The Biology Of Focus, Success & Long-Term Energy - Dr Andrew Huberman (4K)

1. 0:00 – 12:15

   Adenosine in the First 90 Minutes of the Day

   1. CWChris Williamson0:00

      There's been a lot of controversy over the last few months, and the internet's been ablaze with speculation. I think it's important to get it up top, what is happening with the state of the adenosine system research within the first 90 minutes of the day?

   2. AHAndrew Huberman0:14

      Adenosine is an incredibly interesting molecule. It exists in the brain and body. It accumulates with the number of hours that you're awake. So the longer you're awake, the more adenosine accumulates. It does many things in the brain and body. One of the most important things that it does is to give us the sur- subjective experience of feeling sleepy, and the objective feeling of our body being fatigued, of feeling literally heavier, requiring more energy to move ourselves. When we sleep and when we allow ourselves to go into states of deep rest that are similar to sleep, we can talk about this, the adenosine system is adjusted so that there's less effective adenosine circulating or bound to adenosine receptors. Okay? So this is sort of adenosine 101. There's a lot more to it, but that's sufficient for what we need to talk about for now. The drug, the most commonly used drug, the drug we're using now and that we're on right now, caffeine, which is consumed by it's estimated more than 90% of the world's adult population, effectively works by blocking the adenosine receptor. There's some nuance there, but we can think of it that way for simplicity's sake. And in doing so, it prevents the sleepiness inducing actions of adenosine. However, when caffeine wears off, the adenosine that was around trying to bind to those receptors is still around. In fact, it's accumulated even more, which at least partially explains the so-called caffeine crash or the dip in energy, the fatigue that is that we experience maybe three or four hours after consuming caffeine. Okay. As I mentioned before, when we go to sleep at night, adenosine is cleared from our system. There was a lot of debate over the years about why we sleep. In fact, the great Matt Walker wrote the book, Why We Sleep. And a lot of it has to do with the cell biology of regulating potassium and other ions that are in neurons, and for those that are interested in the cell biology, it's about readjusting the amount of potassium inside and outside the cells, which is happening on an ongoing basis. But you could think of the time that we sleep as doing many things, but one of the most important things is to bring those adenosine levels down. Whatever adenosine has accumulated, to bring it back down such that when we wake up in the morning, we feel alert. Okay? There are a lot of reasons why we feel alert. Some of them we can call pro-alertness mechanisms, like the release of cortisol. Some of them are about removing the brake on wakefulness, like reducing adenosine. Here we're talking about removing the brake on wakefulness by reducing adenosine. So let's say, like what time do you go to sleep at night typically? If you had your way.

   3. CWChris Williamson3:15

      10:00.

   4. AHAndrew Huberman3:15

      10:00. And what time do you typically wake up in o- feeling great with no alarm clock?

   5. CWChris Williamson3:21

      6:30, 6:45.

   6. AHAndrew Huberman3:23

      Great. So let's say you go to sleep at 10:30 and you wake up at your usual time. Chances are you will have cleared a lot but not all the adenosine that's required for you to wake up feeling very alert. Let's say you stay up a little bit later. Maybe you stay up until 11:00. Maybe you wake up twice that night to use the restroom for whatever reason. You consumed a bit more fluid. Maybe it takes an extra 10 minutes for you to fall back asleep the second time, and then you wake up in the morning and you didn't get the total amount of deep sleep and rapid eye movement sleep that you're used to getting. Without question, your levels of adenosine upon waking are going to be slightly higher than they normally would. Okay? It's, once you understand what adenosine does, you think about that scenario, it's kind of an obvious thing. However, most people don't sleep until they naturally wake up feeling refreshed. Most people are using an alarm clock. Most people are not going to sleep as early as they need to, or sleeping as late as they need to, or both. So as a consequence, when you wake up in the morning, your adenosine levels are not zeroed out to the place where you would be maximally awake. There is a lot of, or some residual adenosine present. What do people typically do? Typically, people get out of bed. They might look at their phone. As you know, I encourage them to go find sunlight if the sun isn't out, to g- turn on bright lights and then get outside and get sunlight in their eyes as soon as they can. But chances are they're going to grab some caffeine. They're going to g- pour themselves a cup of coffee, or they're going to have some, if you're me, yerba mate. They're going to perhaps have an energy drink. All fine and good, but now think about what we just said, which is that what you're doing then is blocking the adenosine receptors effectively, and whatever residual adenosine was there, because you didn't sleep enough to clear it out, persists. Plus you're now starting to accumulate more adenosine such that by mid-morning, that adenosine has accumulated, the caffeine has worn off, and maybe by early afternoon, especially after a meal, many, not all people experience an afternoon crash in energy, somewhere between 1:00 PM typically and 4:00 PM, somewhere in there. For me, the trough in my natural energy levels in the afternoon is consistently between 2:00 and 3:00 PM regardless of how well I slept the night before. Many people also find a consistently placed trough in their energy independent of all this. Okay, so what can we do? Some years back, I started suggesting that people consider if they have an afternoon crash in energy, that they delay their morning caffeine intake for 90 minutes after waking. Some years after that, an academic review was published saying, "Well, there's really no evidence that that specific practice is necessary," but I still think and I stand by the fact that it can be very useful for those that experience an afternoon crash. Why? Why? Well, two things. First of all-By delaying caffeine for the first 60 to 90 minutes after waking, there's an interesting phenomenon whereby even though you are out of bed and walking around, you're not asleep. If you don't block those adenosine receptors, there's still clearance of adenosine occurring, in part because you're s- Oh, it's like residual rest. ... you're sort of still asleep. Wow. The other thing that works remarkably well to clear out residual adenosine is upon waking, if you don't feel rested enough to do something I've talked also a lot about, which is another one of these zero cost tools that has a growing amount of impressive science to support it, which is non-sleep deep rest, or NSDR, also called yoga nidra, which is its proper name. The ancient practice is yoga nidra, so we wanna be fair to its proper naming. A 10 or 20 or 30-minute yoga nidra or NSDR if you prefer, done upon waking, but before getting out of bed, or maybe you go into the living room and put on your headphones or listen to an NSDR script. They're available all over the internet, done by me, done by a woman named Kelly Boyes who has a really lovely voice if you prefer a woman's voice. It's actually the one I typically use. You will emerge from that feeling much more rested. Now, Dr. Matt Walker himself and I are collaborating on a project to evaluate how NSDR impacts brain states to see if it actually mimics sleep. There's some beautiful studies already published out of Scandinavia showing that longer yoga nidra type practices, non-sleep deep rest, can replenish dopamine stores in an area of the brain called the basal ganglia, which prepares you for mental and physical action. So this is a very well-established tool from the sort of yogic perspective. It's a gr- it's a tool that's gaining increasing scientific evidence. And it, for everybody I know that has tried this who reports back to me about it, it's a remarkably energetically replenishing exercise that requires no payment, no nothing, just 10, 20, or 30-minute n- NSDR. Now, what could be happening in that state? In that state, the body is still, the mind is active, which mimics very closely rapid eye movement sleep. So the test that Matt Walker and I are doing, the, the experiment is to see, is having your body completely still but your mind active able to clear adenosine stores in the same way that being deeply asleep is? My guess is that it's not the same, but that it might be a midway effect. That's the hypothesis. We could be wrong. I look forward to seeing the results. So by delaying your caffeine for the first 60 to 90 minutes after waking, but making sure that you hydrate, get your electrolytes, you know, something like LMNT- Mm-hmm. ... which we both, um, both enjoy and make good use of, you are clearing out the adenosine that is residual in your system. Now, why do I also keep harping on this idea of going out and getting bright light in your eyes? Ideally sunlight, but if, especially on cloudy days, but if it's not out yet, you can turn on bright lights. Well, when one does that, you actually amplify the naturally occurring peak in cortisol that occurs soon after waking. So about 30 minutes before waking, your cortisol starts to rise. It's part of the mechanism that wakes you up without an alarm clock. As soon as you get out of bed and you start moving around, that cortisol increases further. Your body temperature, by the way, is increasing in parallel. When you view bright light, and these are very well-established studies in humans as well as animal models, but in humans when you view bright light, 10,000 lux indoor light if you're using a seasonal affective disorder treatment lamp, or getting outside even on a cloudy day and looking toward the sun, looking east in the morning without sunglasses, eyeglasses and contacts fine, you induce a near 50% increase in the height of that cortisol peak. That might sound like a bad thing, because everyone's- Stress. ... afraid of cortisol, but that's not a bad thing. It prepares your day, prepares you for a day where your immune system is bolstered, your energy and alertness is bolstered, and your ability to learn and your mood, I maybe said mood twice, forgive me, i- are bolstered. And in addition to that, there are interactions between light and the adenosine system. Light impacts the functional availability of the adenosine receptor in very interesting ways. Light increases, bright light that is, viewed by the eyes, increases the height of that cortisol peak, and then the cortisol peak also helps to counteract the adenosine system. Now, in addition to that, when we ge- when you get sleepy at night, part of that effect is due to the increase in melatonin, which is released from the pineal gland, a pea-sized gland midway, sort of deep in the, the vestige- vestiges of your brain. When you v- view bright light at night or during the day, and especially in the morning, it quashes those melatonin levels. So when you wake up in the morning and you haven't slept enough, or even if you have, your adenosine levels are still not to zero, your melatonin levels are still no- not to zero, and your cortisol is rising. So you've got a pro-wakefulness system, cortisol, that you can accelerate or amplify rather by viewing bright light. You've got a anti-wakefulness system in the form of melatonin and adenosine that are pushing back on your wakefulness. You're in this kind of like grogginess. And you can further suppress those systems without caffeine by viewing bright light. So viewing bright light both increases the pro-wakefulness systems in the brain and body and suppresses the anti-wakefulness systems in the brain and body, both in acce- go- pushing down on the accelerator of wakefulness and mood and alertness, and reducing the break, right? Otherwise, you're sort of trying to drive with the emergency break on. Then if 60 to 90 minutes later you ingest caffeine, now you're blocking the adenosine receptor. Sure. That's fine. I love caffeine. I certainly drink a lot of caffeine and, and enjoy it for all its effects. And you're now in a position where the, the arc of your wakefulness is going to be in nice concert with the also increase in adenosine that's naturally going to accumulate throughout the day. And again, there's no requirement to delay your caffeine 60 to 90 minutes after waking. But for people that experience a marked afternoon crash, it's an incredibly effective way to offset partially or eliminate that afternoon crash.

   7. CWChris Williamson12:11

      That's pretty much everybody. Who doesn't get tired in the middle of the afternoon?

2. 12:15 – 23:59

   Why Jocko Never Gets Tired

   1. CWChris Williamson12:15

      Tell you what I've done with-

   2. AHAndrew Huberman12:16

      Jocko Willink doesn't get tired, period.

   3. CWChris Williamson12:18

      Ever, ever.

   4. AHAndrew Huberman12:18

      Yeah. Right.

   5. CWChris Williamson12:18

      Uh, do you think he's got that genetic mutation?

   6. AHAndrew Huberman12:21

      I don't know. You know, I went down to visit him after his podcast. I actually did a sauna session with his family and some of their family friends, and they had heard that I've been pushing the heat in the sauna a bit more. And by the way, I don't recommend this unless you're very heat adapted. I'm not great at the cold. I put my cold plunge at about 48, 45 degrees. J- Rogan and other people make fun of me for this. Um, Lex is Russian, so he doesn't have to cold plunge. He was born into the cold of Siberia. Um, there's a photo of this actually on the internet. I, um... From the time he was young, they were cold conditioning him. That's why he has such a warm heart. Um, but in terms of the heat, I can... I'm pretty heat tolerant, so I've been cranking my sauna, a traditional sauna, to about 210, 220, but, um, mostly two- 210. I went down there and Jocko challenged me to what he calls the factory reset protocol, which is 30 minutes at 225. Brutal and it... And we had about n- eight or nine bodies in that sauna, so it was probably-

   7. CWChris Williamson13:16

      Claustrophobic.

   8. AHAndrew Huberman13:17

      ... it was probably hotter than that. I was the one guy down on the floor. All the others, it was men and women, were sitting up there laughing at me and I almost tapped out. And then they do a five-minute cold plunge and they go back and forth three times. I did one round with them. So, I don't recommend it because if you're not heat conditioned, you can give yourself brain damage. Um, by the way, for people that don't know, if you put a towel over your head or you wear one of these banya hats, it actually insulates your brain so you're able to stay in longer. People think, "Oh, it must b- must be that much warmer."

   9. CWChris Williamson13:43

      Make me hotter.

   10. AHAndrew Huberman13:44

       But you're actually insulating the brain from the heat. So, um, yeah, so Jocko, um, you know, he's obviously tough. He's, you know, legitimately battle-tested (laughs) , um, you know, and at the same time, it's remarkable to me how much energy he has. He finished dinner... So, we did the sauna, we did a four-hour podcast, then we, um, did the sauna cold thing I just described, then we did dinner, and then he went off to see a Cro-Mag show starting at like 10 o'clock. And then the next morning, of course, he posted his watch. So, he does seem to have more energy or he just forces himself to ignore whatever fatigue is there.

   11. CWChris Williamson14:20

       Chronically, that seems so unlikely to be able to continue to do that, just sheer will. The, it feels like your body would eventually come in. Perhaps I'm not accounting for the will of Jocko, but, uh, yeah, there's... What is it? It's a very small number of people, but there is a genetic mutation that allows certain cohorts to exist on between sort of three and five hours sleep, and that's just-

   12. AHAndrew Huberman14:42

       Yeah.

   13. CWChris Williamson14:42

       ... where they're at.

   14. AHAndrew Huberman14:42

       Yeah, very rare. Probably, they have very fast adenosine clearance systems viewed differently. Perhaps they don't accumulate as much adenosine during the day. Um-

   15. CWChris Williamson14:52

       Someone test Jocko.

   16. AHAndrew Huberman14:53

       Yeah.

   17. CWChris Williamson14:53

       Get his blood.

   18. AHAndrew Huberman14:54

       Yeah.

   19. CWChris Williamson14:54

       Get his... I imagine that when you try and get him with the needle, it just, you know, bends.

   20. AHAndrew Huberman15:00

       I've talked about some of these before, but the, the comments on YouTube about Jocko are the best. The, uh, like when Jocko was born, the doctor looked at his, um, parents and said, "It's a man."

   21. CWChris Williamson15:12

       (laughs) When he does a push-up, he doesn't lift himself, he pushes the world away.

   22. AHAndrew Huberman15:15

       Right, he doesn't do push-ups, he does earth downs. That's a... I've seen that one.

   23. CWChris Williamson15:19

       Uh-

   24. AHAndrew Huberman15:19

       And, uh, there are a bunch of other ones that are, that are really amusing, but-

   25. CWChris Williamson15:22

       Yeah, he's the new ch- he's the new Chuck Norris.

   26. AHAndrew Huberman15:23

       Yeah, but I think those guys are selected for the teams in part through their ability to, you know, cognitively and physically push aside fatigue. I think for most people, you know, they need six to eight hours of sleep per night, unless growing, teen years, battling some illness, that sort of thing. Um, you know, if you, if ever you're typ- you're used to going to sleep at 10:00 PM or something, and suddenly at 7:00 PM you feel incredibly tired, you're probably battling something and you should go to sleep.

   27. CWChris Williamson15:49

       Mm-hmm.

   28. AHAndrew Huberman15:49

       Um, you know, I, I need about six to eight hours, but the other night I got nine. I rarely get nine.

   29. CWChris Williamson15:57

       Felt like a superhuman.

   30. AHAndrew Huberman15:59

       So, yeah, typically for me it's about seven hours, and then I do this 10 to 20 minute non-sleep deep rest. On the drive over here, I did a 10 minute non-sleep deep-
3. 23:59 – 35:05

   How to Become a Morning Person

   1. CWChris Williamson23:59

      sort of related to what we've spoken about there, how can people become a morning person or learn to get up early more easily and more regularly?

   2. AHAndrew Huberman24:08

      Yeah. Um, three days of pain, the rest is easy. So it takes about three days to shift the biological mechanisms to, uh, make you a morning person. Now, if you are a v- very strongly genetically sh- determined night owl-

   3. CWChris Williamson24:23

      That's a thing?

   4. AHAndrew Huberman24:24

      That's a thing. So there are genetic mutations, they call them polymorphisms...... that makes some people night owls. They feel best psychologically and physically going to sleep at about 1:00, 2:00, or 3:00 AM and waking up somewhere around, you know, 10:00, 11:00 AM or noon.

   5. CWChris Williamson24:40

      Mm-hmm.

   6. AHAndrew Huberman24:40

      That exists, not just during development or teen years, but that exists. Not just for social reasons. Other people are true morning people. They feel absolutely best going to sleep around 8:00 PM or 9:00 PM. 10:00 PM would be late for them. And they feel great waking up at 4:00 or 5:00 or 6:00 AM, okay? Most people feel best going to sleep somewhere between 10:00 and midnight and waking up somewhere between 6:00 AM and 8:00 AM or so, maybe 5:30 to 8:00 AM. Okay. So those are three bins of the night owl, the morning person, and then the more typical schedule, but it's heavily weighted toward that typical schedule if you look at the general population. So if somebody wants to get up earlier, you need to stack the four primary what are called zeitgebers or time keepers, so named because some of the early chronobiologists that discovered this stuff and the underlying mechanisms were German, as it were. So the number one zeitgeber, the number one way to shift your circadian clock, which is this cluster of neurons that sits a few centimeters above the roof of your mouth, is to view bright light at a time when you want to be awake, AKA the morning, okay? So that's why I say get outside, look at the sun, toward the sun. Don't force yourself to stare at it. Don't damage your eyes. Blink as needed. No sunglasses, eye glasses, corrective lenses, and contacts are absolutely fine, even if they have UV protection. Okay. However, if you combine that with another zeitgeber, the second most powerful zeitgeber, is exercise or movement. So if you do some jumping jacks, you skip some rope, or you even just-

   7. CWChris Williamson26:14

      In the morning?

   8. AHAndrew Huberman26:14

      ... take a walk while facing the sun, now you're starting to stack different zeitgebers. And I'll explain the mechanisms in a moment. If you then also add caffeine, now this spits in the face a little bit of what I said a few minutes ago, but if you were to add caffeine, you can entrain, as it's called, the circadian clock to be alert at that time a bit more. And I'll be honest, if I'm gonna exercise first thing in the morning, I need caffeine. I can't wait that 60 to 90 minutes. If I need to jump right into exercise, I find it's easiest for me to do 30 minutes after waking, three hours after waking, or 11 hours after waking. And a lot of people find that the same. But of course, exercise when you can, because it's that important, but if you want to, quote unquote, "optimize your energy levels for exercise," typically people will notice that has to do with your temperature rhythm. Okay, so we've got sunlight, we've got exercise or movement of any kind. It could be jumping jacks, could be walking. You don't have to do a full workout. And then caffeine and, in some cases, food. I'm not big on eating first thing in the morning. I don't like to eat until 11:00 AM or noon. That's when my first meal arrives. For me, just naturally, that's when I get hungry. It's all caffeine and hydration prior to that. But if you were to eat something first thing in the morning, you, that's part of the way you entrain your circadian clock to wake up, to essentially wake you up earlier. And then the fourth one is a social rhythm. If you're interacting with other people, you're going to entrain your clock to that as well. So-

   9. CWChris Williamson27:37

      No way.

   10. AHAndrew Huberman27:37

       Yes. So there's a socially, there's a social component to it, circadian entrainment. Now, the pathways for these are from the eye, in the case of viewing light, to the circadian clock, the suprachiasmatic nucleus. In the case of caffeine, it's more general. In the case of exercise, there's literally a brain stem to circadian clock connection, a big, a superhighway of neuronal connections, that then, uh, so-called entrains your circadian clock. Remember, your circadian clock generates an intrinsic 24-hour rhythm, such that if we put you into constant dark or constant light, you would still sleep for a given bout and then be alert for a given bout with a little bit of a nap. It just is what we'd call free run. It would drift a little later each day. This is what happens when you go to Vegas. This is what happens when you're in an environment without a lot of cues about the day, uh, the sunlight, uh, rising and setting cycle.

   11. CWChris Williamson28:25

       Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

   12. AHAndrew Huberman28:27

       Sunlight, exercise, caffeine and eating, and social interactions bring your circadian clock into alignment with all of those zeitgebers. So when I said it takes three days, if tomorrow you wanna start beginning the process of becoming an early riser, you'd set your alarm for 5:00 AM. No matter what time you went to sleep the night before, you're gonna get up and you're gonna do the four things that I described. Maybe leave out food if you don't wanna eat. Maybe leave out caffeine if you wanna delay by 90 minutes. It's gonna hurt, and then by the early afternoon, you'll be dragging a bit, and you just have to be careful to not overindulge in caffeine, which will then cause you to fall asleep later. Then you wanna go to sleep at your now naturally slightly earlier sleep time. The next day, you'll notice you'll f- it'll be a little bit easier to do the morning routine I just described. And by the third day, you ought to be waking up with or before the alarm by a few minutes or moments, because your circadian clock has phase shifted, okay? It's phase advanced, as we say. Your circadian clock intrinsic to you generates a 24.2 or a 24.3-hour rhythm. It's not perfectly 24 hours, and that, we believe, we don't know, but the just-so story is that it's, that it's such that, that you're able to then shift that clock in, uh, in one or the other direction. You can phase advance, so you wake up earlier and go to sleep earlier. You can phase delay. How do you phase delay? Well, you're probably doing this already. Everyone nowadays pretty much qualifies as a shift worker by the strict and not so strict criteria of shift work, which is, are you doing any kind of cognitive activity after 9:00 PM? Are you viewing any kind of bright lights after 9:30 PM? Most people would say yes. So the, the diabolical thing about the circadian timing system is that it requires a lot of bright light, ideally from sunlight, but a lot of bright light early in the day to make you a morning and daytime person.

   13. CWChris Williamson30:21

       Mm-hmm.

   14. AHAndrew Huberman30:21

       But it requires just a little bit of bright light, even from an artificial source, after the hours of about 9:30 PM till 4:00 AM to quash your melatonin and make it difficult to sleep, or if you sleep, to make that sleep not as effective. There's a simple remedy, however, which is, and this is a beautiful study published in Science Reports in 2022.If you view sunlight in the afternoon, even for five minutes or so, could be late afternoon, could be sunset, take off your sunglasses, look in the direction of the sun, so now looking west, you adjust the sensitivity of your retina, the neurons in the back of your eye, such that bright light later at night doesn't have quite as much effect to suppress melatonin, and it reduces the melatonin-suppressive effects by about 50%, or offsets those. So I think of this afternoon viewing as, well, first of all, it's nice to look at a sunset. If you're indoors in an environment like this, even if there are bright lights on, get outside for a few minutes before the sun sets. This is e- especially important in winter. Even if you can't see the sun as an object, get some sunlight in your eyes, and that will at least partially offset the effects of bright light in your eyes at night, partially. And I refer to this more or less as your Netflix inoculation, so that that night you can be on your phone or watching Netflix, and it's not going to disrupt your sleep as much, but it will still disrupt your sleep somewhat. But let's, you know, unless, like Rick Rubin's very diligent about wearing the, uh, red lens glasses. I've started doing that as well. Um, but if you don't do that, y- well, I'm guessing he also sees the sunset in the evening.

   15. CWChris Williamson31:55

       Mm-hmm.

   16. AHAndrew Huberman31:55

       Um, he's very attached, for good scientific reasons, uh, to the, the sunlight thing. But these are little things that take just moments, right? They're essentially zero-cost, that can really improve your sleep. But that's how you become a morning person. If you wanna become a night person, you do the opposite. You view bright light between the hours of 4:00 PM and 10:00 PM, and there, then you will phase delay or phase shift-

   17. CWChris Williamson32:19

       Mm.

   18. AHAndrew Huberman32:19

       ... in a delayed way your circadian clock, making you wanna wake up later the next morning.

   19. CWChris Williamson32:24

       I wonder if dogs count as, uh, social interaction.

   20. AHAndrew Huberman32:30

       Absolutely. And they have all of the same mechanisms we just described.

   21. CWChris Williamson32:34

       So I just think in-

   22. AHAndrew Huberman32:34

       A- yes, uh, tr-

   23. CWChris Williamson32:35

       ... how can we stack that everything first thing in the morning, morning walk.

   24. AHAndrew Huberman32:39

       Yeah.

   25. CWChris Williamson32:39

       Y- i- if you're in a place that's not Iceland or somewhere that's super high north-

   26. AHAndrew Huberman32:43

       Mm-hmm, yep.

   27. CWChris Williamson32:44

       ... dog.

   28. AHAndrew Huberman32:45

       Yep.

   29. CWChris Williamson32:45

       Social interaction, m- moving around, and then caffeine if you do or if you don't, if you don't want it. But, uh-

   30. AHAndrew Huberman32:52

       If you have a dog that likes to run, you're even better off, 'cause it'll force you to run.
4. 35:05 – 43:39

   Andrew’s New Daily Routine

   1. CWChris Williamson35:05

      cliches there, which is too much of a generalization but I think works, is there's no such thing as being overworked, only under-rested.

   2. AHAndrew Huberman35:12

      Mm-hmm. I like that. I like that a lot. I also think that, you know, we know a lot about the different stages of sleep. We know less about the different stages of wakefulness. I've recently started embracing my natural cognitive and physical cycles, and I've come to realize, and I think Ed Mylett says he does this, but he does it d- he thinks of his day as consisting of three days, um, which is awesome from the productivity standpoint. I noticed that also, 'cause I, he mentioned these time blocks, so I just wanna-

   3. CWChris Williamson35:40

      Well, yeah, you've, you've-

   4. AHAndrew Huberman35:40

      ... you know, yeah.

   5. CWChris Williamson35:41

      ... you've got a new daily routine.

   6. AHAndrew Huberman35:42

      Yeah.

   7. CWChris Williamson35:43

      What's your routine?

   8. AHAndrew Huberman35:44

      Yeah, so I came to realize by observation, right? I didn't force this. This, uh, so this is something I observed in myself, which is that from 6:00 AM until noon, my brain is very capable, my body is very capable of doing certain things far more easily than at other times of the 24-hour cycle. So I consider that sort of, you know, the first phase of my day. Sometimes I'm up by 6:00. Sometimes it's 7:00. Sometimes it's 8:00. Usually, it's about 6:00, 6:30. So I consider that one opportunity block. The second opportunity block is between noon or because I eat lunch typically, uh, around noon, between, you know, 1:00 and 6:00 PM, or noon and 6:00 PM, so a second opportunity block. And then the third is between 6:00 PM and bedtime, which for me typically is 10:30, but sometimes late. I'm half Argentine. Sometimes I go to bed at midnight, and I just go, "I'll take a nap the next day." I mean, you have to live. I mean, come on. So what I started to realize is that I can do really focused work in two but not three of those blocks consistently.I also noticed that if I exercise early in the first block, like between 6:00 AM and before 9:00 AM, I have more energy all day long. This is what I observed ex- experimentally on myself. But if I exercise starting at 9:00 or starting at 10:00, so halfway through that block, the second opportunity block is diminished. I'm kind of dragging. Maybe it's related to when I eat, but that wasn't changing when I eat or what I eat. So, I do think that people could benefit tremendously, not necessarily by following the schedule that I s- follow, but by paying attention to their natural cognitive and physical rhythms. And so as a consequence, what I now do is I take a look at the day, like for instance, this is afternoon. We sat down together here at 1:00. I think we're probably somewhere around 2:00 PM. I don't know, somewhere around there. But I realized, okay, I could work before I got here in this early day block, or this evening. What I chose to do this morning was kind of more procedural things. Took care of some posting for our Monday episode, took care of some phone calls. I took a walk, made... Took care of some email, made sure I ate some food before I came here. On the way here, I did a brief 10-minute NSDR 'cause I didn't sleep quite as much last night as I would've liked, but I walked in feeling great. And I don't get, uh, paid to endorse, but I, uh, nor did, um, we have any kind of arrangement to say this, but this nootronic energy drink I, I'm loving. It's really good.

   9. CWChris Williamson37:58

      You're flying at the moment.

   10. AHAndrew Huberman37:58

       It's also got an i on it, so I'm-

   11. CWChris Williamson37:59

       Yeah, yeah, yeah.

   12. AHAndrew Huberman38:00

       ... I'm hyped. Um, love it. Really tasty. It tastes like, it tastes so good. Um, so I can work two or th- of these three blocks, and then the third one ends up being kind of a mishmash of procedural stuff. So, today, the early part of the, of the day, the 6:00 AM to noon block was kind of like handled doing non-n... It's work, but it's not like focused work stuff. And I didn't train today because I trained yesterday. Um, and today was a day off in any case. Hopefully we'll do some sauna cold tonight. So now we're working, I'm focused, and I imagine that, you know, two, three, four hours of this and my brain will have, you know, expended some pretty serious cognitive effort. And then I'll take a little c- bit of... I'll expect a sort of dip in energy. I won't force it. And then this evening I'll get some work done and then hopefully we'll do some sauna cold. So I'm very aware of the fact that I get sort of two opportunities from these three blocks.

   13. CWChris Williamson38:53

       Mm-hmm.

   14. AHAndrew Huberman38:54

       Now, my ideal schedule would be to work in the first two blocks really, really hard. Still eat, still train, train early. So it'd be train early, work in the first block. So get it do- get the training done by 8:00 AM, no later. Work, super focused work. Then eat something, super focused work in the second block. Maybe do an NSDR to recover my mental and physical vigor, and then in the evening-

   15. CWChris Williamson39:16

       Social time.

   16. AHAndrew Huberman39:17

       Social time, relax.

   17. CWChris Williamson39:18

       Night dream.

   18. AHAndrew Huberman39:18

       I've been watching a lot of documentary.

   19. CWChris Williamson39:20

       What have you been watching?

   20. AHAndrew Huberman39:21

       Um, I watched a Anthony Bourdain documentary yesterday. I'm not... I, I knew, obviously knew who he was. Um, we have friends in common. Um, he, you know, he's a few, well sadly passed away, but, um, to- took his own life, which is tragic. Um, but I was aware that, you know, because Joe's talked about him a lot, um, uh, David Choe, the artist has talked about him a lot and is in that documentary. He also was part of the New York City, you know, '70s, '80 punk rock scene. So The Ramones, I'm a huge Ramones fan. Joe Strummer, like kind of, of that ilk. And, um, uh, the documentary is called Roadrunner, and it's very, very good. And it's also very interesting to see how he was such a sensation seeker. You could almost feel, feel him veering toward something and then-

   21. CWChris Williamson40:11

       Mm-hmm.

   22. AHAndrew Huberman40:11

       ... you know, and, and-

   23. CWChris Williamson40:12

       I've never watched any of his documentaries.

   24. AHAndrew Huberman40:14

       Yeah, very, very good. And, uh, very, very good. And he's-

   25. CWChris Williamson40:16

       Have you seen, just to interject, have you seen, uh, World War II From the Front Lines?

   26. AHAndrew Huberman40:21

       No.

   27. CWChris Williamson40:22

       So this is, uh, Netflix. Netflix have done at least two or three-

   28. AHAndrew Huberman40:27

       Mm-hmm.

   29. CWChris Williamson40:28

       ... colorized World War II documentaries. In fact, there's one that's World War I.

   30. AHAndrew Huberman40:32

       I saw that one.
5. 43:39 – 53:46

   Mentally Dealing With a Rapid News Cycle

   1. CWChris Williamson43:39

      We're in an election year at the moment. I think as much as you might want to fall asleep for the next three months and, you know-

   2. AHAndrew Huberman43:44

      No, I was just sort of joking. I, I mean, I, I... The political process is critical. It's just, it's just been, um... It's been a lot, as they say. Yeah.

   3. CWChris Williamson43:52

      I don't think that's... I don't think that it's unfair to say that. I don't think it... I think a lot of people ho- holds this sort of cognitive superposition, which is, "I understand the future of the country is very important, and I, as a person with a vote, need to be a active participant. That's the whole reason for doing it. And also, this is exhausting, and it's sapping an awful lot of my will to live, and, and, and I feel kind of overloaded." Um, have you looked at any strategies, spoken to anybody that has any psychological tools to be able to deal with a rapid media cycle, sort of very activating stories? Basically, how can people psychologically manage this upcoming period? What, what would you suggest?

   4. AHAndrew Huberman44:32

      Yeah, I actually hosted a guest who is expert on the psychology of politics. It was super interesting. Um, and we looked at all of this through the lens, uh, a completely non-partisan lens, because we have listeners on both sides of the aisle and probably some who are undecided. Um, first of all, I, uh, the, the fervor around this upcoming election, the intensity of everything, uh, certainly convinced me that I, I'm never gonna run for office. (laughs) Despite some speculation out there from friends and family and some occasional calls from reporters, um, no. Um, it's, it's not my, not my, uh, uh, arena. Um, but it's obviously a very important one. Um, you know, and one of my concerns is that if the intensity around all of this continues to increase as much as it has-

   5. CWChris Williamson45:26

      I can guarantee you it's going to.

   6. AHAndrew Huberman45:27

      ... yeah, that, that young people who would consider running for office out of a genuine desire to serve might be dissuaded. You know, um, you know, 'cause you hear these things like, "Oh, it's impossible to get anything done," or, "In order to be effective, you have to be this, that, and the other kinda person." And, and that's a terrible message. It might be true, but it's a terrible message, because I think ultimately what you want in any field, right, whether or not you're talking about music or sport, I mean, we're seeing this at the recent Olympics, or podcasting, you want a big pool of people funneling into it so that you can discover the incredible talents and virtuosos and, you know. And, and so that's what you need, is a bigger feed- bigger applicant pool, right, um, to reveal talent and for a field to progress. Okay, enough editorializing. Um, I think the best thing that one can do to navigate this whole cycle is to pay careful attention to what draws attention. And what I learned from this expert, um, is a political science professor, um, is that what you're listening for and what people are orient toward- orienting towards is a dominance language, but the dominance language over others is far less effective, believe it or not, in shifting people's minds than the dominance language associated with expressing one's true beliefs. So, uh, their argument was, if you look historically at presidential and other forms of election, and by the way, I'm, I'm paraphrasing now, so... That you could predict who was going to win based on who told you what they really think and believe, as opposed to telling people what they want to hear. Like, I think that we have a sensor for when we're being told what people think we want us to hear versus what somebody really believes, even if we disagree with them. And, you know, this probably gets to our origins as a old world primate species, but we tend to put leaders into office who can communicate either through their words or through the, you know, timbre of their voice, or through their gestures, or a combination of things, maybe it's redundancy in how often they hammer on a message, what they really believe, as opposed to flip-flopping, you know, according to what the polls say, or what we wanna believe.

   7. CWChris Williamson47:43

      Blowing with the wind.

   8. AHAndrew Huberman47:44

      Right. So, I think we hear the words "dominance language" and we default to, oh, it's about one person kinda, you know, dominating the other person. Now, ultimately, it's a, it's a ch- it's a competition between mostly two people. Uh, we have a third party in this country, but, um, it seems to be boiling down to two at this moment. Um, and so this thing about dominance language is often couched as dominance over the other in a given scenario, over a given topic, in separate venues, you know, at one gathering versus another. But what this, I, I consider brilliant political science professor was explaining is that it's real- the dominance is really exerted and impacts voting at the level of one or the other candidate, perhaps both, expressing what they really believe about something in clear terms.

   9. CWChris Williamson48:35

      With conviction.

   10. AHAndrew Huberman48:35

       With conviction, and it, and it being true. I think this is the sort of thing that...... they can't fake, ultimately.

   11. CWChris Williamson48:42

       Oh, so-

   12. AHAndrew Huberman48:42

       And that, where people lose faith in a, in a candidate is when that candidate, you know, says, "Well, at one point, you know, I said this, but now I'm saying this." And they don't give a reason that feels legitimate to their-

   13. CWChris Williamson48:52

       Or they don't address it.

   14. AHAndrew Huberman48:53

       ... actual beliefs, or they don't address it. Right, or they don't address it, or they simply focus on the beliefs of the other candidate. So my-

   15. CWChris Williamson48:59

       Right.

   16. AHAndrew Huberman48:59

       ... strategy in this current election is to put, as I do for many, not all things in life, much to the dismay of people in my life, a neuroscience lens, a psychology lens, a science-based lens on what's happening around me. And I'm listening for, does that sound true in the sense... Does it, does it really sound like that candidate really believes that? Or does it sound like they're trying to tell me this? Or are they spending more time talking about what the other candidate believes or doesn't believe in an effort to sway me? Because ultimately, yes, there does seem to be some... And they, this guest pointed it out as well, that there's a, there is a tendency to orient towards people that we recognize, that, um, feel similar to people we grew up around. But that's not actually the, um, thing that impacts voting in the end. That ultimately, the people who are undecided... Because there is always gonna be a group of people who are voting against the other party, period. Like a-

   17. CWChris Williamson49:49

       Hm.

   18. AHAndrew Huberman49:50

       They're just literally voting against one party. But there, I do think that there's this group in the middle. What, um, you know, and I didn't coin this term, but, uh, Dr. Paul Conti, who was on my podcast-

   19. CWChris Williamson50:00

       And mine.

   20. AHAndrew Huberman50:01

       ... He's a psychiatrist, and yours. Talks about the league of reasonable people, which are, which is, uh, has nothing to do with politics per se, but this is a, a group of people who are really evaluating evidence on the basis of what they see and what they feel and what they hear, and trying to move away from-

   21. CWChris Williamson50:14

       The silence middle.

   22. AHAndrew Huberman50:15

       The silence middle. That, you know, and so people that are trying to evaluate evidence and are really paying attention to, does this person feel genuine? Do they really believe this? Do they... Or are they telling me this because it's what I want to hear?

   23. CWChris Williamson50:27

       How-

   24. AHAndrew Huberman50:27

       I think that's, I think that's the way I plan to navigate this time. And, and-

   25. CWChris Williamson50:30

       H- How will, how will it help, uh, with psychological health, uh, using that? You know, you're still gonna be peppered with-

   26. AHAndrew Huberman50:35

       Yeah.

   27. CWChris Williamson50:35

       ... the story and the, the, the worry and the concern, and, "Oh, here's a new... And I've got to forget the last thing, but it's still in my mind, and there's a new thing, and I gotta spin all of these difference news stories."

   28. AHAndrew Huberman50:44

       Yeah, great question. In a very Paul Contian, uh, way, it gives you agency. It gives you a sense of control over the fire hose of information that's coming at you. You can say, "Okay, I'm gonna... There's nothing, there's nothing I can do about the fire hose. There's nothing I can do about getting just blasted back with all this information, but I'm going to apply a very specific filter to try and hear what people are saying about specific issues that matter, and paying attention to whether or not they're telling me what they really believe." You can disagree with them and vote against them, or you can vote for them. But ultimately, the data show, I, as I understand, that people ultimately are voting for the candidate that they believe has the greatest conviction.

   29. CWChris Williamson51:24

       Mm.

   30. AHAndrew Huberman51:24

       And what I think has been lacking, frankly, in the political discussion, I say this as a citizen, not as a political scientist, but as a citizen who votes, has been a clear picture of what the future could look like if a given candidate wins. I want a vivid picture of the world they imagine. I don't want this, like, like, surface-level stuff, like, "Imagine a day when this and that..." Like, like, it's like they start each sentence correctly, and then it just kinda goes to, like... It just kinda... And, you know, as a scientist, and somebody who's a public health/public science communicator, you know, I, I'm constantly under the scrutiny of, like, wait, what exactly is the protocol? What exactly justifies the protocol? Okay, delay caffeine 90 minutes after waking-
6. 53:46 – 1:04:46

   Why Stories Are More Powerful Than Statistics

   1. CWChris Williamson53:46

      I found, uh, this really interesting study that's been done recently, stories don't care about your statistics. In controlled experiments, researchers documented a pronounced story-statistic gap in memory. The average impact of statistics on beliefs fades by 73%-

   2. AHAndrew Huberman54:01

      Mm-hmm.

   3. CWChris Williamson54:01

      ... over the course of a day.

   4. AHAndrew Huberman54:02

      Mm-hmm.

   5. CWChris Williamson54:02

      The impact of a story fades by only 32%.

   6. AHAndrew Huberman54:05

      Wow.

   7. CWChris Williamson54:05

      So it's 73% average impact of statistics on beliefs, 32% on a story. So, in short, people's beliefs are more durably impacted by stories than statistics. Huge implications for how voters' beliefs can be more easily swayed during the upcoming elections.

   8. AHAndrew Huberman54:19

      Yeah, uh, part of the reason I love you, I, I really mean that. Like, you, you are, you have an unbelievable ability to find studies that are relevant that I would never find. H- here's why I believe stories are more impactful than just citing statistics. The reason is that the brain organizes memories of all kinds in beginning, middle, and end. And a graph has a...... Structure, but it doesn't really have a beginning, middle, and an end. No, it can be-

   9. CWChris Williamson54:47

      A narrative-

   10. AHAndrew Huberman54:47

       ... a time course plot. It can be a time course plot. There are all sorts of caveats to this, right? And the scientist in me always has to mention all the caveats. But, we, from the time that we are little children, we organize things in terms of beginning, middle, and end. Uh, the best example of this is the ABCs. When you learn the ABCs, you don't do A, B, C, D, E, F G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. That was, for a moment there, I was worried I wouldn't remember.

   11. CWChris Williamson55:09

       Yeah.

   12. AHAndrew Huberman55:10

       But, um, so far so good. And- and I've been drinking my new tonic. So, um-

   13. CWChris Williamson55:13

       Good man.

   14. AHAndrew Huberman55:13

       So-

   15. CWChris Williamson55:14

       Flying.

   16. AHAndrew Huberman55:14

       But, how do, how do children learn the ABCs?

   17. CWChris Williamson55:17

       A, B, C, D, E, F-

   18. AHAndrew Huberman55:19

       Right. So the brain is learning the inflections. It's learning what's prosody, right? The inflections, the- the lilt in, the lilt and fall of- of voice. And we know that this is one of the ways that we organize information. My friends who are, like, world-class musicians, who sing, who, I always say, like, like, I remember lyrics really well. And I always say, "Oh, what about that lyric?" And they go, "Oh," like, "I can't remember." Like, and then they'll start with the first line, and then all of a sudden they remember the whole song.

   19. CWChris Williamson55:46

       Sequence.

   20. AHAndrew Huberman55:47

       That's right. It's, the, that's the way memories are organized. They sort of peel back. You know, like, some people are very good at r- memorizing lists, or acronyms can help us. But in general, we sequence our life on the basis of a beginning, middle, end type structure. So, you know, I think when people... Um, now, the exception to this would be flashbulb memories. Like, for instance, uh, a few, about a month ago, right, one of the presidential candidates, there was an assassination attempt on his life. I think that was the first time since 9/11 that I recall everyone in the country being tuned into the same event online.

   21. CWChris Williamson56:22

       Wild.

   22. AHAndrew Huberman56:23

       Yeah, I mean, there may have been intervening things, but-

   23. CWChris Williamson56:25

       Wild.

   24. AHAndrew Huberman56:25

       ... you know, there was an earthquake this morning in Los Angeles. Did you feel it?

   25. CWChris Williamson56:28

       I was busy preparing and I had my AirPods in.

   26. AHAndrew Huberman56:30

       All right, great.

   27. CWChris Williamson56:31

       And everybody else went, "Ah!"

   28. AHAndrew Huberman56:32

       That was a little one. I've g- but I grew up in California. This one was, was kind of a, it was a ripple, not a rumble. So usually if it's a bigger one, you'll hear it like a train coming through the, the, the environment. In any case, not a flashbulb memory, right? Obviously. Not... But you remember what you were doing. But, you know, a few weeks ago we had, or about a month ago during that assassination attempt, we had a flashbulb memory. It was a s- I can recall, it was a Saturday. I was sitting on the couch.

   29. CWChris Williamson56:54

       Yep, yep.

   30. AHAndrew Huberman56:54

       You know, uh, my girlfriend and I were talking, and then all of a sudden I was like, "Oh my goodness." You know, she's like, "No." "Oh my goodness." You know, and all of a sudden we were on our-
7. 1:04:46 – 1:09:55

   The Tim Kennedy Alarm Clock

   1. CWChris Williamson1:04:46

      Yeah, one of my friends, her husband has suffered with PTSD, with alcoholism. Oh, yeah, get the... It's switching out flavors.

   2. AHAndrew Huberman1:04:53

      Which one was this?

   3. CWChris Williamson1:04:53

      Wild citrus.

   4. AHAndrew Huberman1:04:54

      Wild ci- You know what's weird? Is I, I study the visual system. I have an appointment in ophthalmology after all, and I can see great at a distance. I can read small text at distance. But I'm actually running into trouble seeing things up close recently. Like, if I put it here, I'm blind to it.

   5. CWChris Williamson1:05:07

      Well, I told you last time about my LASIK, right? And, uh, I can see absolutely everything. Ancestral trauma at 500 yards. I'm, I'm like Tim Kennedy.

   6. AHAndrew Huberman1:05:16

      (laughs)

   7. CWChris Williamson1:05:16

      Um...

   8. AHAndrew Huberman1:05:17

      I'm sorry, (laughs) I'm not laughing at, uh, whoo, I'm not laughing at a, um, at Tim Kennedy. Uh, Lord knows I'm not laughing at Tim Kennedy. Tim, if you... Don't hurt me. I'm a fan. Um, I'm just, uh, the fact that you could see, uh, trauma at 500 yards is, uh-

   9. CWChris Williamson1:05:31

      (laughs)

   10. AHAndrew Huberman1:05:31

       ... that's a high-acuity vision. So, (laughs) my goodness. I, like, Tim, I'm like...

   11. CWChris Williamson1:05:37

       He will come and find you.

   12. AHAndrew Huberman1:05:38

       Yeah. He's, he's low.

   13. CWChris Williamson1:05:38

       I've got this... I've got a story. Uh, I'll tell you a story that, uh, he told me about him and Brian Callen, and, um-

   14. AHAndrew Huberman1:05:44

       That one's good too.

   15. CWChris Williamson1:05:44

       Good, happy days. So, uh, Brian went over to the UK with them. He was going to go, uh, s- surfing? They were doing some sort of adventure in the UK. And Brian arrived late, and Tim said, uh, "We're gonna go swimming in the morning." He's like, "No, no, no, Tim, I'm, I, you know, I, I just got in. Like, my flight... You've been here for a little bit longer." And he, he said, "No." Grabbed him by the arm like that and said, "No, no, we're going swimming in the morning." Looked him in the eyes, and Brian was like, "Oh, yeah, you know, Tim, I don't want to. I'm gonna be tired. I'm gonna be whatever." Anyway, Tim made the, uh, threat sufficiently plain that he wasn't joking. So, 6:00 in the morning, Brian hears this little knock on his door.

   16. AHAndrew Huberman1:06:25

       Six in the morning.

   17. CWChris Williamson1:06:26

       And it's like, "Brian." So, Brian pretends to be asleep. Brian's an actor. Uh, Brian's been in Hollywood movies, big Hollywood movies.

   18. AHAndrew Huberman1:06:32

       Comedian too, right?

   19. CWChris Williamson1:06:33

       Comedian and actor.

   20. AHAndrew Huberman1:06:34

       Yeah, yeah.

   21. CWChris Williamson1:06:34

       He... And he said he channeled every single ounce of acting ability that he had. So, he sort of laid down on his side, and he even said he gave a, like gave a little snort here and there, and he heard the door open. And then he felt the bed move one side to the other like that. It sort of rocked from left to right. And then Tim's face came down to his ear, and he said, "Brian, do you know..."... how many terrorists I've stood over when they pretended to be asleep.

   22. AHAndrew Huberman1:07:07

       (laughs) And next thing you know, he's in the water swimming.

   23. CWChris Williamson1:07:09

       Correct. And he- th- sure enough that, you know, you're talking about the cortisol spike?

   24. AHAndrew Huberman1:07:13

       Yeah.

   25. CWChris Williamson1:07:13

       That is a reliable way-

   26. AHAndrew Huberman1:07:15

       Right.

   27. CWChris Williamson1:07:15

       ... to give. That would be the a- that's the ultimate alarm, the Tim Kennedy alarm. Forget using sleep cycle, forget everything that I said-

   28. AHAndrew Huberman1:07:20

       Mm-hmm.

   29. CWChris Williamson1:07:20

       ... just pay Tim Kennedy to come and pretend that you're a terrorist.

   30. AHAndrew Huberman1:07:23

       Yeah, it actually raises an interesting and relevant biological point, which is that, you know, if you wake up at 5:00 in the morning and you, you know, g- glance at your phone, something I don't recommend doing, and you see a troubling text message, you'll be wide awake-
8. 1:09:55 – 1:21:28

   Dissecting the Story You Tell Yourself

   1. CWChris Williamson1:09:55

      interesting things I learned from Paul Conti. He- I told him a story when I was 20. I was in a head-on collision with a snowplow at 60 miles an hour-

   2. AHAndrew Huberman1:10:05

      Oof.

   3. CWChris Williamson1:10:05

      ... on the main artery motorway of the UK going up to Scotland.

   4. AHAndrew Huberman1:10:08

      So they were driving the snowplow.

   5. CWChris Williamson1:10:10

      And w- they sort of listed gently across into our lane, only clipped probably-

   6. AHAndrew Huberman1:10:15

      You're driving a little MG or something?

   7. CWChris Williamson1:10:17

      Uh, it was a Ford Focus with my business partner in.

   8. AHAndrew Huberman1:10:20

      Yeah.

   9. CWChris Williamson1:10:20

      And they only clipped maybe about a foot or so into the car.

   10. AHAndrew Huberman1:10:24

       Mm-hmm.

   11. CWChris Williamson1:10:24

       Uh, but for him, what we think happened was he was probably looking at something, not looking, like bink, "And what was that?" And just kept on going. Didn't even notice. For us, all hell broke loose. And, uh, I said to Paul, you know, I had a little bit of travel anxiety for a short while after that and it dissipated, about six weeks or so. I was uncomfortable with, uh, contraflow, uh, traffic. So I, I didn't like being on that lane. I would always be on the-

   12. AHAndrew Huberman1:10:46

       Mm-hmm.

   13. CWChris Williamson1:10:46

       ... or on the other side of the road in the UK.

   14. AHAndrew Huberman1:10:47

       Mm-hmm. Right.

   15. CWChris Williamson1:10:48

       So on the other... I would wanna be on the, uh, outside lane, not the inside lane. And, um, he said one of the interesting things about the way that trauma can repattern memories, old memories, is that you could have convinced yourself, "Oh, I've never liked driving. I've always been uncomfortable of this." You can forget that there was ever a time before the incident-

   16. AHAndrew Huberman1:11:08

       Interesting.

   17. CWChris Williamson1:11:09

       ... when you felt differently.

   18. AHAndrew Huberman1:11:10

       Mm-hmm.

   19. CWChris Williamson1:11:10

       And this is where I think, um, first off, our brains aren't always necessarily our best friends.

   20. AHAndrew Huberman1:11:16

       Right.

   21. CWChris Williamson1:11:16

       Uh, and, and secondly, the story, what's the story that you're telling yourself? What's the story that your brain is telling yourself about these memories? Paul was adamant. He said, "You absolutely could have begun telling yourself..." Because I like, I love driving. I miss not having a car in the US. I finally did get a car at the start of this year, and I really enjoy being back on the road. It's the time where I get to listen to podcasts and I can't use my phone and, you know, I, I really like it. And, uh, but he said, you know, had it have been a more significant, uh, issue or had you dealt with it in a different way, or you could have convinced yourself, "Oh no, I, I've always been a nervous driver. I've never enjoyed driving."

   22. AHAndrew Huberman1:11:50

       Mm-hmm.

   23. CWChris Williamson1:11:50

       And then what, you know, how sort of infectious and pernicious is that kind of a memory? You know, these individual instances, which I think are why it is so important to connect with those emotions, to look at the things that are driving you. What are your, what are your unspoken assumptions about the world? What-

   24. AHAndrew Huberman1:12:05

       Oh, man. Uh, so, uh, I'm just rapt with attention as you're telling this. So I have this notebook. I like these bound notebooks. And I, I started writing, um, kind of journal format, but then recently I started just jotting things down. Sometimes it's podcast notes and... But the other day I had this thought, it's gonna seem very, um... Oh, this is a funny one. You wanna hear a funny one?

   25. CWChris Williamson1:12:24

       I do.

   26. AHAndrew Huberman1:12:24

       So, I, I, a, a long time ago I used to make a joke, but I decided to just script it out. This is only three word entry. It said, uh, you know, my goal in life has been to go from like, "Oy," to, "Oy!" to just peace.

Episode duration: 3:26:44