Andrew Huberman: Focus, Controversy, Politics, and Relationships | Lex Fridman Podcast #435

Andrew Huberman 0:00 Hardship will show you who your real friends are. That's for sure. Could you read the quote once more? "Don't eat with people you wouldn't starve with." The following is a conversation with Andrew Huberman. His fifth time on the podcast. He is the host of the Huberman Lab Podcast, and is an amazing scientist, teacher, human being, and someone I'm grateful to be able to call a close friend. Also, he has a book coming out next year that you should pre-order now, called Protocols: An Operating Manual for the Human Body. This is the Lex Fridman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in description. And now, dear friends, here's Andrew Huberman.

Andrew Huberman 0:50 You think there's ever gonna be a day when you walk away from podcasting? Definitely. I mean, I came up within, and then on the periphery of skateboard culture. And for the record, I was not a great skateboarder. I always have to say that, 'cause skateboarders are relentless if you call something you didn't do or whatever. I mean, I could do a few things and I loved the community, and I still have a lot of friends in that community. Jim Thiebaud at Deluxe. You can look him up. He's kind of the man behind the whole scene. I know Tony Hawk, Danny Way, all these guys. I got to see them come up and get big and stay big in many cases. Start huge companies like Danny and Collin McCausland, or DC. Some people have a long life in something, some don't. But one thing I observed and learned a lot from in skateboarding, at the level of observing the skateboarders and then the ones that started companies, and then what I also observed in science, and still observe, is you do it for a while, you do it at the highest possible level for you, and then at some point you pivot and you start supporting the young talent coming in. In fact, the greatest scientists, people like Richard Axel, Catherine Dulac, there are many other labs in neuroscience. Karl Deisseroth. They're not just known for doing great science, they're known for mentoring some of the best scientists that then go on to start their own labs. And I think in podcasting, I am very fortunate I got in, in a fairly early wave, not the earliest wave, but thanks to your suggestion of doing a podcast, fairly early wave. Mm-hmm. And I'll continue to go as long as it feels right, and I feel like I'm doing good in the world and providing good. But I'm already starting to scout talent. My company that I started with Rob Moore, SciCom Media, there's a couple other guys in there too. Mike Blaback, our photographer, Ian Mackay, Chris Rea, Martin Fobes. We are a company that produces podcasts. Right now that's Huberman Lab Podcast, but we're launching a new podcast, Perform, with Dr. Andy Galpin. Nice. And we wanna do more of that kind of thing, finding really great talent, highly qualified people, credentialed people. And I've got a new, um, kind of obsession with scouring the internet looking for the young talent in science, in health, and related fields. And so will there be a final episode of the HLP? Yeah, I mean, Bullet Buster Cancer aside, you know, (laughs) someday I'll, there'll be the very last, "And thank you for your interest in science," and I'll clip out. Yeah, I love the idea of walking away and not be dramatic about it. Right. When it feels right you can leave and you can come back whenever the fuck you want. Right. Uh, Jon Stewart did this well with The Daily Show. I think that was during the 2016 election when everybody wanted him to stay on and he just walked away. Dave Chappelle for different reasons, walked away. Disappeared, came back. Gave away so much money, didn't care. And then came back and was doing like standup in the park, in the middle of nowhere. Genius. You have Khabib who, undefeated, walks away at the very top of, of a sport. Is he coming back? No, he's done. Or at least we don't know. Yeah. Right, we don't know. I don't know if he knows. Yeah, bears everywhere are worried. (laughs) Yeah, I think, you know, it's, um, it's always a call, you know, you know, the last few years have been tremendous growth. We launched in January 2021, and even this last year, 2024, has been huge growth, (laughs) you know, in all sorts of ways. It's been wild. And we have some short form content planned, es- 30 minute shorter episodes that really distill down the critical elements. We're also thinking about moving to other venues besides podcasting. So there's always the thought and the discussion. But when it comes to like when to hang up your cleats, you know, it's like there just comes a natural time where you can do more to mentor the next generation coming in than focusing on self. And so there will come a time for that. And I think it's critical. I mean, again, I saw this in skateboarding, like Danny and Collin, and Danny's brother Damon started DC with Ken Block, the driver who unfortunately passed away a little while ago, rally car driver. And they eventually sold it, I think, to Quicksilver or something like that. But they're all phenomenal talents in their respective areas. But they brought in the next, you know, the next line of amazing riders for the Plan B thing, you know, Paul Rodriguez. For skateboarders, they know who this is. Now in, in science, there are scientists like Feynman for instance. I don't know if anyone can name one of his mentor offspring. So there are scientists who are phenomenal, like beyond world class, right? Multi-generational world class, who don't make good mentors. I'm not saying he wasn't a good mentor, but that's not what he's known for. And then there are scientists who are known for being excellent scientists and, and great mentors. And I think there's no higher, um, celebration to be had at the end of one's career if you can look back and be like, "Hey, I put some really important knowledge into the world. People made use of that knowledge." And guess what? You spawned all these other...... scientific offspring, or sport offspring, or podcast offspring. I mean, I, in some ways we look to Rogan and to some of the other earlier podcasts as like they, you know, they paved the way. Rhonda Patrick, first science podcast out there. So, you know, it, eventually, the baton passes, but fortunately right now everybody's active and it, and it feels really good.

Lex Fridman 6:31 Yeah. Well, you're talking about the healthy way to do it, but there's also, uh, a different kinda way where you have, uh, somebody like, uh, Grisha Grigori Perelman, the mathematician who refused to accept the Fields Medal. So he's one of the greatest living mathematicians, and he just walked away from mathematics-

Andrew Huberman 6:48 Is that right?

Lex Fridman 6:48 ... and rejected the Fields Medal.

Andrew Huberman 6:50 What did he do after he left mathematics?

Lex Fridman 6:52 Life. Private. 100%.

Andrew Huberman 6:55 I respect that.

Lex Fridman 6:56 He's become essentially a recluse. There's these photos of him looking very broke.

Andrew Huberman 7:02 Mm.

Lex Fridman 7:02 Like he could use the money. He, he turned away the money, he turned away everything. You know, there's th- there's ... You just have to listen to the inner voice, you have to listen to yourself and make the decisions that don't make any sense for the rest of the world and make sense to you.

Andrew Huberman 7:16 I mean, Bob Dylan didn't show up to pick up his Nobel Peace Prize. That's punk.

Lex Fridman 7:20 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 7:20 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 7:20 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 7:21 He probably grew in notoriety for that. You know, maybe he just doesn't like going in Sweden, but it seemed like it would be a fun trip. I think they do it in a nice time of year, but hey, that's his right. He earned that right.

Lex Fridman 7:33 I think the best artists aren't doing it for the prize, they aren't doing it for the fame or the money, they're doing it because they love the art.

Andrew Huberman 7:39 Yeah, that's the, the Rick Rubin thing. You gotta verb it through, download your inner thing. I don't think we've talked about this, but

Andrew Huberman 7:48 this obsession that I have about how Rick has this way of being very, very still in his body, but keeping his mind very active, um, as a practice. Went and spent some time with him in Italy last June, and, uh, we would tread water in his pool in the morning and listen to A History of Rock and Roll and 100 Songs.

Lex Fridman 8:11 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 8:12 Um, amazing podcast, by the way.

Lex Fridman 8:14 Mm-hmm. It is.

Andrew Huberman 8:14 Yeah. And, um, and then he would spend a fair amount of time during the day, you know, in this kind of meditative state where his mind is very active, body very still. And then Karl Deisseroth, when he came on my podcast, talked about how he forces himself to sit still and think in complete sentences late at night after his kids go to sleep. And, you know, there's a state of mind, rapid eye movement sleep, where your body is completely paralyzed and the mind is extremely active, and people credit rapid eye movement sleep with some of the more elaborate, emotion-filled dreams and the source of many ideas. And there are other examples. Einstein, people described him as taking walks around the Princeton campus then pausing, and would ask him what was going on, and the idea that his mind was continuing to churn forward at a high rate. Um, so, you know, this is far from controlled studies, but, yeah, we're talking about some incredible minds and creatives who have a practice of stilling the body while keeping the mind deliberately very active, very similar to rapid eye movement sleep. And then there are a lot of people who also report, you know, great ideas coming to them in the shower, while running. So it can be the opposite as well where the b- body is very active and the, and the mind is perhaps more on kind of like a default mode network, not really focusing on any one specific thing.

Lex Fridman 9:36 You know, interesting, there's a, there's a bunch of physicists and mathematicians I've talked to, they talk about sleep deprivation and going crazy hours through the night obsessively pursuing a thing, and then the solution to the problem comes when they finally get rest.

Andrew Huberman 9:52 Right. And th- and we know, we just did this six episode special series on sleep with Matt Walker, we know that when you deprive yourself of sleep and then you get sleep, you get a rebound in rapid eye movement sleep, you get a higher percentage of rapid eye movement sleep. And Matt talks about this in the podcast, and he did an episode on sleep and, uh, creativity, sleep and memory, and rapid eye movement sleep comes up multiple times in that series.

Andrew Huberman 10:21 Um, there's also some very interesting stuff about cannabis withdrawal and rapid eye movement sleep. People who are coming off cannabis often will suffer from, uh, insomnia, but when they finally do start sleeping, they like dream like crazy. Um, cannabis is a very controversial topic right now.

Lex Fridman 10:36 Oh, yeah. I saw that.

Andrew Huberman 10:37 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 10:37 What happened? There's a bunch of drama around the episode you did on cannabis.

Andrew Huberman 10:42 Yeah. We did a episode about cannabis, talked about the health benefits and the potential risks, right?

Lex Fridman 10:48 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 10:48 It's, it's neither here nor there. Um, depends on the person, depends on the age, depends on genetic background, a number of other things. Um, we published that episode well over a year ago and it had no issues online, so to speak. And then a clip of it was put to X, where, you know, the real action (laughs) occurs, as you know, your favorite bot. Um-

Lex Fridman 11:13 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 11:14 Yeah. The, the, the four-ounce gloves as opposed to the 16-ounce gloves, um, that is X versus Instagram, or YouTube. There was, um, kind of an immediate dog pile from a few people in the cannabis research field. Um-

Lex Fridman 11:30 The PhDs and MDs, yeah.

Andrew Huberman 11:32 There were people on our side, there were people not on our side. I mean, you know. The, the statement that got things riled up the most was this notion that, uh, for certain individuals, there's a high potential for inducing psychosis with high THC containing cannabis. For certain individuals, not all. Um, that sparked some issues. Um, there was really a split. You know, you see this in different fields. It ... There was one person in particular who came out swinging, with language that i- in my opinion is not like of the sort that you would use at a university, uh, venue. Um-... especially among colleagues. But that's fine, you know, we're all grownups.

Lex Fridman 12:18 Well, for me, from my perspective, it was, uh, strangely rude. And it had an air of, like, elitism-

Andrew Huberman 12:26 Hmm.

Lex Fridman 12:27 ... that, to me, uh, was at the source of the problem, uh, during COVID, that led to the distrust of science, and the, the popularization of disrespecting science-

Andrew Huberman 12:40 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 12:40 ... because so many scientists spoke with an arrogance and a douchebaggery that I wish we would have a little bit less of.

Andrew Huberman 12:47 Yeah, it's tough because most academics don't understand that people outside the university system are, um, they don't, they're not familiar with, like, the inner workings of science, and, um, and the culture. And so, you have to be very careful how you present when you're a university professor. Um, and when, yeah, so, you know, he came out swinging at some, you know, a four-letter word type language, and he was obviously upset about. So, I simply said what I would say anywhere, which was, "Hey, look, yeah, come on the podcast. Let's chat. And, um, why don't you give your, tell me where I'm wrong and let's discuss." And, and fortunately, he agreed. And initially he said, "Well, no, how can I be sure you're not going to misrepresent me?" And so, I said, we got on a D- DM, then, then an email, then eventually a phone call, and just said, "Hey, listen, like, you're welcome to record the whole conversation. We've never done a gotcha on my podcast. And let's just get to the heart of the matter. I think this, this little controversy is perfect, um, kindling for, for a really great discussion." And, um, and he had some other conditions that we worked out. And, and I, and I felt like, cool, like, he's really interested. Alhe- you get a very different person on the phone than you do on Twitter. I will say he's been very collegial, and that conversation is on the schedule. I said, "We'll fly you out, we'll put you up." He said, no, he wants to fly himself. He really wants to make sure that there's like kind of a space between... Um, I think some of the perception of science and health podcasts in the academic community is that it's all designed to sell something. No, we run ads so it can be free to everyone else.

Lex Fridman 14:19 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 14:20 But, I think, look, in the end, um, he agreed, and I'm excited for the conversation. It was interesting because in the wake of that little exchange, there's been a bunch of press from traditional press about cannabis has now surpassed alcohol in man- in many, um, cultures, as, uh, within the United States, as, when I say cultures, I mean demographics, uh, in the United States as the, as the drug of choice. Um, there have been people highlighting the issues of potential psychosis in high THC containing. And so, it's kind of interesting to see how traditional media is sort of on board certain elements that, you know, I put forward. And I think there's some controversy as to whether or not the different strains, the indicas and sativas are, are biologically different, et cetera. So, we'll get down into the weeds, pun intended-

Lex Fridman 15:09 Hmm.

Andrew Huberman 15:10 ... during that one, and I'm excited. It's the first time that we've responded to a, a direct criticism online about, um, scientific content in a way that really promoted like, oh, here, the idea of inviting a particular guest. And so it's great. Let's get a guest who, um, is expert in cannabis. I, I believe, I could be wrong about this, but he's a behavioral neuroscientist. It's a slightly different training, but look, he seems highly credentialed. It'll be fun. And we, you know, we welcome that kind of exchange.

Lex Fridman 15:39 I deeply-

Andrew Huberman 15:40 And I'm not being diplomatic, I'm just saying like, it's cool, like, he's coming on-

Lex Fridman 15:42 No, you-

Andrew Huberman 15:43 ... you know, and he was friendly on the phone, right? Like, he literally came out online and was like, basically, like, kind of like F you, like, F this and F you. But you get someone on the phone and it's like, "Hey, how's it going?" And they're like, "Oh, yeah, well, you know, I t-" there was an immediate apology of like, "Hey, listen, I came out, normally I'm like, not like that, but online." You know? (laughs)

Lex Fridman 16:00 Oh, yeah?

Andrew Huberman 16:00 You get a different-

Lex Fridman 16:01 Oh, yeah? Okay, listen-

Andrew Huberman 16:02 Yeah. So it's a little bit like, it's a little bit like jujitsu, right? People say all sorts of things, I guess, but if they, if you're like, "All right, well, let's go," then it's probably a different story, you know?

Lex Fridman 16:10 It's not like jujitsu, 'cause in jujitsu people don't talk shit 'cause they know what the consequences are.

Andrew Huberman 16:15 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 16:15 Let me, let me just say, on mic and off mic, you have been very respectful towards this person.

Andrew Huberman 16:20 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 16:20 Uh, and I look up to you, and respect you, and admire the fact that you have been. That said, to me, that guy was being a dick. And when you graciously, politely invited him on the podcast, he was still talking down to you the whole time.

Andrew Huberman 16:34 Hmm.

Lex Fridman 16:34 So, I really admire and look forward to listening to you talk to him, but I hope others don't do that.

Andrew Huberman 16:41 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 16:41 Like, you are a positive, humble voice exploring all the interesting aspects of science. Like, you want to learn. If there, you've got anything wrong, you want to learn about it. The way he was being a dick, I was just hurt a little bit, not because of him, but 'cause like there's some people I really, really admire, brilliant scientists, that are not their best selves on Twitter, on X.

Andrew Huberman 17:10 Definitely not.

Lex Fridman 17:10 I don't understand what happens to their brain.

Andrew Huberman 17:13 Well, they regress. They re- they regress. And, and they also are protected. You know, y- you know, when you remove the, I mean, no scientific ar- argument should ever come to physical blows, right? But when you remove the real world thing of being right in front of somebody-

Lex Fridman 17:28 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 17:29 ... um, people will throw all sorts of stones at a distance, you know, and over a wall. And they've got their, their wife, or their husband, or their boyfriend, or their dog, or their cat to go cuddle with them afterwards. Um, but you get in a room and it's like, you know, confrontational people in real life are, are pretty rare. But hopefully, if they do it, they're like willing to g- back it up with knowledge in this case, right? We're not talking about physical altercation. Yeah, he- he kept coming and he kept putting on conditions. "How do I know you won't this..." And I was like, "Well, you can record the conversation." "How do I know you won't that..." "Listen, we'll pay for you to come out." "How do you know..." And eventually, he just kind of relented. And, um, and it, to his credit, you know, he's agreed to come on. I mean, he still has to show up, but once he does, you know, we'll treat him right, like we would any other guest.

Lex Fridman 18:15 Yeah, you treat people really well, and I, I just hope that people are a little bit nicer on the internet.

Andrew Huberman 18:20 Yeah, well, you know, X is an interesting one because y- you, it thickens your skin.You know, to, just to go on there. I mean, you have to be ready to deal with...

Lex Fridman 18:29 Sure. But I can still criticize people for, for being douchebags.

Andrew Huberman 18:33 Yep.

Lex Fridman 18:33 Because, like, that's still not good, inspiring behavior. Like, especially for scientists, that should be sort of symbols of, uh, scientific thinking, which requires intellectual humility. Humility is a big part of that. And Twitter is a good place to illustrate that.

Andrew Huberman 18:51 Yeah. Eight years ago, I used to, I was a student and TA then, um, instructor, and then directed a Cold Spring Harbor course on visual neuroscience. These are summer courses that, um, explore different topics. And at night, we would host, um, what we hoped were battles-

Lex Fridman 19:08 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 19:08 ... in front of the students, um, where you'd get two people on a, you know, would it be neural prosthetics or molecular tools that would first, you know, um, restore vision to the blind kind of arguments. You know, kind of like, it's kind of a silly argument 'cause it's gonna be a combination of both, right? But you get these great arguments. But the arguments were always couched in data. And occasionally, you'd get somebody would go like, "Pah," or would curse or something. But it was the rare, very, um, very well-placed, you know, um, insult. It wasn't, you know, coming out swinging. Um, I think ultimately, you know, Twitter is a record of people's behavior, that the internet is a record of people's behavior. And here I'm not talking about news reports about people's behavior. I'm talking about how people show up online is really important. You've always, um, carried yourself with a ton of composure and respect. And, you know, you just, you would hope that people would grow from that example. Well, I'll tell you that the, the podcasters that I'm scouting, it's their energy, but it's also how they treat other people, how they respond to comments. And, um, you know, we're, we're blessed to have pretty significant reach when we put out a podcast, like, of someone else's podcast, it goes far and wide. So h- like a skateboard team, like a laboratory where you're selecting people to be in your lab, you're, you wanna pick people that you would enjoy working with and that are collegial. Etiquette and cl- etiquette is, is lacking nowadays. But you're in a suit and tie, you're bringing it back.

Lex Fridman 20:33 Bringing

Lex Fridman 20:34 it back.

Andrew Huberman 20:35 Uh...

Lex Fridman 20:35 You said that your conversation with James Hollis-

Andrew Huberman 20:38 Oh.

Lex Fridman 20:38 ... a Jungian psychoanalyst had a big impact on you. What do you mean?

Andrew Huberman 20:42 James Hollis is a 84-year-old Jungian psychoanalyst who's written 17 books, including Under Saturn's Shadow, which is on the healing and trauma of men. The eating, Eden Project, excuse me, which is about relationships and creating a life. I discovered James Hollis in an online lecture that was recorded, I think, in San Diego. It's on YouTube, the audio is terrible, called Creating a Life. And this was somewhere in the 2011 to 2015 span, I can't remember. And I was on my way to Europe, and I called my girlfriend at the time, it's like, "I just found the most incredible lecture I've ever heard." And I, he talks about the shadow. He talks about your developmental upbringing, and how you either align with or go 180 degrees off your parents' tendencies and values in certain areas. He talked about the specific questions to ask of oneself at different stages of life to live a full life. So, it's always been a dream of mine to meet him and to record a podcast. And he wasn't able to travel, so our team went out to DC, sat down with him. We rarely do that nowadays. People come to our studio. And he came in, he had had some surgeries recently, and he kind of came in with some assistance from a, you know, a cane, and then sat down, and just, just blew my mind. It, from start to finish, he didn't miss a syllable. And every sentence that he spoke was like a quotable sentence of, with real potency and actionable items. I think one of the things that was most striking to me was how he said, "When we take ourselves out of stimulus and response, and we just force ourselves to spend some time in the quiet of our thoughts while walking or while seated or while lying down," doesn't have to be meditation, but it could be, "that we access our unconscious mind in ways that reveals to us who we really are and what we really want." And that if we do that practice repeatedly, 10 minutes a day here, 15 minutes a day there, that we start to really touch into our unique gifts and the things that make us each us, and the directions we need to take. But that so often, we just stay in stimulus response. We just do, do, do, do, do, which is great. We have to be productive. Um, but we miss those, um, important messages. And interestingly, he also put forward this idea of, what is this? Like, get up, shut up, suit up.

Lex Fridman 23:16 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 23:17 (laughs) Something like that.

Lex Fridman 23:17 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 23:17 Like, get out of bed, suit up, and shut up, and get to work.

Lex Fridman 23:21 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 23:21 He also has that in him, kind of a Goggins type mindset.

Lex Fridman 23:25 So be able to, to turn off all this self-reflection and self-analysis, and just get shit done.

Andrew Huberman 23:30 Get shit done, but then also take dedicated time and stop, and just let stuff geyser to the surface from the unconscious mind. And he quotes Shakespeare, and he quotes Jung, and he quotes everybody through history with, with incredible accuracy. And, um, and, and exactly the way, (laughs) uh, needed to drive home a point. But that conversation to me was one that I really felt like, okay, you know, if I don't wake up tomorrow for whatever reason, that one's in the can, and I feel really great about it. It's a, to me, it's the most important, um, guest recording we've ever done. Um, in particular because he has wisdom, and while I hope he lives to be 204, chances are he's got another, what? 20, 30 years with us, hopefully more. But I really, really wanted to capture that information and get it out there. So I'm very, very proud of that one. Um, uh, and he's the kind of guy that anyone listens to him, young, old, male, female, whatever-And you're gonna get something of value. What do you think about this idea of the shadow? That, uh, the good and the bad that we repress, that hides from plain sight when we analyze ourselves, that's there? Do you think there's, like, an ocean that we, we don't have direct access to? Yes. Yeah. We... Jung said it, we have all things inside of us, and we do, and some people are more in touch with those than others. And some people, it's repressed. I mean, does that mean that we could all be, you know, horrible people or marvelous people, um, benevolent people? Perhaps. I think that, um, thankfully, more often than not, people lean away from the, like, violent and, um, harmful parts of their, their shadow. But I think spending time thinking about, you know, one's shadow, shadows, is super important. How, how, how else are we going to grow? Otherwise, you know, we have these unconscious blind spots of, of denial, or, um, repression, or whatever, you know, the psychiatrists tell us. But yet, it clearly exists within all of us. I mean, we have neural circuits for rage. We all do. We have neural circuits for altruism. Um, and no one's born without these things. In some people, they're atrophied, in some people, they're hypertrophied. But I've... Looking inward and, and recognizing what's there is key. Or positive things like creativity. Maybe that's what Rick Rubin is accessing when he goes silent. Yeah. Silent body, active mind. Mm-hmm. That's interesting. What is it for you? What, what place do you go to that generates ideas, that helps you generate ideas? I have a lot of new practices around this. I mean, I'm alwa- always exploring for protocols. Yeah. I have to. Mm-hmm. It's like in my nature. Um, when, when I went and spent time with Rick, I, I tried to adopt his practice of staying very still and just letting stuff, you know, come to the surface, or the Deisserothian way of formulating complete sentences and m- while being still in the body. What I have found works better is what my good friend Tim Armstrong does to write music. He writes music every day. He's a music producer, he's obviously a singer and guitar player for Rancid. Um, and he's helped dozens and dozens and dozens of female pop artists and punk rock artists write great songs. And many of the famous songs that you've heard from other artists, Tim helped them write. Tim wakes up sometimes in the middle of the night, and what he does is he'll start drawing or painting. So what he's done, and Joni Mitchell talks about this too, you find some creative outlet that's kind of, like, 15 degrees off center from your main creative outlet, and you do that thing. So for me, that's drawing. I like doing anatomical drawings, neuroscience-based drawing, drawing neurons, that kind of thing. And if I do that for a little while, it... My mind starts churning on the, the nervous system and biology, and then I come up with areas I'd like to explore for the podcast, ways I'd like to address certain topics. Right now, I'm very interested in autonomic control. A beautiful paper came out that shows that anyone can learn to control their pupil sizes (laughs) and without changing luminance through a biofeedback mechanism. Um, and that gives them auton- control over their so-called automatic autonomic nervous system. And I've been looking at what the circuitry is, and it's, it's beautiful. So I'll draw the circuitry that we know underlies autonomic function, and as I'm doing that, I'm thinking, "Oh, like, what about autonomic control and those people that supposedly can control their pupil size?" Then you go in and there's a paper published in Nature Press, one of the Nature journals, and there's a recent paper on this. Like, "Oh, cool," and then we talk about this. Mm-hmm. And then how could this be put into a kind of a post, or how could this... You know, so doing things that are about 15 degrees off center from your main thing is a great way to access, I believe, the, the circuits for, in Tim's case, painting goes to songwriting. I think for Joni Mitchell, that was also the case, right? I think it was drawing and painting to singing and songwriting. For Rick, I don't know what it is. Maybe it's listening to podcasts. I don't know. That, that's his business. Do you have anything that you like to focus on that allows you then an easier transition into your main creative work? No, I really like to focus on emptiness and silence. Mm-hmm. So I pick the dragon you have to slay, so whatever the problem I have to work on, and then just sit there and stare at it. (laughs) I love how fucking linear you are. (laughs) And I just... And if there's no... If you're tired, I'll just sit. Mm-hmm. I believe in the, in the power of just waiting. And usually, I'll stop being tired, or their energy rises from somewhere, or an idea pops from somewhere, but there needs to be a silence and an emptiness. It's an empty room, just me and the dragon, and we wait. That's it. Like, if it's a... Usually with programming, you're thinking about a particular design, like, "How do I design this thing to solve this problem?" Mm-hmm. Any cognitive enhancers? I've got a... Quite the gallery in front of me. (laughs) Oh, that's right, yeah. Sh- should we walk through this? Yeah, uh- This is not... This is not a, a sales thing. It's just, um... I tend to do this bounce back and forth. Your refrigerator just happened to have a lot of different choices. (laughs) So, water. This is all my refrigerator has

Narrator 29:57 (laughs)

Andrew Huberman 29:57 I know, right? There's no food in there. There's water. There's LMNT, which they now have canned. Yeah, yeah. And yes, they're a podcast sponsor for both of us, but that's not why I cracked one of these open. I like them provided they're, they're cold. And that's, by the way, my least fla- favorite flavor, as I was saying. That's, that's the reason it's still left in the fridge. The cherry one is really good, though. The black cherry- It's good. There's a orange one. Yeah. I pushed the, um, sled this morning, and pulled the sled from my workout at the gym, and, and it was hot today here in Austin, so. Um, some salt is good. And then Mateina yerba mate, zero sugar. Full confession, I helped develop this. I'm a partial owner, but I love yerba mate. Half Argentine, been drinking...... mate since I was a little kid. There's actually a photo somewhere on the internet when I'm like three, sitting on my grandfather's lap, sipping mate out the gourd. And then this you might find interesting. This is, uh, just a little bit of coffee with a scoop of... Bryan Johnson gave me cocoa, just like pure unsweetened cocoa.

Lex Fridman 30:52 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 30:52 So I put that in chocolate and I like it.

Lex Fridman 30:54 Just for the taste?

Andrew Huberman 30:55 Well, it actually nukes my appetite. And since I'm... We're not going out to dinner tonight until later, I figure that's good.

Andrew Huberman 31:01 Yeah, Bryan's an interesting one, right? He's really pushing this, this thing.

Lex Fridman 31:04 The optimization of everything.

Andrew Huberman 31:05 Yeah. Although, he just hurt his ankle. He posted a photo that he hurt his ankle so now he's injecting BPC, body protection compound, 157, which many, many people are taking by the way. I did an episode on peptides.

Lex Fridman 31:16 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 31:16 I should just say, you know, BPC 157, one of the known effects in animal models is angiogenesis, like development of new vasculature, which can be great in some context, but also if you have a tumor, you don't really wanna vascularize (laughs) that tumor anymore. So I worry about people taking BPC 157 continually. But, um... And there's very little human data. I think there's like one study and it's a lousy one. So a lot of animal data. Some of the peptides are interesting, however. There's one that I've experimented with a little bit called pinealin, which, um, I find... Even if I've just taken it twice a week before sleep, then it times... It seems to do something to the circadian timekeeping mechanism because then on other days when I don't take it, I get unbelievably tired at that time that normally I would do the injection. These are things that I'll experiment with for a couple of weeks and then typically stop, maybe try something else. But I stay out of, um, things that really stimulate any of like, uh, major hormone pathways, um, when it comes to peptides.

Lex Fridman 32:18 That's actually a really good question of, how do you experiment? Like, how long do you try a thing to figure out if it works for you?

Andrew Huberman 32:24 Well, I'm very sensitive to these things, so I... And I have been doing a lot of things for a long time, so if I add something in, it's always one thing at a time. And I notice right away if it does not make me feel good. Like, there's a lot of excitement about some of the so-called growth hormone secretagogues, ipamorelin, tesamorelin, sermorelin. Um, I've experimented a little bit with those in the past and they nuked my rapid eye movement sleep by giving me a lot of deep sleep, which doesn't feel good to me, but other people like them. I also just g- generally try and avoid taking peptides that tap into these hormone pathways because you can run into all sorts of issues, but some people take them safely. But usually after about four, five days, I know if I like something or I don't, and then I move on. But I am not super adventurous with these things. I know people that will take cocktails of peptides with multiple things, they'll try anything. That's not me, and I do blood work. Um, but also I'm, you know... I'm mainly reading papers and podcasting, and, um, I'm teaching a course next spring at Stanford, I'm gonna do a big undergraduate course. Um, so I'm trying to develop that course and things like that. So, um, I don't need to lift more weight or run further than I already do, which is not that much weight or- or far as it is.

Lex Fridman 33:40 Right, you're not going to the Olympics, you're not trying to-

Andrew Huberman 33:42 No.

Lex Fridman 33:42 ... truly maximize-

Andrew Huberman 33:44 No.

Lex Fridman 33:44 ... some aspect of your performance.

Andrew Huberman 33:45 No, and I'm not... And I'm not trying to get down below whatever, you know, 7% body fat or something. I don't- I don't have those kinds of goals. So hydration, electrolytes, caffeine in the form of mate, and then this coffee thing. And then- and then here's, uh, one that I think I brought out for discussion. This is a piece of Nicorette. They're not a sponsor. Um,

Andrew Huberman 34:04 nicotine is an interesting compound. It will raise blood pressure, and it, um, is probably not safe for everybody. But, you know, the... Nicotine is gaining in popularity like crazy, mainly these, um, pouches that people put in their lip. Not... We're not talking about, um, smoking, vaping, dipping, or snuffing. You know, my interest in nicotine started... This was in 2010. I was visiting Columbia Medical School, and I was in the office of the great neurobiologist Richard Axel, won the Nobel Prize, co-recipient with Linda Buck for the, um, discovery of the molecular basis of olfaction. Brilliant guy. He's probably in his late 70s now. Probably, yeah. And he kept popping Nicorette in his mouth.

Lex Fridman 34:47 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 34:48 And I was like, "What's this about?" And he said, "Oh, well..." This was just anecdote, right? But he said... But he said this, he said, "Oh, you know, it protects against Parkinson's and Alzheimer's." I said, "It does?" And he goes, "Yeah, yeah, yeah." I don't know if he was kidding or not, he's known for making jokes. And then he said that when he used to smoke, it really helped his focus and creativity, but then he quit smoking 'cause he didn't want lung cancer, and he found that he couldn't focus as well, so he would choose Nicorette. So occasionally, like right now, we'll each... I do a half a piece. But I'm not Russian, so I'm a little... You know.

Lex Fridman 35:16 (laughs)

Andrew Huberman 35:16 Yeah. Did you just pop the whole thing in your mouth?

Lex Fridman 35:18 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 35:18 So I'll do a couple milligrams every now and again. And it definitely sharpens the mind on an empty stomach, in particular, but you fast all day. You're still doing one meal a day?

Lex Fridman 35:27 One meal a day.

Andrew Huberman 35:28 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 35:28 Yeah, I did a nicotine pouch with Rogan at dinner.

Andrew Huberman 35:32 Oh, I-

Lex Fridman 35:32 And I got high.

Andrew Huberman 35:33 Yeah, that's a lot. That's like usually six or eight milligrams. I know people that get a canister of Zyn, take one a day. Pretty soon they're taking a canister a day, so you have to be very careful. I will only allow myself two pieces of Nicorette total per week. And you will notice that, you know, in the day after you use it, you know, sometimes your- your throat will feel a little bit like- like a little spasmy, like you might wanna cough once or twice.

Lex Fridman 36:00 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 36:01 And so, you know, if you're a singer, you're a podcaster or something, you have to do long podcasts, you want to just be mindful of it. But yeah, you're supposed to kind of like keep it in your cheek and... Now here we go.

Lex Fridman 36:10 But it did make me intensely focused-

Andrew Huberman 36:13 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 36:14 ... in a way that was a little bit scary 'cause, um...

Andrew Huberman 36:16 The nucleus basalis is in the... You know, in basal forebrain. Nucleus has cholinergic neurons that radiate out axons, little wires that release acetylcholine into the neocortex and elsewhere. And when you focus on one particular topic matter or one particular area of your visual field or listening to something and focusing visually-We know that there's a- an elaboration of the amount of acetylcholine released there, and it binds to nicotinic acetylcholine receptor sites there. So it's a kind of an intentional modulation, um, by a- acetylcholine. So you're getting a, with nicotine, you're getting a exogenous or artificial heightening of that circuitry.

Lex Fridman 36:58 And, uh, the time I had Tucker Carlson on the podcast, he told me that apparently it, uh, helps him, as he said publicly, uh, keep his, um, love life vibrant.

Andrew Huberman 37:10 Really? It causes vasoconstriction.

Lex Fridman 37:12 Well, he literally said it makes his dick really hard. He said that publicly also.

Andrew Huberman 37:16 Okay, well, as little as I want to think about Tucker Carlson's-

Lex Fridman 37:19 Trust me...

Andrew Huberman 37:20 ... um, sex life, um-

Lex Fridman 37:21 (laughs)

Andrew Huberman 37:21 No disrespect. Uh, the major effect of nicotine on the vasculature, my understanding is that it causes vasoconstriction, not vasodilation. Drugs like Cialis, tadalafil, Viagra, et cetera are vasodilators. They allow more blood flow. Um, i- uh, nicotine does the opposite, less blood flow to the periphery, but provided dosages are kept low, and I- I don't recommend people use it frequently or at all. And I don't recommend young people use it, you know, um, you know, 25 and younger. Brain's very plastic at that time. And, um, and certainly smoking, dipping, vaping, and snuffing aren't good because you're gonna run into- you'll run into trouble, uh, for other reasons. But in any case, um, well, and even there, vaping is a controversial topic. Sa- probably safer than smoking but has its own issues, and I said something like that, (laughs) and boy, did I catch a lot of heat for that. You can't say anything as a health science educator and not piss somebody off. You know, it just depends on where the- the center of mass is and how far outside that you are.

Lex Fridman 38:27 For me, the caffeine is the main thing, and actually it's- it's a really big part of my life. And one of the things you recommend, that people wait a bit in the morning-

Andrew Huberman 38:37 Oh yeah.

Lex Fridman 38:37 ... to consume caffeine.

Andrew Huberman 38:39 If they experience a crash in the afternoon. That, this is one of the misconceptions I, um, I regret (laughs) maybe even discussing it. For people that crash in the afternoon, oftentimes if they delay their caffeine by 60 and 90 minutes in the morning, they will offset some of that. But if you eat a lunch that's too big or you didn't sleep well the night before, you're not gonna avoid that afternoon crash. But I'll wake up sometimes and go straight to hydration caffeine, especially if I'm gonna work out. Here's a weird one. If I exercise before 8:30 AM, especially if I start exercising when I'm a little bit tired, I get energy that lasts all day. If I wait until my peak of energy, which is mid-morning, 10:00 AM, 11:00 AM, and I start exercising then, I'm basically exhausted all afternoon. And I don't understand why. I mean, it depends on the intensity of the workout. But so I like to be done, showered, and heading into work by 9:00 AM, but I don't always meet that mark.

Lex Fridman 39:41 So you're saying it doesn't affect your energy if you start out with exercising?

Andrew Huberman 39:45 I think you can get energy and wake yourself up with exercise if you start early, and it- and then that fuels you all day long. I think that if you wait until you're feeling at your best-

Lex Fridman 39:54 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 39:56 ... to train, sometimes that's detrimental because then in the afternoon when you're doing, like, the work we get paid for, like research podcasting, et cetera, then oftentimes, you know, your- your brain isn't firing as well.

Lex Fridman 40:08 That's interesting. I haven't really rigorously tried that, wake up and just start running or lifting.

Andrew Huberman 40:13 This is the Jocko thing.

Andrew Huberman 40:14 And then there's this phenomenon called entrainment, where if you force yourself to exercise or eat or socialize or view bright light at a certain time of day for three to seven days in a row, pretty soon there's an anticipatory circuit that gets generated. This is why anyone, in theory, can become a morning person to some degree or another. And this is also a beautiful example of why you wake up before your alarm clock goes off. You know, people wake up and all of a sudden it goes off. It wasn't 'cause it clicked. It's because you have this in- incredible timekeeping mechanism that exists in sleep. And there's some papers that have been published in the last couple of years, Nature Neuroscience and elsewhere, showing that people can answer math problems in their sleep. Simple math problems, but math problems nonetheless.

Lex Fridman 41:00 (laughs)

Andrew Huberman 41:01 (laughs) This does not mean that if you ask your partner a question in sleep that they're gonna re- answer accurately.

Lex Fridman 41:06 Like, they might screw up the whole, um, uh, cumulative probability of 20%-

Andrew Huberman 41:12 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 41:12 ... across multiple months?

Andrew Huberman 41:13 All right, listen.

Lex Fridman 41:14 What happened?

Andrew Huberman 41:15 What happened? Here's the deal. A few years back, I did a four-and-a-half-hour, after editing, four-and-a-half-hour episode on male and female fertility.

Lex Fridman 41:23 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 41:24 Um, the entire recording took 11 hours, and at one point during the... And- and by the way, I'm very proud of that episode. There's, many couples have written to me and said they now have children as a consequence of that episode. And my first question is, "What were you doing during the episode?"

Lex Fridman 41:41 (laughs)

Andrew Huberman 41:42 But in all seriousness, um...

Lex Fridman 41:43 We should say that it's four-and-a-half hours.

Andrew Huberman 41:46 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 41:47 And for people, and they should listen to the episode. You're, it's extremely technical episode.

Andrew Huberman 41:53 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 41:53 Like, you're non-stop dropping facts and- and referencing huge number of papers. It's, must be exhausting. I don't understand how you can possibly ............................

Andrew Huberman 42:00 It talks about sperm health, spermatogenesis. It talks about the ovulatory cycle. It talks about things people can do that are- that are considered absolutely supported by science. It talks about some of the things kind of out on the edge a little bit that are a little bit more experimental. It talks about IVF, it talks about ICSI, it talks about, um, all of that. It talks about frequency of pregnancy as a function of age, et cetera. Um, but there's this one portion there in the podcast where I'm talking about the, uh, probability of a successful pregnancy as a function of age. And (laughs) so there was a clip that was cut in which I was describing cumulative probability...And by the way, we've published cumulative probability histograms in many of my laboratory's papers, including one that was a Nature article in 2018. So, we run these all the time. And yes, I know the difference between independent and cumulative probability. (laughs) Okay? That's like, I do. Um, the way the clip was cut, and what I stated unfortunately combined to a, like a pretty great gaffe.

Lex Fridman 43:03 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 43:03 Where I say, "You're just adding percen-..." I said, "You're just adding percentages, 20, I mean, 20 to 120%." And then I made a kind of m- unfortunately, my humor isn't always so good, and I made a joke. I said, um, "120%, but that's a different thing altogether."

Lex Fridman 43:18 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 43:18 What I should've said was, um, "That's impossible."

Lex Fridman 43:23 (laughs) .

Andrew Huberman 43:23 You know? And, "Here, here's how it actually works." But then the, the, it continues where I then describe the cumulative probability histogram, uh, for, um, successful pregnancy. But somewhere in the early portion, I, I misstated something, right? I made a math error, um, which implied I didn't understand the difference between independent and cumulative probability.

Lex Fridman 43:43 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 43:43 Which I do. And it got picked up and, and run, and people had a really good laugh with that one, at my expense. And so what I did in response to it was, rather than just say everything I just said now, I said, I just came out online and said, "Hey, folks. In an episode dated this on fertility, I made a math error. Here is the formula for cumulative probability of a successful pregnancy at that age. Here's the graph, here's the..." You know? And, and I- I offered it as a teaching moment-

Lex Fridman 44:14 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 44:14 ... in two ways. One, for people to understand cumulative probability. It was sort of interesting, too, a number of people had come out critiquing the gaffe. Also, um, like, Balaji and folks came out pointing out that they didn't understand cumulative probability. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 44:26 (laughs)

Andrew Huberman 44:27 So there was a lot of posturing. You know, the dog pile. Oftentimes people are quick to dog pile. They didn't understand. But a lot of people did understand. I get some, some smart people out there, obviously. I, I called my dad, and he was just laughing. He goes, "Oh, this is good." It's like the old school way of, of hammering academics. Um, but the point being, it was a teaching moment. Um, gave me an opportunity to say, "Hey, I made a mistake." I also made a mistake in another podcast where I, um, did a micron to millimeter conversion, and, uh, or centimeter conversion. But, and we always correct these in the show note captions. We correct them in the audio now. Um, unfortunately on YouTube, it's harder to correct. You can't go and edit in segments, so we put it in the captions. But that was one teaching moment. If you make a mistake that's substantive and relate to data, you, you apo- you apologize and correct the mistake, use it as a teaching moment. The other one was to say, hey, you know, in all the thousands of hours of content we've put out, I'm sure I've made some small errors. I think I once said serotonin when I meant dopamine, and, you know, you're, you're going, you're, you're riffing. And it's a reminder to be careful, um, to edit, double-check. But the internet usually, uh, edits for us, and then we go make corrections. But it didn't feel good at first, but ultimately, uh, you know, I can laugh at myself about it. Um, long ago at Berkeley when I was TAing my first class, it was a biopsychology class, between 1998 or 1999, um, I was drawing the pituitary gland, uh, which is, you know, it has an anterior and a posterior lobe, actually has a medial lobe, too. I had probably 500, 600 students in that lecture hall. And I drew, it was chalkboard, and I drew the two lobes of the pituitary, and I said, my back was to the audience, I said, "You know, and so they just sort of hang there."

Lex Fridman 46:07 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 46:08 And everyone just erupted in laughter, 'cause it looked like a scrotum with two testicles.

Lex Fridman 46:12 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 46:12 And I remember thinking, like, "Oh, my God. Like, I don't think I can turn around, like, and face this."

Lex Fridman 46:17 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 46:18 You know? And I'm like, "Well, I gotta turn around sooner or later." So I turned around, and we just all had a big laugh together.

Lex Fridman 46:24 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 46:24 It was embarrassing. I'll tell you one thing, though. They never forgot about the two lobes of the pituitary.

Lex Fridman 46:29 Yeah. And you haven't forgotten about that either.

Andrew Huberman 46:32 Right, there's a high, high salience for these kinds of things. And it also was kind of fun to see how excited people get-

Lex Fridman 46:42 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 46:42 ... to see people trip. It's like an elite sprinter trips and does something stupid, like-

Lex Fridman 46:47 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 46:47 ... you know, runs the opposite direction out of the blocks or something (laughs) like that. And, and/or a, you know... I recall at one World Cup match years ago, a guy scored against his own team. I think they killed the guy. Do you remember that?

Lex Fridman 46:59 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 47:00 Some South American or Central American team.

Lex Fridman 47:02 Yeah, yeah.

Andrew Huberman 47:02 And they killed the guy. But yeah, let's, let's look it up. I just said, um, World Cup... Yeah, he was gunned down.

Lex Fridman 47:10 Andres Escobar...

Andrew Huberman 47:12 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 47:13 ... scored against his own team in 1994 World Cup in the United States. Just 27 years old, playing for the Columbia National Team.

Andrew Huberman 47:22 Yeah. Last name Escobar. That's a good name.

Lex Fridman 47:25 I think it would protect you.

Andrew Huberman 47:27 Listen, you know, so there are some gaffes that get people, uh, killed, right? So, you know, how forgiving are we for online mistakes, you know? It's the, just the nature of the mistakes. People were quite gracious about the, the gaffe, and some weren't. And, you know, it's interesting that, um, we, as, you know, public health science educators, um, you know, will do long podcasts sometimes, and, and you need to be really careful. What's great is AI...

Lex Fridman 48:02 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 48:03 ... allows you to check these things now more readily. So, that's cool. And there are ways that, that's now gonna be more self-correcting. I mean, you know, I think there's a, there's a lot of errors out there on the internet, and people are finding them, and it's cool. Like, things are getting cleaned up.

Lex Fridman 48:21 Yeah, but mistakes nevertheless will happen.

Andrew Huberman 48:23 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 48:23 Are you, um, do you feel the pressure of not making mistakes?

Andrew Huberman 48:29 Sure. I mean, uh, you know, I try and get things right to the best of, you know, to the best of my ability. Um, I check with experts. It's kind of interesting, when people really don't like something that was said in a podcast...A lot of times I chuckle 'cause I'm, you know... At Stanford, we have some amazing scientists, but they're- I talked to them else- people elsewhere. Um, and it's always interesting to me how, you know, I'll get divergent information and then I'll find the overlap in the Venn diagram and I have this, like, question, "Do I just stay with the overlap in the Venn diagram?" Like, I did an episode on oral health. I didn't know this until I researched that episode, but oral health is critically related to heart health and brain health. Th- there's a bacteria that causes cavities, Streptococcus, you know? That can make its way into other parts of the body through the mouth that, um, can cause serious issues. There's the idea that some forms of dementia, some forms of heart disease are- start in the mouth basically. I talked to no fewer than four dentists, dental experts, and there was a lot of convergence. I also learned that teeth can demineralize, that's the formation of cavities. They can also re-mineralize. As long as a cavity isn't too deep, it can actually fill itself back in, especially if you provide the right substrates for it. That saliva is this incredible fluid that has all this capacity to re-mineralize teeth provided the milieu is right, things like alcohol-based mouthwashes, killing off some of the critical things you need. It's fascinating, and I put out that episode thinking, "Oh, well, I'm not a dentist, I'm not an oral health episode." But I talked to a pediatric dentist. There's a terrific one, Dr_Staci, S-T-A-C-I, on Instagram, does great content. Talked to some others, um, and, like, and then I just waited for the attack.

Lex Fridman 50:22 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 50:22 I was like, "Here we go." And it didn't come. And dentists were thanking me. I was like, "Whoa." You know?

Lex Fridman 50:28 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 50:28 That's a rare thing. More often than not, if I do an episode about, say, psilocybin or MDMA, you get some people liking it, or ADHD and the drugs for ADHD. We did a whole episode on the Ritalin, Vyvanse, Adderall stuff. You get people saying, "Thank you." You know, "I prescribed this to my kid and it really helps." And, and this, and, like, but they're private about the fact that they do it because they get so much attack from other people. So I like to find the center of mass, report that, try and make it as clear as possible, and then I know that there's some stuff where I'm gonna catch shit. What's frustrating for me is when, like, I see claims that I'm, like, against fluoridation of water, which I'm not, right? Like, we talked about the benefits of fluoride. It builds hyper-strong bonds within the teeth. I went and looked at some of the, the, literally the crystal struc- not, excuse me, not the crystal stru- structure, but the, the, es- essentially the, like, micron and sub-micron structure of teeth is incredible, and where fluoride can get in there and form these super strong bonds, and you can also form them with things like hydroxyapatite. And why is there fluoride in water? Well, it's the best... Okay, you get, you say some things that are interesting, but then somehow it gets turned into, like, you're against fluoridation, which I'm not. Or I've been accused of being against sunscreen. I wear mineral-based sunscreen on my face. I don't wanna get skin cancer. Or I use a physical barrier. There is a cohort of people out there that think that all sunscreens are bad. I'm not one of them. I'm not what's called a sunscreen truther. But then you get attacked for, like... If you, so we're talking about there are certain sunscreens that are problematic. So what, and Rhonda Patrick's now starting to get vocal about this. And so there are certain topics, it's interesting, for which you have to listen carefully to what somebody is saying, but there's a lumper, or lumping as opposed to splitting of, of, of what health educators say. And so it just seems like, like with politics, there's this, like, urgency to just put people into a camp of expert versus, like, renegade or something, and it's not like that. It's just not like that. So I, the short answer is I really strive, really strive to get things right. But I know that I'm gonna piss certain people off. And you've taught me, and Joe's taught me, and other podcasters have taught me that, like, if you worry too much about it-

Lex Fridman 52:50 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 52:51 ... um, then you aren't gonna get the newest information out there.

Lex Fridman 52:54 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 52:54 Like peptides, there's very little human data unless you're talking about Vyleesi or the melano- you know, the stuff in the alpha melanocyte stimulating hormone stuff, which are prescribed for female libido, to enhance female libido, or, um, sermorelin, which is for certain growth hormone deficiencies. With, with rare exception, there's very little human data. But people are still super interested and a lot of people are taking and doing these things, so you, you wanna get the information out.

Lex Fridman 53:17 Do you try to not just look at the science, but research what the communities are talk- what the various communities are talking about? Like, maybe research what the conspiracy theorists are talking about? Just so you know all the armies that are going to be attacking your castle. (laughs)

Andrew Huberman 53:34 Yes. So, like, for instance, there's a community of people online that believe that, like, if you consume seed oils or something, that, like, you're setting up your skin for sunburn, and if you don't... You know, like, there's all these, like, theories. But I like to, so I like to know what the theories are, I like to know what the extremes are, but I also like to know what the standard conversation is. But there's generally more agreement than disagreement. I think where, um, you know, I've been kind of bullish actually is, you know, like supplements. Like, people go, "Oh, supplements." Well, there's food supplements, like a protein powder, which is different than a vitamin. And then they are compounds. There are compounds that have real benefit, but people get very nervous about the fact that they're not regulated.

Lex Fridman 54:15 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 54:15 But some of 'em are, are vetted with, for potency and for, um, safety with, with more rigor than others, you know? And it's interesting to see how people who take care of themselves and put a lot of work into that are often attacked. That's been interesting. Also, one of the most controversial topics nowadays is Ozempic, Mounjaro.

Lex Fridman 54:38 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 54:38 I'm very middle of the road on this. I don't understand why the-... quote-unquote "health wellness community" is so against these things. I also don't understand why they have to be looked at as the only route. For some people, they really helped them lose weight. And yes, there can be some muscle loss and other lean, lean body loss, but that can be offset with resistance training. They've helped a lot of people. And other people are like, "No, this stuff is terrible." I think the most interesting thing about Ozempic, Mounjaro is that they are GLP-1. They're in the GLP-1 pathway, glucagon-like peptide-1, and it was discovered in Gila monsters, which is a, uh, lizard basically. (laughs) And someone w- the, now the, now the entomologist will dive on me. It's a big, big lizard-looking thing that doesn't eat very often, and they figured out that there's this peptide that allows it to curb its own appetite at the level of the brain and the gut, and it has a lot of homology to, sequence homology to what we now call GLP-1. So I love anytime there's animal biology links to cool human biology links to a, a drug that's powerful, that can help people with obesity and type two diabetes, and there's evidence that can even curb some addictions. Um, those are newer data. But I don't see as either/or. In fact, I've been a little bit disappointed at the way that the, um, whatever you want to call it, health wellness, biohacking community has, like, slammed on Ozempic, Mounjaro. It's like they're like, "Just get out and run and do..." Listen, there are people who are carrying substantial amounts of weight that running could in- injure them. They get on these drugs and they can improve, and then they, hopefully they're also doing resistance training and eating better, and then, you know, you're bringing all the elements together.

Lex Fridman 56:14 Well, why do you think the criticism is happening? Is it that Ozempic became super popular so people are misusing it or that kind of thing?

Andrew Huberman 56:20 No, I think what it is, is that people think if it's a pharmaceutical, it's bad.

Lex Fridman 56:27 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 56:27 And then, or if it's a supplement, it's bad, depending on which camp they're in. And, and it, wouldn't it be wonderful to kind of like fill in the gap between this divide? That, you know, um, what I would like to see in politics and in health is, um, neither right nor left, but what we can just call a league of reasonable people that looks at things on an issue by issue basis and fills in the center. 'Cause I think most people are in the, are... I don't want to say center in a political way, but I think most people are reasonable. They want to be reasonable, but that's not what sells clicks. That's not what, that's not what drives interest. Um, but I'm a very like, like I look at issue by issue, person by person. I don't like in-group out-group stuff. I never have. I've got friends from all walks of life. I said this on other podcast, and it always sounds like a, like a political statement, but like, uh, the, the, the push towards,

Andrew Huberman 57:16 like, you know, polarization is, it's so frustrating. If there's one thing that's discouraging to me as, as I get older each year, I'm like, "Wow, are we ever gonna get out of this, like, polarization?" Speaking of which, how are you gonna vote for the presidential election? (laughs)

Lex Fridman 57:33 Uh, I'm, I'm still trying to figure out how to interview the people involved and do it well.

Andrew Huberman 57:37 What do you think the role of podcasts is gonna be in this year's election?

Lex Fridman 57:42 I would love, uh, long form conversations to happen with the, um, with the candidates. I think it's gonna be huge. I would love Trump to go on Rogan. I would... (sighs) I'm embarrassed to say this, but I would love to, honestly would love to see Joe Biden go on Joe Rogan also.

Andrew Huberman 58:00 I would imagine that both would go on, but separately.

Lex Fridman 58:03 Separately, I think is...

Andrew Huberman 58:04 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 58:04 I think a debate, I mean, Joe does debates, but I think Joe at his best is one-on-one conversation, really intimate. Um, I, (sighs) I just wish that Joe Biden would actually do long form conversations.

Andrew Huberman 58:17 I thought he had done a... Wasn't he... I think it was on, uh, Jay Shetty's podcast.

Lex Fridman 58:21 He did Jay Shetty. He did, he did a few, but when I mean long form, I mean, um, really long form, like two, three hours and more relaxed. It was much more orchestrated. Because what happens when it's, the interview's a little bit too short, it becomes into this generic, uh, political type of, uh, NBC, CNN type of interview. You get a s- set of questions, and you don't get to really feel the human, expose the human to the light in it, the full, we talked about the shadow, the good, the bad, and the ugly. So, I think there's something magical about two, three, four hours.

Andrew Huberman 58:56 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 58:58 But it doesn't have to be that long, but it has to have that feeling to it, where there's not people standing around and everybody's nervous. And you're going to be, uh, strictly sticking to the question-answer type of feel, but just shooting shit, which Rogan is the best by far in the world at that.

Andrew Huberman 59:16 Yeah, he's... I, I don't think people really appreciate how skilled he is at what he does. And the number, I mean, the three or four podcasts per week, press- plus the UFC announcing, plus comedy tours and stadiums, plus, um, you know, doing comedy shows in the, the middle of the week, plus, you know, husband and a father and a friend and jujitsu. The guy's got, I think, superhuman levels of output. I, I agree that long form conversation is a whole other business, and I think that people want and deserve to know the people that are, uh, running for office at a, in a different way and to really get to know them. Um, well, listen. You know, I, I guess you c-... I mean, is it clear that he's gonna do jail time or maybe he gets away with a fine?

Lex Fridman 1:00:07 No, I don't think... I'm... Part of this-

Andrew Huberman 1:00:08 'Cause I was gonna say, I mean, does that mean you're gonna be podcasting from-

Lex Fridman 1:00:11 In prison, yeah.

Andrew Huberman 1:00:12 ... from the jail?

Lex Fridman 1:00:12 We're going to... In fact, I'm going to figure out how to commit a crime so I can get in prison with him.

Andrew Huberman 1:00:18 Please don't. Please don't.

Lex Fridman 1:00:19 Well, that's...

Andrew Huberman 1:00:19 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:00:19 I'm sure they have visitors, right?

Andrew Huberman 1:00:22 That just doesn't feel an authentic way to get the interview, but yeah, I understand. (laughs) You wouldn't be able to wear that suit. You'd be wearing a different suit.

Lex Fridman 1:00:29 That's true.

Andrew Huberman 1:00:30 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:00:31 It's true.

Andrew Huberman 1:00:31 Um, it's gonna be interesting and, and you do... uh, I'm not just saying this 'cause you're my friend, but you would do a marvelous job. I think you should sit down with all of them separately (laughs) to keep it civil and, um, and see what, what happens.Here's one thing that I found really interesting in this whole political landscape. When I'm in Los Angeles, I often get invited to these, like, they're not dinners, but gatherings where, you know, a local, um, you know, bunch of podcasters will come together, but a lot of people from the entertainment industry, big agencies, big tech, like, big, big tech. Many of the people who've been on this podcast. And they'll host a discussion or a debate. And what you find, if you look around the room and you talk to people, is that about half the people in the room are very left-leaning and very outspoken about that. And they'll tell you exactly who they want to see in the, uh, win the presidential race. And the other half will tell you that they're for the other side. A lot of people that people assume are on one side of the aisle or the other are on the exact opposite side. Now, some people are very open about who th- who they're for, but it's been very interesting to see how, um, when you get people one-on-one, they're like telling you they want X candidate to win, or Y candidate to win. And sometimes I'm like, "Really? I can't believe it." Like, "You?"

Lex Fridman 1:01:52 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 1:01:52 They're like, "Yep." And so it's what people think about, um, people's political leanings is often exactly wrong. And, and that's been eye-opening for me. And I've seen that, um, in university campuses, too. And, and so it's, it's gonna be really, really interesting to see what happens in, in November.

Lex Fridman 1:02:13 In addition to that, as you said, most people are close to the center, despite what Twitter makes it seem like. Most people, whether they're center-left or center-right, they're kind of close to the center.

Andrew Huberman 1:02:23 Yeah, I mean, here's the, to me, the most interesting question. Who is gonna be the next big candidate in years to come? Like, who's that going to be? Right now, I don't, I don't n- I don't see or know of that person. Who's it gonna be?

Lex Fridman 1:02:37 Yeah, the young promising candidates, we're not seeing them. We're not seeing, like, who... Another way to ask that question, who would want to be?

Andrew Huberman 1:02:45 Well, that's the issue, right? You know, i- who wants to live in this 12-hour news cycle where you're just trying to, you know, dunk on the other team so that nobody notices, like, the, your, the, the shit that you fucked up, you know? Like, th- that, that's n- like, that's not only not fun or interesting, it also is just like, it's gotta be psychosis inducing at some point. And I think that, you know, God willing, we're gonna, you know, some young guy or woman is, like, on this and refuses to, to back down, and was just, like, determined to be president and will make it happen. But, uh, like, I don't even know who the viable candidates are.

Lex Fridman 1:03:30 Maybe you, Lex. You know?

Andrew Huberman 1:03:32 We should ask Sagar. Sagar would know.

Lex Fridman 1:03:34 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 1:03:35 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:03:36 Uh, maybe Sagar himself.

Andrew Huberman 1:03:38 Sagar's show is awesome.

Lex Fridman 1:03:40 Yeah, it is.

Andrew Huberman 1:03:40 He and Crystal do a great thing.

Lex Fridman 1:03:41 He's incredible.

Andrew Huberman 1:03:42 Especially since they have somewhat divergent opinions on things.

Lex Fridman 1:03:44 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 1:03:45 That's what makes it so cool.

Lex Fridman 1:03:46 He's great. He looks great in a suit, looks real sexy.

Andrew Huberman 1:03:48 He's taking really good care of himself. He, I think he's getting married soon. Congratulations, Sagar. Forgive me for not remembering your, your wife, uh, future wife's name, but...

Lex Fridman 1:03:55 He, uh, he won my heart by giving me, uh, uh, a biography of Hitler as a present.

Andrew Huberman 1:04:01 That's what he gave you?

Lex Fridman 1:04:02 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 1:04:02 I gave you a, a hatchet. (laughs) With a poem inscribed in it.

Lex Fridman 1:04:06 (laughs) That just shows the fundamental difference between the two.

Andrew Huberman 1:04:08 (laughing) With a, with a poem inscribed in it.

Lex Fridman 1:04:10 (laughs) Which was pretty damn good.

Andrew Huberman 1:04:13 I realize everything we bring up on the screen is, like, really depressing, like the soccer player getting killed.

Lex Fridman 1:04:20 (laughs)

Andrew Huberman 1:04:21 Can we bring up something happy?

Lex Fridman 1:04:23 Uh, sure. Let's go to, uh, Nature As Metal Instagram.

Andrew Huberman 1:04:26 Those are pretty intense.

Lex Fridman 1:04:28 (laughs)

Andrew Huberman 1:04:28 We actually did a collaborative post on a, on a shark thing.

Lex Fridman 1:04:31 Really?

Andrew Huberman 1:04:32 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:04:32 What kind of shark thing?

Andrew Huberman 1:04:33 So, to generate the fear VR stimulus for my lab in 20... Was it... Yeah, 2016. We went down to Guadalupe Island off the coast of Mexico, me and a guy named Michael Muller, who's a very famous, um, portrait photographer, but also takes photos of sharks. And we used 360 video to build VR of great white sharks. Brought it back to the lab, we published that study in Current Biology. In 2017, went back down there, um, and that was the year that I exited the cage. They lower the cage with a crane, and that year, I exited the cage. I had a whole mess with, uh, air failure the day before. I was breathing from a hookah line while in the cage. I had no scuba on, divers were out. The thing got boa constricted up and I had an air failure, and I had to actually share air and it was a whole mess. Story for another time. But the next day, because I didn't want to get PTSD, and it was pretty scary, the next day I cage exited, um, with some other divers. And, and it turns out with these great white sharks, i- in Guadalupe, the, the water's very clear and you can swim toward them and then they'll, they'll veer off you if you swim toward them. Otherwise, they see you as prey. Well, in the evening, you've brought all the cages up and you're, uh, hopefully all alive, and we were hanging out fishing for tuna. Uh, we had a, uh, one of the, the crew on board had, um, a l- a line in the water and was fishing for tuna for dinner, and a shark took the tuna off the line.

Lex Fridman 1:06:04 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 1:06:05 And it's a, it's a very dramatic take, and you can see the, the just absolute size of these great white sharks. The, the waters there are filled with them. That's the one. Oh, but, uh, so this video-

Lex Fridman 1:06:16 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 1:06:16 ... just the Neuralink link, was shot by Matt MacDougall, who is the, um, head neurosurgeon at Neuralink. There it is. It takes the... Now, believe it or not, it looks like it missed, like it didn't get the fish. It actually just cut that thing like a band saw. So I'm up on the deck with Matt.

Lex Fridman 1:06:32 Oh my God.

Andrew Huberman 1:06:32 Yeah. And so when you look at it from the side, you, you really get a sense of this... of the, the girth of this friggin' thing. So as it comes up, if you pa-

Lex Fridman 1:06:43 Look at that.

Andrew Huberman 1:06:43 Look at the size of that thing.

Lex Fridman 1:06:44 It's crushing power.

Andrew Huberman 1:06:44 And they move through the water with such speed. Just a couple... Y- so when you're in the cage and the cage is lowered down below the surface-... they're going around. You're not allowed to chum the water there. Some people do it. Um, but, and then, when you cage exit, they're like, "Well, what are you doing out here?" And then, you know, they, you swim toward them, they veer off. But what's interesting is that if you look at how they move through the water-

Lex Fridman 1:07:07 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 1:07:07 ... all it takes for one of these great white sharks, when it sees a tuna or something it wants to eat, is like two flicks of the tail. (whooshing sounds) And (whoosh) becomes like a missile.

Lex Fridman 1:07:16 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 1:07:16 It's just unbelievable economy of effort. And Ocean Ramsey, who is, in my opinion, the greatest of all cage exit shark divers, this woman who dove with enormous great white sharks, she really understands their behavior, when they're aggressive, when they're not gonna be aggressive. She and her husband, Juan, I believe his name is, do, they understand how the tiger sharks differ from the great white sharks. We were down there basically, like not understanding any of this. We never should have been there. And actually, the air failure the day before, plus cage exiting the next day, I told myself after coming up from the cage exit, "That's it. I'm no longer taking risks with my life. I want to live." Got back across the border, um, a couple days later, and I was like, "That's it. I- I don't take risks with my life any longer." But yeah, McDougal, Matt McDougal shot that video, and then it went, quote unquote, "viral" through, uh, Nature Is Metal. We passed them that video.

Lex Fridman 1:08:07 I actually, uh, I saw a video where an instructor was explaining how to behave with a shark in the water, and that you don't wanna be swimming away because then you're acting like a prey.

Andrew Huberman 1:08:18 That's right.

Lex Fridman 1:08:18 And then you wanna be acting like a predator by looking at it and swimming towards it.

Andrew Huberman 1:08:22 Swim right towards them, and they'll bank off.

Lex Fridman 1:08:23 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 1:08:23 Now, if you don't see them, they're ambush predators.

Lex Fridman 1:08:25 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 1:08:26 They'll, you know, you're swimming on the surface-

Lex Fridman 1:08:27 And apparently, if they get close, you should just like guide them away by-

Andrew Huberman 1:08:30 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:08:30 ... like grabbing them and moving them away.

Andrew Huberman 1:08:32 Some people will actually roll them. Um, but if they're coming in full speed, you, you're not gonna roll the shark. But, it, here we are back to dark stuff again. I like the shark attack map, and the shark attack map shows that, um, you know, Northern California, there were a couple, actually a guy's head got taken off. Um, he was swimming north of San Francisco. There's been a couple in Northern, uh, California. That was really tragic. But most of them are in Florida and Australia.

Lex Fridman 1:08:56 Florida. Same with alligators.

Andrew Huberman 1:08:57 So the Surfrider Foundation shark attack map, there it is.

Lex Fridman 1:09:00 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 1:09:01 Have, they have a great map.

Lex Fridman 1:09:02 There you go.

Andrew Huberman 1:09:03 So they look like, they have-

Lex Fridman 1:09:04 Beautiful animals.

Andrew Huberman 1:09:04 ... all these scars on them. So if you, if you zoom in on, um... I mean, (laughs) look at this. If you go to North America, um...

Lex Fridman 1:09:11 Look at the skulls. There's, there's a-

Andrew Huberman 1:09:13 Yeah, where there, where there are deadly attacks. Um, but in, yeah, Northern California, sadly, this is really tragic. If you zoom in on this one, um, I read about this. Uh, this guy, if you click the link, 52-year-old male, he was in chest high water. This is just tragic. I feel so sad for him and his family. You know, he's just, um... Three members of the party chose to go in. He was, you know, nigh and dry, was in his chest high water, 25 to 50 yards from shore. A great breach of water seized his head, and that was it. You know, so it does happen. It's very infrequent. Um, if you don't go in the ocean, it's a very, very, very low probability. (laughs) Um, but...

Lex Fridman 1:09:55 But if it, it doesn't happen six times in a row... No, I'm just kidding.

Andrew Huberman 1:09:59 (laughs) 120% chance?

Lex Fridman 1:10:01 Yeah. Who do you think wins? Uh, a saltwater crocodile or a shark?

Andrew Huberman 1:10:05 Okay. I do not like saltwater crocodiles. They scare me to no end. Mueller, Michael Mueller, who dove all over the world, he sent me a picture of him diving, uh, with salties, saltwater crocs, in Cuba. It was a smaller one, but goodness gracious, have you seen the size of some of those saltwater crocs?

Lex Fridman 1:10:21 I have.

Andrew Huberman 1:10:22 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:10:22 They're gigantic.

Andrew Huberman 1:10:22 Um, I'm thinking, I'm thinking the, the sharks are so agile. They're amazing. They've head cammed one, or body cammed one, um, moving through the kelp bed. Um, and you look and it's just they're so agile moving through the water. And they, and it's looking up at the surface, like the camera's looking at the surface, and you just realize, if you're out there, um, you're not... and you're swimming and you get hit by a, by a shark, you're not gonna...

Lex Fridman 1:10:46 I was gonna talk shit and say that a saltie has way more bite force, but according to the internet, recently data indicates that the shark has a stronger bite. So I- I was, I was assuming that a crocodile would have a s- a stronger bite force and therefore agility doesn't matter.

Andrew Huberman 1:11:02 Hm.

Lex Fridman 1:11:02 But apparently a shark...

Andrew Huberman 1:11:04 Yeah, and turning one of those big salties is, is probably not that... You know, turning around, it's like a battleship. I mean, those sharks are unbelievable. They hit from all sorts... Oh, and they- they do this thing, we saw this, you're out of the cage or you're in the cage, and you- you'll look at one and you- you'll see its eye kind of like looking at you. They can't really foveate, but they'll look at you. And you're tracking it, and then you'll look down (laughs) and you'll realize that one's coming at you. They're just, they're- they're ambush predators. They're working together. They're... It's fascinating.

Lex Fridman 1:11:31 I like, I like how you know that they can't foveate.

Andrew Huberman 1:11:35 Right.

Lex Fridman 1:11:36 You're- you're already considering the vision system there.

Andrew Huberman 1:11:38 Yeah. Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:11:38 It's a very primitive vision system.

Andrew Huberman 1:11:38 Eyes on the... Very primitive, eyes on the side of the head. Their vision is decent enough. They're mostly obviously sensing things with their, um, electro-sensing in the water, but also, um, olfaction. Um, yeah, I spend far too much time thinking about and learning about the- the visual systems of different animals. If you get me going on this, like, we'll be here all night.

Lex Fridman 1:11:58 See, this is what I have this megillah down to. I saw this in a store and I got it 'cause this is from a shark.

Andrew Huberman 1:12:05 Goodness. Yeah. I can't say I ever saw one with teeth this big, but beautiful.

Lex Fridman 1:12:08 Just imagine that.

Andrew Huberman 1:12:09 It's beautiful. Yeah, it's probably, you know, you... Probably your blood pressure just goes and you- you don't feel, feel a thing.

Lex Fridman 1:12:16 Yeah, um, it's not good.

Andrew Huberman 1:12:17 Before we went down for the cage exit, um, a guy in our crew, Pat Dosset, who's a very experienced diver, um, asked one of the South African divers that, um, so what, you know, like what's the contingency plan if like somebody catches a bite? And they were like... He was like every man for himself, and then like basically saying like if somebody catches a bite, like that's it.

Lex Fridman 1:12:39 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 1:12:39 You know? Um, anyway, I thought we were gonna bring up something happy.

Lex Fridman 1:12:43 Oh, that is happy.

Andrew Huberman 1:12:44 (laughs) Well, we did.

Lex Fridman 1:12:45 Nature is beautiful.

Andrew Huberman 1:12:46 Yeah, nature is beautiful. Uh, we lived, um, but, you know, there are, there are happy things. You brought up Nature Is Metal. This, see, this is the difference between-... Russian-

Lex Fridman 1:12:56 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 1:12:57 ... Americans and Americans.

Andrew Huberman 1:12:58 It's like, maybe this is actually a good time to bring up, um, your ayahuasca journey. I've never done ayahuasca, um, but I'm curious about it. I'm also curious about ibogaine, iboga, um. But you told me that you did ayahuasca, and that for you, it wasn't the dark scary ride that it is for everybody else.

Lex Fridman 1:13:19 Yeah, it was an incredible experience for me. Uh, I did it twice actually.

Andrew Huberman 1:13:22 And have you done high dose psilocybin?

Lex Fridman 1:13:24 Never, no.

Andrew Huberman 1:13:25 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:13:25 I just did-

Andrew Huberman 1:13:26 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:13:26 ... small dose psilocybin a couple of times.

Andrew Huberman 1:13:28 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:13:28 So I was, you know, nervous about it. I was very-

Andrew Huberman 1:13:31 Yeah, understandably so.

Lex Fridman 1:13:32 ... scared.

Andrew Huberman 1:13:32 I've done high dose psilocybin, it's terrifying, but I've always gotten something very useful out of it.

Lex Fridman 1:13:37 So I mean, I was nervous about, like, whatever demons might hide in the shadow, in the Jungian shadow. Like, I was, I was nervous. But, yeah, I think it turns out... I don't know what the lesson is to draw from that, but my experience was-

Andrew Huberman 1:13:50 Be born Russian.

Lex Fridman 1:13:52 It must, must be the Russian thing. I mean, there's also something to the jungle. There... It strips away all the bullshit of life, and you're just there. I, I forgot the outside civilization exists, I forgot time because, like, when you don't have your phone, you don't have meetings, or calls, or whatever, you, you lose a sense of time. The sun comes up, and the sun comes down.

Andrew Huberman 1:14:14 That's the, the fundamental biological timer. You know, every mammalian species has a short wavelength, so you think, like, blue UV type, but, like, absorbing cone, and a longer wavelength absorbing cone. And the... And it does this interesting subtraction to designate when it's morning and evening, because when the sun is low in the sky, you've got short wavelength and long wavelength light. Like, when you look at a sunrise, it's got blues and yellows, orange and yellows. You look in the evening, reds, orange, and, and blues. And in the middle of the day, it's, uh, like full spectrum light. Now, it's always full spectrum light, but because of some atmospheric elements, and because of the low solar angle, you... Like, that, that difference between the, the different wavelengths of light is, is the fundamental signal that the neurons in your eye pay attention to, and, and signal to your circadian timekeeping mechanism. Like, we are... At the core of our brain, in the suprachiasmatic nucleus, we are, we are, like, wired to be entrained to the rising and setting of the sun.

Lex Fridman 1:15:10 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 1:15:10 Like, that's the biological timer, which makes perfect sense because, you know, obviously as the planets, um, as the planets spin and revolve.

Lex Fridman 1:15:18 I also wonder, like, how that is affected by the... You know, in the rainforest, the sun is not visible often, so you're under the cover of, of the trees.

Andrew Huberman 1:15:27 Right.

Lex Fridman 1:15:27 So maybe that affects (overlapping)

Andrew Huberman 1:15:28 Well, there are social rhythms, there are feeding rhythms. Sometimes in, in terms of some species will signal the timing of activity of other species, and, um, but yeah, getting out from the canopy is, is critical. Of course, even under the canopy during the daytime, there's far more photons than at night. You know, this is always what I'm telling people to get sunlight in their eyes in the morning and in the evening. People say, "There's no light, no sunlight this time of year." Like, it... Go outside on a really overcast day, it's far brighter than it is at night, right? So, um, there's still lots of sunlight even if you can't see the sun as an object. But I, I love, um, time perception shifts, and you mentioned that in the jungle, it's linked to the rising and setting of the sun. You also mentioned that on ayahuasca, you zoomed out from, from the earth.

Lex Fridman 1:16:13 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 1:16:13 These are like, to me, the most interesting aspects of having a human brain as opposed to another brain.

Lex Fridman 1:16:18 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 1:16:19 Of course, I've only ever had a human brain, but which is that you can consciously set your t- uh, time domain window. Like, you can... We can be focused here, or we can be focused on all of Austin, or we could be focused on the entire planet. You can make those choices consciously, but in the time domain, it's, it's hard. Like, different activities bring us into fine slicing or more, or more broad binning of time, depending on what we're doing, programming, or exercising, or researching, or podcasting. But, um, just how unbelievably, um, fluid the human brain is in terms of its... Uh, the aperture of, of the time-space window of our cognition and of our experience. And I, I feel like this is perhaps one of the more valuable tools that we have access to that we don't really leverage as much as we should, which is when things are really hard, you need to zoom out and see it as one element within your whole lifespan, and that there's more to come. Um, you know, I mean, people commit suicide because they can't see beyond the time domain they're in, or they think it's gonna go on forever. Um, when we're happy, we, we rarely think this is gonna last forever, but, uh... Which is an interesting contrast in its own right. But I think that psychedelics, while I have very little experience with them, I h- I have some, and, and it sounds like they're just a very interesting window into the, the different apertures.

Lex Fridman 1:17:43 Well, how to surf that wave is probably a skill. Uh, one of the things I was prepared for, and I think this is important, is not to resist.

Andrew Huberman 1:17:51 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 1:17:52 I think... I understand what it means to resist a thing, a powerful wave, and it's not going to be good, so you have to be able to surf it, so I was ready for that, to relax through it. And maybe because I'm quite good at that from knowing how to relax in all kinds of disciplines, p- uh, playing piano and, uh, guitar when I was super young, and then through jujitsu, knowing the value of relaxation, and through all kinds of sports, just to be able to relax the body fully and just accept whatever happens to you. That process is probably why it was a very positive experience for me.

Andrew Huberman 1:18:25 Do, do you have