LIVE EVENT Q&A: Dr. Andrew Huberman at the Sydney Opera House

Alia Crum’s research shows that when people watch a true, evidence-based video emphasizing either the damaging or enhancing effects of stress, their physiology follows that narrative: stress can either impair immune function and mood or improve memory, focus, and performance, depending on what they believe. You can’t delete prior knowledge that “stress is bad,” but you can deliberately consume accurate information about how stress can be performance-enhancing, shifting toward a “stress-is-enhancing” mindset that alters your core physiological response.

Stimulation and imaging studies of the anterior mid‑cingulate cortex (aMCC) show it activates when people feel like they’re “heading into a storm” and leaning into difficulty. Successful completion of cognitive or physical challenges increases aMCC activity and/or size, while failure to meet challenges is associated with less aMCC activity. Regularly and safely taking on difficult tasks—physical, cognitive, or emotional—appears to grow this circuit and improves your capacity to manage stress broadly.

Focusing on things up close, especially when anticipating a specific outcome (e.g., staring at a phone waiting for a text), increases autonomic arousal and makes time feel finely sliced—slow and dense with events. Viewing distant, unpredictable landscapes (clouds, waves, aquaria) lowers arousal, expands time bins, and makes time feel more fluid and relaxed. You can consciously adjust where and how you look—close focal work vs. panoramic distance viewing—to speed up or slow down your subjective experience of time and to reset after high-intensity cognitive work.

Estimate your natural wake time without an alarm (e.g., 7:00 a.m.) and subtract ~2 hours to approximate your temperature minimum (e.g., ~5:00 a.m.). Bright light in the 2–3 hours *before* temperature minimum delays your clock (you’ll naturally sleep and wake later), while bright light in the 2–3 hours *after* temperature minimum advances your clock (you’ll sleep and wake earlier). For the first three days in a new time zone, map local clock time back to your home temperature minimum, then either seek or avoid bright light accordingly; align meals, activity, and social schedule to local time as secondary zeitgebers.

To fall asleep, core body temperature must drop by about 1–3°C; to wake up, it must rise by a similar amount. Saunas, hot baths, warm showers, or even washing hands and face with warm water trigger thermoregulatory mechanisms in the medial preoptic area of the hypothalamus that ultimately *cool* core temperature once you exit the heat. Doing this one to two hours before bedtime facilitates sleep onset and depth. Conversely, red ambient light in the evening can reduce cortisol and support sleep by minimizing blue-light–induced circadian disruption.