Joe Rogan Experience #1513 - Andrew Huberman

Joe Rogan 0:00 Andrew, how are you? What's happening, man?

Andrew Huberman 0:02 Doing great.

Joe Rogan 0:03 Nice to meet you.

Andrew Huberman 0:04 Nice to meet you too.

Joe Rogan 0:04 R- really excited to talk to you about this. Um, just sort of f- for an introduction, tell people what you do.

Andrew Huberman 0:09 So I'm a neuroscientist, uh, meaning I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology, Stanford School of Medicine. So I run a laboratory. I teach a little bit. I teach neuroanatomy to medical students. But mainly, my lab does research, so I've got students and post-docs, and we're trying to figure out the answers to two problems. The first problem is how to regenerate the damaged nervous system, in particular, the connections between the eye and the brain, to restore vision to the blind, so that's a big mission of ours, and to prevent vision loss in people that are losing their vision. And the other thing that we're doing is we're focusing a lot on stress and other states of mind. So I'm obsessed with the idea that all our states of mind come from the brain and the body, and we're trying to figure out what happens in the brain and body when we're stressed and how to control it, what happens in the brain and body when we are creative and how to control it, and essentially, for all states of mind. But rather than try and tackle the really high level stuff like flow and states of awe, we're really focused on these states of stress and things like focus and the ability to think clearly and do certain things athletically or cognitively because, first of all, there's a lot of suffering. There are a lot of people out there that are suffering from an inability to control their states of mind. And also, there's great potential for people who aren't suffering to be able to create and perform and do better things once we can understand how those states come about.

Joe Rogan 1:31 That's an interesting way of putting it, suffering 'cause they can't control their states of mind. Um, that- that is the case, but that's not, like, a politically correct way of, uh, describing it.

Andrew Huberman 1:43 I guess I never thought about that.

Joe Rogan 1:44 Would that be accurate?

Andrew Huberman 1:45 Well, I think that it's fair to say that all our states of mind and body, and I say mind and body 'cause the nervous system, which is the brain, the spinal cord, and all that stuff, it connects to our body-

Joe Rogan 1:53 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 1:53 ... and our bo- body connects to our brains, so we can't really separate those. But states of mind, which include the stuff in our skull and the body, those essentially dictate our whole life experience, right? So whether or not we're feeling calm when we wanna be calm, whether or not we're feeling stressed when we'd rather be calm, whether or not we are feeling focused when we need to do work, or whether or not we're feeling creative when we wanna be creative, all of that stems from the nervous system. The other organs are, of the body are involved, but the nervous system, the brain and those connections is really what it's about. So if you see somebody who's in a state of depression, or you see somebody who's in a state of flow and creativity, you can be pretty sure that that's reflecting the activity of neurons in the brain.

Joe Rogan 2:31 D- it's, um, the- the idea that the body and the brain are inseparable, um, most people who are physically active accept that and- and appreciate that and- and they know that this is probably true. But there's a lot of people that kind of wanna deny that and concentrate only on the brain. And particularly, like, there's psychiatrists that will prescribe medication before they'll prescribe exercise. And this is, uh, it's- it's a controversial subject. That's what I meant by saying, like, that you're, you are unable to control aspects of- of- of your brain, or aspects of th- the way you're viewing things or the way you feel about things. But...

Andrew Huberman 3:13 Yeah, so I think, um, if we take a step back and we just kinda think about what the brain and nervous system does, and again, nervous system includes all of it, we can say the brain is special, right? This brain, there is something fundamentally important about the brain part because if somebody who, let's say, has a limb amputated, it doesn't fundamentally change who they are. It can change what they can do, but their, and there will be aspects of their personality and temperament that might shift, but who they are hasn't changed. Whereas if someone has a brain lesion or their brain is degenerating, that person is fundamentally different. So there is something special about the real estate in our skulls. But that said, the job of the brain is really to combine our experience of what's going on in our body with what's going on in our mind and to react and behave to things in an adaptive way. So, um, if I may, there's just sort of, like, if we take a step back and just think, there are basically five things that the nervous system's responsible for doing. First is sensation. Sensation is nonnegotiable. It's happening all the time. Sound waves are coming in. Your feet are in contact with your shoes or the floor. That's all happening, and you can't control it because we have sensors, things in our eye, our tongue, our nose, our skin, our ears, that take physical events in the universe, photons of light, sound waves, touch res-, you know, physical pressure on the skin, and it transforms that into one language, and the language is the language of electricity, of neurons. Now, perception is the next thing that the brain does, and perception is all about which sensations we are conscious of. So if I say, you know, the contact of your hands with the table, now you're conscious of it, that's just your perceptual window. It's like a spotlight, vtt, it just goes straight to your hands. So there's sensation, perception, and then there are these things we call emotions, which are brain/body states. They tend to make us either wanna get up and move or stay still. They tend to make us think, "This is a good p- place for me to be at mentally and physically," or, "I wanna shift this." And then there are thoughts, which we could discuss in detail if you want, which kind of arise spontaneously. They're kinda running in the background all the time like pop-up windows on a badly filtered internet connection. But we can also deliberately have a thought. Like, I can say, "That pad of paper to my right is yellow." I can decide that. In the same way, I can do the fifth thing, which is an action. So you've got sensations, perceptions, feelings/emotions, thoughts, and actions, and all five of those include the brain and the body. But how much brain and how much body-

Joe Rogan 5:38 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 5:39 ... is shifted by a kind of underlying, let's just think of it as a tide, like the level of the tide, and that's the autonomic nervous system. So if I'm suddenly stressed for whatever reason, my perceptual window is gonna shift. My eyes are literally gonna change their focus. My world will become more like portrait mode. I'll see you and everything else will become blurry. When I'm calm, I actually have panoramic vision. I can see everything around me. So I better... So...... my state, my internal state of alertness or sleepiness impacts all this. And in sleep, which is kinda the opposite extreme of stress, I'm not in relation to anything outside me. I'm not perceiving anything. I'm sensing things, it's non-negotiable. I'm not having real thoughts, but the thoughts are kind of disoriented in space and time. And behavior is done. You're lying down. You're sometimes paralyzed in sleep. So when I say states, it's really about this dynamic shift between what we're perceiving and how we're perceiving it. And we could go really in depth in this or not, but states of mind are fundamentally, I think, the m- to me anyway, are the most important aspect of trying to understand how the brain works. Because ultimately, if you wanna understand mental illness and mental health, if you want us to understand high performance, which is something my lab is really interested in, if you wanna understand any of that, you have to understand how these states of mind and body relate. Because the autonomic nervous system, which is strongly impacting these states, is in the body. It in- it is, the basis of it is connections between the brain and body.

Joe Rogan 7:05 So you're analyzing people in stress states, and are you doing cognitive function tests on these people in stress states versus people in calm, placid states? Like, how are you, how are, how are you doing? Are you doing, like, similar tests or like-

Andrew Huberman 7:21 Yeah, so there are two states that ... Like, we can take that whole, um, tangle of mess that I just, you know, uh, threw out on the table and, and simplify it and say, look, there are two states that I think if we could really crack, we could really understand the underlying neural mechanisms, and we could understand how people could get themselves into these two states, we would greatly improve human health and human performance, cognitively and physically.

Joe Rogan 7:42 Okay.

Andrew Huberman 7:43 And those two states are the, the state of sleep, so not just the importance of sleep, I know you had Matt on here, so, uh, you know, great sleep researcher. Not just that sleep is important, but how to get better at sleeping, how to access sleep. So if you ... A lot of people struggle with that. And the other state is clear, calm, focused. Those two states for my lab right now are the target states. W- you know, there's so many states, but if we can figure out how those work and how to put, allow people to put themselves into those states, I think w- it's my belief that we'll do humankind a great service.

Joe Rogan 8:17 Okay, so when you say sleep, the state of sleep, like, what techniques are you talking about to achieve the state of sleep or, or do a, a better job of, of sleeping?

Andrew Huberman 8:27 Yeah, so when people come into my laboratory, we essentially start pressure testing them from the moment they walk in the door. So we have a laboratory, we do some animal work, we work on mice, and we study states like fear and courage, and, um, we're interested in what leads to c- uh, winning in certain forms of competition between animals and these kinds of things, aggression, those kind of very primal states. We also have a human lab. So people come into the laboratory. We have an equivalent lab, essentially, to our mouse lab. People put on VR goggles. We wire them into a lot of gear that allows us to measure things like heart rate, breathing. We're measuring pupil size, eye tracking, and in some people, because they are neurosurgery patients, we have access to the brain. We drop electrodes down into the brain-

Joe Rogan 9:09 Whoa.

Andrew Huberman 9:09 ... record from the human amygdala.

Joe Rogan 9:11 So you have a hole in their head?

Andrew Huberman 9:12 They have a hole in their skull.

Joe Rogan 9:13 Ooh.

Andrew Huberman 9:14 The neurosurgeons actually, uh, which I am not, uh, tell us that, you know, it's no big deal, right, that, that, um, you know, that basically they look at the skull as kind of a, a poorly evolved device. They, they always tell me, you know, "You're much better off with a titanium plate there anyway. It's much stronger." So they don't have a problem putting a little hole in the skull. These are surg- these are patients that have other issues, right? So th-

Joe Rogan 9:34 They, they're saying you're, you're better off with a titanium plate than skull bone?

Andrew Huberman 9:37 Well, if you're concerned about concussion or anything-

Joe Rogan 9:39 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 9:39 ... you know, if you really wanna protect the brain, you would, you know, you could build a better device to protect the brain.

Joe Rogan 9:44 But isn't ... but isn't the real brain damage comes from the brain slamming against the inside wall of the skull?

Andrew Huberman 9:52 Yeah, and they-

Joe Rogan 9:52 How is that gonna be better with titanium?

Andrew Huberman 9:54 Yeah, I mean, this is neurosurgeons, and they're, you know, they're in a-

Joe Rogan 9:56 Well, if there's some foam inside the ...

Andrew Huberman 9:58 Yeah, there are, um, synthetic materials that, you know, they use to protect against sloshing around.

Joe Rogan 10:03 Do they ... How much, how far do they go with this? Do they ever, like, remove the top of someone's head and replace it with titanium?

Andrew Huberman 10:09 Yeah, large portions, large windows.

Joe Rogan 10:11 How much?

Andrew Huberman 10:11 Um, I've seen windows in the skull that are, you know, the size of a, of an iPhone.

Joe Rogan 10:15 What?

Andrew Huberman 10:15 Yeah, sure. You don't flip it open?

Joe Rogan 10:17 Oh, no.

Andrew Huberman 10:17 No, they ... No, but now, keep in mind that these are-

Joe Rogan 10:20 Like a lid, a manhole cover for your brain?

Andrew Huberman 10:22 Basically.

Joe Rogan 10:22 Really?

Andrew Huberman 10:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 10:23 Is that available online? Can Jamie look that up? He's looking it already. (laughs)

Andrew Huberman 10:27 Well, you know, a, a guy who used to work in my lab, who's now at Ner- mm, who's now at Neuralink, a neurosurgeon-

Joe Rogan 10:31 Oh, one of those guys.

Andrew Huberman 10:33 ... um, one of those guys.

Joe Rogan 10:33 Ready to fucking bring on the AI hyper world.

Andrew Huberman 10:35 They, uh-

Joe Rogan 10:36 I'm scared.

Andrew Huberman 10:37 Uh, among other things, I mean, I think that, well, I always say, you know, all of human evolution is based on human neuroplasticity, the ability to learn and acquire new functions in the nervous system or where our biology kinda cliffs off and can't support us in what we wanna do, we build technology.

Joe Rogan 10:52 Right, and this is the idea that innovation steps in and says, "I've got an idea to accelerate this process." And then you get Captain Super Genius, who thinks it's no big deal to cut giant holes in the top of your head and stick these wires in there.

Andrew Huberman 11:06 I mean, I think there's that version of it. Um, and I think what ... I haven't spoken to them directly, but, um, except this one individual there, but, you know, first of all, they're not ... I don't think they're thinking about large windows in the skull unless there's a clinical need.

Joe Rogan 11:18 No. Elon said it's about a quarter.

Andrew Huberman 11:20 They're talking about behind the ear. Behind the ear with a route-

Joe Rogan 11:22 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 11:22 ... in through the bone there. And the other thing is that I think it's very likely that the first 10 years of that work will be clinical in nature, movement disorders, Parkinson's-

Joe Rogan 11:32 Yes. Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 11:32 ... you know. And of course, because I said that, they'll probably beat that by, you know, five years.

Joe Rogan 11:36 Well, the quote that made me uncomfortable was when Elon told me, "You're not gonna have to talk to communicate anymore."

Andrew Huberman 11:42 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 11:42 I was like, "Oh, Jesus Christ, where are we going with this?"

Andrew Huberman 11:45 Well, this is interesting because, um ... So I have a good friend who's a neurosurgeon at UCSF. We've known each other, each other since we were little kids, since we were nine. His name is Eddie Chang, and he's kind of the world expert. He's a neurosurgeon, but he's also the world expert in speech and language. And what he's been doing is decoding, essentially figuring out what neural signals come out of the brain that allow us to speak in a certain way. So let's say I, I wanted to build a device that would allow you to speak eight languages tomorrow that you don't know today.

Joe Rogan 12:11 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 12:12 The reflexive idea is, or, that people like Eddie and people like me and maybe the, the Neuralink folks are gonna go in and build chips that are gonna stimulate the hippocampus, and you're gonna learn faster and do all that. But there's a whole other version of this, and it gets right back to this issue of brain and body that we were talking about before.Now, speech is a brain thing. You think about what you wanna say, maybe for a joke or here, and it- and it's in your head, but it's transformed, meaning those nerve signals go in the form of electricity to the pharynx and larynx, and you say things like, "Hello, my name is," you know-

Joe Rogan 12:44 Right.

Andrew Huberman 12:44 ... in my case, Andrew, right? That transformation is happening at the muscle. So in theory, if I know that in English, right, and I know the nerve signals that come out of that area of, of cortex, that speech area, that say, "Hello, my name is Andrew," well, I can take those, look at how it controls the pharynx and larynx, and insert maybe a little box. Maybe I don't even have to put it under the skin. Maybe it's a device that I hold. So that when I say, "Hello, my name is Andrew," but I dial it to Mandarin or French, I'll just say, and I can't do this 'cause I don't speak Mandarin or French-

Joe Rogan 13:16 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 13:16 ... "Hello, my name is Andrew," I'll think that, say it in English in my head, but my pharynx and larynx will say it in Mandarin or French.

Joe Rogan 13:22 But isn't the problem with the way language is structured in, in different languages? Like, the- just, it wouldn't, and you've, I'm sure you've read translations from, like, Russian to English-

Andrew Huberman 13:32 Sure.

Joe Rogan 13:33 ... and it's really weird.

Andrew Huberman 13:34 Very different.

Joe Rogan 13:34 Or English to Russian is even weirder sometimes.

Andrew Huberman 13:36 Right. So this is really Eddie's work, but, um, because we're such good friends, we talk about this a lot. One of the fundamental discoveries that he's made, and I should just mention, all these neurosurgery patients, they have epilepsy or something else. There's a reason for opening up the skull and going in there.

Joe Rogan 13:48 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 13:48 They're not, we're not just-

Joe Rogan 13:49 Just curious.

Andrew Huberman 13:50 There was a time a couple decades ago when you could do this kinda stuff, and there's some very interesting experiments that came outta that just because. You could decide to study rage in humans and go in there and start probin' around. Um, but-

Joe Rogan 14:01 Lobotomies.

Andrew Huberman 14:01 Lobotomies. Yeah. There's a, obviously a really interesting and famous and kinda sad history around that-

Joe Rogan 14:07 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 14:07 ... but also some interesting data came out of it. So, you know, a patient will come in, they'll do this, they'll record these areas, and what, what he's found, it's so interesting because if I, let's just say with that same statement, "Hello, my name is Andrew," there's a neuron in my cortex that responds when I say that and when I wanna say that. But if I just change it slightly and I say, "Hello? My name is Andrew?" I make it a question, there's a neuron right next door that encodes that. Turns out there's a map of inflection. So regardless of language, there's a map of, it's not quite meaning, but there's a map of intonation and inflection in the brain. So in theory, because that map is so regular across cultures, he's looked now in Chi- in Chinese-speaking people, in English-speaking people, and people who have a second language. He's even to- has some interesting data about people who have upspeak, the really annoying kinda-

Joe Rogan 15:01 Oh, I hate that shit.

Andrew Huberman 15:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 15:03 That's a lot near where you live.

Andrew Huberman 15:05 Yeah. Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 15:05 That's a San Francisco tech thing.

Andrew Huberman 15:07 I- is it?

Joe Rogan 15:08 Yeah. It's like, what they're doing is letting you know that they're one of the tribe, okay, and, uh, we're all in this together-

Andrew Huberman 15:15 Okay. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 15:15 ... and I think like you do, and you can trust me 'cause I'm unoriginal.

Andrew Huberman 15:20 Well, it might reflect a subtle brain damage. Um-

Joe Rogan 15:22 You think?

Andrew Huberman 15:23 I think the data show that it's a distortion of the, of the regular map.

Joe Rogan 15:27 I think it's the same thing as a Southern accent.

Andrew Huberman 15:30 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 15:30 I think you're just fitting in with your environment 'cause I know people that have adopted that shit once they've gotten into the tech world. I'm like, "Hey, fuckface, you didn't used to talk like that."

Andrew Huberman 15:39 Or the people that go to, to, you know, England and start speaking with a British accent.

Joe Rogan 15:42 Oh, like Madonna.

Andrew Huberman 15:44 Oh, did she do that?

Joe Rogan 15:44 Yes, she did.

Andrew Huberman 15:45 I don't follow pop culture carefully enough.

Joe Rogan 15:46 Yes, she did.

Andrew Huberman 15:47 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 15:48 Yeah, I'm moving to Texas. I'm gonna start saying y'all two weeks in. I'm giving myself two weeks.

Andrew Huberman 15:52 Interesting.

Joe Rogan 15:52 I'm gonna try out y'all.

Andrew Huberman 15:53 Interesting. Well, some of this stuff is learned...

Joe Rogan 15:55 (laughs)

Andrew Huberman 15:55 Are you moving?

Joe Rogan 15:56 Yes, yes.

Andrew Huberman 15:56 Oh, you are? I've heard rumors of that, but I guess, okay. Um, sorry to hear, sorry for California. Um, congratulations Texas. Um, there, you know, these maps have some regularities across people because when we're born into the world, you know, we are not a completely clean slate. There's a, kind of a, a map that expects the world, including language, to be a certain way. And we can't expect that we're gonna be born in China or born in France or born in California, or Northern California for that matter. So the map is what we call semi-malleable. It's not a rigid, concrete, hardwired map.

Joe Rogan 16:32 So what makes you think that this upspeak is, like, damage?

Andrew Huberman 16:35 Well, so I asked Eddie about this, um-

Joe Rogan 16:37 Eddie?

Andrew Huberman 16:38 Chang, my friend, this neurosurgeon who is-

Joe Rogan 16:40 Okay.

Andrew Huberman 16:40 ... you know, kind of premier world, not kind of, he is the world expert on speech and language and the neural transformations and how it controls the pharynx, all that stuff. And I said, "What's with the upspeak thing?"

Joe Rogan 16:49 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 16:50 He said, "Yeah, you know, we see that sometimes, and I'm concerned about that." And when a neurosurgeon tells you they're concerned, you kinda go, "Okay, what are you concerned about?" He goes, "There's something wrong with the map."

Joe Rogan 17:00 (laughs)

Andrew Huberman 17:00 And this kinda geed, this- you know. So maybe that's, uh, you know, it could be because of upbringing and people... Uh, you know, the brain is plastic as adults, too. And, um, not in the same way it's plastic in childhood-

Joe Rogan 17:11 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 17:11 ... but, you know, if you are forced to learn another language, your b- your brain will fundamentally shift. Neuroplasticity is a real thing. And I think, uh, it's interesting you raise this kinda cultural component because actually it was Eddie's, uh, advisor, a guy named Mike Merzenich, was really the one who discovered adult neuroplasticity. You know, in the '70s and '80s, and my actually scientific great-grandparents, David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel, won the Nobel Prize for showing there are critical periods, these periods of development after which the brain cannot change. And they had important implications for amblyopia and eye stuff. Merzenich came along and said, "You know what? I don't buy that." And he started doing experiments with his students and post-docs where they would create an es- an essential need or contingency, like if the animal doesn't eat unless it learns something, then the brain can change. If you break down learning events into kind of smaller, more focused events, the brain can change as an adult at essentially any age. And so the strongest drive for adult neuroplasticity is focus. It's the ability to say, "Uh, this is really important."

Joe Rogan 18:21 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 18:21 It's making a soda straw view of the world. It's almost like being in a state of stress. And the best way to do that for a young person, an adolescent or maybe even older, is the social pressures, if they're strong, they will shape and rewire the brain. I mean, I look at what's happening in the world right now and I think we are in a state of immense neuroplasticity.

Joe Rogan 18:42 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 18:42 Everybody is having to rewire their understanding of what's going on. So...... just to sort of, um, put a, you know, kind of a bow of some sort on the, the speech and language thing, I don't think brain-machine interface is gonna be all about dr- sticking chips in the head.

Joe Rogan 18:56 But still, let's get back to the upspeak thing.

Andrew Huberman 18:58 Sure. Okay.

Joe Rogan 18:58 'Cause why does he think it's damage? Like, what is, what is it about upspeak...

Andrew Huberman 19:02 Well, he just thinks that the map, which shows up kind of normally in, in... I mean, most p- this is probably the first time in human history people have used this upspeak. It's also the first time in human history people have, you know, typed with their thumbs. But-

Joe Rogan 19:13 I was listening to two guys at the airport, back when you could go to the airport, and these two guys at the airport were talking in upspeak. And, uh, uh, it was, like, as clear as day to me. Like, they were letting each other know that they're in the tribe. And, uh, you know, I remember Jamie had a tech problem once and he was on the phone with this lady who was doing upspeak when she was talking to him, and we both looked at each other like, "Ew, yuck." (laughs)

Andrew Huberman 19:34 It does kinda create a kind of visceral, like-

Joe Rogan 19:37 Ugh.

Andrew Huberman 19:38 ... like, nauseous reflex.

Joe Rogan 19:39 I can't trust those people. I can't trust someone who talks like that because I know you're unoriginal. Like, you... Not, not, what, not. Like, look, most of us are clearly, at least mostly influenced by the people around us. But it's not just that. It's like you've changed how you talk to fit in with this. There's a tech world. There's tech language. That's tech speak. It's English, but it's tech speak English, and it's letting you know.

Andrew Huberman 20:07 And there does seem to be a body response too.

Joe Rogan 20:09 There's a thing to it.

Andrew Huberman 20:09 There's sort of a spinal extension thing.

Joe Rogan 20:10 I don't trust them. I don't trust them. I think they're sneaky.

Andrew Huberman 20:15 Well, I'll try and get the data from-

Joe Rogan 20:16 (laughs)

Andrew Huberman 20:16 I'll try and get the data from Eddie.

Joe Rogan 20:18 I'm being halfway joking here. If you're, like, an upspeak person, like, "Hey, man, I've always loved your show, but then you said you don't trust people who talk like me. Joking. But also, stop doing that. Stop fucking doing that. I know what you're doing."

Andrew Huberman 20:31 I think, um, I think Eddie would say that there's some distortion in the way they're using this map.

Joe Rogan 20:37 But how did it start? I think it started with one really smart person who's probably a little autistic who talked like that because they were trying to keep it together, and then everyone else was like, "I wanna be as smart as John." And then they started talking like that, and then it became a thing, sort of like accents. Like, there, I grew up in Boston, right? They talk in a weird way, and I, I picked it up. And then one time I heard myself on television. I heard myself talk like that when I was 19. I was like, "Oh my God-"

Andrew Huberman 21:05 Strange.

Joe Rogan 21:05 "... I sound like a fucking idiot. What is wrong with me?" Like, 'cause I had only lived there at that time for, like, six years, but I adopted it whole hog. And I was like, "What i- what's wrong with me?" Like, why am I... I wanted to fit in, that's what it was.

Andrew Huberman 21:18 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 21:18 I, I moved there when I was 13 and I tried to fit in. And so I'd adopted this speech pattern. I didn't realize it until I heard it. Like, y- you know when you listen to a tape of yourself, you actually find out what you really sound like. You're like, "Ew."

Andrew Huberman 21:30 Do you watch your performances these days?

Joe Rogan 21:32 I have to watch standup. I have to watch some of those. Uh, podcasts, I try not to, unless it's important, unless it's, like, something that I need to watch over again. Like, I'll probably listen to this one over again because you're probably gonna say some things that are, you already have, that I need to reflect on and research. And, and, you know, this is a very interesting subject to me. It's very important to me, and there's many different parts of this that I wanted to talk to you about, particularly, um, uh, how people respond to damaged brains and what can be done to repair damaged brains and, uh, stress, what we were talking about earlier, states of stress and how they reflect on your ability to think and assess and, and, and resolve problems. Because it seems to me that, me, me personally, um, if I'm tired, if I'm, like, f- particularly working out, right? Like, uh, if I'm working out with, like, a tr- like, a Muay Thai trainer and he has, like, a particular combination that he wants me to do, if I'm exhausted, it's, like, my monkey brain can't put that combination together.

Andrew Huberman 22:34 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 22:34 I'm like, "What do I do again? Left, right, low kick, body, knee to the body, elbow, clinch. Like, what is it again?" Like, it's simple. It's very simple, right? But if I'm tired, it's not simple anymore. So what's going on? Like, why, why does being tired have an effect on the way you perceive things and what memory and combinations of things that you have to put together? And that's nothing. That's just being tired. That's not your life depending upon it, which is a huge factor.

Andrew Huberman 23:05 Right.

Joe Rogan 23:05 And for fighters, there are many, many fighters who, uh, do really well in the gym when there's no pressure. They're comfortable. You look at them and you're like, "Wow, that guy's incredibly skillful. He must be incredible." Like, "When he fights, he must be amazing." Then you see him fight and they just lock up. Like, for whatever reason, they can't, they can't rise to the occasion. They're, they are dwarfed by the moment. And whatever it is, whether it's the way they're perceiving these threats, uh, the way their mind is just wired or the way they have learned to handle situations, maybe they have, uh, a series of bad memories that gets relayed every time they're in a situation and they, they, they start concentrating more on failure than on staying calm and trusting the process, which is a, a big factor. Your training is supposed to come out almost in a zen-like state. And when you're fighting, the whole idea is to maintain calm and maintain this sort of center as much as possible. And when someone's pressuring you and attacking you and talking shit to you in particular, what they're trying to do is weaken that center. What they're trying to do is break that up so you can't have a happy place. There's no happy place for you. And then you see people fall apart, you see them fold. And it's fascinating because it's not a physical thing. Like, their, the physical body is still capable of performing, but there's something going on with stress where the brain can't send the orders to the body correctly. And you're so overwhelmed with anxiety or fear of failure or just the overwhelming reality of the consequences of making a mistake, that you crumble.

Andrew Huberman 24:43 Yeah. Well, this is why we're obsessed with clear calm and focus-

Joe Rogan 24:47 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 24:47 ... or sleep, as a good jumping off point for... You know, because we want, eventually wanna tackle all the states, but that's a good jumping off point.

Joe Rogan 24:54 We're jumping all over the place, but let's get, uh-

Andrew Huberman 24:56 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 24:56 We started with sleep.

Andrew Huberman 24:57 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 24:57 So let's get back to sleep.

Andrew Huberman 24:58 So-Sleep and stress make a good, uh, sort of counter-examples. So, but if we're just gonna focus on sleep, first of all, sleep is the only time that you're in complete relation to only one thing, and that's yourself. It's also a time in which there's a core operation of the brain in wakefulness that's especially apparent in stress, but it's happening all the time, where your brain is trying to do two things in wakefulness, and I realize we're talking about sleep, but-

Joe Rogan 25:24 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 25:26 Most of what your brain is trying to do is pass things off to reflexive behavior, so I don't have to think about picking up water. I don't have to think about walking down the hall. I just do it. I just breathe. I just move. I eat. I'm not conscious of it. There's another mental operation which is very demanding but extremely important, and this is encompassing a lot of different aspects of neural circuitry and function, but the brain wants to figure out duration, path, and outcome. How long something gonna last? What's the path to do it? And how's it gonna work out? Those are the two things that the brain is mainly managing during waking states, and of course, it's keeping your heart rate going and your breathing going, your digesting going, but that's all running in the background. When you go to sleep, your perception of space and time, not outer space unless that's what you're thinking about, but space and time becomes untethered. It becomes very fluid. So when you lie down to go to sleep at night and you're drowsy, you stop doing these duration-path-outcome analyses, and if you have trouble sleeping, it's because you're still doing, "What's the duration? What's the path? What's the outcome?" Your brain's looping in that. So when you go into sleep, it's the one time in which the brain can untether space and time. Like if this were a dream, you know, your dog could float in here and sit down on the table and then morph into somebody that you know from long ago, and we'd be okay with that because it's a dream. So that period of six to eight or 10 hours, whatever you need, is essential for resetting neural circuits in the brain, there's some chemical events too, but neural circuits, so that during wakefulness, you can do duration-path-outcome, like learning a new martial art, um, move.

Joe Rogan 27:07 So it's, the untethered aspect of it is crucial?

Andrew Huberman 27:11 It's absolutely crucial.

Joe Rogan 27:12 And what, how do we know this?

Andrew Huberman 27:13 We know this, so when people come into my lab, we study these two states. We put them into VR goggles, and we deliver very real, not cartoons and animation, but very real 360 video of things like claustrophobia if you're claustrophobic, diving with great white sharks if you don't like sharks, spiders crawling up you. We find your pain point.

Joe Rogan 27:32 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 27:33 We bring you into a state of stress, and we find in everybody, and this is not necessarily a new phenomenon, that your pupils dilate. When your pupils dilate, the optics of your world changes, and you are looking at the visual world, which is space, physical space, and you start slicing time differently. If you've ever been stressed, it feels like things are taking forever.

Joe Rogan 27:55 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 27:56 That's because your body is sending your brain more signals per unit time. Str- it's saying, like, "My body's active. My body's active. My body's active. My body's active." Think about when you're drowsy. Your body is sending fewer signals to the brain per unit time, and what ends up happening is the brain uses physical space and use these signals from the body, we know this from neural recordings, to start creating a space-time relationship. The space-time relationship really says, let's just take the jujitsu example, even though I've never done jujitsu. You're trying to figure out, "Where do I place my hand? Where's my grip? How do I move my leverage? What am I gonna do?" When you're trying to sequence things, it's duration-path-outcome. In sleep, the forebrain essentially shuts off. There's some other things that happen too, of course, and the brain starts to f- drift and idle into these states that, where duration-path-and-outcome analyses become impossible. We also put people into deeply relaxed states. So we're studying three different ways to do that. One is hypnosis, which is not like, you know, charm hypnosis, stage hypnosis, but medical hypnosis. My colleague, David Spiegel, in the Department of Psychiatry is kind of world expert in hypnosis for pain management, et cetera, trauma. You can put people into hypnotic states, which are very sleep-like. They're a little different than sleep, but they're like a shallow stage of sleep. We also use particular patterns of breathing or respiration to bring people into states that are sort of like sleep. It's like a very shallow level of sleep, but they're completely immobile, or in some cases, we've, we've studied things like more traditional forms of meditation, although that's the less, less the focus these days. What we find is that the brain can go into states where duration-path-and-outcome, or, you know, cognitive processing, physical activity is impossible, and the brain starts to show wave-like activity that's very similar to sleep. And what I didn't tell you is that we also have people do a cognitive task. So while they're in a very stressful environment, like with heights, or they're being bombarded with, you know, snake experience, or, or we have a bunch of different experiences, they're required to do a cognitive task, which is a duration-path-outcome task. And then we put them into these states of pseudo sleep, and then we evaluate their ability to perform in these tasks again, and we, what we found is interesting. What we found is that they're, first of all, these sleep-like states can be very restorative. I imagine that, um, uh, you mentioned the float tank earlier-

Joe Rogan 30:20 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 30:20 ... like maybe float tanks, and we can talk about why the float tank would put you into a s- pseudo sleep-like state. Certain substances put us into sleep-like states. Naps and just letting the mind drift can put us into sleep-like states, and those sleep-like states do two things that are very powerful. One is they reset our ability to do these very taxing, demanding duration-path-outcome kinda brain functions. As well, they allow people to access sleep more easily. You know, so we want people to be able to get into deep sleep because nothing is a, as restorative as deep sleep because in deep sleep, and in the states that I'm talking about, these rela- deeply relaxed states, duration-path-outcome analyses are impossible.And I think being able to toggle back and forth between these states is really where high performance emerges. So, for the very stressed human being who's suffering from generalized anxiety, we study those types of patients. But, in addition, for people who are doing well in life but are high performers, so we do some work with elite military, with some athletes. We've had David Goggins out to the lab. Um, we'll talk about it.

Joe Rogan 31:25 You can't use him.

Andrew Huberman 31:26 You can't use him.

Joe Rogan 31:27 Just, just to break-

Andrew Huberman 31:27 So he's a, he's an extreme outlier, right?

Joe Rogan 31:29 It's too... He's too far on the outside.

Andrew Huberman 31:31 So, what's remarkable about him is he has figured out how to tap into dura-... He can force himself into duration path outcome.

Joe Rogan 31:38 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 31:39 Now, I don't know his state while he's running, if he's relaxed, if he's aggro the whole time. I don't know. But he is a bit of a mutant in the sense that... But he's created, in his words-

Joe Rogan 31:48 Yes.

Andrew Huberman 31:48 ... he's crea-

Joe Rogan 31:48 He's turned himself into that mutant.

Andrew Huberman 31:49 He's figured it out.

Joe Rogan 31:50 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 31:50 He's figured it out. He was not born that way.

Joe Rogan 31:52 No.

Andrew Huberman 31:52 We know that. And-

Joe Rogan 31:53 Well, that's the most special thing about him, really, is that... And also, that he's willing to share that he was, at one point in time, a large, fat, lazy guy, you know, and then he became this savage that you see.

Andrew Huberman 32:06 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:06 He d- he forced his mind into that particular state.

Andrew Huberman 32:09 Well, and the states that will allow people to go there often are fear states, anxiety states, things that are extremely high pressure because the, the adult brain especially doesn't wanna change. You know, we're basically born, we get wired up by our experience, we get wired up by what we're exposed to. Brain plasticity is very passive for the first 25 years of life. You know, I, um... If you're a child, y- the things you hear and see and do are shaping you, right?

Joe Rogan 32:36 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 32:36 Kids come home saying things they've never even heard before. It's amazing.

Joe Rogan 32:39 Right.

Andrew Huberman 32:40 There's... And as an adult, you have to crack into that neural circuitry and reshape it. And-

Joe Rogan 32:44 Yeah, but why is that? What, what is it about adults? Because I have my own theory, and this is, uh, just a, a martial arts-based theory. Young kids learn so fast. They learn so fast. But I always feel like it's 'cause they don't have jobs. They don't have a family to take care of. They don't have a girlfriend who's on their back. They don't have bills and the IRS breathing down their neck. They don't have anything, so they can just think about it and their mind... Like, if, if they have a hard drive, right, and they're, they have a one-terabyte hard drive, they got, like, 100 gigs full. They have all this space. You could fill that space up with technique and movement and, and it becomes their whole life 'cause it's thrilling, and it's exciting to learn, and their body heals quicker so they can, they can force themselves into situations. With adults, it's extremely difficult to find the bandwidth, to find the amount of time to really completely focus on something because you have so many distractions.

Andrew Huberman 33:40 Yeah. Well, the-

Joe Rogan 33:40 Does that make sense, that...

Andrew Huberman 33:42 Oh, absolutely. What you just described is a, is a beautiful description of the top contour and below that what's happening is in, in childhood, the whole brain is literally more plastic because there's more space for the neurons to move around and make new connections.

Joe Rogan 33:57 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 33:57 The whole environment, the chemicals that are swirling around in there are set for plasticity 'cause we were basically designed to come into the world and be customized to our experience. I mean, if the human animal is exceptionally good at any one thing, it's that.

Joe Rogan 34:10 So, if you're an adult, say if you're a 35-year-old man with a family or a 35-year-old woman with a family and a job, and you wanna learn a new skill, what is the best way to force your brain to accept these new patterns and learn this quickly?

Andrew Huberman 34:28 By attacking two separate parts of a process. Neural plasticity is not an event, it's a process, and it has two parts. The first one is, if you wanna learn and change your brain as an adult, there has to be a high level of focus and engagement. There's absolutely no way around this because... So, focus and intensity and that kind of... the, the Goggins phenotype, right? I think Goggins is now a noun, a verb, and a pronoun, right? It's like-

Joe Rogan 34:52 (laughs)

Andrew Huberman 34:52 ... it's amazing. So, if you're gonna Goggins this process, what you need to do is you need to, regardless of how agitated you feel, you have to lean in and focus extremely hard. Now, the reason for that is that there's a neurochemical, norepinephrine, also called adrenaline, same thing, that's released in the brain and body. Most people back off at that point because they feel this agitation. But we have to remember that that noradrenaline was designed to get us into movement. That's the purpose of noradrenaline, to take us out of stillness and into movement. And then the other thing we have to do is we have to take that elevated level of alertness and we have to focus it. And there's a second neuromodulator called acetylcholine, which is secreted from this little structure in the base of the forebrain when we visually focus on something, or in the case of maybe if you're doing auditory learning, when you focus with your auditory attention.

Joe Rogan 35:42 Can I pause you there for a second?

Andrew Huberman 35:43 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 35:44 So, acetylcholine you could take in a supplement, and norepinephrine you can actually get from, uh, float- uh, uh, ice tanks. Like, you can get it from, uh, cryo chambers. You can get it from cryotherapy. So, using those strategies of taking... Like, acetylcholine is actually in Alpha Brain-

Andrew Huberman 36:01 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 36:01 ... one of the supplements my company sells. When you take that along with float tanks and doing... or excuse me, um, uh, cryo chambers and do some intense exercise or whatever you're trying to get good at with intense focus, couldn't those things accelerate that process?

Andrew Huberman 36:20 Almost certainly increases the plasticity, the rate of plasticity.

Joe Rogan 36:23 So, you would recommend if someone was trying to get better at something, like, a cryo chamber would actually accelerate the process of learning?

Andrew Huberman 36:31 Yeah. So, uh, yes.

Joe Rogan 36:33 Wow.

Andrew Huberman 36:34 So, so the reason for that though... But you don't necessarily need a, a cryo chamber. What you need are... So, we have these requirements. We need urgency and focus-

Joe Rogan 36:41 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 36:41 ... to trigger plasticity.

Joe Rogan 36:42 Right.

Andrew Huberman 36:42 That's one part of the process. I haven't, uh, mentioned the second pro- part yet. Neural plasticity is triggered when urgency and focus combine. Acetylcholine is released. For the aficionados out there, it's called the nucleus basalis, but that doesn't matter. There's a little compartment of neurons in the base of your forebrain that doesn't like to release acetylcholine on a regular basis. It's, uh-

Joe Rogan 37:02 It's greedy.

Andrew Huberman 37:02 It's greedy, and it doesn't wanna use that. With your child, it'll rain your brain with acetylcholine. But as an adult, 30, 40 up to 80-

Joe Rogan 37:10 Why is that?

Andrew Huberman 37:11 ... because they, you know, Mother Nature designed us to learn what we need to learn and then do that, reproduce, and die. I mean, not to be, you know-

Joe Rogan 37:19 How rude.

Andrew Huberman 37:19 ... dark about it, but I always say, evolution is not about us, it's about the offspring.

Joe Rogan 37:23 Yes.

Andrew Huberman 37:23 Right? Like, 100%, you know, it's-

Joe Rogan 37:25 And then, it's not even about them, it's about their offspring.

Andrew Huberman 37:27 Exactly.

Joe Rogan 37:27 It never ends.

Andrew Huberman 37:28 We are being manipulated from the inside.

Joe Rogan 37:30 Yes.

Andrew Huberman 37:31 I mean, that's what it, you know, kinda drew me in neurobiology, is that all these complex things you see in the world, it's all internal. So, you know, if you get urgency, it can come from, let's use David as a, he's a shining example of this, right? You can sit there and just ramp up your level of urgency through purely psychological means. You could take an ice bath, you could do high intensity breathing, anything that brings your level of alertness up.

Joe Rogan 37:58 Can I ask you this? W- if you were going to try to improve your ability to get better at something, when would you use that ice bath or the cryotherapy? Would you use it before? Would you use it afterwards?

Andrew Huberman 38:09 Definitely before.

Joe Rogan 38:10 Before.

Andrew Huberman 38:10 Before the, the learn, what we're talking about is a, a two-part process. The first part is the learning trigger. The learning trigger is gated by two things, adrenaline, which is also n- norepinephrine, same thing, and acetylcholine. And so you need that level of alertness up, and you need acetylcholine released at the location in the brain that corresponds to what you're trying to learn. So, things like supplements and certain nutrition regimens can assist the process, for sure, there's no question about that, things like alpha- ... GPC-

Joe Rogan 38:40 Caffeine.

Andrew Huberman 38:40 Caffeine will bring up the adrenaline and kind of anything to raise that alertness.

Joe Rogan 38:43 Doesn't nicotine as well? Nicotine has some sort of a, um, nootropic prof- uh, be- benefit to it. Not, not encouraging people to smoke, but, you know, you could take it in various forms, particularly gum. I know people take it in gum just for the, uh, nootropic benefit of it.

Andrew Huberman 38:58 Yeah, I'm not encouraging people to take anything, but there's a very, very famous, uh, Nobel Prize winning neuroscientist who, uh, I went to his office to visit him in New York, and he chewed seven pieces of Nicorette during that half-hour meeting, and I was like, "What is going on here?" And he said, well, first of all, it increases plasticity, and second of all, he has the belief, and this is not a clinical study, but he thinks that it can also hold off certain forms of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. I-

Joe Rogan 39:23 Didn't Bertrand Russell, wasn't he, like, a, a famous smoker? Like, he wouldn't even-

Andrew Huberman 39:26 Oh, I don't know.

Joe Rogan 39:27 ... I think, I think he wouldn't even g- go on a plane unless, uh, there was a smoking section 'cause he couldn't imagine not having his pipe for, uh, a certain amount of time.

Andrew Huberman 39:36 Well, creatives, you know, when, I think when smoking became less in vogue, I think creatives really suffered because it's very clear that... So, Nicorette is nicotine-

Joe Rogan 39:44 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 39:44 ... and the acetylcholine binds to the nicotinic receptor, they, so it, when you take nicotine in cigarette form or in Nicorette form, you're actually increasing the release of aceto- the action of acetylcholine in the brain.

Joe Rogan 39:56 Yeah, I don't smoke cigarettes, but I have, and the only time I have is before shows 'cause I have friends that are comedians that would smoke and I'd be like, "Give me one of them things, let me f- see what's going on." And I smoked them, I was like, "Whoa, dude, you get high off these things. This is crazy," particularly if you don't smoke cigarettes. You get this really weird high.

Andrew Huberman 40:14 Well, your receptors have never seen that level of, of nicotine before and they-

Joe Rogan 40:18 Right.

Andrew Huberman 40:18 ... they like that.

Joe Rogan 40:18 It's exciting.

Andrew Huberman 40:19 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:20 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 40:20 And so at the, for those moments, you know, your, your acetylcholine is like a spotlight.

Joe Rogan 40:26 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 40:26 It brings your vision literally into this more kind of portrait mode where you can see more, like, a narrow window of what's going on. I- there are behavioral ways to access this, too. Before a fight, you know, if somebody's really ramped up, their world is n- they're not seeing everything, they're probably, I've never done the walk, of course, but probably walking out to the octagon, they're not seeing all the, the color of the hat or the woman in the corner, you know, they're not relaxed, they're hyped up.

Joe Rogan 40:48 Right.

Andrew Huberman 40:49 But that's a trigger for plasticity because the brain needs some way to cue this plasticity proc- to let itself know, 'cause it's a self-learning organ, let itself know that something's really different. That's adrenaline. Something's changed. Then there's focus, what's changed? So, in the jujitsu example you gave earlier, it's the ability to focus on wh- what the sequence is, what happens when, and okay, I, I did that correctly or I didn't do that correctly, but that's duration path and outcome again. And having acetylcholine and noradrenaline up, that sets the plasticity trigger. However, that doesn't guarantee that those synapses are gonna change. It does not mean that you're necessarily gonna learn.

Joe Rogan 41:29 Oh, no.

Andrew Huberman 41:30 What guarantees that that process will be converted into literally the change in the connections between neurons, sometimes new neurons, but mostly the change in the strength of the connections, so that eventually you don't have to do d- duration path outcome, you can just be reflexive about it, is states of deep sleep and any state where you're not doing duration path outcome. So, we know from two recent studies, some of this was done by my lab, but by other labs as well, in humans, which I think is important to distinguish between mouse and human when, where we can, a lot of l- the changes in these brain structures occurs after learning during deep sleep, in particular slow wave sleep. But it also occurs during periods of naps and shallow sleep or even just periods where people deliberately decompress, where they're not focusing on any one thing in particular. So, if we were gonna kind of, uh, operationalize this process, it would be focus intensely, have an intense period of urgency, and then access the deepest rest you can where you're not thinking about anything, where space and time becomes very fluid.

Joe Rogan 42:36 So, stress, in that case, post-exercise or learning session would actually hinder your ability to grow and get better?

Andrew Huberman 42:45 Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 42:46 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 42:47 And elite performers, like elite military, elite athletes, I'm sure you're familiar with this, they understand that the ability to toggle back and forth between these high-alert, high-attentional states and deep rest is not just the key to performing what you can already, what you can already do, it's also the ability to get better over time. You, you know, I think Goggins, again, is such a remarkable example because it seems like it's all gas pedal, but I'm guessing, I've never asked him about this, but I'm guessing that he has his ways of recovering so that he can remain in that-... heavy gas pedal all, you know, significant amount of the, the day, all the time.

Joe Rogan 43:22 I mean, uh, I don't know about that. (laughs) I think he's just-

Andrew Huberman 43:25 May- maybe he's just all gas pedal.

Joe Rogan 43:27 I think he's all gas pedal.

Andrew Huberman 43:28 Could be.

Joe Rogan 43:28 I mean, he eats well. I mean, you know, he does sleep, but he prides himself on his ability to just go, "Let's go, motherfucker," and just force himself to do it.

Andrew Huberman 43:39 It's so impressive because, you know, I think most everybody struggles to try and get themselves in action. I mean, we, we know that actions are the key to neural plasticity. I mean, yeah, you can do some mental training, and that can be powerful. You can do meditation, you can learn to access sleep, but all that stuff. But ultimately, to get better at anything, you, you gotta get your reps in, whatever that is, neurosurgery or running.

Joe Rogan 44:00 That's interesting you say that because that's what he does with his mind. He's getting his reps in, and he describes it. He calls it armoring your mind. You have to armor your mind. And, you know, like, he, he to- he told a story once about being on a plane, and some football player said, uh, you know, "How do you, you know, you, how do you keep that dog alive inside of you?" And he goes, "It is like a dog." He goes, "My fucking dog, if I feed my dog," he goes, "and I feed him again, that motherfucker's always hungry." He goes, "He's always hungry. He's never not hungry." He says, "You gotta be that dog. You gotta always be there." So he's always there, and this doesn't mean he's not a pleasant guy. I love the guy. I love hanging out with him.

Andrew Huberman 44:38 He's great.

Joe Rogan 44:39 He's, he's great to have dinner with. He's fun. He's a good guy to be around. He's not, like, an asshole or anything. He's fun. But when it's go time, he's fucking ready.

Andrew Huberman 44:49 This is David. We're there-

Joe Rogan 44:50 David.

Andrew Huberman 44:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:51 Goggins.

Andrew Huberman 44:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:51 All the time.

Andrew Huberman 44:52 Oh, absolutely.

Joe Rogan 44:52 24/7.

Andrew Huberman 44:53 Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 44:53 Ready to go. Wake him up 4:00 in the morning, time to run. "Let's go, motherfucker!" You know, "Stay hard."

Andrew Huberman 44:57 I mean-

Joe Rogan 44:58 That's, that's what he does, like, all day long.

Andrew Huberman 45:00 He is every bit as intense as that public persona.

Joe Rogan 45:02 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 45:03 He, when, when he came out to the lab, it was kind of interesting 'cause we had just built this great white shark experience, and I'd gone down to Mexico. We had dealt with these sharks, and my friend, Michael Muller, he's got this whole thing where we could leave the cages, and we did all this, and it was, it was fun and crazy and probably a little stupid, frankly. But we bring it back, we build this VR stimulus, and he and a couple other team guys came in and, you know, so I'm explaining what we're doing, and we show the shark thing on the screen, and, and he goes, "I don't like sharks." And I'm thinking-

Joe Rogan 45:31 (laughs)

Andrew Huberman 45:31 ... "Okay, well..." So we'll give him something else. And then we go through the whole thing, and I'm explaining how we wire people in, and we record from the brain, and I said, "All right, so, um, who would like to try the sharks?" David. "I'll go." Like, just he, he just-

Joe Rogan 45:43 (laughs)

Andrew Huberman 45:43 ... wanted to be first. And I realized, I was like, "Okay." And he wasn't showboating. That's just the way he is.

Joe Rogan 45:48 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 45:48 It's just if there's something that creates that sense of agitation, that's a signal for him to go forward.

Joe Rogan 45:53 Do you know what he does in the summers?

Andrew Huberman 45:54 I don't.

Joe Rogan 45:55 He goes to Montana to fight forest fires.

Andrew Huberman 45:57 Does he really?

Joe Rogan 45:58 Yeah, he doesn't even make any money.

Andrew Huberman 45:59 Amazing.

Joe Rogan 46:00 He just goes there. He's rich, and he gets fucking dropped off in Montana in the woods, camps out there, and fights forest fires with a bunch of other savages, and he does it to keep his brain hard.

Andrew Huberman 46:13 That's fantastic.

Joe Rogan 46:14 That's, he's the real deal. (laughs)

Andrew Huberman 46:15 He is the real deal.

Joe Rogan 46:16 Can you imagine? You got millions of dollars in the bank, and you're like, "I'm gonna go fight forest fires all summer-

Andrew Huberman 46:21 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:22 ... just to stay hard." (laughs)

Andrew Huberman 46:24 (laughs) Yeah. Maybe I woulda done that when I was-

Joe Rogan 46:26 (laughs)

Andrew Huberman 46:26 ... a teenager to impress girls, but I don't, I don't think-

Joe Rogan 46:28 Bro, he's 40.

Andrew Huberman 46:29 He's doing it for him.

Joe Rogan 46:30 He doesn't give a fuck.

Andrew Huberman 46:31 Well, that's the thing is I think-

Joe Rogan 46:32 Ugh.

Andrew Huberman 46:32 ... that's, that, that authenticity is a real thing. I mean, there is a, a th- kind of a third kinda sec- there is a secret sauce in this whole mix, and this is kinda what brought me to some... My lab, you know, we do work with typical people, but we also in, do some work with people from David's former community and domestic and, and foreign special operations who are interested in this process for obvious reasons.

Joe Rogan 46:54 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 46:54 You know, how can you leverage the nervous system to build better, longer-lasting warriors? It's a really interesting question. And you could do that with brain-machine interface. You could do that with, um, you can imagine doing that with drugs or with, you know, supplementation or nutrition, all of that. But the, since the nervous system sits at the foundation of any of those, we started to think about this problem, and there's actually another element to it, which is the reward pathways involving dopamine. So you asked about kids, like, why they can learn all day long.

Joe Rogan 47:24 Mm.

Andrew Huberman 47:24 So their brain is very different, but it still needs some degree of focus, and they still need to get their sleep. They still have to obey those two rules of this process. But they engage in something else which is really powerful, which is play. A lot of their learning is through playful exchange, especially with the little kids, like in kindergarten and nursery school, and then as they get older, the social dynamics can be kinda harsh, but they can also be really pleasureful and fun. So the molecule dopamine is a really misunderstood molecule. We all make it from a location in the back of our brain, and people think of it as, like, reward. Like, "Oh, I've got a bunch of money," or "I, you know-

Joe Rogan 48:02 (laughs)

Andrew Huberman 48:02 ... did a great performance." Dopamine is responsible for that feeling of feeling great, but in addition, dopamine is what's released any time an animal or human thinks it's on the right path.

Joe Rogan 48:14 Hmm.

Andrew Huberman 48:14 And that's very subjective. So this is not, and I wanna be really clear that this is not positive thinking or, you know, the secret or telling yourself that you're performing well even when you're not.

Joe Rogan 48:25 Right, like if you are a rioter, and you break into a courthouse but you feel like you're on the right path, you're gonna get a release of dopamine.

Andrew Huberman 48:32 Heavy release of dopamine.

Joe Rogan 48:32 Even if you're, yeah, even if you're committing a crime and you really probably shouldn't be doing that.

Andrew Huberman 48:37 Yeah. Mother Nature built these systems, adrenaline, acetylcholine, dopamine, to be very generic in terms of what can activate them-

Joe Rogan 48:43 Mm.

Andrew Huberman 48:43 ... on purpose. You know, cocaine will cause a tremendous release of dopamine, so will methamphetamine. The problem is it sets a focus on just getting more of that thing.

Joe Rogan 48:52 Right.

Andrew Huberman 48:53 So dopamine is evoked through play. It's evoked through humor. Right? If you've ever just been working like mad or you see this in, you know, team guys know this really well, they, you know, 'cause they tell me. The- you can be in the worst situation, and somebody will crack a joke, and all of a sudden, it's like you have energy.

Joe Rogan 49:13 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 49:13 Now, that couldn't have been glycogen. That wasn't 'cause you're ketogenic. It wasn't 'cause you're whatever. That's neural energy.

Joe Rogan 49:19 Mm.

Andrew Huberman 49:20 And that neural energy is dopamine.

Joe Rogan 49:22 Is that what happens when you hear a great song and you get pumped up?

Andrew Huberman 49:26 That's right.

Joe Rogan 49:26 Is that the same thing?

Andrew Huberman 49:26 Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 49:27 Mm.

Andrew Huberman 49:28 And the reason dopamine is so powerful in this process of neural plasticity is that dopamine has the ability to buffer.... noradrenaline. So that stress that you feel when you're in effort, it's very hard for most people to keep that going. But when you get a sh- a, and when I say a shot, I mean an internal release of dopamine s- through humor or through the sense that you're on the right path. Let's take the fight example, where it's stressful and you're getting beaten down. All of a sudden, you land one or you do something properly and the other guy starts to timber a little bit or shuffle a little bit, you gain a chemical advantage.

Joe Rogan 50:01 Mm.

Andrew Huberman 50:01 And it comes in two forms. One is it triggers marking of the synapses that likely will change later. We rarely forget the events associated with dopamine for that reason, 'cause they signal, "Oh, whatever's happening now, that was good." And in addition to that, they start pushing back on the level of acetylcholine, excuse me, noradrenaline in the brainstem. And this is crucial because there was a study that came out two years ago, not from my group, that asked, "Why do we quit?" You know, if there, if you set, you know, 800 or even 500 pounds on the bar out there, I can't lift it. So I'm not talking about that kind of quitting. I'm talking about a long run. Why do I quit? If I'm not injured, like what actually causes quitting? When do, when do we decide that something is futile?

Joe Rogan 50:44 Right.

Andrew Huberman 50:44 And it turns out that for every bit of effort, any bit of effort, lifting a glass of water or running up a hill or in a fight, there are little bits of this, of noradrenaline, adrenaline that are released in the brain and body. And there's a counter. There's a cell type which are called glia, which literally means glue in Latin. These cells are paying attention to how much norepinephrine is coming, and if it hits a certain threshold, the brain stops voluntary control over the musculature, says, "That's it. I quit." And there are these beautiful experiments where they manipulate the visual environment so that this isn't, they're certain that this isn't lack of muscle fuel, this i- or liver fuel. This is lack of neural fuel. Dopamine pushes back that level of noradrenaline and it gives you more gas. It lets you go further. And you see this through teamwork, when you feel like you're supported, when you're-

Joe Rogan 51:34 Mm.

Andrew Huberman 51:34 ... you know, in cohesion, humor, play. If, you know, if you're in serious effort and it's just things are going terribly, maybe I've never done comedy, but you're trying to write a joke and it's just frustrating, and then suddenly you just kinda laugh at how ridiculous the process is, there's a kind of loosening or a lightening and you have more energy. That energy is reductions in epinephrine. And so, I don't know how David Goggins has done it, but everyone does this a little bit differently, but it could be, and I'm speculating here, of course, never done the neurology, but that David has somehow figured out that the leaning in process for him is the dopamine trigger. Like there is a kinda sicko thing about the way he talks about it, like it's like a, i- it's a little bit masochistic, right?

Joe Rogan 52:15 Mm.

Andrew Huberman 52:16 And for him, maybe it was that way and it's rooted in his origin story. For other people, they find this in purpose, like that you're doing this for your kids or you're doing this for somebody else. You know what, I think that the human animal has a capacity to, to push, has a capacity to focus, has a capacity to learn at all ages, but these gates on plasticity are set by certain requirements. And, you know, when I look out there and I see all this stuff about, um, you know, psychology and all of self-help and wellness stuff, you know, I'm a neuroscientist, so I look at the lens of everything through neurochemicals and neuroscience, but it all kinda boils down to a couple basic chemicals and systems, or what we call circuits in the brain.

Joe Rogan 52:55 What's the difference between noradrenaline and norepinephrine?

Andrew Huberman 52:58 Yeah. Great question. So same thing. So adrenaline and, um, and norepinephrine, excuse me, adrenaline and epinephrine, same thing.

Joe Rogan 53:07 Oh.

Andrew Huberman 53:07 Same thing. Norepinephrine and noradrenaline, those two things are the same thing.

Joe Rogan 53:11 Oh, okay.

Andrew Huberman 53:11 It a- it was a naming war. So scientists are like, they have egos, um, some more than others. And, uh, there was a naming battle. And so if you go to Australia, they call it one thing. In England, they called it another.

Joe Rogan 53:23 Hm.

Andrew Huberman 53:23 And basically it was two labs discovered the same thing and it was a pissing competition.

Joe Rogan 53:27 Oh. Well, how confusing-

Andrew Huberman 53:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:28 ... for everybody else.

Andrew Huberman 53:29 Exactly. And you can find that over and over and over again in science.

Joe Rogan 53:32 Noradrenaline.

Andrew Huberman 53:32 'Cause no one ever comes in with a gavel within like nomenclature committee and says, "We're just gonna call it this."

Joe Rogan 53:37 Noradrenaline's so much easier to say.

Andrew Huberman 53:39 It is.

Joe Rogan 53:39 They should stick with that. Norepinephrine, like-

Andrew Huberman 53:41 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:41 ... I, I've fucked that up 100 times.

Andrew Huberman 53:43 Well, and it gets worse because like you think about the autonomic nervous system and they're like sympathetic, parasympathetic. Sympathetic-

Joe Rogan 53:48 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 53:48 ... sounds like sympathy-

Joe Rogan 53:49 Right.

Andrew Huberman 53:49 ... but it's actually the stressed state.

Joe Rogan 53:52 Do you think that you would benefit from data from real world situations in a m- a m- a much more comprehensive way than you would from these virtual situations you're putting people in? Because I, you know, we have a VR thing out here. We have a, uh, an Oculus and it's pretty cool. There's one of 'em where you walk on a plank-

Andrew Huberman 54:12 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 54:12 ... and you really do feel like this plank is over, like it's on the 60th floor of a building and it p- goes out a window and you really do feel like you're kinda, but you know you're not.

Andrew Huberman 54:22 Right.

Joe Rogan 54:22 It's a diff- there's a difference.

Andrew Huberman 54:23 Right.

Joe Rogan 54:24 You get a little bit of it, but you don't get the real thing.

Andrew Huberman 54:26 Right.

Joe Rogan 54:26 Like, like, being in the jungle and the leaves part and there's a real tiger in front of you, the feeling that you would get would probably be, uh, you, you probably wouldn't be able to recreate it with virtual reality. There's some part of your brain that knows this is bullshit.

Andrew Huberman 54:42 Yeah. Uh, so we have three, three laboratories to explore this. One is the virtual reality, and virtual reality can give you what the scientists call presence, the sense that you're really in that environment, and that's mainly visually and auditory driven.

Joe Rogan 54:55 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 54:55 My colleague Jeremy Bailenson, who's on the, I'm in the medical campus, he's on the other campus, he's studied this a lot, like what are the requirements for getting people to feel presence? So people who come to our lab, they don't think they're underwater with a shark unless they're afraid of great white sharks. And for that moment where one of these guys is coming in and it opens its jaws-

Joe Rogan 55:13 Mm.

Andrew Huberman 55:13 ... for that person, it's every bit as scary as the real experience.

Joe Rogan 55:16 Nah, no way.

Andrew Huberman 55:18 If you look at their autono- well, we don't know 'cause we don't put them in the water, but-

Joe Rogan 55:21 I think, I just can't imagine.

Andrew Huberman 55:23 Well, here's the, here's the ch-

Joe Rogan 55:24 It's probably close.

Andrew Huberman 55:26 I agree. I mean, here's the challenge. We needed to bre-... we need to stress people.

Joe Rogan 55:30 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 55:30 And we needed to do it really well for a lab. And if you look historically, the experiments that came before ours were really lame. It was like picture of someone with a knife in their arm. For some people, that's gross, for some people, that's scary, but that's not really fear, right?

Joe Rogan 55:43 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 55:44 Or they'd startle people. But I can jump out of, uh, you know, maybe not to you, but I could jump a- out in front of a typical person with a teddy bear, and they'll get startled. Doesn't matter if it's a teddy bear.

Joe Rogan 55:52 Right.

Andrew Huberman 55:52 So, that's different, that's not fear. So, VR allows us to access states. The more sensory stuff that we can include, the better. There are some now that include smell. We have a, we're working with, um, augmented reality, so, uh, which is a little bit like the Star Wars thing of projecting a chessboard, that kinda thing. We find people's pain points, meaning we find the places in which we can trigger their autonomic function. We also run studies outside the lab. So, I have a large-scale study running right now with David Spiegel, my colleague in psychiatry, where people are equipped with WHOOP bands so we're monitoring sleep. We're gonna expand this to include some other devices that actually allow us to look at, uh, heart rate variability and body cavitation and some other things in some interesting ways, but also body position. So, we're tracking them 24 hours a day. And those people are reporting back to us levels of stress, life events, that kinda thing.

Joe Rogan 56:42 Mm.

Andrew Huberman 56:42 So this is outside the laboratory, but we can do this in real world, essentially. And those people were using interventions which are mainly respiration-based, so which are looking at specific patterns of breathing that trigger particular states in the brainstem that allow people to either sleep better or buffer their stress in, uh, in response to life events better. So this isn't really breath work-

Joe Rogan 57:06 Mm.

Andrew Huberman 57:06 ... as much as it is teaching them specific patterns of breathing that capture these neurons that switch their brain states.

Joe Rogan 57:13 It really is fascinating that these periods of rest are crucial to learning and developing.

Andrew Huberman 57:17 They're absolutely crucial. They are, they're every bit as much a part of the process as the actual trigger event. And I was, the athletes, the people, the high performers that I've encountered are all really good at accessing those states also.

Joe Rogan 57:33 Is it, uh, is there a desirable ratio?

Andrew Huberman 57:38 Right. So, you wanna focus as long as you can focus well, and then probably a little bit longer, because there's also plasticity of the circuits that control focus.

Joe Rogan 57:47 Oh.

Andrew Huberman 57:47 So as you, so, um, going back to your jujitsu example, uh, as you get to the point where you're starting to not be able to do this duration path outcome stuff, which involves motor movements and mental thinking, you were saying, y- you're getting tired. You're literally going into a sort of sleep-like state, where space and time, duration path outcome becomes hard. What you can do at that point is to start buffering the nor- noradrenaline, norepinephrine. Now I don't know which one to say, but I'll just keep going with whichever is reflexive. And you can start to buffer that through things like humor, through things like setting the urgency higher. That is not a time to relax and taper out. That's a time to ratchet up the intensity if you wanna grab a, a stronger trigger. So, but that period can't last infinitely, and the question is how long. Well, we know that you can do more short bouts of that each day than you could ever do one long, long bout. We know that. So you could maybe do two or three bouts of that a day, or if you are doing it several times a week. You basically wanna dose it about twice as much as deep stress as you do the deep focus. Uh, excuse me, deep sleep as you do the deep focus. So, if you're, I don't know how long these training regimes go, but part of that training is reflexive for you. I wouldn't count that in the learning process, th- because it's dialed into your nervous system. But at the point where it becomes challenging, a clock sort of starts, and when that period ends, I think at least double that amount of time of deep rest if you wanna maximize learning.

Joe Rogan 59:10 There's been a lot of work done on visualization and learning through visualization, and they found that you can get a similar benefit to actual physical training, obviously not with the endurance and the strength and all those other things, but in terms of skill learning, you get a similar benefit from an equal time of visualization.

Andrew Huberman 59:31 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 59:32 What, what do you attribute that to? Like, uh, how, how is visualization ... How can you learn things through visualizing?

Andrew Huberman 59:39 Yeah, so that's, uh, visualizing is setting the brain through these duration path outcome circuitry loops. It's, it's running the script, essentially. And it's important to move the musculature. It's important to say the words if you're, say, you know, learning a motor skill or learning a movement-

Joe Rogan 59:54 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 59:54 ... uh, a language, excuse me. But at some level, the brain doesn't really know what's going on in the body-

Joe Rogan 1:00:01 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 1:00:01 ... it's the command center, except what signals it receives back from the body. And so if the visualization is intense, the brain isn't completely convinced, but it's pretty convinced that you're actually experiencing that thing and rehearsing it. It's a little bit of your own internally driven virtual reality-

Joe Rogan 1:00:17 Mm.

Andrew Huberman 1:00:17 ... is what you're doing.

Joe Rogan 1:00:17 Right.

Andrew Huberman 1:00:18 And so you're cre- and so I think mental training is powerful, but there's no replacement for repetition.

Joe Rogan 1:00:25 So, what about y- obviously, physical training has its limitations in your, your body's ability to keep doing the movements. You're gonna get tired-

Andrew Huberman 1:00:34 Sure.

Joe Rogan 1:00:35 ... and, and you're gonna break down. Would it be more beneficial to get more rest or would it be more beneficial to get rest but also spend a significant amount of time visualizing?

Andrew Huberman 1:00:51 We haven't looked at visualization specifically. The one thing that is very close to visualization which is very powerful based on neuroimaging studies, so legitimate science I should m- say, is hypnosis.

Joe Rogan 1:01:03 Mm.

Andrew Huberman 1:01:03 Hypnosis is real- a really unique state, and this is of mind and body. The-

Joe Rogan 1:01:08 Have you been hypnotized?

Andrew Huberman 1:01:09 Many times.

Joe Rogan 1:01:10 Oh.

Andrew Huberman 1:01:10 Yeah. And I'm very interested in hypnosis because of the work with Spiegel and the incredible, you know, success that he's had with pain management, smoking cessation, these kinds of things. Hypnosis is a state of deep relaxation not unlike sleep, but also deep focus. So it's very unlike any other state of mind. You're either usually asleep or you're focused, or somewhere in between, kinda drifting back and forth in between. But hypnosis is a deliberate...... narrowing of context, so the person or the audio script is bringing you into a state of mind that's centered around particular types of events, but you're in deep rest. And the idea is that you're taking that plasticity process of focus and urgency and then rest, and you're combining them into a single session. And so hypnosis and deep hypnotic states are the, are the place where neuroplasticity can be accelerated.

Joe Rogan 1:02:01 Mm. So when you say hypnosis, what kind of sessions are you talking about and how often? Like, say if you're an athlete, like let's, let's say maybe you're a basketball player and you wanna get better at basketball. You train as much as you possibly can, but there's limitations to that. You sleep as much as you possibly can. How often would you recommend someone doing some sort of a hypnosis session to try to improve their skills?

Andrew Huberman 1:02:27 Probably one, well, it depends on how intense their training is. For some of the people I'm doing work with in, in athletics and in the military community, uh, you might, they have extremely demanding lives, right?

Joe Rogan 1:02:39 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 1:02:39 And certainly for the military folks, it's, you know, high risk, high consequence, you know, even when they're in tr- non-de- non-deployment. So under those conditions, maybe every day, 30.

Joe Rogan 1:02:49 Hypnosis every day?

Andrew Huberman 1:02:50 Yeah, 30 to 45 minutes.

Joe Rogan 1:02:51 Wow.

Andrew Huberman 1:02:51 As a replacement for some other standard form of nap or meditation. I mean, not necessarily lumped on top of that.

Joe Rogan 1:02:57 So the standard eight-hour sleep, and then on top of that some sort of meditation for like 30 minutes? Like, what would-

Andrew Huberman 1:03:05 Yeah. There's a, um, a process of doing this. We have a script, uh, that we use in our lab, I'd be happy to send it to you, that takes you into these deep, uh, medi- sort of relaxation states. They're sort of meditative. Some people can self-hypnose by induce- you know, some people call them intentions, but I don't like that 'cause it sounds a little bit too much like a uncomfortable set of yoga classes I've taken-

Joe Rogan 1:03:24 (laughs)

Andrew Huberman 1:03:24 ... where they start with the whole-

Joe Rogan 1:03:25 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 1:03:25 ... like, I don't know, know really what that's about and they make you use complete declarative sentences. It feels weird to me.

Joe Rogan 1:03:30 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 1:03:31 Um, but that's just my own bias. Um-

Joe Rogan 1:03:33 Oh, they mean they make you set your intentions for the class?

Andrew Huberman 1:03:37 Yeah, it's like, "I am this, this, and this."

Joe Rogan 1:03:38 Ew. Do you say it out loud?

Andrew Huberman 1:03:39 Or ... Oh, no. I would, no, no, no. That would send me out of the room.

Joe Rogan 1:03:42 (laughs)

Andrew Huberman 1:03:42 Or (laughs) the, you know, even though it's-

Joe Rogan 1:03:45 Would they say it like this?

Andrew Huberman 1:03:46 Right. Well, and if they combine the upspeak, then I'd probably, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:03:49 Upspeak and intentions. That's a wrap.

Andrew Huberman 1:03:51 Yeah, then, then I'd, then I'd file a complaint. But, um-

Joe Rogan 1:03:53 (laughs)

Andrew Huberman 1:03:54 Yeah, they, they even, sometimes it's really bad. Sometimes they even make you work a pronoun into it, so you'd have-

Joe Rogan 1:03:59 What?

Andrew Huberman 1:03:59 ... to say, "Joe," (laughs) you know? Anytime someone's-

Joe Rogan 1:04:02 Can you make-

Andrew Huberman 1:04:02 ... or starting-

Joe Rogan 1:04:02 Can you have a fake pronoun, like one of the new ones?

Andrew Huberman 1:04:04 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:04:05 (laughs)

Andrew Huberman 1:04:05 That's, that's a ... I don't know. You might, I don't even know how to go there.

Joe Rogan 1:04:10 (laughs)

Andrew Huberman 1:04:10 You, you stunned, you stunned me. Um, probably-

Joe Rogan 1:04:13 Uh-oh.

Andrew Huberman 1:04:13 ... probably we're all gonna be required to at some point. Um-

Joe Rogan 1:04:16 Maybe not.

Andrew Huberman 1:04:17 Maybe not. Um, hypnosis is powerful, and I think stage hypnosis has done a great disservice, no disrespect to the stage hypnotists out there, to detract from the power of hypnosis as a medical tool and a high-performance tool for-

Joe Rogan 1:04:31 I, yeah, I, my own personal experience is that, uh, I didn't understand what hypnosis was. Um, my first experiences with hypnosis were, there was a guy named Frank Santos that's a famous, in the Boston area, who's a very famous comedy hypnotist. And he was an actual hypnotist who would hypnotize people and get him to quit smoking, things along the, those lines. But then would do this comedy hypnotism show where he would get people on stage, and man, like we would wa- me and a bunch of other comedians would go and watch it every week 'cause it was crazy. He would put them under, they would definitely be under, and they would think they were having sex. They would think they would be in a boat. They'd think they'd be in the water. They, it was weird. It was really weird to watch, and I always just thought it was, like, really weak-minded people. My thought was, and obviously I'm 21 at the time, I didn't know anything, but my thought at the time was, okay, there's certain people that are just, they have nine-volt brains and you can trick them into doing anything, and that explains cults and a lot of other shit and televangelists and all sorts of nonsense that should be, like, really obviously fake to people but they fall into it anyway.

Andrew Huberman 1:05:36 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:05:36 And so that's what I thought. I thought it was just really dumb people that he was tricking.

Andrew Huberman 1:05:39 Well, some people are more easily hypnotized than others. And it's, it's actually pretty predictable. There's actually a test that we could do right now that will tell you-

Joe Rogan 1:05:46 Really?

Andrew Huberman 1:05:46 Yeah. So-

Joe Rogan 1:05:47 Can you do it to me?

Andrew Huberman 1:05:48 Uh, yeah. I can use the one that, that Spiegel taught me, which is-

Joe Rogan 1:05:51 Okay.

Andrew Huberman 1:05:51 So you look up at the ceiling and you're gonna look, and now try and cl- and now close your eyelids. Uh, you're not very hypnotizable.

Joe Rogan 1:05:57 How's that?

Andrew Huberman 1:05:58 Uh, look up. One more time, and then close. Yeah. So probably not as hypnotizable.

Joe Rogan 1:06:03 Why?

Andrew Huberman 1:06:03 Um, so for people that are very hypnotizable, um-

Joe Rogan 1:06:06 Is that a word?

Andrew Huberman 1:06:07 Uh, yes, it is, hypnotizable.

Joe Rogan 1:06:09 (laughs)

Andrew Huberman 1:06:09 At least if it's not then I, I dis- I'm stamping it in. Nowadays I just, I'll put a Wikipedia entry. It'll be there.

Joe Rogan 1:06:15 Okay.

Andrew Huberman 1:06:15 But no, I don't know. I b- I've heard Spiegel use it before.

Joe Rogan 1:06:17 Susceptible hyp- to hypnosis.

Andrew Huberman 1:06:18 Susceptible to hypno- hypnosis. Um, I asked Spiegel how you measure this, kind of back of the envelope, you know, curbside consult as they call it, and people who are more hypnotizable, their eyelids will flutter in an attempt to go down. The reason is that a lot of hypnosis is anchored on the ability to go into these deep, really re- relaxed states. And some people's autonomic nervous system gets locked in a state of more, excuse me, of more attention and kind of higher levels of alertness or levels of sleepiness. So think about like a seesaw. So you can either be really stressed, so when you're really stressed, like you're analyzing time, you're analyzing space differently, duration, path, outcome. What's gonna happen? When's it gonna happen? Real emergency. The other state would be sleep, right? That's the other extreme. Duration, path and outcome are essentially nonexistent. Space and time are fluid, whatever. The hinge in the middle of that seesaw for some people is very tight. They get locked over here or locked over there. They can't get the energy or they can't destress.Hypnosis involves taking somebody from a state of alertness, like you and I are in now, and bringing them into a almost sleep-like state. Now, for some people, their autonomic nervous system isn't that willing to do that. It's almost like the hinge on that seesaw is locked, it doesn't wanna budge. And this fluttering of the eyelids is reflective of a peripheral nerve, believe it or not, that's re- that or- originates in the brainstem. That's a central part of the autonomic nervous system. The other thing that they'll do, you ever see on the stage hypnosis where they'll have people look up at the ceiling and then they'll sometimes shine a light in their eyes or they'll, like, have them look at a light?

Joe Rogan 1:08:02 Mm. I haven't seen that.

Andrew Huberman 1:08:03 They're looking at how l- how, we call it labile, but how rigid or labile, how willing to move the pupils are because autonomic arousal impacts the pupils of the eyes. So it's an external read of what's going on in the brain.

Joe Rogan 1:08:17 Mm.

Andrew Huberman 1:08:17 A lot of people don't know this, but your eyes are not connected to your brain. Your eyes are brain. They're the-

Joe Rogan 1:08:23 What?

Andrew Huberman 1:08:23 They are central nervous system and they're brain. Your neural retinas that you use for seeing things around you are s- part of the central nervous system. They are the way that you know when to be alert and to be asleep and they are two pieces of brain that during development got squeezed out of the skull and placed outside the skull.

Joe Rogan 1:08:41 Whoa.

Andrew Huberman 1:08:41 Yeah. They're the only two pieces of your brain that are outside your skull, a- assuming that you don't have some sort of damage.

Joe Rogan 1:08:47 That is fucking crazy.

Andrew Huberman 1:08:49 It's crazy.

Joe Rogan 1:08:49 Your eyes are a part of your brain.

Andrew Huberman 1:08:51 Yeah. And that's why when people tell me, "Oh, you know, the eyes are the window to the soul," I'm like, "Well, look, I don't know about souls, but they are definitely your brain." So when I look at you, and now it's weird 'cause I'm looking at, you know, we're not- not looking at each other's pupils, uh, right.

Joe Rogan 1:09:04 (laughs)

Andrew Huberman 1:09:04 But when the hypnotist, I should say, looks at the pupils, they're saying, you know, the pupil size is a direct readout of- of that hi- of how loose that hinge is. So when they shine light in someone's eyes and they take it away and they go who, who, who.

Joe Rogan 1:09:16 That's so weird that you can look in someone's eyes and there's something about, like, you can kinda tell what kind of a person they are in some ways, or at least tell how they're thinking. Like, if someone's uncomfortable being around you, like, ugh, you could see it in their eyes. If you tried to write that down, like, what are you seeing? You try to explain it to someone, good luck. Good luck writing that down. I don't know what that is. Like, I, but I know when someone's full of shit.

Andrew Huberman 1:09:41 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:09:41 Like, if someone's lying to me or bullshitting me, I'm not always aware, but I'm aware a lot.

Andrew Huberman 1:09:46 Well-

Joe Rogan 1:09:46 You know?

Andrew Huberman 1:09:47 Well, and it's not just their individual eyes, but it's also the way that they focus their eyes.

Joe Rogan 1:09:51 Mm.

Andrew Huberman 1:09:51 So, um, you know the myth of the cyclops, right? One eye in the middle of the head.

Joe Rogan 1:09:56 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 1:09:56 That myth has origins in the fact that the cyclop was one-dimensional anger. And it turns out that when we are experience an increase in autonomic arousal, so let's say we decide we're gonna fight, we decide we're gonna learn, or maybe even just we're gonna write something important, something's important, our eyes, the pupils change shape. But because our eyes don't really move in our skull, they actually do what's called foveate in a little bit. They, there's an eye musculature reflex that gets triggered in, and so you can see this sometimes in people that are, uh, getting ready to fight, their eyes are actually brought inward. That triggers another neural circuit to increase levels of autonomic arousal and starts deploying resources internally, fuel resources, fuel for, you know, bouts of- of intense stuff, whatever that intense thing is gonna be.

Joe Rogan 1:10:42 Mm.

Andrew Huberman 1:10:43 When we're relaxed, like we view a horizon or we're just walking or we're in what's called optic flow, when things are flowing past us, we go into panoramic vision. So in panoramic vision, you go out of that soda straw view of the world and you start being able to see the corners of the room, the ceiling, the floor, and what's, and that's a relaxed state. So sometimes we're even subconsciously perceiving how stressed or relaxed somebody is, not by necessarily their pupils, although that might play into it, it certainly has a role, but whether or not based on your prior kind of intuitive knowledge about that person, whether or not they're, like, cyclops or whether or not they're in panoramic vision.

Joe Rogan 1:11:18 Wow.

Andrew Huberman 1:11:19 And this is important because it changes the way we perceive time. If we are in cyclops vision, soda straw view, that high intensity, we tend to do two things. One is we tend to be more in tune with what's going on inside us. We start, you know, the- the brain does this other thing which is called interoception. It's like paying attention to what's going on inside us versus outside us. And when we're stressed, time outside us seems to go really slowly. It's like you're at, in the security line at the airport and you need to get your flight, it's a very different perception of the person in front of you and what they're doing than when you're relaxed and you got-

Joe Rogan 1:11:54 Right.

Andrew Huberman 1:11:54 ... plenty of time. And that's because outside events start to feel slower. This is why after a car crash people will say, you know, "Oh, the, everything was in slow motion." Or I've never actually looked at fighters, but, um, I visited, uh, the UFC Training Center, Duncan French, a br-

Joe Rogan 1:12:10 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 1:12:10 Uh, went out there and talked to him about this. He-

Joe Rogan 1:12:12 Shout out to Duncan.

Andrew Huberman 1:12:13 Yeah. He's- he's done some beau- his graduate thesis is, like, this beautiful work s- related to this, um, although not directly, uh, has important implications for this, which is when you're in these high adrenaline states, you parse time differently. And when I hear about fighters, you know, say, like, being able to time the fight or they, it's almost like they can see things coming in slow