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Jay Shetty Podcast

⁠Andrew Huberman's Hack To Increase Your Dopamine Levels & Boost Motivation By 60%

Dr. Andrew Huberman, @hubermanlab, dives into the neuroscience behind human connection and the rising loneliness epidemic many of us feel today.

Dr. Andrew HubermanguestGreat Minds Jay Shettyhost

Sep 23, 20241h 45mWatch on YouTube

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CHAPTERS

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Chapter summaries

Safety and Acceptance as Brain Foundations
Jay Shetty asks what is happening in the brain as online followings grow while friendships weaken. Andrew Huberman answers that social connectedness rests on two needs, safety and acceptance, and that safety is the brain's ability to predict outcomes. He links this to hardwired circuits and early caretaker bonding.
- •Brain and body are bidirectionally interconnected, so 'brain' stands in for the whole nervous system
- •Safety is about predicting outcomes, which frees neural real estate for creativity
- •Acceptance dovetails with safety circuits: will people still be there despite our range of expressions?
- •Early caretaker bonding builds resonance and a sense of predictability
- •Huberman borrows the list peace, contentment, fulfillment, belonging from Martha Beck
Friendship, Predictability and the Good Morning Text
Huberman describes friendship as a reliable source of predictability and recommends from his own experience a daily good morning text with one to three people. He ties it to the brain's dedicated machinery for faces and to safety and acceptance. Jay adds ideas about story exchange and listing which emotions different friends fulfill.
- •Friendship allows many close ties without trade-offs, unlike typical romantic pairings
- •A reliable daily good morning text has an outsized positive effect for Huberman
- •Neural real estate is devoted to processing human faces
- •Jay says daily texting lets in-person time connect the dots rather than plot them
- •Jay suggests listing emotions you want from people and matching each to a different person
Being Seen: Meaningful Questions and Vigilance
Huberman recounts a friend asking what was in his heart and reflects on how such questions show care. He explains that safety turns off vigilance circuits, and that stress narrows cognition, using the magic library in the Harry Potter play as an analogy.
- •Asking what is in someone's heart goes deeper than asking what is going on
- •Huberman says men open up if given the chance
- •Safety is about turning off neural circuits for vigilance
- •Stress narrows visual, auditory and cognitive fields
- •Great relationships have enough safety to let creativity in
Why Hard Protocols Create Predictability
Jay asks how we are wired for safety yet the good-for-us habits are hard. Huberman says the nervous system loves predictability even when it comes through hard things, and frames his protocols as ways to anchor physiology in predictable states. He describes them as optional and woven into daily life, and compares them to stocking a fridge.
- •Sunlight, cold plunges and consistent meals create predictable states
- •Cold exposure raises dopamine, epinephrine and norepinephrine for hours
- •Protocols are a buffet and optional, and missing a day is no big deal
- •Basics free up energy for friendships and creative life
- •Animals and humans need to know where they will sleep tonight
Repeated Thoughts and Breathing Protocols
Jay says repeated thoughts persist because no protocol has been built for them. Huberman agrees and discusses breathing, explaining that emphasizing exhales calms and emphasizing inhales raises activation, based on his lab's clinical trial. He uses long exhales when overthinking at night.
- •Jay suggests building a protocol around your most repeated thought
- •Huberman's lab published a breathing trial with David Spiegel
- •Longer exhales slow the heart rate via respiratory sinus arrhythmia
- •Hyperventilation and Tummo-style breathing raise activation
- •Huberman uses long exhale breathing to fall asleep
Yoga Nidra, NSDR and the Toolkit for Turning Off Thoughts
Huberman explains yoga nidra and NSDR, including a Danish study showing a 60% increase in baseline dopamine in the basal ganglia. He describes shifting from thinking and doing to being and feeling through interoception, and compares meditation, breathwork, hypnosis and nidra. Jay adds other meditation types and shares how he uses nidra.
- •A Copenhagen study showed a 60% rise in baseline dopamine in the basal ganglia
- •Nidra shifts attention from exteroception to interoception
- •Nidra improves wakefulness and autonomic regulation and resembles REM sleep
- •Meditation, breathwork, hypnosis and nidra each serve different purposes
- •Jay uses yoga nidra for pain recovery and jet lag
Mind Active, Body Still
Huberman describes how he uses nidra and how mind-active, body-still states appear in REM sleep and in the practices of Rick Rubin, Karl Deisseroth and Einstein. He notes that neuroscience has far better language for sleep states than waking ones. He says brain states deserve more study.
- •Huberman does nidra on waking, in the afternoon instead of a nap, and when waking at night
- •Rick Rubin sits still with his eyes closed to come up with ideas
- •Karl Deisseroth sits still and thinks in complete sentences for an hour
- •REM sleep helps form memories and uncouple negative emotions
- •We lack language for waking brain states
Bridging Silos and Living in the Gray
Huberman argues the overlap between neuroscience, ancient practices and other traditions is where the great ideas are, and that people should drop ego about owning practices. Jay adds that we only have language for extremes and that top experts explore uncertain, gray areas. Huberman votes for the league of reasonable people amid polarization.
- •Overlaps between neuroscience, yoga and traditional medicine are where great ideas are
- •There is no secret; the question is commonalities, mechanisms and practices
- •Jay says we describe experience only in extremes, even 'okay'
- •Curiosity about the unclear and uncertain is where life is lived
- •Huberman is pained by polarization and wants collective thinking
Anterior Midcingulate Cortex: Tenacity and Willpower
Huberman describes the anterior midcingulate cortex, found through Joe Parvizi's stimulation study, as linked to tenacity and willpower. It grows when people push through challenges they don't want to do and is preserved in superagers. He ties this to tolerating friction and to collective consciousness.
- •Stimulation of the area produced a feeling of being challenged but able
- •The area grows with challenging practices and is linked to the dopamine system
- •It is preserved or larger in superagers, though causality is unknown
- •Challenges you don't want to do are the ones that count, such as a short meditation
- •Tolerating internal friction could support collective problem-solving
Walls of Adrenaline: Cold Plunge and Hard Conversations
After Jay shares a coach's point about cold plunges, Huberman offers a protocol: rate how much you don't want to get in and count the walls of adrenaline. He says learning to recognize adrenaline and stay calm carries over to hard conversations, and gives a recent example from home.
- •Rate how badly you don't want to get in on a scale of 1 to 10
- •Walls are waves of adrenaline; getting in even for 15-20 seconds matters
- •Subjective relationship to the cold matters more than temperature or minutes
- •Adrenaline states shift cognition and remove solutions we had minutes earlier
- •Huberman used 'wall of adrenaline' language to defuse a hard conversation
Limiting Cynicism and Protecting Your Emotional Energy Online
Huberman says he tries to limit cynicism, which he sees as coming from insecurity and separating people, and encourages sharing aspirational ideas at any age. He raises the emotional bombardment of social media and asks Jay about boundaries. Jay answers with empathy and compassion for others and himself.
- •Cynicism separates people, while being critical and discerning is different
- •The age to share aspirational ideas is one day
- •Huberman calls email a public post to-do list and social media an evacuation of emotion
- •Jay responds with empathy for people let down by systems
- •Jay extends compassion to himself as a limited human
Letting Go of Control and Trusting
Jay says surrender and taking shelter in a greater source are strengths, comparable to asking friends for help. Huberman agrees that the greatest safety comes from not controlling everything, shares that he believes in God, and says giving up control is the most peace-inducing step he has taken. Both note it is an ongoing practice.
- •Jay sees a lack of control as a reminder that we aren't the controller
- •Asking for help is a sign of strength, not weakness
- •Huberman says safety comes from deciding what you need not be vigilant about
- •Huberman calls giving over control the most peace-inducing step he has taken
- •Letting go is a practice and must be balanced with building resilience
Podcasting as the Human Narrative
Huberman reflects on podcasts as the recorded human narrative, citing David Senra's description, and says they may be our stone tablets and cave drawings. He says they create a historical record and turn thoughts and emotions into tools.
- •Speaking and listening are the human narrative alongside writing, music and art
- •David Senra calls podcasting the human narrative of recorded radio
- •Huberman compares internet speech to stone tablets and cave drawings
- •Podcasts create a historical record that may serve our evolution
Sensing Energy, Bulldogs and Being Yourself
Huberman describes feeling experiences rather than only analyzing them, drawing on dogs, his bulldog Costello, and Rick Rubin's stillness. He compliments Jay and says podcasters should simply be themselves. Jay closes by tying the conversation to feeling safe and accepted in all parts of ourselves, and Huberman adds thanks.
- •Huberman is trying to sense experiences as well as think about them
- •Dog breeds show how nervous systems and energies differ, and Costello made him feel safe
- •Social media feels like eating 25 cuisines at once
- •Podcasters are being themselves, like Costello being Costello
- •Jay says being safe requires all parts of ourselves to be accepted

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