Huberman LabBoost Attention & Memory with Science-Based Tools | Dr. Wendy Suzuki
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,022 words- 0:00 – 2:50
Dr. Wendy Suzuki, Learning & Memory
- AHAndrew Huberman
(uptempo music) 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, my guest is Dr. Wendy Suzuki. Dr. Suzuki is a professor of neuroscience and psychology at New York University and one of the leading researchers in the area of learning and memory. Her laboratory has contributed fundamental textbook understanding of how brain areas such as the hippocampus, which you will learn about today, how the hippocampus and related brain circuits allow us to take certain experiences and commit them to memory so that we can use that information in the future. Dr. Suzuki is also an expert public educator in the realm of science. A few years back, she had a TED Talk that essentially went viral, if you haven't seen it already, you should absolutely check it out, in which she describes her experience using exercise as a way to enhance learning and memory, and on the basis of that personal experience, she reshaped her laboratory to explore how things like meditation, exercise, and other things that we can do with our physiology and our psychology can allow us to learn faster, to commit things to memory longer, and indeed, to reshape our cognitive performance in a variety of settings. As such, I am delighted to announce that Dr. Suzuki is now not only running a laboratory at New York University, but she is the incoming Dean of Arts and Science at New York University, and, of course, she was selected for that role for her many talents, but one of the important aspects of her program, she tells me, is going to be to incorporate the incredible power of exercise, meditation, and other behavioral practices for enhancing learning, for improving stress management, and other things to optimize student performance. Today, you are going to get access to much of that information so that you can apply those tools in your daily life as well. Dr. Suzuki is also an author of several important books. The most recent one is entitled Good Anxiety: Harnessing the Power of the Most Misunderstood Emotion, and a previous book entitled Healthy Brain, Happy Life: A Personal Program to Activate Your Brain and Do Everything Better, and while that is admittedly a very pop science-type title, I will remind you that she is one of the preeminent memory researchers in the world and has been for quite a while. So, the information that you'll glean from those books is both rich in depth and breadth and is highly applicable. By the end of today's discussion, you will have learned from Dr. Suzuki a large amount of knowledge about how memories are formed, how they are lost, and you will have a much larger kit of tools to apply for your efforts to learn better, to remember better, and to apply that information in the ways that best serve you.
- 2:50 – 7:27
AG1 (Athletic Greens), InsideTracker, Blinkist
- AHAndrew Huberman
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 Athletic Greens. Athletic Greens is an all-in-one vitamin, mineral, probiotic drink. I've been taking Athletic Greens since 2012, so I'm delighted that they're sponsoring the podcast. The reason I started taking Athletic Greens and the reason I still take Athletic Greens once or twice a day is that it meets all my foundational vitamin, mineral, and probiotic needs. In fact, whenever people ask me if I were to only take one supplement, which supplement should I take, I tell them Athletic Greens for the simple reason that it covers your base of vitamins, minerals, and probiotics. It also has important adaptogens, digestive enzymes for gut health. All this is very important because we now know that gut health and the so-called gut-brain axis is very important for things like mood and brain function, and also contributes to immune system function. Athletic Greens, you're covering all those bases, and of course, you need to eat a nutrition and healthy diet that's right for you, but by taking Athletic Greens once or twice a day, you can be sure that there are going to be no gaps or deficiencies in your vitamin, mineral, or probiotic needs. I mix mine with water and a little bit of lemon juice or lime juice, and I personally find it delicious. If you'd like to try Athletic Greens, you can go to athleticgreens.com/huberman to claim a special offer. They'll give you five free travel packs plus a year's supply of vitamin D3 K2, both of which are also vital for immediate and long-term health. So once again, if you go to athleticgreens.com/huberman, you can get a special offer of five free travel packs to make it easy to mix up Athletic Greens while you're in the car or otherwise traveling, plus they'll give you the year's supply of vitamin D3 K2. Today's episode 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 for the simple reason that many of the factors that impact your immediate and long-term health can only be analyzed from a quality blood test. And nowadays, with the advent of modern DNA tests, you can also get insight into, for instance, what your biological age is and compare that to your chronological age, and of course, your biological age is the, the number that really matters. With InsideTracker, there's a distinct advantage, and the advantage is that while there are many blood tests and DNA tests out there, InsideTracker's blood and DNA tests come also with a platform, meaning a website platform, that allows you to see exactly what you could or should do in order to adjust the numbers on things like hormone levels, metabolic factors, and lipids, and so on. It's a little pop-up window that points to nutritional supplementation and behavioral regimens that you can take in order to put those numbers in the ranges that are optimal for you. If you'd like to try InsideTracker, you can visit insidetracker.com/huberman to get 20% off any of InsideTracker's plans. That's insidetracker.com/huberman to get 20% off. Today's episode is also brought to us by Blinkist. Blinkist is an app that has thousands of nonfiction books, each condensed down to just 15 minutes of key takeaways for those books. I love reading books from front to back. I like the actual physical book, I'm sort of old-fashioned in that way, and I do also listen to audiobooks. It's very rare that I don't.... finish a book that I've started. Nonetheless, I like to revisit some of my favorite books. I also like to write down key takeaways from those books, sometimes even before I listen to the full-length book. So I don't mind spoiling the, the takeaways because when I read nonfiction, generally I'm trying to extract the most valuable knowledge from them. So I'll often listen to a Blinkist 15-minute version, then the full-length book, or sometimes the full-length book and then the Blinkist 15-minute version. Either way, Blinkist is a great way to get through any book and to extract the best from those books. I've used it for, for instance, Matt Walker's Why We Sleep, an excellent book on why we sleep, as well as Tim Ferriss' The 4-Hour Body, uh, Nassim Talle's The Black Swan, and so on and so on. With Blinkist, you get unlimited access to read or listen to a massive library of nonfiction books. It really is a treasure trove of information. Right now, Blinkist has a special offer just for Huberman Lab Podcast listeners. If you go to blinkist.com/huberman, you can get a free seven-day trial and 25% off a Blinkist premium membership. Once again, go to blinkist.com/huberman to get a seven-day free trial and 25% off. And now for my discussion with Dr. Wendy Suzuki.
- 7:27 – 10:14
How Memories Form
- AHAndrew Huberman
Wendy, great to see you again and to have you here. It's been a little while.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
It's been a while. So great to be here, Andrew. Thank you so much for having me.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah, delighted. I'd like to start off by talking about memory generally, and then I'd love to chat about your incredible work discovering how exercise and memory interface and what people can do to improve their memory and brain function generally.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yes.
- AHAndrew Huberman
But for those that are not familiar, maybe you could just step us through the basic elements of memory, a few brain structures perhaps.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Sure.
- AHAndrew Huberman
You know, what happens when I. For instance, this mug of, uh, tea, uh, it's pretty unremarkable.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Mm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
But the fact that now I've talked about it-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... I don't know that I'll ever forget about it.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
(laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
Maybe I will, maybe I won't. So what happens when I look at this mug and decide that it's something special for whatever reason?
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah. Well, I like to say there are four things that make things memorable. Number one is novelty. If it's something new, the very first thing, uh, v- very first time we've seen something or experienced something, our brains are drawn to that, our attentional systems draw us to that. And when you are paying attention is something that's, that's part of what makes things memorable. Second is repetition. If you see that cup of tea every single day and every single time you do an interview you talk about your cup of tea, you're gonna remember it. That's just, uh, uh, how, how our brains work, repetition works. Third is association. So if you meet somebody new that knows lots of people that you know, so you and I share many, many, many, many people that we both know-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
... it's easy to rememb- it's easier to remember you, especially if you were somebody new that I hadn't met before, we have met before. Uh, so association. Um, and then the fourth one is emotional resonance. So we remember the happiest and the saddest moments of our lives, and that also includes, you know, funny, surprising things. Uh, that is the interaction between two key brain structures, uh, the amygdala, which is important for processing, uh, lots of emotional, particularly threatening kinds of situations, but, uh, those threatening, surprising kinds of situations, the amygdala takes that information and makes another key structure called the hippocampus work better to put new long-term memories in your brain. So that, in fact, is the key structure for long-term memory, the structure called the hippocampus.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Fantastic, so novelty, repetition, association, and emotional resonance.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yes.
- 10:14 – 16:20
Hippocampus: Memory, Association & Imagination
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
- AHAndrew Huberman
Could you tell us a bit more about the hippocampus?
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
I think, um, at least for my generation, uh, well, I'm a neuroscientist, but for most people in my generation, I think they first heard about the hippocampus from the movie Memento.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Oh, yeah, yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Where the guy says hippocampus.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah. (laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
Um, and if, for those of you that haven't seen that movie, it's a bizarrely constructed movie, but an interesting one, nonetheless, um, about memory. But even as a neuroscientist, sometimes I'm perplexed at how, uh, the hippocampus works.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Mm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
You know, maybe you could, if you w- wouldn't, if you would, you know, step us through kind of what this structure is, what it looks like-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... um, maybe a few of its subregions because-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... um, you know, unlike vision-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... the topic that I've worked most of my career on-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... where we know, okay, the eye does this part, and the thalamus does this part, and the cortex does that part, I've always been a little perplexed about the hippocampus, frankly.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Hmm. Okay.
- AHAndrew Huberman
So, um, and I've read the textbooks and I've heard the lectures, but-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... I'd love to get the update. You know, what are the general themes of the hippocampus as a structure-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... and its function?
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Um, what do you think everyone, including neuroscientists-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... uh, should know about the hippocampus?
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Absolutely. So let's start with the basics. The word hippocampus means seahorse. It is shaped, the structure is shaped like a kind of curlicue she- seahorse. That is accurate. Um, everybody, including neurosci- scientists should know it's a beautiful structure. It is visually anatomically beautiful with these kind of intertwining twirly subregions within it. And I think that's one of the reasons why early anatomists, who were the very first neuroscientists, got attracted to it, because it's this interesting kind of twirly structure deep in the heart of the brain. So that's anatomically. Functionally, what does it do? Well, it's easiest to understand what it does when you, uh, look at what happens when you don't have a hippocampus anymore. What if you, what if by some, you know, disease or, or you have your hippocampus removed by accident, um, what happens? Well, we know this from the most famous neurological pac- patient of all time. Uh, his, uh, initials were HM, so all psychology and neuroscientists, neuroscience students know him. Uh, he was operated in 1956.... four, and the paper was published in 1957. Um, they removed both his hippocampi because he had very terrible epilepsy. And, um, they knew that the hippocampus was the genesis of- of epilepsy, and this was experimental. His epilepsy was so bad that they decided not just to remove one hippocampus, but both. And what happened was immediate, um, immediate loss of all ability to form new memories for facts and events. Think about that for a second. All facts or events you're not able to remember, I can't remember this interaction between us, I can't remember any of the facts that we were just chatting about in our neuroscience lives. Um, none of that can move into our long-term memory. So this hippocampus does something with all of these perceptions that are coming at us every single day, every minute of the day, and not for all of them, but for some of them that have these features that we just talked about, maybe they're novel, maybe they have associations, maybe they're- they're emotionally relevant, maybe, uh- uh, maybe they've r- been repeated. Some of those things, uh, in the realm of facts or events get, uh- uh, encoded in our long-term memory. And, um, that's- that's the textbook of- of why the hippocampus is so important. I like to always add, and, I mean, this is why I studied it for so many years, the hippocampus and what it does really defines our own personal histories. It means it defines who we are because if we can't remember what we've done, the information we've learned, and- and the events of our lives, it- it changes us. That- that's what really defines us. That's why I wanted to study the hippocampus. And I think the exciting new- new ideas about the hippocampus was, um, is that it's- it's, you know, hippocampus is important for memory, so if you say that you'll be- impress all your people at your, uh, at your cocktail party. But what people have started to realize, that it's not just memory. It's not just putting together associations for what, where, and when of- of events that happened in our past, but it's putting together information that is in our long-term memory banks in interesting new ways. I'm talking about imagination. So without the hippocampus, yes, you can't remember things, but actually you're not able to imagine, uh, events or situations that you've never experienced before. So what that says is the hippocampus, eh, is important for memory is, uh, too simple a way to think about it. What the hippocampus is important for is what we've already talked about, associating things together writ large. Any time you need to associate something together either for your past, your present, or your future, you are using your hippocampus. And it takes on this much more important role in our cognitive lives when we think about it like that. That is kind of the new- the new hippocampus that- that neuroscientists are studying these days.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Well, that's fantastic. So it sounds like it really sets context, but it can do that with elements from the past, the present-
- 16:20 – 18:48
Encoding Long-Term Memory
- AHAndrew Huberman
ask you a true or false mostly-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Okay.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... because I just really want to know the answer.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Okay.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Uh, a few years ago, the theme in various high-profile reviews seemed to be that the hippocampus was involved in encoding and creating memories, but not in storing memories, and that the memory storage was in the neocortex or the other overlying areas of the brain. Is that too general a statement?
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Um, that's a- that's a tricky statement because I think that ultimately yes, that long-term memories are stored in the cortex, but those memories are stored in the hippocampus sometimes for a very, very long time. So how long is too long where you say, "Oh, it's not the hippocampus anymore"? If it's four years, is that, (laughs) does that mean that it's, you know, it- it's not stored in the hippocampus? I think that's a- that's a tricky question. And yes, it was coming up a lot because people were debating it and- and some people did think that you shouldn't think about the hippocampus as a storage area, but I think it's a long, long, long-term kind of intermediate storage area, maybe not the long-term storage area. That's why it's hard to answer that question.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Great. Uh, as I recall, (laughs) HM could remember facts from before his surgery.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yes.
- AHAndrew Huberman
He couldn't form new memories.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Correct.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And given that he had no hippocampus, it would at least partially support the idea that some, uh, memories are retained outside the hippocampus.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
However, he did have part of his posterior hippocampus intact.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Ah.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
So that's the tricky thing. I think initially, um, in fact, Scoville, the- the neurosurgeon, overestimated the number of millimeters he had want- he intended to remove of the hippocampus, and then when they did this, uh, the- the very historic MRI of HM later in his life, they showed that, in fact, he did have that posterior hippocampus, part of the posterior hippocampus, intact. So now it makes- makes it a little bit more complicated to interpret what's going on, not that it was never uncomplicated. Any interpretation of a lesion in- in a patient, as you know, is complicated, but, um, you know, HM had this mythical role in- in neuroscience and neurology, and now it was- it was- it was complicated because he- he does have more of the hippocampus intact.
- AHAndrew Huberman
I did not know that. Uh,
- 18:48 – 21:56
One-Trial Memory
- AHAndrew Huberman
there are some memories that can be formed very quickly, so-called one trial learning.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And I'm just looking at this list again, novelty, repetition, association, and emotional resonance. Uh, it seems like some experiences can bypass the need for multiple repetitions.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah, absolutely.
- AHAndrew Huberman
So, um, I, and unfortunately it seems that our nervous system is skewed toward creating one trial memories-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... for negative events-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... which has a survival adaptive mechanism.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
What is the neural connection that allows that to happen? Is it the amygdala to hippocampus connection? I mean, as you and I know, the, seems like every brain area ultimately is connected to everything else.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Right, right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
It's just a question of, uh, through how many nodes.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Just like every city is connected to another city.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
It's just a question of how many flights and roads-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... do you have to, uh, traverse before you-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... uh, get there. What is it about one trial learning? I mean, at, at a kind of top contour level, how do we, how can we learn certain things so fast-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... and other things are, are tricky? And now every time I look at this white mug, it's queuing up something special that-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
(laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
... simply by virtue of saying it.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
So is that one trial memory? But, uh, you know, what is, what is it about very emotionally salient events that allow memories to get stamped in?
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah, I mean, I think you, you, you've already alluded to it. That is, there is this protective function, um, of our brains that has evolved over the last 2.5 million years, that you need to pay attention and remember certain things for your survival. So some things that get stamped in, um, you know, th- they're memories, but they're, they're fear memories. You know, if I get mugged on the s- subway or, you know, there are terrible things that could happen on the subway as we, as we just learned. Um, but if something terrible happens, if something very scary happens, um, you remember that, and that, that fear and that memory of all those things... I mean, I, I have one. Uh, when I lived in Washington, DC, I went to work at NIH on a Sunday afternoon, and I came back and when I rounded the corner to my door of my apartment, um, it was crowbarred in. Somebody had taken a crowbar, opened up my door, and stole all of my, all of my, the nicest things in my apartment, which wasn't that nice 'cause I wasn't making that much money. But ever since, um, ever since then, whenever I rounded that corner, I still had that memory. It was terrible because, you know, it put me in a terrible state w- when I was just coming home. And that, that's a survival mechanism. Do you want to, uh, be alert to possible danger? Absolutely, yes. So part of those one trial memories I think is often taking advantage of this evolutionarily developed system to tamp in things that could be potentially dangerous to you into your memory so you forever will remember this particular corner or this, this, uh, hallway because that is where something really bad happened to you.
- 21:56 – 30:39
Tool: Foundational Habits to Enhance Brain Performance
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
- AHAndrew Huberman
It seems like a location, we talk about conditioned place aversion-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yes, yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... which is just geek speak for wanting to avoid the place where something bad happened, or conditioned place preference, wanting to go back to a place where something positive happened, or even looking at a photograph of where you had a wonderful time with somebody and that can evoke all sorts of, um, positive sensations. It seems like at some level the, as complex as the brain is, the basic elements of, uh, feeling good or feeling lousy are, are states within the brain and body.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And linking those to places seems like it, it's a pretty straightforward formula, you know, s- link place to state-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Uh-huh.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... link state to place, et cetera-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... as your, uh, description just provided. When we learn more complex information-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Mm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... you know, uh, a, a poem, um, a, a concept, or we have to ratchet through a set of ideas, uh, that also involves memory.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
I'm sure that we'll talk more about this, but is there any way that, uh, you, you are aware of that state, bodily state can be leveraged to enhance the speed or the, the quality of the r- of memories and memory formation? Because, you know, the, so t- to be clear about it, it seems there's something very important about this fourth, uh, you know, this emotional resonance-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... component.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah, yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Right? Um, novelty, the crowbar into the door is-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... thank goodness is a f- sounds like it was novel, it wasn't a repeated theme, thank goodness.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yes. You're right, right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
So repetition is out, and the association is very, very strong.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
But for people trying to learn information that they're not that excited about-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... or that, um, repetition is hard-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... or the, the novelty is simply that it's painful.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
(laughs) Yes. I've been there, absolutely.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah, yeah, uh, yeah, as, as have I. I- is there something that we can do to le- to leverage knowledge of how the memory system works naturally to, to make that a, a more straightforward process?
- 30:39 – 39:35
Exercise & Improved Memory, Making a “Big, Fat, Fluffy Hippocampus”
- AHAndrew Huberman
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Maybe, if you would-Tell us your story around this. I know you've told it before.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
But I think a lot of members of the audience, and I, would love to hear, you know, how you came to this.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Because growing up in neuroscience, I knew you as one of the, I would say, one of the three or four, and they're all alongside one another, not, um, this isn't a hierarchical statement. Three or four top memory researchers in the world, right? Textbook material is Suzuki, uh, in the, my textbooks are filled with the word Suzuki, your last name, according to the information on memory and memory formation. So you were doing that.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And doing the things that academics do.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And then you're still doing that, but-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yes.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... and still at a very high level, but then things took a different direction.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Maybe we could talk about your story and how, um, you came to the place you are at now.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Because I think it provides a number of tools that people could, um, implement themselves.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah, yeah. So this story happened, um, as I was working to get tenure at NYU, and, and as you know, it's a, it's a stress-filled process. They give you six years to, you know, show your stuff, and you are judged in front of all your colleagues, and either they say, "Okay, you can join the club." Or they say, "Sorry, you are, you know, humiliated in front of everybody." This was going through my-
- AHAndrew Huberman
They actually tell people to leave.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
If you don't get tenure, you're gone.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
You, you have to leave your institution. And so, um, so, you know, you work really, really hard. And so my strategy was, um, I'm just going to not do anything but work, and I'm just going to work, and I'm, I'm going to, uh, just work as hard as I can for the six years. And, um, what happens when you work and you don't have any sort of life outside of work, and, um, you live in New York, where there's all sorts of really good takeout, you gain 25 pounds, which is exactly what I did. And you get really, really stressed, and you start to ask yourself, "How come I'm living in New York City, and I love Broadway, and I've never, I haven't gone to a Broadway show in two years?" Um, and so I, I, so I, I, 25 pounds overweight. I, um, I decided to go on vacation, and, uh, I went by myself 'cause I had no friends, and I went to, um, I, I did a adventure, um, river rafting trip in Peru. And so I go by myself and, you know, meet other interesting people, and, um, I, I was the weakest person on this whole trip. Like, I was, I, they were so much in better shape, it was embarrassing. And they won't say this, they won't admit this to me, but it was true. And I came back and I said, "Okay, I cannot be the weakest person. I'm in my late 30s, I have to do something." So I went to the gym and, um, I said, "Oh my God, I'm 25 pounds overweight. Let's, let's try at least to, uh, um, lose this weight." And so I go to the gym, um, I notice how much better I feel when I go to just a single class. I remember the very first class I went to was a hip-hop dance class. I'm a terrible hip-hop dancer, but I still felt good after, after that class. And then fast-forward a year and a half, I've lost the 25 pounds. So proud of myself. So much happier. And I'm sitting in my office doing what you and I do a lot, which is writing an NIH grant, which is our lifeblood, right? And, um, writing, writing, writing, and this thought goes through my mind that had never gone through my mind before, which was during this six years of gran- of frantic grant writing when I was trying to get tenure, and that thought was, "Grant writing went well today." You know, that, that felt good. I was like, "I've never had that thought before. What- what's going on here? This is really weird."
- AHAndrew Huberman
I don't know that anyone has had that thought before.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
(laughs) No, I'm sure people have had that thought. But, um, I thought maybe I'm just having a good day. Um, but when I thought about it, I thought it's, it's not just today. My grant writing seems to have been getting smoother. Like, I'm able to focus longer. It, the, the sessions feel, feel better to me. And, you know, at that point, the only thing that I changed in my life, it was a huge thing, but I had become a gym rat rather than a workaholic. And that's when my, you know, spidey sense for neuroscientists popped up and I said, "What do we know about the effects of exercise on your brain?" Um, because if I think about it, what was better about my writing is I could focus longer and deeper, very important, and I could remember those little details that you try and pull together for your million-dollar NIH grant from, you know, 30 different articles that you have open on your screen all at the same time. That's the hippocampal memory. I was studying that. I was writing the grants on, on hippocampal memory. And, uh, so that's when I got really interested in the effects of exercise on both prefrontal focus and attention function and hippocampal function, because of my own observation and this kind of, I still remember where, where I was sitting, which office I was in when I had this revelation. But the thing that really sealed it for me, that made me think not just, oh, this is interesting, but, "I, I want to study this," is right around that time, um, I got a phone call from my mom, um, who said that my dad wasn't feeling well and that he had, um, told her that he got lost driving back from the 7-Eleven, which is literally seven blocks from our house that I grew up in, and, um, I knew that was, that was hippocampal function. I suspected dementia. I suspected, though I didn't want to admit Alzheimer's dementia, which he, which he had. And, um, it was funny because... I mean, it wasn't funny, but, um, my mom and dad are two sides of, uh, a very different coin. My dad is the, the, uh, the engineer, not so active all his life, but would love to sit, sit and read books all day. My mom was the athlete. She, she played tennis, team tennis into her 80s.And, uh, and it, it started to show at, at that point.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
And, uh, so then I had, then I had even a, a more pressing reason to think about what the effects of exercise were, because I noticed that all the things that were improving in my brain suddenly went away in my, my dad's brain. Really, really smart guy, engineer in Sil- you know, Silicon Valley, helped, helped that push in Silicon Valley in the '70s happen. He had no more memory. He couldn't focus his attention. His mood was rock bottom. He's a very happy guy, and everything was the opposite in me. And I started thinking, "This isn't just something to help, you know, somebody who wants to get tenure. Um, this is something that could help millions and millions of people, most importantly, our aging population. What if, you know, what's happening?" And so the thing that makes me wake up in the morning is when I realized that every single time you move your body, um, you are, um, releasing a whole bunch of neurochemicals. And some of 'em we've talked about, the, the good mood comes from dopamine and serotonin and noradrenaline. But the thing that gets released also, particularly with aerobic exercise, is a growth factor called, um, brain-derived neurotrophic factor or BDNF. And that is so important because what it does is it goes directly to your hippocampus and it helps brand new brain cells grow in your hippocampus. We all have that. Even if you're a couch potato, you can get new brain cells in your hippocampus to grow. But it's like giving your hippocampus a, um, a boost with this regular BDNF if you are exercising, which means that we all have the capacity to grow a bigger, fatter, fluffier hippocampus. And so what I like to give people is this image of every single time you move your body, it's like giving your brain this wonderful bubble bath of neurochemicals. What's going on? I, I need my bubble bath of noradrenaline and dopamine and serotonin and growth factors. And with regular bubble baths, what am I doing? I'm growing a big fat fluffy hippocampus. And I'm not gonna cure my father's dementia, Alzheimer's dementia, but you know what? If I go into my 70s with a big fat fluffy hippocampus, even if I had that in my genes and it starts to, uh, kick in, it's gonna take longer for that disease to start to affect my ability to form and retain new long-term memories for facts and events, which is my motivation for getting up and doing my 30 to 45 minutes of, of aerobic
- 39:35 – 48:48
Cardiovascular Exercise, BDNF (Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor)
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
exercise every day.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Fantastic. Um, quick question about your protocol.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Just because, uh, and then, uh, we'll, uh, discuss a few mechanistic things related to what signals the body might be sending the brain.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And a little bit more, uh, detail on, uh, BDNF and some circuitry.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
So you, 30 to 45 minutes of, it sounds like cardiovascular exercise might be special.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yes.
- AHAndrew Huberman
But as I say that, I, and I think about the literature that I'm aware of-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... in mice and some in monkeys and certainly in humans, looking at the effects of exercise on brain function and typically the outcome is improvement, almost always.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
I don't think I've ever seen a paper showing that when animals or humans exercise more that their brain gets worse.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
No.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Um, I just can't think of a single paper.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
It doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I'm sure someone will put one in the comment section. (laughs)
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
(laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
They'll find that one, and, and thank you for, if you can find that. But, um, but it seems like it's always cardiovascular exercise. And experimentally in a lab, it's a lot easier to get a mouse to run on a treadmill-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... than it is to get a mouse to lift weights, although people have put-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
(laughs) Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... little ankle weights on mice and done-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yes, yes.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And the ways of getting mice to do resistance work is actually a little bit barbaric.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
A little stressful.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Because oftentimes they'll, they'll incapacitate a limb to overload another limb.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
So it's an asymmetric thing. It's not the sa- same as sending them in to do squats.
- 48:48 – 51:50
Neurogenesis (New Neuron Production) in Adults
- AHAndrew Huberman
Um-... this issue of new neurons.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Mm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Is one that you hear a lot.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Mm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
You know, neurogenesis.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
You're going to grow more new neurons, new neurons, and, and my understanding is that the rodent literature is very clear.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
That animals that run on wheels more often, um, it turns out rodents love to run on wheels.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yes, yes.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Do you know these studies by Hoppy Hofster which are pretty funny? Um, they're very cool-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
(laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
... by the way, Hoppy, uh, Howard Hughes investigator.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
(laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
I'm, uh, not n- I'm not making light of them.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
If, they put running wheels in a field.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Uh-huh.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And ro-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
(laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
Wild rodents will run to the running wheel and run on that running wheel.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Oh, that's great.
- AHAndrew Huberman
So there's some, they really enjoy it.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah, yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Which I find amusing-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... for reasons that probably only a neuroscientist-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
L- right. (laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
... would find amusing. Um, in any case, in rodents, it seems that, uh, running more on a wheel can trigger neurogenesis.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yes.
- 51:50 – 56:31
Effects of Exercise on Memory
- AHAndrew Huberman
um, I'll just take a moment to say that I am personally not aware of any studies looking at other forms of exercise besides cardiovascular exercise for sake of brain health. And this I think is an important, um, gap in the literature-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... that ought to be filled, whether or not, for instance, high intensity interval training or whether or not weight training, um, which has other effects on the musculature. So you can imagine perhaps the myokine-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... to BDNF pathway, the pathway one that you mentioned might be signaled, but maybe not the liver pathway. Maybe, yes, I'm speculating here. Those studies need to be done.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
To my knowledge, they just haven't been done yet.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah, yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Um, and but they should be done. If you would, could you tell us about some of the more specific effects of exercise on memory? You know, when memory's-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... a broad category of-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
You're right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... of, of effects-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... and phenomena. So things like, uh, what comes to mind is short-term, medium, and long-term memory, reaction time-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... um, learning math, at least for me, is quite a bit different than, uh, learning history.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Um, although there's certainly overlap in the neural, neural underpinnings. Uh, what has been demonstrated in the laboratory-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... in animal models, but, but especially in humans?
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah, sure.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And, and if you want to share with us any results from your-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... your lab, uh, published or unpublished-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... I'm sure that the audience would be delighted to learn about them.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Absolutely. Let me start with, um, kind of the immediate effects, acute effects as they're called, of exercise on the brain. So this is asking, what does a one-off exercise session do for your brain? And there, um, uh, there are three major effects that have been reproduced. I've seen it in my lab. Many labs have reproduced this. So what do you get with a one-off... This is usually an aerobic type, type exercise session, 30, 30 to 45 minutes. What you get is that mood boost, very, very consistent. You get, um, uh, you get, uh, improved prefrontal function, typically, uh, tested with a Stroop, uh, test, which is a test that, uh, asks you to shift and focus your attention in specific ways. Um, it's a challenging task, and clearly dependent on the prefrontal cortex largely. And, um, significant improvements in reaction time, so your, your speed at responding, often a motor kind of, uh, but cognitive motor response is, is improved. Um, over the pandemic, one of the unpublished studies that I did looking at the effects of 30 minutes of age-appropriate workout, um, in subjects ranging in age from their 20s all the way up to their 90s. So what are the, um, the things that I saw most consistently? Irrespective of your age, everybody got a decreased anxiety and depression and a hostility score, which is very important, you know, so it's, it's not just decreasing your anxiety and depression, but decreasing your hostility levels-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Making the world a better place.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
... in all this. Making the world a better, better place.... energy, the feeling of energy went up. And, um, what we found is in the older population, even more than in the younger population, we saw improved performance on both Stroop and, um, Erikson flanker task, which are, which is another task dependent on, um, really focusing in on different letters and paying attention to what letter is being shown. Um, so, so these are consistent e- effects. How long do they last? One of the studies that I did publish in my lab showed that the immediate effects of exercise lasted up to two hours. Unfortunately, that was the longest that we lasted, they were still there at two hours. Um, so that's, you know, that's, that's a pretty big bang for your buck.
- 56:31 – 1:00:02
Tool: Timing Daily Exercise, Cortisol
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
in their 20s.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Okay, so, um, if I finish my exercise at 9:00 AM-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... even if I start this cognitive work, this mental work at 11:00, I'll still see benefits.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yes.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Right, so-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
At least by 11:00, because I didn't go farther than two hours, so it could last even longer than that, but, but I have evidence that it lasts for two hours.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And, and perhaps if I had started the cognitive work at 45 minutes after my exercise ended-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... it would also be helpful?
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yes, I-
- AHAndrew Huberman
So there's no reason to think-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
... yep.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... that there's a ch- that you have to wait before starting cognitive work.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah, no reason at all.
- AHAndrew Huberman
I'm asking questions of the sort that I get in the comments-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Okay, great.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... that we are going to get in the comment section.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Okay, great. (laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
We always strive for clarity here. So what this tells me is that, um, exercising early in the day-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... may have a special effect.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Uh, I realize that some people cannot exercise until later in the evening.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
But you mentioned something earlier that I want to cue people to, it's very, very important. I don't think I've ever mentioned this on the podcast, which is, any kind of physical activity will increase cortisol-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... to varying degrees.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yes.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And so sometimes it's a healthy increase, sometimes it's an unhealthy increase. If you do two hours of really intense exercise and you're not prepared for it-
- 1:00:02 – 1:05:33
Age-Related Memory Loss, Daily Exercise
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
- AHAndrew Huberman
... we all experience age-related dementia.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Right? I mean, the story of your father is a, is a, a salient one, um, and we should remember that as we go forward. But I also want to emphasize, I'd love to get your thoughts on just memory and memory loss in general.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
It seems we all get worse at-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... remembering and learning things.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Even if we don't get Alzheimer's-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... when does that typically start for, for humans?
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
You know, I think there's so much variability, um, n- not only because we are individuals, but because our stress levels are different and, um, well, everybody's anxiety level has gone up, uh, in the last, in the last couple of years, but that also has an effect. We, we don't remember as much in a highly stressful, highly anxious-... situation. So, so, you know, as you know, it's hard to answer that question. People say, "Okay, just tell me how much exercise I have to do." Okay, just-
- AHAndrew Huberman
30 to 40 minutes a, a day.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah. (laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
But, but I love the per day. You know, I've been doing this whole thing of telling people, "Oh, the data say 150 to 200 minutes of zone two cardio," which is kind of, you know-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... moderately hard, but not-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... excessively hard. Um, but I love this everyday theme.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Because what- whenever I do that, the questions that come back are, "Well, what if I take a long hike on the weekends?" And so people start negotiating.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
(laughs) Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
There's something that's very powerful about non-negotiable everydays.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yes.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Sun in your eyes every day, even through cloud cover.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Exercise for 30, 45 minutes.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Cold shower every day.
- 1:05:33 – 1:12:17
Tool: Exercise Protocol for Improving Cognition
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
- AHAndrew Huberman
So I'd love to hear about some of these new unpublished data.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah, yeah. Okay, so when I jumped into the exercise work, um, everybody was studying people 65 or older because that's when cognitive decline begins, and if the idea is exercise can help you with your cognition, then makes sense. However, I thought, well, you know, that it's great, there's lots of work there. I wanted to know what happens in people in their 40s and their 50s, maybe even their, their 30s and their 20s. Why? Because that's when we as humans are able, ready, wi- willing and able to increase our exercise and, um, gets us set, set up to, you know, build our brains as we go into our 60s. And so, um, the first study that I did looked at low fit participants from their 30s to mid 50s. And we wanted to ask this question, you know, how much exercise do you really need to start seeing benefits? Do you see benefits or maybe you have to wait until you start seeing cognitive decline to get benefits? That was one of the, the theories out there. And so that's what I wanted to do, and so what we did was three months of two to three times a week-... cardio. It was a spin, spin class, so, you know, spin classes are great for cardio. And the, the comparison group was two to three times a week of competitive video Scrabble. So no heart rate, uh, change, but, but they had to come into my lab and, and be in a group, just like they were in a group for the, uh, for the, um, um, spin class. Uh, we tested them cognitively, cognitively at the beginning and the end of the session. What we found was two to three times a week of cardio, in these people, they're a low fit, which means, specifically, that they were exercising less than 30 minutes a week for the three months previous to the experiment. So they went from that to two to three times a week of spin class. And what we found was, um, changes in baseline rates of their positive mood states went up relative to the video Scrabble group. Um, their, uh, body image got more positive because they were exercising, which is great, and really important, their motivation to exercise went up significantly compared to the video Scrabble group, which is, which is great. So the more you exercise, the more motivated you are to exercise. What about cognition? What changed in the cognitive circuits of their brain? Number one, we got improved performance on the Stroop task. But, uh, we're headed towards my favorite structure, which is the hippocampus. What we found was improved performance on both a recognition memory task, which was a, um, a memory encoding task. Um, and, uh, that is can you, uh, can you differentiate, uh, similar items that we're asking you to remember? And an spatial episodic memory task where we had them play one of those Doom-like games when they went into this spatial maze, and they had to do things in a virtual city. Their performance there got better, which is very, very classically dependent on the hippocampus. So, so this I... It was so satisfying to a- to do this study, because, um, uh, I've been wanting to answer this question. What is a minimum amount or doable amount of exercise that will get you these cognitive benefits? And now I can say, in 30 to 50 year olds that are low fit, two to three times a week. Is that doable? Absolutely. Will it be hard if you're low fit? Yeah, it's, it's gonna be challenging, but absolutely doable. And so, you know, that, that is, uh, it makes sense with all of the, all of the, um, mechanisms that we are... I didn't study the mechanisms, just to be clear, but with all the mechanisms we are imagining are playing a role here, that absolutely makes sense, and, and it is doable. This is not like you have to become marathon runner to get any of these benefits. This is you have to start moving your body on a regular basis, two to three times a week, and I, so I, I love that for its realness.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm. How long are those sessions again?
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
45 minutes.
- AHAndrew Huberman
45 minutes.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah, 45 minutes. Uh, it, it's a typical spin, uh, spin kind of class. There's a warmup for five minutes and a cooldown for five minutes, so it's really, uh, 30 f- 35 minutes, 35 minutes of, you know, they, they're-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Work.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
... really pushing you, yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
So, and so they're breathing reasonably hard. Heart rate-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Heart rate is up.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Heart rate is definitely-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Heart rate is up.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
... up, yeah, yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah. The, I find the, the, uh, all of those results are really interesting. The, the result showing improvement in motivation to exercise-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... is interesting 'cause it gets back to this issue of kind of a self-amplifying effect.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah, right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And, um, the neuroscientist in me wants to, uh, think about kind of premotor circuits and the fact that-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Mm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... you know, we have a motor system that can obviously do things like lift cups and walk and run if we want to or need to.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
But that, um, it's possible to create a kind of anticipatory, uh, activity-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... in our nervous system, where-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... our body then craves a certain stimulus.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
You mentioned the cold and how you-
- 1:12:17 – 1:17:09
Anticipating Exercise, Daily Habits & Behaviors
- AHAndrew Huberman
any reason to speculate at least or believe that we can c- build an anticipatory resi- reverberatory activity-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Mm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... into our nervous system?
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah, yeah. You know, I, I agree with that because I also have those same kinds of thoughts, and, and I do have anticipatory exercise when I, I can't do it. So I just got back from a week and week and a half in Paris where I got to do a book launch of, of my last book, Good Anxiety. And, um, I, I, I really, I walked around a lot, but I did not do my exercise for that whole week and a half, and, um-... but there was a lot of stress because I had to all these interviews in French, so I gave myself a break. Oh-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Do you speak French?
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
I speak French, yes.
- AHAndrew Huberman
I was going to say, otherwise, it would be really stressful.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah, that- that would be really stressful. (laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
I'm- Now- Then I'd be really impressed. Th- then I would definitely start exercising.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
(laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
I would- Actually, I would follow your m- morning routine to a T, but-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
(laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
Okay, very impressive, nonetheless.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
S- So-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
But I got back and- and, you know, coming back this direction from- from Paris, I- I live in New York, is, um, is much easier and so I was able to get- get up at a normal time the next day, and that exercise session that first day is like, okay, I'm back in my home, I'm back in my environment, and it felt so good. It was like I wanted to come back. And, um, and I know it's because I- I worked up over years. Now, I could truthfully say seven days a week, but it was, you know, first it was four to five, then it was five to six, and, um, yeah, seven, i- but that includes a yoga day or sometimes I have to do it for 10 minutes instead of 30 because I have to leave. But- but that habit of you do that, even for five minutes, you do either the- the- the wait 10 minute thing or five minute thing or- or a stretch, um, that is a, uh, tiny habit. Wh- Is that somebody at Stanford that invented this idea of tiny habits?
- AHAndrew Huberman
There are a couple of-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
I thought it was.
- AHAndrew Huberman
The- Well, we've got like a number of people there. There's, um, and I'm- I apologize in advance to all the people I neglect in this statement, um, but I'm happy to put it in the comments, folks. Um, BJ Fogg is there, has done-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yes.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
That's who I-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
I-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah, BJ's done really-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... uh, great work. And then, um, James Clear wrote a book-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Mm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... about habits and, uh, has- has a very popular newsletter about habits.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- 1:17:09 – 1:20:58
“Every Drop of Sweat Counts” – Exercise & Cognitive Function
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
study that I wanted to share, unpublished, we're- we're writing it up right now, is, um, part two of that study that I just described, which was the low fit people. Next, we moved to mid fit people, like, "What about us? You know, we're already exercising. Wh- how- how- am I going to benefit from increasing my exercise?" So here again, we collaborated with a great, um, spin studio that had a whole bunch of mid fit people that- that by our definition were exercising, um, two to three times a week on a regular basis. That's great. All you people out there that are doing that, you should know you're already benefiting your brain. But our question was, what if we invited them to exercise as much as they wanted at the spin studio for three months, from, you know, two to three times all the way up to seven times a week, and let's just see what happened? And the control group, um, we asked them not to change their exercise. Um, and so what we ended up with was a nice big array of starting with mid fit people that exercised between staying at two to three times a week all the way up to seven times a week, and the bottom line from that study is every drop of sweat counted. That is, the more you change and you increase your workout up to seven times a week, the better your mood was. You had lower, um, uh, lower amounts of depression and anxiety, higher amounts of good, um, uh, good affect, and the better your hippocampal memory was with the more you worked out. Again, this was for three months. So I love that too because it gives power to- to those of us that are, you know, regularly exercising and wondering, "Do I really need to? I mean, is it really going to help me?" And the answer is yes. I mean, not all of us can exercise, go- go to a spin class seven times a week. But, um, I love the message that-... our body is responsive to that. And, and you can get better hippocampal function, better overall baseline mood affect with, with a higher level. So it works for, uh, the MidFit, uh, people as well.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Fantastic. The, the more I, I learn from you, the more I'm starting to conceptualize the brain as an organ that is privileged in so many ways. You know, it has this unique blood-brain barrier.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Um, has this incredible quality of being able to predict things, and its job mainly is, of course, to predict things, a- among, among other functions, of course. But that our brain isn't necessarily going to stay stable or get better over time, that it needs a signal.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
It, that it isn't sufficient to just say that we can't take it for granted, that, that our brain is actually an organ that n- requires a signal-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... in order to maintain its own function.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And it sounds like enhanced blood flow in these pathways that you described earlier, these two pathways, um, are at least a- among the more critical signals. Um, I'm tempted now to move my frequency of cardiovascular exercise from, I confess it's about three days, 35 minutes lately, and it should be more, uh, to daily. There's something really, again, really special about daily.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Because it's nonnegotiable.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
You just do it.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Um, and it sounds like if one were to do higher intensity exercise-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... you know, in a spin class, I've never taken a spin class, but I've seen there are times when they're standing up on the bike and pedaling very hard.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah. Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
So th- that is included in these kinds of workouts, right?
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Absolutely, yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Okay.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
I mean, that's what the instructor is doing.
- AHAndrew Huberman
(laughs)
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
I cannot control.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Right.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Uh, we did m- monitor heart rate, uh, o- of all the subjects and it was clearly, you know, (laughs) compared to the video Scrabble, it was (laughs) highly significantly different.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah, I would hope so.
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yes.
- AHAndrew Huberman
I guess it depends on how intense that game of Scrabble is, but.
- 1:20:58 – 1:27:28
Positive Affirmations & Mood
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
- AHAndrew Huberman
Um, could we just briefly talk about, uh, mindset and affirmations?
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Yeah, sure.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Uh, you've talked a bit, um, before about, uh, affirmations, and as you mentioned the, uh, the beautiful work of my colleague at Stanford, Alia Crum-
- WSDr. Wendy Suzuki
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... um, and who, uh, we can summarize her work pretty simply, although we won't do it complete justice by... She's already been on the podcast.
Episode duration: 1:46:38
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