Using Caffeine to Optimize Mental & Physical Performance

Welcome to the huberman Lab podcast, where we discuss science and science based tools

for everyday life.

I'm Andrew huberman. And I'm a professor of neurobiology and Ophthalmology at Stanford school of medicine. Today we are discussing caffeine, caffeine is one of the most widely used substances on the planet estimates. Are that more than 90%, of adults? And as many as 50% of kids, that is adolescents and teenagers use caffeine on a daily

We basis caffeine is an amazing molecule. Most people are familiar with caffeine's ability to increase alertness and to reduce our feelings of sleepiness, and fatigue, and indeed, it does that. But what most people are not aware of is that caffeine acts as a strong reinforcer? What I mean by reinforcer is that when caffeine is present in a drink or food, and yes, indeed, caffeine is present in many foods even unbeknownst to us when its present in drinks and foods. We

We come to like those foods and drinks more than if caffeine were not contained in those foods and drinks. So, it reinforces our liking of particular foods and drinks and indeed, it even reinforces our liking of the containers. They are consumed from. And the company we keep when we consume foods and drinks that contain caffeine that is caffeine, is not just a stimulant caffeine is a reinforcer and it's a reinforcer that plays an active role in

Almost everybody's daily life. We can say that with confidence because as I mentioned, a moment ago, more than 90% of people are consuming caffeine and most people think that they consume caffeine, because it makes them feel more alert. But there are many reasons why you're consuming caffeine, and I'm not going to tell you that consuming caffeine is necessarily bad. In fact, today, I'm going to tell you about many of the positive health benefits of caffeine including neuroprotective effects anti-depressive effects and certainly performance enhancing effects both for mental performance.

And for physical performance. Now that said there are certain situations in which you want to avoid caffeine, and there are certain people who might opt to avoid caffeine, that's especially the case when one thinks about caffeine not just as a stimulant. But as a reinforcer, in fact, caffeine is such a strong reinforcer. That if even tiny amounts of caffeine are present in certain foods and drinks, you will very quickly come to prefer those foods and drinks over other choices which can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on what sorts of food and drink choices, you're trying to make. So today,

I'm going to inform you about how caffeine works at a mechanistic level. I promise to do that, with a minimum of nomenclature and such that even if you don't have a background in biology, you will be able to digest that information easily and then I'll tell you how to use caffeine to your advantage, or conversely, how to avoid caffeine at certain times to your advantage. So today's episode will focus both on mechanisms and tools that is the use and leverage of caffeine to improve mental health, physical, health, and performance. Before we go any further into

Discussion. I want to tell you about some recent results about a molecule that's found in certain caffeinated Beverages. And that has been proven to be very useful for both weight loss, mental performance and controlling blood sugar levels and that's glp-1 or glucagon-like peptide. One, glucagon-like peptide. One is found in the brain and body. It acts both on the brain and body, it does many different things, but one of its primary effects, it's been discovered is to reduce hunger and it does that too way.

Ways it does that by activating certain neurons in your hypothalamus. So that's a brain region that controls hunger and satiety. It makes us feel full at the level of the brain, so it makes us feel sated that is and it actually makes us feel full turns out that glp-1 acts on certain receptors in the gut to make us feel as if we've ingested enough food, doesn't necessarily make us feel as if our gut is distended but it makes us feel full. That's really interesting because if you think about it, when we eat our stomach fills up, obviously,

That information has to be communicated to the brain, such that the brain can then send satiety signals that actually shut off our hunger and believe it or not, the brain actually activates signals to reduce the desire to chew when our stomach is full and glp-1. As I mentioned, works on the brain to create these feelings of satiety as if we've had enough and to reduce our desire to eat more and glp-1 acts directly on the gut to give us a slight sense of fullness in the gut which then is communicated to the brain. So really there are two parallel

Signals being sent when we have glp-1 present in our system. Now little bit of relevant history on GOP, one, it was actually discovered in gila monsters. These are these reptiles that can go long periods of time without eating and a very clever scientist decide to study why it is that certain animals like gila monsters. Can go a long period of time, without ingesting anything, that's because they produce very large amounts of glp-1. They isolate the peptide from glp-1, then they looked for the analogous peptide.

Humans and it turns out that does exist. And as I mention, it's released in both brain and body to make you feel full and sated. Why am I telling you all this? Well today we're going to talk about caffeine and there's one particular caffeine source, which is yerba mate. And there's some other forms of T's similar to Yerba mate, that stimulate the release of glp-1 significantly. There are also nowadays drugs, which are called analogs of glp-1. So, these are drugs that mimic or are identical to the kind of glp-1 that you would

Make and those drugs are proving to be very effective for the treatment of certain forms of diabetes and for the treatment of obesity, but they trigger enormous amounts of glp-1 pathway Activation. So those are extreme cases for people that are really struggling for weight loss but the clinical trials and the data that are out there in the general population now are very, very promising for glp-1 analogs, yerba mate tea provided. It's not the smoked variety. And I mentioned that because a number of people have queued me to the fact that yerba mate. Teas coming sir,

Varieties and non smoke varieties in the smoked varieties are thought to perhaps be carcinogenic. That is pro cancer-causing. So, I advise people to avoid smoked varieties of yerba mate tea, but yerba mate, teas are known to stimulate significant amounts of glp-1 release and so they can be effective as a weight-loss tool, mainly by blunting appetite. And again, they do that both at the level of the brain and at the level of the gut. Now, all of what I just told you, it's been known for some period of time, but there are new set of findings.

That were just published in cell reports medicine, cell Press Journal, excellent Journal, which indicate exactly how it is. That glp-1 stimulates both satiety and can trigger additional weight loss through other mechanisms. And I find the mechanism to be really interesting and actually really important given some other topics we've covered on this podcast before. So the basic finding is that glp-1 whether or not it's stimulated through the release of analog drug. That one is prescribed or by drinking yerba mate tea?

For instance and stimulated release of your own so called endogenous glp-1. Yes, it makes you feel more full at the level of brain and body, but it turns out it also stimulates thermogenesis. Now, thermogenesis is the active utilization of more metabolic energy and fat cells in particular, so called beige and brown fat cells are a potent source of thermogenic activity in your body. The basic background is that you have white adipose cells, so white fat cells.

All's you have beige fat cells and you have brown fat cells in the beige and brown ones are fat cells. That you actually want more of, they are not abundant under your skin, they're abundant really around your clavicles and your upper neck. They are the ones that generate Heat and the Bayesian brownness of them is actually the consequence of having a lot of mitochondria, in those cells, when glp-1 is elevated in your system, it turns out that it communicates to those white fat cells and helps convert them into beige and brown fat cells that

It takes fat cells that are not doing anything useful for you, except being stored energy. And I think most people out there would like to have fewer of those white adipose cells. There are few of you out there that actually need more of them that are too thin to lean, but most people are suffering from having too many of these white adipose cells. Well, when you ingest yerba mate tea, or you were to take a glp-1 analog or stimulate glp-1, in any number of different ways. Yes, you stimulate, increase, satiety, but you're also stimulating the conversion of these white fat cells.

Into beige and brown fat cells, which makes you more thermogenic and overtime raises, your basal metabolic rate. So you're burning more calories. Even at rest, it also makes you feel as if you're more comfortable in colder environments at rest, this is very much the same as the mechanism that's induced. When you were to say, take a cold shower, or do regular ice baths or getting into, cold water regularly that to stimulates the conversion of white fat cells to beige and brown fat cells.

So I like these findings very much because they provide a mechanistic coherence, they provide that is a really nice story as to how something like glp-1 could be so effective for weight loss. Yes, on the one hand glp-1 is reducing appetite and that of course, will help people maintain or lose weight, but it's also increasing basal metabolic rate, and we now know how that's accomplished. It's likely accomplish at least through this one mechanism by the stimulation of conversion of these white fat cells, which don't do much for us at

Depth at as energy storage units, to these metabolically mitochondrial, Rich, beige and brown fat cells, which you can think of it, sort of the oil in the candle that allows your furnace your metabolism to burn at a higher temperature and a higher rate. So that's the mechanism. And the basic tool take away is that if you are somebody who's interested in losing weight and you want to Leverage The GOP, one pathway drinking a cup or two of yerba mate. Tea, early in the day would be a great way to stimulate glp-1 release.

There are other ways to stimulate glp-1 release. You can get it, through certain forms of exercise in particular, fasted exercise. This is actually a vote in favor of fasted exercise. There's a debate as to whether or not fasted cardio burns, more fat than on fasted cardio. And the data basically say no it doesn't really matter but that doesn't really take into account the longer Arc of things like glp-1 release so that needs to be taken into consideration. So you could do fasted cardio, you could drink yerba mate tea, keeping him on the ear bramante tea does contain caffeine, will talk more about the specific?

Of stimulants including caffeine that mate has but mate would be a great way to stimulate glp-1 release. And then, of course, for those of you that are interested in more robust activation of glp-1, then perhaps you might want to consider some of the new prescription glp-1 analogues that are out there, but that's a more severe stimulus for glp-1, of course. And for everybody, regardless of whether or not you're trying to lose weight, gain weight, or maintain weight, think we're going to be hearing a lot more about glp-1 analogs, and drinks, and supplements, and things of that sort, that stimulate

P1 in the very near future because it does appear to be a very important biological mechanism before we begin. I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is however, a part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to Consumer information about science and science related tools to the general public in keeping with that theme. I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast. Our first sponsor is levels levels is a program that lets you see how different foods affect your health by giving you real time feedback on your diet using a

A continuous glucose monitor, blood glucose or blood. Sugar is a critical aspect of your immediate and long-term health and indeed your feelings of vigor and mental Clarity and well-being. At any moment. One of the key things is to know how different foods and food combinations, and timing of food intake is impacting blood glucose. And with levels, you're able to assess all of that. In real time, I tried levels and what it taught me for instance, was that I can eat certain foods at certain times of day. But if I eat them at other times a day, I get a blood sugar.

Josh, it also taught me for instance, how to space my exercise and my food intake turns out for me. Exercising fasted is far more beneficial that's something I learned using levels and it's completely transformed not just the spacing and timing of my diet and exercise but also use of things like the sauna and other activities. It's been a tremendous learning for me. That's really shaped an enormous number of factors in my life that have led to me feeling far more vigorous with far more mental focus and physical, strength and endurance. So if

You're interested in learning more about levels and trying a continuous glucose. Monitor yourself. Go to levels dot, link / huberman. Again, that's levels dot link. Link2sd hubermann. Today's episode is also brought To Us by eight sleep aids,sleep. Make smart mattress covers with cooling Heating and sleep, tracking capacity. I've talked to many times on this podcast about the critical relationship between sleep and body. Temperature, that is in order to fall asleep and stay deeply asleep throughout the night. Our body temperature needs to drop by about 1 to 3.

And conversely when we wake up in the morning that is in large part because of our body heating up by 123 degrees. Now people have different core body temperatures and they tend to run colder or hotter throughout the night. Eight sleep, allows you to adjust the temperature of your sleeping environment so that you have the optimal temperature that gets you. The best night's sleep. I started sleeping on an eight Sleep mattress cover about eight months ago and it is completely transformed by sleep. I sleep so much deeper. I wake up far less during the middle of the night. If at all and I

Wake up, feeling far better than I ever have even after the same amount of sleep. If you want to try eight sleeping. Go to eight. Sleep.com huberman to save up to four hundred dollars off their sleep fit holiday bundle, which includes their new pod. Three cover eight sleep. Currently ships in the USA Canada, United Kingdom select countries in the EU and Australia. Again, that's eight sleep.com hubermann. Today's episode is also brought To Us by rokka. Rokka makes eyeglasses and sunglasses that are of the absolute highest quality. The company was founded,

Bye to All American swimmers from Stanford and everything about Roca eyeglasses and sunglasses were designed with performance in mind. I've spent a lifetime working on the biology, the visual system. And I can tell you that your visual system has to contend with an enormous number of challenges in order for you to see, clearly, for instance, when you move from a sunny area to a shady area and Back Again, whether or not you're looking at something up close or off into the distance Roka understands the biology, the visual system and has designed their eyeglasses and sunglasses accordingly. So you always see with perfect clarity Roka eyeglasses and sunglasses.

These were initially designed for activities such as running and cycling and indeed, they are very lightweight. Most of the time, I can't even remember that they're on my face. They're so lightweight. But the important thing to know about Roca eyeglasses and sunglasses, is that while they can be used during sports activities. They also have a terrific aesthetic and they can be used just as well for wearing to work, or out to dinner at cetera. If you'd like to try Roka eyeglasses and sunglasses, you can go to Roca, that's our okay, a.com and enter the code huberman to save 20%.

On your first order. Again that's Roca are okay, a.com and enter the code huberman at check out the huberman Lab podcast has. Now partnered with Momentis supplements to find the supplements we discussed on the human Lab podcast. You can go to live momentous. Spelled ous live, momentous.com huberman and I should just mention that the library of those supplements is constantly expanding again. That's live momentous.com / hubermann Let's talk about caffeine so it's I mentioned earlier caffeine is consumed by basically most all adults every

All day and consumed at very regular times each day. In fact, if you were to take a look at your caffeine intake or the caffeine intake of somebody close to you, what you would realize is that they don't do so. Well, if their caffeine intake arrives, even 10, 20 or 30 minutes past their expected, or usual intake of caffeine, that's pretty remarkable. And it brings to mind ideas that we are all quote unquote addicted to caffeine, or that caffeine is somehow

Add

I'm certainly not going to make the argument that caffeine is bad. First of all I'm a regular caffeine user. I wouldn't call myself a caffeine abuser but I am a regular caffeine user and caffeine is known to have certain health benefits. I listed off a few of them earlier, but I'll mention those again. Now, before going forward, caffeine is known to have certain neuroprotective effects and that is because of its ability to increase neuromodulators such as dopamine. But also other so-called catecholamines like norepinephrine.

You don't know what those names mean, these are molecules that increase levels of alertness, motivation and drive and so then therefore not surprisingly. The large-scale analyses of the relationship between depression and caffeine shows that provided people are not drinking so much caffeine that it makes them overly anxious that regular intake of caffeine is inversely related to levels of depression. So it may have some antidepressant effects and those could be direct or indirect, what do I mean by that? Well, you can imagine that people are ingesting caffeine and they are more motivated.

Added to do work and pursue quality social interactions than the probability that they will have depression could be lower. It could also be that there are Direct effects on the chemical systems of the brain that relate to mood and well-being, that could offset depression. It is not clear whether or not the effects of caffeine in countering depression are direct or indirect nonetheless, there's a relationship there and it's an interesting and positive 1, or I should say negative correlation, positive effect, overall on mood and

And well-being to be exact. Now it's also the case that caffeine can improve mental Performance and Physical performance. This has been demonstrated in tens of thousands of studies. I will review a few studies on this in particular today but to just give you a sense of how caffeine works at the level of its timing and impact on mental Performance and Physical performance. When we ingest caffeine, provided that we don't have a lot of food in our stomach and that our blood sugar isn't particularly High generally we experience

Increasing alertness within about five minutes and that increase in focus and alertness Peaks, around 30 minutes after ingestion of caffeine and persists for as long as 60 minutes. Now, this is assuming that one takes caffeine in pill form or drinks the entire caffeine drink within a short period of time. But a little bit later I'll talk about how you can consume caffeine at regular intervals, while doing mental, work or physical work, in a way that can further increase, mental Performance, and Physical performance. But let's just touch on what caffeine intake.

Really does for mental Performance and Physical performance. Perhaps the most robust finding across all of the studies that I've examined. Is that caffeine reduces a reaction time? That is it improves our reaction time? It doesn't make it longer. It makes it shorter. So for instance, in a laboratory study where people were asked to hit a lever every time they hear a tone, you can greatly reduce the time between the tone and the pressing of the lever. If people ingest caffeine about 30 minutes before they do that.

Ask now that seems like a trivial task. But this is also seen in the domain of sports performance and even in cognitive performance where people have to arrive at a particular answer to a question and the answer to that question has to be pulled from their memory banks within their brain. Their hippocampus, for instance, a brain structure involved in memory. And if you are asking people, for instance, to remember, the capitals of different states or cities, or to remember certain historical facts, they will do that at a particular rate.

But if they've ingested caffeine within the hour prior their ability to recall, that information is much, much better, they are faster, and it does not appear. That accuracy is reduced. In fact, in many cases, accuracy is enhanced and that's because caffeine both works on the reaction time systems of the brain and body. I'll talk about the mechanisms for that in a little bit, but it also stimulates certain neurotransmitters and so-called neuromodulators within the brain and body that give the new

Circuits in the brain that are associated with learning and memory, a lower threshold to activation. What does that mean? That means that we are better able to access the brain, circuitry involved, in learning and memory when we have a certain amount of caffeine circulating in our system. So this makes caffeine in an incredible performance, enhancing compound and I could give you tens of thousands of examples of this in humans. But before I do that, I want to just touch on what we know about the existence of caffeine in nature.

ER and what the existence of caffeine in nature and its effects. On other animals, tells us about what caffeine does in humans. Because as I alluded to earlier what caffeine is doing for us, is not just making us more alert, improving our memory, improving our reaction time. And so on, it's actually acting as a powerful reinforcer of experience and it's acting as not just a powerful reinforcer of the caffeine, containing drink that we drank, but also

The mug that it's contained in plus the person that we might be sitting across from when we consume that caffeine and so on and so forth. If it's a little bit hard for you to conceptualize what a reinforcer is and why I'm calling it a reinforcer. Let me spell it out. In three specific ways, we often hear about the word reward and we think, okay, if we do certain things and we like the outcome, then those certain things are rewarded. Right? If we're doing something we receive praise, the praise is the

Ward and therefore, we are more likely to do that thing in the future. That's a lot of parenting is like that. And a lot of life is like that. However, when we hear the word reward, we often think about something that feels good to us. And certainly if we worked hard and we get some praise that's natural for the praise to feel good to us. Or for instance, if we we work very hard and we get a certain outcome, a trophy, a financial outcome, a degree outcome, recognition, etcetera, all of those can act as

Awards. But those are all conscious rewards. We are aware that. They are happening. Reinforcers are a little bit different because the word reinforcement can apply to conscious rewards of the sort that I just described. But there are also many ways in which caffeine stimulates the release of chemicals in our body that act as reinforcers. But those reinforcers are subconscious. That is we are not aware that they caused this preference for the activities that cause their release. So the study I'm about to

described beautifully, I believe encapsulate, how is it? That humans came to consume caffeine and why caffeine exist in nature and the powerful effects of caffeine as a reinforcing agent both in animals insects and in you and me and the title of the paper is caffeine and floral nectar enhances a pollinators memory of reward. Keep in mind that caffeine is made from plants of us, Aid of. But I think some of us don't realize that the reason why

There is caffeine and coffee as because coffee comes from a plant is a coffee bean certainties which of course are plants. People Brew caffeine is contained in those teas such as yerba mate. Well why would This Bitter substance? Because in fact caffeine is quite bitter in high concentrations. Why would This Bitter substance be something that insects or animals would want to consume it all? Turns out that in most plants caffeine is present in small enough quantities that insects and other animals. And

That we can't actually taste the caffeine if I were to give you a little bit of pure caffeine. Yes. It would be a stimulant for you, but you would say that it tasted awful, it's in a category of compounds that would strongly stimulate. The bitter receptors on your tongue and would make you cringe. And pucker and essentially walk away from whatever it is that contain that caffeine. And from the experience that contain that caffeine. Well in nature, caffeine is present in very low concentrations or is masked by other flavors.

Within flowers, beans and plants. And what this paper really points to is that caffeine in nature, is acting as a reinforcer for bees that are consuming different nectar. So the way that it works is that bees, of course, go from flower to flower and they are consuming the nectar. They are bringing nectar and pollen back to the hive and that provides critical nourishment. For the bee Colony, the bees are

are foraging in a way that includes information about color in particular, ultraviolet color, things that we can't see, but they can see because they different photoreceptors and we do. And what this study shows is that

Plants and Nectars, that contain very small amounts of caffeine are the preferred sources of food for bees and the study is beautiful because they were able to confirm that they could mask the caffeine taste. So if they know that the bees are not preferring the taste of caffeine. But what they do is they pair caffeine with different food sources for the bees than they remove the caffeine. And what they find is that the bees very strongly prefer flavors that contain caffeine not because

they could taste the caffeine but rather for the way that those caffeine containing flavors made the bees feel. So how do those caffeine containing flavors? Make the bees feel the same way that they make you and I feel a little bit more alert and thereby able to do more work for the be, the more work is the consumption of more food which then has a further reinforcing effect. So what we're really talking about here is the fact that a caffeine exist in nature.

In Plants, it exists in concentrations that are very low. So low, in fact, that they are not detectable to The Taste receptors of insects and in many cases to The Taste receptors of humans. And of course, there can be high levels of caffeine in a plant, but if the plant also contains compounds that mask the flavor of caffeine, well then those plants are going to essentially be even stronger reinforcers for the flavor of the plant. Okay, so now we're talking about strong flavors plus strong neuro, stimulant effects of caffeine.

And the most important Point here is that all of these effects of caffeine our subconscious. It is not because the be or you likes the taste of caffeine. In fact, most people when they take their first sip of coffee, they find that it tastes bitter and kind of noxious. They don't like it. You may not even remember that because it happened so long ago, and because caffeine is such a strong reinforcer, that very quickly, you come to like, the taste of coffee, you might even come to like the feeling of your

In your hand, you might even come to like the smell of coffee and so on and so forth. And that's because caffeine stimulates the release of certain neural chemicals in the brain in particular, dopamine and acetylcholine to neuromodulators that increase our focus and alertness in our feelings of well-being. A little bit later, I'll tell you. That caffeine stimulates the release of dopamine in a way that's very much distinct from the classical dopamine pathway associated with addiction and reward. In fact we can think of caffeine is having a somewhat privileged

access to the reward systems. I'll give you a bit of a hint of where this is going caffeine stimulates, the release of dopamine, acetylcholine not within the classic so-called mesolimbic reward pathway, that's just fancy nerd. Speak for the reward Pathways of the brain. Their associated with things like sex and Food and Drugs of abuse like cocaine and methamphetamine. But rather caffeine seems to stimulate the release of dopamine in the parts of the brain that are associated with alertness and cognition. Meaning the forebrain this is very

Important. We have multiple dopamine systems in the brain and body and caffeine seems to stimulate dopamine directly within the components of the brain that are associated with Clarity of thought and well-being but more so Clarity of thought. Now I'm also talking about caffeine as a strong reinforcer in that, it makes you feel good overall and it does and that suggests that it also Taps into the more classic reward pathway but it does that in a very interesting and frankly almost

follicle way when we regularly ingest caffeine it stimulates the increase in dopamine receptors at multiple sites throughout the brain but in particular within the reward Pathways of the brain. So not the areas of the brain are associated with focus and Clarity of thought and cognition, it does that but it is also increasing the level of dopamine receptors in the reward pathway and what that means is that for any dopamine that's released in response to a positive experience social experience or any number of the other things that can

Like dopamine release. There are more receptors, more parking spots if you will for that dopamine to arrive at and to exert, its increases in mood increases in motivation and overall feelings of drive and excitement. So therefore ways, that caffeine works that we need to understand. First of all, caffeine acts as a reinforcing agent, it increases, the probability that you will return to and engage in a certain activity or consume a certain beverage or food.

Dude, second of all caffeine increases dopamine and acetylcholine which are both neuromodulators in the forebrain which helps us improve our ability to think to modify our rule sets, that is to adjust our strategies for different social situations, and mental demands, and physical demands. And third, it increases the number and efficacy of dopamine receptors in the reward Pathways in the brain. That is it makes things that would feel

Pretty good feel even better and forth caffeine acts as an antagonist to adenosine which offsets the sleepiness that we would otherwise feel from the accumulation of adenosine that occurs as we are awake for more and more hours throughout the day. So let's talk first about caffeine as a reinforcing agent. Again, this was first most beautifully, demonstrated in this study on honey bees, where the bees prefer Nectars that contain caffeine. And that all makes perfect sense in terms of the Ecology of bees and

Flowers that contain nectar there's an advantage and at least in terms of adaptation that the flower benefits because of distribution of things from the flower which is good for the flowers and the bees benefit because they're getting food. And so there's a kind of symbiosis there but with humans we're consuming caffeine containing beverages for our sake. I don't think we have it in mind nor do the bees have it in mind. Frankly, that we're trying to preserve the plants that provide the caffeine. I think we would all suffer or I should say 90% of adults would suffer greatly.

Leave all the caffeine containing coffee and tea plants were gone certainly but most of us are not consuming coffees and teas and caffeine containing foods because we're thinking about the plants that come from and we want to help those plants were thinking about how we want to help ourselves and yet the point of the reinforcing effects of caffeine are that they are largely subconscious. We are not aware of them. Now you might say, no, that's not true. When I drink caffeine it makes me feel really good. So I'm aware that it makes me feel good in order to illustrate how we

Reinforcement, really works. Let me give you the counter example, which would be an aversive agent. So we have reinforcing agents and we have a verse of Agents. Let's say that there were compounds in nature that exists in plants that are aversive and indeed they are. And let's say that these compounds were present at such low concentrations that you couldn't taste them. Let's say you wake up in the morning and you go to your refrigerator and you open it up and you are thirsty. And so you reach for a nice, You Know, Rich red container.

Beverage in a glass jar, it looks like cranberry juice or something of that sort. Or even a nice clear glass of water. It looks like a jug of water, a glass of water and you drink that tastes find. You, maybe even tastes great to you. And then let's say about 30 minutes later, you feel a little queasy. You feel a little off, feel like, going back to sleep, you just don't feel very good, you don't know why, but your nervous system is a predictive machine and it has a process in which it

back integrates Marche integrates backwards into your immediate experience that preceded. That not so good. Feeling, we can reliably say that there is a much lower probability that the next day when you wake up that you would reach for that. Same beverage, or for that same container even and maybe if you're in a novel environment, maybe you're staying in an Airbnb or a hotel or something of that sort. You might even find that you don't really like the kitchen in which you consume that beverage.

In the first place and you don't know why. And unless you got very very sick the day before, it's unlikely that you would have such a strong response that you would entirely avoid for instance, water or glass jars, containing liquids, Etc. Let's say, you went back to the refrigerator and you consumed beverage again and you just didn't feel so. Well, you felt less good than you normally would well even without any ability to taste. What's in that? Beverage and even without any understanding of what

Was happening to you at a conscious level, there is a very, very high probability that you will avoid drinking, that particular beverage and certainly at that location, and in the same volume in the subsequent days. That's just the way that aversive agents work, and they work by way of activating neurons in the gut that communicate with areas in the brain that give us this feeling of queasiness. And for some of you hearing this that pathway and that association with times in which you felt queasy, and

You want to vomit is so powerful that you might even be feeling some of that symptomology now for certain people that's going to be increased salivation, which precedes vomiting. We know that there's a class of neurons in the brain related to an area called area post Rama that actually stimulates vomiting and if I keep talking about this I'll probably feel like I want to vomit. So I'm going to move on from this in a moment. So when we ingest caffeine containing Beverages and Foods, it's the exact opposite scenario as to what I just described caffeine as a

A reinforcer makes us feel slightly better or a lot better in the immediate minutes and hours after we ingest it. So it's acting as a reinforcing agent not just while you're under the effects of caffeine but for the things that preceded the ingestion of caffeine which is why you return again. And again to caffeine containing beverages such as coffee and tea or maybe even foods that contain caffeine. Even if the taste of those Foods is not something that you would otherwise consider especially.

Delicious. In fact, most people when they take their first sip of coffee or tea or other caffeine containing beverages, they find it be very bitter. And that's not because of the taste of caffeine, it's because of the taste of the beverage itself, independent of caffeine. However when caffeine is present in there, they come to prefer that taste over most all taste. In fact they will, as I mentioned earlier will invest a lot of financial resources and time and energy to make sure that they get that beverage what they're trying to make sure.

Is not that they get that taste but that they get the caffeine. It is that positively reinforcing and The Taste therefore takes on new significance, new meaning. And we come to associate it as positive. And in fact, most of us, including myself, love the taste of espresso. Love the taste of coffee. Love the taste of yerba mate. Even if the initial taste, the very first time that we consume that beverage was either neutral or negative. And that is all because of the reinforcing properties of caffeine.

Then of course there are the more direct actions of caffeine that is the faster actions of caffeine and just to list those off again, very briefly so that you have them in mind going forward. Caffeine also increases the release of dopamine and acetylcholine. Both of which are neuromodulators in the forebrain which increases Clarity of thought, and your ability to rule switch, your ability to move from one context to another and change and understand the Rules of Engagement social engagement.

Well, engagement, mental engagement, and so forth. And as I mentioned before, caffeine also increases the number of dopamine receptors in the reward. Pathway such that any good thing. That happens to you. Any positive experience that you have will have a more potent effect on your feelings of well-being. And last, but certainly not least caffeine acts as an adenosine antagonist. It reduces your feelings of lethargy and fatigue and your desire to sleep. Bye.

Working in The receptors for adenosine and not allowing adenosine to have its Pro sleepy. If you will effects on your brain and body, I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge one of our sponsors. Athletic greens, athletic greens. Now called a G1 is a vitamin mineral probiotic drink that covers all of your foundational nutritional needs. I've been taking athletic green since 2012 so I'm delighted that they're sponsoring the podcast. The reason I started taking athletic Greens in the reason I still take athletic greens once or usually twice a day.

Day is that it gets to be in the probiotics that I need for gut health. Our gut is very important, it's populated by gut microbiota that communicate with the brain, the immune system, and basically all the biological systems of our body to strongly impact, our immediate and long-term health, and those probiotics and athletic greens are optimal and vital for microbiotic health. In addition, athletic greens contains a number of adaptogens vitamins. And minerals that make sure that all of my foundational nutritional needs are met and it tastes great.

If you'd like to try athletic greens, you can go to athletic greens.com huberman and they'll give you five free travel packs that make it really easy to mix up athletic greens. While you're on the road, in the car, on the plane that cetera and they'll give you a year's supply of vitamin D3 K to again, that's athletic greens.com huberman to get the five free travel packs. And the year supply of vitamin D3 K to, I'd like to just briefly talk about adenosine and some of its molecular features. And again, if you don't have a background in biology,

Don't worry. I promise to make this very clear to everyone. First of all caffeine is what's called a methyl xanthine. It's an it's a plant alkaloid. That's why caffeine itself is very bitter. Again, if I were to give you just the tiniest little bit of pure caffeine, you would find it to be extremely aversive and so these plants that have snuck small enough amounts of caffeine into them or that have masked the flavor of caffeine with other flavors such that bees and humans want to consume them while, we don't know what plants think it does seem very diabolical.

Cool. And very clever in that. We are seeking out. These caffeine containing plants Beverages and Foods. Even though caffeine itself is this alkaloid is very, very bitter.

Methyl xanthine. That is caffeine binds to adenosine receptors in there. Really two types of adenosine receptors there are these so-called a 1 receptors in the, a to receptors and their present different parts of the brain and body at different levels. We don't have to get too far into receptor subtypes more importantly to understand, is that adenosine makes us feel tired because of the way that it Taps into the ATP pathway. The ATP pathway is Central to any

energy production and feelings of overall energy in our brain and body in all cells and organ systems. When caffeine binds to adenosine receptors it, prevents adenosine from breaking down certain components of the energy production pathway and the net consequence of that is increased cyclic a MP. So basically when we ingest caffeine, we are biasing our system towards the pro energetic aspects of these cellular Pathways. Now, it's really important to understand that in biology