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Jay Shetty PodcastJay Shetty Podcast

INSTANTLY BOOST Energy & Focus To Become A PRODUCTIVITY MASTER | Andrew Huberman & Jay Shetty

Jay Shetty sits down with Andrew Huberman to talk about the beauty and power of the human mind.

Dr. Andrew HubermanguestGreat Minds Jay Shettyhost
May 2, 20221h 33mWatch on YouTube

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Transcript

  1. 0:00 – 3:05

    Intro

    1. AH

      When we positively associate with a song, a person, a face, an object, we don't just benefit from those activities based on the effects of those activities, it's also what we believe about those activities combined, and the release of dopamine makes you more capable of then leaning into life and going and doing other things. The effect of a small even, you know, half a percent increase in dopamine transmission in the brain k- is the difference between feeling like your life is bleak and you can completely attack the day in the positive sense.

    2. JS

      [upbeat music] Hey, everyone. Welcome back to On Purpose. I'm so grateful that you come back every single week to listen, learn, and grow. And you know that the podcast for me is just an opportunity to reach out to people that I'm inspired by, people that I feel are changing the world, people that I feel have amazing insights that I can learn from and want to share with you. And today's guest is someone that I've been connected with for a while, but I'm so excited to finally have him in the studio because not only is his insights having a huge impact on how we live, how we think, uh, just the energy that I felt from him in the first couple of moments that I've met him, I can already tell that it's all in his heart, too. And so to meet someone who's super strategic, super scientific, has an incredible mind, but has a beautiful heart in person, that's my kind of person. And today's guest is none other than Andrew Huberman. He's a neuroscientist and tenured professor in the Department of Neurobiology at the Stanford University School of Medicine. He has made numerous significant contributions to the fields of brain development, brain function, and neuroplasticity, which is the ability of our nervous system to rewire and learn new behaviors, skills, and cognitive functioning. He also is a McKnight Foundation and Pew Foundation fellow and was awarded the Kogan Award in 2017. Work from the Huberman laboratory at Stanford School of Medicine has been published in top journals, including Nature Science and Cell, and has been featured in Time, BBC, Scientific American, Discover, and other top media outlets. In 2021, Dr. Huberman launched the Huberman Lab podcast, which I'm a huge fan of, and I know you are, too. The podcast is frequently ranked in the top 25 of all podcasts globally and is often ranked as the number one in the categories of science, education, health, and fitness. Please welcome my new friend and, uh, someone that I'm a huge fan of and admire, Andrew Huberman. Andrew, thank you for doing this.

    3. AH

      Oh, thanks so much for having me.

    4. JS

      Uh, thanks for being here. And honestly, thank you for what you do in the world. I think it's been brilliant to see someone bring so much heart into science and science into heart. And I know that people who listen to you and hear from you and communicate with you, and even I've really meant it, the few moments we just spent right now, I, I love that combination. And I w- I wonder how you, whether you even see it that way, whether you don't. But I'm fascinated

  2. 3:05 – 7:13

    The beauty and utility of Biology

    1. JS

      by is that how you've always lived? Have you been fascinated by the heart and science for a while?

    2. AH

      First of all, I just want to say thank you for having me here. We've known each other, uh, through some mutual contacts for a while, and it, it's a delight to be here. I'm an admirer and a fan of all you do and the way you approach it, so, um, heartfelt thanks for, for having me here. Um, in terms of, you know, how things have evolved to, to, uh, where they are now, you know, I don't have much of a mission statement, but I suppose if I had to pick one, it's to share the, the beauty and the utility of biology. Since I was very young, I've been obsessed with learning, and I've also had a compulsion to share what I've learned, especially when I think that the information can be of use to people. So the little six and eight-year-old and 10-year-old version of me, um, wouldn't shut up. I was just constantly talking about all the stuff I had been reading about on the weekends. And over time, it just made sense to become an academic for that reason.

    3. JS

      [laughs]

    4. AH

      And then nowadays, with the advent of podcasting, I have this wonderful opportunity to share things that I think are useful. In terms of the heart and the mind, you know, I, I, uh, can only frame it by saying that, you know, our nervous system is our brain, our spinal cord, but of course all their connections with the organs of the body and back again. And so we really can't divorce any of the organs of the body from our thinking and feeling and action, and vice versa, as you very well know. And then from a more personal standpoint, you know, I've had the great benefit of training with mentors in science who really lived and breathed their science, but also had a deep sense of humanity. Each one of them had a, had an eye or an ear toward, um, things that were relevant to them. In one case, uh, uh, one, uh, with a particular interest in mental health and the struggles around mental health and mental illness. Um, the other, uh, just a, a person who just loved animals and the natural kingdom. And, and then my other advisor was a very strong advocate for scientists of all kinds and backgrounds. And so I was so blessed to be weaned by people who really instilled in me a love and a desire for learning and sharing and doing research, but also understood that how one shows up to the conversation means everything. And so, you know, I just feel very blessed to have had that, and I'm just trying to do right by, by them.

    5. JS

      I love hearing that. Like, I had no idea that that was a part of how you were mentored and, and guided and, I mean, I'm sure they feel very, uh, proud in seeing that y- you continue on and pass that legacy on and so beautifully. But I think what I find even more intriguing about that is so many of our early learning experiences are not necessarily that way. And you said that you loved learning and you loved sharing. I think most people that I know, or at least that I talk to or I hear from in comments or podcasts, would say school was not an exciting place for them. Maybe they went to college or didn't go to college, but they necessarily didn't have a positive experience. Maybe it was filled with fear or doubt or judgment or criticism, or maybe there was a lack of confidence. That could have been not only from teachers and the school system, it could have been from friends or bullies or, or people in that environment. So what I'm fascinated by is our relationship with learning, because when I look at my relationship with learning, too- I remember starting off having that buzz and spark, then almost feeling like I was forced to believe there were only certain ways you could learn. I grew up believing I didn't like reading because we were only encouraged to read fiction books. And even till this day, I don't like reading fiction books. I have no interest in reading fiction books. I love reading nonfiction. And today I can read nonfiction books every day, every week, every month, every year, and I'm fully engrossed and immersed. That's why I'm excited for your book one day. Uh, and I think that is something that I learned, that I do love reading, I do love learning, but I was never introduced to that form until my father gave me a biography when I was 14 years old. And so

  3. 7:13 – 12:24

    How has our relationship with learning been formed over time?

    1. JS

      how do you think our relationship with learning has been formed over time, hearing from your own as well?

    2. AH

      I think it was the great physicist Max Delbrück who said that, you know, when teaching, assume zero knowledge and infinite intelligence. I try and keep that in mind. I think that we are all innate learners by virtue of the fact that this thing, this nervous system as it's called, is really a map of our experience, and it's there to form itself. It's unusual among the organs in that it shapes itself, right? [laughs] Unlike the kidney or the liver, which doesn't constantly update its own form and function the same way. The nervous system is there essentially to educate itself so that it can operate better in a given environment. And once one understands that, you start to realize that the forms of learning are many. So for instance, you know, math, or I suppose in, in the UK it's maths [laughs]

    3. JS

      [laughs] Yeah, yeah

    4. AH

      ... I grew up. Um-

    5. JS

      Wow, well remembered. Yeah, yeah

    6. AH

      ... you know, ma- maths, you know, could be learned by way of, of, of different, using different types of examples, right? Movement of trains or bartering systems or on paper, just simple long division and multiplication. But in the end, what you're really trying to find anytime you're teaching or learning is you're trying to find, um, a universal algorithm of how the brain works. And what I mean by that is that, you know, all these nerve cells are, they only can communicate through chemicals and electricity. You know, it's really just meat in there, uh, believe it or not. Um, but there are algorithms that are universal. So whether or not one learns better verbally or visually, or whether one has a propensity for math or for verbal subjects, what is true for all of us is that the brain is there always asking questions and trying to make predictions about its environment. And I think what happens is when we're children, we are learning passively all the time. As we get older, and especially as we get to our mid and late 20s, it takes an immense amount of focus and energy in order to learn. But of course, the nervous system can still shape itself well into adulthood, b- uh, almost certainly for the entire lifespan. But that focus and energy feels almost like an agitation, and I think that as children, we don't necessarily experience that agitation because we can m- r- for better or for worse, we can experience and change passively. Neuroplasticity just happens by way of pure experience. As we get older, mid-20s, early 30s, and so on, that, that threshold of agitation for people feels, um, like it's something to back away from. But if we can learn to approach that and understand that that agitation is actually the circulation of chemicals, which is the n- the brain and nervous system telling itself, "Aha, now I need to pay attention and change," we can start to actually modify the way that system works. So it's a bit of a convoluted answer to your question, but I think that at the heart of our nervous system is this ability, these algorithms by which it can change its- themselves, and it's on all of us to understand that that bit of agitation and discomfort need not be interpreted as discomfort. That's the edge where learning is beginning. So confusion, being perplexed, um, feeling somewhat overwhelmed by the amount of information. That's actually the stir of chemicals that are cuing the nervous system to change, because if it can do something easily, there's no reason for the nervous system to change. Now, in terms of different styles of teaching and learning, I think that many of us experience that agitation early on, and we, for reasons that are understandable, we backed away from learning anymore. So for instance, I'm musically... I, I can't... I'm musically deficient. I love music, but I can't play music to save my life, and I think that's entirely because as, as a kid, every time I would try and play music, it just sounded terrible. Everyone cringed. The dogs, dogs literally howled.

    7. JS

      [laughs]

    8. AH

      So I stopped, right? But knowing what I know now, that would be the cue to, that the agitation, the stress, the, um, embarrassment is actually the cue to the nervous system that it's about to rewire itself. So I think if people just understood that, um, children and adults would, uh, lean into learning m- um, more regularly and hopefully with more ease overall.

    9. JS

      Yeah, definitely. I mean, even now when, what sparks from that answer, which I actually really appreciated, is the idea that as we get older, as you said, it has to become more conscious. It, it has that tension. It's almost like you have to start figuring out how you learn base- best and how you process ideas. So for me, I know that I love to first dive deep and immerse myself in something, and then I like to create a structured approach to get there if I enjoy it. So if I want to learn a new skill, I'll get obsessed with it for a weekend. I'll go on the course, I'll read the book, I'll watch every video. I, I just wanna dive in to really see if I genuinely care or whether it's me thinking I care, and to try and separate that ego and that true desire, for me at least. And if I do a weekend of something and I realize, oh, my ego liked that, but I didn't really like that, I'm gonna step away. Or actually, wow, this is fascinating. Then I'll go and build a step-by-step plan with small steps and incremental steps. That I've learned over a long time of learning different things.

  4. 12:24 – 21:14

    The best way people can approach learning

    1. JS

      How can people think about the best way they can learn? What are different styles? What are different methods that you think people can think? If someone's listening right now and they're like, "Andrew, well, I want to learn a new instrument," or, "I want to learn a new language," or maybe it's, "I want to learn how to start a podcast," or, "I want to learn how to play a sport," or whatever it may be, how can someone start thinking about how they should approach learning?

    2. AH

      Terrific question, and fortunately, nowadays, we can look to studies done in humans that define some very key principles. The first principle is that the whole process of neuroplasticity and learning is really a two-stage process. First, there must be focus and alertness. That focus and alertness is associated with the release of neurochemicals, so-called neuromodulators, things like acetylcholine in particular, uh, which sort of acts as a highlighter pen, if you will, for certain connections in the brain to later be reinforced, and the neurochemical adrenaline, which is also called epinephrine, also depending on if you're in the UK or elsewhere.

    3. JS

      [laughs]

    4. AH

      A long, interesting story, not for this time, about why it has multiple names. Epinephrine, adre-- also called adrenaline, is associated with an increase in kind of agitation and alertness. Acetylcholine, think of it as kind of a spotlight or a highlighter pen for certain connections in the brain. So you need alertness and focus. And then the second stage is that it is only during periods of deep rest, in particular sleep and something that I call non-sleep deep rest, which I've given an acronym 'cause scientists like acronyms, NSDR, non-sleep deep rest. Things like yoga nidra, things like shallow naps, things like forms of meditation that don't involve a lot of, uh, focused concentration. You're a far more the experienced, uh, meditator than I, so I'm, uh, outside my wheelhouse when talking about meditation. But it is only periods of intense focus and alertness followed by periods of deep rest that allow the nervous system to change, and there is an abundance of evidence for that. So that's the first thing to understand. The brain actually rewires during deep sleep and rest because during deep sleep and rest, naps, yoga nidra, deep sleep, there's a replay of the very same cells in the brain that were active during learning, oftentimes in reverse for reasons that are still not understood, but at a much higher repetition rate. So you're actually getting repetitions while you sleep. This is why one will strain to learn a language or a motor skill or maths or something like that over and over and over. It doesn't happen. You take a couple of nights' sleep, take a break from it, and all of a sudden it's there. It's because it happens in rest. Now, there's some other things that one can do to enhance this process further that are arrived to us from good data. First of all, there's a so-called ultradian rhythm, which is the 90-minute cycles during which we can focus pretty well for a duration of about 90 minutes. Of course, flickering in and out of focus. Nobody really focuses for 90 minutes straight unless they've built up that capacity or they are very interested in what they're learning, right?

    5. JS

      [laughs]

    6. AH

      They're just rapt with attention. Usually people flicker in and out. And of course, nowadays there's a lot of literature and ideas about ways to maintain focus. Put the phone away, uh, limit noise. Some people like background noise. Some people like music, some don't. It's very contextual, highly individualized. But 90 minutes is sort of the, the b- the batch of time that the brain can focus really hard on one thing before it needs a true rest of, of an hour or two before you can go back to learning or working very hard. The other thing is that, um, there's some very interesting data showing that shallow naps or NSDR, non-sleep deep rest, done within four hours of one of these 90-minute learning bouts can be very beneficial for accelerating learning. And then there are these, uh, incredible data on so-called gap effects. So there have been studies now of, of skills that are physical skills, mental skills, where people will, for instance, try to learn scales on the piano or a math problem or a spatial problem or a physical skill, and then at random, every so often, a buzzer will go off, and the person will just be told to do nothing. Sit there, eyes closed or eyes open, and do nothing. Just stop the learning process for about 10 seconds and then return to doing what they're doing. These are these little micro rests. It turns out that during those micro rests, the hippocampus or brain areas, you know, that's associated with learning and memory, and the neocortex, also associated with learning and memory, undergoes replay of the thing that the individual's trying to learn at 20 times the speed, also in reverse, just as in sleep, and that has-- can lead and has been shown to lead to accelerations in learning. So there are these ways, I wouldn't even think of them as hacks, because the word hack is a little tricky because it-- when I think of the word hack, it seems like doing something with an object or a tool that wasn't designed for that purpose, right? Um, the nervous system already harbors these mechanisms, and one can access them through these little micro rests. So whether or not you're a child or an adult, every so often when trying to learn something, just pause for 10 seconds or so. Do your best to just clear your mind. Of course, it's very hard to clear the mind, but, um, do your best to clear the mind and then go back to the learning task as, as it were. And that has been shown to very-- to significantly accelerate the learning process and the retention of newly learned information. And then the last thing you touched on earlier, which is this notion of incremental learning. You said you like to throw yourself into something as kind of a litmus test of whether or not you enjoy it or not. Turns out that, uh, from beautiful work done by my colleague at Stanford School of Medicine, Eric Knudsen, has shown that, yes, it's true that early in development in humans, this would be up until the mid-20s, we can learn things in larger batches and much more easily than we can later in life. However, if one batches that work into smaller increments, and for-- so for instance, deciding, maybe set a timer, turning the phone off otherwise, and saying, "I'm gonna spend three minutes, just three minutes in trying to intensely learn this thing, even if I feel like I'm failing." If one does that repeatedly, those little increments of learning can lead to an outsized amount of learning overall. And so the nervous system loves incremental learning. It loves to batch things into focused little bouts. And, you know, if that's already the, the tools that you've built up, which it sounds like you have, wonderful. But if somebody is out there trying, you know, struggling to learn, really trying to break things down into very brief periods of intense focus, that is the cue by which, during sleep, the nervous system will change itself. And this has been shown over and over and over again, even in very late life Uh, individuals and people in their, you know, we like to think life could go on further than this, but people in their 80s and 90s still have neuroplasticity. There's even evidence that new neurons can be produced in the hippocampus of people in their late 80s and 90s. So the capacity is there.

    7. JS

      This is why I love what you do, because you would never consider that the answer to learning is depressed [laughs]

    8. AH

      Right

    9. JS

      ... more sleep.

    10. AH

      Provided the focus comes first.

    11. JS

      Of course. Yeah.

    12. AH

      Right.

    13. JS

      Of course, the focus-

    14. AH

      Right

    15. JS

      ... and the attention, as you said.

    16. AH

      But of course, sleep deprivation makes it very hard-

    17. JS

      Yeah

    18. AH

      ... to learn. And there's something else important that happens in sleep. Nowadays, we- I think most people, thanks to the beautiful work of Matthew Walker at Berkeley and others, really understand the value of sleep for health, immune system function, et cetera. There is a stage of sleep, rapid eye movement sleep, that we're all familiar with, of course, with, and lit- where literally the eyes are moving, um, that tends to come later in the night, during the second half of sleep, where there's a, there's a tendency to have very emotional dreams, or at least dreams that are s- laden with a lot of emotional content of some kind. During rapid eye movement sleep, there's an inability to move the body. We call this atonia. It's, uh, literally a, a sleep-induced paralysis that's healthy, and a complete failure of the nervous system to release adrenaline, epinephrine. This is sort of like a trauma therapy in some sense. If you think about it, it's a replay of an emotional event minus the neurochemical that makes us feel tense and agitated. So in our mind, those dreams can often feel very distressing. It's been shown that if you deprive people of, of rapid eye movement sleep, they fail to c- to dump the negative emotions of things that happened the day before and the day before. And I think all of us have experienced the shift in emotionality that happens when we are sleep-deprived. What ends up happening is that the little things seem like big things, but after a few nights' sleep, we're okay. And there's no mystery to why that is anymore. I think w- almost every sleep scientist believes it has something to do with this built-in kind of trauma release therapy where you get to experience the thing in your sleep minus the neurochemicals that make your body feel terrible. And somehow that dissociation allows people to then step back into life with a, with a clean slate.

    19. JS

      Wow. Yeah. No, I've, I've heard those ideas before, but the way you just wove it all together is, is really special. What I'm intrigued by then is what's the latest science on dreams? Uh, because there are so many spiritual wisdom-based approaches to dreams. I've never really dived deep enough, I think, from a scientific perspective into dreams apart from, uh, some particular aspects. But let's, let's go there. Let... Yeah,

  5. 21:14 – 31:05

    What happens while we sleep

    1. JS

      where is... So I love the idea that sleep, of course, is acting as somewhat of a dishwasher, cleansing, healing agent so that while we're sleeping, um, we're actually being able to release these ideas, hence we have... Where do dreams fit into that picture?

    2. AH

      Yeah. Well, um, glad you said dishwasher 'cause it, from a pure physiological standpoint, this is separate from dreams, but from a pure physiological st- standpoint, it's now well appreciated that during sleep, there's a rinsing out of the debris that accumulate in the, the brain. The brain is the most metabolically demanding organ that we have. It consumes tons of energy. Most of the energy that we burn in terms of calories is from our brain, not our muscles, even if people aren't, don't feel like they're thinking very hard.

    3. JS

      [laughs]

    4. AH

      Um, and thinking very hard, as we know, can feel very taxing. We can feel exhausted after a hard conversation, right?

    5. JS

      Yeah.

    6. AH

      The, uh, this washout, as it's called, is a so-called glymphatic rinse out. The brain wasn't thought to have a lymphatic system, but it does. Um, cerebral spinal fluid starts to reverse basically its pattern of flow during sleep. All these incredible ways of washing out the brain during sleep. Now, during the first half of one's night, the 90-minute cycles still persist that we were talking about earlier, these ultradian cycles, and those 90-minute cycles are mostly made up of so-called slow wave sleep. So we see big amplitude brain waves, this kind of thing. Dreams tend to be pretty boring early in the night. Uh, they tend to be more associated with motor function and movement, and it's actually the case that growth hormone is released in the early part of the night, and that most of the repair of the body and tissues is occurring during that first half of sleep. As the night goes on, dreams become more intense and more emotionally laden, regardless of what's been going on in someone's waking life. And in fact, toward morning, almost all of those 90-minute cycles that occur back to back is gonna be comprised of, of this rapid eye movement sleep. So the sleep toward morning is going to be much more emotional. Now, the interesting thing is that if you look at the data on dreaming in humans and you look at it purely through the lens of neuroscience, you get a bunch of language back about, okay, not much epinephrine happening, so you're dissociating the emotion from the neurochemical state. If you look to the psychology literature, which I do, you, or you read a book like Memories, Dreams and Reflections by Jung, or you start to look at some of the, the kind of hybrid work, which is psychiatry, which of course are MDs that are grounded in physiology but also think psychoanalytically. They, I think they're really onto something with this idea that dreams are basically a time in which the ordinary sequence of life events is converted into heuristics, shorthand symbols, and the brain loves symbols in the daytime too, right? We don't walk around parsing every angle of every, um, object. The way the visual system works is that the recognition of your face, for instance, there's a brain area that rec- I've seen you many, many millions of time, billions of times probably, and I recognize you immediately as Jay Shetty because there literally is a neuron in my brain that's a Jay Shetty neuron. We know this, right? From recording, uh, from brains of people that recognize people, right? If I, I met some of your staff today, lovely people, for the first time, now those neurons exist for them. But th- that representation of you was built up through basic representation of just the orientations of lines. All right? Just like a, uh, one would sketch your face and then build in more elaborate representation. The brain represents things in symbols in a very abstract way. So without going d- down too far of a rabbit hole, if I were to, for instance, say, "You know what, Jay? I'm gonna play artist today," um, of which I'm not, "And I'm gonna draw your face." And I did my best to draw your face and I showed it to you, you'd probably say, "Oh, that's not great."

    7. JS

      [laughs]

    8. AH

      But, but you'd probably recognize some of the features.

    9. JS

      Yeah.

    10. AH

      But for instance, if I decided that I was going to put your eyes in a different location, eliminate your teeth, put a bunch of tattoos on your face, uh, for fun, and, and show you this and I'd say... You'd say, "That doesn't look anything like me." And I'd say, "Ah, but that's my abstract representation of you." It turns out that the brain represents everything in the external world as a shorthand abstract representation. And in dreams, the reason that the s- that we tend to, for instance, replace people with animals or objects with, um, with different objects-

    11. JS

      Yeah

    12. AH

      ... is because the brain is thinking more in terms of the relationships between objects than it is the objects themselves. And so this is where dream analysis gets a little bit tricky. So the analyst would say, uh, you know, the... For instance, I had a dream not that long ago where I was being chased by two animals. It was a bear and a wolf, a very salient dream for me. And turns out that that bear and that wolf, I realized only later that day, I was walking around, I'd gone for a swim in the ocean, got out of the ocean, and I turned to someone and I said, "Oh, my goodness, I know what that was about. That was about these two children that are now in my life that..." Um, and I thought, "They're chasing me like they need something from me." And it opened up an entire conscious discussion about that. So in my mind, these children were represented as animals, not because children are always represented as animals, but probably because it was the, the feeling that they were impinging on me. [laughs]

    13. JS

      [laughs]

    14. AH

      And they're won- they're lovely children, but nonetheless, that they're impinging on me. So the point is not my dream. The point is that dream analysis always has to take into account that the brain operates in symbols where objects are replaceable.

    15. JS

      Mm-hmm.

    16. AH

      And there is, there are only relationships between objects.

    17. JS

      Mm-hmm.

    18. AH

      And so if one has a very scary dream about a person or sees a monster, it's really in the early waking state of the day that we are in a position to best understand those relationships. So here's a, a tool I recommend-

    19. JS

      Yes, please

    20. AH

      ... that's actually supported by sleep science-

    21. JS

      Please

    22. AH

      ... which is when waking, and in the first 30 minutes or so around waking, you're in this liminal state. Even if you're somebody who wakes up and feels very alert, you're in this liminal state where that symbolism is still quite fluid.

    23. JS

      Mm-hmm.

    24. AH

      I highly recommend that people try and not bring in too much new sensory experience if they wanna understand their dream. Stay lying down with your eyes closed. Maybe tell your partner or someone else you live with, if you live with somebody, that you just need a few moments, and just try and move about your day in a way where you're not trying to solve the dream, but you're also not bringing in a lot of new sensory experience. Because in that moment, you actually stand a chance of parsing what that relationship is. And, uh, this is something that psychoanalysts understand. This is something that, believe it or not, clinical hypnotists understand. Bring people into a state of deep relaxation and be able to capture that transition between the sleep and waking state. Forgive me for the, you know, excessively long answer, but, um-

    25. JS

      Not excessively long at all.

    26. AH

      Yeah.

    27. JS

      Fascinating.

    28. AH

      I mean-

    29. JS

      Honestly, like, not, not excessively long. Please carry on. Yeah.

    30. AH

      Well, there... So there's physiology that we know, and then there's the psychology of this. And, and just to make it very clear, s- the brain thinks in symbols in the daytime and in dreams, in waking states and in dreams. It's all symbols. Every this is symbolic representation because we can't parse all the information coming into our nervous system. But because the nervous system's main job is to make really good predictions, to basically do statistics. Like when, for instance, as a child, one of the first things you learn is that objects fall down, not up. So the first time they see a helium balloon, it's like awe and excitement. That awe and excitement is the release of neurochemicals that teach the brain sometimes objects fall up, so to speak.

  6. 31:05 – 42:57

    Are there healthy symbols for the brain?

    1. JS

      I wonder what are healthy symbols? Are there certain healthy symbols for the brain to connect with on a daily basis before sleep, after sleep, that allow us to program ourselves more effectively? Because I feel like most of the symbols that we're seeing are unconscious or unintentional, or mainly marketing or advertising or propaganda, but we're not really selective around our symbols.

    2. AH

      Yeah, I love that you asked this question because, um, for years, you know, we hear these things like we, you know, you're the sum of the five people you spend the most time with. But nowadays we spend more time with symbols and people on social media than we do oftentimes with other individuals, or at least equal amounts of time in the room, right?

    3. JS

      Mm-hmm.

    4. AH

      Rarely is it just the physical bodies in the room.

    5. JS

      [laughs]

    6. AH

      It's all the, the people in our phone.

    7. JS

      Yeah.

    8. AH

      Which I don't see as a bad thing.

    9. JS

      Right.

    10. AH

      Actually, for years, um, when I was working more or less in isolation in my lab, um, I had this little list. I don't think I've ever shared this before. I had this little list of people who, uh, I love and admire, many of whom I've never met, and I just would read that list over and over again. I didn't realize it at the time, but I was developing what I believe the analysts call this a, um, an interject or an introject perhaps. Someone should look that up. I forget which one it is. Um, which is actually a subconscious representation of somebody else's ideas and approach to things.

    11. JS

      Mm.

    12. AH

      That if we, um, for instance, listen to you, uh, over and over again, the, the nervous system starts to ask questions like, "What would Jay do in this circumstance?" That's a very real thing, and we're not always consciously aware of it. Now, physical symbols are also very important because the brain likes to make predictions. It loves symbols because symbols are a shorthand way of, of eliminating a lot of useless information. But much of the way that we operate and feel really does impact us at a subconscious level.

    13. JS

      Mm-hmm.

    14. AH

      And this has been shown over and over again. I mean, it's... And it's always cast in the context of subconscious bias, which has kind of a negative slant anytime we hear bias, of course.

    15. JS

      Mm.

    16. AH

      But there are positive biases as well. So I think that for some people, having order among symbols is very important. Equal spacing, everything very aligned. I'm sort of one of those, but, you know, I'm kind of in the middle. Um, other people, um, they aren't so consumed with the, with the relationships between how they arrange things physically, but they enjoy great depth and emotional relationship to things. And it could be a pendant.

    17. JS

      Mm.

    18. AH

      It could be nowadays, you know, people... Like, tattoos are kind of interesting, right?

    19. JS

      Yeah.

    20. AH

      They're much more prominent than when I was growing up. They are an externalization of how people feel on the inside.

    21. JS

      Yes.

    22. AH

      Right? So those are very powerful symbols, and there's something about the process of stamping it into one's skin, et cetera, um, the slight or intense pain involved depending on where and who does it-

    23. JS

      [laughs]

    24. AH

      ... and who, and the person's pain threshold. So symbols are a way in which we create an external reflection of who we are to ourselves, but also they are operating at a subconscious level to keep us, for instance, in a place of order. Like, to be able to organize one's thoughts in a world filled with statistical information. Every ray of sunshine is statistical information. We can't pay attention to all of it. So I think that, um, to directly answer your question, there are a couple of things that I think from morning till night make an outsized positive effect on our nervous system, both in terms of its ability to feel, think, and act, and its ability to learn. The first one isn't so much a symbol unless you adopt it as one, and I certainly have, which is there are now thousands of quality studies showing that we should all try and get some bright light, ideally sunlight, in our eyes with- within the early hours of waking. This doesn't necessarily meaning waking with the sunrise, although if you can do that, that's great. Some people wake up before the sun comes out. Getting a lot of bright sunlight in one's eyes early in the day puts a number of neurochemicals and hormones into a state of, let's just call it what it is, positivity. Mood is enhanced, immune system function is enhanced, sleep is enhanced 16 to, you know, 20 hours later, and so on. Also in the evening. So the sun as a symbol is very important, but it's also anchoring our subconscious physiology because every cell in our body has a 24-hour clock. We need to time it to the rise and fall of the sun each day. When human beings become misaligned with that rising and falling of the sun, bad things happen to the nervous system. Now, fortunately, it's very easy to fix. There's a study done at University of Colorado taking college students camping. I wish I'd been a subject in this experiment.

    25. JS

      [laughs]

    26. AH

      What they found is that melatonin rhythms, cortisol rhythms, which can be a healthy thing. We all have cortisol. It protects us, energizes us, dopamine, epinephrine, all these rhythms of the body could be reinstated to their proper timing by w- waking up and seeing the sun and going to sleep not too long after sunset, depending on time of year, for two nights and two mornings.

    27. JS

      Wow.

    28. AH

      And th- and this lasted at least two weeks, even though people were getting artificial light.

    29. JS

      Wow.

    30. AH

      So I would say the symbol of the sun is not just, um, uh, you know, it's not a trivial thing at all. It's the anchor by which our, our biology is designed and our psychology follows, of course. Now-

  7. 42:57 – 44:41

    Self-training in healthy amounts of dopamine

    1. JS

      I was just about to say.

    2. AH

      Yeah. Cocaine-

    3. JS

      Which is why anything can become an addiction

    4. AH

      ... cocaine, amphetamine, um, excess, you know, pornography, excessive r- dopamine release. And the, the diabolical thing about dopamine under those conditions is that the higher the dopamine release, m- the big amplitude dopamine, the bigger the crash, always. It's the way the circuits are designed.

    5. JS

      Yeah.

    6. AH

      Now, here we're talking about self-training in healthier amounts of dopamine release.

    7. JS

      Yes.

    8. AH

      Non-addictive amounts of dopamine release, or you could say mildly addictive patterns of behavior that serve us and the people around us well.

    9. JS

      Yes.

    10. AH

      And in that case, I think of that as kind of an adaptive Addiction compulsion.

    11. JS

      Yeah

    12. AH

      Um, and not one that we should necessarily avoid.

    13. JS

      Absolutely. I think that for me, the way I differentiate that, and I think that's such a good distinction that you're raising there because what you're basically saying is we could convince ourselves through the release of dopamine that anything's good for us, and hence it can lead to addiction or it can be these aspirational positive habits for us. And I think the way I've been able to at least differentiate is that which is good for me after, that which makes me feel good after I do it, a- because that's that release of dopamine that I'm experiencing after I do it is more important than that which makes me feel good before I do it.

    14. AH

      I love that.

    15. JS

      So I don't feel good before I go to the gym, or maybe before I meditate, or before I eat a healthy bowl of protein and food that's good for me, but I always feel good after it.

    16. AH

      I love that.

    17. JS

      And when I- I feel good before I stay up late at night and hope that we're gonna have a great time, or I feel good before I eat a pizza, or I feel good before I have loads of sugar because I have a massive sweet tooth, but then afterwards I feel the pangs of it. So-

    18. AH

      I, I love that and it proves that, um, in your heart you're a neuroscientist

  8. 44:41 – 49:35

    The dopamine reward prediction error

    1. AH

      because there's something called dopamine reward prediction error. This was defined by a guy named Wolfram Schultz and others, and it's an incredible thing, and it can be made very simple, which is when we positively anticipate something, there is dopamine release. I mean, just tell kids that you're going for ice cream-

    2. JS

      [laughs]

    3. AH

      ... and you're seeing what is I'll now explain as reward prediction error. Now you get to the ice cream shop and it's closed.

    4. JS

      [laughs]

    5. AH

      What happens is their dopamine drops below baseline before-

    6. JS

      Oh

    7. AH

      ... they were told they were going for ice cream. If they're going to the ice cream shop and they have ice cream, you might think then they get even more dopamine, but guess what? If the ice cream isn't as good or if one kid the do- the ice cream [laughs] cone falls and they don't get another one, what ends up happening is that dopamine is relative to what they were just feeling. It doesn't feel that great.

    8. JS

      Yeah.

    9. AH

      And so this is the, the, the diabolical nature of addictive drugs. People get a dopamine surge in anticipation of using, and over time they get less and less of a dopamine surge, but the punishment signal, as we say, that comes afterwards, the trough afterwards, goes lower and lower and lower. So it's like a s- asymmetric seesaw. It's not just back and forth. It goes dopamine, but then it goes punishment signal. Now you've figured it out because dopamine reward prediction error says that if you have less dopamine heading into something than you do afterward, that tells the synapses, the brain connections that were involved, to reinforce themselves and to engage in that behavior again. And this is also what happens with surprise.

    10. JS

      Mm.

    11. AH

      If you go someplace you're not expecting, "Oh, you know what? Like, let's, let's go to this place for dinner. I don't know, it looks good," and it's amazing-

    12. JS

      Yeah [laughs]

    13. AH

      ... you create a much bigger dopamine signal than if I tell you, "Jay, I gotta take you to this place. This is the best sushi in Los Angeles. It's incredible." That actually sets you up to not enjoy the meal as much.

    14. JS

      Yeah. [laughs]

    15. AH

      So we all should learn to kind of, um, control this dopamine knob. You've done it beautifully by simplifying it into making sure that you get enough happiness, thrill, excitement in retrospect. That's the way to wire in healthy behaviors. And I'm, I, I've never actually heard it put as succinctly as you because academics are not trained to be succinct-

    16. JS

      [laughs]

    17. AH

      ... as you can tell, but I think if everyone kept that in mind they would do themselves a great service, which is-

    18. JS

      Yeah

    19. AH

      ... try and ask whether or not the ple- you had as much or more pleasure in the aftermath of something-

    20. JS

      Mm-hmm

    21. AH

      ... as you did during, and you will ... Y- you get two benefits. One is you can avoid addictive type behaviors.

    22. JS

      Yeah. [laughs]

    23. AH

      And the other, because you avoid that crash, if there's a dopamine release after there's no crash, and the other is that you'll have a tendency to return to that behavior over and over again.

    24. JS

      Mm-hmm.

    25. AH

      This is also why I think a lot of people enter new relationships-

    26. JS

      Yeah

    27. AH

      ... and there is a well-established dopamine surge with the early phase. Everything's, feels possible. People feel like, people go out and make purchases. They're kind of manic, right?

    28. JS

      Yeah.

    29. AH

      And it's a very exciting kind of mental illness that we all enjoy from time to time. But then people start to enter the phase of real challenge or oftentimes real challenge, and if they can't make that transition seamlessly and they constantly focus back on how great things were and they look at the differential, it can be a kind of a dark picture, and then people have to start working on trying to reignite, so to speak. But it, the bigger the dopamine surge at the beginning, the b- the bigger the crash. So I think that a, a wonderful model for relationship is also to temper that dopamine release. Spread it out over time. Try and spread it out over 50 years [laughs] and you-

    30. JS

      [laughs]

  9. 49:35 – 52:56

    Dopamine can distort our perception of time

    1. JS

      I think I want to unpack a, a lot of the things you said. The first thing I want to say is my new claim to fame is that you said I'm an honorary neuroscientist now. So-

    2. AH

      No, I-

    3. JS

      So I'm gonna [laughs]

    4. AH

      You, you think like a neuroscientist because to be able to batch things in time that way is a unique skill. I'm not saying this for flattery, but-

    5. JS

      No, no, you're very kind

    6. AH

      ... it makes me feel good even better.

    7. JS

      [laughs]

    8. AH

      Like, but the fact of the matter is-

    9. JS

      I was being funny, but I'm grateful [laughs]

    10. AH

      But most people think about experiences as one thing.

    11. JS

      Yeah.

    12. AH

      We, you know, we went to Costa Rica. It was amazing. Ah. But, and I'm sure it was, and when dopamine's flooding through your system, there's also something really cool is it distorts your perception of time. It feels like time goes by very, very fast, but in looking back, it seems like a lot happened.

    13. JS

      Yes.

    14. AH

      Think about when you're bored in the doctor's office waiting room.

    15. JS

      Feels like forever

    16. AH

      Feels like it goes on forever, and you look back-

    17. JS

      Yeah

    18. AH

      ... guess what happened? Nothing.

    19. JS

      Yeah. [laughs]

    20. AH

      It's low dopamine state. So dopamine actually acts as a f- it's like shooting a film at high frame rate.

    21. JS

      Yeah.

    22. AH

      Okay? So feels like a lot's happening. You look back and, and it, it goes by very fast, but you look back, a lot happened. So you batch things in time, and this is fundamentally important to how we, we work. If we look at experiences only in terms of how we experience them and not the aftermath, we miss a, a huge portion of life, and more importantly, we miss the opportunity to access the right behaviors and thoughts.

    23. JS

      Mm-hmm. Yeah.

    24. AH

      We can be very misled by things like dopamine. It's, it's a, uh, it's really a, a tricky molecule to work with.

    25. JS

      Yeah.

    26. AH

      And we're all working with it. No one is immune from this, right?

    27. JS

      Of course. Yeah.

    28. AH

      So, but yes, you are absolutely a neuroscientist.

    29. JS

      [laughs] That's my new, that's my new tagline wherever I go. No, I, I, I have such a fascination with neuroscience, and I hope that at one point in my life, I create the time and space to deeply study and, and study alongside it. It sh-

    30. AH

      We should do, we should do an experiment.

  10. 52:56 – 1:03:45

    How do we become comfortable in the discomfort of change?

    1. JS

      that? Like, how do we start opening up and being more comfortable in the discomfort of change? Not just growth, but just change and shifts that we don't expect and predict.

    2. AH

      Yeah. Uh, I think two ways. Um, one, I'll just go back to this fundamental feature of the nervous system, which is it's trying to make predictions. So the reason why change is stressful, even positive change, believe it or not, is-

    3. JS

      Yeah

    4. AH

      ... quote-unquote, "stressful"-

    5. JS

      Yeah, I agree

    6. AH

      ... uh, is because of this and the release of adrenaline and, and associated molecules with any time things change. I mean, if you look, the psychologists have worked this out. There's a hierarchy of stressors. Um, and of course, at the, at the top of that hierarchy are a- awful things that we don't... You know, I think at the top, to be honest, I think death of a child is, is perhaps the, the greatest stressor. Divorce, death of a loved one, um, these kinds of horrible things-

    7. JS

      Yeah

    8. AH

      ... that we wouldn't wish on anyone. Then as one goes down, not too far below, you see things like moving to a new home or apartment.

    9. JS

      Yeah.

    10. AH

      You think, "Well, that could be a great event," right?

    11. JS

      Yeah.

    12. AH

      Birth of a new child, and you think, "Well, wait a second. I thought that's supposed to be one of the greatest joys in life." And indeed it is, but it's stressful to the nervous system because so many things have to be con- reconfigured.

    13. JS

      Mm-hmm.

    14. AH

      To say, not to say anything about the lack of sleep with a newborn-

    15. JS

      Yeah

    16. AH

      ... and this kind of thing. So change is always going to force our brain to make more assessments of our environment. One of the things that we can say about the brain for sure is that once it learns something, it likes to not have to think about it. When you walk because you already know how to walk, you don't think right, left, right, left, right, left.

    17. JS

      Yeah.

    18. AH

      But when you learn how to dance a new step or something of that sort or a new skill, uh, sport skill, you have to think about it, and it's work. And anytime we have to think about behaviors and they aren't simply reflexive, that work, as we call it, is in f- it's a combination of the release of things like adrenaline, epinephrine in the brain and body. I should say, from the adrenals in the body, but also in the brain from a little brain area called locus coeruleus that is, uh, acts as kind of a sprinkler system for the brain to kind of wake up all brain areas saying, "Okay, let's pay attention to a lot of stuff here."

    19. JS

      [laughs]

    20. AH

      Very basic system, um, but, but very fundamental system. It's literally a wake-up system for the brain. Works in parallel with the release o- of adrenaline into our body. Now, one way to deal with change is to simply know this, right? To understand that if one feels stressed or agitated around a new move, or you have a partner who's really stressed about a new move even though it's exciting, it should be exciting, that that's perfectly normal because what they're experiencing is this increase in agitation and alertness, and it also makes it harder to enter deep, really relaxed states.

    21. JS

      Mm.

    22. AH

      Because the brain is in a mode of predictions, making predictions. What's happening next? Thinking, thinking, thinking. And one of the things that's key to falling asleep each night and replenishing our ability to think and make predictions is the ability to turn off thinking. This is why I'm such a fan of what traditionally was called Yoga Nidra, which literally means yoga sleep. Lying down, it's a form of meditation, as you know, and with breathing, et cetera. Um, I I certainly, I, I wanna point out that I have no desire to rename any of these ancient practices. These are beautiful practices that have been built up over thousands of years. The reason I call, uh, sometimes batch yoga nidra with so-called NSDR, non-sleep deep rest, is that unfortunately both in science and in traditional cultures around some of these be- behaviors, the language has become a barrier for people to try them.

    23. JS

      Fully agree.

    24. AH

      I-

    25. JS

      Fully agree

    26. AH

      ... I'm not trying to, to wash away any of the, the wonderful culture and tradition around these. I wanna be very clear about that. But ultimately it, it's about accessing a state of mind as, for anyone that's listened to a yoga nidra script, and I should say I do nidra every day. I have for almost a decade now. It's-

    27. JS

      Wow

    28. AH

      ... without question, a s- uh, along with viewing morning light, sunlight, the most powerful practice I think I can recommend to anyone. Um, it is about, as you always hear in a classic nidra script, you move away from thinking and doing to being and feeling. Now, what is that? If we take a neuroscience lens, I mean, what is this thinking and doing, being and feeling? It's about shutting down of the prefrontal cortex, which is making predictions. What's happening next, right? It, as you move into sleep, you enter that kind of liminal state where things become disjointed, right? A cat flies through the room, and then you might jerk yourself awake, and it's kind of odd, but that's the state of not thinking and doing and just being and feeling, being in one s- pure somatic experience. So I would say in order to move through change, designate 20 to 30 minutes each day to put the brain into a state of non-thinking, non-doing, and into a state of, quote-unquote, being and feeling. So not making predictions. Now, the tricky thing is when one is stressed, that's especially hard to do.

    29. JS

      Yeah.

    30. AH

      And this is why I think, what is it Thich Nhat Hanh said? You know, what, is it, who said, you know, um, "When stress, y- you know, meditate every day, but when stress, meditate twice as long" or something like that, right?

  11. 1:03:45 – 1:14:00

    There’s one trial learning of negative experiences

    1. JS

      you in. And I find that we have more things to judge. And to make that many judgments in a day is quite exhausting. And then to be exhausted by the number of tragic or stressful moments that we experience. And like you said, that, you know, it's okay if we're on Instagram and we're seeing multiple things, or we're seeing this kitchen into this animation into this world. But when a lot of it is painful, to deliberately disengage but remain connected to reality, I feel like that's somewhere where people feel like they're in no man's land.

    2. AH

      Yeah. And you know, it, it's a particular challenge now-

    3. JS

      Yeah

    4. AH

      ... with, with the m-

    5. JS

      Of course

    6. AH

      ... number of images and movies that can come at us. And, and you know, I think that, uh, here I, I, I'm not one to, to usually talk like this, but I think much of, of building a good life is about both honoring and challenging the asymmetries of our nervous system. What I mean by that is, you know, everything we've talked about up until now are wired into us from birth. We have dopamine, epinephrine, these circuitries. We get an attentional spotlight. That all, we show up in the world with that, and we, and we have to work with them. We also need to acknowledge that there is an asymmetry to learning. You know, before we talked about the gap effects and the two-stage process of neuroplasticity. There are exceptions. The exception is learning of negative things. You only have to h- touch the hot stove once, or the meta- metaphorically speaking, the hot stove only has to touch you once before-

    7. JS

      [laughs]

    8. AH

      ... it changes you. So where there's one trial learning of negative experiences. Now, once we understand that asymmetry, and once we understand that negativity actually has a bit of a stronghold on our nervous system, then we accept, I would hope we would accept the idea that then we have to work a little harder to counter that, or maybe a lot harder. In the same way that so-called highly palatable foods [laughs]

    9. JS

      Yeah, yeah

    10. AH

      ... which is now bec- is kind of science geek speak for unhealthy, highly processed foods. 'Cause how, there's some ... You know, I do love fruits and vegetables and healthy-

    11. JS

      Yeah.

    12. AH

      And there's some wonderful baked goods, let's face it.

    13. JS

      Yeah, yeah. [laughs]

    14. AH

      I mean, I, I love croissants, so I don't wanna demonize-

    15. JS

      I love, yeah

    16. AH

      ... highly pal-

    17. JS

      I love chocolate

    18. AH

      ... yeah, highly palatable foods.

    19. JS

      Yeah.

    20. AH

      But, but I think we could all do well to eat healthier foods. And they are not as rewarding in the short term as some of these highly palatable foods, right? And especially to the young nervous system. You know, there's, you know, a, a milkshake or, or a, um, candy just tastes better to these kids than vegetables-

    21. JS

      Yeah

    22. AH

      ... for reasons that are hardwired into the nervous system. But we know that kids need their fruits and vegetables probably more than they need candy.

    23. JS

      Yeah.

    24. AH

      Okay? So we have to all learn to counter these built-in asymmetries in our nervous system. And as adults, we probably thought we had it made, but then now we're bombarded with all this negative imagery. And so the key is really the symbols that we were talking about earlier. To really build in positive s- symbols and s- internal symbolic representations. What I mean by that, not just physical things in our environment and people, but also how we hold those things inside is so important. And I think this is what comes to this notion of intentions. It's work, right? Right life, and right action, and all these things that we hear about. It's work. It's, it's working against the tide that is pulling us toward negativity. That's, um, in fact, there's a study that was done in the '60s, it was published in the journal Science, which is an excellent journal, one of the apex journals. They had people with stimulating electrodes in their brain for reasons related to neurosurgery. These people could stimulate multiple areas of their brain one at a time.

    25. JS

      Mm.

    26. AH

      And then they reported how they felt. So the, the, the human would stimulate and they'd feel drunk. Or they'd stimulate another area and they'd feel happy. They'd stimulate-

    27. JS

      Wow

    28. AH

      ... another area, they'd feel sad. The fascinating, we learned a lot about the human brain from these studies. The brain area that people preferred to stimulate the most, this is really gonna upset a few people, was the one that led to anger and frustration.

    29. JS

      Wow.

    30. AH

      And you think to yourself, "Well, that's just terrible. Are we just doomed," right?

  12. 1:14:00 – 1:20:59

    In some relationships, there is a need to bring in dopamine

    1. JS

      and go, is there a need to have dopamine in long-term relationships, or are serotonin and oxytocin enough? And not just relationships. That applies to career. It applies, applies to everything, I feel.

    2. AH

      Yeah, absolutely. Um, there's a wonderful book about this written by a psychoanalyst in a slightly different context. The book, um, the title of the book is Can Love Last? And, and it's an interesting book. The, it's, it operates on the premise that when we first meet somebody and we want, this is in the context of romantic relationship, and we desire a romantic relationship with them, it's very much about objectification of the other person, and I don't mean objectification in the traditional sense. But we don't rely on them yet.

    3. JS

      Yeah.

    4. AH

      Right? We only rely on the ability to pursue and get them, right? Or for them to, for us to pursue them, however that might-

    5. JS

      Or if they delight us.

    6. AH

      Or, exactly.

    7. JS

      Yeah.

    8. AH

      But we don't rely on them for safety at all. If that evolves to become a romantic relationship, right, with trust, then what happens is there's a true dependency there. If one person were to leave for any reason, die or leave or cheat or break up, it is truly devastating to the safety mechanisms of the brain and body, right? It's a reactivation actually of a lot of the machinery that was designed for attachment between infant and parent, right? Uh, as, just as an important aside, the, the, all the work on attachment that was done by Bowlby and Main and others in psychology of taking, deliberately taking babies away from their mothers and then reuniting them and evaluating the responses, batching them into different... All that circuitry isn't lost as we grow up. It's repurposed for romantic attachment.

    9. JS

      Mm-hmm.

    10. AH

      There's no question about that.

    11. JS

      Absolutely. I couldn't agree more.

    12. AH

      No question about that.

    13. JS

      Yeah.

    14. AH

      We just operate in the different domains of an- anxiety becomes about waiting for a text message-

    15. JS

      Yeah

    16. AH

      ... as opposed to, you know, mother to come back in the room or, or, or nursing, et cetera. So same circuitry reapplied. As we advance into relationships, we become more dependent on people, but the idea, and that it's touched on quite a lot in this book, Can Love Last?, is that there is a need from time to time in some relationships to bring the dopamine element back in. Now, certain cultures have actually built this in in a very strategic way, of actually having men and women not physically contact one another for several weeks out of each month in order to maintain the kind of, quote-unquote, excitement of a relationship.

    17. JS

      Wow.

    18. AH

      Nowadays, we tend to have this model of lover and best friend and sometimes even business partner, right?

    19. JS

      Literally.

    20. AH

      Which for some people can work and for other people can quash all the excitement, right? It really depends. And especially nowadays where people are working a lot more from home, there isn't a tendency for people to spend much time apart and to miss one another.

    21. JS

      Yeah.

    22. AH

      Missing one another, the yearning for the other person, is a beautiful thing.

    23. JS

      Yeah.

    24. AH

      It's a painful but beautiful thing. What is that yearning? That yearning is the pain of the lack of dopamine and serotonin. I actually just came back from a, a trip, and we were visiting a couple friends of ours, and they said, it was very beautiful. They said they've been together a long time. They said they've had three nights apart in their entire relationship.

    25. JS

      Wow.

    26. AH

      And one of them got sick during that time apart, and I thought, "That's beautiful." Now, for some people, that's a beautiful model. For other people, that would be excessive, and it actually could eliminate a, a number of the positive neurochemical features of the relationship.

    27. JS

      Yeah.

    28. AH

      And there's a, a lot of variation around this. So dopamine is required to, quote-unquote, re-up-

    29. JS

      Yeah

    30. AH

      ... the excitement in a relationship. How is that achieved? Well, dopamine is the molecule, as you recall, of reward prediction error, of novelty. So doing things that are not expected is great. Routine is great for serotonin and oxytocin. Predictability. Routine, predictability, same thing. Safety, routine, predictability. Serotonin, oxytocin system. No question about it. Dopamine is the neurochemical of novelty and pursuing new things. So for couples that are very set in their ways and feel very safe and homey together, wonderful, but creating ways in which they miss one another or creating new experiences for them to kind of re-up the dopamine in the relationship can have a, a tremendously positive effect. And I look forward to a day where neuroscience is actually incorporated into relationship design-

  13. 1:20:59 – 1:27:14

    Tattoos and symbols

    1. JS

      I've, I've become aware that you are, you have tattoos.

    2. AH

      Oh, yeah.

    3. JS

      You, you have symbols.

    4. AH

      Yeah. Tim Ferriss outed me on his podcast.

    5. JS

      Yeah.

    6. AH

      Thanks, Tim. Uh, yeah, I do. I, um, you know, I grew up, uh, a child of an academic and, um, uh, but then when I was a teenager, I got involved in skateboarding, punk rock music.

    7. JS

      That's so cool.

    8. AH

      I still have a lot of friends in that world. So the photographer for our podcast is from DC and Nike Skateboarding, Mike Blabac. Have good friends in that world. Uh, be- become friendly with guys like Danny Way, and, uh, you know, it's, um, amazing. S- one of the greatest skateboarders of all time, by the way. I mean, he and I aren't close friends, but we've become friendly. And, um, for me, that's an... You know, I grew up in that. And yeah, those were cultures that made a lot of sense to me given where I was at the time, and that have always felt to me like my first non-biological family. So I started getting tattooed pretty young. Uh, too young. And I will say to all of those out there that are thinking about it, think carefully. Um-

    9. JS

      Yeah. [laughs]

    10. AH

      It i- they are permanent. Um, things have changed around this. I always cover up my tattoos for the following r- uh, reason, um, when, when doing, uh, public-facing work, which is that, um, generally when I'm trying to teach neuroscience, I'm trying to download ideas and transmit them. So I just want to avoid any distractions about the symbols that are meaningful to me because they just aren't relevant in that context.

    11. JS

      Sure.

    12. AH

      Um, I have a good friend who explained it this way. He said, "Well, you know, maybe tattoos should be an important part of the hiring process because, um, rather than covering them up, if you have a l- a lot of tattoos, it is evidence that you can sit still for a long period of time-

    13. JS

      [laughs]

    14. AH

      ... while in intense pain."

    15. JS

      That's brilliant.

    16. AH

      So that's true. I'll also say this. Um, I was fortunate to know good tattooers. A good tattoo... There are, there's a range out there.

    17. JS

      Yes, there are. Yes.

    18. AH

      And, um, and, uh, along the lines of them being permanent, I will also say that, uh, black and gray lasts longer, doesn't fade than color.

    19. JS

      Yeah. [laughs]

    20. AH

      So I'll, I'll say all that.

    21. JS

      What's your, what's your most, uh, what's the symbol on your body? And I'm sure you have many, but if you were to pick one, not your favorite, but one that feels really meaningful right now in your life.

    22. AH

      Yeah. Well, first of all, it's funny 'cause people s- often will say, "What are you gonna do when you're like 60 or 65? You got all these tattoos." And I just think, "Okay, well first of all, now I have an incentive to stay in shape."

    23. JS

      Yeah. [laughs]

    24. AH

      And second of all, um, you know, I actually worry about them disappearing 'cause then I'd have to m- have them all redone.

    25. JS

      Yeah.

    26. AH

      And they were pretty painful.

    27. JS

      Yes, yes.

    28. AH

      It took a long time.

    29. JS

      Yeah.

    30. AH

      I got a lot of them, so, uh, it took a long time. It's been 25 years or more of getting tattooed. So, um, I can't pick just one, but I do have a picture of my, uh, bulldog mastiff Costello and a paw print of his, life size or actual size.

  14. 1:27:14 – 1:33:31

    Andrew on Final Five

    1. JS

      Uh, we end every On Purpose episode with the final five. These have to be answered in one word to one sentence maximum, um-

    2. AH

      [laughs] Which-

    3. JS

      Because-

    4. AH

      Which for this academic might be a bit of a challenge

    5. JS

      It might be hard.

    6. AH

      Yeah.

    7. JS

      But we will try. So Andrew Huberman, these are your final five. Uh, the first question is, what is the best advice you've ever received in any area of life?

    8. AH

      Know thyself.

    9. JS

      Right.

    10. AH

      The Oracle said that, and it's absolutely true. We have to be good scientists of ourselves and understand where we have talents, competency, and/or challenges, and then work with those.

    11. JS

      Beautiful. All right. Second question. What is the worst advice you've ever received or heard?

    12. AH

      That everything is just experience. You know, the idea that all experiences are equivalent. Um, I would love to think that, um, all our steps lead us to enlightenment kind of thing, but we have... I do believe that we, or at least I [laughs] , need to be far more intentional than that, and that we can be.

    13. JS

      Beautiful. Uh, question number three. What is something that you didn't value before but you've learned to value now?

    14. AH

      Almost embarrassed to say it, but, um, family. You know, I've relied very heavily on friendship as a deep source of, of, uh, reinforcement in my life. I've leaned hard into that for many, many decades. Um, I think in recently I've become quite moved by the, the supports within my family that I d- hadn't realized that, uh, really set me up so well to, um, to do what I want to do in life.

    15. JS

      Beautiful. Love hearing that. Uh, question number four. What's the first thing you do in the morning and the last thing you do at night?

    16. AH

      First thing I do in the morning is get outside and get sunlight, and if the sun isn't up, I flip on all the lights and then I go get sunlight. I also drink a glass of water. Before I go to sleep at night-

    17. JS

      Yoga nidra? You're not doing that at night. You're doing it-

    18. AH

      No

    19. JS

      ... throughout the day, yeah.

    20. AH

      I, I actually, I think about those three people I was talking about before. I do, every night. I just think about them. I don't know. It's been a long time now that accumulated over several decades and, um, yeah, I think about them every night.

    21. JS

      Love that.

    22. AH

      And I don't even think to do it. It ju- I just do it.

    23. JS

      Yeah.

    24. AH

      I was just trying to-

    25. JS

      Yeah. I've, I've a, I lost one of mine mentors, the others are still alive right now, one of them to stage four brain cancer and just a couple of years ago, and I, I... When you said that, I was like, "Yeah, I, I know... Yeah, know what that feels like." So yeah. All right. Uh, fifth and final question. If you could create one law or set one habit that everyone had to do every day for the rest of their life, what would it be? I think I know what it's gonna be, but I'll have to ask you.

    26. AH

      Well, since most people assume it's sunlight viewing, and I'll just, I'll just assume they're doing that anyway, I would die a happy person if people would adopt a practice of learning to deliberately calm down, whether or not through non-sleep deep rest or a couple deep breaths. Um, l- find a tool, because I really believe that much of the misfortune and pain of life could be avoided if people learned to calm down. I also know that there's a lot more joy to access when we do.

    27. JS

      Andrew, you're phenomenal. You blew my mind multiple times today. I hope this is not gonna be the only time, uh, that we hang out. We agreed the first time we spoke that the podcast was an excuse to build our friendship.

    28. AH

      That's right.

    29. JS

      Uh, I feel like there are s- I... This is a podcast episode that I would highly recommend that everyone listens to again, takes notes. Uh, when, when you make those notes, try and find those elements that you wanna put into practice. Uh, I would highly recommend that everyone who's listened to this episode go and subscribe to and listen to Andrew's podcast, which is a wealth of wisdom in everything we've discussed today. Today we've tipped the, uh, tip of the iceberg. We've dived into so many different areas. You'll find episodes on every single aspect of what we've discussed on his podcast. Highly recommend that you go and check it out for the episodes that really connect. We didn't even dive into your incredible work deeply on vision or on sugar and diet and, you know, we haven't even, we didn't even get a go there, and we'll do that hopefully another time. Uh, but please make sure that you tag Andrew and I on Twitter maybe, uh, on Instagram, to let us know what connected with you, what resonated with you, what is something that you're gonna try this week because of this episode, how those habits are going. I love seeing you put these ideas and insights into practice. That is the whole goal of living a life that's on purpose. Uh, Andrew, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Uh, express my deepest gratitude for, for doing this. And yeah, any final words, anything you wanna share that's on your mind or heart that you wanna put out there in the world? Over to you.

    30. AH

      Thank, thank you. I, I wanna genuinely say thank you. Again, we've known each other somewhat at a distance for a long time now. It's, uh, been a tremendous pleasure. You know, I, I look to social media and a lot, and science and a lot of different landscapes for inspiration, and it's been a remarkable thing to see what you've done. And, um, and it's so great to meet in person because I knew you were the real deal.

Episode duration: 1:33:31

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