Joe Rogan Experience #1842 - Andrew Huberman

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast,…

   1. AHAndrew Huberman0:00

      (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. NANarrator0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. AHAndrew Huberman0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (instrumental music plays)

   4. JRJoe Rogan0:12

      And we're up. All right, here we go. What's up, man?

   5. AHAndrew Huberman0:15

      Great to see you.

   6. JRJoe Rogan0:15

      Good to see you too. So, we were just talking about Ari blacking out trying to keep up with, uh, Shane Gillis, who is a, a superhuman drinker. Like it's, it's bizarre the volume he can put down. And you were, you were saying? You were about to say something?

   7. AHAndrew Huberman0:29

      Yeah. I mean, obviously there's a tolerance that's built up with drinking a lot, but I believe the number is approximately 8% of people have a mutation in a gene such that when they drink alcohol, it increases their dopamine levels very quickly and they get euphoric. They feel great. These are the people, like that character in Mad Men, the Don Draper character, like he would go out and just get plastered and the next day, you know, he's all fresh and, and ready. And pa- part of that is tolerance. But in certain Scandinavian countries, northern European countries, this gene tends to be more prevalent, and these people are the people that can just keep drinking and drinking. They feel great when they drink, whereas most people, they feel disinhibited at the beginning. You know, you have a couple drinks, your forebrain shuts down a little bit 'cause that's what it does. They start talking more, talking more. But if they keep drinking, they're blacking out. You know, they're stumbling, they're slurring their words. This 8% of people, by way of this genetic mutation, alcohol affects them very differently. It offsets all that sedative property and they can just go and go and go. This is the person who's doing a case a day or at the party and just shot for shot and just looking like they're improving in function.

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:36

      (laughs)

   9. AHAndrew Huberman1:36

      And obviously they're not, but you put one of those people against, uh, Ari Shaffir-

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:42

       Yeah. (laughs)

   11. AHAndrew Huberman1:44

       (laughs) ... and that's what you get.

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:45

       Yeah. So i- i- even for those people though, it still has a negative effect on your body, right?

   13. AHAndrew Huberman1:51

       Oh, yeah. I mean, the toxicity of the alcohol is universal, but in terms of how it impacts brain function. And you see this across all these different categories of drugs too, right? You know, uh, somebody takes, uh, Ritalin, Adderall, Modafinil, or Armodafinil, these are the common prescribed drugs now and people use them recreationally for ADHD. In fact, in researching an episode for our podcast on ADHD, turns out that more than 80, eight zero, percent of college students will rely on ADHD meds, quote unquote, "recreationally," not prescribed, they buy it from each other in order to study.

   14. JRJoe Rogan2:25

       80 percent?

   15. AHAndrew Huberman2:26

       Eighty percent.

   16. JRJoe Rogan2:26

       Wow.

   17. AHAndrew Huberman2:26

       And those drugs work mainly by increasing dopamine-

   18. JRJoe Rogan2:30

       Wow.

   19. AHAndrew Huberman2:30

       ... and increasing adrenaline, and they make your focus like this narrow and you're, you're in a trench and you can't-

   20. JRJoe Rogan2:36

       Yeah.

   21. AHAndrew Huberman2:36

       ... function. But a number of people take them and feel super distracted and lousy. But this is of course what they prescribe to kids with ADHD.

   22. JRJoe Rogan2:44

       Yeah. Now, when you, y- y- M- Modafinil, is that, that's Provigil? Is that what that is?

   23. AHAndrew Huberman2:49

       Yeah. Now there's some, it's very expensive. Um, it, it's like $1,000 a month in some cases.

   24. JRJoe Rogan2:55

       Really?

   25. AHAndrew Huberman2:55

       Yeah.

   26. JRJoe Rogan2:55

       That much?

   27. AHAndrew Huberman2:56

       It was originally for narcolepsy, so to offset daytime sleepiness. That was the original use of the drug. And then it also does work for enhancing focus, right? I mean, w- that has drawbacks. It's not perhaps as detrimental as, like, recreational drugs to, um, to increase focus. But most of the students out there and the tech workers and the, this is big in the finance world too, are relying on Ritalin, Adderall, and things like Vyvanse. And to be clear, they have legitimate clinical uses.

   28. JRJoe Rogan3:24

       Wait a minute, what is Vyvanse?

   29. AHAndrew Huberman3:25

       It's another one of these drugs for ADHD. H- here's the, the story around why these drugs, uh, initially came to be. If you look at kids or adults with ADHD, like true attention deficit disorder or hyperactivity disorder, you don't always have the hyperactivity. What you find is they can focus really well if it's on something they like. So a kid with ADD or ADHD that loves video games, that kid will play video games with laser focus for three hours.

   30. JRJoe Rogan3:50

       That sounds like me.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Right. …

   1. AHAndrew Huberman15:00

      Right?

   2. JRJoe Rogan15:00

      Right.

   3. AHAndrew Huberman15:00

      And, and will kind of overtake the other behavior, and then they'll go back to mating.

   4. JRJoe Rogan15:04

      Now, when you... Talking about studies in animals, and they're doing this, i- it's ki-... The- there- there's these ethical questions if you're gonna do a study on humans. If you wanted to stimulate those same neurons and try to incite aggression or hostility or even arousal, but has anybody done it?

   5. AHAndrew Huberman15:22

      They have.

   6. JRJoe Rogan15:22

      They have.

   7. AHAndrew Huberman15:23

      They have. So, a good friend of mine, Eddie Chang, he's the chair of neurosurgery at UCSF. He's spends his life and he makes his living probing around in the brain of people who have epilepsy, looking for the site where if they stimulate, the person will have a seizure, so that they can burn that area out or make some other manipulation. And he's told me that he's been poking... You can't poke around at random. Right? You can't... You know, every scientist would love to just do that experiment, just go in and kinda search. But there are sites where they'll s- stimulate thinking they might evoke a feeling of pleasantness or no feeling at all, and the person will go into a rage in the, in the OR, in the operating room.

   8. JRJoe Rogan16:00

      Really?

   9. AHAndrew Huberman16:00

      Because they're wide awake. Yeah, you've probably seen these things of people with neurosurgery, and they're playing the violin-

   10. JRJoe Rogan16:04

       Mm-hmm. Yeah.

   11. AHAndrew Huberman16:05

       ... or things of that sort. Occasionally, they'll hit an area where the person will say, "I'm feeling super angry right now," and they'll say, "Let's back off a little bit from there," and they'll chart where they were in the brain.

   12. JRJoe Rogan16:14

       That is wild. So there's just, like, a spot?

   13. AHAndrew Huberman16:17

       Yeah. There is. And we have switches, right? I mean, we have switches for rage, switches for all these things. I mean, that's like the psychologist Carl Jung, you know, this idea that we have all things inside of us. I mean, people vary in their propensity for rage or for love or for anything, but at some level, we do have all things inside of us. We have the circuitry within us.

   14. JRJoe Rogan16:38

       And do you feel like that variation is n- neurochemical? That there's-

   15. AHAndrew Huberman16:42

       I think it is neurochemical, and I think it is learned as well. Th- this peptide that we were talking about earlier becomes relevant in the... In this context. So, David's lab discovered there's a peptide called tachykinin. It's related to another molecule that's involved in pain relief called substance P that we all make. Tachykinin has a bunch of different forms, but in humans, there's tachykinin I and tachykinin II. In mice or humans that are socially isolated for a period of time, tachykinin levels go through the roof. This is very relevant to the recent past of... Around the pandemic, in my opinion. It goes through the roof, and what happens? It creates anxiety, anger, and in particular, aggression. And so, there are drugs that are tachykinin inhibitors, and I asked David, I said, "Well, why aren't we giving tachykinin inhibitors to people that are feeling anxious and, and aggressive, and, you know, kinda tamp that down?" And we just had yet another school shooting, and we could talk about what that's about but... Or not, but... And he said, "This drug is actually approved. It's very safe."

   16. JRJoe Rogan17:46

       When you... Wait, stop. What are you s- what are you saying? What are you saying?

   17. AHAndrew Huberman17:48

       There's a drug that can block-

   18. JRJoe Rogan17:49

       No, no. B- b- but you're saying what, what that's about but we're not?

   19. AHAndrew Huberman17:52

       Oh, sorry. The, the...The tachykinin, I mean, is- was it elevated in, for instance, the kid that went in and shot all those kids and, and-

   20. JRJoe Rogan18:01

       How could they find that out post-mortem?

   21. AHAndrew Huberman18:02

       I think they could do what's called mRNA in situ hybridization. They could see how much of the gene for tachykinin was being made. I think they should do post-mortem. I don't know how h- he was killed, if his brain is still intact. Um, I think like most people, there's very little concern about him and more concern about-

   22. JRJoe Rogan18:17

       Yeah.

   23. AHAndrew Huberman18:17

       ... the victims, as it should be. But y- just like with CT in football players, you- you wanna know where the damage was, and also, whether or not there was a brain thing there. And if that brain thing was there, it doesn't mean necessarily that he was born with a bad brain, he might have been born with a dysfunctional brain, but social isolation increases anxiety and aggression, there's no question. And actually, I was in New-

   24. JRJoe Rogan18:38

       Social isolation increases aggression?

   25. AHAndrew Huberman18:40

       Absolutely.

   26. JRJoe Rogan18:41

       Really?

   27. AHAndrew Huberman18:41

       Absolutely.

   28. JRJoe Rogan18:42

       Like-

   29. AHAndrew Huberman18:42

       Feelings of aggression and kind of friction with the world, us/them kind of thinking, this is-

   30. JRJoe Rogan18:46

       Oh, okay.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Right. …

   1. AHAndrew Huberman30:00

      Sort of, 'cause your brain can't... They say, "Oh, your brain is different five minutes after this conversation than it was before." That's, that's bullshit. Basically, your brain doesn't change unless it needs to. And that signal of need to comes from something being really intense, really stressful, really exciting, really novel, right? Makes sense, right?

   2. JRJoe Rogan30:16

      Right.

   3. AHAndrew Huberman30:16

      Why reprogram the machine unless there's a need? And so you have a chemical signal. Ketamine basically is, was initially used to block memory formation after trauma. So people would come into the...... into the emergency room, let's just imagine, like, horrible scenario, right? And someone was just in the passenger seat and watched their closest loved one get impaled on a steering column. That person is in a state of shock, and they're never gonna forget what they see. So what do you do? You give them ketamine, you try and dampen the plasticity, the brain change, that would c- occur to remember that incredibly traumatic event.

   4. JRJoe Rogan30:50

      Mm.

   5. AHAndrew Huberman30:51

      Now it's being used as a way to bring people into the clinic, or it seems like it is pretty rampant use now, and put people into this dissociative state so that they see themselves having an experience. In fact, I've talked to people who've gone through ketamine trials, and they describe it as watching themselves get out of their own car. They're like third personing themselves.

   6. JRJoe Rogan31:10

      Mm.

   7. AHAndrew Huberman31:11

      This, to me, sounds like a horrible state to be in. But a lot-

   8. JRJoe Rogan31:14

      Why? Why is that?

   9. AHAndrew Huberman31:15

      I mean, I've been working my whole life to just be comfortable with the body I'm in, and I'd like to stay in it, not because it's always comfortable to be there, but because, you know, getting good at that seems to be the key to having a good life, being able to tolerate discomfort. This is about-

   10. JRJoe Rogan31:27

       But isn't the point-

   11. AHAndrew Huberman31:28

       ... getting out of yourself.

   12. JRJoe Rogan31:30

       Yeah, but isn't the point for these people to try to figure out what they're doing wrong with their life, so they can look at it objectively as a third party?

   13. AHAndrew Huberman31:35

       Yeah, that makes sense to me that they would look at, like, for instance, their suicidal depression and say-

   14. JRJoe Rogan31:39

       Yeah.

   15. AHAndrew Huberman31:40

       ... you know, that like, this, this, the new age-y kind of thing is like, "You are not your feelings." And so that's a tough one for people to incorporate because when I have really strong feelings, it certainly feels like it's happening inside me. So this is allowing them to get next to their feelings and see their feelings as a experience, not them.

   16. JRJoe Rogan31:57

       Yeah, I mean, but even when you know that you're, you're, it's definitely happening to you, you know that you are also sometimes not burdened by those feelings.

   17. AHAndrew Huberman32:05

       That's right.

   18. JRJoe Rogan32:05

       So it's some sort of an external factor.

   19. AHAndrew Huberman32:07

       Right.

   20. JRJoe Rogan32:08

       Or even if it's an internal factor.

   21. AHAndrew Huberman32:09

       Right.

   22. JRJoe Rogan32:09

       It's a thing other than the core of what you are.

   23. AHAndrew Huberman32:12

       Right.

   24. JRJoe Rogan32:12

       Right?

   25. AHAndrew Huberman32:12

       It doesn't define you.

   26. JRJoe Rogan32:13

       Right.

   27. AHAndrew Huberman32:14

       Right.

   28. JRJoe Rogan32:14

       It doesn't define you. I think that's what they're trying to do.

   29. AHAndrew Huberman32:15

       Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan32:16

       They're trying to figure out, like, why are they so overwhelming-
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Oh. Haven't tried that…

   1. JRJoe Rogan45:00

      I actually enjoy it when I lift weights too.

   2. AHAndrew Huberman45:02

      Oh. Haven't tried that one.

   3. JRJoe Rogan45:03

      Yeah, I feel it. Like I feel it in the fibers. It's almost like I'm more aware-

   4. AHAndrew Huberman45:07

      Hmm.

   5. JRJoe Rogan45:08

      ... of like what's going on instead of like this uh, blunt sort of um, you know, uh, you know, d- d- almost like distance from uh, each individual muscle fiber, which I am normally. Normally I'm just trying to warm up and then I warm up and then I start getting going, then I, you know, lift light first, and then I work my way up to what- what I normally use. But when I'm high, it's like I could feel like where it connects to the bone. Like just I feel everything. It just makes you more sensitive about what you're actually doing and for um, martial arts techniques, particularly for striking, I feel like I incorporate leverage better into things, I'm- I- I'm- I have better balance in terms of like not trying to execute a technique when I'm off position, you know? And it just makes me uh, just more aware of like what's going on with my body.

   6. AHAndrew Huberman46:00

      And that's super powerful. We had- uh, the- the nerd in me wants to say in neuroscience they call that interoception. Like people-

   7. JRJoe Rogan46:06

      Mm-hmm.

   8. AHAndrew Huberman46:06

      ... vary tremendously in their awareness of their internal state. You can know if you have a high or low degree of interoception by trying to count your heartbeats without taking your pulse. Some people can just do that. It's a skill you can build up over time. This is great for some people, but some people who are highly anxious, it sucks to have a lot of interoception. But we know, of course, that the mind-muscle connection is really powerful and it's not just mind-muscle connection as a whatever they call bro science thing. The reality is that from peer reviewed studies that if people focus on the contraction of a muscle during resistance training as opposed to moving the weight, right, something that's hard to measure if they're actually doing it, the strength and hypertrophy gains are much greater.

   9. JRJoe Rogan46:48

      Mm-hmm.

   10. AHAndrew Huberman46:48

       I think it's like a 15%. We need- I had Andy Galpin on the podcast and he would know the exact number. Um, but I always uh, wonder about this like in gyms where there are mirrors and people are watching themselves lift in the mirror.

   11. JRJoe Rogan47:00

       Mm-hmm.

   12. AHAndrew Huberman47:00

       I mean you're exterocepting, you're not focused as much as you could on the actual feeling. So, you know, there's always a weighting between exteroception to the out- everything beyond the confines of your skin and interoception, and if cannabis allows more interoception, you could imagine that those workouts would be more effective in that way.

   13. JRJoe Rogan47:17

       But isn't there benefit to observing yourself in a mirror because you make sure that you use the proper technique?

   14. AHAndrew Huberman47:22

       Absolutely. I mean it- right, I mean, you always see those people-

   15. JRJoe Rogan47:25

       Right.

   16. AHAndrew Huberman47:25

       ... like their shoulders hunched and they're, you know, they're making a mess of themselves, um, overworking their strong parts and, you know. I mean, some people walk in the gym and it's clear they've never actually looked at like, you know, the lower half of the (laughs) of the mirror, right?

   17. JRJoe Rogan47:37

       Yeah, that's the saddest thing.

   18. AHAndrew Huberman47:38

       That's so sad.

   19. JRJoe Rogan47:39

       It's so weird.

   20. AHAndrew Huberman47:39

       The- the skip leg day thing is a cruel joke, but it's a cruel joke in the right direction because there's nothing-

   21. JRJoe Rogan47:44

       Yeah.

   22. AHAndrew Huberman47:44

       ... worse than uh, an imbalanced physique. I mean it-

   23. JRJoe Rogan47:47

       At least-

   24. AHAndrew Huberman47:48

       ... where someone has done a lot of work to try and create something. It's-

   25. JRJoe Rogan47:51

       It's just so bad for your body. It's like having small legs and a large upper body is so unhealthy. It- every- you like- for sure your lower back's gonna be fucked. And-

   26. AHAndrew Huberman48:01

       Well structurally and also just neurally, you know again-

   27. JRJoe Rogan48:04

       Yeah.

   28. AHAndrew Huberman48:04

       ... as a neuroscientist you think the nerve to muscle connection is what contracts fibers and if you think about somebody who's, you know, big upper body, small legs, that person, that- the neurons in their brain that represent their body are also completely contorted.

   29. JRJoe Rogan48:18

       No, but what do you think about a person like, I bring him up all the time because he's so odd, Jon Jones. Like Jon Jones has the smallest calves of any man I've ever seen who is an elite athlete and obviously he's an elite athlete. He's one of the greatest fighters-

   30. AHAndrew Huberman48:33

       Mm-hmm.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:10:33

   Yeah, you don't wanna…

   1. AHAndrew Huberman1:00:00

      part of human psychology that reflects either. I mean, I think that... I mean, look, it's clear that testosterone, whether or not it's replacing or maxing out or whatever, um, not maxing out like supraphysiological doses, but to raise testosterone through injection or whatever, if supinated in reasonable dosage with a doctor, you feel better. You... Effort feels good, you recover quicker, et cetera. There are limits to that, right? Uh, y- it can convert to estrogen. It has to be done properly. But that's very clear. I think-

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:00:25

      Yeah, you don't wanna have hyperphysical levels.

   3. AHAndrew Huberman1:00:28

      No.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:00:28

      Those are dangerous.

   5. AHAndrew Huberman1:00:28

      No, you get... Uh, people retain water. They get puffy.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:00:31

      Yeah.

   7. AHAndrew Huberman1:00:31

      They get really emotional. They get gynecomastia.

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:00:33

      Yeah.

   9. AHAndrew Huberman1:00:33

      I mean, there's all sorts of issues. And then there is this issue that if there's a preexisting prostate cancer, it can make it worse. But I don't think there's any evidence that it can cause prostate cancer. Actually, probably the opposite. If estrogen is too high and testosterone is too low, that's actually worse for prostate health.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:00:48

       Mm-hmm.

   11. AHAndrew Huberman1:00:49

       I mean, young guys don't tend to get prostate cancer. They can, but it's pretty rare. But i- in general, w- as it relates to sports, it's tricky because... Like, for instance, uh, last time I kind of walked around this issue, but this time, I'll just say it. I mean, I don't like basketball anyway enough that I would worry that it... But I know someone who's a professional basketball player, and I asked him about...... steroids. And he said, "Well, if you get injured, you can take up to 200 mgs a week," which is considered a TRT dose. But that's a, actually a pretty big dose. That's a one, typical one-mill injection. That's a, that's a significant difference. That's gonna put-

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:01:21

       Wait, wait. Hold on. I- A one milliliter? Like, what-

   13. AHAndrew Huberman1:01:23

       So, what... So, the typical dosage of, of testosterone is 200 milligrams per mil, per ml.

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:01:29

       So, one cc is how many milligrams?

   15. AHAndrew Huberman1:01:30

       One mill.

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:01:31

       One mill.

   17. AHAndrew Huberman1:01:32

       Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:01:32

       So, these guys are taking two?

   19. AHAndrew Huberman1:01:33

       No, they're taking one, one of those a week, is what they're allowed to take.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:01:36

       That's fucking huge.

   21. AHAndrew Huberman1:01:37

       Right. 'Cause most people are either break it... We talked about this, uh, I think before, but breaking that up into some smaller injections, uh, amounts-

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:01:43

       Yeah.

   23. AHAndrew Huberman1:01:43

       ... is probably better to just keep androgen levels more reasonable.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:01:46

       But what's a normal level that people take per week?

   25. AHAndrew Huberman1:01:49

       100 to 200 milligrams per week-

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:01:51

       Right.

   27. AHAndrew Huberman1:01:51

       ... is pretty typical. S-

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:01:53

       So, that's-

   29. AHAndrew Huberman1:01:53

       Typically spread out.

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:01:53

       ... like, two-tenths of a cc.

Episode duration: 3:01:20