Andrew Huberman on Practical Wellness Tips, the Danger of "If Only" Thinking, & "Protocols" For Life

Hey everyone, I'm Megan Kelly. Welcome. to the Megan Kelly show. We've got a. firsttime guest on the show today, Dr. Andrew Huberman. He's a neuroscientist, Stanford professor, and host of the. hugely popular Huberman Lab podcast. He. has published more than 75 peer-reviewed. articles in top scientific journals and. delivered more than 100 invited research. and keynote seminars around the world. He's had a fascinating life and provided. guidance on how to live better to. millions of fans and followers, but he's.

never written a book until now. His new. book is called Protocols: An Operating. Manual for the Human Body, and it's. available right now for pre-order. It's. out later this month and it is a guide. to improving brain function, enhancing. mood and energy, optimizing bodily. health and physical performance, and. rewiring your nervous system to learn. new skills and behaviors even that. [music] could positively transform your. life. Don't miss a moment. Subscribe to this.

show on YouTube and follow me on Insta, Facebook, and X. Our sponsor, the. Electronic Payments Coalition, says. Washington politicians are always. getting in your wallet and that now. they're messing with your credit card. They say your credit card and the. security it offers are under attack and. that senators Dick Durban and Roger. Marshall want to change the nation's. payment system to benefit corporate mega. stores like Walmart and Target at the. expense of everyday Americans. Credit. cards can keep your payments secure and.

provide rewards that families use and. rely on to help make everyday purchases. more affordable. The Electronic Payments. Coalition says the Durban Marshall. mandates would let corporate mega stores. cut corners on credit card processing, routing transactions over cheaper, untested networks with weaker security. and fewer protections. Find out more at. guardyoucard.com. and consider telling Congress to guard. your card. Andrew, welcome to the show. >> [music]. >> Thanks so much for having me. Great. great to finally meet you. I'll al be it.

virtually. So. >> yeah, says same. It's a pleasure. I'm a. big fan and I've uh learned a lot from. you over the years just from clips and. from your show. So this is a thrill and. I'm I'm loving the chance to get to talk. to you about you before we kick off the. health and other advice. Um. >> so you're a California boy. >> I am. >> Right. Grew up in California. And. >> it it seems like from the book you you. had sort of an idyllic first 14 years.

and the family had dinner together every. night and that's so important to one's. mental health and well-being and then. something happened in your family that. gets downplayed by a lot of people is. really not that relevant to a child's. mental health but it is relevant and it. was life-changing for you and that was. your parents divorce. >> Yeah, I did have a quite idyllic life. My dad's a scientist. Um my mom's a. writer and uh you know and along with my. sister we had dinner together every.

night. I in my home there wasn't a lot. of discussion about sports but I. certainly got to hear a lot about the. luminaries of science and ideas from my. dad. We always shared that. My mom has a. a real love of literature obviously and. I have a close relationship with my. sister and everything was pretty. fantastic. And um and then you know I. was born in 1975 so divorce wasn't as. common uh back when but when I about at. age 14 uh they separated and got. divorced. This happens a lot nowadays as.

we know unfortunately. Um look I love my. parents. Uh, everyone did the best they. could with what they had and um uh but. it was a high conflict situation and you. know as as things played out uh I found. myself um disengaging from academics, disengaging from um kind of standard uh. social millu of school. I went to a very. very very good public school uh in South. Palo Alto. Uh keep in mind at this time. uh Palo Alto wasn't the Palo Alto that.

it is now if you know of dotcom and tech. fame but most of the kids there were the. children of academics or engineers or. something like that and uh we were we. were well enough off I wouldn't say we. were like at the high end of the wealth. scale or low end we were you know uh the. focus on in our house was on love and. ideas and but what happened was in. response to that and I regret this and I. encourage all kids of divorced parents. uh high or low conflict situations to. you know keep keep studying, keep doing. your homework, and stay engaged in. school sports and activities. Like what.

happened for me was I I um ended up. organizing my life around basically. skateboarding and hanging out with. skateboarders because back in the late. 80s and early 90s, uh that's where all. the feral kids went. Um and I I've I I. talk about this a little bit at the. beginning of the book, even though it's. not the main focus of the book. What was. really great was in that community there. were a bunch of kids whose parents were. not engaged in their lives much, right? That that was the unifying theme. That's. why we skateboarded because you didn't. need your parents to come to baseball or.

soccer practice. And but there's a ton. of creativity. A lot of those people. went on to create big brands like uh DC. I knew those kids that started DC that. started all these big brands. Um and. some kids got sponsored and turned pro. others got really into drugs and alcohol. and destroyed their lives. And so, you. know, it was a very interesting time for. me being completely free. Um, getting. exposed to a lot of things way too early. in my opinion looking back. Um, a lot of. exposure to violence, drugs, and sex.

that, frankly, as a 14-year-old, you. know, I shouldn't have been exposed to, but I was witness to a ton of great. skateboarding. I unfortunately was not a. great skateboarder. But fortunately, by. virtue of getting injured a lot, I. started foraging for other things to do. And eventually, mainly because of a high. school girlfriend who went off to. college and I didn't want to be away. from her. Um, I found my way back to. academics. And somewhere in uh along the. way, I took a course in neuroscience. uh. at the time there wasn't a field of. neuroscience but it was one truly.

amazing teacher his name was Harry. Carlile who taught me about brain. function and taught me about these. neurochemicals in the brain that. controlled things like anxiety uh. depression addiction and I had witnessed. a lot of that and I thought to myself. this is the coolest thing ever. especially when I learned about. neuroplasticity which is you know this. organ that we have in our head is unlike. all the other organs of the the body in. that it can deliberately change itself. we can learn new things. We can have a. new emotional relationship to things.

And so as my life went on, I pursued a. career in science, eventually became a a. tenure professor at Stanford, ran a. research lab for a long time. I still. teach at Stanford, um, and fell in love. with all of that. But it was really this. kind of merge of the hard things that I. had seen and experienced plus the. understanding that there's this. incredible organ in our brains that we. don't really understand that much about. at least not back then but now we. understand enough to make really uh. great choices including to you know of I.

I think you know even though the. discussion about things like. psychedelics and things of that sort are. very interesting uh for therapeutic. purposes that I think because the young. brain is so plastic that all kids would. benefit from frankly staying away from. that. This isn't a, you know, anti-drug. campaign that I'm on, but you know that. the the the developing brain is so. fragile and so susceptible to um its. both chemical and environmental inputs. And I I will stand on firm ground and. say that uh while I understand that in.

some cases it it may be necessary that. uh you know having two parents at home. and and them getting along uh and. working through things together. I I. love my parents. I don't hold any grudge. whatsoever. But I I think it's it's. clear now from the data that's. enormously uh helpful to a child's. development. So no regrets. It all. worked out for me. But it was it was a. high friction road along the way. And I. thank science, an amazing teacher um and. then others who came along plus the love.

of science and and a care for the world. that my father and mother uh put into. me. So I'm grateful to them too. I I you. know I love them, pray for them and with. them and and life is good. So, I only. look back with fondness, but it was it. was rocky. >> Yeah. I I mean, I my own take on it and. having read the book is I don't think. you'd be doing what you're doing if you. hadn't gone through that trauma, that. traumatic period and been exposed to as.

many stressors as you were. Clearly, it. lit something inside of you that needed. addressing, needed healing, needed some. sort of attention. And like most people. who have had some trauma in their past, whether you've made progress on it or. not, I think most of us spend the the. rest of our lives in some way trying to. solve it, address it, heal it, or make. it better for others who we can see. coming up behind us who have similar. issues. So I mean, I would argue that. this book, Protocols, is a direct result.

of all that you went through. And thank. you and thanks to your parents in in a. way because as a result we have such. good advice in here. >> Thank you. >> I I do want to spend one minute on this. was such a sad thing. So you mentioned. Professor Carile who became such a. mentor to you and this was an important. person in your life and ultimately he he. dies by suicide. >> Yeah. So I I you know I don't want to. give people the impression that the that. the book is entirely dark. It's a story. about lightness and what you can do to.

better your your your abilities in sleep. and stress mitigation, all these things. But I touch on the the science of grief. and and how to get through things in a. healthy way and mental health. Um, and. you know, along my path, what I saw was the. following. A lot of the kids I grew up. with and uh with this amazing community. of skateboarders, I saw some flourish. I. saw others succumb to addiction. I saw.

some succumb to mental health issues. And as I went into science, I. incorrectly thought, oh, you know what's. going to happen is the scientists are. all going to be super healthy, right? These are people who understand the. brain. And as a consequence of. understanding the brain and biology, um. I naively thought that they would be. immune to a lot of the problems uh that. uh these this other community uh had. Um, and I found quite the opposite. So. the there were three things that. happened along the way for me that.

really motivated me further to write the. book protocols to have a podcast where. we talk about health, where I teach. about what we do and don't know about. the brain and how people can benefit. And the first one really was these. childhood uh these observations from my. teen years. The next observation was. that this guy Harry Carlile who. understood mental health, depression, disease, suicidality as chemical issues, for whatever reason, I eventually, you.

know, was able to fill in some of the. pieces. Uh took his own life in in a. pretty dramatic fashion. And that told. me something, right? I was close friends. with his wife. Um and I knew his family. Uh it told me that knowledge alone. doesn't save us. Knowledge is important. It's as we say in science, necessary but. not sufficient, you know. And then what. happened was I went off to graduate. school and had an amazing time in. graduate school. Everyone says, "Oh, you. know, you finish graduate school and you. you you're aged and you're tired." I was.

like so full of life in graduate school. and after. I loved my graduate adviser. She was like a mother to me. Her name. was Barbara Chapman. And then she I knew. I know her family and kids. Her daughter. is a neuroscientist uh now. and she died. of cancer at 50 and I thought oh my. goodness she had the brack mutation so. she had a genetic susceptibility I. thought my goodness and then I became a. posttock at Stanford and my postoc. adviser the first day of my faculty. appointment had a heart attack across.

the table from me at dinner he survived. that it turns out he had pancreatic. cancer he was dead roughly a year later. I ended up writing his obituary for. nature we were very very close and I. thought to myself this is crazy Right? Like either the joke in my field, the. kind of morbid joke is you don't want me. to work for you obviously because the. the odds are, you know, have it didn't. work out so well for these people. But. but the but the serious aspect of is at. one point I thought what's going on. here? What's going on? And I also.

noticed in my field of neuroscience. people doing tremendously well. I know. Nobel Prize winners, members of the. national academy. My closest childhood. friend is now the chair of neurosurgery. at UCSF. He's doing phenomenally well in. life and including family. And I thought. to myself, what's happening here? And I. realized, especially at the beginning of. the pandemic, scientists, doctors, parents, kids, nobody knows the manual, the rulebook. for how to control their stress. Nobody. knows the the the playbook for how to.

take care of their health. And and we're. supposed to be all about health. And. we're supposed to eat right, sleep. right, etc. But like, I'm watching my. colleagues get sick. I'm seeing them. They look badly out of shape. And I. understand they're timelimited, but. they're talking about back pain. They're. talking about their kid has anxiety. There's a a colleague became addict, this very famous person in my field. became addicted to painkillers and then. eventually died. No one talked about it. And I'm thinking to myself, we're not. talking about this stuff. We need to. talk about it. In fact, this last year, one of the luminaries in our field, it's. a still gets me um who was a real.

pioneer in uh transcranial magnetic. stimulation therapies for depression and. also psychedelic therapies. The studies. of these took his own life. My dear. friend and colleague Nolan Williams, who's helped the veterans community. tremendously. So, I realized at some. point. people don't know how to take care of. themselves. They don't even know what. self-care is. It sounds very selfish and. in some versions of it, it can be. So, what are we supposed to do? So, in 2020.

with the with the world on lockdown and. everyone kind of been battling each. other, I thought, look, I'm not a. viologist. I'm just going to stay out of. that whole thing. It's a it's a it's a. hornets's nest for an academic like me. But here's what I will do. I'm going to. go online and I'm going to start talking. about ways to improve your sleep. My lab. had worked on a number of things. including eye diseases and trying to. cure blindness, glaucoma. We'd worked on. brain development and I'd worked on. stress mitigation in humans and I knew. that there were simple tools that people.

could apply to learn to shut their brain. off at the end of the day and get great. sleep to have more energy, elevated mood. and focus throughout the day. I knew the. literature quite well because I teach it. and I'd done research on it and. published on on some of it on how you. can modify your brain in adaptive ways. and how you can start to unpeel some of. the emotional load of traumatic. experiences. And I thought, the world. needs this. So, I'm going to just start. blabbing about it into the camera. And I. teamed up in interestingly, I teamed up.

with a guy who uh had a little bit of a. background in media. His name is Rob. Moore. And we started this little. production company in my closet with my. bulldog Costello snoring in the. background. And I grabbed some. skateboarders. My friend Mike is now a. famous action sport photographer. He. came up through skateboarding. Had his. own challenges with alcohol and drugs. got clean, got lean and healthy. He's a. family man. He's got two kids. He's. doing great. I grabbed two skateboard. filmers because skateboarders, mind you,

the ones that made it through the shoot. of all the troubling stuff. >> They are the original do-it-yourself. filmer editors. We all carried around. cameras when we were kids, long before. smartphones, and they are phenomenal at. making movies. So, we're a a small pack. of guys, and we did it the same way. you'd start a skateboarding company. find a space, film people doing what. they love, put it out into the world, and I just start giving away tools to. the world on sleep, on stress. mitigation, on neuroplasticity, on. personal development, and I would have.

guests on, but I would also do these. solo episodes where I would explain. here, here's what the real story on. dopamine is. It's not about pleasure, it's about motivation. Here's how you. can leverage that to your advantage to. stay motivated but not burn out, and so. on. And then eventually I realized that. the world needed that information in a. different form. So that the the book is. sort of a lookup table. It tells a. story. You could go linearly through it, but it's kind of a look. You can go any. chapter. Yes. You can you want to go to. that chapter and so on. >> Yeah. So that's really the the purpose.

behind what I do. >> Yeah. >> The um again the book is called. Protocols by Andrew Huberman. Available. available for pre-order right now. Um, let's spend some time on sleep because. >> I've seen so many clips of you talking. about sleep and I can tell you this is. definitely an issue for me and a lot of. my viewers uh of a certain age, women in. particular, but a lot of guys out there. too. A lot got a lot of truckers who. listen to this show on SiriusXM who are. not well-rested and are are not getting.

the appropriate amount of sleep. And I. have to say, the more time you spend. talking about how you need to sleep, the. the harder it can be to sleep because. then you're in your bed at night like, I'm supposed to be asleep, but I can't. fall asleep. >> And it's amazing to me that you you. argue that it begins when you wake up. Your good night's sleep begins the. moment you wake up. And whenever I hear. this next part, because I've heard you. say this over the years, I think Andrew.

Huberman is not from the Northeast. and. does not live in the northeast. And now. understanding that you're a California. boy, it's starting to come into full. focus for me because you want us to get. up, go outside within the th first 30. minutes or so and stare at the sun for, you know, 10 minutes maybe. And we do. mean like at the sun or like right next. to the sun, not like the fully bright. sun, but you're you say that's not. really the sun you're getting in the. morning when it first rises anyway. But.

explain why this is important and. explain how this is supposed to work for. those of us in places like Connecticut. when it's minus5. and awful when you wake up. >> Uh fair fair play. Um you know I uh I've. largely lived um west of [clears throat]. Interstate 5 which cuts down through the. center of California. So uh all fair. So. here's the thing. Uh I'm going to try. >> we too we also want to live the rest of. the country. The people of Minnesota, the people in Washington. Well, you guys.

are are have an a couple other other. advantages that we can talk about so it. all it all evens out. >> Here's the deal. To really master your. sleep and get great sleep, but also to. have elevated daytime mood, focus, etc. You really want to master the first hour. of your day and the last hour of your. day. Unfortunately, I'm not going to. tell you that you need to do a bunch of. things in each of those hours that. require finances or require a lot of. energy. Here's the theme, which is we.

know is conducive to better mental. health and physical health and. longevity. You want bright mornings and. days and dark nights. Now, if you're. going to tell me, "Well, there's not a. lot of sunlight out here." But here's. the deal. When you wake up in the. morning, you wake up because of a rise. in a hormone called cortisol and because. of a rise in body temperature. Most. people think of cortisol as a stress. hormone and they think, "Oh, that's bad. I don't want high cortisol." You want. your morning cortisol high. I'll repeat.

that. You want your morning cortisol. high. It is not a stress hormone. It is. the hormone of energy and to mobilize. energy in your body and get you moving. into the day. And if you get your. morning cortisol high, it helps ensure. that your nighttime cortisol is low. And. when your nighttime cortisol is low, it's easy to fall and stay asleep and. you get great sleep. Your metabolic. health will be better. The hormone. melatonin goes up, which makes you. sleepy. You want morning cortisol high, nighttime cortisol low. So, the best way.

to kind of book So, think about. bookending your days. I don't care what. time you wake up, if it's 4:00 a.m. or. it's 10:00 a.m. We can talk about what. to do if the sun isn't out yet, but. within the first hour of waking up, ideally within the first 30 minutes, you're going to get up. Most people use. the restroom. I suggest you hydrate, drink a little bit of water, and if the. sun is up, and by the way, you don't. need to be able to see the sun. It can. be completely overcast, but if there's. daylight coming through the clouds, which there is even in the depths of.

winter in Boston, it's much brighter at. 7:00 a.m., for instance, in Boston in. the middle of winter than it was at. midnight the night before. There's a lot. of what we call photons or light energy. coming through those clouds. You go. outside, you could even stand on a. balcony. Best not to do it through a. window, but if you have to, you go out. on a balcony or outside. You look in the. direction of the sun. If you can't see. the sun because there's a building in. the way, that's fine. Take off any hat. you might be wearing cuz the sun's. coming in from the top. You want to get. to your eyes. And. >> don't wear sunglasses.

>> Not sunglasses at this time. Eyeglasses. and contacts are fine. And you can have. your coffee there. You can do your. morning prayer or meditation there. You. can bring your dog. You can bring a. friend. You can be completely alone. And. even if you just grab a one minute of. daylight, it's going to benefit you. Why? Because there's this critical. window within the first hour of waking. where if you get bright light in your. eyes from daylight, from sunlight, it. amplifies that cortisol peak which makes. it much lower before sleep, which makes.

it far easier to fall asleep at night. In addition, most people want less. stress in their life, not more. If you. spike your cortisol that way first thing. in the morning, any stress you have. during the day will lead to a more. transient a briefer increase in stress. hormones. You are better at dealing with. stress when you do this. And there are a. number of biochemical reasons for this. These are not psychological phenomena. These are pure physiology. This isn't. about mindset. This is. >> Can you just explain what am I looking.

you know because you they say you're not. supposed to look directly into the sun. but am I supposed to be looking directly. into the sun at this hour? >> Great question. So as somebody who. worked on blinding to diseases of the. eye for many years I want to encourage. people you can look in the direction of. the sun but blink as needed to protect. your eyes. If it's really bright for you. and you're blinking great. The blink. reflex is there to protect your eyes. Never force yourself to look at any. light sunlight or otherwise that's. painful to look at. So you can just look. in the direction of the sun. You could. even keep your eyes closed. Believe it. or not, the photon energy goes through.

your eyelids. But you look kind of off. to the side of the sun. If it's in the. middle of winter, the sun is easy to. look at because it's behind so many. clouds. When the sun is low in the sky, such around sunrise or sunset. And keep. in mind, I'm not saying you need to see. the sun cross the horizon. If you wake. up at 9:00 a.m. and the sun's already. up, you miss sunrise. It's rising. But. when it's low in the sky, you'll notice. something about the sun if it's not a. cloudy day, which is it looks a bit more. yellow, orange, red than at other times.

Now, of course, the light coming from. the sun is the same all times of day, but when the sun is low in the sky, there's an atmospheric phenomenon called. relay scattering where the the UV which. are damaging rays for the most part are. get scattered and so those aren't. reaching your eyes. So, you see the what. are called the longer wavelengths of. light. It looks a bit more like candle. light and bright but more like candle. light. So when the sun is low in the. sky, you don't have to worry about UV. damage to your skin. You don't have to. worry about damage to your eyes or. getting cataract. When the sun is.

overhead, that's when you really need to. be careful about too much UV exposure. We know that UV exposure. >> So in the perfect in the perfect. Huberman uh protocol, >> I'm out. I'm looking up. I'm maybe just. to the right of the sun, not directly. into the sun. I don't have sunglasses on. and how and and how long do I need to. stand there looking and um is it non do. I need to be looking non-stop or can I. like look around at the dogs and the you. know. >> look around those how does those photons.

are bouncing off of of surfaces they're. getting reflected um take if you take a. walk if there's any green space around. see this is where the east coast you. have an advantage you know except in. some cities you often have a lot more. green because you get a lot more rain. right uh the Oregonians really benefit. here too. The the really beneficial. wavelengths of light are bouncing off. greenery. You know, if you were that. long wavelength light that bounces off. greenery is tremendously good for our. mitochondria. It actually can go into. and through our body. This is a separate.

story that I cover in the book. It can. actually lower blood glucose. Believe it. or not, your sugar blood sugar. management is much better when you're. out in daylight than when you eat. indoors. This was shown by my colleague. Glenn Jeffrey at University College. London. You sh they shined a red light. which approximates sunlight on people's. backs while they did a glucose tolerance. test. It blunts glucose levels by nearly. it's somewhere between 20 and 30%. Which. is remarkable. How could that be? The. light actually goes into the body.

through the body and the mitochondria. the energy factories in our cells. actually start using more ATP. Metabolism goes up which is remarkable. Now, here's the. >> just so I'm clear, you have to be. exposing your skin in that moment. Like, it's it doesn't count when you know. you're skiing and you're completely. covered head to toe with that. That's. that that the light needs to hit your. actual body skin. >> A t-shirt, they've shown it can go. through a t-shirt or even a shirt like. the one I'm wearing, you know, a thin. enough shirt, a thick jacket, it won't. go through. So, you get outside, you.

take your any brimmed hat off, you look. in the direction of the sun. Yes, if you. need to text someone, that's fine. you. walk, you take a call, you talk to. somebody. Um, it's, you know, it's. especially nice to get five minutes or. so. I suggest doing a 10 breath. meditation. You know, just focusing on. 10 breaths or do your morning prayers. That's a big practice for me. And then. get into the day and you've done it. You've spiked that cortisol. Look, even. better would be if you can get some. exercise in the first hours of the day. because, you know, everyone's so afraid.

of cortisol, but everyone's told to. exercise. a moderate to highintensity. exercise session, cardiovascular. training or resistance training will. triple your cortisol level, but. transiently that's a great thing early. in the day and it sets you up for great. sleep at night. If you have to exercise. later in the day, that's fine and we can. talk about that. But in that case, you'd. want to one of the things that really. leads to better sleep, as long as we're. here, we might as well just kind of. throw in a few things that lead to. better sleep. If you're having a hard. time. >> calming your system down at the end of.

the day, two things really help. One, you need to lower your core body. temperature. That's actually how you. fall asleep. The one excellent way to do. that is to take a hot shower or bath. You say, "Wait, I'm heating up my skin. How is that going to make me cooler?". Well, your brain has a little thermostat. region called the medial preoptic. nucleus. And when just like a. thermostat, when the surface of the skin. heats up, the the brain says, "Oh, we. need to lower a core body temperature.". And your body temperature starts falling. when you get out of that shower or bath. If you don't have access to a shower.

bath, even a warm compress to the face. will accomplish this very easy. Essentially costs nothing and it will. facilitate the transition to sleep. The. other thing that is. >> just and I this is probably a bigger. thing, but I'll let you finish your. point, but can can you after this talk. about staying asleep? >> Yes. Yeah. So, one of the key things to. falling asleep and to stress mitigation, you'll notice I'm trying to fire hose. tools at people that they can use. anytime, right? These are all and I'll. just point out like I didn't discover.

these tools. I've I've published on some. of them as as tools in my laboratory, but I want to really point out something. important in the backdrop here is these. mechanisms are hardwired into all of us. We're born with them. We're going to die. with them. So there's no real learning. except how to activate these circuits. Hence a user manual for the brain and. body, right? An operating manual. So the. idea here is you have these cells in. your eye. They're called melanopsin. intrinsically photosensitive retinal.

gangling cells. That's just nerd speak. for the for the cells in your eye that. actually know that morning sunlight is. hitting them. It's different than other. forms of light. Your phone won't do it. A computer won't do it. An indoor light. unless it's a 10,000 lux artificial. light. We we'll talk about that in a. minute. Won't accomplish this. you would. we have these cells for for the very. purpose of waking us up in the morning. for telling the brain and body it's. morning. That circuit gets activated. Boom. You just go into your day. You.

don't have to think about it anymore. There's another feature to the way that. we are hardwired which is we have a. little collection of neurons in our. brain that communicate with our body in. the following way. When you are feeling. too alert, could be stress, could be. panic, could be public speaking, could. be a hard conversation, could be. anticipation of a medical outcome, or. you're having trouble falling asleep or. getting back to sleep. What you need to. do is do a long deliberate exhale.

just like that. If you want to make it. even more effective, you do two inhales. through your nose to maximally inflate. your lungs and then you exhale. What am. I talking about here? This is not breath. work. This is a collection of specific. neurons that were discovered by my. friend and colleague Jack Feldman at at. UCLA. that lead to a slowing of heart rate in. a good way. Your everyone's heard of the. vagus nerve now. It's this nerve nerves. in the body collects sensory information.

from the body telling the brain what's. going on in the body. We're not even. thinking about it. But there's a another. part of the vagus nerve which goes from. brain to to the sinoatrial node of the. heart and it controls something called. respiratory sinus arrhythmia which. sounds bad. People hear arrhythmia and. that sounds bad. But when you do a. deliberate exhale, your heart rate slows. down. So if you want to calm down really. fast, the fastest way to do that is not. self-t talk. It's not meditation because. you don't have time to run off and. meditate. It's not a drink. Even that.

will take longer. We can talk about. alcohol later. It is to do a deliberate. exhale. You're too amped up. You want to. calm down. Long deliberate exhale. There's a. specific pathway that slows the heart. rate down. These days in the fitness. circles, you're hearing more about heart. rate variability. A stress monitor like. a Whoop band or anything that measures. HRV. It's measuring how often your brain. sends this break signal to your heart.

rate. That's what HRV is. In fact, if. you do a few deliberate exhales during. the day, just a few times, you're. walking out of the restroom, going back. to work, you're sitting down to your. desk, whatever, you're driving, you're. picking up the kids, you do one long. deliberate exhale, your HRV gets higher. at night in sleep, which is great for. you. And during the day, you want high. HRV. It shows that your nervous system. can calm your heart rate down, slow it. down. And this is a well, you know, I.

could get into the mechanism. The. diaphragm, you know, moves up, the heart. gets a little smaller, blood moves. faster. The brain says, "Uh-oh, blood's. moving faster through that smaller. volume of the heart. Slow heart rate. down. When we inhale, heart rate speeds. up." And everyone's told, "Oh, you're. stressed. Take a take a deep breath.". That increases your heart rate. So, you. know, circa 2019 2020, I'm thinking to. myself, everyone's stressed. Everyone's. saying, "Take a deep breath. That's not. going to work. That's going to send you. in the opposite direction." Okay? Humans.

inhale actively and passively exhale. We. do this all day long. We let the air. fall out. When we actively exhale, it. activates this circuit that's just. sitting there waiting for you to calm. yourself down, and you actively exhale. The reason exercise increases HRV is has. a lot to do with how much exhaling you. do during exercise. So, in that last. hour of the day, here's what I'd love. for people to do. I understand people. watch Netflix, they're listening to.

podcasts, they're watching TV, they want. to know the verdict on this new case. I. get it. I totally get it. I'm human, too. Just do this for me. Try and make. the first hour of your day as bright as. possible that day. If all you can do is. flip on all the lights in your house. first thing in the morning, that's it. Can't get outside, it's too cold, you. don't want to do it, fine. Just make it. bright. Make it as bright as you can. Even better for people in the Northeast. would be to get, and I don't have any. relationship to the companies that sell. these, but for about $100, you can get a. 10,000 lux artificial light. Looks like. a TV screen. You put it in the kitchen.

or the bathroom. You flip it on, go. about your morning. You don't have to. stare at it or you get outside. Get some. light in your eyes. Do that. And if you. can, we can talk about exercise in the. early part of the day. Great. First. three hours or so. And then in the last. hour of your day, think, I'm going to. try and heat up the surface of my body. to cool down internally so I can fall. asleep better. So hot compress to the. face for 10 seconds. Maybe a hot shower, hot bath, okay? If you have time, dim. the lights. If you can't dim the lights,

try and not use overhead lights because. the eyes, the cells in the eyes that. that carry this information about waking. up to the brain, they view the upper. visual field. That's how they're they're. placed. so they can see the sky. So do. like the Scandinavians and use desk. lamps or a floor lamp. Okay? Dim those. lights, dim your screen, >> and if you're still feeling too ramped. up and you can't sleep, do some long. exhales. Just a few long exhales. This whole thing will have an outsized.

positive effect on people's sleep, daytime mood focus, and alertness. And. there's a beautiful study out of the UK. bioank of more than 80,000 subjects. which shows that even if people just. make their nights darker, for instance, maybe an eye mask while. you sleep, you don't have an eye mask, grab a soft t-shirt, throw it over your. eyes, and we go to sleep. Even just. making your your sleep environment. darker has a significant positive effect. on reducing symptoms of depression, OCD, mania, dementia, and on and on. better.

to make mornings bright and dark nights. But if you look at the way humans have. been trending for the last few years, we. have days that are too dim. >> and nights that are too bright. And if. you think, well, no, actually my work. environment's pretty bright. Just. putting people near a window or having. people look out a window a few times. during the daytime has significant. improvements on metabolic health, longevity, ac mood. I mean, we it's not.

that we should be living out ofdoors. No. one's going to do that, right? People. want we've evolved all these ways to. live indoors and they're great, frankly. But brighter mornings, darker nights, even in these subtle ways, will help. tremendously. Now, there are some people. for whom all of that will they'll do all. of that and they'll say, "I still wake. up at 2 or 3 in the morning and I can't. get back to sleep." And for that, I'm. going to offer you a really weird trick. But the reason I'm willing to do this. even as a scientist is a there's a. scientific basis for it and b it works.

and it's the following. >> We know. >> this is a wild trick but this will get. you back to sleep. It's wild. I know. it's really wild. Well, three. >> I saw you do it and I I have tried it a. few times. >> I know it looks crazy but you'll thank. you'll thank me later folks. I promise. And also what's fun about these things. is look these were these are in you. right? This isn't something you have to. go purchase, right? um you know I I'll. be happy if people purchase the book but. frankly the reason I go on podcasts like.

this is all the time and is because I. just want people to have these tools. I. mean, I wish I had known as a kid, as an. adult, I can calm myself down fast for a. tense moment, just doing a deliberate. exhale or even better, a double inhale, long exhale. I can get better sleep. because I had sleep issues starting. basically in high school and college. I. would wake I'd fall asleep and I'd wake. up in the middle of the night. I mean, when we're sleeping well, life is so. much better. getting over traumas,

recovery from addiction, uh dealing with. difficult circumstances, but also our. ability to do all the things that we. know we're supposed to do like exercise. and earn a living and do all these. things that we're strive all our. strivings get so much easier. So, these. are the tools I wish I had had, but they. weren't out there. So, the thing that. you can do to fall back asleep, I'll. just give you the science very briefly. first. Anyone that's ever had a kid or. held a kid knows that if you rock the. kid back and forth and you walk, they.

fall asleep. Turns out there's a. scientific study of the exact rate of. rocking and walking that's ideal for. putting babies to sleep. Turns out in. adults, believe it or not, scientists. are so weird. They did a study using a. slow rocking bed and it puts people to. sleep. >> Okay, >> I want one. >> I know every I'm like, I want one, too. Um, but for most people, it's not. practical. And then there was this woman. who actually was in she wasn't at. Stanford but Francine Shapi Shapiro who.

developed this thing called EMDR which. is a trauma treatment where people. recount a story while moving their eyes. from side to side. Sounded pretty wacky. People made up silly theories that oh. that's mimicking rapid eye movement. sleep. No, nothing of the sort. Turns. out based on now three or four really. solid publications that when the eyes. are moving from side to side, for. whatever reason, it quiets the activity. of this brain region called the amydala, which is involved in stress, threat. detection, and fear, as it's commonly.

referred to, the fear center. The critical thing for falling asleep is. that you be not stressed, but also that. you forget about your body position. So. it turns out that this rocking motion or. the movement of the eyes both suppresses. areas of the brain that are involved in. threat detection and anxiety and stress, but they also help you forget what's. called proprioception, your knowledge of. where your limbs are, and that is a. requirement for falling asleep.

So there two things have happened in the. following year. First of all, a group of. brilliant scientists at MIT came up with. a sleep mask that they're developing. Now, I have no relationship to this. company, but I've tried this mask that. creates a very specific eye movement. pattern by low-level electrical. stimulation that causes you to fall. asleep. And I've done it. You fall. asleep almost immediately. But the eye. movement pattern is is something that. you can create yourself. So, you close. your eyes, you're in bed, you're wide. awake. This happened to me last night. I.

woke up, went to sleep around 10:00, woke up at 3:30, boom, wide awake. I was. having a some intense dream about some. meaningless thing like so many dreams. and I thought h I'm wide awake. What do. I do? Keep my eyes closed. So under the. eyelids you move your eyes slowly to the. left then to the right then up then. down. Try and move them counterclockwise. clockwise. I know it sounds crazy. Still. with eyes closed. Kind of point them.

towards your nose. It's not really. crossing your eyes. And then you do a. long exhale. you for when people do this. The typical. reaction I get because people write to. me is next thing I know it was morning. I know that sounds wild and listen I. wouldn't put this out into the world at. this scale if I wasn't confident that. doing that one to three times for most. people is sufficient for them to get. back to sleep. Now, if you're intensely. ruminating on something really. troubling, you're going to need to do. something else. But.

very very often that will do the trick. And these eye masks that are now being. developed are just trying to. recapitulate that eye movement pattern. >> That's crazy. All I can think of is the. movie The Jerk, you know, where he puts. the sunglasses on or the eyeglasses and. they've got something and next thing you. know, everybody who tries them is. crosseyed. I hope the mask [laughter]. weird. >> That's not going to do this. But look, what I just described is entirely safe. Why does it why does it shut down your. propriception your knowledge of body.

position? I can't help myself but tell people why. that the mechanism is important here. because otherwise it becomes a hack, right? And a hack is something that's. designed to overcome a problem. Like if. these glasses break and I put a paper. clip in the corner to fix them, that's a. hack. It's not what the paperclip was. designed for. It's not a it's not a. really good solution. It's a temporary. solution. The reason this is not a hack, this is grounded in your physiology. Your eyes have many connections to the. brain. Some are designed to tell your. brain when it's daytime. Others are.

designed to let you see colors and. shapes and movement of objects like. cars. But there's another circuit that. goes from your eyes to deep brain. structures that then connects to what's. called your mini brain, a little brain. in the back of your brain. Literally, it. looks like another brain called the. cerebellum. Most people think of the. cerebellum as a balance structure. This. is critical for balance. It's also. critical for learning. But the. cerebellum is also critical for taking.

your eye movements, understanding where your eyes are and. adjusting your body position. accordingly. When you walk through any. environment, office, outdoors, whatever, you don't experience the world as. blurry. But if I took a picture on my. phone and moved my phone, it would be. blurry. How is that? The cerebellum. takes your eye position and sends the. eyes a message to offset any slip in the. visual world. So you see the world as. stable as you move your head around. Amazing. When you move your eyes the way.

I described under the eyelids, it. confuses the cerebellum. There's a map. of your body in the cerebellum and the. cerebellum doesn't know how to deal with. these weird eye movements of side to. side, round and up and down. and all of. a sudden that propriceptive mechanism is. shut down and that's the second step in. being able to fall asleep. So this is a. so lowering your core body temperature, keeping the room cool helps too. Some. long exhale breathing before sleep. If. you wake up in the middle of the night,

keep the room dark. Yes, get up and use. the restroom if you need to. I highly. recommend you not look at your phone if. you can avoid it. But when you're ready. to go back to sleep, do these eye. movements. You will find almost. certainly that you'll fall back asleep. much more easily. And man, I get. thousands of notes every day. >> Let me hit you with a couple of quick. ones. Couple quick ones. Um, when you. say double inhale, can you show us what. that is? Is that is that regular inhales. or is something else? >> You want to do the two inhales through.

the nose, the second inhale will be. shorter because your lungs are already. mostly full. And then the exhale through. the mouth. This is the fastest way to. bring your heart rate down and de-stress. in real time. Okay? So unless you're. underwater, I can't see a circumstance. where you couldn't do this. So you you. do it the following way. until lungs are empty. >> So it was a long inhale filling your. lungs. Then one one extra. >> when you don't think you have extra.

room, you do. And you do one extra. >> and then [snorts] a long. >> and then a slow exhale through the. mouth. Inhale through the nose, exhale. through the mouth. >> That's right. The reason for that second. inhale is important. Your lungs are not. just two big bags of air. They have. hundreds of millions of little sacks. that actually fill with air. And those. little sacks are are kind of moist in. the in the middle. And like a if you're. ever trying to blow up a balloon at a. kids party, sometimes it's easy to blow. up the balloon. But if they're those. little water balloons, sometimes what. you find is, you know, if you want to.

put air into a water balloon so you can. tie it, right, because you filled it too. much, you have to get sometimes two two. pushes, two exhales, right? So, in order. to maximally inflate those little sacks, you get that big first inhale and. that'll inflate most of them, but then. there are a bunch of them. They're. collapsed and kind of sticking together. from surface tension. You do that second. inhale, pop, they open up. They don't. burst, but they open up. Great. Now you. can offload more air on the exhale and. by and there's a story here also about. oxygen coming in and you're offloading.

carbon dioxide. A lot of our stress is. about too much carbon dioxide in the. blood. You know the brain has a set of. neurons. Again, this neuroscience thing. is incredible, right? It's like you have. a set of neurons that don't tell you. when to breathe because you need more. oxygen. They tell you when to breathe. when carbon dioxide gets too high. Many. people have what's called sleep apnea. They're not getting enough oxygen during. sleep or they have daytime apnea and so.

they're not getting enough oxygen and. they're and there's carbon dioxide. levels are too high. There are three. reasons why you want to offload carbon. dioxide. You need it but you don't want. too much of it building up in your. system. First of all, sleep apnea, snoring, etc. Severe cardiovascular and. basically brain health issues come from. that. Get your snoring fixed. Get that. deviated septum fixed. Get the CPAP if. you have to. Um, >> well, I have friends who had their.

uvulas cut out and it stopped their. snoring, but they said it was very. painful. >> That's Yeah, >> I don't [laughter] I don't know how that. works. >> If that's what it takes, provided it's. done by a good surgeon, you know, do. that. For some people that are. overweight or even the guys who like to. lift weights and they have these giant. necks, that's actually can create sleep. apnea. You don't want to be overly. muscled or too much body weight, but you. don't want overly anything really. But. >> apnea is bad because of the buildup of. carbon dioxide in sleep can it won't. cause dementia, but it certainly.

predisposes you to it and to heart. attack and so forth. But a lot of people. during the daytime, they're walking. around mouth breathing. As much as you. can only breathe through your mouth when. eating or speaking. Now, if you're. exercising hard, great to breathe. through your mouth. That's fine. But. >> but do you like the mouth tape that. people use? >> I don't because I have this mustache. beard thing and it never stays on. >> Um so what what I do is when I do my. low-level cardiovascular exercise like. walking unless I'm on a call. >> um or if I'm doing a you know easy.

cardiovascular exercise, I restrict. myself to nasal breathing. It actually. sets you up to be a nasal breather in. sleep. You kind of start defaulting to. nasal breathing. But if I'm running. harder or exercising harder, I. definitely breathe through my mouth. the. the the carbon dioxide thing is real in. the sense that if when you're stressed. there's a buildup of carbon dioxide. which is that's what stimulates the gasp. reflex. That's what makes you feel. anxious and you can't shut your thoughts. down. If you've ever been swimming.

>> and you know when kids can be so cruel, right? You're swimming. I grew up with a. pack of wild heathens and they were just. so they were good kids. But you know. occasionally you'd be swimming. >> Learned about some of them in the book. >> Exactly. And you and you try and come up. out of the water. >> protocols by Dr. Andrew Huberman, you. can pre-order yours now. Go ahead. Keep. going. >> Yeah. You know, you're coming up out of. the water and that that mean kid holds. your head right as you're trying to come. up. >> Listen, you add enough air a moment. before that, >> but that split second is terrifying. because you I can't. Your brain knows it.

needs oxygen. So, >> you have a gas reflex that's looking for. oxygen. There's an oxygen hunger, a. breath hunger. When you do this double. inhale, long exhale, you reset the. carbon dioxide oxygen ratios and it's a. wonderful state to be in because you're. alert but calm. So let's say you're. studying. >> So it's maybe a good thing to do at any. point during the day like while you're. just sitting there if you're listening. to this program you could be doing a few. >> just a couple you know one even just. deliberate long exhale or the double. inhale through the nose exhale through. the mouth. The beauty of this again is.

your HRV increases. You become more of a. nasal breather in sleep. Your sleep is. deeper. you have less apnea. You'll kind. of notice that today a lot of the things. we move from cortisol to light to. breathing. A lot of these things are. about being alert when you want to be. alert but not too alert and being asleep. when you want to be asleep. In fact, I. would argue that as a human, if you can. master the ability to be alert but calm. by using these tools, long exhales if. you need them, bright light to be more.

alert, if you can learn to turn your. brain off and go to sleep, you're going. to be a very effective professional. parent, partner, >> friend, and your relationship to. yourself gets way better because so many. of the woes of the world have to do with. an inability to self-regulate. in order to get sleep then. self-regulation becomes even harder or. I'm a big caffeine. >> let me just continue my my couple. questions on this because um number of.

hours people obsess seven or eight a lot. of people can't get that what what. what's the bare minimum per night like. people really should be striving for. >> okay so new parents caretakers and. people who are in very stressful. times in their life I will tell you this. I'm not recommending it but if you can. get that first four hours of sleep. That's you. Ideally, you'd get more, but. you will get some growth hormone. release, some bodily repair. You can. carry on for better or worse for quite a. long while with four to five hours, but.

you're not setting yourself up for. health in the long run. But I say this. because I want to be sensitive to the. fact that some people are taking care of. a a sick relative. Some people are in a. very stressful life situation where. they're raising young kids. You will. survive. >> I know. And then you're like, you're. going to get dementia. survive. Survive. You're going to survive. >> Unfortunately, >> you'll survive. Once the kids are. sleeping better, you'll sleep better. Like, you will survive. You can you'll. be okay. You don't want to do this for. decades on end or even for, you know,

five years on end. But you will be okay. For most people, they need somewhere. between seven and eight. I feel pretty. darn good at six. Developing kids. probably need eight or nine. When you're. battling an illness, nine or 10 is not. abnormal and is healthy. But if you only. need six hours and you feel great on. six, >> God bless you. Keep going with. >> don't stress. >> Do not stress that you need to get more. sleep than you need. One thing that's. critical, however, is if you are having.

trouble with sleep and you're napping in. the daytime, you need to stop napping. When you get sleepy because of the. buildup of a molecule called adenosine. And when you nap, you shave off some of. that adenosine from your brain and body, which is good. You come out more alert. But at night, you want to create the the. the real fatigue at the end of your day. so that you're tired. That's why. exercise is great. That's why napping in. the daytime is bad for people who have. trouble sleeping. If I have a whole.

section in the book, believe it or not, on napping, it seems. So, at one point, I thought to myself, I'm teaching people. how to nap. This is crazy. But if you. need a nap, 20 minutes should really be. the limit so that you don't cause sleep. inertia, which is the tiredness coming. out of the nap, but also that you're not. eroding your nighttime sleep. There's. also, and I put some reference to this. uh in the book, >> even just sitting down and quietly doing. a few exhales and just closing your. eyes, not looking at your phone for,

believe it or not, Megan, 60 seconds, 3. minutes, you'll come out of that feeling. some renewed vigor. The problem is. nowadays I'm a big consumer of media. I. I love media. Uh but we every moment is. filled with more information coming in. So I'm talking about things that take. [music] on the order of minutes across. the entire day. Costs nothing. >> Hey, thanks for watching today's full. episode. If you're new here, throw us a. subscribe. See what you think. Stay in.

touch. There's plenty more goodness. where this one came from. As always, we. really do value your feedback. So, email. me, too. Megan megyn megan kekelly.com. or just leave a comment down below. I do. read them. I meander over and I scroll. through and I find them very. entertaining and really appreciate the. feedback. But, in any event, join the. community by becoming a subscriber, so. you miss nothing. We value your support. We may not always agree on positions, but as you know, I'm very open-minded to. people who disagree with me. That's how. I learn. So, thanks and thanks for.

trusting us to always talk about it. openly, honestly, and with provocative. conversations. Think about the last time. you called a business and no one picked. up. What did you do? You called the next. one on the list. Customers do the exact. same thing when they are reaching out to. you. Which is why I want to tell you. about Quo, spelled Quo. It's the. business phone system built so that you. never miss a call. Quo brings all calls, texts, and voicemails into one organized. hub, so anyone on the team can view full.

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>> Yes and no. So. after now you know six years of doing. public health science education I've. come to the place where I you know I was. a years ago I I took kids backpacking in. Yeusede. That was my summer job. And um. you learn something working with uh. teenagers, which is be a channel, not a. dam. And it turns out that um you want. to do the same with adults. If listening. to a podcast or having the news on helps. you fall asleep, I I actually suggest.

you keep doing it. I do. What? Okay. >> But if you're waking up 4 hours later. and having a hard time getting back to. sleep, you might want to think about how. the light from the screen or that noise. might be impacting you. You know, this. whole thing of listening to stuff out of. interest is one thing, but when we're. listening to podcasts while we sleep or. we are leaving the TV on, I think it. reflects a much bigger I always ask. myself as a scientist, why are people. doing this? And I think they're doing it. because it's hard to turn our thoughts.

off. You know, one of the practices I. talk about and I'm happy to share now, um, I talk about in the book, I'm happy. to share now, is this practice of. non-sleep deep rest, which sounds like. meditation, sounds like a nap, but it's. not. You know, one of the great super. skills in life that I wish I had had. years ago is the following. Some people. have what's can really we call it low. activation energy. Meaning they have a. lot of get up and go. You say, "Let's do. this." They get up and do it. They go. go. They're ambitious. They're doing. sports. They're doing this. Those people.

tend to be the same people that have. hard have a hard time turning their mind. off. Other people have the motivation. issue, right? They're like, "I don't. have an issue with sleep. I just like I. have an issue with motivation. Procrastination is an issue, right? That's what they say. People who are are. getting after it, they're exercising, etc. They're thinking about business, family, they want to man, they the woes. of the world or even just the small. things are are, you know, circulating in. their head. Need to learn to get the. mind out of thinking and doing and. planning.

and spend a few minutes in order to fall. asleep in just pure sensation. And. there's a practice that was actually. developed in India thousands of years. ago called yoga nidra which means yoga. sleep. It involves no movement where you. do this won't come as a surprise now I. call it non-sleep deep rest but you take. a few minutes during the day and you. could do it sitting or lying down. and you close your eyes. You do a few. long exhales to slow your heart rate. down and instead of meditating by trying. to maintain focus on you know between.

your forehead or instead of trying to. clear your mind this that's almost. impossible to do right clear your mind. no impossible it's like the don't think. of the elephant you know you can't not. think of it instead you migrate your. thoughts like a spotlight around your. body your feet the other foot your knee. the other knee your heart your body and. what you're doing there is you're. occupying just enough of the brain's. attention that it makes it very easy to. do. You're not trying to turn off your. thoughts. But what ends up happening is.

you stop thinking and planning and you. start just going into pure sensation. And when you do that, the brain goes. into we now know from really good. science goes into this kind of liinal. state between asleep and awake. And. little pockets of the brain start. mimicking sleep. Three things happen. when you come out of this practice. And. it could be 5 minutes, could be 10. minutes, could be 20. There are a lot of. these non-sleep deep breaths scripts out. on the internet now. Some with my voice, some with much more pleasant voices and.

and so on. They're all zero cost. And. you emerge from it feeling mentally and. physically restored. Hm, that's. interesting. Learning of physical. information, cognitive information is. enhanced in people that do this. You. could do this once a week, three times a. week, or daily. It takes very little. time. And people's ability to fall. asleep gets better. People recover from. traumatic experiences better. What's. going on here? What is going on? What's. going on is three-fold. First of all, we.

now know that in these states of deep. relaxation. that are not meditation and are not a. nap, there's a clear out of debris from. the brain. This is called glimpmphatic. clearance. Uh we don't have time to go. into the mechanisms, but there's a. clearance of the of all the stuff of of. cellular metabolism in the brain. ammonia, carbon dioxide, like cellular. debris. The ability to clear that stuff out has. been shown to offset the development of. dementia, reduces the likelihood of.

dementia, helps you maintain brain. function. In addition, and some people. will just I usually find that people. this is the one that really gets people. If you've ever had a poor night's sleep, you know those bags under your eyes? Not. yours, but I'm speaking metaphorically. here. Um you you certainly don't have. this. uh whatever you're doing, you're. doing all the right things clearly. But. when we've all had. >> I do, we have the wrong lighting in. here. >> I Well, it I don't believe that. But in. any case, the if you've ever had one. poor night's sleep, you look in the. mirror and you go, "Oh my god, what is. that?" Have you ever wondered why then.

two days later after you've slept well, you're back to great. What happened? Turns out it's the buildup of glimpy. fluid under the eyes and in the eyes. You can even see in somebody that hasn't. slept well, their eyes don't quite look. right. there's actually lymphatic. lymphatic clearance from the eyes. So. these practices of deep relaxation as. well as sleep where the majority of this. clearance of this waste product and the. glimpmphatic clearance occurs, you can build in these micro practices.

throughout the day or just one minute or. five minutes of doing this and you're. offsetting dementia. You come out of it. mentally and physically restored. You. don't have the sleep inertia, the the. groggginess of a nap. And we're finding. that people learn faster. >> It's great for stress mitigation. I mean. the myriad benefits. >> again which is called protocols. You you. write about you can listen to a scripted. NSDR session. Um non-sleep deep rest. scripted. So where where can we find.

that? What's that? Is that like on. YouTube or? >> Yeah, you can find these on YouTube, Apple, Spotify. You can download them. for completely free. Download them to. your phone so you don't even need Wi-Fi. connection. You can be on the plane or. wherever. You can uh I put a bunch of. them that I really like. You go to. hubbermanlab.comnsdr. or you could simply do a web search and. just put nsdr. I for a really pleasant. woman's voice. My friend Kelly boys bs. does wonderful nsdrs. She's in the. waking up app also. Um there's some with.

my voice. You can find some. There's a. guy named Liam Gillan who has this my. sister really likes his Irish voice. I. think she has a bit of a crush on him if. I'm honest. Um sorry to my sister. I but. uh she loves his voice. She's like he. has the best voice. She does Liam's um. and these are so simple. They cost. nothing. And by the way, the reason I. renamed yoga nidra nsdr and put these. scripts out into the world is I. intentionally took away all the. intentions, the mysticism. I I want to.

acknowledge the people that initially. developed uh yoga nidra, but when people. hear yoga nidra and then they hear they. have to do intentions, that takes. >> I'm not sure my truckers are into it. >> Exactly. That takes away from the. practice. And it's it's sort of like the. word hypnosis. I have a colleague at. Stanford who does medical hypnosis. Incredible success rates at smoking. sensation, pain modulation, even can. even outcomes from cancer treatment. But. I always tell him this, you need to.

rebrand this thing because in his hands, hypnosis is rapid brain plasticity, rewiring of the brain. >> But people hear hypnosis and they think. stage hypnosis and people squawking like. chickens. Yes. >> So. >> what I'm talking about here, whether. it's cortisol or darkness, light, breathing, exhales, non-sleep, deep. rest, I really want to emphasize what. I'm talking about is taking your. God-given physiology, okay? the cells. and circuits in your brain and body that. you are endowed with and just putting.

them to their best use for your health. That's the whole story. In the book, I. get into I do talk about supplements and. pharmaceuticals. I talk about nicotine. both benefits and risks. I talk about. how one can if you like to have a drink. or two, how you can do that to and not. disrupt your sleep or health as much. >> At least 8 to 10 hours before you go to. bed. 10 hours. You're in favor of the. dardy is basically what we're learning. This is the college term for the day. [clears throat] party. >> I think you got to keep that well. away from the time it's go you go to.

bed. >> Look, I don't drink. I did in my past. I. don't drink now. But I understand people. like there are people like alcohol. Have. your glass of wine. But then do a couple. of things, simple things like I just. described to get your sleep to keep your. sleep good or great. that we actually. don't know whether the the negative. effects of alcohol and we're talking. about low amounts of alcohol could very. well be due to the disruption that. alcohol has on sleep. So do a few other. things and look if you go out and have a.

bunch of drinks with your friends and. you're safe about it. You're. non-alcoholic and you're of age like I. you're going to be okay. You're going to. be okay. I think that some people have. taken my podcast and my book to mean. that like everything has to be very. rigid. I start off the book by saying. listen op true optimization is about. accepting who you are and what you are. and are not going to do and then trying. to get the most vigor and enjoyment out. of life and most life while also having. the occasional sleepless night sometimes. due to crisis sometimes due to a. celebration that's life.

>> this has reminded me something recently. happened on X you may have seen it you. know Brian Johnson the don't die guy who. who's been on this show he he [laughter]. posted and he knows knows he's going to. get hit for these things. So, I kind of. admire his honesty, but he posted. um last night I had dinner at a. restaurant. I asked for caffeine-free. uh coffee. I'm convinced they brought me. caffeinated. The sleep protocol was off. I could not do my morning dunk session, which I think is related to basketball.

I think he means actual dunking, although I don't know with Brian. Johnson. You never know. They had to. cancel it because at my whole evening. and day were disrupted. And the responses were so funny. One of. them was basically um Michael Jordan. once had 10 beers and then played a game. in which he scored 50 points then went. on to do a round of golf at which he was. like ex underpar. It's like we have. weakened ourselves and especially this. was a man-to-man situation to the point.

beyond shame. Like you should be able to. have one night of a of a cup of coffee. and not post about it and the whole next. day's activities are off. Like come on. We actually are somewhat resilient. >> Yes. So uh a couple of brief points. about that. Um I I know Brian. Um so. yes, X is an environment um where. [laughter] you don't want to show. weakness. Um you uh most certainly if.

you're going to make exercise claims, you need to put videos. And if you put. videos, um don't confuse uh you know, you have to you have to use proper form. and full full range of motion or the. guys are going to hammer you, right? like that it's a very. >> and there should be a third party in. your life, someone who doesn't love or. work for you who approves of said video. before it gets posted. >> So Brian's, you know, when Brian put. that out there, I think there's three. phenomenon going on. One is um uh you. know, I I look at Brian's content, I.

think he's mostly generating. entertainment content for people. I. mean, his takeaways about sleep, I. think, are very valid, but um it's more. of a caricature of of longevity in my. opinion, if I'm if I'm honest. I think. that, >> you know, most people are not going to. do all the things he's doing and then he. has this chronic disease which kind of. undercut the story. But anyway, I. listen, I think it's great that he's out. there just like I think it's great that. Matt Cabberline's out there and Eric. Toppel, you need this is one thing that. people really need to understand about. health and longevity in the online.

communities. in science, in medicine, and I observe. this in the in the world of. skateboarding and and action sports. You. need a community uh that represent the. sort of different extremes, right? In. skateboarding, we have our Tony Hawk. We. had my friend Danny Wei who jumped the. Great Wall of China. You need the. variety of characters, right? And in. science, you see this too. I don't have. time to go into it now, but I grew up in. science and you get a lot of characters. and you need the battles, you need all.

that, but at the end of the day, people. are after truth and some things end up. being more for entertainment purposes. and the take and that's. >> and if it gets people paying attention. to the space, so be it. >> Right. Okay, let me keep it going. Um, I. have a question for you as a. neuroscientist about OCD. because I maybe it's just my anecdotal. impression, but I feel like it's. growing. I feel like I don't know a mom. or a dad that doesn't have a kid with. this or that isn't doing it themselves. I I've got a little bit of this in my. own life. Not like handwashing, but just. like repetitive movements or counting in.

my own head. And yet I don't think of. myself as an anxious person. I don't. feel any active anxiety pretty much. ever. >> But I do have a tinge of this. Is there. is that a neuroscientist thing? and. might some of these techniques because. you're big into stress management in the. book and we there are tons of tools for. stress management and I don't know how. you'd classify that is that stress what. is that. >> yeah a great question um so whether. we're talking about ADHD or OCD uh we.

need to separate the the sort of the. semblance of those things that many many. many people have and is normal versus. the the full-blown pathology so the. clinical definition of OCD is when The. compulsion, the behavior actually. doesn't suppress the obsession, it makes. it worse. So people who have true OCD, they feel like they need to wash their. hands. They wash their hands and then. they feel like they need to do it more. They feel like they they need to count. They count, then they feel like they. need to do it more. And it's maddening.

It is a it is a they are stricken and. they'll do it till their hands are raw. They'll pull there's, you know, the hair. pulling version of it. There are some. very very severe manifestations of this. But OCD in that form is just an extreme. version of something that many many. people have. Just like I'll give another. example. If you go to a bridge and you. think, "Oh my gosh, like what's keeping. me from jumping off?" Or people have. thoughts and they go, "Oh my goodness, like why did I have that thought?". That's actually a healthy reflection of.

your ability to suppress action and. thoughts, right? You're not going to act. on those things. It's perfectly normal. Now, when we're tired, when we are. stressed, symptoms of OCD and people that don't. have full-blown clinical OCD can worsen. Now, I know these days, for. understandable reason, there's a lot of. concern about SSRIs. And I agree that. when you look at the data, it's clear. that many many too many adults and. children were medicated with with SSRIs. But I will say in fairness to the.

scientific literature, SSRIs have. greatly helped people with severe OCD. OCD we know is associated with an. overgrowth of a particular brain area in. what's called a circuit called the basil. ganglia. It's involved in action and. suppressing action. And a brilliant. scientist at NIH named Judith Rapaort. discovered this years ago. Remember. prior to the 90s like when I started. learning about neuroscience. I claim no. discovery here but it was thought that. this was all psychological or like bad.

parenting or you know or trauma based of. which it can be but we know this is a. brain issue. So those drugs in the. proper hands and proper dosages can. really help people as can behavioral. treatments. Okay. In people like you I'm. assuming you don't have full-blown. clinical OCD based on what you told me. or who people who say I can't pay. attention. >> I just like when I Well, I noticed like. when I was practicing law where I was. working all the time and not getting a. lot of sleep, whenever I was walking on. the streets of New York, I was counting. my steps. Or when I'd go up or down a.

staircase, I would count the the number. of stairs. It like little things would. just pop up here and there in your day. where you're then you're like, why am I. counting? What am I doing? Right? Something like that. >> That's a great question. So, uh and then. you know in some cultures they worry. beads, right? where people are. constantly moving the beads in their. hands to to to sort of dispel some of. the energy. I will venture a guess here, an educated guess that you have a lot of. energy. You're a focused person. You're. always looking for ways that you can do.

better, be better, and so on. And people. like that when there's not a task right. in front of them, tend to have a lot of. energy pouring into the system. The same. way that my I've always had bulldog. mastiff muts and they love to run. then. they're lazy. But if you don't give them. enough exercise, they start gnawing. They start gnawing on their paw. They. start they need they need to chew. We. all have our chew, right? A bulldog. needs to gnaw. A retriever needs to. retrieve. A a rat terrier needs to look. for things. And as humans, we have these.

tendencies where our brain circuits. become thankfully asymmetric towards. learning, teaching, communicating. Look, you're on you're in front of the public. eye every virtually every single day and. it's high stakes, right? And it's and so. [clears throat] your system learns to. relax in that. You are a highlevel. professional athlete, thinker, communicator, learner, doer. And so when. you're walking down the street, it's. hard to just switch brain modes to just, oh, I'm just walking down the street.

now. I'm just going to be in my most. chill form. And so the brain starts. looking for things to do, count, think. about things. Sometimes listening to a a. podcast or a book can help. It's very. hard to turn the brain off and it's. actually not advantageous for you to. walk out of a meeting or this podcast, walk to lunch and during that walk to. lunch, you're just completely. decompressed and then you eat your lunch. and you come back and you snap back on. The brain doesn't work in what we call. stepwave function. It's square wave. function. So you don't go from asleep.

awake awake to asleep. There are these. transition states. So when you're. walking down the street and you're. thinking, I'm kind of obsessing about. that. Why? Well, there's some carryover. from the previous thing. Just like if. you were, you know, waking up, you don't. immediately feel wide awake and ready to. go about your day. There's some, you. know, there's some shifting of circuits. And actually, in the final chapter of. the book, I talk about tools for task. switching. You know, many people find. that they can't focus, but actually. their challenge is in dropping the.

mindset from the previous thing to be. able to focus. for you and me who do. public facing work, it's a requirement, right? Our phones aren't out, you know, uh it's we have to be locked in, but I. bet within 10 minutes of ending this, like one of us will pick up our phone. most likely. And so that's normal. It's. healthy. But don't expect your brain to. shut off completely. And and it I'll. just weave one other thing in here. Many. people are having attention issues these. days. There's a study that was done. recently that shows that if your phone. is upside down on the table in front of.

you or it's in your bag under your chair. completely turned off, you have a harder. time focusing compared to if it's in a. different room. But it turns out you can. focus if it's on the table or it's. underneath your chair. The problem is it. takes more mental resources and you give. up what is essentially intelligence, cognitive flexibility, and creativity. So there's a cost, but more importantly, if you're used to looking at your phone. every 3 minutes or so, when your phone.

is not there, every 3 minutes or so or. less, your brain gets distracted with no. distraction. The brain learns these. rhythms of the sun comes up in the. morning, it goes down at night, I'm. alert in the morning because I got my. morning sunlight or one of these 10,000. lux lights, I dim the lights. This is. something we call entrainment. And the. beauty of this is that if you take. everything we've talked about and you do. it for a couple of days, the bright. lights in the bright mornings, darker. nights, you try and limit your phone for.

just fight the impulse just every other. time to reach for it, just for an extra. 10 seconds. What happens is you you. naturally start to feel more alert when. you wake up in the morning, even before. you got the light in your eyes. I always. get the question, how come I wake up one. minute before my alarm clock? Guess why? Because that rise in cortisol is what. wakes you up and that is entrained to. your alarm clock. Now you can entrain it. to sunlight also. And guess what? On the.

day when you miss it cuz it's really. dreary out in the in the northeast, you'll still feel plenty alert. And at. night. >> I'm going to start I'm going to start. texting you pictures of me in January. outside. saying, "Damn that Andrew Huber.". >> Listen, I will be happy to gift you a. 10,000 lux artificial light. I send them. to people who say, "I'm just not going. to go outside. I'm just not going to I'm. not going to go outside. I'm not going. to do it." Then flip on all the screens, uh, some some music or just wake. yourself up. You will find that. bookending your day in this way. And.

just understanding a bit about my brain. is doing something normal and healthy. here. I'm counting things. I I have a. little bit of a superstitious streak. I. I get it. Um, and it's our brain's. attempt to have some control, but also. just to take this attention, this energy. that we have and put it someplace. And. dogs need it. Humans need it. We need. more focus and we need deeper sleep and. brighter days and all of that. But I. also want to emphasize, we need to be. human. You need to enjoy your life,

right? I think I think people saw the. the Brian thing and they I I think he. did do it more for entertainment. purposes. >> and we said, "We're out." And and it. it's like look, most people sleep to. prepare for the next day. Clearly, he's. he spends his days preparing to sleep. It's just an inversion of the of the. life design. But most people are not. going to do that. >> So, he's going to live forever for what? That's not living. Thank god. At least. he has a girlfriend now. The girl who's. been helping him do his uh online posts. So, that's that's a plus for Brian. Um. let me ask you a question about on the.

question of light. The issue of light. expose your skin and eyes to long. wavelength light. And you say it can be. red light, near infrared and infrared. Now, I I feel like I've I've heard you. talk about this, but I can't remember. the specifics because red light is. becoming more and more popular. Like. women are doing it, red light therapy on. their face for, you know, even skin tone. and so on. Some men are doing uh.

infrared or or you know saunas. What what is the story with your eyes. exposing your eyes to red light or. infrared light? >> Yeah. So the best zerocost but perfect. source of longwavelength light meaning. red light and infrared light. Infrared. light is the warmth the warmth from the. sun is sunlight. Right? God built us the. perfect light device for our. mitochondria, for our skin, for our.

hormone health, etc. There's only one. problem. You can't do it on your. schedule. You have to do it on the sun. schedule. Because what you want is the. long wavelength light. So, these are the. yellows, oranges, reds, and then out. past red is infrared, right? We can't. see it, but we can feel it. That's the. stuff that's great for our mitochondria. and that my colleague Glenn Jeffrey. University College London and I've known. him for decades did these studies as I. mentioned earlier shine you get that. light on your skin or even through a. t-shirt or light shirt and your.

metabolism is improved but get it also. turns out that if you're 40 or older. if you get this long wavelength light on. your skin or ideally in your eyes you. can do that from the morning sunlight. viewing or afternoon sunlight viewing. sunset viewing. you help repair the the cells in the. back of the eyes called the photo. receptors. These are the cells that take. photons of light, convert them into. electrical energy that allows you to see.

and PE and you can offset what he showed. in that study was that you can offset. some of the age related vision loss. You also offset myopia which is. nearsightedness. Now I had to start. wearing readers recently because of. writing this book because I was spending. so much time up close to a screen. When. you look at things too close up for and. you don't see horizons very much, you're. not looking at a distance very much, the. eyeball lengthens and the visual image. lands in front of the light sensing. portion of the eye, not on it. That's.

what corrective lenses do. They bring. the the the the light point point of. focus onto the right location. There is. a true epidemic of myopia, of. nearsightedness. And the data on kids. and their data emerging on adults too is. that if kids just take their tablets, computers outside. If you get outside. more, you offset this. So the long. wavelength light turns out to be the. key. Sunlight is full spectrum. You have. UV, short wavelength, medium, and long. wavelength. And the balance is key. You.

don't want too much UV because it can. indeed damage your skin. There's a lot. of debate nowadays about how much. sunlight. You need some UV for vitamin D. production and for mood and health, but. you don't want to get a sunburn. And indeed, it can cause accelerated. aging in the skin if you're getting too. much UV. We could talk about that if you like, but getting some long wavelength light. from sunlight or and or I would say you. could get a red light like a red light. LED device. You could use a red. incandescent light. Uh we don't have a.

lot of farmers out. >> Put goggles on. You could put so uh so. in the evening I will put on short. wavelength blocking glasses. They look. red tinted, but that's to block the. short wavelengths. But when you're out. during the day, you're getting a lot of. long wavelength light penetrating the. skin. It's benefiting you and it's. benefiting your eyes. But this study. showed this offset of age related vision. loss is when people get enough. longwavelength light. And if you're. indoors, he's in England, so that study. was done where people are spending a lot.

of time indoors. They're under LED. lights, which we all use now because. they're more energy efficient. candle. light will do it. So, if you light. candles in the evening or if you um or. if you have a fire in the fireplace or. here's a here's a cool trick. The. farmers taught me this. They have a a an. inexpensive solution to all this. You. get it what they call a pig light. It's. a red incandescent bulb and it supplies. long wavelength light. Farmers knew. this. It's very interesting actually as. I've written this book. >> So, you don't have to stare at the bulb,

you just have to be near it. >> It fills the room. And the beauty of. long wavelength light is that it bounces. off surfaces all over. So you don't have. to be looking right at it. If you can. get outside in a green space, if I were. to give you infrared glass goggles like. the special operators wear, you would. notice that everything green was glowing. white. And that's because the long. wavelength light is bouncing off it. It's getting reflected down on you. There's wonderful work showing that. recovery from surgery, recovery from.

illness, staving off illness, including. upper respiratory infections, skin. health, eye health, longevity is get. that long wavelength light. The key is. to not get too much UV because that can. be damaging. So that's why sunlight can. be a little red. >> Yeah. But infrared sauna are great um if. you can afford one. An infrared. incandescent light is great. an LED. panel if they tend to be pretty. expensive. Um, but the incandescent. lights are not terribly expensive. And.

as I've talked to more and more farmers, they they laugh, right? They're like, I. get up with the sun. >> I go outside. I'm carrying stuff. I'm. doing work. I'm drinking my coffee. Then. I have breakfast afterwards. I might. catch a quick nap in the afternoon, but. I have to go out in the evening, take. the animals in, take care of things. I'm. not suggesting we go back to living that. way, but they nailed it. They nailed it. It wasn't so bad. >> They nailed all the light. >> It's funny though when you mentioned the. candle light. In law school, we had to. sit alphabetically. So, the guy next to.

me on the one side was named Andy Kelly. And Andy Kelly was starting to lose his. close-up vision, you know, he from all. the reading in law school and so on. And. he told me at the time that he reversed. it by staring at candle light. >> Yeah. >> And I remember being like, really? Is. that even possible? And he swore it was. possible. And here I am sitting across. from Hub Hubman and hearing, yeah, it's. possible. >> I mean, I think the I think the highly. processed foods conversation for the. next two years, you're going to hear two. things I I anticipate will be really big.

in the health space. Cortisol will no. longer be seen as this stress hormone. It will be seen as the thing to leverage. high morning, low at night. I hope to. play a role in that. The other thing. that you're going to hear quite a lot. about is how all these LED lights, which. are incredibly energy efficient. I mean, how often do you have to change a light. bulb nowadays? hardly ever. The problem. is they're short wavelength shifted. It's not the blue light. It's that there. isn't enough longwavelength light. So, we're going to hear about supplementing. with long wavelength light. That does. not mean you have to buy a red light.

panel, candle light, fireplace, get. outside when the sun is low in the sky, either near sunrise or near sunset. Get. that long wavelength light. Immensely. beneficial also for mental health and. for physical health. It's so interesting. that so many of the things we're talking. about in health are about undoing the. damage from the lifestyle and. technologies that we've built. But. there's also just a lot of, you know, this notion that, oh, we used to be. scared of saber-tooth tigers and that's. why we stress. No, I mean, 10,000 years.

ago, I guarantee that people were. concerned about their loved ones when. they went off to hunt or gather. Relationships had issues, kids got sick. Stress has always been a part of life. The key is to teach yourself how to. de-stress, to get great sleep, turn your. mind off, get focused and alert. And I'm. a consumer of caffeine and you know, if. you want, we could talk about nicotine, but these are just skills that take. minutes if that to learn because they. work the first time and every time, you.

know. So there's no learning curve in. anything. I'm saying I'm not saying, listen, if you go outside for three days. in a row, then these cells will learn. it's morning. No, the first time you do. it, it works. And it works the first. time and every time. >> We've all heard those radio ads about. owing money to the IRS. They try to. scare you and push you into calling out. of fear. But Tax Relief Advocates takes. a different approach. If you owe the IRS. 5,000, 50,000, or even 500,000, TRA has. real solutions to fix your tax problem.

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Okay? Again, that's 800-575-6845. Tax Relief Advocates, real solutions for. real people. Imagine this. You're. surrounded by fellow fans, sharing. wings, sharing drinks, high-fiving. random strangers. Everyone remembers the. game, and no one remembers the guy. coughing behind you until a few days. later at 2 a.m. when you wake up with a. fever and your throat's on fire. Now, what? Urgent care? Closed? Er, hell no.

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urgent care and drugstore at home. When. you're sick, traveling, or stranded, you. could have used a medical emergency kit. Order online in minutes and it is. shipped to your door. And save 45 bucks. with our promo code MK at. urgentcarekit.com/mk. That's promo code MK at. urgentcarekit.commk. The book spends a fair amount of time. focusing or talking about focus, motivation, and learning. Chapter six, you go you go deep on that. So if you. need better focus in your life, if you.

need motivation, but the learning thing. was interesting to me, um, protocol. three, I wanted to talk about embrace. errors. There's a whole long bit in the. book about embracing errors, saying they. embrace the fact that errors are an. essential trigger for learning. Errors. that come from genuine attempts to learn. something are the signal for plasticity. to occur. This is true for all forms of. skill development, cognitive, motor,

musical, mathematical, etc. So whether. you're learning a sport, a musical. instrument or history or news for that. matter, making errors in the process of learning. is critical. So can you expand on that? >> Yes. So if I could put a banner across. the sky, I would want people to understand the. following message. The agitation you feel from not being.

able to do something through a genuine. attempt, so not throwaway errors. That. agitation is the reflection of the. release of certain molecules. We call. them neurom modulators in the brain and. body that tell your nervous system you. need to change to close the gap between. what you're trying to do and what you. currently can do. Okay? We don't tell kids this. We don't. tell adults this. And so we think the. friction that comes from the attempt to. learn that that somehow is signaling.

that we're in the wrong place. No. If. your if you think about it logically, if. your nervous system could do something, if your brain could do it, if your body. could do it, why would it change? It. wouldn't. And we've been so captivated. by this concept of flow, which is a. beautiful concept, but this idea of, you. know, forgetting ourselves and just. being able to do the skill. I mean this. is unfortunately the consequence of. science fiction and movies where. somebody gets the sword, they drink the. drink, they are wake up and you know.

they get hit by lightning and now they. have superpowers like damn that Harry. Potter, right? You know like no that's. not how it works. That's this thing. called fantasy. The way it works is that. you know nothing. You go from unskilled. to skilled, skilled to mastery, mastery. to virtuosity. How do you do that? you. make genuine attempts to do something. In order to do that, you have to be. alert and focused. So, you have to learn. to focus and I talk about that in that. chapter. Then you can't do it. That's.

the signal your nervous system needs to. change. You get some rest from sleep or. non-sleep deep rest, ideally both, and. you come back a day or two later and you. can sort of do the thing. Huh, amazing. We all know this to be true. But it. turns out the errors are the signal to. your nervous system that needs to. change. But your nervous system doesn't. know error. It knows that it's your. nervous system speaks to the neurons. speak to each other in electricity and. chemicals. So agitation and and that.

lowle stress. So alert but calm but a. little bit stressed that signals it's. time to change. Here's the best way to. think about it. If you've ever played. that game, Hot Hands, where you know. your hands are on top of someone else's. hands and the the person underneath is. going to flip their hands over and hit. your hands. That's the level of. attention and kind of alertness that you. need to learn. That just to me describes. it perfectly. So, you're not stressed, but you're not too relaxed either. So.

you have to be wrapped with attention. and looking for something, ready for. something, trying to throw the dart to. the bullseye, trying to, you know, hit. the, you know, sink the sink the ball, trying to learn the language. So you. have to pay attention. There's only so. much you can do in a given learning, I. call them learning bouts because it. should feel like a fight with yourself. And if you're too stressed, you can't do. it. Now there's even studies that show. that if you take a a drug like. propranol, beta blocker, conventional. beta blocker, after you try to learn.

something, you don't learn it because. the adrenaline the adrenaline in your. body and norepinephrine in your brain. are two of the key neurom modulators for. learning. This is why unfortunately. traumatic experiences. and fortunately are one trial learning. Right? If you step off the curb and a. car almost hits you, >> okay, you can probably go. [clears throat] about your day, okay? But you have a changed. relationship to that location, okay? And.

the what happened was there's a lot of. adrenaline and trauma comes about when. there's so much adrenaline that it grabs. memories that are unassociated with the. event. So now the sound of cars just. gets you ramped up. Doesn't matter if. the car is driving away from you. that. walking out on the street gets you. ramped up and then the processes of of. also of plasticity where you have to. unlearn we call it triggering you have. to unlearn the emotion. So now we every. form of trauma therapy whether it's. >> you know uh you know EMDR or it's talk.

therapy is about getting you into a. calmer emotional state while recounting. the event. You're not going to forget. the thing. It's about peeling off the. emotional load. So, when you want to. learn something, what I call. self-directed adaptive plasticity, it's. a bunch of words, but to distinguish it. from bad plasticity, because brain. damage is a form of plasticity, but it's. not one you want. But when you're trying. to learn something, you have to be alert. so you can be focused. I talk about ways. to do that. Should you or should you not. use caffeine or nicotine? Should you or. should you not uh take a cold shower.

first? Well, the best way to get alert. is to have a good night's sleep the. night before, but caffeine helps, too. Hydration helps, too. And if you really. care about something, that helps too, right? Even kids with severe ADHD can. concentrate on the their favorite video. game. We know this. They don't have a. focus issue. They have a focus on things. they don't like issue. >> Adults as well. This is important. And. then they you focus and then you have to. try and do something. I'm trying. I'm. trying. And people I hear it all the. time. I'm not good at that. I'm not good.

at that. Why? I don't know. It stresses. me out. Great. Now's the opportunity to. learn. One of the reasons why exercise. helps your brain and there are many. reasons helps with better oxygenation of. the brain, better sleep, etc. But one of. the reasons that you learn so much. better in the four or five hours after. exercise is that it makes you more alert. because you have epinephrine and. norepinephrine circulating in your brain. and body. So a lot of the positive. effects of exercise are it's true I. should say that yes exercise makes your.

brain better but really it should be. exercise gives you the opportunity to. learn. You don't get smarter by. exercising. Anyone that's known like a. pure jock can attest to that. That's a. joke against my jock friends. But the. but anyone that just exercises isn't. getting smarter. That's not true. It. make gives you the opportunity to learn. because you come out of that exercise. provided you didn't exhaust yourself. We're not talking two hours of squats or. something. You come out of that exercise. and you feel different. You why? What is.

that? Dopamine, epinephrine, norepinephrine, the so-called. catakolamines. That cocktail of. neurochemicals primes you for learning. So. 2026 27 come out of exercise. Maybe you. read for a moment. Maybe you sit and do. some emotional learning. You know, some. people are trying to be uh a better. spouse. They're trying to be better to. themselves. And the th this sounds so. silly, right? But to sit there and. think, you know, I'm going to try and be. a little bit kinder to myself today or.

to other people. It sounds really. squishy, right? But if you're in a. certain state of mind, it it actually. works. It carries over. It's But just. telling yourself, I'm going to be a. nicer person is like saying, you know, I'm going to be kinder to myself. That's. about as effective as telling yourself, you know, I'm gonna learn fluent. Japanese by saying, I'm gonna learn. fluent Japanese. No, it's the state that. you're in when you set that intention to. learn. It's the state that you're in. when you arrive at the learning. And so,

we can all learn new things. It's just a. function of being alert, being focused, and getting into that agitation, and. then going and doing something else. And. you'll come back better. You will you. will master that skill over time. Well, you write about personal growth in. the book and I was actually just talking. about this with my audience. I've. mentioned it many times. People. generally know it, but I was saying and. and this is in your book as well. You. like the less in my view, the less time.

spent thinking about the past the. better. Um I just I I try to stay away. from it. And I've had a great life. I. it's not because I had a ton of trauma. I had some things, but I definitely. don't ruminate on them. And when I start. going to them, I try to get myself off. of them and I can pretty quickly. I just. find no good comes from it. And I'm. trying to teach my kids that same skill. Like there's really no point in just. ruminating or going back or reliving. some unfortunate moment. The less time. spent thinking about it, the better. And. kind of the same about the future. Like.

some some planning is required to exist. on this earth and make something out of. yourself. you know, you have to figure. out if you want to take a big vacation. in June and it's December, you might. need to buy an airline ticket and so on. But the best thing for for happiness is. to be in the present. And they say that. all the time now. And it is harder. It's. easier said than done. But you've got. some tips in the book which I thought. were quite clever. Again, the book is. called Protocols by Andrew Huberman.

right here. You can get it on pre-order. right now. It's coming out soon. Um, and. I thought these were clever, like. questions that you can ask about your. environment that will bring you right. right into the room unavoidably. >> Yeah, the past. Um, okay. Two most. dangerous words in the English language. are if only. Uh, I stand by that. I. didn't say that. Someone once said that. to me. You you cannot live in if only. That that that is death. That that is.

spiritual death. That's uh so that I'll. just leave there as a to me a hard. truth. I will say. >> I I'll I'll put it a different way as my. as my dear friend always says the the. past is like your ass behind you. [laughter]. >> So um being the data that's a good one. The the the data definitely say large. scale data sets definitely say that. being present um correlates with. happiness. And that's true even if.

you're in unpleasant. present circumstances. So you're with someone who's sick in the. hospital. >> Interesting. >> Try not to distract yourself, but you. need to sleep to be a great caretaker. So I I I have to I I'm going to put two. caveats and then total agreement. The. the first caveat is there's a section in. the book where I talk about data from. this guy named James Pennibbaker who. developed a tool called expressive. writing where if you're having if. there's something in the back of your. mind that you can't shake an experience.

you cannot shake a time when you. experience shame or a trauma there are. now tens of thousands of quality studies. showing that if you take 15 minutes. but just 15 not more and you write about. that four days in a row, by the end of. the fourth day, you will have. significantly offloaded a lot of the. emotional load of that thing. So, I want. to be fair to that. So, if there's. something that like I I use the term. sometimes that, you know, there are.

these past experiences that are kind of. like barbed wire like we they're painful. to get off and they're painful to stay. on, you know. So, >> that pen a baker exercise costs nothing. You can tear up the paper afterwards. is. actually suggest you do you do it four. days in a row you will feel. significantly better say the data pretty. incredible writing does seem to be. important the handwriting it out. >> set a timer do it you will come out of. that first session not feeling great. >> but you'll move about your day you.

symptoms of health immune system. function improves they've done all the. measures of biology and psychology that. one would want to see and it's really. impressive okay so that that aside the. other thing is I'll just mention A. saying I didn't come up with but I that. I love is and it's harsh but the. difference between winners and losers is. the following. Losers take things that. happened to them happened to them or. that they did that they wish they hadn't. done and they take the negative feelings.

around those things and they use it for. self or outward destruction. Winners, I think we would all agree, take the hard things that happened to. them as well as the gifts they've been. given. They think about them as much as. they need to, but then they transmute. that those experiences, maybe years of. experience into things that are good for. them and for the world. Period. End of. story. I know it's harsh, winners and. losers. But let's face it, most of the.

bad stuff in the world is because people. are taking bad stuff that happened to. them and doing bad stuff. they feel. justified in doing it. There's some. full-blown psychosis type stuff, but. >> let me just let me just interject. quickly. Um, last week we watched the. NovakJokovich documentary um, The Wolf. of Winter. >> He's impressive, >> which is, I think, on Netflix right now. And of course, he's like he's the goat. and it's that's saying something in the. world of tennis because there are others. who are just right there with him, but. he's got the most uh, wins when it comes. to grand slams, which is how they.

measure it. So the the the the me the. the movie it's 2 hours long is very good. but Jookovic is a controversial guy or. was very controversial when he started. in the tennis world because he was less. mature. He did some mocking of other. players. He suddenly got injured in m. matches that he was losing when he was. younger and this turned a lot of people. on him and for years he was booed. He. was never the favorite. They created a. rivalry in tennis between Federer and. Nadal. Jookovic wasn't part of it even.

though he was up and coming and then. very much was in it with those two but. would be the lesser than he has a line. in his documentary uh table for three. please. Um but they weren't giving this. to him because he was never the favorite. and what Jookovic talked about was. there's something in Serbian culture. called in it that makes you thrive on. that. And people who aren't Serbian or. don't have that natural mindset couldn't. understand that all those booze and. treating him like a secondass citizen.

And making him feel like odd man out. even when he was number one in the world. only fueled him to win more. And in. fact, he's somebody who kind of needs it. in order to win. So all of his. detractors were inadvertently helping. him. Now he's it's changed. He's beloved. and he's matured and he's totally. likable in this documentary entirely. But in any event, when you talk about. that, that's what I'm thinking of. Somebody who takes what could be. traumatizing for someone else o being.

openly booed by the entire stadium at. the Australian Open, which you've won. something like 16 times and where you. should be a king because you leave after. getting seriously hurt. This is later in. his career. Openly booed. What? You. could you could be talking about that as. your trauma on a self-help show. Yeah. >> Instead, he it's fuel for him and it's a. positive. So, this is what you're. talking about. >> Yeah. I look I It goes back to the. beginning of our conversation. The.

biggest mistake I made in life, the. biggest mistake, and I own it. completely, even though I was only 14, was taking the circumstances of my. family life at the time and not. continuing to apply myself in certain. areas of life I should have. You know, you could say, "Well, you're only 14.". Okay, fine. And it all worked out. But. it was a moment and I talk about this in. the book. It was, you know, a moment. It. was a physical altercation when I was, you know, first year away at school that.

made me realize if I don't take the hard. things that have happened. and do something with my life, no, no. one's going to care and I won't have any. self-respect. The the story of a of a. hard childhood is something that we can. all like we feel compassion for. But I. realized I was like, I'm going to be a. like a genuine loser. I was like, I'm. going to be a genuine loser. It doesn't. matter what else I I I do unless I I. actually turn my life into something.

worthwhile. And I started developing. agency. I started running. I started. exercising. I started studying. And I. had to fasten myself to a chair with a. timer. I had to I mean, I I will say, and I know people work, I worked like a. maniac. And I still work very very hard. And so I have great respect for anyone. that can take hardship or shame and I've. had other things like my advisers dying. and mistakes I've made and there's this. transmutation we call it. You take the. negative energy and you have to like.

pretzel twisted into this expression. that is good for you and for the world. or at least not destructive. I mean I. think this is why. >> Jookovic or like or David Gogggins, you. know, we love these people because. they're doing it. We can we can feel. David's pain. I mean, I've sat down with. David. I knew him before he had a book. and got famous. And he was the exact. same guy. We actually were at a meeting. in San Jose. This is a wild story. And. we finished up this meeting. It was. private meeting. Wasn't being recorded.

And he said, "I'm going to run to the. airport." He meant run to the airport. He put [laughter] on his bag. He ran. like 16 miles to San Jose airport. No. book, no fame, no nothing, no cameras. And I was like, >> luggage? He just he just like rocked his. backpack. It was incredible. And I. thought that's where our you know I. don't see him that much but you know. because he's off on his own running but. I got a bunch of goggan stories from. before he got famous and he was the same. guy. He's in a battle with himself the. self-hate voice. He came on my podcast.

Every day he hears you're a piece of. garbage. You're that came from the. outside but eventually he internalized. And when you realize that it's all in. your head you realize that you can and. need to flip the script. flip the. script. And it there's nothing more. beautiful about humans is than our. ability to do this. And for people who. don't have intense hardship, what I. because a lot of times now kids will. come to me and be like, I don't have the. trauma story. I'm like, great. Well, don't get soft, you know, like you.

didn't have that, you know, and a lot of. wealthy parents approach me, what do I. do? My kid is like a total loser. They. don't or my kid doesn't want to work. because they got all this dopamine. They. got everything they wanted with no. effort. Dopamine and rewards without. effort first destroy a human. It just. destroys a human. It's like giving your. dog a treat just for being cute. You get. a you get an unhealthy dog that dies. early. Fact. The dogs have we all have. this sometimes it's more latent than in.

others than in others. But we have this. desire to work. We want that friction. and overcome that. That's what makes us. feel so alive and that we have capacity. And then of course peace and joy and. meaning. It doesn't have to all be about. the grind, but you know, everyone will. tell you that that the peace and meaning. and love and connection, that's all much. better on a backdrop of hard work. I, you know, end of story. So, I don't. believe in focusing on the past, but I. do believe in transmuting your past into. goodness for you and for others. And I.

believe, >> yeah, >> that if something if you're really. stuck, you're really stuck, you need to. get off the barbed wire. And that. penaker writing exercise costs nothing. has been shown to be very effective. And. the idea is that you do it and then you. move on. It's not that you do it every. day. You do it and then you move on. The. other piece I'm sorry. >> on the I just want to um raise what what. you wrote in chapter 7 because you you. give people this actual tool writing if. your thoughts are elsewhere rettether.

them to the present. Ask questions. anchored in your current surroundings. This is such a good tool. Like I've. never heard somebody do this before. because all they just say, "Be in the. present. Be in the present. Be be in the. moment." Which is very hard for somebody. who's a worrier or an obsessor about the. past. And you suggest ask questions. like, "How cold or warm is it in this. room? What does it smell like? How many. people in line in front of me are on.

their phone?" etc. But something you. say, I realize this is trivial, but it. returns your perceptions to the present. because they can only be answered right. here and now. I love this. >> Yeah. So that came about because, you. know, somewhere around 2015, um, I look, I was about to get tenure at Stanford. My life was great, but I noticed I had. accumulated a lot of stress and I. started studying stress and stress. mitigation. And I found no one could. give me a real-time tool for.

de-stressing fast. Then I discovered the. physiological sigh. It had been around. since the 30s, but I was hearing all. about grit, resilience, and mental. toughness, and no one was telling me. how. Just all these amazing stories of. people being gritty. I'm like, how do. you do it? I'm a scientist. I want to. know about cells, circuits, mechanisms, and protocols. So then it would I was seeing, you know, the bumper stickers, be here now. Beautiful quote from Rahm Das where you. hear your your life is what your. thoughts make it which by the way came. first from the Bible but then you find.

in every philosopher said that but then. like how do you do that be present I. mean there's nothing squishier to me. than be present how great tell me how. and you can tell I get a little. irritated by I don't I really don't like. um hippie wellness I have friends that. listen to Grateful Dead and you know I. like a few of their songs but so I'm not. like beating up on on hippies I I don't. like these terms like calm down or you. know or uh just take a deep breath. No, it turns out it's all wrong. So the be.

present thing I thought I'm a. neuroscientist. What do I know for sure? I know that we can be planning a lot of. the brain's function is to predict. things. Thank goodness. We can remember things. Great. Unless. we're focused on negative things from. the past, as you pointed out, that are. keeping us from moving forward in life. or self-damaging or harming others. That's not good. Also, focusing on your. trauma all the time is not solving it. It's amplifying those circuits. So, you. need to move past it. And then I started. exploring the neuroscience of perception.

and what brings the brain from a state. of thinking and planning and remembering. things of past. So, stuck in the past or. the future to being right in the. present. And it turns out you have to. just get into sensation. And you need to. get into perceptions and asking. questions. The brain loves questions. questions help shift the brain from one. state to another. So if I could just. look at the data and I looked at the. data on how to get present, it turns out. you have people pay attention to. seemingly trivial things like how cold.

am I? What is what does it feel like? The contact of my legs to the chair I'm. sitting on something I wasn't thinking. about. All of a sudden it's not about. what you're focusing on. It's now what. you're not focusing on. And once you're. in the present, then the brain can more. easily shift to the positive things that. you can do to have some agency over your. current conditions. We hear a lot about. agency. >> This is so good. This is very helpful. >> Yeah. So, like you when you're feeling. like you don't have control of your. life, you know, you can go online and. watch something. It says if you're on X,

it's all about agency, right? It's kind. of like it's all about agency. On. Instagram, not anymore, but it's about. enter more entertainment and and victim. stuff. Who's the victim? I'm the victim. They're the victim. Who's the victim? No, he's the he's the aggressor. >> Mine is on cute hair tricks, but okay. >> Or that like I I I like the bulldog. stuff and and there's other stuff, too. But I'm sort of I'm kind of uh talking. at the extremes, but. >> yeah, >> how do you have agency? Well, you have. to get present because you can't have. agency over the past. You sure can't.

have agency over the future unless you. take care of the right now. How do you. do that? And it's interesting because. kids learn this very fast if you teach. them. I've taught many kids the. physiological sigh. and when they're. stressed to just focus on what's around. them. And they learn it so fast. But as. adults, we have these these well-charted. um reflexes to gosh, I'm thinking about. that thing again. I can't stop thinking. about that thing. And then people think. that they're ruminating. And indeed, they're ruminating. Then they wonder if. it's trauma. And it might be. I mean,

there are real traumas that need to be. overcome. I talk about that in the book. But just the simple thing of saying, you. know, how cold or or warm is this thing. I'm holding? >> That shifts the brain in the direction. you want to go. That's not where you. want to stop, but it brings you back to. the present so you can continue forward. in the present. This is And so there's a. lot of discussion for 17 years. You. really don't want to stop on what does. it smell like in here. >> Right. Right. So it's really about brain. states that will bring you right into. the room. >> Exactly. Right. So it's about brain. states. It's about understanding that.

the brain doesn't go from sleep to. awake, from stress to calm. It's that. you need to do things to bridge these. states to get from one state to another. And you have that power in your mind and. body. And so I try and provide tools. that represent the the fastest and most. seamless path to those that doesn't. require any learning. And all you learn. how to do them, but there's no it's not. like you you need to master the skill. You have the skill. You just haven't. exercised it before.

>> Yeah, you're you probably weren't asking. the right questions. Now, because you've. mentioned it a couple times, can you. tell us about the physiological sigh? >> The the physiological side. The So, that's the double inhale, long exhale. So, that's the [snorts]. >> and then the exhale through the mouth. Okay. >> And our study on that a few years back, we had people do that repeatedly. showed. that if you were to repeat that. and compared to say a meditation. practice or to box breathing which is.

inhale hold exhale hold or to a. meditation practice what you would find. is they all have some benefit but the. physiological sigh allows you to calm. down the fastest and it improves your. sleep it improves your mood and it. improves resting heart rate heart rate. variability it just has so many positive. effects and it's so simple. >> and it's costs nothing and if you don't. remember to do it every day. You just do. it every once in a while. And I know it. I know. No. No. I have neurosurgeon. friends who use it. I have tier one.

operator friends who use it. I know. eight-year-old kids who use it. Moms, you know, like even my dog does it, but. they do it reflexively. If you watch. your dog before they go down to sleep, they do a double inhale. >> Yeah. You write this in the book. >> Long exhale. And it's to balance their. carbon dioxide oxygen ratios. Dogs are. so smart because they don't they don't. worry about stuff. >> Not mine, but most. Yeah, it's it's. wonderful to see that others have that. in their pets. Um, [clears throat] let's.

talk about nicotine and caffeine because. especially nicotine is all the rage. right now. The little packs that people. put in their mouths. Um, what's the. story with nicotine? >> Okay. Well, 90% of the world uses. caffeine every single day and they're. not going to quit. And I love caffeine. The data say it can offset dementia. Um, if you don't like caffeine. >> and you say to to take it before. exercise or drink it, whatever. >> Yeah, drink yerba mate, which is what I. like, or coffee I like as well. >> People have different caffeine. tolerances. I will say if you don't like.

caffeine, don't go drink it to try and. offset dementia. You you'll be fine. Like you But if you do like caffeine, you don't have to worry. I don't. recommend drinking caffeine too late in. the day because it can mess up your. sleep. But I love a 2pm espresso. I love. it, I have to say. So, and I drink it. and I sleep fine. Nicotine is a special one because humans. throughout history, ever since they. discovered nicotine, have found a way to. get it into their systems. Then they. discover it causes cancer. They find a. new way. They create vaping. Then they.

find out that vaping isn't good for you, not as bad as smoking, but it's still. terrible. Causes all sorts of lung. issues. So then now oral nicotine is all. the rage. Here's the deal. I'll tell you. the positive first. Nicotine there is some evidence some. evidence that it may help offset. Parkinson's and dementia. before it forms. Okay. Why? It increases acetylcholine. which is one of the major. neuromodulators that's depleted in many.

forms of dementia. And it increases. dopamine and movement and Parkinson's. and dopamine. That whole story is about. loss of dopamineergic neurons. Most. treatments for Parkinson's are about. increasing dopamine. So. the problem is that nicotine is. extremely habit forming addicting. Okay, it h it's an amazing stimulant because. it makes you alert but it also makes you. feel calm. It puts you in that perfect. state for learning and for most daytime.

activities but it also raises blood. pressure which in particular for men can. cause cardiovascular issues incl and. sexual health issues because it's a. blood flow inhibitor. Right? So nicotine. can cause problems if taken in excess. But the big problem is that now people. take one, you know, let's say a three to. six or even 8 milligram pouch of. nicotine. and they feel great and then they're. doing two a day, then three a day and. then pretty soon you need an entire.

canister every few days just to be. normal. Same thing with caffeine. >> Most people are drinking caffeine and. using nicotine just to be at their. normal level of alertness. So, if you. really want to use nicotine as a. cognitive enhancer, as a healthy person, you use it very occasionally, 3 to 6. milligrams, maybe two to three times a week maximum, one pouch. But most people don't do. that. They're quickly into multiple. pouches per day. So, it's sort of when I. say it's a cognitive enhancer, that's.

with occasional use. And the same goes. for caffeine. You need to be alert to. get focused. Most people need caffeine. just to be alert. So, you don't get any. learning benefit or cognitive benefit. from caffeine. You're just getting. yourself into that plane of alertness. that allows you to function. But I love. caffeine so much. Um I love yerba mate. I love coffee. And you're not going to. take it away from me. >> And um I I just love it and and I so I'd. like to acknowledge that some people. really like their nicotine, but if. you're going to use nicotine, make sure.

you check your blood pressure and. ideally you're exercising, too. I I will. say a lot of the guys that I know, it. does seem to be mostly guys. Um I went. out to. >> I won't mention which, but a big uh. military school on the East Coast and I. I did an informal poll of how many of. the 4,000 students use nicotine and. about twothirds of the hands in the room. went up. And then when I spoke to the. sports teams, it was like almost all of. them are using nicotine. But they're. athletes, they're young, they're running. around. Do I suggest it? Not really. But.

if you're doing that as opposed to. smoking cigarettes or vaping, great. Definitely be safer for you than. alcohol. And I'm not a big fan of. cannabis. Some people can do it without. issues, but it does predispose to. psychosis in some people. It's a whole. story into itself. This gets very. political. I'm happy to talk about it. But what I I did a podcast showing that. there are strong data showing that THC, especially in young males, can. predispose them to permanent psychosis. These very strong THC products. Not all, but a lot of them. And I got vehemently.

attacked by the left. They were like, "Misinformation. What are you doing?". I'm like, "Listen, I I gave the balanced. picture. I don't tell people what to do, but know what you're doing." Heard from. many parents and people like, "My kid is. schizophrenic because of" and this is. real, right? Then there was some. movements on the right. The. administration was trying to actually. make some of the laws around cannabis a. little bit more liberal. And then all of. a sudden, the left started attacking. cannabis. And so I started realizing.

like I don't get political but I. realized okay most media I I know you. don't do this but most media that they. actually are not reporting the issue. from a place of heart and understanding. of data. They're just kind of going it's. like my team your team stuff. So the. data are this. >> some people can use cannabis no problem. >> It nukes your deep rap or your rapid eye. movement sleep. That's not good. But. some people can do it no problem. The. edible is not a problem for them. other. people it causes apathy, psychotic. issues, one or the other or in some.

cases both. And so you just need to be. very careful and I will tell you as my. I've only had the experience of being. male and I will tell you young males. should not use cannabis. You want to. develop your life. You want to be uh be. ambitious as ambitious as you can while. being a kind person and taking care of. yourself. Cannabis except for extremely. talented creatives is a motivation. success inhibitor. I don't know the data. for females as well because we don't.

have a lot of female specific data on. it. So that's why I just sort of. mentioned that. But I will tell you when. young guys are like how do you feel. about THC? I'm like I love it when my. competitors take THC in anything. I you. better hope that all your competitors. take THC because it's it's a complete. killer of. >> I think many of mine do. >> Yeah. And then I will say someone will. come along every once in a while and. they'll say I know this athlete who uses. cannabis and they're a super athlete or. my grandfather smoked and and and drank.

every day and lived to be 102. To those. stories I always say yeah well you know. yesterday and this is a true story I sat. down with somebody whose dad did. everything right and got a go. So you're. always and and died. So you're always. going to have these these margin cases. at the extremes where someone does. everything right and still gets sick and. dies and someone does everything wrong. and still lives a long healthy life. But. most people are not at those extremes. And so if you're going to use the excuse. like I'm going to do everything wrong.

and be okay, forget it. The the data say. that's very unlikely. Or if you say I'm. going to do everything right and I'm. certain that I'm going to live to be. 150. Well, that's not true either. the. that's not true either. And so what you. want to do is most things right most of. the time and avoid the pitfalls of that. could cause psychosis or drunk driving. I mean we we sort of know this. It's. logic, but the health messaging has. gotten very contaminated by the. political sphere in a way that I think.

has hurt a lot of people. I just want. people to have the information. >> My um. >> Yeah. No, I I laugh because my nana, God. love her, my mom's mom lived to be 101. And she ate, at least in the last 30. years of her life, she ate nothing but. processed foods. She never saw exercise. in any way, shape, or form. She walked a. little bit around her senior citizens. complex that she lived in. Lived on her. own until she was 100 and a half. >> Amazing. >> This is your grandmother. >> And yeah, my nana. She was stressed out. All the things that we're not supposed. to do. But that's of course the.

exception, not the rule. We can't go by. that. the I thought the exercise and the. eating advice in the book was very sound. and it was right along the lines of what. you're saying. Nothing extreme, you. know, a normal sort of uh natural foods, diet, less processed the better and. exercise, yes, weight training, cardiovascular. as well as walking um you know, a few. times a week in addition to like cardio. cardiovascular training. All all good. But in we only have a couple minutes.

left. Can you just hit so if for the. quick for the quick learners or the. people who just want to get like a quick. highlight, what are the top three things. you want them to take away when it comes. to their wellness and what they can. learn from your experience. >> Bright mornings that involve light, ideally from sunlight or artificial. lights, some movement, some hydration. I'm a big, you know, I'm a big proponent. of prayer, meditation, things that.

orient you to what's really important. Uh, for me, that's prayer in the morning. and before going to sleep at night. These things have an outsized positive. effect on your health and your mood and. your ability to focus all day long. The. second thing would be. do a long exhale or ideally two inhales. through your nose and a long exhale. through your mouth anytime you feel. stressed or even a couple times. throughout the day. You'll improve your. heart rate variability, your resting. heart rate. You'll find that you. actually can handle stress very well.

You'll lower your baseline levels of. stress. And you'll feel more control. over your mind and body in a way that. carries over to everything. That tool. works anywhere and everywhere unless. you're underwater. And then darken your sleeping. environment, cool it down, and do some. long exhale breathing before sleep. and. those three things. And of course, you. still need to do some exercise. Try and. walk a bunch and lift some heavy objects. now and again, heavy for you. Get your. heart rate up doing some exercise. Don't.

eat too much processed food. This kind. of thing, the things we all know. But if. you do those three things, you will find. that everything gets better right away. Daytime energy, ability to mitigate. stress, learning. presence with emotional presence and. physical presence with people you love, your ability to just enjoy life a bit. more, to pivot your brain state, and to. reset in that magical phase of our. 24-hour cycle, sleep that no one seems.

to get away with outdoing for very long. Those things, you'll look better, you'll. feel better, you will be healthier, you. will live longer. And it sounds like. good oldfashioned advice because I'm. saying sleep right, exercise, don't. stress, social connection, but what no. one I I you know, you know, with with. humility aside and and and humbly I'll. say also no one ever told us how. >> It's like we're told what not to do. So. I'm not going to bark at you to not. drink or not do this or not. I'm going.

to tell you do those things and also. learn to enjoy them. They're for you and. they're so you can show up better for. yourself and other people in life. Learn. to enjoy them. They're your god-given. circuits and molecules. Like we all have. them and put them to use and if you miss. a couple days, no big deal. Get get. right back on it. They take seconds to. minutes. They cost nothing. They're. available to you in some form every. single day. And the I mean there's over. 1,200 references in the book that. support what I'm saying. I'm not coming. at up with this stuff. I'm not naming it.

after me. These are not the Huberman. protocols. This is your body, your. physiology, your brain, your mind, and. you deserve to get the best from them. And that's my my deep, deep wish for. people. I've seen it. I've experienced. how they can help. I've seen how it can. help others. I just want those for for. the world. I really, really do. >> You got to get the book now. It's going. to sell out. It's called Protocols by. Andrew Huberman, an operating manual for. the human body. Don't wait. It's going.

to hit the stores soon, but you want to. get it now. Uh, because it'll sell out. and then you won't have it. It's a. pleasure. Thank you so much for coming. on. I hope I get to talk to you again. >> Yeah. Thanks so much for hosting me. For. forgive me that in my excitement various. times, I inadvertently spoke over you. I. I'm a big fan and I really appreciate. the opportunity to connect to your. audience and um really enjoyed your. questions. Indeed, I I learned a lot. during this conversation. So, thank you. >> Oh, the pleasure is ours. All the best. to you and good luck with the book. See. you again. Bye for now.

>> Wow, what a guy. So interesting. The. book is big, but it's an easy read and. you can go, you know, chapter to chapter. like he was saying. Just pick the one on. whatever sleep, nutrition, etc., whatever interests you and actually. really genuinely will make a great gift. as we go, oh my god, into the Christmas. season. I mean, that's what's next here. as we say goodbye to the 80°ree days. Thank you all so much for listening. Don't forget to go out [music] and buy. protocols today.