Hello everybody, welcome back to the show my guest today is dr. Andrew huberman he's a neuroscientist associate professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine and a podcaster it has never been so easy and also so difficult to remain healthy and perform at your best the right tools and insights that we all need to avoid pitfalls and maximize our outcomes are thankfully at our fingertips today we get to go through some of dr. Hubermanns favorites expect to learn how breathing can literally change the shape of your face.
Face what Andrew thinks of the huberman husband's Kink just how bad vaping actually is for you how to increase your willpower using signs what everyone misunderstands about stress his opinion on Tom Segura has transformation how to be more productive and much more. This episode is so good. I absolutely love doctor hubermanns work. The guy is the biggest Health and Fitness podcaster on the planet and with good reason, he's made every bro biohacker look very silly.
Over the last couple of years by using science and evidence to work out exactly what we actually need to do to improve. Our outcomes are longevity our health literally everything. I really appreciate all of the work that he puts in and there is so much to take away from today. Don't forget that if you are new here or a long time listener, you might be listening but not subscribed and that is trez bad because it means you will miss episodes when they go up to next two months has got a stacked lineup of huge guests that you don't want to miss so navigate to a podcast.
Cast off Spotify or wherever you are listening and press the Subscribe button. It does support the show. It makes me very happy indeed, and it ensures that you will not miss episodes when they go up. So go and press it at thank you.
But now ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome. Dr. Andrew huberman. What were you just teaching me about mouth reading and how it changes the shape of the face now, so I arrived.
Bring a copy of the book Jaws a hidden epidemic. This is not Jaws the shark. This book was written by my colleagues at Stanford Sandra Khan and Paul Ehrlich and it has an introduction by Jared Diamond who won a Pulitzer for Guns Germs and Steel and a forward by the great Robert sapolsky. Also a colleague of mine at Stanford. So for Heavy Hitters on this book just to credential it first this book centers around a couple of Core Concepts, but the first
being that people and in particular children who overuse mouth-breathing as opposed to nasal breathing have changes in the structure of the face that what to be quite direct makes them far more unattractive than if they were to mouth breathe. It also discusses the chewing of foods as essential to mouth and face development. Sandra Khan is an expert in craniofacial.
Function and structure and the fact that if your parents and you did things right you should be able to place your in your entire tongue on the roof of your mouth with your mouth closed now, I can't do that. Okay, so when you would teeth closed I'm going to rip your mouth I can but I still feel the back of my teeth a bit. So I yeah, okay. Um, but the so that's the second point that we want to chew heart chewing
Foods is essential to tooth and mouth and face development these days many children slurp their food many adults slurp their Foods many adults are eating like babies and of course babies before they develop their mature teeth and even when they before they get all over their teeth in need to obviously breast milk and you know, putting like Foods. Okay, but so that's the second point. So nasal breathing good mouth-breathing bad for craniofacial development chew.
Hard Foods chewing a lot on both sides of the mouth great for craniofacial development oral development tooth development and tooth Health which by the way are correlated with a number of other things like cardiovascular health and metabolic Health, very interesting links there. And then the third point is that the book argues that the entire field of orthodontia things like braces things like headgear things like retainers are the by product of poor.
Breathing and let's just say overconsumption of soft foods in place of hard Foods behavior. And so there's this guy who's from your side of the pond mu I like to write a new method of restoring normal craniofacial development. The book is chock-a-block full of impressive photos of before-and-afters impressive because in some cases you'll see kids that were mouth-breathers or were eating a lot of soft foods and then they recover their behavior. So to
And became knows breathers. Of course, we have to mouth breather when were exercising really hard or when we're eating or speaking. We're going to mouth breathe. But at rest we should nasal breathe is the argument and that greatly improves craniofacial Aesthetics. And the good news is this stuff is modifiable across the lifespan and and so the book isn't arguing for anyone to purchase anything. You don't need a jahzzar sizer. I'm saying that explicitly because they took clips of me talking about this and productized it and
Had nothing to do with that. So hopefully you'll keep this in the episode and they even admitted they were breaking the law and he said we don't care we're going to continue to do it. So sales a Salesman. Yeah, but now those those, you know to the credit of products for exercising the jaw. Sure there are muscles of the jaw that can what you're talking about. Is that it but using food, yeah eat the food is if you don't have a sufficiently tough diet, I guess you could replace it, but it's explain to me the mechanics of how the difference in.
Whether you breathe through your nose or breathe through your mouth changes the shape of your face and head one. It goes beyond that if you breathe through your mouth as opposed to your nose the first of all you bring in less oxygen, then you would have so you're limiting your effectively putting yourself into a state of apnea, right which is bad during sleep. And guess what? It's bad during waking States. Also it you get less oxygen to your brain bad the sinuses, you know, we here are my sinuses are clogged or my side the sinuses which I had brought a skull with with me because one of the
Most impressive things about a skull human skull being no exception is that the sinuses are literally these little tubes are channels through which fluid and air can move and the sinuses even though they are essentially the created by the Fisher's between different bones. So like there's two two or three different bones that are interdigitated and create these tunnels. They're actually fairly plastic in the sense that they can be modified in terms of their shape. And and so people say well I have a deviated septum
What you should help try and emphasize breathing through both nostrils as a in order to undeviating your septum. Now, someone has a broken nose or something. That's really structurally abnormal. They may need corrective surgery, but purely through deliberate nasal breathing so it could be mouth taping at night. But also just deliberately nasal breathing during most of your cardiovascular training unless you need to really, you know, hit the gas in which case your mouth breathe is going to help dilate the sinuses and lead to better airflow which makes nasal breathing easier. The other thing is that
Nasal breathing we know. Well, first of all, there's a nasal microbiome. There's also an oral microbiome, but that nasal microbiome is particularly well-suited to scrub or capture and destroy viruses bacteria and even some fungal infections. So in other words when you're breathing in through your mouth, you're more susceptible to infections. This is important heading into winter as well. So there are a number of I mean we could talk about this for hours, but the point is nasal breathing when you can kids, especially but adults as well chewing food
Require, you know eating foods that require some chewing and really working at it and chewing away. They have some impressive images in this book of kids that were twins that were raised separately one by a group that eats a lot of let's just say tougher foods that require chewing versus one that's slurping their food and I mean one kid is literally incredibly attractive perfect dentist Sherwood. No orthodonture debt or you know, regular dentistry in the other kid is teeth is like snaggle. They have the horse at what's like the horse he smile even though they've got the same genetic predisposition. Right? Right. It's not a perfect.
Experiment because there are other factors as well. And you know, none of this is the For Better or Worse. None of this is really amenable that gun in laboratory type stuff. So as these are naturally occurring experiments as we say, there are also some very impressive images in the book or we could say depressing of kids that were pretty attractive as kids and then there's an example of a kid who got a pet hamster. He was allergic to the hamster he switch as a consequence. He becomes a mouth breather and then that the characteristic change in the face when one
Over does mouth breathing. Is that the chin start to remove the recesses? Yeah toward the toward the neck and the rest of the face was out. But also the eyes become droopy and then but as you say, why would the eyes be affected it's not just musculature. What's happening is there's less use of literally the the sinuses in the upper jaw towards the upper mandible and up towards the eyes because as the ever had a sinus infection, it's painful up here in your forehead and around the eyes. So again, it's pretty straightforward.
No products required chew your food well chew on both sides of your mouth. Especially if you're a young person, but even if you're not be a nasal breather, really chew it your food try and it's probably also has benefits in terms of limiting an essential or low nutrient density calories slurping your food all the time. I mean, I love drinking your calories me. I love a good Greek yogurt, you know, but but drinking in excess of calories as probably not good and eat like an adult I would say, I know one of the things is I don't know.
Lie to Me growing Up snack food was something that kids Dodge then you know, once you hit 18 or so you eat like an adult I'm still waiting I'm still waiting to learn that lesson you mentioned sapolsky that had him on the show recently. Yeah. What do you think most people misunderstand about stress? Obviously, he's contributed an awful lot to there's only thought about this too. Yeah. What do you think people don't understand fully about stress? Yeah, the findings that I think are overlooked tremendously are the following experiment. There's a
Experiment in animals where a rat is given the opportunity to run on a treadmill and ratan and rodents of all kind love kinds love running on treadmills. You know, there are these interesting. This will see who catches this fly first. Yeah. I'm ready man. Yeah, the I think you know, there's even a study from hoppy hofstra's Lab at Harvard that show that if you put a Wheels running Wheels in fields that rodents will run there in the middle of the night and run on them. That's how insanely obsessed with running that just ended just like they want to go there's
Rewarding about it for them. But in any event, it lowers their blood pressure at leads to increase in provements in a number of metrics that you expect and you see the same thing in humans, right? We run on a treadmill or run Outdoors or swimming cardiovascular exercise. Okay, well sapolsky and I love to talk about a an experiment where they took two different cages with animals one is running voluntarily, but then that running wheel is Tethered to a running wheel in another cage that in clothes.
Has has an animal forces it to run every time the other one runs. So forced exercise versus voluntary exercise and the takeaway is very straightforward voluntary exercise leads to all sorts of improvements and health metrics resting heart rate blood pressure blood glucose resting blood glucose Etc waking blood glucose the animal that's forced to exercise. You see the opposite right? It's so it's not exercise per se it's something about being forced to exercise is a causes decrements in a number of Health metrics and you see the same thing in humans. So what's why
Old is my colleague. Dr. Ali crumb Department of psychology at Stanford has done these beautiful experiments on mindset and belief. These are not Placebo effects and what she's shown in just absolutely spectacular way is that if people watch a short video about all the ways in which stress can really diminish your health. Well, then indeed stress diminishes their health, whereas if a separate group watches and a factual also five minute,
Also factual tutorial on all the ways that stress can enhance performance by harnessing your ability to focus memory formation at Center all which is true. That's indeed what you see. Can I give you my favorite one that I learned about over the last year? Yes. So the Boston Marathon bombing 2012 about 10 years ago 2016, maybe anyway Boston Marathon bombing a study was done comparing people who had been at the actual Marathon while the bomb had gone off.
And people who had watched 90 minutes or more of news coverage about it and the people who watch 90 minutes or more of news coverage about it showed a greater stress response than the people who'd literally lived through it. Interesting interesting. Yeah, the
The um that the mindset and belief of facts are are absolutely extraordinary and and very real right. I mean, I think you know recently I've been reading and researching a lot about did a podcast on tenacity and willpower and there was this idea early on from Baumeister and colleagues that willpower is a limited resource. Some of the ego depletion will go to please. Yes, it was controversial. They showed that, you know, replenishing glucose in between hard tasks could restore willpower.
Showed that I was at juries or judges that were low and blood glucose were more likely to give harsher sentences stuff like this. Yeah. I did it sort of worked out to a number of naturalistic situations and it made good sense. And then my colleague Carol dweck also in the psychology department at Stanford most famously known for her work on my growth mindset did an experiment in which they essentially asked whether or not
Tenacity and willpower are limited in terms of being a some sort of resource and also whether or not it was somehow linked to glucose availability fuel in the brain and body and found that if people thought or were told that mine that excuse me willpower was a limited resource that's indeed what they observed experimentally, but that if they were taught or we're told that will power is unlimited and and divorced from glucose levels. Well, then that's exactly what you so you'd say, so
Thing that learning about ego depletion and believing that willpower is a limited resources and information Hazard that is self-fulfilling potentially. Now Baumeister, you know showed himself to be pretty determined when encountered the the dweck counter by showing that if indeed if there is a hard task followed by a hard task then your beliefs about willpower can impact your performance on the second task so Direct.
The AK dweck is right, but that if you have hard task hard task and then another hard task so back-to-back-to-back tasks or more, which is a lot of what life is like well, then it seems that the that the willpower is a limited resource and glucose supporting willpower Theory holds up a bit better. What have you come to believe about the difference between willpower and motivation and discipline how to kind of all of these fit together in your mind. Yeah. So willpower and tenacity are related to
Motivation but they're not quite the same. I think we should think of motivation as a as the verb state that moves us from let's just say apathy to tenacity. Okay, so it sort of is the verb function that moves us along that Continuum app apathy at one end tenacity and willpower strong exertion willpower at the other end. One of the most interesting structures in the entire nervous system is one that gets very little coverage.
Finally, in fact most neuroscientist aren't aware of what its function is and it's called the AMC see which the anterior mid cingulate cortex. You have one on each side of the brain. The name isn't really important. But we want to you know to the credit of the of the structure. We should name of the AMC see the MCC receives inputs from a lot of interesting brain areas related to reward related to autonomic functions. So how alert or sleepy we are two prediction to prediction error. It's a hub for many many inputs and outputs.
Hormone systems Etc beautiful experiments done by my colleague Joe / VZ at Stanford have shown that if you stimulate this brain area tiny little brain area in a human they immediately feel as if some challenge is impending and they're going to meet that challenge. It's a forward Center of mass against challenge response. This has been seen an independent subjects. They do controls where they then tell them they're stimulating but they're not actually stimulating and they're like, I don't feel anything you can turn on and off tenacity and willpower.
Our so there's literally a hub for this now. Here's where it gets really interesting. I'm going to list off a bunch of peer-reviewed published results in Rapid sequence and I'm happy to point out that the substantiation for this or the references. Okay individuals that are dieting or resisting some sort of tempting behavior and are successful in doing that the size and activity in their amcc goes up over time and the structure gets bigger dieters who fail
Flat or downward trajectory of the size and activation of the AMC see this can be taken too far individuals with anorexia nervosa the most deadly of all psychiatric disorders where a depths self deprivation of food activates, excessive reward. There's this kind of loop of reward their am cc's are significantly greater size than other so there's you know, this can be taken too far.
Super agers, which is a bit of a misnomer because these individuals are people who maintain healthy cognitive function similar to people in their 20s and 30s into their 70s 80s and 90s there amcc maintains or increases in size into their later years typical agers the size of we always hear that you lose brain mass across your lifespan. Well, most of it is from the amcc and beautifully and this is two of my favorite results that really bring this around to protocol or a takeaway if people are
An easy task the amcc isn't activated if they're given a hard task in particular a hard task physical or cognitive that they really don't want to do. They MCC levels of activity go through the roof. And here's what's really cool. They gave aging what's you know people age sixty to seventy nine the task of adding three hours extra per week of cardiovascular exercise. Now, that's a lot right 31 our they call them aerobic classes, but getting their heart rate up to about
about 65 70 percent of Maximum. So it's getting into like so reassure area. Yeah people can look up Zone 3, but you nailed it Zone 3 the size of their amcc increased across that six-month protocol and offset the normal age-related decline in this in this brain area in terms of its size. The theory that starting to emerge is that the amcc isn't just about tenacity and willpower to push through hard things that it may actually be related to one's will to live
Ones Will to continue living and I think this is these are some of the most important results by the way, I didn't participate in any of the research that I just described. I spent a lot of time with that literature, but I think it's so important we hear about the amygdala the hippocampus the prefrontal cortex all a very important brain structures, but if nothing else hopefully this car is one but the AMC see on the map the one that literally could create your will to live is the one that's been overlooked a little bit and it can be and what's interesting about this structure is that it's involved in generating tenacity and willpower for all things not just for once.
Situation and what's really wonderful? I think about the research literature on this is It's So Clear what we need to do. We need to do things. Let's say like me, you're a person who enjoys weightlifting and you love running. I love those two activities. Well, guess what those activities even if they're hard like a hard run that I'm really enjoying or some hard sets in the gym not going to increase the size or activity of the AMC see people love to over romanticize the utility of those final two reps. Sure.
Keep pushing to failure great, you know running hard till your lungs burn great. But if you enjoy that you're not increasing your amount of tenacity and willpower at least according to the research data, what's going to do it is doing something what I call Micro socks or macro sucks, you know, and so micro sucks could be all the little things that you don't want during to do during the day macro sucks could be the larger things. But of course you don't want to do things that are going to damage you psychologically or physically, of course, of course, but everyone I believe would benefit from
From picking a few micro sucks to do some of your micro sucks on macro sucks that you could sprinkle throughout the day. Okay. So on a household maintenance level, you know, I I maintained a very clean home. I'll constantly throwing things away as well. But there are a few things like once I exceed a certain number of dishes in the sink it becomes this. Okay, I'll load the dishwasher later type thing like a micro suck for me would be like, especially if something's been in there for a while and it's kind of gross and then you gotta like work through and of course I tried
Each dish away as I dirty them up, but so little things the things like that the I really don't want to deal with that right now. That's the kind of thing those harder task. Who were you have to breach some barriers some resistance and put it into you know, Steven pressfield language or our friend David Goggins, right? You know that this idea that one has to Calais the mind. I mean David said that right and probably got an hypertrophy day MCC that's bigger than most people's probably and and the beauty of having a an AMC see
that's highly you know available for Activation is that you know through the micro and the macro sucks of the day you you have this thing. It's like an engine that you can devote to other things. So then you can devote the MCC to other endeavors. I have this thing. I called email anxiety and it's when my unread inbox reaches three figures or more and that's when it just it kind of follows me around like a poltergeist. There is Route the day and that that absolutely from it. That's probably a macro suck, you know to get through that. It's probably three to four hours a lot of
Scheduling when's this guest coming on? I need to speak to this partner we go to bla bla bla. So yeah, I've I feel that what else objective right? I mean, what's a what sucks is someone else might lovely nose? Yeah, someone might and and I think that you know, you've talked a lot on it your show with various guests about you know, when we're in too much comfort our we're not meeting our goals. I love deadlines for that reason. I love deadlines. I love pressure. I think um, I think Parkinson's Laura's is close to a thermodynamic if
Productivity as we can get you know what I mean? Like when you have a deadline you will meet it. Right. If you do not have a deadline, you will mañana mañana until forever. That's right, and some people I think preload the deadline by procrastinating and then that's what you know gets their activation energy to a level where they can they can engage. So I've started thinking about this a lot lately, you know, I love running but it's interesting. I like to finish up my driveway and I live on a hill and I showed this morning I was
For Ron and the gate at the end of the cul-de-sac is my sort of vegetable and stop point. So it actually sucked to do the last 20 meters this morning. So there I probably got a little bit of a MCC activation because everything was the number of negotiations I went through when I turned up my street at the end of this run whether I was going to run this extra 20 meters was ridiculous. I mean the human brain is struggling to not do this extra 20 meters. It was so silly. So it's got its got to hurt a little bit again. You don't want to damage yourself, but I think in the context of
of for instance cognitive learning getting to the point where you finish something and then forcing yourself to do one little extra bit there at the end. So, you know, I I'm not looking for any credit for it, but I want to be very clear that the scientific literature doesn't call these things micro sucks. I call them micro sucks. And I said put that out there just to make it clear as to what we're going to do. You know, Nick Beth. I don't in Austin he's a athlete and so right so put up come on on it. Yep. Yeah like a hybrid after the larger guy, but he runs really fast as bodybuilding shows.
Powerlifting also runs to be clear. I know that large guys run fast, but typically they don't run fast for 20 miles, correct? And he does that's Acura. He his little catchphrase is go one more and it's interesting what you're saying here is it's not just about the completion of the thing that you're doing because a lot of the time the thing that you choose to do even the thing that's difficult is done under your own volition. Don't get me wrong. If you do a difficult crossfit workout, Fran, whatever 21:59 of
stirs and polyps. It is off its hell, right. There's literally a name for what your throat feels like once you finish called Fran cough that people get from having taken their heart rate as high as a zooming and yeah that tastes of metal in the back of your throat. But what what people are doing that although they're doing something that's difficult. It's like volitional be difficult and it's within their domain of enjoyment and what you're saying here. Is that what we're looking to just push ourselves a little bit past that it's like an unnecessary amount of Challenge and I think
Go one more makes quite a nice reminder for us with the micro sucker the macro circlet push ourselves just a little bit beyond where we would have got our sense of satisfaction because presumably you get the dopamine. I've completed the task. Fuck. Yeah, and then it's like and then I do just that tiny little bit more to to bring in other news. This episode is brought to you by Merrick health. I wanted to get my blood work done here in America. I'd been told by people like, dr. Human that it's important for me to do to work out what's going on inside my body, but
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No, no, we're cousins. I can see it now. Yeah, his commitment to Fitness has been pretty fascinating for me to see and he's kind of treating his body like an athlete to facilitate his chosen pursuit of Comedy. I think even Bert is trying to sort his sort of health and fitness out one step at a time two words the control experiment like there's a if the experiment is about willpower tenacity and discipline Tom is the is the is the is the active condition and
Is the control but I'm seeing more and more people now, especially performance that aren't using but the aren't within the realm of physical fitness really starting to understand if I want to perform outside of this. I need to think like an athlete I need to be looking at my hydration. I mean Tom had his trainer trouble with him on the road for months Yea Yea Tom's really serious about his craft as is Bert. They just have different approaches and when it comes to Fitness, I by the way, I know it's Bert is training. He's working out. I've been trying to get bird to quit drinking.
Hall for a while not because I'm the Arbiter of of who should do what I never never tell people what to do. Do they provide information people can do what they want. I'm a Live and Let Live I want to be very clear about that, but it's out of care and affection for Burt that you know, excessive alcohol consumption over long periods of time bad. I mean we can keep that one pretty brief. So but bird is working out, but Tom I know because we talked and I spent some time with them that
Trains he trains hard and he sees it as integral with his with his writing with his ability show up for his family and Business Etcetera. I mean, I think we're finally approaching a time in human history where we accept at the level of the scientific Community all the way through to Wellness and just generally that the brain and body are are intimately linked at the level of what you you know, if you want to improve your body do something for your mind. If you want to improve your mind do something for your body and and it's so clear. Now what we all need to do. I mean we can get into the
Details, but at a macro level it's clear that we should all be getting that 150 to 200 minutes of Zone 2 per week or walking a lot. If you live in a big city, you're probably getting that but then also getting your heart rate up to to you know, max heart rate once a week doing some Sprint type stuff on in whatever format is safe for your body. Some people swimming. Somebody was throwing some people's running for me. It's running but you know, not everyone enjoys running or can do it and then everyone should be doing at least six sets of resistance training per muscle group per week minimum hard sets to fail.
Okay, maybe maybe not close to failure. Yeah, probably and it's especially the groups that have been let's just say averse to weight training right typically women are older folks though. Now more women weight train because they understand that in the absence of a lot of injected or prescription anabolic hormones. They're not going to get enormous. That's the funniest thing for me. That's why we died. I think right that that concept that you know, if you one lifts weights that they're going to become bulky. Do you realize to all of the women?
Men who are out there that are concerned about lifting weights because they're going to get too bulky. Do you know how hard I've worked to try and desperately become bulky for 15 years. Like I have worked really really difficult hoping that one day. I'll become bulky and there is I think it's dissipating a lot now, but there was for a long time this fear that I would do a couple of bicep curls and you're going to look like the Incredible Hulk. It's like me and my friends have really really prayed for that to happen forever. You do not need to be concerned. It's not going to creep up on you and one day you're going to
Wake up and be the sort of vascular Beast right a couple of things about that. I mean from a longevity standpoint. We know that maintaining healthy nerve to muscle function neuromuscular Junctions is one of the things that resistance exercise does and it's highly correlated with cognitive function into older age. And for those people I guess going back to our earlier conversation will probably do this a few times in the course of this episode. But the thing you want to do the least, that's actually the thing there where you stand to build up your amcc the most so for me, that would be language learning.
Knowing or learning a musical instruments two things that I love music and I but I just it's just so hard for me. So it sits there on the Shelf as a possible way to activate the MCC. But in terms of actual resistance training resistance training has an interesting property that I haven't heard discussed before that pertains to men and women who do it which is unlike cardiovascular training during resistance training about
Because of the blood flow to the muscle so called pump you get a little window into what the potential progress would look like that pump dissipates post-workout. And then if you allow sufficient rest and nutrition Etc, you'll get a hypertrophy response, but it's so unlike other forms of exercise. Like if I go to a yoga class and I stretch or I'm doing some movement I get to that limit where I'm quaking and I fall over it's very different than getting a picture of just how flexible I will be the next gal. Yeah, and then losing that until I adapt with running your lungs sometimes your
throat burns as you pointed out and that's showing you your limit and of course then there's an adaptation response that then allows you to perform at that level without the burning and the next time right if you allow sufficient recovery, but with weight training, it's kind of interesting the whole pump thing was never something that I really drew me to weight training very much but it's interesting because you get a glimpse into what the progress might look like. And so for I would say for anyone who's worried about getting too big unless your pump is bigger than you want to be. You're not going to get that right and
You actually get a window into how much potential size increase you're going to create but it's so different than other forms of exercise in that way. It's like what other thing in life if you took a language class and you know, I'm going to learn Japanese and you go and during the class you actually become fluent for a moment, then it's taken away and they become fluid. So it's a very special form of exercise that that offers some unique gifts to us as incentives for going back. But look as I say this, I realize some people hate resistance training the love running some people hate running.
They love resistant strain some people. I realize hate exercise. But if you hate exercise, you should do it. Anyway MCC and you're getting the AMC. So going back to what you think might be happening to someone like Tom who is a like a cognitive athlete, right? But largely the Physical Realm comedians apart from I guess until Joe which is part of the beginning of like the comedian bro-bro left a revolution before him. It wasn't exactly like I wasn't looking to comedians as being the
Vanguard of health and fitness is like music. I mean look at Belushi, right? I mean he was the he was the epitome of lack health. So what he died right talk to me about what would be happening to the brain of somebody like Tom who pivots from being maybe 40 pounds overweight but I don't know how big you got it is it is biggest but lost a good bit of weight and it wasn't just losing weight. It was then gaining muscle. So dr. Gabriela line world of like muscle centered medicine. He's going to benefit from that the insulin sensitivity. They'll be like some physiological changes.
But talk to me for the people who are cognitive athletes. What's going to happen in someone like Tom's mind when he changes his body? Yeah, so improve blood flow to the brain and in the brain is most metabolically demanding organ in the entire body consumes a ton of glucose. If you eat carbohydrates you yes, it can run on ketones but blood flow through arteries veins and capillaries to the neurons of the brain is is it's Inseparable from cognitive function. So when you improve blood flow to the brain you improve cognitive function period when you restrict blood flow,
Go to the brain, even at a micro level you impaired cognitive function in addition to that. We know that several forms of age-related cognitive decline and dementia are considered nowadays. Some people even call it type 3 diabetes. Although that's a controversial term diabetes of the brain. This is why a number of people who have Alzheimers go on ketogenic diets and get some degree of relief. It's not that by the way, it's not a cure for Alzheimer's but some people do better when they switch the major fuel source for the brain.
But in the case of Tom as an example, but someone who gets into exercising regularly, both resistance training and cardiovascular training, you're getting improved blood flow. You're getting far less inflammation of the brain inflammation is cognitive depleting reducing inflammation cognitive enhancing. We always that's absolutely true across the board right in animal studies in humans. In addition to that. There are a lot of blood-borne factors two of which all just highlight now just for sake of time only to first of all when we do cardio that positively impact brain,
In memory in particular, so when we do load-bearing cardiovascular exercise so running as opposed to swimming anything where the skeletal system is is under some load. There's a hormone that's literally secreted from bone. I know we don't normally think of Bones is endocrine organs called osteocalcin a stoic Allison is released from the bones under these load-bearing conditions. It can cross the blood-brain barrier and we know that it plays an active role in promoting.
Ting not just new cell production but because that's a more minor component of neuroplasticity but enhancement of nerve health and function in the hippocampus, which is an area that's instrumental for the formation of new memories. So there's something about movement of the body that signals to the brain are where you know, we're moving you actually need to maintain or perhaps even enhance your ability to remember things and this probably is an evolutionary conserved circuit that exists. We know it exists in mice as well.
So that's one one example. The other is that my colleague at Stanford Stanford. Tony wise Corey is best known for these young blood experiments where they'll take the blood or plasma from a young rodent and put into an aged or demented rodent and see improvements in cognitive function and outside the United States. There are some clinics by the way. I'm not recommending people do this that have shown improvements in cognitive function or even offsetting of Alzheimer's and age-related cognitive decline. This had led to the idea of like vampires and baby's blood in the screen across.
Um, yeah Drinker it's which is all crazy and conspiracy. I'm go on record saying that but there's a recent paper that also from Tony's lab showing that if in animals that exercise regularly if you take their blood or plasma and you supply that blood or plasma to aged or cognitively deficient animals, they their cognition or their cognitive abilities improve. So there's something about blood of the exercised body that enriches the brain
It could be many different growth factors could be bdnf brain-derived neurotrophic Factor. It could be things like igf-1 insulin-like growth factor is probably gonna be a cocktail of different things as well as osteocalcin. And so what we want to think about is that when we exercise and that's a broad statement exercise or word rather cardiovascular resistance training, it creates a cocktail that then crosses into the blood-brain barrier that then creates a milieu of General growth health or at least maintenance of cognitive tissue that's there. So Tom's incredibly.
A sharp and of course comedy requires not just memory but also writing of new jokes, right? He's got to do Netflix specials for a long time and I actually went and saw him and Aspen a small venue. I flew out there to see you because I want to see him in a small venue because in small venues is work Comics often work out their new material and let me just, you know to me it was just astonishing like to see the number of different thought threads and one thing that makes Tom's comedy so wonderful, and other people like Richard Pryor to this exceptionally well too is that he can
Personas very fast. So he's doing his voice then it switches to his son's voice and switches back and the speed and precision with which he does that very agile makes it seem we forget that there are very agile and then we've he creates a panel of characters and then wipes that board away right? He's the only guy up there wipes that board away and then creates a panel of new characters. And so I mean that requires a lot of decks like cognitive dexterity. So exercise is absolutely one of the best ways to improve brain function over time and
In addition to that, you know, there's been so much interest in you know, should we do crossword puzzles. Should we you know, why is it that some people maintain cognitive function? I think what's very clear to me based on all that literature is that it's not one specific thing crossword puzzles or social engagement or exercises all of those things, but let's not forget the super agers the people who are constantly trying things that are difficult that are pressuring themselves a bit to do things that are difficult. Those people are offsetting as far as we know all of
The major shrinkage of these brain structures that normally would shrink as people age. So we have a lot of control but it does require effort and I'll tell you there's never going to be a pillar injection it whether or not so Zen pick or something like it but for the brain, there's just there's no way there's no way that you're ever going to recapitulate learning and effort and yes it requires time, but it's so clear. I mean, I don't know how many more papers in preclinical models and in humans one needs to see before they finally just
don't bite the bullet and go to lift weights lift weights and run or end do cardiovascular training. If you can't be one or the other, you know that the The Stereotype of like the the big let's just say big guy who's dumb, you know, I don't think it's entirely I mean, he's made some big big folks that are smart, right, but there is something in the kind of broad correlations of people who you know people who tend to only do cardiovascular training, you know, maybe it's a selection bias.
Because they are the people who are already Avid readers or more and kind of intellectual leanings, maybe get more involved in tennis swimming running type Sports rowing because of the schools, they went to her whatever but people who just lift weights. It does seem as if over time. I don't know maybe Derek would tell us that our neck is getting too big. They have sleep apnea it they don't see my sharp and they're often mouth-breathers. Look at the really big guys in the gym. They're often not strong. Not just between SATs not after us after heart sets there.
I think they're also there's fixating themselves in sleep. We know this. Yeah, and then you look at runners in the people have the kind of like the really spelled and and and they and sure they might maintain cognitive function but their bodies are very vulnerable to injury Crunch and they always seem to be complaining about what hurts you know, is it like my friends who do a lot of extended training unless it's David Goggins who doesn't seem to have the circuit for complaining hmm. At least certainly not online. Yeah. They're always seem to be complaining.
Thing about about injury. So I think a combination of resistance training cardiovascular training is let's just face it like you can't do one and not the other if you want to be healthy all around healthy of heart-healthy of body healthy of Mind cognition improved or at least maintained as we age you gotta do both will get back to talking to Andrew Weil minute. But first I need to tell you about element element contains a signs packed electrolyte ratio of sodium potassium and magnesium that will help to regulate your appetite curb cravings and optimize your brain health. You do not need coffee.
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Alcohol, I've been kind of flying the flag of it as a tool for productivity quite a while with alcohol. Yeah that I think when yearly or do you drink at all? I brought it back into my life now, but I did six months sober three times and then 1000 days without alcohol too. But yeah, I'm seeing right now a huge pushback against unseen unintentional drinking and I think that yeah your episode.
You're opened a lot of people's eyes to it. Thanks. I mean again, I don't tell people what to do. I give them the facts and so they can make the best decisions for them. I mean, it's very clear that unless you're an alcoholic and provided you're an adult that you know, two drinks per week. Maximum is about the upper threshold Beyond which you can start getting some help that gets colder and that's that's called a warm up to a warm up in England. Yeah. So I you know, I've never been a big drinker. I don't drink I'm lucky that it's not something that's that's a strong draw for.
me I do not have friends that are recovered alcoholic and you know their lives are so much better as a function of being sober but for non-alcoholics, I mean, I think everyone should just know the health risks, especially women where the risks for breast cancer and other types of cancers are elevated so very much and it was interesting to me about the response to that episode is that I think many people took it might the impression I got was that many people took it as permission to finally stop drinking or drink less because they didn't
Enjoy drinking and as you so, you know, beautifully put out on social media, you know drinking is one of the few activities that if you don't partake people assume or accuse you of having a problem and that's just wild. I mean like why would that be and I think that I think it also makes once actually I was out to dinner with a colleague years ago and I declined drinking that even I was just talking to the visiting speaker and she said God that so boring and I
Well, first of all, I don't have a problem saying what's on my mind without alcohol, right? I don't have I don't have a excessive gabaergic inhibition. So I'll say what I want to say, you know as as best I can but you know, I think drinkers don't like people who don't drink because it takes the fun out of it for them because there is this idea that Co prolific on college campuses. Like if everyone's drunk that somehow like the entire like Vibe of the party is going to take on a new new flavor and frankly. I remember I went to
College UC Santa Barbara, where at the time people drank auton Tanya discovered alcoholics. You're right and I used to go to parties. Sometimes I look around. I'm thinking like everyone here is just blasted. Like if anything happened drinking did you drink? Yeah, I drank in college but not that often. I had a habit and I don't recommend this. I had a habit of going out about once a month and I would tie one on you know, absolutely and frequent but binge. Yeah, I never you know, I my tall
Ernst alcohol was always such that I would get drunk quickly and then sober up really fast. So I was drinking late into the night, but then I'd sober up really fast. And of course, we know the sleep you get after even one drink is vastly diminished every single person that's got a oral or a whoop strap or something is feeling you right now and I think that alcohol to me never felt good. I never liked it and it was a recipe for you know, there was a lot of fights there was a lot of you know, there were a lot of bad stuff happens when people
Thank you. Dude. I've run driving to say nothing of poor decision-making. I mean to me it just feels like there's so there's so many better ways to have a good time that that alcohol isn't necessary. But I do understand it's a big part of many cultures and I do understand that for many people. It's so part and parcel with relaxing and with festivities and with feeling comfortable and withdrawing a boundary between the normal day and the rest of the day that's interesting is a ritual.
Mystic aspect to it. Yeah, there's this orbit divides the day in an interesting way. So I'm not judgmental of it. I but for me, I mean, I've I'll go to a party where people are drinking and just hang out on perfectly good dude. I've stood on the door of a thousand club nights in my career right as a club promoter and I can promise you for the people that are thinking I like the sound of this justification this excuse that I don't need to drink anymore doctor human has said that, you know, maybe it's not for you. Maybe it's not as enjoyable.
Nothing good happens in nightclubs after 1:00 in the morning. I am patient zero I have the I Am the Doctor of late-night parties. Okay, like that's one of my expertise nothing good happens in a nightclub. It's this sort of messy sloppy fights and kissing people you shouldn't and and and stumbling all over the place and stuff. If you go out and you don't drink and you go home at 1:00 in the morning, I think you probably get to capture about
eighty percent of the enjoyment of the event that you would have done had you have drank pre-drinks gone out done a whole thing and I got a bit of push. I got quite a bit of pushback from a sobriety Community a few years ago. I did this thousand days sober as a club promoter, which was I guess I could kind of a big deal in some regards for like pushing the sobriety Community forward, but I was never doing it because I had a problem I was doing it because it gave me more consistency and more time and more money to spend on things that I cared about.
Is a productivity tool like like the Pomodoro Technique right or going to bed on time I'll something and they had a little bit of a problem. There's a big problem with the fact that I said there is something to the enjoyment of drinking on a night out. I think anybody that says alcohol has no role in improving the quality of a night out ever just hasn't been on enough good nights out, right? There are ways that it can improve kind of loosens people up. It can reduce their inhibitions if you want to go and dance, you know your dad
Sitting at a rave or or at a festival which I think there's one going on quite close to here if you're there. It's really great. But
If alcohol wasn't so widely distributed, I think people would ask a lot more questions. It's like you can't see the wood for the trees, right? You don't question it. It's such a it's baked into the fabric of of just human life every single time that I take a like a macro dose, but low of psilocybin one where I can still function. What is what is 0.75 0.75 to 1 gram? So that's about a little less than half of the macro therapeutic dose.
Or for intractable depression which is something like to point 2 grams or so. You can still hold a conversation depending on what strain you've got. But every single time that I do it without fail a thought comes into my mind, which is why does anyone drink alcohol? Mmm. Why does anybody do it? Because I'll go to bed my HRV my recovery is fine the next day. Maybe I'm a little bit tired. I've had a lot of like activation. I've been super energetic very little hangover on the evening. I don't do stupid things. It makes me want to
Say nice things to all of my friends my thoughts are sharper than they were before. Sometimes they're silly but they're sharper and then he compared it with alcohol and it's this kind of sloppy muddy very, uh Naji aisle. It's just I I totally get what you mean when you've taken a little bit of time away from it and you look at it in the harsh light of day the effect that alcohol gives you just aren't that enjoyable and it's been folded into people's lives through tradition and through just anchoring bias and continuation and marketing.
You know the idea that like someone can quote unquote hold their liquor is such like a it's been made synonymous with you know, masculine ideals. It's like I mean, it's it's kind of crazy because we know I'd also like Russia's testosterone levels. What's interesting is that you know, I forget who said this but you know, there's a very different picture of a young drunk versus an old drunk, you know, someone who has been just drinking for too many years. It's not a pretty picture. That's how they become infantile.
Become really infantile. And you know again, I'm not the anti-alcohol Crusader. We did that episode not expecting much of a response. Actually that shows just how out of out of touch sometimes I can be. I think it just to reiterate it. But I think it gave people the excuse. Hmm. What you do you gave people the justification you legitimised them. It's like the best books tell you something you think you already know. It was like they everyone always lots of people always had an idea probably.
You shouldn't be drinking. Maybe I don't enjoy it that much. Maybe these aren't my friends. They're just my drinking Partners. Maybe I don't like the way that I feel the next day. Maybe my life could be better if I stopped drinking and that's the justification and well, I'm happy to hear that for those folks. You know, now that the information is out there. I've I was accused several times on Twitter / X of taking all the fun out of parties in the at least in the Bay Area, but I'll tell you I grew up in the Bay Area the good parties ended a long time ago, but there still exists, you know, I mean, I think they're you know, and when I say other ways to have
And I don't mean like oh everyone should sit around do math or reading Neuroscience. Although for me. That's fun. You know, I think I think in a broader sense, I think there's a shift nowadays If people really think about you don't how to engage socially in ways that are interesting. I mean perhaps it's a again a sampling bias because of the topics that I cover and who talks to me but like in the Bay Area there these Russian Banya is in New York their spy 88, by the way, they don't pay me to say this, but I like to go this Russian Banya down in Wall Street you go there and you know,
Hot saunas and cold plunge and people are young people are they're enjoying themselves and that they actually serve alcohol. So they'll have sometimes they'll do like little gimlets of vodka or something there. And so yeah people sometimes that's part of the job. Most Russian thing that I can think of shot of vodka whilst hot right so that and you know, and they've got theories as to how that can help unless I think some of those Traditions can be really be wonderful but, you know, people are starting to combine socializing with health-promoting protocols and you know going out and eating good
Together like you can really wonderful food with the social component the you know, I go into the grave talking about getting morning sunlight something that maybe we should talk a little bit more about and is the people like roll their eyes. I'll just say there's this incredible study now just out in nature mental health published about 80 that has 85,000 85,000 subject showing that the ratio of getting a lot of sunlight during the day to getting minimal artificial light exposure at night. It really sets the tone of your overall system and is and is associated.
It with brain and body that is and is associated with better mental health outcomes across the board and the inverse, right? If you're getting too much artificial light at night, we're not enough sunlight or both is associated with everything bad Elevate depression. Anxiety Etc. Now I do believe people should get out and have a good time. Don't avoid the bright lights of a city or a club you'll have a great time like dancing socialized. Those are great reasons to stay up too late. You can get minimal sleeper sleep in the next day the great reasons. So every once in a while shirt and 20% of your life you're going to do that and you're probably some percentage of time is also can be raised.
Kids cheer up because you have to keep them alive which is important to our species. Thank you, but I think people you know forget that. Yes, you can go outside and get morning sunlight and which I highly recommend people do that as most people know but I mean so many benefits on mood and mental health and improve sleep that it just and it's completely zero cost, you know, but I often get accused of okay well, but what if you have kids like how do you do this? Well, you take the kids with you because guess what they need it to you take them outside you eat breakfast.
First outside or at least facing a window indoors. It's not going to be as good as having the window open or being outdoors. But even if the Suns on the other side of your apartment building, I mean these things have an outsize positive effect on health and I'll wager both upper limbs. Anyway that many many many of the mental health issues that we see nowadays in young people and in adults is the consequence of disrupted circadian rhythms because of a lot of time in a two-dimensional screen space, which I'm not condemning I spend time on in
Most of my content on social media and YouTube Apple Spotify, right? And in addition to that to the lights are too bright at night and they're not getting enough sunlight during the day and an important thing to understand about our circadian / Health, you know, circadian system and health is that throughout in the morning and throughout the day your eyes are less sensitive to light and you need more of it in order to get what you need. Okay broadly speaking and at night your eyes are for more sensitive to artificial.
Lighting and you need far less of it in order to disrupt your circadian system in bad ways disrupt your mental health. Now, does that mean you have to walk around with sunglasses at night and yo Dim All the Lights in your house. Well, no, but you could afford to dim them a little bit you could afford to switch to the red light function on your phone. There's actually a triple click red light function on every phone that maybe I'll pass the the throughput of what to do to your phone. It's which allows you to accessibility functions on an iPhone mind goes to my girls to grayscale want to do that. Yeah.
Can ya so you can have it switch to grayscale or to purely read? You know, you're limiting the blues a trick that my friend Rick Rubin taught me I was like, oh, this is great. You know, you don't, you know, you don't necessarily have to purchase blue blocker glasses or anything like that. We'll get back to talking 200 one minute. But first I need to tell you about mud water mud water is a coffee alternative that tastes like chai and cacao had a baby. It's got four functional mushrooms. And with only a fraction the caffeine as a cup of coffee, you will get all of the natural energy without the Jitters or crash each ingredient was added for a purpose cacao.
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Mud WT are.com / modern wisdom that mud wthr.com / modern wisdom. So they're a bunch of little things that we can do that make a vast Improvement in the way that our biology and psychology function and it's amazing when you start to think about how most people exist now out it's too damn not enough light for them during the day, especially not enough sunlight and that's too bright for them at night and they're also living mostly in a two-dimensional world of screens. What's the problem with the two dimensional?
Thing. Well the you know, the we have an epidemic of myopia or nearsightedness and it's been shown in a bunch of different clinical trials. Now the first couple of them that were attacked like most studies something comes out then it gets attacked. Then there's a retaliation study Etc that kids that spend two hours or more out-of-doors per day have a far lower incidence of myopia or nearsightedness and even if they're on iPads and books and computers. There's something about far viewing about viewing things further than three or four feet away from us on a frequent for a significant portion.
Of our day doesn't mean I have to be staring off into the Horizon. But as opposed to near viewing where you're looking at something within about four feet of oneself this distance that we're sitting across from one. Another is about for probably about four and a half five feet. It's not quite far viewing but you think about watch people's behavior. Look at how they go through the day. They're spending most of their time looking at things about a foot to a foot and a half away. And as a consequence the eyeball gets longer. This is a well-established fact and animal models and humans and then the visual image isn't focused on to the retina the
Sensing portion at the back of the eye the image Falls in front of the red so called nearsightedness right? It's falling to near to the lens. Okay. There are other some people claim that nearsightedness has to do with the actual perceptual changes, but in any event, so fortunately that the eyeball actually can change in length. So viewing things further away can actually especially early in life allow the eyeball to adjust its shape amazing just like the sinuses these there's plasticity of a lot of different organs. And so the point is that we need to get out and view things.
The distance you're walking down the street looking at your phone, you're degrading the functioning of your visual system. I told you I think I texted you before I did it. I got laser eye surgery a month. Oh, yes. You got the Lasik? Yes, great. And that's so the Lasik just to you know educate people to actually change the shape of the eyeball somewhat in order to make it more perfect optically in a way that for many people allows them to not have to wear corrective lenses of any kind. Yeah. I can see everything I can see your ancestral.
Emma and and full works now at 100 yards and they your vision is super sharp. Correct? Oh, it's 2015. What was this? It was the surgery painful. It's very interesting. So I actually video that I haven't put it up because it's kind of it's probably pretty uncomfortable for people to watch that's never stopped you before that's true. That's true. So they numb both of your eyes using numbing drops. Okay, and then they
Come over the top with a kind of a large box on an arm. They rest the valve of the front of this box on the eyeball itself and then suck the eyeball on to the actual valve so that it can't move. They don't lose one laser to create a flap in the cornea, which is at the precise distance based on all of the tests. They did in the days prior to that. They then take it off. Hmm.
You'll still lying back. You have to keep looking at a green light that's above you the surgeon will lift the flap the front flap of the cornea up. Yeah using kind of a soft pair of tweezers the laser will then come in behind now the opened part of the cornea do the corrective surgery the flap will then get replaced and it needs to be very very very precise so that any slight nudge. I actually had to go and get the ad to get my flap re lifted.
Couple of days later on my left eye because it tiny tiny tiny little bit of oil from the top of my eyelid had been caught underneath the flap and it was causing flaring of bright lights. And so I had to go back and actually get the flapper e lifted get this the flap that they make can still be re lifted up to three years later amazing. It's fascinating and yet had it done in both eyes couple of one day of recovery. It feels very gritty for the people that are concerned about whether or not it's going to like
hurt them and my recovery period was one day and I was able to I recorded a Podcast 48 hours in Bright Lights 48 Hours afterwards it an expensive procedure for Grand GBP. So five grand USD audit reveals some not a trivial some but also given that it's literally how you navigate the world sure and I was squinting a lot. I was squinting at screens to have read the text. I was using really large text. The only reason I found out about this is because I went in for a checkup and they got me to do my eye test and the lady turned into
Yeah, you are you legally can't drive without glasses. I don't I were you talking about my Visions my Visions great. Like my Visions always been like this, but she got me to do the thing and I thought
Yeah, it shouldn't be I should be able to read those huge letters that are only 20 feet away from me shouldn't I and sure enough after this corrective surgery 20/15 Vision everything is razor sharp, the only considerations that I would say our nighttime viewing of bright light specifically streetlights cars coming towards you you get a little bit of flaring around them and that's because it's now passing through not just one piece of material, but there is a second cut.
That supposedly dissipates a little bit over time, but I am flying the flag for Laser Eye Treatment man. It's it's been a complete Game Changer my pickle ball games improved which is obviously what was most important everything's it's really really good and I'm very very impressed and thank you to my surgeon for doing it. Yeah, so that this little flap do they tell you how big the flap is I can just show you the video. I can show you the video once we finish up interesting. Thanks for sharing that yeah. I think it's an interesting.
Interesting procedure and we did an episode of our chair of Ophthalmology Jeff Goldberg and he was a proponent of it for people that are you know, I texted you I texted you to make sure that like the ophthalmologist guy with all of the dudes that know it like am I alright to do this Jeff's amazing. Actually we trained at the in the same lab. He was graduating. I was a postdoc then he ended up in Miami and then we conversion San Diego then we moved to Stanford. I moved to Stanford. So I said we serve he'll argue. I was tracking him all are you he was tracking me but he's my chairman. So I'll just say I was
I can one of them but very very smart guy and I think yeah getting keeping your eyes healthy as key. This actually comes back to light. So there's some really beautiful data of Glen Jeffrey's laboratory University College London. I'm Glenn for more than 20 years. He's a spectacular Vision scientist showing that exposure to artificial red light, you know, there's a lot of the, you know, like the Juve and these other red lights that are out there cozy and these other red light systems which by the way, I don't have any Financial relationship, too.
You know the idea that red light could somehow enhance different functions of our tissues or preserve different functions of our tissues people think is really biohack e like oh this is, you know people under red lights, but you know, there was a Nobel Prize given for the use of long wavelength light for the treatment of Lupus almost 100 years ago. So the idea of phototherapy Is Not A New Concept, but people love to kind of push it into the realm of of biohacking / Bro Science, but it's not
Red light therapy has been shown to have some positive outcomes for the treatment of acne for scar healing and wound healing red light is long wavelength light which can penetrate further through tissues than short wavelength light. So that's sort of the argument there is that when you look at red light or red light red light is placed on there's shown on the skin. Some of it is actually getting into the deeper layers of the dermis how deep it's questionable some people argue that you can even get into the the blood supply if you know, it's like on the wrist or so in any event Glenn's lab has shown
two really important findings. And the first one they've shown twice in separate studies in this is all in humans. The first result is that if people look at red light for 2 or 3 minutes once or twice a week in particular early in the day, it can offset some age-related vision loss how well the photoreceptors of the back of the eye or some of the most metabolically consume metabolically active and let's just say energy-consuming cells of the entire nervous system, which is saying a lot because the nervous
The most metabolic leak and consuming or metabolically scuse me active organ and so as a consequence, he's really active cells create a lot of so-called reactive oxygen species and that impacts negatively impacts the functions of mitochondria. So viewing red light seems to restore some of the mitochondrial function by limiting reactive oxygen species in the photoreceptors and offsetting and they've shown this some not all but some age-related vision loss presumably you're not talking about looking at one of these red light panels because these things are like
Fucking like flat they skew it's all right. I actually am referring to that what you want to do it at a distance. That's comfortable. So several feet right those panels for the people that don't know. These are things right inside. They even provide you with like them to actually yeah, they like this stuff for the sunbed. That's your goes with them. Yes. You don't want to do this for more than a couple of minutes and you do want to Blink and you do and probably through eyelids closed if your eyelids are thin enough and it's bright enough it can probably get in nonetheless, but let me be very very clear.
Tell you the other result then I'll tell you why you don't need necessarily need a red light the other result, which is more recent and is still under review. So I want to be very clear but the data look interesting to say the least is that there's this old Theory all theory that the French have really expounded that you know, eating food Outdoors is metabolized differently than eating food indoors, which sounds crazy right? I've been at some level and yet this study shows that if people do this red light viewing
while eating or in the minutes just after eating for just a few minutes that the post-meal blood glucose levels severe is significantly dampened, which is a good thing, right? You don't want big elevations in blood glucose or excessive elevations in blood glucose. Now that all sounds a little bit at the edge of what we consider, you know, valid or reasonable and yet if you think about sunlight sunlight is full spectrum light. So this isn't saying you need to run out and buy a red light. This is
You are get outside and get your morning sunlight. Yes, it's going to set your circadian rhythm for elevated mood focus in alertness during the day improve sleep at night. But in addition that you're getting red light to your eyes early in the day, you're absolutely you're getting red light to your eyes now on very densely overcast days say in the UK or elsewhere. It's not you're going to really filter out the clouds are going to everything the red light of Joy the will to live and as a consequence some people choose to supplement their light with these red light devices.
Has it but this idea that the French and others have argued and I'm sure as I say the French said it then you know the French will not and everyone else will say no. It's like it was us first or us all so it's probably multiple people throughout history groups throughout history, but it does seem that there's something different about the way that food is metabolized if under different lighting conditions, which sounds crazy and I can already hear Lane Norton stomping in with his I know they basically yeah lanes lanes brain sort of has like PubMed ideas.
I think it's great by the way lane. We love you. And I love his his his sort of adherence to PubMed IDs. But you know, these are published studies. I'll send along you can tell me what you think Lane. But the point being that there still needs to be more work on this right, but it's always a nice when some nicely controlled studies done by well-established Laboratories that people in a field trust like Glenn's lab start seeing things once or twice over and multiple studies that really
Work well with what we know from kind of naturalistic conditions, for instance. They're Hunters people that are Adventures that are whose job depends on them being able to see into the distance hammering Hines. Yeah campaigns these people maintain Vision well into their older age, but just nerds like me who spent too much time in front of a book or a screen who spent most of their time and have for many years looking at things down. I mean for years, I looked at things down on microscope. That was where most of my life was down.
Calm down the microscope, but also reading things at close distance. Well, you know, it makes sense that the eyeball would lengthen you end up with nearsightedness. I do wear corrective lenses at night, especially if I'm driving at night. I've really worked hard to try to not succumb to the need for corrective lenses. So I'm trying to keep my vision health good I got you become Reliant. I don't want to become reliant on it. But but you know at night I have to wear corrective lenses. Yeah talking about the red light stuff. Have you heard of huberman husbands? Do you know what this is?
Fortunately, well I should say that the most unfortunate thing about the you room and husband's post is that it was about is that it was taken by certain media Outlets to amplify the idea that the audience of my podcast is just mail when in fact, it's 50% male-female at least in the listenership YouTube skews male, but we knew that anyway, but the listenership is fifty percent male 4 to 7 p.m. On the huberman husband's thing was really about how a woman was saying that she thinks she's the Huber
Husband because she does all these different things that they got taken from that for the people that don't know the meta meme around huberman husbands, which you can search on Tech talk right now, is that the hot new thing that all of the wife's want out? There is a husband who's into red light therapy and he does cold plunges and need to sauna treatments and stuff. So, I wonder you guys I'm trying to help you out. Look dude. I wondered how you feel of a bunch of guys potentially cosplaying as
Andrew huberman in the bedroom like the price of long-sleeve black shirts has gone through the roof at this is now have people fully LARPing as you maybe they're telling them telling the wife that they didn't get enough sunlight in their eyes is dirty talk in the bedroom. I'm not sure I wondered how it feels to have this Army of Andrew hubermanns from wish now existing on on the internet. So we covered the AMC see it means interior mid cingulate cortex, but I confess even though I know that I don't know what cosplay is and I don't know what LARPing is.
Cosplay is dressing up. Its it happens at a lot of conventions. Someone will go as Anakin Skywalker or Pikachu or whatever and lapping is alive sexual titillation sometimes but not always so this is a servant like this is the is like the action hero variation on furries kind of yeah, okay, but it's not raises more Lexus domain precisely. Yeah, we know we know that well and then lobbying know that but we don't know it. Well fortunately live action role playing.
Paying so that again is this kind of I'm saying there are potentially there is potentially a market out there. If a guy is struggling in the dating world to take the aesthetic get fully human pilled and then there is a huge potential demand amongst the wives out there.
Okay. So this is news to me one thing that's come up recently in discussions with some traditional media Outlets. But but also just generally right is you know to what extent is all this focus on health, you know, does that change something about masculine feminine Dynamics like it like the traditional stereotype of men was that they're tough enough to not need to engage in any self-care, right? They don't need sleep. They can drink a lot of liquor.
They'll eat when there's food they'll eat whatever they don't like going to the doctor right is there is like runs very counter-current to the kinds of things. I talked about my podcast like hey get up in the morning. Get some sunlight right lift weights run and I should point out that nothing. None of what I've talked about with exercise ever. Of course. There's an aesthetic component, right limiting body fat to some extent right not having excessive body fat, you know resistance training as we know is an incredible way to adjust. This one's Aesthetics if they
I feel like their proportions aren't where they want or you know, by the way guys train your neck clearly. Chris does I mean nothing looks more ridiculous than like, why do I bother me and I let her head with a Little Neck Uncle Mac. I mean, it's well, it's just it's crazy because this is a proportionally you see it in your like this is it's the it's the male equivalent of the BBL if you have like a I'm teaching you I'm so happy that I get to teach you some sort of like class for me. I've got to make sure that you've got your notes. So this is the Brazilian butt lift. It's kind of like the
Equivalent of a boob job and they have an implants for the glutes. I think that they actually take fat from elsewhere in the body and then put it into the it's the risk the surgery risk of this is really quite like I just do like hip thrusters or something. No, no isn't there that there's not takes too long. There's the Brett Contreras glute guy. Yeah. Yeah. He's very popular because he puts glutes on people but they actually put them on themselves because they're the ones doing the I think the doctor technically puts it on them. But yeah, and it kind of looks because there's no Associated leg.
Egg development with the glute development. It's kind of like if you put two basketballs on upturned baseball bats. So you have like a the leg and then you have like the particular. It's I've seen some I went to Miami for the first time a few months ago and I saw one that kind of terrified me. It looked like a bag of cats from behind in a set of leggings. Like you could kind of see sort of pause coming out like this mood poorly poorly finished that I would say moves. I just it wasn't wasn't good. Anyway my point being
Neck for guys need to have it proportional to the shoulders. Yeah it I mean, yeah, so I'm sort of taking Digs at people who don't train their neck. It's also life insurance, right? I had an accident a few years ago where I fell off a second-story roof, and I walked away from it because I've long done neck training because I injured my neck when I was younger and even if you don't do fight Sports, I don't do fight sports, but wouldn't be aligned with my role in meeting my brain. I got nothing against people would do fights.
It's but that's a choice that I've actively made not to do them anymore. But next training is really important for just what the 80/20 of next training. What's the biggest move as for improving your neck? Oh, well, first of all, I'll tell you in a moment, but I think that you know, remember that your neck is your upper spine. So people are big on training their abs, you know for spine stability and lower back hopefully as well for sponsibility the mid thoracic regions as well. But you know, it's your upper spine and you want it strong and you will get much stronger and
Things as well. Everything's better people's posture is far better when they train their neck. It actually changes the tone of people's voice and I had a guest on my podcast. Dr. Eddie Chang who's our chair of neurosurgery at UCSF. I've known him since we were kids. He's in phenomenally smart and creative guy and I've asked him about this offline. You know, why is it that neck training does that well, you know the voice change that occurs in boys when they when they develop and go through puberty is a thickening of the vocal cords. That's Androgen dependent. I have this weird mutation I've talked about
At this a little bit but maybe not that on a program as broad as this that I should have the same voice. I always had from when I was a little kid my voice never actually change. I have a Ivan Androgen receptor alteration. Okay, so fortunately for me like doesn't cause any other issues but this was my voice when I was 5 years old how terrified they call me froggy. Yeah. It was kind of a joke. I got like the kid on The Little Rascals. That was froggy in any case, but for most people they hit puberty and then their voice changes because of the thickening of the vocal cords.
But obviously I had some early Androgen exposure that was clear because I also had hair on my Adam's Apple when I was like four years old. So there was some early Androgen exposure not going to fucking that full, you know, well, you know, I was just I was a kind kid until I was a teenager and then I eventually angry teenager I went through it. But you know, I was I was kind nonetheless, but in any event when you train your neck, actually it does improve posture and it actually changes the Timbre of your voice somewhat, but for the people who speak
Peek a lot for a living podcasters singers actors Etc lawyers and the lawyers seem to talk a lot. You don't want to do a lot of really heavy neck training because it actually changes the way that your jaw moves in the way that you speak and you know you and I especially like my solo podcasting something to take me 11 hours to record. And so you want to maintain healthy air flow through this region, right? But the best way to develop a strong neck safely is to unfortunately stay away from Bridges, which
You know wrestling coaches like to give you can the discs can can be in you can you can cause dysfunction of the discs and then the pain comes on in a moment. And then your hose best thing to do is take a plate and start really light lie on a bench stabilize yourself by putting one arm down. Okay, so you want to close the chain so to speak if you can get a foot down as well and then put that plate, you know, probably start with a five or a ten pound plate wrapped in a towel so you don't end up with an imprint of the five or ten on the side of your head or face and then you're just
Going to go from neutral position, which is your head, you know, it's actually straight up and down but you're lying on your side to just you know about maybe 30 or 45 degrees. You want to like really cinch into it and you want to keep this is important keep your tongue on the roof of your mouth your jaw shut so that your jaw are moving around because some people do Network and then they'll get clicking of the jaw. They get pain in the ear. There's obviously a lot of time with skulls and I can tell you human skulls and other skulls by virtue of my work in neuroscience and dissecting stuff and I've kind of obsession with craniofacial stuff as well.
And you know, there's a lot of musculature and ligaments of the the skull that have to be contended with so tongue on the roof of your mouth and you're just going to you know, nasal breathe and you're not going to fail you're not training really heavy higher reps in the you know, 10 to 25 repetition range over three sets. Yeah three sets and then the other side and then, you know rather than doing a lot of forward Network which people are already doing because they're doing a lot of fun reading and shaping themselves like a see you want to lie on your stomach and put a plate on the back of your head and get into that, you know the deck
In straight back, okay, but not pinching a wrench in your head back movements like where you're creating some torsion up into the sides. Like this is a little more dangerous. I don't recommend the person has great tutorials on this and many other things as well as Jeff cavaliere. Athleanx has a great neck tutorial may you can link to that's where I learned over time. I worked up to from a 10 pound plates. I can do five or six reps on each side with a 45-pound plate like hating me know what a full T. Thought that's 20 kilos anglicans list. So I'll do that and I don't say that to be tough for anybody.
The idea for me is to just have a really strong neck so that also for pressing movements and pulling movements. You'll get much stronger their listen. The mall has now been set fledgling huberman husband's out there. They know that the neck training is a important part black shirt neck training bit of a beard. Well the black chick that well to be clear and women should probably train their neck as well. But lighter, you know for aesthetic reasons and if they want to have a bigger neck, they can do that, but I think most women
Owen don't want their neck. This is one muscle group that does tend to grow pretty quickly. Is that right? Yeah, it does it does end and then the other thing and this looks ridiculous, but that but Fighters know is very useful is that there's the kiss the sky thing where they'll actually look up and you know, and you'll feel it in the deeper muscles of the neck. So that kind of thing is again, you know, some people use a towel for this stuff. They don't have access to weights but network is really key just like ab work is key just like lower back work is he just liked it work is kinis over toes guy, you know you love his
Ben's amazing. So the smaller muscle groups are not going to be the Mainstay of any workout, but they become so important when you're thinking about longevity because they are the muscle groups that tend to cause if not trained shin splints kink in the neck. The kingdom attack is obviously as not a technical term, but pain in the neck the turning in the shower after doing heavy pressing and then like you're out your neck. You can't turn your head the lower back pain sciatica often lower spine stabilization issues. I raising Jeff cavaliere.
As some of the best zero-cost content on this that I followed his content for years and you know, if you put in for instance sciatica low back pain, he has diagnostic tools there that really help you establish whether or not truly lower back pain or it's a medial glute issue and gives you the proper things to do and neck is just one piece of the equation getting back to huberman husbands the yeah, I chuckle the first time I saw it. I think it was a little frustrating to me because I thought wait there a lot of women that do these protocols to our
Those are we have had some male hormone Health episode some female hormone Health episodes, but in general we're just talking about stuff that's applicable to everybody. But listen, I don't control the internet. I don't make the rules out there and you know and then traditional media Amplified the huberman husband's peace through a couple of rightly. So right Lisa and the next thing you know, that that's real black shirt. I should just say um is because I try and as we've talked about before I don't want to get my tattoos to distract. I got a lot of them.
I want to focus on content and teaching and people here in the content. And and the black shirt is something I did long before I had a podcast. That's because the great Joe Strummer singer for The Clash must go there o is wore a black button down shirt while he would do full shows and who be soaking wet. It was like the punk is thing I ever saw. Yeah that he was like doing full shows like belting it out a long sleeve shirt and long sleeved black shirt, and he was just literally the shirt was like stuck to his body and I was just saying like not only is he an amazing humanitarian writer poet singer for The Clash creative?
Miss him. He's gone, but you still hear it through music, right as they say and he you know, he's just so Punk. He's just up there in his 40s or late 40s and and soaking wet and I'm thinking like that guy like he's got he's got it figured out I'm gonna do know. So anyway and I like the black shirt. What can I say? We'll get back to talking to one dream one minute. But first I need to tell you about a G1 H. G1 is a product that I've been using every single day for over three years now doctor huberman himself is a
Massive fan because it is the most comprehensive foundational daily nutrition supplement on the market. My digestion is so much better since I've started using a G1 and I genuinely can't remember what life used to be like, but when I stopped using it, I do not like the way that my body feels since 2010 a G1 has led the foundational nutrition Revolution continually refining the formula to create better. Smarter ways to elevate your health a G1 is the supplement. I trust to provide the support that my body needs every single day and that's why they've been
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How concerned you think we should be about vaping spoke about alcohol it seems like there's this big Vape is on Netflix at the moment it's a documentary about the rise of Jewel and I'm only one episode in but it seems like vaping is now catching an awful lot of attention what how concerned you think we should be about vaping yeah, so I'm just taking a note here I take notes during our podcast highly intense to make sense
So things I can go back to we should be very concerned. So when it comes to smoking or vaping there's the thing that's being consumed. The thing that people are trying to bring put in their bloodstream nicotine cannabis Etc. And let's just set those aside. I've done episodes on nicotine in cannabis and they have their application. They also have their problems vaping is terrible because of the other chemicals that delivers to the lungs. It's also very clear and we haven't released this episode. Yeah, but I talked to a female hormone.
From Austin and Natalie Crawford. So OBGYN, you know vaping is associated with disruptions in egg health and what they call Egg quality can create certain mutations and eggs and serious endocrine issues and women. Okay, personally, I find it disgusting. Like I just find it like the I don't do it. But when I see people vaping like to me and listen, I used it went growing up. I its I don't I quit smoking a long time ago, but I used to smoke a bit of nicotine.
Growing up member. I was I was a wild one, but that's not why I did it. I just, you know nicotine works for me as a drug and I don't do it anymore. But vaping is so addictive. It's a mutagen it mutates the genes of cells it mutates the genes of rapidly dividing cells most so breast cancers ovarian cancers egg quality sperm are constantly turning over so, you know people always say no I Vape all the time and
I got sewn so pregnant or whatever, you know when let's have a perfectly healthy kid. That kid might have been much healthier and also the kids not grown up yet. Like introduced me the kid later. I wish for that kid. I pray for them, but that they're healthy as can be but it is so clear that you're introducing a laundry list of toxins to the lungs and they're getting into the bloodstream and there are a number of them that cross the blood-brain barrier and once they cross the blood-brain barrier those neurons by virtue of the fact that neurons don't turn over across the lifespan you born with the ones you're going to die with you might add.
You cross your lifespan, but you're mostly born with the ones that you're going to die with. Well, they're going to Harbor those chemicals and those particulates and you know, yes are we are grandparents that smoked and live to be 90, but you know, those are generally the outlier so I can't find one good reason why people should Vape if they if people want nicotine in their system that badly and here I'm not recommending that they would be much better off relying on at Rocher a patch. Yep, because Emma what or even toothpicks or in or you know, or
Isabel I know people I'm not going to out any act nicotine. Oh, I'm not going out anyone here. But I know people in our podcast community that rely on nicotine injections fuck that's hot mental Clarity. That is so odd cold. I don't it causes elevation and blood pressure. It causes vasoconstriction, but it also will robustly increase focus and attention that everyone probably will tell you mainlining nicotine and you're starting to see some companies that offer things like NAD infusions all also offer subcutaneous or
Injections going back to patch or gum. Yeah smoking for a very long time. Everyone knows huge Campaign, which I think was pretty effective. Actually. It's kind of discouraging people from smoking or at least making them aware about the do you remember how they got kids to stop smoking? They told them for years. It was bad for their health that didn't work. They told them that it was putting money in the pockets of these like of like these old cackling white guys.
That were like rubbing their hands and in the end. I got a telegram and making a ton of money and then it became the rebellious thing to quit smoking that was really effective cancer. I think about this all the time that there was a big push to both disincentivize and make more different smoke make more difficult smoking go to go outside. There's the smoking area. I remember I worked in clubs one year before the smoking ban came in. Yeah in the UK and then people had to go outside if you know just friction friction friction all the way down.
And then vaping came in and vaping is way more enjoyable of an experience than smoking ever was you hurry can have a higher dose of nicotine that tastes, you know, enjoyable bubble gum flavor and raspberry unicorn dust and whatever whatever I don't know and it's not going to stink the house out, you know, you don't have any of the externalities of that. So I wonder whether we have ended up in a net benefit or net cost.
Just for public health from switching from smoking to vaping. Yeah, there's an analog here with you know, Kratom and opioids. Do you know if you really want it? We just got our put ourselves under attack by even bringing up the topic but I did it intentionally, you know, there are things like smoking and opioid addiction which are it's unequivocal. It's just terrible, right? It crushes lives destroys lives. Yes. There are those rare individuals who smoke
Whole life lived into their 90's and okay, but there are outliers. So the question is did is vaping allowing fewer people to smoke and therefore improving their health. Maybe if they are hell-bent on getting that nicotine or cannabis into their system and their to opting not to smoke in there going to vape instead then maybe we have to be objective and say okay if there are absolutely intent on on getting it in through some in Elation device vaping is probably better but we
I know that for sure. We actually don't know that and then since I brought it up and I really put the Target on myself with this one, you know, I did a post about Kratom which is over the counter people will say it's not an opioid. It Taps the opioid system. It Taps other systems as well in a number of people have indeed managed to get themselves off of opioids using Kratom as a bit of a bridge kind of like the methadone heroin thing, but the Kratom advocacy groups are really growing strong.
Right now because there is the possibility that Creighton will be made illegal in the not-too-distant future and there is the reality that some people who were never opioid addicts have taken create them and then get addicted to Kratom and then people start arguing is it real addiction is habit forming Etc. So I think the next year or so is going to be an interesting time for dialogue about Kratom. I have a couple of guests coming on my podcast. Maybe you'll do it as well. And I'd love it. If you would there's one thing by the way Folks at so great about the podcast space unlike other professions. We love it when one
On topic or one guest shows up on multiple podcasts because it actually doesn't hurt any of us and you've sent me in the last few months. You sent me a pole Conte you send me Rick Rubin. It's and everyone's got a different Flex, right the conversation you're going to have with Rick or Paul is going to be way different to the one that I'm going to have which is going to be way different to the one that Joe's gonna have. Yeah. It's a it's a very different thing than academic science then journalism of other kinds of zero-sum the idea. It's a no scoop that you know, like in Academia or an orange journalism. They say, oh, you know who got the scoop
That or you got scooped someone else put it out first and you know in in podcasting, it's quite the opposite. So I think the Kratom versus the Kratom topics can be really interesting and important to cover but I think look my vote is to not Vape. I think I'm just shocked at how many people vape and first of all it's actually not unlike cigarette smoking. It's expensive. That's not the main reason people avoid it, but it's a significant expense when you add it up across the year.
It's clearly addictive. There's no question about it. It's clearly detrimental to lung function. And then people like how it makes their brain feel and they think that if they're already pretty active physically active than they can offset some of that and they probably can but I think in the next five years or so, we're just going to see a slew of studies showing that vaping is just bad for us, especially for the developing brain because it's bringing in at a very rapid rate high potency nicotine and high-potency cannabis and you know from Mana lemke's work and we know
My colleague at Stanford that that the the slope of that increase in dopamine and epinephrine adrenaline and acetylcholine is so important this sharper that slope the faster the rise the more addictive potential these compounds have and so it's so far away different than the kind of dopamine norepinephrine or acetylcholine increase that one sees with exercise or with cold plunges or with with sex or with Dancing With Friends saying things you know, so and you know one of course could be addicted to any of the other things. I just mentioned to
But the potential for it is far less than something like vaping. Here's my stunts on it that I understand maybe all of the two evils they ping is less of an evil than traditional smoking would be but I think the enjoyability the accessibility the fact that it isn't as stigmatized all of that. I think that it wouldn't surprise me if more people are now going to vape than ever previously smoked and even if that difference between the two is is that vaping is better that the total area under the
Public Health degradation, right. I think that I think that we've netted a loss overall for vaping and you know, I see dude I go to a comedy show and I find myself going and getting an Escobar before and I'm like what like why is it's just habit. What is it? It's like a kid just a disposable like you vape I do it if I go to a comedy show and I'm not drinking and I'm tired. So there's like a certain little decision tree that I go through. I'll do it. Maybe once a month something like what do you vape whatever whatever?
Apple unpronounceable horseshit is available. What is it? My friend Kitchener cannabis nicotine nicotine. Yeah, we're in California. So people talk about cannabis teach everyone in Texas are interesting. Yeah, I think rapid onset of these neuromodulators in the brain concerns me. It's just it's just so different also with with behaviors. You can titrate right? You know, people say well video games cause a huge increase in doping okay.
Fine, but you can limit the total amount of time that you engage you I think with substances even though you can control dose or number of what do they call it on the it's not gonna be like a toke on the vape pen. What is it's gonna be like a like a draw. How would I don't know. I'm in another language taping LARPing cosplay. I've got that, you know, we're teaching you everything today everything. I need to know this is good because I'm gonna be able to navigate the internet fantods better talking about the internet. How worried are you about how technology is impacting people's ability to focus
adult ADHD is clearly upon us. It's just clear and so very I'm very concerned think that that's induced or facilitated or worsened by technology. Like tell me tell me what's going on in the brain If house technology able to make such a dramatic change. Yeah, I think if we let's turn it on its head. I'm not changing your question because I don't like it when people do that to me and so what you wanted. No, it's like I'm gonna give you a different question answer that one. I was like, okay like that.
I'm an answer your question a different way that the circuits in the brain that are required for setting and maintaining Focus.
Are inhibited by the process of deliberately shifting one's Focus over and over and over throughout the day in other words. If ever there was a physical activity that could undermine your cardiovascular exercise, you know, like I mean, it turns out not to be the case, but you know, there was this idea of few years ago that if you sit a lot during the day, it doesn't matter how much you exercise. It's not gonna make a difference that's not true right exercise still helps. But we also know that moving and standing standing and said, you know standing up and sitting down quite a lot throughout the day.
Being as much you know little walks and things like that is extremely beneficial and can amplify the already known positive effects of exercise. Okay? Well when it comes to focus, I mean much of what our schooling is about growing up is not just the content that we're taught but our ability to sit still and pay attention to keep the body still into Focus to some extent keep the body still some people just stipulate more of the Italians and the you know in certain Arab countries and things like that other people are far more still and we get get
back to this about body Stillness a little bit later because there's some emerging ideas on that that are worth touching on but the point is that if one is constantly moving their attention from one thing to the next it undermines the stability of all the circuitry in the brain that's responsible for prolonged Focus. Now I / taken social media, so to you, but the scroll function is a practice of Shifting Focus while maintaining
Gays in one location, right? Normally we would shift focus by looking here by looking there in just for try this for 30 minutes tomorrow evokes listening this take 30 minutes of your day and decide your that. You're only going to exist in the three-dimensional world. Meaning you're not going to look at screens for 30 minutes. Okay, obviously screens your phone has a depth to it. But you know what I'm talking about, you'll notice that your attention is Shifting all the time. You're looking at brick wall, then there's this and there's you but but it's all harnessed by some sort of conceptual goal or physical goal.
Trying to get here finish a conversation complete an answer to a question. That's all within a tunnel of motivation when you're on your phone and scrolling and I think scrolling itself is the major issue when you're scrolling, you're essentially putting yourself into new context after new context after new context and the brain has to adjust to all of that and the way that the brain works in addition to controlling heartbeat and on anomic function etcetera is think about it sort of like a like a I don't want
Disabled I went I took my sister's sister and see the Harry Potter play recently in New York. And while I wasn't a big fan of the script at all. Is this the Half-Blood something? What was it called? Yeah, I was that the what is it the like the cursed child present? Yeah me Jordan Pederson and Douglas Murray got thrown out nearly got thrown out of that during covid. I've got to tell you the story. Once you're done hit one of the phenomenal thing that I feel so you went to go see it. My sister likes the theater and we go to New York each year.
For her birthday, and I took her to this show and I wasn't a big fan of the script to be honest. I only read one of the Harry Potter books liked it, but then abandoned that but she she really likes the Harry Potter stories. I wasn't a fan of the script. It's just my unformed opinion, but the effects were spectacular. Okay, and one of the things that occurred to me they have this Library there where the books are alive. And as I was watching this I realized that's very much how the brain.
Works that for instance when you walk into a room it's a new context and it would be the same as if you're walking through a library and let's say you your go to a soccer European football game and you sit down and also that your brain calls up all these books about European soccer and your favorite team is right there and then you open that and then all of a sudden you're looking at that something about your favorite team. What's your favorite team? You Castle, Newcastle OK and then with unbeknownst to you unbeknownst to you. This is the important.
Art the books all around you you not the one you're looking at are now changing to the competitors in the history of that team. But also who's the directly antagonistic rival team Sunderland. So the Sunderland Sunderland and there it is baby. Okay. So that's the way the brain works. It's calling up context so that it makes it very easy to flip to a discussion about a particular rivalry in a particular year in a particular match in a particular point in player. That's focus focus is not about maintaining a single time.
On all of cognition focus is about calling to mind all these additional contextually relevant batches of information that you might need. And you know, the reason I the analogy of the Harry Potter library is that it's a dynamic Library. So the moment we're done here and we walk out. Yes some of the books so to speak of this conversation will linger with us, but whatever we're focused on next whatever goal-directed Behavior we have making it to dinner through traffic or wherever we're going. We'll call.
Call up a new library. Now. Some people might say well, duh. Of course, it works that way but it's not dub because it's very Dynamic now social media is the opposite of that. It's one library next account another library next account another library next account another Library another Library another library and the brain is calling up all these different libraries in Rapid succession. So what I look like I'll be honest. The selected choice of things to click on tells me a lot about what I've been clicking on right that I mean, obviously the out
For yourself, I confess and I'm really embarrassed to say but not so embarrassed that I won't reveal that what I find now on that gallery of things to select our street fights so beatdowns. Yeah and really adorable strange animals or cute animals. I love the Flora and Fauna Twila T of Andre Cube and the right thing and not the capybara. Like if ever there was an interesting animal. It's the capybara. However, yes, the raccoon accounts are delightful to me.
We the the the nature is metal account is variable. Yeah, there's an extensive community of capybara enthusiasts on in switch. You're a member of know I've actively avoided cap. You are accounts. You're a big octopus guy though. I like cephalopods like cuttlefish my lab used to work on cuttlefish and octopuses octopi underclock useless has its octopuses. I've been taught for so long that it's off to talk to us is and actually this is the most I understand.
Trying to kill me because there was a meme about this because we did a live. Okay, so I know too much about this because I used to my lab used to work on cephalopods which are one there which on the category mollusks include cuttlefish and octopuses. And so it's octopus is the correct plural and this is about this the most like groundbreaking piece of information that we've got so far more over the great Oliver Sacks who's now unfortunately dead is a neurologist and popular writer about the brain function.
The man who mistook his wife for a hat etcetera. I hear a real hero of mine talked about this that you know, it's also platypuses and he wrote about you can look this up. He wrote about traveling to Australia and then going to the far north where they have a breeding program to re-establish the platypuses and that the location of the bleeding the breeding program, excuse me is literally the Platypus. Sorry.
Wow. Yeah. Yeah Oliver Sacks wrote about this. So I'm long been interested in the Platypus as an interesting animal. They're very exhausting. Hi octopuses. Yep. Yeah, that's okay, you know and again that I'll get nice. It's a revolution. So does that mean that the plural is the of or that the location where they breed octopuses the octopus? Sorry, I hope so. I want to go there. Yeah. Well according to Oliver Sacks, this is the correct nomenclature and he's the neurologist expert in cephalopods.
So we can return to this at some point. I want to show your people will put in the comments where we're right where we're wrong. I'm excited. Either way. They will have gone out and researched and learned and that's what that's what we're here for. I want to show you I want to show you this video. We can put it up on the screen. Just press play on the middle of that and let me know what you think. Right? So the for those listening who aren't watching. This is an image of a kid flipping back and forth between a iPad and a phone.
With Incredible dexterity. This is a family out to dinner and the kids are watching screens is another kid without any phone as hands crying attempting to swipe the phone that is not in his hand as if as if scratching at a a niche but not successfully and a kid actually tapping the screen in their sleep. Yeah. Yes. This is indeed. We are in the thank you. What do you think's going on the yeah.
And thanks for getting me out of the animal fights conversation. The what's happening is very clear, which is that, you know, the brain the human brain is an incredible Oregon because it's a map of our experience. It has certain parts that are hard-wired that govern our heart rate and control of our heart rate our control our breathing immune certain immune functions and on and on but then a vast percentage of our of the
Membrane is is open Real Estate that is designated as one function or another depending on what happens to you during development. So we know this for sure my scientific great-grandparents were won the Nobel Prize for this day with you won't turn some weasel that what you see during development really between the ages of birth and about age 14 mainly but certainly extending longer creates a set of modules or Maps within the brain that allow you to predict what's going to happen.
And in the future, so if kids are growing up doing a lot of swiping Behavior doesn't remember. We're in the first time in human history where people have written with their thumbs. Also right texting. There are entirely different maps of how language is encoded in motor. I should say how motor functions and language interact, you know in the past meaning for tens of thousands of years, if not longer gesticulating Accord and speech and grunting and shouting and pointing. So one of the primary modes of communication, it's not
Rising therefore that the representation of the hands and the digits which is a nerd speak for fingers is
right next to the areas of the brain are responsible for generating language and speech and language. So we now have the ability to speak with our thumbs. So so to speak no pun intended by texting. We now have the ability to see many different contextual Landscapes as we talked about before by swiping typically up sometimes down typically up, right? So the up swipe is become, you know as perhaps as hard as me.
Popped into the brain as the wave. Hi using it. What do you say to babies? You know, hi people try and get their attention get them to go wide-eyed smile out of you know, they do peekaboo. These guys have been doing this for a very long time. Now, the swipe function is one of the ways in which human beings engage in the world. It's almost it's not as fundamental as opening one's mouth to eat, but it's pretty close. So the brain is just adapted to this but there's real estate set aside for whatever your experience was. And so what you're seeing there is
just kids very Adept at doing this because it's always a trade-off human weasel in part won the Nobel Prize for showing that plasticity of the brain mapping of the brain for one particular sensory experience or function say swiping or the ability to switch back and forth between multiple screens is always always at the expense of some other potential function. You can't do everything. So when children are inculcated in that particular habit, there is the Thomas Soul quote.
Like there are no Solutions only trade-offs, right? Yeah, I think
I've got written on my whiteboard on my fridge at the moment the five most common deathbed regrets and it's things like I wish that I had not worked as much. I wish I'd let myself be happy. I wish I'd stayed in touch with my friends.
It will be unbelievably surprising to me if in 40 years time. I wish I'd spent less time on my phone isn't on that I would bet.
Pretty much everything that I have that that that would probably appear on average on people's five top deathbed regrets. I wish I'd spent less time on my phone and we can see this happening in front of us and the best way that you can tell that this is going to continue to happen is that you can reflect on what you did over the last week and one of the most common things that you wish that you'd unless I've over the last week was shouldn't I got captured? I did a couple of YouTube holes or Tick Tock Scrolls or Instagram, whatever's and you know that this is happening.
In the micro spread that across a lifetime, you know, I think that very much we're going to look back at this and hopefully there is some kind of solution. Maybe it's neurolink. Maybe, you know, we have a way that we can kind of ethically engage with technology and get the communication and the stimulation and the exploration of different ideas and communities. But yeah right now kind of feels a little bit like
Maybe a little bit like when cigarettes first came out like your doctor smokes camels, you know, like we didn't nobody knew what the bad effects of this were. They didn't know long-term what it was going to cause and do that video. I would really want to show it to you because you taught me I was I think correctly or incorrectly categorizing people's phone uses an addiction and I think that you said it's much more like a compulsion, right and that is a child that's asleep or
A lie asleep protect like compulsively scrolling through the phone. Yeah, because the compulsion does not the an obsession is mental. This is a classic definition of compulsion is a behavior, but the compulsion in classic OCD doesn't relieve the obsession it actually exacerbates it the payoff right back. Oh, so you're not it sort of like an itch that you scratch and just get it itches more right and
There is something like that with social. I don't want a social media. But with the phone scrolling now that said I mean, you know, you know of my waking hours most of it is spent foraging for organizing or dispersing information and much of that is done on the phone or computer. Yep, but I do read books hard books meaning physical books. I brought you one today. Thank you. I like audiobooks to I listen to a lot of podcasts. I watch your YouTube videos, so I learn when I'm on the
But yeah, occasionally, it's the you know, well, I learned from nature as metal, but I but I but I haven't learned anything from the raccoon post nothing of substance and his they said that they're very like they're very like cute and very do that thing when the I have to poop scoop food up like this then they wash food in my pool. Now I moved to a place. I'm renting a place as a pool. I've never had a pool before of skateboarding a lot of empty pools, but I've never had one that had water in it, so and they come
Through the nights raccoon Olympics in the middle of the night and they're coming through they make a ton of noise and then they're washing their food. It's pretty cute the first time you see it, but once they wake up the third or fourth time the on time raccoon, you're trying to yeah, so, you know, I haven't learned much from that from the raccoon videos. Certainly the fight videos haven't really taught me anything about self-defense or or anything useful except how you know, just kind of cruel people can be so I'm trying to change the algorithm by by clicking on other things, but it seems pretty slow to change. I got to tell you this, it's got me.
On I've never been into Star Wars. I've seen some of the movies or whatever. I've never been into it. For some reason. It started delivering me short content about Star Wars law like who would have one between Darth Vader and dark mall and all it like who was more powerful as a Jedi master and all this stuff interest and I've never been interested in this and yet it's created in me the desire to actually be like, well, yeah, like would Master Yoda have one however many eons ago if he was at full power when the the Sith was at and I don't even know what I'm talking about.
but it's like created in me this thing the interesting thing that you're talking about there is that there's a
when your foraging is spend enough time on the internet and you do find something that gives you that ah, wow, I never knew about that before and it's that sort of needle in a haystack that you're looking through and that
Trigger of wow, I found so I can talk about it on a podcast. This is really interesting to me. That is the carrot. I think that gets Tangled for very many people who want to feel better about the social media use and think we'll okay. Yeah, you know, I wasted 90 minutes, but I did get that thing out of it. I read that sub stack post. All right, I found this new person that I really care about, you know, the variable schedule reward of intellectual satisfaction is also in their rights. Not just the shock sure. It's not just the cute. Yeah.
Not for me is that you know PubMed Library called the only guy, you know, they thinks that PubMed is variable schedule. Remember when PubMed first came out as a like a very searchable database and and some of the journals later became electronic and now they're all available at try and I could not believe I was so excited because I used to go to the library and I have to pay with put money on the card and Xerox copy and stuff but also in the library, I love libraries and I'd spend so much time when I was a student and graduate student and he'd find something.
NG and is like I'd look around like did anyone like did you see that? But since I was a little kid I was discovering stuff in books and then talking about everybody even if they didn't want to hear and so I was a professing from a young age in class on Mondays and think so. So for me, it's hardwired into my system by now. And I think that I do think that social media holds certain gems. I think we're thing about talking about like mining for gems of social interaction to you know, I've gotten to know some people through social media where it's really enriched my life. I've reconnected with some people. Yep.
It's really enriched my life. It's allowed me to connect the dots going backward in ways. I hadn't anticipated and I think going forward if you're asking about the kids in the video that you showed me. Are you talking about adults or anyone? It's the the success is largely going to be determined by who has the most self discipline. I really don't know. It's always been the case, but I don't think it's ever been the case to the extent that it is now. So this is why I'm such a fan of
of taking some space from all action. This is actually something I learned from Rick Rubin, you know, I'm fortunate to call him a close friend. We communicate pretty much every day and I went and spent a week with him abroad this summer. It was the worst time to travel and I decide to go over to where he was in Europe and just spend the week with him. We had no planned and first of all in the way over there there was nothing to watch on the plane, but there was this Tom Petty documentary. I turn it on. I'm not
Huge Tom Petty fan but was interesting enough and then Rick Rick is in the documentary and he's in the documentary lying down doing the interview typical like typical meaning unusual for most people typical because it's unusual for Rick be lying down and I thought okay, so get there. I know his family well and I love them and and it was really wonderful. It's beautiful. It's a beautiful part of Europe, but you know, I noticed so we had this habit of we would tread water in the pool and listen to podcast in the morning and there's a wonderful podcast.
Cast by the way that we should all be aware of. I think it's a history of rock and roll and 500 songs by Andrew hickey super nerdy. It's like getting a like a graduate degree in rock and roll and talked about the music. But also what's happening in like organized crime how it impacted record sales very contextual very cool. I'm very into that lately and I'm interested in this show on Netflix. Have you seen Spy Ops? Yes, very good, right because it's not just like Shoot Em Up type stuff. It's really about how spy operations. Let me put this way it can teach you a lot.
About history International history and geopolitical history. So I go over there and we do some Treading Water listening to podcasts. I learn about this history of rock and roll and 500 songs podcasts. We talked about a little bit and then I noticed that you know, Rick has a practice. I hope he doesn't mind me sharing this because I'm about to you know, Rick has a practice. He has many practices but one of them is he'll spend a good amount of
time you just sitting and thinking or lying down and thinking and it didn't occur to me at the time, but
Later after I returned I thought back to our first guest episode of my podcast. I host a guy named Karl deisseroth who's probably the finest bioengineer on the planet. He's also a fully active clinician psychiatrist. He's got five children. He's one of these phenoms, you know, they seems to be able to do everything. He's a true genius. He went to school with medical school at Peter T. And Paul Conte. They were all in the same class. Yeah, and I know him very well. He's a colleague of mine at Stanford and and everyone knows he's a super he's a super he's of like the Michael Jordan.
Jordan of Neuroscience, except he still active and that is not a statement about personality just in terms of of successful hit rate in Carl described a practice that he does after he puts his kids to sleep of where he sits deliberately sits completely still and forces himself to think in complete sentences and this set often a light in my head when I realized Rick does a form of this and Carl does a form of this if you read the new Elon Musk book they talk about Elon.
In a form of this the Great Richard Fineman physicist, Nobel Prize winner talked about going into flotation tanks and doing a form of this Einstein did a form of this. So what are we talking about? So I'm a neuroscientist, but I'm certainly not as smart as any of those guys.
What we're talking about is body still mind active now. I've become into increasingly curious about psychedelic therapies one of which is and by the way only in a clinical context Etc legality Etc. Not in kids Etc. But the practice is essentially macro do psilocybin. But with the eye mask on completely still mine, very active Okay contrast that to a different Behavior /
That I'm very familiar with which is I like to do long runs or rocks on Sunday body very active mind not directed at anything in particular. Sometimes I'll do it without a book or podcast something to do with a combination of both many people talk about swimming or in the shower or cycling some sort of rhythmic movement drumming the great Joe Strummer was really big on campfires. He you know, I was going to mention this earlier, but I'll mention it now that as an alternative to alcohol consumption get your friends together around a
Fire by the way, the Fire Light the light from fire does not disrupt the Circadian system. This is actually been shown Candlelight Moonlight fire light as bright as it is. It's just very low Lux. So that's where great things happen independent of alcohol right around a campfire as it goes way back in our lineage. So there these two states of mind and body that I find fascinating to the point of being intriguing to the point of having modified what I do now because they they're the inverse of one another
Body completely still or close to completely still mine very active could be with psilocybin, but that's not the protocol. I'm recommending. I'm talking about some very very smart extremely accomplished people who all did the same thing. The other is body very active mind isn't still but is not deliberately channel to any particular linear kind of story or something like that.
There's a state in sleep where our body is literally paralyzed and the brain is extremely active. It's called rapid eye movement sleep. So I'm to raising a flag for this potential protocol / practice. I don't have any peer-reviewed science to support what I'm about to say, but I have enough examples of extremely accomplished people now in front of me to realize that there's something special about divorcing mind and body function temporarily delayed.
Currently sitting there and just thinking and recently had a conversation with the great Paul Conte and the addition of the words the great in front of him are appropriate here. He's I believe based on observation of his clinical work and and intellectual Acumen that he's the finest psychiatrists of our age clearly integrating from so many backgrounds. So we worked with a ton of interesting people coming on the podcast and December amazing and he's just phenomenal right not just about trauma, but about everything personality types narcissism.
Gaslighting me people throw those terms around like crazy puzzle tell you what it actually means. Okay what those terms actually mean but the ability to think and to access the unconscious Paul refers to the unconscious as the supercomputer of the brain for the unconscious mind and the conscious mind are always in a dialogue but here's the theory here's the hypothesis that when we bring our body into states of Stillness in REM sleep in these deliberate states that I just described to these other people actively engage in and have her a long time that the unconscious mind.
Find can start to take over a larger percentage of that conversation and we have access to new ideas new ways of structuring thought Etc. And I don't think one requires psilocybin to do it. But I do think that is one Avenue into it reliable that's reliable. It also carries certain hazards, right? Because it's it's like being put on a mental rocket ship to some extent. It's not like DMT, but very little control over worry ones cognition goes although there is some in there.
Anyway, I just wanted to throw this up on the wall because it's always fun to talk about new things and kind of what's coming. What I think is coming next. I think if I were to make a prediction, I think in the next two years, you're not just going to hear about meditation non sleep deep. Rest something. I'm a big fan of Yoga Nidra hypnosis, but also whatever we want to call this you'll probably come up with a better name that I can body still mind active states to access different aspects of our unconscious and cognition and I must say that we do this with the
Phone sorry, I just because I realize you were about to say something and when you speak you say interesting things and I learned cosplay LARPing and I learned put those ones is the most interesting. Oh, no, you say many of those enough. There's no use in terms of new terms. Okay new term say yeah Newcastle. Yeah some startling. Sorry. There was one of the most injured Concepts I but I'm learning is the point I wasn't I wasn't being sarcastic that when we sit and we're just scrolling.
Yeah, we're more or less bodies still mind active. But guess what? None of it's coming from within it's all coming from the outside. So whether or not it's psilocybin in the eye mask or or Carl sitting their eyes closed deliberately still thinking or Fineman in the in the salt equilibration chamber, you know that the float floatation tank or or Rick line. They're thinking whatever it is. He happens to be thinking whatever amazing album. He's gonna now, you know help produce more Einstein I mean,
You know we can think of the phone in the scrolling is lending itself to less ability to focus and ADHD, but just the real crime the real insult to humanity for me. The real cost is what about all the creative imagination of things that come from inside that could be generated by by people in that time. So I'm I've started doing a practice of 20 minutes a day. Just sitting and eyes closed typically sometimes it's right as I wake up, but usually it's not
Just trying to think about certain topics and hold those topics in the kind of linear way or sometimes just letting stuff guys are up. Hmm. Anyway, some people might think of this as like completely whacko Woo new agey stuff, but the list of names I read off their people that do that and have been doing this for a long time and attribute this practice as one of the major sources of their best ideas is a non-trivial list when I think about that there's a few different ways that
Super agers, which is a bit of a misnomer because these individuals are people who maintain healthy cognitive function similar to people in their 20s and 30s into their 70s 80s and 90s there amcc maintains or increases in size into their later years typical agers the size of we always hear that you lose brain mass across your lifespan. Well, most of it is from the amcc and beautifully and this is two of my favorite results that really bring this around to a protocol or a takeaway.
If people are given an easy task the amcc isn't activated if they're given a hard task in particular a hard task physical or cognitive that they really don't want to do. They MCC levels of activity go through the roof and here's what's really cool. They gave aging what's you know people age sixty to seventy nine the task of adding three hours extra per week of cardiovascular exercise now, that's a lot right 31. Our they called them a robic classes, but getting their
Made up to about 65 70 percent of Maximum. So it's getting into like celery is Sharia. Yeah, people can look up Zone 3, but you nailed it Zone 3 the size of their amcc increased across that 6-month protocol and offset the normal age-related decline in this in this brain area in terms of its size.
The theory that starting to emerge is that the a MCC is interested about tenacity and will power to push through hard things that it may actually be related to one's will to live one's will to continue living and I think this is these are some of the most important results by the way, I didn't participate in any of the research that I just described. I spend a lot of time with that literature, but I think it's so important when we hear about the amygdala the hippocampus the prefrontal cortex all a very important brain structures, but if nothing else hopefully this car is one but the AMC see on the map the one that
Literally could create your will to live is the one that's been overlooked a little bit and it can be and what's interesting about this structure is that it's involved in generating tenacity and willpower for all things not just for one situation. And what's really wonderful I think about the research literature on this is It's So Clear what we need to do. We need to do things. Let's say like me, you're a person who enjoys weightlifting and you love running. I love those two activities will guess what those activities even if their heart like a hard run that I'm really enjoying.
Owing or some hard sets in the gym not going to increase the size or activity of the AMC see people love to over romanticize the utility of those final two reps. Sure. Okay pushing to failure great, you know running hard till your lungs burn great. But if you enjoy that you're not increasing your amount of tenacity and willpower at least according to the research data, what's going to do it is doing something what I call Micro socks or macro sucks, you know, and so micro sucks could be all the little things that you don't want during to do during the day macro sucks could be the larger things.
But of course you don't want to do things that are going to damage you psychologically or physically, of course, of course, but everyone I believe would benefit from picking a few micro sucks to do some of your micro sucks on macro sucks that you could sprinkle throughout the day. Okay. So on a household maintenance level, you know, I I maintained a very clean home. I'll constantly throwing things away as well. But there are a few things like once I exceed a certain number of dishes.
As in the sink it becomes this. Okay, I'll load the dishwasher later type thing like a micro suck for me. We like especially something's been in there for a while and it's kind of gross and then you gotta like work through and of course I try and put each dish away as I, you know, dirty them up but so little things the things like that the I really don't want to deal with that right now. That's the kind of thing those harder task. Who were you have to breach some barriers some resistance and to put it into you know, Steven pressfield language or our friend David Goggins, right? You know that this idea that one has to Calais the mind I mean,
David said that right and probably got an hypertrophy day MCC that's bigger than most people's probably and and the beauty of having a an AMC. See that's highly you know available for Activation is that you know through the micro and the macro sucks of the day you you have this thing. It's like an engine that you can devote to other things. So then you can devote the MCC to other endeavors. I have this thing. I called email anxiety and it's when my unread inbox reaches three figures or more.
And that's when it just it kind of follows me around like a poltergeist there around the day and that that absolutely from it. That's probably a macro suck, you know to get through that. It's probably three to four hours a lot of it scheduling. When is this guest coming on? I need to speak to this partner we go to bla bla bla. So yeah, I've I feel that what else objective right? I mean, what's a what sucks is someone else might lovely nose? Yeah, someone might and I think that, you know, you've talked a lot on your show with various guests about you know when we're in too much comfort.
Our we're not meeting our goals. I love deadlines for that reason. I love deadlines. I love pressure. I think I'm I think Parkinson's Laura's is close to a thermodynamic of productivity as we can get you know what I mean? Like when you have a deadline you will meet it. Right. If you do not have a deadline, you will mañana mañana until forever. That's right, and some people I think preload the deadline by procrastinating and then that's what you know gets their activation energy to
A level where they can they can engage. So I've started thinking about this a lot lately, you know, I love running but it's interesting. I like to finish up my driveway and I live on a hill and actually this morning I was out for a run and the gate at the end of the cul-de-sac is my sort of vegetarian stop point. So it actually sucked to do the last, you know, 20 meters this morning. So there I probably got a little bit of a MCC activation because everything was the number of negotiations I went through. Yep when I turned up my street at the end of this run whether I was going to run this extra 20
It was ridiculous. I mean the human brain and struggling to not do those extra 20 meters. It was so silly. So it's got its got to hurt a little bit again. You don't want to damage yourself, but I think in the context of for instance cognitive learning getting to the point where you finish something and then forcing yourself to do one little extra bit there at the end. So, you know, I I'm not looking for any credit for it, but I want to be very clear that the scientific literature doesn't call these things micro sucks. I call them micro sucks. And I said put that out there just to make it clear as to what
We're gonna do you know Nick Beth adults in Austin. He's a athlete and so right support Quran on it. Yeah, like a hybrid actually larger guy, but he runs really fast as bodybuilding shows this powerlifting. Also Rose to be clear. I know that large guys run fast, but typically they don't run fast for 20 miles, correct? And he does that's Acura. He his little catchphrase is go one more and it's interesting what you're saying here is it's not just about the completion of the thing that you're doing because a lot of the time the
Thing that you choose to do even the thing that's difficult is done under your own volition. Don't get me wrong. If you do a difficult crossfit workout, Fran, whatever 21:59 of thrusters and polyps. It is off its hell, right. There's literally a name for what your throat feels like once you finish called Fran cough that people get from having taken their heart rate as high as a zooming and yeah that tastes of metal in the back of your throat. But what what people are doing that although they're doing something that's difficult.
It's like volition Ali difficult and it's within their domain of enjoyment and what you're saying here. Is that what we're looking to just push ourselves a little bit past that it's like an unnecessary amount of Challenge and I think that go one more makes quite a nice reminder for us with the micro soccer the macro circlet push ourselves just a little bit beyond where we would have got our sense of satisfaction because presumably you get the dopamine. I've completed the task fuck. Yeah, and then it's like and then I do just that tiny little bit more to to bring in.
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Wisdom and modern wisdom a check out one person that I think has been really interesting from this side. You're good friends with Tom Segura. Yeah, and we're related. We're cousins. You're kidding me. No, no, no, we're cousins. I can see it now. Yeah, his commitment to Fitness has been pretty fascinating for me to see and he's kind of treating his body like an athlete to facilitate his chosen pursuit of Comedy. I think even Bert is trying to sort his sort of health and fitness out one step at a time two words the control experiment.
Like there's if if the experiment is about willpower tenacity and discipline Tom is the is the is the is the active condition and Burr is the control but I'm seeing more and more people now, especially performance the on using but the on within the realm of physical fitness really starting to understand if I want to perform outside of this I need to think like an athlete I need to be looking at my hydration. I mean Tom had his trainer trouble with him on the road for
Yea Yea Tom's really serious about his craft as is Burt they just have different approaches and when it comes to Fitness I by the way I noticed Bert is training he's working out I've been trying to get bird to quit drinking alcohol for a while not because I'm the Arbiter of of who should do what I never never tell people what to do although they provide information people can do what they want. I'm a Live and Let Live I want to be very clear about that but it's out of care and affection for Burt that you know, excessive alcohol consumption over the
Long periods of time bad. I mean we can keep that one pretty brief. So but bird is working out but Tom I know because we talked and I spent some time with them that he trains he trains hard and he sees it as integral with his with his writing with his ability of show up for his family and business Etc. I mean, I think we're finally approaching a time in human history where we accept at the level of the scientific Community all the way through to Wellness and just generally that the brain and body are are intimately
Linked at the level of what you you know, if you want to improve your body do something for your mind. If you want to improve your mind do something for your body and and it's so clear. Now what we all need to do. I mean we can get into the details but at a macro level it's clear that we should all be getting that 150 to 200 minutes of Zone 2 per week or walking a lot. If you live in a big city, you're probably getting that but then also getting your heart rate up to to max heart rate once a week doing some Sprint type stuff on in whatever format is safe for your body. Some people swimming. Somebody was throwing some people's running for me.
It's running but you know not everyone enjoys running or can do it and then everyone should be doing at least six sets of resistance training per muscle group per week. Minimum hard sets to failure. Okay, maybe maybe not close to filler. Yeah, probably and it's especially the groups that have been let's just say averse to weight training right typically women are older folks though. Now more women weight train because they understand that in the absence of a lot of injected or prescription anabolic hormones. They're not going to get
Enormous, that's the funniest thing for me. That's why we died. I think right that that concept that you know, if you one lifts weights that they're going to become bulky. Do you realize to all of the women who are out there that are concerned about lifting weights because they're going to get too bulky. Do you know how hard I've worked to try and desperately become bulky for 15 years. Like I have worked really really difficult hoping that one day. I'll become bulky and there is I think it's dissipating a lot now, but there was for a long time this fear that I would do a couple of bicep curls and you
You look like the Incredible Hulk. It's like me and my friends have really really prayed for that to happen forever. You do not need to be concerned. It's not going to creep up on you. And one day you're going to wake up and be the sort of vascular Beast, right a couple things about that. I mean from a longevity standpoint. We know that maintaining healthy nerve to muscle function neuromuscular Junctions is one of the things that resistance exercise does and it's highly correlated with cognitive function in older age. And for those people I guess going back to our earlier conversation will probably do this a few.
Times in the course of this episode but the thing you want to do the least. That's actually the thing there where you stand to build up your amcc the most so for me that would be language learning or learning a musical instruments two things that I love music and I but I just it's just so hard for me. So it sits there on the Shelf as a possible way to activate the MCC, but in terms of actual resistance training resistance training has an interesting property that I haven't heard discussed before
That pertains to men and women who do it which is unlike cardiovascular training during a resistance training bout because of the blood flow to the muscle that so-called pump you get a little window into what the potential progress would look like that pump dissipates post-workout. And then if you allow sufficient rest and nutrition Etc, you'll get a hypertrophy response, but it's so unlike other forms of exercise. Like if I go to a yoga class and I stretch or I'm doing some movement I get to that limit where I'm quaking and I
All over it's very different than getting a picture of just how flexible I will be the next gal. Yeah, and then losing that until I adapt with running your lungs sometimes your throat burns as you pointed out and that's showing you your limit and of course then there's an adaptation response that then allows you to perform at that level without the burning and the next time right if you allow sufficient recovery, but with weight training, it's kind of interesting the whole pump thing was never something that I really drew me to weight training very much, but it's interesting because you get a
A glimpse into what the progress might look like and so for I would say for anyone who's worried about getting too big unless your pump is bigger than you want to be. You're not going to get that right? And so you actually get a window into how much potential size increase you're going to create but it's so different than other forms of exercise in that way. It's like what other thing in life if you took a language class and you know, I'm going to learn Japanese and you go and during the class you actually become fluent for a moment, then it's taken away and they become fluent. So it's a very special form of exercise.
Sighs that that offers some unique gifts to us as incentives for going back. But look as I say this, I realize some people hate resistance training the love running some people hate running. They love resistance training some people I realize hate exercise. But if you hate exercise, you should do it. Anyway MCC and you're getting the AMC. So going back to what you think might be happening to someone like Tom who is a like a cognitive athlete, right? But largely the Physical Realm comedians apart from
I guess until Joe which is part of the beginning of like the comedian bro-bro left a revolution before him. It wasn't exactly like I wasn't looking to comedians as being the Vanguard of health and fitness looks like Dash. I mean look at Belushi, right? I mean, he was the he was the epitome of lack health. So what they died right talk to me about what would be happening to the brain of somebody like Tom who pivots from being maybe 40 pounds overweight but I don't know how big you got it is it is biggest butt.
Lost a good bit of weight and it wasn't just losing weight. It was then gaining muscle so doctor Gabrielle lion world of like muscle scented medicine. He's going to benefit from that. The insulin sensitivity will be like some physiological changes, but talk to me for the people who are cognitive athletes. What's going to happen in someone like Tom's mind when he changes his body. Yeah, so improve blood flow to the brain and in the brain is most metabolically demanding organ in the entire body consumes a ton of glucose. If you eat carbohydrates you yes, it can run on ketones but blood flow through arteries veins and capillaries.
Oh Larry's to the neurons of the brain is is it's Inseparable from cognitive function. So when you improve blood flow to the brain, you improve cognitive function period when you restrict blood flow to the brain, even at a micro level you impaired cognitive function in addition to that. We know that several forms of age-related cognitive decline and dementia are considered nowadays. Some people even call it type 3 diabetes, although that's a controversial term diabetes of the brain. This is why a number of
Well who have Alzheimers go on ketogenic diets and get some degree of relief. It's not that it by the way, it's not a cure for Alzheimer's but some people do better when they switch the major fuel source for the brain, but in the case of Tom as an example, but someone who gets into exercising regularly, both resistance training and cardiovascular training, you're getting improved blood flow. You're getting far less inflammation of the brain inflammation is cognitive depleting reducing inflammation cognitive enhancing. We always that's absolutely true across the board right in animal studies in
Ins in addition to that there are a lot of blood-borne factors to of which I'll just highlight now just for sake of time only to first of all when we do cardio that positively impact brain health and memory in particular. So when we do load-bearing cardiovascular exercise so running as opposed to swimming anything where the skeletal system is is under some load. There's a hormone that's literally secreted from bone. I know.
Normally think of Bones as endocrine organs called osteocalcin a stoic Allison is released from the bones under these load-bearing conditions. It can cross the blood-brain barrier and we know that it plays an active role in promoting not just new cell production, but because that's a more minor component of neuroplasticity butt enhancement of nerve health and function in the hippocampus, which is an area that's instrumental for the formation of new memories. So there's something about movement of the body that signals to the brain are where
you know, we're moving you actually need to maintain or perhaps even enhance your ability to remember things and this probably is an evolutionary conserved circuit that exists. We know it exists in mice as well. So that's one one example, the other is that my colleague at Stanford Stanford. Tony wise Corey is best known for these young blood experiments where they'll take the blood or plasma from a young rodent and put into an aged or demented rodent and see improvements in cognitive function and outside the United States. There are some clinics by the way. I'm not recommending people do
That have shown improvements in cognitive function or even offsetting of Alzheimer's and age-related cognitive decline this led to the idea of like vampires and baby's blood in the screen of chrome. Yeah Drinker it's which is all crazy and conspiracy. I'm go on record saying that but there's a recent paper that also from Tony's lab showing that if in animals that exercise regularly if you take their blood or plasma and you supply that blood or plasma to aged or cognitively deficient
Aunt animals, they their cognition or their cognitive abilities improve so there's something about blood of the exercised body that enriches the brain and could be many different growth factors could be bdnf brain-derived neurotrophic Factor. It could be things like igf-1 insulin-like growth factors. Probably give me a cocktail of different things as well as osteocalcin. And so what we want to think about is that when we exercise and that's a broad statement exercise or word rather cardiovascular resistance training it.
Like a cocktail that then crosses into the blood-brain barrier that then creates a milieu of General growth health or at least maintenance of cognitive tissue that's there. So Tom's incredibly sharp and of course comedy requires not just memory but also writing of new jokes, right? He's got to do Netflix specials for a long time and I actually went and saw him and Aspen a small venue. I flew out there to see him because I want to see him in a small venue because in small venues is work Comics often work out their new material and let me just
You know to me it was just astonishing like to see the number of different thought threads and one thing that makes Tom's comedy so wonderful, and other people like Richard Pryor to this exceptionally well too is that he can switch personas very fast. So he's doing his voice then it switches to his son's voice in switches back and the speed and precision with which he does that very agile makes it seem we forget that there are very agile and then we've he creates a panel of characters and then wipes that board away right? He's the only guy up there wipes that board away and then creates a panel of a new character.
And so I mean that requires a lot of decks like cognitive dexterity. So exercise is absolutely one of the best ways to improve brain function over time. And in addition to that, you know, there's been so much interest in you know, should we do crossword puzzles. Should we you know, why is it that some people maintain cognitive function? I think what's very clear to me based on all that literature is that it's not one specific thing crossword puzzles or social engagement or exercises all of those things, but let's not forget the super agers the
people who are constantly trying things that are difficult that are pressuring themselves a bit to do things that are difficult. Those people are offsetting as far as we know all of the major shrinkage of these brain structures that normally would shrink as people age. So we have a lot of control but it does require effort and I'll tell you there's never going to be a pillar injection it whether or not those empik or something like it but for the brain, there's just there's no way there's no way that you're ever going to recapitulate learning and
And yes, it requires time, but it's so clear. I mean, I don't know how many more papers in preclinical models and in humans one needs to see before they finally just you know, bite the bullet and go and lift weights lift weights and run Edward and do cardiovascular training. It's it can't be one or the other. You know that the The Stereotype of like the the big let's just say big guy who's dumb, you know, I don't think it's entirely I mean, he's made some big big folks that are smart, right, but there is something
In the kind of broad correlations of people who you know people who tend to only do cardiovascular training, you know, maybe it's a selection bias. Like they're the people who are already Avid readers or more and kind of intellectual leanings, maybe get more involved in tennis swimming running type Sports rowing because of the schools, they went or whatever but people who just lift weights. It does seem as if over time. I don't know maybe Derek would Tulsa their neck is getting too big. They have sleep apnea.
They don't seem as sharp and they're often mouth-breathers. Look at the really big guys in the gym. They're often not strong. Not just between sets not out just after hard sets there that I think they're also there's fixating themselves in sleep. We know this. Yeah, and then you look at runners in the people who have the kind of like the really spelled and and and they and sure they might maintain cognitive function, but their bodies are very vulnerable to injury project and they always seem to be complaining about what hurts you
Is it like my friends who do a lot of extended training unless it's David Goggins who doesn't seem to have the circuit for complaining at least certainly not online. Yeah, they're always seem to be complaining about about injuries. So I think a combination of resistance training cardiovascular training is let's just face it like you can't do one and not the other if you want to be healthy all around healthy of heart-healthy of body healthy of Mind cognition improved or at least maintained as we age eat. You gotta do both. We'll get back to talking to and room while minute but first I
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Coming back to the discussion about alcohol which is one that you tried to interject with Burton. I think you're episode that you released last year. Yeah back end of last summer. Yeah. I think that really opened. A lot of people's eyes to some of the risks of alcohol. I've been kind of flying the flag of it as a tool for productivity quite quite alcohol. Yeah that I think when you're early or do you drink at all? I brought it back into my life now, but I did six months sober three times.
1000 days without alcohol too. But yeah, I'm seeing right now a huge pushback against unseen unintentional drinking and I think that yeah your episode last year opened a lot of people's eyes to it. Thanks. I mean again, I don't tell people what to do. I give them the facts and so they can make the best decisions for them. I mean, it's very clear that unless you're an alcoholic and provided you're an adult that you know, two drinks per week maximum.
It's about the upper threshold Beyond which you can start getting some help to that's colder months that's called a warm up to a warm up in England. Yeah, so I you know, I've never been a big drinker. I don't drink. I'm lucky that it's not something that's that's a strong draw for me. I do not have friends that are recovered alcoholic and you know their lives are so much better as a function of being sober but for non-alcoholics, I mean, I think everyone should just know the health risks, especially women where the risks for breast cancer and other types of cancers are
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And oversight that I got by going to the link in the description below or heading tumeric health.com modern wisdom and using the code modern wisdom. Check out for 10% off. That's ma rek health.com modern wisdom and modern wisdom a check out one person that I think has been really interesting from this side. You're good friends with Tom Segura. Yeah, and we're related. We're cousins. You're kidding me. No, no, no, we're cousins. I can see it now. Yeah, his commitment to Fitness has been pretty fascinating for me to see and
Kind of treating his body like an athlete to facilitate his chosen pursuit of Comedy. I think even Bert is trying to sort his son of health and fitness out one step at a time to hurts the control experiment like there's if if the experiment is about willpower tenacity and discipline Tom is the is the is the is the active condition and Burr is the control but I'm seeing more and more people now, especially performance the on using
But the on within the realm of physical fitness really starting to understand if I want to perform outside of this I need to think like an athlete I need to be looking at my hydration. I mean Tom had his trainer trouble with him on the road for months Yea Yea Tom's really serious about his craft as is Bert. They just have different approaches and when it comes to Fitness, I by the way, I know it's Bert is training. He's working out. I've been trying to get bird to quit drinking alcohol for a while not because I'm the Arbiter of of who should do what I never never tell people what to
Oh, by the way, provide information people can do what they want. I'm a Live and Let Live. I want to be very clear about that, but it's out of care and affection for birth that you know, excessive alcohol consumption over long periods of time bad. I mean we can keep that one pretty brief. So but bird is working out but Tom I know because we talked and I spend some time with them that he trains he trains hard and he sees it as integral with his with his writing with his ability of show up for his family and business Etc.
ER I mean, I think we're finally approaching a time in human history where we accept at the level of the scientific Community all the way through to Wellness and just generally that the brain and body are are intimately linked at the level of what you you know, if you want to improve your body do something for your mind. If you want to improve your mind do something for your body and and it's so clear. Now what we all need to do. I mean we can get into the details, but at a macro level it's clear that we should all be getting that 150 to 200 minutes of Zone 2 per week or walking.
Lat if you live in a big city, you're probably getting that but then also getting your heart rate up to to max heart rate once a week doing some Sprint type stuff on in whatever format is safe for your body. Some people swimming some people throwing somebody was running for me. It's running but you know, not everyone enjoys running or can do it and then everyone should be doing at least six sets of resistance training per muscle group per week. Minimum hard sets to failure. Okay, maybe maybe not close to filler. Yeah, probably and it's especially the groups that have been
let's just say averse to weight training right typically women are older folks though. Now more women weight train because they understand that in the absence of a lot of injected or prescription anabolic hormones. They're not going to get enormous. That's the funniest thing for me. That's why we died. I think right that that concept that you know, if you one lifts weights that they're going to become bulky. Do you realize to all of the women who are out there that are concerned about lifting weights because they're going to get too bulky. Do you know how hard I've worked to try?
Desperately become bulky for 15 years. Like I have worked really really difficult. Hoping that one day. I'll become bulky and there is I think it's dissipating a lot now, but there was for a long time this fear that I would do a couple of bicep curls and you're going to look like the Incredible Hulk. It's like me and my friends have really really prayed for that to happen forever. You do not need to be concerned. It's not going to creep up on you and one day you're going to wake up and be the sort of vascular Beast, right a couple things about that. I mean from a longevity standpoint. We know that maintaining
Unhealthy nerve to muscle function neuromuscular Junctions is one of the things that resistance exercise does and it's highly correlated with cognitive function into older age. And for those people I guess going back to our earlier conversation will probably do this a few times in the course of this episode. But the thing you want to do the least, that's actually the thing there where you stand to build up your AMC see the most so for me that would be language learning or learning a musical instruments two things that I love music and I but I just it's just so
Hard for me so it sits there on the Shelf as a possible way to activate the MCC. But in terms of actual resistance training resistance training has an interesting property that haven't heard discussed before that pertains to men and women who do it which is unlike cardiovascular training during resistance training about because of the blood flow to the muscle that so-called pump you get a little window into what the potential progress would look like that pump dissipates.
Post workout and then if you allow sufficient rest and nutrition Etc, you'll get a hypertrophy response, but it's so unlike other forms of exercise. Like if I go to a yoga class and I stretch or I'm doing some movement I get to that limit where I'm quaking and I fall over it's very different than getting a picture of just how flexible I will be the next gal. Yeah, and then losing that until I adapt with running your lungs sometimes your throat burns as you pointed out and that's showing you your limit and of course then there's an adaptation response that then allows you to perform.
Warm at that level without the burning and the next time right if you allow sufficient recovery, but with weight training, it's kind of interesting the whole pump thing was never something that I really drew me to weight training very much but it's interesting because you get a glimpse into what the progress might look like. And so for I would say for anyone who's worried about getting too big unless your pump is bigger than you want to be you're not going to get that right? And so you actually get a window into how much potential size increase you're going to create but it's so different than other forms of exercise.
In that way, it's like what other thing in life like you took a language class and you know, I'm going to learn Japanese and you go and during the class you actually become fluent for a moment, then it's taken away and they exactly become fluent. So it's a very special form of exercise that that offers some unique gifts to us as incentives for going back. But look as I say this, I realize some people hate resistance training the love running some people hate running. They love resistant strain some people I realize hate exercise, but if you hate exercise you should do it. Anyway MCC.
You're getting the AMC. So going back to what you think might be happening to someone like Tom who is a like a cognitive athlete, right? But largely the Physical Realm comedians apart from I guess until Joe which is part of the beginning of like the comedian bro-bro left a revolution before him. It wasn't exactly like I wasn't looking to comedians as being the Vanguard of health and fitness like Dash. I mean look at Belushi, right? I mean, he was the he was the epitome of lack health
So what they died right talk to me about what would be happening to the brain of somebody like Tom who pivots from being maybe 40 pounds overweight but I don't know how big you got it is it is biggest but lost a good bit of weight and it wasn't just losing weight. It was then gaining muscle. So dr. Gabrielle lion world of like muscle scented medicine. He's going to benefit from that. The insulin sensitivity will be like some physiological changes, but talk to me for the people who are cognitive athletes. What's going to happen in someone like Tom's mind when he changes his
The yeah, so improved blood flow to the brain. I mean the brain is most metabolically demanding organ in the entire body consumes a ton of glucose. If you eat carbohydrates you yes, it can run on ketones but blood flow through arteries veins and capillaries to the neurons of the brain is is it's Inseparable from cognitive function. So when you improve blood flow to the brain you improve cognitive function period when you restrict blood flow to the brain, even at a micro level you impaired cognitive function in addition to that.
We know that several forms of age-related cognitive decline and dementia are considered nowadays. Some people even call it type 3 diabetes. Although that's a controversial term diabetes of the brain. This is why a number of people who have Alzheimers go on ketogenic diets and get some degree of relief. It's not that by the way, it's not a cure for Alzheimer's but some people do better when they switch the major fuel source for the brain but in the case of Tom as an example, but someone who gets into exercising regularly both resistance training and cardiovascular training you get
Prue blood flow you're getting far less inflammation of the brain inflammation is cognitive depleting reducing inflammation cognitive enhancing. We always that's absolutely true across the board right in animal studies in humans. In addition to that. There are a lot of blood-borne factors to of which I'll just highlight now just for sake of time only to first of all when we do cardio that positively impact brain health and memory in particular. So when we do load-bearing cardiovascular exercise,
So running as opposed to swimming anything where the skeletal system is is under some load. There's a hormone that's literally secreted from bone. I know we don't normally think the bones is endocrine organs called osteocalcin asked Eric Carlson is released from the bones under these load-bearing conditions. It can cross the blood-brain barrier and we know that it plays an active role in promoting not just new cell production, but because that's a more minor component of neuroplasticity, but
Enhancement of nerve health and function in the hippocampus, which is an area that's instrumental for the formation of new memories. So there's something about movement of the body that signals to the brain are where you know, we're moving you actually need to maintain or perhaps even enhance your ability to remember things and this probably is an evolutionary conserved circuit that exists. We know it exists in mice as well. So that's one one example, the other is that my colleague at Stanford Stanford. Tony wise Corey is best known for these
He's young blood experiments where they'll take the blood or plasma from a young rodent and put into an aged or demented rodent and see improvements in cognitive function and outside the United States. There are some clinics by the way. I'm not recommending people do this that have shown improvements in cognitive function or even offsetting of Alzheimer's and age-related cognitive decline. This had led to the idea of like vampires and baby blood in this Arena Chrome. Yeah Drinker it's which is all crazy and conspiracy. I go on record saying that but there's a recent paper.
That also from Tony's lab showing that if in animals that exercise regularly, if you take their blood or plasma and you supply that blood or plasma to aged or cognitively deficient animals, they their cognition or their cognitive abilities improve. So there's something about blood of the exercised body that enriches the brain and could be many different growth factors could be bdnf brain-derived neurotrophic Factor. It could be things like igf-1 insulin-like growth factors probably.
Give me a cocktail of different things as well as osteocalcin. And so what we want to think about is that when we exercise and that's a broad statement exercise or word rather cardiovascular resistance training. It creates like a cocktail that then crosses into the blood-brain barrier that then creates a milieu of General growth health or at least maintenance of cognitive tissue that's there. So Tom's incredibly sharp, and of course comedy requires not just memory but also writing of new jokes, right he's got to do
Netflix specials for a long time and I actually went saw him in Aspen ago small venue. I flew out there to see because I want to see him in a small venue because in small venues is work Comics often work out their new material and I mean just you know to me it was just astonishing like to see the number of different thought threads and one thing that makes Tom's comedy so wonderful, and other people like Richard Pryor to this exceptionally well too is that he can switch personas very fast. So he's doing his voice then it switches to his son's voice in switches back and the speed and precision with which he does that
very agile makes it seem we forget that there are very agile and then we've he creates a panel of characters and then wipes that board away right? He's the only guy up there wipes that board away and then creates a panel of new characters. And so I mean that requires a lot of decks like cognitive dexterity. So exercise is absolutely one of the best ways to improve brain function over time. And in addition to that, you know, there's been so much interest in you know, should we do crossword puzzles? Should we you know, why is it that
You will maintain cognitive function. I think what's very clear to me based on all that literature is that it's not one specific thing crossword puzzles or social engagement or exercises all of those things, but let's not forget the super agers the people who are constantly trying things that are difficult that are pressuring themselves a bit to do things that are difficult. Those people are offsetting as far as we know all of the major shrinkage of these brain structures that normally would shrink as people age. So we have a lot of control
but it does require effort and I'll tell you there's never going to be a pillar injection it whether or not so Zen pick or something like it but for the brain, there's just no there's no way there's no way that you're ever going to recapitulate learning and effort and yes it requires time, but it's so clear. I mean, I don't know how many more papers in preclinical models and in humans one needs to see before they finally just, you know, bite the bullet and go and lift weights lift weights and run Edward and do cardiovascular training. It's it can't be one or the other you know that the the
And says stuff like this. Yeah, I did it sort of worked out to a number of naturalistic situations and it made good sense. And then my colleague Carol dweck also in the psychology department at Stanford most famously known for her work on my growth mindset did an experiment in which they essentially asked whether or not tenacity and willpower are limited in terms of being a some sort of resource and also whether or not it was somehow linked to glucose availability fuel in the brain and
body and found that if people thought or were told that mine that excuse me willpower was a limited resource that's indeed what they observed experimentally but that if they were taught or we're told that will power is unlimited and and divorced from glucose levels. Well, then that's exactly what he's sick. So thing that learning about ego depletion and believing that willpower is a limited resources and information Hazard that is self-fulfilling potentially now about my
Stir, you know showed himself to be, you know, pretty determined when encountered the dweck counter by showing that if indeed if there's a hard task followed by a hard task then your beliefs about willpower can impact your performance on the second task. So direct the AK dweck is right, but that if you have hard task hard task and then another hard task go back to back to back tasks or more, which is a lot of what life is like well then it seems that the
The that the willpower is a limited resource and glucose supporting willpower Theory holds up a bit better. What have you come to believe about the difference between willpower and motivation and discipline. How did kind of all of these fit together in your mind? Yeah, so willpower and tenacity are related to motivation with they're not quite the same. I think we should think of motivation as a as the verb state that moves us from let's just say apathy.
To tenacity. Okay. So it sort of is the verb function that moves us along that Continuum app apathy at one end tenacity and willpower strong exertion willpower at the other end. One of the most interesting structures in the entire nervous system is one that gets very little coverage. Unfortunately. In fact most neuroscientist aren't aware of what its function is and it's called the amcc which the anterior mid cingulate cortex. You have one on each side of the brain. The name isn't really important but we
Want to you don't go to the credit of the of the structure. We should name of the AMC see the MCC receives inputs from a lot of interesting brain areas related to reward related to autonomic functions or alert or sleepy. We are to prediction to prediction error. It's a hub for many many inputs and outputs hormone systems Etc.
Beautiful experiments done by my colleague Joe / VZ at Stanford have shown that if you stimulate this brain area tiny little brain area in a human. They immediately feel as if some challenge is impending and they're going to meet that challenge. It's a forward Center of mass against challenge response. This has been seen in independent subjects. They do controls where they then tell them they're stimulating but they're not actually stimulating and they're like, I don't feel anything you can turn on and off tenacity and willpower. So there's literally a hub for this now.
Here's where it gets really interesting. I'm going to list off a bunch of peer-reviewed published results in Rapid sequence, and I'm happy to point out that the substantiation for this or the references. Okay individuals that are dieting or resisting some sort of tempting behavior and are successful in doing that the size and activity in their amcc goes up over time and the structure gets bigger dieters who fail
Flat or downward trajectory of the size and activation of the AMC see this can be taken too far individuals with anorexia nervosa the most deadly of all psychiatric disorders where a depths self deprivation of food activates, excessive reward. There's this kind of loop of reward their am cc's are significantly greater size than other so there's you know, this can be taken too far.
Super agers, which is a bit of a misnomer because these individuals are people who maintain healthy cognitive function similar to people in their 20s and 30s into their 70s 80s and 90s there amcc maintains or increases in size into their later years typical agers the size of we always hear that you lose brain mass across your lifespan. Well, most of it is from the amcc and beautifully and this is two of my favorite results that really bring this around to a protocol or a takeaway if people are given
An easy task the amcc isn't activated if they're given a hard task in particular a hard task physical or cognitive that they really don't want to do. They MCC levels of activity go through the roof. And here's what's really cool. They gave aging what's you know people age sixty to seventy nine the task of adding three hours extra per week of cardiovascular exercise. Now, that's a lot right 31. Our they called them a robic classes, but getting their heart rate up to about
about 65 70 percent of Maximum. So it's getting into like celery is Sharia. Yeah, people can look up Zone 3, but you nailed it Zone 3 the size of their amcc increased across that six-month protocol and offset the normal age-related decline in this in this brain area in terms of its size. The theory that starting to emerge is that the amcc is interested about tenacity and will power to push through hard things that it may actually be related to one's will to live
Ones Will to continue living and I think this is these are some of the most important results by the way, I didn't participate in any of the research that I just described. I spent a lot of time with that literature, but I think it's so important we hear about the amygdala the hippocampus the prefrontal cortex all a very important brain structures, but if nothing else hopefully this car is one but the AMC see on the map the one that literally could create your will to live is the one that's been overlooked a little bit and it can be and what's interesting about this structure is that it's involved in generating tenacity and willpower for all things not just for once.
Situation and what's really wonderful? I think about the research literature on this is It's So Clear what we need to do. We need to do things. Let's say like me, you're a person who enjoys weightlifting and you love running. I love those two activities will guess what those activities even if they're hard like a hard run that I'm really enjoying or some hard sets in the gym not going to increase the size or activity of the AMC see people love to over romanticize the utility of those final two reps. Sure.
Keep pushing to failure great, you know running hard till your lungs burn great. But if you enjoy that you're not increasing your amount of tenacity and willpower at least according to the research data, what's going to do it is doing something what I call Micro socks or macro sucks, you know, and so micro sucks could be all the little things that you don't want during to do during the day macro sucks could be the larger things. But of course you don't want to do things that are going to damage you psychologically or physically, of course, of course, but everyone I believe would benefit from
From picking a few micro sucks to do some of your micro sucks on macro sucks that you could sprinkle throughout the day. Okay. So on a household maintenance level, you know, I I maintained a very clean home. I'll constantly throwing things away as well. But there are a few things like once I exceed a certain number of dishes in the sink it becomes this. Okay, I'll load the dishwasher later type thing like a micro suck for me. We like especially something's been in there for a while and it's kind of gross and then you gotta like work through and of course I tried
Each dish away as I you know, dirty them up, but so little things the things like that the I really don't want to deal with that right now. That's the kind of thing those harder task. Who were you have to breach some barriers some resistance and to put it into you know, Steven pressfield language or our friend David Goggins, right? You know that this idea that one has to Calais the mind. I mean David said that right and probably got an hypertrophy day MCC that's bigger than most people's probably and and the beauty of having a an AMC see
It's highly you know available for Activation is that you know through the micro and the macro sucks of the day you you have this thing. It's like an engine that you can devote to other things. So then you can devote the MCC to other endeavors. I have this thing. I called email anxiety and it's when my unread inbox reaches three figures or more and that's when it just it kind of follows me around like a poltergeist there around the day and that that absolutely from it. That's probably a macro suck, you know to get through that. It's probably three to four hours a lot of
Scheduling once this gets coming on. I need to speak to this partner we go to bla bla bla. So yeah, I've I feel that what else objective right? I mean, what's a what sucks is someone else might lovely nose? Yeah, someone might and I think that you know, you've talked a lot on your show with various guests about you know, when we're in too much comfort our we're not meeting our goals. I love deadlines for that reason. I love deadlines. I love pressure. I think I'm I think Parkinson's Lori's is close to a thermodynamic if
Productivity as we can get you know what I mean? Like when you have a deadline you will meet it. Right. If you do not have a deadline, you will mañana mañana until forever. That's right, and some people I think preload the deadline by procrastinating and then that's what you know gets their activation energy to a level where they can they can engage. So I've started thinking about this a lot lately, you know, I love running but it's interesting. I like to finish up my driveway and I live on a hill and actually this morning I was
For Ron and the gate at the end of the cul-de-sac is my vegetarian stop point. So it actually sucked to do the last, you know, 20 meters this morning. So there I probably got a little bit of a MCC activation because everything was the number of negotiations I went through. Yep. When I turned up my street at the end of this run whether I was going to run this extra 20 meters was ridiculous. I mean the human brain is struggling to not do those extra 20 meters. It was so silly. So it's got its got to hurt a little bit again. You don't want to damage yourself, but I think in the context of
of for instance cognitive learning getting to the point where you finish something and then forcing yourself to do one little extra bit there at the end. So, you know, I I'm not looking for any credit for it, but I want to be very clear that the scientific literature doesn't call these things micro sucks. I call them micro sucks. And I said put that out there just to make it clear as to what we're going to do, you know, Nick Beth adults in Austin. He's a athlete and so right support Quran on it. Yeah, like a hybrid athlete larger guy, but he runs really fast as bodybuilding shows.
Powerlifting also runs to be clear. I know that large guys run fast, but typically they don't run fast for 20 miles, correct? And he does that's Acura. He his little catchphrase is go one more and it's interesting what you're saying here is it's not just about the completion of the thing that you're doing because a lot of the time the thing that you choose to do even the thing that's difficult is done under your own volition. Don't get me wrong. If you do a difficult crossfit workout, Fran, whatever 21:59 of
Has and polyps it is off its hell, right? There's literally a name for what your throat feels like once you finish called Frank off the people get from having taken their heart rate as high as a zooming in. Yeah that tastes of metal in the back of your throat. But what what people are doing that although they're doing something that's difficult. It's like volition Ali difficult and it's within their domain of enjoyment and what you're saying here. Is that what we're looking to just push ourselves a little bit past that it's like an unnecessary amount of Challenge and I think
Go one more makes quite a nice reminder for us with the micro suck at the macro circlet push ourselves. Just a little bit beyond where we would have got our sense of satisfaction because presumably you get the dopamine. I've completed the task. Fuck. Yeah, and then it's like and then I do just that tiny little bit more to to bring in other news. This episode is brought to you by Merrick health. I wanted to get my blood work done here in America. I'd been told by people like, dr. Human that it's important for me to do to work out what's going on inside my body, but I
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No, no, we're cousins. I can see it now. Yeah, his commitment to Fitness has been pretty fascinating for me to see and he's kind of treating his body like an athlete to facilitate his chosen pursuit of Comedy. I think even Bert is trying to sort his sort of health and fitness out one step at a time two words the control experiment like there's if if the experiment is about willpower tenacity and discipline Tom is the is the is the is the active condition and
Is the control but I'm seeing more and more people now, especially performance that aren't using but the aren't within the realm of physical fitness really starting to understand if I want to perform outside of this. I need to think like an athlete I need to be looking at my hydration. I mean Tom had his trainer trouble with him on the road for months Yea Yea Tom's really serious about his craft as is Bert. They just have different approaches and when it comes to Fitness, I by the way, I know it's Bert is training. He's working out. I've been trying to get bird to quit drinking.
Call for a while not because I'm the Arbiter of of who should do what I never never tell people what to do. By the way provide information people can do what they want. I'm a Live and Let Live. I want to be very clear about that, but it's out of care and affection for birth that you know, excessive alcohol consumption over long periods of time bad. I mean we can keep that one pretty brief. So but bird is working out, but Tom I know because we talked and I spent some time with them that
Trains he trains hard and he sees it as integral with his with his writing with his ability to show up for his family and business Etc. I mean, I think we're finally approaching a time in human history where we accept at the level of the scientific Community all the way through to Wellness and just generally that the brain and body are are intimately linked at the level of what you you know, if you want to improve your body do something for your mind. If you want to improve your mind do something for your body and and it's so clear. Now what we all need to do. I mean we can get into the
Details, but at a macro level it's clear that we should all be getting that 150 to 200 minutes of Zone 2 per week or walking a lot. If you live in a big city, you're probably getting that but then also getting your heart rate up to to max heart rate once a week doing some Sprint type stuff on in whatever format is safe for your body some people swimming some people throwing somebody was running for me. It's running but you know, not everyone enjoys running or can do it and then everyone should be doing at least six sets of resistance training per muscle group per week minimum hard sets to fail.
Okay, maybe maybe not close to filler. Yeah, probably and it's especially the groups that have been let's just say averse to weight training right typically women are older folks though. Now more women weight train because they understand that in the absence of a lot of injected or prescription anabolic hormones. They're not going to get enormous. That's the funniest thing for me. That's why we died. I think right that that concept that you know, if you one lifts weights that they're going to become bulky. Do you realize to all of the women?
Men who are out there that are concerned about lifting weights because they're going to get too bulky. Do you know how hard I've worked to try and desperately become bulky for 15 years. Like I have worked really really difficult hoping that one day. I'll become bulky and there is I think it's dissipating a lot now, but there was for a long time this fear that I would do a couple of bicep curls and you're going to look like the Incredible Hulk. It's like me and my friends have really really prayed for that to happen forever. You do not need to be concerned. It's not going to creep up on you and one day you're going to
Wake up and be the sort of vascular Beast right a couple things about that. I mean from a longevity standpoint. We know that maintaining healthy nerve to muscle function neuromuscular Junctions is one of the things that resistance exercise does and it's highly correlated with cognitive function into older age. And for those people I guess going back to our earlier conversation will probably do this a few times in the course of this episode. But the thing you want to do the least, that's actually the thing there where you stand to build up your AMC see the most so for me, that would be language learning.
Knowing or learning a musical instruments two things that I love music and I but I just it's just so hard for me. So it sits there on the Shelf as a possible way to activate the MCC. But in terms of actual resistance training resistance training has an interesting property that haven't heard discussed before that pertains to men and women who do it which is unlike cardiovascular training during resistance training about
Because of the blood flow to the muscle so called pump you get a little window into what the potential progress would look like that pump dissipates post-workout. And then if you allow sufficient rest and nutrition Etc, you'll get a hypertrophy response, but it's so unlike other forms of exercise. Like if I go to a yoga class and I stretch or I'm doing some movement I get to that limit where I'm quaking and I fall over it's very different than getting a picture of just how flexible I will be the next gal. Yeah, and then losing that until I adapt with running your lungs sometimes your
throat burns as you pointed out and that's showing you your limit and of course then there's an adaptation response that then allows you to perform at that level without the burning and the next time right if you allow sufficient recovery, but with weight training, it's kind of interesting the whole pump thing was never something that I really drew me to weight training very much but it's interesting because you get a glimpse into what the progress might look like. And so for I would say for anyone who's worried about getting too big unless your pump is bigger than you want to be. You're not going to get that right and
You actually get a window into how much potential size increase you're going to create but it's so different than other forms of exercise in that way. It's like what other thing in life if you took a language class and you know, I'm going to learn Japanese and you go and during the class you actually become fluent for a moment, then it's taken away and they become fluent. So it's a very special form of exercise that that offers some unique gifts to us as incentives for going back. But look as I say this, I realize some people hate resistance training the love running some people hate running.
They love resistant strain some people. I realize hate exercise. But if you hate exercise, you should do it. Anyway MCC and you're getting the AMC. So going back to what you think might be happening to someone like Tom who is a like a cognitive athlete, right? But largely the Physical Realm comedians apart from I guess until Joe which is part of the beginning of like the comedian bro-bro left a revolution before him. It wasn't exactly like I wasn't looking to comedians as being the
Vanguard of health and fitness like Dash. I mean look at Belushi, right? I mean he was the he was the epitome of lack of health. So what Lee died what talk to me about what would be happening to the brain of somebody like Tom who pivots from being maybe 40 pounds overweight but I don't know how big you got it is it is biggest but lost a good bit of weight and it wasn't just losing weight. It was then gaining muscle. So dr. Gabrielle lion world of like muscle scented medicine. He's going to benefit from that. The insulin sensitivity will be like some physiological changes.
But talk to me for the people who are cognitive athletes. What's going to happen in someone like Tom's mind when he changes his body? Yeah, so improve blood flow to the brain and in the brain is most metabolically demanding organ in the entire body consumes a ton of glucose. If you eat carbohydrates you yes, it can run on ketones but blood flow through arteries veins and capillaries to the neurons of the brain is is it's Inseparable from cognitive function. So when you improve blood flow to the brain you improve cognitive function period when you restrict blood flow,
To the brain even at a micro level you impaired cognitive function in addition to that. We know that several forms of age-related cognitive decline and dementia are considered nowadays. Some people even call it type 3 diabetes, although that's a controversial term diabetes of the brain. This is why a number of people who have Alzheimers go on ketogenic diets and get some degree of relief. It's not that it by the way. It's not a cure for Alzheimer's but some people do better when they switch the major fuel source for the brain.
But in the case of Tom as an example, but someone who gets into exercising regularly, both resistance training and cardiovascular training, you're getting improved blood flow. You're getting far less inflammation of the brain inflammation is cognitive depleting reducing inflammation cognitive enhancing. We always that's absolutely true across the board right in animal studies in humans. In addition to that. There are a lot of blood-borne factors two of which I'll just highlight now just for sake of time only to first of all when we do cardio that positively impact brain
In memory in particular, so when we do load-bearing cardiovascular exercise so running as opposed to swimming anything where the skeletal system is is under some load. There's a hormone that's literally secreted from bone. I know we don't normally think of Bones is endocrine organs called osteocalcin a stoic Allison is released from the bones under these load-bearing conditions. It can cross the blood-brain barrier and we know that it plays an active role in promoting.
Ting not just new cell production but because that's a more minor component of neuroplasticity but enhancement of nerve health and function in the hippocampus, which is an area that's instrumental for the formation of new memories. So there's something about movement of the body that signals to the brain are where you know, we're moving you actually need to maintain or perhaps even enhance your ability to remember things and this probably is an evolutionary conserved circuit that exists. We know it exists in mice as well.
So that's one one example. The other is that my colleague at Stanford Stanford. Tony wise Corey is best known for these young blood experiments where they'll take the blood or plasma from a young rodent and put into an aged or demented rodent and see improvements in cognitive function and outside the United States. There are some clinics by the way. I'm not recommending people do this that have shown improvements in cognitive function or even offsetting of Alzheimer's and age-related cognitive decline. This has led to the idea of like vampires and baby's blood in the screen across.
Um, yeah Drinker it's which is all crazy and conspiracy. I go on record saying that but there's a recent paper that also from Tony's lab showing that if in animals that exercise regularly if you take their blood or plasma and you supply that blood or plasma to aged or cognitively deficient animals, they their cognition or their cognitive abilities improve. So there's something about blood of the exercised body that enriches the brain
It could be many different growth factors could be bdnf brain-derived neurotrophic Factor. It could be things like igf-1 insulin-like growth factors. Probably give me a cocktail of different things as well as osteocalcin. And so what we want to think about is that when we exercise and that's a broad statement exercise or word rather cardiovascular resistance training. It creates a cocktail that then crosses into the blood-brain barrier that then creates a milieu of General growth health or at least maintenance of of cognitive tissue that's there. So Tom's incredibly.
A sharp and of course comedy requires not just memory but also writing of new jokes, right? He's got to do Netflix specials for a long time and I actually went and saw him and Aspen ago small venue. I flew out there to see him because I want to see him in a small venue because in small venues is work Comics often work out their new material and I mean just, you know to me it was just astonishing like to see the number of different thought threads and one thing that makes Tom's comedy so wonderful, and other people like Richard Pryor to this exceptionally well too is that he can
Personas very fast. So he's doing his voice then it switches to his son's voice in switches back and the speed and precision with which he does that very agile makes it seem we forget that there are very agile and then we've he creates a panel of characters and then wipes that board away right? He's the only guy up there wipes that board away and then creates a panel of new characters. And so I mean that requires a lot of decks like cognitive dexterity. So exercise is absolutely one of the best ways to improve brain function over time and
In addition to that, you know, there's been so much interest in you know, should we do crossword puzzles. Should we you know, why is it that some people maintain cognitive function? I think what's very clear to me based on all that literature is that it's not one specific thing crossword puzzles or social engagement or exercises all of those things, but let's not forget the super agers the people who are constantly trying things that are difficult that are pressuring themselves a bit to do things that are difficult. Those people are offsetting as far as we know all of
The major shrinkage of these brain structures that normally would shrink as people age. So we have a lot of control but it does require effort and I'll tell you there's never going to be a pillar injection it whether or not those empik or something like it but for the brain, there's just there's no way there's no way that you're ever going to recapitulate learning and effort and yes it requires time, but it's so clear. I mean, I don't know how many more papers in preclinical models and in humans one needs to see before they finally just
don't bite the bullet and go and lift weights lift weights and run Edward and do cardiovascular training. It's it can't be one or the other. You know that the The Stereotype of like the the big let's just say big guy who's dumb, you know, I don't think it's entirely I mean, he's made some big big folks that are smart, right, but there is something in the kind of broad correlations of people who, you know are people who tend to only do cardiovascular training, you know, maybe it's a selection bias.
They're the people who are already Avid readers or more and kind of intellectual leanings, maybe get more involved in tennis swimming running type Sports rowing because of the schools, they went to her whatever but people who just lift weights. It does seem as if over time. I don't know maybe Derek would tell us that our neck is getting too big. They have sleep apnea it they don't seem as sharp and they're often mouth-breathers. Look at the really big guys in the gym. They're often not strong. Not just between SATs not after us after heart sets there.
I think they're also there's fixating themselves in sleep. We know this. Yeah, and then you look at runners in the people who have the kind of like the really spelled and and and they and sure they might maintain cognitive function but their bodies are very vulnerable to injury Crunch and they always seem to be complaining about what hurts you know, is it like my friends who do a lot of extended training unless it's David Goggins who doesn't seem to have the circuit for complaining huh? At least certainly not online. Yeah. They're always seem to be complaining.
Thing about about injury. So I think a combination of resistance training cardiovascular training is let's just face it like you can't do one and not the other if you want to be healthy all around healthy of heart-healthy of body healthy of Mind cognition improved or at least maintained as we age eat. You gotta do both will get back to talking to Andrew Weil minute. But first I need to tell you about element element contains a signs packed electrolyte ratio of sodium potassium and magnesium that will help to regulate your appetite curb cravings and optimize your brain health. You do not need coffee.
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Box, that's how confident they are that you'll love it head to the link in the description below or go to drink LMN t.com modern wisdom to get a free sample pack of all eight flavors with your first box. That's drink LMN t.com / modern wisdom coming back to the discussion about alcohol, which is one that you try to interject with Burton. I think your episode that you released last year back end of last summer. Yeah. I think that really opened a lot of people's eyes to some of the risks of alcohol.
Alcohol, I've been kind of flying the flag of it as a tool for productivity quite a while with alcohol. Yeah that I think when you early or do you drink at all? I brought it back into my life now, but I did six months sober three times and then 1000 days without alcohol too. But yeah, I'm seeing right now a huge pushback against unseen unintentional drinking and I think that yeah your episode of
You're opened a lot of people's eyes to it. Thanks. I mean again, I don't tell people what to do. I give them the facts and so they can make the best decisions for them. I mean, it's very clear that unless you're an alcoholic and provided you're an adult that you know, two drinks per week. Maximum is about the upper threshold Beyond which you're going to start getting some help that's colder months that's called a warm up to a woman in England. Yeah. So I you know, I've never been a big drinker. I don't drink I'm lucky that it's not something that's that's a strong draw for.
me I'm eating my friends that are recovered alcoholic and you know their lives are so much better as a function of being sober but for non-alcoholics, I mean, I think everyone should just know the health risks, especially women where the risks for breast cancer and other types of cancers are elevated so very much and it was interesting to me about the response to that episode is that I think many people took it might the impression I got was that many people took it as permission to finally stop drinking or drink less because they didn't
Joy drinking and as you so, you know, beautifully put out on social media, you know drinking is one of the few activities that if you don't partake people assume or accuse you of having a problem and it's just wild I mean like why would that be and I think that I think it also makes once actually I was out to dinner with a colleague years ago and I declined a drinking that even I was just talking to the visiting speaker, and she said God that so boring and I
Well, first of all, I don't have a problem saying what's on my mind without alcohol, right? I don't have I don't have a excessive gabaergic inhibition. So I'll say what I want to say, you know as as best I can but you know, I think drinkers don't like people who don't drink because it takes the fun out of it for them because there is this idea that Co prolific on college campuses. Like if everyone's drunk that somehow like the entire like Vibe of the party is going to take on a new new flavor and and frankly, I remember I went to
College UC Santa Barbara, where at the time people drank Taun Taun, he discovered alcoholics. You're right and I used to go to parties. Sometimes I look around. I'm thinking like everyone here is just blasted. Like if anything happened drink, did you drink? Yeah, I drank in college but not that often. I had a habit and I don't recommend this. I had a habit of doing out about once a month and I would tie one on you know, absolutely and frequent but binge. Yeah, I never you know, I my tall
And shall call was always such that I would get drunk quickly and then sober up really fast. So I was drinking late into the night, but then I'd sober up really fast. Now. Of course, we know the sleep you get after even one drink is vastly diminished every single person. That's got an oral or a whoop strap or something is feeling you right now and I think that alcohol to me never felt good. I never liked it and it was a recipe for you know, there was a lot of fights there was a lot of you know, there were a lot of bad stuff happens when people
Dude, I've run driving to say nothing of poor decision-making. I mean to me it just feels like there's so there's so many better ways to have a good time that that alcohol is a necessary, but I do understand that it's a big part of many cultures and I do understand that for many people. It's so part and parcel with relaxing and with festivities and with feeling comfortable and withdrawing a boundary between the normal day and the rest of the day. It's interesting. There's a ritual
Mystic aspect to it. Yeah, there's this orbit divides the day in an interesting way. So I'm not judgmental of it. I but for me, I mean, I've I'll go to a party where people are drinking and just hang out on perfectly good dude. I've stood on the door of a thousand club nights in my career right is a club promoter and I can promise you for the people that are thinking I like the sound of this justification this excuse that I don't need to drink anymore. Dr. Human has said that, you know, maybe it's not for you. Maybe it's not as enjoyable.
Nothing good happens in nightclubs after 1:00 in the morning. I am patient zero I have the I Am the Doctor of late-night parties. Okay, like that's one of my expertise nothing good happens in a nightclub. It's this sort of messy sloppy fights and kissing people you shouldn't and and and stumbling all over the place and stuff. If you go out and you don't drink and you go home at 1:00 in the morning, I think he probably get to capture about
eighty percent of the enjoyment of the event that you would have done had you have drank pre-drinks gone out done a whole thing and I got a bit of push. I got quite a bit of pushback from a sobriety Community a few years ago. I did this thousand days sober as a club promoter, which was I guess I could kind of a big deal in some regards for like pushing the sobriety Community forward, but I was never doing it because I had a problem I was doing it because it gave me more consistency and more time and more money to spend on things that I cared about.
Is a productivity tool like the Pomodoro Technique right or going to bed on time or something and they had a little bit of a problem that a big problem with the fact that I said there is something to the enjoyment of drinking on a night out. I think anybody that says alcohol has no role in improving the quality of a night out ever just hasn't been on enough good nights out, right? There are ways that it can improve kind of loosens people up. It can reduce their inhibitions if you want to go and dance, you know, you're
Sing at a rave or or at a festival, which I think there's one going on quite close to here if you're there. It's really great. But
If alcohol wasn't so widely distributed, I think people would ask a lot more questions. It's like you can't see the wood for the trees, right? You don't question it. It's such a it's baked into the fabric of of just human life every single time that I take her like a macro dose, but low of psilocybin one where I can still function. What is what is 0.75 0.75 to 1 gram? So that's about it's a little less than half of the macro therapeutic dose.
For intractable depression, which is something like to point 2 grams or so. You can still hold a conversation depending on what strain you've got. But every single time that I do it without fail a thought comes into my mind, which is why does anyone drink alcohol? Why does anybody do it? Because I'll go to bed my HRV my recovery is fine the next day. Maybe I'm a little bit tired. I've had a lot of like activation. I've been super energetic very little hangover on the evening. I don't do stupid things. It makes me want to
Say nice things to all of my friends my thoughts are sharper than they were before. Sometimes they're silly but the sharper and then he compared it with alcohol and it's this kind of sloppy muddy very, uh Naji aisle. It's just I I totally get what you mean when you've taken a little bit of time away from it and you look at it in the harsh light of day be affect the alcohol gives you just aren't that enjoyable and it's been folded into people's lives through tradition and through just anchoring bias and continuation in marketing.
You know the idea that like someone can quote unquote hold their liquor is such like a it's been made synonymous with you know, masculine ideals. It's like I mean, it's it's kind of crazy because we know I'd also like Russia's testosterone levels. What's interesting is that you know, I forget who said this but you know, there's a very different picture of a young drunk versus an old drunk, you know, someone who has been just drinking for too many years. It's not a pretty picture. That's they become infantile.
Become really infantile. And you know again, I'm not the anti-alcohol Crusader. We did that episode not expecting much of a response. Actually that shows just how out of out of touch sometimes I can be. I think it just to reiterate it. But I think it gave people the excuse. Hmm. What you do you gave people the justification you legitimised them. It's like the best books tell you something you did. You already know. It was like they everyone always lots of people always had an idea probably.
You shouldn't be drinking. Maybe I don't enjoy that much. Maybe these aren't my friends that just my drinking Partners. Maybe I don't like the way that I feel the next day. Maybe my life could be better if I stop drinking and there's the justification and well, I'm happy to hear that for those folks. You know, now that the information is out there. I've I was accused several times on Twitter / X of taking all the fun out of parties in the at least in the Bay Area, but I'll tell you I grew up in the Bay Area the good parties ended a long time ago, but there still exists, you know, I mean, I think they're you know, and when I say other ways to have
And I don't mean like oh everyone should sit around do math or reading Neuroscience. Although for me. That's fun. You know, I think I think in a broader sense, I think there's a shift nowadays If people really think about you don't how to engage socially in ways that are interesting. I mean perhaps it's a again a sampling bias because of the topics that I cover and who talks to me but like in the Bay Area there these Russian Banya is in New York their spy 88, by the way, they don't pay me to say this, but I like to go this Russian Banya down in Wall Street you go there and you know,
Got hot saunas and cold plunge and people are young people are they're enjoying themselves. And yeah, they actually serve alcohol. So they'll have sometimes they'll do like little gimlets of vodka or something there. And so yeah people sometimes that's part of the deal the most Russian thing that I can think of shot of vodka whilst hot right so that and you know, and they've got theories as to how that can help unless I think some of those Traditions can be really be wonderful but, you know, people are starting to combine socializing with health-promoting protocols and you know going out and eating good
Together liking really wonderful food with the social component that you know, I go into the grave talking about getting morning sunlight something that maybe we should talk a little bit more about and is the people like roll their eyes. I'll just say there's this incredible study now just out in nature mental health published about 80 that has 85,000 85,000 subject showing that the ratio of getting a lot of sunlight during the day to getting minimal artificial light exposure at night. It really sets the tone of your overall system and is and is associated.
With brain and body that is and is associated with better mental health outcomes across the board and the inverse, right? If you're getting too much artificial light at night, we're not enough sunlight or both is associated with everything bad Elevate depression. Anxiety Etc. Now I do believe people should get out and have a good time. Don't avoid the bright lights of a city or a club. You have a great time like dancing socialized. Those are great reasons to stay up too late. You can get minimal sleeper sleep in the next day the great reasons. So every once in a while shirt and 20% of your life you're going to do that and you're probably some percentage of time is also can be raised.
Kids cheer up because you have to keep keep them alive which is important our species. Thank you, but I think people you know forget that. Yes, you can go outside and get morning sunlight and which I highly recommend people do that as most people know but I mean so many benefits on mood and mental health and improve sleep that it just and it's completely zero cost, you know, but I often get accused of okay well, but what if you have kids like how do you do this? Well, you take the kids with you because guess what they need it to you take them outside you eat breakfast.
Just outside or at least facing a window indoors. It's not going to be as good as having the window open or being outdoors. But even if the Sun is on the other side of your apartment building, I mean these things have an outsize positive effect on health and I'll wager both upper limbs. Anyway that many many many of the mental health issues that we see nowadays in young people and in adults is the consequence of disrupted circadian rhythms because of a lot of time in a two-dimensional screen space, which I'm not condemning I spend time on in
Most of my content on social media and YouTube Apple Spotify, right? And in addition to that to the lights are too bright at night and they're not getting enough sunlight during the day and an important thing to understand about our circadian / Health, you know, circadian system and health is that throughout in the morning and throughout the day your eyes are less sensitive to light and you need more of it in order to get what you need. Okay broadly speaking and at night your eyes are for more sensitive to artificial.
Lighting and you need far less of it in order to disrupt your circadian system in bad ways disrupt your mental health. Now, does that mean you have to walk around with sunglasses at night? And you know Dim All the Lights in your house. Well, no, but you could afford to dim them a little bit you could afford to switch to the red light function on your phone. There's actually a triple click red light function on every phone that maybe I'll pass the the throughput of what to do to your phone. It's which allows you to accessibility functions on an iPhone online goes to my goes to grayscale want to do that. Yeah.
Can ya so you can have it switch to grayscale or two purely read, you know your eliminate the blues a trick that my friend Rick Rubin taught me I was like, oh, this is great. You know, you don't, you know, you don't necessarily have to purchase blue blocker glasses or anything like that. We'll get back to talking to Andrew and one minute, but first I need to tell you about mud water mud water is a coffee alternative that tastes like chai and cacao had a baby. It's got four functional mushrooms. And with only a fraction the caffeine as a cup of coffee, you will get all of the natural energy without the Jitters or crash each ingredient was added for a purpose cacao.
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Mud WT are.com / modern wisdom that mud wthr.com / modern wisdom. So they're a bunch of little things that we can do that make a vast Improvement in the way that our biology and psychology function and it's amazing when you start to think about how most people exist now out it's too damn not enough light for them during the day, especially not enough sunlight and that's too bright for them at night and they're also living mostly in a two-dimensional world of screens. What's the problem with the two dimensional?
Thing. Well the you know, the we have an epidemic of myopia or nearsightedness and it's been shown in a bunch of different clinical trials. Now the first couple of them that were attacked like most studies something comes out then it gets attacked. Then there's a retaliation study Etc that kids that spend 2 hours or more out-of-doors per day have a far lower incidence of myopia or nearsightedness and even if they're on iPads and books and computers. There's something about far viewing about viewing things further than three or four feet away from us on a frequent for a significant portion.
Of our day doesn't mean I have to be staring off into the Horizon. But as opposed to near viewing where you're looking at something within about four feet of oneself this distance that we're sitting across from one. Another is about for probably about four and a half five feet. It's not quite far viewing but you think about watch people's behavior. Look at how they go through the day. They're spending most of their time looking at things about a foot to a foot and a half away. And as a consequence the eyeball gets longer. This is a well-established fact in animal models and humans and then the visual image isn't focused on to the retina the
Sensing portion at the back of the eye the image Falls in front of the retina so called nearsightedness, right? It's falling to near to the lens. Okay. There are other some people claim that nearsightedness has to do with the actual perceptual changes, but in any event, so fortunately that the eyeball actually can change in length. So viewing things further away can actually especially early in life allow the eyeball to adjust its shape amazing just like the sinuses these there's plasticity of a lot of different organs. And so the point is that we need to get out and view things.
A distance you're walking down the street looking at your phone, you're degrading the functioning of your visual system. I told you I think I texted you before I did it. I got laser eye surgery a month ago. Yes, you got the Lasik. Yes, great. And that's so the Lasik just to you know educate people to actually change the shape of the eyeball somewhat in order to make it more perfect optically in a way that for many people allows them to not have to wear corrective lenses of any kind of yeah, I can see everything I can see your ancestral.
Emma and and full works now at 100 yards your vision is super sharp, correct. So it's 2015. What was this? It was the surgery painful. It's very interesting. So I actually video that I haven't put it up because it's kind of it's probably pretty uncomfortable for people to watch that's never stopped you before that's true. That's true. So they numb both of your eyes using numbing drops. Okay, and then they
Come over the top with a kind of a large box on an arm. They rest the valve of the front of this box on the eyeball itself and then suck the eyeball on to the actual valve so that it can't move. They then loot use one laser to create a flap in the cornea, which is at the precise distance based on all of the tests. They did in the data prior to that. They then take it off. Hmm.
You'll still lying back. You have to keep looking at a green light that's above you the surgeon will lift the flap the front flap of the cornea up. Yeah using kind of a soft pair of tweezers the laser will then come in behind now the opened part of the cornea do the corrective surgery the flap will then get replaced and it needs to be very very very precise so that any slight nudge. I actually had to go and get the I had to get my flap re lifted.
Couple of days later on my left eye because a tiny tiny tiny little bit of oil from the top of my eyelid had been caught underneath the flap and it was causing flaring of bright lights. And so I had to go back and actually get the flapper e lifted get this the flap that they make can still be re lifted up to three years later amazing. It's fascinating and yet had it done in both eyes couple of one day of recovery. It feels very gritty for the people that are concerned about whether or not it's going to like
hurt them and my recovery period was one day and I was able to I recorded a Podcast 48 hours in Bright Lights 48 Hours afterwards it an expensive procedure for Grand GBP. So five grand USD audit reveal some not a trivial some but also given that it's literally how you navigate the world sure and I was squinting a lot. I was squinting at screens to have read the text. I was using really large text. The only reason I found out about this is because I went in for a checkup and they got me to do my eye test and the lady turned into
Yeah, you are you legally can't drive without glasses. I don't I were you talking about my Visions my Visions great. Like my Visions always been like this, but she got me to do the thing and I thought
Yeah, it shouldn't be I should be able to read those huge letters that are only 20 feet away from me shouldn't I and sure enough after this corrective surgery 20/15 Vision everything is razor sharp, the only considerations that I would say our nighttime viewing of bright light specifically streetlights cars coming towards you you get a little bit of flaring around them and that's because it's now passing through not just one piece of material, but there is a second cut.
That supposedly dissipates a little bit over time, but I am flying the flag for Laser Eye Treatment man. It's it's been a complete Game Changer my pickle ball games improved which is obviously what was most important everything's it's really really good and I'm very very impressed and thank you to my surgeon for doing it. Yeah, so that this little flap do they tell you how big the flappers I can just show you the video. I can show you the video once we finish up interesting. Thanks for sharing that yeah. I think it's an interesting.
Interesting procedure and we did an episode of our chair of Ophthalmology Jeff Goldberg and he was a proponent of it for people that are you know, I text begins I texted you to make sure that like the ophthalmologist guy with all of the dudes that know it like am I alright to do this Jeff's amazing. Actually we trained at the in the same lab. He was a graduation. I was a postdoc then he ended up in Miami and then we conversion San Diego then we moved to Stanford. I moved to Stanford. So I said we serve he'll argue. I was tracking him all are you he was tracking me but he's my chairman. So I'll just say I was
I can one of them but very very smart guy and I think yeah getting keeping your eyes healthy as key. This actually comes back to light. So there's some really beautiful day to have Glenn Jeffries laboratory University College London. I'm Glenn for more than 20 years. He's a spectacular Vision scientist showing that exposure to artificial red light, you know, there's a lot of the, you know, like the Juve and these other red lights that are out there cozy and these other red light systems which by the way, I don't have any Financial relationship, too.
You know the idea that red light could somehow enhance different functions of our tissues or preserve different functions of our tissues people think is really biohack e like oh this is, you know people under red lights, but you know, there was a Nobel Prize given for the use of long wavelength light for the treatment of Lupus almost 100 years ago. So the idea of phototherapy Is Not A New Concept, but people love to kind of push it into the realm of biohacking / Bro Science, but it's not
Red light therapy has been shown to have some positive outcomes for the treatment of acne for scar healing and wound healing red light is long wavelength light which can penetrate further through tissues than short wavelength light. So that's sort of the argument there is that when you look at red light or red red light is placed on there's shown on the skin. Some of it is actually getting into the deeper layers of the dermis. How deep is questionable some people argue. They can even get into the the blood supply if you know, it's like on the wrist or so in any event Glenn's lab has shown
Two really important findings and the first one they've shown twice in separate studies. And this is all in humans. The first result is that if people look at red light for 2 or 3 minutes once or twice a week in particular early in the day, it can offset some age-related vision loss how well the photoreceptors of the back of the eye or some of the most metabolically the consume metabolically active and let's just say energy-consuming cells of the entire nervous system, which is saying a lot because the nervous
The most metabolic leak and consuming or metabolically scuse me active organ and so as a consequence, he's really active cells create a lot of so-called reactive oxygen species and that impacts negatively impacts the functions of mitochondria. So viewing red light seems to restore some of the mitochondrial function by limiting reactive oxygen species in the photoreceptors and offsetting and they've shown this some not all but some age-related vision loss presumably you're not talking about looking at one of these red light panels because these things are like
Fucking like flat. It's like skew it's all right. I actually am referring to that what you want to do it at a distance. That's comfortable. So several feet right those panels for the people that don't know these things right instead. They even provide you with like them to actually yeah the like this stuff for the sort of sunbed. That's your goes with them. Yes. You don't want to do this for more than a couple of minutes and you do want to Blink and you do and probably through eyelids closed if your eyelids are thin enough and it's bright enough it can probably get in nonetheless, but let me be very very clear.
Tell you the other result then I'll tell you why you don't need necessarily need a red light the other result, which is more recent and is still under review. So I want to be very clear but the data look interesting to say the least is that there's this old Theory like old theory that the French have really expounded that you know, eating food Outdoors is metabolized differently than eating food indoors, which sounds crazy right? I've been at some level and yet this study shows that if people do this red light viewing
while eating or in the minutes just after eating for just a few minutes that the post-meal blood glucose levels severe is significantly dampened, which is a good thing, right? You don't want big elevations in blood glucose or excessive elevations in blood glucose. Now that all sounds a little bit at the edge of what we consider, you know, valid or reasonable and yet if you think about sunlight sunlight is full spectrum light. So this isn't saying you need to run out and buy a red light. This is
You are get outside and get your morning sunlight. Yes, it's going to set your circadian rhythm for elevated mood focus and alertness during the day improve sleep at night. But in addition that you're getting red light to your eyes early in the day, you're absolutely you're getting red light to your eyes now on very densely overcast days say in the UK or elsewhere. It's not you're going to really filter out the clouds are going to everything the red light enjoy the will to live and as a consequence some people choose to supplement their light with these red light.
Has it but this idea that the French and others have argued and I'm sure as I say the French said it then you know the French will not and everyone else will say no. It's like it was us first or us all sets probably multiple people throughout history groups throughout history, but it does seem that there's something different about the way that food is metabolized if under different lighting conditions, which sounds crazy and I can already hear Lane Norton stomping in with his I know they basically yeah lanes lanes brain sort of has like PubMed ideas.
I think it's great by the way lane. We love you. And I love his his sort of adherence to PubMed IDs. But you know, these are published his I'll send along you can tell me what you think Lane. But the point being that there still needs to be more work on this right, but it's always nice when some nicely controlled studies done by well-established Laboratories that people in a field trust like Glenn slab start seeing things once or twice over in multiple studies that really
I work well with what we know from kind of naturalistic conditions, for instance. They're Hunters people that are Adventures that are whose job depends on them being able to see into the distance hammering Hines. Yeah, cam Haynes these people maintain Vision well into their older age, but just nerds like me who spend too much time in front of a book or a screen who spend most of their time and have for many years looking at things down. I mean for years, I looked at things down on microscope. That was where most of my life was down.
Calm down the microscope, but also reading things at close distance. Well, you know, it makes sense that the eyeball would lengthen you end up with nearsightedness. I do wear corrective lenses at night, especially if I'm driving at night. I've really worked hard to try to not succumb to the need for corrective lenses because I'm trying to keep my vision health good I call you become Reliant. I don't want to become reliant on it. But but you know at night I have to wear corrective lenses. Yeah talking about the red light stuff. Have you heard of huberman husbands? Do you know what this is?
fortunately, well I should say that the most unfortunate thing about the you room and husband's post is that it was about is that it was taken by certain media Outlets to amplify the idea that the audience of my podcast is just mail when in fact, it's 50% male-female at least in the listenership YouTube skews male, but we knew that anyway, but the listenership is 50% mail for do some film on the huberman husband's thing was really about how a woman was saying that she thinks she's the Huber
Husband because she does all these different things that they got taken from that for the people that don't know that the meta meme around huberman husband's which you can search on Tech talk right now, is that the hot new thing that all of the wife's want out? There is a husband who's into red light therapy and he just cold plunges and he just sauna treatments and stuff. So I wonder you guys I'm trying to help you out. Look dude. I wondered how you feel of a bunch of guys potentially cosplaying as
Andrew huberman in the bedroom like the price of long-sleeve black shirts has gone through the roof that this is now have people fully LARPing as you maybe they're telling them telling the wife that they didn't get enough sunlight in their eyes is dirty talk in the bedroom. I'm not sure I wondered how it feels to have this Army of Andrew hubermanns from wish now existing on on the internet. So we covered the AMC see it means interior mid cingulate cortex, but I confess even though I know that I don't know what cosplay is. I don't know what LARPing is.
Cosplay is dressing up. Its it happens at a lot of conventions. Someone will go as Anakin Skywalker or Pikachu or whatever and LARPing is alive sexual titillation sometimes but not always so this is a servant like this is the is like the action hero variation on furries kind of yeah, okay, but it's not raises more Lexus domain precisely. Yeah, we know we know that well and then lobbying know that but we don't know it. Well fortunately live action role playing.
LARPing so that again is this kind of I'm saying there are potentially there is potentially a market out there. If a guy is struggling in the dating world to take the aesthetic get fully huberman pilled and then there is a huge potential demand amongst wives out there.
Okay. So this is news to me one thing that's come up recently in discussions with some traditional media Outlets. But but also just generally right is you know to what extent is all this focus on health, you know, does that change something about masculine feminine Dynamics like it like the traditional stereotype of men was that they're tough enough to not need to engage in any self-care, right? They don't need sleep. They can drink a lot of
Liquor they'll eat when there's food. They'll eat whatever they don't like going to the doctor right is there is like runs very counter-current to the kinds of things. I talked about my podcast like hey get up in the morning. Get some sunlight right lift weights run and I should point out that nothing. None of what I've talked about with exercise ever. Of course. There's an aesthetic component, right limiting body fat to some extent right not having excessive body fat, you know resistance training as we know is an incredible way to adjust. This one's a
If they feel like their proportions aren't where they want or you know, by the way guys train your neck clearly. Chris does I mean nothing looks more ridiculous than like, why do I bother me now little head with a Little Neck? I'm just like, I mean, it's well, it's just it's crazy because this is proportionally you see in your like this is it's the it's the male equivalent of the BBL if you have like a and teaching you I'm so happy that I get to teach you some sort of like class for me. I've gotta talk to us to make sure that you've got your notes. So this is the Brazilian butt lift. It's kind of like
like the bomb equivalent of a boob job and they have an implants for the glutes. I think that they actually take fat from elsewhere in the body and then put it into the it's the risk the surgery risk of this is really quite like I just do like hip thrusters or something. No, no isn't there that there's that takes too long. There's the Brett Contreras glute guy. Yeah. Yeah. He's very popular because he puts glutes on people but they actually put them on themselves because they're the ones doing the I think the doctor technically puts it on them. But yeah, and it kind of looks because there's no
The leg development with the glute development. It's kind of like if you put two basketballs on upturned baseball bats. So you have like a the leg and then you have like that Achilles. It's I've seen some I went to Miami for the first time a few months ago and I saw one that kind of terrified me. It looked like a bag of cats from behind in a set of leggings. Like you could kind of see sort of pause coming out like this move pulley pulley finished that I would say moves. I just it wasn't wasn't good anyway,
My point being neck for guys need to have it proportional to the shoulders. Yeah it I mean, yeah, so I'm sort of taking Digs at people who don't train their neck. It's also life insurance, right? I had an accident a few years ago where I fell off a second-story roof, and I walked away from it because I've long done neck training because I injured my neck when I was younger and even if you don't do fight Sports, I don't do fight sports, but wouldn't be aligned with my role in meeting my brain. I got nothing against people.
Fight sports, but that's a choice that I've actively made not to do them anymore. But next training is really important for just let the 80/20 of neck training. What's the biggest movers for improving your neck? Oh, well, first of all, I'll tell you in a moment, but I think that you know, remember that your neck is your upper spine. So people are big on training their abs, you know for spine stability and lower back hopefully as well for sponsibility the mid thoracic regions as well. But you know, it's your upper spine and you want it strong and you will get much
Stronger and other things as well. Everything's better people's posture is far better when they train their neck. It actually changes the the tone of people's voice and I had a guest on my podcast. Dr. Eddie Chang who's our chair of neurosurgery at UCSF. I've known him since we were kids. He's in phenomenally smart and creative guy and I've asked him about this offline. You know, why is it that neck training does that well, you know the voice change that occurs in boys when they when they develop and go through puberty is a thickening of the vocal cords. That's Androgen dependent. I have this weird mutation.
Talked about this a little bit but maybe not that on a program as broad as this that actually have the same voice. I always had from when I was a little kid my voice never actually change. I have a Ivan Androgen receptor alteration. Okay, so fortunately for me like doesn't cause any other issues but this was my voice when I was 5 years old how terrified they call me froggy. Yeah. It was kind of a joke. I got like the kid on The Little Rascals. That was froggy in any case, but for most people they hit puberty and then their voice changes because of the thickening of the vote.
Cool chords, but obviously I had some early Androgen exposure that was clear because I also had hair on my Adam's Apple when I was like four years old. So there was some early Androgen exposure not going to fucking that full, you know, well and I was just I was a kind kid until I was a teenager and then I eventually angry teenager I went through it. But you know, I was I was kind nonetheless, but in any event when you train your neck, actually it does improve posture and it actually changes the Timbre of your voice somewhat but for the people
Who speak a lot for a living podcasters singers actors Etc lawyers and lawyers him to talk a lot. You don't want to do a lot of really heavy neck training because it actually changes the way that your jaw moves and the way that you speak and you know you and I especially like my solo podcasting somebody take me 11 hours to record. And so you want to maintain healthy air flow through this region, right? But the best way to develop a strong neck safely is to unfortunately stay away from
Ages which, you know wrestling coaches love to give you can the discs can can be in you can you can cause dysfunction of the discs and then the pain comes on in a moment. And then your your hose best thing to do is take a plate and start really light lie on a bench stabilize yourself by putting one arm down. Okay, so you want to close the chain so to speak if you can get a foot down as well and then put that plate, you know, probably start with a five or a ten pound plate wrapped in a towel so you don't end up with an imprint of the five or ten on the side of your head or face and then
You're just going to go from neutral position, which is your head, you know, essentially straight up and down but you're lying on your side to just you know about maybe 30 or 45 degrees. You want to like really cinch into and you want to keep this is important keep your tongue on the roof of your mouth your jaw shut so that your jaw are moving around because some people do Network and then they'll get clicking of the jaw. They get pain in the ear. There's I've spent a lot of time with skulls and I can tell you human skulls and other skulls by virtue of my work in neuroscience and dissecting stuff and I have a kind of obsession with craniofacial stuff is
As well and you know, there's a lot of musculature and ligaments of the the skull that have to be contented with so tongue on the roof of your mouth and you're just going to you know, nasal breathe and you're not going to fail you're not training really heavy higher reps in the you know, 10 to 25 repetition range over three sets. Yeah three sets and then the other side and then, you know rather than doing a lot of forward Network which people are already doing because they're doing a lot of fun reading and shaping themselves like a see you want to lie on your stomach and put a plate on the back of your head and get into that, you know the deck
Extension straight back but not pinching a wrench in your head back movements like where you're creating some torsion up into the sides. Like this is a little more dangerous. I don't recommend the person has great tutorials on this and many other things as well as Jeff cavaliere. Athleanx has a great neck tutorial may you can link to that's where I learned over time. I worked up to from a 10 pound plates. I can do five or six reps on each side with a 45-pound plate like hating me know what a faulty thought that's 20 kilos sure anglicans. Yeah, so I'll do that and I don't say that to be
Suffering but the idea for me is to just have a really strong neck so that also for pressing movements and pulling movements. You'll get much stronger their listen. The mall has now been set fledgling huberman husband's out there. They know that the neck training is a important part black shirt neck training bit of a beard. Well the black chick that well to be clear and women should probably train their neck as well. But lighter, you know for aesthetic reasons and if they want to have a bigger neck, they can do that, but I
Most women don't want their neck. This is one muscle group that does tend to grow pretty quickly. Is that right? Yeah, it does it does end and then the other thing and this looks ridiculous, but that but Fighters know is very useful is that there's the kiss the sky thing where they'll actually look up and you know, and you'll feel it in the deeper muscles of the neck. So that kind of thing is again, you know, some people use a towel for this stuff. They don't have access to weights but network is really key just like ab work is key just like lower back work is he just liked it work is kinis over toes guy, you know, love.
His content Ben's amazing. So the smaller muscle groups are not going to be the Mainstay of any workout, but they become so important when you're thinking about longevity because they are the muscle groups that tend to cause if not trained shin splints kink in the neck. The kingdom attack is obviously as not a technical term, but pain in the neck the turning in the shower after doing heavy pressing and then like you're out your neck. You can't turn your head the lower back pain sciatica often lower spine stabilization issues. I raising Jeff.
Here has some of the best zero-cost content on this that I followed his content for years. And you know, if you put in for instance sciatica low back pain, he has diagnostic tools there that really help you establish whether or not truly lower back pain or it's a medial glute issue and gives you the proper things to do and neck is just one piece of the equation getting back to huberman husband's the yeah. I chuckle the first time I saw it. I I think it was a little frustrating to me because I thought wait there a lot of women that do these protocols.
To our Protocols are we have had some male hormone Health episode some female hormone Health episodes, but in general we're just talking about stuff that's applicable to everybody. But listen, I don't control the internet. I don't make the rules out there and you know and then traditional media Amplified the huberman husband's peace through a couple of rightly. So right Lisa and the next thing you know, that that's real black shirt. I should just say um is because I try and as we've talked about before I don't want to get my tattoos to distract. I got a lot of them.
If under different lighting conditions, which sounds crazy and I can already hear Lane Norton stomping in with his I know they basically yeah lanes lanes brain sort of has like PubMed ideas. I think it's great by the way lane. We love you and I love his his sort of adherence to PubMed IDs, but you know, these are published his I'll send along you can tell me what you think Lane, but the point being that there still needs to be more work on this right, but it's always nice when some nicely controlled studies done by
Well established Laboratories that people in a field trust like Glenn's lab start seeing things once or twice over in multiple studies that really work. Well with what we know from kind of naturalistic conditions. For instance. They're Hunters people that are Adventures that are whose job depends on them being able to see into the distance hammering Hines. Yeah. Cam Haynes these people maintain Vision well into their older age
Nerds like me who spend too much time in front of a book or a screen who spend most of their time and have for many years looking at things down. I mean for years. I looked at things down on microscope. That was where most of my life was down looking down the microscope, but also reading things at close distance. Well, you know, it makes sense that the eyeball would lengthen you end up with nearsightedness. I do wear corrective lenses at night, especially if I'm driving at night. I've really worked hard to try to not succumb to the need for corrective lenses because I'm trying to keep my vision health good.
Oh my God, you become Reliant. I don't want to become reliant on it. But but you know at night I have to wear corrective lenses. Yeah talking about the red light stuff. Have you heard of huberman husbands? Do you know what this is? Unfortunately. Well, I should say that the most unfortunate thing about the you room and husband's post is that it was about is that it was taken by certain media Outlets to amplify the idea that the audience of my podcast is just mail when in fact, it's 50% male-female at
the listenership YouTube skews male, but we knew that anyway, but the listenership is 50% mail for do some film on the huberman husband's thing was really about how a woman was saying that she thinks she's the huberman husband because she does all these different things that they got taken from that for the people that don't know the meta meme around huberman husbands, which you can search on Tech talk right now, is that the hot new thing the all of the wife's want out there is a husband who's into
Red light therapy and he does cold plunge has a need to sauna treatments and stuff. So I wonder you guys I'm trying to help you out. Look dude. I wondered how you feel of a bunch of guys potentially cosplaying as Andrew huberman in the bedroom. Like the price of long-sleeve black shirts has gone through the roof that this is now have people fully LARPing as you maybe they're telling them telling the wife that they didn't get enough sunlight in their eyes is dirty talk in the bedroom. I'm not sure I wondered how it feels to have this Army of Andrew hubermanns from wish now,
Testing on on the internet. So we covered the AMC see it means interior mid cingulate cortex, but I confess even though I know that I don't know. What cosplay is. I don't know what LARPing is cosplay is dressing up. Its it happens at a lot of conventions. Someone will go as Anakin Skywalker or Pikachu or whatever and lapping is alive sexual titillation sometimes but not always so this is a servant like a this is the is like the action hero.
Anon furries kind of yeah, okay, but it's not hers is more Lexus domain precisely. Yeah, we know we know that well and then last we know that but we don't know it. Well fortunately live-action role-playing LARPing so that again is this kind of I'm saying there are potentially there is potentially a market out there if a guy is struggling in the dating world to take the aesthetic get fully huberman pilled and then there is a huge potential demand amongst.
wives out there
Okay. So this is news to me one thing that's come up recently in discussions with some traditional media Outlets. But but also just generally right is you know to what extent is all this focus on health, you know, does that change something about masculine feminine Dynamics like it like the traditional stereotype of men was that they're tough enough to not need to engage in any self-care, right? They don't need sleep. They can drink a lot of liquor.
They'll eat when there's food they'll eat whatever they don't like going to the doctor right is there is like runs very counter-current to the kinds of things. I talked about my podcast like hey get up in the morning. Get some sunlight right lift weights run and I should point out that nothing. None of what I've talked about with exercise ever. Of course. There's an aesthetic component, right limiting body fat to some extent right not having excessive body fat, you know resistance training as we know is an incredible way to adjust. This one's Aesthetics if they
I feel like their proportions aren't where they want or you know, by the way guys train your neck clearly. Chris does I mean nothing looks more ridiculous than like, why do I bother me and I let her head with a Little Neck Uncle Mac. I mean, it's well, it's just it's crazy because this is a proportionally you see it in your like this is it's the it's the male equivalent of the BBL if you have like a I'm teaching you I'm so happy that I get to teach you some sort of like class for me. I've got to make sure that you've got your notes. So this is the Brazilian butt lift. It's kind of like the
Equivalent of a boob job and they have an implants for the glutes. I think that they actually take fat from elsewhere in the body and then put it into the it's the risk the surgery risk of this is really quite like I just do like hip thrusters or something. No, no isn't there that there's not takes too long. There's the Brett Contreras glute guy. Yeah. Yeah. He's very popular because he puts glutes on people but they actually put them on themselves because they're the ones doing the I think the doctor technically puts it on them. But yeah, and it kind of looks because there's no Associated leg.
Egg development with the glute development. It's kind of like if you put two basketballs on upturned baseball bats. So you have like a the leg and then you have like the particular. It's I've seen some I went to Miami for the first time a few months ago and I saw one that kind of terrified me. It looked like a bag of cats from behind in a set of leggings. Like you could kind of see sort of pause coming out like this mood poorly poorly finished that I would say moves. I just it wasn't wasn't good. Anyway my point being
Neck for guys need to have it proportional to the shoulders. Yeah it I mean, yeah, so I'm sort of taking Digs at people who don't train their neck. It's also life insurance, right? I had an accident a few years ago where I fell off a second-story roof, and I walked away from it because I've long done neck training because I injured my neck when I was younger and even if you don't do fight Sports, I don't do fight sports, but wouldn't be aligned with my role in meeting my brain. I got nothing against people would do fights.
It's but that's a choice that I've actively made not to do them anymore. But next training is really important for just what the 80/20 of next training. What's the biggest move as for improving your neck? Oh, well, first of all, I'll tell you in a moment, but I think that you know, remember that your neck is your upper spine. So people are big on training their abs, you know for spine stability and lower back hopefully as well for sponsibility the mid thoracic regions as well. But you know, it's your upper spine and you want it strong and you will get much stronger and
Things as well. Everything's better people's posture is far better when they train their neck. It actually changes the tone of people's voice and I had a guest on my podcast. Dr. Eddie Chang who's our chair of neurosurgery at UCSF. I've known him since we were kids. He's in phenomenally smart and creative guy and I've asked him about this offline. You know, why is it that neck training does that well, you know the voice change that occurs in boys when they when they develop and go through puberty is a thickening of the vocal cords. That's Androgen dependent. I have this weird mutation I've talked about
At this a little bit but maybe not that on a program as broad as this that I should have the same voice. I always had from when I was a little kid my voice never actually change. I have a Ivan Androgen receptor alteration. Okay, so fortunately for me like doesn't cause any other issues but this was my voice when I was 5 years old how terrified they call me froggy. Yeah. It was kind of a joke. I got like the kid on The Little Rascals. That was froggy in any case, but for most people they hit puberty and then their voice changes because of the thickening of the vocal cords.
But obviously I had some early Androgen exposure that was clear because I also had hair on my Adam's Apple when I was like four years old. So there was some early Androgen exposure not going to fucking that full, you know, well, you know, I was just I was a kind kid until I was a teenager and then I eventually angry teenager I went through it. But you know, I was I was kind nonetheless, but in any event when you train your neck, actually it does improve posture and it actually changes the Timbre of your voice somewhat, but for the people who speak
Peek a lot for a living podcasters singers actors Etc lawyers and the lawyers seem to talk a lot. You don't want to do a lot of really heavy neck training because it actually changes the way that your jaw moves in the way that you speak and you know you and I especially like my solo podcasting something to take me 11 hours to record. And so you want to maintain healthy air flow through this region, right? But the best way to develop a strong neck safely is to unfortunately stay away from Bridges, which
You know wrestling coaches like to give you can the discs can can be in you can you can cause dysfunction of the discs and then the pain comes on in a moment. And then your hose best thing to do is take a plate and start really light lie on a bench stabilize yourself by putting one arm down. Okay, so you want to close the chain so to speak if you can get a foot down as well and then put that plate, you know, probably start with a five or a ten pound plate wrapped in a towel so you don't end up with an imprint of the five or ten on the side of your head or face and then you're just
Going to go from neutral position, which is your head, you know, it's actually straight up and down but you're lying on your side to just you know about maybe 30 or 45 degrees. You want to like really cinch into it and you want to keep this is important keep your tongue on the roof of your mouth your jaw shut so that your jaw are moving around because some people do Network and then they'll get clicking of the jaw. They get pain in the ear. There's obviously a lot of time with skulls and I can tell you human skulls and other skulls by virtue of my work in neuroscience and dissecting stuff and I've kind of obsession with craniofacial stuff as well.
And you know, there's a lot of musculature and ligaments of the the skull that have to be contended with so tongue on the roof of your mouth and you're just going to you know, nasal breathe and you're not going to fail you're not training really heavy higher reps in the you know, 10 to 25 repetition range over three sets. Yeah three sets and then the other side and then, you know rather than doing a lot of forward Network which people are already doing because they're doing a lot of fun reading and shaping themselves like a see you want to lie on your stomach and put a plate on the back of your head and get into that, you know the deck
In straight back, okay, but not pinching a wrench in your head back movements like where you're creating some torsion up into the sides. Like this is a little more dangerous. I don't recommend the person has great tutorials on this and many other things as well as Jeff cavaliere. Athleanx has a great neck tutorial may you can link to that's where I learned over time. I worked up to from a 10 pound plates. I can do five or six reps on each side with a 45-pound plate like hating me know what a full T. Thought that's 20 kilos anglicans list. So I'll do that and I don't say that to be tough for anybody.
The idea for me is to just have a really strong neck so that also for pressing movements and pulling movements. You'll get much stronger their listen. The mall has now been set fledgling huberman husband's out there. They know that the neck training is a important part black shirt neck training bit of a beard. Well the black chick that well to be clear and women should probably train their neck as well. But lighter, you know for aesthetic reasons and if they want to have a bigger neck, they can do that, but I think most women
Owen don't want their neck. This is one muscle group that does tend to grow pretty quickly. Is that right? Yeah, it does it does end and then the other thing and this looks ridiculous, but that but Fighters know is very useful is that there's the kiss the sky thing where they'll actually look up and you know, and you'll feel it in the deeper muscles of the neck. So that kind of thing is again, you know, some people use a towel for this stuff. They don't have access to weights but network is really key just like ab work is key just like lower back work is he just liked it work is kinis over toes guy, you know you love his
Ben's amazing. So the smaller muscle groups are not going to be the Mainstay of any workout, but they become so important when you're thinking about longevity because they are the muscle groups that tend to cause if not trained shin splints kink in the neck. The kingdom attack is obviously as not a technical term, but pain in the neck the turning in the shower after doing heavy pressing and then like you're out your neck. You can't turn your head the lower back pain sciatica often lower spine stabilization issues. I raising Jeff cavaliere.
As some of the best zero-cost content on this that I followed his content for years and you know, if you put in for instance sciatica low back pain, he has diagnostic tools there that really help you establish whether or not truly lower back pain or it's a medial glute issue and gives you the proper things to do and neck is just one piece of the equation getting back to huberman husbands the yeah, I chuckle the first time I saw it. I think it was a little frustrating to me because I thought wait there a lot of women that do these protocols to our
Those are we have had some male hormone Health episode some female hormone Health episodes, but in general we're just talking about stuff that's applicable to everybody. But listen, I don't control the internet. I don't make the rules out there and you know and then traditional media Amplified the huberman husband's peace through a couple of rightly. So right Lisa and the next thing you know, that that's real black shirt. I should just say um is because I try and as we've talked about before I don't want to get my tattoos to distract. I got a lot of them.
I want to focus on content and teaching and people here in the content. And and the black shirt is something I did long before I had a podcast. That's because the great Joe Strummer singer for The Clash must go there o is wore a black button down shirt while he would do full shows and who be soaking wet. It was like the punk is thing I ever saw. Yeah that he was like doing full shows like belting it out a long sleeve shirt and long sleeved black shirt, and he was just literally the shirt was like stuck to his body and I was just saying like not only is he an amazing humanitarian writer poet singer for The Clash creative?
Miss him. He's gone, but you still hear it through music, right as they say and he you know, he's just so Punk. He's just up there in his 40s or late 40s and and soaking wet and I'm thinking like that guy like he's got he's got it figured out I'm gonna do know. So anyway and I like the black shirt. What can I say? We'll get back to talking to one dream one minute. But first I need to tell you about a G1 H. G1 is a product that I've been using every single day for over three years now doctor huberman himself is a
Massive fan because it is the most comprehensive foundational daily nutrition supplement on the market. My digestion is so much better since I've started using a G1 and I genuinely can't remember what life used to be like, but when I stopped using it, I do not like the way that my body feels since 2010 a G1 has led the foundational nutrition Revolution continually refining the formula to create better. Smarter ways to elevate your health a G1 is the supplement. I trust to provide the support that my body needs every single day and that's why they've been
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How concerned you think we should be about vaping spoke about alcohol it seems like there's this big Vape is on Netflix at the moment it's a documentary about the rise of Jewel and I'm only one episode in but it seems like vaping is now catching an awful lot of attention what how concerned you think we should be about vaping yeah, so I'm just taking a note here I take notes during our podcast highly intense to make sense
So things I can go back to we should be very concerned. So when it comes to smoking or vaping there's the thing that's being consumed. The thing that people are trying to bring put in their bloodstream nicotine cannabis Etc. And let's just set those aside. I've done episodes on nicotine in cannabis and they have their application. They also have their problems vaping is terrible because of the other chemicals that delivers to the lungs. It's also very clear and we haven't released this episode. Yeah, but I talked to a female hormone.
From Austin and Natalie Crawford. So OBGYN, you know vaping is associated with disruptions in egg health and what they call Egg quality can create certain mutations and eggs and serious endocrine issues and women. Okay, personally, I find it disgusting. Like I just find it like the I don't do it. But when I see people vaping like to me and listen, I used it went growing up. I its I don't I quit smoking a long time ago, but I used to smoke a bit of nicotine.
Substantiation for this or the references? Okay individuals that are dieting or resisting some sort of tempting behavior and are successful in doing that the size and activity in their amcc goes up over time and the structure gets bigger dieters who fail flat or downward trajectory of the size and activation of the AMC. See this can be taken too far individuals with anorexia nervosa the most deadly of all psychiatric disorders. Where a depths
deprivation of food activates excessive reward there's this kind of loop of reward their am cc's are significantly greater size than other so there's you know, this can be taken too far super agers, which is a bit of a misnomer because these individuals are people who maintain healthy cognitive function similar to people in their 20s and 30s into their 70s 80s and 90s there amcc maintains or increases in size into their later years typical agers the size of we always hear that you
His brain mass across your lifespan. Well, most of it is from the amcc and beautifully and this is two of my favorite results that really bring this around to protocol or a takeaway if people are given an easy task the amcc isn't activated if they're given a hard task in particular a hard task physical or cognitive that they really don't want to do. They MCC levels of activity go through the roof and here's what's really cool. They gave aging what's you know people age 62
79 the task of adding three hours extra per week of cardiovascular exercise now that's a lot right 31. Our they called them a robic classes, but getting their heart rate up to about 65 70 percent of Maximum. So it's getting into like celery issue area. Yeah, people can look up Zone 3, but you nailed it Zone 3 the size of their amcc increased across that six-month protocol and offset the normal age-related decline in this in this brain area in terms of its size.
The theory that starting to emerge is that the amcc isn't just about tenacity and willpower to push through hard things that it may actually be related to one's will to live one's will to continue living and I think this is these are some of the most important results by the way, I didn't participate in any of the research that I just described. I spent a lot of time with that literature, but I think it's so important when we hear about the amygdala the hippocampus the prefrontal cortex all a very important brain structures, but if nothing else hopefully this car is one but the AMC see on the map.
I'm the one that literally could create your will to live is the one that's been overlooked a little bit and it can be and what's interesting about this structure is that it's involved in generating tenacity and willpower for all things not just for one situation. And what's really wonderful I think about the research literature on this is It's So Clear what we need to do. We need to do things. Let's say like me, you're a person who enjoys weightlifting and you love running. I love those two activities will guess what those activities even if their heart like a hard run
I'm really enjoying or some hard sets in the gym not going to increase the size or activity of the AMC see people love to over romanticize the utility of those final two reps. Sure. Okay pushing to failure great, you know running hard till your lungs burn great. But if you enjoy that you're not increasing your amount of tenacity and willpower at least according to the research data, what's going to do it is doing something what I call Micro socks or macro sucks, you know, and so micro sucks could be all the little things that you don't want during to do during the day macro sucks could be the larger.
Oh things but of course, you don't want to do things that are going to damage you psychologically or physically, of course, of course, but everyone I believe would benefit from picking a few micro sucks to do some of your micro sucks on macro sucks that you could sprinkle throughout the day. Okay. So on a household maintenance level, you know, I I maintained a very clean home. I'll constantly throwing things away as well. But there are a few things like once I exceed a certain
Number of dishes in the sink it becomes this. Okay. I'll load the dishwasher later type thing like a micro suck for me to be like, especially if something's been in there for a while and it's kind of gross and then you gotta like work through and of course I try and put each dish away as I dirty them up. But so little things the things like that the I really don't want to deal with that right now. That's the kind of thing those harder task. Who were you have to breach some barriers some resistance and put it into you know, Steven pressfield language or our friend David Goggins, right? You know that this idea that one has to Calais.
It's the mind. I mean David said that right and probably got an hypertrophy day MCC that's bigger than most people's probably and and the beauty of having a an AMC see that's highly you know available for Activation is that you know through the micro and the macro sucks of the day you you have this thing. It's like an engine that you can devote to other things. So then you can devote the MCC to other endeavors. I have this thing. I called email anxiety and it's when my unread inbox reaches 350
Is on more and that's when it just it kind of follows me around like a poltergeist. There is Route the day and that that absolutely from it. That's probably a macro suck, you know to get through that. It's probably three to four hours a lot of its scheduling when's this gas coming on? I need to speak to this partner we go to bla bla bla. So yeah, I've I feel that what else objective right? I mean, what's a what sucks is someone else might lovely nose? Yeah, someone might and I think that, you know, you've talked a lot on it your show with various guests about you know when we're in,
Too much comfort our we're not meeting our goals. I love deadlines for that reason. I love deadlines. I love pressure. I think I'm I think Parkinson's Laura's is close to a thermodynamic of productivity as we can get you know what I mean? Like when you have a deadline you will meet it. Right. If you do not have a deadline, you will mañana mañana until forever. That's right, and some people I think preload the deadline by procrastinating and then that's what you know gets their activation.
To a level where they can they can engage so I've started thinking about this a lot lately, you know, I love running but it's interesting. I like to finish up my driveway and I live on a hill and I should this morning. I was out for a run and the gate at the end of the cul-de-sac is my sort of vegetable and stop point. So it actually sucked to do the last 20 meters this morning. So there I probably got a little bit of a MCC activation because everything was the number of negotiations I went through when I turned up my street at the end of this run whether I was going to run this
extra 20 meters was ridiculous. I mean the human brain is struggling to not do those extra 20 meters. It was so silly. So it's got its got to hurt a little bit again. You don't want to damage yourself, but I think in the context of for instance cognitive learning getting to the point where you finish something and then forcing yourself to do one little extra bit there at the end. So, you know, I I'm not looking for any credit for it, but I want to be very clear that the scientific literature doesn't call these things micro sucks. I call them micro sucks and I said put that out there just to make it clear.
Earth to what we're going to do, you know, Nick bear adults in Austin is a athlete and so right support Corona. Yep. Yeah, like a hybrid after the larger guy, but he runs really fast as bodybuilding shows his power lifting also runs to be clear. I know that large guys run fast, but typically they don't run fast for 20 miles, correct? And he does that's Acura. He his little catchphrase is go one more and it's interesting what you're saying here is it's not just about the completion of the thing that you're doing because a lot of the
I'm the thing that you choose to do. Even the thing that's difficult is done under your own volition. Don't get me wrong. If you do a difficult crossfit workout, Fran, whatever 2159 of thrusters and polyps. It is off its hell, right. There's literally a name for what your throat feels like once you finish called Frank off that people get from having taken their heart rate as high as a zooming of yeah that tastes of metal in the back of your throat. But what what people are doing that although they're doing something that's
Difficult, it's like volitional be difficult and it's within that domain of enjoyment and what you're saying here. Is that what we're looking to just push ourselves a little bit past that it's like an unnecessary amount of Challenge and I think that go one more makes quite a nice reminder for us with the micro soccer the macro circlet push ourselves just a little bit beyond where we would have got our sense of satisfaction because presumably you get the dopamine. I've completed the task fuck. Yeah, and then it's like and then I do just that tiny little bit more to it.
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Cam modern wisdom and modern wisdom a check out one person that I think has been really interesting from this side. You're good friends with Tom Segura. Yeah, and we're related. We're cousins. You're kidding me. No, no, no, we're cousins. I can see it now. Yeah, his commitment to Fitness has been pretty fascinating for me to see and he's kind of treating his body like an athlete to facilitate his chosen pursuit of Comedy. I think even Bert is trying to sort his sort of health and fitness out one step at a time two words the control experiment.
Ha ha if the experiment is about willpower tenacity and discipline Tom is the is the is the is the active condition and Burr is the control but I'm seeing more and more people now, especially performance the on using the on within the realm of physical fitness really starting to understand if I want to perform outside of this. I need to think like an athlete. I need to be looking at my hydration. I mean Tom had his trainer trouble with them on the road.
Four months Yea Yea Tom's really serious about his craft as is Burt. They just have different approaches and when it comes to Fitness, I by the way, I know it's Bert is training. He's working out. I've been trying to get bird to quit drinking alcohol for a while not because I'm the Arbiter of of who should do what I never never tell people what to do by the way provide information people can do what they want. I'm a Live and Let Live I want to be very clear about that, but it's out of care and affection for birth that, you know, excessive alcohol consumption.
And over long periods of time bad. I mean we can keep that one pretty brief. So but bird is working out but Tom I know because we talked and I spend some time with them that he trains he trains hard and he sees it as integral with his with his writing with his ability of show up for his family and business Etc. I mean, I think we're finally approaching a time in human history where we accept at the level of the scientific Community all the way through to Wellness and just generally that the brain and body are are
Mentally linked at the level of what you you know, if you want to improve your body do something for your mind. If you want to improve your mind do something for your body and and it's so clear. Now what we all need to do. I mean we can get into the details but at a macro level it's clear that we should all be getting that 150 to 200 minutes of Zone 2 per week or walking a lot. If you live in a big city, you're probably getting that but then also getting your heart rate up to to max heart rate once a week doing some Sprint type stuff on in whatever format is safe for your body some people swimming some people throwing somebody was running.
For me, it's running but you know not everyone enjoys running or can do it and then everyone should be doing at least six sets of resistance training per muscle group per week. Minimum hard sets to failure. Okay, maybe maybe not close to filler. Yeah, probably and it's especially the groups that have been let's just say averse to weight training right typically women are older folks though. Now more women weight train because they understand that in the absence of a lot of injected or prescription anabolic hormones. They're not
To get enormous. That's the funniest thing for me. That's why we died. I think right that that concept that you know, if you one lifts weights that they're going to become bulky. Do you realize to all of the women who are out there that are concerned about lifting weights because they're going to get too bulky. Do you know how hard I've worked to try and desperately become bulky for 15 years. Like I have worked really really difficult hoping that one day. I'll become bulky and there is I think it's dissipating a lot now, but there was for a long time this fear that I would do a couple of bicep curl.
And you going to look like the Incredible Hulk. It's like me and my friends have really really prayed for that to happen forever. You do not need to be concerned. It's not going to creep up on you. And one day you're gonna wake up and be the sort of vascular Beast, right a couple things about that. I mean from a longevity standpoint, we know that maintaining healthy nerve to muscle function neuromuscular Junctions is one of the things that resistance exercise does and it's highly correlated with cognitive function into older age. And for those people I guess going back to our earlier conversation will
A few times in the course of this episode, but the thing you want to do the least. That's actually the thing that where you stand to build up your amcc the most so for me that would be language learning or learning a musical instruments two things that I love music and I but I just it's just so hard for me. So it sits there on the Shelf as a possible way to activate the MCC, but in terms of actual resistance training resistance training has an interesting property that haven't heard discussed before
That pertains to men and women who do it which is unlike cardiovascular training during a resistance training bout because of the blood flow to the muscle that so-called pump you get a little window into what the potential progress would look like that pump dissipates post-workout. And then if you allow sufficient rest in nutrition Etc, you'll get a hypertrophy response, but it's so unlike other forms of exercise. Like if I go to a yoga class and I stretch or I'm doing some movement I get to that limit where I'm quaking
And I fall over it's very different than getting a picture of just how flexible I will be the next gal. Yeah, and then losing that until I adapt with running your lungs sometimes your throat burns as you pointed out and that's showing you your limit and of course then there's an adaptation response that then allows you to perform at that level without the burning and the next time right if you allow sufficient recovery, but with weight training, it's kind of interesting the whole pump thing was never something that I really drew me to weight training very much, but it's interesting because you get
A glimpse into what the progress might look like and so for I would say for anyone who's worried about getting too big unless your pump is bigger than you want to be. You're not going to get that right? And so you actually get a window into how much potential size increase you're going to create but it's so different than other forms of exercise in that way. It's like what other thing in life like you took a language class and you know, I'm going to learn Japanese and you go and during the class you actually become fluent for a moment, then it's taken away and they exactly become fluent. So it's a very special form of
Exercise that that offers some unique gifts to us as incentives for going back. But look as I say this, I realize some people hate resistance training the love running some people hate running. They love resistant strain some people I realize hate exercise. But if you hate exercise, you should do it. Anyway MCC and you're getting the AMC. So going back to what you think might be happening to someone like Tom who is a like a cognitive athlete, right? But largely the Physical Realm comedians apart from
Um, I guess until Joe which is part of the beginning of like the comedian bro-bro left a revolution before him. It wasn't exactly like I wasn't looking to comedians as being the Vanguard of health and fitness like that music. I mean look at Belushi, right? I mean, he was the he was the epitome of lack health. So what they died right talk to me about what would be happening to the brain of somebody like Tom who pivots from being maybe 40 pounds overweight, but I don't know how big you got it is it is biggest
Lost a good bit of weight and it wasn't just losing weight. It was then gaining muscle. So dr. Gabrielle lion world of like muscle scented medicine. He's going to benefit from that the insulin sensitivity. They'll be like some physiological changes, but talk to me for the people who are cognitive athletes. What's going to happen in someone like Tom's mind when he changes his body. Yeah, so improved blood flow to the brain and in the brain is most metabolically demanding organ in the entire body consumes a ton of glucose. If you eat carbohydrates you yes, it can run on ketones, but blood flow through arteries veins
And capillaries to the neurons of the brain is is it's Inseparable from cognitive function. So when you improve blood flow to the brain, you improve cognitive function period when you restrict blood flow to the brain, even at a micro level you impaired cognitive function in addition to that. We know that several forms of age-related cognitive decline and dementia are considered nowadays. Some people even call it type 3 diabetes, although that's a controversial term diabetes of the brain. This is why
For people who have Alzheimers go on ketogenic diets and get some degree of relief. It's not that by the way, it's not a cure for Alzheimer's but some people do better when they switch the major fuel source for the brain, but in the case of Tom as an example, but someone who gets into exercising regularly, both resistance training and cardiovascular training, you're getting improved blood flow you're getting far less inflammation of the brain inflammation is cognitive depleting reducing inflammation cognitive enhancing. We always that's absolutely true across the board right in animal studies in
In humans, in addition to that. There are a lot of blood-borne factors to of which I'll just highlight now just for sake of time only to first of all when we do cardio that it positively impact brain health and memory in particular. So when we do load-bearing cardiovascular exercise so running as opposed to swimming anything where the skeletal system is is under some load. There's a hormone that's literally secreted from bone.
No, we don't normally think the bones is endocrine organs called osteocalcin asked her calcium is released from the bones under these load-bearing conditions. It can cross the blood-brain barrier and we know that it plays an active role in promoting not just new cell production, but because that's a more minor component of neuroplasticity but enhancement of nerve health and function in the hippocampus, which is an area that's instrumental for the formation of new memories. So there's something about movement of the body that signals to the brain are where
you know, we're moving you actually need to maintain or perhaps even enhance your ability to remember things and this probably is an evolutionary conserved circuit that exists. We know it exists in mice as well. So that's one one example, the other is that my colleague at Stanford Stanford. Tony wise Corey is best known for these young blood experiments where they'll take the blood or plasma from a young rodent and put into an aged or demented rodent and see improvements in cognitive function and outside the United States. There are some clinics by the way. I'm not recommending.
Do this that have shown improvements in cognitive function or even offsetting of Alzheimer's and age-related cognitive decline this led to the idea of like vampires and baby blood in this Arena Chrome. Yeah Drinker it's which is all crazy and conspiracy. I go on record saying that but there's a recent paper that also from Tony's lab showing that if in animals that exercise regularly if you take their blood or plasma and you supply that blood or plasma to aged or cognitively
ancient animals, they their cognition or their cognitive abilities improve. So there's something about blood of the exercised body that enriches the brain and could be many different growth factors could be bdnf brain-derived neurotrophic Factor. It could be things like igf-1 insulin-like growth factor is probably a cocktail of different things as well as osteocalcin. And so what we want to think about is that when we exercise and that's a broad statement exercise or word rather cardiovascular resistance training it.
Creates a cocktail that then crosses into the blood-brain barrier that then creates a milieu of General growth health or at least maintenance of cognitive tissue that's there. So Tom's incredibly sharp, and of course comedy requires not just memory but also writing of new jokes, right? He's got to do Netflix specials for a long time and I actually went and saw him and Aspen ago small venue. I flew out there to see him because I want to see him in a small venue because in small venues is work Comics often work out their new material and let me
Just you know to me it was just astonishing like to see the number of different thought threads and one thing that makes Tom's comedy. So wonderful, and other people like Richard Pryor to this exceptionally well too is that he can switch personas very fast. So he's doing his voice then he switches to his son's voice and switches back and the speed and precision with which he does that very agile makes it seem we forget that there are very agile and then we've he creates a panel of characters and then wipes that board away right? He's the only guy up there wipes that board away and then creates a panel of a nuclear-power
Actors and so I mean that requires a lot of decks like cognitive dexterity. So exercise is absolutely one of the best ways to improve brain function over time. And in addition to that, you know, there's been so much interest in you know, should we do crossword puzzles. Should we you know, why is it that some people maintain cognitive function? I think what's very clear to me based on all that literature is that it's not one specific thing crossword puzzles or social engagement or exercises all of those things, but let's not forget the super agers.
The people who are constantly trying things that are difficult that are pressuring themselves a bit to do things that are difficult. Those people are offsetting as far as we know all of the major shrinkage of these brain structures that normally would shrink as people age. So we have a lot of control but it does require effort and I'll tell you there's never going to be a pillar injection it whether or not so Zen pick or something like it but for the brain, there's just there's no way there's no way that you're ever going to recapitulate learning and
Effort and yes, it requires time, but it's so clear. I mean, I don't know how many more papers in preclinical models and in humans one needs to see before they finally just, you know, bite the bullet and go and lift weights lift weights and run and word and do cardiovascular training. It's it can't be one or the other. You know that the The Stereotype of like the the big let's just say big guy who's dumb, you know, I don't think it's entirely I mean, he's made some big big folks that are smart, right, but there is something
I'm in the kind of broad correlations of people who you know people who tend to only do cardiovascular training, you know, maybe it's a selection bias. Like they're the people who are already Avid readers or more and kind of intellectual leanings, maybe get more involved in tennis swimming running type Sports rowing because of the schools, they went or whatever but people who just lift weights. It does seem as if over time. I don't know maybe Derek would Tulsa their neck is getting too big. They have sleep apnea.
Near it. They don't seem as sharp and they're often mouth-breathers. Look at the really big guys in the gym. They're often not strong. Not just between sets not after us after hard sets there that I think they're also there's fixating themselves in sleep. We know this. Yeah, and then you look at runners in the people who have the kind of like the really spelled and and and they and sure they might maintain cognitive function, but their bodies are very vulnerable to injury project and they always seem to be complaining about what hurts
You know, is it like my friends who do a lot of extended training unless it's David Goggins who doesn't seem to have the circuit for complaining hmm, at least certainly not online. Yeah, they're always seem to be complaining about about injury. So I think a combination of resistance training cardiovascular training is let's just face it like you can't do one and not the other if you want to be healthy all around healthy of heart-healthy of body healthy of Mind cognition improved or at least maintained as we age eat. You gotta do both will get back to talking to Andrew Weil minute, but first,
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Coming back to the discussion about alcohol which is one that you try to interject with Burton. I think you're episode that you released last year. Yeah back end of last summer. Yeah. I think that really opened. A lot of people's eyes to some of the risks of alcohol. I've been kind of flying the flag of it as a tool for productivity quite a while with alcohol. Yeah that I think when yearly or do you drink at all? I brought it back into my life now, but I did six months sober three.
Times and then 1000 days without alcohol too. But yeah, I'm seeing right now a huge pushback against unseen unintentional drinking and I think that yeah your episode last year opened a lot of people's eyes to it. Thanks. I mean again, I don't tell people what to do. I give them the facts and so they can make the best decisions for them. I mean, it's very clear that unless you're an alcoholic and provided you're an adult that you know, two drinks per week maximum.
It's about the upper threshold Beyond which you're going to start getting some help there that's colder months that's called a warm up to a warm up in England. Yeah, so I you know, I've never been a big drinker. I don't drink. I'm lucky that it's not something that's that's a strong draw for me. I me to my friends that are recovered alcoholic and you know, their lives are so much better as a function of being sober but for non-alcoholics, I mean, I think everyone should just know the health risks, especially women where the risks for breast cancer and other types of cancers are
elevated so very much and it was interesting to me about the response to that episode is that I think many people took it might the impression I got was that many people took it as permission to finally stop drinking or drink less because they didn't enjoy drinking and as you so, you know, beautifully put out on social media, you know drinking is one of the few activities that if you don't partake people assume or accuse you of having a problem and it's just wild I mean like why would that be and I think that
I think it also makes once actually I was out to dinner with a colleague years ago and I declined drinking that even I was just talking to the visiting speaker. And she said God that so boring and I well first of all, I don't have a problem saying what's on my mind without alcohol right? I don't have I don't have a excessive gabaergic inhibition. So I'll say what I want to say, you know as as best I can but you know, I think drinkers don't like
people who don't drink because it takes the fun out of it for them because there is this idea that Co prolific on college campuses. Like if everyone's drunk that somehow like the entire like Vibe of the party is going to take on a new new flavor and frankly. I remember I went to a college UC Santa Barbara where at the time people drank Taun Taun, he discovered alcoholics. You're right and I used to go to parties. Sometimes I look around. I'm thinking like everyone here is just blasted like if anything.
Drinking did you drink? Yeah, I drank in college but not that often. I had a habit and I don't recommend this. I had a habit of doing out about once a month and I would tie one on you know, absolutely and frequent but binge. Yeah, I never you know, I my tolerance alcohol was always such that I would get drunk quickly and then sober up really fast. So I was drinking late into the night, but then I'd sober up really fast. Now, of course, we know the sleep you get after even one drink is vastly diminished every single person. That's got an oral or a whoops.
Trapper something is feeling you right now and I think that alcohol to me never felt good. I never liked it and it was a recipe for you know, there was a lot of fights there was a lot of you know, there were a lot of bad stuff happens when people are drinking dudes. I've run driving to say nothing of poor decision-making. I mean to me it just feels like there's so there's so many better ways to have a good time that that alcohol isn't necessary, but I do understand that it's a big part of many cultures and I do understand that.
For many people it's so part and parcel with relaxing and with festivities and with feeling comfortable and withdrawing a boundary between the normal day and the rest of the day interesting. There's a ritualistic aspect to it. Yeah, there's this orbit divides the day in an interesting way. So I'm not judgmental of it. I but for me, I mean, I've I'll go to a party where people are drinking and just hang out on perfectly good dude. I've stood on the door of a thousand club nights in my career right is a club promoter and I can promise you for that.
People that are thinking I like the sound of this justification this excuse that I don't need to drink anymore doctor human has said that, you know, maybe it's not for you. Maybe it's not as enjoyable.
Nothing good happens in nightclubs after 1:00 in the morning. I am patient zero I have the I Am the Doctor of late-night parties. Okay, like that's one of my expertise nothing good happens in a nightclub. It's this sort of messy sloppy fights and kissing people you shouldn't and and and stumbling all over the place and stuff. If you go out and you don't drink and you go home at 1:00 in the morning, I think you probably get to capture about
eighty percent of the enjoyment of the event that you would have done had you have drank pre-drinks gone out done a whole thing and I got a bit of push. I got quite a bit of pushback from a sobriety Community a few years ago. I did this thousand days sober as a club promoter, which was I guess I could kind of a big deal in some regards for like pushing the sobriety Community forward, but I was never doing it because I had a problem I was doing it because it gave me more consistency and more time and more money to spend on things that I cared about.
Is a productivity tool like the Pomodoro Technique right or going to bed on time or something and they had a little bit of a problem. There's a big problem with the fact that I said, there is something to the enjoyment of drinking on a night out. I think anybody that says alcohol has no role in improving the quality of a night out ever just hasn't been enough good nights out, right? There are ways that it can improve kind of loosens people up. It can reduce their inhibitions if you want to go and dance, you know, you dance.
Sing at a rave or or at a festival, which I think there's one going on quite close to here if you're there. It's really great. But
If alcohol wasn't so widely distributed, I think people would ask a lot more questions. It's like you can't see the wood for the trees, right? You don't question it. It's such a it's baked into the fabric of just human life every single time. The I take a like a macro dose, but low of psilocybin one where I can still function. What is what is 0.75 0.75 to 1 gram? So that's about it's a little less than half of the macro therapeutic dose.
For intractable depression, which is something like 2 .2 G or so, you can still hold a conversation depending on what strain you've got. But every single time that I do it without fail a thought comes into my mind, which is why does anyone drink alcohol? Why does anybody do it? Because I'll go to bed my HRV my recovery is fine the next day. Maybe I'm a little bit tired. I've had a lot of like activation. I've been super energetic very little hangover on the evening. I don't do stupid things. It makes me want to
Say nice things to all of my friends my thoughts are sharper than they were before sometimes the silly but the sharper and then you compare it with alcohol and it's this kind of sloppy muddy very, uh Naji aisle. It's just I I totally get what you mean when you've taken a little bit of time away from it and you look at it in the harsh light of day be affect the alcohol Gibbs. You just aren't that enjoyable and it's been folded into people's lives through tradition and through just anchoring bias and continuation and marketing.
You know the idea that like someone can quote unquote hold their liquor is such like a it's been made synonymous with you know, masculine ideals. It's like I mean, it's it's kind of crazy because we know I'd also like Russia's testosterone levels. What's interesting is that you know, I forget who said this but you know, there's a very different picture of a young drunk versus an old drunk, you know, someone who has been just drinking for too many years. It's not a pretty picture. That's they become infantile.
Become really infantile. And you know again, I'm not the anti-alcohol Crusader. We did that episode not expecting much of a response. Actually that shows just how out of out of touch sometimes I can be. I think it just to reiterate in mind. I think it gave people the excuse what you do you gave people the justification you legitimised them. It's like the best books tell you something you that you already know. It was like they everyone always lots of people always had an idea probably.
You shouldn't be drinking. Maybe I don't enjoy that much. Maybe these aren't my friends that just my drinking Partners. Maybe I don't like the way that I feel the next day. Maybe my life could be better if I stop drinking and there's the justification. Well, I'm happy to hear that for those folks. You know, now that the information is out there. I've I was accused several times on Twitter / X of taking all the fun out of parties in the at least in the Bay Area, but I'll tell you I grew up in the Bay Area the good parties ended a long time ago, but there still exists, you know, I mean, I think they're you know, and when I say other ways to have
And I don't mean like oh everyone should sit around do math or reading Neuroscience. Although for me. That's fun. You know, I think I think in a broader sense, I think there's a shift nowadays If people really think about you know how to engage socially in ways that are interesting. I mean perhaps it's a again a sampling bias because of the topics that I cover and who talks to me but like in the Bay Area there these Russian Banya is in New York their spy 88, by the way, they don't pay me to say this, but I like to go this Russian Banya down in Wall Street you go there and you know,
Got hot saunas and cold plunge and people are young people are they're enjoying themselves and that they actually serve alcohol. So they'll have sometimes they'll do like little gimlets of vodka or something there. And so yeah people sometimes that's part of the job. Most Russian thing that I can think of shot of vodka whilst hot right so that and you know, they've got theories as to how that can help unless I think some of those Traditions can be really be wonderful but, you know, people are starting to combine socializing with health-promoting protocols and you know going out and eating good
Together like you can really wonderful food with the social component, you know, I go into the grave talking about getting morning sunlight something that maybe we should talk a little bit more about and is people like roll their eyes. I'll just say there's this incredible study now just out in nature mental health published about 80 that has 85,000 85,000 subject showing that the ratio of getting a lot of sunlight during the day to getting minimal artificial light exposure at night. It really sets the tone of your overall system and is and is associated.
With brain and body that is and is associated with better mental health outcomes across the board and the inverse, right? If you're getting too much artificial light at night, we're not enough sunlight or both is associated with everything bad Elevate depression. Anxiety Etc. Now I do believe people should get out and have a good time. Don't avoid the bright lights of a city or a club. You have a great time like dancing socialized. Those are great reasons to stay up too late. You can get minimal sleeper sleep in the next day the great reasons. So every once in a while shirt and 20% of your life you're going to do that and you're probably some percentage of time is also gonna be raising.
Kids cheer up because you have to keep them alive which is important to our species. Thank you, but I think people you know forget that. Yes, you can go outside and get morning sunlight and which I highly recommend people do that as most people know but I mean so many benefits on mood and mental health and improve sleep that it just and it's completely zero cost, you know, but I often get accused of okay well, but what if you have kids like how do you do this? Well, you take the kids with you because guess what they need it to you take them outside you eat breakfast.
Just outside or at least facing a window indoors. It's not going to be as good as having the window open or being outdoors. But even if the Suns on the other side of your apartment building, I mean these things have an outsize positive effect on health and I'll wager both upper limbs. Anyway that many many many of the mental health issues that we see nowadays in young people and in adults is the consequence of disrupted circadian rhythms because of a lot of time in a two-dimensional screen space, which I'm not condemning I spend time on and
Most of my content on social media and YouTube Apple Spotify, right? And in addition to that to the lights are too bright at night and they're not getting enough sunlight during the day and an important thing to understand about our circadian / Health, you know, circadian system and health is that throughout in the morning and throughout the day your eyes are less sensitive to light and you need more of it in order to get what you need. Okay broadly speaking and at night your eyes are for more sensitive to artificial.
Lighting and you need far less of it in order to disrupt your circadian system in bad ways disrupt your mental health. Now, does that mean you have to walk around with sunglasses at night and yo Dim All the Lights in your house. Well, no, but you could afford to dim them a little bit you could afford to switch to the red light function on your phone. There's actually a triple click red light function on every phone that maybe I'll pass the the throughput of what to do to your phone. It's which allows you to accessibility functions on an iPhone online goes to my goes to grayscale want to do that. Yeah.
Can ya so you can have it switch to grayscale or to purely read? You know, you're limiting the blues a trick that my friend Rick Rubin taught me I was like, oh, this is great. You know, you don't, you know, you don't necessarily have to purchase blue blocker glasses or anything like that. We'll get back to talking to Andre and one minute. But first I need to tell you about mud water mud water is a coffee alternative that tastes like chai and cacao had a baby. It's got four functional mushrooms. And with only a fraction the caffeine as a cup of coffee, you will get all of the natural energy without the Jitters or crash each ingredient was added for a purpose cacao.
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Mud WT are.com / modern wisdom that mud wthr.com / modern wisdom. So they're a bunch of little things that we can do that make a vast Improvement in the way that our biology and psychology function and it's amazing when you start to think about how most people exist in out it's too damn not enough light for them during the day, especially not enough sunlight and that's too bright for them at night and they're also living mostly in a two-dimensional world of screens. What's the problem with the two dimensional?
Thing. Well the you know, the we have an epidemic of myopia or nearsightedness and it's been shown in a bunch of different clinical trials. Now the first couple of them that were attacked like most studies something comes out then it gets attacked. Then there's a retaliation study Etc that kids that spend two hours or more out-of-doors per day have a far lower incidence of myopia or nearsightedness and even if they're on iPads and books and computers. There's something about far viewing about viewing things further than three or four feet away from us on a frequent for a significant portion.
Of our day doesn't mean I have to be staring off into the Horizon. But as opposed to near viewing where you're looking at something within about four feet of oneself this distance that we're sitting across from one. Another is about for probably about four and a half five feet. It's not quite far viewing but you think about watch people's behavior. Look at how they go through the day. They're spending most of their time looking at things about a foot to a foot and a half away. And as a consequence the eyeball gets longer. This is a well-established fact in animal models and humans and then the visual image isn't focused on to the retina the light.
Sensing portion at the back of the eye the image Falls in front of the retina so called nearsightedness, right? It's falling to near to the lens. Okay. There are other some people claim that nearsightedness has to do with the actual perceptual changes, but in any event, so fortunately that the eyeball actually can change in length. So viewing things further away can actually especially early in life allow the eyeball to adjust its shape amazing just like the sinuses these there's plasticity of a lot of different organs. And so the point is that we need to get out of you things.
A distance you're walking down the street looking at your phone, you're degrading the functioning of your visual system. I told you I think I texted you before I did it. I got laser eye surgery a month. Yes, you got the Lasik. Yes, great. And that's so the Lasik just to you know educate people to actually change the shape of the eyeball somewhat in order to make it more perfect optically in a way that for many people allows them to not have to wear corrective lenses of any kind of yeah, I can see everything I can see your ancestral.
Emma and and full works now at 100 yards amazing your vision is super sharp. Correct? Oh, it's 2015. What was this was the surgery painful? It's very interesting. So I actually video the I haven't put it up because it's kind of it's probably pretty uncomfortable for people to watch that's never stopped you before that's true. That's true. So they numb both of your eyes using numbing drops. Okay, and then they
Come over the top with a kind of building a large box on an arm. They rest the valve of the front of this box on the eyeball itself and then suck the eyeball on to the actual valve so that it can't move They Dont loot use one laser to create a flap in the cornea, which is at the precise distance based on all of the tests. They did in the data prior to that. They then take it off. Hmm.
You'll still lying back. You have to keep looking at a green light that's above you the surgeon will lift the flap the front flap of the cornea up. Yeah using kind of a soft pair of tweezers the laser will then come in behind now the opened part of the cornea do the corrective surgery the flap will then get replaced and it needs to be very very very precise so that any slight nudge. I actually had to go and get the I had to get my flap re lifted.
Couple of days later on my left eye because a tiny tiny tiny little bit of oil from the top of my eyelid had been caught underneath the flap and it was causing a flaring of bright lights. And so I had to go back and actually get the flapper e lifted get this the flap that they make can still be re lifted up to three years later amazing. It's fascinating and yet had it done in both eyes couple of one day of recovery. It feels very gritty for the people that are concerned about whether or not it's going to like
hurt them and my recovery period was one day and I was able to I recorded a Podcast 48 hours in Bright Lights 48 Hours afterwards it an expensive procedure for Grand GBP. So five grand USD audit reveal some not a trivial some but also given that it's literally how you navigate the world sure and I was squinting a lot. I was squinting at screens to have read the text. I was using really large text. The only reason I found out about this is because I went in for a checkup and they got me to do my eye test and the lady turned into
Yeah, you are you legally can't drive without glasses. I don't like what you talking about my Visions my Visions great. Like my Visions always been like this, but she got me to do the thing and I thought
Yeah, it shouldn't be I should be able to read those huge letters that are only 20 feet away from me shouldn't I and sure enough after this corrective surgery 20/15 Vision everything is razor sharp, the only considerations that I would say our nighttime viewing of bright light specifically streetlights cars coming towards you you get a little bit of flaring around them and that's because it's now passing through not just one piece of material, but there is a second cut.
That supposedly dissipates a little bit over time, but I am flying the flag for Laser Eye Treatment man. It's it's been a complete Game Changer my pickle ball games improved which is obviously what was most important everything's it's really really good and I'm very very impressed and thank you to my surgeon for doing it. Yeah, so that this little flap do they tell you how big the flap is I can just show you the video. I can show you the video once we finish up interesting. Thanks for sharing that yeah. I think it's an interesting.
Interesting procedure and we did an episode of our chair of Ophthalmology Jeff Goldberg and he was a proponent of it for people that are you know, I texted you I texted you to make sure that like the ophthalmologist guy with all of the dudes that know it like am I alright to do this Jeff's amazing. Actually we trained at the in the same lab. He was graduating. I was a postdoc then he ended up in Miami and then we conversion San Diego then we moved to Stanford. I moved to Stanford. So I said we serve he'll argue. I was tracking him all are you he was tracking me but he's my chairman. So I'll just say I was
I can one of them but very very smart guy and I think yeah getting keeping your eyes healthy as key. This actually comes back to light. So there's some really beautiful data of Glen Jeffrey's laboratory University College London. I'm Glenn for more than 20 years. He's a spectacular Vision scientist showing that exposure to artificial red light, you know, there's a lot of the, you know, like the Juve and these other red lights that are out there cozy and these other red light systems which by the way, I don't have any Financial relationship, too.
You know the idea that red light could somehow enhance different functions of our tissues or preserve different functions of our tissues people think is really biohack e like oh this is, you know people under red lights, but you know, there was a Nobel Prize given for the use of long wavelength light for the treatment of Lupus almost 100 years ago. So the idea of phototherapy Is Not A New Concept, but people love to kind of push it into the realm of of biohacking / Bro Science, but it's not
Red light therapy has been shown to have some positive outcomes for the treatment of acne for scar healing and wound healing red light is long wavelength light which can penetrate further through tissues than short wavelength light. So that's sort of the argument there is that when you look at red light or red light red light is placed on there's shown on the skin. Some of it is actually getting into the deeper layers of the dermis how deep it's questionable some people argue that you can even get into the the blood supply if you know, it's like on the wrist or so in any event Glenn's lab has shown
two really important findings. And the first one they've shown twice in separate studies in this is all in humans. The first result is that if people look at red light for 2 or 3 minutes once or twice a week in particular early in the day, it can offset some age-related vision loss how well the photoreceptors of the back of the eye or some of the most metabolically consume metabolically active and let's just say energy-consuming cells of the entire nervous system, which is saying a lot because the nervous
The most metabolic leak and consuming or metabolically scuse me active organ and so as a consequence, he's really active cells create a lot of so-called reactive oxygen species and that impacts negatively impacts the functions of mitochondria. So viewing red light seems to restore some of the mitochondrial function by limiting reactive oxygen species in the photoreceptors and offsetting and they've shown this some not all but some age-related vision loss presumably you're not talking about looking at one of these red light panels because these things are like
Fucking like flat they skew it's all right. I actually am referring to that what you want to do it at a distance. That's comfortable. So several feet right those panels for the people that don't know. These are things right inside. They even provide you with like them to actually yeah, they like this stuff for the sunbed. That's your goes with them. Yes. You don't want to do this for more than a couple of minutes and you do want to Blink and you do and probably through eyelids closed if your eyelids are thin enough and it's bright enough it can probably get in nonetheless, but let me be very very clear.
Tell you the other result then I'll tell you why you don't need necessarily need a red light the other result, which is more recent and is still under review. So I want to be very clear but the data look interesting to say the least is that there's this old Theory all theory that the French have really expounded that you know, eating food Outdoors is metabolized differently than eating food indoors, which sounds crazy right? I've been at some level and yet this study shows that if people do this red light viewing
while eating or in the minutes just after eating for just a few minutes that the post-meal blood glucose levels severe is significantly dampened, which is a good thing, right? You don't want big elevations in blood glucose or excessive elevations in blood glucose. Now that all sounds a little bit at the edge of what we consider, you know, valid or reasonable and yet if you think about sunlight sunlight is full spectrum light. So this isn't saying you need to run out and buy a red light. This is
You are get outside and get your morning sunlight. Yes, it's going to set your circadian rhythm for elevated mood focus in alertness during the day improve sleep at night. But in addition that you're getting red light to your eyes early in the day, you're absolutely you're getting red light to your eyes now on very densely overcast days say in the UK or elsewhere. It's not you're going to really filter out the clouds are going to everything the red light of Joy the will to live and as a consequence some people choose to supplement their light with these red light devices.
Has it but this idea that the French and others have argued and I'm sure as I say the French said it then you know the French will not and everyone else will say no. It's like it was us first or us all so it's probably multiple people throughout history groups throughout history, but it does seem that there's something different about the way that food is metabolized if under different lighting conditions, which sounds crazy and I can already hear Lane Norton stomping in with his I know they basically yeah lanes lanes brain sort of has like PubMed ideas.
I think it's great by the way lane. We love you. And I love his his his sort of adherence to PubMed IDs. But you know, these are published studies. I'll send along you can tell me what you think Lane. But the point being that there still needs to be more work on this right, but it's always a nice when some nicely controlled studies done by well-established Laboratories that people in a field trust like Glenn's lab start seeing things once or twice over and multiple studies that really
Work well with what we know from kind of naturalistic conditions, for instance. They're Hunters people that are Adventures that are whose job depends on them being able to see into the distance hammering Hines. Yeah campaigns these people maintain Vision well into their older age, but just nerds like me who spent too much time in front of a book or a screen who spent most of their time and have for many years looking at things down. I mean for years, I looked at things down on microscope. That was where most of my life was down.
Calm down the microscope, but also reading things at close distance. Well, you know, it makes sense that the eyeball would lengthen you end up with nearsightedness. I do wear corrective lenses at night, especially if I'm driving at night. I've really worked hard to try to not succumb to the need for corrective lenses. So I'm trying to keep my vision health good I got you become Reliant. I don't want to become reliant on it. But but you know at night I have to wear corrective lenses. Yeah talking about the red light stuff. Have you heard of huberman husbands? Do you know what this is?
Fortunately, well I should say that the most unfortunate thing about the you room and husband's post is that it was about is that it was taken by certain media Outlets to amplify the idea that the audience of my podcast is just mail when in fact, it's 50% male-female at least in the listenership YouTube skews male, but we knew that anyway, but the listenership is fifty percent male 4 to 7 p.m. On the huberman husband's thing was really about how a woman was saying that she thinks she's the Huber
Husband because she does all these different things that they got taken from that for the people that don't know the meta meme around huberman husbands, which you can search on Tech talk right now, is that the hot new thing that all of the wife's want out? There is a husband who's into red light therapy and he does cold plunges and need to sauna treatments and stuff. So, I wonder you guys I'm trying to help you out. Look dude. I wondered how you feel of a bunch of guys potentially cosplaying as
Andrew huberman in the bedroom like the price of long-sleeve black shirts has gone through the roof at this is now have people fully LARPing as you maybe they're telling them telling the wife that they didn't get enough sunlight in their eyes is dirty talk in the bedroom. I'm not sure I wondered how it feels to have this Army of Andrew hubermanns from wish now existing on on the internet. So we covered the AMC see it means interior mid cingulate cortex, but I confess even though I know that I don't know what cosplay is and I don't know what LARPing is.
Cosplay is dressing up. Its it happens at a lot of conventions. Someone will go as Anakin Skywalker or Pikachu or whatever and lapping is alive sexual titillation sometimes but not always so this is a servant like this is the is like the action hero variation on furries kind of yeah, okay, but it's not raises more Lexus domain precisely. Yeah, we know we know that well and then lobbying know that but we don't know it. Well fortunately live action role playing.
Paying so that again is this kind of I'm saying there are potentially there is potentially a market out there. If a guy is struggling in the dating world to take the aesthetic get fully human pilled and then there is a huge potential demand amongst the wives out there.
Okay. So this is news to me one thing that's come up recently in discussions with some traditional media Outlets. But but also just generally right is you know to what extent is all this focus on health, you know, does that change something about masculine feminine Dynamics like it like the traditional stereotype of men was that they're tough enough to not need to engage in any self-care, right? They don't need sleep. They can drink a lot of liquor.
They'll eat when there's food they'll eat whatever they don't like going to the doctor right is there is like runs very counter-current to the kinds of things. I talked about my podcast like hey get up in the morning. Get some sunlight right lift weights run and I should point out that nothing. None of what I've talked about with exercise ever. Of course. There's an aesthetic component, right limiting body fat to some extent right not having excessive body fat, you know resistance training as we know is an incredible way to adjust. This one's Aesthetics if they
I feel like their proportions aren't where they want or you know, by the way guys train your neck clearly. Chris does I mean nothing looks more ridiculous than like, why do I bother me and I let her head with a Little Neck Uncle Mac. I mean, it's well, it's just it's crazy because this is a proportionally you see it in your like this is it's the it's the male equivalent of the BBL if you have like a I'm teaching you I'm so happy that I get to teach you some sort of like class for me. I've got to make sure that you've got your notes. So this is the Brazilian butt lift. It's kind of like the
Equivalent of a boob job and they have an implants for the glutes. I think that they actually take fat from elsewhere in the body and then put it into the it's the risk the surgery risk of this is really quite like I just do like hip thrusters or something. No, no isn't there that there's not takes too long. There's the Brett Contreras glute guy. Yeah. Yeah. He's very popular because he puts glutes on people but they actually put them on themselves because they're the ones doing the I think the doctor technically puts it on them. But yeah, and it kind of looks because there's no Associated leg.
Egg development with the glute development. It's kind of like if you put two basketballs on upturned baseball bats. So you have like a the leg and then you have like the particular. It's I've seen some I went to Miami for the first time a few months ago and I saw one that kind of terrified me. It looked like a bag of cats from behind in a set of leggings. Like you could kind of see sort of pause coming out like this mood poorly poorly finished that I would say moves. I just it wasn't wasn't good. Anyway my point being
Neck for guys need to have it proportional to the shoulders. Yeah it I mean, yeah, so I'm sort of taking Digs at people who don't train their neck. It's also life insurance, right? I had an accident a few years ago where I fell off a second-story roof, and I walked away from it because I've long done neck training because I injured my neck when I was younger and even if you don't do fight Sports, I don't do fight sports, but wouldn't be aligned with my role in meeting my brain. I got nothing against people would do fights.
It's but that's a choice that I've actively made not to do them anymore. But next training is really important for just what the 80/20 of next training. What's the biggest move as for improving your neck? Oh, well, first of all, I'll tell you in a moment, but I think that you know, remember that your neck is your upper spine. So people are big on training their abs, you know for spine stability and lower back hopefully as well for sponsibility the mid thoracic regions as well. But you know, it's your upper spine and you want it strong and you will get much stronger and
Things as well. Everything's better people's posture is far better when they train their neck. It actually changes the tone of people's voice and I had a guest on my podcast. Dr. Eddie Chang who's our chair of neurosurgery at UCSF. I've known him since we were kids. He's in phenomenally smart and creative guy and I've asked him about this offline. You know, why is it that neck training does that well, you know the voice change that occurs in boys when they when they develop and go through puberty is a thickening of the vocal cords. That's Androgen dependent. I have this weird mutation I've talked about
At this a little bit but maybe not that on a program as broad as this that I should have the same voice. I always had from when I was a little kid my voice never actually change. I have a Ivan Androgen receptor alteration. Okay, so fortunately for me like doesn't cause any other issues but this was my voice when I was 5 years old how terrified they call me froggy. Yeah. It was kind of a joke. I got like the kid on The Little Rascals. That was froggy in any case, but for most people they hit puberty and then their voice changes because of the thickening of the vocal cords.
But obviously I had some early Androgen exposure that was clear because I also had hair on my Adam's Apple when I was like four years old. So there was some early Androgen exposure not going to fucking that full, you know, well, you know, I was just I was a kind kid until I was a teenager and then I eventually angry teenager I went through it. But you know, I was I was kind nonetheless, but in any event when you train your neck, actually it does improve posture and it actually changes the Timbre of your voice somewhat, but for the people who speak
Peek a lot for a living podcasters singers actors Etc lawyers and the lawyers seem to talk a lot. You don't want to do a lot of really heavy neck training because it actually changes the way that your jaw moves in the way that you speak and you know you and I especially like my solo podcasting something to take me 11 hours to record. And so you want to maintain healthy air flow through this region, right? But the best way to develop a strong neck safely is to unfortunately stay away from Bridges, which
You know wrestling coaches like to give you can the discs can can be in you can you can cause dysfunction of the discs and then the pain comes on in a moment. And then your hose best thing to do is take a plate and start really light lie on a bench stabilize yourself by putting one arm down. Okay, so you want to close the chain so to speak if you can get a foot down as well and then put that plate, you know, probably start with a five or a ten pound plate wrapped in a towel so you don't end up with an imprint of the five or ten on the side of your head or face and then you're just
Going to go from neutral position, which is your head, you know, it's actually straight up and down but you're lying on your side to just you know about maybe 30 or 45 degrees. You want to like really cinch into it and you want to keep this is important keep your tongue on the roof of your mouth your jaw shut so that your jaw are moving around because some people do Network and then they'll get clicking of the jaw. They get pain in the ear. There's obviously a lot of time with skulls and I can tell you human skulls and other skulls by virtue of my work in neuroscience and dissecting stuff and I've kind of obsession with craniofacial stuff as well.
And you know, there's a lot of musculature and ligaments of the the skull that have to be contended with so tongue on the roof of your mouth and you're just going to you know, nasal breathe and you're not going to fail you're not training really heavy higher reps in the you know, 10 to 25 repetition range over three sets. Yeah three sets and then the other side and then, you know rather than doing a lot of forward Network which people are already doing because they're doing a lot of fun reading and shaping themselves like a see you want to lie on your stomach and put a plate on the back of your head and get into that, you know the deck
In straight back, okay, but not pinching a wrench in your head back movements like where you're creating some torsion up into the sides. Like this is a little more dangerous. I don't recommend the person has great tutorials on this and many other things as well as Jeff cavaliere. Athleanx has a great neck tutorial may you can link to that's where I learned over time. I worked up to from a 10 pound plates. I can do five or six reps on each side with a 45-pound plate like hating me know what a full T. Thought that's 20 kilos anglicans list. So I'll do that and I don't say that to be tough for anybody.
The idea for me is to just have a really strong neck so that also for pressing movements and pulling movements. You'll get much stronger their listen. The mall has now been set fledgling huberman husband's out there. They know that the neck training is a important part black shirt neck training bit of a beard. Well the black chick that well to be clear and women should probably train their neck as well. But lighter, you know for aesthetic reasons and if they want to have a bigger neck, they can do that, but I think most women
Owen don't want their neck. This is one muscle group that does tend to grow pretty quickly. Is that right? Yeah, it does it does end and then the other thing and this looks ridiculous, but that but Fighters know is very useful is that there's the kiss the sky thing where they'll actually look up and you know, and you'll feel it in the deeper muscles of the neck. So that kind of thing is again, you know, some people use a towel for this stuff. They don't have access to weights but network is really key just like ab work is key just like lower back work is he just liked it work is kinis over toes guy, you know you love his
Ben's amazing. So the smaller muscle groups are not going to be the Mainstay of any workout, but they become so important when you're thinking about longevity because they are the muscle groups that tend to cause if not trained shin splints kink in the neck. The kingdom attack is obviously as not a technical term, but pain in the neck the turning in the shower after doing heavy pressing and then like you're out your neck. You can't turn your head the lower back pain sciatica often lower spine stabilization issues. I raising Jeff cavaliere.
As some of the best zero-cost content on this that I followed his content for years and you know, if you put in for instance sciatica low back pain, he has diagnostic tools there that really help you establish whether or not truly lower back pain or it's a medial glute issue and gives you the proper things to do and neck is just one piece of the equation getting back to huberman husbands the yeah, I chuckle the first time I saw it. I think it was a little frustrating to me because I thought wait there a lot of women that do these protocols to our
Those are we have had some male hormone Health episode some female hormone Health episodes, but in general we're just talking about stuff that's applicable to everybody. But listen, I don't control the internet. I don't make the rules out there and you know and then traditional media Amplified the huberman husband's peace through a couple of rightly. So right Lisa and the next thing you know, that that's real black shirt. I should just say um is because I try and as we've talked about before I don't want to get my tattoos to distract. I got a lot of them.
I want to focus on content and teaching and people here in the content. And and the black shirt is something I did long before I had a podcast. That's because the great Joe Strummer singer for The Clash must go there o is wore a black button down shirt while he would do full shows and who be soaking wet. It was like the punk is thing I ever saw. Yeah that he was like doing full shows like belting it out a long sleeve shirt and long sleeved black shirt, and he was just literally the shirt was like stuck to his body and I was just saying like not only is he an amazing humanitarian writer poet singer for The Clash creative?
Miss him. He's gone, but you still hear it through music, right as they say and he you know, he's just so Punk. He's just up there in his 40s or late 40s and and soaking wet and I'm thinking like that guy like he's got he's got it figured out I'm gonna do know. So anyway and I like the black shirt. What can I say? We'll get back to talking to one dream one minute. But first I need to tell you about a G1 H. G1 is a product that I've been using every single day for over three years now doctor huberman himself is a
Massive fan because it is the most comprehensive foundational daily nutrition supplement on the market. My digestion is so much better since I've started using a G1 and I genuinely can't remember what life used to be like, but when I stopped using it, I do not like the way that my body feels since 2010 a G1 has led the foundational nutrition Revolution continually refining the formula to create better. Smarter ways to elevate your health a G1 is the supplement. I trust to provide the support that my body needs every single day and that's why they've been
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How concerned you think we should be about vaping spoke about alcohol it seems like there's this big Vape is on Netflix at the moment it's a documentary about the rise of Jewel and I'm only one episode in but it seems like vaping is now catching an awful lot of attention what how concerned you think we should be about vaping yeah, so I'm just taking a note here I take notes during our podcast highly intense to make sense
So things I can go back to we should be very concerned. So when it comes to smoking or vaping there's the thing that's being consumed. The thing that people are trying to bring put in their bloodstream nicotine cannabis Etc. And let's just set those aside. I've done episodes on nicotine in cannabis and they have their application. They also have their problems vaping is terrible because of the other chemicals that delivers to the lungs. It's also very clear and we haven't released this episode. Yeah, but I talked to a female hormone.
From Austin and Natalie Crawford. So OBGYN, you know vaping is associated with disruptions in egg health and what they call Egg quality can create certain mutations and eggs and serious endocrine issues and women. Okay, personally, I find it disgusting. Like I just find it like the I don't do it. But when I see people vaping like to me and listen, I used it went growing up. I its I don't I quit smoking a long time ago, but I used to smoke a bit of nicotine.
Growing up member. I was I was a wild one, but that's not why I did it. I just, you know nicotine works for me as a drug and I don't do it anymore. But vaping is so addictive. It's a mutagen it mutates the genes of cells it mutates the genes of rapidly dividing cells most so breast cancers ovarian cancers egg quality sperm are constantly turning over so, you know people always say no I Vape all the time and
I got sewn so pregnant or whatever, you know when let's have a perfectly healthy kid. That kid might have been much healthier and also the kids not grown up yet. Like introduced me the kid later. I wish for that kid. I pray for them, but that they're healthy as can be but it is so clear that you're introducing a laundry list of toxins to the lungs and they're getting into the bloodstream and there are a number of them that cross the blood-brain barrier and once they cross the blood-brain barrier those neurons by virtue of the fact that neurons don't turn over across the lifespan you born with the ones you're going to die with you might add.
You cross your lifespan, but you're mostly born with the ones that you're going to die with. Well, they're going to Harbor those chemicals and those particulates and you know, yes are we are grandparents that smoked and live to be 90, but you know, those are generally the outlier so I can't find one good reason why people should Vape if they if people want nicotine in their system that badly and here I'm not recommending that they would be much better off relying on at Rocher a patch. Yep, because Emma what or even toothpicks or in or you know, or
Isabel I know people I'm not going to out any act nicotine. Oh, I'm not going out anyone here. But I know people in our podcast community that rely on nicotine injections fuck that's hot mental Clarity. That is so odd cold. I don't it causes elevation and blood pressure. It causes vasoconstriction, but it also will robustly increase focus and attention that everyone probably will tell you mainlining nicotine and you're starting to see some companies that offer things like NAD infusions all also offer subcutaneous or
Injections going back to patch or gum. Yeah smoking for a very long time. Everyone knows huge Campaign, which I think was pretty effective. Actually. It's kind of discouraging people from smoking or at least making them aware about the do you remember how they got kids to stop smoking? They told them for years. It was bad for their health that didn't work. They told them that it was putting money in the pockets of these like of like these old cackling white guys.
That were like rubbing their hands and in the end. I got a telegram and making a ton of money and then it became the rebellious thing to quit smoking that was really effective cancer. I think about this all the time that there was a big push to both disincentivize and make more different smoke make more difficult smoking go to go outside. There's the smoking area. I remember I worked in clubs one year before the smoking ban came in. Yeah in the UK and then people had to go outside if you know just friction friction friction all the way down.
And then vaping came in and vaping is way more enjoyable of an experience than smoking ever was you hurry can have a higher dose of nicotine that tastes, you know, enjoyable bubble gum flavor and raspberry unicorn dust and whatever whatever I don't know and it's not going to stink the house out, you know, you don't have any of the externalities of that. So I wonder whether we have ended up in a net benefit or net cost.
Just for public health from switching from smoking to vaping. Yeah, there's an analog here with you know, Kratom and opioids. Do you know if you really want it? We just got our put ourselves under attack by even bringing up the topic but I did it intentionally, you know, there are things like smoking and opioid addiction which are it's unequivocal. It's just terrible, right? It crushes lives destroys lives. Yes. There are those rare individuals who smoke
Whole life lived into their 90's and okay, but there are outliers. So the question is did is vaping allowing fewer people to smoke and therefore improving their health. Maybe if they are hell-bent on getting that nicotine or cannabis into their system and their to opting not to smoke in there going to vape instead then maybe we have to be objective and say okay if there are absolutely intent on on getting it in through some in Elation device vaping is probably better but we
I know that for sure. We actually don't know that and then since I brought it up and I really put the Target on myself with this one, you know, I did a post about Kratom which is over the counter people will say it's not an opioid. It Taps the opioid system. It Taps other systems as well in a number of people have indeed managed to get themselves off of opioids using Kratom as a bit of a bridge kind of like the methadone heroin thing, but the Kratom advocacy groups are really growing strong.
Right now because there is the possibility that Creighton will be made illegal in the not-too-distant future and there is the reality that some people who were never opioid addicts have taken create them and then get addicted to Kratom and then people start arguing is it real addiction is habit forming Etc. So I think the next year or so is going to be an interesting time for dialogue about Kratom. I have a couple of guests coming on my podcast. Maybe you'll do it as well. And I'd love it. If you would there's one thing by the way Folks at so great about the podcast space unlike other professions. We love it when one
On topic or one guest shows up on multiple podcasts because it actually doesn't hurt any of us and you've sent me in the last few months. You sent me a pole Conte you send me Rick Rubin. It's and everyone's got a different Flex, right the conversation you're going to have with Rick or Paul is going to be way different to the one that I'm going to have which is going to be way different to the one that Joe's gonna have. Yeah. It's a it's a very different thing than academic science then journalism of other kinds of zero-sum the idea. It's a no scoop that you know, like in Academia or an orange journalism. They say, oh, you know who got the scoop
That or you got scooped someone else put it out first and you know in in podcasting, it's quite the opposite. So I think the Kratom versus the Kratom topics can be really interesting and important to cover but I think look my vote is to not Vape. I think I'm just shocked at how many people vape and first of all it's actually not unlike cigarette smoking. It's expensive. That's not the main reason people avoid it, but it's a significant expense when you add it up across the year.
It's clearly addictive. There's no question about it. It's clearly detrimental to lung function. And then people like how it makes their brain feel and they think that if they're already pretty active physically active than they can offset some of that and they probably can but I think in the next five years or so, we're just going to see a slew of studies showing that vaping is just bad for us, especially for the developing brain because it's bringing in at a very rapid rate high potency nicotine and high-potency cannabis and you know from Mana lemke's work and we know
My colleague at Stanford that that the the slope of that increase in dopamine and epinephrine adrenaline and acetylcholine is so important this sharper that slope the faster the rise the more addictive potential these compounds have and so it's so far away different than the kind of dopamine norepinephrine or acetylcholine increase that one sees with exercise or with cold plunges or with with sex or with Dancing With Friends saying things you know, so and you know one of course could be addicted to any of the other things. I just mentioned to
But the potential for it is far less than something like vaping. Here's my stunts on it that I understand maybe all of the two evils they ping is less of an evil than traditional smoking would be but I think the enjoyability the accessibility the fact that it isn't as stigmatized all of that. I think that it wouldn't surprise me if more people are now going to vape than ever previously smoked and even if that difference between the two is is that vaping is better that the total area under the
Public Health degradation, right. I think that I think that we've netted a loss overall for vaping and you know, I see dude I go to a comedy show and I find myself going and getting an Escobar before and I'm like what like why is it's just habit. What is it? It's like a kid just a disposable like you vape I do it if I go to a comedy show and I'm not drinking and I'm tired. So there's like a certain little decision tree that I go through. I'll do it. Maybe once a month something like what do you vape whatever whatever?
Apple unpronounceable horseshit is available. What is it? My friend Kitchener cannabis nicotine nicotine. Yeah, we're in California. So people talk about cannabis teach everyone in Texas are interesting. Yeah, I think rapid onset of these neuromodulators in the brain concerns me. It's just it's just so different also with with behaviors. You can titrate right? You know, people say well video games cause a huge increase in doping okay.
Fine, but you can limit the total amount of time that you engage you I think with substances even though you can control dose or number of what do they call it on the it's not gonna be like a toke on the vape pen. What is it's gonna be like a like a draw. How would I don't know. I'm in another language taping LARPing cosplay. I've got that, you know, we're teaching you everything today everything. I need to know this is good because I'm gonna be able to navigate the internet fantods better talking about the internet. How worried are you about how technology is impacting people's ability to focus
adult ADHD is clearly upon us. It's just clear and so very I'm very concerned think that that's induced or facilitated or worsened by technology. Like tell me tell me what's going on in the brain If house technology able to make such a dramatic change. Yeah, I think if we let's turn it on its head. I'm not changing your question because I don't like it when people do that to me and so what you wanted. No, it's like I'm gonna give you a different question answer that one. I was like, okay like that.
I'm an answer your question a different way that the circuits in the brain that are required for setting and maintaining Focus.
Are inhibited by the process of deliberately shifting one's Focus over and over and over throughout the day in other words. If ever there was a physical activity that could undermine your cardiovascular exercise, you know, like I mean, it turns out not to be the case, but you know, there was this idea of few years ago that if you sit a lot during the day, it doesn't matter how much you exercise. It's not gonna make a difference that's not true right exercise still helps. But we also know that moving and standing standing and said, you know standing up and sitting down quite a lot throughout the day.
Being as much you know little walks and things like that is extremely beneficial and can amplify the already known positive effects of exercise. Okay? Well when it comes to focus, I mean much of what our schooling is about growing up is not just the content that we're taught but our ability to sit still and pay attention to keep the body still into Focus to some extent keep the body still some people just stipulate more of the Italians and the you know in certain Arab countries and things like that other people are far more still and we get get
back to this about body Stillness a little bit later because there's some emerging ideas on that that are worth touching on but the point is that if one is constantly moving their attention from one thing to the next it undermines the stability of all the circuitry in the brain that's responsible for prolonged Focus. Now I / taken social media, so to you, but the scroll function is a practice of Shifting Focus while maintaining
Gays in one location, right? Normally we would shift focus by looking here by looking there in just for try this for 30 minutes tomorrow evokes listening this take 30 minutes of your day and decide your that. You're only going to exist in the three-dimensional world. Meaning you're not going to look at screens for 30 minutes. Okay, obviously screens your phone has a depth to it. But you know what I'm talking about, you'll notice that your attention is Shifting all the time. You're looking at brick wall, then there's this and there's you but but it's all harnessed by some sort of conceptual goal or physical goal.
Trying to get here finish a conversation complete an answer to a question. That's all within a tunnel of motivation when you're on your phone and scrolling and I think scrolling itself is the major issue when you're scrolling, you're essentially putting yourself into new context after new context after new context and the brain has to adjust to all of that and the way that the brain works in addition to controlling heartbeat and on anomic function etcetera is think about it sort of like a like a I don't want
Disabled I went I took my sister's sister and see the Harry Potter play recently in New York. And while I wasn't a big fan of the script at all. Is this the Half-Blood something? What was it called? Yeah, I was that the what is it the like the cursed child present? Yeah me Jordan Pederson and Douglas Murray got thrown out nearly got thrown out of that during covid. I've got to tell you the story. Once you're done hit one of the phenomenal thing that I feel so you went to go see it. My sister likes the theater and we go to New York each year.
For her birthday, and I took her to this show and I wasn't a big fan of the script to be honest. I only read one of the Harry Potter books liked it, but then abandoned that but she she really likes the Harry Potter stories. I wasn't a fan of the script. It's just my unformed opinion, but the effects were spectacular. Okay, and one of the things that occurred to me they have this Library there where the books are alive. And as I was watching this I realized that's very much how the brain.
Works that for instance when you walk into a room it's a new context and it would be the same as if you're walking through a library and let's say you your go to a soccer European football game and you sit down and also that your brain calls up all these books about European soccer and your favorite team is right there and then you open that and then all of a sudden you're looking at that something about your favorite team. What's your favorite team? You Castle, Newcastle OK and then with unbeknownst to you unbeknownst to you. This is the important.
Art the books all around you you not the one you're looking at are now changing to the competitors in the history of that team. But also who's the directly antagonistic rival team Sunderland. So the Sunderland Sunderland and there it is baby. Okay. So that's the way the brain works. It's calling up context so that it makes it very easy to flip to a discussion about a particular rivalry in a particular year in a particular match in a particular point in player. That's focus focus is not about maintaining a single time.
On all of cognition focus is about calling to mind all these additional contextually relevant batches of information that you might need. And you know, the reason I the analogy of the Harry Potter library is that it's a dynamic Library. So the moment we're done here and we walk out. Yes some of the books so to speak of this conversation will linger with us, but whatever we're focused on next whatever goal-directed Behavior we have making it to dinner through traffic or wherever we're going. We'll call.
Call up a new library. Now. Some people might say well, duh. Of course, it works that way but it's not dub because it's very Dynamic now social media is the opposite of that. It's one library next account another library next account another library next account another Library another Library another library and the brain is calling up all these different libraries in Rapid succession. So what I look like I'll be honest. The selected choice of things to click on tells me a lot about what I've been clicking on right that I mean, obviously the out
For yourself, I confess and I'm really embarrassed to say but not so embarrassed that I won't reveal that what I find now on that gallery of things to select our street fights so beatdowns. Yeah and really adorable strange animals or cute animals. I love the Flora and Fauna Twila T of Andre Cube and the right thing and not the capybara. Like if ever there was an interesting animal. It's the capybara. However, yes, the raccoon accounts are delightful to me.
We the the the nature is metal account is variable. Yeah, there's an extensive community of capybara enthusiasts on in switch. You're a member of know I've actively avoided cap. You are accounts. You're a big octopus guy though. I like cephalopods like cuttlefish my lab used to work on cuttlefish and octopuses octopi underclock useless has its octopuses. I've been taught for so long that it's off to talk to us is and actually this is the most I understand.
Trying to kill me because there was a meme about this because we did a live. Okay, so I know too much about this because I used to my lab used to work on cephalopods which are one there which on the category mollusks include cuttlefish and octopuses. And so it's octopus is the correct plural and this is about this the most like groundbreaking piece of information that we've got so far more over the great Oliver Sacks who's now unfortunately dead is a neurologist and popular writer about the brain function.
The man who mistook his wife for a hat etcetera. I hear a real hero of mine talked about this that you know, it's also platypuses and he wrote about you can look this up. He wrote about traveling to Australia and then going to the far north where they have a breeding program to re-establish the platypuses and that the location of the bleeding the breeding program, excuse me is literally the Platypus. Sorry.
Wow. Yeah. Yeah Oliver Sacks wrote about this. So I'm long been interested in the Platypus as an interesting animal. They're very exhausting. Hi octopuses. Yep. Yeah, that's okay, you know and again that I'll get nice. It's a revolution. So does that mean that the plural is the of or that the location where they breed octopuses the octopus? Sorry, I hope so. I want to go there. Yeah. Well according to Oliver Sacks, this is the correct nomenclature and he's the neurologist expert in cephalopods.
So we can return to this at some point. I want to show your people will put in the comments where we're right where we're wrong. I'm excited. Either way. They will have gone out and researched and learned and that's what that's what we're here for. I want to show you I want to show you this video. We can put it up on the screen. Just press play on the middle of that and let me know what you think. Right? So the for those listening who aren't watching. This is an image of a kid flipping back and forth between a iPad and a phone.
With Incredible dexterity. This is a family out to dinner and the kids are watching screens is another kid without any phone as hands crying attempting to swipe the phone that is not in his hand as if as if scratching at a a niche but not successfully and a kid actually tapping the screen in their sleep. Yeah. Yes. This is indeed. We are in the thank you. What do you think's going on the yeah.
And thanks for getting me out of the animal fights conversation. The what's happening is very clear, which is that, you know, the brain the human brain is an incredible Oregon because it's a map of our experience. It has certain parts that are hard-wired that govern our heart rate and control of our heart rate our control our breathing immune certain immune functions and on and on but then a vast percentage of our of the
Membrane is is open Real Estate that is designated as one function or another depending on what happens to you during development. So we know this for sure my scientific great-grandparents were won the Nobel Prize for this day with you won't turn some weasel that what you see during development really between the ages of birth and about age 14 mainly but certainly extending longer creates a set of modules or Maps within the brain that allow you to predict what's going to happen.
And in the future, so if kids are growing up doing a lot of swiping Behavior doesn't remember. We're in the first time in human history where people have written with their thumbs. Also right texting. There are entirely different maps of how language is encoded in motor. I should say how motor functions and language interact, you know in the past meaning for tens of thousands of years, if not longer gesticulating Accord and speech and grunting and shouting and pointing. So one of the primary modes of communication, it's not
Rising therefore that the representation of the hands and the digits which is a nerd speak for fingers is
right next to the areas of the brain are responsible for generating language and speech and language. So we now have the ability to speak with our thumbs. So so to speak no pun intended by texting. We now have the ability to see many different contextual Landscapes as we talked about before by swiping typically up sometimes down typically up, right? So the up swipe is become, you know as perhaps as hard as me.
Popped into the brain as the wave. Hi using it. What do you say to babies? You know, hi people try and get their attention get them to go wide-eyed smile out of you know, they do peekaboo. These guys have been doing this for a very long time. Now, the swipe function is one of the ways in which human beings engage in the world. It's almost it's not as fundamental as opening one's mouth to eat, but it's pretty close. So the brain is just adapted to this but there's real estate set aside for whatever your experience was. And so what you're seeing there is
just kids very Adept at doing this because it's always a trade-off human weasel in part won the Nobel Prize for showing that plasticity of the brain mapping of the brain for one particular sensory experience or function say swiping or the ability to switch back and forth between multiple screens is always always at the expense of some other potential function. You can't do everything. So when children are inculcated in that particular habit, there is the Thomas Soul quote.
Like there are no Solutions only trade-offs, right? Yeah, I think
I've got written on my whiteboard on my fridge at the moment the five most common deathbed regrets and it's things like I wish that I had not worked as much. I wish I'd let myself be happy. I wish I'd stayed in touch with my friends.
It will be unbelievably surprising to me if in 40 years time. I wish I'd spent less time on my phone isn't on that I would bet.
Pretty much everything that I have that that that would probably appear on average on people's five top deathbed regrets. I wish I'd spent less time on my phone and we can see this happening in front of us and the best way that you can tell that this is going to continue to happen is that you can reflect on what you did over the last week and one of the most common things that you wish that you'd unless I've over the last week was shouldn't I got captured? I did a couple of YouTube holes or Tick Tock Scrolls or Instagram, whatever's and you know that this is happening.
In the micro spread that across a lifetime, you know, I think that very much we're going to look back at this and hopefully there is some kind of solution. Maybe it's neurolink. Maybe, you know, we have a way that we can kind of ethically engage with technology and get the communication and the stimulation and the exploration of different ideas and communities. But yeah right now kind of feels a little bit like
Maybe a little bit like when cigarettes first came out like your doctor smokes camels, you know, like we didn't nobody knew what the bad effects of this were. They didn't know long-term what it was going to cause and do that video. I would really want to show it to you because you taught me I was I think correctly or incorrectly categorizing people's phone uses an addiction and I think that you said it's much more like a compulsion, right and that is a child that's asleep or
A lie asleep protect like compulsively scrolling through the phone. Yeah, because the compulsion does not the an obsession is mental. This is a classic definition of compulsion is a behavior, but the compulsion in classic OCD doesn't relieve the obsession it actually exacerbates it the payoff right back. Oh, so you're not it sort of like an itch that you scratch and just get it itches more right and
There is something like that with social. I don't want a social media. But with the phone scrolling now that said I mean, you know, you know of my waking hours most of it is spent foraging for organizing or dispersing information and much of that is done on the phone or computer. Yep, but I do read books hard books meaning physical books. I brought you one today. Thank you. I like audiobooks to I listen to a lot of podcasts. I watch your YouTube videos, so I learn when I'm on the
But yeah, occasionally, it's the you know, well, I learned from nature as metal, but I but I but I haven't learned anything from the raccoon post nothing of substance and his they said that they're very like they're very like cute and very do that thing when the I have to poop scoop food up like this then they wash food in my pool. Now I moved to a place. I'm renting a place as a pool. I've never had a pool before of skateboarding a lot of empty pools, but I've never had one that had water in it, so and they come
Through the nights raccoon Olympics in the middle of the night and they're coming through they make a ton of noise and then they're washing their food. It's pretty cute the first time you see it, but once they wake up the third or fourth time the on time raccoon, you're trying to yeah, so, you know, I haven't learned much from that from the raccoon videos. Certainly the fight videos haven't really taught me anything about self-defense or or anything useful except how you know, just kind of cruel people can be so I'm trying to change the algorithm by by clicking on other things, but it seems pretty slow to change. I got to tell you this, it's got me.
On I've never been into Star Wars. I've seen some of the movies or whatever. I've never been into it. For some reason. It started delivering me short content about Star Wars law like who would have one between Darth Vader and dark mall and all it like who was more powerful as a Jedi master and all this stuff interest and I've never been interested in this and yet it's created in me the desire to actually be like, well, yeah, like would Master Yoda have one however many eons ago if he was at full power when the the Sith was at and I don't even know what I'm talking about.
but it's like created in me this thing the interesting thing that you're talking about there is that there's a
when your foraging is spend enough time on the internet and you do find something that gives you that ah, wow, I never knew about that before and it's that sort of needle in a haystack that you're looking through and that
Trigger of wow, I found so I can talk about it on a podcast. This is really interesting to me. That is the carrot. I think that gets Tangled for very many people who want to feel better about the social media use and think we'll okay. Yeah, you know, I wasted 90 minutes, but I did get that thing out of it. I read that sub stack post. All right, I found this new person that I really care about, you know, the variable schedule reward of intellectual satisfaction is also in their rights. Not just the shock sure. It's not just the cute. Yeah.
Not for me is that you know PubMed Library called the only guy, you know, they thinks that PubMed is variable schedule. Remember when PubMed first came out as a like a very searchable database and and some of the journals later became electronic and now they're all available at try and I could not believe I was so excited because I used to go to the library and I have to pay with put money on the card and Xerox copy and stuff but also in the library, I love libraries and I'd spend so much time when I was a student and graduate student and he'd find something.
NG and is like I'd look around like did anyone like did you see that? But since I was a little kid I was discovering stuff in books and then talking about everybody even if they didn't want to hear and so I was a professing from a young age in class on Mondays and think so. So for me, it's hardwired into my system by now. And I think that I do think that social media holds certain gems. I think we're thing about talking about like mining for gems of social interaction to you know, I've gotten to know some people through social media where it's really enriched my life. I've reconnected with some people. Yep.
It's really enriched my life. It's allowed me to connect the dots going backward in ways. I hadn't anticipated and I think going forward if you're asking about the kids in the video that you showed me. Are you talking about adults or anyone? It's the the success is largely going to be determined by who has the most self discipline. I really don't know. It's always been the case, but I don't think it's ever been the case to the extent that it is now. So this is why I'm such a fan of
of taking some space from all action. This is actually something I learned from Rick Rubin, you know, I'm fortunate to call him a close friend. We communicate pretty much every day and I went and spent a week with him abroad this summer. It was the worst time to travel and I decide to go over to where he was in Europe and just spend the week with him. We had no planned and first of all in the way over there there was nothing to watch on the plane, but there was this Tom Petty documentary. I turn it on. I'm not
Huge Tom Petty fan but was interesting enough and then Rick Rick is in the documentary and he's in the documentary lying down doing the interview typical like typical meaning unusual for most people typical because it's unusual for Rick be lying down and I thought okay, so get there. I know his family well and I love them and and it was really wonderful. It's beautiful. It's a beautiful part of Europe, but you know, I noticed so we had this habit of we would tread water in the pool and listen to podcast in the morning and there's a wonderful podcast.
Cast by the way that we should all be aware of. I think it's a history of rock and roll and 500 songs by Andrew hickey super nerdy. It's like getting a like a graduate degree in rock and roll and talked about the music. But also what's happening in like organized crime how it impacted record sales very contextual very cool. I'm very into that lately and I'm interested in this show on Netflix. Have you seen Spy Ops? Yes, very good, right because it's not just like Shoot Em Up type stuff. It's really about how spy operations. Let me put this way it can teach you a lot.
About history International history and geopolitical history. So I go over there and we do some Treading Water listening to podcasts. I learn about this history of rock and roll and 500 songs podcasts. We talked about a little bit and then I noticed that you know, Rick has a practice. I hope he doesn't mind me sharing this because I'm about to you know, Rick has a practice. He has many practices but one of them is he'll spend a good amount of
time you just sitting and thinking or lying down and thinking and it didn't occur to me at the time, but
Later after I returned I thought back to our first guest episode of my podcast. I host a guy named Karl deisseroth who's probably the finest bioengineer on the planet. He's also a fully active clinician psychiatrist. He's got five children. He's one of these phenoms, you know, they seems to be able to do everything. He's a true genius. He went to school with medical school at Peter T. And Paul Conte. They were all in the same class. Yeah, and I know him very well. He's a colleague of mine at Stanford and and everyone knows he's a super he's a super he's of like the Michael Jordan.
Jordan of Neuroscience, except he still active and that is not a statement about personality just in terms of of successful hit rate in Carl described a practice that he does after he puts his kids to sleep of where he sits deliberately sits completely still and forces himself to think in complete sentences and this set often a light in my head when I realized Rick does a form of this and Carl does a form of this if you read the new Elon Musk book they talk about Elon.
In a form of this the Great Richard Fineman physicist, Nobel Prize winner talked about going into flotation tanks and doing a form of this Einstein did a form of this. So what are we talking about? So I'm a neuroscientist, but I'm certainly not as smart as any of those guys.
What we're talking about is body still mind active now. I've become into increasingly curious about psychedelic therapies one of which is and by the way only in a clinical context Etc legality Etc. Not in kids Etc. But the practice is essentially macro do psilocybin. But with the eye mask on completely still mine, very active Okay contrast that to a different Behavior /
That I'm very familiar with which is I like to do long runs or rocks on Sunday body very active mind not directed at anything in particular. Sometimes I'll do it without a book or podcast something to do with a combination of both many people talk about swimming or in the shower or cycling some sort of rhythmic movement drumming the great Joe Strummer was really big on campfires. He you know, I was going to mention this earlier, but I'll mention it now that as an alternative to alcohol consumption get your friends together around a
Fire by the way, the Fire Light the light from fire does not disrupt the Circadian system. This is actually been shown Candlelight Moonlight fire light as bright as it is. It's just very low Lux. So that's where great things happen independent of alcohol right around a campfire as it goes way back in our lineage. So there these two states of mind and body that I find fascinating to the point of being intriguing to the point of having modified what I do now because they they're the inverse of one another
Body completely still or close to completely still mine very active could be with psilocybin, but that's not the protocol. I'm recommending. I'm talking about some very very smart extremely accomplished people who all did the same thing. The other is body very active mind isn't still but is not deliberately channel to any particular linear kind of story or something like that.
There's a state in sleep where our body is literally paralyzed and the brain is extremely active. It's called rapid eye movement sleep. So I'm to raising a flag for this potential protocol / practice. I don't have any peer-reviewed science to support what I'm about to say, but I have enough examples of extremely accomplished people now in front of me to realize that there's something special about divorcing mind and body function temporarily delayed.
Currently sitting there and just thinking and recently had a conversation with the great Paul Conte and the addition of the words the great in front of him are appropriate here. He's I believe based on observation of his clinical work and and intellectual Acumen that he's the finest psychiatrists of our age clearly integrating from so many backgrounds. So we worked with a ton of interesting people coming on the podcast and December amazing and he's just phenomenal right not just about trauma, but about everything personality types narcissism.
Gaslighting me people throw those terms around like crazy puzzle tell you what it actually means. Okay what those terms actually mean but the ability to think and to access the unconscious Paul refers to the unconscious as the supercomputer of the brain for the unconscious mind and the conscious mind are always in a dialogue but here's the theory here's the hypothesis that when we bring our body into states of Stillness in REM sleep in these deliberate states that I just described to these other people actively engage in and have her a long time that the unconscious mind.
Find can start to take over a larger percentage of that conversation and we have access to new ideas new ways of structuring thought Etc. And I don't think one requires psilocybin to do it. But I do think that is one Avenue into it reliable that's reliable. It also carries certain hazards, right? Because it's it's like being put on a mental rocket ship to some extent. It's not like DMT, but very little control over worry ones cognition goes although there is some in there.
Anyway, I just wanted to throw this up on the wall because it's always fun to talk about new things and kind of what's coming. What I think is coming next. I think if I were to make a prediction, I think in the next two years, you're not just going to hear about meditation non sleep deep. Rest something. I'm a big fan of Yoga Nidra hypnosis, but also whatever we want to call this you'll probably come up with a better name that I can body still mind active states to access different aspects of our unconscious and cognition and I must say that we do this with the
Phone sorry, I just because I realize you were about to say something and when you speak you say interesting things and I learned cosplay LARPing and I learned put those ones is the most interesting. Oh, no, you say many of those enough. There's no use in terms of new terms. Okay new term say yeah Newcastle. Yeah some startling. Sorry. There was one of the most injured Concepts I but I'm learning is the point I wasn't I wasn't being sarcastic that when we sit and we're just scrolling.
Yeah, we're more or less bodies still mind active. But guess what? None of it's coming from within it's all coming from the outside. So whether or not it's psilocybin in the eye mask or or Carl sitting their eyes closed deliberately still thinking or Fineman in the in the salt equilibration chamber, you know that the float floatation tank or or Rick line. They're thinking whatever it is. He happens to be thinking whatever amazing album. He's gonna now, you know help produce more Einstein I mean,
You know we can think of the phone in the scrolling is lending itself to less ability to focus and ADHD, but just the real crime the real insult to humanity for me. The real cost is what about all the creative imagination of things that come from inside that could be generated by by people in that time. So I'm I've started doing a practice of 20 minutes a day. Just sitting and eyes closed typically sometimes it's right as I wake up, but usually it's not
Just trying to think about certain topics and hold those topics in the kind of linear way or sometimes just letting stuff guys are up. Hmm. Anyway, some people might think of this as like completely whacko Woo new agey stuff, but the list of names I read off their people that do that and have been doing this for a long time and attribute this practice as one of the major sources of their best ideas is a non-trivial list when I think about that there's a few different ways that
Slightly similar the number of people who've had great ideas whilst walking and attribute an awful lot of their success to walking and thinking right and what you're talking body still mind active but it's like body mostly still it's not exactly or perhaps there is a unique way to access this to maybe it's a different channel two different brain State. Maybe it's a different challenge to the same brain State like I love doing long rocks and long runs on Sunday. That's my goal on Sunday. Get out as much as possible into the nature and just move in some sort of repetitive way. Like I'm you all thrown a rucksack because Peter do you got
me into that sometimes is with other people sometimes alone. Sometimes I listen to a podcast. Sometimes they don't sometimes an audiobook. Sometimes they don't but something about about motor repetition. So this is not sets and Reps. This is not restacking the play. This is you know, minimum amount of cognition where the water dump freeing up mental space to do other things. Yeah could be on the rower. So again, I think different people do it differently. I've been hanging around with a lot of musicians lately. I've become good friends with one of my favorite musicians.
Songwriters Jim Armstrong lead singer for rancid transplants. He and Travis Barker did transplants and you know it and you know, it's clear that musicians especially drummers, but other musicians while they're always in a rhythm in their head, there are actually Tim and I the other day we went someplace and we walked out. He's like, did you hear that when you hear what he said you and hear that and see what he's like, you know, they had the news on and the radio on and as you know, he's so tune into the audio environment. I'm not right. I'm not that audio or oriented more visually oriented, but you know people who have
an internal Rhythm that they're they're they're noodling on something in their head. I mean this is this is the substrate of creative work, right? And I again the phone isn't evil but the moment you're taking in sensory input from that includes things that have already been creative. Excuse me created your yeah, you could argue that. Those are the macro nutrients that you're going to combine for your own creative thing the gems and the internet so studies scientific studies for me or interesting things on YouTube, but there's also just the Raw
Of creative work that come from limiting sensory input and just going in South generating it. Yes. I've been thinking one of the things that people want a lot more of I think is focus attention productivity as someone who values the work output that you do productivity is a word is quite nefarious are quite nebulous quite sort of ephemeral how have you come to think about the concept of
productivity and its constituent parts of you got any tools any strategies tactics that you use to kind of drop yourself into a productive State and stay there. Yeah. Sure. I do all the things that I profess, you know at the level the basics morning sunlight non-slip depressed. If I didn't get enough sleep physiological sighs when I need to bring my level 10 namik arousal AKA stress down. These are all things. We've talked about three days a week of cardiovascular training three days a week.
Training one day a week of deliberate cold deliberate heat minimum. You should on the day after leg day. I do all that stuff and it creates a structure and yes, it takes some time and a lot of that stuff can be combined combined scuse me with consumption of podcasts and audiobooks at the same time and social time, but for me the process of writing and I'm working on a book now, but also just the creative process has been greatly enhanced and productivity overall by setting in this 20 minute.
Period where I force myself to just stop and have deliberate thoughts. It's are within a single context. I don't let my mind wander. So it's very different than maybe the psilocybin Journey where it feels it sounds to me a little bit like active meditation. I'll kind of like narrative meditation in a way, you know, you're forcing your mind to come back to the you're not just allowing yourself to Branch off onto a current run to a new thought. Okay, here I am this is the trunk of the tree and I'm going to try and follow this trunk as high as I can. What about you know, you're sitting down at the desk you have the research to
The emails to write the whatever what have you got tactically in terms of a priming or a structure for that specific situation? Yeah, I used handwritten sticky notes and I'll put the thing that I'm supposed to do and I'll keep looking at it because I'm amazed at how often my mind will flip to other things like, oh, I have to transfer some money as somebody that I owe them or have to pay that bill or after I mean the number of excuses that leap to mind is outrageous for everybody unless we're under deadline.
Fear or extremely rare but you know Heist motivational States because we just simply love it. So I give myself five minutes or so to break into the work or five to ten minutes. I don't expect full focus in that first five to ten minutes, but here's what I tell myself because I know from 30 plus years of experience the feeling that I'm going to get after I complete something having like really had to push against the grain to force my attention back to that thing the feeling of having accomplished even as you know, one hour about of work,
Is so incredibly rewarding for me and the feeling of having done basically nothing is such an incredible sense of disappointment and lack of life like such a like Vitality drain for me. I'm not as hard on myself as I gather some people out. There are like David Goggins talks about his self talk and how it can be very hard on himself at times but mine isn't like that, but I know how great it's going to feel when
I get to the you're projecting full with your award that you're going to fail and trying to bring that into the now. That's very smart. I've got written on my other. I've got to to fridge whiteboards. The other is what would you tomorrow want you today to do right and that to me is the it's like a Panacea for avoiding bad decisions, you know because you live with the story that you tell yourself about the decision for way longer than the enjoyment or lack of of the decision.
There is a cookie on the table. I promised myself. I wouldn't eat it and I make a decision about whether or not I eat the cookie. There is either enjoyment or reward enjoyment in eating it or reward of satisfaction of discipline for not eating it that happens now, but what's really important is the story that I tell myself tomorrow about being the sort of person that is and cookie eater or is not a cookie eater. And I think that that framing that we place around the present moment largely determines our experience of it and I find myself
trying to live for future Chris Moore and the more that I do that the better that my life seems to get there are very few situations in which I make a decision today that I tomorrow would have wanted me to that turn out to be the wrong decision and that projecting forward. How am I going to fill in future? This is difficult now Rick Hanson, you know neurons that fire together wire together. Like can you sit with some of the satisfaction after?
Done something. That's good. Can you maybe even bring that forward a little bit give yourself a little. Yeah, that's how it's going to do. Yeah, one of the things that I've just been so fascinated by recently, you have been a big proponent and I think of really help people in getting some light in the eyes early on let's get ourselves outside walk. I think you taught me about the lateral eye movement can down regulate the amygdala response all stuff that I'd found on my own just through doing a morning walk and then again like with the alcohol thing gets legitimated through the science, you know, it's something that I did found it.
Myself and then I'm like this wasn't just Bro Science or some weird Quirk of my physiology. This was actually something that can be shown up in the literature to rien Doris from the flow research Collective. Has the flow morning routine. Have you seen this from having but I know rien greens up your an absolute monster his morning routine developed with Steven kotler to get yourself into flow specifically for deep work and writing is to begin working within 90 seconds of waking.
Because the state of flow and the state of sleep are not far away from each other in terms of brain frequency Delta and Theta of liminal State. Yeah. I've been seen that yet, but I I'll check it out. I I am a big believer in the moment you wake up. If you were dreaming keep your eyes closed and keep your body completely still also similarly if you wake up from a nightmare and you don't and you want to forget about that nightmare, you need to move your body. There's something about body movement that discards
The prior cognitive map. It's like it clears the library we talk about the dynamic a Harry Potter ish Library. I don't want to give too much credit to Harry Potter certainly not to that play but one thing that I'll just about the productivity piece before reflect on this further the because something you said really really struck a chord with me, you know, I can project to the Future me but that's not exactly how I don't what I'm I just know because I'm so familiar with it the feeling that I get having actually accomplished some small percentage.
A large percentage of what I would set out to do feel so unbelievably rewarding to me and I know that it also enhances the social interactions all have it's like a feeling of self satisfaction that transcends to an ability to show up with more clarity of mind. I'm one of the the problems for me in terms of productivity is I'm very strongly affiliative. I'm very fortunate to have a lot of close friends. So if I get a text message from someone, I feel compelled to write them back not out of responsibility because if it's someone I'm close with I love that person.
Listen, like I love my family, but I love my friends. I love my co-workers colleagues at the podcast. I mean, it's it extends and this has to do with my upbringing the fact that my non biological family became my family before I sort of reconnected with my actual family in a really deep way but the one exception being my sister and I were you know type tight the whole time but for me, you know a text coming is isn't a distraction. Like that's the that's the good stuff in life. That's
The reason I'm there, so I have this practice sometimes of imagining that my my crew right is the kids say we're I'm pretty crude up these days, which is great because it wasn't always the case. They want me to like forage off to where I need to go and collect the gems and come up with the ideas that are going to be the next post the next podcast the next scientific study. They want that I tell myself they want that for me like they're cheering me on because I know I'm sharing them on some are musicians some do other things. I'm sure.
Cheering them on I want them to know like I'm here and I want you to go get the stuff and do your thing. And so I imagine that they're doing that for me and I turn my phone's off and there's some anxiety and doing that. I'll put in the car sometimes because it's not that I'm going to I need to neurotically check the phone because I don't feel safe if I don't hear from them. Like I love these people and I don't want them to feel as if I'm not available. That's really how it is for me, but I know that and I think someone said it and I forget the quote so forgive me, but
Know if you're going to create anything of value in this life you're going to even if it's with other people you're going to have to be willing to be on your own for a bit to forage on your own to take walks alone and then returned to people to your tribe. So to speak and share with them what you've learned or maybe even just show up with whatever energy shift has occurred while you were off doing your thing. And so, you know the phones the phones are wonderful tool, but I think over the years I lost the ability to
Be truly on my own and dropped into work and it's something I've recovered a lot in the last few years by telling myself that indeed they want me to do that and indeed I show up so much better to all the relationships in my life. If I've done some real I just find with a good day's work that satisfies, you know, it's just that, you know got over that that barrier of resistance, you know, the Steven pressfield thing of resistance that you I wrestled with resistance and one I think we should all want people to win and I also and I confess
I lose some friends with this but I have variable latency in terms of my text replies. Sometimes it's the day sometimes an hour sometimes admit sometimes is the month. I love being on a plane and scrolling through old texts about hey, how's it going? Miss this and be like that was a month ago. Yeah it was and you know, I've been busy, you know, and and you know emergencies are dealt with but it happens what's happening in the brain and body when we procrastinate. Oh, yeah. So procrastination is super interesting there actually some data that Adam Grant shared with me recently that people
Who procrastinate actually have tend to be have access to certain creative states that non procrastinators? Don't do they happen start justifying the procrastination Crown that's a dangerous line to go procrastination. I mean, I mean what the origins of procrastination are complicated and varied to really say a single concise statement as to what procrastination is but the way to overcome procrastination is to do something harder than the hard thing that you're putting off.
That's very clear. Do something harder. Don't go clean your like suddenly if you want to do their taxes clean their room clean, the garage organized the gym, whatever when they don't want to write a chapter in their book, but you have to pick something that's worse than writing the chapter in your book and do that for five minutes. That's the way that the dopamine reward system works in some of these stress systems work. What would be an example? Give me give me a tactical example of this is where I need to write a chapter on focus and and tools for Focus for my book.
If I'm finding I'm doing everything but doing that. Let's just set it at kind of a fun example. I'll do anything but that okay. So then you have to find something worse than that. So for me worse than that is anything involving a spreadsheet just the idea of a spreadsheet gives me hives. So I would force myself to do five to ten minutes of like like real like establishing a spreadsheet of my expenses and taxes related to I don't know some segments of my work life. I mean, I can't think of anything.
In that moment that doesn't involve physical or psychological damage. So doing that and then you'll see it will make writing that book chapter very accessible. It's down. It's a downhill Crews from there, but people find themselves doing all these things that they would normally want to put off as a way to avoid doing the harder thing. So it's about understanding that what is difficult and what you want to put off or do is a dynamic hierarchy. I think you can think of it as Dynamic subordination.
You know, I don't know if that's bother borrowed from cosplay or from unitary or BDSM. I don't know I heard it someplace but only this is that you mine for information most frequently and know it's raccoons and stuff. No, none of those. None of those communities are communities that I know very much about but it was saying it facetiously but but the point being do something harder than the thing you're trying to avoid. Now, some people really like deliberate cold exposure for that reason because in a here I'm going to really if I've taken
For no pun intended for the deliberate cold exposure thing. Now, I'm really going to get behind it for the following reason people who are really into exercise a various kinds of but not deliberate cold exposure love to push back on people that do posts about deliberate codes for oh, that's not doing anything. It's not much metabolic left. Okay, but let's really step back and be honest with ourselves the adrenaline the that pattern of adrenaline release over time from deliberate cold exposure is something that's very hard to
recreate safely with other endeavors, you know sure a hard workout is going to spike your adrenaline and dopamine also, but is it going to spike it the way that deliberate cold exposure is no also the amount of a of a mental barrier. That one has to get over in a moment not isn't it like three warm up sets like walk on the treadmill 0 to 100 pre-workout it show me the pre cold plunge drink that makes it easier. Okay, it's called.
Willpower. Okay, and now some people come to love deliberate cold exposure, but that's usually for how they feel afterwards. So I think there is so much utility to deliberate cold exposure now do people have to do it. No, but deliberate cold shower deliberate ice bath deliberate cold plunge is it is a world apart from all the other self-imposed stressors because of the speed of onset of the stress. Yeah, Steven even more so than a sauna.
That's right. You get into a cylinder and it takes time for you to heat up takes time for you to get on correct. I mean it's so it's a very potent tool because of the amplitude and the timing of adrenaline that it creates what else what else in the procrastination dissolving toolkit? So we've got do something that is harder than the thing that you're trying to get away from if you can do cold exposure. That's kind of cool if you like. I got to sit down and do this. I find myself for 10 minutes kind of fluff in about trying to do so I go upstairs. I have a cold shower. Okay, that was
Way more miserable than this is going to be if it's miserable if you like it then no, but if it's way more miserable than that's the thing to do pick the miserable thing. I mean, sometimes it'll leave me like hard conversation. You didn't want to have some people are, you know, certain hard to conversations that are harder than others easier than others. But you know in business, I've never had a hard time having hard couple slaying all sorts of demons in an attempt to get away from that procrastination. It's right here. One of the things that I really wanted to talk about was
The Peril of over-optimization. I think that before we knew about all of these signs based tools. Everyone had an excuse not to be optimized right and now we're all educated about this stuff. And I think that a lot of people feel guilt they can feel guilt because the gap between how effective they are and how effective they could be is felt between them. So given that you spend an awful lot of time thinking about the tools that people can use. How can
Someone get over this this guilt of lack of not being where they should be with getting all of the things dialed in well guilt has rarely been effective emotion, although sometimes guilt and shame can really help us make significant change, you know, the word optimization and optimize I think needs clear definition and I'm not suggesting that you you are the one that said this but a lot of people think it means being perfect all the time optimization is something that we need to look at.
In the context of the moment the hour the day the week, right you have a viral infection or you're sick or you're tired or jet-lagged optimization is whatever you can do to manage the basic five of you know, sunlight sleep nutrition exercise relationships work productivity that you can so it's about it's a it's a verb function. It's not a state to be in like floating around optimized. It's a optimization. The verb is a process that work.
Annually in I mean people who are raising kids are exceedingly busy raising kids and they're trying to optimize raising the kids and hopefully taking care of their health as well. So I think people see or hear the long list of science inform protocols that I talked about in the oh my goodness. How am I supposed to do all of that? That's why I keep coming back to the basics, right and look a little bit of sunlight is better than none a little bit dimming the lights a little bit is better than you know, keeping them on a full blast at night, you know making eating a few fewer
Heavily processed foods, they're highly palatable is better than you know, not doing that right but and there are certain people have immense amounts of self-discipline. I mean one thing that's and they're going to do all the things. I mean one thing that's absolutely clear is that there's a pattern of people discovering things that make them feel much better and then I need to tell everyone about it. And that's it that creates a bit of a divide four people. One thing that I've tried to do is to say yes, I do these tools. I do these protocols, but I'm not just
But I you know empathize with the fact that sometimes things happen travel kids illness you get into an argument with a with a significant other, you know at work or you're just feeling off, you know, and so, you know, it's important to try and do these things on average is my belief and to be gentle with oneself when the time calls for it and then there's other times you need to scrub for yourself and say like enough of this like enough huberman like it's time to sit down and write this thing. I don't care if you phone is ringing or not. I don't care if you
Want to or not and you build up your amcc while you're doing it, right? You know that your if ever there was a carrot for the hard for doing the hard thing. It's that amcc activation that makes your amcc larger which makes you will power more accessible in the future. So it's not that I'm unsympathetic to people who are like wow. This just feels like a lot but we also have to remember that we should all I think as a species be an individual and into as individual scuse me be striving to do better each day better than yesterday.
On the backdrop of what we happen to be dealing with today. I really really do. I mean last week I had a great week up until Thursday and then something happened Thursday. It was a purely professional thing and it was like everything got derailed. I literally didn't sleep that night very rare for me very rare, and I was and it's interesting the pattern that emerged. I did some reflecting on later after this event past which was there's always this moment where we're like where we don't want to do damage control where we're thinking gosh.
If I just hadn't done that or that person just hadn't done that you're trying to control the past. So there's that moment and I've learned you have to let that process take place unless you have amazing abilities of a you know of a special operator one special operations person who seems to be able to just live in the moment, by the way those guys, I know a lot of them very close to some tremendous respect for them. But a lot of them have trouble when they return from that kind of landscape where well that's done. You got to focus on the next thing because real life involves sometimes ruminating over the thing that happened and just
Being in that space of I wish that hadn't happened. Now, you try and compress that to be a limited amount of time and then you get to okay damage control and Damage Control sucks because there's the opportunity cost of all the other things that you're not doing while you're doing damage control. So, you know, the human animal including me needs to accept that there are certain things that we just aren't going to get perfect and I hate doing damage control like everybody does but I probably hate it a little bit more and under those conditions. I just think okay. You know what,
This isn't 72 hours lost. This is an opportunity to learn and indeed we came out of the situation better had them that we not gone into it. But I'll tell you that realization didn't arrive until Sunday and I was pretty upset on Friday and I'm not a bad mood guy. I'm not a moody guy. I don't get headaches. I don't get stomach. I'm not moody people don't grade on me even people with very different opinions and things. I'm like Live and Let Live kind of like caught my Bulldog Costello. So I guess to answer your question very directly here at the end. I think.
Is not about removing all negative emotion or physical States optimization is about working with what's right in front of you with the understanding that the human brain in its capacity to think about the past the present or the future in some combination. Sometimes occasionally. The anchor is still stuck in the sand a few hours or days back or years back and we have to accept that as part of our normal neural functioning and psychological functioning and and try and get you know, and try and get
none word and move forward but that when we're in those moments, you know, we have to know that we're in them and one of the most useful tools that for this was given to me by a podcast guest episode hasn't come out yet. Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett who's done a lot on the neurobiology of emotions and psychology of emotions. And you know, she said and is so powerful anytime you feel a high activation state of any kind you should stop because what it's what's happening is it's revealing to you something very important.
And if you don't stop to think about why I'm so upset or why. I'm so happy you're going to miss an important lesson. So this can be positive states to any time you feel like you're getting above eight out of ten or seven and a half out of ten on some scale of internal arousal for good or bad reasons. You want to reflect what is the lesson do I gosh. I really love this person. I love this interaction. I love this aspect of my job. So that's going to inform the next job I take because I don't love the rest of the job or this.
This really sucks. And there's a lesson and I learned a very important lesson in that last Thursday, but I didn't realize it until late Saturday. But I remember on Thursday this thing hit and I was pissed I don't get pissed very often but I was pissed and I remember hearing Lisa's voice in my head and thinking okay. What is this revealing to me strategic looking up at you in three days later. I had in my journal and I still have in my journal. I have a many journals, but I have one that's permanent. That kind of is the distilled out things that kind of rise to the top as truths.
For me and it revealed to me that I care. Oh so very much about certain things to the point where they're not about my career. They're really about my life my quality of life and that small cluster of things is something that now I protect inside I'm stealing Paul Conte's language here, but inside the castle walls of what I consider important like I brought some things in that I think before I wasn't Reckless with but I didn't realize it would be like if you have a prized horse or child and you're letting them play outside the castle.
Walls and you know, they're Marauders out there but also in one takes a you know, an arrow through the heart and you're like hmm and it's a huge loss. Well, what do you do with your other horses or children? You bring them inside the castle walls? Right, but you it would be a shame to have to have that experience in order to recognize how important they are to you but there were certain things that I was just not protecting and now I feel so secure. I also feel like I gained a huge lesson. So so the the short list here is when an when the shit storm hits.
to put it in scientific nomenclature know that
you're going to be focused on this for a while except that as quickly as you can but understand that accepting that itself is its own hard process be pay attention to those states of high arousal. There are lessons there. Even if this is good stuff, even if there's great stuff the love of your life, you're now getting engaged there's lessons as there's things to be gleaned that you'll want to go back to later and then three or four days later go back to those things and examine them from some different perspectives because I think they're huge lessons in these high arousal States whether or not it's higher else.
Because of terrible things are high arousal because of good things and I think having a process for moving through that is something I didn't have and I'm still learning to cultivate and you know, gosh if you wish the UN spend as much time on the phone or other people's worst haven't spent as much time on the phone. I wish I had known up or had a process for dealing with things that happen to me or that I created that were unfortunate for myself or others. They created for me a process of moving through that that semi-structured that accepts that
Giving up some degree of control, but that there's the opportunity to regain control and establish lessons that you never ever would be able to access purely retroactively. Yeah, that's kind of like Alchemy then taking something which is, you know, objectively a pretty crap situation and turning it into something which is really really useful. There's a quote that stuck with me that you tweeted last year. I'll maybe you just taught it to me. I can't remember advice. I got early in my career don't over engage in any
See unless you are willing to stake your entire reputation on it rather keep focused on discovering new things and creating or else you become known for the controversy. And nothing else. There is no going back, right? Yeah. This isn't about avoiding being canceled because I think some people might translate it to mean that which is why I say it's not about that. It's about you know, we're given this enormous privilege to communicate our thoughts very fast now through social media and whether or not you have a big following
a small following or no following it is still a privilege and it's something that I've learned to really think through and guard and protect as an asset right that we have and I've thought about this from the beginning of posting on things online and set up certain rules for myself. For instance. I try to ensure that 90% of my posts are really for the pure benefit of the the audience and not for my own entertainment.
Occasionally, I'll see something and I'll have a one of these like, you know, I'll see something animal post or something like that. So cool or the other day. I saw something on a on an ex account about you know, bumblebees that sleep inside of flowers and it was really cool about how they look at polarized light and stuff but I just was really tickled by this fact. I thought other people might be as well but it was more for my own entertainment frankly, but 90% of what I put out there. I'm really trying think we'll people benefit from this will they learn from it? Not are they going to be interested in it? But are they going to learn from?
It will it get them thinking or doing something beneficial to their mental health or physical health Lord knows I've been attacked for saying hey, this is an interesting study about deliberate cold exposure and then people will like oh it's underpowered and you know, it's a marginal effect and you know the and I love that because I come from the field of science is sort of funny and turn people loose on a paper wet because you know, you're going to get a range of opinions because no two people read the same paper the same way and everyone would like to say that they are the Arbiter of truth and how to read papers which just makes me chuckle. Normally those people have not published very many.
A themselves it's sort of his inverse relationship. But nonetheless, I like to put things out there that stimulate thinking positive thinking I don't like controversy for sake of controversy. But you and I have colleagues in the podcast space and there are many people in who are public facing who see a current event and they just say what they think and you know, what more power to them but it is and I will say it is a distractor from a larger message that they
likely have if they have one at all but and you see this and it's not that they go down at what happens is they take their audience that has been built around a certain set of topics and suddenly they're talking about current events. I guess what I'm basically saying is I don't talk about current events. Yeah, you've never I realize I don't know why you've never commented on politics. You've never made any. No actually this is I've politics came to around to me in an interesting way. I'll just share this because it's exactly how it happened.
Logan had Robert Kennedy jr. On his podcast. Okay, and I liked the post and I commented and the comment was the following I said, I hope all I hope all presidential candidates go on long-form podcasts because I happen to believe that it's a great way to get to know candidates plural fuck. No Claire didn't someone edit your Wikipedia page? Okay, so in the so this is interesting, so I got calls from colleagues of mine at Stanford.
I got literally calls and texts. I got calls from major media Outlets asking whether or not I'm RFK supporter / anti-vaxxer to which I said, I don't know how you concluded that. Okay. It's certainly not my stance, right? My politics are my politics, but but there was a huge leap from and I said and I in my comment I said, you know, I look forward to listening and I hope all the candidates gone long form podcast. I also see Robert in the gym and it always looks like he's training hard. He trains hard. He's in good condition. Yeah, he wears jeans.
Which I don't understand when he trains. But anyway, but he trains hard I'll Choice odd choice, but it free country. So yeah, so so be it so was I commenting on the content of the of his podcast know it was like commenting on probably haven't even listened to it. I hadn't listened to it yet. So what was interesting was in the subsequent days. I got an onslaught of kind of assumptions or presumptions really what they were and then yes, my I mean this isn't about maybe this is the time I have published over 70 peer-reviewed articles that are
Indexed on PubMed, you know many of which had secondary sources in time and other major Outlets that covered the findings for their relevance to the general public at the time this around 2016 mostly but in the subsequent years as well that was scraped from my Wikipedia scraped from Wikipedia. You mean like scrub removing remove to remove? Yeah. Oh my research contributions are not there on Wikipedia Still Still and and then it was there were assertions that I was in anti-vaxxer there were sessions that
That I was supporting certain political agendas and and so on and then the page was locked by the editorial staff. I've had Communications with the founders of Wikipedia who the page has been adjusted somewhat but not none of my research has been put back. I actually at this point, I think it's sort of interesting because it's such it's more actually it's kind of fortunate that it happened in the sense that it's more telling about how the kind of editorializing around Wikipedia exists then it this is
Really not about me. I'm telling this this anecdote as a way to sort of reveal. What was my experience makes very clear that you know, now it includes some some positive some negatives about the podcast. That's fine. We cover supplement some people are and promote supplements in certain contexts, mostly behavioral tools but supplements to and so I'm perfectly fine with that being included because that's true, but it was very interesting to see how when a
Way that sort of people will pick up the ball and run with things and and it's and it's it's been super useful for me to understand this because what it's allowed me to do first. It was like Hey, like what's this about then? I tried to figure it out. Then I went straight to the top in terms of trying to understand and I realize it's like, okay, what do I really love doing? I love forging for information that can benefit people's mental health and physical health. I love organizing that information. I love dispersing that information to the best of my abilities and
And those are the things that make me happy and those are the things that seemed to resonate with a certain number of people. Those are also some of the same things that seemed to irritate a certain number of people and and I love doing it. And so what I'm going to do is just return to doing that and I learned a lot about the landscape of online information in the process, very formative experiences a very formative and as an academic, you know, all that pick my papers are in PubMed. There's no unless a paper is retracted or corrected. There's no removing things from the library. It's the your Google Scholar will
Be kind of like no one's going in there and index is fixed and it's not to be very clear when we very clear because I don't want to contradict the the very thing that I opened up the question, which is this is not this is not something I want to like die on The Sword of right, but it really alerted me to the fact that so much of the information that's on the on the internet has been massaged in a particular direction based on presumptions. So one of the reasons I'm taking this opportunity to talk about this, it's not to counter major media news outlets there just
Try to make a living for it's kind of interesting. They have a lot of the same advertisers that my podcast does. You know, I don't advertise Fendi bags. But but you know, they use advertisers we use them. It makes it free to everybody as a consequence, but I think that it's really important for people to realize that this question of like what can we who can we trust? What can we trust we all have to learn to be good scientists and foragers of information and and and the macro for me is that hopefully people are learning to forage for information better as
Consequence of understanding that like dead no one person holds the truth. This is not Mount Olympus. So I think the interesting thing of one of the reasons why you might have seen an outsize response to this is people aren't used to you being in anything right? Like the biggest conspiracy that Andrew human is going to be a part of is like some new study on sunlight in the eyes or something. It's like is there was the p-value and stuff. It's like it's like it's not accessible to the normal person, Jamar.
Mafia precisely. Yeah, there is by the way a cold plunge Mafia. Who are they? Yeah. Well, I'm happy that I'm not going to talk about rights. Like what's it called? The sicarios? You've got the Brotherhood you made a bloody suppression has said that you can keep it in but it's a pretty it's a stronger in delicious a undulating Oakley socially financially industry. So it's a very powerful interests ran wild. I understand why people are nervous about the cold plunge. It's me, too. So
lots and lots of people online
get known for their expertise within one area and then start to think to themselves. Well, why why shouldn't the world know about my opinion on the Ukraine conflict? Like I've got lots of things to say and everybody thinks that it's very very valuable. So maybe I should contribute to what we should do about climate change or what we think should happen in the next election. And I think that you know to your credit you've done a really good job because you will have opinions. You just chosen not to share them.
Presumably right I vote yea, so but you've chosen not to do that. And I think that it's almost like the sensitivity dial was turned up so much. It's like where's the first-ever society? We knew we knew that it was the tattoos and the beard. We always knew that that guy was like a like an RF cat or a you know what I mean and any opportunity for somebody to jump on this, right? So this is something that I've been kind of noticing in myself. Somebody asked me this I'm doing these live shows at the moment. So I know that you do like your to I want to come to one of your live shows.
We're we're not doing Allah, I'll find you a date live shows are so different than podcast and I learned what is your arousal State before you step on stage? Oh, I mean, I have a whole product set of protocols. We would you would you would you send me them? Sure. Yeah, I would love I spend the whole day basically in a rhythm and I talked to only a limited number of people and I've got a rhythm in my head and I'm I'm in an SDR hypnosis part of the day. I send and receive a
Tax of Rick my friend Tim Armstrong, my friend Jim Thibault. I touch base with my team. I do prayer. I'm like, I'm in an altered state. I need all the help looking forward. I'm looking forward to the protocol. I've got my two of my first UK & Ireland tour is happening in November and then I'm going to buy we got huge 2000 person show in Dubai. Then we're going to do Canada in the u.s. Anyway, I got asked recently. I'm doing work in progress shows like a comedian for these so I'm doing 40.
Sun shows at East Austin comedy club all of the profits go to charity. I wanted to work out my material right before I went on stage even though it's not it's not comedy stuff, but I wanted to do it and it's been really really useful because I've been able to watch I shouldn't really open with that story. It's not so you can move that a bit later. It's a bit heavy. It's a whatever whatever is a lot of thoughts about this. Yeah, so
Somebody asked me at one of these shows what some of the Unseen prices are that you pay for building a platform of the size and what I realized was.
Both you and I just like doing the shows that we do like I love I'd there is nothing that I would prefer to do at 4:23 p.m. On a Friday afternoon then sit down and have this conversation. There is nothing that I would rather do right and if you do that for long enough you end up accumulating the size of an audience that carries with it responsibilities that you didn't ask for and didn't ask to have my like and comment on my friend Jose in
Graham post scrutinized by mainstream media and trended across a Twitter grown only that I'd call he's calling the saying not what is happening to you. But literally what happened to you, right? Is that awesome but the same week that we published a clinical trial so it's not as if like my scientific career, so it's pretty interesting actually had very fruitful conversations with those people. I know what I eventually figured out what the answer is to the question you asked before which is still in this vein, which is he
Here's the thing. There's a certain segment. In fact a very large segment of listenership viewership and media that want to see you and me and other people do what they would do in a given circumstance for instance. Why didn't you counter so and so when they said blank, yep, why didn't you stand up for this group when you have the opportunity on
That situation what they're basically saying is they wish they had to have the opportunity and they're angry that you're not.
Tip of the spear for them in circumstances that they don't have access to I get it but once one thing that I learned early on by observation, is that a sense of justice and a sense of strong opinion about certain things is incredibly important. I mean that runs in my family, but you have to know when Justice needs to line up with action or when Justice is time to walk away when you're not the best suited for something the other thing that and I have to say
Joe Rogan is the best at what I'm about to describe and I admire it so much. First of all, I'll go on record saying that I think Joe Rogan has been clearly net positive for science bringing about lots of different conversations about tons of topics. Let's just leave the vaccine thing aside for the moment. But sleep the the cause of you woke up on a Lemke right Peter Atiya and on and on okay.
It's very clear whether or not he's aware that are not that he's not going to be leveraged by anybody. No one's going to come on to show it. He's he can't he doesn't allow himself to be used right. So when someone gets upset that you're not taking a stand that they would take their upset that they can't use you to reach their ends. And you know, I have many flaws like anybody but maybe a few extra I really do and but one but but included in that extensive list of flaws is not the
Cassidy to be used it just is not I have strong opinions and there's time for justice in action along particular lines. And I prefer to do that not using my social media platform or podcast platform in part because there's a tremendous number of things that I want to learn about and teach about guess I want to have on to educate as many people as possible. So I'm not being political or diplomatic. I'm being extremely strategic I'm saying I'm not going to be used to achieve. Somebody else's end. I want to that's basically what it
It is and so I think very hard about like the things I want to take on and they're mostly about helping people regulate our circadian rhythms stress sleep Eating Disorders depression understanding of self through a mental health series addiction sleep, you know, I said sleep multiple times and on and on and the other stuff is really barbed wire. You can get snagged on it and stuck there and then your tossed up against the barbed wire and you're fighting and you're bleeding out and guess what a bunch of really great stuff is happening. So
That you could be focused and I often I always think really what it is. I always think about how much of some of the smartest Minds about Generations time has been taken up arguing over pick your topical issue headline of the moment, like what what else could have been achieved if these people who outside of the myopia and and like catastrophe that is most of Pop Culture headline stuff.
are phenomenal thinkers and yet they have a
It's like the Kryptonite that there's something that pulls him away and I want I want to rip them back in for my thumb's start buzzing. You know, there's the premotor circuits that get me wanting to put something. How often do you how often do you type in delete to that happen much three times a day you're kidding now, but not because of political. Yeah isn't but more sensitivity issues. But yeah about three times a day. There are a lot of posts that just don't go up because I'm like it's not going to land right? I don't touch on current events. I mean our friend likes Friedman covers a lot of current events and gets
right in the middle and he likes it. He'll travel to current events. Yeah, you know, he'll land himself in in dangerous territories. I think also something that's really helped me. I had great scientific advisors and mentors coming up. I also I understand the limits of having one brain and one personality in one history and I have a council of people that I refer to often. It's when I brought my notebook today, which I'm always carrying around one of these little notebooks. I'm writing on cards and things and in the front of this notebook is a list of names.
I didn't think we'd get into this at all today, but you a list of names of people that I look at this look at the Council of Human right that it is who's who's in the county? Well, I'm not I'll give you a non-exhaustive but accurate list. I mean it includes Rick Rubin close friend Peter attea close friend.
It includes Joe Strummer Oliver Sacks, both of whom are dead and who I never met but I've consumed their writings and I know people close to them and I have stories about them. It's got a couple people whose names are not going to disclose. There are a few others here that maybe my dead advisors all three of them my dog Costello had it he couldn't be he was so stubborn. You could not get him to do something. He didn't want to do. It was like he would he couldn't move him and he always was right about the things he didn't want to do.
At an incredible sense of understanding about his environment my sister's on here and then you know my team whereas in aren't just my team, but Rob Mikey and Chris Martin Gary Greg like Sarah. They're they're here. Right? So these are like anytime I'm going to put something into the world. I look at this list and I think like, okay, I don't need unanimity. But like what would they say about this? And because I don't need to text them most times 9 times out of 10.
I know and for it just by knowing them. Absolutely. This is this is something I really I really wanted to kind of touch on because you've gone and there are others on that list. So for those that I didn't include it's like a I want to make no Jim Thibault, right? Yeah. I'm Jose on here. It's like it's I mean doing an awards ceremony Alexa's on here. I mean, you know, so I mean, it's just so clear to me that my brain can't do it right all the time and I need to call on people alive and dead like known and that I haven't known to help me and you know, it feels sort of corny.
Talk about but if there's one thing I've tried to do with the podcast it's to normalize some of the conversations around things like anxiety stress Sexual Health. We've been doing a lot about hormone sexual health for women and men communication, you know normalized some of the discussion around these practices that that to some people might seem kind of hokey. But to me, I mean this list isn't like three out of 10 in terms of the potency scale like my productivity and feelings of safety and life so that I can go do my best work. It's like
seven out of ten 11 out of 10 and it's the kind of thing where most of these people don't even know that no one knows they're on their list until on this list until now but I've always had this list in different forms, and it's updated over the years and I was a kid, I mean growing up a hero listen to him every day of my life from 13 on Tim Armstrong lead singer for rancid Operation Ivy transplants a like literally every day and through some magical.
Of locked we become very close friends. So he was guiding me all along but he's about he's 10 years older than I am. He has deep. He's extremely smart extremely smart and he has deep understanding of human dynamics and how to be in the world while trying to do creative work now, he's a musician not a scientist but his level of curiosity intellect memory. I mean, it's like it doesn't just it for years it inspired me but now like I'll text her call to him. I did that last week like hey, this is a tough situation.
Relation really helped me a called a few other people too, but he's on this list and he has been since I was 13. How Wild is that? It turns out, you know, never meet your Heroes, right? Well, it turns out this hero ended up like wildly exceeded my expectations in the positive direction. You do know that the someone listening to this there's probably millions of people listening to this at least not thousands to whom you're that person right the eat. They have this parasocial relationship with you. Even if you didn't ask for it, even if
Social I like that. It's almost like Paranormal. Yeah parasocial. It's on write that down get it in there along with whatever it was cosplay and we've got a good list and Cuba husband Heba Daddy's I'm really fascinated by what's what it's been like to be a relatively unknown academic working in the annals just doing nothing doing a research to now as a byproduct of a passion to share science based tools for people now being sort of Thrust out into the public.
Public what's the felt sense of this rapid increase in exposure and scrutiny and fame being liked.
So I'd love to tell you that disorienting but truly by virtue of feeling very aligned with the work and purpose of the work that I'm doing. I feel like I'm at least in terms of my daily activities and where my mind is at. I'm exactly where I for the first time I'm like exactly where I feel like I'm exactly where I belong not because I'm known and the the podcast has achieved this recognition for which I'm very grateful and
bowled by but because I love foraging for organizing and dispensing information. So 95% of my cognitive powers are set toward like the episode. I'm preparing for next week or the week after and I have to like literally pull in my impulse did not take off on a tangent about my use of toe spacers to fix this like imbalance because of like foot health and like I'll go there that's the thing but like it's all games TWP. I'll prepare for podcasts. I someone asks how long it takes me.
And I realized in total because I start so many months ahead somewhere between very low end the lowest ever would have been 12, but it's typically more like a hundred and fifty to two hours of preparation and I love every friggin second of it. And so for me, it feels great because it allows me to do what I'm doing now in terms of being public-facing. I mean, I'm a pretty introverted person. I love clothes Dynamics, you know, if I think for a second about meeting one-on-one Dynamics and small group dynamics small
He's at my house and things I'm comfortable in crowds, but I'm not interested in in being in them per se but if I think for a second about how many people are going to listen to something, I'll just I don't know. I don't think about it because I would not suggest not to do it, you know, it's changed my life dramatically and mostly for the positive in positive ways, you know getting filmed while you're in the gym is funny because you know, I always have like If Ever I needed to use perfect form like now that you know, I'm like
The Timbre is but that's the real. That's the real Scandal. It's not that you like to Joe and RFK post. It's the fact that you can't do preacher curls with perfect a I'm four. I'm a full range of motion guy. I'm a full range of motion guy, but I am the guy in the tip machine every day not every day. But any damn in the gym, yeah getting filmed when you're not aware that you're getting film some security breaches and that it might not directly towards me but towards members of my family and community that those have been annoying but that goes with the territory and I've been mostly lucky.
Of interactions are immensely positive when people come over and say hello. I enjoyed its, you know, I don't always have a lot of time so there are those kinds of things but I'm somebody who's genuinely curious about other people. So in those interactions like I want to learn about them or you know about me I want to learn about them i-i've always been genuinely curious about other people. This isn't a line like I've been friends with the garbage man the janitor the um, you know, my dentist like, you know there I've got stuff in my mouth so I can't it's
One-way conversation but you know learning about people I think allows one to also deliver information in a way that's more accessible to people. This is something that I meant. I would guess I would go as far as to say that the level of Fame and recognition that I have now is about as like Goldilocks zone as its as it's possible to get its maybe once every 10 to 15 minutes if I'm walking in a crowded area somewhere and it'll be a ten minute conversation 10 second conversation of high maitreya.
I love the podcast and I do like the Amazon Prime delivery driver shouted out of the window the other those are the people that that that allow us to do what we do right? Like guys that like those. I'm so grateful that people are interested in the kinds of information that you put out and then I put out. I mean I look at them. I look at anyone I interact with as the students in my classroom the same way I would the way I manage my comment section on social media classroom rules. You can say whatever weird to me, but don't be don't be uncool to other people and or I'm gonna block
You why I was like, I can't take it. Listen, I grew up in skateboarding. I grew up in Academia The Hazing process in those communities very different was intense. It was physical psychological emotional torture at times. And so you develop a very thick skin. I'm in skateboarding if you do something and you don't make it look right or something is a little off like you're going to own that reputation for years. And so that's your new nickname. Yeah, you you have to have your I'm not going to say the way
I'd say Mike then but like I mean you have to have
Every York it has to be right everything has to be right and yet you have to try things and so it's you know learning to work through the narrow constraints of social media is nothing compared to trying to come up through Academia where people say, oh nice nice great to see you and then they kill your papers or ground behind your back. It's a game of backstabbing now, they put a reviewers on names on paper. So it condition me for it. I will say this I'm very grateful that all this happened in my 40s my mid-40s started the podcast when I was 45 on.
He ate now. It's why that timing I just think about the young brain the 20s 30s, you know so much of our identity is formed earlier in life, but we're still trying to figure out who we are. I know exactly who I am. So, you know, the guy that since Age 5 has been Gathering organizing disseminating information. I like lots of different kinds of people. I like Misfits and run sand winner in like and you know jocks and punkers and hippies and I have gay friends and straight friends like Live and Let Live. I love it. All right, so I oriented towards Cape
Boarding and punk rock because it was like all the Styles all the hairstyles. I mean people think of like just like bullet belts and Mohawks know that you got your piece Punk's here, you're vegan pox and got all these like create and I have my thing what I liked, but I love the variety because I love the Flora and Fauna of life. I don't love raccoons or Cappy bars per se but I love how they fit into the animal kingdom and I have an obsession with animals and weird animals and cephalopods and the octopuses and the you know,
The platypuses and all of it and so for me like being on social media I get to step back and look at all of it, but I'm not going to let anyone decide who I am or who I'm not like I'm the guy was wearing black shirts before my colleague David feldheim will tell you this. He's a professor at UC Santa Cruz. He once tweeted he was like, he always wore the black shirt and I was like, yes, it's true. I didn't change at all. I didn't feel like I had to modify myself. I know, you know, I always try to hold the door for people. I I tried in my perfect know so it's
has changed things a lot and yet it hasn't changed me at all.
I love it. Dr. Andrew human ladies and gentlemen, dude. I really appreciate you very much. Appreciate the support. You've given me over the last year when I've needed to text you when I've needed a little bits and pieces. It really does mean a lot to me. So what can people expect remainder of 2023? What have you got coming up? Okay. Well I can tell you but first can I just please just take a moment say thank you for this opportunity. Thanks for the kind words. I will say something very important about you, which is that, you know coming up.
In the various Sports, I did skateboarding in science. I have a really good eye for the person like I'm going to put my money on that person to be at the top at some point down the line. It's interesting because I'm not talented at many things. I'm proficient at certain things. I work really hard truly if I have any inborn abilities. It's my memory is always been sharp, but loving the thing you're learning helps.
early on when I saw your content it created some sense in Me based on how you were delivering it the passion the honesty behind it and the ways in which you were like moving through and trying to figure it out that I was like this guy's going to be like at the top and I
I was I was right in that your Ascent trajectory predicts that like I owe me. Okay, there's still room for Upward trajectory great. But you know every once in a while someone comes along real like you just loves what he does. It's so clear that he's meant to do this like you love and I think it has a lot to do with the genuineness which which you invite on and meet your guests. Like you're not going to put someone on because they're going to get clicks. You're you're going to invite people on because you really want to talk to them and that's very clear and I think I know that resonates with people so I've been
Truly an avid consumer of your content from go and it's been awesome to see your ascent and I'm sure that this is just the beginning so I want to say thank you. Thank you. No, thank you, and I look forward to deepening our friendship and that's a real thing because early on with Lex and I became friends through podcasting some point. I realized I was like we need to hang out without these microphones in front of us. I went out to Austin for two weeks. We just hung out just hung out. It's also where he did the Jiu-Jitsu thing where he choke choke you out. So got
Me there. I'll get you back Lex but not with jiu-jitsu psychological Jujitsu, but I hope we get the chance to spend time. And I really just want to say whatever you're doing. Keep going because it's awesome and it's clear that you're really working hard in your craft and I'm really excited about the lives and we can talk about that. Thank you rest of 2023. I'm going to try and finish this book that I've been procrastinating on for a few years. Now. It's mainly going to be a book of protocols. So it's very straightforward as to what to do its kind of the what to do stuff.
Not so much story. I think there's a need for that or so. I know that's going to that's going to break the world. I'm not thinking well, I'm putting my heart and soul into it. I got me. I got an idea of completion date and then publication pre-sales should probably be February and finish come out and of 24. Yeah, so and I'm putting everything I've gotten to that book while still podcasting we're going to do a series we've done these guests series. We did one with dr. Andy Galpin on Fitness. We did one on Mental Health with dr. Paul Conti we're going to do
One with dr. Matthew Walker on sleep and one with dr. Anna Lemke on addiction and dopamine soon so that the guest series are that going forward and then you know, there were times when we thought okay, we need to do something else I could do we need a nap doing and we've really taken a step back or just like just going to keep searching for organizing and dispensing information mainly in the form of the Monday podcast occasion of these guest series. We do have a premium channel that generates Revenue that
Directed toward scientific studies. I mean talk too much about this but significant portion of that has been put to philanthropy to Laboratories working on eating disorders on mind-body States on intermittent fasting didn't you recently read to your website as we went to the website more searchable. So if you go to human lab.com the engineers have done a great job where it's highly searchable. Now it take you to specific time stamps. You can't even say like dopamine procrastination will take you to that particular time stamp. And I think is the AI tools get better. They'll be more things like that. But really it's going to just be more
more of the same live shows any more live shows this year. We got live shows coming up in Australia. So the first one in Sydney sold out the opera house one sold out, but there's another one being an out soon. And then there's a Melbourne and Brisbane where should people go through in a sign up for the odds huberman lab.com tour to get tickets. Hell, yeah, and those are fun and they're very different than the podcast and you know, I'm not a joke to few months back with traditional media. I wasn't joking that, you know, I might run for office.
A like from what I've seen of the experience of politics like I want to retract that zero minus one interest in running for office, but I have every interest in just continuing to indulge this this Obsession slash Delight that I get from learning and teaching and sharing information. So like yeah, that's the plan and you know main thing the main thing man. Yeah, that's the thing, you know, and I never know like I come from a long line of academic advisors that all died early like I hope I live alone.
Long time but I don't know if it's gonna be a cancer a bullet or a boss that's going to take me out or old age. I have no idea. So I'm just I'm just leaning into this as hard as I can. Hell, yeah. I appreciate you man. Thank you for today. I appreciate you. Thanks so much, Chris.
