How to Reclaim Your Brain in 2026 - Dr Andrew Huberman (4K)

1. 0:00 – 9:22

   How Cortisol Programs Our Day

   1. CWChris Williamson0:00

      Most people think about cortisol as a bad thing that you want less of. Is that the right way to think about it?

   2. AHDr. Andrew Huberman0:07

      Not at all. Cortisol has been labeled a stress hormone, and it is involved in stress. When you have a bout of stress, you get a spike of cortisol, so to speak. Um, cortisol, like other steroid hormones, is bound to things, and there's a f- a free form of cortisol, that's the active one. Um, you don't want your free unbound cortisol to be chronically high. But we need to really think about why it was called a stress hormone in the first place, and the main reason is cortisol's job is to deploy energy sources for your brain and body, to be able to react to things, think, and move. So cortisol naturally goes up a bit during stress, and it comes back again, provided you don't ruminate on that stress too much, on the stressor that is. The big eye-opener for me was when I actually went into the modern textbooks on cortisol. Not the ones that most medical students learn from, but what the endocrinologists, the specialists really learn from, and what the circadian and sleep biologists now understand, which is the reason you wake up every single morning, even if you have an alarm clock, is because of something called the cortisol awakening response. So if we just step back from a, a typical, healthy 24 hours, it looks something like this. Uh, a couple of hours before sleep, your cortisol is low. Your heart rate's low, you're calm, hopefully it's dim in the room, you go to sleep. Your cortisol is then at its absolute lowest levels for the entire 24 hours, and by the way, this is the same time when melatonin, the sleepy hormone, is at its highest levels. After about four, five hours of sleep, and typically in that first four, five hours of sleep is when you get your most deep sleep, slow wave sleep, non-REM sleep, many people experience a transition into the s- sort of last third of their sleep for the night, and they tend to wake up around that time, and often they use the restroom, go back to sleep. Why do they wake up? Well, it turns out that your cortisol is starting to rise about two thirds of the way through the night. I mean, it's really creeping up throughout the entire night, but it's gone from this nadir to it's starting to climb, and then at some point, let's assume you get back to sleep or you slept through the night, at some point, maybe 6:00 AM, maybe 8:00 AM, depends on who you are and what your schedule is, you wake up. Maybe your alarm clock goes off. You wake up. You wake up because the cortisol level reached a certain threshold. It is literally the cortisol awakening response. It is healthy, it is good, and you're, if I were to measure your cortisol at that moment, and compare it to what nor- people might call, like, a stress episode in the afternoon, you would say it's much higher than what stress induced. Okay, so then your cortisol continues to rise, and there's this unique opportunity in the first hour, maybe 90 minutes, but in the first hour after waking where viewing bright light can increase your morning cortisol spike, as I'll refer to it, by up to 50%. Bright light can come from sunlight, ideally, or from a bright artificial light like a 10,000 lux artificial light, or even a very bright indoor artificial LED or incandescent light. Okay, why is this important? Well, we could explore all the biology of cortisol and we can summarize it by saying you have this hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis that sets off cortisol, self-regulates, negative feedback loop, et cetera, et cetera. That's the normal regulation of cortisol, which basically can be summarized as it never allows you to have your cortisol too high for too long. It feeds back on itself and shuts it down. However, in the first hour after waking, your brain's circadian clock has a unique privileged pathway that is separate from the HPA axis where it can amplify cortisol only in that first hour. So you say, "Why would that be?" This is nature's evolutionarily hardwired mechanism for giving you the opportunity to boost your cortisol so that you have energy to lean into the activities of your day. When I say energy, I'm not saying l- you know, it's not like w- happen to be in California at the moment, but not energy-energy. I'm talking about glucose mobilization. If you're on a low carbohydrate diet, you're gonna, you're gonna mobilize other energy sources. Your brain and body wakes up because of cortisol. You have the opportunity to boost that wakefulness even further by viewing bright light. Yes, you could exercise, yes, you could drink caffeine. Turns out caffeine, if you're a chronic caffeine user, such as me, such as you, doesn't actually increase cortisol that much. You could jump in a 40 degree Fahrenheit cold plunge, doesn't actually increase your cortisol. All this n- nonsense going around the internet about, oh, you know, women shouldn't do a cold plunge and if they do, not as cold, okay, maybe, but it's always attributed to increases in cortisol. Cold plunge reduces your cortisol levels. You can look at the data. The data show that it goes down. Adrenaline goes up, dopamine goes up, norepinephrine go up. So cortisol makes you alert, it makes you focus, and here's the key thing. Spiking your cortisol in that first hour after waking is so, so important, because that negative feedback loop mechanism kicks in about three hours after you've been awake, and that's why your cortisol then starts to drop late morning, early afternoon, later afternoon, and in the afternoon, if you have a bout of stress, no problem. You just have a little bit of cortisol bump, adrenaline bump, and it goes back down. If you don't spike your morning cortisol, what ends up happening is your cortisol system, essentially the HPA axis, is primed for stress events to give you big lasting increases in cortisol later which make it hard to fall asleep, which make it hard to stay asleep, which are part of the reason why people have afternoon anxiety-

   3. CWChris Williamson5:35

      Mm-hmm.

   4. AHDr. Andrew Huberman5:36

      ... all sorts of things. So you're, you're actually supposed to feel a little stressed first thing in the morning. This is normal, this is healthy, and it sets you up for being more calm in the afternoon. Now, none of this is tied to whether or not you wake up at 8:00 AM, 6:00 AM, 4:00 AM, or 11:00 AM. This is not about chronotype. This is simply about the first hour after waking, but after about 90 minutes post-waking, that opportunity to spike your cortisol goes away.So if you can't view bright light in the form of sunlight, get it from artificial light. You would do well to compound that with hydration, which, by the way, for reasons that still aren't entirely understood, probably has to do with some electrolyte balance, etc., first thing in the day, will also bur- burst your cortisol. If you can't get in exercise right away, even just some skipping rope, jumping jacks, this kind of thing, getting the body into a high-cortisol state early sets you up for being in a low-cortisol state in the afternoon and evening. And any cortisol that you might trigger through a stress event will quickly subside, unless you, what's called, flatten your cortisol curve by not spiking in the morning.

   5. CWChris Williamson6:35

      Mm-hmm.

   6. AHDr. Andrew Huberman6:36

      And, and by the way, the, the curve that I'm resp- uh, describing, high in the morning, lower into the afternoon, low, low, low as you get into the first hours of sleep, this is the healthy cortisol curve for men, women, kids, pregnant women. Postmenopausal women, it tends to flatten out a bit, and they need to do additional things to s- to get that spike earlier. So this is when I hear all this stuff about, "Don't cold plunge. It increases cort-" It doesn't increase cortisol. And also, this notion that we're supposed to avoid stress entirely, not true. You and I both generally agree on that. But how you time your stress is important. And the last point I'll make is that if you were to do, uh, say, an, a very intense workout in the late afternoon, evening, it's been demonstrated that will triple or quadruple your baseline cortisol levels for a few hours. Not a problem. You can take a hot shower afterwards, do some slow breathing and calm down, provided you didn't, you know, fill up with caffeine prior, you could probably fall asleep just fine. But because you spiked your cortisol late-day, what you find is that the next day cortisol is lower, which is one of the, not o- the only reason, but one of the reasons why you're a bit more sluggish the next morning.

   7. CWChris Williamson7:38

      Mm.

   8. AHDr. Andrew Huberman7:39

      So, so, and this is why people's, if they exercise too late in the day, their rhythm starts to shift. When we talk about your circadian rhythm shifting in response to light, it's the cortisol peak that's shifting or flattening, which in turn adjusts your melatonin peak and trough. So here's to the-

   9. CWChris Williamson7:56

      But cortisol is the, the trigger?

   10. AHDr. Andrew Huberman7:58

       C- cortisol, think of it like the f- think about this morning cortisol spike as the first domino in establishing essentially all the rhythms that you're interested in, if you want daytime mood focus, alertness, nighttime sleep. And so, these are things I've talked about for years, and that we've talked about for years, but only recently has it become clear exactly why cortisol is that first domino in the chain.

   11. CWChris Williamson8:17

       Mm.

   12. AHDr. Andrew Huberman8:18

       And we hear so often about dopamine, epinephrine, norepinephrine, all of which are important, all downstream of, of cortisol. So chronically high cortisol, Cushing's Disease, the things that give people moon face, that cause memory deficits, all these sorts of things, that's when the cortisol curve is too flat for too long, meaning too high in the afternoon and evening. But there is... I won't say there's no upper limit to how high cortisol can be in the morning. There are people who have pathologically high levels of cortisol in the first hours of the day. Most people, even people with Cushing's, have pathologically low cortisol early in the day, pathologically high cortisol late in the day.

   13. CWChris Williamson8:52

       They've inverted that.

   14. AHDr. Andrew Huberman8:52

       That's right. And getting this curve right is so critical. It predicts longevity. It predicts recovery from everything from chemotherapy to pain relief. Uh, you know, it's one of the things that I'm, uh, you seem to be doing all the right things, plus these sort of ou-outrageous, uh, outrageously, um, ambitious health protocols as well. Although, I will commend you, if you're gonna clean anything, including your blood, I do suggest doing it in Austria or Switzerland, because those are very clean countries.

   15. CWChris Williamson9:18

       Wonderful place to go and, uh-

   16. AHDr. Andrew Huberman9:19

       Well, they're very clean countries. Yeah.

   17. CWChris Williamson9:21

       Uh,

2. 9:22 – 14:16

   Understanding Stress & Burnout

   1. CWChris Williamson9:22

      what about the relationship between cortisol and burnout? Uh, you know, you talked about sustained chronically elevated cortisol.

   2. AHDr. Andrew Huberman9:29

      Mm-hmm.

   3. CWChris Williamson9:30

      But I've also heard you talk about, uh, burnout is basically being wrongly timed cortisol over time.

   4. AHDr. Andrew Huberman9:35

      That's right.

   5. CWChris Williamson9:36

      And stretched out. What, what have you come to learn about handling burnout? Somebody feels that sense of, "I feel like I'm sort of close to that." What's going on and, and how can they try to intervene in that?

   6. AHDr. Andrew Huberman9:48

      So there seem to be two general forms of burnout. One is the, "I'm exhausted in the morning, and I just can't get into gear," and then it's like caffeine, caffeine, caffeine, exhausted at to- And then late day, "Okay, finally, you know, the w- I caught the wave front, and then I'm having trouble sleeping," and then the whole thing repeats.

   7. CWChris Williamson10:05

      Wired but tired.

   8. AHDr. Andrew Huberman10:06

      Wired but tired. The other form of burnout is where people just, it's like their cortisol is like a square wave function. It's just up in the morning and-

   9. CWChris Williamson10:14

      (laughs)

   10. AHDr. Andrew Huberman10:14

       ... all day long. I, it's sort of how I would describe my graduate school years, probably undergraduate, graduate school years, postdoc. I h- I think I hit a wall during my postdoc years that was, you know, tw- uh, that would be, uh, you know, 30 or 35. And then at some point, you realize you just can't keep this going. And I think most entrepreneurs feel that way. At some point, you're just like, "I g- I can't do this." I mean, even the, the David Goggins' and the, uh, Cam Hanes', they, they s- they do sleep, right? They get sleep eventually. So I think the main way to think about burnout and exhaustion is to ask oneself, "Okay, if I had total control, when would I naturally wake up? When would I naturally go to sleep? Like, what would be my preferred times to do that?" And then whatever your wake-up time is, to really treat that first three to six hours of your day as go time, and to do the things, bright light, hydration, exercise, caffeine, etc., that really push you into the day. But then really essentially doing all the opposite things that you do in the morning in the last, ideally four, but most people won't do that, last two hours of your day. Dim the lights. Caffeine, forget it. You should've halted that probably eight hours before sleep. Um, limit your hydration, right? Unless you're dehydrated, limit your hydration. Um, you know, long exhale breathing, anything that can bring your cortisol levels down and bring your melatonin levels up, which is why we, we're so bullish or, about dimming the lights later in the day. And, you know, we were talking about the red lens glasses to block out short wavelength light, which, by the way, a lot of people, um, have said, "Well, you know, the study is showing that screen light disrupts sleep." Very variable between people. People have different levels of retinal sensitivity, so how, how much screen light will disrupt their sleep. But it's not just about sleep. There's a beautiful study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that showed that people who sleep in a room with an overhead light of 100 lux, which is extremely dim, show abnormally elevated morning glucose levels. Makes perfect sense. Cortisol mobilizes glucose, and this is through closed eyelids, okay? So you have to get the light down to maybe one to three lux. And you say, "One to three lux," like, uh, it's basically...... dark, dark, dark. A- a candlelight very- is very low. A bright full moon, where you say, "Oh, it's so bright out," is actually only about one to five lux. So we think of these sources as very bright, but nature set us up to have bright mornings and dim, dark nights. And some people will say, "Well, there's no light where I live." You know, like listen, you don't need to see the sun as a d- as a delineated object. If you compare how bright it is, let's just say even in the dead of winter in the UK at 9:00 AM, walking, uh, uh, in a place with no artificial lighting outside, no street lamps, versus midnight the night before in the same location, you'd say you can navigate in the one case without any artificial lighting, without a what we call flashlight, you call a torch, but in any case. The- the idea is that there's- there are a lot of photons coming through, and you want all of that early in the day, and you just wanna do the inverse in the last part of the day. So I think to avoid overwhelming people, because people have so much to do and think about, get the first hour of your day right, get the last hour of your day right, and you'll greatly improve this morning cortisol peak, late day cortisol reduction, which is what you want.

   11. CWChris Williamson13:23

       Mm-hmm.

   12. AHDr. Andrew Huberman13:23

       And you'll get your natural clearing out of any melatonin that happens to be in your system, because bright light quashes melatonin through a different pathway, but that also originates with the eyes, goes through the suprachiasmatic nucleus and a couple other relays, to your pineal, shuts down melatonin production. And then late in the day, you just make it dimmer, darker, darker, darker, and you bring up your melatonin, you bring down your cortisol. But if you think about what's happened with screens, the- it's stimulating... I think late last night, I made the mistake of- I watched a s- extended 60 Minutes interview. I actually fell asleep to it.

   13. CWChris Williamson13:54

       Is it the Petra Atia one?

   14. AHDr. Andrew Huberman13:55

       No, it was the Trump one.

   15. CWChris Williamson13:56

       Okay.

   16. AHDr. Andrew Huberman13:57

       I was curious. I hadn't heard an interview with him for a long time and it was- and it was sort of combative, uh, uh, but there- it was an interesting one and I was, um, curious to see how that would go, and, um, I fell asleep in about the last 15 minutes. But that- I wouldn't recommend doing that. Normally, it would be screens off in the last hour. I just-

   17. CWChris Williamson14:13

       Mm-hmm.

   18. AHDr. Andrew Huberman14:13

       ... you know, I got a- I got a little loose with my protocols.

3. 14:16 – 21:47

   The Silent Cost of Sleep Debt

   1. CWChris Williamson14:16

      Yeah. We've been... I- I've seen you talking about daylight savings, time changes, and stuff like that. This has been nearly a decade now since, uh, Matthew Walker was first on Rogan. I think it was nearly- almost 10 years ago.

   2. AHDr. Andrew Huberman14:28

      Mm-hmm.

   3. CWChris Williamson14:28

      And I was still a club promoter at the time. And up until then, I just assumed that sleep was- it's just like this thing that got in the way of me working. It was just this bullshit. There was- and honestly-

   4. AHDr. Andrew Huberman14:37

      Well, in your 20s, that's kind of true.

   5. CWChris Williamson14:38

      You're made of rubber and magic, dude. You know what I mean? Caffeine and big dreams and Sellotape and cable ties. You're just fucking, like, strung together with this stuff. Anyway, uh, h- h- he came on and d- basically did the Scare Them Straight equivalent. Did you ever have that in school, Scare Them Straight?

   6. AHDr. Andrew Huberman14:53

      No.

   7. CWChris Williamson14:54

      So they bring a- a prison officer in and he tells you about how horrible life is in prison and all of the horror stories that-

   8. AHDr. Andrew Huberman14:59

      What- how old are you when you-

   9. CWChris Williamson15:01

      Like, 12, 13.

   10. AHDr. Andrew Huberman15:02

       Oh yeah, that must be scary.

   11. CWChris Williamson15:02

       And, uh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

   12. AHDr. Andrew Huberman15:04

       Yeah.

   13. CWChris Williamson15:04

       And he's saying, you know, they put boiling water into, um, a cup and mix loads of sugar in it and it's syrup and they throw it on people and then they have batteries and they put them in socks, and I remember he hit this sock filled with batteries down on the table and it made me jump. And I was like, "Fuck, like, I really don't wanna go to..." It honestly worked. It- for me, my particular psychological makeup, that thing abso- I don't- I don't think I was the sort of person that was probably gonna go to jail anyway. Um, but yeah, uh, I learn sleep is, okay, really, really important. You've been talking about daylight savings. The more that I learn about it, the effects of sleep deprivation are just terrifying. Like, it's just everything gets broken.

   14. AHDr. Andrew Huberman15:43

       Yeah. I mean, sleep is the ultimate reset. We could talk about some of the newer data that point to exactly why. I will say, just, you know, for, uh, people's peace of mind, if you don't spike your cortisol for a couple days in a row, you get one poor night's sleep for a couple days in a row, you're gonna be fine. The- the human body and brain evolved under conditions that were extreme, right? New parents will tell you how difficult sleep can be. I mean, you can pull it off. The- the thing that we call chronic stress is frankly when that cortisol curve gets disrupted in any number of ways, but typically it's late day cortisol spikes that don't come back down afterwards for three, four, or five days in a row. Your hippocampus, this memory center in the brain, is chock-a-block full of cortisol receptors. And cortisol, unlike adrenaline, can pass through the blood-brain barrier. All right? So it- it has a number of docking sites that allow it to engage the memory system, you know, when stress will engage your memory system.

   15. CWChris Williamson16:39

       Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

   16. AHDr. Andrew Huberman16:39

       But that over time will start to deteriorate these structures. So if somebody hasn't been sleeping well, you know, I'm not just saying this to make them feel better. You don't wanna send them into a panic.

   17. CWChris Williamson16:48

       Mm-hmm.

   18. AHDr. Andrew Huberman16:48

       Um, and all of these systems can be recovered. Uh, you know, when Matt went on Rogan, I think it was an important, like truly important milestone.

   19. CWChris Williamson16:57

       It was fucking s- I- I'll say-

   20. AHDr. Andrew Huberman16:58

       Yeah.

   21. CWChris Williamson16:59

       ... it was seminal.

   22. AHDr. Andrew Huberman16:59

       Yeah.

   23. CWChris Williamson16:59

       Like, he has saved... That one episode has probably saved thousands of years, if not hundreds of thousands of years, of combined human life.

   24. AHDr. Andrew Huberman17:08

       Yeah. Oh, I agree. I mean, I think that the, um, the challenge, and I think that Matt would say this, I'm sort of borrowing his words, is that he sufficiently scared everybody. There were fewer things to offer to do to promote good sleep at that time.

   25. CWChris Williamson17:23

       Mm-hmm.

   26. AHDr. Andrew Huberman17:23

       And there were more of a lot of like, "Here's what happens if you don't sleep."

   27. CWChris Williamson17:26

       Mm-hmm. Yeah.

   28. AHDr. Andrew Huberman17:27

       And it-

   29. CWChris Williamson17:27

       The- the stress of trying to be perfect will kill you more quickly than your imperfections, that like more-

   30. AHDr. Andrew Huberman17:31

       Yeah.
4. 21:47 – 36:19

   Breakthrough Secrets for Better Sleep

   1. CWChris Williamson21:47

      What would you say to people who are struggling to fall asleep? Though maybe they've done most of the things sort of through the day that you're supposed to. They're not taking caffeine too late at night. They're maybe having a hot shower. The room's cool. It's quiet. It's dark. They've seen some morning sunlight. But calming down a racing mind at night is a challenge that I think a lot of hard-chargers will deal with.

   2. AHDr. Andrew Huberman22:10

      Mm-hmm.

   3. CWChris Williamson22:12

      What are some strategies for slowing that down?

   4. AHDr. Andrew Huberman22:16

      Yeah. Well, one thing that I think is really important is that if somebody's very health conscious and a hard charger, they're, they're very likely eating pretty clean. And one of the challenges for many people, not all, uh, to falling asleep is that their starchy carbohydrate intake is just not high enough. You know, if you, if you go on a very low starch diet, like let's say you just go, you know, meat, fruit, vegetables or you go pure keto, um, you'll have a lot more energy. Some people who follow that kind of regimen can sleep well. Some people, like myself, find that unless I have some rice or oatmeal at some point during the day, especially if I'm doing resistance training, it's actually very hard to fall and stay deeply asleep. And if I just add, you know, I guess you call it porridge, we call it oatmeal, um, but you have a, a s- a small amount of starch in the form of whatever starch is fine for you. I, I eat starches. I realize this is heretical in the, in the, in the health and wellness space. But, um, you know, I'll have some rice or some homemade pasta or some sourdough bread or, you know, or oatmeal or something. If you're having trouble falling asleep, take a look at how much starch you're having. I don't recommend gorging yourself with starch late in the day, but having some starchy carbohydrates in your final meal, which probably comes what, two, three hours before sleep or something like that, can certainly help a number of people fall and stay asleep. I've heard-

   5. CWChris Williamson23:34

      I c-

   6. AHDr. Andrew Huberman23:34

      ... that many times.

   7. CWChris Williamson23:35

      I certainly know I did meat and fruit as a part of trying to fix my health because, uh, brain inflammation was really high. I was getting a lot of brain fog, memory loss. One of the things that I found that could counteract that a little bit was going very, very low carb.

   8. AHDr. Andrew Huberman23:51

      Mm-hmm.

   9. CWChris Williamson23:51

      But that also impacted my sleep. And I felt wired but tired, very adrenaline-y-

   10. AHDr. Andrew Huberman23:56

       Yeah.

   11. CWChris Williamson23:56

       ... all the time.

   12. AHDr. Andrew Huberman23:56

       Sure.

   13. CWChris Williamson23:57

       Just like, "Eh," like sort of always on, as if I'd... And then my caffeine was limited as well, 'cause I was trying to limit stimulants, and I always felt on edge.

   14. AHDr. Andrew Huberman24:03

       Yeah.

   15. CWChris Williamson24:03

       Sort of ambient anxiety thing. And it impacted... My sleep fragmentation was fucking horrendous. I'm like, "Well, can I have a rice cake or like two rice cakes bef- uh, about an hour before I go to bed to try and sort of kick me into this a little bit?" I don't know, experimented with a bunch of that. But yeah, it's, uh, if you are carnivore, meat and fruits, keto, um, I wonder what the net effect is when you account for what's happening to sleep. And I'm sure that many people can sleep well on low carb of different-

   16. AHDr. Andrew Huberman24:36

       Mm-hmm.

   17. CWChris Williamson24:36

       ... stripes. But-... I, I for one couldn't.

   18. AHDr. Andrew Huberman24:41

       Mm-hmm.

   19. CWChris Williamson24:42

       And then I'm, like, having to weigh this up, like, how m- how many, how much carbs can I have before brain inflammation makes me feel a little bit more sluggish and more tired, and, but I need to have some in order to make me... So that was a-

   20. AHDr. Andrew Huberman24:53

       Yeah, it becomes a little bit of a, of a devil's dance. I mean, if we return to our discussion about cortisol from earlier, cortisol's job is to deploy energy into the body, and for the brain under conditions of stress or just getting up in the morning. I mean, the transition from sleep to awake is a massive state shift. It's a normal healthy one, but it's a massive state shift in terms of mobilization requirements, and thought requirements, and just the ability to linearalize your, your thought, which is nerd speak for the ability to think not dream, right? Or be-

   21. CWChris Williamson25:22

       Mm-hmm.

   22. AHDr. Andrew Huberman25:22

       ... unconscious essentially. So when you have low circulating glucose or energy stores, cortisol's job is to mobilize glucose. So when you're on a low carbohydrate diet, your baseline cortisol is a little bit higher. This actually has been examined, okay? So here's the deal. If you're on a low carbohydrate diet for a period of time, I think in this case it was three weeks or more, your cortisol curve, that high in the morning, low in the afternoon and evening, kind of normalizes a bit. It's still a little bit higher at every point than it normally would be. But if you suddenly switch from eating carbohydrates... Uh, when I say carbohydrates, I mean starchy carbohydrates, okay? Let, let's leave aside sugar and fructose and et cetera. And that, which of course is a form of sugar. But if you shift from a sort of standard macro nutrient distribution of, you know, 40/30/30 or whatever it is, where you're eating starches, to a low carbohydrate diet, your cortisol levels go up.

   23. CWChris Williamson26:16

       Mm-hmm.

   24. AHDr. Andrew Huberman26:17

       Significantly. This has been explored. Over time, they normalize. So, the, I think the important thing for people to remember is when we talk about comfort foods, people have taken that w- that phrase to mean junk foods, pizza, ice cream. Uh-uh, those aren't the comfort foods that were originally described as comfort foods. The comfort foods that were coined comfort foods are starchy, warm foods which, guess what? Suppress cortisol. Because when those foods are available, your, your brain and essentially your adrenals know that you don't have to mobilize from stored sources. It's already circulating. So it makes perfect sense. So, I mean, this is just one kind of, uh, y- you asked for, like, what people could do.

   25. CWChris Williamson26:55

       Yeah. Struggling to fall asleep.

   26. AHDr. Andrew Huberman26:55

       I say take, take a look at your nutrition.

   27. CWChris Williamson26:58

       Starch.

   28. AHDr. Andrew Huberman26:58

       Are you exercising too late in the day? Can you move that to the morning? Can you r- You never want to tell people, "Reduce the intensity," because frankly, you know, as Dorian Yates has been saying so beautifully, late, uh, lately, like, reps in reserve are results in reserve. You know, we could talk about that. Uh, um, but, you know, I think most people are probably not pushing hard enough. But some people are just pushing way too hard in the gym, way too late, and then their cortisol levels are elevated. Makes perfect sense why you couldn't sleep. So I would say look at, look at your diet and make sure you're getting enough starches at some point throughout the day. Maybe even taking in a few starches in the couple of hours before sleep, and just see how your sleep does. There's some interesting data, although you, people should talk to their doctor about taking very low dose, one milligram lithium, uh, I think it's the orotate form, um, in order to encourage the ability to fall asleep and get more deep sleep.

   29. CWChris Williamson27:44

       Oh.

   30. AHDr. Andrew Huberman27:44

       But of course we're talking about lithium here, so people need to definitely talk to your doctor. Um, there's some other things too. You know, uh, look at y- your lighting environment, of course. But I think for a lot of people, the major issue with falling asleep is that they can't forget about the position of their body. And this is where the data becomes super interesting. There are some technologies that are being spun up right now, some of which I've had the opportunity to dabble with. Um, and I have no financial relationship to, but I, I sure wish I did, because it is so cool. Imagine a sleep mask that could put you to sleep.
5. 36:19 – 51:44

   Should We Sleep With Our Head Raised?

   1. CWChris Williamson36:19

      Talk to me about this, uh, raised head for glymphatic clearance thing, 'cause I've, if you, if anyone's got an Eight Sleep with the mattress raising functionality, one of the things it does for sleep is it actually raises your head a little bit. Is that-

   2. AHDr. Andrew Huberman36:34

      Mm-hmm. That's good.

   3. CWChris Williamson36:35

      ... related to what we're talking about here? You want head above feet, h- head above heart?

   4. AHDr. Andrew Huberman36:38

      You know, I think they designed that for, um, for snoring, but it has other, other benefits. So, um, without doing an entire lecture on the lymphatic system, 'cause we did a solo on that recently on my podcast, I mean, I'll just say, the lymphatic system is amazing. It's amazing, and I, I liken it to the microbiome, where 10 years ago, 15 years ago, if you talked about the microbiome, people were like, "Ah, that's just crazy, like fermented low-sugar foods," like this is like health food lunacy. Now, I mean, there-... probably, uh, close to, you know, maybe $500 million or a billion dollars even in federal grants, certainly in the US and around the world, looking at the microbiome. It's important for everything. Mental health, physical health, we just know this, right? The gut is so important. The lymphatic system, I think, is gonna follow a similar trajectory. And all the stuff that we hear about rebounding, you know, bouncing on a trampoline or skipping rope, and all of that stuff turns out to be absolutely true. Or lymphatic massage, which is essentially a way of clearing the-

   5. CWChris Williamson37:30

      I love lymphatic massage.

   6. AHDr. Andrew Huberman37:31

      You know, it's interesting 'cause, uh, lymphatic massage, uh, for those that are accustomed to deep tissue massage-

   7. CWChris Williamson37:36

      Feels like nothing. (laughs)

   8. AHDr. Andrew Huberman37:36

      ... it feels like nothing, but the lymphatic-

   9. CWChris Williamson37:38

      It's this.

   10. AHDr. Andrew Huberman37:38

       ... the lymphatic vessels run so superficially that if you press on them too hard, you actually sh- you- you- you cinch them off.

   11. CWChris Williamson37:44

       It feels like you're being stroked by somebody.

   12. AHDr. Andrew Huberman37:46

       Yeah.

   13. CWChris Williamson37:46

       It's very funny.

   14. AHDr. Andrew Huberman37:47

       So I think they talk about a light brushing, and then that, you know, maybe a little bit more motion. There are deeper lymphatic vessels that can take more pressure, but people who are trained to do this, do it right. And there's some tutorials online that... There's a- a gr- a great account, I don't know the guy, but he was referred to me by, uh, Kelly Starrett, tells me the- the, um, Stop Chasing Pain guy. He has this Big 6. Uh, I don't wanna describe them here 'cause I'll get them wrong, but he has-

   15. CWChris Williamson38:07

       Mm-hmm.

   16. AHDr. Andrew Huberman38:07

       ... a number of videos on Instagram and YouTube. The Big 6-

   17. CWChris Williamson38:10

       Yeah.

   18. AHDr. Andrew Huberman38:10

       ... describes ways that you can encourage lymphatic massage. I always thought that the- the tapping here was kinda silly. It's actually because the- the lymphatic ducts drain back into the, um... Essentially dump all the lymph that's been surveilled by your immune system, et cetera, uh, back into the- the vascular system just below your clavicles.

   19. CWChris Williamson38:25

       Oh, funny.

   20. AHDr. Andrew Huberman38:25

       And as... Another point, then we'll get to glymphatic clearance, um, I gave a- a shout-out to someone I've never met, don't have any association with, um, you know, business-wise or anything. This Anastasia Beauty Fascia is this woman, I think, of Middle Eastern... Uh, s- uh, excuse me. Uh, is this woman of, uh, Eastern European, um, uh, she's certainly not Middle Eastern, uh, uh, appearing, of Eastern European, um, origin, talking about non-surgical, non-Botox, um, interventions for facial, um, augmentation.

   21. CWChris Williamson38:56

       Hmm.

   22. AHDr. Andrew Huberman38:56

       You know, for- for, you know, higher cheekbones and clearing away puffy un- puffiness underneath the eyes, for men and for women, but mostly, uh, what you see there are women. But what you find is that the before and afters that these people list off, and they insist that... I think they take an oath or something that they're not doing any injectables or surgeries, are striking. And it's lymphatic drainage from the face and from the scalp and from, uh, around the jaw. And you go, "This is..." I mean, it is unbelievable. Okay, so in any case, the glymphatic system is-

   23. CWChris Williamson39:26

       Is glymphatic lymphatic? Is it the same thing?

   24. AHDr. Andrew Huberman39:28

       So they're- they're analogous. So for many, many years, it was thought that there was no lympha- lymphatic system in the brain. It was thought that it was... Uh, uh, actually, for many years, we thought that the brain was immune-privileged. Turns out, that's not true. You have all sorts of immune genes and proteins in the brain. But it turns out, and this was discovered some years ago, 2012... It was actually discovered prior, but as science goes, it was kind of suppressed, and then it was finally discovered, that the... During sleep, in particular, deep sleep, uh, The story goes, the spaces around the vasculature of the brain get bigger, okay? You have these little cell types in the brain called astrocytes that are among the different types of glia, and they have these little, uh, end feet, and they literally push the brain tissue out and away from the arteries and vessels and capillaries, allowing more cerebral spinal fluid, which is circulating in your brain all day long, and collecting the waste from your cells... And mind you, there's a lot of waste from your brain cells, because your brain is the most metabolically active organ. And then that needs to get washed out, and it actually goes out, you know, the surface of your brain underneath what's called the meninges, and then it flows down and then, and then drains into the vascular system. If people can remember nothing else about lymphatic drainage, remember this. Muscular movement clears lymph in the body, okay? So you need to walk. Low-level muscular contraction, it, you know, it essentially moves the- the lymph up because it's fighting gravity. These are one-way valves. It brings it in from your limbs, and it essentially dumps it back, uh, eventually into the blood supply. Inactivity of the body is what drives glymphatic clearance in the brain. Now-

   25. CWChris Williamson41:02

       Hmm.

   26. AHDr. Andrew Huberman41:03

       ... the... And- and so it's when you're, uh, essentially immobilized, uh, during sleep that you get the maximum amount of glymphatic clearance. Sleeping on your side, right or left side, doesn't seem to matter, with the head slightly tilted does seem to be the preferable position. So all you back sleepers like me, you know? Some people, um-

   27. CWChris Williamson41:19

       You're a back sleeper?

   28. AHDr. Andrew Huberman41:20

       I have been a back sleeper.

   29. CWChris Williamson41:21

       With that neck?

   30. AHDr. Andrew Huberman41:22

       Huh? (laughs)
6. 51:44 – 1:08:08

   The #1 Hack for Deep Focus

   1. CWChris Williamson51:44

      I've been thinking about this a lot this year. What do we need to know about the neuroscience of making habit setting more easy? I imagine that there must be some really interesting...

   2. AHDr. Andrew Huberman51:55

      Oh, man. Uh, I just had James Clear on the podcast, and it's so interesting when you sit down with somebody who's like the habits guy, um, and you compare it against the neuroscience. And, and so there, there's sort of two ways into this. Um, you know, and James has done a magnificent job of explaining things that people can do to improve their habits and reduce bad habits. The reason I'm so bullish about people understanding a little bit of mechanism behind the, the checklist of things to do is that I do think that when people understand mechanism, it gives them flexibility over the so-called protocols, and I think it also allows them to customize those things for themselves. Let's face it, if you wanna go online now and just say, "What are the top 10 things I can do to improve my sleep?" And you get a list, you put those on your refrigerator, you put them next to your bed, why doesn't everyone ju- just do that?

   3. CWChris Williamson52:44

      Yep.

   4. AHDr. Andrew Huberman52:44

      It's because the, the way that people go about learning information strongly drives whether or not they apply that information.

   5. CWChris Williamson52:53

      Yep, yep.

   6. AHDr. Andrew Huberman52:53

      Okay, so in fairness to, to, to James and, and the incredible work that he's done, I'm gonna just kind of look at this a little bit through the lens of neuroscience. And I'm really glad that we're, we're talking about this because, um, one of the things that he said that I think is so, so true is that the thoughts, and by extension the emotions, but really the thoughts that you have right now, your ability to focus right now, is strongly driven by the inputs you received in the preceding hours and even days. So, one of the things that's really interesting about focus and attention, and a lot of our habits have to do with that. "I don't wanna procrastinate. I wanna do this." We can talk about exercise, but let's talk about cognitive stuff. It's very, very clear that if you have a hard time getting into a bout of work, or even, um, staying focused, there's a ch- there's a very good chance, I believe, that your breaks between work and what you were doing before work was too stimulating. I'm a big advocator for boring breaks, and I'm a big advocator for silence before and after bouts of work for a couple of reasons. Let's think about it on the back end. Let's say you're trying to learn something or read a book or just do something that you, you're not reflexively doing. You wanna create this habit. It's very clear that neuroplasticity, yes, requires alertness, requires focus. You need sleep later that night. I've been beating that drum for a number of years. It's also clear that reflection on what you are doing at some later time, just kind of, like, post-learning reflection. Walk into your car. Sitting on the plane for a second, thinking about a podcast you did earlier, or something you heard, or a discussion, strongly reinforces the memories and the ability to work with the memories of new information. And this is something that we've given up largely because of our smartphones. You're constantly bringing in new sensory information. All the data... I did an episode on how to best study and learn. I went to the data to find out, 'cause I have my methods, but that doesn't mean they're the best, best methods. Reading, re-reading, note taking, highlighting, it's all fine, but it turns out that-... biggest lever is to self-test at some point away from the material. So, testing is not just something for evaluation of others, it's a way that we should think. You know, yeah, how much can I remember about that conversation? What was tricky? Okay, I don't remember that piece. I'm gonna go back and look it up. All learning is, and this will sound like a giant duh, but all learning is anti-forgetting. How do we know this? Because if you have people read a passage one, two, three, four, five times versus one time and they self-test, one time and self-testing, significantly better.

   7. CWChris Williamson55:32

      You ever had Peter C. Brown on the show?

   8. AHDr. Andrew Huberman55:34

      No.

   9. CWChris Williamson55:34

      Author of Make It Stick?

   10. AHDr. Andrew Huberman55:36

       No. But I like the, the title.

   11. CWChris Williamson55:38

       You need to bring Peter on. Peter was episode, I would guess, like, 30-

   12. AHDr. Andrew Huberman55:43

       Mm-hmm.

   13. CWChris Williamson55:43

       ... on Modern Wisdom. You'll be 1,030. Um, and the best synopsis that I got from him, learning how to learn, was learning is repeated recall, not repeated exposure.

   14. AHDr. Andrew Huberman55:56

       Yes. G- beautiful. Right.

   15. CWChris Williamson55:59

       Fucking money.

   16. AHDr. Andrew Huberman55:59

       Exactly.

   17. CWChris Williamson56:00

       And that's, that's the- (laughs)

   18. AHDr. Andrew Huberman56:01

       Exactly. And, and this is-

   19. CWChris Williamson56:02

       That's the Ebbinghaus forgetting curve.

   20. AHDr. Andrew Huberman56:03

       Yeah.

   21. CWChris Williamson56:03

       That's the da-da-da-da-da-da-

   22. AHDr. Andrew Huberman56:04

       Yeah. Guys like him, guys like James Clear, like, th- they have a real un- like, when I say unconscious genius, I mean clearly they put thought into, uh, and structure into what they teach. But the neuroscience supports everything you just said, which is what he just said. And, uh, reflecting on what you were trying to do or learn or solve, even if you don't remember, even if you're still puzzled by it, is so vitally important to the anti-forgetting process. Okay, now in terms of actually being able to focus, actually being able to do work, it's so clear that thoughts, uh, and this is the beautiful statements and work of a woman named Jenny Groh, who's spelled G-R-O-H, at Duke University, who's a neuroscientist who's been studying sensory, sensory integration for a long time. You know, I, I've long thought about, and I think we now understand as a field what sensations are. So, sensations are the physical stimuli in the environment, photons of light, mechanical pressure, odorant, uh, volatile odorants in the environment that lead to, you know, sight, touch, smell, et cetera. How that gets converted into chemical and electrical signals in the brain, we understand as a field. We understand sensation. We understand perception. Perception is which of those sensations you happen to be paying attention to. Okay? We understand emotions now more as a subset of something that we think of more broadly as states that are set by your autonomic nervous system, how alert you are, how not alert you are. And then emotions are kind of layered on top of that, right? Lisa Feldman Barrett has beautiful descriptions of these, and s- and so on. And there's some debate about what emotions really are. But we, we know what they are neurobiologically and psychologically. And behaviors, we know what they are, right? There's a behavior, and then there's the don't-go behaviors, the suppression of behavior. And then there are memories, right? But for the longest time, it's been unclear, what are thoughts? Like, w- like, what are they? Are they just, like, spontaneous geysering up of, of, uh, memories? Are ... Like, what's going on there? And Jenny Groh, I think, has the absolute best description of these. If, and, and this is based on experimentation. If we cede some idea, so l- let's say I say to you, let's not talk about cats 'cause I'm a dog person, but I say-

   23. CWChris Williamson58:11

       Me too.

   24. AHDr. Andrew Huberman58:11

       ... "Okay, okay, Chris," um, and this isn't a trick question, I promise, 'cause it's always weird when people start doing this. I'm not Oz Pearlman or something. I'm not gonna, like, tell you your pin c- pin code.

   25. CWChris Williamson58:19

       Mm-hmm.

   26. AHDr. Andrew Huberman58:19

       Um, think, think about a dog, okay? Um, what kind of dog is it? What-

   27. CWChris Williamson58:25

       Golden retriever.

   28. AHDr. Andrew Huberman58:26

       Golden retriever. Okay. So as you think about the golden retriever, like, what other things come to mind about the golden retriever?

   29. CWChris Williamson58:34

       It's got a little neckerchief on.

   30. AHDr. Andrew Huberman58:36

       Okay.
7. 1:08:08 – 1:25:28

   The Science of Spirituality

   1. CWChris Williamson1:08:08

      the..." Mm-hmm. So, y- you mentioned that... Uh, you sort of touched on some of the bad habits that distract people. I've always been interested in this from a neuroscientific perspective. Is it truly possible to deprogram bad habits or once those neural pathways are down, is that locked in for life? Are you just creating deeper fissures somewhere else, uh, in order to replace those ones? How, how, how do you think about getting rid of bad habits, the process of, of overcoming those?

   2. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:08:36

      Yeah. I think, um, you know, if we look at the data on neuroplasticity, it's much easier to reactivate a pathway that was laid down early in life even if it's been suppressed. There's a beautiful data of a guy named Eric Knudsen, who was actually my next-door neighbor in my lab before he retired at Stanford, showing that, you know, if... once learning takes place, those, those maps are forever there. Uh, you can, um, unveil those maps again later. They're kind of like never-forget-to-ride-a-bike kind of thing.

   3. CWChris Williamson1:09:01

      Mm-hmm.

   4. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:09:01

      But when you're talking about bad habits, and then you get into th- uh, sort of contingencies like rewards and, and, and punishments, you know, um, these days because of my own, um, interests and trajectory, you know, I think a lot about, you know, the, the seven deadly sins and, and the virtues, right? I mean, if you look at any of the sins, okay, they're all very hypothalamic in nature, right? Uh, they're the extremes of hypothalamic function. In fact, it... you could probably map the seven deadly sins onto the hypothalamus and say, well, th- that nucleus, the ventromedial hypothalamus, those neurons are responsible for rage, for unbridled-

   5. CWChris Williamson1:09:34

      Mm-hmm.

   6. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:09:34

      ... rage, okay? Those neurons are responsible for unbridled sexual activity. I'm not talking about merged with violence. I'm just saying independent of that. Those are, are consummatory behaviors so eating, hyperphagia. These are anorexia, you know, so it... I mean, all of the-

   7. CWChris Williamson1:09:49

      Wait, what about... I have a question on that because envy's the only one of the seven deadly sins that doesn't feel good.

   8. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:09:54

      Yeah. So, you... Right, and I hadn't thought about that but y- envy is probably not easily mapped to a hypothalamic nucleus. Um-

   9. CWChris Williamson1:10:02

      Isn't that an interesting insight?

   10. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:10:04

       Yeah.

   11. CWChris Williamson1:10:04

       That's great. Envy's the only one of the seven deadly sins that isn't something that can be enjoyable at low or high dose.

   12. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:10:09

       Yeah. Um, our good friend Paul Conti talks often about how much of the, um, ills of the world are based on people's envy. When people don't have, um... when they have an uncomfortable feeling, they... most people will turn that into self-destruction or destruction of others. And people who are successful in life transmute those uncomfortable feelings into self-support and creating things and supporting others. Same feelings, divergent paths.

   13. CWChris Williamson1:10:40

       Mm-hmm.

   14. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:10:40

       Um, and envy, uh, uh, you know, Paul has said many times, is, is the enemy of all, of all personal development, right? You see something, you... Uh, I always, uh, noticed, you know, coming up in science, if you... um, if something bad happens to somebody, we, we... most of the time unless we really dislike them, but even then, you kind of go, "Oh, that sucks," you know, like, really feel bad. But if something good happens for somebody, you know immediately how you feel about that person. Are you happy for them?

   15. CWChris Williamson1:11:06

       Mm.

   16. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:11:07

       Or, or is there that feeling of like, "Uh."

   17. CWChris Williamson1:11:09

       Fuck. Goddammit.

   18. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:11:09

       Yeah, exactly. You know immediately how you feel.

   19. CWChris Williamson1:11:11

       Great take.

   20. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:11:11

       So-

   21. CWChris Williamson1:11:11

       That's such a good litmus test. Yeah. How do you feel when this other person wins-

   22. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:11:16

       Mm-hmm.

   23. CWChris Williamson1:11:17

       ... and when somebody else loses? I don't know, I guess even with that it's an interesting one. Like, is there a sort of weird sense of satisfaction? Are you like, "Fuck," like, "I wish that person was okay," or whatever it might be? Okay. Uh, bad habits. I mean, I know we're running-

   24. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:11:27

       Yeah. So with bad habits, I mean, so I think about the, you know, the, the sins and bad habits mapping to hypothalamic nuclei 'cause I'm me, and that's my nerdy perspective. But then you also think about the virtues, right? And, and overcoming bad habits or the virtues, they... uh, I mean, I believe that most people are inherently good. I do. Uh, uh, it may be true, Jung may be right that we have all things inside of us, but I think most people are inherently good. I think there are a subset of people that given the opportunity to do things and not get caught, they would do really bad things. But I don't think that's most people-

   25. CWChris Williamson1:11:58

       Okay.

   26. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:11:59

       ... or most dogs, by example. Cats, I'm still on the, on the fence about.

   27. CWChris Williamson1:12:02

       Cats can fuck up.

   28. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:12:03

       Sorry, cat people. (laughs) I, I know some nice ones but... um, but in all seriousness, I, I think that the, the bad habits thing involves... breaking bad habits involves a lot of top-down control, prefrontal cortex suppressing the activity of these hypothalamic and other subcortical neurons. And how do we know this? Well, we... if you wanna summarize how the prefrontal cortex works, you'd say it's the shh structure in the brain. It's the, "No, don't reach for that cookie." It's the, "No, don't say that thing." It's the, "Don't do the thing that your hypothalamus..." uh, the, "Don't do the thing..." It's the, "Don't do the thing that your hypothalamus and other structures are, um, creating some internal, uh, activation of the autonomic nervous system," that kind of vibration of, "You wanna do it. It smells so good. It tastes so good. You just want to. I don't know why I did it," this kind of thing. So that top-down control can be learned and the beautiful thing, and this answers your question more directly, the beautiful thing is that at some point that top-down control is not required anymore unless you do the thing you're not supposed to do, and then it requires top-down control again. Now, the reason I'm so interested these days... uh, one of the reasons I'm so interested in spirituality and notions of, of God, uh, et cetera is that, you know, the virtues also, I believe, can start to arrive through things that are outside of us. Now, I realize that sounds very unscientific but if you look at the science around religious belief or belief in higher power or the notion that humans don't have all the answers-... not even the collective consciousness. What you find is that for- for everything from recovery from addiction to recovery from immense, immense loss, I mean, the kinds of losses that go way beyond, uh, you know, a death of a family member, although that's intense, you know, death of all one's children, for instance, horrible things that people have been put through, almost without fail, moving through that with any kind of, um, sense of- of self-preservation and not engaging in just self-destruction, which is what most people do, almost always involves some notion of top-down control from outside, you know, being- being, um, e- encouraged or even instructed to do the right thing, feeling as if something is coming through oneself. Now, we often hear about this in the creative process. People like Rick Rubin and, um, a big Twyla Tharp fan, the choreographer will talk about, you know, it's- it ... M- most creatives will talk about sort of downloading things from outside of them. It kind of moves through them as opposed to arising purely within them 'cause of all that sensory experience. But then they can get into kind of these higher realms of spirituality. But when we're talking about breaking bad habits, overcoming immensely difficult scenarios that normally would throw people into complete self-destruction or just giving up, which is a bad habit in- in its own- in its own right, it- it's as if the- the top-down control is so immense, like the going against oneself that's required is so immense, that when people hand that over to God, whether or not it's Christ or whether or not some other form of God that they, that they are, you know, that they're attached to, you know, it seems e- as if they get some relief from the process, and yet it's very effective. And you can't deny this, right, just as a phenomenon. I mean, let's take off our hats as scientists and people who kind of parse things. Like, e- the ... It ... How could it be that the h- the thing that's hardest for humans to do for themselves becomes far easier when they stop trying to do it for themselves? It's- it's a- it's a wild mind bend-

   29. CWChris Williamson1:15:34

       It's a weird paradox.

   30. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:15:34

       ... that neuroscience doesn't really understand. But- but, you know, what we're really talking about ... L- let's say this were alcohol. And I'm not an alcoholic, fortunately, but let's say I had immense difficulty in refraining from alcohol, and this would be the precise environment in where this would ... where alcohol would be attractive. The amount of top-down control that's required is immense for somebody who's recently sober. They have to, you know ... Hopefully they're in 12-step. They have to call their sponsor. They're ... It can be an ... Jarring, anxiety. That anxiety eventually subsides. I mean, alcoholics eventually can hang out in bars and not have a drink, but there's a long period of time where they can't, and many never will be able to do that. But the notion of a higher power is- is central to almost every alcoholic, at least who goes through AA, getting sober. It's that, it's a- it's a- almost a prerequisite, and in some sense it is a prerequisite. And it's so brilliant that it is because it- it takes away the need for constant top-down control. You give that over to something else, this notion of a higher power.
8. 1:25:28 – 1:33:38

   How Much Can We Control Our Internal World?

   1. CWChris Williamson1:25:28

      You said something to me, uh, over three years ago now. Uh, you said, "It's all internal."Uh, can we revisit that?

   2. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:25:36

      Yeah, I guess now I would say it's all internal except for the stuff that's coming from, (laughs) from outside the, um, uh, human, human awareness.

   3. CWChris Williamson1:25:44

      Mm-hmm.

   4. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:25:45

      Yeah. But it's all internal in the sense that, um ... Uh, g- good on you for remembering that. Um, it's all internal in the sense that ... You know, I, I think that the big mistake that I made for a number of years was trying to find the thing that comes from outside that's gonna change things. And, you know, Lord knows I love caffeine and I love doing certain activities and, um, and learning. But at some point, y- you realize that the, the ability to, um, like, withhold, uh, like, reflec- reflexes that you don't want to have, like, you know, getting your temper sparked or something. You know, people who say, "No one can make you feel anything." And I say, "That's crazy. People can make you feel things all the time." You know, the, the ability to not speak from your first thought, but your second or your third. You know, you hear these kinda cliches, right? But all of that ability comes from inside. It's from doing internal work.

   5. CWChris Williamson1:26:40

      Mm-hmm.

   6. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:26:40

      And it's kind of amazing how much we can accomplish, and I'm certainly not the first to say this, how much we can accomplish by just stopping and listening and going, "Wow, like, my brain's crazy. It's, like, all these thoughts, all this stuff. Oh, too much input coming into this. Like, I've gotta shut down this thought path." Also realizing that, you know, because these thoughts layer on themselves, our sensory, sensory memories layer on top and can fee- we feed our thoughts. I mean, that Jenny Groh's description of how thinking works makes you think that, yeah, like, if, if you're ruminating on something that really bothers you, you, you probably do want to distract yourself, unless it, you're really gonna work on that thing.

   7. CWChris Williamson1:27:19

      Mm-hmm.

   8. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:27:20

      But you really can feed thoughts like embers in a fire, and it's important to not do that if it's not adaptive.

   9. CWChris Williamson1:27:27

      A quick aside. If you have been feeling a bit sluggish, your testosterone levels might be the problem. They play a huge role in your energy, your focus, and your performance. But most people have no idea where theirs are or what to do if something's off, which is why I partnered with Function, because I wanted a smarter, more comprehensive way to understand what's happening inside of my body. Twice a year, they run lab tests that monitor over 100 biomarkers, and their team of expert physicians analyze the data and give you actionable advice to improve your health and lifespan. Seeing your testosterone levels and tons of other biomarkers charted over the course of a year with actionable insights to improve them gives you a clear path to making your life better. And unfortunately, getting your blood work drawn and analyzed like this usually costs thousands, but with Function it's just $499, and you can get an additional $100 off, bringing it down to 399 bucks. Get the exact same blood panels that I get and save 100 bucks by going to the link in the description below or heading to functionhealth.com/modernwisdom. That's functionhealth.com/modernwisdom. Well, also, uh, as you said when we first spoke, if you finish a marathon in first place, nobody is coming along and dripping dopamine-

   10. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:28:36

       It's all internal.

   11. CWChris Williamson1:28:37

       ... into the back of your brain.

   12. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:28:38

       That's right. It's all internal.

   13. CWChris Williamson1:28:39

       This is self-generated stuff. The satisfaction that you get for finishing a hard workout, the love that you feel from being with the people that you care about, the peace that you have, uh, lying in a hammock in a, you know, sunny spring afternoon or whatever. Uh, at, at no point are you being sort of flicked different neurochemicals and sensations. Like, this is a part of your system.

   14. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:29:03

       Yeah. And if you hit the system hard, like, you know, like, the thing I absolutely, um, suggest people never do is, you know, something like methamphetamines, right, is gonna, what, a thousand-fold increase in dopamine within moments. I mean, I th-

   15. CWChris Williamson1:29:16

       Is that what that is?

   16. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:29:16

       Yeah, as compared to, or even more as compared to cocaine, which I think is like 200, um, you know, like a 200X. And I mean, it's a, or maybe a doubling. I mean, I forget the exact numbers, but there's this chart that Anna Lembke will often put up, and methamphetamine is gonna ... You're, you're basically gonna dump as much dopamine as you ever could in that moment, and then the trough is obviously proportional to that. It's kind of fun, too, to think about how because of conversations from me and you and others and Matt Walker, like, the world kind of understands dopamine now.

   17. CWChris Williamson1:29:43

       Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

   18. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:29:43

       They understand the nuance of every little bit of every one of the four different pathways, and there's probably five, (laughs) um, et cetera. No, like, uh, but that's okay. Like, do they, do people not understand everything about cortisol and melatonin? No, but I think the world is, is now armed with a lot better knowledge of their own physiology and psychology and how those merge. I also think that we're starting to understand ... Actually on the way over here, my producer and, and close friend, Rob, was talking about this, that, you know, um, everything now is gambling. Social media is a form of, uh, essentially gambling for dopamine. Like, um-

   19. CWChris Williamson1:30:18

       Hmm, mm-hmm.

   20. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:30:18

       ... you know, likes and follows, um, you know, uh, markets, you know, I mean, my team, their team, the politics. I mean, a l- a, a good friend has said, you know, that all addiction is gambling, you know? All addictions maybe are gambling, um, in different forms. Um, I would say it all boils down to the same neural circuits of anticipation and reward, expectation.

   21. CWChris Williamson1:30:41

       And expectation, yep.

   22. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:30:42

       And the scariest thing was, I have a good friend, Ryan Soave, who works w- with addicts and, and he's tr- trauma therapist as well, incredibly talented guy, and he said that, um, you know, the scary thing is he's known many gambling addicts that get addicted to the shame from losing. Ugh.

   23. CWChris Williamson1:30:57

       Wow.

   24. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:30:58

       And when he said that, at that point they've got-

   25. CWChris Williamson1:30:59

       You're not even chasing the wins anymore, you're chasing the losses and the way that you feel about yourself after you've lost.

   26. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:31:03

       Yeah, it's almost like the wins were not big enough, and so they're just chasing the self-shame and the hatred and the ... It's really sad. Yeah, gambling addicts struggle big time, you know?

   27. CWChris Williamson1:31:11

       Dude, Coff- Coffeezilla just did a, a huge new video, um, about gambling and, and sort of how endemic it is, and there's banking apps that allow you to gamble inside of the app now. And he's done ... At lea- I learned an awful lot about gambling from, from watching the, a bunch of the videos he's done in the past, and, uh, it really is-... kind of wild to me that it's legal. And the only way that I can s- I'm sure, like you, we've been offered, like, an unlimited number of gambling, sports betting partnerships and stuff like that.

   28. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:31:48

       I like gambling, actually.

   29. CWChris Williamson1:31:50

       I- I- I-

   30. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:31:50

       A little bit. A little bit.
9. 1:33:38 – 1:46:35

   Why Understanding People Changes Everything

   1. CWChris Williamson1:33:38

      There it is. So, I, I wrote this, uh, article about, uh, the Cassandra complex. Do you know the Cassandra complex?

   2. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:33:44

      No.

   3. CWChris Williamson1:33:44

      Oh, dude, this is so cool.

   4. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:33:45

      And I don't know anyone named Cassandra.

   5. CWChris Williamson1:33:46

      Ah. Well, let me, uh, let me-

   6. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:33:48

      But maybe you do. (laughs)

   7. CWChris Williamson1:33:48

      Well, yeah. Uh, allow me to teach you about the Cassandra complex. There are few feelings worse in this life than being right, but early. You correctly predict a future catastrophe, trend, opportunity for growth, or important area of focus, only to be castigated for how shortsighted, xenophobic, judgmental, out of touch, left-wing, right-wing, or alarmist you are. The Cassandra complex is when someone accurately predicts a negative future event or truth, but no one believes them, and they're often dismissed, ignored, or even ridiculed. It's named after Cassandra, a figure in Greek mythology. The god Apollo gave her the gift of prophecy, but after she rejected his advances, he cursed her so that no one would ever believe her warnings. She foresaw the fall of Troy, warned everyone, and was met with scorn. The city burned anyway. Rachel Carson, in her book, 1962, Silent Spring, warned about the environmental damage caused by pesticides. She was mocked by chemical companies and even some scientists, but her work eventually led to the environmental movement and the banning of DDT. Ignaz Semmelweis, in the 1840s, realized that doctors were transmitting childbed fever from autopsies to mothers by not washing their hands. He begged his colleagues to adopt handwashing. They laughed at him. He died in an asylum. Decades later, germ theory proved him right.

   8. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:35:01

      Wow.

   9. CWChris Williamson1:35:02

      Let me give you this. I'm gonna k- Uh, the one... The best example of the Cassandra complex that I fucking love is the, uh, comparison between Copernicus and, uh, Galileo. So, obviously, people that are right but early get, uh, marked castigated, s- you know, pu- pushed to one side, which is, um, incentive for someone to not speak up if they feel like they are telling the truth, but that the world is not going to be sufficiently receptive to it. And, uh, Copernicus and Galileo, like, so great as an example of this. Copernicus in the early 1500s quietly proposed something radical. The earth orbits the sun. Humans, once the unmoving center of God's design, were now spinning through space on a planet among many. But Copernicus hesitated. He delayed publishing his heliocentric model for decades. His great work, De revolutionibus, came out only as he lay on his deathbed, likely to avoid the wrath of the Church and academia. His truth was too disruptive, and so, for most of his life, it went unheard. Galileo, a century later, took that same Copernican spark and shouted it from the rooftops. He saw the moons of Jupiter, the phases of Venus, and the imperfections of the moon's surface, all evidence that the heavens were not as fixed or divine as taught. The Church responded with fear. Galileo was dragged before the Inquisition, forced to recant under threat of torture, and sentenced to house arrest for the rest of his life. In retrospect, it is not surprising that Copernicus kept his mouth shut given how Galileo was treated. This is a core truth of the Cassandra complex. Being right isn't enough, and being early can feel like being wrong.

   10. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:36:40

       Wow. Yeah, I mean, much lesser example than what you just described, but, you know, the glymphatic system was discovered many years earlier by a woman at NIH. Um... Oh, excuse me, at University of Maryland. Um, a larger, more powerful scientific group tried to repeat the experiments, made a methodo- methodological flaw, couldn't repeat it. Everyone believed them. There's no lymphatic system in the brain. Fortunately, she became an NIH program officer, which is somebody who has some degree of control over where funding gets directed, and funded the work that later, um, verified her, her findings. But it, it was purely by virtue of the fact that the power structure was arranged in a certain way. This happens a lot in science. If... I think you'd enjoy, uh, Chris, that... You know, everyone thinks of Darwin and natural selection, and-

   11. CWChris Williamson1:37:30

       Mm-hmm.

   12. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:37:30

       ... uh, (laughs) um, but there was another guy, Alfred Russel Wallace-

   13. CWChris Williamson1:37:33

       Mm-hmm.

   14. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:37:33

       ... who essentially discovered all of it in parallel.Um, and should have been elected to the Royal Academy and all of this stuff, um, as well, like, like Darwin. But, um, was not in the club, in the in-club. And Darwin knew it and actually was very c- from what I understand, very conflicted about not sharing the credit.

   15. CWChris Williamson1:37:53

       Yeah.

   16. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:37:54

       Um-

   17. CWChris Williamson1:37:54

       It was only because of that rivalry that Darwin ended up pushing his study out, uh, h- h- his work out, right? I think he'd, he had it, he sat on it for a while, he wanted to work on it more. He had a little bit of sort of hyper vigilant un- uh, uncertainty and insecurity about himself. And then finally, upon hearing, "Oh, I might not, I might be beaten to the punch," published.

   18. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:38:15

       Yeah.

   19. CWChris Williamson1:38:15

       Is that right?

   20. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:38:16

       Yeah, nobody associates Alfred Russel Wallace with the theory of evolution, natural selection. I mean, um, most people don't even know who it is. I mean, because my dad's a physicist and 'cause I grew up in science, I, I, um, I know a lot of these stories. I mean, I know a story of... I'll keep this intentionally vague. There's a very, very famous and accomplished physicist that probably should've won a Nobel Prize, but he made one error, which is that he stole the girlfriend of one of his graduate students, married her. That graduate student did reasonably well. It must be very uncomfortable to work in a lab where your girlfriend is now sleeping with your boss.

   21. CWChris Williamson1:38:51

       Wow.

   22. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:38:51

       Went on, um, he went on to marry a Swedish woman, um, and, uh, let's just say that guy that stole the girlfriend never won a Nobel Prize. Uh, the Swedish community is very close-knit, you know? So-

   23. CWChris Williamson1:39:04

       Oh!

   24. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:39:04

       I mean, I mean, the, the number of sto... I could tell you story after story after story like that, but I try and avoid those stories, um, even though they're true. Um, I'd much rather tell stories about the great scientific discoveries that were made.

   25. CWChris Williamson1:39:19

       When stuff goes right.

   26. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:39:19

       When stuff goes right because, you know, it, that stuff's very enticing. It's the drama that we, you know, are drawn to as humans. Just naturally we have a proclivity for, for that. But, but I think that there, there's so many stories of people making incredible discoveries through serendipity and hard work, and things like that. So, I mean, that's the good stuff. And, and so I always try and, uh, if I mention a story like that, I like to balance it out and remind people that... I do think that most scientists are well-intentioned. I do think most physicians are well-intentioned.

   27. CWChris Williamson1:39:47

       Mm.

   28. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:39:47

       I just had a guest on the podcast, David Fajgenbaum, who's a physician at UPenn, um, and scientist, and, you know, he was a football player, big dude, jack. He's like 6'3", jack, he's playing football, he's in medical school and he gets this Castleman's disease, which is a cancer-like, um, uh, disease of the, of the lymphatic system. He's told that he's gonna die. He, he basically was near dead, and then he decided to just start trying all these already approved prescription drugs that nobody thought had anything to do with Castleman's or cancer.

   29. CWChris Williamson1:40:18

       Mm.

   30. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:40:18

       And he's alive now 11 years later, and he's developed this not-for-profit called EveryCure where they... It's completely not-for-profit and his lab focuses on taking all the diseases that we have, like 14,000 diseases we have no treatments for, and taking existing approved drugs that basically stand to make companies very little money-
10. 1:46:35 – 2:06:28

    Healthy Media Habits

    1. CWChris Williamson1:46:35

       I- I- I wanna touch on w- what you said before, which was sort of the- the fixation that, uh, people have, groups, different groups have on stuff. What do you make of the attempt of legacy media to turn get more high-quality protein into a political issue? I think this has been one of the most interesting patterns to see, that, like, protein has become politically coded somehow, and obviously this is, uh, kind of for the health and wellness industry, kind of old hat now. To talk about, like, protein is ... Prioritizing protein is something that you probably should consider or at least be aware of. But, yeah, what- what do you make of the fact that, um, protein consumption has become politicized?

    2. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:47:16

       A- and resistance training for a little while, although I think the wave caught to stimulate the idea that everybody, men, women, young and old, should be resistance training, so you can no longer, like, um, kind of bro-science resistance training.

    3. CWChris Williamson1:47:30

       Mm-hmm.

    4. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:47:30

       Although I- I- I have to say, even though I have respect for certain elements of bodybuilding, I do think that the- this- the body- the n- the bodybuilding culture, I think, has kind of, um, distracted from what's possible with resistance training as a positive health stimulus. A lot of people are still averse to it.

    5. CWChris Williamson1:47:47

       Because you look at people who are bodybuilders and don't exactly see the picture of health?

    6. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:47:51

       Yeah, and I think it's also the- the way that bodybuilding changes the entire relationship to food in general and to life in general. And it- and- and any- look, anything that's so ... Look, I- I- I think Dorian Yates is an amazing athlete, right? I can think of him as an athlete and what he did and the way he did it, and I knew Mike Mentzer, and he was the one that-

    7. CWChris Williamson1:48:09

       You knew Mike Mentzer?

    8. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:48:10

       I knew Mentzer.

    9. CWChris Williamson1:48:11

       No way.

    10. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:48:11

        He was- he sold me my first training program by phone. I can tell you the story. I'll- I'll tell you that in a moment.

    11. CWChris Williamson1:48:17

        That's sick.

    12. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:48:17

        Nu- New Mentzer. I write about him in my- my book that comes out, uh, later this y- uh, later n- next year. Um, New Mentzer. Had a lot of conversations about Mentzer, not just about resistance training-

    13. CWChris Williamson1:48:26

        Oh, yeah.

    14. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:48:27

        ... but also about school and philosophy. He was one of the people that really encouraged me to get serious about my academics.

    15. CWChris Williamson1:48:32

        Wow.

    16. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:48:32

        Oh, yeah.

    17. CWChris Williamson1:48:32

        Yeah, Mike Mentzer was part of your origin story. That's fucking-

    18. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:48:35

        Yeah, Mike Mentzer who I ... Well, I'll just, uh, I- I'll- I'll get back to the- the-

    19. CWChris Williamson1:48:39

        Mm-hmm.

    20. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:48:39

        ... Trad Media thing, but yes. I signed up for a program. He- he's the reason why still to this day, you know, since I was 16, 15 now as I mentioned, still train three, maybe four days a week, not one set to failure, but, you know, keeping set volume low. Um, one thing that isn't advertised a lot, Mike didn't talk about in his seminars, is that a lot of what determines total set number is how well you can, like, really direct the effort toward the muscle you're trying to target. So some people are exceptionally good at that. I think Dorian was.

    21. CWChris Williamson1:49:10

        Mm-hmm.

    22. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:49:10

        Other people would like, no matter how hard they try and curl with just their biceps and forearms and anterior delts, like it's going everywhere, you know?

    23. CWChris Williamson1:49:17

        Yep. Yep.

    24. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:49:17

        And so a lot of it is about being able-

    25. CWChris Williamson1:49:18

        That mind-muscle connection is-

    26. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:49:19

        But one thing he was very clear about is that as you get better at training, the neural component of- of contracting the muscles that you're trying to contract, you actually can get by with fewer sets because you're able to direct more intensity to those muscle groups. So over time, I've found, yeah, I- I- I probably do somewhere between six and eight sets per muscle group, but you-... with two, I can not slaughter the muscle, but I can, I can get where I need to go.

    27. CWChris Williamson1:49:42

        Mm-hmm.

    28. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:49:43

        But I like training, so sometimes I'll do more. But, yeah, Mensor was great. I signed up for this program. My mother was like ... I was 16-year ... or maybe even 15 years old.

    29. CWChris Williamson1:49:50

        (laughs)

    30. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:49:50

        And she was like, "Why is this grown man calling the house?" 'Cause back then you do, like, a phone consultation.
11. 2:06:28 – 2:25:09

    The Next Breakthrough Supplement

    1. CWChris Williamson2:06:28

       just the infinite wheel. You mentioned, I think this is a fucking great take, um, the arc of something new gets introduced. There is excitement, there is reaction, there is criticism, and then usually acceptance, presuming that this thing is, like, true or valid or whatever.

    2. AHDr. Andrew Huberman2:06:43

       Yeah, like creatine, right? It's been around forever. I was laughing so hard.

    3. CWChris Williamson2:06:46

       This, this is what I wanted to talk about. So, um, what do you think is the next frontier for public acceptance? 'Cause I would say vitamin D3 was-

    4. AHDr. Andrew Huberman2:06:57

       Check.

    5. CWChris Williamson2:06:57

       Yeah. Th- that, that's already done.

    6. AHDr. Andrew Huberman2:06:58

       It's, it's gone through the cycle.

    7. CWChris Williamson2:07:00

       Correct. It's out the other side.

    8. AHDr. Andrew Huberman2:07:01

       We should actually plot this out. It'd be fun to do a post. We should do a post together, which is, by the way, um, public careers follow the same trajectory. You show up, people are like, "Who's this person?" Then it's like, "Oh, you're very exciting." The- then there's always the, "Uh, here's the flaw." And then-

    9. CWChris Williamson2:07:13

       Fall from grace.

    10. AHDr. Andrew Huberman2:07:14

        ... and then, and then there's a very simple equation as to whether or not that they are going to continue and continue to have popularity. Very simple equation. Was the sort of event more useful or interesting than what they contribute?

    11. CWChris Williamson2:07:27

        Mm-hmm.

    12. AHDr. Andrew Huberman2:07:28

        And if the answer is, yeah, that was actually more exciting than any one thing they'd ever said in terms of usefulness, then they're gone.

    13. CWChris Williamson2:07:34

        Yeah. They're owned by the scandal.

    14. AHDr. Andrew Huberman2:07:35

        They fade out at different rates. Their half-life, and it, it disappears. But if what you're providing is useful, if the person is, uh, if they still, people still want you around, so to speak-

    15. CWChris Williamson2:07:43

        Mm-hmm.

    16. AHDr. Andrew Huberman2:07:43

        ... it outlives that. I mean, this recent drama, I don't wanna dance around it too much, but this recent drama, I was like, this, nothing could be more trivial or stupid, but I realize the reason it's probably, I'm not portending this and I don't wish ill on anyone, but it's probably gonna pseudo-end the career of this online person, is because-... it was much more interesting in its drama than any value add that they were, they had given. Um-

    17. CWChris Williamson2:08:07

        That's interesting.

    18. AHDr. Andrew Huberman2:08:08

        Yeah. And- and they, and they projected a fair amount of arrogance in their delivery of content and thing, and if you do that, you're setting yourself up, right? That's a very, that's a big attractor early on.

    19. CWChris Williamson2:08:16

        Oh, people, people like a- a sort of deserved downfall of the person who's out of touch, 100%.

    20. AHDr. Andrew Huberman2:08:21

        Yeah, there's no coming back from that, in- in a real way.

    21. CWChris Williamson2:08:23

        Okay, so vitamin D3-

    22. AHDr. Andrew Huberman2:08:25

        Yeah. Vitamin-

    23. CWChris Williamson2:08:25

        ... has been through the cycle. Creatine is in the cycle, right? Creatine is currently-

    24. AHDr. Andrew Huberman2:08:29

        So, protein, so as a vitamin, I would say vitamin D came first.

    25. CWChris Williamson2:08:32

        Then protein.

    26. AHDr. Andrew Huberman2:08:33

        Right, protein. And the protein thing is politicized a little bit too, because there's something about meat that's considered right wing.

    27. CWChris Williamson2:08:38

        Right, coded, yeah.

    28. AHDr. Andrew Huberman2:08:39

        Which is, um, and then-

    29. CWChris Williamson2:08:41

        Creatine, you know the reason that creatine I don't think is gonna get politically coded, is it's been so heavily pushed by women-

    30. AHDr. Andrew Huberman2:08:48

        Mm-hmm.

Episode duration: 3:05:35