess?
-- No, the phenomenon does
-appear to be quite real.
-Cross-sectional studies,
-human populations,
-or I still don't understand why this was
-one of the first things
-that Hayes spotted.
-Decreasing testicle size in crocodiles.
-[Andrew laughs]
-Go figure why that was
-one of the first contributions to this.
-And I think the phenomenon
-is absolutely real.
-And what you're then left with
-is two classic challenges,
-which is this is correlated with
-something broad environmental toxins.
-Which ones, how much, when, etc.?
-And the other one always
-being, well, okay,
-dropping is a dropping
-enough to make a difference.
-How big of an effect is this?
-And those are where the
-juries are still out.
-- Yeah, it's an area that I know
-there's a lot of interest in,
-and you've got groups of people
-who won't touch a receipt at a store
-because of the BPAs that
-are on the inks of the...
-And then [laughs] you've got people
-who don't care about those things.
-It is a fascinating area.
-I hope that more biology
-will be done there soon.
-I'd like to briefly return to stress.
-You described a study once about two rats,
-one running on a wheel voluntarily,
-one who is basically
-stuck in a running wheel,
-and it's forced to run
-anytime, rat number one runs.
-So in one case the rat is
-voluntarily exercising. [laughs]
-And in the other case,
-the rat is being forced
-to go to PE class, so to speak,
-but really, and seeing
-divergent effects on biology.
-And I'd like to just
-touch into this and use it
-as kind of a case study for
-stress mitigation in general.
-I'm rather obsessed in our
-colleague, David Spiegel,
-Associate Chair of Psychiatry at Stanford
-is obsessed with this question of,
-how humans can start to
-mitigate their own stress?
-What do you think about stress mitigation
-and what should we do as
-individuals and as families
-and as a culture to try
-and encourage people
-to mitigate their stress, but in ways
-that are not going to turn
-us into rat number two,
-where we're being forced
-to mitigate our own stress
-and therefore it becomes
-more stressful. [laughs]
-- And what you see is, rat number one gets
-all the benefits of exercise.
-Rat number two gets all the
-downsides of severe stress
-with the same exact muscle expenditure
-and movements going on.
-Perfectly yoked, great example
-that it's the interpretation on your head.
-And I haven't kept up
-with that literature,
-but I'll bet you, rat number two
-is having a whole lot more
-activity in its amygdala
-than is rat number one.
-Okay, so stress mitigation.
-Anything I should say here
-I should preface with,
-I'm reasonably good at telling people
-what's going to happen if they
-don't manage their stress,
-but I'm terrible at actually
-like managing stress
-or advising how to manage that.
-I'm much better with the
-bad news aspect of it.
-But what you see is, by now
-just a classic literature,
-half a century old, sort of showing
-what are the building blocks of stress.
-Not, ooh, you step outside
-and you've been gored by an elephant,
-and can you grow from your experience?
-And what doesn't kill
-you makes you stronger.
-In that you could have a stress response,
-but you're in the realm of the gray zone
-of ambiguous social
-interactions, that sort of thing.
-Some people have massive stress responses,
-others not at all, in between, enjoy it.
-Like what are the building blocks of,
-what makes psychological stress stressful?
-And the first one is exactly
-what is brought up by that running study.
-Do you have a sense of control?
-A sense of control makes
-stressors less stressful.
-And the running wheel shows
-that or studies where you,
-you lab rat or you
-college freshman volunteer
-have been trained that
-by pressing a lever,
-you're less likely to get a shock.
-And today you're at the
-lever they're working away
-and unbeknownst to you the
-lever has been turned off,
-and it has no effect on shock frequency,
-but because you think
-you have some control,
-you have less of a stress response.
-If you were a rat and doing
-this day-in and day-out,
-you're less likely to get an ulcer.
-So a sense of control.
-And related to that is a
-sense of predictability.
-Rat get shocked, human
-gets shocked, whatever,
-and the scenario either is
-the shocks come now and then,
-or the shocks come now and then,
-and 10 seconds before a
-little warning light comes on.
-And when you get the warning light,
-the shocks are distressful.
-You got predictability
-because if you're not
-getting warning lights,
-any second you could be a half second away
-from the next shock.
-You get a warning light,
-and you know that if there isn't one,
-you've got at least 10
-seconds worth of relaxation.
-You know what's coming,
-you can prepare your coping responses,
-and best of all afterward you
-know when you're finally safe,
-when you can recover from it.
-And that's enormously protective.
-Others outlet for frustration,
-you take a rat who is getting shocked,
-and if it could run on a running wheel,
-that's a protective thing,
-that's doing it voluntarily.
-If you've got a rat and he
-can gnaw on a bar of wood,
-a stressor is less stressful.
-Unfortunately, if you have
-a rat or primate or human
-and they're stressed, the
-ability to aggressively dump on
-somebody smaller and weaker
-also reduces the stress response.
-And the fact that displacement
-aggression reduces stress
-accounts for a huge percent
-triggers like unhappiness.
-So all of those are variables,
-get social support as well.
-That's a good one.
-Interpreting circumstances is being
-good news rather than bad.
-Hurray, so you've got this very simple
-sort of like take home recipe of go out
-and get as much control
-and as much predictability
-and as many outlets and as much
-social support as possible,
-and you're going to do just fine.
-And you go out and do that,
-and that's a recipe for total disaster
-because it's much, much
-more subtle than that.
-In one great example, okay,
-so you're getting shocks,
-you want a warning beforehand,
-get a little warning light
-10 seconds before each shock,
-it's wonderfully protective.
-Get a warning light one
-second before the shock
-doesn't do anything.
-There's not enough time for you to get
-the psychological benefits
-of the anticipation.
-Now instead, gets the
-little warning coming on
-two minutes before each shock,
-and it's going to make things worse
-because you're not going to
-be sitting there like reveling
-and sort of your sense of predictability,
-and it's soon going to be, oh.
-You're going to be sitting
-there for two minutes saying,
-damn, here it comes.
-Predictive information only
-works in a narrow domain.
-Similarly, control.
-Do you want to have a sense of
-control on the face of stress?
-And the answer is, only if it
-is a mild to moderate stressor
-because what's happening then,
-your sense of control is
-completely independent
-of the reality of whether
-you have control or not,
-but in the face of mild
-to moderate stressors,
-a sense of control gets interpreted as,
-wow, look how much worse
-things could have been.
-Thank God, I have control,
-I'm on top of this to master my fate.
-In contrast, if it's a major stressor,
-all that arbitrary sense of control does
-is make you think,
-oh my God, look how much
-better it could have been.
-I could have prevented it.
-And we all know that intuitively
-like we do that in the face
-of people's worst stressors.
-Nobody could have stopped the car
-the way the kids suddenly jumped out.
-It wouldn't have mattered
-and if you had gotten them
-to the doctor a month ago,
-instead of now, it
-wouldn't have made any...
-You didn't actually have any control.
-And what you see is,
-you absolutely want to have
-a huge sense of control
-over mild to moderate stressors,
-and especially ones that
-result in a good outcome.
-Hooray, for me, and in the
-face of horrible stressors,
-what you want to do is
-like self-deception,
-and like truth and beauty
-don't necessarily go
-hand-in-hand at that point.
-And that's why stress management
-techniques impact control
-and predictability wind up
-being far worse than neutral
-if you're preaching that
-to somebody homeless
-or somebody with terminal cancer,
-or somebody who is a refugee.
-Tell a neurotic middle-class person
-that they have the psychological tools
-to turn hell into heaven.
-And there's some truth to that.
-Do the same thing to somebody
-who is going through a real hell,
-and that's just privileged heartlessness
-to do that because that doesn't work.
-More and more outlets, if
-your outlets are damaging,
-that's not a good way to mitigate stress.
-Social support, if you're
-confusing mere acquaintances
-for real social support,
-you're going to have the rug pulled out
-from under you at some point.
-If you're mistaking
-social support for being,
-going and bitching and moaning
-and demanding supportiveness
-from everyone around you
-rather than you doing
-some of that reciprocally,
-that's not going to work very well either.
-It's not simple.
-It's not for nothing that
-lots of us are really lousy.
-It, like being good friends
-and things like that,
-and why it takes a lot
-of work to do it right?
-Because you do it wrong
-and it may temporarily
-seem like a great thing,
-but when it turns out to be
-completely misplaced faith,
-you're going to be feeling
-worse than before you started.
-- Interesting.
-These days, there's a lot of interest in
-using physical practices
-to mitigate stress,
-trying to get out of the ruminating,
-and to some extent take
-control of neural circuits
-in the brain by using exercise
-and using breathing and hypnosis.
-And, of course, hypnosis has
-a mental component as well.
-What are your thoughts
-on stress mitigation
-from the standpoint of,
-okay, so we don't want
-to be rat number two,
-we want to select something for ourselves,
-so we have to take the
-initiative for ourselves.
-Being forced into exercising is not,
-it could actually have
-negative health effect perhaps.
-So we need to pick something that we like,
-we need to take control of it.
-In terms of supporting other people,
-you touched on that a bit.
-What is the best way to
-support other people?
-Is it to talk about the stressful thing?
-I mean, I'm not asking you
-to play psychologist here,
-but I find divergent data on this.
-We can spin ourselves up into a lather
-by ruminating on something.
-And language seems to me
-like it's a wonderful tool,
-but it's also a fairly deprived tool
-because it doesn't really get into
-the core of our physiology
-like something like breathing would.
-So what are your thoughts on more,
-for lack of a better way to
-put it, more head-centered,
-cognitive approaches to stress mitigation
-versus kind of going
-at the core physiology.
-Cold showers now are even
-a thing to some extent
-just to get people stress acclimated,
-voluntarily taking cold showers.
-- That makes some sense physiologically,
-preconditioning for when
-the real stressors come.
-In terms of what you bring up,
-oh, transcendental meditation,
-mindfulness, exercise,
-prayer, sort of reflecting on gratitude,
-all that sort of thing.
-Collectively they work on the average,
-they work in terms of,
-they can lower heart rate
-and cholesterol levels and have
-all sorts of good outcomes,
-but they compromise us.
-One is exactly the caveat
-that comes out of the
-running wheel study is,
-it doesn't matter how
-many of your friends swear
-by the stress management technique.
-If doing it makes you want to scream
-your head off after 10 seconds,
-that's not the one that's
-going to work for you.
-So read the fine print
-and the testimonials,
-but it's got to be something
-that works for you.
-Another one is the stress
-management type techniques
-that work, you can't save
-them for the weekend,
-you can't save them for
-when you're stuck on
-hold on the phone with
-Muzak for two minutes.
-It's got to be something where
-you stop what you're doing
-and do it virtually,
-daily or every other day,
-and spend 20, 30 minutes doing it.
-And what you see coming
-out of that is this
-like 80/20 rule from economics.
-80/20, 80% of the complaints
-in the store come from
-20% of the customers, things like that.
-What you see is, if your
-entire life consists of
-every single thing on your shoulders,
-that you can't say no to 24/7.
-If you've stopped that and finally said,
-my wellbeing is important enough
-that I'm finally get to
-say no to some of the stuff
-that I can't say no to.
-And I'm going to do it
-every day for 20 minutes,
-whatever stress management technique
-you then do in those 20
-minutes sort of who knows what,
-you're already 80% of the way there
-simply by having decided your
-wellbeing is important enough
-that you're going to stop every single day
-and have that as a priority.
-And that's exactly the same finding
-that you find people with
-chronic depression untreated
-that merely calling and
-getting an appointment
-to see a mental health professional,
-people start feeling better already
-because it's evidence that
-you've been activated,
-and you matter enough to do this,
-and you could conceive
-that this would actually
-have a good outcome rather
-than a hopeless one.
-Just doing something meditative
-or reflective every day or so,
-and it hardly even matters
-which one you're doing.
-And what comes out of that
-is thus another warning,
-which is do not trust anybody who says,
-it has been scientifically proven
-that their brand of stress management
-works better than the other ones.
-Just watch your wallet at that point.
-- Yeah, amen.
-I think one of the core goals of my lab
-and David Spiegel's lab,
-and I know you've worked with David
-and published papers with David as well
-is to really try and find out
-what are the various
-entry points to this thing
-that we call the autonomic nervous system
-and the stress system,
-and these systems that when gone unchecked
-really can take us down a dark path.
-And the idea that there
-are so many entry points
-is really the one that keeps,
-what the data keep telling
-us over and over again.
-So there's no magic
-breathing tool or exercise,
-it's any variety of those or one of those.
-And, again, we come back to this idea
-that it's the one that you select
-and the one that you make space for,
-and it's the one that you hopefully enjoy
-that's going to work best
-in terms of physiology.
-- And [mumbles] benign for those people
-who were stuck around you.
-- Right, right, absolutely.
-And that brings me to this question of,
-I find it amazing that
-how we perceive an event,
-and whether or not we chose
-to be in that event or not
-can have such incredible different effects
-on circuitry of the brain
-and circuitry of the body
-and biology of cells.
-And in some ways it boggles my mind,
-like how can a decision made presumably
-with the prefrontal cortex,
-although other parts of the brain as well,
-how can that change
-essentially the polarity
-of a response in the body.
-And, I mean, you've talked before
-about Type A personalities in there.
-We don't have to go into
-all the detail there
-for sake of time, but it is interesting
-that the effects of endothelial cells.
-I mean, literally of the size of, [laughs]
-of the portals for blood
-are in opposite direction,
-depending on whether or not somebody
-wants to be in a situation
-as a highly motivated person.
-Maybe you could just give
-us the top contour of that
-because I think it really illustrates
-this principle so beautifully.
-And then maybe if you would,
-you could just speculate on
-how the brain might
-have this switch to turn
-one experience from terrible to beneficial
-or from beneficial to terrible,
-it's really fascinating.
-- Well, all you need to do is like tonight
-before you're going to sleep
-and you're lying in bed
-and you're nice and drowsy
-and your heart's beating nice and slow,
-you start thinking about the fact that
-that heart isn't going to beat forever.
-[Andrew laughs]
-And imagine your toes
-getting cold afterward
-and imagine the flow of
-blood coming to a halt
-and all of you clotting.
-You're going to be doing
-something with your physiology
-at that point that 99% of
-mammals out there only do
-if they're running frantically.
-And you're going to be turning on your
-sympathetic stress response with thought,
-with emotions, with memory.
-And the measure of that is
-just how much the cortex
-and the limbic system
-sends projections down
-to all the autonomic
-regulators in the brain.
-You can think autonomic
-regulatory neurons into action
-in ways that only other animals can do
-with like extremes of
-environmental circumstances.
-And given that and the autonomic rule,
-I mean, the other big
-challenge in understanding it
-is gigantic individual differences.
-And that's,
-when you talk about the
-optimal amount of stress,
-the counts of stimulation,
-and in general that stress
-that's not too severe
-and doesn't go on for too long
-and there is overall in
-a benevolence setting.
-And under those conditions,
-we'd love being stressed
-by something unexpected and
-out of control predictability
-like a really interesting plot turn
-in the movie you're watching.
-That's great, but you get
-the individual differences
-that somehow has to accommodate the fact
-that for some people, the
-perfect stimulatory amount
-of stress is like getting up early
-for an Audubon birdwatching
-walk next Sunday morning.
-And for somebody else,
-it's signing up to be
-like a mercenary in Yemen.
-[Andrew laughs]
-And tremendous individual differences
-that swamp any simple prescriptions.
-- Yeah, the prefrontal cortex,
-this thinking machinery
-that we all harbor, it's
-such a double-edged sword.
-And what's remarkable to me is,
-how the areas of the brain
-like the hypothalamus
-and the amygdala, they're
-sort of like switches.
-I mean, there is context
-and there is gain control.
-You talked about the gain
-control by testosterone, etc.,
-but they're really like switches.
-I mean, if you stimulate
-ventromedial hypothalamus,
-you get the right neurons,
-an animal will try and kill even an object
-that's sitting next to it.
-You tickle some other neurons,
-it'll try and mate with that same object.
-I mean, it's really wild.
-I think there are probably
-rules to prefrontal cortex also,
-but it sounds like the context plural
-from which prefrontal cortex can draw from
-is probably infinite, so
-that we could probably learn
-to perceive threat in anything.
-Whether or not it's another group
-or whether or not it's science
-or whether or not it's
-somebody's version of
-the shape of the earth versus another.
-I mean, it's like, you can
-plug in anything to this system
-and give it enough data,
-and I think it sounds like you
-could drive a fear response
-or a love response.
-Is that overstepping?
-- Or [laughs] a mixed
-horribly ambivalent one
-that is changing by the millisecond,
-and then like could be
-mutually contradictory.
-No, that's absolutely the case
-in the prefrontal cortex,
-I more than once have regretted
-having like wasted 30 years
-of my life studying the hippocampus
-then I shoot him and studied
-the prefrontal cortex
-because it's so much more
-interesting what it does,
-and it's all this contextual stuff.
-It's all the ways in which
-it's not okay to lie in this setting,
-but it's a great thing in another.
-It's not okay to kill
-unless you do it to them,
-and then you get a medal.
-It's not, all of this social context
-and moral relativity and
-situational ethic stuff,
-that's the prefrontal cortex
-that's got to master that.
-And that winds up meaning
-that's the place in your brain
-more than anywhere where you
-say your perception of things
-can powerfully influence the reality
-of what's coming into you.
-- Yeah.
-- I mean,
-a great example, just
-harking back to testosterone.
-Okay, so exercise boosts
-up testosterone levels.
-Does exercise and success do it more
-than exercise and failure?
-A literature back in the 80s or so
-looking at outcomes of marathons.
-Did testosterone rise more in the people
-who win than the losers?
-Wrestling matches.
-Things of that sort
-with a simple prediction
-and the answer wound up being,
-you didn't see a simple answer.
-Okay, you win the marathon,
-that's not necessarily a predictor
-of increased testosterone.
-What's that about?
-And then you find like the
-winner testosterone decreases,
-and you find out the guy who came in 73rd
-is having a massive testosterone increase.
-Whoa, what's that about?
-What's that about is
-far more human subtlety.
-The guy who won the race has
-a decline in testosterone
-because he came in three minutes later
-than he really, really was expecting.
-And everybody now is
-going to be writing it up
-about how he's over the hill.
-And the guy who came in 73rd
-is having a boost of testosterone
-because he was assuming he'd
-be dead from a heart attack
-by the third mile,
-[Andrew laughs]
-and instead he managed to finish.
-It's this interpretive
-stuff going on in there,
-and that's what prefrontal
-cortex is about.
-- Amazing, it raises this
-question of cognitive flexibility,
-Can we tell ourselves that
-something is good for us
-even if we're not enjoying it?
-And can we wriggle around these corners of
-choosing the exercise or doing the...
-Personally I'm not a big fan
-of long bouts of meditation,
-but I've benefited
-tremendously from things like
-dedicated breathing and
-shorter rounds of meditation.
-Can I tell myself that it's good for me
-and wriggle around the corner
-and get my physiology
-working the way I want?
-Do we have cognitive flexibility?
-Can I be that third place
-runner and tell myself,
-well, at least I came in,
-I wanted to win so badly.
-That was my primary goal,
-but another goal was to
-beat my previous time,
-and I did do that.
-And so, [laughs] I mean, it's...
-To what extent can we
-toggle this relationship
-between the prefrontal cortex
-and these other more primitive systems?
-- Well, an enormous amount.
-For example, being low in a hierarchy
-is generally bad for health in
-like every mammal out there,
-including us, but we do something special,
-which is we can be part
-of multiple hierarchies
-at the same time.
-And while you maybe low
-ranking in one of them,
-you could be extremely
-high ranking in another,
-you're like have the crappiest
-job in your corporation,
-but you are the captain
-of the softball team
-this year for the company.
-And you better bet that's somebody
-who is going to find all sorts of ways
-to decide that nine to
-five Monday to Fridays,
-just stupid paying the bills.
-And what really matters is
-the prestige on the weekend.
-You're poorer, but you're the
-deacon of your church here.
-And so we can play all sorts of
-psychological games with that.
-One of the most like consistent,
-reliable ones that we do
-and need to use the frontal
-cortex like crazy is,
-somebody does something rotten
-and you need to attribute it.
-And the answer is, they
-did something wrong,
-hmm, because they're rotten.
-Always have been
-or always will be this
-constitutional explanation.
-You do something rotten to somebody,
-and how do you explain it afterward?
-A situational one.
-I was tired, I was stressed
-in this sort of setting,
-I misunderstood this.
-We're best at excusing
-ourselves from bad things
-because we have access to our inner lives
-and we've got prefrontal cortexes
-that are great at coming up
-with a situational explanation
-rather than, hey, maybe you're just
-like a selfish rotten
-human, you need to change.
-And that's all prefrontal cortex,
-and we do that every time,
-we don't let somebody merge
-in the lane in front of us,
-even though you curse somebody
-who does the same thing to you and...
-Endlessly.
-- I love it.
-Your statement about the
-fact that we can select
-multiple hierarchies to participate in.
-To me it seems like a particularly
-important one nowadays
-with social media being so prevalent.
-I know you're not particularly
-active on social media
-although you might be pleasantly,
-or I don't know unpleasantly
-surprised to find out
-that there's a lot of
-positive discussion about you
-and your work, so you don't
-even need to be on there.
-We'll just continue to
-discuss [laughs] your work.
-But what's interesting about
-social media I've found
-is that the context is very, very broad.
-I mean, one could argue that
-who one selects to follow
-and which news articles
-you're reading, etc.
-can create a kind of a
-funneling of information
-that itself can be dangerous.
-More verification of crazy ideas
-or even just less exposure to new ideas.
-But there's also this idea
-that social media is an
-incredibly broad context.
-So as you scroll through
-a feed, it's no longer
-like being in your eighth grade classroom
-or your office or your faculty meeting.
-You are being exposed to thousands,
-if not millions of contexts,
-this meal, that soccer game,
-this person's body,
-this person's intellect.
-YouTube is another example.
-It's a vast, vast landscape.
-So the context is completely mishmash
-whereas I'm assuming we evolved.
-I think we did evolve under contexts
-that were much more constrained.
-We interacted with a limited
-number of individuals
-and a limited number of different domains,
-seasons tended to be constrain us all.
-Of course, then we got
-phones and televisions,
-and this started to expand,
-but now more than ever, our
-brain, our prefrontal cortex
-and our sense of where we exist
-in these multiple hierarchies
-has essentially wicked out into infinity.
-How do you think this might be interacting
-with some of these more primitive systems
-and other aspects of our biology?
-- Well, I think what you get is,
-in some ways the punchline of,
-what's most human about humans,
-which is over and over we
-use the exact same blueprint,
-the same hormones, the same
-kinases, the same receptors,
-the same, everything were built
-out of the exact same stuff
-as all these other species out there,
-and then we go and use it
-in a completely novel way.
-And usually in terms of being able to
-abstract stuff over space
-and time in dramatic ways.
-So, okay, you're a low ranking baboon
-and you can feel badly because
-you just like killed a rabbit
-and you're about to eat
-and some higher ranking guy boots you off
-and takes it away from you,
-and you feel crummy and it's
-stressful and you're unhappy.
-We are doing the exact same
-things with like our brain
-and bodies when we're losing
-a sense of self-esteem,
-but we can do it by watching a
-movie character on the screen
-and feeling inadequate
-compared to like how wonderful
-or attractive they are.
-We can do it by somebody driving past us
-in an expensive car, and we
-don't even see their face,
-and you can feel belittled by
-your own socioeconomic status.
-You can watch like the
-Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous
-or read about what Bezos is up to.
-And for some reason, decide
-your life is less fulfilling
-because you didn't fly
-into space for 11 minutes.
-And so you can feel miserable
-about yourself in ways
-that no other organism can,
-simply because we can have
-our meaningful social networks
-include like the party you're
-reading about on Facebook
-that you weren't invited to
-because it's taking place in Singapore,
-and you don't know any of those people,
-but nonetheless, somehow
-that could be a means for you
-to feel less content with
-who you've turned out to be.
-Do you take steps in your own life
-to actively restrict the contexts
-in which you think and
-live and contemplate
-in order to enhance your creative life,
-your intellectual life?
-Are those steps that you actively take?
-- Well, I very actively
-don't know how to make use
-of anything [laughs] with social media.
-So I guess that counts as my having thus
-actively chosen not to learn how.
-So that's the case certainly
-for the last year and a half,
-like lots of people, I've
-gone through stretches
-where I've managed to sort
-of enforce a moratorium
-on looking at the news, and
-that was wonderfully freeing.
-I think in the larger sense though,
-in addition to me being a neurobiologist,
-I'd sort of spent decades
-spending part of each year
-studying wild baboons out in a
-national park in East Africa.
-And I'd spend three months
-a year without electricity,
-without phone calls,
-with going 12 hours a day
-without saying a word to somebody.
-And when I finally would,
-it would be somebody
-nomadic pastoralist guy
-in a different language.
-Yeah, I did 90% of my
-like insightful thinking
-about anything in the laboratory
-during those three months each year,
-and not one in the lab, and
-not when inundated with stuff.
-- Well, I think there is a shifting trend
-towards trying to create a
-narrowing of context that...
-And I like what I see, I have
-a niece, she's 14-years-old
-and she and her friends are very good
-at putting their phones away.
-They say, we're not
-going to have our phones
-for this interaction, especially after...
-And I realized we're
-still somewhat in this.
-It's unclear where it's headed,
-but 2020 was so restrictive
-and she was so separated from her friends.
-Now it's, let's really
-focus on being together
-and not bring in all these
-other elements from our phones.
-And that brings me great hope for
-that generation, [laughs]
-maybe they will...
-Or who knows, maybe they'll
-run off and study baboons,
-we need more field researchers.
-So along the lines of choice,
-I'd like to shift gears slightly
-and talk about freewill,
-about our ability to make choices at all.
-- Well, my personal way out in left field
-inflammatory stance is,
-I don't think we have a shred of freewill
-despite 95% of philosophers.
-And I think probably the
-majority of neuroscientists
-are saying that we have freewill
-in at least some circumstances.
-I don't think there's any at all.
-And the reason for this is,
-you do something,
-you behave, you make a choice, whatever.
-And to understand why you did that,
-where did that intention come from?
-Part of it was due to like
-the sensory environment
-you were in the previous minute.
-Some of it is from the hormone levels
-in your bloodstream that morning.
-Some of it is from whether
-you had a wonderful
-or stressful last three months
-and what sort of neuroplasticity happened.
-Part of it is what hormone levels
-you were exposed to as a fetus.
-Part of it is what culture
-your ancestors came up with,
-and thus how you were
-parented when you were a kid.
-All of those are in there,
-and you can understand where
-behavior is coming from
-without incorporating all of those.
-And at that point,
-not only are there all of
-these relevant factors,
-but they're ultimately all one factor.
-If you're talking about what evolution
-has to do with your behavior,
-by definition you're also
-talking about genetics.
-If you're talking about what your genes
-have to do with behavior, by
-definition you're talking about
-how your brain was constructed
-or what proteins are coded for.
-If you're talking about
-like your mood disorder now,
-you're talking about the sense of efficacy
-you were getting as a five-year-old.
-They're all intertwined.
-And when you look at all those influences,
-basically like the challenge is,
-show me a neuron that
-just caused that behavior,
-or show me a network of neurons
-that just caused that behavior.
-And show me that nothing
-about what they just did
-was influenced by anything
-from the sensory environment
-one second ago to the
-evolution of your species.
-And there's no space in there
-to fit in a freewill concept
-that winds up being in your
-brain, but not of your brain.
-There's simply no wiggle
-room for it there.
-- So I can appreciate that our behaviors
-and our choices are the
-consequences of a long line
-of dominoes that fell
-prior to that behavior.
-But is it possible that I can intervene in
-the domino effect, so to speak.
-In other words, can my
-recognition of the fact
-that genes have heritability,
-there is an epigenome that,
-there is a hormonal context,
-there is a historical context.
-Can the knowledge of that give me some
-small shard of freewill?
-Meaning, does it allow me to say, ah,
-okay, I accept that my choices
-are somewhat predetermined,
-and yet knowing that gives me
-some additional layer of control?
-Is there any philosophical
-or biological universe
-in which that works?
-- Nah.
-All of that can produce the
-wonderfully positive belief
-that change can happen.
-Even a traumatic change, even
-in the worst of circumstances,
-most unlikely people,
-and change can happen,
-things can change.
-Don't be fatalistic, don't decide
-because we're a mechanistic,
-biological machines
-that nothing can ever...
-Change can happen,
-but where people go off the rails
-is translating that into,
-we can change ourselves.
-We don't, we can't because
-there's no freewill.
-However, we can be
-changed by circumstance.
-And the point of it is,
-like you look at an Aplysia, a sea slug
-that has learned to retract its gill
-in response to a shock on its tail,
-you can do like conditioning,
-Pavlovian conditioning on it,
-and it has learned, its
-behavior has been changed
-by its environment.
-And you hear news about something like
-horrifically depressing going on,
-and refugees in wherever.
-And as a result, you feel
-a little bit more helpless
-and a less of a sense of
-efficacy in the world,
-and both of your behaviors
-have been changed.
-Okay, okay, yeah, I guess that,
-but the remarkable thing is,
-it's the exact same neurobiology.
-The signal transduction
-pathways that were happening
-in that sea snail incorporate
-the exact same kinases
-and proteases and phosphatases
-that we do when you're having
-mammalian fear conditioning,
-or when you're alert, it's conserved.
-It's the exact same thing,
-it's simply playing out
-in obviously a much, much fancier domain.
-And because you have learned
-that change is possible
-despite understanding mechanistically
-that we can't change
-ourselves volitionally,
-but because you understand
-change is possible,
-you have just changed
-the ability of your brain
-to respond to optimistic stimuli.
-And you have changed the
-ability of your brain
-to now send you in the
-direction of being exposed to
-more information that will seem cheerful
-rather than depressing.
-Oh my God, that's amazing,
-what Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther king
-and all these folks did.
-Wow, under the most
-adverse of circumstances,
-they were able to do.
-Maybe I can also, maybe I can go read more
-about people like them to
-get even more data points
-of change the neurochemistry,
-so that your responses are different now.
-And you're tilted a little
-bit more in that direction
-of feeling like you can make a difference
-instead of it's all damn hopeless.
-So enormous change can happen,
-but the last thing that
-could come out of a view of,
-we are nothing more or less
-than the sum of our biology
-and its interactions with environment,
-is to throw up your hands and say,
-and thus it's no use
-trying to change anything.
-- So we can acknowledge that
-change is extremely hard
-to impossible, that
-circumstances can change,
-and yet that striving to
-be better human beings
-is still a worthwhile endeavor.
-Do I have that correct?
-- Absolutely.
-Because simply the knowledge,
-either from experience
-or making it to the end of
-the right neurobiology class
-has taught you that change can happen
-within a framework of a
-mechanistic neurobiology.
-You were now more open
-to being made optimistic
-by the good news in the world around you.
-You are more likely to be
-inspired by this or that,
-you were more resistant to
-getting discouraged by bad news,
-simply because you now
-understand it's possible.
-- Mm-hmm, yeah, somebody who spent
-much of his career working
-on the hippocampus,
-I have to assume that you are
-a believer in neuroplasticity,
-that neural circuits can change
-in response to experience,
-and that some of the same
-so-called top-down mechanisms
-of prefrontal cortex that
-we were talking about before
-can play a role there,
-that the decision to try and change
-and the pursuit of knowledge
-and the pursuit of experience
-can shape our circuitry,
-and therefore make us different
-machines, so to speak.
-- Yeah.
-And not only can say
-prenatal hormone exposure
-changed the way your brain
-is being constructed,
-but learning that
-prenatal hormone exposure
-can change the construction of your brain
-will change your brain right now,
-and how you think about where
-your intentions came from.
-Wow, maybe that had
-something to do with it.
-The knowledge of the
-knowledge is an effector
-in and of itself.
-- That's such an important and
-powerful statement to hear.
-I think that many people
-think that if a tool,
-if it doesn't involve
-a pill or a protocol,
-that it's useless.
-And certainly there
-are pills and protocols
-that are very useful
-in a variety of context
-for a variety of things, but
-the idea that knowledge itself,
-whereas you put it, knowledge
-of knowledge is itself a tool,
-I think is a very important
-concept for people
-to embed in their minds.
-And, listen, I'm so
-grateful for this discussion
-and for you raising these topics.
-I think that people,
-many people know your work
-on testosterone, on stress,
-and we've covered some of that today,
-the work on freewill and this
-idea that we are hopeless
-or that we are in total control.
-I think I'm realizing in listening to you
-that it's neither is true,
-and that the solution resides
-in understanding more about freewill
-and lack of it, [laughs]
-and also neuroplasticity.
-You're working on a book about freewill,
-are you willing to tell us
-a little bit about that book
-and where you are in that process
-and what we can look forward to?
-- Yeah, it's going really slow.
-Title is, "Determined: A Science
-of Life Without Freewill."
-And essentially the
-first half of the book is
-trying to convince a reader,
-okay, if not that there's
-no freewill whatsoever,
-but at least there's a lot
-less than is normally assumed.
-And I'm going through all the
-standard arguments for freewill,
-and why that doesn't make sense
-with 21st century science?
-And that has led to reading
-a lot of very frustrating
-philosophers who basically
-are willing to admit
-that stuff is made out of
-like atoms and molecules.
-And like there's a physical
-reality sort of world,
-they're not just relying on magic,
-but that they believe in
-freewill for magical reasons,
-and where it doesn't make sense.
-Okay, so the first half of the book is to
-hopefully convince people that
-there's much less freewill
-than we used to think.
-And then the second half
-is this gigantic juncture
-built around the fact
-that I haven't thought
-there's any freewill since
-I was like an adolescent.
-And despite thinking that way,
-I still have absolutely no idea
-how you're supposed to
-function with that belief.
-How are you supposed to
-go about everyday life
-if anything you feel
-entitled to isn't true?
-If any angers and hatreds
-you feel aren't justified,
-if there's no such thing as appropriate,
-blame or punishment or praise or reward,
-and none of it makes any sense,
-and somebody like even
-compliments you on your haircut,
-and you've been conditioned
-to say, oh, thanks,
-as if you had something to do.
-How are we supposed to function with that?
-And so the second half
-is wrestling with that,
-and what the punchline there is,
-is it's going to be incredibly hard.
-And if you think it's going to be hard
-to subtract a notion of freewill
-out of making sense of
-like serial murderers,
-it's going to be a thousand times harder
-making sense of when somebody
-says "good job" to you.
-[Andrew laughs]
-And because it's the exact
-same on reality of sort
-of our interpretations.
-It's going to be incredibly hard,
-but nonetheless when
-you look at the history
-of how we have subtracted
-the notion of agency
-out of all sorts of realms of
-blame, starting with thinking
-that witches caused
-hailstorms 500 years ago
-to the notion that
-psychodynamically screwed up mothers
-cause schizophrenia, we've done it.
-We've done it endless number of times,
-we've been able to subtract
-out a sense of volition
-in understanding how the
-world works around us.
-And we don't have murderers
-running amuck on the street,
-and society hasn't
-collapsed into a puddle,
-and in fact, it's a more humane society.
-So the good news is it's possible
-because we've done it
-repeatedly in the past,
-but it's going to be hard as hell.
-And it's hard as hell to try
-to write about that coherently,
-[laughs] I'm discovering,
-so it's going slowly.
-- Well, I speak for many,
-many people when I say
-that we're really excited
-for the book when it's done
-and we will patiently wait,
-but with great excitement
-for the book, "Determined".
-You said it's the title, correct?
-- Yeah, "Determined: The Science
-of Life Without Freewill".
-It seems like you can't
-publish your book these days
-without a sub-title, so that's it?
-- Fantastic.
-Well, very excited to read the book.
-I'm very grateful to you
-for this conversation today,
-I learned a ton.
-Every time you speak I learn,
-and for me it's really been a pleasure
-and a delight to interact with you today
-and over the previous years,
-I should say, as colleagues.
-And thank you again, Robert,
-for everything that you do
-and all the hard, hard work and thinking
-that you put into your work
-because it's clear that
-you put a lot of hard work
-and thinking, and we all
-benefit as a consequence.
-- Thanks, and thanks for
-having me, this was a blast.
-- Thank you for joining
-me for my conversation
-with Dr. Robert Sapolsky.
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