Dr. Alok Kanojia on Huberman Lab: Why willpower alone fails

1. 0:00 – 3:09

   Alok Kanojia (Dr. K)

   1. AKDr. Alok Kanojia0:00

      Everyone's focused on changing behavior. Everyone's focused on increasing willpower to overcome this tendency. And it's like, why not just change the tendency? That sounds so simple, but that's literally what we do in psychotherapy every day when we come in and someone has a narcissistic personality disorder. This is personality. This is who they are. And we can psychotherapize them to be someone else, for their natural thoughts to change, for the way that they see the world to change, for their behaviors to change on its own. It doesn't require... Willpower is necessary when you are trying to not be narcissistic. It is not necessary when you are no longer narcissistic. So we've done it in psychotherapy. We know that if your self-esteem changes, if your sense of being changes, treatment-refractory depression will change. Trauma, PTSD will change.

   2. AHAndrew Huberman0:51

      Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. [music] I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Dr. Alok Kanojia, also known as Dr. K. Dr. K is a psychiatrist and online mental health educator. He has a very unique background, having trained and earned his medical degree in the United States, but also having studied as a monk for seven years. Today, we discuss powerful tools for increasing your self-understanding and mental health and for rewiring your nervous system, specifically how you can unlearn unhealthy thought patterns and behaviors and replace them with ones that truly serve you and those around you. Much of today's discussion centers around differences between Eastern and Western concepts of things like the ego and what makes up our self-concept. That portion of the conversation will no doubt have you rethinking why you do what you do in virtually everything, and he provides a roadmap for clearly defining your best goals and for increasing things like your energy and drive, not through hacks, but by tapping into deep intrinsic motivation. In fact, throughout today's episode, Dr. K explains specific practices that you can use to help rewire your nervous system, resolve traumas, and come to a much clearer understanding of how best to apply your efforts in work, school, and relationships. We also discuss social media, dating and relationships, addiction, and pornography. So there are a lot of topics covered. And I have to say, this is a conversation unlike any other that I've had on or off the podcast. Dr. K offers a completely new perspective on how to resolve common struggles that we all face. And in doing so, he offers a lot of practical tools, so this should be a very valuable conversation for anyone wishing to better understand themselves at the theoretical and psychological level, but also who wishes to implement specific tools to improve some or all aspects of their life. 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, today's episode does include sponsors. And now for my discussion with Dr. Alok Kanojia. Dr.

2. 3:09 – 7:11

   Internet, Computer Games; Academic Pressure

   1. AHAndrew Huberman3:09

      K, welcome.

   2. AKDr. Alok Kanojia3:10

      Andrew Huberman, thank you for having me.

   3. AHAndrew Huberman3:12

      So interested in, in you and the knowledge y- uh, you hold. Um, today we're gonna talk about a, a number of things. I mean, Ayurveda and East-West medicine, motivation and dopamine, but I wanna start with the internet.

   4. AKDr. Alok Kanojia3:27

      Okay.

   5. AHAndrew Huberman3:27

      You had an interesting upbringing, um, so very different than mine, not just because of our age difference, uh, but you grew up on the internet. Like-

   6. AKDr. Alok Kanojia3:36

      Yeah

   7. AHAndrew Huberman3:36

      ... y- and so you really have an empathy for people on the internet, on social media. Now everyone's on the internet. What was it that drew you to screens and that interface with such a, a, a degree of magnetism?

   8. AKDr. Alok Kanojia3:53

      You know, I was like a gifted kid growing up, and I think that one of the things that we don't really appreciate is, um, how school moves at the pace of the slowest kid. So school was incredibly boring for me. Um, and then I was also, uh, young, so I, I was a year ahead, and, um, so I was like early on when I was a five-year-old in, in first grade and I was competing against seven-year-olds like on the playground or in, in, in gym class. I sucked at sports. So the, the one thing that I really got addicted to was this idea of like a computer game where like when you beat level one, like level two is there, you know? And then if you beat level two, like level three is there. If you fail at level three, you get to try level three again. So it was the only activity that was like cognitively to my pacing. Um, and, and so that really drew me in, and I didn't realize that until years later. Uh, you know, my parents were big fans of putting us into school like young, and if you can skip grades, like that's great, right? 'Cause life is a race and, and the faster you finish, the better things are. Um, but I, I didn't realize how developmentally challenging it is to be like a five-year-old or a six-year-old in, in school with like seven-year-olds or eight-year-olds. So I think that's what originally drew me in.

   9. AHAndrew Huberman5:10

      If you don't mind me asking, so you were first-generation immigrant-

   10. AKDr. Alok Kanojia5:15

       Mm-hmm

   11. AHAndrew Huberman5:15

       ... parents from India.

   12. AKDr. Alok Kanojia5:16

       Yep.

   13. AHAndrew Huberman5:17

       Um, I mean, I grew up in the South Bay in Palo Alto, so I'm familiar with intense academic environments.

   14. AKDr. Alok Kanojia5:22

       Sure. Yeah.

   15. AHAndrew Huberman5:23

       Increasingly so in the last, you know, 10, 20 years, but even when I was there, it was, it was intense. Did you feel that as pressure?

   16. AKDr. Alok Kanojia5:31

       Absolutely.

   17. AHAndrew Huberman5:31

       Mm-hmm.

   18. AKDr. Alok Kanojia5:31

       I mean, I, I, I... My earliest memories of, are of my grandmother telling me I'm gonna make a great doctor one day. Um, and when I was like 15 years old, people would ask me, like I'd go to like a party, right, with my parents and their friends, and people would ask me, "What do you wanna be when you grow up?" And so I was like, "I'm gonna be a doctor." And everyone's like, "Wow. Impressive." You know, so my 15-year-old brain was like looking at this, this like amazing idea of what a doctor was, and both my parents are doctors. My dad was an amazing doctor. Um, I, I suppose my mom is too, but my dad was one of the seminal researchers in like graft versus host disease. It's how he landed his job at MD Anderson, so he like came from India and like was an oncologist.Um, and so I also remember, like, he used to-- back then, HIPAA wasn't-- I, I think there wasn't even a HIPAA law. So he would have, you know, patients over to our house and stuff like that.

   19. AHAndrew Huberman6:23

       [laughs]

   20. AKDr. Alok Kanojia6:23

       He would throw a Thanksgiving party every year where, like, he would invite all of his patients, all cancer survivors and, and things like that. Um, and so m-my dad was really like a mythical figure, uh, incredibly charismatic. And so I, I was like, "Oh yeah, I'm gonna be that." And so it became a huge part of my ego. Um, and then it turns out that ego is not a great way to motiv- well, it can be a great way to motivate yourself. Um, but then I ran into trouble when I hit college because I had never learned how to study. So e-either I, like, absorbed everything and did well on the test, so I went straight from like A's to F's, and then got addicted to video games, failed out of college. But your original question was-

   21. AHAndrew Huberman7:06

       No

   22. AKDr. Alok Kanojia7:06

       ... was I into computers and, and wh-why, and that probably has something to do with it.

   23. AHAndrew Huberman7:10

       Well, it sounds like

3. 7:11 – 13:24

   Millennials & Self-Awareness, Hijacking Mental Health Language

   1. AHAndrew Huberman7:11

      you were so into computers you eventually went over the cliff of computers with this addiction. But I wanna talk about the addiction, but I think this is a perfect frame, and maybe we'll jump back and forth as we move forward. Um, this is a perfect frame for what I have heard and wonder about a lot, which is, you know, I'm Gen X.

   2. AKDr. Alok Kanojia7:32

      Okay.

   3. AHAndrew Huberman7:32

      You're a millennial.

   4. AKDr. Alok Kanojia7:33

      Yeah.

   5. AHAndrew Huberman7:34

      And I'm told, uh, that the generations right behind Gen X, um, perhaps had more love and encouragement to feel their feelings, um, notions of what trauma and addiction were, but maybe that there wasn't this universally high standards set for all of them. That's the narrative that you see in the, in the news right now. Oh, you know, this coddled generation, et cetera. You had high standards set for you. When you look out on your peers and you look out on the internet for millennials and younger, do you think that we can make a general statement about, oh yeah, you know, all, all this appreciation and understanding about what addiction and trauma and feelings are, um, you know, that just was foreign to my generation, frankly, that it helped or hurt to have this, th-this awareness of, of kind of self and what one needs and, and all of that. Do, do you think that it-- Yeah. Do you think it helped or, or it hurt, um, development?

   6. AKDr. Alok Kanojia8:35

      Well, so Andrew, I'm delighted to be speaking to a scientist, um, because I think it helped and hurt.

   7. AHAndrew Huberman8:41

      Mm-hmm.

   8. AKDr. Alok Kanojia8:41

      Right? So, so this is a, a-- as you know, things are multifactorial. It's rarely one thing or another thing. So I think a lot of people picked up ground with awareness of feelings. I, as a psychiatrist, you know, I work with people who were unaware of the family dynamics going on in, in their life, in their household, unaware of their emotions, um, growing up with things like avoidant attachment and having difficulty forming connections. So I think it is always good to be more aware. I think actually awareness is probably the single factor that correlates the most with, like, success and happiness. The challenge, the really subtle thing is that talking about emotions isn't the same as actually being aware of them. So I think what's started to happen is a lot of this dialogue around trauma, a lot of this dialogue around feelings, has actually been hijacked in very subtle ways by other parts of our mind, other parts like, for example, our ego. And so i-it's kinda like this therapy speak has like... And this happens, so you can look at any population, and if you have someone who's like sociopathic or if you have someone who's histrionic or narcissistic and everyone is talking feelings, they will do that too, but in a sociopathic way. Feelings have now started to be used as a form of manipulation, right? So people will use, like I see this all the time, speaking of the internet in its modern incarnation, we all talk about boundaries, but people have started to use boundaries as a form of control for other human beings. You know, my boundary is that you don't text anyone after 8:00 PM. My, my boundary is that, you know, every time I call you, you need to answer the phone. So it's really bizarre how like the basic like psychological stuff can hijack-- like our, our psychological patterns can hijack like we, all this mental health speak. Another really good example of this is, so I, I remember I w- I was, uh, uh, seeing a, an assault victim in the emergency room at, at Mass General Hospital many years ago. And so the MIT chief of security was, or campus security was there. And so I was talking to him a little bit about, you know, because there were other students with, with the student who had been assaulted and, and they were kind of talking to me about safety. And I, I remember something that the MIT chief told me that I, I've never forgotten. We're talking about safety, and he's like, "My job is not to make people feel safe. My job is to make people safe." And there's actually a big difference. And so something interesting has happened. We have all become more narcissistic because that's what the internet does to us. And so now if I am hurt, that is no longer my responsibility. That is because you did something wrong. Does that make sense?

   9. AHAndrew Huberman11:24

      Mm-hmm.

   10. AKDr. Alok Kanojia11:25

       Like fundamentally, if I feel hurt, that is oftentimes tied to you doing something wrong. So there's this tendency towards victimization, where you'll see even people who are like, like playing the victim card, which, which doesn't mean that we shouldn't be believing victims. I think that's exactly what happens, is we started to realize that we're not taking victims seriously, but then all the chameleons in our society were looking at this pattern, and they were realizing, "Okay, the fastest way for me to get ahead is to claim to be a victim." So there are all kinds of weird permutations that are happening right now with this sort of emphasis on feeling. Um, one more evidence-based example of this is, you know, we're seeing the prevalence of mood disorders, anxiety disorders, addictions, body dysmorphia. Basically everything is getting worse. And so one weird thing that started to happen is as we've talked more about feelings

   11. AHAndrew Huberman12:22

       There is something called a transdiagnostic factor which we can get into. I don't know if you're familiar with these or not. But so if you look at like all of the mental illnesses, there are certain attributes that are a risk factor for multiple mental illnesses. So a good example of transdiagnostic factors are perfectionism and rumination. So rumination doesn't make you depressed, doesn't necessarily make you anxious, but if you have a high index of rumination, you are more likely to have a major depressive disorder, you're more likely to have an anxiety disorder. Does that kinda make sense? Mm-hmm. If you are perfectionistic, you are more likely to be depressed, you are more likely to be anxious. So there's one interesting transdiagnostic factor which has gotten way worse, which is something called distress tolerance. So human beings' capacity to sit with things and tolerate things that they do not find comfortable is starting to tank. And as that starts to tank, we're seeing an, just an explosion of mental illness.

4. 13:24 – 16:06

   Sponsors: Lingo & Joovv

   1. AHAndrew Huberman13:24

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5. 16:06 – 22:02

   Personality & Individual Road Maps, Misdiagnosis

   1. AHAndrew Huberman16:06

      moment you said that we're seeing a, a, a reduction in distress tolerance, I heard in my head voices on the internet saying, "Oh, so we're just supposed to push our feelings aside? Like we're just supposed to accept everything that happens to us? We're supposed to..." You know? And, and of course, I don't actually believe that, but I can empathize a bit with that, with that notion, right? Like there's, these things are always, uh, on a continuum. It's a, it's a push/pull, right? I mean, I was gonna raise the same thing around the standards that were set for you. Some people who grow up with very high standards set for them by parents, teachers, or coaches might internalize that as, "Oh, that must mean I'm very capable." In fact, in one of my favorite books, "The Last Lecture" by Randy Posh, he talks about, um, he was a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon. He eventually died, and he gave this last lecture, which is this incredible lecture. And he, he said, "The moment that your parents, coaches, and teachers stop pushing you is the moment you should worry because they've given up on you." Th- You're, if you're pushed, people believe in you that there's a chance you might actually accomplish something. They believe in you. But you could also internalize it as overwhelm. Yeah. Like, like, and so I think this notion of distress tolerance, like what are, what are the standards? What are the, um, standards for distress tolerance, for performance, for being a f- quote unquote "functional member of society" while also, quote unquote, "honoring one's feelings about feeling one's feelings?" There's a, there's no roadmap, I believe, to how to navigate that. What you said, there is no roadmap. That happens to be true, and it happens to be wrong. So I know that's confusing, so let me explain. So here's the first thing to understand. The way that we collect information, this is why I love being a clinician. So like, you know, you, you talked about "The Last Lecture." So this person was saying if people don't push you, that means that they don't, you know, uh, care about you, they're not invested in you. They don't-- The moment that you give up on someone is the moment that you stop pushing them, right? Makes perfect sense. And then there are also people who've been pushed to the point where they like crack under pressure. That's actually way more common. A- a- and so, so generally speaking, pressure, you know, just like any other part of biology, if I exert pressure on some part o- on some joint, on some part of soft tissue, we'll develop a callus. It'll become tough

   2. AKDr. Alok Kanojia18:24

      So this is where the, the, the reason there's no roadmap is because people aren't the same, right? So we all have unique genetics, we all have unique experiences, we all have a unique internal dialogue. And so the whole point of personality, and we can define personality like by the technical terms, which is it is the way that you interpret information, the way you perceive the world, your internal reactions, and the behaviors that you engage in. So you can take literally you know, ah, two different human beings in the exact same situation. I've worked with a couple of survivors of like genocidal conflicts, and the really interesting thing about that is not everybody gets PTSD, which is like really weird, right? Like if you think about this is like a genocidal conflict, so we have tons of people who all experience the same thing, but their reactions to them are really different. That's what's fun about being a clinician. What I try to focus on and what I learned, I looked for a roadmap, and what I found is that there's not a roadmap, there are thousands of roadmaps. And those roadmaps come down to, and this is, I think, a huge problem in the information-based world we live in. So everyone has problems, right? And they're looking for solutions, which is great. The problem-- The biggest mistake that I see pe- people make, especially high performers, is a problem of misdiagnosis. So really good example of this, I had a, a, a patient come into my office, worked in finance, was at a very, very successful firm. Came in and was like, "I have really bad anxiety. Like it's really starting-- Like I can't eat. Like I can't sleep. My wife is really worried about me." So he's like, "You know, I've got really bad anxiety." So we start talking about it, and he's like, "You know, I'm afraid I'm gonna get fired." And we work together for about, eh, 12 months, and then he realizes this environment is not where he's happy, and the reason he's gonna get f-fired is because he doesn't fit in, and he decides to quit. So what's really interesting is if, if we had just solved that, if we'd made his anxiety go away, he would've perpetuated in an unhealthy system. And, and this is the thing that I think we forget when we're talking about our emotions. Like Andrew, which part of the brain does a-anxiety come from?

   3. AHAndrew Huberman20:39

      It's a circuit-wide phenomenon.

   4. AKDr. Alok Kanojia20:40

      Sure. If we had-- W-what-- How is it taught? If you had to teach someone who's taking an undergraduate neuroscience class, and maybe you wouldn't teach it this way, but if you had to localize it to somewhere, where would you localize it to?

   5. AHAndrew Huberman20:51

      To one structure?

   6. AKDr. Alok Kanojia20:52

      Yeah, one-

   7. AHAndrew Huberman20:53

      Ev-everyone would say amygdala.

   8. AKDr. Alok Kanojia20:54

      I know.

   9. AHAndrew Huberman20:54

      I teach neuroanatomy to medical students so-

   10. AKDr. Alok Kanojia20:56

       Right

   11. AHAndrew Huberman20:56

       ... uh, or I did until very recently, so yeah.

   12. AKDr. Alok Kanojia20:58

       So I, I, I'm totally with the limbic-

   13. AHAndrew Huberman21:00

       Limbic, limbic system

   14. AKDr. Alok Kanojia21:00

       ... limbic system as a whole, right?

   15. AHAndrew Huberman21:01

       Yeah.

   16. AKDr. Alok Kanojia21:01

       But the amygdala.

   17. AHAndrew Huberman21:02

       Sure.

   18. AKDr. Alok Kanojia21:02

       And the really interesting thing is like crocodiles have amygdalas.

   19. AHAndrew Huberman21:06

       Mm-hmm.

   20. AKDr. Alok Kanojia21:07

       Right? So, so we sometimes forget that these negative emotions are actually really important for us. They're really healthy for us. One other really ex- interesting example of this is, you know, I work with a lot of like gamers on the internet, so sometimes they'll try to engage in mating behaviors [chuckles] and, and they'll creep people out. And one of the really interesting things that I, I realized is embarrassment is the best way to not creep someone out. So if I violate one of your boundaries, and then I express embarrassment, that signals to you that I realize I did something wrong. So if I violate one of your boundaries and then I express embarrassment, that's a really important empathic signal. And now we have all of this like content on the internet telling people to be relentlessly confident, and when they become relentlessly confident, they no longer express embarrassment. Embarrassment is a really important signal to send.

6. 22:02 – 26:06

   Ambiguity, Flirting, Social Skills Decline, Uncertainty Tolerance

   1. AHAndrew Huberman22:02

      In the example you gave, it's very clear that somebody violated somebody's boundary. They felt embarrassment. Showing that embarrassment shows that they have some sort of empathic attunement or awareness-

   2. AKDr. Alok Kanojia22:13

      Mm-hmm

   3. AHAndrew Huberman22:13

      ... that makes them perhaps a little less creepy and a little bit safer-

   4. AKDr. Alok Kanojia22:17

      Yep

   5. AHAndrew Huberman22:17

      ... as opposed to if they just kept, you know-

   6. AKDr. Alok Kanojia22:18

      Exactly

   7. AHAndrew Huberman22:19

      ... going forward, right? However, if it was a bit vague, like let's say that they did something, um, a flirt- a flirtation, and it wasn't really clear what it was, and the other person said, "Hey, like that doesn't feel good to me," and then they acted very embarrassed, then the person who said it didn't feel good to them would quite understandably think, "Oh, it must have been really bad." Right? Oftentimes the dynamics are subtle where people don't really know how they should feel about something. At the extremes we know.

   8. AKDr. Alok Kanojia22:46

      So I'm gonna reverse Russian doll us because I, I was all over the place. So you asked about a roadmap.

   9. AHAndrew Huberman22:52

      Mm-hmm.

   10. AKDr. Alok Kanojia22:52

       Then I gave the example of anxiety.

   11. AHAndrew Huberman22:54

       Right.

   12. AKDr. Alok Kanojia22:54

       Then I gave the example of, of embarrassment as another, ah, emotion that's helpful. And you're, now you're asking a question, so we're gonna do it-

   13. AHAndrew Huberman23:01

       Mm-hmm

   14. AKDr. Alok Kanojia23:01

       ... in reverse order.

   15. AHAndrew Huberman23:02

       Sure.

   16. AKDr. Alok Kanojia23:02

       But I wanna get back to that roadmap 'cause I think it's a beautiful question.

   17. AHAndrew Huberman23:05

       Mm-hmm. I wrote it down.

   18. AKDr. Alok Kanojia23:06

       So-

   19. AHAndrew Huberman23:06

       We haven't forgotten.

   20. AKDr. Alok Kanojia23:06

       Great. Let's talk about the ambiguous interactions. This is fascinating. So I, I saw a really cool study where when two people are flirting, and that's taped, and a neutral observer is watching it, they accurately detect flirting only about thirty percent of the time. Different studies show twenty-four to forty-two percent. You're saying ambiguity is a problem. No, ambiguity is, is exactly what's supposed to happen. So if you think about what flirting is, flirting is a way to preserve plausible deniability. It's a way to make you feel safe, right? So if I, if I am really inter- "Andrew, I'm really interested in your body, bro." But if I say that, it, it's, it's, you know, unless you are matching that energy, it's not gonna be safe. It's not gonna be good. It'll ruin our relationship. So flirting by nature is supposed to be missed. So this is another thing where you're saying like, "Yes, there's ambiguity. It could be interpreted this way, and it could be interpreted this way." That's not bad. That's good. That's, that's how human beings actually interact. Um, so Winnicott, you know, described this beautifully 'cause flirting is a, a form of play. It-

   21. AHAndrew Huberman24:09

       Mm-hmm

   22. AKDr. Alok Kanojia24:09

       ... that's literally what it is, and play is about a potential space.

   23. AHAndrew Huberman24:12

       Mm-hmm.

   24. AKDr. Alok Kanojia24:12

       When I'm playing like dolls with my daughter, it's not defined, and the whole point is for it to be not defined.So i- in that absence of definition, which now everyone is sort of like we're seeing a social skills atrophy, so you know the, the parts of our brain that interpret tone, body language, things like that, like people are, are becoming like, you know, we're seeing a rise of like ADHD, and everyone also feels subjectively like they're autistic. It's because they're, they're losing some degree of social skills because we text back and forth, and our brains don't-- Our, our occipital cortex is not interpreting visual information of people's facial expressions, so that part of our, our brain like literally kind of shuts off. So people are having a lot of difficulty with ambiguity. You know, people are saying like, "Oh, this person is sending mixed signals." Like, that's the point. In a relationship, you are going to have mixed signals. In a friendship, you will have mixed signals. We all have ambivalence within us. I, I wanna eat a healthy lean protein during lunch, and I also wanna eat a fried protein during lunch, right? So ambiguity is actually not something to be avoided. The really interesting thing, another, uh, transdiagnostic factor, really important one, the intolerance of uncertainty. So human beings who are capable of tolerating uncertainty, better mental health outcomes, um, more resilient, improved quality of life, right? So everyone needs defined answers. So I'll pause there for a moment just to-

   25. AHAndrew Huberman25:41

       Mm-hmm

   26. AKDr. Alok Kanojia25:42

       ... address your flirtation example, but you're spot on. We can tell what the signals are-

   27. AHAndrew Huberman25:47

       Mm-hmm

   28. AKDr. Alok Kanojia25:48

       ... at, at either end. The point of human in-interaction is that way we can adapt to each other. You know, if I put my arm around you, then how do you respond to that? Do you get up and go to the bathroom, or do you lean in? So these are how human-- like these are how are, how human interactions actually happen. There's a lot of back and forth.

7. 26:06 – 30:39

   Dating in the Internet Age, Cognitive Bias

   1. AHAndrew Huberman26:06

      Fascinating. A lot of younger guys talk to me about their challenges in the dating scene.

   2. AKDr. Alok Kanojia26:12

      Yeah. Right.

   3. AHAndrew Huberman26:12

      And one of the things that they seem very challenged with is the fact that they feel like whatever happens on a date is shared on the internet.

   4. AKDr. Alok Kanojia26:20

      Yeah.

   5. AHAndrew Huberman26:20

      Um, and this is of course not related to, you know, assault or, or them acting highly inappropriate or, you know, this is really like they're reported as a good or bad kisser. They're reported as a-

   6. AKDr. Alok Kanojia26:34

      Yeah

   7. AHAndrew Huberman26:34

      ... um, they pay or they don't pay, and, and you know, and so I think the, the room to explore ambiguity, um, to them, this is what I hear, feels very dangerous. It feels like a slippery slope-

   8. AKDr. Alok Kanojia26:49

      Yeah

   9. AHAndrew Huberman26:49

      ... where they have to perform perfectly on every measure, and I'm sure women feel the same way, right? I just hear from more, more men.

   10. AKDr. Alok Kanojia26:56

       Yeah. It's, it's very tricky. So I, I think what we're seeing in, in the dating world and, and [chuckles] I guess we're, this is what we're talking about, maybe it's top of mind for me because I just, uh, did a bunch of content on it, but, um, so w-what's interesting in the dating world is that now we're sort of adding the internet to the equation, right? Which you'd sort of talked about. So let's just understand a couple of things about the internet. So the first is what the internet, in my opinion, this is sort of like a clinician's perspective, having read about two hundred papers on various aspects of how the internet affects our brains and our psychology. Um, first thing to understand is that the internet selects for emotional activation. It's not even dopamine, uh, in my opinion. So if you look at like internet, right? So it's not just fun and games. Actually, the most engaging content is emotionally engaging.

   11. AHAndrew Huberman27:45

       Arousal.

   12. AKDr. Alok Kanojia27:46

       Arousal. Absolutely.

   13. AHAndrew Huberman27:47

       Adrenaline.

   14. AKDr. Alok Kanojia27:47

       And then the other interesting thing is that in order to maintain arousal, you need a dichotomy of emotions.

   15. AHAndrew Huberman27:55

       Mm-hmm.

   16. AKDr. Alok Kanojia27:56

       So I need to scare you, and then I need to make you angry, and then I need to show you a cat video, and then I need to scare you again, and then I need to tell you how AI's gonna steal your job, and then I wanna show you this birthday party where this baby did the cutest thing. So this is literally how it, they maintain engagement. And so what's really interesting about this is as our emot- as our limbic system is like hyperactive over and over and over again, that's one of the biggest dr- cognitive drains that we have. So like I think the top three cognitive, the things that drain our willpower the most, suppressing emotion, repressing emotion, even just feeling emotion is like very exhausting. The internet is selecting for the most emotionally activating things. So w-who, w-which tweets get engaged with? The ones that are the most polarizing. So then what happens is, is people are dating, and now you've got a problem because, and here's the real tragedy, is people will have a perception that if I don't say the right thing, this will get posted online. That is not what happens most of the time, right? But this is where we as human beings have certain cognitive biases where the extreme example, like we get trained in this in medical school, is, you know, once you miss a cancer diagnosis once, it doesn't mean that every patient after that has cancer, but that's what the brain is designed to do. Our brain is designed for survival, which means that if we get food poisoning from a restaurant even once, our brain doesn't look at that probabilistically. It takes the worst examples, and that's what we have to base our behavior on, right? Uh, like if I'm at work and I wanna, if I'm attracted to a coworker, even though there's a ninety percent chance that if I express some romantic interest in them, I'm gonna be fine, I can't make a strategy based on that. I have to ba-base my strategy on the worst possible outcome. That's what we're seeing in dating.

   17. AHAndrew Huberman29:55

       You said that suppressing emotion is cognitively draining. Uh, did I also understand correctly that being in constant arousal through different emotions is also cognitively draining?

   18. AKDr. Alok Kanojia30:07

       I don't know if I would use the word cognitive there, but it's absolutely draining, right?

   19. AHAndrew Huberman30:10

       Mm-hmm.

   20. AKDr. Alok Kanojia30:10

       So periods of extended arousal, and this is where like I'm, when I mean cognitive draining, I'm referring to a, you know, a paper that's looking at the anterior cingulate cortex.

   21. AHAndrew Huberman30:17

       Mm-hmm.

   22. AKDr. Alok Kanojia30:18

       So I, a-and that's where when the anterior cingulate cortex and your frontal lobes are suppressing your limbic system, that's very draining.But I think high levels of arousal, right, through the reticular activating formation and, and things like that, just being on emotionally, hyperactivation of your limbic system is absolutely exhausting, is the word that I would use.

   23. AHAndrew Huberman30:38

       You mentioned

8. 30:39 – 39:58

   Healthy Distress Tolerance, Tool: How to Feel Your Feelings

   1. AHAndrew Huberman30:39

      distress tolerance is a, is a valuable skill to have. Uh, it feels appropriate to say, okay, um, distress tolerance, I totally agree. Great to be able to, you know, tolerate distress to a point, but that sounds like it's very cognitively and generally draining. So how would you encourage someone to develop healthy levels of distress tolerance, but if that involves, you know, constant suppression of, of an impulse to, to shout, to react, that sounds like it could get very unhealthy. So I realize we're, we're taking-- we're sort of staying on this tangent, but I feel like what defines healthy distress tolerance if pushing back an emotional reaction or pushing down an emotional reaction is not good for us?

   2. AKDr. Alok Kanojia31:24

      So distress tolerance doesn't only include emotional suppression, right? So what's really interesting about distress tolerance is a key f- uh, feature of distress tolerance is not even suppressing, is the opposite, is accepting your emotions. It's actually moving in the opposite direction.

   3. AHAndrew Huberman31:41

      Feeling your feelings.

   4. AKDr. Alok Kanojia31:42

      Feeling your feelings, right? Recognizing that you feel your feelings.

   5. AHAndrew Huberman31:46

      What if, um, somebody feels extremely angry and they want to feel their feelings? What is a healthy way for them to do that?

   6. AKDr. Alok Kanojia31:54

      Three things.

   7. AHAndrew Huberman31:55

      Mm-hmm.

   8. AKDr. Alok Kanojia31:55

      Okay? So if you want to learn how to control your emotions, you wanna be tranquil in the face of your emotions, is what I would say. Three things you can do. The first thing is, um, putting words to your emotion.

   9. AHAndrew Huberman32:08

      Mm.

   10. AKDr. Alok Kanojia32:09

       So the moment that... So right now, if you-- I don't know if this kinda makes sense. The more angry you are, right, the more your amygdala is, like, hyperactive, it is drowning out every other part of your brain.

   11. AHAndrew Huberman32:20

       Mm-hmm.

   12. AKDr. Alok Kanojia32:21

       So the first thing that you have to do is put words to it, and when you put words to it, you can't put words to, "Argh!" There's no word there. So the moment that you try to put words to it, it has to calm down.

   13. AHAndrew Huberman32:33

       Okay.

   14. AKDr. Alok Kanojia32:33

       In order for your linguistic centers, Broca's area and all these, in order for them to, like, articulate it, you have to understand it. So Freud understood this, like, uh, over 100 years ago, and there's something powerful about processing emotions by putting them into words. In order to put words to it, we have to tone it down some.

   15. AHAndrew Huberman32:52

       Okay.

   16. AKDr. Alok Kanojia32:52

       So that's the first thing. The problem is that people oftentimes think that that is sufficient, right? So people will say, "Journal. Go see a therapist and talk about your feelings." Man, the number of times that I've had... Like, I had this patient who came in, if I can tell a story.

   17. AHAndrew Huberman33:06

       Please.

   18. AKDr. Alok Kanojia33:06

       You know, and so, like, I was a third-year resident. I'd done maybe, like, 100 hours, 200 hours of psychotherapy. So I, I had a guy come in. He'd been in the clinic for eight years, had depression, was a dude in his 40s. He came in, and he would tell me about why he was sad every day. Like, every week he'd come in, he's like, "I got, I got written up at work. People are complaining because I snapped at them. You know, one of the patients is complaining because I didn't give him benzos." And so he'd come in ev, ev, every, every week. He'd talk about why he was depressed. I'd be like, "Why are you depressed, bro?" And he'd, like, tell me some story about something bad that happened in his life. And then we did this for six months, and, like, I didn't know, 'cause I w- I'm, like, learning psychotherapy, right? So I'm like, "I'm supposed to be supportive, and I'm supposed to be like, 'Okay," like, "'that must be hard for you. How does that make you feel? That must be so hard for you. How does that make you feel? That must be so hard for you.'" We do this dance for, like, six months. Then one day he comes in, and I'm kinda getting frustrated, and I'm like, "Hey, is this helping?" And he's like, "What do you mean, is it helping?" I'm like, "Is it helping? Do you feel any better than when you came in six months ago?" And he's like, "I thought this was what we're supposed to do. I'm just supposed to come in every week, I tell you about how I'm sad, and then y- you tell me it must be... Like, isn't that what psychotherapy is?" And it was a huge light bulb moment for me because talking about your feelings, especially for men, is not enough, uh, much of the time. Fascinating neuroscience and endocrinology behind that. Putting words to it is just step one. Second thing, this is a really important skill, cultivating additional emotions. So if you look at people who are resilient, if you tunnel down into the internal dialogue of people who are resilient, you'll notice that they do something el- so- some, some interesting things. So my patients who are very severely ill, right, and literally what I try to do with them over the course of weeks is this thing happened, and I feel overwhelming shame. The moment that you start cultivating additional emotions, so I, I've been dumped by my boyfriend or my girlfriend. I'm really, really depressed. I'm gonna be alone for the rest of my life. They start to catastrophize. They have a lot of negative emotion. And it's really easy in that moment to forget that, okay, I had three years of wonderful experiences b- with this person before things went downhill. It's really easy to forget all of the positives. It's really easy to realize that three years of experience followed by, let's say, one year of a toxic relationship is gonna actually protect you from the next toxic relationship. So cultivating additional emotions is a huge fundamental part of EQ, and is, it, you don't just have to tolerate it or suppress it. These are the additional things that you can do. And this is really important. It's not just cultivating positive emotions when you're feeling negative emotions. It's the other way around as well. I've seen more relationships ruined by falling in love than anything else, and you just fall in love with the wrong person. You're in a relationship, and you fall in love with somebody else. So many people I've worked with, you know, "I have this great business idea, and I get so excited about it," and they're like, "I'm gonna start this AI company." That's the time that you actually wanna cultivate negative emotion. Cultivate a little bit of anxiety. What could go wrong? Make sure you ask yourself that question. Like, literally in addiction psychiatry, we, we have a cool technique that we use with people where it doesn't really work so much anymore, but, uh, we tell people to play the tape through to the end. You're really excited right now, and you wanna do this thing, butPlay the tape through to the end. What are all of the negative things that could happen? So that cognitive flexibility, that emotional flexibility is really important. We have to understand what emotions are. So a lot of times, you know, this is going around on the internet where, like, feel your feelings, right? Like, I'm just gonna authentically... I'm gonna be authentic with my feelings today, which means that you're an asshole, Andrew, and I'm just, this is my truth, right? So we've started, like, speaking our truths as excuses to being assholes. Like, that's what's happening on the internet. It's what's happening in, in real relationships because people are watching social media, and they're like, "I should speak my truth," right? So the other thing that's really important is to understand that an emotion is not a behavior. An emotion is literally, from an evolutionary perspective, and you may know this better than I do, is information and is motivation. That's what emotions are for. So when you feel fear when you're walking outside, going to the, walking to the outhouse in the middle of the night, and you feel fear, that is s- so all this, all this sensory input is being processed in parts of your brain that you have no conscious awareness of. The first thing that happens is that you feel emotion before you have any logical idea of what are you even scared of. That is your brain telling you something. The other thing is it's motivation, right? I feel like running away. And this is where, unfortunately, our brain evolved for a world that we don't live in anymore. So, you know, back when I used to feel fear because I was being hunted by a tiger, the natural impulses that our fear encourage us to do don't work when you've got to pay rent at the end of the month, or you've gotta pay your mortgage, or you've gotta do well on your performance review. So oftentimes what we do is we think that feeling authentically means letting our emotion run the show. We don't wanna do that. We wanna ask ourselves, "What is this emotion telling me? Why do I feel fear? What am I, you know, what am I afraid of?" And I don't even think, "What am I afraid of?" is the right question. It's way too, like, self-help.

   19. AHAndrew Huberman38:32

       Mm-hmm.

   20. AKDr. Alok Kanojia38:32

       It's way, it's way too psychotherapy for me. It's what is my fear telling me?

   21. AHAndrew Huberman38:37

       What is the information and motivation that it's signaling?

   22. AKDr. Alok Kanojia38:40

       Yeah. And then what is it, what is it telling me to do, right?

   23. AHAndrew Huberman38:43

       Like your client who was feeling very anxious all the time, um, by exploring that emotion, eventually it sounds like came to the understanding that it wasn't the job for him.

   24. AKDr. Alok Kanojia38:54

       Perfect, right? That this is not the... And, and so he's trying so hard, right? So the anxiety is, like, clinging onto his job, but actually once you understand the emotion, it's actually walking away.

   25. AHAndrew Huberman39:06

       Mm-hmm.

   26. AKDr. Alok Kanojia39:06

       And so once you have mastery over your emotions in this way, and I think mastery is maybe a better word, it makes life, like, so much better, right? That, that's when, when we talk about distress tolerance, like, that's what I'm talking about. It's not just suppression.

   27. AHAndrew Huberman39:19

       Wonderful. I, I so appreciate your answer, the thoroughness of it, the clarity of it. Distress tolerance is putting words to emotion, adding additional language to it, and exploring the, the reverse context, the, the, the, as well, the negative aspects of positive emotions-

   28. AKDr. Alok Kanojia39:35

       Yeah, absolutely

   29. AHAndrew Huberman39:36

       ... the positive aspects. So sounds like it's broadening the, the, the time domain, like thinking about this in going forward, what does this represent in the past, present, and, and future, and then really thinking about what the emotion is signaling. What a beautiful description of distress tolerance because it's also, um, operational. People can put this to, to work. Thank you. That's fantastic.

9. 39:58 – 40:49

   Sponsor: AG1

   1. AHAndrew Huberman39:58

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10. 40:49 – 50:35

    Expectations vs Internal Desire Roadmap, Western vs Eastern Theory of Mind, Ego

    1. AHAndrew Huberman40:49

       roadmap. If we could go back to the roadmap-

    2. AKDr. Alok Kanojia40:52

       Yeah

    3. AHAndrew Huberman40:52

       ... if you could spell out for, for us what do you think of as the roadmap to, to navigate this very complex landscape that we exist in now?

    4. AKDr. Alok Kanojia41:01

       Okay.

    5. AHAndrew Huberman41:01

       And this could be relationship with this person. It could be, um, be a doctor, go to an Ivy League school versus be an artist or, you know, um, any number of different examples where we have to make the distinction of what's wished for us and expected of us versus what is true to us on the inside.

    6. AKDr. Alok Kanojia41:25

       Okay.

    7. AHAndrew Huberman41:25

       That, that seems to be where, to me, where the-

    8. AKDr. Alok Kanojia41:27

       Okay

    9. AHAndrew Huberman41:27

       ... where the friction of life exists.

    10. AKDr. Alok Kanojia41:29

        A- absolutely. So, so, so-

    11. AHAndrew Huberman41:29

        That, that to me is the most interesting question in life, frankly, you know?

    12. AKDr. Alok Kanojia41:33

        Let me just make sure I understand your question. The friction and joy of life is the rest of the world wants me to do all of these things, and sometimes this doesn't wanna do those things. Sometimes it does wanna do those things. When do I listen to this, and when do I listen to everything that?

    13. AHAndrew Huberman41:55

        Yes.

    14. AKDr. Alok Kanojia41:55

        Right? Okay. Beautiful question. So this is where I'm gonna lean into the Eastern stuff for a second. So I spent seven years studying to become a monk, and, uh, then I, I went to medical school, and I became a psychiatrist, and the really interesting th... I had a really weird experience of training in psychiatry because everyone was teaching me how the mind works, okay? And this is, like, good teachers at, like, the Harvard Medical School. And they're like, "Here's how the mind works, and this is what the subconscious is," and, like, there's cognitive behavioral therapy, right? So, like, Aaron Beck taught us that there's, like, thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, and all these thing, these things connect. And the really fascinating thing, my most instinctive responseWhen people would tell me how it is, is, "No, it's not." So in the East, they have a completely different conception of mind, and here's the big problem with the Western conception of mind. You're a scientist, right? How do you learn about something, Andrew?

    15. AHAndrew Huberman42:57

        You have a question.

    16. AKDr. Alok Kanojia42:59

        Okay, good.

    17. AHAndrew Huberman42:59

        You pose a hypothesis.

    18. AKDr. Alok Kanojia43:00

        Excellent.

    19. AHAndrew Huberman43:01

        You design an experiment-

    20. AKDr. Alok Kanojia43:02

        Good

    21. AHAndrew Huberman43:03

        ... where you isolate variables.

    22. AKDr. Alok Kanojia43:04

        Okay.

    23. AHAndrew Huberman43:04

        And you either, um, refute or you, in some sense, support your hypothesis.

    24. AKDr. Alok Kanojia43:13

        Okay.

    25. AHAndrew Huberman43:14

        And then you design another experiment.

    26. AKDr. Alok Kanojia43:16

        Great. And it, it improves, right?

    27. AHAndrew Huberman43:17

        And you ask another question. You just-

    28. AKDr. Alok Kanojia43:18

        So-

    29. AHAndrew Huberman43:18

        You just keep going.

    30. AKDr. Alok Kanojia43:19

        So Andrew-
11. 50:35 – 59:22

    Sense Organs, Comparison & Proving Oneself, Internal Drive

    1. AHAndrew Huberman50:35

       me, it's a physical energy.

    2. AKDr. Alok Kanojia50:37

       Fine.

    3. AHAndrew Huberman50:37

       If I feel ph- physical energy coming up in my body, and I wanna move towards something, and for some reason I feel it more in my left arm than anywhere else, this has always been true, I, I'll have a thought, and I know... And that's when I go, "Oh, my goodness, I'm gonna do this thing." I know I'm going to do it, and there's no backing out because it, it has to happen. That's, that's how it feels.

    4. AKDr. Alok Kanojia50:57

       Yeah.

    5. AHAndrew Huberman50:58

       Yeah.

    6. AKDr. Alok Kanojia50:58

       Right? So, so, so any desire that you have that comes from the sense organs is probably not this thing. So the, the sense organs can trigger something within you, but if we look at, like, you know, social media, half the problem is that, you know, the hardest problem I have as a psychiatrist is convincing people that they don't really want the things that they say they want.

    7. AHAndrew Huberman51:23

       Mm.

    8. AKDr. Alok Kanojia51:24

       It's, like, so crazy, right? Like, we're being programmed. We're being conditioned. A- and I realized this the other day when, like, I was like, "Man, like I wish..." I talked to my agent about, like, like doing more talks. Like, I wanna go someplace and, like, get, like, paid speaking engagements. And I realized I, I actually hate that. I, I don't like that. It's just what I thought people like us do. And I've done a couple of them which have been really fantastic, and I really enjoy that, but I like sitting with people, right? So we're, we're trained... And just think about it. Like, anyone who's listening to this, think about all the shit that you've seen that you think you want but you don't really want. You just, like, look at other people, and you're like, "Yeah, I want that thing." It can be a particular kind of relationship. It can be a particular job. Like, you know, we all want, like, all this random stuff, and it's all coming from our sense organs, right? This is why advertising is a thing. So stepping away from sense organs is really important for that roadmap. Second thing is anything that you want that is a comparison, that is born of the ego. The ego is what defines you, right? So we can say a tenured professor. We can say associate part-time instructor. And so any comparison requires a definition. Does that kinda make sense?

    9. AHAndrew Huberman52:40

       Yeah.

    10. AKDr. Alok Kanojia52:40

        Like, so all of the gold medalist, silver medalist, bronze medalist, that's a comparative thing. If I say I'm a silver medalist, then my desire for the gold medal can come out of the ego. Does that kinda make sense?

    11. AHAndrew Huberman52:50

        It, yes, it, it makes... It, the reason I'm, I'm sort of, uh, with my hand below my lip is because I, I, I, I'm so struck by this because I've had this feeling for a while now that m- most of the danger in life [chuckles] um, comes from the need, the feeling that we need to prove something to others or to ourselves.

    12. AKDr. Alok Kanojia53:13

        Yep.

    13. AHAndrew Huberman53:13

        And yet I know it's healthy to prove things to myself. Like, it's felt good to be able to accomplish certain things. You know, I did that. Like, I could do other difficult things. But the origin of, of all of that work, it, for, in my mind, it's only healthy, at least for me, if it's not by virtue of trying to prove something. It's like, uh, there's a difference between a genuine heart's desire, for lack of a better way to put it, and what you're calling a, a, a pursuit of, of trying to win at some game in one's head. It's like a video game that, that isn't real.

    14. AKDr. Alok Kanojia53:49

        Yeah. It, it, it, it, it's, it's not that it's not real, right?

    15. AHAndrew Huberman53:52

        Mm-hmm.

    16. AKDr. Alok Kanojia53:52

        So, so I, I, I, I, I agree with you 100%, and I think there's a couple of important things. So, you know, proving yourself is not wholly wrong.

    17. AHAndrew Huberman54:02

        Mm-hmm.

    18. AKDr. Alok Kanojia54:02

        But understand that it is the ego. That's what it's gonna gratify.

    19. AHAndrew Huberman54:06

        Mm-hmm.

    20. AKDr. Alok Kanojia54:06

        Right? So if you have an ego of I am a loser, by all means, so this is part of the, the process, I have people in my office who are losers, for lack of a better term, 29 years old, living at home, playing video games all day, watching pornography, no job, dropped out of college.

    21. AHAndrew Huberman54:25

        Yeah.

    22. AKDr. Alok Kanojia54:26

        And, and so what they want more than anything else is to be a winner. And so my work involves two steps. W- first, let's help you be g- go from loser to winner, and then let's abandon the whole paradigm. Because I've also had people in my office who are billionaires and finally get to retire at the age of 52 after having sold their amazing third company. And then after retirement, it's not enough. They wanna make another billion.They wanna do something else. So, like, you know, that, that loser to winner, like, your mind will continually move the goalposts. If you were hungry before you got it, the thing won't fulfill your hunger. It may for a little while, and then you have to take another step of like, okay, losing and winning is now done, right? And I, I, I think you've gone through that. I can hear it in your words, and people can probably hear it too. Like, the way that probably at some point in your life, being a tenured profe- I don't know why I'm... Uh, that, that's just the thing that, that is the thing that people are the lustiest for, right, in the world that I think we come from.

    23. AHAndrew Huberman55:31

        It fe- it felt good to get.

    24. AKDr. Alok Kanojia55:32

        Right.

    25. AHAndrew Huberman55:33

        And I won't lie, it felt good to get at a place like Stanford-

    26. AKDr. Alok Kanojia55:36

        Yeah

    27. AHAndrew Huberman55:36

        ... even though there are many fantastic-

    28. AKDr. Alok Kanojia55:38

        Yep

    29. AHAndrew Huberman55:38

        ... and extremely challenging places to, to achieve that. It felt like the, um, culmination of, you know, 20 years of very hard work that I enjoyed, but that, you know, it represented an important milestone for me.

    30. AKDr. Alok Kanojia55:53

        Yeah.
12. 59:22 – 1:10:36

    Internet, Ego, "Teflon Buddha", Tool: Dealing with Criticism

    1. AKDr. Alok Kanojia59:22

       they've ever been.

    2. AHAndrew Huberman59:23

       Do you think that's, um, especially true for people who have large followings on social media?

    3. AKDr. Alok Kanojia59:28

       Absolutely. I mean, so, so I work with, with, um, uh, uh, influencers and was so curious about the work that I was doing that I tried to develop a program, so we now have, like, a creator coaching program where we're, like, collecting data about whether it's effective or not. Um, and, and so the really interesting thing is I think it's a unique, like, effect on our psychology. The closest thing is, like, you know, a lot of celebrities are, like, really messed up and, and that's because they have so many eyes on them, and people don't realize, just as a simple example, the brain just doesn't think probabilistically. So you can have 1,000 people love the work that you do, but all it takes is one person who's really nasty. That is what your brain is gonna focus on. It's gonna highlight... It's amazing. I can be looking at, like, chat that is scrolling during live streaming. There are messages that are faster than I can read, but if someone says something that is dangerous, my mind will flag it.

    4. AHAndrew Huberman1:00:23

       Wow.

    5. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:00:24

       Right?

    6. AHAndrew Huberman1:00:24

       It's like a predator on the horizon.

    7. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:00:25

       Absolutely. So, so we have these circuits whic- which i- w- were designed to look at a jungle and see a single pairs of tiger's eyes.

    8. AHAndrew Huberman1:00:34

       Mm-hmm.

    9. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:00:34

       And so the danger scanning mechanism makes it so that the bigger that you get and the more eyes that are on you, the more paranoid you have to be, the more narcissistic you will have to become. Because when someone turns to you and says, "You are ugly. You are stupid," in order to defend against that, you have to say, "No, I'm not. I am beautiful. I am intelligent." And the more times that you say that to yourself-It's, this is where things get complicated, but you don't-- that doesn't result in confidence. So I, I don't know if this makes sense, but if you are confident, you don't need to say that I'm smart or that I'm beautiful. Does that kinda make sense?

    10. AHAndrew Huberman1:01:14

        What about the, uh, you know, to each their own mindset? Like, some people will like the content. I tell myself this, you know, some people will like the content and the way I frame it and, um, will look at it, uh, on the whole, that, you know, some episodes more than others, uh, et ce- you know, certain things, and others won't. They'll, they'll hate it for whatever reason or hate me for whatever reason, and I'm okay with that.

    11. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:01:37

        Yeah, so I think you're doing a really important thing, which is, like, a key takeaway. So when someone dislikes what you do, you think about them and not you. That's the opposite of ego, right? So if we take someone who's very narcissistic and they receive a criticism, they say, "No, no, no, I'm great," right? So, so this is where, like, literally, I, I don't know if this is too abstract, but I'll give kind of, like, maybe a, a simpler example of this. So, um, I, you know, I trained in Boston, and there was a lot of K2 use, so K2 is, like, synthetic marijuana. And, um, so, like, sometimes, like, you walk into the emergency room, there's, there's a dude who's, like, high on meth or, like, high on K2. Like, you know, he's just saying all kinds of terrible things. That has nothing to do with me.

    12. AHAndrew Huberman1:02:20

        Mm-hmm.

    13. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:02:21

        Right? And the way that you framed some people are gonna like what you do and some people are not gonna like what you do, that's on them.

    14. AHAndrew Huberman1:02:28

        Mm-hmm.

    15. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:02:29

        So if we wanna step away from the ego, we have to understand that don't take it personally. Like, literally, that's the colloquial phrase, right? But it's hard to do. So if, if, if you're someone at home trying to figure out, "Okay, how do I connect with my true self? How do I step away from my ego?" Notice your reaction to criticism.

    16. AHAndrew Huberman1:02:49

        Mm-hmm.

    17. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:02:50

        Is your reaction of criticism, are you considering-- are you actually being empathic?

    18. AHAndrew Huberman1:02:55

        Mm-hmm.

    19. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:02:56

        Right? So what empathic really means is are you putting yourself in someone else's shoes? And the other person, hey, maybe not everybody likes pineapple on pizza. Or are you taking it personally? Do their insults determine your value as a human being? And the moment that that starts to happen, the friction that you're talking about, which can be so fun, becomes torture because now you have to make them happy. In order to feel good about yourself, you have to make the people around you happy.

    20. AHAndrew Huberman1:03:27

        So interesting. I, I think some of us grew up or somehow internalized the idea that if somebody is angry or is criticizing us, and it's being delivered in a certain way, that it must be true versus the ability to just really step back and assess, you know, no, it, it could very well be they're in a bad mood, they didn't sleep well. Um, you know, I grew up in a community of academics, some athletes, mostly academics, so everyone around me wasn't necessarily hyperverbal, but you know this from training in Boston. There was a way of delivering a criticism that felt like a poison dart-

    21. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:04:11

        Yeah

    22. AHAndrew Huberman1:04:12

        ... that would get right to the, to the heart of it without calling somebody a name. This is actually a very prized skill in academia and medicine.

    23. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:04:19

        Yeah.

    24. AHAndrew Huberman1:04:19

        I think it's one of the more sinister aspects of, of higher education and medicine, um, but it exists in every field. But people aren't gonna say, "Oh, dude, you're," you know, like, "That was stupid." They're gonna find a way to, to kind of thread that, that heat-seeking missile, right? And I think that sometimes getting to this thing about emotion versus language, the more primitive the expression, the, the, "I hate you. F you," like, it's easier, like you said in the, with the p- with the person in the clinic on K2, it's easier to say, like, "They're crazy. They're on drugs. They are ill." But when something is delivered in a way that's, um, very articulate or calm, we tend to give it more credit as likely to be true. So on the internet, I see most of what comes at me that's negative as I, I like to think there's also learning there, but if the way it's delivered, the way I've noticed things get past my force field is I go, "Oh, wait, wait, wait." Like, they'll say, like, a PubMed ID. "You don't know what you're talking about." They'll give me a PubMed. Then I'll go to the paper, I'm like, "That actually doesn't say that." But, but in my mind I thought, "Oh my goodness, I must have screwed up," right? They're not just telling me I'm wrong. They're telling me it, um, that I'm wrong-

    25. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:05:32

        Okay

    26. AHAndrew Huberman1:05:32

        ... because of something on the Library of Congress PubMed. So do you see what I'm saying? So I think that knowing what our, what our fences are good at filtering and not good at filtering is hard. It takes time. It takes years to cultivate.

    27. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:05:45

        Abso- Uh. [laughs]

    28. AHAndrew Huberman1:05:47

        No? I would hope that it could be quicker, but it took me-- Excuse me. Uh, it took me many years to cultivate.

    29. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:05:51

        Y- yeah. Let's just understand. So the, it, it's, it's hard to cultivate. It took y- y- years for you to cultivate because you didn't have a teacher.

    30. AHAndrew Huberman1:05:59

        Right.
13. 1:10:36 – 1:11:59

    Observing One's Mind, Meditation, Psychedelics

    1. AHAndrew Huberman1:10:36

       way to learn to observe one's mind? Is it meditation?

    2. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:10:38

       Probably the best way to observe your mind is actually psychotherapy. You'll get better insight into your mind there. But if you wanna move beyond mind, and I don't mean that in like a, "Oh, let's move beyond mind." What I mean is that if you look at your experience of existence, there is more to you than thoughts, emotions, and ego.

    3. AHAndrew Huberman1:10:55

       Mm-hmm.

    4. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:10:56

       And so if you wanna get to that and step outside of your ego, meditation is the best thing for that. And there are lots of studies that suggest that meditation shuts off the default mode network. Default mode network is our sense of, like, self. Um, there are also many studies that show that you can predict the therapeutic benefit of a psychedelic trip based on an ego death experience. So if someone has an ego death experience when they're using psychedelics, there is a greater likelihood that they heal from it, which has to do with deactivation of the default mode network.

    5. AHAndrew Huberman1:11:26

       When you say psychedelics, are there particular psychedelics that tend to promote ego death more than others?

    6. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:11:32

       I don't know the answer to that question, but I would say that most of the studies that I've seen are in psilocybin.

    7. AHAndrew Huberman1:11:38

       Mm-hmm.

    8. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:11:38

       But they're, that, that's just because there are more studies on psilocybin, I think. Um, a-arguably, you know, MDMA will do it too because MDMA is an empathogen and will help people form bonds and kinda changes their perception of the self.

    9. AHAndrew Huberman1:11:52

       Mm-hmm.

    10. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:11:53

        Right? Um, so meditation is the best way to dissolve your ego. Like, that I believe.

14. 1:11:59 – 1:13:46

    Sponsor: Function

    1. AHAndrew Huberman1:11:59

       I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge one of our sponsors, Function. Last year, I became a Function member after searching for the most comprehensive approach to lab testing. Function provides over one hundred advanced lab tests that give you a key snapshot of your entire bodily health. This snapshot offers you with insights on your heart health, hormone health, immune functioning, nutrient levels, and much more. They've also recently added tests for toxins such as BPA exposure from harmful plastics and tests for PFAS or forever chemicals. Function not only provides testing of over a hundred biomarkers key to your physical and mental health, but it also analyzes these results and provides insights from top doctors who are expert in the relevant areas. For example, in one of my first tests with Function, I learned that I had elevated levels of mercury in my blood. Function not only helped me detect that but offered insights into how best to reduce my mercury levels, which included limiting my tuna consumption I've been eating a lot of tuna while also making an effort to eat more leafy greens and supplementing with NAC and acetylcysteine, both of which can support glutathione production and detoxification. And I should say, by taking a second Function test, that approach worked. Comprehensive blood testing is vitally important. There's so many things related to your mental and physical health that can only be detected in a blood test. The problem is blood testing has always been very expensive and complicated. In contrast, I've been super impressed by Function's simplicity and at the level of cost. It is very affordable. As a consequence, I decided to join their scientific advisory board, and I'm thrilled that they're sponsoring the podcast. If you'd like to try Function, you can go to functionhealth.com/huberman. Function currently has a wait list of over two hundred and fifty thousand people, but they're offering early access to Huberman Podcast listeners. Again, that's functionhealth.com/huberman to get early access to Function.Meditation

15. 1:13:46 – 1:24:02

    Tool: Shunya "Void" Meditation & Resilience

    1. AHAndrew Huberman1:13:48

       potentially in an sa-safe clinical setting, maybe exploring ego dissolution through psychedelics, although they're still Schedule I drugs, so we have to-

    2. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:13:56

       Yeah

    3. AHAndrew Huberman1:13:56

       ...have to be thoughtful in how-

    4. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:13:57

       Yeah, yeah

    5. AHAndrew Huberman1:13:57

       ...I communicate this, not just to protect myself, but-

    6. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:14:00

       No, no, no

    7. AHAndrew Huberman1:14:00

       ...to protect other people.

    8. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:14:00

       Yeah. I-

    9. AHAndrew Huberman1:14:01

       I know we both-

    10. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:14:01

        I nor- I normally say that.

    11. AHAndrew Huberman1:14:02

        Yeah.

    12. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:14:03

        But yeah.

    13. AHAndrew Huberman1:14:03

        But I w- I will always, uh, just raise it just to be clear what we're talking about. I, I, I understood your, your position on that. The thing inside that we know is our true heart's desire that allows us to navigate the external pressures and the, the roles, these e- these ego labels that we've given ourselves and that others have given us, um, do you know any practices to help cultivate being in touch with that?

    14. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:14:29

        Yeah, absolutely. So the m-meditation, uh, that I like the most for this kind of thing is meditations around something called Shunya. Shunya means void. So if you really look at, like, all of the attributes of you, right? So I'm a man, I'm a husband, I'm a son, whatever, boyfriend, all of those things are like qualities. Even a loser is like the presence of something, right? I'm a loser. I'm pathetic. That is a, the existence of a negative thing, a negative valence thing. So if you really look at what you are, imagine, Andrew, for a moment... This is gonna be hard. But imagine that you only existed for 10 seconds.

    15. AHAndrew Huberman1:15:11

        Mm-hmm.

    16. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:15:12

        What would you be? Like, you'd be almost nothing, right? You just-

    17. AHAndrew Huberman1:15:17

        Mm-hmm

    18. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:15:17

        ...get this flash of experience, but you have no narrative identity. You have no sense of self. All you are is just a raw receiver of an experience.

    19. AHAndrew Huberman1:15:26

        Mm-hmm.

    20. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:15:27

        And, like, I, I sometimes empathize with a child when they're first being born, that first shock of awareness, and you don't know what the hell is going on, and you start crying, right? You have no idea who you are, what you are. You're just a chunk of receiving. So there are Shunya practices which a-allow you to connect with the void within you, and the void within us is actually the most basic part of what we are. It's actually what's at the bottom.

    21. AHAndrew Huberman1:15:52

        Mm-hmm.

    22. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:15:53

        And, and so I, I... There are some ways to sort of understand what this is. Like, so if you think about, you know, watching a beautiful sunset and you cease to exist, you're just soaking in the sunset. You don't have any thoughts. You don't have any worries. It feels incredibly peaceful, right? A-and you are there. You're not comatose, but y-you don't have a personhood in that moment. Another really great example of this is, like, if you really need to, to pee, and you're, like, waiting, you're... to use the bathroom and then finally you get your turn, the moment you start peeing, you cease to exist, whether you've got mortgages or you need to get a Valentine's Day present or you have to do this, you have... All those thoughts, you just, you are just there as a, as a nothing. So these Shunya practices are a little bit-- You have to do them with a little bit more caution. There's some, like, introductory practices. One example is if you close your eyes for a moment. This is gonna sound kinda weird, but, like, where do you feel your body? Like, so think about proprioception, right? So, like, pay attention to your arms-

    23. AHAndrew Huberman1:17:03

        Mm-hmm

    24. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:17:04

        ...your head, your nose. So what I want you to do is focus on the area of the solar plexus and look for, like, an absence of feeling there. Like, as you breathe in and out, like, you can feel your rib cage expands. Maybe you can feel your, your heartbeat. But if you really pay attention to just the area of solar plexus, there's gonna be a feeling of emptiness, and so as you meditate upon that, you'll get closer to Shunya. The other really interesting, easy way to get sh- a, a taste of Shunya is close your eyes. I want you to breathe in and then breathe out, and then when you're ready, breathe in again. And when you're ready, breathe out. Just, just breathe nice and slow. And now what I want you to do is pay attention to the time between breaths. Between your breaths, you will have stillness. Not during the breathing. During the breathing, you exist. Inhalation, exhalation. But in between exhalation and inhalation, there's a very beautiful stillness. For people who are having trouble feeling that, I, I love this 'cause there's a interesting cognitive technique. Catch the moment where inhalation becomes exhalation-

    25. AHAndrew Huberman1:18:38

        Mm

    26. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:18:38

        ...in your normal breathing, not absence of breathing, 'cause you're normally breathing in and out, in and out, in and out. Catch the moment where one becomes the other. That'll help you find Shunya.

    27. AHAndrew Huberman1:18:49

        And Shunya is defined as the void.

    28. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:18:51

        Void. It's also zero. Emptiness.

    29. AHAndrew Huberman1:18:54

        Yeah, there's no thought of roles or anything else when that-

    30. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:18:58

        A-and, and here's the beautiful thing. Like, once you find Shunya, you can go into it.
16. 1:24:02 – 1:30:04

    External Reminders, Environment; Men & Emotional Regulation

    1. AHAndrew Huberman1:24:02

       that I've done that I wonder-- I'd love your thoughts on if, because perhaps it offers a, a, a, uh, a useful tool for people, is whenever I feel I'm not as in touch with that part of myself as I would like, or I feel like I've drifted from it, or I'm just kind of caught in the current of whatever it is I've signed up for in life, which I enjoy, but now it's contaminated, and there's sewage floating next to me, so to speak-

    2. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:24:24

       Yeah

    3. AHAndrew Huberman1:24:24

       ... I find some way to bring things into my home environment that remind me of that feeling when I was a kid. So recently, for instance, I converted a art gallery into a living space. This is something that I can now do in my life that I certainly couldn't do some years ago. And I love fish tanks, so I brought in aquaria. And I've got my fish tanks, and I've got a pet octopus. And my girlfriend brought-- For Valentine's Day, I got her flowers. I said, "Oh, there are the flowers we got back from dinner." They were there. And she goes, "I got you some plants." And I turned around, and the place was, like, filled with plants. And I, I love animals and plants. I was like, "Oh, my God." So she clearly gets me. And I was like, "Oh, my goodness." And now when I wake up in the morning, like, I love those plants. I need her to take care of them because I walk near a plant and it dies.

    4. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:25:11

       Mm-hmm.

    5. AHAndrew Huberman1:25:12

       Fish and animals, I'm good. Um, uh, but when I'm surrounded by things that just feel really good and wholesome and just kind of basic to who I know myself to be at a certain level, then I feel like I can take that energy into everything I do, and it, it serves as a filter. Like, bullshit shows up as bullshit at that point. People's issues show up as their issues. Real criticism that I need to internalize, I like to think, still gets signal above the noise. So I tend to put things outside me to reawaken that. But I love, love, love, love that you're offering tools that have nothing to do withBuilding something, buying something, because those things are still external to me. This meditation is really about accessing it from within first. And, uh, um, so anyway, that's just a, a reflection.

    6. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:26:07

       Yeah. So, so I wanna point out, I think that this is, it's such a masculine thing, so, so i- if I can... So, you know, men are really interesting. So we're trained to not manage our internal environment internally. So I, I had a patient who was, um, I, I saw in a jail, he was 19, and he'd been in, he'd been in jail like three or four times. And so I was talking to him about, you know, how he like wound up here 'cause he's like 19. And so he was, you know, telling me that when he was 12, um, his dad passed away. He's got three sisters, all older, and a mom. And, um, what they told him is like, "You're the man of the house and you have to provide."

    7. AHAndrew Huberman1:26:52

       Heavy.

    8. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:26:53

       And, and so he was like, "Okay, this is what I have to do." Like, so, so w- th- men do this thing, it's really interesting. We do emotional regulation through our environment.

    9. AHAndrew Huberman1:27:03

       Mm.

    10. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:27:03

        So if my environment makes me feel a certain way, if my mom, dad, brother, sister, boss make, is upset with me and makes me feel bad, if I make them happy, they will no longer be upset with me. And if they're no longer upset with me, I will be content. We shape our internal emotional environment through our external environment. And the scariest place I see this is when, when men I work with, and it's not that women, this doesn't happen to women as well. This is more the way we're socialized, and there's an effect of testosterone and estrogen here as well. Um, there's a biological element to this. But then they, they fall into this trap of like their emotions are determined by the environment.

    11. AHAndrew Huberman1:27:45

        Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

    12. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:27:46

        So men are just, just the way that they solve their internal emotional problems is by interacting with their environment.

    13. AHAndrew Huberman1:27:52

        Mm-hmm.

    14. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:27:52

        That's just very common. So it doesn't mean that we shouldn't utilize the outside space.

    15. AHAndrew Huberman1:27:57

        Mm-hmm.

    16. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:27:58

        Right? So I'm not suggesting, I mean, if you really wanna be, if you're s- pursuing enlightenment, then don't get Aquaria. But like most of us aren't doing that, so I think we should utilize, shape our external environment. There's tons of evidence that changing your environment is critical from recovering from addiction, right? If you're still, if you're still hanging out at a bar, it's gonna be really hard to be sober. So we want to utilize those things, but we don't wanna become dependent on them. So shape your environment for your benefit, but also be stable enough internally to where you don't need your Aquaria to feel stable, which I'm, I'm, I doubt you need.

    17. AHAndrew Huberman1:28:35

        No, no, no.

    18. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:28:36

        Yeah. You know?

    19. AHAndrew Huberman1:28:37

        I raise that example. I see exactly what you're saying, and no, I use that example because it's like the ability to get in touch with a, a piece of oneself that feels very true, very, um, wholesome, and, um, and not, for lack of a better word, contaminated by anything external-

    20. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:28:59

        Yeah

    21. AHAndrew Huberman1:29:00

        ... feels good, and I think it's the energy that one takes away from that, that, that I take away from that, that excites me.

    22. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:29:06

        Yeah. Yeah. So, so I, I, I think it's a great point, right? So I think we sometimes forget. So I, I was giving a talk for executives about work-life balance, and I was like, "There's no such thing." So I, I think we s- we s- tr- we try to ba- work is over here and balance, like, you know, home is over, sorry, yeah, life is over here. That's not how it works. You as a human being carry yourself between both situations. When things are bad at work is when people have affairs. If things are bad at home, you're not gonna be at your, your best at work. So I, I think, uh, you're, you're, you're really tunneling down into I think the most important part of it, which is that look at how you get shaped and look at the person that you carry into your next thing. There's a whole science behind that, uh, which I think we probably don't have time for, but, like, this idea of samskaras, which is, like, almost like learning.

    23. AHAndrew Huberman1:29:55

        Mm-hmm.

    24. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:29:55

        So if you sort of look at every experience that you have, you learn something and you carry yourself forward, right, into the next experience, into the next experience. That's what we call learning.

    25. AHAndrew Huberman1:30:03

        Well, let's talk

17. 1:30:04 – 1:39:15

    Samskara, Yoga Nidra, Trauma & Learning, Shunya & Personal Compass

    1. AHAndrew Huberman1:30:04

       about samskaras because, um, years ago, 2017, I was exposed to Yoga Nidra.

    2. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:30:08

       Okay.

    3. AHAndrew Huberman1:30:09

       The guy that taught me Nidra said the whole purpose of Nidra is, yes, to learn how to relax the body with an active mind, et cetera, to make up sleep that perhaps you didn't get the night before, become a better sleeper, all that stuff. But he said the purpose is to burn the samskaras down to the roots. You're supposed to, um, these are like weeds that come up in your life, and you're supposed to burn them down, and Nidra is one way that you, you, you rid yourself of, of these things. Is he totally off base?

    4. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:30:39

       No. So we, we have to be careful because you love Aquaria and you love frogs.

    5. AHAndrew Huberman1:30:43

       Mm-hmm.

    6. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:30:43

       Now we're getting to what I love.

    7. AHAndrew Huberman1:30:44

       Great.

    8. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:30:45

       Okay. So-

    9. AHAndrew Huberman1:30:45

       Great. I prefer that

    10. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:30:46

        ... let's understand what Yoga Nidra is and what a samskara is. So one of the biggest challenges that I have as a psychiatrist, my job is not in teaching people things. It is in helping them unlearn. So if you look at what trauma is, if you look at ambition, if you look at ego, you know, you, you kinda said you try to connect to this childlike energy. I forget if it was, like, Leonardo or Michelangelo or, or someone who's like, "You know, it took me my whole life to learn how to paint like a child." So if you look at literally what happens with the human psychology is we accrue these microtraumas as we go through life. We accrue associations. I had a patient who was absolutely traumatized, so was dating someone engaged to a dude, okay? Discovered that her fiancé had been lying. So he was in med school, failed out. Uh, for two years, he pretended to go to class every day.

    11. AHAndrew Huberman1:31:43

        [sighs]

    12. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:31:44

        And then, then when he graduated, he got a job.

    13. AHAndrew Huberman1:31:48

        But he didn't really graduate.

    14. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:31:49

        He didn't really graduate. Here's the scary thing. So he would leave in the morning, drive to his parents' house, spend the day there. Parents would deposit money in their accountAnd so for years, like, and so one day I think, I think what happened is she went to his parents' house, and she saw him there 'cause she like, you know, went to-

    15. AHAndrew Huberman1:32:08

        Were they in on the-

    16. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:32:09

        Yeah, they were in on it

    17. AHAndrew Huberman1:32:10

        ... on the lie?

    18. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:32:10

        Yeah. Yeah

    19. AHAndrew Huberman1:32:11

        They were in on the lie.

    20. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:32:11

        Right? So they were in on the lie. And so she is just like, "Like, what are you doing here?" And then, then she discovers not only him, but her parents have been depositing money into their account every month. A- and so she discovers this betrayal, and so now-

    21. AHAndrew Huberman1:32:24

        I'm shocked.

    22. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:32:25

        Yeah, it's insane. It's absolutely insane the, the, the lengths that people will go to, to, to deceive you.

    23. AHAndrew Huberman1:32:31

        Oh, believe me, I've experienced somebody creating a world that was a complete fabrication, and eventually it all came tumbling down for them. But I remember being like, "Oh my God."

    24. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:32:44

        Yeah. Right? So when you're about to marry this person, it leaves scars. So then what happens is she goes into her next relationship, and she has an immense amount of distrust, is paranoid about her next partner. Next partner didn't do shit, and this guy is getting like, like, there's so much paranoia, right? So if you look at life, life is a series of like bad stuff that happens to us, and then we adapt. But the way that the human mind adapts is the same way that the human body adapts, which is if something is in- if we get really damaged, we get a callus. We get scar tissue.

    25. AHAndrew Huberman1:33:19

        Mm.

    26. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:33:19

        Scar tissue's not functional. It's protective, but it's not functional. So most of our adaptations become maladaptations later on. Okay? So this is what a samskara is. So it's like this emotional energy that lingers with you and shapes the way that you see the world. So, uh, i- it's really fascinating because we have all this like trauma processing, and the yogis were talking about it for thousands of years a- as samskaras. And now you were talking about, you know, this thing down there that needs to be burned, so let's understand that for a second. If you look at your mind, stuff pops up, right? Have you ever wondered why certain things pop up?

    27. AHAndrew Huberman1:33:59

        No.

    28. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:33:59

        Right? Have you ever thought like, "Why aren't you interested in the scent of a rose?" Like, a certain... Like, it's so weird. Like, our, our mind just generates thoughts, and everyone is trying to learn discipline and willpower. I think it's terrible. Willpower is so bad because why not just shape yourself to have the right desires? [chuckles] Then you don't need willpower. This is what the process of yoga is really about. This is what samskara generation is about. Did you learn a sankalpa when you did, uh, Yoga Nidra?

    29. AHAndrew Huberman1:34:31

        Well, they talk about it. I confess that [chuckles] um, I've maintained a very regular Yoga Nidra practice, but I've not explored the, uh, these aspects of it.

    30. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:34:43

        Yeah. So I'll explain to you the mechanism of a sankalpa, and like literally it's, it's fucking wild. This is reprogramming your subconscious mind so that the things that your subconscious mind puts into your conscious mind, you can control. Okay? So in the case of trauma, all kinds of weird stuff gets put into our subconscious mind, like, "I can't trust people." Then what happens is that floats to the surface. In my patient's case, every time her second fiancé, she doesn't know where he is, she's like, "Maybe he's scamming me," right? Like, that's what she thinks. So I don't know if that makes sense. That's a thought in her conscious which is being born out of something in her unconscious. We in neuroscience call this learning, right? So we're learning certain things. So in psychotherapy, we try to get rid of that bad stuff, but let's understand how stuff goes in because if we can understand how the mind is programmed, and this is-- it's so simple, so neuroscientific, okay? Or maybe you can tell me it's not neuroscientific, but I'm pretty sure it is. Okay. The first thing is the one-pointedness of the mind allows things to sink in. So if I'm trying to study optic nerve anatomy, and I'm in a burning building with people yelling at me, I can have my eyes look at the paper, but I'm not gonna learn anything. This is the really crazy thing is a lot of people study repetitively, right? So I read the paper again and again and again and again, but it's not like each time I read the paper, I get 10% of the knowledge. If you really pay attention to your mind, when you are focused, when your mind is one-pointed, you just need to read it once. What we're basically doing is we're rolling the dice. Am I focused this time I read the page? Am I focused this time I read the page? Am I focused this time I read the page? And this is also why we have studies on things like writing. So when you write, it improves your capacity to focus. So that's when things enter your memory a little bit more.
18. 1:39:15 – 1:42:30

    Yoga Nidra, Channeling Divinity, Genius

    1. AHAndrew Huberman1:39:15

       And in Nidra, um, is there an opportunity for emotion? Um, you're very-- It's a deeply relaxed but mind active state.

    2. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:39:23

       You-- No, no. Yeah. So you don't want emotion in Nidra. You are actually... So emotion collapses a scattered mind to one point.

    3. AHAndrew Huberman1:39:31

       Mm-hmm.

    4. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:39:31

       But there is a state of consciousness even beyond one-pointedness that would-- we, we use in studying, where if you talk to people who, like, e-engage in not even the flow state, but beyond the flow state. So there are people who like the best ter- I know it's gonna sound hokey, but people who, like, channel divinity, that I think divine is the best scientific term. So there is, there are some human beings, and everyone has experienced this, where, like, you're not you. You're like something else.

    5. AHAndrew Huberman1:40:00

       Tell me more.

    6. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:40:00

       I think the Greeks' thought of genius is not a person, is like something you channel.

    7. AHAndrew Huberman1:40:06

       Something coming through somebody.

    8. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:40:07

       Some-something coming through.

    9. AHAndrew Huberman1:40:08

       We see this, I think, uh, most readily in musicians.

    10. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:40:12

        Musicians, athletes.

    11. AHAndrew Huberman1:40:13

        Mm-hmm.

    12. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:40:14

        Right? So there are some times, like I work with like e-sports athletes, and some of them know that they're going to win. They see the game that they're going to play, and they're m- they, they know exactly what's going to happen. And the crazy thing, it's not a calculation, it's an intuition. I'm sure that on some level they're calculating. So we call this stuff divine. I'm not saying it's divine. I'm not saying it comes from God. I'm saying that the subjective experience is qualitatively, fundamentally different from like a regular logical experience.

    13. AHAndrew Huberman1:40:43

        Mm-hmm.

    14. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:40:43

        So this is a state of mind that is even beyond emotion. It's in the edit mode. In scattered mind, emotion brings us down to some amount of focus, but then there's even a level of focus that's deeper.

    15. AHAndrew Huberman1:40:55

        And that's where the rewriting comes from.

    16. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:40:56

        That's where the rewriting comes in.

    17. AHAndrew Huberman1:40:58

        The editing, yeah.

    18. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:40:58

        That, that's when-- That, and then when you implant something there, that's what a sankalpa is. So when you do Yoga Nidra, the physiologic element... So this is what's like not bad, but is a necessary step with where we are with science. All the weird mystical stuff I think is real, but we have to start with the basic science, right? So the way that science works is like we start with, okay, like let's look at cortisol production, and then let's look at what happens next, and let's look at what happens next, and let's look at what happens next. So Yoga Nidra, whether you're talking about cardiac coherence breathing, so there's the first stage of what we call Nadi Shuddhi Pranayama, which is alternate nostril breathing. But then there's a text called, um, Vasishtha Samhita, which talks about a particular kind of cardiac coherence breathing with a, a, uh, ratio of one to four to eight. So you breathe in for eight seconds. Actually, you breathe in for 16 seconds, you hold for 64 seconds, and then you exhale for 32 seconds. If you do the Vasishtha Samhita version of cardiac coherence breathing, the subjective experience is completely different. You will feel prana. You will feel chi.

    19. AHAndrew Huberman1:42:12

        With that pattern of breathing.

    20. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:42:12

        With, with that pattern of breathing. You will-

    21. AHAndrew Huberman1:42:14

        Those are long inhales-

    22. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:42:15

        Oh, yeah

    23. AHAndrew Huberman1:42:16

        ... holds, and exhales.

    24. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:42:17

        Yeah. So it's, it's hard to get to, but like literally the subjective experience that you will have is like a sense of vibration on, like, at the periphery of your body. That's what it feels like to me.

19. 1:42:30 – 1:43:48

    Sponsor: Eight Sleep

    1. AHAndrew Huberman1:42:30

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20. 1:43:48 – 1:53:40

    Breathwork Practices; Meditation Science, Self-Esteem & Belief Change

    1. AHAndrew Huberman1:43:48

       I may, just a brief editorial about why I also believe that science needs to go down through the physiological first. My lab has done some clinical studies on breathwork. We call it respiration physiology for a reason. It's important to be able to fund studies and also to be able to communicatethough that information to colleagues who if they just hear breathwork or meditation or that the, it's, it's a separator, right? The, the, the field of science can't go into the mystical right away.

    2. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:44:18

       Yeah.

    3. AHAndrew Huberman1:44:18

       But what's so interesting is nowadays there are discussions about, uh, meditation that are starting to get into the deeper layers, but it took 20 years or more of formal science to do. I'm, I'm not arguing with you.

    4. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:44:29

       Yeah, yeah.

    5. AHAndrew Huberman1:44:29

       I just, I think some people will say, "Why not just cut to the chase?"

    6. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:44:32

       No, no, no, no.

    7. AHAndrew Huberman1:44:32

       You know-

    8. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:44:32

       I mean, I-

    9. AHAndrew Huberman1:44:33

       You know, I completely agree with, with everything you're saying. I think there are ways of editing the nervous system that are non-pharmacologic, that are behavioral. You're describing some of the, the, the, the more ancient ones. I do believe the yogis were and are neuroscientists. They come in through a different avenue. My recollection from Nidra is that, um, there are some-- there's an encouragement to, uh, two things that I would love your, your th- your comments on. One is there's an instruction in the Nidras that I've done to move away from thinking and doing to being and feeling. You're trying to get out of the state of planning, out of... Uh, is there some-

    10. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:45:14

        Yes, yes, yes

    11. AHAndrew Huberman1:45:15

        ... shift that's critical? And then the other one is I am statements. There, there's this instruction to give, uh, like talk about one's deepest heart's desire as if it's already happened. Is that BS-

    12. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:45:26

        No, no, no

    13. AHAndrew Huberman1:45:26

        ... or is that, or is that real?

    14. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:45:26

        It's not BS.

    15. AHAndrew Huberman1:45:27

        Okay.

    16. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:45:27

        But we have to understand mechanisms.

    17. AHAndrew Huberman1:45:28

        Okay.

    18. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:45:28

        So let me talk about the science bit for a bit.

    19. AHAndrew Huberman1:45:30

        Okay.

    20. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:45:30

        I have a far s- uh, not simpler. I'm a clinician. I think there's a reason we have to start with physiology, because when a patient comes into my office, if I tell them, "Do yoga nidra," what is the effect size of the intervention? We need to know that.

    21. AHAndrew Huberman1:45:43

        Mm-hmm.

    22. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:45:43

        Right? So here's the problem with studying meditation and the benefit of studying m- meditation this way. The problem is that we're teaching s- people to swim for eight weeks. That does not show us what an Olympic athlete is. So our science of meditation is in its infancy. The reason why this is really important is because not everybody is a Buddha. So the reason we have to start with physiology is because we need-- We're s- we're doing scientific studies to make predictions. Why are we making predictions? At least for me, it's to help a human being. So it-- I don't care that, uh, you know, there's some yogi who's been in the cave in the Himalayas for 60 years and ach- attains some weird channeling of divinity. What I wanna know is like when a human being comes into my office and I tell them to meditate, how much can I pull back on their SSRI if they've been sticking with the practice, right? So you have to start-- Science is about reliability, not about possibil- that sounds so new age, but it's, it's about what we can reliably predict, and that's a really important place to start. Going back to the Nidra thing, this is the th- thing to understand. So if you think about planning, planning is a higher order cognitive function that depends upon other baser cognitive functions. And it's-- I'll just give you a simple example. If I care about parties, my mind will automatically plan parties. If I care about avoiding other people, I will automatically plan how to avoid other people. So the planning that you do is whatever, but which things are you planning? That comes from the deeper stuff, for lack of a better term. That's why... So these people, they're not doing the, the sankalpa in the most classic form, but they're getting there. Because a being statement is the pluripotent stem cell of where you wanna go, okay? So what, what do I mean by that? It's like, so like, uh, like let's be precise, and I'm-- I know it sounds new age-y, but there's like science here, okay? So let's look about some-- look at something like self-esteem. So self-esteem is an assessment of yourself. And think about all of the ways, if I have high self-esteem or low self-esteem, that will result in so many different m- like, fuck, manifestation. Enough. It's the word, right? That will manifest in your life in so many ways. How do you respond to feedback? If someone asks too much of you, can you set a boundary? And this is the problem. The, the core of the work that I try to do is I try to help people get to their fundamentals. Everyone's focused on changing behavior. Everyone's focused on increasing willpower to overcome this tendency. And it's like, why not just change the tendency? And that sounds so simple, but that's literally what we do in psychotherapy every day when we come in and someone has a narcissistic personality disorder. Andrew, this is personality. This is who they are. And we can psychotherapize them to be someone else, for their natural thoughts to change, for the way that they see the world to change, for their behaviors to change on its own. It doesn't require... Willpower is necessary when you are trying to not be narcissistic. It is not necessary when you are no longer narcissistic. So we've done it in psychotherapy. We know that if your self-esteem changes, if your sense of being changes, treatment-refractory depression will change. Trauma, PTSD will change.

    23. AHAndrew Huberman1:49:01

        Do you have your patients do Nidra?

    24. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:49:04

        Some of them.

    25. AHAndrew Huberman1:49:05

        Mm-hmm.

    26. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:49:05

        So I also have a whole-- I mean, I w- I just started this research and then left academia, but I was trying to develop evidence-based protocols for particular diagnoses for certain kinds of meditation practices.

    27. AHAndrew Huberman1:49:17

        Beautiful.

    28. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:49:18

        Right? So for narcissism, I would lean into Shunya practices. For trauma healing, and specifically the patients who come in who need a fundamental belief change, if they just didn't believe this thing about themselves. So I had one patient who had a lot of trauma, and the sankalpa that she came up with, or that we came up with together, is, "I deserve to be whole," not, "I am whole." And then i- if you think about a sankalpa, that's a compass that you will navigate life with. So the main thing is, once it gets into her mind, "I deserve to be whole," if people, even her own... She had a lot of self-sabotaging behaviors, and it's like, "No, I deserve to be whole." Right? Th- that is something that she-- and this isn't telling yourself. This is the problem. This is-- I wanna be precise. I know it sounds weird, but telling yourself is like there's a lot of mental activity and you're trying to say something from the outside. Like, you can tell yourself, "Hey-"Andrew, I'm gonna remember this mathematical formula. Doesn't work. You can tell yourself all kinds of things, but, like, telling yourself is very surface level mental activity. That's not how change happens. So when we're talking about, like, narrative reconstruction post-trauma and this is what's so terrible about social media. Everyone's, like, consuming this, like, you know, tell yourself every single day that this is true. That's not how you change your beliefs. Bel- that's the, the science of how beliefs change isn't by telling yourself things over and over and over again. That's gaslighting yourself. It, it's just trying to drown what you really believe with, like... It's like taking a piece of dog poop and putting icing on top.

    29. AHAndrew Huberman1:50:53

        It's not how neuroplasticity works.

    30. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:50:55

        It's exactly. Well said.
21. 1:53:40 – 2:01:50

    Liminal States, Meditation Types & Benefits; Western & Eastern Balance

    1. AHAndrew Huberman1:53:40

       Do you think that, uh, liminal states between sleep and awake are also a valuable opportunity for people to rewire their beliefs about themselves, um, and engage neuroplasticity?

    2. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:53:51

       Absolutely. So hy- hy- hypnagogic, hyp- hypnopompic hallu- hallucinations are, like, good examples of this. That state is really weird. So there is one of the 112 techniques that will bring you to enlightenment is to catch the moment of sleep. Beautiful technique, incredibly hard to do. So this is something that people need to understand. When we're talking about meditation, I want y'all to understand that this is a technique that I did for 12 years before seeing a single result, and this technique will give you-- and now we're going completely off the rails, okay? Uh, will give you a lot of insight into your past lives. So there's something, and we, we can get into the science of that if you want to. Um, but, like, th- there's something, like, when people come to me and they say, "Hey," like, "I wanna learn about my past lives," the technique that I give them is to focus on the liminal state between consciousness and sleep, and specifically to catch the moment of sleep, to-- so to see yourself fall asleep.

    3. AHAndrew Huberman1:54:53

       So I do that in nidra. I can observe myself falling asleep, and I'm aware that I'm falling asleep, but I'm not lucid dreaming. I'm, I'm watching myself sleep. Um, it's a-- and it-- and I literally feel like I'm falling. There's probably some deactivation of the vestibular system or something going on there. Um-

    4. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:55:13

       Proprioceptive hallucination.

    5. AHAndrew Huberman1:55:14

       Yeah, s- some- something going on. Um, I mean, what we're talking about here is, to really just break it down, is deeply relaxed state. So, so autonomic tone is very parasympathetic, but ale- but alert enough to observe the self. So this is an unusual state, right? 'Cause I normally think about the autonomic nervous system like a seesaw, parasympathetic, sympathetic. So alert, stressed, panic, or asleep, coma, dead, right? [chuckles] You know, and it's going back and forth, uh, the entire time we're alive, but what we're talking about here is a weird kind of bending of the seesaw where we're both very relaxed and very alert, and in that state, the, the brain is more available for, for instruction, for r- for, for editing. Many people, I think, use psychedelics trying to achieve this state. Th- that's one avenue. I, I think it w- it would be amazing if there were more, uh, faster entry points. Twelve years is a long time.I hear that, other people hear that, like, "Oh, shit, you know, that's, that's a lot of meditating before I get-

    6. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:56:19

       Yes.

    7. AHAndrew Huberman1:56:19

       ... where I wanna be." But do you think that there's opportunity for Nidra and, um, excuse me, um, uh, Shunya, the void meditation, to be valuable in the short term as well?

    8. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:56:29

       This is one of the 112 tantric techniques.

    9. AHAndrew Huberman1:56:31

       Ah, it's just that technique.

    10. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:56:32

        Yeah. Yeah.

    11. AHAndrew Huberman1:56:32

        I see.

    12. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:56:32

        So that, that's a really hard one because it has no n- preparatory practice. It has no physiology to it. It's just catch the moment of sleep. That's it.

    13. AHAndrew Huberman1:56:39

        Hmm.

    14. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:56:40

        So th- that's where w- you know, that technique is normally if you've trained yourself, then you can do it, but it's really hard to do just-

    15. AHAndrew Huberman1:56:48

        Hmm

    16. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:56:48

        ... off the cuff. Y- Nidra is very helpful from the get-go, right? So from an autonomic nervous system standpoint, very helpful. We tend to be hyper-sympathetically activated, so Yoga Nidra is very good for parasympathetic activation.

    17. AHAndrew Huberman1:57:01

        Mm-hmm.

    18. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:57:01

        Yoga Nidra is also very good for the rotation of your somatosensory cortex.

    19. AHAndrew Huberman1:57:06

        Mm-hmm.

    20. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:57:06

        So, you know, like we have this idea of the homunculus. That's not really what it is, and we can, if I'm wrong-

    21. AHAndrew Huberman1:57:11

        The map of self.

    22. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:57:11

        Yeah. Right? So, so really what it is, your somatosensory cortex is plastic.

    23. AHAndrew Huberman1:57:15

        Mm-hmm.

    24. AKDr. Alok Kanojia1:57:15

        And when you do rotations of awareness through your body, it's really good for you. Really helps with things like chronic pain. Um, so in chronic pain, what happens is patients, their somatosensory cortex is literally locked into the part of the, of their body that's in pain. People think that... And it's a, it's a, you know, it's a self-reinforcing thing where something hurts, so your brain is thinking about it, and the more that your brain thinks about it, the more that it hurts. So Nidra is really good from the get-go, and, and that's where I sort of think about the benefits of meditation as, first of all, scientific to woo woo. This we know works. This we have n- no clue. Um, in my personal journey, it's been really weird. So I, I was brought to this weird mystical stuff, like kicking and screaming, where y- you know, once you're, you're meditating one day and you have a memory from your past life, like you sit there and you're like, "What the fuck is that?" Like, is this a hallucination? Is this some f- so form of genetic memory? Like is this epigenetic memory? Like, what is this? I have no idea. So I'm not saying that past lives even l- exist. All I'm saying is that there are things that maybe some people can do that will give you the illusion of a past life. That's all we know, right? There's no... And this is where I think a lot of people are very unscientific because they say, "If I have a memory of something that didn't happen, that means it hap-" No, it didn't. The human brain constructs memory all the time. Most of our memory is stuff that didn't happen, actually, technically.

    25. AHAndrew Huberman1:58:41

        I have to say, I, I don't wanna interrupt your flow, but I just have to say 'cause I'm, I'm feeling it and I'm not saying this to make you feel good, but if it does, uh, great. I mean, you're one of the more intellectually supple people I've ever encountered. I hope that lands 'cause it, you know, I've been around a lot of well-educated people and a lot of practitioners, everything from former Mr. Olympias to Rick Rubin to David Cho. I mean, we've... I mean, Martha Beck, I mean, who has three degrees from Harvard but talks about spiritual downloads and... A- and I have to say, like I feel what's missing from health, public health, mental health, physical health, performance, you know, broadly speaking, is this ability to understand how the ancient practices are really of benefit, where the neuroscience and other forms of science can explain it, but also to acknowledge that even where we don't have mechanistic understanding, there's value in the practices. Like if... Y- you know, I really believe that the healing that everyone wants so badly for themselves and for the world, I really believe that most people want that, resides in this business of going inward, that onl- we can only do for ourselves, and seeing where our bullshit is, burning it down, and unlearning the stuff that makes us unkind to ourselves and others, and unproductive. You know, I think one of the dangers in discussions around yoga and, and, uh, these things is some people will think, "Okay, this is navel-gazing. This is all me stuff. This is... You know, you just gotta, you know, uh, get out into the world and do stuff." But when we hosted, uh, James Hollis, 84-year-old Jungian analyst, he said there are two things that are critical to a good life, of-- if, if I may. He said, "Every day you have to shut up." These are his words. He said, "You gotta shut up, meaning no whining. Be grateful. You need to suit up, meaning you need to prepare for your roles in life, and then you need to show up to your roles in life. But you also need to spend some time getting out of stimulus and response, going inward, and really touching in with" what he called "your genuine heart's desires." And when he said that, I thought like, "Perfect. This is the, the ambition, the doing, the getting things done in life that we have to do," because no one wants to be the loser you described earlier. Like, no one wants to be that person. And at the same time, no one wants to be-- Many people think they wanna be, but nobody wants to be the person that sold the company, got the marriage and the kids, and is miserable because they took a path that wasn't really for them, that they should've done that with someone else. They literally have the wrong [chuckles] ... No one would say they have the wrong kids, but they have the wrong life, right? And so I think that what you're describing is the roadmap, and it involves this going inward. And I think that the, the language around yogic practices for Westerners is the separator. It's where people brace and they go, "What are they really talking about here? This is this..." And so

22. 2:01:50 – 2:14:07

    Understanding Ego & Perception; AI & Narcissism, Psychosis

    1. AHAndrew Huberman2:01:50

       as, as a practitioner in the West with this Eastern mindset woven in, how do you bring that to your patients? How do you, how do you convince them that this is the path? Because I really believe it is the path, and I think it's actually the, the most important thing that any of us can do for ourselves.

    2. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:02:09

       First thing is I don't try to convince anyone of anything. So convincing is not an objective that I have. So I love research, consume a bunch of research, but there's a basic problemWith science. Which when we do a randomized controlled trial, we learn about a population, we don't learn about a person. So we can say that SSRIs improve major depressive disorder by about fifty percent, let's say. But if a patient walks into my office, I have no idea if an SSRI is gonna help them. Does that kinda make sense? There's a basic problem of external validity of all of our science, all of our medical science anyway, I'm not sure about pop though, or neuroscience. But it- when you apply it to a person, some stuff works and some stuff doesn't work. So my focus is on helping, like, a person. And then the... You don't need the woo-woo stuff. I think the, the, the, the important thing is, like, understand your ego. Like, that's a fundamental thing that is missing from Western psychology. But we all intuitively understand that this person is egotistical, right? Second thing is, like, things like perception. Understand your perception. Your perception, and you were talking about the internet. The basic problem with the internet i- is that it has allowed human beings to no longer live in the same world. This is where AI is even worse. So the more algorithmic you are... So the, the problem with an algorithm is it shapes your perception. It, it be- it radicalizes your perception. So an algorithm shows you thing one, and then it'll only show you things in that tunnel. Does that kinda make sense? So you go further and further down the tunnel, and you are living in a different world than everybody else is living in. AI is even worse at this, is wh- which is why it's really scary, but there's a first case report of really AI-induced psychosis in a patient that did not have any history of psychosis.

    3. AHAndrew Huberman2:04:00

       How does that even come about? What are they talking to the AI about?

    4. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:04:03

       I, I... We can get into that if you want. It's actually really scary, but we know the mechanism. So here's the cool thing about this case report. This person got hospitalized for psychosis, was started on an antipsychotic, psychosis resolves. They get discharged, stop the, the, the s- antipsychotic, start to use AI again, and become psychotic again. It's really scary. And the basic problem is that AI is so sycophantic. Our reality testing of the world requires contrary opinions, right? So, like, when you're like, "Hey, I have this idea I wanna test, throw something by you," and then I say, "No."

    5. AHAndrew Huberman2:04:39

       Mm-hmm.

    6. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:04:40

       So how do we know what reality is? Because we have this perception, but this person has this perception, this person has this perception. So we modulate our perception, "Hey, I, I, I got you a gift." "No, you didn't." "What? I told you yesterday that I was gonna pick this up." "No, you didn't tell me that." So we stay in reality because we get signals from reality. The thing about the, the A- AIs is they're lang- language learning models. They don't actually know anything. All they do is scrape the internet. Um, this is a simplification. I'm not a data scientist or AI engineer, but here's my understanding, 'cause people wanted to build, like, a Dr. K chatbot, and I tried to get into understanding the mechanism. What an AI does is it just says a word, and then it pred- it tries to figure out which words are gonna make you happy. That's how it knows what's right or wrong. The user satisfaction is the ultimate thing that they're, they're going for. So there's a lot of data that shows that literally there's a really cool paper I can, I can send it to you later, but that shows that the number of statements that you have, the, the more sycophantic it becomes and the more paranoid people will become. So, like, a, you know, there's a, a- another case of someone who, um, murdered their mom and then committed suicide because as they expressed concerns about their mom, the AI reinforces that and says, "Yeah, you're right," like, "These people are leaving you out." Right? 'Cause it's, like, trying to make you feel good.

    7. AHAndrew Huberman2:06:00

       Why'd they kill themselves?

    8. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:06:01

       I don't know the full details of the case. And, and this is what's really scary about the AI stuff, is, like, people will say, right, so, like, a lot of people will make the claim, "Oh yeah," like, if you're mentally unwell and then you use AI. So a lot of AI companies will say it's people who are high risk will use the AI, and it, it activates their delusions. But Andrew, here's what's really scary. In order to make that, I don't know if this makes sense, like, may- this is a kind of read my mind question, but in order to say only at-risk people will become psychotic from AI, what data do you need to make that statement?

    9. AHAndrew Huberman2:06:33

       I think you need people to be harmed by AI to have th- so to have that basis.

    10. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:06:38

        Yeah. So in, in my mind, from a clinical perspective, in order to make the claim that AI only makes vulnerable people psychotic, mentally ill p- people psychotic, you need to have your control group-

    11. AHAndrew Huberman2:06:51

        Mm-hmm

    12. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:06:51

        ... which is people who are not mentally ill.

    13. AHAndrew Huberman2:06:53

        Mm-hmm.

    14. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:06:53

        You need to have your intervention group, which is people who are mentally ill.

    15. AHAndrew Huberman2:06:57

        Mm-hmm.

    16. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:06:57

        You need to give them an intervention, and you need to measure their psychosis at the other end.

    17. AHAndrew Huberman2:07:01

        Mm-hmm.

    18. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:07:01

        No AI company I've ever heard of has ever done that. Does that make sense?

    19. AHAndrew Huberman2:07:05

        Yeah.

    20. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:07:05

        Like, fundamentally, they are not determining ahead of time whether this person is mentally ill or not, and they don't, they're not d- they're not monitoring psychosis.

    21. AHAndrew Huberman2:07:14

        Well, I think the studies that have not been done, at least not until recently, that needed to be done and desperately need to be done, is to evaluate what are the neuroplastic changes that are caused by social media and AI. I mean, th- these are the, the, uh, digital anvils that we're shaping especially young brains on.

    22. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:07:33

        Yeah.

    23. AHAndrew Huberman2:07:33

        And now we're surprised, like, oh, you know, from 2010 to, you know, 2025, everyone's been, you know, progress- using progressively more social media online more, and, oh, we got brain rot, and oh, we [laughs] ... And, and surprise, surprise. Like, well, no, there's this thing called plasticity that we knew about. It just, we didn't understand how the brain-

    24. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:07:51

        Yes

    25. AHAndrew Huberman2:07:51

        ... gets modified on these platforms, on these algorithms. And instead we looked at... It was like we were f- so focused on the content, but not the, the algorithmic underpinnings of the content.

    26. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:08:04

        Excellent. So, so I am convinced there is not great data because it's early, but I am convinced that basically, 'cause we know this from, like, basic psychology, right? Like, AI is basically like a cult of one. You get indoctrinated in your own thoughts. So whatever you say to the AI is what the AI will tell you back.

    27. AHAndrew Huberman2:08:22

        This is the narcissism.

    28. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:08:24

        It is.

    29. AHAndrew Huberman2:08:24

        What you described before, the, the AI becoming more sycophantic, the person getting more paranoid, you know the image that was in my mind?

    30. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:08:30

        What?
23. 2:14:07 – 2:18:38

    Tool: Healthy Social Media Use, When To Not Use, Normal Standards

    1. AHAndrew Huberman2:14:07

       do you recommend for young men and women, or older, uh, men and women around two things, around social media use, AI use, and we have to talk about pornography.

    2. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:14:20

       Okay.

    3. AHAndrew Huberman2:14:21

       So let's talk about social media use. Do you believe that people should have prescriptions of amount of time, types of interactions they have or won't have? Um, I realize it's hard to create a blanket statement there.

    4. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:14:32

       No, no, no. It's, it's, it's not that it's hard to... It, it, it's that this is a whole other podcast. So, like, I've st- I've studied this-

    5. AHAndrew Huberman2:14:37

       We, we're definitely gonna have to have you back.

    6. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:14:38

       Okay. So-

    7. AHAndrew Huberman2:14:38

       We've got a lot of conversations.

    8. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:14:39

       So th- there's so much nuance to this because social media is not uniform in the way that it affects your brain. SoRight? That's the number one thing.

    9. AHAndrew Huberman2:14:47

       Mm-hmm.

    10. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:14:47

        Um, so just, just because all drugs of abuse are in some way dopaminergic does not mean that their effects are uniform on the brain. So first thing about use of social media, I think a big thing that people miss... So there's some, like, common stuff that's like, "Just use it less, bro." What's-- A lot of people miss is the mental state that you are in when you use it determines a lot.

    11. AHAndrew Huberman2:15:12

        Hmm.

    12. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:15:13

        Right? So if you are feeling bad and you use social media, you're, you're primed for salience. You will be programmed more, right? So, so this is where, like, people who use it as a form of emotional regulation, big problem. Another interesting thing about social media, when to not use it. So, you know, you require a certain amount of frontal lobe function, executive function, and willpower in order to fall asleep. You need to be able to suppress your impulses in order to be able to go to sleep. Don't use social media before you go to bed, and the main reason for that is if you use social media to the point where you've missed your sleep window, then it's very hard to fall asleep because now your brain ha- doesn't have enough willpower, and this is what pe- what happens to people. So there's a really interesting study about procrastination before bed, and what the study found is that there's two kinds of procrastination. There's before bed procrastination, procrastinating going to bed, and then there's in bed procrastination, when you procrastinate going to sleep after you're in bed. So don't use it when you're not feeling good. Don't use it before bed, especially because it's gonna-- you're gonna miss that window, and then it's gonna mess you up for the next day. You'll be more emotionally fried, more emotionally vulnerable.

    13. AHAndrew Huberman2:16:28

        Like the hour before bed?

    14. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:16:30

        Yeah. Just d- just nowhere near bed. Um, there's the blue light stuff, but I think this-- Don't miss your, your sleep window. That's been such a useful clinical revelation when I'm working with a human being. 'Cause if you get past 10:30 and you're on your phone, then it's gonna become 12:30, 'cause you no longer have the w- the frontal lobe function to be able to stop yourself. Um, that's the second thing. Third thing is understand that your brain is... How can I say this? You are developing the standards for yourself through social media. So we're seeing a rise in body dysmorphia. So this is interesting because it used to be that body dysmorphia was, like, more common in women than men. We're starting to see that even out, especially as we have all these, like, alpha male influencers. What you see is going to be your standard.

    15. AHAndrew Huberman2:17:22

        I'll put alpha in air quotes there. [chuckles]

    16. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:17:25

        Yeah. You know, so everyone's expectations for what they should be... So I, I went to Germany recently, and I had my kids there, and we went to like a, like a spa, and there were, like, a lot of... Like, we went in the middle of the day, so, like, we were on vacation, but, you know, everybody else is at school and whatnot. There were a bunch of old German people there, and, like, old German people in swimsuits are, like, not the most attractive human beings on the planet. And, and my kids were, like, kinda surprised because there's just a lot of, like, German people who are old. But I, I-- Like, this is what normal people look like, and we've forgotten what normal people look like. We've forgotten what normal is, and the more time that you spend on social media, the more you will be divorced from normal. So I'd say those are, like, the three things. And sure, if you wanna use it less, like, use it less. The less you use it, the better off you're gonna be, but I'm sure everyone has said that a thousand times. I think what people don't realize is that the impact of it is not always uniform, that your psychological vulnerabilities, and people know this. If you've ever stalked your ex a- after they get together with somebody else, like, people know what I mean, right? Like, you're like, y- your ex is now dating someone else, and then you look at their pictures, and you, like, look at all their pictures, and you make yourself, like, kinda feel worse. Don't use it when you're vulnerable. That's huge.

24. 2:18:38 – 2:24:18

    Social Media & Looks Obsession, Purpose, Charisma

    1. AHAndrew Huberman2:18:38

       I realize that my statement about, uh, you know, alpha males in air quotes, I wanna be very specific, um, not to protect feelings at all because n- no one I'm about to talk about needs, uh, protection for their feelings. But I think there are some incredible male educators and examples online, uh, you know, of people who are i- showing up in different aspects of their life in really spectacular ways. I mean, good friend Jocko Willink, for instance, right? I think, uh, he, he has a ton to offer. Uh, uh, my friend Ken Rideout has a ton to offer. You know, um, th- there are many, many great examples. When the people I was referring to in air quotes are the, uh, was in reference to this kind of newer trend of looksmaxxing as, as-

    2. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:19:17

       Yeah

    3. AHAndrew Huberman2:19:17

       ... it relates to what you're talking about, about this, uh, obs- you know, over-obsession, in my opinion, on, on looks and on, um, cosmetic perfection, uh, which I do think is going to be, if it's not already, very hazardous for young men, the feeling that even just, um, the idea that variation in looks is, is being discouraged, that there's sort of this need ev- need-

    4. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:19:39

       Yeah

    5. AHAndrew Huberman2:19:39

       ... for everyone to look the same is so very different than how I grew up, where, uh, I feel very fortunate that there was, you know, kind of a, a range of different appearances, um, within the scope of healthy that, uh, that defined people's unique characteristics. And now it, this looksmaxxing thing seems to be all about everyone having, like, this angle of jaw, this, uh, cheekbone thing, this type of skin, this type... And, and that's the part where I go like, "Hey, guys," like, "please don't waste your life." Like, this is gonna-- This is a fool's errand.

    6. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:20:10

       So-

    7. AHAndrew Huberman2:20:10

       It's gonna destroy them.

    8. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:20:11

       He- here's what's really scary. So, like, I'm not a couples therapist, but I just made a guide to relationships because everyone in my community is struggling with loneliness. And here's the really scary thing. If you look at the research, looks are not that important for a relationship. So if you-- There are some really fascinating studies on charisma. So looks are number six on if you do a multivariate regression analysis. Actually, I don't think it was multivariate. But if, if you, if you look at the factors of charisma, looks is number six. And, and if you look at, like, the most charismatic people on the planet, like, no offense, but, like, you know, Winston Churchill, amazingly charismatic.Not the most looksmaxxing guy out there, you know?

    9. AHAndrew Huberman2:20:52

       Right. Right.

    10. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:20:52

        A- and so I think the really scary thing is that a lot of this, like, information on social media is just wrong. It's not based-

    11. AHAndrew Huberman2:20:59

        Mm-hmm

    12. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:20:59

        ... in science at all. Like what we talked about with flirting. People don't realize if, if you're flirting with someone and they don't get it, that's actually fine. That's why you have to make three attempts to flirt with someone, statistically. And then you should level up, like escalate the signal that you're transmitting. Another really interesting data point, 'cause I'm excited about this, but, um, women who are of average attractiveness and high signaling are more likely to end up in a relationship and be approached than women who are very high attractiveness and low signaling.

    13. AHAndrew Huberman2:21:31

        Oh, could you define signaling?

    14. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:21:33

        Yeah. Making it known that you're open for a relationship, eye contact, smiling. So this is what people don't understand, is like they think like, "Okay, if I'm hot, things will happen." That's not how it works at all. There's a lot about how to flirt, how to communicate interest, how to be embarrassed, and all of these things are like positive things that people don't understand. That charisma is about having vision, because if you're looking for a long-term partner and they're trying to figure out, "Can I be with this person?" They have to have a sense of your vision of life to see if they fit with you. It's actually way more important than looks. The ability to, uh, uh, uh, handle adversity, huge element of charisma. So someone ne- wants to know, "If s- stuff goes south, can I count on you?" Way more important than looks. So the only thing with looks is that in online dating specifically, people will judge based on looks, but there are mul- numerous studies that sh- not numerous, actually, one study at least that I've seen that shows that if your profile indicates purpose, man or woman, it increases your attractiveness. So the problem with all the social media stuff is not that it's wrong. I work with a lot of incels. I work with a lot of beta males. It's not that they're wrong, it's that they're woefully incomplete. They haven't done a study of the whole literature. Sure, if you're more attractive, it is easier to get dates. Here's the scariest statistic. Drive for muscularity is inversely correlated with length of relationship.

    15. AHAndrew Huberman2:23:07

        [laughs]

    16. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:23:08

        Right? So the more that... I- if you're watching social media and you're like, "I need to be pumped, I wanna be pumped, I wanna be pumped, I wanna be pumped," that's what, uh, drives people away. It's hard to have a relationship with, with that kind of person. So by all means, get muscular, but want it less. [laughs] Which is really interesting, because what I see is people wanting it more, like looksmaxxing, "I want this, I want this, I want this."

    17. AHAndrew Huberman2:23:30

        Mm-hmm. So deprioritize it.

    18. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:23:32

        Yeah.

    19. AHAndrew Huberman2:23:33

        Yeah. It's so interesting. I mean, the, the drive and vision thing is, um, and purpose thing is, is so interesting because, uh, you know, this is one thing where I'm not saying everyone should go into science, but in science you, you, you apprentice yourself to somebody else and then to somebody else as a postdoc, and then eventually whether or not you get to succeed or not as an independent scientist is entirely based not on what you did, that's just proof of an ability, right? It's based on your vision. Like is there something exciting?

    20. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:24:00

        Yeah.

    21. AHAndrew Huberman2:24:00

        And that's what, that's what we joke in the, in science, like every year there's a prom king and a prom queen on the sh- on the job market, and it's the person who has the most interesting and compelling vision. That's who you're hiring, and yes, they tend to have been successful in the past. You need that, but that's necessary but not sufficient. It's so important

25. 2:24:18 – 2:30:36

    Young Men Falling Behind?, Male Support, Suicide; Men in Relationships

    1. AHAndrew Huberman2:24:18

       that, that you're raising this. Do you think that, uh, young men are indeed falling behind in terms of, we hear this all the time, that they're falling behind their age-matched peers, uh, that are women in terms of just sort of life progression?

    2. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:24:31

       Oh, absolutely. I mean, there, there's no... I, I think there's no question of that. So I, I forget if it was 41% of college graduates are, are men now. Um, so, so I, I think like the... It, it's really lopsided. I think i- in 1975, the average age of marriage for a man was 23.8, and now it's 30.8. Oh, it's not average, median.

    3. AHAndrew Huberman2:24:58

       Mm-hmm.

    4. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:24:58

       So half of the people are actually older than that.

    5. AHAndrew Huberman2:25:00

       Mm-hmm.

    6. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:25:00

       For women, it was 21.1 to 28.4.

    7. AHAndrew Huberman2:25:03

       People will make, um, financial arguments around that. I, I see that a lot. People will say, "Well, it's very expensive to, you know, to be able to raise a family," et cetera. That's, that's often what you hear, at least in California. People will say that they're waiting because they need to establish a certain level of income. Is that, is that true?

    8. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:25:19

       Sure. I, I mean, I, I think that's what people are subjectively feeling. 50% of people under the age of, adults under the age of 30 live with their parents now.

    9. AHAndrew Huberman2:25:26

       Mm-hmm.

    10. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:25:27

        I forget what the, the statistic used to be like 20 years ago. So we are absolutely seeing, like, economic difficulties, so everyw- everything is slowing down, right? Uh, and but I, I think that there is... The biggest difference is as a society, men are the one group of people that we expect to help themselves.

    11. AHAndrew Huberman2:25:48

        Mm-hmm.

    12. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:25:49

        So i- if you look at, like... And, and there's like, like I- I'm not, I'm not saying women don't deserve help, so y- you know, there's some examples of this that I think are not great. So there are homeless shelters for every gender, and then there are homeless shelters for women. There are only m- there are no male-only h- homeless shelters. I think that's a good example of you don't need a male-only homeless shelter, because that's an example of, like, women who are in every g- all gender homeless shelters are really way more unsafe than if they're on their own. So, like, that's an example of, like, I don't think everything should be equal between all genders.

    13. AHAndrew Huberman2:26:22

        Mm-hmm.

    14. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:26:22

        But I think the challenge is that, you know, if you just talk to men or if you talk about men, there are many things that we'll say, okay, like the patriarchy is harmful to both men and women. Fair enough. But, like, w- what are we gonna do societally, systemically to support the men who are struggling? So there aren't, even though only 40.1% of people who graduate from college are men, there are, the number of male-only scholarships is, like, really small. So as a society, w- it's really interesting. I think we're, we're not really supporting men in the way that we need to.Now, a lot of people will hear this as, "Oh, it is my responsibility as a woman to do things for, for my husband or boyfriend or whatever." I don't think it's, like, women's responsibility. I think that's a big problem historically, that women have been responsible for certain aspects of men. I, I think the work that I do and the work you do, the work we do, is to try to help men, women, and everybody else take care of themselves.

    15. AHAndrew Huberman2:27:18

        Mm-hmm.

    16. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:27:19

        But I, I do think there's, there's plenty of data that suggests that, you know, men are falling behind. If you look at rates of d- uh, uh, addiction, um, deaths of despair, this is a really interesting, uh, scientific measure that came a lot out of the UK. These are basically deaths that relate to suicide. You know, male suicide rates are four times what women-- w-what they are for women. So it's interesting. Like, y- now hopefully this is changing, but when I was in residency, you know, we had women's mental health clinics. We didn't have male mental health clinics.

    17. AHAndrew Huberman2:27:52

        Do men in relationships, um, y-you know, are, are they protected from some of the negative effects-

    18. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:27:59

        Oh, yeah

    19. AHAndrew Huberman2:28:00

        ... that you're describing?

    20. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:28:00

        Th-this is fascinating. So do you know what takotsubo cardiomyopathy is? Have you heard of this?

    21. AHAndrew Huberman2:28:04

        This is when people die of a broken heart?

    22. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:28:06

        Yeah. So this is what's really fascinating. People don't realize this, but women are far more likely to initiate divorce. So I think the, the interesting statistic about this is you can look at gay couples. Um, so gay men who get married have less than a fifty percent divorce rate. I, I think they, they get divorced maybe thirty percent of the time. Lesbian couples have the highest divorce rate, so they get divorced, I think something like sixty percent of the time. So it's even greater than fifty percent. So I, I did a lot of work on this because I, I've had so many patients who, when they go through a breakup, like, it really ruins their life. And there's research on this, okay? I'm not, like, m-misogynist or anything like that. So if you look at qualitative research, if you ask a woman after she goes through a divorce, "What did you lose?" She will say, "I lost a relationship." If you ask a man, "What did you lose?" They say, "I, I lost a life." So this is just-- it's just different. So women will oftentimes form many connections, so when they lose their relationship, they lose a, a relationship. But men are, by some amount of biology, by some amount of conditioning, by some amount of culture, oftentimes will have one emotional support in, in their life, which is their wife. And I've worked with plenty of women for whom this is overwhelming because they become their husband's therapist because their husband doesn't know how to manage their own emotions. That's not good. That's not healthy. But if we're looking at outcomes, the cortisol spike that men get after divorce is way higher. The amount of inflammation that they experience is way higher. Um, I think they have an acute risk of heart attack that elevates. So some of this is probably biology, where we're just wired differently. Like, this is also another thing that's really interesting. Um, the inflammatory response from a cold is greater in men than it is in women. So, like, when my wife gets sick, she's able to do stuff, but, like, my inflammatory response is actually like I'm out, and there's a lot of physiological evidence for why that is. And it may have something to do with if you sort of look at, like, in the animal kingdom, you know, a male lion is much more likely to fight by baboons, much more likely to get scratches and things like that. So we need a more ro-robust, uh, um, immune system, so we want a stronger immune response. But yeah, takotsubo cardi-cardiomyopathy, I mean, the, the mortality risk of divorce for a man is way higher than a woman.

26. 2:30:36 – 2:39:03

    "Stuck" Young Men, Failure to Launch, Tool: Motivation & Understanding Oneself

    1. AHAndrew Huberman2:30:36

       It's interesting because, um, and these are individual cases, but, um, not population studies, but I've had a lot of young men and, and their parents, uh, reach out to me, like, "My kid is really struggling. He, uh, you know, he's really languishing, and he's really falling behind. K- you know, he's got these issues, that, uh, that issues." Um, uh, there are all these, like, loose correlations that I'll just throw out there. I often hear-- and I'm not saying this is the cause, but I'll hear, "Oh yeah, you know," and, and even their moms will know sometimes. They'll say, "You know, he's, he's had some, like, really serious sexual side effects. He was using these, uh, anti-hair loss meds. I wonder, is it that?" They always wanna find, like, what's the one thing that can put them back on track? And I'm not a psychiatrist, so I've talked to them before, and oftentimes we'll get a sense of what's going on more generally. And I actually have noticed that a number of these guys have relationships. They're very close with their girlfriend. They have very kind, loving, supportive girlfriends, and the girlfriends are doing well in life. They're moving forward professionally, but the guy isn't. He's sort of stuck. And that was a surprise to me. I thought they would be totally alone. They'd have no access to, to, you know, dating or mates. No, that's not what's happening in, in many cases. They're just-- they're sort of just stuck. They can't seem to find a profession. They can't seem to get ahead. They're-- and, and they've got these very kind, very, very patient girlfriends that are sitting it out with them for I don't know how long. Uh, I don't know if they'll stick around. But that seems more and more common. So they can find the relationship, but they can't seem to launch into p- into being a grown man, frankly.

    2. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:32:17

       Yeah. So I, I think, um, first of all, that was me. So, uh, you know, when I-- it took me five and a half years to graduate from college. I graduated with a two point four GPA, and then I started med school at 28. I couldn't support myself financially until I started residency at the age of 32. My wife started working at 16 and has never stopped. And so there was a period of, like, five years where, like, what was I doing? I had a, a research assistant position at Harvard, but I was basically applying to medical school. And so, like, I was going nowhere real fast, and she stuck it out with me, which is quite amazing. Like, I'm, I'm still surprised by herAnd her lack of pressure and also her, like, supreme confidence that I was gonna figure it out. Um, so I- I've been in, in, in those shoes. And I, I think the big thing for me was I figured out how I worked, and so I, you know, we, we have this picture failure to launch, which is a lot of what I deal with. These are gifted kids who then hit a wall like I did, so had a lot of potential, just never really comes to it. They struggle a lot with things like discipline, motivation. I, I think oftentimes they will look for some kinda solution, right? Because w- we as human beings, we don't realize that most of life is multifactorial, that if you do a multivariate regression analysis, you're not gonna find that it was the hair loss meds. A- a- and so this is where we kinda come back to the roadmap, where I th- I think the most important thing, and I- I- I've, I've helped anywhere between hundreds to millions, whether you consider YouTube or not. And the main thing is they don't know how they work. See, w- men are not taught to understand. They're taught to do. Like, w- we, we're like, you know, "Do this thing," like, "Get a job. Do this." And, and women have all kinds of expectations, have babies, um, and work and do everything all, you know, exceptionally well. But, but I, I, I think we're just not taught how to understand ourselves. So this is the biggest thing that I see is not a problem of treatment, but is a problem of misdiagnosis. And one of the things that you learn, I think people don't really realize this, but, like, most of medicine is not treatment. Like, I don't think treatment is usually the hard part. I think the diagnosis is the hard part, understanding really what's wrong. Uh, just as another example of this, I've worked with so many people, young men, who are like, "I'm so tired. How do I increase my energy? How do I increase my energy?" And what they don't realize is, like, if you think about tiredness, tiredness is a signal from the brain. Tiredness is al- not always low energy. Tiredness is your brain's way of telling you that this is not worth doing. And the interesting thing is there are a lot of things that we do need to do that we will feel tired for, but the real solution to that is, is sometimes is to force yourself to do it and kinda get yourself out of it. Um, you know, there are some studies that show that exercise is equally effective to an SSRI, so there's a value to that. But I think what a lot of people are missing is their conception of the thing is what's making them tired.

    3. AHAndrew Huberman2:35:30

       Mm-hmm.

    4. AKDr. Alok Kanojia2:35:31

       You know, if you think about something that you haven't done before and you're like, "Oh my God, I have to do this thing," and then when you do it, you're like, "Oh, it's not that bad." And then you procrastinate on doing the thing even though it's actually pretty easy to do. So changing your understanding of what you are tired to do is the fastest way to be able to do it. But the problem is we don't teach men what's going on inside them, right? We don't teach them about their emotions. We don't teach them about motivation. Um, a- and so when I, when I focus on that, that's really what I focus on doing. There's a, you know, an old Sanskrit sentiment that avidya, which means ignorance, is the source of dukkha, which is suffering. All of your suffering in life has nothing to do with willpower, motivation, or anything like that. It's all a lack of understanding. And the more I've worked, the more I've realized that the most powerful thing that you can give yourself is understanding. Even if I, if I were to ask you, you know, like, the things that are easy for you are the things that you understand, and before you understood them, they were hard. As someone who's lazy, like, understanding what motivates you is actually more important than discipline or willpower. For me anyway. I'm a degenerate, you know? And I, I think this is what, what a lot of these young men who failure to thrive, like I had one patient who, you know, was 31 years old, struggled with addiction, dropout. You know, two years later, not only is, is he finishing, um, therapy school, he's becoming a therapist, so he's supporting himself, making about 150K a year. He's also writing a dystopian novel. Two years, uh, two years later, he messaged me. It had been published, right? A- a- and, and it's like understanding why he behaved the way that he did. And the more that you understand how the system works, then you can make minor adjustments, and you can make it work. A car is really hard to move if you're not driving it and you don't know how to turn it on.

Episode duration: 3:08:43