Unlocking Persistent Motivation & Extreme Resilience | Ross Edgley

1. 0:00 – 3:19

   Ross Edgley

   1. RERoss Edgley0:00

      So Sisyphus was one of the, the cleverest humans to ever exist in ancient mythology, uh, was able to outsmart the gods. And he even chained up Death at one point, which made the gods really angry because basically people were fighting wars, and there were no... No one was dying, so there was no souls going to the underworld. So Hades was really pissed off. Anyway, eventually he dies, and the gods are just livid. So they're like, "Look, we're gonna, we're gonna punish you. And what we're gonna do is we're gonna make you roll a boulder up a hill for eternity, and just as it gets to the top of the hill, it's gonna roll back down, and you're just gonna do that for eternity, just this, like, absurd, like, completely thankless task." But then it was Albert Camus, the philosopher, who said, "He was able to outsmart the gods one more time, and that's if you imagine that Sisyphus was smiling." And this is the part I love. He said, "Because the struggle alone is enough to fill a man's heart." And I think for me, they've even coined the phrase that, that Sisyphus was the absurd hero. And I, I, I think for me, swimming sometimes, I'm like, "This is Sisyphus. This is my boulder, you know? [laughs] It's not going anywhere." But the struggle alone is enough to fill a man's heart.

   2. AHAndrew Huberman1:00

      Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Ross Edgley. Ross Edgley is a British ultra-endurance athlete who has accomplished such feats as swimming around Great Britain, which by the way is nearly 2,000 miles in distance, and it took him nearly 157 days. He also swam 317 miles of the Yukon River continuously, meaning nonstop for 56 hours. He's run a full marathon pulling a car, a full-size car by the way, and he's done 30 marathons in 30 days, and much more. All of that is, of course, super impressive. But the reason Ross is a guest on this podcast in particular is because both he and I wanted to discuss brain circuits and the psychology that allow humans, any humans, to engage and build up their mindset for motivation. So today we explore and develop in real time what we really can say is a new model of motivation to do hard things, one that includes all the possible sources of drive, to prove others wrong, to celebrate life, out of love, out of anger, to honor those who can't, to fight mental stagnation, and on and on. What's so special about Ross, and again, another reason why he's here on this podcast in particular, is because not only has he accomplished all these incredible things, but he has the most incredible level of curiosity. He absolutely wants to understand the underlying neural machinery and psychology of motivation, what's allowed him to do hard things, what can allow you to do hard things in different contexts of life. And in doing that, Ross brings forward new ways of thinking about brain plasticity and how to reshape your brain in order to make yourself better. I should also mention that Ross has a new book out, one that I am personally excited to read and to listen to, and it's entitled How to Hero: Find Strength, Forge Resilience, and Fulfill Your Purpose. You can find a link to that in the show note caption. 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 conversation with Ross Edgley.

2. 3:19 – 11:51

   Childhood, Motivation Sources; Competition, Pain & Purpose

   1. AHAndrew Huberman3:19

      Ross Edgley, welcome.

   2. RERoss Edgley3:20

      Thank you so much.

   3. AHAndrew Huberman3:21

      We're gonna need a bigger chair.

   4. RERoss Edgley3:22

      [laughs] This feels surreal. I mean, we were just talking off-air, weren't we, that, um, so much of your teachings helped me across the Arctic Circle, just jellyfish bouncing off my face, tongue coming off. This feels very weird.

   5. AHAndrew Huberman3:34

      Uh, I'm honored that you're here. I'm very curious about you and what you do and how we can, uh, hopefully translate some of that into actions that people can take, thoughts, thought patterns, control of their own thoughts that people can explore and perhaps adopt to have a better, more enriched life, which is obviously the purpose of it all. Take me back, because I, I've read about you, I've read about your accomplishments. I have smatterings of things that you've done and why, but you're 41 years old now, right?

   6. RERoss Edgley4:06

      I am. Yep.

   7. AHAndrew Huberman4:06

      Let's do this in snapshot-ish fashion. 10-year-old Ross, what's he doing? What's he thinking? What's his strength, and where is he struggling?

   8. RERoss Edgley4:21

      I think even as, as far back as 10, I was aware that, um, I was just wired a little bit weirdly. You know, my dopamine kind of works a bit differently. My, my family, we love going on hikes, and I never forget, at 10 years old, uh, my dad, he was taking me and my two brothers on this huge hike, and it, it just wasn't enough for me, this hike. I was just like, "Ah, you know, I kinda wanna make it harder." So Dad caught me putting rocks in my backpack and just putting it on my back [laughs] and then walking up. 'Cause I just, I needed more of a challenge. Otherwise, it just kind of wasn't fulfilling something inside of me.

   9. AHAndrew Huberman4:48

      Mm-hmm.

   10. RERoss Edgley4:48

       And I think even now, looking ahead, fast-forward, you know, 30 years, and I, I'm still doing the same thing. When, when I come up with an idea for a swim, if I tell someone this idea and they go, "Oh, yeah, that, that sounds quite good," I go, "All right. That's terrible." You know, you're not shocked by it. But if I tell someone a swim and they go, "Well, that's impossible. That's ridiculous," like swimming around Great Britain, swimming around Iceland, I'm like, "That's the one." But, you know, if people are just like, "That's absurd," I'm like, "Then that's the idea." So I think even as far back as 10, I was aware that my brain was wired slightly differently.

   11. AHAndrew Huberman5:22

       If you don't mind me asking, was the idea of putting rocks in your backpack in part to show others that you could do more? Like, and, and no, no, um, shame if it was. I mean, I think we all have an ego, and we all, um, want to test ourselves, but the feedback that we get is often important, too. So as a calibration point, if nothing else. So let's say you were hiking alone. Hopefully you weren't hiking alone at 10.

   12. RERoss Edgley5:48

       [laughs]

   13. AHAndrew Huberman5:49

       But w- if you could imagine you were, to the best of your abilities, do you think that you Would've been loading those rocks in just for you?

   14. RERoss Edgley5:58

       Yeah, I think I would. I think, [sighs] for, for me, again, being so self-analytical, it was always an intrinsic motivation. The process was its own reward. There wasn't really anything extrinsic. If, if anything, I was keeping the rocks secret. I didn't want my dad finding out. When he found them, he was just like, "All right, take them out. I'll give you some food or something that's actually functional." So, so I was actually hiding them from dad. It was just something that, that I wanted to do, that when I got home I'd be like, "Right, I was able to do that." And I think, um, it's changed a lot though as well. I, I, I think, again, sort of jumping a little bit to, to swimming around Great Britain, I did that when I was 32 years old, and, and I spoke about it at the time that for me it was very much, uh, ego driven. Uh, I, I talked about Captain Webb, 1875, first guy to swim across the English Channel, did it on, uh, beef broth and brandy, and swam breaststroke 'cause front crawl was ungentlemanly-like, so he just crushed it all the way across the English Channel. Wasn't for charity, wasn't for anything like that, he just wanted to pioneer our understanding of swimming and human endurance. And for me, swimming around Great Britain was exactly that. It was looking at Maslow's hierarchy of needs. It was feelings of accomplishment, prestige, recognition. It was all of those things, ego-driven. After that, that, that then felt a little bit shallow. I was a bit like, "Ah," you know, to just do it for records, that feels a bit fragile, a bit shallow. It feels a bit strange. And then, and then it was the swim around Iceland, where the University of Iceland said, "We want to do something to, to raise awe- awareness around our ocean conservation efforts, uh, but also as well, if we could collect eDNA samples," so environmental DNA samples that just basically pick up if there's been a whale in the water, a seal, a Ross Edgley, whatever it is, [laughs] um, we could track the biodiversity in a level of detail around Iceland that we've never seen before. Upon hearing that, I was like, "Right, that feels like a better reason. It's not just records. That feels better." And that I did when I was, was 40. So it has been interesting. I think quite often sometimes it is intrinsically motivated, but, but, uh, then a little bit later it, told my hands off it was ego-driven, it was extrinsic. Um, I wanted to be the guy, the first person to swim around Great Britain, and then now for various things that changed in my life, I, I think it's, like, almost moving up Maslow's hierarchy that I'm not gonna quite say self-actualization, but we're lo- looking for something a little bit more than records, I think.

   15. AHAndrew Huberman8:16

       Staying with the 10, roughly 10-year-old, uh, Ross Edgley, were you always very expressive? You had a lot of spontaneous energy. You, like, uh, and have you always woken up, uh, like, ready to roll, or are you kind of like a, a, a slow, slow grind into the morning? Or is it, "Let's go," you know?

   16. RERoss Edgley8:35

       [laughs] Just let's go.

   17. AHAndrew Huberman8:36

       Uh-huh.

   18. RERoss Edgley8:36

       I've always just been like that. I, I think as well, like, uh, I, I've kinda got a handle on it now, but, like, when I was younger, I was so competitive and, and such a bad loser. There was, um, [laughs] my dad, I remember, he, he was one of the very few people who actually understood how to, to manage me, and I, I remember I did a, a school cross-country. I think I was about 13 years old, and, um, the guy... I, I, I came second. The guy that beat me deserved to win. He was a better athlete. He beat me fair and square, but I was livid, and afterwards I just wouldn't speak to anyone, and I stormed off. I refused to go and pick up my medal. I said, "Second place is the first loser."

   19. AHAndrew Huberman9:13

       Hmm.

   20. RERoss Edgley9:13

       And I started to run home, and my dad just slowly got in the car and just followed me all the way home, just to make sure I was safe, but he was like, "I'm just gonna have to let it get it out of his system." I think it was 10 miles when I got back home. This was after the cross-country. I had blisters. I was tired. I was exhausted, but by the time I got home I was like, "Oh, maybe I'd overreacted there, Dad. I'm, I'm so sorry." [laughs] And he just let me realize that o- on my own. Like I said, I think I've got a bit more of a handle on it, but equally, and this is something I actually wanted to, to quiz you about, because I love your, your work that you've been talking about, um, you know, broadcasting the, the anterior midcingulate cortex. For me, and this is a massive oversimplification, so I'm, I'm gonna apologize somewhere I'm speaking to you, but as a coping mechanism, upon hearing that and the, the podcast that you did with David Goggins, I thought about the anterior midcingulate cortex almost like grit and quit, pain and purpose, like weighing scales constantly like this. And for anyone listening, I hope it helps as well, that if you've got these weighing scales, pain and purpose, if it's really painful, if your tongue is falling off from swimming across the Arctic Circle, 114 days at sea, then you need a lot of purpose to tip those scales. But equally, sometimes you can, you know, talk about ocean conservation, all the amazing things that we were doing it for, but equally there can be, um, Carl Jung talked about your shadow self, you know, a part of your psyche that you keep away from the public. Maybe you're aggressive, hypercompetitive, jealous, and you, you kind of, like, tuck that away. Whereas Carl Jung and, and Jordan Peterson talking about, you know, that is a monster. You know, it, it can be useful. It's not bad having a monster inside of you. It's bad when you can't put him back in the cage. And so when swimming around Iceland, again, going back to that anterior midcingulate cortex, pain and purpose, there was some people online who was just like, "This is stupid. He's never gonna do it." I even had media partners as well just going, "Oh, Ross, this has been good, but maybe we wrap this up now. You know, I, I, I don't think this is possible." And so then that 10-year-old, [laughs] that hypercompetitive, like, side of me ended up coming out. I was like, "I'm now just gonna do this because people don't think I can." So it's, it's really strange [laughs] that, you know, I, I'll use different parts of motivation. And I suppose my question to you that I've wanted to ask since crossing Iceland is does the anterior midcingulate cortex, does that respond sometimes to your shadow self? Can you have a darker form of energy? I know Goggins, for instance, will speak to himself and be like, "Man up," you know, "Who's gonna carry the boats?" Everything. Whereas me, sometimes I try to do it through gratitude, but, but sometimes I do find that form of fuel-

   21. AHAndrew Huberman11:50

       Mm-hmm

   22. RERoss Edgley11:50

       ... useful.

3. 11:51 – 16:05

   Anterior Midcingulate Cortex, Wheel of Motivation & Tenacity

   1. AHAndrew Huberman11:51

      For those that might not have, uh, heard me talk about it before or the David Goggins episode, just very briefly for our listeners, the anterior midcingulate cortex is this brain region that my colleague at Stanford, Joe Parvizi, discovered when he was stimulating in humans, he's a neurosurgeon, when stimulated, people Report verbally, 'cause these experiments, they literally have a piece of the skull removed. They're stimulating with an electrode. I've seen these sorts of experiments, not those exact ones, but, and they can talk. They're awake. Head is fixed in a stereotax, so they're not moving around. But, and they'll say, "It feels as if there's a storm coming, but I am going to lean into it. I feel like there's a major challenge of some sort coming and, but I'm gonna fight this challenge." Okay, so it's tenacity, willpower, et cetera. And there's a lot more to it, but that's just in case, um, anyone hasn't heard us talk about it or others talk about it before. The anterior midcingulate cortex is a very interesting structure because it receives inputs and outputs from many, many brain areas, including the amygdala, including the memory centers, including the dopamine reward system, the nigrostriatal pathway, and on and on. And so despite what we know about it, it enlarges when people do hard things. It shrinks when people tend to shy away from hard things. Its activity and size correlates with success in doing hard things. You can build it up by doing hard things that you don't want to do, et cetera, et cetera. We still don't really know ... No, I think it's fair to say we don't know the computations, the math that it's doing. We're not yet at the place in neuroscience where we can say, "Ah, the anterior midcingulate cortex computes prior notion of self with goal, with purpose, with fear, with anger, with love, and this is the computation that leads to persistence versus quitting, deliberation versus assuredness." We don't know yet.

   2. RERoss Edgley13:40

      Mm.

   3. AHAndrew Huberman13:41

      So it's not a total black box, as we say, but there's still a lot that's not known. And in fact, I think we can start to understand more about tenacity and willpower, at least at this point in history, by talking to people like you, in particular to you, about the anterior midcingulate cortex than the anterior midcingulate cortex recordings can tell us about you. Does that make sense?

   4. RERoss Edgley14:05

      It does, yeah.

   5. AHAndrew Huberman14:06

      So i- in the future at some point, we will have the technologies to be able to unpack the, the computations with a lot of precision. There are people developing those technologies, but they're not there yet. So I wanna be careful to not say things that we don't know, but h- here's what I was thinking coming into this podcast today. So we can find posts on Instagram, full podcasts, books, and historical records and on and on of people that did very, very hard things for just about every different reason. And so rather than a teeter-totter that goes from quitting versus persistence, I have this mental model that I'm wondering if you'll be willing to entertain with me today through your story, whereby let's imagine a, a beam of wood balanced in the middle, but another beam of wood that's at a right angle to that, so it looks like a cross, also balanced in the middle, and then another beam of wood and another beam of wood. So you can just imagine this as, like, spokes on a wheel, and it's balancing, and as long as no side touches the ground for too long, you persist.

   6. RERoss Edgley15:12

      Mm.

   7. AHAndrew Huberman15:12

      And so what I came up with is a name assignment for each of those spokes. And so if you're willing, I thought it might be informative and fun for me to just call out each one of these one by one.

   8. RERoss Edgley15:24

      This is awesome.

   9. AHAndrew Huberman15:25

      Take the time you need to recall a time when if and only if you were calling on that particular emotion set, that motivation, and paint a picture for us.

   10. RERoss Edgley15:37

       This is awesome. So you've taken my modeling and just literally, like, like two-dimensional. You've made it, like, four-dimensional. This is, I'm-

   11. AHAndrew Huberman15:44

       Well, three-dimensional. You're gonna add the fourth dimension.

   12. RERoss Edgley15:46

       [laughs]

   13. AHAndrew Huberman15:47

       [laughs] So, um-

   14. RERoss Edgley15:48

       No pressure

   15. AHAndrew Huberman15:49

       ... no, no pressure. No pressure. Um, so this is a little bit like a qualifying exam and, and how does it-

   16. RERoss Edgley15:54

       This is awesome.

   17. AHAndrew Huberman15:54

       No, it's not an exam. This is, this is for, um, informative and entertainment purposes, but the cool part here is it's not a movie. It's real. It's your life and the incredible things you've done.

4. 16:05 – 17:46

   Honoring Your Commitment, Ultra-Endurance Swimming, Self-Respect

   1. AHAndrew Huberman16:05

      So let's start with doing something because you said you would. No other reason, just because you said you would, either to yourself or to the world. Forget what they're saying in response. Forget who it's for, et- but just why? Because you said you would. Have there ever been times when you've done something simply because you said you would?

   2. RERoss Edgley16:29

      100%. That, that was Iceland, yeah, that, that I was just like, "You said you were gonna do this." You, you know? Or even, and, and the Great British Swim I think more so because I told sponsors and everybody I was gonna do it. And it was my older brother as well. He's amazing in that he can just kind of, like, take a complex situation and just really simplify it. We broke the record, uh, as we went around Scotland, um, for the longest, uh, stage sea swim, and everyone celebrated. They were like, "This is amazing." And Scott was just like, "Yeah, but it's gonna count for nothing unless you actually finish it." And I was like, "Do you know what? You're right." And so I think, yeah, that so often it, it just came down to that void of records and everything. It's like, "You'll look like an idiot if you don't finish this. You said you were gonna do it." It's important to yourself. And also as well, void of anything extrinsic, looking yourself in the mirror. I think, um, Einstein when he said, "Adversity introduces you to you."

   3. AHAndrew Huberman17:21

      Mm.

   4. RERoss Edgley17:21

      I think, you know, you realize the most honest version of yourself when you're in an absolute hole. And I think, um, self-respect that I would know if I had quit, and I actually could have finished it. So yeah, I, I, yeah, I think probably all of them I've done it because I said I would, not because of how I'd be perceived publicly, how I would think of myself when I looked in the mirror.

5. 17:46 – 20:02

   Sponsors: David & Lingo

   1. AHAndrew Huberman17:46

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6. 20:02 – 25:50

   Fear of Shame, Iceland; Team Events, Injuries & Sea Swims

   1. AHAndrew Huberman20:02

      On that swim or other times when you were pushing forward simply because you said you would, is that looping in your head? I mean, w- uh, I realize along these very long journeys and, and, and expeditions, whatever you want to call them, these super challenges, that your mind must go to all sorts of places, dark and light and everything in between. When you're getting into the water, uh, is it cold? Does it feel cold, or are you like, "Oh, I've been here before. This isn't cold"?

   2. RERoss Edgley20:30

      It gets easier the longer it goes on. By the end of Iceland, I think I just habituated that form of stress. Obviously, that's stress inoculation training.

   3. AHAndrew Huberman20:38

      Yeah.

   4. RERoss Edgley20:38

      At first, when you're trying to habituate, like, the, the sleep deprivation, the cold, uh, you wake up, and if you've left your wetsuit out, you have to crack the ice off the wetsuit before you can even put it on and then get in. It, it... By the end, you are just numb to it, you know?

   5. AHAndrew Huberman20:52

      Mm-hmm.

   6. RERoss Edgley20:52

      And, and, and wh- whatever's happened there, that habituation of the stress, uh, whether my anterior midcingulate cortex has grown, whatever it is, it, it... By the end, it still registers, but you're... You don't have an emotional response to it anymore.

   7. AHAndrew Huberman21:05

      So let's pick a different one. Not just because you said you would, but because you don't want to disappoint, which is different, right? You, you don't want to carry the shame of someone else mirroring to you that you said you would do something and you didn't. So we could call this fear, fear of shame. And, you know, no one likes to talk about these darker energies-

   8. RERoss Edgley21:30

      Mm

   9. AHAndrew Huberman21:30

      ... that can drive people, but we'd be lying if these weren't powerful motivators for people throughout history. So, um, k- do you recall a time, um, could be any time, when fear of shame was a driving force?

   10. RERoss Edgley21:43

       Absolutely. Iceland. This is the easiest one to answer. So t- towards the end, we had, uh, 100 miles to finish, basically, and I was basically, uh, m- the baby was due, the first. The birth of my first child [laughs] was due in a week's time. We had 100 miles still to cover. We had Hurricane Erin coming through the Atlantic. Over in Grindavik on the west coast, there was a volcano that went off that basically was spewing poisonous gas, so we couldn't get close to that. And over here we had one of Europe's largest glaciers that was just sending shards of ice as big as this table. And the team and everyone was just like, "Ross, I'm, I'm so sorry. We're gonna be here for two weeks in the harbor." And I was like, "No, no, no. I'm so sorry. We need to go out. I need to be back for the birth of my child." Not, not only for my girlfriend. She's amazing. I've been with her 13 years. The, the look on her face, the disappointment, that was going through my head, but then also as well just knowing that I wasn't gonna be there to welcome my son into this world. So that one, 100% fear of failure, fear of letting people down, Iceland, and I gunned it and finished the final 100 miles purely fueled on that. The, the University of Iceland, everything, and the... That was important, the eDNA samples, tracking biodiversity, paled in comparison to you're not gonna be there to welcome your son into the world. So I just gunned it. [laughs]

   11. AHAndrew Huberman22:57

       I notice you say we whenever you talk about these expeditions, not I. Is that just your nature, or is it... I realize these are probably team efforts, but that's a, a, I think it's an important point.

   12. RERoss Edgley23:07

       I, uh, do you know, I, I'm glad you picked up on that, just because I, I think especially with sea swims, that they are such a team event, and in no way am I, you know, saying that to self-deprecate. It, it genuinely is in that if we read the tides wrong or the weather or whatever, then, then I'm going backwards. You can be the best swimmer in the world. You get the tides wrong in Iceland, you're going backwards, and it happened a few times.

   13. AHAndrew Huberman23:29

       Actually backwards.

   14. RERoss Edgley23:30

       Actually backwards, yeah, yeah. Up, up at the Pen Llyn Fyrdd on the, on the Great British Swim, for instance. That's in the top of Scotland. Um, you can be traveling at 10 knots if you get it right. That is almost the cruising speed of a dolphin. But you get it wrong, you're going backwards at 10 knot. You could, you could be Michael Phelps [laughs] and you're still going backwards. So it genuinely is just, like, such a team event. Or the Yukon, for instance, as well- It was a maze just kind of, of these countercurrents, whirlpools, log jams. There was a time when I was swimming and a log came back the other way, and the team in the Yukon were just amazing at just reading the river. So, so I, I genuinely, I say we because it's a team event. I'm just the one who, uh, has to get in the water [laughs] genuinely.

   15. AHAndrew Huberman24:13

       Yeah, 'cause you can't be thinking about whether or not you're headed into certain danger beyond what you're already in. I mean, you need to be able to concentrate on your stroke, your breathing, um, your mental frame, like whether or not your toes are falling off.

   16. RERoss Edgley24:27

       It's-

   17. AHAndrew Huberman24:27

       Have you been frostbitten on these?

   18. RERoss Edgley24:29

       Yeah, yeah.

   19. AHAndrew Huberman24:29

       Yeah.

   20. RERoss Edgley24:30

       Yeah, I've picked up loads. Uh, this is strange, from, you know, hypothermia, hypothermia, rhabdomyolysis, uh, cellulitis. You know, picked up a fair [laughs] -

   21. AHAndrew Huberman24:38

       What's cellulitis? Like-

   22. RERoss Edgley24:39

       Ah, cellulitis is basically-

   23. AHAndrew Huberman24:40

       Sounds like infection.

   24. RERoss Edgley24:41

       Y- exactly that, yeah, a skin infection, but basically, I picked that up in Loch Ness 'cause it was fresh water. Um, basically, the, the wetsuit was chafing. It got so deep it turned infected. Uh, and then if that gets in your lymph nodes or your bloodstream, it can be fatal. Uh, it was this really strange position to be in as well 'cause it was a 56-hour nonstop swim. The water was about four degrees, barely above freezing.

   25. AHAndrew Huberman25:02

       No stop for sleep.

   26. RERoss Edgley25:03

       No. No, no, so nonstop swim. You can't touch anybody. No one can touch you. You can't touch the boat. You just, you just swim 56 hours. And towards the end, it was so strange 'cause I had hypothermia, so my core temperature, I could feel just, I was shaking from the inside. It was in my bones, but my skin was on fire from the cellulitis. So it was this strange attack on my physiology. But yeah, to answer your question, picking up a, a fair few of those, it's really strange that it recalibrates your perception to pain. And swimming around Iceland, there were times when I was really cold, and I was like, "It's not as bad as Loch Ness. [laughs] I'm still okay." I'd look at wounds around my neck and everything, and I'd go, "Oh, that's, that's not too bad. It doesn't, it doesn't smell infected. We're good." [laughs]

   27. AHAndrew Huberman25:45

       Trophies.

   28. RERoss Edgley25:45

       [laughs] Yeah.

   29. AHAndrew Huberman25:47

       Um, for a sicko like you. Um, do, do you

7. 25:50 – 31:37

   Spiritual Experiences, Loch Ness, Iceland, Mythology & Motivation

   1. AHAndrew Huberman25:50

      believe in the Loch Ness Monster?

   2. RERoss Edgley25:51

      Mm, something touched my leg. Honestly, [laughs] I, I love all of... It was so interesting. I got so sort of, I was, I don't, yeah, it probably was. It was like a spiritual experience, and I think by, you know, that point, was it Nietzsche who said, you know, "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that he doesn't become a monster himself, for if you gaze into the abyss too long, the abyss, it gazes back into you"? And I think for me, [laughs] swimming through Loch Ness, that was going through my head, and I definitely stared into the abyss too long. Um, it was going well up until 56 hours, and then liter- I just remember almost, it was very gradual, but you were, like, looking, and your tunnel vision just got narrower and narrower until you were looking through the, the eye of a needle, and then it just went black. And I remember waking up, and my girlfriend and my mum were at the head of my hospital bed, and I just looked up, and I just went, "Ah, it's not gone well, has it?" And they were like, "No, Ross. [laughs] It's not gone well at all." [laughs] So I think, uh, learning from that, to go back to what you were saying about hypothermia thing, it's nice now knowing that with the Iceland swim, having graduated in Loch Ness, I was like, "Look, let's not, let's not become a monster. Let's not stare into the abyss too long."

   3. AHAndrew Huberman27:02

      Did you go back and do, and do that one?

   4. RERoss Edgley27:04

      Loch Ness, I want to.

   5. AHAndrew Huberman27:05

      Yeah?

   6. RERoss Edgley27:05

      I've got unfinished business there. [laughs]

   7. AHAndrew Huberman27:07

      I keep wondering, since I was a kid, why don't they just drain Loch Ness and solve this Loch Ness Monster thing once and for all?

   8. RERoss Edgley27:12

      I know, right? [laughs]

   9. AHAndrew Huberman27:13

      It's not good for the tourist trade, though, you know?

   10. RERoss Edgley27:15

       No. [laughs]

   11. AHAndrew Huberman27:15

       I mean, yeah, I always think if it's real, how cool is that? And if it's not, um, what a, what a remarkable way to increase tourist traffic to a location.

   12. RERoss Edgley27:25

       For sure.

   13. AHAndrew Huberman27:25

       You create a, a myth and a mystique, something that's dangerous but not so dangerous that people are afraid to go.

   14. RERoss Edgley27:31

       For sure.

   15. AHAndrew Huberman27:32

       Uh, you know, you seed the world with a few photo... Like, that's what they clearly, one or the other happened, right?

   16. RERoss Edgley27:37

       Yeah.

   17. AHAndrew Huberman27:37

       Or some combination.

   18. RERoss Edgley27:38

       Yeah.

   19. AHAndrew Huberman27:39

       Yeah.

   20. RERoss Edgley27:39

       But I, I love that you brought that up as well because swimming around Iceland, at the start, I, you know, I heard about, you know, elves and trolls, and mountains were trolls that didn't make it back before sunset and sunrise, all of these stories. I was like, "Oh, that, that's cool. That's a cool story." Swimming around it, there is something [laughs] in the water. There were-

   21. AHAndrew Huberman27:58

       Mm

   22. RERoss Edgley27:58

       ... events. So I, I got a blot ceremony. So basically, it's almost like a, an ancient chief, um, a modern-day form of, uh, of that, and he basically gave me a blot ceremony where he blessed the swim. And it was just amazing speaking to him. He said, like, "Ross, you know, I, I think you'll die, you know, but, um, you know, it'll be a good saga." You know, the, the Icelandic sense of humor. [laughs]

   23. AHAndrew Huberman28:18

       That was the send-off?

   24. RERoss Edgley28:19

       That was the send-off. [laughs]

   25. AHAndrew Huberman28:21

       Dark.

   26. RERoss Edgley28:21

       Even at the start as well, I remember I did a swim, and afterwards I'm looking up at the northern lights, and I'm, I'm sort of toweling myself down. I'm like, "This is unbelievable." And this old Icelandic fisherman just comes out of nowhere, and I just hear his voice. And the first thing he says to me is, "They're probably deciding if you're gonna live or die." And I turned around, I went, "I'm s- I'm, I'm sorry?" And he goes, "The Valkyries." I said, "I'm sorry. You've lost me. Please explain." And he said, "Well, we believe that the northern lights are the Valkyries, Odin's warriors, female warriors, and they're riding through the sky, and the shimmering is their shields and their swords, and they're taking the fallen back to Valhalla." And I was like, "That's deep." [laughs] Okay. Then, like I said, starting the swim on the blot ceremony, they, again, and, and sorry if you know this, but they were talking about the guardians of Iceland. Do you know this story?

   27. AHAndrew Huberman29:07

       I don't know anything about... I, I know very little about Iceland.

   28. RERoss Edgley29:10

       Oh, this story was amazing. So they, we basically started on the west coast, and they said, "Ross, you're aware that you're swimming in the Kingdom of the Bull." I said, "What do you mean?" And they said, "Well, the story goes that basically there was a, a king, a foreign king who sent a sorcerer dressed as a whale to come and invade Iceland. Came over to the west coast, and there was this massive bull, and they said, 'Right, you can't attack there,' and that represented strength and power. Went over to the north coast. That was the Kingdom of the Eagle. They turned up. The eagle saw them from miles off. The sorcerer was like, 'You can't attack there.' Went over to the east coast. Over the east coast, that is the Realm of the Dragon, mainly because there's loads of waterfalls, and dragons like fast-flowing water. And then, bang, on the south coast, the Realm of the Giant. The whale, the sorcerer came there and was like, 'Whoa, you can't attack there either,' and then disappeared." So when you look on the crest of Iceland, so often they have the bull, the eagle, the dragon, and the giant. And again, upon hearing that- I was like, "Well, that's, that's a cool story." But it's a little bit deeper and they're saying really it's about respecting, you know, nature and everything. And, and I think going around Iceland, you know, that was just a shot of adrenaline. And I, and I think what was weird, and I wanted to quiz you on this actually, because upon hearing stories of this, I don't know, and please correct me if I'm wrong, is it, is it the, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex that deals with strategy, and it's almost the story that you're telling yourself? So when I'm swimming around, I'm like, "This is the kingdom of the bull." And I almost made it poetic in my head, and that actually got me through a few swims. And then even towards the end as well, like I said about trying to make it back home, the story of Odin. So, uh, in ancient Norse mythology, they believe in fate. They believe that, you know, you're- you, you can't control your destiny, and the only thing you control is your attitude towards it. So Odin, basically Ragnarok being the, the Norse apocalypse, where the j- uh, basically the, the gods fight the giants, this huge battle, and Odin basically had traded his eye for wisdom, so he knew, spoiler alert, that he was gonna be eaten by a giant wolf. But he just charges into battle anyway. And I think what was really interesting upon hearing this, certainly by the time I finished the swim after 114 days, I was sat there thinking, "You need to finish. You need to get back for the birth of your son. Uh, but equally, if the ancient Nordic gods are watching, this is what they would want." Again, Nietzsche, what is it? "There are, are no of no greater life purpose than to perish in attempting the impossible." And all of that was going through my head.

   29. AHAndrew Huberman31:36

       You

8. 31:37 – 36:27

   Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex, Persistence & Winning, Strategy

   1. AHAndrew Huberman31:37

      asked about the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.

   2. RERoss Edgley31:39

      Yeah.

   3. AHAndrew Huberman31:39

      So there, there is a, a set of studies that since you have an interest in neuroscience and the anterior midcingulate cortex that I did return to, I haven't talked about on the- on my podcast ever, but, um, that it's a, it's a solid literature in, in neuroscience and, um, has to do with an experiment called the tube test. Do you know about the tube test?

   4. RERoss Edgley31:58

      No, no, no, no.

   5. AHAndrew Huberman31:58

      You might like this. Some years ago, people were interested in what drives persistence and winning in competition, so they developed, uh, something called the tube test, and it's done on mice, but then we'll talk about the human analog. And basically, you put two male mice into a tube, and they wanna fight. It's just what male mice wanna do.

   6. RERoss Edgley32:17

      [laughs]

   7. AHAndrew Huberman32:18

      Female mice will do it, too, by the way. Uh, female-male pairings will do it, too, but they tend to do this with males, uh, male-male pairings. Put them in the tube, but these fights are not such that the tube is small enough, so they can't really scratch or bite at each other.

   8. RERoss Edgley32:30

      Got it.

   9. AHAndrew Huberman32:31

      And one pushes the other one out of the territory. You know, space, who gets the most space is a, is a very primitive but important feature of competition among animals, dogs, et cetera, right? You know, who gets space. So you put two mice in, and one tends to win and one tends to lose, and there's some interesting statistics that fall out whereby prior winning leads to future winning on average, right? So winners tend to be winners and losers tend to be losers over time in a way, and this is where it gets interesting, that's independent of testosterone levels, independent of things like nutritional status. I mean, at the extremes, these things fall away, like one is starved or one is castrated.

   10. RERoss Edgley33:10

       Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

   11. AHAndrew Huberman33:10

       Okay, right? Um, body weight, these sorts of things. So there's something else there. So a bunch of different laboratories have worked on this, measured brain activity in a broad scale way and, and pinpointed this region of the, the prefrontal cortex, which in mice you can't really say is like equivalent to our dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, but at least has components of it. And then they do the following experiment. You take a mouse that was consistently a winner, and you silence this particular region of the brain, or you quiet its, its activity, you lessen its activity, and it becomes the loser. You take the loser, and you, in real time, increase the amount of activity in this particular brain region, and now it wins every time. Here's what's wild. The amount of cortisol, the amount of testosterone, the amount like, none of that stuff speaks to what could really be going on. It seems that this top-down circuit from the prefrontal cortex to a bunch of other stuff, these are clearly circuits, not just one location in the brain, is driving persistence to win under any realistic condition.

   12. RERoss Edgley34:14

       Mm.

   13. AHAndrew Huberman34:14

       Like, again, you can't take a fetal mouse and have it beat an adult mouse, right?

   14. RERoss Edgley34:17

       Right.

   15. AHAndrew Huberman34:18

       But all other things being more or less equal, activity in this area drives persistence and winning. And there are equivalent experiments in humans using m- virtual reality and brain scanners and this kind of thing. It's hard to do the experiment. You're clearly physically stronger than I am. I'm reasonably strong.

   16. RERoss Edgley34:40

       [laughs]

   17. AHAndrew Huberman34:40

       But, no, you absolutely are, right? So y- there's no way that you're gonna stimulate my prefrontal cortex and I'm gonna beat you in a, in a deadlift. I just know this.

   18. RERoss Edgley34:47

       [laughs]

   19. AHAndrew Huberman34:47

       I- it's, it's okay. We don't even have to, like, entertain the other possibility. But, but there's a world where i- if we are otherwise within, you know, 10 or 20% of each other's abilities in something, that whoever has the most activity in this brain region wins over and over and over again.

   20. RERoss Edgley35:05

       That's it.

   21. AHAndrew Huberman35:05

       And the converse is true, too.

   22. RERoss Edgley35:07

       Yeah.

   23. AHAndrew Huberman35:07

       So I find this amazing because the analog in human is that this is a brain area that's involved in conscious strategy setting.

   24. RERoss Edgley35:13

       Mm.

   25. AHAndrew Huberman35:14

       Conscious strategy setting, and y- the particular strategy could be anger.

   26. RERoss Edgley35:20

       Mm.

   27. AHAndrew Huberman35:20

       Could be love. Could be you wanna get home to see your child born.

   28. RERoss Edgley35:25

       [laughs]

   29. AHAndrew Huberman35:25

       Could be you're hungry and you wanna eat. You want others to eat so they can sur- you know, I... The beauty of the prefrontal cortex is that it can learn lots of different strategies in lots of different contexts.

   30. RERoss Edgley35:37

       Mm.
9. 36:27 – 40:56

   Energy Management; Leadership & Team

   1. AHAndrew Huberman36:27

      No, it totally makes sense. So I think that the, there are several big macros today that are ... going to emerge, but one of them that clearly will emerge is this notion of energy.

   2. RERoss Edgley36:36

      Mm.

   3. AHAndrew Huberman36:36

      Right? The reason I asked about the 10-year-old Ross Edgley is I, I, I had a sneaking suspicion that he had a lot of energy.

   4. RERoss Edgley36:42

      [laughs]

   5. AHAndrew Huberman36:43

      You know, some people just have a lot of energy, right? Having a lot of energy is great. Energy management on a backdrop of having a lot of energy-

   6. RERoss Edgley36:52

      Mm

   7. AHAndrew Huberman36:52

      ... that's where things start getting impressive, right?

   8. RERoss Edgley36:54

      Mm.

   9. AHAndrew Huberman36:54

      Poor energy management on a backdrop of a lot of energy is, I think, what leads to the 27 Club.

   10. RERoss Edgley37:00

       Mm.

   11. AHAndrew Huberman37:00

       People who do incredible things and die.

   12. RERoss Edgley37:02

       Mm.

   13. AHAndrew Huberman37:03

       Whether by virtue of their particular activity or by virtue of, I heard this in this wonderful documentary that everyone should see, which is, um, The Defiant Ones, which is about Dre and Jimmy Iovine and development of, like, beats and the story of hip hop and, and there was a guy in, in NWA who we don't hear about much anymore, who clearly was extremely talented, but he had a really bad accident, and you ask, and he's talking about how it happened, and it involved wildness and, and you ask him, uh, you know, they were like, "What do you think happened?" And he just goes, "The excesses."

   14. RERoss Edgley37:36

       [laughs]

   15. AHAndrew Huberman37:37

       It was the excesses of all that energy pouring in, money and drugs and-

   16. RERoss Edgley37:42

       Mm

   17. AHAndrew Huberman37:42

       ... fast cars and m- being fame- and it, and it, and it wasn't well-managed in him, and he's still alive, but the excesses.

   18. RERoss Edgley37:51

       Mm, mm.

   19. AHAndrew Huberman37:52

       So energy management is, is clearly a piece of the ability to be the 10-year-old you and load more and more rocks, but you're not burning unnecessary energy. So the efficiency piece is, I think, where these stories that we tell ourselves, like, "I'm doing this for so-and-so," you're able to, like, separate out all the other possible motivations, at least for some period of time. Like, just being motivated is like a dysregulated system. So motivated to do blank because blank, that's a well-managed energy system.

   20. RERoss Edgley38:25

       Mm.

   21. AHAndrew Huberman38:25

       So most people would die for your levels of raw energy. But in keeping with this theme about how you regulate, dynamically regulate your energy, have there ever been moments along any of your conquests when you thought, "That's it. I'm done," but you had told somebody, "Don't let me quit"? You outsourced the management.

   22. RERoss Edgley38:45

       I'm really glad you asked that 'cause it's almost the opposite. So, so looking at, um, Tim Noakes' central governor theory or psychobiological model of fatigue, you know, this idea how the brain and the body interact and will pull the physiological handbrake to stop you from going to complete exhaustion. Upon hearing this and studying this, this was before Loch Ness, and also I did a, a swim in Lake Trasimeno in Italy. We got caught in a freak heat wave, uh, temperatures over 40 degrees Celsius, water temperature up to 34 degrees. It was bath water. It was rhabdomyolysis waiting to happen. Uh, 37 hours in, approaching 100 kilometers, exactly the same happened. Body just started to shut down. Uh, I am just swimming. I'm so stubborn, and I think what's really strange is looking at that psychobiological model of fatigue, I know that as soon as it's my brain that's a hypochondriac starts pulling the physiological handbrake, I just go, "No, no, no, no," I just put my foot down on the gas. So actually, with my team, we talk about, um, outsourcing common sense. I, I say, "Look, you know," and I don't, and I don't say this proudly.

   23. AHAndrew Huberman39:46

       Sure.

   24. RERoss Edgley39:46

       It's a personality defect. I'm well aware of that. But I know I will swim till I put myself in hospital, and that's, that's a bad thing, especially now as a dad. [laughs] So I have, I outsource that to my team and I go, "Okay, guys, if you tell me that, that you need to pull me out and you play that card, I, I will listen because I-

   25. AHAndrew Huberman40:04

       Mm-hmm

   26. RERoss Edgley40:05

       ... I can't keep putting myself in hospital." And I think that that's one thing. It's almost the opposite now that, um, I need to be saved from myself. Again, I don't say that proudly at all, uh, but I'm just very aware now, uh, from metrics they have with my blood work and various things, I'm like, "Look, I, I can't, I can't do that again, not now as a dad. I need to be more responsible."

   27. AHAndrew Huberman40:24

       Mm-hmm.

   28. RERoss Edgley40:24

       Yeah, and that, that's trusting the team, who are amazing as well because they are well aware that what we're trying to achieve is so ambitious, so they will allow me to sort of play with the boundaries of common sense and support science. Um, Jer Kennedy, great friend of mine, uh, one of the greatest ice swimmers ever, uh, so he just understands hypothermia, the cold, and there's so many times me and him have conversations and he's just like, he's still good, he's still coherent, but there's other times where, you know, I wish I'd had Jer there just to go, "Ross, you're done." [laughs]

10. 40:56 – 47:23

    Addiction, Evaluating Challenges & Purpose, Support & Yukon

    1. AHAndrew Huberman40:56

       It's interesting.

    2. RERoss Edgley40:56

       Mm.

    3. AHAndrew Huberman40:57

       The, uh, we'll talk a little bit about addiction later, but, you know, in, um, I have some friends, a couple who've been on this podcast who've talked openly about the fact that they were bad addicts and they needed to literally assign somebody the job of don't let them talk their way out of a, you know, an isolation or don't let them talk their way back to their phone or don't let them talk their way back to a casino and this kind of thing.

    4. RERoss Edgley41:19

       [laughs]

    5. AHAndrew Huberman41:20

       And, um, with huge cash rewards if the person doesn't allow them to do it.

    6. RERoss Edgley41:24

       [laughs]

    7. AHAndrew Huberman41:24

       That's pretty much, you have to create incentive on the other side too, right? 'Cause, um, some of these folks are really persuasive. [laughs] Uh, and, and-

    8. RERoss Edgley41:31

       That's me. [laughs]

    9. AHAndrew Huberman41:32

       Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, I mean, we can be honest about who we're talking about here 'cause he's talked about it openly. David Choe was on this podcast some years ago, extremely talented artist, a- amazing human being, blessed to call him a friend, and, uh, he's had a gambling addiction many times over in his, uh, in his life. Certain- uh, fortunately, he's, he's, uh, not in it now and hopefully never will be again, but there were times when he had to offer his team tremendous amounts of money to not let him-

    10. RERoss Edgley41:59

        [laughs]

    11. AHAndrew Huberman41:59

        ... convince them to let him out of a, like, an, an isolation cabin for a couple months while he was, you know, sobering up or give him his phone, in which time he became viciously addicted to playing Angry Birds 23 hours a day. [laughs]

    12. RERoss Edgley42:12

        It's a good game. [laughs]

    13. AHAndrew Huberman42:13

        Yeah, exactly. Or Pokémon or whatever, you know?

    14. RERoss Edgley42:16

        [laughs]

    15. AHAndrew Huberman42:17

        So what you describe, because it's a elected, um, endeavor and because, uh, provided you survive and make it home to your, your girlfriend and, and, uh, child, it's all good, right? But it has a component of addiction, right? I mean, it's like if you didn't, if you don't add the rocks, if you don't have the next swim, if you... You know, so how do you gauge What's too much? I mean, every high achiever has to answer at some point the question, how much money, how many miles, how much fame-

    16. RERoss Edgley42:52

        Mm

    17. AHAndrew Huberman42:52

        ... how, how many blanks before I'm satisfied?

    18. RERoss Edgley42:57

        Yeah.

    19. AHAndrew Huberman42:57

        And the answer is n- clearly not concrete. It's, it's like a dynamic thing.

    20. RERoss Edgley43:04

        100%, yeah.

    21. AHAndrew Huberman43:04

        So, like, how close to dying do you have to get before you're like, "You know what?"

    22. RERoss Edgley43:07

        [laughs]

    23. AHAndrew Huberman43:07

        "I'm gonna chill and paint or something."

    24. RERoss Edgley43:10

        Is such a good question, 'cause I'm, I'm literally as of only the last year, so my son's now one year old, and so he's really kinda forced me to ask those questions. Now when I'm proposed swims, the 21-year-old self, if somebody said, "Oh, you know, go do... Swim through a volcano down in Antarctica," I'd be like, "Yeah, hold my beer. Done." [laughs] Whereas now I've g- I've got to ask myself, you know, is, is this worth it? Is it enough? Is it worth doing? Um, I don't know. The only thing I know is with, um, you know, Viktor Frankl talking about, you know, the meaning of life is to give life meaning, uh, Jordan Peterson saying, uh, the, the purpose of life is to pick up the heaviest load and carry it, all of those things resonated so much with me that I j- I j- I do need purpose. And Viktor Frankl says that over fame, money, just a human needs to wake up. What is your reason for getting up in the morning? And when I don't have a swim or something to train for, my girlfriend just says, uh, I'm just like a caged animal. She sees me at home. And so, so when people... [laughs] I mean, she's amazing. And when I left for Iceland, she's, you know, pregnant, quite heavily pregnant, waving me off, and they said, "How are you letting him do this?" And she goes, "Oh, uh, he would be terrible if he was still at home. [laughs] So I know he's happiest when he's out there." Even swimming around Great Britain as well, so many people back on land, when Hester would come and see me, and I was 100 days in, I looked like a sea yeti werewolf, you know, my tongue was falling off, I was chafing all over, and people would say, "Oh, how's he doing? I've, I've, I've seen the wounds. I've seen his neck." And Hester would just always reply, "I've never seen him so happy. [laughs] Like, he's having the best time." And again, I don't say that necessarily in a proud way, but I just know I just need purpose. Whatever it is-

    25. AHAndrew Huberman44:47

        Mm-hmm

    26. RERoss Edgley44:47

        ... give me something to train for.

    27. AHAndrew Huberman44:49

        And she met you when you were already like this-

    28. RERoss Edgley44:52

        Yeah

    29. AHAndrew Huberman44:52

        ... and doing this. That's important.

    30. RERoss Edgley44:54

        It, but it's so important. [laughs]
11. 47:23 – 53:09

    Fear & Animals, Great White Sharks, Bears

    1. AHAndrew Huberman47:23

       Yeah. I, I don't wanna shift this to a story of any of my, um, adventures, and, and they're in no, no way, shape, or form as bold and as-

    2. RERoss Edgley47:31

       [laughs]

    3. AHAndrew Huberman47:32

       ... and as enduring as, as yours. So but yeah, a few years back for my lab, we, um, decided to record these great white sharks in the wild, bring it to the VR lab. And a friend of mine, a, a very accomplished photographer, videographer, Michael Muller, um, convinced me, uh-

    4. RERoss Edgley47:46

       [laughs]

    5. AHAndrew Huberman47:47

       ... to get dive certified and exit the cage and swim towards the sharks. And there, there's a skill to doing this. It's not like, you know, you're not just cowboying it. But, but, you know, I had an air failure, not out of the cage, on the hookah line the day before, and there's a whole story there. So, um, 2017 marked the end of, the deliberate end of me taking risks with my physical, uh, life. Um-

    6. RERoss Edgley48:12

       [laughs]

    7. AHAndrew Huberman48:12

       ... but what I learned there and what I've learned, um, from people like Cam Haynes and from spending time in Australia and from people who live in Montana, like Andy Stumpf, is that, you know, our, our perception of what's dangerous in the wild is often a little bit cryptic, and we can easily be misled. Like, oh, that little spider looks friendly, and that's the deadly one.

    8. RERoss Edgley48:35

       Yeah.

    9. AHAndrew Huberman48:35

       Or that bear looks very large and looming, but it turns out that's not the one that will actively hunt you. It's actually the somewhat smaller one that is, uh, just likes to hunt humans, you know, this kind of thing. And so the key takeaway being whether it's jellyfish, spiders, snakes, uh, birds, uh, or- In some cases, people for that matter, locals have the key knowledge.

    10. RERoss Edgley49:01

        Oh, yeah.

    11. AHAndrew Huberman49:01

        And, and our ideas about what's dangerous or not, um, are often wrong, so best to err on it's all dangerous. [laughs]

    12. RERoss Edgley49:07

        100%.

    13. AHAndrew Huberman49:08

        Right?

    14. RERoss Edgley49:08

        And I, and I love what you said there as well because, again, diving with great whites and, and, and also tiger sharks myself, they, they have, um, the ampullae of Lorenzini where they pick up electrical impulses.

    15. AHAndrew Huberman49:18

        Mm-hmm.

    16. RERoss Edgley49:18

        And I think exactly to your point, what was so strange is the first time I dived with them, I'm always comfortable in the water, but it was so strange how, like, the tigers and the great whites knew that I was the weakest diver. And whether that was, like, I was flinching, I acted like prey, m- whether my heartbeat or whether I was breathing, it knew. And it was so interesting. On the, the audio, they were like, "Ross, control your breathing. Ross, slow your heart rate." And I was like, how does it know? And sure enough, they just all just came straight for me. And they were all like, "Ross, I'm not saying square up to it, but I'm not saying flinch and back away as well."

    17. AHAndrew Huberman49:52

        Mm-hmm.

    18. RERoss Edgley49:52

        So as it came towards me, there was th- I was like, "Well, can I help you?" [laughs]

    19. AHAndrew Huberman49:56

        Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

    20. RERoss Edgley49:56

        You know, and it sort of was like it looked at me, and there was a real form of communication that's obviously non-verbal, and it sort of looked and was like, "All right. Okay, you know what you're doing."

    21. AHAndrew Huberman50:04

        Mm-hmm.

    22. RERoss Edgley50:04

        "I'll, I'll leave you alone."

    23. AHAndrew Huberman50:05

        Yeah.

    24. RERoss Edgley50:05

        You know, and it was, it was so strange. Exactly the same with the bears in the Yukon.

    25. AHAndrew Huberman50:11

        Yeah.

    26. RERoss Edgley50:11

        That, that it, they were looking, and if there was a weakness, that is the laws of the jungle, you know? I would've been charged.

    27. AHAndrew Huberman50:17

        Yeah, I mean, all animals have their own s- sophisticated forms of intelligence. What you learn with the great whites before you go down there is, uh, they're gonna come looming in slowly.

    28. RERoss Edgley50:28

        Mm-hmm.

    29. AHAndrew Huberman50:28

        There are a lot of tuna out there, there are a lot of seals and, and other things for them to eat, so they're not actively trying to hunt you. But if you r- swim away from them, they perceive you as prey. They're making a binary decision, right? And it, this is actually an important thing in terms of brain circuitry again. I had a student, uh, who then went off and did a postdoc. She now has her own laboratory in Switzerland, uh, Lindsay Silay, who published some papers on, on threat assessment and response, how, um, fear can turn to pausing, can turn to aggression. It's very, very interesting work, uh, and she really deserves the credit. We can put a link to those papers. But there are these areas of the midline thalamus, like basically square in the middle of the brain, that basically make the decision among three choices. You can go forward, you can stay in the same place, or you can retreat.

    30. RERoss Edgley51:12

        Mm-hmm.
12. 53:09 – 54:22

    Sponsor: AG1

    1. AHAndrew Huberman53:09

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13. 54:22 – 57:55

    Proving Others Wrong, Anger, Great Britain Swim

    1. AHAndrew Huberman54:23

       Let's get back on the spokes-

    2. RERoss Edgley54:24

       Yes

    3. AHAndrew Huberman54:24

       ... for a moment, and then we-

    4. RERoss Edgley54:25

       We did. We've done three spokes already, haven't we?

    5. AHAndrew Huberman54:27

       And then we'll plow forward. Yeah, so I said I would.

    6. RERoss Edgley54:29

       Mm-hmm.

    7. AHAndrew Huberman54:29

       Um, I don't wanna disappoint.

    8. RERoss Edgley54:31

       Yep.

    9. AHAndrew Huberman54:32

       And I've got something I really wanna be there for. [laughs] So that's sort of what we touched on so far.

    10. RERoss Edgley54:36

        Mm.

    11. AHAndrew Huberman54:37

        How about I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna continue to do this because you said I couldn't?

    12. RERoss Edgley54:42

        Oh.

    13. AHAndrew Huberman54:42

        Because they thought I couldn't.

    14. RERoss Edgley54:44

        [laughs]

    15. AHAndrew Huberman54:45

        You know, I find this one to be very prominent in the online space, but it's also one that as people get better and better and achieve more and more, they hear less and less. So it's, you know, this is the, this is the great, you know, gift to the underdog.

    16. RERoss Edgley55:04

        [laughs]

    17. AHAndrew Huberman55:05

        Right? You have, you have fuel. They're handing you fuel.

    18. RERoss Edgley55:08

        Mm.

    19. AHAndrew Huberman55:09

        But when you win, they're no longer... Y- you've obviously done it, then it turns to, "Well, they had all the right resources. They're saying..." But what, how about this? Has anyone ever said to you, "There's just no way," and that sparked something in you like, "Now it absolute-" Like, thank you. They just handed you a blank check.

    20. RERoss Edgley55:26

        [laughs] Is the best way to put it. Exactly that. And, and I, I love what you said there, because throughout my career, that's become less and less useful, because less people doubt me, and I'm almost like, "Oh." So when, the, the swim around Great Britain was probably the biggest one, and I loved that, because it went on YouTube. Uh, we were doing weekly vlogs. The very first vlog that we put out there, the comments, and I read through all of them, uh, 'cause I was so excited. I was like, "Oh, this is gonna be brilliant." Comments were just like, "He's far too big to be a swimmer. I think he's gonna give up after 100 kilometers. He's not gonna even make it on the South Coast." All of them, and I read them. What's, what's actually interesting is I think it was, like, five years ago, I ended up going back, and somebody had commented on all of these comments and gone, "Well, this didn't age very well, did it?" [laughs] And I was like, that made me feel so good. But what's so interesting is once we swam around Great Britain, people stopped doubting me, and so I missed that. [laughs] When we said we were gonna swim around Iceland, everyone was like, "Oh, I think he can do it this time." And I'm like, where are the, where are the guys who were trolling me? [laughs] I need them back. But yeah, yeah, certainly around Great Britain, a hu- 100%, going back to the spokes, that was a big one.

    21. AHAndrew Huberman56:31

        So are you moving dynamically between these things because one sort of loses its potency to keep, keep you going?

    22. RERoss Edgley56:38

        That is exactly the word I use as well. It, it, anything that stimulates you, it's almost like going through your head, like when you're changing the TV channel, and sometimes something can work, and it becomes so potent, and you're swimming, and like, "I'm swimming 'cause people said I couldn't. This is amazing." But then the very next day you go, "Right, I'm gonna tap into that again," and you go, "Well, maybe, maybe they've got a point." [laughs] Man, do I, do I need to finish this? So you need something else. And I think it's just like, I always say your reasons to continue need to be bigger than your reasons to stop. And I love this conversation, because we're identifying those different categories, those different spokes. Um, and it's just knowing that what might work one day might not work the other. You know, and then, and then sometimes, for instance, one of the most potent was, um, Hester, my girlfriend, she ended up sending me, uh, a picture of the scan. You know, and it was one of the first scans that I ever saw of my son. That I just woke up 2:00 in the morning, cracked ice off my wetsuit, dived in, and I was like, "Oh, we're getting this done." [laughs] So it was different. And, and knowing, knowing which one to go. And I think as a coach as well, sometimes some of my friends who are amazing, l- like I said, Jer Kennedy, Chris Morgan, Olympic swimming coach as well, they'll know which buttons to push of mine i- in the right moments. I think all co- great coaches do that. And then sometimes I have to do it myself as well.

14. 57:55 – 1:08:58

    Anger at Self; Doing It For the Sake of Others, Son, Father

    1. AHAndrew Huberman57:55

       So you've got a, um, F you, I'm gonna do this.

    2. RERoss Edgley57:58

       Yep.

    3. AHAndrew Huberman57:59

       F you, you said I couldn't.

    4. RERoss Edgley58:00

       Yep.

    5. AHAndrew Huberman58:00

       I'm gonna do it. Let's talk about the other one that Goggins talks about sometimes, but even he talks about a little bit differently than F me.

    6. RERoss Edgley58:12

       Mm-hmm.

    7. AHAndrew Huberman58:12

       Like, F me, I'm gonna do this.

    8. RERoss Edgley58:15

       Yeah.

    9. AHAndrew Huberman58:15

       Like, so, uh, what I'm doing here is going to the polar opposite. F you is like, "You don't think I can do this? Watch."

    10. RERoss Edgley58:20

        Mm-hmm.

    11. AHAndrew Huberman58:21

        Like, I'll die trying.

    12. RERoss Edgley58:22

        Mm-hmm.

    13. AHAndrew Huberman58:22

        But then at some point, if that potency runs down, wouldn't it be wonderful to run to our lo- like, move to our love for something as motivation? But sometimes F me. Like, I am weak for even considering stopping. F me for even th- Like, so it's not a pleasant thought.

    14. RERoss Edgley58:41

        Mm.

    15. AHAndrew Huberman58:41

        But does it have potency for you? Do you, is that a source of continual pushing on the gas pedal?

    16. RERoss Edgley58:47

        I think it is. And to take that some probably slightly further, but slightly more specific, but I don't know if it is this, but, but sometimes there'll even be a part of my body that is failing. So it's not necessarily fuck me. It'll be like, "Fuck you, right shoulder." [laughs]

    17. AHAndrew Huberman59:01

        Mm-hmm.

    18. RERoss Edgley59:02

        And I think so it's that-

    19. AHAndrew Huberman59:03

        Okay

    20. RERoss Edgley59:03

        ... that I'll get angry at my body failing me, and I'm like, "No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm taking you for a swim across the Arctic Circle."

    21. AHAndrew Huberman59:10

        Mm-hmm.

    22. RERoss Edgley59:10

        "You're not stopping on me now." So, so it's, like, not just me, but there will be parts of me that I get really angry at if it's failing me.

    23. AHAndrew Huberman59:17

        Mm-hmm.

    24. RERoss Edgley59:17

        Is that the same, do you think?

    25. AHAndrew Huberman59:18

        Yeah. Well, no. And, and you teed up beautifully what I was gonna get to, which i- it's gonna sit in a kind of uncomfortable place for some people listening. I just wanna give that warning, but it's reality. 'Cause what you're talking about when you see a scan, uh, an ultrasound of your unborn son, and you wanna meet the newborn son that is him, uh, you're talking about s- somebody that's of you, half of you.

    26. RERoss Edgley59:45

        Mm.

    27. AHAndrew Huberman59:46

        Let's be fair. Your wife did significantly more of the work. She gestated him.

    28. RERoss Edgley59:49

        Mm-hmm.

    29. AHAndrew Huberman59:49

        But, you know. But, but it's of the two of you, and it's of you, right? I could imagine that if you saw a picture of, uh, your, a family member's child that you told you would do this also. But at some point, if I just show you a picture of a baby, and I go, "Do it for this baby," I imagine it's not gonna do a whole lot.

    30. RERoss Edgley1:00:07

        [laughs]
15. 1:08:58 – 1:15:29

    Next Endeavor, Money, Helping Others

    1. AHAndrew Huberman1:08:58

       these days you're sitting, uh, at a pretty high apex of what you do. And, uh, Josh Waitzkin, who has been on this podcast, Brazilian jujitsu guy, you know, incredible chess champion and performance coach for the Boston Celtics, he said, you know, when they're trying to become the champion, you're trying to become the champion, but when you're a champion, you're trying to defend the championship, and the mindset is completely different. So where are you at right now? What, what's like the next peak, or do you feel like you're defending something, or do you feel like you're looking for the next big challenge that will raise you up? What's the next rock to put in your backpack?

    2. RERoss Edgley1:09:38

       I am searching for it at the moment, and it's just, it's got to tick a, a few different boxes, I, I think, 'cause it, it, it does feel like that. I think my, my 21-year-old self, like I said, Maslow's hierarchy, I just needed feelings of accomplishment, prestige. Even if someone said, "You're not gonna earn any money from this, Ross," at 21 I'd just go, "Yeah, but I get the record, right?" And they go, "Yeah," and I'm like, "Well, that's enough. That's all I need." [laughs] Um, w- I actually lost money. Looking back, really irresponsible. I, I didn't have a house, and I had, you know, a, a, enough money to put down for a deposit on a house, and the opportunity to, to swim around Great Britain came up, but the, the boat crew were like, "Look, we need a deposit on the boat. We need the crew and everything." And I remember I turned to Hester, I mean, again, this is how lucky I am, and I said, "Look, I should probably do the responsible thing, right? Uh, I'm 32 years old. Get a house, get a mortgage. That would be the smart thing to do. Or do I take that money, put it on a boat and a crew, and I try and swim around Great Britain?" And she looked at me and she just sort of went, "Oh, I hate to say it, but y- you know, you might be old, 80 years old with loads of money and everything. You can buy loads of houses, but you're not gonna be 31, 32 with the ability to swim around Great Britain. So I think you need to put it on the boat." That was my girlfriend. I was just like, "Thank you. I think you're right." So we did. It paid off. But I lost money swimming around Great Britain. Whereas now, not to sound like a commercial mercenary, [laughs] but I'm like, "You want me to do a swim, I need to be paid. I can't just keep doing this. Otherwise, it's a very expensive hobby." And I think now it is so lucky that I have got to a point where you could call it a career, in inverted commas. And I think that's interesting as well, 'cause I think sometimes the idea of talking about money with these sorts of events, it's almost, it's a bit, you know, of a dirty word.

    3. AHAndrew Huberman1:11:17

       Mm.

    4. RERoss Edgley1:11:17

       Whereas I, I always like, um, you know, your ikigai, the, the Japanese concept saying, you know, your ikigai is your reason for being. Why do you get up in the morning? Made up of four things, what you love, what you're good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for. But it needs to be all four. And I think so often people will do these, and they forget the what you can be paid for, and you almost become, um, like a martyr as well, you know, and you're not making any money. Ugh. Whereas with me, I'm really, really fortunate. So to answer your question as well, just to be so, so honest, you know, if someone came along and went, "Do this swim and here's a check," I'm like, right, going back to the us, then I'm like, "Amazing." That helps my, my son and any future kids that we want to have as well. So, so money-

    5. AHAndrew Huberman1:11:58

       Mm-hmm

    6. RERoss Edgley1:11:58

       ... it, it sounds bad, [laughs] but it, that's become a thing as well. Yeah.

    7. AHAndrew Huberman1:12:02

       Yeah, I mean, I don't think money's a dirty word, especially not in the context that you're talking about, earned honestly through incredible endeavors and it, to serve your family.

    8. RERoss Edgley1:12:10

       Mm.

    9. AHAndrew Huberman1:12:10

       And, um, having lived in Los Angeles for a few years now, it's an interesting place. You know, there are a lot of success stories here. There are a lot of, uh, broken dreams here too, and it's not uncommon to encounter somebody who's still so driven to make it and has not made it, that they've essentially cashed in everything else.

    10. RERoss Edgley1:12:27

        Mm.

    11. AHAndrew Huberman1:12:27

        You know, I have tremendous respect for the endurance community and also for the strength training community, but one of the saddest things I ever, ever saw, uh, was, I love this movie about Westside Barbell, but there's this one scene where a guy who was doing the, uh, who's training with, with Louie and those guys, talks about missing something of, like a, his son's event because it was bench press night, and the regret that he still lives with. I don't know if his son, I can't remember if his son passed or if they're out of touch. I don't know. But in any case, he was so driven by this particular goal that he missed some critical moment in his child's life, and it still haunts him.

    12. RERoss Edgley1:13:11

        Mm.

    13. AHAndrew Huberman1:13:12

        And no one wants to be that guy or gal.

    14. RERoss Edgley1:13:16

        Mm.

    15. AHAndrew Huberman1:13:17

        Nobody wants to be that.

    16. RERoss Edgley1:13:18

        Mm.

    17. AHAndrew Huberman1:13:18

        Uh, nobody wants to be that. And I think that- You know, it, it, money is a tool to, you know, to allow, if I may, y- your son to be able to pursue what he finds most enriching. Something tells me he may be swimming with you at some point.

    18. RERoss Edgley1:13:33

        [laughs]

    19. AHAndrew Huberman1:13:33

        But you'd hate for him to ha- feel the pressure. Yeah. My dad's a scientist.

    20. RERoss Edgley1:13:37

        Mm.

    21. AHAndrew Huberman1:13:37

        And I loved science as a kid, and then when we had some friction, I resisted becoming a scientist, and then at one point, I'm like, "This is ridiculous."

    22. RERoss Edgley1:13:44

        [laughs]

    23. AHAndrew Huberman1:13:45

        I'm like, "I'm gonna destroy my life for all the wrong reasons." I decide to become a scientist, and now we, we have a great relationship and we talk about science all the time. But the core component that we're talking about here is our, our biological understanding of us, and once we are well enough, then we can take care of others that are-

    24. RERoss Edgley1:14:02

        Mm

    25. AHAndrew Huberman1:14:02

        ... in our closest spheres, and then it can radiate out. Like, so if you can check the box of being okay-

    26. RERoss Edgley1:14:07

        Mm

    27. AHAndrew Huberman1:14:07

        ... and then some, you can do more and more and more for more and more and more people.

    28. RERoss Edgley1:14:10

        100%, yep.

    29. AHAndrew Huberman1:14:11

        Right? Like, martyring oneself for everybody and not being able to take care of your family or yourself, that's not good.

    30. RERoss Edgley1:14:19

        No.
16. 1:15:29 – 1:22:51

    Dark vs Light Energy, Self-Discipline; Yaminawa Tribe

    1. AHAndrew Huberman1:15:29

       You've talked before, and I'm very interested in this notion of dark energy versus light energy.

    2. RERoss Edgley1:15:34

       Mm.

    3. AHAndrew Huberman1:15:34

       You know, F-you energy is powerful, but there's this assumption that it drains us more quickly than I-love-you energy. And I think that's true because of the relationship to dopamine and, and other chemicals to love and positive, like, generative things-

    4. RERoss Edgley1:15:51

       Mm

    5. AHAndrew Huberman1:15:51

       ... versus just F-you energy. These are some of my favorite experiments, but their, their outcome is kind of dark, but telling about human nature. Robert Heath was a neurosurgeon, um, and he had patients with, uh, electrodes embedded in many different places in their brain, and they could self-stimulate. And some stimulation areas would lead to feelings of drunkenness, others sexual arousal, others would make them giddy, others would make them tired. And so he let them basically self-stimulate at will. And there wasn't a ton of d- patients that had this, as you can imagine, but across all of them, the area of the brain that they preferred to stimulate the most, by a pretty impressive margin, was the area of the brain, this turns out to be the midline thalamus, where they would experience mild frustration and anger. They found it to be incredibly arousing, incredibly motivating-

    6. RERoss Edgley1:16:46

       [laughs]

    7. AHAndrew Huberman1:16:46

       ... incredibly useful in a way that sitting in the chair with their head in a stereotax was totally useless, except they just really liked it. And it's telling, a little dark, but telling because it, it speaks to human's desire to have an me versus them kind of feeling.

    8. RERoss Edgley1:17:03

       Mm.

    9. AHAndrew Huberman1:17:04

       Like, ugh, frustration.

    10. RERoss Edgley1:17:06

        Mm.

    11. AHAndrew Huberman1:17:06

        That arousal, again, drives all sorts of things whereby maybe otherwise we would become complacent.

    12. RERoss Edgley1:17:16

        That's fascinating. See, I love what you said there, because I think when you look at the, the anthropology of us humans, the history of us humans, it's, it's so interesting that people sometimes go to me, "Why, why do you do these swims?" Like, "Why just put yourself through that?" And I go, "Well, I think humans have always had this idea of kind of self-discipline for self-discovery." You look f- across different cultures, whether it was the Yamabushi monks of Japan, for instance, the ... I, I, I actually lived with them for a little bit. We went on a, it's called an okugake. It's a pil- a pilgrimage. You meditate under ice cold waterfalls, drink, uh, green tea, and basically do a marathon a day in the mountains. The mountains was their church. And it was brutal, blisters, and yet you wear basically these, like, sort of wooden sandals as well. It was horrible. You look at the Aborigines go and walk about. You know, there's the Maasai tribe. There's, there's ... We've always been doing something. So I think that's so strange that were they just hitting the button, you know, on frustration and stuff? Like, they say ... Do you think that is? Do you think that's tapping into exactly the same experiment?

    13. AHAndrew Huberman1:18:13

        I do. I mean, I, I picked a hard career for me, you know. Uh, you know, d- science is hard, it's slow, it's grueling, and then you have breakthrough. And, you know-

    14. RERoss Edgley1:18:23

        Mm

    15. AHAndrew Huberman1:18:23

        ... and, like, so I got very accustomed to that. But I think that we all kind of crave that, but shy away from it, too. It's exhausting if there isn't some sort of reward loop in there to kind of re-up us. And so I think all cultures have it, all careers have it. Uh, my friends who are visual artists, they certainly have it. Their torment is part of their fuel, and they run this dial that we're talking about, this, uh, the spokes on this thing that we haven't yet named, that maybe we'll name at the end, [laughs] um, that you'll name at the end. I, I think it's, what we're talking about is, is tapping into drive and motivation, but with a purpose.

    16. RERoss Edgley1:19:04

        Mm.

    17. AHAndrew Huberman1:19:04

        And the pur- the purpose can vary in, in time, and I think all cultures have understood this. I mean, to some extent, we're all sort of neuroscientists. It's just that some people look with a, like, with a, with more precise tools, right? And, and give things names. But I consider you a neuroscientist-

    18. RERoss Edgley1:19:20

        [laughs]

    19. AHAndrew Huberman1:19:20

        ... from the perspective of, like, l- your level of self-analysis as you, you do these things.

    20. RERoss Edgley1:19:25

        On that note, very quickly-

    21. AHAndrew Huberman1:19:26

        Mm-hmm

    22. RERoss Edgley1:19:26

        ... as well, there, there was another one, and I wanted to, to get your opinion on this. Because I, again, this is gonna sound so strange, but I lived with the, uh, Yaminawa tribe in, in the Amazon jungle for a while. We did ayahuasca, uh, for an entire week. It was this ceremony. Um, I was 21 at the time, uh, just finished kind of professional sports and never touched drugs, psychedelic, anything like that. Um, very much adhered to the wider banned substance list. And then for this documentary, they dropped me in the middle of the Amazon jungle, and they're like, "Here you go. This is ayahuasca." I didn't even know what it was, and I was like, "What? So it's kinda like makes me giddy? Is it like alcohol?" And they were like, "A bit stronger than that." [laughs] I take it. Basically, throughout the entire week as well, my, my first was, like, the, the worst trip, like, ever. I did everything wrong. And it, and it was actually explained to me. My friend, for instance, um, Ruben, he works at Glastonbury, so he's done all sorts of drugs. [laughs] And I remember I was sitting there. First of all, I was sweating. It... Like somebody had thrown a bucket of water over me, I was sweating that much. Then my tongue swelled so it was bigger than my mouth. I was speaking like this. And then you projectile vomit, so it just purges my system. At this point, I'm like, "Right, I need out of this." So I turn and I look at Ruben to my right. He's found a feather on the floor and he's licking it to taste the colors. I was like, "Ugh." I was like, "You can't help me, can you?" [laughs] It went so wrong. That was the first night. It was then, it was later explained to me, it's like getting on a rollercoaster, Ross. You can't get off. You know, there's no... You can't fight it. Just, you've gotta just sit it out. [lip smack] Fast-forward through the entire week, and then, [sighs] i- th- basically it was this, again, sort of self-discipline through self-discovery. So there was various tasks that we had to do. We basically had to, we, we caught a snake. This is gonna sound so weird. I'm so sorry, I apologize now. You had to bite the tongue of the snake out of its mouth. They then explained to us that you have now got the wisdom of the snake, but you cannot speak. If you speak, the spirit of the snake will hunt you for the rest of your life. So the next 48 hours you cannot speak.

    23. AHAndrew Huberman1:21:24

        Live snake?

    24. RERoss Edgley1:21:25

        Yeah, yeah. Live snake. Yeah, they open its mouth and you just-

    25. AHAndrew Huberman1:21:27

        Oh

    26. RERoss Edgley1:21:27

        ... you basically just tongue it. [laughs]

    27. AHAndrew Huberman1:21:29

        I hate snakes.

    28. RERoss Edgley1:21:29

        And you- [laughs]

    29. AHAndrew Huberman1:21:30

        But I, I, but I respect them and their right to live, but I do not like snakes.

    30. RERoss Edgley1:21:34

        Oh, no, 100%. I get, I get it. I'm not proud [laughs] of this. But then when you've taken this vow of, of, of silence, you then have to go through various different tasks. So I had to climb a tree. I'm holding onto this tree maybe four meters in the air, and they just smack the bottom of the tree, and then fire ants just disappear up the tree, and they just start biting you. So you've done a week of ayahuasca, [laughs] you've bitten the tongue out [laughs] of a snake, and then you're holding onto a tree as fire ants are biting you. You get down, they immediately take you to another tree. There's a hornets' nest. [laughs] You see where this is going. Bang, hit the hornets' nest, and you just have to sit there and just take the stings and not make a sound. But what was so strange, so strange, and I love that you've brought up this study, is having completed all of that and been initiated with the Yaminawa tribe, the feeling that I had afterwards, whether it was ayahuasca-induced, whether it was the pain, I don't know, but it was just cathartic. It felt good that at the end of the ceremony there was a, I d- d- not euphoria, but I was like, "Wow," you know, "We did it." And it's so strange. I'm not, [laughs] I'm not advocating or recommending it to anyone, but it was weird that maybe I was just pushing that button, you know, in the brain. L- listening to that study, there are so many times in my life when I was pushing the button.

17. 1:22:51 – 1:24:11

    Sponsor: LMNT

    1. AHAndrew Huberman1:22:51

       I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge one of our sponsors, LMNT. LMNT is an electrolyte drink that has everything you need and nothing you don't. That means the electrolytes, sodium, magnesium, and potassium, all in the correct ratios, but no sugar. Proper hydration is critical for brain and body function. Even a slight degree of dehydration can diminish your cognitive and physical performance. It's also important that you get adequate electrolytes. The electrolytes, sodium, magnesium, and potassium, are vital for the functioning of all cells in your body, especially your neurons or your nerve cells. Drinking LMNT makes it very easy to ensure that you're getting adequate hydration and adequate electrolytes. My days tend to start really fast, meaning I have to jump right into work or right into exercise. So to make sure that I'm hydrated and I have sufficient electrolytes, when I first wake up in the morning, I drink 16 to 32 ounces of water with an LMNT packet dissolved in it. I also drink LMNT dissolved in water during any kind of physical exercise that I'm doing, especially on hot days when I'm sweating a lot and losing water and electrolytes. LMNT has a bunch of great-tasting flavors. In fact, I love them all. I love the watermelon, the raspberry, the citrus, and I really love the lemonade flavor. So if you'd like to try LMNT, you can go to drinklmnt.com/huberman to claim a free LMNT sample pack with any purchase. Again, that's drinklmnt.com/huberman to claim a free sample

18. 1:24:11 – 1:33:29

    Challenge Stakes, Ultra-Endurance Swims; Negative Thoughts

    1. AHAndrew Huberman1:24:11

       pack. I mean, I think a lot of people are more or less addicted to social media because o- of its ability to tap into mild anger and frustration-provoking-

    2. RERoss Edgley1:24:22

       Mm

    3. AHAndrew Huberman1:24:23

       ... circuitry.

    4. RERoss Edgley1:24:24

       Mm.

    5. AHAndrew Huberman1:24:24

       Drama.

    6. RERoss Edgley1:24:25

       Mm.

    7. AHAndrew Huberman1:24:25

       Us, them. I mean, it's, you know, the, not to be, you know, ultra-repetitive, but this us, them thing is, is, like, th- it's at our core of our circuitry.

    8. RERoss Edgley1:24:35

       Mm.

    9. AHAndrew Huberman1:24:36

       And the more you can tap into it, the more engagement you can get from the brain.

    10. RERoss Edgley1:24:40

        Mm.

    11. AHAndrew Huberman1:24:41

        It's very, very powerful. I, I mean, and it can be used to benevolent ends, you know, fighting evil, [laughs] you know, uh, this kind of thing. But it's interesting because the, the psychedelics, uh, I've never done ayahuasca, but certainly psilocybin and others, like the ego dissolution that's supposed to occur with those is supposed to make you f- feel less of self versus other boundary-

    12. RERoss Edgley1:25:02

        Mm

    13. AHAndrew Huberman1:25:02

        ... you know, connected to other beings, the universe-

    14. RERoss Edgley1:25:05

        Mm

    15. AHAndrew Huberman1:25:05

        ... et cetera. It's supposed to dissolve these, you know, the, the me, us versus them boundary-

    16. RERoss Edgley1:25:11

        Mm

    17. AHAndrew Huberman1:25:11

        ... including humans to animals, humans to plants. I mean, that's a lot of the-

    18. RERoss Edgley1:25:15

        Wow

    19. AHAndrew Huberman1:25:15

        ... the theory anyway.

    20. RERoss Edgley1:25:16

        Mm.

    21. AHAndrew Huberman1:25:17

        Maybe I just need to do more psychedelics. [laughs]

    22. RERoss Edgley1:25:19

        [laughs]

    23. AHAndrew Huberman1:25:20

        Um, and maybe not. Uh, these are powerful tools. Um, I wanna talk about something, um, for a moment, which is stakes, not beef steaks, although those are wonderful, too. So there's a really cool study that came out in the last couple of years about why- We choke

    24. RERoss Edgley1:25:38

        Mm.

    25. AHAndrew Huberman1:25:38

        Why we choke? It's a study in a non-human primate, but it certainly has relevance to humans 'cause there's been an analog study done in humans. So here's the idea. Let's say you're throwing darts, and we bet two pounds per round of darts. I don't actually know the details of the game darts, so forgive me.

    26. RERoss Edgley1:25:58

        [laughs]

    27. AHAndrew Huberman1:25:58

        But let's, let's... Or billiards. But let's make it simpler. Let's hit billiards.

    28. RERoss Edgley1:26:02

        Yeah.

    29. AHAndrew Huberman1:26:02

        And, and we say two pounds, okay. You'll perform your best, I'll perform my best, depending on how competitive we are, depending on your, our skill level, relative skill level. Somebody will win, somebody will not win, et cetera. Okay, now we bet 100,000 pounds.

    30. RERoss Edgley1:26:16

        Mm.
19. 1:33:29 – 1:38:28

    Tongue; Iceland Swim, Berserker, Third-Person Perspective

    1. AHAndrew Huberman1:33:29

       You said your tongue's falling off. What, what are you referring to? Your actual tongue falling off?

    2. RERoss Edgley1:33:33

       Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

    3. AHAndrew Huberman1:33:33

       Maybe you shouldn't have bit that snake, dude.

    4. RERoss Edgley1:33:35

       [laughs] Think that's what it is. [laughs] No, so it's, uh, saltwater exposure, basically. You know, the human body is not meant to be in saltwater for that long, so it extracts all the moisture from your tongue. Um, on the, the GB swim for instance, we, we sat, it was about a week in, and I remember [laughs] they made this amazing soup. It was just this rich vegetable soup. All the team were tucking into it. It was amazing. So full of vegetables, nutrients. But I looked over and I noticed that mine had, I didn't know if it was pork or chicken, so I turned to the captain. I said, "Why, why haven't you got any pork or chicken? There's only in mine." [laughs] And he just leaned over and he went, "Ross, that's not pork or chicken. That's your tongue." [laughs]

    5. AHAndrew Huberman1:34:11

       Ugh.

    6. RERoss Edgley1:34:11

       And it was falling off-

    7. AHAndrew Huberman1:34:13

       Ugh

    8. RERoss Edgley1:34:13

       ... [laughs] in the soup.

    9. AHAndrew Huberman1:34:15

       Oh, brutal.

    10. RERoss Edgley1:34:16

        But I know. But coconut oil, for those, for anyone listening who finds themself in a similar situation, coconut oil acts as a barrier, maintains the moisture. You keep your tongue... And it grows back. It, it, it did grow back as well, so.

    11. AHAndrew Huberman1:34:26

        All right, let's get real honest here, Ross. Um, is there anything in everyday life that you have to absolutely scruff yourself and t- and, and, you know, badger yourself into doing that is absolutely trivial in somebody else's eyes?

    12. RERoss Edgley1:34:38

        Oh, I-

    13. AHAndrew Huberman1:34:39

        And if the answer is no, that's fine. If you, if you just, like, show up to... Do you brush your teeth twice a day?

    14. RERoss Edgley1:34:44

        Yeah.

    15. AHAndrew Huberman1:34:44

        They're nice and white, so-

    16. RERoss Edgley1:34:45

        [laughs] Yeah

    17. AHAndrew Huberman1:34:46

        ... you know? Do you ever feel like, "I don't want to do this again," or you just, do you just, do you ever think, "I don't want to do this," like, and you can't tell why?

    18. RERoss Edgley1:34:53

        Yeah. Yeah, I'm, uh, yeah, I think certainly if you spoke to my girlfriend, you know, house chores and things like that, I'm ter- I'm so messy.

    19. AHAndrew Huberman1:34:59

        She sent a l- No, I'm kidding. There's been no comments.

    20. RERoss Edgley1:35:01

        [laughs] I'm so bad. I'm so bad. I'm really messy. And, and for me, again, maybe it's related to dopamine, but I just need those big, grand goals. So it's just, yeah, swim around Iceland, swim world's longest nonstop river swim. Yeah. Take out the trash, ah. Do the, do the washing up, ah. [laughs]

    21. AHAndrew Huberman1:35:18

        Is it because it's too easy or it's too hard?

    22. RERoss Edgley1:35:21

        I'm not sure. I'm just really bad at, like, admin and basic stuff. It goes, goes back to what I said. If someone said, "Oh, swim the English Channel," I'm, "Ah, it's, it's been done," you know? It doesn't, doesn't really appeal. So, and I think it's the same in, in, like, if you said there's a record for taking out the trash, [laughs] no one's ever taken two tons of trash to the... I'll be like, "Ah, hold my beer." [laughs] So my girlfriend knows this, you know? She knows how to push my buttons, so she might do that. [laughs]

    23. AHAndrew Huberman1:35:48

        That's so good. If there was a competition.

    24. RERoss Edgley1:35:51

        [laughs] I've taken part.

    25. AHAndrew Huberman1:35:53

        Significant oth- others everywhere are taking note. A few minutes ago, you mentioned something that told me that there are times when you can no longer advocate for yourself as like, "Let's do this. I've got this." Okay, like your arm gives out. "Let's go. Come on." You're gonna bring the arm along like a member of your team. But in the moments where you're really down in the pit, it sounded as if, and I don't want to put words or thoughts into your mind, but it sounded as if you get outside of yourself and you're like, "We're going," because this is the middle of the night and you know you don't like this, but you now become you sort of third person yourself, and now you bring you along. And I think that's such an important tool for the times when there's no coach, there's no team, there's no goal in mind. It hurts like hell. You don't see the point. You've run out of fuck yous. You've run out of fuck mes. You know, you've just run out.

    26. RERoss Edgley1:36:47

        Mm-hmm.

    27. AHAndrew Huberman1:36:48

        And you just have to transcend or exit yourself and just go, "Let's go."

    28. RERoss Edgley1:36:55

        100%. Yeah. Do, and, and, and I love that you asked that as well because, again, certainly on the Iceland swim, I took such inspiration from the berserkers. You know, so, so for those who don't know, you know, the berserkers, it literally means bare shirts. They would be wearing sort of these bare shirts. Uh, these ancient Nordic warriors who would enter into a, a battle-frenzied state where they were impervious to pain and fear. Uh, there was even as well, uh, wolf warriors as well. So there was the berserkers, but the wolf warriors, uh, embodied the spirit of the wolf. They would bite down on their shields when run into battle as well. Now, historians, some think they might have been using, you know, hallucinogenic mushrooms. Others think it was maybe, uh, ritualistic chanting, breathing to get into this state. But whatever it was, they were no longer themselves. They were the spirit of that particular animal that they were embodying.

    29. AHAndrew Huberman1:37:45

        Mm.

    30. RERoss Edgley1:37:45

        And I think certainly towards the end of, of the Iceland swim I was lucky enough to, to speak to this again, sort of like a, a- an old, uh, chief, and he said, "Ross, you need to stop thinking like a swimmer. You need to become a berserker. You need to just get in there and just think en- entirely differently." Again, it's, um, Samuel Johnson, 17th century English writer, uh, "Whoever makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man." And I think for me, certainly on that South Coast, I was like, "Gotta get rid of pain of being a man. Just become a beast." And I think it was that as well, just no longer thinking of yourself, becoming that therapist, but, but also just becoming wolf warrior, berserker.
20. 1:38:28 – 1:45:48

    Pain Tolerance, Stress Inoculation, Deliberate Cold Exposure

    1. AHAndrew Huberman1:38:28

       do you like to read? It seems like you know a lot about these, um, ancient traditions and tribes and-

    2. RERoss Edgley1:38:32

       Oh, I loved it. Yeah. I think, um... 'Cause this is gonna sound really strange as well. So I lived in, uh, Namibia with the San Bushmen for a while. Amazing endurance athletes. We were covering a marathon a day, barely any water, for an entire week. I remember all we had, we shared a porcupine between us as well. Just amazing athletes. But there was, there was one particular guy in the, the tribe, and he, he was part Namibian, but he's also part of the, uh, the Turkan tribe, which I hope I'm, I'm getting this right. But it's basically an ethnic group that's, that's specific to Kenya, and they produce more marathon runners, just elite marathon runners, than, than anywhere else. And he turned to me, and we're sitting around this fireplace at one point, and he said, "Ross, do you know why people from the Turkan tribe are so good? Do you know why we're such great runners?" And I was like, "Yeah, like, you know, altitude training." Went, "Nope." I was like, "Your diet." And he goes, "Nope." And I was like, "Hmm, barefoot running. Beautiful biomechanics, and you drill that from an early age." And he went, "No." And I was like, "Right, go on then. Tell me." And he says, "It's our pain tolerance. So we have a tradition that when a boy is basically going into adulthood, we have him in front of the entire tribe. We take some mud, like clay, and we put it on his face, and then he has to stand in front of the entire tribe. The chief comes out, takes his tackle in his hand [laughs] , circumcises him," which is essentially with, like, a bamboo shoot, you know?

    3. AHAndrew Huberman1:39:52

       Tackle his penis.

    4. RERoss Edgley1:39:53

       His penis. [laughs] Circumcises him in front of the entire tribe. He cannot flinch. Cannot flinch, make any sounds. If the mud cracks on his face, then all of a sudden everyone in the tribe will be like, "Mm, he's not desirable." So he doesn't pass on his genes. So it's this idea that he said that just generation after generation, knowing that those where the mud doesn't crack are then considered desirable, then mate, then pass on their genes. And their offspring do exactly the same, exactly the same, exactly the same. And what you're left with is just this incredible group of people with their pain tolerance. I mean, with that, as we were sat around the fire, he pulled out a knife and was like, "Ross, do you wanna run faster?" I was like, "I'm good." [laughs] I'm, I'm good. But I, I think I'm fascinated. To answer your question, I love looking back through history and just will take inspiration from anywhere and everywhere, even that, if that is ritualistic circumcision. I've, I've not done it [laughs] with mud on my face, but I do find that stuff fascinating.

    5. AHAndrew Huberman1:40:52

       Wow.

    6. RERoss Edgley1:40:52

       [laughs]

    7. AHAndrew Huberman1:40:54

       The, the, uh, the alternate response would've been, "Look, I totally respect your tradition.

    8. RERoss Edgley1:40:59

       [laughs]

    9. AHAndrew Huberman1:41:00

       I spent a lot of time in cold water. I need all the insulation I can get."

    10. RERoss Edgley1:41:03

        [laughs]

    11. AHAndrew Huberman1:41:05

        But, but hey, uh, you know, uh, the, your reply is up to you.

    12. RERoss Edgley1:41:08

        [laughs]

    13. AHAndrew Huberman1:41:09

        Wow.

    14. RERoss Edgley1:41:10

        Is there anything like that that you found with pain tolerance as well? Are there studies around that?

    15. AHAndrew Huberman1:41:13

        Yeah so, I mean, on my list of things to discuss with you is the generalizability of, of resilience training. You know, this is a fascinating and, and still somewhat opaque area of science. I mean, you know, uh, let me put it this way. On the one hand, we know that there's a very limited and well-defined list of chemicals, epinephrine, adrenaline released in the body, norepinephrine released in the brain, from the locus coeruleus. We can even get specific about locations and circuits. Dopamine, and if the stress is long enough, cortisol, that are associated with, uh, a high arousal painful stimulus. And other things too, right? Dynorphin, which is sort of the opposite of endorphin. I- i- in any case, you'll experience a, a rise in those whether you're getting into uncomfortably cold water, you're getting stung by hornets, or God forbid, you're, uh, you're experiencing a public, um, circumcision-

    16. RERoss Edgley1:42:04

        [laughs]

    17. AHAndrew Huberman1:42:05

        ... and, and you can't flinch. It's true, right? I mean, among other things, right? There are many, many other molecules and things happening there. But those-

    18. RERoss Edgley1:42:10

        Mm

    19. AHAndrew Huberman1:42:11

        ... but those undoubtedly are involved. So then the question becomes, can our memory system, our prefrontal cortex and our memory system, apply a, a set of rules whereby in a different stressor, this thing, this arou- this, like, negative arousal, pain, pain, can... Is it familiar to us? And can we then walk ourselves through it in a way that we understand, okay, this pain makes it feel like it's gonna go on forever, but this too shall pass, right?

    20. RERoss Edgley1:42:37

        Mm.

    21. AHAndrew Huberman1:42:37

        And to some extent, the data say yes, in particular about deliberate cold water exposure.

    22. RERoss Edgley1:42:43

        Mm.

    23. AHAndrew Huberman1:42:43

        But that's a unique one because first of all, unless the water is very, very cold, and God forbid, ple- people, don't jump into an ice hole. I'm so tired of seeing people either do hyperventilation and then go into cold water and die, water of any kind and die, or videos of people jumping into ice holes and getting swept under. It's really, it happens and it's awful. But deliberate cold exposure with a shower or a cold plunge done safely, people can get familiar with the experience of being flooded with adrenaline-

    24. RERoss Edgley1:43:11

        Mm

    25. AHAndrew Huberman1:43:11

        ... and the fact that the mind is in complete disarray for the first 20 or 30 seconds, and that it can slow their breathing-

    26. RERoss Edgley1:43:17

        Mm

    27. AHAndrew Huberman1:43:17

        ... and grab hold of, uh, their mind and create a strategy-

    28. RERoss Edgley1:43:20

        Mm

    29. AHAndrew Huberman1:43:21

        ... to get through it or get out of it, whatever.

    30. RERoss Edgley1:43:22

        Mm.
21. 1:45:48 – 1:48:10

    Strength Training

    1. AHAndrew Huberman1:45:48

       I wanted to ask you about your training, uh, your physical training. One thing that's peculiar about you, at least to me, is that you're, you're pretty heavily muscled for a guy that's supposed to float-

    2. RERoss Edgley1:45:56

       Yeah. [laughs]

    3. AHAndrew Huberman1:45:56

       ... in the water. So, um, like, uh, what's that about? I mean, you do strength stuff, too. What, what does your training look like now when you're in between-

    4. RERoss Edgley1:46:06

       Mm

    5. AHAndrew Huberman1:46:06

       ... sort of, um, these s- super events?

    6. RERoss Edgley1:46:09

       A l- a lot of strength training, 'cause I think it's so interesting that when doing the sort of swims that I do, these ultra-marathons, you know, around countries, it's... You, you're taking swimming and conventional sports science, and you're just moving outside of those realms. For instance, a lot of friends of mine who are amazing swimmers, Olympians, sometimes I'll ask questions like, "Oh, around Iceland, was it a, a two-beat leg kick, a four-beat leg kick? Are you bilaterally breathing? What's your VO2? What's your lactic threshold at?" I'm like, "No, no, no, no." [laughs] When you're caught in an arctic storm and you are just windmilling, none of that matters. Strength training, especially with mechanotransduction, this idea that people think of strength training as just improving the strength of the muscles, but actually connective tissue, ligaments, tendons, they all-

    7. AHAndrew Huberman1:46:50

       Mm

    8. RERoss Edgley1:46:50

       ... get stronger as well. For me, that's why I strength train so much, because on my swims, it's not my lactic threshold, VO2 technique. It will be a ligament or a tendon, something that gives up-

    9. AHAndrew Huberman1:47:01

       Mm

    10. RERoss Edgley1:47:01

        ... that will stop the swim physically.

    11. AHAndrew Huberman1:47:03

        Mm. Got it. The chassis.

    12. RERoss Edgley1:47:04

        Exactly. Exactly.

    13. AHAndrew Huberman1:47:05

        Yeah, can't have the chassis break down.

    14. RERoss Edgley1:47:07

        Exactly that. So it's almost, um, uh, yeah, I joke, but friends of mine from Loughborough University, Adam Peaty, the greatest breaststroker the world has ever seen, he is amazing. He is poetic in the water. He is a mako shark. It's just beautiful to watch him. I am a chubby whale at best, you know? I am just there, you know, and just migrating basically. That, that is what I'm doing. I'm not poetic in the water, but I just, I won't stop. So I think strength training, and it's only now, 'cause for so long in endurance, it was a dirty word, you know, strength training. Whereas now we're understanding that certainly the idea of general physical preparedness or in your preseason making the body physically robust enough to then endure the, the intensity or the volume that you subject it to later.

    15. AHAndrew Huberman1:47:51

        Mm-hmm.

    16. RERoss Edgley1:47:52

        A friend of mine at the English Institute of Sport had a great saying. It was like, "Sometimes you need to train to train." You know, before I can subject you to 150 kilometers in the pool a week, we need to make sure the connective tissue and everything-

    17. AHAndrew Huberman1:48:03

        Mm

    18. RERoss Edgley1:48:03

        ... there's no weak part of that kinetic chain. So I think at the moment that that's kind of where we're at, that general physical preparedness.

22. 1:48:10 – 1:49:38

    Sponsor: Eight Sleep

    1. AHAndrew Huberman1:48:10

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23. 1:49:38 – 1:55:07

    Process vs Outcomes, Psychological Adaptability

    1. AHAndrew Huberman1:49:38

       I don't have anything even close to your, uh, physical abilities, but a few years ago I decided that I would do two kinds of training. I'd love your thoughts on how I can improve this. Um, in addition to doing strength and endurance training and some sprints and this, some kind of thing, it, it is more about the mental side.

    2. RERoss Edgley1:49:53

       Mm.

    3. AHAndrew Huberman1:49:53

       I was on a camping trip with my girlfriend for her birthday, and we, we did a, a hike up Clouds Rest, which is one of my favorite hikes in Yosemite. It's about 14 miles up and back, and, and most anyone can do it with Some level of endurance and physical ability. It's not grueling. But I had a sinus infection, and it was her birthday, and I'd been there before. She hadn't been there before, and I wanted to, like, really show her a great time. And she's really physically robust and, and she was just motoring up. And I was carrying a lot of water, granted, but I was struggling that day. And I decided at some point that I would, uh, I knew I was gonna get to the top 'cause the, the, the hike is actually not that awesome along the way, but at the top, it's just majestic. You're above Half Dome. It's so awesome. Uh, you could run it. Uh, I've run it in the past, and I highly recommend it. It's just a fantastic, fantastic hike for anybody. But along the way, I realized I was really struggling, so I decided I would just wa- I have this thing where I, like, I'm just gonna watch the process and see what the, what the cycles are. And I noticed the cycles went from something like, "F this. This really sucks. I'm gonna just push against that," to I would distract myself. I would think about something else. And then I would just sort of go into this kind of like liminal state, and then it would repeat.

    4. RERoss Edgley1:51:04

       Mm-hmm.

    5. AHAndrew Huberman1:51:04

       It would go back to F this. And sometimes the timescale of those would be minutes, and sometimes it would be, like, tens of minutes and so on. And I thought, "This is kind of interesting. It's, like, three things. It's not 20." It's not, it's not, like, all the spokes. It's, like, three, and they're on repeat.

    6. RERoss Edgley1:51:17

       Mm.

    7. AHAndrew Huberman1:51:17

       I was like, "This is pretty useful." Like, I'm gonna try and do this. And so I r- you know, I r- in other areas. So now when I run my longer runs, I think, "Okay, I'm either gonna listen to something and distract myself, music, et cetera, pay attention to what's around," or there are some runs now that I do where I try and concentrate on every step and just try and make it as painful as possible to just try and, like, build a resilience for each.

    8. RERoss Edgley1:51:42

       Mm.

    9. AHAndrew Huberman1:51:42

       'Cause in a hard conversation, distracting yourself is actually not useful. So this may be where the translatability or non-translatability of, of stress inoculation needs more of a fine point.

    10. RERoss Edgley1:51:54

        Yeah.

    11. AHAndrew Huberman1:51:54

        The reason I'm bringing this up here like this is I, I, I feel like the sports performance and the psychological performance community needs, like, more refined tools.

    12. RERoss Edgley1:52:02

        Mm-hmm.

    13. AHAndrew Huberman1:52:03

        So maybe it should be go out, do the thing, and really just concentrate on just how much it sucks for as many seconds as possible, and every time you forget it sucks, you failed.

    14. RERoss Edgley1:52:12

        [laughs]

    15. AHAndrew Huberman1:52:13

        Right? For a moment. And then the other one would be learn how to distract yourself because-

    16. RERoss Edgley1:52:17

        Mm

    17. AHAndrew Huberman1:52:17

        ... there are conditions that are stressful where you wanna distract yourself, and then, like, I've got a friend who's a neurosurgeon, and distracting himself during a stressful moment is, like, the exact wrong thing to do. Does that make sense?

    18. RERoss Edgley1:52:27

        It makes complete sense. [laughs]

    19. AHAndrew Huberman1:52:28

        Okay. All right, cool. So maybe my hope is that people listen to you around performance, and they should listen to you because you actually do the stuff.

    20. RERoss Edgley1:52:38

        Mm-hmm.

    21. AHAndrew Huberman1:52:38

        My runs are trivial for you and for most people, but I feel like more specific tools with more aimed at specific outcomes, I feel like it's kinda what the general public needs.

    22. RERoss Edgley1:52:49

        Mm, mm.

    23. AHAndrew Huberman1:52:49

        So to become a better listener, learn to concentrate on the pain for long periods of time and not flinch.

    24. RERoss Edgley1:52:55

        Y- yeah, yeah, yeah, 100%. But I, but I love what you said there as well because this is something with the, uh, the Royal Marines, a friend of mine who's a psychologist there. And he was just saying, and everyone listening will understand this, but when you're focusing on the outcome, if you're looking at the clock, if you're like, "How much further have I got to walk? Oh, my God, is it, you know, we've still got 10 hours of walking and stuff," you're thinking of the outcome. And he said you have to just focus on the process. For you, Ross, when you're swimming, it's putting one arm in front of the other as efficiently as possible. Is it a high elbow catch? Are you finishing your stroke? And if you focus on that, the outcome becomes inevitable. But by focusing on the outcome, you're not focusing on the process. And I think for me, when my mind drifts sometimes, I come straight back to focus on the process as well.

    25. AHAndrew Huberman1:53:37

        Mm.

    26. RERoss Edgley1:53:37

        But I love what you said there because sometimes I just tune out, and I wanna be anywhere but there. And I'll be thinking of some, the, the weirdest things. Like my, I'll do my shopping list for my Christmas shopping in my head, you know, and I'll just go somewhere completely different. But sometimes I do really find just drilling back, don't watch the clock, don't look at the outcome, don't ask how far you've got. I don't wanna know. And that's, that's quite easy to do sometimes when sea swimming because you have no point of reference. You can't see land, so you are just swimming, immersed in your own thoughts. And some of the weirdest swims I did, um, under the northern lights, and you also get this, uh, phosphorescent algae. So as you're swimming, the only way I can describe it is like you're swimming in a black hole. Like, you turn to breathe, you see the northern lights, the Valkyries, their shimmering shields, and then you pull, and as you pull, this phosphorescent algae just lights up in your face. And there's moments like that where I'm like, "I don't wanna be anywhere. I wanna be so present. This is amazing."

    27. AHAndrew Huberman1:54:31

        Mm.

    28. RERoss Edgley1:54:31

        And then other times where I'm just like, "I wanna be anywhere but here." And j- and it's, and, and it's having that sort of, you know, psychological adaptability to just flick between all of them. Use whichever one you need at that moment in time. The spokes-

    29. AHAndrew Huberman1:54:45

        Mm-hmm

    30. RERoss Edgley1:54:45

        ... just go to whichever one's gonna get you through it, and you need loads of different ones.
24. 1:55:07 – 2:02:02

    Cyclops & Tunnel Vision, Yukon Swim; Cuttlefish

    1. AHAndrew Huberman1:55:07

       I wanna talk about, uh, vision a- and share with you something. Again, I came in, like, really excited to be able to share some of my favorite studies that hopefully, uh, would be of interest, uh, and perhaps of use to you and the listeners. So are you familiar with the myth of the Cyclops?

    2. RERoss Edgley1:55:22

       No.

    3. AHAndrew Huberman1:55:22

       Like the, the guy with the one-

    4. RERoss Edgley1:55:24

       Oh, I know the Cyclop-

    5. AHAndrew Huberman1:55:24

       ... one eye in the middle of his head.

    6. RERoss Edgley1:55:25

       Yeah, yeah.

    7. AHAndrew Huberman1:55:26

       So there's this wild thing where, um, animals with i- um, with their eyes on the side of their head tend to be prey animals, and they have panoramic vision.

    8. RERoss Edgley1:55:34

       Mm.

    9. AHAndrew Huberman1:55:34

       And, uh, animals with their eyes in the front can generate depth perception much better, stereopsis and so on, and they tend to be the predators. And there are some animals that can translocate their eyes to go from kind of panoramic to, like, more focused vision.

    10. RERoss Edgley1:55:48

        Yeah.

    11. AHAndrew Huberman1:55:48

        Um, there are a lot of ideas about the myth of the Cyclops, but when we move our vision, even though our eyes are fixed in our head, towards a particular, uh, vergence point, like a target, it raises our arousal and our ability to recruit energy-

    12. RERoss Edgley1:56:03

        Oh, this is awesome

    13. AHAndrew Huberman1:56:03

        ... physical energy and mental energy. People in the fight game know this. When we dilate our gaze, we relax. We, we come off the gas pedal a little bit.

    14. RERoss Edgley1:56:12

        Right.

    15. AHAndrew Huberman1:56:12

        We can still do things, but we are actually, th- because of the way that vision and time perception are linked, we can actually see more.

    16. RERoss Edgley1:56:19

        Mm.

    17. AHAndrew Huberman1:56:20

        Motion perception at the periphery gets better, obviously, 'cause you're not looking through a soda straw, you're looking through in kind of panorama. But you are less able to recruit a lot of energy to o- one location. There are a lot of examples of this in the animal world that I could spell out, and this was an area I focused on for a long time, but we, we won't, yeah, go there. The myth of the Cyclops is i- in part, okay, is in part about a creature who only has soda straw vision, and therefore is constantly angry, and that anger is actually what leads to its demise. It can't see the big picture, and so it can be defeated by something from the periphery.

    18. RERoss Edgley1:56:57

        Oh, I love this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [laughs]

    19. AHAndrew Huberman1:56:58

        And so, yeah, I thought you might like this. I thought you might like this. So what I'd like to know is, even with your head underwater, but maybe even the, in the routines of daily life, do you ever find yourself thinking about big picture?

    20. RERoss Edgley1:57:09

        Mm.

    21. AHAndrew Huberman1:57:10

        Soda straw view? Tunnel vision versus kind of dialing, as a dynamic process. Because people in martial arts use this as a way to, um, slow time perception down in order to, or speed it up, in order to control aspects of the fight. You're somewhat limited underwater into what you can see, but like you said, the focusing just on the stroke in the moment is sort of the mental equivalent of the soda straw view. But if you don't keep the big picture in mind, that pain in your shoulder and the perception of it can grow to the point where it can become disabling. So there's some utility in being able to dynamically switch back and forth.

    22. RERoss Edgley1:57:46

        Now that you've said that, I've never thought about it like that. I love the Cyclops myth. I love- I'm using that. [laughs] That's amazing. But I, I absolutely do that. So o- on the Yukon Swim, for instance, so that's was the, uh, the world's longest non-stop river swim, just down the Yukon, and there were times where I just wanted to take everything in, and I sat there and I'm eating a banana. I'm like, wow. And I don't know whether that's switching on the parasympathetic nervous system. You're relaxed.

    23. AHAndrew Huberman1:58:09

        Mm-hmm.

    24. RERoss Edgley1:58:10

        You're enjoying it. This is all amazing. And then there was other times, like for instance, like during the night and the temperature just plummeted, I was like, "That is sympathetic nervous. That is fight or flight, and I am not taking in anything." Like, these amazing scenes. People would go to me, "Oh my God, Ross, did you see the moose? Did you see the bear?" You know, so I'm just like, "No. [laughs] I am just staring at the bottom of the river," and at best, out of my peripheral vision, I am just making sure that I've got a high elbow catch and I'm ripping through the water. I've just gone full Cyclops mode. Like, that is what I'm doing.

    25. AHAndrew Huberman1:58:43

        Mm-hmm.

    26. RERoss Edgley1:58:43

        And I've never thought about it, but that's exactly what I was doing. Yeah.

    27. AHAndrew Huberman1:58:46

        Mm-hmm.

    28. RERoss Edgley1:58:46

        And I don't know, I'm trying to think of another example where I've done that, but certainly swimming, that is exactly what I do.

    29. AHAndrew Huberman1:58:51

        Mm.

    30. RERoss Edgley1:58:51

        You know, th- there's times when I look, head above the water, having a banana, taking it all in, in Iceland, looking at the fjords, and then there's times where it's just like, no, no, no, no. It is just you are dialed in.
25. 2:02:02 – 2:11:59

    Caffeine, Nicotine, Alpha GPC, Creatine, Supplement Use

    1. RERoss Edgley2:02:02

       that. Yeah, I, what I love about this is that it's, a- again, it's the berserker. It's this idea of, like, nature leaves clues and, you know, success leaves clues. Biomimicry and just going right. We, but we've lost that. I think, you know, we humans have lost certain things. But this is amazing, just to go, "I'm gonna switch this on." Like-

    2. AHAndrew Huberman2:02:17

       Mm-hmm

    3. RERoss Edgley2:02:17

       ... you know, the cuttlefish. That's what I'm gonna do. I, yeah, I love that. I'm actually, I'm gonna, next time I swim, I'm gonna, I'll message you. I'm gonna purposely do that as well. I always control all the variables on my swim, so I know exactly, you know, I've got my lane, I know the distance, I know the water temp, everything, and I'm just gonna start experimenting with this. Maybe as well, I love, like, for me, and this is a whole other discussion, but even playing with, uh, like, caffeine on the Yukon swim. We were getting into the grams towards the end, you know, uh, uh, of the swim, and that, again, it just enabled me to just be so much happier doing such a mundane task and looking at the bottom of the sea. But if I punt, like, just dark clouds, I'm struggling, my shoulders are hurting. 400 milligrams of caffeine, 15 minutes later, that life's not so bad. This is [laughs] I'm just ripping through the water. Do, do you find that, that you can almost... Yeah, you can biohack. You can, yeah, okay.

    4. AHAndrew Huberman2:03:07

       There are stimulants like caffeine that are incredibly powerful, um, in that way. I love caffeine. I have a high caffeine tolerance, so I can do that. You know, things like nicotine, which I've experimented with, the, the problem I have is that it really sets up a very f- quick dependence.

    5. RERoss Edgley2:03:23

       Mm.

    6. AHAndrew Huberman2:03:23

       Like, I start to crave it-

    7. RERoss Edgley2:03:25

       Mm

    8. AHAndrew Huberman2:03:25

       ... and it's a quick up and down for me. Some people don't mind that. For me, it's, it's not a great tool. Um-

    9. RERoss Edgley2:03:30

       Faster than caffeine, so short half-life.

    10. AHAndrew Huberman2:03:32

        Much fast, much faster.

    11. RERoss Edgley2:03:32

        Yeah. Yeah.

    12. AHAndrew Huberman2:03:33

        And, and maybe it's the way I'm doing it or the way I metabolize it a- and so on. Occasionally, I'll take, like, a, a milligram or two in a workout, but then I notice I get very tired post-workout-

    13. RERoss Edgley2:03:41

        Mm

    14. AHAndrew Huberman2:03:42

        ... in a way that I don't if I don't take it.

    15. RERoss Edgley2:03:44

        Mm.

    16. AHAndrew Huberman2:03:44

        So I li- I prefer to keep nicotine as a oral nicotine, you know? So not smoking or vaping, dipping or snuffing.

    17. RERoss Edgley2:03:49

        Mm.

    18. AHAndrew Huberman2:03:49

        But, you know, like, the, the t- the lozenges or something are, uh, as an every once in a wh- every once in a great while tool-

    19. RERoss Edgley2:03:55

        Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm

    20. AHAndrew Huberman2:03:56

        ... as opposed to an everyday tool. Caffeine's an everyday thing, unless I'm carrying some sort of, like, respiratory-

    21. RERoss Edgley2:04:01

        Mm

    22. AHAndrew Huberman2:04:01

        ... infection or something, in which case I cut it out, which is probably half of the misery I experience while on that respiratory-

    23. RERoss Edgley2:04:07

        Yeah

    24. AHAndrew Huberman2:04:07

        ... infection.

    25. RERoss Edgley2:04:07

        Yeah.

    26. AHAndrew Huberman2:04:08

        It just makes it so much better when you come back.

    27. RERoss Edgley2:04:09

        Yeah, yeah. [laughs]

    28. AHAndrew Huberman2:04:10

        Caffeine is a beautiful thing. I, I, I b- I back it, and it backs me.

    29. RERoss Edgley2:04:15

        [laughs]

    30. AHAndrew Huberman2:04:15

        So we, yeah.
26. 2:11:59 – 2:20:26

    Strength Training & Workouts, Strength Reserve, Endurance

    1. AHAndrew Huberman2:11:59

       And so you do a fair amount of strength training. Does that mean pure strength, like training in the, you know, one to four rep range, not trying to grow your muscles, not going to failure but going close to it, a lot of volume? This is how I understand sort of optimal strength training protocols, frequent sessions and so on.

    2. RERoss Edgley2:12:15

       Exactly that as well. And, and I'm a huge fan of, uh, Cam McEvoy, so he's the, uh, current 50-meter freestyle world record holder. It was London 2012. He was the, the golden boy of Australian swimming. Didn't quite perform how he wanted to, so fell out of love with swimming. Then COVID happened, and he was just like, "Ah, you know, I, I don't think I'm gonna go back to swimming, but I like calisthenics. I like rock climbing." And he started doing that, got really strong as well. And now we know there's a direct correlation between your one-rep max on pull-ups and your swim sprint speed as well. So Cam now, he was drilling technique and doing, h- honestly, Andrew, like speed reps with 80 kilos between his legs. And he just got crazy strong, even holding, like, a front lever as well, 'cause he was like, "That's kind of the same as swimming." So he taught himself this. Basically coming out of COVID, somebody then joked and went, "Oh, there's a local swim gala. You should, you should dust off the goggles and the speed and just get in and see how good you are." And so for a joke, he was like, "Ah, look, I'm gonna turn up and see if I've still got it." He got in and ripped a personal best. Everyone was like, "Oh." So he basically completely changed his training where there was a huge emphasis on strength, speed, and power. Now, he's a 50-meter specialist, recently gone into the 100 as well. But I think the one thing that I have taken from that is that idea of your strength reserve. So now I'm drilling my one-rep max on pull-ups, knowing that as that improves, then all of a sudden when I'm swimming, swimming almost being a unilateral form of a lat pull-down with each arm, every single stroke and the force that I generate is a smaller percentage of what I'm capable of because I have a larger one-rep max on pull-ups as well.

    3. AHAndrew Huberman2:13:52

       Got it.

    4. RERoss Edgley2:13:52

       One of the best examples of strength reserve, um, I was talking about this earlier, but, but, but Eddie Hall. So Eddie went into a, a CrossFit competition. I forget the name of the award, but there was a record, and it was basically 60 kilos on the bar. When you look at CrossFit as a poetic technique, sort of clean to the chest, and then it was a push press. But because Eddie is Eddie Hall and because he's so strong, it was more akin to just a front delt raise. [laughs] Maybe an upright row, but he just, like, picked up the bar and just went one, two, just did it like that. And again, it was because he just had a crazy strength reserve. 60 kilos for him was so light because he was so strong. So that's the reason I still strength train now.

    5. AHAndrew Huberman2:14:32

       Mm.

    6. RERoss Edgley2:14:32

       It's this idea very much inspired by, you know, Eddie Hall, Cam McEvoy, the strength reserve. When I'm training mechanotransduction, my connective tissue is really, really strong, but also because my one-rep max on pull-ups is so strong, every single stroke is a smaller percentage of what I'm capable of.

    7. AHAndrew Huberman2:14:48

       Interesting. Um- I love to run and I love to lift, and I find that if I'm lifting in sort of middle rep range, so six to 12 repetitions, uh, close to or to failure, I find that my runs suffer.

    8. RERoss Edgley2:15:03

       Mm.

    9. AHAndrew Huberman2:15:04

       Um, recovery suffers. But I'm playing with the idea that pure strength training and endurance training might actually fit pretty well together. Is that your experience, or am I gonna y- am I setting myself up for additional frustration?

    10. RERoss Edgley2:15:18

        I personally think yes. Like, absolutely. I, I, I think even when you're looking now, um, at, uh, like Michael Johnson, do you remember he had that amazing running technique? But we now understand that even though that was potentially shortening his stride, it was increasing the amount of force he could generate through each foot, and we now know that's a greater predictor of, of speed as well. So I think that's so interesting, that drilling down into your strength, I think, one, will help you generate more force per stride, but, but also as well even hold efficient biomechanics.

    11. AHAndrew Huberman2:15:48

        Mm-hmm.

    12. RERoss Edgley2:15:48

        And I think that's overlooked as well.

    13. AHAndrew Huberman2:15:50

        Mm-hmm.

    14. RERoss Edgley2:15:50

        Yeah, so I, I personally think they complement each other really well.

    15. AHAndrew Huberman2:15:54

        How many days a week are you doing, are you lifting?

    16. RERoss Edgley2:15:56

        At the moment, because I'm sort of off-season, uh, pretty much like five days a week.

    17. AHAndrew Huberman2:16:01

        Okay.

    18. RERoss Edgley2:16:02

        Yeah.

    19. AHAndrew Huberman2:16:02

        And, um, are you doing the same lifts on multiple days? So, or same muscle groups on multiple days?

    20. RERoss Edgley2:16:08

        Quite similar, yeah. Yeah, so I'm almost trying to do, uh, like the Bulgarian training method, but for swimming with, with one-rep max on pull-ups-

    21. AHAndrew Huberman2:16:17

        Mm-hmm

    22. RERoss Edgley2:16:17

        ... if that makes sense. So I, I'm very aware that the Bulgarian training method, you know, they broke more champions than they made. You know, they were like, "You are gonna lift heavy 365 days of the year, seven hours a day," you know, and they were just breaking kids and go, "Oh, all right, that one's broken, that one's broken." But the one who could tolerate it was a world champion, was a world record holder. I, through so many years now, I, I am quite lucky that I do have quite a high work capacity. So work capacity, your, your body's ability to perform and positively tolerate training of a given intensity or duration. And so I just respond really well to just being flogged with volume. And so I'm almost doing these still long aerobic sessions when swimming, but also almost spamming it with a Bulgarian-inspired training method of, of strength training as well.

    23. AHAndrew Huberman2:17:02

        How long are those, uh, workouts in the gym from when you walk in until you walk out?

    24. RERoss Edgley2:17:06

        The strength session itself can be 45 minutes long because it is just pure strength, your body's ability to generate force. And even when we're doing plyometrics, you don't want to be doing a lot. A great friend of mine, Linford Christie, uh, I still believe he's the oldest 100-meter champion. Um, it took me a while when learning about speed and plyometrics, because I always thought more was better, as is my nature. And Linford would be like, "Go home, Ross. You're actually drilling bad technique now."

    25. AHAndrew Huberman2:17:32

        Mm-hmm.

    26. RERoss Edgley2:17:32

        "You're done."

    27. AHAndrew Huberman2:17:33

        Mm-hmm.

    28. RERoss Edgley2:17:33

        And so it's very much inspired by that. On my strength sessions, I'm making sure that everything is dialed in and they're per- they're 45 minutes long. Any longer and you're just drilling bad technique. You're not actually training strength anymore.

    29. AHAndrew Huberman2:17:44

        Mm-hmm.

    30. RERoss Edgley2:17:44

        Certainly not speed and power as well. And I think o- one of the biggest things that, um, I found recently as well is, is, uh, supra-isometric maximal holds as well. So before my heavier lifts, uh, let's take pull-ups, for example. I'm doing about 60 kilos at the moment clean. And so what I'll do, sometimes put anywhere between 80, 90, 100 kilos on the weight, hold in an active hang only three seconds. So you're not trying to fatigue yourself. You're trying to switch on the central nervous system.
27. 2:20:26 – 2:29:13

    Girlfriend, Worry; Doing What Others Cannot, Gratitude

    1. AHAndrew Huberman2:20:26

       I have a question about your significant other.

    2. RERoss Edgley2:20:27

       [laughs]

    3. AHAndrew Huberman2:20:28

       It's interesting and wonderful that she supports you in these arguably somewhat or very much dangerous e- endeavors, and you guys have a child together, so she's vested, uh, clearly. But a friend of mine who, uh, had a very high-risk, high-consequence, uh, ca- ... a job for many years, said that, um, his wife, who's been his wife throughout all of that and now into the current phase of his life, which is a lot less high risk, high consequence, um, said that if she didn't have to worry about him, she'd have to worry about a lot of other things. So I, you can't answer for her, uh, but d-

    4. RERoss Edgley2:21:03

       [laughs]

    5. AHAndrew Huberman2:21:03

       I wonder whether when you don't have one of these dangerous pursuits, uh, does her anxiety tend to subside, or does it tend to then, like, wick out to other things? Because th- the brain, I say this, uh, for, um, I ask for multiple reasons, because the brain likes to... If we need to worry, we need to worry about something, and if we need to worry about something, it's, we can't worry about a lot of other things. So I could imagine it would, th- there's a certain advantageous piece to this.

    6. RERoss Edgley2:21:28

       Oh, I think there is.

    7. AHAndrew Huberman2:21:29

       Yeah.

    8. RERoss Edgley2:21:29

       And, and 'cause I, I love the work of Jordan Peterson when he's just like, "Life is suffering. Life is gonna be horrible, so you might as well pick your suffering."

    9. AHAndrew Huberman2:21:35

       Mm-hmm.

    10. RERoss Edgley2:21:35

        You know, with Sisyphus, pick up the boulder. Do you know what I mean? That, that, that I think is, is absolutely true, and I don't, I don't want to see that I'm, you know, I'm a pleasant headache for her, [laughs] but I, I do think... And certainly for me as well on the swims, people are like, "Oh, you know, it sounds brutal, you know, 157 days at sea, swimming around Great Britain." But I'm like, but you got to understand, I think I'm living like humans were always meant to live. Like in that I'm not spiking cortisol throughout the entire day. I'm not thinking have I paid the mortgage, have I taxed the car, I've got an email, oh God, you know. None of that. I wake up, and life is so simple. I just wake up, and I've got two questions. What is the tide doing, and what's for breakfast? That is it. And then I get in, and every 20 minutes someone throws a banana over the boat, and I eat it. Life is so good. [laughs] So I do think sometimes for me, yeah, it's, it's really nice. And may- maybe, maybe for Hester as well, in that she wakes up and just go, "Okay, he's still afloat." She looks on the marine tracker, like when I was going around Iceland, 'cause she couldn't come out to the boat. Obviously, she was heavily pregnant. So she would just see the, on the marine tracker that the boat was moving. So she'd wake up in the middle of the night and go, "Okay, he's moving," and then she'd go back to sleep. [laughs]

    11. AHAndrew Huberman2:22:45

        God bless her.

Episode duration: 2:43:37