Dr. Andy Galpin: Optimal Nutrition & Supplementation for Fitness | Huberman Lab Guest Series

1. 0:00 – 5:16

   Nutrition & Supplementation

   1. AHAndrew Huberman0:00

      (Upbeat music) Welcome to the Huberman Lab Guest Series, where I and an expert guest 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's episode marks the sixth and final of the six-episode series on fitness, exercise, and performance. And today's discussion is all about nutrition and supplementation to maximize your fitness, exercise, and performance goals. Dr. Andy Galpin, I'm super excited to discuss today's topic, which is nutrition and supplementation for performance and recovery. And I'm particularly excited about this conversation, because I've been interested in supplementation and nutrition for performance really since my teens. But also because in recent years, we've witnessed a massive transformation in the general public in terms of their view of supplementation and nutrition. First of all, more people are thinking about nutrition, what is good nutrition, what is not. A very barbed wire topic, as you know, but there are some truths in there that we'll discuss. But also supplementation. You know, whereas 10, 15 years ago, I think most people, um, would either be really into supplements, that was a small percentage of people, but the majority of people, uh, were either told or were thinking, "Oh, you know, vitamins, y- you mostly excrete them, they're just expensive urine." Nowadays, it seems that many people, including many of my colleagues and physicians all the way down to s- sports performance experts are taking and making recommendations about certain supplements. And so, the way that I like to think about supplements is that they aren't necessarily just supplements, which makes it sound like they are augmenting what should already be there but you're not quite getting enough of. But indeed, a lot of these things we call supplements are very potent compounds that can transform our ability to perform in the short term, to recover from exercise, and that can really shape brain chemistry, hormone patterns acutely and when taken long term. So I'm very excited about today's topic, and to be able to try and sort through this, let's call it a, a cloud, hopefully not a storm, but this cloud of supplements that are out there. Because indeed, many of them are excellent and can provide us a lot, some of them are terrible, and then some just don't do anything and therefore are terrible because, uh, either they have side effects or because they're very expensive and they don't do anything. And then, of course, within the realm of nutrition, there's an equal amount of, of confusion. But that's why I'm talking to you, because you're gonna put clarity and structure and definition on these incredibly important topics.

   2. AGAndy Galpin2:37

      You, you absolutely nailed it there. One of the major reasons supplements can work is because you can consume nutrients in extremely high concentrations, such that you would not get in nature through food. Having said that, you really do wanna focus on the basics, sleep, nutrition, hydration. And I'm going to get into very specific detail later with some of those things. That said, there are plenty of situations and circumstances when supplementation can do exactly what you said. Also though, because you are taking them in such high concentrations, they can also be unproductive, they can be destructive, or they can be counterproductive. So in case if you're taking a couple of supplements over here, it may actually be counteracting the benefits of some of the other supplements over there. So in the ideal situation, we would be able to work like snipers here. So we would be able to run full biological testing, so extensive blood work and saliva and urine and stool and have an in-depth analysis of your gut microbiome and your stress patterns and your time of day and your cortisol curve and, like, all the things that we do in our high performance folks. With that then, we can get extremely high precision supplementation, and, and quite honestly, our philosophy is we only give individuals exactly what they need. So even some of the standard, uh, generally safe and effective supplements, we don't really necessarily use them if there's no specific need. Uh, we've talked about the consequences of this with things like antioxidants, but even, uh, simple stuff like stimulants and other tools that are effective for recovery, we don't use them unless we have a reason. That said, that's not the reality for a lot of people. They're not gonna be able to do something like that or work with somebody who can help them in that. So there are a handful of supplements that I would consider to be in my, my 80/20 rule, which is sort of like the 20% of supplements that are gonna give you 80% of the benefit for the lowest cost. And so, what I can actually do is just sort of start there, even though this, like, burns my skin and my soul a little bit. I absolutely hate this. I am the context guy, I'm the, "It depends, it's high precision" guy, but let's be real, um, there are a number of supplements that are fairly effective and fairly cheap for a wide range of outcomes. Uh, so this is for general public, this is for people who wanna do the three buckets, right? You want to look a certain way, so supplements that can enhance muscle growth and fat loss. Um, non-hormonal based supplements, of course. Supplements that can improve energy or physical performance. Again, from everything from, you know, squatting more to feeling better in your yoga class to having more energy throughout the day, to our third major bucket that we've been talking, uh, about throughout this entire series, which are longevity. So, we can cover those first, if you'd like to start there.

   3. AHAndrew Huberman5:15

      Yes, absolutely.

2. 5:16 – 16:51

   Creatine Supplementation, Muscle & Cognitive Function, Loading Phase

   1. AHAndrew Huberman5:16

      Let's start there.

   2. AGAndy Galpin5:17

      Oftentimes when we think of supplements, we immediately jump to high sport performance type of things or vigorous workouts or, or muscle building, though that doesn't necessarily have to be the case. Uh, take for example, creatine, and I've spoken about this at length and with Dar- Darren Candow, who's done a tremendous amount of research. I was just up at his lab recently in Canada, and he has covered extensively, in fact, I, I think I put up a post, perhaps I could draw this up, um, where he laid out all the myriad of benefits of creatine. This is taken in the, you know, typically three to five grams per day of dose of creatine monohydrate, which has the most research behind it. Um, seems to be extremely low side effects in almost anyone. And the benefits include, of course, things like, uh, muscle performance and strength and things like that. And if you go back to our-... discussion in our episode on metabolism and, and endurance. Uh, we talked about the phosphocreatine system. So you can figure out kind of what this is going to do in terms of effect. That said, there's excellent information and data coming out now on, on the benefits of bone mineral density and creatine. Uh, there's a ton of work looking at a host of cognitive factors, um, from memory, executive function, uh, to effects potentially on even things like depression, uh, mood, to Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, um, all forms of, of neurodegenerative disease. Um, in fact, it's, it's, it's pretty obvious, the brain loves creatine as a fuel. And so not only... We sort of discussed it in the episode as being the fuel for skeletal muscle contraction, but the brain needs to do that as well. The astrocytes around the brain need to be able to provide energy, et cetera. So it's very clear that metabolism in the brain is reduced with things like TBI and, potentially, concussions. So, um... Now, to be extremely clear, creatine does not prevent any of those diseases. I- it does not treat any of them. A- and the data are mixed, but it- more and more are coming. Uh, some show a little bit of benefit, some show, you know, maybe none. But I- I'm not aware of any research in those areas that show it has any downside. Uh, for the most part, side effects are extremely minimal, if not null, and then potentially some benefit, d- and depending on the specific study. So we could put up a, uh, if you'd like, a couple of links directly to those meta-analyses and-

   3. AHAndrew Huberman7:30

      I can do that.

   4. AGAndy Galpin7:31

      ... folks can go through those things one by one. So, um, I only say that to, again, maybe expand our understanding or thinking about what these types of supplements can do. It's not just about growing muscle or, um, you know, high performance. It's everything to, again, there's an association with recovery. Uh, so creatine is fantastic for recovery for muscle, for muscle damage, uh, helps i- and can potentially aid in fat loss, uh, and a whole host of things. So you can actually also even look at websites like examine.com. I have, you know, no affiliation with them whatsoever. But if you wanna just type in something like creatine monohydrate, um, you can see a whole list a- and you're going to see thousands of studies of the potential benefits, uh, of creatine. So that is, is always number one on my list.

   5. AHAndrew Huberman8:15

      I'm relieved to hear that creatine sits at the top of your supplementation list. Because, uh, well, first of all, I started taking it when I was in college. At that time, I was taking it in this kind of loading mode-

   6. AGAndy Galpin8:25

      Sure.

   7. AHAndrew Huberman8:25

      ... where you take it in, um, you know, anywhere from, uh, 15 to 25 grams per day, often causing some gastric distress, often combining it with fruit juice to try and shuttle it into the muscles-

   8. AGAndy Galpin8:36

      Sure.

   9. AHAndrew Huberman8:37

      ... and then a so-called maintenance phase of reducing to 10 or 15 grams per day. Um, nowadays, I just take about five grams or so, although later I know you're gonna tell me why I should probably be taking more than five grams per day given my body weight, so I know we'll get into some of those specifics a little bit later. But in addition to experiencing direct effects on, uh, muscle size and strength, which I did, uh, I don't know how it contributed to my cognitive function or if it does now, because there's really no way to tease that out with, with standard, um, uh, at home tests, like a scale. (laughs) Uh, but it is very clear to me based on the literature, uh, that you described and, um, some of which we've covered on other episodes of the podcast, that the phosphocreatine system is vitally important for forebrain function, right? The forebrain, of course, being the, uh, the, uh, portion of brain, uh, broadly speaking, the portion of brain just behind your forehead that is, uh, responsible for planning, action, setting rules and context. So, um, even as simple as if you're going downfield in a game of soccer or basketball and you're on offense and then, uh, you make an attempt on goal or basket and then it switches and you go back, now you're on defense. That... S- being on defense is very different than being on offense. And that goal s- uh, excuse me, that, that rule switching is a prefrontal cortical function, as is every context dependent way of thinking or, or acting. And so anything that can favor function of the forebrain I think is good for, uh, humans in general. It suppresses anxiety, allows us to interpret what's going on for us. And so I'm very, um, relieved and gratified to hear that creatine sits at the top of the list. Also, as I'm sure you'll point out again later, creatine is for the most part a relatively affordable supplement-

   10. AGAndy Galpin10:17

       Yeah.

   11. AHAndrew Huberman10:17

       ... for most people. So here we're not talking about something that's really esoteric or that you have to, you know, fly to, um, some remote location to get an infusion of. (laughs)

   12. AGAndy Galpin10:25

       Right.

   13. AHAndrew Huberman10:25

       Um, but that-

   14. AGAndy Galpin10:26

       Although I apologize to all you, 'cause I know the price has skyrocketed recently.

   15. AHAndrew Huberman10:29

       Really?

   16. AGAndy Galpin10:30

       Yeah.

   17. AHAndrew Huberman10:30

       Why is that?

   18. AGAndy Galpin10:31

       Uh, I think it's as... Well, nobody knows, but it's, quote unquote, "A supply and, uh, and, uh, demand issue," if you will. So, uh, those prices have gone up. There's also, of course, been shipping problems in the world and things. So, uh, every time I, I talk about creatine right now, people just flame me-

   19. AHAndrew Huberman10:46

       Mm.

   20. AGAndy Galpin10:46

       ... for like, "Oh my God, it's so expensive now." I'm like, "I know, I'm sorry." But honestly, it's only so expensive because you're used to being so cheap. So when you, when you counter-

   21. AHAndrew Huberman10:54

       I didn't think about it.

   22. AGAndy Galpin10:54

       ... the fact that you're like-

   23. AHAndrew Huberman10:56

       (laughs) Right.

   24. AGAndy Galpin10:56

       Yeah. Like, relative to the other stuff you're probably taking, relative to any other number of purchases, um, for the... It still lands very high on my ROI list, my, you know, my 80/20 because of that. It's, it's, um, it can be taken any time of the day. It doesn't have to be in magical combination. You talked about co-ingesting with carbohydrates. That can enhance, uh, how quickly it can get into the system. In fact, it's, it's, it's gonna work on the exact same as- mechanisms. We'll probably or potentially talk about hydration. Um, but these things are shuttled. So anytime you're bringing in carbohydrate, that's going to be shipped into tissue as quickly as it can. Uh, creatine then goes along for the ride and then it brings water for the ride. That's how you enhance hydration. That's why it's important to have carbohydrates when you're trying to hydrate. Um, so you're just gonna take it in there. And that's also why you get, quote unquote, "Cell swelling," um, which is a good thing. Like you're- it's just enhancing hydration. We actually use it a ton in our post weigh-in protocols. So in individuals that have to cut water weight, uh, creatine's a great thing to throw back in there. It's gonna help you rehydrate. It's also why when you take 30 grams of it, it can pull a bunch of fluid in the intestines and, and there you go with your little bit of GI distress. So, um, yeah, there's a lot of fun things you could talk about there. Um, I just had to flag that because every time I've been talking about it recently and I say it's cheap, people are killing me for it. So I apologize. I don't know how to make it any cheaper, but it's still fairly...... fairly affordable.

   25. AHAndrew Huberman12:11

       Yeah, I would say relatively inexpensive compared to a lot of supplements out there, and when thinking about the return on investment, it is, um, it's quite good. And-

   26. AGAndy Galpin12:18

       Yeah. And so like, actually, so sorry to cut you off, but I was just also thinking, um, there's been a number of studies on, uh, sleep deprivation as well with creatine, that it can help. So obviously, sleep deprivation will generally reduce cognitive function, and creatine can ameliorate some of that drop. So if you think about it in that context, I had a crummy night of sleep, uh, well, and if that enables you to perform a little bit better on your job, then you would make up the dollar or so, whatever you paid for that day's supply of creatine. So, um, it is something kind of on that note, it's not going to work as an acute response, so it's not something you're like, "I feel terrible, let me throw some creatine down the hatch, I'll feel better." That- that's not going to work. It's going to take several weeks to have a noticeable effect. It needs to be stored in tissue, uh, it needs to be built up before you can actually do much of anything, so it is unlike some of the other things like stimulants or caffeine that have an acute, you know, response right now. A- and so if you're going to take it, you probably need to consume it consistently. If you can't do that, then really there's no point in doing it. Uh, and the loading phase you mentioned since we're here, is something you can do, again, if you need to enhance the storage of it really quickly. So say, for example, we've done this in some military cases, where it's like you get back to base and you've only got a week, and then you've got to go back out, we may actually have to, uh, do a little bit of a loading phase then. Um, but if that's not the case, um, the loading phase is unnecessary. It's not really harmful, other than maybe GI stress and maybe waste, but you're gonna have three or four weeks, it's going to reach full saturation, plenty of time to- to be there in that... if you're in that three to seven grams per day range.

   27. AHAndrew Huberman13:48

       I'm glad you mentioned the slow accumulating positive effects of creatine as compared to so-called acute effects. Because the way that I think of health promoting and performance enhancing protocols like viewing morning sunlight or, um, endurance exercise for that matter, or creatine, or sleep for instance, is that while they can have effects in the immediate term, you might feel a little bit, or in the case of good night's sleep, a lot better, it's really the cumulative effect of raising your baseline level of functioning.

   28. AGAndy Galpin14:20

       Yeah.

   29. AHAndrew Huberman14:20

       You know, there's... another way to think about it is these supplements or behaviors, um, and quality nutrition, when done consistently over time, and that doesn't mean 100% of the time, but you know-

   30. AGAndy Galpin14:32

       Yeah. Consistent.
3. 16:51 – 20:31

   Momentous, Levels, LMNT

   1. AGAndy Galpin16:51

   2. AHAndrew Huberman16:51

      Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is also separate from Dr. Andy Galpin's teaching and research roles at Cal State Fullerton. It is, however, part of our 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, we'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast. Our first sponsor is Momentous. Momentous makes supplements of the absolute highest quality. The Huberman Lab Podcast is proud to be partnering with Momentous for several important reasons. First of all, as I mentioned, their supplements are of extremely high quality. Second of all, their supplements are generally in single ingredient formulations. If you're going to develop a supplementation protocol, you're going to want to focus mainly on using single ingredient formulations. With single ingredient formulations, you can devise the most logical and effective and cost-effective supplementation regiment for your goals. In addition, Momentous supplements ship internationally, and this is, of course, important because we realize that many of the Huberman Lab Podcast listeners reside outside the United States. If you'd like to try the various supplements mentioned on the Huberman Lab Podcast, in particular, supplements for hormone health, for sleep optimization, for focus, as well as a number of other things including exercise recovery, you can go to livemomentous, spelled O-U-S, so that's livemomentous.com/huberman. Today's episode is also brought to us by Levels. Levels is a program that lets you see how different foods and activities affect your health by giving you real-time feedback on your blood glucose using a continuous glucose monitor. Many people are aware that their blood sugar, that is their blood glucose level, is critical for everything from fat loss to muscle gain to healthy cognition, and indeed-... aging of the brain and body. Most people do not know, however, how different foods and different activities, including exercise or different temperature and environments, impact their blood glucose levels, and yet blood glucose is exquisitely sensitive to all of those things. I first started using Levels about a year ago as a way to understand how different foods, exercise, and timing of food relative to exercise, and quality of sleep at night impact my blood glucose levels, and I've learned a tremendous amount from using Levels. It's taught me when best to eat, what best to eat, when best to exercise, how best to exercise, and how to modulate my entire schedule from work, to exercise, and even my sleep. So if you're interested in learning more about Levels and trying a continuous glucose monitor yourself, go to levels.link/huberman. That's levels.link/huberman. Today's episode is also brought to us by LMNT. LMNT is an electrolyte drink that contains the exact ratios of the electrolytes sodium, magnesium, and potassium to optimize cellular functioning for mental and physical performance. Most people realize that hydration is key. We need to ingest enough fluids in order to feel our best and perform our best. But what most people do not realize is that the proper functioning of our cells and nerve cells, neurons in particular, requires that sodium, magnesium, and potassium be present in the correct ratios. Now, of course, people with pre-hypertension and hypertension need to be careful about their sodium intake, but what a lot of people don't realize is that if you drink caffeine, if you exercise, and in particular, if you're following a very clean diet, that is not a lot of processed foods, which of course is a good thing, chances are, you're not getting enough sodium, potassium, and magnesium to optimize mental and physical performance. LMNT contains a science-backed ratio of 1,000 milligrams, that's one gram of sodium, 200 milligrams of potassium, and 60 milligrams of magnesium, and no sugar. If you'd like to try LMNT, you can go to Drink LMNT, that's lmnt.com/huberman to get a free LMNT sample pack with your purchase. Again, that's Drink LMNT, lmnt.com/huberman to claim a free

4. 20:31 – 35:37

   Dehydration, Overhydration, Night Urination

   1. AHAndrew Huberman20:31

      sample pack. To start off, I want to ask you about something that, as soon as I say it, some people might roll their eyes or wonder, "Why are we even talking about that now?" But that I have to believe is among the more fundamental, if not foundational, aspects of nutrition and supplementation for performance, and that's hydration. Right? I mean, I think we hear hydration, it's like, okay, we have to drink six to eight glasses of water every day. Our urine should be relatively clear. If it's too dark yellow, we're not doing a good job of hydrating enough.

   2. AGAndy Galpin21:05

      Yeah.

   3. AHAndrew Huberman21:06

      How much of that is true? Um, is alkaline water worthwhile for changing the alkalinity of my body? I learned when I was in college and graduate school that the alkalinity of the different tissues in your body is very well controlled in order to keep you alive, and that you don't want it to shift too much or you can enter pretty horrible states of seizure, vomiting, and even death. So tell me about hydration, and woven into that, if you would, educate me on electrolytes and hydration, because I think most often when people ingest electrolytes, sure they could be ingesting salt tablets, probably getting some electrolytes. By the way, electrolytes, sodium, magnesium, potassium, through their food. I think most people think about drinking electrolytes. So water and electrolytes, I think is a vitally important topic to kick this off with.

   4. AGAndy Galpin21:56

      Sure. We can jump right into your alkaline water. Um, while there's perhaps much to say about this, uh, we can maybe revisit this in another seven-part series all on its own.

   5. AHAndrew Huberman22:06

      (laughs)

   6. AGAndy Galpin22:07

      Uh, I would just say it this way, there's probably a few things you should do before worrying about the alkalinity of your water, and I'll- I'll just leave it at that.

   7. AHAndrew Huberman22:16

      Meaning the alkalinity of the water is- is sort of irrelevant?

   8. AGAndy Galpin22:19

      Not that... You won't go that far. It's just, it's probably, remember we sort of started off talking about 80/20?

   9. AHAndrew Huberman22:25

      Mm-hmm.

   10. AGAndy Galpin22:25

       Um, well this would be in my, like, 99/1, in terms of, like, if we're really at the level of worrying about the pH of the- your drinking fluid, uh, we have optimized so many other things (laughs) that then we can talk about it. But until we have nailed, um, months and years of work on other things, this is just not gonna make much of an impact.

   11. AHAndrew Huberman22:45

       Great. E- then perhaps you could tell us about what volume of water we should be drinking, when we should be drinking that water relative to training and just generally, and, um, yeah, and anything else related to water and electrolytes that can improve mental performance, physical performance, and offset any, you know, ill effects.

   12. AGAndy Galpin23:04

       I like the fact that you mentioned physical and mental performance, because it's clear in both cases. W- we hear that we need to drink more water, and I can give you some numbers, and I will in a second. What we also need to recognize is there's... This is hormesis. We talked about hormesis a- a few episodes ago, and this is the case, right? Whether we talked about food or hydration or, I think I gave the example of cyanide, uh, naturally occurring in your food. Hot water's the same way. So if you are under hydrated or dehydrated, there is a clear negative effect on your body, and as I increase the level or improve the level of hydration, things get better, whether those are physical performance or those is mental performance. In fact, we know that a body weight reduction of as low as 2% via dehydration, so imagine you're doing a bout of exercise and you're sweating and you lose 2% of your body weight, that alone is enough to reduce accuracy in performance. So the classic study we talk about here was in basketball players, so shooting accuracy, so free throw shooting I think is specifically what they looked at. Um, significant reduction in performance with as little as 2% dehydration. At that level, you also see a significant increase in perception of difficulty of exercise, and so only right at 2%. And again, when I say 2%, I mean percent body weight lost, right? That's what that means. You start getting into the 3, 4, 5% dehydration, you start having a significant reduction in blood volume, and that's incredibly important for endurance. Um, your blood becomes viscous, it gets hard to pump through, um, and you're gonna start having all kinds of issues. So being dehydrated is, again, not only going to reduce performance, but because of the mental aspect which we just walked through, uh, and...... neuromuscular issue. You're gonna lose accuracy, you're gonna lose total endurance performance, and you're gonna lose speed and power. So we have the triad there. No matter what you're interested in, it's going to be harmed by being dehydrated. That also is happening then if you're starting your program dehydrated. So, um, if you're already 1% or so dehydrated, maybe you're like a little under hydrated and then you lose a little bit of sweat, you've already hit that 2%, and so we're starting to see reductions, um, in performance there. The same happens on the other side of that hormetic curve. So if you are optimally hydrated in some large window, but you start going past that, we can start running into equal problems. Remember, there is a, there is a need for an optimal concentration of sodium and potassium and chloride, uh, between your cell, inside your cell and outside of your cell. Um, these are electrolytes. This is what we call osmolality and osmolarity, is, is really what it is. Think of it like concentration and osmosis, if you remember those terms. So if we are trying to create a muscle contraction, that requires an electrical gradient. And so sodium and potassium specifically, and magnesium, calcium are positively charged, and chloride is negatively charged. And we need to have a certain amount inside the cell and outside the cell so that the positives and the negatives are balanced appropriately, um, so that when we move one, we change the voltage, and we have, in the case of a muscle contraction. Okay, I just skimmed through a whole lot of, of physiology there to say if you then go mess with fluid only, and you say, if I were to give you a bolus of, you know, three liters of pure water right now, you're going to dilute your blood. And so there's not going to be as many chemical, uh, there won't be as many electrical signals in there 'cause you've taken the same amount of sodium, potassium, et cetera, and put it in a larger volume of pure water. So that gradient is now changed. That becomes a significant problem for contraction. Um, I mean, quite literally it can kill you. This is what we call hyponatremia. Uh, so natremia, being spelled N-A, hypo being low. Um, hyponatremia, uh, if you actually go to the periodic chart, N-A is what we, uh, use for sodium. So hyponatrem- it's 'cause the word is natremia actually. So that, what that literally means is low sodium. And you didn't get that from sweating out all your sodium. You actually get hyponatremia from drinking in too much water. So it's not that the total amount of sodium gets low, it's the fact that the concentration gets low from excessive fluid intake. So in the extremes, in fact if you look at the, the literature, you'll see, um, anywhere between like 2 to 15% of people who finish endurance races are, are into hyponatremia. Now that varies wildly if you're doing Ironman in Kona versus like, you know, the marathon in Denver in, in October, right? It's gonna be totally different depending on weather conditions. But these are all important. Um, so while like death happens that is sort of extreme, if you back up just a little bit, you start seeing the same types of performance decrements. In fact, the symptoms can be identical. Brain fog, confusion, performance, uh, irritation, uh, GI distress. And you think, "Man, these are symptoms of dehydration." So then you drink more water, and you're just exacerbating the problem. And I can actually, um, give you one little example of this. Uh, we had, uh, an executive, actually a female CEO. Uh, I would say she's probably in her, was in her early 40s. And so she came to us and she thought, man, for sure she has some sort of gut problem going on, 'cause we hear a lot about kind of like gut health and how it affects everything. And so she's just like, "I have brain fog and I've done all these things, and I got blood work done and everything's fine, like nothing's going on. I think I must have some sort of gut thing or going on," or whatever, and it's okay. And we just started going through her stuff and, uh, she was I think about 170 pounds, uh, plus or minus, and she was consuming like 250 to 60 ounces of water a day.

   13. AHAndrew Huberman28:15

       That's a lot of water.

   14. AGAndy Galpin28:15

       That's a ton of water. And we were like, "Holy shit, what are you doing this for?" And she says like, "I, that's sort of like my thing." It was, but she didn't realize it was more of like a nervous tic than it was anything else, right? She just like sip, sip, sip, sip, sipped water. I'm like, "Man, how often do you go pee?" And she's like, "Yeah, like every, you know, 30 minutes or something." I'm like, "Fantastic. Sleep problems, focus?" And so she's smashing caffeine. She was at like eight cups of coffee a day.

   15. AHAndrew Huberman28:37

       Which is also gonna add to s- to excretion of sodium.

   16. AGAndy Galpin28:40

       Totally, right? So it's like, "Okay, we don't really need to come in and run a sleep study on you. We're just gonna lower your water." And she was like, "What?" Uh, we dropped her down to like 180. So basically an ounce per pound of body weight, which is still high, 'cause she did train.

   17. AHAndrew Huberman28:56

       180 ounces?

   18. AGAndy Galpin28:57

       Correct.

   19. AHAndrew Huberman28:57

       Yeah.

   20. AGAndy Galpin28:58

       She does work out, so she needed to replenish some stuff. And we'll cover these numbers in a second. Instantaneously, I mean like two days in, she's like, "Oh my God, I, I haven't slept six straight hours in years." And then after that it was like basically tears coming back to us, right? "My focus, my brain fog is gone," 'cause she's in a very high pressure job. Um, it's like everything's coming back. Like now she was down to three or so cups of coffee a day, blah, blah, blah. Like the whole thing, digestion improved, all of it. She was si- like her only problem after all the analyses was she was just drinking way, way too much water. And adding more salt to her would not have solved the problem, 'cause she would've just had simply way too much fluid in her system. She was having all kinds of ADH problems and aldosterone, like the whole thing, and then that, that rolls into cortisol. The whole like system gets, goes into chaos. So, um, it is important that you pay attention to hydration, um, even though as you sort of mentioned, people tend to just kind of like roll their eyes around it. Because if you're in the middle, it's fine, but if you're anywhere past not even the extreme extremes, but just that first standard deviation away, um, you're gonna have problems and you might be thinking adrenal fatigue, you might be thinking your testos- like you're gonna think all these things and you simply just haven't actually dialed in your hydration.

   21. AHAndrew Huberman30:09

       Yeah. Um, I think people sometimes roll their eyes at the discussion of hydration because it just doesn't sound very sexy.

   22. AGAndy Galpin30:15

       Yeah.

   23. AHAndrew Huberman30:15

       It's not like... Doesn't sound like a neurotransmitter or a hormone. It doesn't sound like testosterone or estrogen or DHEA or, um, dopamine. But it actually is all of those things.

   24. AGAndy Galpin30:26

       Yeah.

   25. AHAndrew Huberman30:27

       It sits at a level beneath all of those, but not beneath on a hierarchy. Beneath in, in terms of a foundation. It's actually the th- without proper electrolyte balance and hydration, none of the cells of the body can function. And then I think people also hear the, "Oh, you know, we are 70% water," and somehow like th- it, that...... statistic alone, um, or that fact alone doesn't seem to, uh, stimulate any kind of actionable takeaway.

   26. AGAndy Galpin30:53

       Right. (laughs)

   27. AHAndrew Huberman30:53

       It's like, "Great." You know, uh, like, gravity also, you know, keeps us, you know, d- uh, from jumping-

   28. AGAndy Galpin30:58

       Strong.

   29. AHAndrew Huberman30:58

       ... as high as we like, you know?

   30. AGAndy Galpin31:00

       There you go.
5. 35:37 – 41:22

   Tool: Hydration, Caffeine & Electrolytes

   1. AGAndy Galpin35:37

      hydration numbers.

   2. AHAndrew Huberman35:37

      Yes, I'd love to talk about diagnostics for hydration, over-hydration, dehydration. To start off, would you be willing to give us some numbers how much water should we be drinking?

   3. AGAndy Galpin35:50

      The classic rule here, and you're making me do what I hate, right? I wanna give all the caveats first, but I'll go straight to your number. Half an ounce per pound of body weight is a rough rule. So if you weigh, again, 200 pounds, that would mean you drink 100 ounces of water a day. Most water bottles are, like, 12 to 20 ounces, something like that, so, you know, you end up drinking six of those or so a day, kind of like plus or minus, which is not that unreasonable. Um, this does depend on a number of factors, which I could go over, but that is a, a rough starting place. The only other thing to add to that is that does not account for exercise-induced water loss, or sauna, or anything like that. So that's assuming just, like, basal daily needs. If you are, uh, exercising or sweating at all for any reasons or work related, so, um, folks that work outside or in the heat or, uh, a humid environment, this- these numbers all change and you can slide the scale up. But you generally wanna drink about 125%... of the fluids you've lost during that physical activity back.

   4. AHAndrew Huberman36:50

      And how much do you lose per hour of exercise?

   5. AGAndy Galpin36:54

      It, that number ranges between one to five pounds, depending on the person. And it can even be higher with some of our, uh, athletes. Uh, like I can think of a number of NFL players right now, it's not uncommon for those guys to do 8 or 9 pounds, even, not even like crazy circumstances. If it's August and we're in Jacksonville, it's not wild for those, those guys to go 9, 10 pounds. Um-

   6. AHAndrew Huberman37:12

      But what about the typical person who goes to a air-conditioned gym or goes out for a run on a day that is somewhere between, let's say, 55 degrees Fahrenheit and 85 degrees Fahrenheit?

   7. AGAndy Galpin37:23

      You're probably looking at like a pound.

   8. AHAndrew Huberman37:25

      Got it.

   9. AGAndy Galpin37:26

      I- It's not extremely high. If you are totally soaked, might be like a pound and a half to two pounds. If you, like, come back and, like, your pits are a little sweaty and there's a little bit of water kind of on your neckline, or, e- it's probably like a, more like a pound or so, so in that case, you might drink back a pound and a half of water.

   10. AHAndrew Huberman37:43

       Okay. So just to review these numbers to make sure that I'm on the correct page here, half an ounce of fluid per pound of body weight is a, a sort of a foundation for hydration. And then, you want to replace 125% of the fluid loss during exercise. And exercise varies, where exercise is done varies, whether or not people are wearing uniforms or helmets is gonna impact how much fluid they lose, et cetera. In a very hot environment, the, the amount of fluid lost can be anywhere from, you know, one to five, maybe even 10 pounds-

   11. AGAndy Galpin38:21

       Easy.

   12. AHAndrew Huberman38:21

       ... per hour of hard, hard exertion. For most exercise done in conditions of 55 degrees Fahrenheit to seve- to, excuse me, 85 degrees Fahrenheit, done with some degree of effort, one might lose a pound or, or, uh, two pounds of water.

   13. AGAndy Galpin38:36

       Super easy way to find out. All you have to do is weigh yourself naked, go do your workout, come back in, dry off, weigh yourself naked. That'll tell you exactly what you lost. So if you went in, you were 160 pounds, you come back out, you weigh 158, you lost two pounds, drink back two and a half pounds water, you're good. So that is, uh, it's, honestly, it's like fairly gold standard for identifying... You can actually buy a whole bunch of technology for this, and they are using the exact same equation, which is your body weight (laughs) when you were there. Now, if you do that, though, you do need to account for any fluid you drank during the workout-

   14. AHAndrew Huberman39:09

       Sure.

   15. AGAndy Galpin39:09

       ... 'cause that then offsets it.

   16. AHAndrew Huberman39:11

       S- simple, but I think important question. We're talking about a half an ounce of fluid per pound of body weight. Does that include things like coffee, tea, soda, pre-workout drinks, mid-workout drinks, um, mate, matcha, whatever the, you know, there's a, yerba mate, there's a m- there are a million things out there, um, or just water?

   17. AGAndy Galpin39:31

       Any fluid, for the most part, is gonna count.

   18. AHAndrew Huberman39:33

       And is it true that fluids that contain caffeine generally cause us to secrete sodium?

   19. AGAndy Galpin39:41

       Yeah.

   20. AHAndrew Huberman39:42

       Okay. So, do you recommend including electrolyte powder or a small pinch of sodium or any number of other supplement-type electrolytes that can replace that sodium, magnesium, and potassium?

   21. AGAndy Galpin39:55

       A couple things we have to pay attention to do accurately answer that question. What you also sort of asked about, you may have not even realized, is does caffeine actually enhance dehydration? Uh, which is not really what you asked, but it's, uh, probably a lot of people thought that as well. So caffeine can, but coffee doesn't necessarily do that, because remember, you're co-ingesting that with fluid. And so, uh, we used to say that all the time, "Oh, coffee dehydrates you." It doesn't. It might make your urine yellow. It certainly gives off an, a odor in your urine. But in general, coffee will not do that, 'cause you're ingesting this... If you were to now be taking caffeine pills alone, now there, there is a bit of a diuretic effect there, um, so you're gonna urinate how much? Maybe not enough for you to be really concerned with, especially when you balance that against the ergogenic effects and benefits of caffeine. It's not something we are concerned about. Second part of your question, do you need to then offset the loss of sodium? I'm not super concerned about the amount of sodium lost to caffeine. I am more concerned about simply the amount of sodium being correct because of the bigger circumstances, like how much is actually in your system and how much you lost in the training session. So it's not the caffeine that I care about that much, relative to, you know, if you lost three grams of sodium because of the training, and you added a- another few milligrams because of the caffeine, I don't really care, or didn't.

   22. AHAndrew Huberman41:14

       I'm glad you brought up the difference between a substance, like caffeine, and the vehicle it's contained in, like coffee.

6. 41:22 – 48:57

   Tool: Sweating, Salt & Performance

   1. AHAndrew Huberman41:22

   2. AGAndy Galpin41:22

      Totally.

   3. AHAndrew Huberman41:22

      This is all really important. And it also raises, uh, a question about individual differences in sweating ability. And I call it sweating ability because, uh, I have a good friend I've known for ages, really, um, actually work with him in my laboratory, uh, as well, and he's one of these people that the moment he starts any physical activity, it's like a flood warning.

   4. AGAndy Galpin41:42

      Yeah.

   5. AHAndrew Huberman41:42

      Right? He just soaks through clothing. He's just so- the, the sweating adaptation is, is exceedingly robust in him. Other people less so. So is it true that sweating and our ability to dump heat through a bi- lo- loss of water is something that, um, we tend to vary on, and that also that we can build up that capacity? I know a number of people are probably thinking, "Ew, gross. Why would I want to sweat more?" But there's actually a huge advantage to be able to dump body heat during exertion, because body heat, in some ways, sets the cap for performance.

   6. AGAndy Galpin42:10

      Oh, in lot, many, many ways.

   7. AHAndrew Huberman42:12

      Including-

   8. AGAndy Galpin42:12

      Yeah.

   9. AHAndrew Huberman42:12

      ... mental performance.

   10. AGAndy Galpin42:13

       For sure.

   11. AHAndrew Huberman42:13

       Our ability to stay alert often is enhanced by being cold. And of course, we all want to warm up properly. But, um, in terms of loss of fluid through sweating, is there a way to easily bin ourselves into kind of a, a low sweater, medium sweater, um, heavy sweater?

   12. AGAndy Galpin42:29

       Sure.

   13. AHAndrew Huberman42:29

       That sounds like a- an article of clothing. But in any case, uh, you know what I'm, you know what I mean.

   14. AGAndy Galpin42:32

       Man, another, a lot to say here. We should, I wish we had a whole series on this. Um-

   15. AHAndrew Huberman42:37

       Listen, if we have to go 17 hours, we can do it. Just everybody hydrate well, and-

   16. AGAndy Galpin42:42

       I think we've shown the listeners, uh, that is a real threat. (laughs) That's a very real threat.

   17. AHAndrew Huberman42:48

       Podcasting to failure. You don't have to do every set in the gym to failure, but here we are attempting to podcast to failure. In it-

   18. AGAndy Galpin42:53

       Yes.

   19. AHAndrew Huberman42:53

       ... in all seriousness, um, what, what is the role of-... sweating ability, and is this something that any of us should care about, or train for-

   20. AGAndy Galpin43:02

       Yeah.

   21. AHAndrew Huberman43:02

       ... or pay attention to? Or is this just kind of getting into the arcane?

   22. AGAndy Galpin43:05

       Number one, you can train your ability to sweat. This is important for heat acclimation. And why that matters, when you sweat, that actually is not what regulates your temperature. Uh, you, what you want to have happen is the fluid to hit your skin and that to be evaporated. That's the actual mechanism. So in fact, um, if you stop sweating, m- like, you can guarantee within a short amount of time, you're going to be done moving.

   23. AHAndrew Huberman43:29

       Oh, very interesting. I hope people heard that and really are, are highlighting that in their mind, that sweating is a process of bringing fluid from your body onto the surface of your skin, and then the heat dumping aspect of sweating is the evaporation of that off, off your body. Which brings to mind all sorts of ideas about how to dress during exercise, et cetera.

   24. AGAndy Galpin43:49

       Yep.

   25. AHAndrew Huberman43:49

       But what you said is that if you are not sweating enough, you are limiting your output capacity. So it's not just about having enough fluid to sweat.

   26. AGAndy Galpin43:58

       Yeah.

   27. AHAndrew Huberman43:59

       It's also about being able to sweat and being, uh, uh, dressed appropriately to allow that sweat to move, uh, to evaporate off your body.

   28. AGAndy Galpin44:07

       Yep. And heat acclimation training is as simple as it sounds. So just practice it more. So, uh, i- if you're going into a process where you either need to be in a hot environment or you need to improve your sweat rate, you just need to practice sweating and your body will get the best of that. Uh, practice a sauna, practice a jacuzzi. Just get in those things and you will, uh, improve your ability to do that. Now, there is a huge genetic component. Um, I have one individual, actually, uh, a UFC fighter I've been working with, and I don't mind mentioning his name, he'll give me full permission. Scott Holtzman. Uh, many, many years, um, he's actually, um, fighting right now. Actually today, he'll be going. He is like, he, he is like you described, like buckets and buckets and buckets of fluids come off this guy when he's tying his shoes. Like he just goes, right? (laughs) Like, and now we've, we've improved that. He actually sweat too much. We worked on that a lot early in his career and we, we got some improvements down to get him to hold onto, to fluids better. That being said, uh, I've worked with other individuals in his weight category and it's the opposite, right? So we can have them literally do the exact same training session together and Scott will dump six pounds and, and other folks at his size will dump two, two and a half. So there's a genetic component that is just there, and you don't need to worry about it there. Um, so can you identify if you are a heavy salt sweater or not? Well, you have a whole bunch of routes for this. Number one is you can use the old free, um, cost-free test of just looking at your clothing and if you're seeing that white residue all over it, so you've, you've... You all have the friend who probably wears that same bas- baseball hat that they've had for eight years. If it is covered in the white junk all over the place, um, that's, uh, a sign of a higher salt sweater. If the opposite happens and it's like you can pull their clothing back a- and there's just nothing there, um, they are maybe a little bit of a lower salt sweater. Um, you can also use any number of hydration tests. I know that there is some coming out in the market very, very soon that can give you theoretically real-time, um, measurements, just like a CGM would be. Uh, although I haven't seen any data on if those are accurate or not. I haven't used one yet. Uh, but there are a number that are out, uh, super cheap, you know, 10, 15, 20 bucks all the way up to a couple of hundred dollars where you can buy these patches, put them on you, and get a reasonably close estimate. Um, and again, if those things are 5% or 10% or 20% off, I don't know, I'll have to see independent data come out first. But even if they are, you're not... You're not worried about the specific milligrams, right? Whether you sweat out, you know, 1,250 milligrams in a workout or if it's 1,340, it doesn't really matter. You're trying to look for big, big numbers, right? Are you losing 500 milligrams or using three and a half grams while you're at? So those things will get you in a ballpark to do exactly what you just said, am I high, medium, or low? Um, and there's a lot of them that I, that I've used in the past. So, that, that's another way to go about it. Um, then what you want to do is probably match your electrolyte intake to something close to what you sweat. That's the ideal scenario. Um, you can get a lot of information about hydration from blood. Um, you can look at like acute markers of dehydration like hemoglobin, hematocrit. Uh, i- if you're... Like if your hemoglobin is like 15-plus, it's funny, (laughs) we've talked about this in a few episodes before, but I see that and I'm like, "Man, that dude's super fit." That's like a 15, uh, for hemoglobin would be pretty high, 14 or so would be pretty good for a female. That's also the exact same thing as the sign of acute dehydration. Um, so hematocrit, same thing. If you're north of 50%, you're probably dehydrated. So you can get a lot. There are also, though, a lot of biomarkers that can tell you more about chronic dehydration. So you can run through those things as well. So a good blood chemistry test can tell you a lot and you can actually get some insights in your sodium and potassium. Albumin is another fantastic way to, to measure longer term, uh, hydration status. Now one of these amazing globulins that we've sort of talked a lot about. So you can do all those things. You can also simply measure the body weight pre and post and use a sweat patch or not, and use the, the freer version of your clothing test and get a rough idea o- of where you're getting it from. So, those are good places to start. Um, I want to go back though and make sure I wasn't over terrifying the audience too much on a sober piece. If you're performing a type of training or exercise or sport in which you're not losing more than 2% of your body weight, you don't need to be overly concerned about hydrating in the sport. And so we can actually get into, uh, some equations for how much water to drink during training right now. But if you... If you're, again, losing less than that, it's not critical. You can have some fluids if it like makes you feel better, but you're not going to be experiencing tremendous amounts of performance decrements if you're, you know, again, out playing a, a baseball game and it's 50 degrees out. You're fine. Um, you can drink some water, but that's not going to be compromising performance or recovery. So, uh, we can actually then, if you'd like, I can go through the three-step system for optimizing hydration, but, um, those are... I, I want to make sure I planted that flag so people aren't as terrified that they got to be guzzling down water if they're, you know, going to their physical therapist for some stretching. (laughs) That's, that's probably not super important.

7. 48:57 – 49:49

   AG1 (Athletic Greens)

   1. AGAndy Galpin48:57

   2. AHAndrew Huberman48:57

      I'd like to take a brief break and acknowledge our sponsor, Athletic Greens. Athletic Greens is a vitamin mineral probiotic and adaptogen drink designed to help you meet all of your foundational nutritional needs.I've been taking Athletic Greens daily since 2012. So I'm delighted that they're a sponsor of this podcast. The reason I started taking Athletic Greens, and the reason I still take Athletic Greens once or twice a day is that it helps me meet all of my foundational nutritional needs. That is, it covers my vitamins, my minerals, and the probiotics are especially important to me. Athletic Greens also contains adaptogens, which are critical for recovering from stress, from exercise, from work, or just general life. 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, and they'll give you a year supply of vitamin D3K2. Again, if you'd like to try Athletic Greens, go to athleticgreens.com/huberman to claim the special offer.

8. 49:49 – 55:28

   Galpin Equation for Hydration & Exercise, Focus

   1. AHAndrew Huberman49:49

      I would love for you to tell us what I refer to as the Galpin equation. Understanding, of course, that you did not name it the Galpin equation. Listen folks, scientists can have things named after them, but in general, it's not, uh, reflective of healthy psychology if they name things after themselves.

   2. AGAndy Galpin50:06

      Correct.

   3. AHAndrew Huberman50:06

      Sometimes yes, neuroanatomists used to do that, but in any case, Dr. Andy Galpin did not name the Galpin equation after himself. I named it after him, and the Galpin equation for how much fluid to ingest during exercise is?

   4. AGAndy Galpin50:21

      You want to take your body weight in pounds and divide that by 30, and you want to consume that number, which would be in ounces, about every 15 to 20 minutes. So in the example, uh, of you being 200 pounds, you would take 200 divided by 30. Which is, let's just call that number seven to be close, which means you would consume about seven ounces of water every 15 or 20 minutes or so.

   5. AHAndrew Huberman50:44

      Okay.

   6. AGAndy Galpin50:45

      Now, as a little bit of a point, while I also did not name it, I also didn't do the research. It's important to point out that other scientists figured these things out. I just read their papers and made that derivation of their equation to make it a little bit easier for us folks who, uh, do not work on the metric system.

   7. AHAndrew Huberman50:59

      Okay. Couple of things. First of all, I'm not 200 pounds, but it doesn't matter how much I weigh, because the point is that the listener-

   8. AGAndy Galpin51:06

      Correct.

   9. AHAndrew Huberman51:07

      ... should take their body weight in pounds, divide it by 30, ingest that number of ounces in fluid every 15 minutes. And then for those out there outside the US that are accustomed to thinking in milliliters and liters, not ounces, and kilograms, not pounds, what is the Galpin equation in the metric system?

   10. AGAndy Galpin51:26

       This would be two milliliters per kilogram. Which again, if you were, uh, let's say 200 pounds, that's gonna be something roughly like, we'll call it 90 kilos. And so if you did two milliliters per kilo, you'd be something like 180 milliliters of fluid, again, every 15 or 20 minutes.

   11. AHAndrew Huberman51:43

       Great. And how should people ingest that fluid? And of course, uh, I would imagine it's through their mouth. Um, I would hope. (laughs)

   12. AGAndy Galpin51:50

       (laughs) I hope.

   13. AHAndrew Huberman51:50

       There are other orifices that, that it might suffice, but let's not go there. They're drinking that water consistently, or is it every 15 minutes they slug it back? Does it matter?

   14. AGAndy Galpin52:01

       Okay. Yeah, that's very good. A handful of things. In general, when you talk hydration, the slower and steady you can go, the better. In fact, the reason these, this two milliliters per kilogram, uh, number came out is because a number of trials were run where they looked at that every 15 minutes, just one bolus of it, you know, um, in different variations. And it is pretty clear that the slower pace one could do it, the better. So whether you're doing it every 10 minutes or 15 or 20 minutes, the reason we actually give that gap is because you have to be also offset a little bit of GI distress. In fact, like kind of the, the four golden rules of recovery, if you will, um, we use sort of three Rs. You need to rebuild, rehydrate, and replenish. What that really means is you need to have a continuous glucose stream, you need to have a continuous amino acid stream, you need to hydrate, and you need to do all one, two, and three without disturbing your gut too much. And so in this particular case, um, it was sort of found that we can hit that level in general and be just fine for most people. So I mean, a little bit of context, the example we gave there, in both cases, it's something like six to seven ounces for 15 or 20 minutes. If you think about that, there's 16 ounces in a pound. And most water bottles, like if you go buy a water bottle at a store here, it's, they generally come in like 16-ounce bottles-ish. So six or seven ounces is really like a third of a water bottle maybe every 15 or 20 or so minutes. So it's not some egregious amount of water that you have to slam down. Now, that is influenced heavily by how hydrated you started the session with, so how hydrated you came in, external factors like heat, humidity, temperature, things like that. But that gives you a rough idea, um, that again, and these are numbers that you would need to consume to optimize performance. Um, at the end of that then is when you would look to see how much I lost, like we talked about earlier, and then add back that 125%, taking into account how much fluid you ingested. So if you're 200 pounds and you drank a total of say, a pound of water during the training, and you started off at 200 and you finished at 198, you actually lost three pounds, not two pounds. Because you lost three, you drank one during it, so your final net number is two. So now you don't, you really need to drink back 125% of that remaining two pounds, two and a half pounds, something like that. Um, these numbers, especially that 125 are, they're just rough guidelines. Uh, some actually papers suggest it's all the way up to 150%. Um, so it, it's just like an idea. Don't measure out whether you need 5.5 ounces or 6.2 ounces. Like, it just sort of gives you an idea of, of where to start. All right, a few sips every 15 or 20 minutes is close enough.

   15. AHAndrew Huberman54:50

       I've actually started using, uh, the Galpin equation to determine how much fluid I need for mental work. Given the now robust data that are out there on the relationship between hydration and mental work, it's, um, been very effective for me. And again, there are peer-reviewed studies that, that support the idea that hydration is important for, um, proper mental clarity and energy and focus, and that even being slightly dehydrated can disrupt that. But...... if y- one is drinking so much water that they're frequently going to the restroom and can't comfortably, uh, focus on the work they're doing, that's also an issue. So-

   16. AGAndy Galpin55:26

       Yeah.

   17. AHAndrew Huberman55:26

       ... um, that's very

9. 55:28 – 1:10:58

   Tool: 5 Steps to Optimize Hydration, Sipping Water, W.U.T. Status, Salt

   1. AHAndrew Huberman55:28

      helpful. What are the three most critical features of hydration? And then I'd like to move on to, um, some of the more particulars about supplementation and nutrition.

   2. AGAndy Galpin55:36

      Three parts. Start hydrated, maintain hydration throughout. Part three is hydrate post to fix it. Okay. We gave you the half ounce per pound of body weight equation, so you start the training hydrated. We gave you the, you know, two milliliters per kilogram slash body weight divided by 30 to stay hydrated, then we gave you the 125%. Um, but I can actually just give you, sort of... I'm giving you another list here, I'm sorry. But it is my five-step cheater guide for optimizing hydration for performance. All right, step number one, drink a lot of water first thing in the morning. This gets everything kickstarted, gets you going. It also saves you from having to drink a bunch of water at night, which is then going to compromise your sleep.

   3. AHAndrew Huberman56:20

      What's a lot?

   4. AGAndy Galpin56:21

      Depending on how big you are, the general thing I'll tell people is, like, one of the very first things you should do throughout your day, you wake up, go to the bathroom. As you're consuming your sunlight, consume water. This is maybe chugging a full glass. It's honestly what I do. It's not the best route, but I'll just get that going.

   5. AHAndrew Huberman56:36

      So 16 ounces.

   6. AGAndy Galpin56:37

      16 ounces or so is great, it's fine. If you're larger, um, you know, I'm, I'm 165 to 70 pounds, depending on what's going on, maybe a little higher sometimes. If you're 225 pounds, maybe that number is 30 ounces. All right, so you just sort of scale up and down. And the only reason I say a lot is it just depends on, on what you're doing. And I also should clarify, I don't really literally mean chug. Just like sips, 'cause the faster you drink water, the faster it's gonna expand blood volume. The faster it extends blood volume, the faster you get rid of it. Um-

   7. AHAndrew Huberman57:07

      I don't think a lot of people know that.

   8. AGAndy Galpin57:09

      Yeah. This is, uh ... Maybe this is clarifying. This is also ... We sort of talked about it earlier, if you drink too much water, you'll dilute the system. Well, if you have a diluted system, your body's first reaction is to rid of water, to bring total blood volume down, right? Remember, if you were to go to a doctor and they looked at your total blood volume and they're like, "Man, you're five and a half liters," you're gonna be like, "Holy crap." You're gonna be put on a diuretic, because you don't wanna have a heart attack out of blood pressure.

   9. AHAndrew Huberman57:32

      I, I wonder if people are drinking a 16-ounce glass of water or other fluid all at once before going to sleep, and that's why they're waking up in the middle of the night.

   10. AGAndy Galpin57:42

       Totally.

   11. AHAndrew Huberman57:42

       Given what you just said, probably a better, um, protocol would be to sip on a glass of water in the final hour or two hours before sleep.

   12. AGAndy Galpin57:51

       Y- generally the number we say is three hours. In the three hours preceding sleep, you wanna basically limit fluid intake to sipping as needed.

   13. AHAndrew Huberman57:58

       I think that's ... I'm gonna start that tonight.

   14. AGAndy Galpin58:02

       Yeah.

   15. AHAndrew Huberman58:02

       Because I wake up generally once per night to use the bathroom, and I do drink some fluids before I go to sleep-

   16. AGAndy Galpin58:08

       Yeah.

   17. AHAndrew Huberman58:08

       ... mostly 'cause I'm pretty thirsty at that time.

   18. AGAndy Galpin58:10

       Yeah.

   19. AHAndrew Huberman58:10

       Um, but I'm gonna start sipping that water in the, uh, three hours heading into sleep.

   20. AGAndy Galpin58:15

       Yeah, so you can actually pay attention to is, um ... To go back, this is actually ... I love doing this stuff, but if you're waking up at night and you have a very dry mouth-

   21. AHAndrew Huberman58:25

       Mm, not for me.

   22. AGAndy Galpin58:27

       All right, 'cause it can be one of two things. You might actually be dehydrated, and so then what, the mistake people make is they're like, "Man, my mouth is so dry. I keep getting up to drink water at night." That makes you then pee too much. What that also indicates is probably your mouth breathing. So a lot of ways to fix people waking up and urinating too much at night is to tape your mouth and/or use a, a dilator over your nose. And then what happens is you don't feel like you have a dry mouth, so you don't get up to consume any extra water throughout the night. So that actually s- reduces your, your fluid intake so you don't have the problem of actually now having too much fluid-

   23. AHAndrew Huberman58:59

       Hm.

   24. AGAndy Galpin58:59

       ... to do it. And so it's another of the reasons why mouth taping can really, really help. Um, I mean, if you are having those issues, uh, and/or snoring, those are not benign. Uh, that's a really, like, you really should get some work on those. Um, something ... You're, you're not sleeping very well, is the way I'll say it. It's, it doesn't, doesn't necessarily mean something life-threatening, but it's not a- a good thing. So, um, you gotta run kind of your triaging things back and forth. So if you're like, "I'm waking up to pee a lot, but my mouth isn't thirsty," okay, great. Then you may actually have just a water consumption issue. If it is, "My mouth is dry, but I'm actually waking up and, um, having these large urinations," then you're not actually dehydrated. You're just breathing through your mouth. If you're waking up and your mouth is dry and there's not a lot of pee there, then you actually might actually legitimately be, uh, under hydrated. So a little bit of a game you can play there.

   25. AHAndrew Huberman59:49

       Well, that's super informative. I think that, um, the point alone that gulping a bunch of water all at once is going to cause you to need to excrete that water soon after, um, is a really important point. Also, for people that are going to, I don't know, give a talk or, um, you don't want to have to get up to use the restroom, you have to sit through a long meeting.

   26. AGAndy Galpin1:00:13

       Yeah, yeah.

   27. AHAndrew Huberman1:00:14

       Um, clearly I'm violating all these rules up until right now. I've been, you know, not ... I, I sort of follow the seagull approach to, uh-

   28. AGAndy Galpin1:00:20

       (laughs)

   29. AHAndrew Huberman1:00:20

       ... to consuming fluids, just glump, glump-

   30. AGAndy Galpin1:00:23

       Yeah.
10. 1:10:58 – 1:15:44

    Electrolytes, Carbohydrates & Exercise

    1. AHAndrew Huberman1:10:58

       And along those lines, I'd, I'd love for you to tell us about some of the things that we can do with supplementation in order to enhance training by taking certain things before we train, and I also have the question of how long before training should we start thinking about supplying nutrients and supplements for the training session?

    2. AGAndy Galpin1:11:20

       I'm not sure I f- actually finished my fiber. Maybe I wasn't clear enough about the last one, so I just wanna tie that, that bow and then we'll go onto your next one.

    3. AHAndrew Huberman1:11:26

       Apologies.

    4. AGAndy Galpin1:11:26

       Yeah, no, it was probably my fault. So, that, uh... In addition to the Galpin equation in terms of amount, uh, I recom- I re- I recommended a, you know, roughly three to one sodium to potassium recommendation, and I gave you some rough numbers for things like that. I actually, in all honesty, use probably six to ten different electrolyte, uh, companies, depending on the situation. Some of them are really good, uh, in the case, again, like LMNT. What's nice about that is there's no carbohydrate. However, the downside is there's no carbohydrate. So sometimes I want carbohydrates in the training, because as you mentioned, there's significant evidence going back, um, actually, several decades on the benefit of carbohydrate during exercise. So if you're in a situation, uh, where you're trying to, again, maximize actual exercise performance, you... Especially if it is either long duration, so more than two hours, or extremely high intensity, and this has to be well north of 100% of your VO2 max. In that situation, as we talked about in the endurance episode, you can actually start having a decrement in performance because of a drop of muscle glycogen. Uh, liver glycogen can cur- start coming down. If that's the case, augmenting with carbohydrates during the training then is going to enhance performance. It's gonna, uh, do what we call spare the liver, and it's gonna keep my second rule of my four, which is maintain, uh, glucose ingestion. It's gonna keep that going. In general, what you're gonna find is the number is like a 5 to 9% glucose concentration in your fluid, which turns out to be, like, exactly the number that most sports drinks have, as well as I think that's pretty much exactly what, uh, coconut water is. The downside of sports drinks, since we're here, is they actually tend to be under-salted, and so th- they don't provide enough of them. If you look at the numbers, they're gonna say something like 60 to 100 grams of carbohydrate per hour is the target, and now if you're using the sort of Galpin equation and you're splitting that up into 15, uh, minute intervals, it's something, again, like 20 or so grams of carbs per 15 to 20 minutes if you're doing, again, a- an hour long plus training about. So admittedly, 100 grams, uh, is a bit much for some folks, depending on your size, so, uh, I would recommend starting in that-... uh, 60 gram or so range. Again, per hour total is what you wanna get to, and only in the situation in which muscle glycogen depletion is becoming a limiting factor to performance. So the other benefit of that is, as you mentioned, that actually drives water into the cell, and so you're gonna be in that, uh, nice sweet spot of you're actually keeping glucose going, which is gonna enhance performance, and you're helping hydration at the same time. So the other little part that's important to pay attention to here is the type of carbohydrate matters. Um, so you can use actually a whole combination of things called resistant starches, which I will use for e- long bouts of exercise. But in the middle of a workout, you're going to want to focus on glucose and fructose. Mostly glucose. Typically, at least a two or three to one ratio of glucose to fructose. And the reason is, those actually get into tissue through separate transporters. And so what happens is once the glucose transporters get full, you can't bring anything else in. However, since fructose comes in a separate route, you can maximize total carbohydrate intake by using two different unique forms. The- there's a lot of ways you can do this, um, but this is where the Momentus fuel product is- is- it, like, specifically has that exactly in it, so it's fantastic. Um, you can use food, no problem. You can use a combination of things like honey, a- and different easily, uh, absorbable a- and usable and things that you can actually, like, maybe put in a drink, um, to get away with. So there's lots of routes for it. But you wanna look in that- that sort of combination, uh, of 5 to 9%, roughly, glucose for there. So you do need to train your gut. So do not do anything (laughs) , and this is generally a good rule, do not do anything in your competition that you've never done in practice. So try these food items. Try these amounts, the carbohydrate numbers. Try the sodium numbers. Uh, try the total amount of water. Start low. You can always increase. What you don't want to do is have to run out during the middle of your spin class and sprint to the bathroom and hope nobody's in your way, uh, which, uh, in the lab, we've seen, uh, we'll just say accidents like that occur more than once. So, um, just be careful of your stomach.

11. 1:15:44 – 1:16:47

    InsideTracker

    1. AGAndy Galpin1:15:44

Episode duration: 3:05:33