Joe Rogan Experience #1958 - Andrew Huberman

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drum roll) Joe Rogan podcast,…

   1. AHAndrew Huberman0:00

      (drum roll) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. NANarrator0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience. (drum roll)

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music) Every now and then, pizza's good for you, right? What is, what is your, like, when you ... What is your schedule as far as, like, do you allow yourself bad food every now and then?

   4. AHAndrew Huberman0:22

      Uh, my vices in the food department are croissants.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:26

      (laughs)

   6. AHAndrew Huberman0:26

      Thing is, I, you know, that hits the dopamine button and it's all about more. I mean-

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:31

      Mm.

   8. AHAndrew Huberman0:32

      I can, I can sink five of those things.

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:34

      Chocolate croissants are my jam.

   10. AHAndrew Huberman0:36

       Oh, really? I don't adulterate my croissants.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:38

       Really?

   12. AHAndrew Huberman0:39

       No. Maybe extra butter. For me it's all the savory stuff. Savory, salty. So it's croissants every once in a while or piz-

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:45

       Have you had a chocolate croissant?

   14. AHAndrew Huberman0:47

       I have.

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:48

       Pretty goddamn good. You like them?

   16. NANarrator0:50

       I'm with him. I'm all butter.

   17. JRJoe Rogan0:51

       Really? Butter's nice. Butter's nice.

   18. AHAndrew Huberman0:54

       Yeah. I think the all butter, for me, justifies having, you know, three or four.

   19. JRJoe Rogan0:57

       When I lived in New York, I used to love buttered bagels.

   20. AHAndrew Huberman1:00

       Hmm.

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:00

       Or buttered rolls. They do not have that out here for some strange reason.

   22. AHAndrew Huberman1:04

       Hmm.

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:05

       It's like a common thing. If you go to, like, a, like, a deli in New York, they always had buttered rolls. It was like a r- just a roll with a lot of butter on it and people would eat that with coffee.

   24. AHAndrew Huberman1:17

       Yeah. They're-

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:17

       Out here they don't have that for some strange reason.

   26. AHAndrew Huberman1:19

       Huh.

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:19

       Or in L.A. they don't have it either.

   28. AHAndrew Huberman1:21

       I like how in New York when you get a soda, even at a little, uh, you know, little 7-Eleven type place, they offer you a straw, like-

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:27

       Yeah.

   30. AHAndrew Huberman1:27

       It's one of the last civilized things in life to be offered a straw.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Hmm. …

   1. AHAndrew Huberman15:00

      deterioration of the neurons that control those neurons, and everything's working in a kind of a top-down suppression all the time. In fact, um, the head neurosurgeon at Neuralink, who's somebody I know quite well named Matthew McDougall, he came up through my laboratory, Elon made a great choice in hiring him, um, told me recently the best way to think about the frontal cortex is that basically its main job besides picking context and strategy for a given situation is to tell certain parts of your brain that really want to do things, "Shh."

   2. JRJoe Rogan15:27

      Hmm.

   3. AHAndrew Huberman15:27

      That's the best description I've ever heard of prefrontal cortex. You know, it's what's keeping Jamie from doing things that he shouldn't right now and me doing things that I shouldn't right now and every time you have a crazy idea like, "Maybe I should jump off this bridge. Oh, w- why would I think that? I'm not..." That's a healthy operation of your brain saying, "I want to 'cause I'm kind of curious, but I don't want to, so I'm not going to."

   4. JRJoe Rogan15:46

      Right.

   5. AHAndrew Huberman15:47

      With Huntington's what happens is there's slow deterioration of those neurons, but there's a lot of deterioration of these neurons that control motor function. And eventually what happens is the deeper neurons that control motor function start shutting down the autonomic functions like breathing, heart rate, and so eventually people just succumb to some basic, um, you know, uh, re- we call them housekeeping functions, you know.

   6. JRJoe Rogan16:10

      Hmm.

   7. AHAndrew Huberman16:10

      So, they'll- they'll have to be on a respirator and they- they have to, um, you know, they have to use a catheter tube and, you know, they have to defecate into a bag and, you know, at some point they just become a- a- a deteriorated, um, mess of neurons. So, what's first to go there, however, is the- the control of motor function, and it goes first in the direction of too much activity because of all these brakes and accelerators that we have in- in the brain. Um, so in any case, CRISPR, gene manipulation of the sort that this guy did in this laboratory in China, again, I think an ethics c- committee needs to tell the world or decide for the world what people should be allowed to do and not do, but you can imagine for something like Huntington's, it would be tremendously advantageous. Like if you had a child who you knew was someday gonna get Huntington's, you'd want to do a CRISPR mutation and put the healthy gene back.

   8. JRJoe Rogan16:58

      Is there anything that's been shown to slow down the progress of Huntington's?

   9. AHAndrew Huberman17:05

      Uh, there I'm not so versed. It's a little bit like MS, let- another neurodegenerative disease, multiple sclerosis, where certain things exacerbate it, like inflammation of any kind.

   10. JRJoe Rogan17:15

       Mm-hmm.

   11. AHAndrew Huberman17:15

       Um, and- and those things can be, uh, almost random i- in- in some ways. Like some people who have, uh, MS will eat, uh, salad dressing with mustard in it, have a huge inflammatory response and have a flare-up, blurry vision and get worse a- and then it returns to-

   12. JRJoe Rogan17:30

       Mustard?

   13. AHAndrew Huberman17:30

       Things like mustard 'cause must-

   14. JRJoe Rogan17:32

       Is mustard inflammatory?

   15. AHAndrew Huberman17:33

       Well, mustard- mustard isn't necessarily whole body inflammatory, but it, if it's spicy mustard, it binds to what's called the substance P receptor or the- or the capsaicin receptor, we have receptors for anything that's kind of hot-

   16. JRJoe Rogan17:43

       Mm-hmm.

   17. AHAndrew Huberman17:43

       ... and spicy, um, and those are the same receptors that respond to hot liquid. Uh, heat and- and spicy, obviously very, very closely linked and pain, all three of those very close. Whereas pain relief, very closely related to menthol and cool, not just the taste, but the actual physical sensation of cool.

   18. JRJoe Rogan18:01

       Mm-hmm.

   19. AHAndrew Huberman18:01

       So heat, pain and inflammation, kind of our cousins in this- in this sense, and cool, menthol and lack of inflammation are also cousins in terms of receptors, neural circuits, this kind of thing.

   20. JRJoe Rogan18:13

       So can spicy food cause inflammation?

   21. AHAndrew Huberman18:16

       Sure, yeah.

   22. JRJoe Rogan18:17

       Really?

   23. AHAndrew Huberman18:17

       Yeah. But I think one of the best ways to think about inflammation, and, and here I, you know, I, definite hat tip to Layne Norton, who we both know, and Andy Alpin, who really, (laughs) both really impressed upon me the fact that if we were to measure somebody's blood pressure, inflammatory markers, heart rate, and cortisol during a hard workout, and you didn't know they were doing a hard workout, I just handed you the data, and you're a medical doctor, you'd say-

   24. JRJoe Rogan18:42

       Right.

   25. AHAndrew Huberman18:42

       ... "This person's dying."

   26. JRJoe Rogan18:43

       Right. Right. Right.

   27. AHAndrew Huberman18:44

       Right? So inflammation is robust during-

   28. JRJoe Rogan18:46

       Right.

   29. AHAndrew Huberman18:46

       ... during hard exercise. But I think what's so incredible about the human body is that the increase in blood pre- pressure, inflammation, et cetera, is what triggers the adaptation so that blood pressure and inflammation, et cetera, are all much lower the other 23 hours of the day.

   30. JRJoe Rogan19:01

       Mm-hmm.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Mm-hmm. …

   1. AHAndrew Huberman30:00

      And then that gave rise to this question I always said, "Do you end with cold or do you end with heat?" And she said, "End with cold because then your body's forced to warm itself back up."

   2. JRJoe Rogan30:07

      Mm-hmm.

   3. AHAndrew Huberman30:08

      And that's what's, uh, now called the Søberg principle, which is when you end with cold, your body has to use its natural machinery to heat back up. Wh- In talking to her recently, I learned some really interesting things that I've been i- incorporating. First of all, I've always avoided putting my head under until the very end in the cold. It turns out that if you put your face in the water right as you go in, you activate the mammalian dive reflex, and this reflex a-... increases the so-called parasympathetic activity of the autonomic nervous system, which is just nerd speak for it lowers your heart rate, it makes you calmer, and it makes you better able to tolerate stress. So try this next time. Go, you could even just put your face in before-

   4. JRJoe Rogan30:46

      I go right under.

   5. AHAndrew Huberman30:47

      You go right under.

   6. JRJoe Rogan30:47

      Yeah.

   7. AHAndrew Huberman30:47

      So that's the right way to do it.

   8. JRJoe Rogan30:48

      I c- plug my nose, I go right under.

   9. AHAndrew Huberman30:49

      So I didn't know this. A lot of people that do deliberate cold get headaches, they don't feel good, and a lot of times it's because they slowly immerse themselves up to the neck and then right at the interface of cold and hot, it- it creates change, vasoconstriction right below, a little bit vasodilation above. They get headaches, they don't feel good, the heart rate is way too high. Putting your face under really helps.

   10. JRJoe Rogan31:08

       Isn't that anxiety though? I- I just feel like that's all psychological.

   11. AHAndrew Huberman31:11

       (laughs) .

   12. JRJoe Rogan31:11

       I really do because there's- there's a moment when you get in the cold where there's a part of your brain that goes, "Let's get outta here. You can get out of this if you will just get out right now." And you gotta go, "Shut the fuck up." But if you don't say, "Shut the fuck up," then that thing runs rampant through your brain and that kicks your heart rate up and that kicks your anxiety up. I really think it's psychological.

   13. AHAndrew Huberman31:34

       Well, it's psychological and it's physiological. So here's what-

   14. JRJoe Rogan31:36

       Right, physiological-

   15. AHAndrew Huberman31:37

       Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan31:37

       ... because of psychological.

   17. AHAndrew Huberman31:38

       Absolutely. Uh, absolutely. So here's what we know for sure. For the first 20 to 30 seconds of cold shock when you get in-

   18. JRJoe Rogan31:45

       Mm-hmm.

   19. AHAndrew Huberman31:45

       ... which is how it's described, that prefrontal cortex that normally s- has the job of handling context and says, "Shh," to the reflexes of the brain and the impulses of the brain, is not active for 20 to 30 seconds. So your reflex to get the hell outta there-

   20. JRJoe Rogan32:01

       Mm.

   21. AHAndrew Huberman32:02

       ... is very... Uh, there's a clear and logical reason for that. After that 20 or 30 seconds, the forebrain starts coming online again. That's your opportunity to start negotiating with yourself of, "Oh, this is actually good for me. This, this is... I can handle this. I got through that, so I can get through the next one." What I've been doing recently is trying to not go for time, but going for, the only way I can describe this would be walls. Like, sometimes just getting in the thing there is a wall for me. It's like, "Okay, I got over one wall just getting in the damn thing." Then, I'm like, "Oh, God, here it comes." Forebrain's shutting down, I'm like panicking. "I'm gonna get through this." And then I'm watching for when I have the impulse to get out. And what I start to notice is that the, the gaps between those walls start getting longer and longer.

   22. JRJoe Rogan32:45

       The more you do it.

   23. AHAndrew Huberman32:46

       The more you do it.

   24. JRJoe Rogan32:46

       You have one at your house?

   25. AHAndrew Huberman32:47

       I do. Yeah, and then pretty soon what's happened is-

   26. JRJoe Rogan32:50

       How cold is it?

   27. AHAndrew Huberman32:51

       Uh, it's hard to... I, I suppose it's probably in the low 50s.

   28. JRJoe Rogan32:55

       What?

   29. AHAndrew Huberman32:55

       Low 50s or high- high 40s.

   30. JRJoe Rogan32:57

       Why is it so warm?
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   It plummets. …

   1. AHAndrew Huberman45:00

      to get lower, and when you get out, your core body temperature continues to go down.

   2. JRJoe Rogan45:03

      It plummets.

   3. AHAndrew Huberman45:03

      That's right. And the exact opposite happens when you get in the cold plunge.

   4. JRJoe Rogan45:06

      Right.

   5. AHAndrew Huberman45:06

      You feel cold on the surface, so your body goes, "Oh, shit." Hypothalamus, again, medial preoptic area, gets a signal from- it's a- I mean, if you think about how beautiful this mechanism is, I still, like, get goosebumps, and no pun intended, when I think about it. You have receptors on your skin's surface that sense cold. Send that to your hypothalamus, which says, "Ha, it's cold out there, I'm gonna generate heat. How do I generate heat?" Well, there are two things you can do. "I can make you shiver, which will generate heat," or, "I can make you move." Another f- shivering is just another form of moving. Or, "I can activate this very specialized fat tissue," which is not under the skin, it's not subcutaneous fat, but it's around your critical organs, which is the brown fat. "Activate the mitochondria there, and basically, at that very core level, get electrons moving." And you start- and the brown fat, in turn, activates the thermogenic system and starts heating you up.

   6. JRJoe Rogan45:58

      Wow.

   7. AHAndrew Huberman45:58

      It's so crazy. And then what's beautiful is that the brown fat has a sort of memory of that experience, so even after you get out, you're walking around right now, I did cold plunge this morning, you did cold plunge this morning, right?

   8. JRJoe Rogan46:08

      Yeah.

   9. AHAndrew Huberman46:09

      Okay, so your body temperature is about one to three degrees hotter, probably about one or two degrees hotter than it normally would be. Dopamine's getting cranked out, and so all day long, you're h- you're warmer at w- let's say, cool ambient temperature. In fact, in Scandinavia, I learned this in researching the- the Solberg work, I went in and w- went deep into the- this cold thermogenesis world over there that they've been researching this really carefully f- And they have a saying in Norway, I obviously don't know it in Norwegian, but it translates to essentially, in the spring, as it's getting warmer in Texas, what you wanna do is to put, they say put on more layers. Why? So that you can prepare yourself for being able to cool yourself off easily in the summer when it's really hot. You'll be more comfortable in the heat of summer in Texas if you bundle up a bit more in the spring.

   10. JRJoe Rogan46:57

       Really?

   11. AHAndrew Huberman46:57

       Yeah. Well, you're adapting. And then they say the opposite too.

   12. JRJoe Rogan47:00

       That just sounds annoying. What is-

   13. AHAndrew Huberman47:02

       W- but then they say in the fall what you're supposed to do is not walk around with a sweater, you wear a T-shirt, and then guess what? In the winter, you're thermogenically-

   14. JRJoe Rogan47:09

       How about just fucking wear clothes for the weather?

   15. AHAndrew Huberman47:11

       Okay. (laughs)

   16. JRJoe Rogan47:11

       This is ridiculous.

   17. AHAndrew Huberman47:12

       Okay, but-

   18. JRJoe Rogan47:12

       Look, I get the whole idea of sauna and cold plunge and adapting your body, but they- now we're just g- y- you know, I think too much of this is mental masturbation to some people.

   19. AHAndrew Huberman47:22

       Okay, l- let me be clear, it's- it's the principle.

   20. JRJoe Rogan47:24

       Yeah.

   21. AHAndrew Huberman47:24

       It's the principle. I'm- I'm not- I'm not saying-

   22. JRJoe Rogan47:26

       I understand the science behind it.

   23. AHAndrew Huberman47:27

       Yeah, I'm not saying wear a- a sweatshirt in the spring, I'm s-

   24. JRJoe Rogan47:29

       Just wear what's comfortable, Jesus Christ.

   25. AHAndrew Huberman47:31

       I- what I'm saying is that when we- it- what-

   26. JRJoe Rogan47:34

       What?

   27. AHAndrew Huberman47:34

       Jamie's laughing.

   28. JRJoe Rogan47:35

       (laughs)

   29. AHAndrew Huberman47:35

       He's from Ohio, they're just like, "This is ridiculous." The, uh, it's cold enough out there, you don't need a plunge.

   30. JRJoe Rogan47:39

       I'm from Boston.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:09:14

   Mm. …

   1. AHAndrew Huberman1:00:00

      the d- deployment of these neurochemicals, temperature and performance is one of these variables that right now professional sports teams and tier one military and scientists are really starting to understand, like this is not a small variable.

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:00:12

      Mm.

   3. AHAndrew Huberman1:00:12

      This is a super powerful variable. It's just not an easy one for the conventional gym to have. Maybe at some point in the future every sta- they'll have stations in the gym where you kinda plug in.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:00:22

      Yeah.

   5. AHAndrew Huberman1:00:23

      Um, and you can just do more work. It's all about the ability to do more work.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:00:27

      Yeah. And recover.

   7. AHAndrew Huberman1:00:29

      And recover. And it's clear that the cold after training is... if your goal is to train again, well then you want inflammation down. But if your goal is to improve as a consequence of that training session, you have to be careful how much you're blocking the inflammation.

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:00:41

      Yeah, I know a lot of jujitsu guys like to do cryotherapy post-training and they say that it helps tremendously, and because of that reduction of inflammation, 'cause you're not really training for hypertrophy, you're training for volume and work and, you know, and cardiovascular function and your, your ability to execute techniques over and over and over again.

   9. AHAndrew Huberman1:01:00

      I mean the ability to do more work is, I think, one of the not-so-secret secrets of performance-enhancing drugs too.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:01:06

       Yes.

   11. AHAndrew Huberman1:01:06

       Yeah. I mean even-

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:01:08

       It's everything.

   13. AHAndrew Huberman1:01:08

       It's even at the level of being able to get a really good night's sleep even when you're slightly over-trained.

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:01:13

       Yeah.

   15. AHAndrew Huberman1:01:13

       You know, uh, you know, people always say, "Well what do, what do these performan- do steroids make you grow muscle?" Well they'll increase protein synthesis, but-

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:01:19

       Well look at Lance Armstrong. I mean he was on steroids and he was rail thin. It's not about that, it's about recovery.

   17. AHAndrew Huberman1:01:25

       He could just do-

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:01:26

       It's about what do you ask your body to do?

   19. AHAndrew Huberman1:01:28

       He could just do more work.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:01:29

       Yeah.

   21. AHAndrew Huberman1:01:29

       And I think-

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:01:30

       Do more work.

   23. AHAndrew Huberman1:01:30

       ... and I, I, I... for all I know I believe he's natural but like you think about a guy like Floyd Mayweather and I-I used to see him running in the middle of the night, and you know, it's Vegas.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:01:40

       Yeah.

   25. AHAndrew Huberman1:01:40

       If his testosterone happens to be exceedingly high naturally, he can do more work and recover than the person whose testosterone is lower, before they hit a wall. So I'm not saying he was using anything. What I'm saying is, if somebody is- has higher levels of circulating testosterone, male or female, they can do more work and recover. That's just the way it is.

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:02:01

       Here it is. "Floyd Mayweather reportedly took banned IV prior to Manny Pacquiao fight." So banned, but- but this is banned IV for what? It might- might be banned IV just because they had some sort of a protocol set and- for U- Yeah, see USADA. So USADA is, uh, they're- they're the ones who regulate the UFC testing, and they use- they won't let allow- allow people to use IVs because IVs will allow you to mask whether or not you've done performance-enhancing drugs. I don't think it was just that.

   27. AHAndrew Huberman1:02:35

       I mean, amph-

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:02:36

       I think it was, uh, he tested positive for something.

   29. AHAndrew Huberman1:02:39

       I mean, amphetamines cause a- it's gonna vary by dose, et cetera, but a- at least 1,000-fold increase in basal catecholamine levels. That's what they do.

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:02:48

       How many people do you know that are on Adderall?

Episode duration: 2:46:56