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Lewis HowesLewis Howes

Use This MORNING ROUTINE To Destroy Laziness & Eliminate BRAIN FOG! | Andrew Huberman

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Dr. Andrew HubermanguestGreat Minds Lewis HoweshostDr. Andrew HubermanguestGreat Minds
Dec 22, 20211h 49mWatch on YouTube

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Transcript

  1. 0:00 – 0:19

    Why constant stimulation can create boredom and low motivation

    1. AH

      When you're constantly pursuing things, eating highly palatable foods, engaging in very stimulating anything, any behavior that's very stimulating, there's a drop below baseline and it takes an increasingly great stimulus, high-threshold stimulus, in order to excite you. So if people are feeling bored, unmotivated-

  2. 0:19 – 1:46

    Brain fog fundamentals: sleep, oxygen, and breathing patterns

    1. LH

      This video is sponsored by Endel, and you'll hear more about them later in this video. [upbeat music] I think you gotta have a dream. The school of greatness. Really? [laughs] Yeah. Please welcome Lewis Howes. Yesterday, I woke up with brain fog, and I usually don't have brain fog. I was telling you about this a little bit for a second, and I went into my Spanish lesson, which I told you before that I'm in Spanish classes, and I was just like, it was hurting me. Like, the, the... Every minute I felt like I'm struggling. I felt like I wasn't recalling, I wasn't receiving the information. I couldn't conjugate the stuff I was trying to, to do, and I was just like, "I'm not in a good space. I need to stop." Like, 20 minutes in, I was just like, "Let's call it a day." I'm, I'm curious, where does brain fog come from, and how can we make sure that we have great morning routines to support us so that we don't have brain fog at all in the morning or later in the afternoon?

    2. AH

      Great question. Well, there are a lot of sources of brain fog. The most obvious one would be a poor night's sleep.

    3. LH

      Okay. Mm-hmm.

    4. AH

      And y- sleep, of course, being the most fundamental layer of mental and physical health. I mean, you don't sleep well for one night, you're probably okay. For two nights, you start to fall apart. Three, four nights-

    5. LH

      Mm

    6. AH

      ... you, you're really a degraded version of yourself in every aspect.

    7. LH

      It's interesting.

    8. AH

      Emotionality is off, ability to do most anything is off, hormones start suffering. So sleep is, is fundamental. But assuming that you slept well, there are a number of things. One is your breathing patterns.

    9. LH

      Mm-hmm.

  3. 1:46 – 10:00

    Nasal breathing vs. mouth breathing: sleep quality, apnea, and infection defense

    1. AH

      You know, we often get into discussions of breathing, but this is a slightly different one than we've had in the past. You know, a lot of people have sleep apnea. They are not getting enough oxygen during their sleep, uh, or they are mouth-breathing during sleep.

    2. LH

      Mm-hmm.

    3. AH

      These days, it's become, um, popular in some circles to take a little bit of medical tape and, um, tape the mouth shut-

    4. LH

      Yeah

    5. AH

      ... and to learn to be a nasal breather. And there is excellent evidence now that being a nasal breather most of the time, uh, as long as you're not speaking or eating or exercising hard enough that you would need to breathe through your mouth, uh, that it's beneficial to be a nasal breather-

    6. LH

      Mm-hmm

    7. AH

      ... for a couple of reasons. First of all, if you are nasal bre- deliberately nasal breathing during the day, the tendency is that you will nasal breathe at night, which tends to lead to less sleep apnea, less mouth breathing during the middle of the night, and less brain fog.

    8. LH

      Mm.

    9. AH

      Why brain fog? Well, during sleep, a number of restorative processes occur, but if you're not getting enough oxygen into the system, the brain is literally becoming hypoxic, and a lot of the cleaning out mechanisms, the, the glymphatic system, et cetera, as they're called, don't get an opportunity to function as well as they ought to. So you wake up in the morning, you slept your normal six to eight hours, but you're feeling kind of groggy and out of it.

    10. LH

      Mm.

    11. AH

      And of course, there could be other reasons that you're experiencing brain fog. Maybe, you know, for people that drink alcohol, the night before maybe they had alcohol. For people that-

    12. LH

      Mm-hmm

    13. AH

      ... maybe they ate a meal that was too large before sleep, maybe-

    14. LH

      Right

    15. AH

      ... any number of reasons, right?

    16. LH

      Gotcha.

    17. AH

      But, um, getting adequate oxygenation of the brain during sleep is key. So learn to be a nasal breather. And for those of you out there that say, "Well, I have a deviated septum," a lot of people think they have deviated septums.

    18. LH

      Right. [laughs]

    19. AH

      The problem is they're not nasal breathing enough. The sinuses actually can learn to dilate if you nasal breathe.

    20. LH

      Huh.

    21. AH

      Uh, exercising while nasal breathing will kind of depend on the sport. Like, if you box, oftentimes there's the need to do a shh or, you know-

    22. LH

      Mm-hmm

    23. AH

      ... kind of like exhale on impact type thing. So I, I don't think anyone should tamper with their normal breathing patterns as it relates to sport or singing or some, you know, activity. But what I'm talking about is when you're just standing around, when you're walking down the street, any low-level activity, you're working at your desk-

    24. LH

      Yeah

    25. AH

      ... you should be nasal breathing and breathing regularly. That will reduce brain fog in many cases.

    26. LH

      Man.

    27. AH

      Absolutely.

    28. LH

      It's interesting. When I went to India to study meditation, I guess it was five years ago now, I learned that the monks breathe through... They keep their mouth shut all day long. You know, their mouth is shut, they breathe through the nose. Unless they're eating or they're having a conversation, their mouths are shut. And, um, they seem to always just be very relaxed and, you know, [laughs] sharp and with it. They probably get great sleep. And it's interesting, as you were saying these symptoms, uh, breathing through the mouth, poor sleep, I realized two days before this brain fog day, I was in Vegas at the Canelo fight and I stayed up really late. It was daylight savings, but I stayed up way past the time. Was on an early flight back. I just didn't get a lot of sleep in the, in 24 hours before then. I had a good night's sleep the next night, but the next day, so two days after-

    29. AH

      Right

    30. LH

      ... the poor sleep, and for the last month, I've been breathing through my mouth because I had, um, uh, a surgery where I had three implants-

  4. 10:00 – 16:50

    Early illness signals and an adrenaline-based breathing protocol

    1. AH

      they run together like a bunch of little rivers that all drain to the same location. The microbiome of the nose stays healthier if you're a nasal breather. If you're... The mouth is a terrible filter for viruses, meaning things can get in and cause problems. Most of the time, an illness starts with a throat tickle, like something's happening back there. Mm, yeah, like a little cough or something, right? Yep. Yeah, it's that little itch in the, you know, that's the uh-oh. What is that tickle? Uh, it's ir- irritation of the muco- of the mucosal lining, and there are neurons that sit right below there that are now getting exposed because the mucosal lining is getting worn away, or the chemistry of the mucosal lining is changing. What's the best way to reverse that when you start to feel the tickle in your throat? Ah, there we can look to our- [laughs] Ah ... good, uh, uh, good friend... Well, a couple things. Uh, slow down whatever you're doing. Obviously, if you can get some- Rest ... if you can get a nice hot shower, bath, or sauna, and then get into bed and take, get 10 hours of sleep, that would be ideal. But if you're at the Canelo fight and you're- [laughs] ... you've got that, our friend, um, Wim Hof- Mm-hmm ... um, practices something called Tummo breathing, it's, it's sometimes called, and that goes by other names as well. And there's a beautiful study that was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, this is peer-reviewed work, showing that if you take two groups of people, you inject them both with E. coli, a bacteria which makes you very, very sick, but one group does a simple meditation, and another group does breathing of the sort that I'll describe in a moment, that Wim and Tummo type breathers and other people have, have talked about- Mm-hmm ... actually for centuries. Yogi breathers. Yoga, yeah. Yeah. It, what you do, what it involves is hyper-oxygenating the system so that you release adrenaline from the adrenal glands, which ride, which sit right above your kidneys, and adrenaline is the trigger for a number of different immune system, uh, cell types to combat infection. And what they found was if people do a particular style of breathing prior to the injection of E. coli, they are able to, uh, greatly avoid fever. That's crazy. They reduce the amount of inflammatory cytokines, things like IL-6, interleukin-6, et cetera, and increase anti-inflammatory cytokines- Mm ... like interleukin-10. It's a really wonderful study. The pattern of breathing is really simple. I do it anytime I'm starting to feel a little worn out-

    2. LH

      Really?

    3. AH

      ... or like I might be catching something, or if I was on a plane and someone around me seemed like they weren't doing so well, or I just am feeling a little worn out. And, uh, forgive me, 'cause there's no other way to do it but just to do it, but it involves 25 deep breaths in through the nose, in this case out through the mouth.

    4. LH

      Mm-hmm.

    5. AH

      Okay, so this is a case where breathing through the mouth is appropriate. So in through the nose, out through the mouth, then at the end of that, exhaling all your air, holding your breath for 15 to 60 seconds. Don't fight the impulse to breathe when you feel the impulse to breathe.

    6. LH

      Mm-hmm.

    7. AH

      Breathe in, and then hold your breath for as long as you can until you feel the impulse to breathe. Obviously, don't do this in your water. Believe it or not, a few people have actually died doing this-

    8. LH

      Mm

    9. AH

      ... because they did it in a bathtub or before, um-

    10. LH

      20 minutes

    11. AH

      ... diving underwa-

    12. LH

      Yeah

    13. AH

      ... underwater, so please don't do that. But it basically, I won't do all 25, but it's, it goes something like this. [inhales] [exhales] [inhales] [exhales] [inhales] [exhales] [inhales] So big, deep breaths, right? And I can already feel I'm kind of heating up.

    14. LH

      Yeah.

    15. AH

      That's the release of adrenaline.

    16. LH

      Little tingly feeling and yeah.

    17. AH

      You're hyperoxygenating. You're releasing adrenaline. Adrenaline is the signal for the immune system to deploy these killer cells and these cells that go and combat infection. And we don't often think about the fact that stress actually is the go signal for the immune system. We always hear stress depletes your immune system, and that's true if you remain chronically stressed, but humans are phenomenally good at combating stressors. And then they stop, they relax, and boom, they get sick, because the adrenaline signal drops. The other way you could do this would be to do an, an ice bath or really cold shower.

    18. LH

      Mm-hmm.

    19. AH

      You get the adrenaline release. That's basically the effect of the ice bath-

    20. LH

      That's what you mean

    21. AH

      ... or cold shower, is the adrenaline release. Some people will do well by doing a short HIIT workout, you know, a hit, high intensity interval-

    22. LH

      Mm-hmm

    23. AH

      ... training workout, because again, it's adrenaline. So it, not a depleting workout, but you know, 12 minutes of, of sprint, walk, sprint, walk.

    24. LH

      Mm-hmm.

    25. AH

      My sprints are very different than your sprints-

    26. LH

      [laughs]

    27. AH

      ... 'cause like you actually sprint.

    28. LH

      You're faster than me still. [laughs]

    29. AH

      In not in my best, best dream-

    30. LH

      [laughs]

  5. 16:50 – 25:08

    Morning routine foundation: light exposure to set the circadian clock

    1. LH

      So what's the routine then, the ultimate morning and evening routine to set your brain and your mind up for optimal performance and not getting brain fog?

    2. AH

      Okay. Um, I will describe that, uh, by listing out the protocol first, and then I'll give some of the scientific mechanisms-

    3. LH

      Perfect

    4. AH

      ... second.

    5. LH

      Yes.

    6. AH

      'Cause in the past, what I've tended to do is-

    7. LH

      [laughs]

    8. AH

      ... uh, give the mechanism and then give the protocols, and I know some people it's like, you know, enough of these academic guys. Let's just give me the, give me, tell, just tell me what to do. But if people want the mechanism, I-

    9. LH

      Yes

    10. AH

      ... would be happy to flesh that out.

    11. LH

      Yes.

    12. AH

      I should say that what I will mention is not everything I do. Um, so for instance-

    13. LH

      Mm-hmm

    14. AH

      ... uh, I get up, and like most humans, I use the restroom, and I have a glass of water. I do those things.

    15. LH

      Brush your teeth. Yeah.

    16. AH

      So if I, if I... I'm not listing every, every s- right foot, left foot step through the morning.

    17. LH

      Yes.

    18. AH

      But, but the things that are geared towards getting the mind into a proper place, for me, I'll describe it as my routine. I, I generally get up somewhere between 5:30 and 7:00 in the morning, depending on when I went to sleep.

    19. LH

      Mm-hmm.

    20. AH

      I'm not super regular about when I go to sleep, um, but generally that's between 10:30 and, uh, midnight.

    21. LH

      Yep.

    22. AH

      You know, I try and avoid that midnight hour, but, um, happens. So I get up. Obviously I use the restroom. I drink some water. I do think that hydrating is very important.

    23. LH

      Yes.

    24. AH

      Uh, so I will, I'll drink some, some water, and then the fundamental layer of health is to set your circadian rhythm. The simplest way to do that is to go outside for 10 minutes and get some bright light in your eyes. I'll just list off some of the things that people always ask. What if you wake up before the sun rises? Well, simple rule, if you want to be awake, turn on as many bright lights in your house as possible, but then when the sun goes out, you know, comes out, excuse me, get outside-

    25. LH

      Mm-hmm

    26. AH

      ... and see some sunlight. You do not have to look directly into the sun, but you do want to get outside, out of shade cover if you can. Don't wear sunglasses if you can do that safely. Don't try and do this through a window. Don't try and negotiate with me on this point.

    27. LH

      Mm. Go outside.

    28. AH

      People are like, "What about a window?" Well, the filtration of the, of the important wavelengths of light through the window is just too high, and so it would take hours for you to set your circadian clock that way.

    29. LH

      Mm.

    30. AH

      You want to do this because once every 24 hours, you're going to get a, a peak in cortisol, which is a healthy peak. You want that peak to happen early in the day because it sets up alertness for the remainder of the day.

  6. 25:08 – 27:01

    Delay caffeine to prevent crashes: adenosine and timing

    1. AH

      ... so then I come back inside, and then I do not drink caffeine right away. The... It's important, in many ways, to delay caffeine enough so that you can clear out some of the chemical signals in the brain and body that lead to a f- that, that lead to a feeling of fatigue. So a- the longer you're awake-

    2. LH

      Mm

    3. AH

      ... the more a molecule called adenosine builds up in your system, and when you sleep, you push that adenosine level back down. When you wake up in the morning, that adenosine level can be zero, but oftentimes there's still some hanging around. Caffeine is an adenosine antagonist. It blocks adenosine function. It's a little more complicated than that, but that's effectively what it does. So if you wake up and you've got, let's say, 20 perc- let's make... Uh, this is arbitrary, but 20% of your adenosine has still hasn't been cleared out, that's sort of a drowsiness that you woke up with.

    4. LH

      Mm-hmm.

    5. AH

      Then you go and you drink your coffee, and you crush that, that, uh, ability of adenosine to have that effect, but it hasn't gone away, so that when your coffee wears off mid-morning, now that adenosine is there and you feel like a, there's a c- mid-morning crash or an afternoon crash. So I delay my caffeine intake for about 90 and ideally 120-

    6. LH

      Mm

    7. AH

      ... minutes after I wake up because in that way you bring your adenosine level down very, very low to zero, and then you don't get this rebound crash in the afternoon. For years, I would get this post-lunch crash, and I thought maybe I'm eating too much for lunch-

    8. LH

      Right

    9. AH

      ... which I probably was, or maybe I'm eating the wrong foods.

    10. LH

      [laughs]

    11. AH

      Turned out it was all related to my timing of caffeine.

    12. LH

      Gosh.

    13. AH

      So, and your system learns how to wake up naturally.

    14. LH

      Right.

    15. AH

      You get the natural cortisol and adrenaline.

    16. LH

      Give it the time. Yeah.

    17. AH

      Give it the time. And people hate this one because it's, it's a little painful for the caffeine addicts, but I'm a pretty serious caffeine addict, and I embrace that, and I'll tell you, it also makes the joy of the coffee so much greater.

    18. LH

      You like waiting for that.

    19. AH

      Yeah.

    20. LH

      You're savoring it.

    21. AH

      Exactly.

    22. LH

      Like, "Ah, my first sip."

    23. AH

      Oh, it tastes so much better. Um-

    24. LH

      [laughs]

    25. AH

      ... and that relates to the dopamine system, which I know we're gonna talk about later.

    26. LH

      Ooh, yes.

  7. 27:01 – 33:10

    Yerba mate, electrolytes, and sodium: supporting alertness and digestion

    1. AH

      I sometimes will drink yerba mate instead of, um-

    2. LH

      Yeah, I love mate.

    3. AH

      Mate has like a c-

    4. LH

      Do you put honey in it or anything?

    5. AH

      I don't-

    6. LH

      Like Sweet Tea or something?

    7. AH

      I don't really like sweet stuff too much. Um-

    8. LH

      Man, I wish I had that disease.

    9. AH

      Yeah. It's- [laughs]

    10. LH

      You know? I wish I had that disease.

    11. AH

      I like savory things and salty things.

    12. LH

      Yeah.

    13. AH

      Um, I, I like yerba mate for a number of reasons. I don't like the really smoky mates. And, and my dad's Argentine, so I g- grew up drinking mate. But-

    14. LH

      You don't speak Spanish, though, do you?

    15. AH

      Uh, I speak four words of Spanish.

    16. LH

      [laughs]

    17. AH

      And, and, and those I speak, uh, poorly. So-

    18. LH

      Is your dad fluent?

    19. AH

      He's fluent.

    20. LH

      Come on.

    21. AH

      I, I know. Parents who are bi-

    22. LH

      How do you... That's a crime, isn't it?

    23. AH

      I know. It's a crime. Well, it's not a crime I committed. I love my dad.

    24. LH

      Well, that your dad committed. Yeah.

    25. AH

      Well, p- bilingual parents, please encourage your children to learn multiple languages.

    26. LH

      What-

    27. AH

      Musicians' parents, you know-

    28. LH

      Teach your kids a, the instrument.

    29. AH

      Yeah. Have you ever seen who-

    30. LH

      What are the-

  8. 33:10 – 36:43

    Exercise structure: cardio volume, strength maintenance, and rest days

    1. AH

      no caffeine until 90 to 20 minutes. Mm-hmm. What's next? Uh, water with salt. Okay. Water with salt. And then it's a question of whether or not I'm training that day or not. Uh, so I do believe getting exercise is important. I think the data, having reviewed the data and talked to, uh, a number of experts on this, in particular, uh, there's a guy who's really terrific, um, you may know him, uh, Dr. Andy Galpin, who's down at Cal State- Yeah ... Fullerton. Okay. Uh, excellent exercise physiologist. But also if you look across the, the mass of studies on exercise and heart health, there are a couple things that become clear. One is that everybody should be getting 120 to 150, and maybe even 150 to 180 minutes of so-called zone two cardio a week. This is the kind of cardiovascular exercise where you're doing work, you could have a conversation, but you're kind of at the threshold where it's not super easy to have a conversation. Yeah. And we're not talking sprints. The, there's just a myriad of effects on heart health, uh, you know, vascular health all over the body, gut microbiome, mus- Everything. Yeah ... musculoskeletal stability, mental health, all these kinds of things. So I have a routine where I either weight train for an hour in the morning or I do a portion of that weekly cardio. Mm. And I just alternate. Weight train one day, cardio the next, weight train. And then one day a week I don't do anything. I don't do any exercise. Six days a week you exercise, one day rest. Yeah. And I miss days. Uh, you know, occasionally because of travel or other schedules or appointments, I might take two days off. Nice. I never go seven days. I always, I pr- personally do well having a complete day off each week. Mm-hmm. But the hour of exercise generally is, you know, five, 10 minutes of warmup and then, and it's hard work. Yeah. You know? And I don't, this is a new thing that we can get into when I talk about dopamine, but I do not allow myself to check social media, text message, phone calls, and lately not even music when I train, uh, for reasons that we can get into later. I'm really trying to get focused on what I'm doing, and I'm trying to extract the greatest amount of joy from the process- Mm. Mm-hmm ... in its purest form. It's- So, so no phone essentially. And- I try not to have the phone. Occasionally I'll use music or I'll listen- Yeah ... to a podcast- Yeah ... 'cause it's such a great time to do that, so I don't wanna say I never do, but most of the time I'm trying very hard to just do my exercise. Be present. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And it doesn't matter if you, you know, run, swim, bike, row. Uh, you know, people these days can do calisthenics or weight training or something of that sort. The weight training thing is interesting because muscle building aside, it's very clear that five sets a week per muscle group is what's required to maintain muscle. Mm. And this is true for men, this is true for women, and obviously in young kids you don't want them weight training with heavy loads 'cause it can shut down their long bone growth. That's the myth or the, what they say anyway, but I don't know, kids are developing anyway. Right. So I don't know. I'll leave that to the, to the coaches to decide that, and the parents. But I think for people that are in their late teens, early 20s and onward, it's really important, if you look at longevity, a lot of the major injuries and early deaths and, um, not just due to accident, but y- you know, chronic illness comes from people br- falling and breaking a hip. Mm-hmm. Just not being strong. And so I think being strong, regardless of who you are, is important, and so that's five sets per week minimum per muscle group, and probably more like 10. Uh, routines s- play out differently, so I do my thing- Mm ... people have their thing. Um, so I, I try and exercise, or I do a 90-minute workout. And if I exercise, we

  9. 36:43 – 38:14

    The 90-minute deep work block: building focus and ‘no-go’ control

    1. AH

      can talk about that, then I would shower and do my 90-work- minute workout, but sometimes I do the 90-minute workout first. Mm. And that's generally why when I'm starting to drink the caffeine. And the 90-minute workout is a serious non-negotiable time in which I don't allow myself to be on the internet. I'm not checking email. I'm not texting. My phone is off, off, off. And not, you know, not on airplane mode. And- Hmm ... and it's a process of learning to focus, and learning to do what we call no-go functions in the brain. So we have an area of the brain called the basal ganglia that control go functions, like reaching out for a pen, and no-go, which is resisting the urge to do something. And these are circuits that are very- Hmm ... important for learning how to control attention and for controlling behavior. Young animals, puppies, humans don't do no-go very well. [laughs] Do you know the, the two marshmallow te- Yes, yes ... okay, the two marshmallow, you offered kids a t- uh, two, a marshmallow, and you say, "If you don't eat it, you'll get two marshmallows." In 10 minutes or five minutes, right. Um, in 10 minutes. Some kids can do it. That's pure, that's a no-go task. You're saying, how well can you resist the urge to just go and eat the marshmallow? And there are a number of things that mimic this. Another no-go type behavior would be meditation, for instance, where you sit down, it's kind of painful to sit cross-legged. Your thoughts are drawing you off. You remember something you need to do, and you're resisting the temptation to get up and do something else. And so this 90-minute workout is a kind of combined meditation but also functional work for me. So

  10. 38:14 – 49:37

    Attention tools and learning boosters: visual focus, random gaps, and NSDR/hypnosis

    1. AH

      for me, that could be writing. It could be planning a podcast. It could be- Hmm ... um, reading. It's something that's kind of hard, and the thing to understand about this 90-minute workout is that you should expect some friction early on. It's not like you just flip a switch and you're in, that it takes some time to get into this focus mode, and throughout that time, your brain will flicker in and out. And there's a tool that you can use to enhance your focus prior to this 90-minute workout, and I actually do this. It sounds a little crazy, but it actually is grounded in really good neuroscience, which is that you place a cross hatch of, you know, just a target at some distance on a piece of paper, and you force yourself to stare at it and not blink for about 30 to 60 seconds. And what you're doing- Hmm ... is you're ramping up the neural circuits in the brain that drive go, no-go- Hmm ... and harnessing your visual attention. Your focus. You're focusing. Visual focus drives cognitive focus. And for people that aren't sighted, auditory focus drives cognitive focus. So visual focused drives cognitive focus. Yes. These two little bits of, that we call eyes are, as, uh, people probably heard me say before, are two little bits of brain that are outside the cranial vault. Mm-hmm. They're the only way that your brain knows what to do in terms of whether or not it's day or night, who's out there, et cetera, but it's also a mechanism by which you draw your attentional systems into, from kind of everywhere. You know, imagine spotlights just kind of moving around, bringing those spotlights to a common location, and then intensifying that spotlight. Hmm. And since most work involves what we call exterocepting, looking outside ourself, this is very different than li- you know, sitting in meditation where you're focusing internally. Because when you sit down to work, you kind of want to forget about your heartbeat and how your feet feel on the floor and that your back and, you know- Mm-hmm ... might be a little sore or something. You want to be in the work. And so I do, I set a timer, and I force 90 minutes of this, and it, and it's really tough, Lewis. Some days- [laughs] Some days, I... It's anything to go get something out of the fridge. Any, any- Get up and distract myself and- And occasionally, I fail. Yeah. I will get up and go do something, and, or I'll look at my phone. I do falter sometimes. But if you can learn to do this 90-minute bout- I bet consistently- Yeah ... you can create some amazing work. You can do, you will do your best work, and what's really wonderful is it's not just about the work that you perform in that bout. What ends up happening is really special. This sort of combined meditation work bout, as I'm calling it, has this effect of you are actually tuning up and making your neural circuits for focus and attention better, so that after that, okay, you flip on the internet, you check your email, you're doing text messaging, you're probably hungry now. I'm hungry if I've, if I've exercised. I'll eat my meal, my, my lunch. I tend to fast till about lunch most days. But what happens then is after lunch or something, you decide, "Oh, you know, I'm, I'm gonna sit down and, and read something, or I'm gonna do some more work, but I've only got 20 minutes." You can drop in like a laser. It's re- Wow ... because the circuits have learned. You, you recognize that state. It's a, I guess the, the analogy would be you do your hardest workout in the morning- Mm-hmm ... and you, you, or maybe it's a skill learning period, I know, because you used to play professional sports. Yeah. Yeah. And then in the afternoon, it's gonna be hard to recreate that entire- Yes ... 90-minute session, but you go back, and you can drill it, and y- you're right there because your nervous system recognizes you're right there. Mm-hmm. And y- and so that's a, a, a holy part of my morning. Wow. As holy as the sunlight viewing. Wow. And it's something that's very hard to build in, but I actually schedule it just like I would a Zoom call. And, and it's really, it's cool because when you then, for instance, if you have a social interaction where someone comes to you and they say, "I've got something to do," and you're sort of distracted or, "I have something I need to tell you," you'll notice that you can quickly intensify that at-, uh, what we call attentional spotlight- Hmm ... in, in neuroscience. Wow. And so it's a skill, and I hear these days a lot about attention deficit and trouble focusing, and indeed, some people have clinically diagnosed attention deficit, and I want, you know, I, there are resources for them. I did a whole podcast on ADHD. But many people don't have attention deficit in the clinical sense. They've created it because they've never actually taught their brain how to focus for very long, and the phone's sitting right here, and there's distraction everywhere. And then, of course, it raises all these questions. Like, people say, "Well, do you listen to music?" Hmm. "Do you listen to white noise?" There are a lot of tools and tricks. Sometimes music helps. Sometimes music hinders. Sometimes being in a cafe can help. Sometimes pure silence helps. Hmm. It's, it's really individual, and it's really context dependent. Sure. So I don't want to give a- Sure ... a, a prescriptive, but that 90-minute workout, if I can do all those things and then get that 90-minute workout and then eat my lunch, I feel- Like, the, the system is set to make the rest of the day even better. 'Cause we often hear about the perfect morning routine, but we're not thinking about how that routine influences the rest- Mm-hmm ... of the day's routine. Yes. When did you start implementing that 90-minute o- uh, focus? Well, the- this whole thing around, um, deliberate focus really started for me in college because, uh, to make a long story short, I was not a very disciplined high school student. [laughs] I barely finished high school. I eventually got my act together. Uh, I went to college, and after the first year I did very poorly. Uh, I left, went to community college, came back, and decided it was time to get serious. So I... This was all pre-cellphone, 'cause I'm 46 now. So I used to sit down at my desk. I would allow myself, it was CDs back then, two different CDs. It was a Rancid CD and a Bob Dylan CD. Those were the only CDs I'd allow myself to listen to. I had my coffee and my water, and I would use the bathroom, and then I would not allow myself to get up for two hours. I would just study. Wow. And there were times when I spent a lot of time just looking at the tip of my pen- [laughs] ... wondering if this was ever gonna kick in. But then I realized if I could get, just get 15 seconds of focus, I noticed that I could focus better. So it's not like sets and reps in the gym where there's a fatigue and you, for instance, if you do- Mm ... 10, you know, I'm making this up, I don't do these kinds of routines, but 10 sets of 10, it's very hard to maintain that output 20 minutes later. I noticed that with focus it's something that you kinda drop into a groove. Now, after about 90 minutes it's very hard to maintain that, and there's a lot of data showing that these 90-minute, what are called ultradian rhythms, n- much of our life is broken up into 90-minute cycles. Mm-hmm. These 90-minute learning bouts are very good. And there are a couple other little tricks if people really want to get fancy. Um, there's some really cool data that were published this last year, uh, in Cell Reports on what are called gap effects. Okay. So when you learn something s- whether or not it's a physical skill or you're learning a language, let's say you're working on, uh, sentences in, in Spanish, 'cause you're- Mm-hmm ... 'cause you're learning Spanish, as, as we know, and you're really drilling it hard, hard. You're, you're working at it. Turns out that if you stop randomly every once in a while and take 10 seconds and just do nothing- Hmm ... the brain, this has been now demonstrated by brain imaging, the brain runs many repetitions inside of that little rest block of the material that you were trying to learn, and the speed of learning and the depth of learning is much faster. So these gap effects have been shown for physical skill learning, language learning, math learning, music, et cetera. And this is the same process that happens during sleep. So normally you learn something during the day- Hmm ... or you try and learn, you go to sleep, and during sleep there's a rapid replay of the information. Right. And that's when so-called neuroplasticity, rewiring of connections, occurs. These little gaps that you're doing, that you're inserting at random, not every three minutes or so, but just at random, taking these 10-second gaps- 10 seconds, yeah ... give you many more repetitions. So it's, it's, it's- Huh ... if ever there was a little, uh, what is it, like a cheat code? Is that what they call it- Yeah, yeah ... in video games? I don't play video games, but- [laughs] ... a cheat code, it's this, that every once in a while you just stop and do nothing, you don't have to close your eyes, and you're getting more repetitions, and then you go back into it. So some people like to do that. And then we're about done with the morning, but I, I'd be remiss if I didn't, um, say that I always after lunch do a 10 to 30-minute either non-sleep deep rest or hypnosis. What does that do for you? Well, what it does is it, at least what the data show, 'cause there have now been two studies published last year, one in Cell Reports and I believe the other was also in Cell Reports, Cell Press journal, excellent journal, showing that 20-minute naps or things of the sort that I just described, the hypnosis I described, allow the neuroplasticity that was triggered during that learning bout- Hmm ... to occur much more quickly, and so people learn faster. Interesting. Yeah. So you're... And for some people a nap isn't a feasible thing. Uh, some people say, "Are naps good or bad?" If your nap interferes with your nighttime sleep, it's bad. Bad. If your nap does not, then it's okay. And naps that are shorter than 90 minutes, so anywhere from 10, 20, 30, 45, but certainly not longer than 90 minutes, are going to be better than naps that are longer than 90 minutes for reasons related to sleep. So that kind of ends the morning. Mm-hmm. And then the rest of the day just depends on what's happening. Sure. And I think it, it's too varied- Yeah ... to describe, but I do suggest that people try and get a little bit of sunlight as the sun is setting in the evening or late afternoon, depending on time of year and where you live. Same practice- Mm-hmm ... because now you're sending two signals to that master circadian clock of when there's morning and when there's evening, and that clock has a m- what we call a morning and an evening oscillator. So if you can give more signals, then the system becomes more robust. It also ensures you a little bit against some of the exposure to nighttime bright light, for reasons related- Hmm ... to retinal sensitivity. So go outside for 10 or 15 minutes. Check, fine if you need to check your text messa- text messages, do it out front of the, your building or your home. Right. That's going to be very good. That's cool. Yeah. Okay. That's the ultimate morning routine for you. That's the ultimate morning routine for me. I... People might say, "Well, you're only working for 90 minutes," but I would wager that m- in that 90- 90 minutes of focus is better than six hours of distraction ... in that 90 minutes I'm accomplishing much more than I would accomplish in three, four hours. Wow. I will often do a second 90-minute bout in the afternoon. Phew. But very few people can do more than three hours or four hours of really focused work per day. Yeah, yeah. And I'm talking about real work. Yeah. I'm not talking about, um, you know, checking things or- Replying to emails or- ... brainstorming with people, which is also a lot of fun and can feel like work. Right. But I'm talking about creative work, I'm talking about, um, hard math, I'm talking about w- working on a problem where- Mm-hmm ... it actually feels like strain- Yeah ... and friction. Mm-hmm. And I'm talking about not getting up to get a drink of water even if you're thirsty. Wow. [laughs] I'm talking, I'm, I'm... This is a little- Staying focused. Yeah, this is very... It's a little bit m- masochistic, but the payoff is huge- Yeah ... because of what you accomplish, but also because of your ability to- Reinforce those circuits so that those circuits can kick in for six minutes when you need to do six minutes of something focused in the afternoon.

    2. LH

      Right.

    3. AH

      Someone comes to you with a spreadsheet and says, "This doesn't make any sense. Do you wanna do this? Do you really wanna fly to this meeting that you're going to?" And you, you could just laser in and take care of everything, and then you can go right back to what you were doing-

    4. LH

      Mm

    5. AH

      ... in a very seamless way.

    6. LH

      That's cool.

    7. AH

      Yeah.

  11. 49:37 – 1:00:46

    Dopamine basics: motivation, baseline shifts, and ‘dopamine fast’ framing

    1. LH

      Can you talk about, you mentioned dopamine a little bit. Can you talk about dopamine focus and motivation, and how to manage our dopamine hits? Because it seems like every 30 seconds we're getting dopamine now, whether it's drinking coffee, having candy, social media, email pings, dings on the watches. Whatever it is, it's a dopamine overload it feels like.

    2. AH

      Yes.

    3. LH

      So how do we stay motivated and manage dopamine at the same time?

    4. AH

      Yeah. Great question. S- dopamine is the molecule of motivation, and-

    5. LH

      The molecule of motivation.

    6. AH

      Absolutely. I mean, for years and years people thought dopamine was about pleasure, but dopamine is mainly about craving and motivation and drive.

    7. LH

      Okay.

    8. AH

      There's a simple experiment that illustrates that, but, uh, I would be remiss if I didn't first mention, uh, two excellent resources, uh, for people that wanna learn a lot about dopamine. Uh, these would be perhaps interesting people for you to talk to directly. Uh, the first is a book called The Molecule of More, which is all about dopamine. Uh, the author is Lieberman. I pers- I don't know him personally, but I love the book. I wish I had written it. Uh, the second is Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence, and the author there is Anna Lembke, L-E-M-K-E. Uh, she's a medical doctor and psychiatrist, and runs the dual diagnosis addiction clinic at Stanford School of Medicine.

    9. LH

      Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

    10. AH

      She's a colleague. I, I consider her a friend, and she is, um, world-class, second to none in all things dopamine as it relates to addiction.

    11. LH

      Wow.

    12. AH

      So wonderful reads. Um, and so a lot of what I'm going to talk about is g- is kind of paraphrasing elements from their books, so I wanna be clear. Um, so here's the experiment. Take two rats.

    13. LH

      Uh, yeah.

    14. AH

      You give them a lever they can press, and they can get food out of that lever. They can get, um, heat if their, their cage is cold. They can get all sorts of things that are great for a rat, um, including, uh, a mate to mate with if they press this lever. Both rats press the lever just fine. Now you take away dopamine from one of those rats. You can actually do that by, um, using a, a, a toxin that can kill off all the dopamine neurons. Okay? There's an equivalent experiment that's been done in humans, but it was a naturally occurring death of these, of these dopamine neurons, much in the s- uh, same way that Parkinson's destroys-

    15. LH

      Okay

    16. AH

      ... dopamine neurons. What you find is that both rats or both people still experience pleasure from food, from sex, from warmth when they're cold, from cool when they're wa- too warm, et cetera. However, if you take that rat, both rats, and you move them one rat length away from the lever so they have to just do a little bit of work, a little bit of work in order to press the lever, or you take a human who has no dopamine neurons or very little dopamine and you make the pleasureful thing a little bit more challenging to get to, the ones with no dopamine do not pursue pleasure at all.

    17. LH

      Hmm.

    18. AH

      That's just one example of what now are hundreds of examples in the neuroscience literature showing that dopamine is the molecule of pursuit, craving, motivation, drive. You know, pick your favorite word.

    19. LH

      So dopamine is a good thing in motivation.

    20. AH

      In- provided it's in proper levels-

    21. LH

      Right, okay

    22. AH

      ... yes, that's right.

    23. LH

      Okay.

    24. AH

      If your dopamine is depleted, you will feel not motivated. Now, there's a double-edged sword here because many things, as you mentioned accurately, trigger dopamine release. L- seeing a positive comment, a compliment, food. The more palatable a food, a really tasty chip-

    25. LH

      Hmm

    26. AH

      ... compared to a slice of a potato that's, that's baked-

    27. LH

      Right

    28. AH

      ... but doesn't have anything on it, one truly releases more dopamine than the other.

    29. LH

      Right.

    30. AH

      I could list off a number of things, but we have a baseline level of dopamine. Uh, nicotine for instance increases that by about 50%. Um-

  12. 1:00:46 – 1:08:27

    Managing stimulation: stacking dopamine hits, cold exposure, and the ‘post-event’ letdown

    1. AH

      anything that you enjoy. F- uh, food for instance, you don't want to overindulge in highly palatable foods. It's just bad for us. We know this for a number of reasons. So the key is to- Hmm ... take this dopamine system and set it up for you to be able to be motivated and focused, and the way to do that is to make the experiences around that thing that you want to be motivated to do a little less or a lot less exciting. This- What do you mean? This is why I don't listen to music these days or check text messages while I'm in the gym. And sometimes I'll listen to a book or a podcast, but I really try and just be, just work out, including while I'm running. Why? Because these days we are layering in dopamine. We're getting dopamine from the h- energy drink we're, we're drinking- Okay? Big increase in dopamine. I forget the actual numbers, but I think it's 1.8 times increase, and some of them have L-tyrosine, which is a dopamine precursor. Mm. Some of them have caffeine, which also increases dopamine and upregulates dopamine receptors. So you're getting it from the energy drink, plus it's the video game you're playing, plus you're with your friends. It's just a dopamine soup, which sounds great, except that other things that you do afterwards are going to seem under-stimulating- Ah ... and you're gonna think, "I can't focus on this." Yeah. So I also kind of wonder whether or not you were having trouble focusing in your class because the Canelo fight was that awesome. It was insane. It was. It was amazing. Yeah, he's amazing. He's amazing. Yeah. I, I'm a, I am a boxing fan, and- It was crazy ... and he, if you had to, like, build a boxer, you'd build him like that. Incredible. Just his head, the, his shape- He's incredible ... the, yeah, the right hook. And it was just like the roar of the crowd and just the energy, it was amazing, man. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. There's a, there's a beautiful story unfolding there with, with him. But- Yes ... so that could be it, too. You know, there's a, kind of a letdown. And so I think it's, it may be helpful for people to understand- Mm ... that the postpartum depression that people feel after a big celebration- It's real ... that's real. And if you just wait a little while, that system will reset. Mm. You don't have to necessarily wait 30 days, but if you just had a great party, you should expect that there'll be a long tail of joy, but then you might feel a little low, a little underwhelmed. So true, man. And if you're gonna sit down and try and do work, and you're finding yourself not that focused, you might want to think about some of the behaviors that led up to that work. Mm-hmm. So I really try to get into my work in a focused way by making the, the period right before it's a little boring. Frankly, going outside, getting some sunlight, drinking my mate, it sounds like a pretty boring life, right? It's not like blasting a bunch of music and getting really amped up. Mm-hmm. But I'm able to get a nice peak of dopamine during that work bout, and I think that's a functional dopamine increase. And then afterwards, yes, indeed, there's a drop. Now, there's some other hacks that- Mm ... um, Ana's talked about, and again, we can look to our friend Wim Hof. Other people have done this, although this was happening long before Wim. There's a beautiful study published in the European Journal of Physiology showing that getting into cold water, so this could be cold shower, could be ice bath, could be any number of different plunge-type things or an ocean or whatever that people y- want to use, for anywhere from three to six minutes creates a 2.5x increase in dopamine that lasts many hours. So it's a unique stimulus, 'cause it's not like a spike- Wow ... and then it drops. It's like a long arc increasing your baseline dopamine, increases alertness- Mm ... feelings of wellbeing. Some, they did blood draws in this study, so these are real data, you know? They weren't- Yes ... um, it wasn't conjecture. They really know this. And there are some cases of people who were full-blown addicts or people who are struggling with ADHD who start doing regular cold water exposure, you know, three to six times a week, three to six minutes at a time, and discover that, wow, they actually can focus because they're getting that dopamine increase. Wow. Yeah. This stuff is fascinating, man. It's, it's, it's really interesting. It's fascinating [laughs] . I think that, to me, because the dopamine f- uh, you know, coming up in neuroscience, I've been in the game a long time now, almost, you know, gosh, almost 30 years, but, um, dopamine was always thought of as, like, pleasure. But it's, it's confusing because it's, it's associated with pleasure, but it's not the actual experience of pleasure. Mm-hmm. And immediately after sex, immediately after any powerful ex- experience that's very pleasureful, dopamine system crashes down. Crashes. Yeah. What happens to the body when dopamine crashes? Ah. Well, there's an interesting thing that happens, uh, 'cause there's a hormone called prolactin, which is actually involved in milk letdown for, for nursing- Mm ... but is also inc- uh, increased in both men and women in the anticipation of childbirth. This is actually responsible for the so-called dad bod. [laughs] Prolactin lays down body fat stores. Wow. Tends to make people a little more sedentary, and this has been shown in humans and in animals. It tends to reduce libido and sex drive. Mm-hmm. And so if you think about m- dopamine is, is a currency of motivation that biology has used for, for hundreds of thousands of years. Yes. So, you know- Wow ... whether or not, you know, we, we think about currencies like dollars or euros or Bitcoins or Ethereum, all of those actually relate to dopamine. They're all, dopamine is the fundamental currency- Yeah ... that we're all working for. And dopamine has this quality of making us focused on things outside our immediate experience. This is why people who are on cocaine or methamphetamine, which is a really extreme version of, of dopamine increase, they tend to be all about plans and action. They're not sitting there thinking about how wonderful they feel in their own body. Mm. Whereas drugs like cannabis and, uh, psilocybin and drugs, these are not drugs I recommend people use recreationally. I, I, I'm not passing judgment, but I just want to be clear about what I'm saying and not saying, that any drugs that increase serotonin tend to make people kind of still, focused on their internal landscape, their thinking. Mm-hmm. It's kind of an internal reflection thing. Right. So the serotonin system and the dopamine system are kind of antagonistic to one another, and the prolactin system is associated with the serotonin system. So prolactin is kind of about, it's a, it's a mellowing out. Interesting. And, um, there, uh, just, uh, to nail the, the point, there are many people in the world who suffer from schizophrenia. 1% of the world's population. A huge number. A very sad thing. Psychosis, hearing things, et cetera. And most of the drugs designed to treat schizophrenic psychosis are drugs that reduce dopamine. Mm. And oftentimes you'll see people on the street who are taking these drugs, and they'll be writhing like this with their face. Yeah. Sometimes men will have gynecomastia, they'll have breast development, because these drugs block dopamine, increase prolactin, and disrupt the motor pathways that are associated with movement. Wow. I say this, uh, for two reasons. One is it illustrates the relationship between prolactin, dopamine, movement, et cetera, but the other is to hopefully, uh, in- invoke a little bit of empathy for people that oftentimes we will see people who, if they're shouting and acting crazy, that's probably an unmedicated person. ... who's bipolar or has schizophrenia. But if you see someone in there catatonic, or they are writhing and acting very strange, that's a person who's, um, we don't know for sure, but very likely is actively trying to treat their own psychosis-

    2. LH

      Mm

    3. AH

      ... to eliminate the voices and things of that sort.

    4. LH

      Ah.

    5. AH

      So I say that because I-

    6. LH

      Trying to get it out, yeah

    7. AH

      ... you know, I, I, we have a big homeless population issue-

    8. LH

      Mm-hmm

    9. AH

      ... in California and elsewhere, too, and oftentimes we see people acting crazy, and we think, "Oh, they're..." You know, uh, we make this disparaging judgment, and everyone's prone to doing it, of course, but they're crazy. But oftentimes that, those crazy movements and the things they're doing are the reflection of drugs that block the dopamine system.

    10. LH

      Gotcha.

    11. AH

      Yeah. So I, I don't mean to make it dark-

    12. LH

      Yeah. Right

    13. AH

      ... but I think that there is a, you know, 1% of the world's population is a huge number.

    14. LH

      That's a lot of people.

    15. AH

      And a lot of people suffering from these things, yeah.

  13. 1:08:27 – 1:19:28

    Substances and neurochemistry: nicotine, alcohol, and cannabis effects

    1. LH

      Now, I wanna, wanna bring it home with this idea about, um, drugs, specifically smoking, alcohol, and let's say, uh, marijuana.

    2. AH

      Mm-hmm.

    3. LH

      I guess the most commonly used drugs by most people. How much do those, those three substances affect dopamine and motivation and focus?

    4. AH

      Okay.

    5. LH

      And how do they affect the brain chemically-

    6. AH

      Yeah

    7. LH

      ... if you're using them on a consistent basis? Let's say, you know, every week you're using one of these. Does it affect the brain that much, or does it not really affect the brain in terms of focus, motivation, and dopamine?

    8. AH

      Okay. Um, with the caveats, excellent question, by the way, and I think actually, and a fundamentally important question because we live in a w- in a world of substances.

    9. LH

      Yes.

    10. AH

      I mean, every, I mean, we all have to eat. We all have to hydrate.

    11. LH

      Mm-hmm.

    12. AH

      Many... I'm drinking caffeine right now.

    13. LH

      Right.

    14. AH

      Um, a- as I mentioned, drugs and, uh, uh, and alcohol have never been my thing.

    15. LH

      Mm-hmm.

    16. AH

      Um, I was part of an MDMA clinical trial.

    17. LH

      Yes.

    18. AH

      I did two, two of those sessions. That's a drug, right, but it was part of a medically supervised clinical trial. But I'm not a, a person who uses recreational drugs.

    19. LH

      Right.

    20. AH

      And so I, I want to just also set up the caveat that I have no judgment whatsoever.

    21. LH

      Right.

    22. AH

      I think if people are informed, they can make better decisions for themselves.

    23. LH

      Yeah.

    24. AH

      Okay.

    25. LH

      I'm, I'm curious more about the scientific-

    26. AH

      Yeah

    27. LH

      ... data.

    28. AH

      Sure.

    29. LH

      What does it do?

    30. AH

      Yeah.

  14. 1:19:28 – 1:24:43

    Closing lessons and ‘three truths’: self-knowledge, physiology, and morning ‘download’ time

    1. LH

      It's coming. They're coming. But Huberman Lab in the meantime is an amazing show, YouTube channel, Instagram. You do Instagram Lives that are very informative. You break down all the science, which I love. Uh, so people need to go check you out there. We're gonna do a part two. We're gonna come back and talk about sleep and all things sleep here, so make sure you guys are coming back for that when we drop that. Uh, I want to ask you the three truths again. ... in your definition of greatness and see if it's changed. [laughs]

    2. AH

      These are always the hardest questions.

    3. LH

      I've got them up here-

    4. AH

      Okay

    5. LH

      ... so I'm curious if you-

    6. AH

      All right

    7. LH

      ... if it's the same thing.

    8. AH

      Oh, my. Okay. Well, if I-

    9. LH

      So-

    10. AH

      ... if I migrate off those pr-

    11. LH

      If it's-

    12. AH

      Oh, different

    13. LH

      ... if it's different, that's great

    14. AH

      I guess it means there was neuroplasticity.

    15. LH

      There you go, yes. So, uh, three truths, uh, if this was your last day and, and we didn't have access to any of your information, what would you say are those three truths that you would share with the world, three lessons you've learned that you would share with the world?

    16. AH

      Well, I'm a big believer in what the oracle said, which is, "Know thyself."

    17. LH

      Mm-hmm.

    18. AH

      I think it's very important for all of us to repeatedly take stock of where our strengths are, where our weaknesses are, uh, where we find meaning and purpose, and, um, where we find joy.

    19. LH

      Mm-hmm.

    20. AH

      And to take stock of those, and it's a, it's a simple exercise. You just take a walk or write it down, and be as honest with yourself as you, one can be. And to try and lean into the strengths and try and make up some of the deficiencies, which we all have.

    21. LH

      Yes.

    22. AH

      I certainly do. Um, many, many deficiencies-

    23. LH

      [laughs]

    24. AH

      ... as the people in my life will tell you. Um, but I think it's a very important exercise. That's probably the first one. The second one is take care of your physiology. You know, I, I believe in psychology. We are psychological animals. We are storytellers. But if your physiology isn't where it needs to be, if the foundation is troubled, it's gonna be very hard to navigate your mental states.

    25. LH

      Yes.

    26. AH

      And so I've often said, and I'll say it again, that if you can't control the mind with the mind, if you want to look to the body to control the mind.

    27. LH

      Absolutely.

    28. AH

      So if your thoughts, if you're having a hard time controlling your thoughts, your feelings, and emotions, you're feeling triggered, you're feeling like everything's bearing down on you, try to of- get out of that trap by focusing on particular patterns of breathing, take a cold shower, go for a walk, get some sunshine. Do something to shift your physiology so that you can approach that challenge from a different stance. And then the third one is one that I'm getting, uh, increasingly into these days, which is, uh, what I would call get the download. Um, I'm getting a lot of value from this personally, which is, you know, when you wake up in the morning, your brain is in that kind of liminal state between wakefulness and s- uh, and sleep. And if you bombard yourself with sensory information through, mainly through screens, you l- lose out on a key opportunity to hear some of what your sub- truly your subconscious processed during the middle-

    29. LH

      Hmm

    30. AH

      ... of the night. And so I suggest when you go outside, take a little notebook and a piece of, uh, you know, a pen or a pencil, um, and jot down what comes to mind, if anything. Some days something comes to mind, sometimes no. But again, if you're allowing space for it, you'll be amazed at what kinds of ideas and clarity can come about-

  15. 1:24:43 – 1:49:21

    Bonus discussion: attaching dopamine to effort, deliberate action, and neuroplasticity

    1. AH

      We've all heard the sayings, you know, how do you... You know, a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step, or how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

    2. LH

      Mm-hmm.

    3. AH

      Or, you know, all, there are all these sayings and, and it, you know, it goes back to the Bible and earlier, right?

    4. LH

      Yeah.

    5. AH

      I mean, this is not new. These are not new sayings, but they're showing up in different forms. What's lost in those short descriptions, however, is that every step is not equivalent. If it were just that a journey-

    6. LH

      Yeah

    7. AH

      ... of a thousand miles starts with a single step, everyone would pursue their goals.

    8. LH

      [laughs]

    9. AH

      Everyone would push back against adversity. Everyone... I mean, you can read the inspirational stories a- as many times as one needs, and I do think inspirational stories are of very high value. In fact, I think they're vicarious dopamine. I think they give us the sense that we could, which then orients-

    10. LH

      Hope

    11. AH

      ... hope, which then orients us to the world again.

    12. LH

      To start. Yeah.

    13. AH

      Yeah.

    14. LH

      Say, "It's po- maybe it's possible for me."

    15. AH

      That's right. So let's say, um, let's take the example of somebody who's, um, got-

    16. LH

      But there's a thing is that's, that story of it's not about just taking a single step and one step at a time. Is it because there's adversities every 10 steps you go, and so it's harder and harder? So it's not just one-

    17. AH

      Well, it's just very non-linear.

    18. LH

      Yeah, yeah.

    19. AH

      You know? It's, it's some days go, you know, I know this from my scientific career, it's, you know, some days it's easy, some days it's hard. It's all over the place, right?

    20. LH

      Mm-hmm.

    21. AH

      So I think- The thing to remember is that dopamine is this incredibly powerful molecule that allows us to buffer the effort process. It allows us to be in effort longer, and it allows us to actually eventually enjoy the process of effort

    22. LH

      And not think about the reward, but just say, "Oh, I'm enjoying the process."

    23. AH

      Right. Well, you just described the first step. The first step in learning to attach dopamine to the effort process, which is the key operation in order to succeed, is to be very careful about how much you focus on the end goal. Keeping the goal in mind is important for, like, a proper orientation. You have to know the ultimate destination. But if at any point we were to evaluate our progress relative to that end goal, or if we don't know what the end goal is, there's a huge gap there-

    24. LH

      Right

    25. AH

      ... and it can feel overwhelming

    26. LH

      And depressing, and I'm not good enough-

    27. AH

      That's right

    28. LH

      ... I should just give up. What am I doing this for?

    29. AH

      That's right. It's-

    30. LH

      And those thoughts will affect us

Episode duration: 1:49:22

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Transcript of episode 8jvjliU8F58

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