Andrew Huberman: Relationships, Drama, Betrayal, Sex, and Love | Lex Fridman Podcast #393

Andrew Huberman 0:00 Listen, when it comes to romantic relationships, if it's not 100% in you-

Lex Fridman 0:04 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 0:06 ... it ain't happening. And I've never seen a violation of that statement, where it's like, yeah, it's mostly good, and there's like the negotiations. W- Well, already, you're- you're- you're- it's doomed. And that doesn't mean someone has to be perfect, the relationship has to be perfect, but it's gotta feel 100% inside.

Lex Fridman 0:24 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 0:24 Like, yes, yes, and yes.

Lex Fridman 0:29 The following is a conversation with my dear friend, Andrew Huberman. His fourth time on this podcast. It's my birthday so this is a special birthday episode of sorts. Andrew flew down to Austin just to wish me a happy birthday and we decided to do a podcast last second. We literally talked for hours beforehand and a long time after, late into the night. He's one of my favorite human beings, brilliant scientist, incredible teacher, and a loyal friend. I'm grateful for Andrew. I'm grateful for good friends, for all the support and love I've gotten over the past few years. I'm truly grateful for this life. For the years, the days, the minutes, the seconds I've gotten to live on this beautiful earth of ours. I really don't want to leave just yet. I think I'd really like to stick around. I love you all. This is the Lex Fridman Podcast. And now, dear friends, here's Andrew Huberman.

Andrew Huberman 1:31 Trying to, uh, run a little bit more.

Lex Fridman 1:34 Are you losing weight?

Andrew Huberman 1:35 I'm not trying to lose weight but I always do the same fitness routine.

Lex Fridman 1:38 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 1:39 After like 30 years, basically, uh, lift three days a week, run three days a week. Um, but one of the runs is a long run, one of them's medium, one of them's a sprint-type thing. So, um, what I've decided to do this year was just extend the duration of the long run. And, um, I like being, uh, mobile. I- I never wanna be, um, so heavy that I can't move. Like I- like I wanna be able to go out and run 10 miles if I have to, so sometimes I do. Um, and I wanna be able to sprint if I have to, so sometimes I do. And, um, lifting in objects is, feels good. It feels good to train like a lazy bear and just lift heavy objects. But I've also started training with lighter weights and higher repetitions. And, um, for three-month cycles, and it gives your joints a rest. And, um, yeah, so I probably, you know, it- I think it also is interesting to see how training differently changes your cognition. That's probably hormone related, you know, hormones downstream of training heavy versus hormones downstream of training a little bit lighter. Um, I think my cognition is better when I'm doing more cardio and when the repetition ranges are a little bit, um, higher. Which is not to say that people who lift heavy are dumb. Um-

Lex Fridman 2:52 (laughs)

Andrew Huberman 2:52 But there is a... 'cause there's real value in lifting heavy.

Lex Fridman 2:55 There's a lot of angry people listening to this right now. (laughs)

Andrew Huberman 2:57 No, no, no, but lifting heavy and then taking three to five minutes rest is far and away a different challenge than running hard for 90 minutes. That's a tough thing. Just like getting in an ice bath. People say, "Oh, well, how is that any different than working out?" Um, well, there are a lot of differences but one of them is that it's very acute stress. Within one second, you're stressed.

Lex Fridman 3:20 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 3:21 So, I- I think subjecting the body to a bunch of different types of stressors, in space and time, is really valuable. So yeah, I've been playing with the variables in a pretty systematic way.

Lex Fridman 3:30 Well, I like long and slow for, like you said, the impact it has on my cognition.

Andrew Huberman 3:37 Yeah, I- it- it- uh, the wordlessness of it, um, the way it puts you in- in, uh, the way it seems to, um, clean out the clutter.

Lex Fridman 3:46 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 3:47 You know? Um, it can take away that hyperfocus and put you more in a relaxed focus, uh, for sure.

Lex Fridman 3:53 Well, for me, it brings the clutter to the surface at first.

Andrew Huberman 3:56 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 3:56 Like all these thoughts come in there, and then they dissipate. You know, I've been, uh, 'cause I got knee-barred pretty hard, that's when somebody tries to break your knee up, so...

Andrew Huberman 4:04 I was just, what's a knee-bar? They try and break your knee? Oh.

Lex Fridman 4:06 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 4:06 I see, tap, so they...

Lex Fridman 4:08 Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's, you know, hyper extend the knee th- that direction. I got knee-barred pretty hard. So, um, in ways I don't understand, it kinda hurts to run. I don't understand what's happening behind there, I need to-

Andrew Huberman 4:20 Okay.

Lex Fridman 4:20 ... investigate this. It basically, this, the hamstring flex, like curling your leg hurts a little bit.

Andrew Huberman 4:26 Okay.

Lex Fridman 4:27 And that results in this weird dull, but sometimes extremely sharp pain, in the back of the knee. So I'm, I'm work- I'm- I'm working through this.

Andrew Huberman 4:36 Figure it out.

Lex Fridman 4:37 But walking doesn't hurt, so I've been playing around with walking-

Andrew Huberman 4:41 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 4:41 ... recently. Like for two hours and thinking.

Andrew Huberman 4:44 I love to walk.

Lex Fridman 4:44 'Cause I- I know a lot of like smart people throughout history, uh, have walked and thought.

Andrew Huberman 4:50 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 4:50 And you have to like, you know, play with things that have worked for others, not just to exercise, but to like integrate this very light kind of prolonged exer- exercise into a productive life, so they do all their thinking while they walk. It's like a meditative type of walking, and it's- it's really interesting, it- it really works.

Andrew Huberman 5:10 Yeah, the, um, the practice I've been doing a lot more of lately is I walk while reading a book.

Lex Fridman 5:15 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 5:15 In the yard, I'll just pace back and forth or walk in a circle.

Lex Fridman 5:18 Audiobook or are you talking about ............................

Andrew Huberman 5:19 No, a hard- hard- hardcopy.

Lex Fridman 5:20 What, do you just hold?

Andrew Huberman 5:21 I'm holding the book and I'm walking and I'm reading. Yeah, and I usually have a pen and I'm underlining. I have this whole system like-

Lex Fridman 5:26 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 5:26 ... underlining stars, exclamation points, goes back to university of what things I'll go back to. Um, which things I export to notes and that kind of thing. Um, but from the beginning, uh, when I opened my lab at that time in San Diego before I moved back to Stanford, um, I would have meetings with my students or post-docs by just walking in the field-

Lex Fridman 5:45 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 5:45 ... behind the lab. Um, you know, and I'd bring my-... Bulldog Costello.

Lex Fridman 5:51 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 5:51 Bulldog mastiff at the time, and he's a, he was a slow walker, so, it would be for slow walks. But I can think much more clearly that way. There's a Nobel Pr- Prize winning, uh, professor at, uh, Columbia University School of Medicine, Richard Axel, won the Nobel Prize, co-won the Noble Prize with Linda Buck for the discovery of the molecular basis of olfaction, and, um, he walks and voice dictates his papers.

Lex Fridman 6:12 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 6:13 And now with Rev or these other, maybe there are better ones, um, than Rev, where you can convert audio files into text very quickly and then edit from there. So I'll, I will often voice dictate, um, first drafts and things like that. And, um, I totally agree on the long runs, the walks, the integrating that with cognitive work, harder to do with sprints. Um, and then the gym, you know, a- are you, do you weight train?

Lex Fridman 6:36 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 6:36 You just seem naturally strong-

Lex Fridman 6:38 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 6:38 ... and like thicker jointed this... (laughs) It's true.

Lex Fridman 6:40 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 6:41 It's true. I've, I mean, we did the one very beginner, 'cause I'm a very beginner, uh, jujitsu class together. And, um, yeah, as I mentioned then, uh, what if people missed it, uh, Lex is freakishly strong.

Lex Fridman 6:52 I think I was born genetically to hug people.

Andrew Huberman 6:55 Oh, like Costello?

Lex Fridman 6:56 (laughs) Exactly. The, the Costello-

Andrew Huberman 6:57 You guys have a certain similarity.

Lex Fridman 6:58 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 6:58 He had wrists like, you know-

Lex Fridman 7:00 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 7:00 ... it's like you and Jocko and Costello-

Lex Fridman 7:02 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 7:02 ... have these like wrists and, and elbows that are super thick, you know? And then, when you look around, you see tremendous variation, you know? Some people will, have like the, the, um, wrist, uh, width of a, of a whippet or Woody Allen, and then other people like you or Jocko are, you know?

Lex Fridman 7:15 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 7:15 There's this one, uh, Jocko video or thing on GQ or something, have you seen the comments on Jocko? These are the best.

Lex Fridman 7:21 No.

Andrew Huberman 7:22 Um, (laughs) the comments, I love the comments on YouTube 'cause occasionally they're funny. Um, the best is, uh, when Jocko was born, the doctor looked at his, uh, parents and said, "It's a man."

Lex Fridman 7:33 (laughs)

Andrew Huberman 7:34 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 7:35 It's like Chuck Norris type comments, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Andrew Huberman 7:37 Oh yeah, no, those are great. Um, that's what I miss about Rogan being on YouTube with the full-length episodes-

Lex Fridman 7:41 Yeah, good comments.

Andrew Huberman 7:42 ... is all that comments.

Lex Fridman 7:42 So this is technically a birthday podcast. Uh, what, what do you love most about getting older?

Andrew Huberman 7:50 Mm. It's like a, it, the confirmation that comes from getting more and more data, th- which basically says, yeah, the first time you thought that thing, it was actually right because the second, third, and fourth, and fifth time, um, it turned out the exact same way. In other words, um, there have been a few times in my life where I did not feel easy about something I did, I felt a signal from my body, this is not good.

Lex Fridman 8:20 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 8:20 Um, and I didn't trust it early on, but I knew it was there. And then two or three bad experiences later, I'm able to say, ah, every single time, there was a signal from the body informing my mind, this is not good. Now, the reverse has also been true that there've been a number of instances in which I feel sort of immediate delight, and there's this kind of almost astonishingly simple experience of feeling, um, comfortable with somebody or at peace with something or delighted at an experience. And it turns out all, literally, all of those experiences and people turned out to be experiences and people that are still in my life and that I, um, still delight in every day. In other words, what's great about getting older is that you stop questioning-

Lex Fridman 9:13 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 9:13 ... the signals that come from the, I think, deeper recesses of your nervous system to say, "Hey, this is not good." Or, "Hey, this is great. More of this." Whereas I think in, uh, my teens, my 20s, my 30s, I'm 40, almost 48, I'll be 48 next month, um, I, I didn't trust, I didn't listen. I actually put a lot of work into overriding those signals and learning to fight through them, thinking that somehow that was making me tougher or somehow that was making me, um, smarter. When in fact, in the end, those people that you meet that are k- you know, difficult or, you know, there are other names for it, you know, it's like, (laughs) you're like, in the end, you're like, "That person's a piece of shit." You know? Or, um, this person is amazing.

Lex Fridman 9:59 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 9:59 And they're really wonderful. And I felt that from Go.

Lex Fridman 10:03 So you've learned to trust your gut versus like the, the influences of other people's opinions?

Andrew Huberman 10:08 Um, I've learned to trust my gut versus the, uh, the forebrain over-analysis, overriding the gut. Other people often in my life have had great optics, right? I've- I've benefited tremendously from an early age of being in a large community of what has been mostly guys but I have some close female friends and always have as well, who will tell me like, "That's a bad decision." Or, "This person, not so good." Or, "Be careful." Or, "They're great." Or, "That's great." So oftentimes my community and the people around me have been, uh, more aligned with, uh, the correct choice than not.

Lex Fridman 10:44 You sh- really?

Andrew Huberman 10:45 Yes.

Lex Fridman 10:45 Really?

Andrew Huberman 10:46 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 10:46 When you were younger, like, or like friends-

Andrew Huberman 10:48 Well, I-

Lex Fridman 10:48 ... parents and so on?

Andrew Huberman 10:50 I don't recall ever really listening to my parents that much.

Lex Fridman 10:53 (laughs)

Andrew Huberman 10:53 I, you know, I grew up in a, you know, we don't have to go back to my childhood thing, but my sense was that-

Lex Fridman 10:57 It's not your fault, Andrew.

Andrew Huberman 10:57 (laughs) Thank you. I learned that recently-

Lex Fridman 10:59 (laughs)

Andrew Huberman 11:00 ... in a, in a psilocybin journey. Um, my first, my first high-dose psilocybin journey, which was, um-

Lex Fridman 11:06 Welcome back.

Andrew Huberman 11:06 ... done with a clinician, thank you very much. Thank you. I was worried there for a second at one point, am I not coming back? But in, uh, in any event, um, yeah, I grew up with some wild kids. You know, I would say about a third of my friends from childhood are dead or in jail. Um, about a third have gone on to do tremendously impressive things, start companies, excellent athletes, uh, academics, um, scientists, and, um, and clinicians, and, and then about a third are living their lives as, as kind of more typical, I just mean, um, that they are happy family people, uh, with jobs that they mainly, um, serve the function to make money, they're not sort of career, into their career for career's sake. But, um, so some of my friends early on gave me some bad ideas.

Lex Fridman 11:52 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 11:52 Um, but most of the time my bad ideas came from, um...... overriding the signals that I knew, uh, that my body and, I would say, my body and brain were telling me, uh, to obey. And why I say body and brain is that there's this brain region, the insula, which, um, does many things, but it represents our sense of internal, uh, sensation, interoception. And I was talking to Paul Conti about this, you know, who as, who as you know, um, I trem- respect tremendously. I think he's one of the smartest people I've ever met. Um, I think for different reasons, he and Marc Andreessen are some of the, like, smartest people I've ever met. But Paul's level of insight into the human psyche is, is absolutely astounding. And, um, and, um, he says the opposite of what most people say about the brain, which is most people say, "Oh, the super computer of the brain is the forebrain." It's like a monkey brain with a extra real estate put on there, and the forebrain is what makes us human, um, and gives us our, our super powers. Uh, Paul has said, um, and he's done a whole series on mental health that's coming out from our, uh, podcast in September, so this is not an attempt to plug that, but he- he'll elaborate on what I'm about to say.

Lex Fridman 13:08 Wait, Paul? Wait, you're doing a thing with Paul?

Andrew Huberman 13:09 We already did. Yeah, so Paul-

Lex Fridman 13:10 Oh, nice.

Andrew Huberman 13:11 Yeah, so Paul Conti shot a, uh, we did... He and I sat down, he did a four episode series on mental health. This is not mental illness, mental health.

Lex Fridman 13:18 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 13:18 About how to explore one's own subconscious, explore the self, build and cultivate, um, the generative drive. You'll learn more about what that is from him, he's far more eloquent, um, and, and clearer than I am. Um, and he provides, essentially, a, uh, a set of steps to explore the self that does not require that you work with a therapist. This is self-exploration that, that is rooted in psychiatry, it's rooted in neuroscience, and I don't think this information exists anywhere else. I'm not aware that it exists anywhere else. And, um, he essentially distills it all down to one, uh, eight and a half by 11 sheet, which we provide for people, and, um, he says there, I don't wanna give too much away because it, I would detract from what he does so beautifully, but if I tried and I wouldn't have accomplished it anyway. Um, but he said, and I believe, that the subconscious is the super computer of the brain.

Lex Fridman 14:15 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 14:16 All the stuff working underneath our conscious awareness that's driving our feelings and our, what we think are the decisions that, um, we've thought through so carefully, and that only by exploring the subconscious and understanding it a little bit, um, can we actually, uh, improve ourselves over time, and I agree. I think that... So the, the mistake is to think that thinking can override it all. It's a certain style of introspection and thinking that, um, allows us to read the signals from our body, read the signals from our brain, integrate the, the knowledge that we're collecting about ourselves and, and to use all that in ways that are really adaptive and generative for us.

Lex Fridman 14:56 What do you think is there in that subconscious? What, what do you think of the Jungian shadow? Is, what, what's there?

Andrew Huberman 15:03 You know, there's this idea, as you're familiar with too, I'm sure, that this Jungian idea that there, we all have all things inside of us, that all of us have the capacity to be evil, to be good, etc., but that some people express one or the other to a greater extent. But he also mentioned that there's a unique category of people, maybe two to 5% of people, that don't just have all things inside of them, but they actually spend a lot of time exploring a lot of those things.

Lex Fridman 15:28 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 15:28 The darker recesses, the shadows, their own shadows.

Lex Fridman 15:31 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 15:31 Um, you know, I'm somebody who's drawn to goodness and to light and to joy and all those things like anybody else, but no, I think, um, maybe it was part of how I grew up, maybe it was the crowd I was with, um, um, maybe... But then again, you know, even when I started spending more time with academics and scientists, I mean, um, you see shadows in other ways, right? You see pure ambition with no passion. I, I, I recall a colleague, um, in San Diego, who it was very clear to me, did not actually care about understanding the brain, but understanding the brain was just his avenue to exercise ambition.

Lex Fridman 16:09 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 16:10 And if you gave him something else to work on, he'd work on that, and in fact, he did. He left and he worked on something else, and I realized he has no passion for understanding the brain like all the... I assumed all scientists do.

Lex Fridman 16:19 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 16:19 Certainly why I went into it, but some people, it's just raw ambition. It's about winning, it doesn't even matter what they win, it's just, to which to me is crazy, but I think that's a shadow that some people explore, not one I've explored. Um, I think the shadow parts of us are very important to come to understand. And look, better to understand them and know that they're there and work with them, than to not acknowledge their presence and have them surface in the form of addictions or behaviors that, um, that damage us and other people.

Lex Fridman 16:52 So one of the processes f- for achieving mental health is to bring those things to the surface. So fish the subconscious mind.

Andrew Huberman 16:59 Yes, and, um, and, you know, he, Paul describes 10 cupboards that one can look into for exploring the self. There's the structure of self and the function of self. Again, this will all be spelled out in the series in a lot of detail, also in terms of its relational aspect between people.

Lex Fridman 17:14 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 17:14 How to pick good partners and good relationships, he gets really into this from a very different perspective.

Lex Fridman 17:19 Oh.

Andrew Huberman 17:20 Um, yeah, fascinating stuff. I was just sitting there just... I will say this, that that four episode series with Paul is, at least to date, the most important work I've ever been involved in, in all of my career because it's very clear that we are not taught how to explore our subconscious.

Lex Fridman 17:39 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 17:40 And that very few people actually understand how to do that, even most psychiatrists. He has a, uh, he mentions something about psychiatrists. You know, if you're a cardiothoracic surgeon or something like that and 50% of your patients die, you're considered a bad cardiothoracic surgeon. But, with no disrespect to psychiatrists, there are, there are some excellent psychiatrists out there, there are also a lot of terrible psychiatrists out there because unless all of those...... all of their patients commit suicide or half commit suicide. They can treat for a long time without it becoming visible that, th- they're not so good at their craft. Now, he's superb at his craft and, um, I think he would say that, yes, exploring some shadows, but also just understanding the self. Like, what, what... You know, really under- understanding like who, like, who am I? And, and what's important? What are my ambitions? What are my strivings? Again, I'm lifting from some of the things that, that Hill described exactly how to do this. People do not spend enough time addressing those questions. And as a consequence, they discover what resides in their subconscious through the sometimes bad, uh, hopefully, al- also good, but, um, manifestations of their actions. They're... We are driven by this huge 90% of our real estate that is not visible to our conscious awareness, and we, we need to understand that. You know, I've talked about this before, I've done therapy twice a week since I was a kid. I had to as a condition of being let back in school. Um, I continue... I found a way to, either through insurance or even when I didn't have insurance, I took an extra job writing for Thrasher Magazine when I was a post-doc so I could pay for therapy at a, at a discount 'cause I didn't make much money as a post-doc. I mean, I think, for me, it's as important as going to the gym.

Lex Fridman 19:23 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 19:23 And people think it's just, oh, you know, ruminating on problems or getting support. No, no, no. If you work with somebody really good, they're forcing you to ask questions about who you really are, what you really want. Um, it's not just about support, but there should be support, there should be rapport, but then it's also... There should insight,

Andrew Huberman 19:42 right? Most people who get therapy, they're getting support, there's rapport, but insight is not easy (laughs) to arrive at. And a really good psychologist or psychiatrist can help you arrive at deep insights that transform your entire life.

Lex Fridman 19:56 Well, sometimes when I look inside, and I do this often, you know, exploring who you truly are, you come to this question. Do I accept... Once you see parts, do I accept this or do I fix this?

Andrew Huberman 20:11 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 20:11 Is this a... Is this who you are fundamentally and it will always be this way or is this a problem to be fixed? Like, for example, one of the things, especially recently, but in general over time, I've discovered about myself, probably has roots in childhood, probably has roots in a lot of things, is I deeply value loyalty. Maybe more than the average person. And so when there's disloyalty, it can be painful to me. And so this is who I am. And so do I have to relax a bit? Do I have to fix this part or is this who you are? And then... And there's a million... That's one like little-

Andrew Huberman 20:53 Mm-hmm. I think loyalty is a good thing to cling to, provided that when loyalty is broken that it doesn't, um, disrupt too many other areas of your life. But it depends also on who's disrupting that loyalty. If it's a co-worker versus a ro- romantic partner versus your exclusive romantic partner depending on the structure of your romantic partner life, you know? Uh, I mean, I have always experienced extreme, um, joy and feelings of safety and trust in my friendships. Again, mostly male friendships, but female friendships too, which is only to say that they were mostly male friendships.

Lex Fridman 21:32 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 21:32 The female friendships have also been very loyal. Um, let... You know, so getting back-stabbed is not something I'm familiar with. Um, and yeah, I love being crewed up, you know?

Lex Fridman 21:44 Yeah, yeah. No, for, for sure. And I'm with you and, you know, you and I are, uh, very much have the same values on this. But, you know, there... That's one little thing and then there's many other things, like, um, extremely self-critical. And you look at my... You know, I look at myself as I'm regularly very self-critical. There's a self-critical engine in my brain. And I talked to actually Paul about this, I think on the podcast, quite a bit. And he's saying this is a really bad thing.

Andrew Huberman 22:08 Hmm.

Lex Fridman 22:08 Like, "You need to fix this."

Andrew Huberman 22:10 Hmm.

Lex Fridman 22:10 "You need to be able to be regularly very, uh, positive about yourself." And I kept disagreeing with him. "No, this is like who I am." Like you... And it seems to work. Don't mess with a thing that seems to be working. It's fine. Like, I oscillate between being really grateful and really self-critical. But then you have to like figure out what is... Maybe is there's a deeper root thing. There's an ins- maybe there's an insecurity in there somewhere that has to do with childhood. And then you're trying to prove something to somebody from your childhood, this kind of thing.

Andrew Huberman 22:39 Well, a couple of things that I think are hopefully valuable for people here. One is, um, one way to destroy your life is to spend time trying to control your or somebody else's past. Um, so much of our destructive behavior and thinking comes from wanting something that we saw or did or heard to not be true, rather than really working with that and getting close to what it really was and, um, you know, sometimes those things are even traumatic and we need to really get close to them and it... And re- for them to move through us. And, and that... You know, there are a bunch of different ways to do that with support from others and hopefully but sometimes on our own as well. The... I don't think we can rewire our deep preferences and what we find despicable or joyful. I do think that it's really a question of what allows us peace. Like, can you be at peace with the fact that you're very self-critical and enjoy that, get some distance from it, have a sense of humor about it?

Lex Fridman 23:41 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 23:41 Or is it driving you in a way that's keeping you awake at night and-

Lex Fridman 23:44 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 23:45 ... um, and forcing you back to the table to do work in a way that feels self-flagellating and doesn't feel good? Um, you know, can you get that humility and awareness of how you're-... you know, of your one's flaws. And I think that, that can create, you know, this word space sounds very new age-y, like get space from it. Is that you can have a sense of humor about how, how neurotic we can all be. I mean, you know, neurotic isn't actually a bad term in the classic sense of, of the psychologists and psychiatrists. The Freudians said that, "You know, the best case is to be neurotic, to actually see one's own issues and work with them." Whereas psychotic is the, is the other, is the other way to be, uh, which is obviously not good. So I think, um, the question of whether or not to work on something or to, um, just accept it as part of ourselves, I think really depends if we feel like it's holding us back or not. And, uh, I, I think you're asking perhaps the most profound question about being a human, which is, you know, what, what do you do with your body? What do you do with your mind? I mean, if you... It's also a question we started off talking about fitness a little bit, we just for whatever reason. Um, you know, do I need to run an ultra-marathon? I don't feel like I need to. Um, David Goggins does and, and does a whole lot more than that. So that for him, that's important. For me, it's not important to do that. I don't think he does it just so he can run the ultras. Um, there's clearly something else in there for him and guys like Cam Hanes and, and, uh, tremendous respect for what they do and how they do it. Um, does one need to make their body more muscular, stronger, more endurance, more flexibility? Do you need to read harder books? Do you need to... I think doing hard things feels good. Um, I think it, I know it feels good. I know that the worse I feel, the worst way to feel is when I'm procrastinating and I don't do something, and then whenever I do something and I complete it and I break through that point where it was hard and then I'm doing it, at the end, I actually feel like I was infused with some sort of, um, super chemical. And who knows if it's probably a cocktail of, of endogenously made chemicals, but I think it is good to do hard things. But you have to be careful not to destroy your body, your mind in the process. And I think it's about whether or not you can achieve peace on earth. Can you sleep well at night? Stress isn't bad if you can sleep well at night. You can be stressed all day, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, and it'll optimize your focus, but can you fall asleep and stay deeply asleep at night? Um, being in a hard relationship. Some people say, you know, "That's not good." Other people like it. Can you be at peace in that? And I think we all, you know, have different RPM that, you know, we all kind of idle at different RPM and, um, some people are big Melo Costelos and others are kind of like, you know, need, need more friction in order to, to feel at peace. But I think ultimately what we want is to feel at peace.

Lex Fridman 26:47 Yeah, I've, uh, been through some really low points over the past couple of years, and I think the reason could be boiled down to the fact that I haven't been able to find a place of peace. A, a, a place or people or moments that give deep inner peace. Uh, yeah. I, you know... And I think you put it really beautifully. It's, uh, you have to figure out, given who you are, the various, um, characteristics of your mind, all the things, all the contents of the cupboards, uh, how to, how to get space from it. And ultimately, one good representation of that is to be able to laugh at all of it. Whatev- whatever, whatever's going on inside your mind, to be able to step back and just kind of chuckle at the, at the beauty and the absurdity of the whole thing.

Andrew Huberman 27:36 Yeah, and keep going. There's this beautiful-

Lex Fridman 27:39 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 27:39 ... as I mentioned, it seems like every podcast lately, um, I'm a huge Rancid fan, mostly because I just think Tim Armstrong's writing is, is pure poetry and whether or not you like the music or not, um, you know, and he's written music for a lot of other people too. He's not, doesn't advertise that much 'cause he's humble, but I-

Lex Fridman 27:57 And that, by the way, I went to a show of theirs like 20 years ago.

Andrew Huberman 27:59 Oh, yeah? I'm going to see them in Boston on September 18th. I'm literally flying there for, for, um, uh, or I'll take the train up from New York. I'm gonna meet a friend of mine named Jim Thibeaux, who's a big, a guy who owns a lot of companies in skateboard industry. Um, we're meeting there like a couple of little kids to go see them play. Amazing, amazing people, amazing musi- music.

Lex Fridman 28:18 Very intense.

Andrew Huberman 28:19 Very intense and, but em- embodies all the different emotions. That's why I love it, right? They have some love songs, they have some hate songs, they have some... And, um, but, you know, there's a, going back to what you said, I think there's a, there's a song, the first song on the Indestructible album, I think there's a, um, it's sort of he's just talking about like shock and disbelief of discovering things about people that were close to you. And, you know, it's, um, I won't, I won't sing it, but, you know, nor, I wouldn't dare. But, um, but there's this one lyric where that's really stuck in my mind for, for ever since that album came out in 2003, which is, um, you know, that nothing's what it seems so I just sit here laughing. I'm gonna keep going on. I can't get distracted. There is this piece of like, you got to learn how to push out the disturbing stuff sometimes and go forward. And I mean, I remember hearing that lyric and, and then writing it down and, you know, that was a time where my undergraduate advisor, who was like a mentor and a father to me, you know, blew his head off in the bathtub-

Lex Fridman 29:22 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 29:23 ... like three weeks before. And then my graduate advisor, who I was working for at that time, who I loved and adored, was really like a mother to me. I knew her when she was pregnant with her two kids, died at 50, breast cancer. And then my post-doc advisor, you know, first day of work at Stanford as a faculty member sitting across the table like this from him, had a heart attack right in front of me, died of pancreatic cancer at the end of 2017. And I remember just thinking like, you know, going back to that song lyric over and over, like, and where people would... Um, you know, I haven't had many betrayals in life. I've had a few, but just thinking like or seeing something or learning something about somebody, you're just like you can't believe it.

Lex Fridman 29:59 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 29:59 And I, I, I mentioned that-... that lyric off that first song, Indestructible on that album, because it's this, the emo- like just the raw emotion of like, "I can't believe this. What I just saw-

Lex Fridman 30:12 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 30:12 ... is so disturbing."

Lex Fridman 30:14 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 30:15 But I have to just keep going forward. There are certain things that we really do need to push, not just into our periphery, but off into the gutter and keep going. And that's a hard thing to learn how to do. But if you're going to be functional in life, you have to. And actually, just to, to get at this issue of, do I change or do I embrace this aspect of self? Um, about six months, it was April, um, of this last year, I did some intense work around some things that were really challenging to me, and I did it alone. And, uh, it may have involved some medicine. And I expected to get peace through this. I was like, "I'm gonna let go of it." And I spent 11 hours just getting more and more frustrated and angry about this thing that I was trying to resolve. And I was so unbelievably disappointed that I couldn't get that relief. And I was like, "What is this?" Like, "This is not how this is supposed to work." I'm supposed to be, feel peace. The clouds are supposed to lift. And so a week went by, and then another half week went by. And then someone who I, whose opinion I trust very much, I explained this to them because I was getting a little concerned, like, "What's going on? This is worse, not better." And they said, "This is very simple. You have a giant blind spot, which is your sense of justice, Andrew, and your sense of anger are linked like an iron rod, and you need to relax it." And as they said that, I felt the anger dissipate. And so there was something that I think is, it is true, I have a very strong sense of justice and my sense of anger, then at least, uh, was very strongly linked to it.

Lex Fridman 31:58 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 31:58 So it's great to have a sense of justice, right? I hate to see people wronged. I absolutely do. And, and I'm human. I'm sure I've wronged people in my life. I know I have. They've told me. I've tried to apologize and reconcile where possible. Still have a lot of work to do. Um, but where I see injustice, it draws in my sense of anger in a way that I think is just eating me up. And, but it was only in hearing that link that I wasn't aware of before, it was in my subconscious, obviously, um, did I feel the relaxation. It wasn't... Y- there's no amount of plant medicine or MDMA or any kind of, you know, chemical you can take that's naturally just going to dissipate what's hard for oneself. It needs... If one ch- embraces that or if one chooses to do it through just talk therapy or journaling or friends or introspection or all of the above, there needs to be an awareness of the things that we're just not aware of. So I think the answer to your question, do you embrace or do you fight these aspects of self is, um, I think you get in your subconscious, through good work with somebody skilled or, and sometimes that involves the tools I just mentioned, in various combinations, and you figure it out. You figure out if it's serving you. Obviously, it was not bringing me peace. It was undermining my s- my sense of justice, was undermining my sense of peace. And so in understanding this link be- now I would say that the, in understanding this link between justice and anger, now I think it's a little bit more of like a, you know, it's not like a Twizzler stick bendy, but it's, at least it's not like an iron rod. Like, you know, when I see somebody wronged, I mean, it used to just like

Narrator 33:31 But you're able to step back. Now th- the, that's... Like to me, the ultimate place to reach is laughter.

Andrew Huberman 33:42 I just sit here laughing. Exactly. That's, that's the lyric. I, like, I can't believe it, so I just sit here laughing. Like, can't get distracted, just u- just at some point... But the, but the problem I think in just laughing at something, like that gives you distance. But the question is, does, do you stop engaging with it at that point? Like, I experienced this, uh... I mean, recently I got to see how sometimes I'll see something that's just like, "What?" Like, "This is crazy." So I just laugh.

Lex Fridman 34:11 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 34:11 But then I continue to engage in it and it's taking me off course. And so there is a place where, you know, I mean, I, I g- realize this is probably a kid's show too, so I want to keep it, you know, G-rated, but at, at some point, for certain things, it makes sense to go, "Fuck that."

Lex Fridman 34:27 But also, laugh at yourself for saying, "Fuck that."

Andrew Huberman 34:31 Yeah, and then move on. So the question is-

Lex Fridman 34:33 (laughs)

Andrew Huberman 34:33 ... are you, do you get stuck or do you move on?

Lex Fridman 34:35 Sure.

Andrew Huberman 34:35 Right?

Lex Fridman 34:36 Sure. But like there's a lightness of being that comes with laughter. I mean, I've gotten-

Andrew Huberman 34:40 Sure.

Lex Fridman 34:40 Like, as you know, I spent the day with, with Elon today. He just gave me this Burnt Hair. Do you know what this is?

Andrew Huberman 34:46 I have no idea.

Lex Fridman 34:47 I'm sure there's actually, there's a, it should be a Human Lab episode on this. It's a cologne that's Burnt Hair.

Andrew Huberman 34:53 I see.

Lex Fridman 34:53 And it's like supposedly, a really intense smell and it is.

Andrew Huberman 34:56 I don't want to smell.

Lex Fridman 34:56 De- please.

Andrew Huberman 34:57 So-

Lex Fridman 34:57 It's not gonna leave your nose.

Andrew Huberman 34:58 That's okay. Well, that's okay, I'll take a gentle, I'll whiff it as if I were whiffing a chemical in a lab.

Lex Fridman 35:02 Are you about to actually spray it on yourself? 'Cause I don't know if you can spr-

Andrew Huberman 35:04 So I'm reading an amazing book-

Lex Fridman 35:06 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 35:07 ... called An Immense World by Ed Yong. He won a Pulitzer for, uh, We Contain Multitudes or something like that-

Lex Fridman 35:12 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 35:12 ... I think is the title of the other book. Um, and the first chapter is all about olfaction and the incredible power that olfaction has.

Lex Fridman 35:20 That smells terrible.

Andrew Huberman 35:21 I don't even use-

Lex Fridman 35:22 And it doesn't leave you.

Andrew Huberman 35:23 Ugh.

Lex Fridman 35:23 For th- for those listening, it doesn't quite smell terrible. It's just intense and it stays with you. This, this to me represents like-

Andrew Huberman 35:33 (bottle clunks)

Lex Fridman 35:33 ... just laughing at the absurdity of it all. So-

Andrew Huberman 35:36 Which... I have to ask, so y- you were rolling jiu-jitsu?

Lex Fridman 35:38 Yeah. We're training jiu-jitsu. Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 35:40 So is that-

Lex Fridman 35:40 And then-

Andrew Huberman 35:40 ... fight between, um, Elon and, and Azuck actually gonna happen?

Lex Fridman 35:45 I think Elon is a huge believer of this idea of, uh, the most entertaining outcome is the most likely. And he almost, like there is almost this sense that there's n- not a free will and the universe has a kind of deterministic gravitational field pulling towards the most fun.... and he's just a player in that game. So from that perspective, I think it seems like something like that is inevitable.

Andrew Huberman 36:14 Mm, like a, like a little scrap in the parking lot of, uh, Facebook or something like that?

Lex Fridman 36:18 Exactly.

Andrew Huberman 36:18 Sorry, Meta.

Lex Fridman 36:19 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 36:19 But it looks like they're, they're training for real. And Zuck has competed, right?

Lex Fridman 36:22 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 36:22 In jiu-jitsu.

Lex Fridman 36:23 So, um, I think he is approaching it as a sport.

Andrew Huberman 36:26 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 36:27 Elon is approaching it as a spectacle. And, I mean, the way he talks about it, he's a huge fan of history, he talks about all the warriors that have fought throughout history. If you look, he wants to really do it at the Coliseum. And, you know, the Coliseum is f- for 400 years, I was... there's so many, so much great writing about this. Um, I think over 400,000 people have died in the Coliseum, gladiators. So this is this historic place that shed so much blood, so much fear, so much anticipation of battle, all of this. So he loves this kind of spectacle.

Andrew Huberman 37:04 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 37:04 And also, the, uh, the meme of it, the hilarious absurdity of it, that two tech CEOs are battling it out on sand in a place where gladiators fought to the death and then bears and lions ate prisoners as part of the execution process.

Andrew Huberman 37:21 Well, it's also gonna be an instance where, uh, Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk exchange bodily fluids. They bleed. There's one of the things about fighting, you know?

Lex Fridman 37:30 (laughs)

Andrew Huberman 37:30 I think it was in, um, that book, it's a great book, uh, Fighter's Heart-

Lex Fridman 37:33 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 37:33 ... where he talks about, you know, sort of the intimacy of, of sparring. I have, I only rolled jiu-jitsu with you once, but there was a period of time where I boxed, and, um, which I don't recommend. Um, I got hit, I did hit some guys and definitely got hit back. Um, I'd spar on Wednesday nights when I lived down in San Diego. Um, and, um, you know, when you spar with somebody, even if they hurt you, especially if they hurt you, you know, you see that person afterwards and there's a, there's an intimacy, right? You're ex-

Lex Fridman 38:01 100%.

Andrew Huberman 38:01 It was, it was in that book, Fighter's Heart, where he explains, you know, you're exchanging bodily fluids with a stranger, right? And cre- there's a... you're in your primitive mind.

Lex Fridman 38:11 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 38:11 And so there's an intimacy there that, that persists. So...

Lex Fridman 38:13 But you go together through a process of fear.

Andrew Huberman 38:16 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 38:16 Anxiety. Like...

Andrew Huberman 38:18 Yeah, when they get you, you nod. I mean, you watch somebody, like catch somebody if, you know... not so much in professional fighting, but if people are sparring that they catch you, you, you acknowledge that they caught you. Like, yeah, he got me there.

Lex Fridman 38:29 And on the flip side of that, so we trained, and then after that, we played Diablo IV.

Andrew Huberman 38:34 I don't know what that is.

Lex Fridman 38:35 (laughs)

Andrew Huberman 38:36 I don't play video games, sorry.

Lex Fridman 38:37 (laughs) But it's a video game, so it's like, it's a, um, you know, pretty intense combat in the video... you're, you're fighting like demons and-

Andrew Huberman 38:45 Oh, okay.

Lex Fridman 38:45 ... dragons.

Andrew Huberman 38:46 Last video game I played was Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!

Lex Fridman 38:48 There you go.

Andrew Huberman 38:48 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 38:48 That's pretty cool.

Andrew Huberman 38:49 I met him recently, went on his podcast.

Lex Fridman 38:51 You went, you went, wait...

Andrew Huberman 38:52 It hasn't come out yet.

Lex Fridman 38:52 Oh, it hasn't come out yet?

Andrew Huberman 38:53 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 38:53 Okay.

Andrew Huberman 38:54 Yeah, I asked, um, Mike, um... his kids are great, they came in there, they're super smart kids. Goodness gracious, they ask great questions. Um, I asked Mike what he did with the piece of Evander's ear that, that he bit off and-

Lex Fridman 39:08 Did he remember?

Andrew Huberman 39:09 Yeah, he's like, "Give it back to him."

Lex Fridman 39:10 (laughs)

Andrew Huberman 39:11 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 39:11 Here you go. Uh, sorry about that.

Andrew Huberman 39:14 Uh, he sells edibles that are in the shape of ears with a little bite out of it.

Lex Fridman 39:17 Oh, yeah.

Andrew Huberman 39:18 Um, yeah, that... his, his life has been incredible. He's, um, uh... and I met, yeah, he, he, his family are... you get the sense that they're really a great family. They're really, um...

Lex Fridman 39:30 Mike Tyson?

Andrew Huberman 39:30 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 39:31 That's a heck of a journey right there of a man.

Andrew Huberman 39:33 Yeah. My now friend, Tim Armstrong, like I said, lead singer from Rancid, he put it best, he said, you know, that Mike Tyson's life is, you know, Shakespearean.

Lex Fridman 39:42 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 39:43 In, you know, down, up, down, up, and just the, the arcs of his life are just like... sort of an only in America kind of tale too, right?

Lex Fridman 39:52 So speaking of Shakespeare, I've recently gotten to know Neri Oxman, who's this incredible, uh, scientist that works at the intersection of nature and engineering, and she, uh, reminded me of this, uh, Anna Akhmatova line, this is this great Soviet poet that I really love, from, uh, over a century ago, that, "Each of our lives is a Shakespearean drama raised to the thousandth degree." So I have to ask, why do you think humans are attracted to this kind of Shakespearean drama?

Andrew Huberman 40:25 Mm...

Lex Fridman 40:26 Is there some aspect, we've been talking about the subconscious mind, that, that pulls us towards the drama, even though the place of mental health is peace?

Andrew Huberman 40:38 Yes, and yes.

Lex Fridman 40:39 Do you have some of that?

Andrew Huberman 40:41 A draw towards drama?

Lex Fridman 40:44 Drama?

Andrew Huberman 40:44 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 40:45 If you look at the empirical data.

Andrew Huberman 40:46 Yes. I mean, it... right, if I look at the empirical data, I mean, I think about who I chose to work for as an undergraduate, right? I was a, you know, barely finished high school, finally get to college, barely... I think I... this is really embarrassing and not something to aspire to, you know, I was, um, you know, thrown out of the dorms for fighting, um-

Lex Fridman 41:05 Nice.

Andrew Huberman 41:05 Barely passed my classes, you know, I... the girlfriend and I split up, I mean, I was living in a squat, got into... I was getting in trouble with the law. I eventually got my act together, go back to school, start working for somebody. Who do I choose to work for? A guy who's an ex-Navy guy who smokes cigarettes in the fume hood, drinks coffee-

Lex Fridman 41:24 (laughs)

Andrew Huberman 41:24 ... and we're injecting rats with MDMA.

Lex Fridman 41:26 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 41:26 And, you know, I was drawn to, like, the personality, his energy, but I also... he was a great, he was a great scientist, worked out a lot on thermal regulation in the brain and, um, and more. Um, you know, go to graduate school, I'm working for somebody, and decide that, yeah, doing... working in her laboratory wasn't quite right for me. So I'm literally sneaking into the laboratory next door and working for the woman next door because I liked the relationships that she had to a certain set of questions and she was a, kind of a quirky person and... you know? So drawn to drama, but drawn to... I like characters.

Lex Fridman 41:59 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 41:59 I like people that have texture.

Lex Fridman 42:01 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 42:01 And I'm not drawn to raw ambition, I'm drawn to people that seem to have a real passion for what they do and a uniqueness to them that I, I... you know, you can kind of f- not kind of...I'll just say it how it is, I can feel their heart for what they do and I'm, I'm drawn to that. Like... Um, and that can be good. The same reason I went to work for Ben Barres, uh, as a post-doc, it wasn't because he was the first transgender man, member of the National Academy of Sciences, that was just a feature of who he was. I loved how he loved glia. He would talk about these cells like they were the most enchanting things that he'd ever seen in his life.

Lex Fridman 42:35 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 42:35 And I was like, "This is like the biggest nerd I've ever met and I love him." I think we're dr- I'm drawn to that. Um, this is another thing that Conti makes, uh, elaborates on quite a bit more in the series on mental health coming out. But there are different drives within us. There's this... There are aggressive drives, not always for fighting, but for intense interaction. I mean, look at Twitter. Look at some of the... Look at people clearly have an aggressive drive. There's also a pleasure drive. Some people also have a strong pleasure drive. They wanna experience pleasure through food, through sex, through friendship, through adventure, you know? But I think the Shakespearean drama is the drama of the different drives in different ratios, in different people.

Lex Fridman 43:21 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 43:21 I, I know somebody and she's incredibly kind. Has an extremely high pleasure drive, loves taking great care of herself and people around her through food and through retreats and through all these things and makes spaces beautiful everywhere she goes, and is... Gifts these things that are just so unbelievably feminine and, and incredible, these gifts to people, and they're kind and thoughtful about what they like. And then, um... But I would say very little aggressive drive, um, from my read. And then I know other people who are, just have a ton of aggressive drive, and very little pleasure drive. And I think... So there's this alchemy that exists where people have these things in different ratios, and then you blend in, um, you know, the differences in the chromosomes, and differences in hormones, and differences in personal history, and what you end up with is a species that creates incredible recipes of drama, but also peace. Also relief from drama...

Lex Fridman 44:20 (laughs)

Andrew Huberman 44:20 ... contentment. I mean, I realize this isn't the exact topic of the question, but, um, someone I know very dearly, actually, an ex-girlfriend of mine, long-term partner of mine, um, sent me something recently and I think it hit the nail on the head, which is that, ideally, for a man, they eventually settle where they find and feel peace.

Lex Fridman 44:41 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 44:42 Where they feel peaceful. Where they can be themselves and feel peaceful. Now, I'm sure there's a equivalent or mirror image of that for women, um, but this particular post that she sent was about men. And I totally agree. And so, um, the... It isn't always that we're seeking friction, but for periods of our life, we seek friction, drama, adventure, excitement, fights, um, you know, and doing hard, hard things, and then I think at some point... I'm certainly coming to this point now where it's like, "Yeah, that's all great." And checked a lot of boxes. But had a lot of close calls, flew really close to the sun on a lot of things with life and limb, and, and heart and spirit, and some of, you know, people close to us didn't make it. And sometimes not making it means their, the career they wanted went off a cliff, or the, the, their health went off a cliff, or their life went off a cliff. But I think that, um, there's also the Shakespearean drama of the characters that exit the play and are living their lives happily in the backdrop. It just doesn't make for as much entertainment.

Lex Fridman 45:49 That's one other thing that's a benefit, you could say is a benefit of getting older, is, uh, um, finding the Shakespearean drama less appealing. Or finding the joy in the peace.

Andrew Huberman 46:01 Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think that, um... I think there's real peace with age. I think the other thing is this notion of checking boxes is a real thing. I... For me anyway. I, I have a morning meditation that I do. Um, well, I wake up now, I get my sunlight, I hydrate, I use the bathroom, I do all the, the-

Lex Fridman 46:18 (laughs)

Andrew Huberman 46:18 ... things (laughs) that I talk about. Um, I've, I've started a practice of prayer in the last year, which is new-ish for me. Which is... We could talk about if you want.

Lex Fridman 46:27 In the morning?

Andrew Huberman 46:27 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 46:28 Can you talk about it a little bit?

Andrew Huberman 46:29 Sure, yeah. And I, and then I have a, a meditation that I do that actually is where I think through what the different roles that I play.

Lex Fridman 46:36 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 46:37 So like I start very basic. Um, I say, you know, "Okay, I'm an animal." Like we are, we are like biologically animals, right?

Lex Fridman 46:45 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 46:46 Human, you know? I'm a man, I'm a scientist, I'm a teacher, I'm a friend, I'm a brother, I'm a son. You know, I go through this... I have this list and I think about the different roles that I have, and the roles that I still want in my life going forward-

Lex Fridman 47:00 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 47:00 ... that I haven't yet fulfilled. It just takes me... It, it's sort of an inventory of where I've been, where I'm at, and where I'm going, as they say. Um, and I don't know why I do it, but I started doing it this last year. I think because, um, it helps me understand just how many different, uh, contexts I have to exist in and, and, and remind myself that there's still more that I haven't done that I'm excited about.

Lex Fridman 47:24 So within each of those contexts, there's like things that you want to kind of accomplish to define that?

Andrew Huberman 47:30 Yeah, and I'm ambitious, so I think... You know, I'm a brother. I have, I have an older sister and I love her tremendously. And I think I, I wanna be the best brother I can be to her, which means maybe a call, maybe just... Um, you know, we do an annual trip together for our birthdays. Our birthdays are close together. We always go to New York for our birthdays and we've gone for the last three or four years. Like, really like reminding myself of that role. Not because I'll forget, but because I have all these other roles I'll get pulled into.

Lex Fridman 47:52 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 47:53 I say the first one, I'm an animal (laughs) because I have to remember that I have a body that needs care, like any of us. I need sleep, I need food, I need hydration, I need... That I'm human, that, that the brain of a human is, is marvelously complex, but also, um, marvelously, uh, self-defeating at times. And I... So I've been thinking about these things in the context of the different roles, and the, the whole thing takes about four or five minutes, and I just find it brings me a certain amount of clarity that then allows me to ratchet into the day. The prayer piece, um, yeah, I'm a l- I'm, I think I've been reluctant to talk about, um, until now, um, because I...... don't believe in pushing religion on people, and, um, and I think that, um, and I'm not. Um, it's a highly individual thing, and I do believe that one can be an atheist and still pray, um, or agnostic and still pray. But, uh, for me, it really came about through understanding that there are certain aspects of myself that I just couldn't resolve on my own. And no matter how much therapy, no matter, uh, how much, and I haven't done a lot of it, but no matter how much plant medicine or other forms of medicine or exercise or, um, podcasting or science or friendship or any of that, I was just not going to resolve. And so, um, I started this because a, someone close to me, um, said, uh, a male friend said, "You know, prayer is powerful." And I said, "Well, how?" And he said, "I don't know how, but if you th- if you can get, uh, it can allow you to get outside yourself, you get, let you give up control and at the same time take control." I don't even like saying take control, but the whole notion is that, and again, forgive me, but there's no other way to say it. The whole notion is that, you know, like God works through us, whatever God is to you. He, hi- he, him, her or whatever, uh, life force, li- nature, whatever it is to you, right? That it works through us, and so I do a prayer. I'll just describe it where I, I ask, um, I, I make an ask, uh, to help remove my defects, my character defects. I, I pray to God that, help remove my character defects so that I can show up, um, better in all the roles of my life and do good work like to, which for me is learning and teaching. Learning and teaching and, and, and so you might say, "Well, how is that different than a meditation?" Well, it, I'm acknowledging that there is something that bigger than me, bigger than nature as I understand it, that I cannot understand or control, nor do I want to and I'm just giving over to that.

Lex Fridman 50:37 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 50:37 And does that make me less of a scientist? I, I sure as hell hope not. I certainly know, I, there's the head of our neurosciences at Stanford until recently, um, I, you should talk to him directly about it, Bill Newsom has talked about his religious life. Um, for me, it's really a way of getting outside myself and then understanding how I fit into this bigger picture, and it's, and the character defects part is real, right? I'm a human, I have defects like, (laughs) I got a lot of flaws in me like anybody, but, um, and trying to acknowledge them and asking for help in removing them, not magically, but through right action, through my right action. So I do that every morning and, um, I have to say that it's helped. It's helped a lot. It's helped me be better to myself, be better to other people. Um, I still make mistakes, um, but it's a, it's becoming a bigger and bigger part of my life, and I never thought I'd talk like this.

Lex Fridman 51:38 (laughs)

Andrew Huberman 51:39 Um, but I think, uh, it- it's clear to me that if we don't believe in something, again, doesn't have to be traditional standardized religion, but if we don't believe in something bigger than ourselves, we, uh, at some level will self-destruct. I really, I really think so. And it's pow- and it's powerful in a way that all the other stuff, meditation and all the tools is, is not because it's really operating at a, at a much deeper and bigger level. And, um, you know, yeah, I think that, I think that's all I- I can talk about it, um, mostly because I'm still working out, uh, the, you know, the scientist in me wants to understand how it works and I want to understand. And the point is to just go, you know, there's so- there's, you know, for lack of a better language for it, there's higher power than me and what I can control. I'm giving up control on certain things. And somehow that restores a sense of agency for, for right action, better action.

Lex Fridman 52:46 I think perhaps a part of that is, uh, just the humility that comes with acknowledging there's something bigger and more powerful than you.

Andrew Huberman 52:53 And that you can't control everything.

Lex Fridman 52:55 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 52:55 It's, I mean, that you go through life as a hard-driving person, you know, forward center of mass. I remember being that way since I was little. It's like I need LEGOs. I'm like, "I'm gonna make all the LEGOs." I was like, uh, on the weekends, you know, learning about medieval weapons and then giving lectures about it in class when I was five or six years old. Or learning about tropical fish and, you know, cataloging all of them at the store and then organizing it and making my, you know, my dad drive me or my mom drive me to some fish store and then spending all my time there until they'd throw me out, you know, all of that. But I also remember my entire life, I would secretly pray. When things were good and things weren't good, but mostly when things weren't, weren't good 'cause-

Lex Fridman 53:31 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 53:31 ... I, it's important to pray. For me, it's important to pray each morning regardless, but when things weren't right, I couldn't get, make sense of them, I would secretly pray but I felt kind of ashamed of that for whatever reason. And then it was once in college, I distinctly remember, I w- I was having a hard time with a number of things. Um, and I took a run down to Sands Beach, it was UC Santa Barbara, and I remember, I just, I was like, "I don't know if I even have the right to, to do this, but I'm, uh, just praying." And I just prayed for, uh, the ability to be as brutally honest with myself and with other people as I possibly could be about a particular situation I was in at that time. I mean, I, I think now it's probably safe to say I- I'd gone off to college 'cause of a high school girlfriend we had... She, essentially she was my family, more, frankly, more than my biological family was at, at a certain stage of life, and we'd reached a point where we were diverging and it was, it was incredibly painful. It was like losing everything I had.And I was like, "What do I do? How do I manage this? Do I..." You know, I was ready to quit and join the fire service just to support us so that we could move forward. And, and, um, and, you know, it was just... But praying, just go, saying, "I can't figure this out on my own." It's sort of like, "I can't figure this out on my own." And how frustrating that is that no number of friends could tell me, or, a- and inner wisdom couldn't tell me. And eventually, it led me to, to the right answers. And she and I are, are friendly friends to this day. She's happily married with a child and, um, we're on good terms. But I think, you know, it's, it's a, it's a scary thing, but it's the best thing when you just go, "I c- I can't control all of this." And asking for help, I think is also the piece. You're not asking for some magic hand to come down and take care of it. You're asking for the help to come through you, right? So that your body is used to do these right works, right action.

Lex Fridman 55:24 Isn't it interesting that this secret thing that you're almost embarrassed by, that you did it as a child, is something you-

Andrew Huberman 55:30 Oh, man.

Lex Fridman 55:31 It's another thing you do as you get older, is you realize like those things that are part of you, and it's actually a beautiful thing.

Andrew Huberman 55:36 Yeah. A lot of the content of the podcast is, you know, deep academic content, and we talk about everything from, you know, uh, eating disorders, to bipolar disorder, to depression. You know, a lot of different topics. But the tools, uh, the protocols, as we say, right? The sunlight viewing and all the rest. Um, you know, a lot of that stuff is just stuff I wish I had known when I was in graduate school. If I had known to go outside every once in a while and get some sunlight, not just stay in the lab, I would have... You know, I might not have hit a, like a, a really tough round of depression when I was a post-doc, and working twice as hard. And, you know, when my body would break down or I'd get sick a lot, I don't get sick much anymore. Occasionally, about once every 18 months to two years, I get a, I'll get something. But, um, le- you know, I used to break my foot skateboarding all the time. I couldn't understand what's wrong with my body. I'm getting injured. I can't do what everyone else can. Now, I developed more slowly. I had a long arc of puberty. Um, but I... So that was part of it. I was still developing, but you know, how to get your body stronger, how to build endurance. Like, no one told me. The information wasn't there. So a lot of what I put out there is the information that I wish I had had. Because once I had it, I was like, "Wow." Like, A, this stuff really works. B, it's grounded in something real. You know, some pla- sometimes certain protocols are a combination of, you know, animal, human, and... Animal and human studies, sometimes clinical trials, sometimes there's some mechanistic, uh, conjecture for some, not all. I always make clear which. But in the end, like, figuring out how things work so that we can be happier, healthier, more productive, suffer less. Like, reduce the suffering of the world. Um, and, uh, I think that... Well, I'll just say thank you and, um, uh, for asking about the prayer piece. Um, again, I'm not pushing or even encouraging it on anyone. I've just found it to be tremendously useful for me.

Lex Fridman 57:32 (sighs) You know, I mean, about prayer in general, you said information and, uh, figuring out how to get stronger, healthier, smarter, all those kinds of things. A part of me believes that deeply, you know? You can gain a lot of knowledge and wisdom through learning. But a part of me believes that all the wisdom I need was alw- was there when I was 11 and 12 years old.

Andrew Huberman 57:57 And then it got cluttered over. Well, listen, I can't wait for you and Conti to talk again, because when he gets going about the subconscious and the amount of this that sits below the surface like an iceberg, and, and I th- and the fact that when we're kids we're, we're not obscuring a lot of that subconscious as, as much. And, and sometimes that can look a little more primitive.

Lex Fridman 58:20 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 58:21 (laughs) I mean, I mean, a kid that's disappointed-

Lex Fridman 58:24 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 58:25 ... will let you know. A kid that's excited will let you know, and you feel that raw exuberance or that raw dismale. And I think that, um, as we grow older, we learn to cover that stuff up. We, we, we wear masks and we have to do to be functional, right? I don't think we all wanna go around just being completely, um, raw. But as you said, as you get older, you also, you get to this point where you kinda go, "Eh." You know? What, what are we really trying to protect anyway?

Lex Fridman 58:52 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 58:53 I mean, I have this theory that, you know, certainly my experience has taught me that a lot of people, but I'll talk about men 'cause that's what I know best. Whether or not they show up strong or not, that they're really afraid of being weak. Like, they're just afraid... Like, sometimes the strength is even a way to try and not be weak, right? Which is different than being strong for its own sake. I'm not just talking about physical strength. I'm talking about intellectual strength, I'm talking about money, I'm talking about, um, expressing drive. I've been watching this, um, series a little bit, of, uh, Chimp Empire.

Lex Fridman 59:34 Oh, yeah.

Andrew Huberman 59:34 You know it. So Chimp Empire is amazing, right? They have the head chimp, the, he's not the head chimp, but the, the, the alpha in the group.

Lex Fridman 59:41 Yep.

Andrew Huberman 59:42 And he's getting older, and so what does he do? Every once in a while, he goes on these vigor displays.

Lex Fridman 59:49 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 59:49 He goes and he grabs branches. He starts breaking 'em, he starts thrashing 'em, and he's incredibly strong, and they're all kinda like watching. I mean, yeah, I immediately think of people like when they're deadlifting on Instagram (laughs) and I just think vigor, displays of vigor.

Lex Fridman 1:00:01 (laughs)

Andrew Huberman 1:00:01 This is just the primate showing the, displays of vigor. Now, what's interesting is that he's doing that specifically to say, "Hey, I still have what it takes to lead this troop."

Lex Fridman 1:00:11 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 1:00:11 Okay? Then there are the, the ones that are subordinate to him, but not so, not so far behind.

Lex Fridman 1:00:18 It seems to be that there's a very clear, like numerical ranking.

Andrew Huberman 1:00:21 There is.

Lex Fridman 1:00:22 Like there's-

Andrew Huberman 1:00:22 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:00:22 ... it's clear who's the number two and number three.

Andrew Huberman 1:00:24 Oh, yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:00:24 I mean, uh, probably-

Andrew Huberman 1:00:25 Who gets to mate first, who gets to eat first. This exists in other animal societies too, but, uh, Bob Sapolsky would be a great person to talk about this with 'cause he knows, obviously, a tremendous amount about it, and I, I know just the top contour. But, um, yeah, so number two, three, and four males are...... aware that he's doing these vigor displays, but they're also aware because in primate evolution, they got some extra forebrain too, not as much as us, but they got some. And they're aware that the vigor displays are displays that because they've done them as well in a different context, might not just be displays of vigor, but might also be an insurance policy against people seeing weakness.

Lex Fridman 1:01:03 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 1:01:03 Okay. (laughs) So now, they start using that prefrontal cortex to do some interesting things. So in, in primate world, if a male is friendly with another male and wants to affiliate with him...

Lex Fridman 1:01:16 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 1:01:16 ...and say, "Hey, I'm backing you," they'll go over and they'll, they'll, um, pick off the little gr- um, parasites and eat them. And so the grooming is extremely important. In fact, if they want to ostracize or kill one of the members of their, um, troop, they will just leave it alone. No one will groom it. And then there's actually a really disturbing, um, sequence in that show of then the parasites start to eat away on their skin, they get infections, they have issues, no one will mate with them, no one, they have other issues as well, and can potentially die. So the interesting thing is number two and three start to line up a strategy to groom this guy.

Lex Fridman 1:01:51 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 1:01:51 But they are actually thinking about overtaking the entire troop and setting in a new alpha, but the current alpha did that to get where he is. So he knows that they're doing this grooming thing, but they're not, might not be sincere about the grooming, so what does he do? He takes the whole troop on a raid to another troop and sees who will fight for him and who won't. This is advanced...

Lex Fridman 1:02:16 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 1:02:16 ... contracting of behavior for a species that normally we don't think of as, as sophisticated as us.

Andrew Huberman 1:02:24 So it's very interesting and it gets to something that I hope, uh, we'll have an opportunity to talk about 'cause it's something that I'm obsessed with lately, is this notion of overt versus covert contracts, right? There are overt contracts where you exchange work for money or you exchange any number of things in an overt way, but then there are covert contracts. Um, and those take on a very different form and always lead to, uh, in my belief, bad things.

Lex Fridman 1:02:47 Well, how much of human and chimp relationships are overt versus covert?

Andrew Huberman 1:02:53 Well, here's one thing that we know is true. Dogs and humans, the dog-to-human relationship is 100% overt. They don't manipulate you. Now you could say they do in the sense that they learn that if they look a certain way or roll on their back, they get food.

Lex Fridman 1:03:09 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 1:03:09 But there's no, um, there's no banking of that behavior for a future date where then they're going to undermine you and take your position.

Lex Fridman 1:03:19 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 1:03:19 Okay? So in that sense, dogs can be a little bit manipulative in some sense, but, um, now... Okay, so overt contract would be we both wanna do some work together, we're gonna make some money, you get X percentage, I get X percentage. Overt. Covert contract, which is, in my opinion, ba- always bad, would be, we're gonna do some work together. You're gonna get a percentage of money. I'm gonna get a percentage of money. Could look just like the overt contract, but secretly, I'm resentful that I got the percentage I got, so what I start doing is covertly taking something else. What do I take? Maybe I take the opportunity to jab you verbally every once in a while.

Lex Fridman 1:04:04 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 1:04:05 Maybe I take the opportunity to show up late.

Lex Fridman 1:04:07 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 1:04:08 Maybe I take the opportunity to get to know one of your coworkers so that I might start a business with them. That's covert contracting.

Lex Fridman 1:04:13 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 1:04:14 And you see this sometimes in romantic relationships. One person, we won't set the male or female in any direction here and just say, "It's- I'll make you feel powerful if you make me feel desired." Okay, great. There's nothing explicitly wrong about that contract if they both know and they both agree. But what if it's, "I'll do that, but I'll have kids with you, so you feel powerful. You'll have kids with me, so I feel desired, but secretly, I don't wanna do that." Or they... One person says, "I don't wanna do that," or both don't. So what they end up doing is saying, "Okay, so I expect something else. I expect you to do certain things for me," or, "I expect you to pay for certain things for me." Covert contracts are the signature of everything bad. Overt contracts are the signature of all things good.

Lex Fridman 1:05:01 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 1:05:02 And I think about this a lot because I've seen a lot of examples of this. I've... Like anyone, we participate in these things whether or not we want to or not, and the thing that gets transacted the most is... Well, I should say, the things that get transacted the most are the overt things. You'll see money, um, time, sex, um, property, whatever it happens to be, um, information. But what ends up happening is that when people, I believe, don't feel safe, they feel threatened in some way, like it's... They don't feel safe in a certain interaction. What they do is they start taking something else while still engaging in, in the exchange. And I'll tell you, if there's one thing about human nature that's bad, it's that feature. Why that feature? Or is it a bug or a feature, as you engineers like to say?

Lex Fridman 1:06:01 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 1:06:01 Um, I think it's because we were allocated a certain extra amount of prefrontal cortex that makes us more sophisticated than a dog, more sophisticated than a chimpanzee, but they do it too, and it's because it's often harder to deal with, in the short term, to deal with the real sense of this is scary, this feels threatening, than it is to playout all the iterations. It takes a lot of brain work. It's... You're playing chess and Go simultaneously trying to figure out where things are gonna end up and we just don't know. So it's a way, I think, of creating a false sense of certainty, but I'll tell you, covert contracts, the only certainty is that it's gonna end badly. The question is how badly. Conversely, overt contracts always end well.... always. The problem with overt contracts is that you can't be certain that the other person is not engaging in a covert contract. You can only take responsibility for your own contracting.

Lex Fridman 1:07:01 Well, one of the challenges of being human is looking at another human being and figuring out the way, their way of being, their behavior, which of the two types of contracts it represents because they look awfully the same-

Andrew Huberman 1:07:17 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 1:07:17 ... on the surface.

Andrew Huberman 1:07:18 That's right.

Lex Fridman 1:07:18 And one of the, one of the challenges of being human is the decision we all make, is are you somebody that takes a leap of trust and trusts other humans and are willing to take the hurt or are you going to be, uh, cynical and skeptical and avoid most interactions until they're, uh, they over a long period of time, uh, prove your trust?

Andrew Huberman 1:07:37 Yeah, I never liked the phrase history repeats itself, um, when it comes to humans, because it doesn't apply if the people or the person is actively working to resolve their own flaws. I do think that if people are willing to do dedicated, introspective work, go into their subconscious, do the hard work, have hard conversations and get better at hard conversations, something that I'm constantly trying to get better at, I think people can change. But they have to want to change.

Lex Fridman 1:08:09 It does seem like deep down we all can kinda tell the difference between overt and covert.

Andrew Huberman 1:08:16 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 1:08:16 Like, we have a good sense. I think one of the benefits of having this characteristical mind where I value loyalty, I've been extremely, uh, fortunate to spend most of my life in overt relationships. And I think that creates a really fulfilling

Lex Fridman 1:08:31 life.

Andrew Huberman 1:08:31 But there's also this thing, and maybe we're in this, uh, portion of the podcast now, but, um, but I've experienced this-

Lex Fridman 1:08:37 We should say that this is late at night, we're talking.

Andrew Huberman 1:08:38 That's right. Certainly, late for me, but I'm two hours... I came in today on, uh, I'm still in California.

Lex Fridman 1:08:43 And we should also say that you came here to wish me a happy birthday

Andrew Huberman 1:08:46 I did.

Lex Fridman 1:08:47 ... because everything

Andrew Huberman 1:08:47 I did. I am...

Lex Fridman 1:08:48 And the podcast is just like a, a fun last-minute thing I suggested.

Andrew Huberman 1:08:51 Yeah, some, um, close friends of yours have arranged a dinner that I'm really looking forward to. I won't say which night, but it's next couple of (laughs) o- of nights. Um, you know, your circadian clock, um, is one of the mor- most robust features of your biology. I know you can be nocturnal or you can be diurnal. We know you're mostly nocturnal, um, at certain times of the year, Lex. But, um-

Lex Fridman 1:09:14 (laughs) Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 1:09:14 ... but there... Very, very few people can get away with no sleep. Very few people can get away with a chaotic sleep-wake schedule, so you have to obey a 24-hour, AKA circadian, uh, rhythm, um, if you wanna remain healthy of mind and body. We also have to acknowledge that it's... Aging isn't linear, right? So, um...

Lex Fridman 1:09:33 What do you mean?

Andrew Huberman 1:09:34 Well, I mean, you, the, the degree of change between years 35 and 40 is not going to be the degree of change between 40 and 45. But I will say this, I'm 48 and I feel better in every aspect of my psychology and biology now than I did when I was in my 20s. Yeah, uh, s- sort of quality of-

Lex Fridman 1:09:58 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman 1:09:58 ... of thought, um, time spent. Um, physically, I can do what I did then, which is, probably says more about what I could do then than what I can do now. But if you keep training, you can continue to get better. The key is to not get injured. And I, I've never trained super hard. I've trained hard, but I've been cautious to not, for instance, weight train more than two days in a row. I do a split, which is basically three days a week and the other day's a run, take one full day off, take a week off every 12 to 16 weeks. I've not been the guy hurling the heaviest weights or running the furthest distance, but I have been the guy who's continuing to do it when a lot of my friends are talking about knee injuries and talking about-

Lex Fridman 1:10:35 Hey, hey. Hey.

Andrew Huberman 1:10:36 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:10:36 Hey, hey.

Andrew Huberman 1:10:36 I'm just... (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:10:38 No, I- I... (laughs)

Andrew Huberman 1:10:38 But, but, of course, with sport, you can't account for everything the same way you can with fitness. And, and I have to acknowledge that. You know, um, l- unless one is powerlifting, you know, weightlifting and running, you can get hurt, but it's not like skateboarding where if you, if you're going for it, you're gonna get hurt. That's just, you're landing on concrete and, um, it... With jujitsu, like, people are trying to hurt you so that you say stop. (laughs) Um...

Lex Fridman 1:11:03 No, but it...

Andrew Huberman 1:11:03 So with a sport, it's different. Um, and these days, I don't really do a sport any longer. Um, I work out, um, to stay fit. I, I used to, um, continue to do sports, but I kept getting hurt and, and frankly, now, like a, a rolled ankle, um, I may put out a little small skateboard part in 2024 because people have been saying, "W- we wanna see the kickflip."

Lex Fridman 1:11:28 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 1:11:28 I'll just say, "Well, I'll do a heelflip instead," but okay, yeah, um. Uh, I might put out a little part 'cause some of the guys that work on our podcast are from DC. I think by now, I, I, I should at least do it just to show, like, I'm not making it up. (laughs) Um, and I probably will. But I think doing a sport is different. That's how you get hurt.

Lex Fridman 1:11:45 Uh...

Andrew Huberman 1:11:45 Overuse and doing an actual sport, and so, you know, ha- hat tip to those who do an actual sport.

Lex Fridman 1:11:53 And that's a difficult decision, like, I d- a lot of people have to make. I have to make with jujitsu, for example, like, if you just look empirically, I've trained really hard for all my life in grappling sports and fighting sports and th- all those kind of stuff, and I've avoided injury for the most part. And I would say I would attribute that to, um, training a lot. Sounds counterintuitive, but training well and safely and correctly, keeping good form, saying no when I need to say no, but training a lot and taking it seriously. Now, when this training is kind of a, um, side, really a side thing, I find that the injuries, uh, becomes a, uh, a higher and higher probability. Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 1:12:34 Oh, when you're just doing it every once in a while?

Lex Fridman 1:12:36 Every once in a while.

Andrew Huberman 1:12:36 Yeah, that, that... I think you just said something really important, the, the, um, saying no. I mean, the times I have gotten hurt training is when someone's like, "Hey, let's hop on this workout together." And it becomes-

Lex Fridman 1:12:46 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 1:12:47 ... a le- let's challenge each other to do something outrageous. Um, sometimes that can be fun though. I went up to Cam Hanes' gym and he does these very high repetition weight workouts that are in circuit form. I, I was sore for two weeks, but, um, I learned a lot.And didn't get injured, and, um, and yes, we ate bow-hunted elk afterwards.

Lex Fridman 1:13:05 Nice.

Andrew Huberman 1:13:06 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:13:06 But the- the- the injury has been a really difficult psychological thing for me 'cause, um ... So I've injured my, uh, my finger, pinky finger. Injured my knee.

Andrew Huberman 1:13:16 Yeah, your kitchen is filled with splints.

Lex Fridman 1:13:18 Splints. I'm trying to figure, I'm trying to figure out ... (laughs) I'm trying to-

Andrew Huberman 1:13:24 It's like, if you look in Lex's kitchen, there's- there's some really good snacks. I had some right before. Um, he's very good about keeping cold drinks in the fridge. Um, and all the water has LMNT in it, which is great.

Lex Fridman 1:13:35 Yeah, yeah.

Andrew Huberman 1:13:35 I love that. Um, but then there- there's a whole, like, hospital's worth of splints.

Lex Fridman 1:13:41 Yeah, I'm trying. I'm trying to figure out ... So here's the thing. You, uh ... My finger will, like, pop out like this, right? Uh, pinky finger. I'm trying to figure out how do I splint it in such a way that I can still program, still play guitar, but protect this kind of torque motion that creates a huge amount of pain. And so-

Andrew Huberman 1:13:58 That's ... You have a jujitsu injury.

Lex Fridman 1:13:59 Jujitsu. But it's, uh, it's not the kind of ... It's probably more like a skateboarding-style injury, which is, uh, it's unexpected in a silly-

Andrew Huberman 1:14:09 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:14:09 ... in- in a silly thing.

Andrew Huberman 1:14:10 It's the thing that happens in a second. I didn't break my foot doing anything important.

Lex Fridman 1:14:13 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 1:14:13 I broke my fifth metatarsal stepping off a curb.

Lex Fridman 1:14:18 Yep.

Andrew Huberman 1:14:19 So you- it's- that's why they're called accidents, you know? If you get hurt doing something awesome, that's a trophy-

Lex Fridman 1:14:26 Yeah.

Andrew Huberman 1:14:27 ... that you have to work through. It's part of your payment to the universe.

Lex Fridman 1:14:31 (laughs)

Andrew Huberman 1:14:31 If you get hurt stepping (laughs) off a curb or, you know, doing something stupid, it's called a stupid accident.

Lex Fridman 1:14:39 Since we brought up Chimp Empire, let me ask you about relationships. I think we've talked about relationships.

Andrew Huberman 1:14:44 Yeah, I only date homo sapiens.

Lex Fridman 1:14:46 Homo sapien ... (laughs) Uh, the-

Andrew Huberman 1:14:48 It's a morning meditation.

Lex Fridman 1:14:49 The night is still young. You are human. No, but you are also animal.

Andrew Huberman 1:14:53 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 1:14:54 Don't sell yourself short.

Andrew Huberman 1:14:55 No. I always say, listen, any discussion on the Human Lab podcast about sexual health or anything will always be ... The- the- the critical four is consensual, age-appropriate, context-appropriate, species-appropriate.

Lex Fridman 1:15:06 Species-appropriate. Well, can I just tell you about sexual selection? Um, I've been watching Life in Color with David Attenborough. There's a lot ... I've been watching a lot of nature documentaries. Talking about inner peace, it brings me so much peace to watch nature at its worst and at its best. So Life in Color is this series on Netflix where it, uh, presents some of the most colorful animals on earth and kind of tells their story of how they got there through natural selection. So, you know, you have the peacock with the feathers, and it's just s- such incredible colors. Like, the- the peacock has these, uh, tail feathers, uh, the male, that are like gigantic, and they're super colorful. And there are these eyes on- on it. It's not eyes, it's like eye-like areas, and- and they wiggle their ass, like, to show the tails. They wiggle the tails.

Andrew Huberman 1:15:55 The eye spots, they're called.

Lex Fridman 1:15:56 The eye spots, yes. Thank you. You know this probably way better than me. I- I'm just quoting it from David Attenborough.

Andrew Huberman 1:16:00 No, no, no, please continue.

Lex Fridman 1:16:01 But it was ... It- it's just I'm watching this, and then the female is as boring-looking as pos- ... Like, she has no colors or nothing, but she's standing there bored just seeing this entire display. And I'm just wondering, like, the entirety of life on earth ... Well, not the entirety. Post-bacteria. Is like, in- at least in part, maybe in large part, can be described through this process of natural selection, of sexual selection. So dudes fighting-

Andrew Huberman 1:16:32 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:16:33 ... and then women selecting. It seems like it's just ... The- the entirety of that series shows some incredible birds and insects and shrimp. They're all beautiful and colorful and just-

Andrew Huberman 1:16:46 Manta shrimp.

Lex Fridman 1:16:46 Manta shrimp. They're just, they're incredible.

Andrew Huberman 1:16:49 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 1:16:50 And it's all about getting laid. It's fascinating. Like, I- I just, um ... And there's nothing like watching that and Chimp Empire to make you realize we humans, that's the same thing.

Andrew Huberman 1:17:02 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 1:17:03 That's all we're doing.

Andrew Huberman 1:17:04 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 1:17:04 And all the beautiful variety, all the bridges, and the buildings, and the rockets, and the internet. All of that is this kind ... Is- is at least in part this kind of a- a product of this kind of showing off for each other. And all the wars, and all this. Anyway, uh, I'm not-

Andrew Huberman 1:17:21 Well, there's a-

Lex Fridman 1:17:22 What I'm asking ... Oh, relationships. Yes.

Andrew Huberman 1:17:23 Well, right. Um, before you ask about relationship, I think what's, um, clear is that every species, it seems, animal species, wants to make more of itself and