Neuroscientists 7‑Day Habit Reset: Start Today, Feel Different By Next Week

1. 0:00 – 3:08

   Why Wendy Suzuki exercises every morning: a “bubble bath” of brain chemicals

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee0:00

      A part of your morning routine, 30 minutes of exercise every single morning, Monday to Friday, but also at weekends. And I believe that that has been informed by your research.

   2. WSWendy Suzuki0:12

      Absolutely.

   3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee0:12

      So why do you do that?

   4. WSWendy Suzuki0:14

      I do that because I know from not just my research, but the research of all of my colleagues, that every single time you move your body, starting with just walking, but I like to do kind of cardio weights workout for 30 minutes. What that is doing i- it is releasing a whole bunch of neurochemicals in your brain, and all your listeners out there have heard of some of these neurochemicals, dopamine, serotonin, noradrenaline, but also growth factors are being released. And I like to say that it's like giving your brain a wonderful bubble bath of neurochemicals. And what do these neurochemicals do? Well, the dopamine and serotonin are making you feel good. They're bringing your energy up. And the other thing that we know that happens with, uh, movement, physical activity, is that the functions of your prefrontal cortex right behind your forehead, um, get sharper, they get better. And so, um, I do that first thing in the morning, and I do that to prepare my brain for work. And, uh, I wanna come into work, I wanna be happy, I wanna be, uh, motivated, I, and I wanna be able to focus well. And the reason why we do it every morning for 30 minutes, no matter what day it is, is, um, really about habit formation. I, I was all over the place. You know, I would go for, you know, seven days in a row and then, oh, I'd, I'd be too tired. I found really during the pandemic that 30 minutes first thing in the morning was something that I can do. I could keep doing it every single day. It didn't tire me out the next day, and I still felt motivated to come and my muscles weren't too sore. Uh, and it just helped with that, that, um, gradual habit formation. So I do it for my brain and m- for my brain, uh, productivity. Uh, and, uh, the, the 30 minutes every morning is really about building that habit that will stick with you and does not go away.

   5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:16

      You mentioned a lot of things there that I think we all want, happiness, motivation-

   6. WSWendy Suzuki2:24

      Yeah

   7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:24

      ... focus, productivity, thinking better.

   8. WSWendy Suzuki2:28

      Yes.

   9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:28

      You know, these are things that no matter who we are, we're all seeking them in our lives.

   10. WSWendy Suzuki2:34

       Mm-hmm.

   11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:35

       Now, you've found that when you do this as part of your morning routine, you almost set your body and brain up for the day with those emotions and feelings that you want. I think that's really, really powerful.

   12. WSWendy Suzuki2:48

       Yeah.

   13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:48

       Can you, can you rewind to when you didn't do this first thing in the morning?

   14. WSWendy Suzuki2:54

       Yeah.

   15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:54

       You know, what-

   16. WSWendy Suzuki2:54

       Mm-hmm

   17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:54

       ... how did your day go then compared to how does your day go now?

   18. WSWendy Suzuki2:59

       Yeah.

   19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:59

       And do you also remember, was there a specific bit of research that when you did it or read it, you thought, "Wait a minute, I've gotta change something"?

2. 3:08 – 6:43

   From tenure stress to Peru: the personal wake-up call that made exercise non-negotiable

   1. WSWendy Suzuki3:08

      Yes. Uh, yes, to both. Okay. So here's how it goes when you don't, um, do that, that movement, don't put that movement in your day, and this was a lived experience. It was... I was going through a really, really stressful part of my career, which is trying to get tenure at an American university. They give you six years and they say, "Okay, you have six years to make your name, and if you don't do it, we're gonna fire you. And if you are gonna do it, then, then we will embrace you for the rest of your career and we can't fire you. So, you know, no big deal." Like [laughs] and so you have six years to do this. And so what did I do? My wonderful strategy was to only work. I'm just gonna work. I'm going to, uh, just go into the lab and I'm, I'm going to, you know, relinquish my s- my social life and I'm just going to work and I'm going to eat all the wonderful takeout in New York City 'cause that's so fast and efficient and it's delicious, um, with lots of calories. And so I'm gonna do that too. And so I, um, I got stuff done definitely, but I had no social life. I found myself, uh, um, with much more weight than, than I, I, uh, was used to because I wasn't moving at all. And mainly I was unhappy. I was, I was just unhappy. I was doing, I was working really hard, but very, very unhappy. And, uh, my wake-up call came when I gave myself a vacation, but, uh [laughs] because I had no friends, 'cause I had no social life, I'm by myself, I went on a river rafting trip to Peru. So I was trying to get as far away from New York City as I could. So I went by myself on one of these group, you know, river rafting trips. And it was so much fun, so beautiful walking around, um, Inca ruins, but I realized I was the weakest one on this whole trip. There were 65-year-old triathletes that were so strong, and there were 16-year-olds that came with their father that were also stronger than me. And so I came back saying, "Okay, I, I got a little bit of outdoors. I felt so good after this. I need to go to the gym and get a little bit more movement in my life." And it was really that. That was my, that was my realization when I started going to the gym, and I remember the very first class I took was a hip hop dance class. Oh my God, I'm really bad at hip hop dancing. And, but it was very, very, um... It, it, it really pushed my limits and I remember coming out of there going, "Oh my God, I hope nobody, you know, took any pictures or anything." But, but really got my aerobic, you know, uh, uh, activity up and I still felt good. Even though I felt like a terrible hip hop dancer, I still felt great.And, um, that is what made me go back to the literature. When I started feeling so much better after, after this, so much better than, than a month before when I was only working 100% of the time, that's when I went back and looked at all of the research showing that movement changes your mood. Movement, regular movement can be as effective as some of the most commonly used antidepressants. And while I wasn't depressed, I wasn't happy. I was not a happy person in my life, and I felt myself shifting out of that, first with this trip to Peru, but then with that regular bringing movement into my life. So it was kind of a, a self-realization kind of backed up by the neuroscience that I, I was able to go back and, and research because I happen to be a neuroscientist.

3. 6:43 – 9:04

   Finding joyful movement (even if you’re bad at it): dance, kickboxing, and sticking with it

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee6:43

      Yeah. I mean, that's so interesting. Um, that hip hop dance class sounds like a lot of fun. Do you still do that at the moment?

   2. WSWendy Suzuki6:51

      I do. I... Well, um, I, during the pandemic, I switched to, um, video workouts at home, so now I do it, do it at home. And I don't know, it's not as fun to do, uh, hip hop dance on video, so occasionally I'll go out and take a cla- class now. But yeah, I got much better at dance after, after that very first... Not, not so much hip hop. Um, that's still not my, my forte, but [laughs]

   3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee7:15

      Uh...

   4. WSWendy Suzuki7:15

      You know, it's, it's about playing and, and for me it was about discovering. Turns out I, I love kickboxing, and when I say that, you know, people go, "Oh, you know, don't get Wendy mad." But it's about the rhythm and the power move that you're doing in kickboxing that really I love.

   5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee7:32

      Yeah. What's interesting for me is that you went on this vacation from your life-

   6. WSWendy Suzuki7:38

      Yeah

   7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee7:38

      ... and that inspired you to get moving. You start moving and you feel these kind of emotions that you have never felt before, and that then encourages you, because you're a neuroscientist, to go and study.

   8. WSWendy Suzuki7:53

      Yeah.

   9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee7:53

      But presumably, presumably before you'd experienced that, you were probably aware, I'm guessing, that movement's kind of good for the body, it's kind of good for the mind. But, you know, what, I guess where I'm getting to with this is that-

   10. WSWendy Suzuki8:08

       Mm

   11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee8:09

       ... a lot of us know things. We've read it in the media, we've heard it on podcasts. But we can know stuff, but it doesn't land in our brain so we take action.

   12. WSWendy Suzuki8:19

       Mm-hmm.

   13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee8:19

       And so it's really interesting for me that you had to, even with all your prestigious training and your prestigious position as a professor, you had to feel it first, and that feeling, that experience is what led you to actually do more research.

   14. WSWendy Suzuki8:34

       Yeah, absolutely, and I think that's easy to understand. I mean, if we ask are all MDs peak health, are they all exercising and eating to the best, you know, uh, that science tells us? Clearly, with all due respect to my MD colleagues, the answer is no, and certainly the answer is no for neuroscientists, exercise physiologists. Uh, sometimes it takes a, a, a wake-up call. And, um, I have to share

4. 9:04 – 13:37

   The surprising professional payoff: exercise improves memory, focus, and even grant-writing flow

   1. WSWendy Suzuki9:04

      for the, uh, scientists, uh, listening today, uh, the other wake-up call that came in, this was, this was, I don't know, a year and a half in and I'm feeling good, you know, clearly lots more energy. But the thing that really, um, made me so interested that I actually shifted my research from study of memory, which is how I started my research career, to starting to explicitly study the effects of exercise, is I'll always remember I was sitting in my office and I was writing a grant. And so all the scientists out there know how, how excruciating it is to write a grant. This is your lifeblood, right? This says whether you're going to be, uh, uh, validated by your peers or, you know, you, you're, you're not gonna be d- be able to do the science that you want. And I had this thought that came through my mind while I was writing this particular day in my office, and that thought was, "Gee, writing went well today." I had never had that thought ever in my entire career.

   2. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee10:08

      Are you tired of waking up exhausted even when you've technically had enough sleep? Do you feel like you're constantly doing everything right, yet you still feel stuck? You're not broken. You're just running the wrong habits. I've taken everything I've learnt from helping thousands of patients and boiled it down into five tiny daily habits that can transform your life in just 30 days. No overwhelm, no pressure, just small shifts that reset your energy, mood, and mind. If you're ready to stop surviving and start feeling like yourself again, download my free guide now. Just click on the first link in the description box below or scan the QR code on screen. You've got absolutely nothing to lose except the version of you that's been running on empty for far too long.

   3. WSWendy Suzuki11:05

      It was... And then I thought, "Well, I'm just having a good day. I'm feeling really good." I did go to the gym, uh, that day. But no, I realized that my, my writing had gotten better, like it was flowing better. So that's when I realized that the only thing at this point that I had changed in my life was this exercise. It was a year and a half in. I'd gone through, you know, no movement to regular movement. And, uh, going back to the literature, I know it helps, uh, the functions of the hippocampus, important for memory, which you need when you're writing a grant, all those details of all the papers that you have to put together in your multimillion dollar grant proposal, and focus. To write you need deep, continuous focus. I'm like, both of those things are better. That I think appears to be why-My writing is getting better. So that was like, that hit home.

   4. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee12:00

      Yeah.

   5. WSWendy Suzuki12:00

      That, th- your lifeblood, you're doing it better, and it seems like all these functions are, are coming because you're exercising. Wow, that, that is life-changing.

   6. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee12:10

      Yeah.

   7. WSWendy Suzuki12:11

      That was-

   8. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee12:11

      Yeah

   9. WSWendy Suzuki12:11

      ... a life-changing moment.

   10. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee12:12

       Yeah, it's so interesting that. You know, reflecting on what you've been saying so far, Wendy, it- it's fascinating to me that you were, at least from the outside, crushing life, right? You were successful. You're living in New York City. You are being made professor. You know, you're doing great research. You're teaching people. You're being invited for TED Talks. You know, the sort of thing that a lot of people would regard as, "Hey, that's what I want," you know? That's the sign of someone who's successful. Yet you've also said at the same time you were productive, you were successful, but you weren't happy, right? That's-

   11. WSWendy Suzuki12:50

       I wasn't happy, no

   12. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee12:50

       ... that, that's really interesting 'cause I think there'll be a lot of people who can resonate with that. They are doing the things that, you know, they, they think they need to do, that society has told them they need to do. And it-

   13. WSWendy Suzuki13:02

       Yeah

   14. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee13:02

       ... and it sounds like you were, you know, you... Well, yeah, you were, you weren't just surviving. You know, in your work you were thriving. But in your, in your personal life, I know from, from your first book, H- Healthy Brain, Happy Life, you've been very, very open in that book about the struggles you had with relationships, and actually the fact that you never spent any time prioritizing those relationships. And it's, it's fascinating to me that just that one change, movement, which you now put into your morning routine-

   15. WSWendy Suzuki13:33

       Mm-hmm

   16. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee13:33

       ... is having all these kind of myriad benefits.

5. 13:37 – 18:04

   Exercise as a creativity engine: new brain cells, imagination, and reinventing teaching

   1. WSWendy Suzuki13:37

      It is. It, and it's really interesting to analyze my own career kind of before and after this realization, particularly on the topic of creativity. So I was a very by-the-book scientist before this, this realization. I, I, I, I did my undergraduate. I went to graduate school. I got my PhD. I did a postdoc, and then I got, I got a faculty position. So that, that's all, you know, that's great. Uh, uh, that is successful and, and I was thrilled to be here at NYU. Um, but al- always by the book. All my classes were by the book. But then, uh, and by the way, I want to clarify, the TED Talks came after the transition. I was not giving TED Talks. But that was part of the creativity. Um, so, so then this transformation happens. I realize that I was unhappy. I ended up going to the gym because of this, uh, Peru trip. And, um, one of the interesting things is that, uh, I, I think, um, everybody's motivation, part of e- everybody's motivation to move more regularly, besides that bubble ba- bath of neurochemicals that I told you about, is that one of the things that we know that exercise does is it releases a whole bunch of growth factors in the brain, and that goes directly to your hippocampus, which is important for memory, and literally helps new brain cells grow. So if you want shiny new brain cells in the part of your brain critical for long-term memory, that is your motivation to exercise. That is my personal motivation to exercise. But it turns out that the hippocampus doesn't only help us with memory, but it helps us put information in our memories together in new ways. In other words, it's important for imagination. And if you look at my teaching and my work and my career before and after this, what you'll see is after I started, uh, working out, what did I do? I created new courses like Can Exercise Change Your Brain, where I brought physical activity into the classroom. I literally got trained as an exercise instructor so I could make the whole class work out-

   2. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee15:53

      Oh, I love it

   3. WSWendy Suzuki15:54

      ... with me before the class. And actually, that's because, uh, my department wouldn't pay for an exercise instructor. I was like, "Can you, can you hire an exercise instructor for me?" And they're like, "No, you, you teach the class." So I went and I got trained as an exercise instructor, 'cause I was going to the gym all the time anyway. Did that. I made them, that class, my very first kind of clinical study. Uh, so I tested them before and after the semester of every week we would exercise together for an hour, and I compared them to another class that didn't, didn't exercise. I created, uh, Art Meets Brain, where I brought in all of my new friends that I made that were artists, and, um, dancers talked about their craft, and then we talked about the neuroscience of movement. I had a, um, a, a world-class cellist come in, uh, and, and go through the process of learning a new piece, and then I talked about, uh, again, a, a, a different version of motor learning. Um, so all sorts of artists and, and I just had the time of my life, and that's when I was creating my TED Talks, and, and, um, kind of going outside of the classroom 'cause I realized, oh my God, this, this information is so important. And while I love lecturing to my, um, you know, 120 students that I teach in my, in the regular class that I teach, um, everybody should know about this.

   4. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee17:14

      Yeah.

   5. WSWendy Suzuki17:14

      And so that's, that's why I wrote the first book, Healthy Brain, Happy Life, and that's what got me the TED Talk.

   6. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee17:20

      Yeah. It, it's, it's so inspiring to hear about your story. You know, I love your energy and your passion to, I guess, hammer home that, you know, this message that we've been hearing since we were kids, that physical activity is important for our physical health, which I think we've all heard over and over again.

   7. WSWendy Suzuki17:40

      Yeah.

   8. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee17:41

      Your research and, you know, certainly your first book I think in many ways is just, it's expanding out our view of physical activity. Going, no, it's not just for your physical health.

   9. WSWendy Suzuki17:53

      Yeah.

   10. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee17:53

       It makes you a better human, right?

   11. WSWendy Suzuki17:56

       Yeah.

   12. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee17:56

       It makes you more creative, more productive. It makes you happier, more motivation.

   13. WSWendy Suzuki18:00

       Yeah.

   14. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee18:00

       Helps you with memory. All these things. I think it's absolutely fantastic.

   15. WSWendy Suzuki18:04

       Yeah.

6. 18:04 – 22:06

   The minimum effective dose: 4-minute ‘hacks’ and 10 minutes of walking for mood

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee18:04

      One point I just wanna clarify. I know-

   2. WSWendy Suzuki18:06

      Yeah

   3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee18:06

      ... you do 30 minutes every morning, okay?

   4. WSWendy Suzuki18:08

      Mm-hmm.

   5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee18:09

      And some people will hear that and goI can't do it in the morning, Wendy

   6. WSWendy Suzuki18:15

      Yeah

   7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee18:15

      ... you know, um, I, I've got, I've got kids, I'm busy. I don't think I can fit that in.

   8. WSWendy Suzuki18:20

      Yeah.

   9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee18:20

      So the first point there was, is the time of day important? But related to that-

   10. WSWendy Suzuki18:27

       Mm-hmm

   11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee18:28

       ... I know in, uh, Healthy Brain, Happy Life, there's lots of talk of four-minute hacks, right?

   12. WSWendy Suzuki18:34

       Yeah. Mm-hmm.

   13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee18:35

       So the second part of that question is four minutes. What's so great about four minutes?

   14. WSWendy Suzuki18:42

       Yeah. So four minutes was really chosen, so at the end of every chapter in Healthy Brain, Happy Life are different hacks that you can do, uh, focused on the topic that was in that chapter. And we chose four minutes because it was doable and, um, it, it, frankly, it was a doable time period. We didn't wanna give you 30-minute activities because [laughs] nobody would try it ever. Uh, and so all these things are fun things just to get people in the groove of meditation, in the groove of creativity, in the groove of, of movement. And so, um, uh, but going back to, you know, what is that minimum or optimum exercise regimen, that's, that's the most popular question that people always ask me. You know, really, how little movement do I really need to do to get all that good stuff that you've been talking about? And so, um, the answer to that is simple. If you wanna get that good mood, we know that, uh, significant decreases in anxiety and depression levels, um, not clinical anxiety and depression, just, just our overall, you know, anxiety levels can come with just 10 minutes of walking. That comes from the science. That is the kind of minimum amount that has been shown to have an effect. And I love... Usually, I start with that because-

   15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee20:04

       One of the most important pillars for our health is, of course, nutrition. But I think because of our busy, stressed out lives, so many people are struggling despite their best intentions. So many patients over the years have told me that they know what they should be doing, [laughs] but they're struggling to actually do it, and that's why I'm a fan of AG1. AG1 is a daily health drink that contains over 70 vitamins, minerals, and other ingredients that are designed to make nutrition really easy. It's been in my own life for over six years now. It's simple, it's tasty, it's convenient, and it forms a part of my morning routine. People will routinely tell me that taking AG1 regularly has improved their focus, their cognition, their energy. Some people even tell me that they drink less coffee when they're taking AG1. And there's research out there showing us that taking AG1 regularly can improve specific markers of your gut health, which is really good for your immune health. So if you're looking to upgrade your own nutrition in a simple, tasty, and convenient way, try AG1. To get a free bottle of vitamin D and five free travel packs, go to drinkag1.com/livemore.

   16. WSWendy Suzuki21:23

       Um, 30 minutes can be a little bit daunting, and it does not have to be in the morning. That's when, when I do it, I can do it. And so the first thing to say is that any time you can bring movement into your life is the perfect time to do it. And you don't have to run a marathon. You don't have to go to those scary classes. Walking, starting with walking, has a significant effect. Specifically, 10 minutes of walking can decrease those negative mood states and increase the positive mood states. So that's, uh, uh, um, I, I always like to start with that, that, uh, uh, doable, uh, uh, message that really anybody can bring into their day.

7. 22:06 – 27:14

   Morning light and circadian alignment: why mornings matter for sleep at night (Russell Foster)

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee22:06

      When people, when my patients, when members of the public are thinking about sleep, they're often thinking about the evening. They're thinking about, what do I do just before bed?

   2. RFRussell Foster22:15

      Yes.

   3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee22:15

      What do I do in those hours preceding me going to my bedroom? And of course, that's important. We're definitely gonna get-

   4. RFRussell Foster22:21

      Yep

   5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee22:21

      ... to that. But I thought it would be useful, particularly through the lens of the clock, I guess, talk about the morning. Why is what we do first thing in the morning so important for our ability to sleep at night?

   6. RFRussell Foster22:35

      Yeah. So we have this, this circadian system, this sort of internal representation of a d- a biological day, and what it does is anticipate the very demands of the rest activity, the sleep-wake cycle. Now, for it to be of any use, the internal day needs to be set to the real day, the astronomical day. And the classic mismatch between biological time and environmental time is jet lag. And we eventually get over jet lag as a result of exposure to the, the light-dark cycle in the new time zone. But what we require in any time zone is daily exposure to the light-dark cycle, and particularly morning light for 90% of us. Most of us have either a long body clock or a body clock that's slightly longer, and so it will naturally drift a little bit later and later and later each day. And the effects of light are not the same. Morning light advances the clock, makes, makes us get up earlier and go to bed earlier, whereas dusk light delays the clock. It makes us go to bed later and get up later. And so what morning light does to us is take this drifting clock and shoves it forward a bit in time so it's beautifully aligned. Now, uh, of course, this is important at every level. I mean, we did a study a few years ago on, on teenagers, and we found that... And, and all over the world. Um, and found that the later the chronotype, the evening-ness versus morning-ness-Uh, the greater the evening light these young people got. So they were getting up after morning. Um, so not getting the morning light, which would advance the clock, but they were getting evening light, which would delay the clock. So part of their, their going to bed late and getting up late is when they were actually seeing light. And so morning light for most of us is really important to set the biological clock, which then aligns all of our activity, including the sleep-wake cycle, to the appropriate time of day.

   7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee24:33

      Yeah. So this is fascinating. There, there's so much there. So we live according to 24-hour days.

   8. RFRussell Foster24:41

      Yeah.

   9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee24:42

      Okay. But one thing I'm aware of from your book and other research is that our internal clocks are not set to exactly 24 hours.

   10. RFRussell Foster24:50

       Exactly.

   11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee24:50

       So I wanna, I wanna talk about that and why you think that might be, because we certainly, I guess, didn't evolve for plane travel in the future.

   12. RFRussell Foster25:00

       Oh. [laughs]

   13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee25:00

       You know, do you know what I mean?

   14. RFRussell Foster25:01

       Yeah, yeah.

   15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee25:02

       So, so, so when we go on a 12-hour flight to LA from London-

   16. RFRussell Foster25:05

       Yeah

   17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee25:05

       ... we can adapt straight away, right? So that presumably wasn't evolution's goal. So I'm interested as to why it's not 24 hours-

   18. RFRussell Foster25:14

       Mm

   19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee25:14

       ... in your view. But also, you say morning light. So does it matter what time of morning light that is? You know, can people get it at lunchtime? Are we talking as soon as people wake up? And of course, that changes in the seasons-

   20. RFRussell Foster25:32

       Yes

   21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee25:32

       ... right? So can you help us-

   22. RFRussell Foster25:34

       Okay

   23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee25:34

       ... put all those things together?

   24. RFRussell Foster25:35

       Okay. So why isn't the human body clock exactly 24 hours? Well, now here's, here's some hand-waving. Because the, the modelers say that if you want two oscillators to align to each other, two rhythms, one is fixed, obviously, the, the rotation of the Earth is fractionally under 24 hours. And if you want to fit a, a body clock to that, it helps if it's slightly different from 24 hours-

   25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee26:00

       Oh

   26. RFRussell Foster26:00

       ... because then it can a- a- align more easily. Now, I don't pretend to understand the mathematics behind it, but that's why [laughs] , why it is. But there's a, there's an even-

   27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee26:07

       So Mother Nature knew what she was doing-

   28. RFRussell Foster26:09

       She, of course-

   29. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee26:09

       ... is what you're saying

   30. RFRussell Foster26:10

       ... as always.
8. 27:14 – 33:41

   Chronotype differences: genetics, age shifts, teens, and the role of evening light/social media

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee27:14

      Yeah. I mean, that makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? You mentioned the word chronotype.

   2. RFRussell Foster27:18

      Yeah.

   3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee27:19

      I wonder if you could just elaborate exactly what does chronotype mean. And then you also mentioned owls and larks, and I'm really interested in this because, A, me and my wife appear to have slightly different body clocks. But many people, I feel, certainly if I look at my clinical experience, Russell, and this also I think speaks to this idea that the body clock isn't quite 24 hours, that we can manipulate it depending on what we need it to do or what the tribe needs or what the weather is, right? A lot of the time I think, well, are evening types really evening types, or are they evening types because of the modern light environment?

   4. RFRussell Foster27:59

      Yes.

   5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee28:00

      Um, so yeah, quite a lot there. [laughs]

   6. RFRussell Foster28:01

      Yeah, yeah. Okay, so, so what defines your chronotype, whether you're a morning person or an evening person, and there are a number of factors. The first of all is one's genetics. We now know that the clock genes and the proteins that they make, subtle changes, subtle polymorphisms in those genes are associated with morningness and eveningness. So by their contribution to our genes, our parents are still telling us what time to get up and go to bed- [laughs]

   7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee28:26

      [laughs]

   8. RFRussell Foster28:27

      ... at, at some level. So that's the first thing. Through development, our chronotype changes. So from about the age of 10, we want to start to go to bed a bit later and a bit later. Our lateness peaks in males at around about 21, 21 and a half. In females, about 19, 19 and a half. And males peak later, uh, or they have a later chronotype than females. Then from those late teens, early 20s, we start to move to a more morning chronotype. So by the time we're in our late 50s, early 60s, we're getting up and going to bed on average when we got up and went to bed when we were 10. And that sort of basically maps the changes in some of the sex steroids, testosterone and estrogen. So it's thought that there's a, a very important hormonal mod- modification of, of, of, of the clock.

   9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee29:16

      So that's within individuals. We've all got like-

   10. RFRussell Foster29:18

       That's within individuals

   11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee29:18

       ... so whatever I'm born with, let's say I was born a morning type, and I think I'm a morning type. Then when I'm 10, in my teenage years, that's gonna be pushed, it's gonna be later and later.

   12. RFRussell Foster29:30

       Yeah.

   13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee29:31

       As you say, for most males, a peak at 21, and then it's gonna start going back again. But what about between individuals? There's variation there-

   14. RFRussell Foster29:39

       Huge

   15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee29:39

       ... as well, right?

   16. RFRussell Foster29:40

       Huge. Uh, yeah, a, a huge in- individual variation, and I think that's a really important point because, you know, in terms of our sleep-wake patterns and our chronotype, there's massive individual variation. And, and, you know, um, it, there's a, on average, about a two-hour difference from somebody in their, from their, in their late 50s, early, uh, uh, uh, early 60s, uh, to somebody in their late teens. So asking a, a teenager to get up at 7:00 in the morning is like asking a, a 60-year-old to get up at 5:00 in the morning.

   17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee30:10

       Now, does that matter? I guess-There's a real interest here for me, given that my son's 12 and about to enter, uh, these teenage years.

   18. RFRussell Foster30:19

       Yes.

   19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee30:19

       And as a family, we prioritize sleep, or we certainly have done, but I'm, I'm already noticing with him a change-

   20. RFRussell Foster30:26

       Yep

   21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee30:26

       ... in terms of his desire to do what he has done in the past. Let's put it like that. It's okay.

   22. RFRussell Foster30:32

       Yeah, test- I think they call it testosterone poisoning, don't they? [laughs]

   23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee30:34

       And what I'm interested in is when we say teenagers wanna go to bed later and wake up later, and we think about their chronotype, what if that teenager still went to bed early? So-

   24. RFRussell Foster30:49

       Mm

   25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee30:49

       ... what's driving the change? Is it the fact that they're going to bed late, therefore they're having to stay in bed later? Like, could that be environmental, school pressure, that sort of stuff? Or do-

   26. RFRussell Foster30:59

       Yeah

   27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee30:59

       ... do you know what I'm getting at?

   28. RFRussell Foster30:59

       Yeah, absolutely. Well, well, of course, the o- the other factor, the sort of, as it were, the, the, the biological factor would be when you see light. As we, as we d- just discussed, sort of morning light advances the clock, evening light delays the clock, and teenagers, particularly over the weekend, will miss the morning light, making them get up earlier, but they get the evening light, so they're... or the afternoon, evening light, and so they'll go to bed later. So those are the three sort of biological, uh, factors. But then we have to add a couple of other things. One is, of course, the use of social media. Uh, it's very interesting. Many teena- teenagers appreciate that they shouldn't be using social media into the early hours of the morning, uh, but they feel, uh, that sense of being connected to their group over- overrides that knowledge about why it's important to be asleep. So there's that element. And in fact, it's really fascinating. Some studies have shown that that lateness can be hugely late. So what happens, of course, is that they have very shortened sleep.

   29. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee32:00

       Mm.

   30. RFRussell Foster32:00

       They're driven out of bed by an alarm clock or a parent. They struggle through the school day. Often, and when you te- you know, talk to many teachers, kids are actually falling asleep at the desks. So then they finish school, and then they have not just a short nap, but it can be a nap of two hours or so-
9. 33:41 – 38:49

   How bright is ‘bright’? Lux, natural vs artificial light, and what screens really do

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee33:41

      And, and this light exposure, whereas in the morning it advances the clock and in the evening it delays the clock, so pushes it back. What light exposure are we talking about here? Because let's say in the evening or at dusk you saw natural lights, not artificial lights.

   2. RFRussell Foster33:59

      Yeah.

   3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee34:00

      Does that still do the same thing at pushing it back? Or does that have a different wavelength that doesn't affect us in the same way?

   4. RFRussell Foster34:05

      Well, you're, you're, you're sort of impinging upon what I've, I've sort of been working on for a long time, which is how does, how does light interact with the body clock? And the first sort of extraordinary finding was that the visual cells within the eye, the rods and the cones, are not required to detect that dawn-dusk cycle.

   5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee34:26

      Mm.

   6. RFRussell Foster34:26

      There's a third photoreceptor within the eye. And, and, and those, and we've been working out most recently how those receptors interact with this sort of master clock within the brain. So that's one thing. The second thing is that these photoreceptors need quite a bit of light. So we don't really appreciate, because our visual system is so good, but we live our lives in dim, dark caves. So-

   7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee34:51

      [laughs]

   8. RFRussell Foster34:51

      ... uh, shortly after dawn, um, natural light is some 50 to 100 times brighter than average domestic light conditions. Um, and, and so really what the clock is looking for is a bright light signal. And so we're talking in the hundreds to thousands of lux range. So if you think of, of natural light, okay, moonlight would be .01 lux. Um, and a bright sunny day, even in, even in the UK, can just about get up to 100,000 lux.

   9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee35:22

      Mm.

   10. RFRussell Foster35:22

       And those, those weird, amazing photoreceptors need, as I say, this sort of hundred to thousand lux range. Now, it's complicated because it depends upon how long you're exposed to that light. So you can compensate to some extent for a lower light intensity by increasing the duration. And it's worth bearing in mind, until the late '80s it was thought that the human circadian clock was not regulated by light at all. Uh, because when people use sort of relatively low levels of light that would shift the biological clock or, and train the biological clock of a mouse, it had no effect at all on humans.

   11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee36:00

       But this is in the 1980s, right?

   12. RFRussell Foster36:01

       Yeah, in the 1980s.

   13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee36:01

       Yeah, I read that this morning in your book, and, and that shocks me because 1987, right-

   14. RFRussell Foster36:07

       Yeah

   15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee36:07

       ... I was just finishing primary school. It does not, maybe it is, but it doesn't seem that long ago to me, and I thought when I read that, I, I had to reread it, this idea that-Back then, which wasn't that long ago, we didn't think light hugely influenced our circadian rhythm, and now that's considered fact, and I think, "Well, what else is going on that we don't know at the moment?" [laughs]

   16. RFRussell Foster36:27

       Well, that's what's so exciting about this field. But I, I remember, you know, doing, doing my, my PhD, um, and I, I got my PhD in, in, in '84. And, uh, you know, when you did public talks or anything, people say, "Well, how is it regulated?" And we'd say, "Oh, it's primarily social cues and food." And I remember being actually at that first presentation in, in 1987, and, you know, it was an audible gasp around me. "Oh my God," you know. "You just need a lot of light." And of course, now we know light is incredibly important for the regulation of human circadian rhythms, but you need quite a bit of it. And this is where we fall into some problems because there's a lot of stuff out there saying, [clears throat] "You shouldn't look at a, at a Kindle immediately before you go to bed 'cause it'll shift the biological clock." So the most detailed study, which was from a group at Harvard, asked people to look at a, a Kindle on its brightest intensity four hours before bedtime, and they asked them to do this on five consecutive nights. And after that, on the, on the fifth day, uh, sleep was delayed by an average of 10 minutes, and it was just statistical. And as one of my colleagues said, um, "Well, it may be statistically significant, but it's biologically meaningless."

   17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee37:39

       Wow.

   18. RFRussell Foster37:40

       And so, but [clears throat] we do know that light in the evening can delay the clock. But how much and what intensity and for how long is still being resolved. Clearly, the brighter the light and the longer you see it before bedtime could shift the clock. But what we do know that light is doing is increasing alertness and therefore delaying sleep onset. So it's probably not the light from the devices changing the clock, but it's the light from the devices changing alertness and therefore delaying sleep.

   19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee38:12

       Yeah, super, super interesting. So if we just stick to what that study showed, that was on a Kindle. I know when I've heard you speak before that you regard Kindles as quite different from smartphones or looking at social media. Perhaps you could explain why that is.

   20. RFRussell Foster38:30

       Well, because a Kindle is, is, is fairly, you know, you're just reading it, basically, whereas a smartphone, you're checking your emails, you're looking at social media, you're checking the news. You might even be listening to music at the same time. And so these are really interactive devices, and they will be increasing alertness and therefore delaying sleep onset.

10. 38:49 – 45:47

    Practical light prescriptions: 10–30 minutes after waking, light boxes, and indoor lighting for cognition

    1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee38:49

       Yeah, super interesting. In terms of light, just to finish off in the evening, then, we're talking about the complexities of light, you know, how much, how long for, all these kinds of things. Some people who are promoting health and wellbeing are talking about the importance of morning light, morning natural light. I know there's one neuroscientist in America who talks about getting 10 to 30 minutes if you can-

    2. RFRussell Foster39:15

       Yeah

    3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee39:16

       ... within half an hour of waking up, okay? So that's very clear guidance. I wanna, I wanna know your view on that.

    4. RFRussell Foster39:22

       The data are good for that. I mean, really, really, I mean, so, so for example, the, the Ken Wright studies have shown beautifully that bright morning light, real light, not artificial light, can advance the clock and ha- and, and really shift individuals, you know, two hours earlier. So there's, there's no question about it. And you can mimic this in, in the lab as well. So for example, 10,000 lux for 30 minutes, uh, from a light box will also set the clock. So, so the data there are pretty solid.

    5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee39:50

       Now, we say advance the clock. What if someone doesn't want to advance their clock-

    6. RFRussell Foster39:53

       [laughs] Yeah

    7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee39:54

       ... and they wake up, and they're like, "You know what? I've got a, a late work night out tonight, and I won't be back for my normal time."

    8. RFRussell Foster40:02

       [laughs]

    9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee40:02

       I know. I've never thought of this question before, but I'm just intrigued. Might one then think, "Hey, for tonight, I'm actually gonna not expose myself to light for a couple of hours because I wanna delay that"? Or is that hard to say?

    10. RFRussell Foster40:15

        It, it, it, you, it probably will have a small effect.

    11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee40:18

        [laughs]

    12. RFRussell Foster40:18

        I mean, the, the tricky thing is for those 10% of individuals who are really morning types, and, a- a- and it's f- it, it's a shame really because most of their, their colleagues will be intermediate to late types. And of course, they will be then forced on a Friday and a Saturday evening to stay up way beyond-

    13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee40:36

        Yeah

    14. RFRussell Foster40:36

        ... where they want to be, and they sort of complain bitterly that, um, you know, "God, all my friends sort of want me to stay up." Of course, for the work environment, it's great.

    15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee40:44

        Yeah.

    16. RFRussell Foster40:44

        They can get up, you know, go to the gym early, and then go on to work, whereas most of us who are late types find that a struggle.

    17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee40:51

        So you're happy with that 10 to 30 minutes natural light recommendation.

    18. RFRussell Foster40:54

        Yes.

    19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee40:55

        Would you, would you, would you ideally have people do that as soon as they can after waking?

    20. RFRussell Foster40:59

        Yes. Certainly. The, the, the, the earlier, the bigger the, the effect, yes. And, and it's, and it's very important, um, ac- across the spectrum. So for example, in the nursing home environment, up until fairly recently, the light in those, uh, nursing homes was really low, I mean terribly low. Some cases in the television room, it would be just sort of 10, 20 lux. I mean, crazy low. Uh, now people are realizing that if you increase the light in the day spaces, then you can actually improve the sleep-wake behavior of, of, of individuals in a nursing home. And where it's been looked at in individuals, uh, showing mild dementia, you could actually improve cognition-

    21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee41:37

        Wow

    22. RFRussell Foster41:37

        ... by 10% simply by increasing the light with inside, and, and also using other tricks like, you know, having breakfast by a window where there's a lot of light coming through.

    23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee41:46

        Wow, that's fascinating. And then in terms of evening, I wanna draw a distinction between natural light and artificial light. So let's say you live in a country where you have long, light evenings at particular times of the year, like the UK, for example.

    24. RFRussell Foster42:04

        Yeah.

    25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee42:06

        You wanna get your morning light in the morning, which is clearly a lot easier in a UK summer than it is in the winter.

    26. RFRussell Foster42:12

        Yep.

    27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee42:13

        What happens if you wanna be outside in the evening? So it's, it's still natural. It's not your screen. It's not social media. It's not the news. It's not all that attention-stimulating information.

    28. RFRussell Foster42:26

        Mm.

    29. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee42:27

        Is there something going on in natural light where actually, you know, the evening light perhaps doesn't shift the clock as much or, or, or, or does that still do it?

    30. RFRussell Foster42:36

        Well, of course, when we're all agricultural workers, we got symmetrical exposure to dawn and dusk.
11. 45:47 – 52:36

    Stress and anxiety as adrenaline dysregulation: learning to control the nervous system (Andrew Huberman)

    1. AHDr. Andrew Huberman45:47

       We have the capacity to lean into challenge and resist infection, heal wounds, and that is all mediated by adrenaline, and the release of adrenaline is mediated by the nervous system. Now, when things go bad, for instance, people with chronically elevated adrenals, they're drinking coffee all the time and working like crazy, not getting enough sleep, psychological stress, they're not shutting off that system, then you start getting into chronic health issues, right? Because the stress system can't be, um, chronically activated for too long or else you run into issues. But the nervous system coordinates that. Likewise, for people that have anxiety, we have to say, "Well, what is anxiety?" Well, at a biological level, anxiety, stress, trauma, fear, and PTSD are all the same thing. It's ruminating on thoughts, but it's the release of adrenaline in a very unregulated way. And adrenaline has a primary effect, which is to make us want to move or speak. It biases us towards action. It's the quaking of the hands. It's the quaking of the voice. It's the quickening of the breath. It's the, um, dilation of the pupils, uh, of the eyes, which, um, sort of counterintuitively creates a constricting of our visual field. It takes us out of the past and future and puts us into the moment so that we can, you know, identify what's going on. So the, the idea is to take basic practices, i-in, in the case of this discussion, practices that mainly anchor to vision and respiration, and learn to control adrenaline release and the timing of that release. Learn to control it is a three, uh, essentially has three components. One is you can increase adrenaline release, and there are times where that is beneficial, and we can talk about that. Then you can come off the accelerator of adrenaline release. And then there's a third component, which is to slam on the brake and shut down the adrenaline system. And the ways to do that are, uh, you could-- people try to do it pharmacologically. They drink alcohol. They drink coffee. Has opposite effects on the adrenaline system, obviously. They use, uh, sedatives and opioid compounds. Um, but they also do things like take vacations or do meditation or, um, get massages, which are all wonderful. Uh, uh, the meditations, massages, and, um, vacations are great. However, those all require that you step out of life. You know, I love getting a professional massage, but a professional massage is, like, $190, which frankly, even at my stage of life, I always feel like it's great, but, you know, it's a considerable investment. I'm not gonna do it every day. I don't have a masseuse in my home. AndTo be honest, it requires that I not do something else

    2. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee48:21

       Yeah

    3. AHDr. Andrew Huberman48:21

       Being a functional human and a functional human on any kind of budget means that you need to be able to turn on and off focus and relaxation and stress and so forth in a way that you are in control of that. And so when you start learning how to control your nervous system, it's tremendously empowering. And I don't think that people should not take vacations, um, or not get massages or whatever it is, but the ability to control your nervous system in a dynamic way in short timescales, on the timescale of seconds, on the timescale of days, on the timescale of weeks, that's what leads to really terrific work and school and relationship and sleep and exercise practices. I just simply can't think of any other route to it. For instance, there's no liver detox that's gonna do that. There's no gut microbiome fix. Uh, the gut microbiome is very important, by the way, uh, uh, for reasons we could discuss, and as you know, and know more, far more about than I do. But there's no one tool or pill or potion or practice that's going to allow the whole system that is you to fall into place, whereas if you learn to control your nervous system from the standpoint of attention, focus, relaxation, and sleep, and you use the appropriate tools to access those, then you find that everything else works better-

    4. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee49:38

       Yeah

    5. AHDr. Andrew Huberman49:38

       ... and that those additional tools of... I am a believer in certain supplements. I also think, you know, people should eat fermented foods to improve their gut-

    6. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee49:46

       Yeah

    7. AHDr. Andrew Huberman49:47

       ... and reduce the, activate the inflammatome. There's great science to that. But that one practice isn't going to change everything. It's going to help, but controlling, learning to control your nervous system will indeed change everything. Your whole life gets better-

    8. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee50:01

       Yeah

    9. AHDr. Andrew Huberman50:01

       ... and in, and mentally and physically

    10. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee50:04

        The idea of learning to control your nervous system, I th- I think is one that we should just pause on because, you know, sometimes in life we'll want to upregulate our nervous system to, I guess, perform a certain task. Other times in life, we'll wanna downregulate it. In my experience, and I'm sort of-- my bias is as a clinician, what I have seen is that n- at least the people who come in to see me are usually struggling to downregulate a lot of them.

    11. AHDr. Andrew Huberman50:36

        Right

    12. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee50:36

        They, they've taken on too much. We, we know this is a big problem, you know. Chronic unmanaged stress, burnout, taking on too many things, not actively prioritizing relaxation. That's a big problem, so, you know, maybe we can talk about some of the things that... Well, first of all, would you agree that actually that's a key skill and one that actually is potentially not as hard as we think to teach people? And then what are some of those practical tools that we can use to downregulate our nervous system?

    13. AHDr. Andrew Huberman51:05

        Yeah. Well, first of all, I completely agree, and e- even if-- I do agree, and even if I didn't, you'd be right 'cause you're the clinician, not me, right? [laughs] Um, well, really, and, and I should say I have tremendous respect for the clinical fields. I mean, I-- like I'm on the school of medicine side at Stanford. I don't teach undergraduates. I used to be at a undergraduate university, but... So I'm in the medicine side, and, um, and I think that, uh, chronic stress is, is a major issue. Um, and stress, stress makes every neurologic... I know we said this earlier, but it's worth paying attention. It makes every- everything worse when it's chronic. And stress, when you can take advantage of the mechanisms of stress and leverage them, it's tremendously empowering. I mean, I will even say that... I mean, clearly you're not an example of this, but there are a lot of physicians who are very unhealthy. I mean [laughs] I-- This idea that scientists and, and, and doctors are healthy, I mean, just look at most of them, right? No, they're not taking good care. Um, and so th- that is not-- I'm not poking at them. What I'm saying is that everybody has to learn how to do this. Um, there's a, there's a truth, which is that we are generally compensated in life for the degree to which we can lean into hard work and effort, but a lot of people learn how to hit the accelerator and, as you said, they never learn how to decompress. So a big part of my lab's work has been to develop zero-cost tools that people can use in real time to adjust their levels of stress and calm down quickly. So we can talk about those tools. And then we've also been developing tools

12. 52:36 – 1:06:08

    Fastest downregulation tool: the physiological sigh (double inhale + long exhale)

    1. AHDr. Andrew Huberman52:36

       that people can do as short practices separate from, uh, real life [laughs] meaning, uh, like a five-minute-a-day practice that will w- what we call raise their stress threshold so that their trigger point to become stressed is further away. And the, the first practice, which, um, is based on work that goes back to the 1930s, actually, it's what's called the physiological sigh. Physiological sighs, um, are something that we all actually do about once every five minutes. So in sleep or in wakefulness, every five minutes or so, we take a d- big, deep breath. [inhales] And we don't realize it, but we do this. And dogs will do this right before they go down to sleep. Um, humans do this. Why do we do that? Well, there are two main, uh, reasons why we breathe. One is to bring oxygen into our system, and then that oxygen, it's a beautiful system. It actually, you know, it fills the lungs and then as we know, it, it moves from the lungs into the bloodstream, and our cells require oxygen. And then exhales, we discard carbon dioxide. And we need car- oxygen and carbon dioxide, of course, for our health. Um, every cell relies on this. Uh, you, you wouldn't want to get rid of one or the other entirely. The, the stimulus to breathe, meaning the impulse to breathe, is because if you have a small set of neurons in your brain stem that detect the buildup of carbon dioxide in the bloodstream. So when that level gets too high, you take a big, deep breath [inhales] and then [exhales] you offload the carbon dioxide. That's actually why you do the physiological sighs, to discard car- carbon dioxide. As a consequence, you bring in more oxygen. Now, here's what's interesting, the, the lungs are not just two big bags of air. They have millions, actually hundreds of millions, of little alveoli, little sacs. And when we under-breathe or when we are stressed and when we over-breathe, so either way, we're, um, those little sacs actually deflate. And because they have fluid inside them, because of surface tension, they are, they are not, um, easily reinflated. And so we're actuallyAsphyxiating ourselves. We don't have oxygen, and we're not able to offload carbon dioxide. Bad situation. The physiological sigh that I recommend that people do when they're feeling stressed anytime or anyplace, I suppose unless you're underwater, is to do two inhales through the nose back to back. The first one is a big, long inhale, and then the second inhale, you're only gonna be able to sneak in a tiny bit of air, and then a long, complete exhale through the mouth. So it's [inhales and exhales] So it's a very sharp little second inhale after the first one. You almost feel like you couldn't get any more air in, but when you do that second inhale, you reinflate the alveoli of the lungs. You snap open all of those. They don't break. And then when you exhale, you offload the carbon dioxide. Doing that just once, sometimes two or three times, but just once, w- we know from data in our laboratory and other laboratories, will immediately reduce your levels of stress and anxiety. Immediately. It's the fastest approach that I'm aware of to de-stress. Far faster than trying to tell yourself not to worry. Certainly far faster than telling you or somebody else to take a deep breath.

    2. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee55:45

       Yeah.

    3. AHDr. Andrew Huberman55:45

       It's this, this double inhale through the nose, exhale through the mouth, is a very efficient way to bring in oxygen, dump carbon dioxide, and reinflate the alveoli of the lungs so that in the immediate moments afterward, you're breathing more naturally and more calmly. So it's a, a, you know, I, I don't like to use the phrase of, like, power tools and this kind of thing, 'cause that's not the business I come from. But I think if there were one tool, um, that I would like everyone to do, it would be the morning light viewing. But the other tool I'd love for people to have in their kit is this physiological sigh. And as I mentioned, you do this spontaneously in lo- claustrophobic environments. People do it during sleep when, um, they are developing apnea. Um, they'll [inhales and exhales] When, when we cry or we observe someone crying, watch how they recover their breathing after sobbing, because sobbing is mostly exhaling.

    4. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee56:36

       Yeah.

    5. AHDr. Andrew Huberman56:36

       [sobs] And then they [inhales and exhales] There's a, like a kind of a, like a reverber- reverberating, um, inhale. So big inhale, second inhale through the nose, just squeeze in a little bit more, and then long exhale through the mouth. And that one has saved, uh, me and I, from the feedback I've gotten, it's saved many, many people many, many times and it, it can be done essentially anywhere.

    6. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee57:00

       It's, it's, um, in some ways a reset for your nervous system. Things are getting out of control, tension, pressure's building up, and you instantaneously can sort of, what, reset it back to baseline. Is that a way that we can think about it?

    7. AHDr. Andrew Huberman57:14

       Yeah. Think about it as a break on the adrenaline system. Think about it as, um... Because when there's elevated carbon dioxide in the bloodstream, the brain registers that and sends a signal to your adrenals, "Uh-oh. We're running out of air. You need to move. You need to get to some place else in order to not asphyxiate." And so [laughs] this is why the, the signal is so powerful. Now, I think that there's, uh, there's another aspect to this, which is that when our minds are racing out of control, it's very hard to stabilize our thinking with thinking. I always say, you know, trying to control your thoughts with thoughts is like trying to grab fog. It's very, very difficult. So when your brain and your mind and your thinking aren't where you want them to be, you need to look to your body to, to recalibrate your state of mind so that then you get a new vantage point to view whatever it is that you happen to be contending with mentally. I actually had this happen the other day. I've been dealing with a, with a set of issues that are kind of chronic and ongoing, and it's a slow grind and it's, it's working out. The details aren't important or relevant here. But, um, it's something I have to think about a lot each day. What I'm gonna do, how I'm gonna handle the situation. And I noticed I was on the plane, and I was feeling pretty stressed about this. And you do a couple of these physiological sighs, and then what happens is you're able to still parse those thoughts, but from a, a different perspective. It's much easier to look to the body, readjust your state of mind to a calmer place, and then be able to analyze something, um, cognitively, than it is to try and prevent yourself from thinking about something, which is very hard.

    8. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee58:47

       Yeah.

    9. AHDr. Andrew Huberman58:47

       And in many cases, we need, we do need to think about what's stressful. I mean, this is something we don't often acknowledge. People think, "Okay, we're gonna go meditate, or we're gonna take a vacation. We're just gonna step away. We're just gonna take a deep breath." All sounds wonderful, right? But many times the thing that we're stressing about is, is critical to our wellbeing. It's important that we be able to think about this stuff. So the, use the body to control the mind, and place the mind in a, in a better vantage point.

    10. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee59:11

        Yeah.

    11. AHDr. Andrew Huberman59:11

        That's the idea.

    12. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee59:12

        Sorry to interrupt. If you are enjoying this content, there's loads more just like it on my channel, so please do take a moment to press Subscribe, hit the notification bell. And now, back to the conversation. Yeah, I re- I really like that. I think it's so powerful for people, and I think so many people will hear that, Andrew, and go, "Yeah, you know, when I feel anxious and I do some yoga or I go for a walk around the block, you know, I just don't feel the same when I come back." You know, you, you are literally changing the way you experience life through that action. And I, I wanted to talk to you about something that, again, I've heard you speak about many times, which is the idea that, um, you know, grounded in neuroscience, that it is actions and behavior first, thoughts and feelings second.

    13. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:00:02

        Yeah. Um, I definitely believe that we should put our actions first when it comes to taking control of our mental and physical health and performance. I wanna be clear that I don't relegate feelings, emotions, and thinking. Um, I've, I've been open about this before, but I'll be open about it again. I've, I've, through, uh, a lot of effort of my own and through great expense and challenge, I've, I've, I've been doing analysis for many decades. I, uh, got into this 'cause I had a, I was a bit of a wayward youth and I was forced to do it at first. So I just wanna point out that I, I wholeheartedly believe in the value ofTherapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, exposure therapies, talk therapies. I think we are a social verbal species and there's tremendous value to journaling, tremendous value to thinking, and to feeling our feelings. However, feelings are complicated, and they can become their own trap. Um, being able to parse a hard emotional problem or being able to think about life in a way that's, um, from a good stance as a kind of a... I, I like to think about the stance of the nervous system more than the state because a stance allows you to move in different directions, whereas a state implies that there's one ideal state to be in all the time, which of course not. I mean, there's a time to be stressed, angry, sad, in awe, devastated. I mean, that's life. That's actually what makes for a rich life. But w- the ability to be in a good stance around all that means that w- when we are in a state of deep sadness or deep confusion or great happiness, that we know that we will eventually transition out of that state, and that, and that's a manageable, um, idea that we're gonna transition in and out of these states. One of the hallmarks of m- mental illness of different kinds is that people have horrible feelings, and they feel like those horrible feelings are gonna go on forever. That's one of the things that leads to suicidal depression and, um, or chronic anxiety is people are, you know, told... We're always told, you know, "Don't, don't think about the future. Don't think about the past. Just be present." Well, what if your present really is awful? That, that doesn't help much. So the reason that I'm a fan of, of physical tools is the following, orienting towards action first and physical tools is the following. First of all, there is no fossil record whatsoever of the things that we feel or think. None. Your feelings and your thoughts actually are pretty meaningless in the long run, but what you do and what you say has a profound impact on you and other people. Second, using physical practices allows us to communicate with one another about tools. Thinking is tricky. I don't know what I'm thinking, uh, excuse me, feeling half the time. How do I know what anyone else is feeling? You know, I have a colleague in psychiatry who says this, "Most of the time, we don't even know what we feel exactly, much less how someone else feels." And so if we were to enter a dialogue around how we're supposed to feel and control our feelings, well, now we're really moving into the realm of wishy-washy nothingness because I can't tell you what to do or how to think about something. But when we're talking about physical tools and using the body to influence the state of mind or the stance of the mind, then we are... We can ta- We know if we're doing the same thing. Two inhales followed by an exhale, panoramic vision, light viewing. These are tools that everybody can access.

    14. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:03:21

        Yeah.

    15. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:03:22

        And so it, it creates a whole different conversation. I also believe, and I've had a lot of experience with the fact that there are times when things can feel so overwhelming, and we are so back on our heels that we have to get outside of our head, and the best way to do that is to get into ph- physical practices. That the, the, um, imagery I like to use is that any moment we are either flat-footed, forward center of mass, which is kind of leaning into life and feeling strong, or we're back on our heels. Many people wake up back on their heels. Many people feel back on their heels a lot of the time. So the question is: How do you go from mentally and physically back on your heels to flat-footed stance and someti- and maintain the ability to go into forward center of mass? How do you do that? Well, you do that by controlling the, this basic system in the body that we call the autonomic nervous system. It's a bit of a misnomer because autonomic means automatic, but you can think of it like a seesaw, that on one end is our ability to get into states of alertness and focus, and on the other end is the ability to relax and get into states of calm or sleep or, um, deep rest or focused but relaxed. Maybe the even seesaw would be focused but relaxed. And so much of beco- of being functional is the ability to move from-

    16. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:04:43

        Yeah

    17. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:04:43

        ... alert to asleep because sleep is so key for our health, of course. Or from sleep to getting up and getting outside and exercising. But a lot of people get trapped at one end of the seesaw or the other, chronically activated or chronically exhausted. And the notion of a seesaw, um, is important here because it's not so much about your ability to be on either end, it's about the tightness of the hinge of that seesaw. What I'm talking about are tools that allow the seesaw to be calibrated so that it's very easy to go from sleep to alert, from alert-

    18. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:05:14

        Yeah

    19. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:05:14

        ... to relaxed, from relaxed back to work, as opposed to getting locked in one position. That's really the key. And so I, I realize this is all, um, I'm talking all in analogy now, but I think it... I'm hoping it's worthwhile because we've heard so much about mindfulness, which is a wonderful concept. We hear about mental health, we hear about physical health, but w- it's never actually been defined what is a mentally healthy person, right? Usually, when we're talking about mental health, we're talking about mental illness. So to me, a mentally healthy person and a physically healthy person is somebody that can be in action when they need to be in action, can relax when they need to relax, can focus when they need to focus, and can sleep when they need to sleep.

    20. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:05:55

        Yeah.

    21. AHDr. Andrew Huberman1:05:55

        That's a pretty darn good life, and you can go-- You can get a lot done, and you can have very effective relationship to yourself and others with that kind of ability, and that ability is anchored in the nervous system.

13. 1:06:08 – 1:18:36

    Actions before feelings: habit circuitry, motivation math, and why tiny ‘movement snacks’ work

    1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:06:08

       I have found, whether with this patient or patients with depression over the years, there's, there's not a feeling that they're making progress in life, okay? They're not moving forward. So years ago, I realized, okay, how can I help this patient feel as if they're making progress? Because a lot of the things they get asked to do or they read online, the truth is when you feel really, really low, you know, you're probably gonna struggle to motivate yourself to get to the gym and move your body in a way that's gonna increase your endorphins, for example, right?

    2. SPSpeaker1:06:44

       Yeah. Absolutely.

    3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:06:45

       SoI came up with this sort of five-minute concept that I use myself. Uh, so I have a five-minute strength workout every morning in my kitchen, in my pajamas. But with many of my patients with depression, I said, "Well, what, what is one thing that we can get you, um, what, what is one thing you might want to do?" And I'd always personalize it to them. But I remember one suicidal patient, it was working out, right? They wouldn't go to a gym, they said they haven't got motivation, and I broke it right down. I said, "What would it look like if you did five minutes every morning?" And for that patient, they used to work out when they were a teenager, so they were quite familiar with that as a concept. So this person bought a kettlebell, kept the kettlebell in their kitchen. And again, this is not about the kettlebell, it's not about it being exercise. This is what that patient wanted. And you make it very clear in your book, there is no one size fits all, which I completely agree with as a, in terms of a solution. But we started off with saying, "Okay, what would it look like if every morning, the first thing you do when you come to your kitchen, you literally pick up that kettlebell and you just swing it on and off for five minutes?" Right? And I think we started with two minutes and built up to five minutes. I'm not kidding you, that was the start of all the changes.

    4. SPSpeaker1:08:01

       Mm.

    5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:08:01

       Because by doing that every morning... 'Cause I, I made it so simple that he could never really say, he could do, but he didn't say, "I don't have time or the motivation." I said, "Even be- put it in your sink if you have to-

    6. SPSpeaker1:08:14

       Mm

    7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:08:14

       ... so you have to at least move it to get it..." You know, I was really-

    8. SPSpeaker1:08:17

       Yeah

    9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:08:17

       ... trying to help him go, "No, you have to pick that thing up." And my, my feeling was, was that doing that every day changed the way that he viewed himself. Instead of being someone who didn't have motivation and didn't have this ability to do anything, it's like, no, he started doing that, and within 7 days, within 14 days, within 21 days, he's now someone who actually, "Yeah. Man, I actually, I can do stuff." And then, yes, it's working on his muscles, his hormones are changing, his dopamine will be changing, maybe his serotonin's changing. But that was me trying to help him as a clinician.

    10. SPSpeaker1:08:55

        Mm.

    11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:08:55

        Right? I didn't need to know what was the neuroscience going on. I'm just like, "How do I help this person?" What do you think might have been going on from a neuroscientific perspective?

    12. SPSpeaker1:09:06

        Yeah. I love that five-minute idea, because actually what you've just done in that effort-cost equation that we are all kind of subject to, is you've made the cost smaller and smaller and smaller.

    13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:09:18

        Mm.

    14. SPSpeaker1:09:19

        And in some ways, you've actually kept the reward constant, the reward of getting to do something which he wants to do, like exercise.

    15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:09:26

        Mm.

    16. SPSpeaker1:09:26

        But you've made it even more accessible and even less effortful to do. So at, until the point where it's a kind of inflection point, where it was worth it for him. And that will have been the initial cost for him. But actually, the cost will even have reduced over time. Because as something becomes a habit, it becomes almost easier to do than not do. So the hardest change is that first change, which you kind of enabled, um, by, with that intervention.

    17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:09:57

        That's interesting. When it becomes a habit, it's harder to not do than do. That's a really interesting concept, isn't it? I guess that's how I would even look at my morning strength workout now. It's been sort of over five years since I've been doing this, and it's just five minutes while my coffee brews every morning. You know, you, you've, you may not have heard me talk about this before, but essentially while the coffee brews for five minutes, I'm in my, my pajamas and I'm doing a strength workout in the kitchen. I'm not going on email or Instagram in those five minutes. And I actually think my morning would feel really weird now if I didn't do it.

    18. SPSpeaker1:10:36

        Do you ever skip it?

    19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:10:38

        Very, very rarely. Even when I travel, and I've been traveling a lot recently, I even take my cafetière with me, right? And my coffee-

    20. SPSpeaker1:10:48

        Well, that's your timer, so you've got to. Yeah [laughs]

    21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:10:50

        Yeah. But what it does is when I'm on the road, and I've been doing a lot of interviews for my book recently, so I've been on the road a lot. In a hotel room in the morning, 'cause I drink black coffee, it's easy, you just boil a kettle and you make it, and I put the timer on, and I do it in a hotel room. So for me, it's actually this little, um, habit that I take around with me to sort of ground me and center me every morning. And yeah, I'm just wondering, 'cause, you know, we started off this conversation talking about this idea that, that permeates your entire book, which is whatever's going on, whatever we're doing that's improving our mental wellbeing, it's always happening through the brain and the nervous system. So I'm, I'm truly fascinated as to what these five-minute actions are doing. Can you hypothesize what kind of brain chemicals might be changing?

    22. SPSpeaker1:11:37

        What will be changing are specific circuits in the brain that are involved in this kind of instantiation and then maintenance of habits, which are sort of two different circuits. So the first time you do something effortful, it involves regions in the brain that work on that computation. How costly is it? How rewarding is it?

    23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:11:56

        Mm.

    24. SPSpeaker1:11:56

        Is it worth it to me? And those are the regions we know from animal experiments and also human experiments that say if you have an injury in them, it can really change this cost-benefit calculation. So that's how we know-

    25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:12:09

        Wow

    26. SPSpeaker1:12:09

        ... that they're related. And it does involve neurotransmitters like dopamine, but not only. So it's really about the kind of communication between these different regions that help you make that decision. But as something becomes a habit, actually the circuits change from kind of decision-making circuits, which often involve, you know, weighing up possible options. It's a little bit more effortful for the brain, that is. Um-To these quite automatic circuits that make something a habit. You hear actually most about these circuits, places like the nucleus accumbens, dopamine-rich regions of the brain, because of their involvement in drug addiction. But it's not just drug addiction.

    27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:12:49

        Mm.

    28. SPSpeaker1:12:50

        These are the circuits that help us do things again and again without using all of our cognitive resources to focus on them. So we move into this other kind of mode of processing in the brain, something that can be ongoing almost in the background while our brain is doing other things or can be focused on other things.

    29. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:13:09

        So, so this is the same process that when you're learning to drive, um, a manual gear car or for the, uh, transatlantic audience, uh, a stick, in those first few driving lessons you're utilizing... It's, it's hard work. You know, you're trying to figure out how to time the clutch with the gear changing without stalling the car.

    30. SPSpeaker1:13:30

        Yeah, like the speed of coming up-
14. 1:18:36 – 1:30:09

    What ‘mental health’ means, why trends may be worsening, and the social biology of laughter

    1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:18:36

       In your book, you talk about this term mental health, and you also sort of split it up at various places to, you know, mental health is this broad term. There's mental illness within that, but I guess there's also mental wellbeing. I don't know how you feel about this. I've always struggled with the term mental health. I know it's commonly used, and I've used it as well, but I, I would say it never really connects with me. Like, I never really intuitively know what does mental health mean. And of course, that will be because of my perception of the world and what associations I have with that term. How do you see that term, and how do you see the differences between mental illness, mental wellbeing and, you know, how, how do you sort of parse those all together in your brain?

    2. SPSpeaker1:19:25

       I thought very deliberately about whether or not to use the phrase mental health. I think it gets thrown about-

    3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:19:32

       Yeah

    4. SPSpeaker1:19:33

       ... in all kinds of different ways, and sometimes used interchangeably with mental illness, which is really unhelpful. But I also have some problems with the idea of mental wellbeing-

    5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:19:42

       Okay

    6. SPSpeaker1:19:42

       ... or wellbeing in general, which is probably why I went with mental health. Because actually, I think there is value, for example, if you are in a really low state, into feeling just healthy, not necessarily great, not necessarily splendid, not any-

    7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:20:02

       Mm

    8. SPSpeaker1:20:02

       ... of those other kind of, you know, wellbeing-type terms. But actually, the ability to function is the biggest difference between mental health and a lack of mental health, and I actually think that boundary is the kind of critical boundary, and that's where I wanted to write my book. So it's also about, within mental health, how you can feel better. But really a lot of what matters to most people, all of us will have either, you know, known someone who experiences a mental health condition or experienced-

    9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:20:31

       Mm

    10. SPSpeaker1:20:31

        ... one ourselves, is how to get over that boundary into mental health.

    11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:20:37

        Many people would say that our mental health is currently declining. You've written this wonderful book on mental health. Um, do you think it's fair to say that as a society, things are getting worse, or do you think there's other things that explain that?

    12. SPSpeaker1:20:56

        I'm very torn on that. There is data to suggest that more and more people are diagnosed with a mental health condition all the time, especially younger people. But there are a lot of problems with that data. So some of it is a good thing.

    13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:21:11

        Mm.

    14. SPSpeaker1:21:11

        It means people are accessing services, accessing diagnoses when they might not have in the past.

    15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:21:18

        Mm.

    16. SPSpeaker1:21:18

        Some of it means, you know, perhaps you might have felt shame for feeling this way before, and now people are able to kind of-

    17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:21:27

        Mm

    18. SPSpeaker1:21:27

        ... come forward, seek help, get treatment for it, and that looks like a rise in rates of mental health diagnosis. So that explains some of it. But I suppose if you really dig down, I don't thi- think it explains all of it. There is still data suggesting that if you ask people the same exact questions, especially young people, especially young females, over time, their general wellbeing, general sense of mental health does seem to be worse than it used to be. So it's perhaps not as dramatic-

    19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:21:58

        Mm

    20. SPSpeaker1:21:58

        ... as some of the graphs would show, but it is happening, and I think we don't really know why.

    21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:22:05

        Do you have any hypotheses as to what the big things are in society that might be contributing to this?

    22. SPSpeaker1:22:12

        I think it may be a lot of little things, in fact. So many of the young people tested at the moment are people who experienced the pandemic at very critical ages in brain development-

    23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:22:23

        Mm

    24. SPSpeaker1:22:23

        ... which means they were deprived of socialization at really critical periods. It means they experienced something quite traumatic at a very critical period. And so that will definitely have had a knock-on effect on long-term mental health. So I think that's kind of one contributor, maybe in that case, not a very small contributor. I also think there's a role, you know, potential role for the conceptualization of mental health problems in and of themselves. So it sounds very complex, but this is an idea that has gained traction-

    25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:22:58

        Mm

    26. SPSpeaker1:22:58

        ... in my field, that actual awareness of mental health can sometimes make mental health problems worse. So it can make you aware of your symptoms, but it can also make you kind of focus on your symptoms, consolidate your symptoms, perhaps enhance your symptoms, especially in social settings in adolescence. So this is a kind of testable hypothesis that I would say has not been proven by any means, but is a kind of one reasonable explanation for why there might be especially kind of concentrations of mental health problems emerging in some people.

    27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:23:32

        Yeah. It's really, really interesting. I think it's pretty reasonable to think that for some people, that may well be the case.

    28. SPSpeaker1:23:37

        I, I think it's reasonable, and I think one of the reasons why it's kind of plausible is because this can happen even with physical symptoms. So we know that in certain social settings, if, for example, you know, the, the kind of classic example is often teenage girls, but it really doesn't have to be. It can be kind of any concentrated, intense social setting, often in adolescence. You can see a transmission of physical symptoms in certain communities, um, pejoratively sometimes called, like, mass hysteria, but actually it's a real process that is not conscious that can just happen in experiencing someone else with very, very, like, kind of profoundly different physical symptoms. You can have a kind of contagious effect.

    29. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:24:22

        Yeah. And, and we, we see this in all kinds of different things. You know, we, we are social animals, and that we respond to what the people around us are doing and what they're feeling. You know, there's studies showing that when you walk or run in groups-... your cadence and rhythm starts to become more and more similar.

    30. SPSpeaker1:24:40

        Yeah, synchronized. Yeah.

Episode duration: 1:30:09