back to indexOptimize & Control Your Brain Chemistry to Improve Health & Performance | Huberman Lab Podcast #80
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Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast,
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where we discuss science and science-based tools
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for everyday life.
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I'm Andrew Huberman,
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and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology
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at Stanford School of Medicine.
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Today, we're going to discuss your brain chemistry
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and how to control and optimize your brain chemistry
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for all aspects of mental health,
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physical health, and performance.
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Many times before on the Huberman Lab Podcast,
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and frankly, every time I'm a guest on another podcast,
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I get questions about science and science-based tools
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for things like enhancing sleep, enhancing focus,
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enhancing creativity, improving relationships,
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getting over grief, and on and on,
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all of which are valid questions
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and for which there are protocols that are based in science
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and that work the first time and every time.
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However, far more important than knowing a protocol
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is understanding why a given protocol works.
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That's why I'm always hammering on mechanism
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and explaining the cells and circuits and chemicals,
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at least to some detail,
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so that people can understand not just what to do,
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but why it works and therefore how to change a protocol
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as their life circumstances change or as goals change.
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Now, today we are going to go even a layer deeper.
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We're going to explore the foundations of your biology
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in your brain and body that allow any protocol to work
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because as it turns out, all of the protocols out there,
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whether or not it's a breathing protocol or a supplement
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or a prescription drug or an exercise routine,
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they all tap into and leverage a core set
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of just a few biological mechanisms.
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Beneath everything you are able to do and feel,
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and indeed beneath every protocol that allows you
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to change for the better and optimize your mental health,
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physical health, and performance,
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there's just a small subset of chemicals
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that you're leveraging toward that change.
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So today we're going to talk about the four major pillars
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of neurochemistry that allow you to, for instance,
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be focused when you want to focus,
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that allow you to relax when you need to relax
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and de-stress, that allow you to optimize your sleep,
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that allow you to optimize your exercise routine,
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or to work through a pain point in relationship
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or in career or in your relationship to yourself.
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So what I can say for sure is that by the end
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of this episode, you will have a much richer understanding
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about how your brain and nervous system
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and indeed your entire body work,
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and you will have a much firmer understanding
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as to which protocols and tools to reach for
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given your particular goals in the moment,
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in the day, across the week, across the month,
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across the year, and indeed across your entire lifespan.
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So what we're really going for today are principles,
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deeper understanding of why any given protocol works,
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and we are also going to discuss specific protocols.
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Some of those protocols I've discussed
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on previous episodes of the Huberman Lab Podcast,
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but I must say many of the protocols and tools
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that I will discuss are brand new
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and based on research that I have not discussed at all,
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simply because the research papers came out only recently,
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or these are papers that I only recently unearthed.
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In fact, I'm going to share with you two recent studies
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in a moment that are exceedingly important
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for optimizing your sleep, and these are studies that,
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again, I've never discussed in any episode on sleep
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or on any other podcast.
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So by the end of today's episode,
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you're going to have far more knowledge
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about your biology and psychology
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than you did at the start,
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and you'll be armed with many more tools,
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and most importantly, principles so that you can navigate
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not just the tools presented on this podcast,
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but in the vast landscape of tools that are out there
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for mental health, physical health, and performance.
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The Huberman Lab Podcast is proud to announce
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that we've partnered with Momentous Supplements.
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We've done that for several reasons.
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First of all, the quality of their supplements
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is exceedingly high.
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Second of all, we wanted to have a location
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where you could find all of the supplements
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discussed on the Huberman Lab Podcast
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in one easy to find place.
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You can now find that place at livemomentous.com
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In addition, Momentous Supplements ship internationally,
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something that a lot of other supplement companies
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So that's terrific whether or not you live in the US
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or you live abroad.
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Right now, not all of the supplements
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that we discuss on the Huberman Lab Podcast are listed,
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but that catalog of supplements
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is being expanded very rapidly,
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and a good number of them that we've talked about,
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some of the more prominent ones for sleep and focus
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and other aspects of mental and physical health
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are already there.
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Again, you can find them at livemomentous.com slash Huberman.
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Every so often, I come across a study or set of studies
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that I get so excited about
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that I start telling everybody in my immediate life,
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and I insist on also sharing it with you,
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the listeners of this podcast,
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because I find the information
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to be so incredibly interesting and actionable.
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The two studies that I'm going to discuss
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both relate to sleep and sleep states
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and how to access better sleep.
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The first one was published in the journal Cell Reports,
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Cell Press Journal, excellent journal.
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The title of this paper is
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Rapid and Reversible Control of Human Metabolism
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by Individual Sleep States.
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We will provide a link to the study in the show captions.
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The first author is Nora Nowak, N-O-W-A-K.
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And basically what they did is they measured
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the different forms of metabolism that occur
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while humans sleep.
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As far as I know, this is one of the first studies
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There are many studies of metabolism.
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There are many studies of sleep.
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This study focused on how different states of sleep,
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such as rapid eye movement sleep,
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which is associated with dreaming
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and high emotional content dreams versus slow wave sleep,
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which tends to be more focused on physical repair
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of the body, more mundane dreams,
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how those different states of mind during sleep
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relate to different aspects of metabolism.
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And what they found was absolutely fascinating.
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First of all, they found that sleep states regulate
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more than 50%, half of all the metabolite features
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detected in human breath.
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What does that mean?
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Well, it turns out that you can figure out
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what humans are metabolizing in particular,
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more lipids or more carbohydrate,
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whether or not they're relying more on glucose metabolism
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based on the contents of their breath.
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This is true during waking and during sleep.
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And this is what allowed them to do
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these incredible measurements
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of what's being metabolized during sleep.
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They measured close to 2,000 metabolites in breath
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every 10 seconds across the entire night's sleep.
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And what they found was that there are major pathways
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related to lipid metabolism, fat metabolism,
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or to carbohydrate metabolism or other forms of metabolism
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that are up or down regulated as human beings transition
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between slow wave sleep, rapid eye movement sleep,
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and waking, and you might say waking.
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Well, yes, they also looked as people fell asleep
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and as they emerged from sleep, and believe it or not,
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every so often during sleep, you wake up,
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you didn't know this,
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but you wake up in the middle of the night,
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you look around and you go back to sleep.
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You're not aware of it
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because you're still in a rather sleep-like state,
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although you are awake.
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What they found was that sleep
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and the various states of sleep
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regulated individual metabolic pathways.
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They found, for instance,
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that the switch from sleep to wakefulness
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reduces fatty acid oxidation.
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So that means while you're asleep,
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you're oxidating more fatty acids.
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And as you wake up, that becomes less the case.
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And there's a switch in slow wave sleep
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that increases fatty acid oxidation.
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And there's this transition from rapid eye movement sleep
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to other aspects of sleep
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that brings about things like the so-called TCA cycle.
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Some of you familiar with metabolism
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will be familiar with the TCA cycle,
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the so-called tricarbolic acid cycle,
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intermediates, that's fancy nerd speak
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for specific aspects of metabolism being regulated
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during this rapid eye movement sleep transition.
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What does all this mean?
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And how is this actionable?
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Well, on many episodes of the Huberman Lab Podcast,
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such as the master sleep episode
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and the episode that we're going into in further depth today,
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we're going to talk about sleep and how to optimize sleep.
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It's been thought of, but not really tamped down,
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that quality and depth of sleep and duration of sleep
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is important for metabolism during the daytime.
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And indeed, that's the case.
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If people are sleep deprived or they're not sleeping enough,
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things like glucose metabolism, et cetera,
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get really disrupted during the daytime.
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But what this current study shows
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is that the metabolism that you experience during sleep,
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or to be more specific,
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the range of different types of metabolism
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that you experience during sleep may serve to tune up
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or to ensure that the specific aspects of metabolism
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that you require during wakefulness are working properly.
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In addition to that,
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this study clearly shows that getting enough sleep
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allows you to transition
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through all the various forms of metabolism
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and use all those different forms of metabolites
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during sleep in a way that's immensely beneficial
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for the systems of your brain and body.
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So the take-home message here is that as the authors state,
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sleep and experiencing the different states of sleep,
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slow wave sleep early in the night predominantly
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plus rapid eye movement sleep toward the end of the night
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is extremely important for optimizing metabolic circuits
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for human performance and health.
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In other words, by not getting sufficient duration sleep,
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you're not allowing your body and brain to transition
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through all the different aspects of fuel utilization,
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and you're not teaching your brain and body
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how to use similar types of fuels during wakefulness.
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So again, all of this points to the fact
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that we need to be getting sufficient quality
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and duration of sleep.
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So if you're sleep deprived even by an hour or so,
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you're going to get far less rapid eye movement sleep
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because rapid eye movement sleep
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is what occurs toward the end of a sleep night.
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During the early part of the night,
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far more slow wave sleep.
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In getting less rapid eye movement sleep,
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we know it makes you more emotionally labile,
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but now we know it's also going to alter certain forms
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of glucose metabolism during the night
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and during wakefulness.
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So that all underscores the need to get sleep.
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But then the question is how to get enough sleep
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and how to make sure you get
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into all these different sleep states.
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And this is particularly important
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for you so-called night owls.
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There's a lot of controversy out there
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as to whether or not different so-called chronotypes exist.
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That is people who just naturally
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or genetically want to be an early bird,
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wake up early and go to bed early.
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So these people that wake up at 4 a.m.
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and would be most comfortable going to bed
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by 7 or 8 p.m. or 9 p.m.
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Then there are so-called night owls,
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people that would feel best or tend to feel best
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when they go to sleep at 1 a.m., 2 a.m., even 3 a.m.
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and like to wake up later, 8, 9, 10,
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or even 11 a.m. or noon.
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And then of course, most people go to sleep somewhere
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between 10 p.m. and midnight
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and wake up somewhere between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m.
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Or I suppose more typically 6 a.m. and 8 a.m.
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Now, whether or not real chronotypes exist
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or whether or not people simply select schedules
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for sleep and wakefulness that they like
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because of their social schedules
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or the activities they enjoy.
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For instance, some people like to really go out.
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They like to go out dancing or hear music
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or spend time in venues that are only open late at night
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and don't even open until noon or after.
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Other people like myself rarely go out at night,
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but I like to get up early, I like to exercise,
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I like to see the sunrise, et cetera.
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So I don't know if I'm a morning person
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or an evening person.
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I just know the things I enjoy tend to happen
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in the early part of the day
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and the things that I don't enjoy quite as much
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tend to happen late at night.
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Regardless of whether or not
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there are real genetic propensities to be a night owl
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or a sort of typical person right there in the middle,
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it's very important that people have some control
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over their sleep schedule.
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And even more important,
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that people are able to get sufficient amount of REM sleep
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and slow wave sleep for many reasons,
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but including the reasons I discussed
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in the previous study related to metabolism.
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I'm very excited therefore about a study
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that came out in sleep medicine.
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This was a few years ago, but somehow I missed this one.
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It was published in 2019.
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And the title of this article
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is resetting the late timing of night owls
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has a positive impact on mental health,
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physical health and performance.
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This is a study done in humans,
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focusing specifically on people
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that like to stay up late and sleep in,
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but who desire to be able to get up and feel alert
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in order to go to work or study.
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And they want to go to sleep a bit earlier.
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And so there are a lot of questions embedded in this study,
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whether or not people can actually shift their schedule
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by a few hours or more.
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Some people out there contend that if you're a night owl,
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that's just going to be impossible
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or very, very challenging to do.
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Turns out it's not impossible
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and it's not even that challenging to do
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provided you do the right things.
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Just a brief overview of the study,
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and then I'll give you the key takeaways.
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It was a randomized control trial.
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It involved a number of different people,
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both male and female.
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And what they did was they use non-pharmacological,
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practical interventions in a real world setting.
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Here I'm paraphrasing.
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They use targeted light exposure.
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They used consistent sleep wake times.
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They used fixed meal times, caffeine intake, and exercise.
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And this is one of the reasons I love this study so much
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because I've done episodes where I've talked about
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temperature, exercise, feeding,
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and most importantly, light exposure as a way
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to control and shift your sleep wake cycles,
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your so-called circadian timing and entrainment.
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What did they find?
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Well, they found, quote,
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significant improvements in terms of mood,
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so far less depression and stress,
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subjectively measured,
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as well as improved cognitive performance
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that was objectively measured,
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so improved reaction times,
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improved physical grip strength,
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which is actually a measure not just of strength per se,
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but also nervous system function,
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and a number of things that people could do
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in order to optimize their morning hours
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even though they were night owls previously.
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What do they have people do?
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Well, I'm just going to list this off
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in sort of a rapid fire succession.
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Then we'll provide a link to the study
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if you want to learn more.
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First of all, they told participants
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to try and wake up two to three hours
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before their typical wake up time,
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two to three hours.
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That seems brutal to me and probably seems brutal to you
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if you're somebody who typically wakes up at 10 a.m.
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to try and get up at eight or even seven a.m. consistently.
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But they were also asked to maximize
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at outdoor light exposure during the mornings
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for reasons that if you've listened to this podcast before,
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if you've heard me talk about before,
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that I'm constantly talking about,
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I'll probably go into the grave shouting,
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please get as much light exposure
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from sunlight early in the day as possible
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because it sets in motion a huge number of things
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that are beneficial for your mental health
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and physical health, including dopamine production,
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timing melatonin production correctly,
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reducing cortisol peaks late in the day, et cetera, et cetera.
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So they asked them to get a lot of outdoor light exposure.
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They didn't give them a specific amount
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where they said maximize outdoor light exposure
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during the mornings, the time before noon.
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And again, they had them waking up two to three hours
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before their habitual wake up time.
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They were also told, and this is very important
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if you're going to shift your schedule earlier,
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to try and keep sleep wake times fixed
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between their workdays and their weekends.
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So not sleeping in on the weekends
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or not having any sleep in days,
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regardless of how well they slept the night before.
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Within 15 to 30 minutes of their predesignated time.
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So if they were waking up at seven o'clock one day,
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they set their alarm and they made sure they got out of bed
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at seven o'clock every day, plus or minus 30 minutes,
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but never later than 7.30, never earlier than 6.30.
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Participants were also asked to try and go to sleep
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two to three hours before their habitual bedtime.
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So again, these are people that want to stay up late,
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like 11 p.m. perhaps, but even as late as 1 a.m. or 2 a.m.
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And now they are asked to go to sleep two to three hours
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before the habitual bedtime
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and to wake up two to three hours earlier,
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as I mentioned earlier.
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They were also told, and I love this
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because it fits with many of the things we've talked about
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on this podcast before,
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to try and limit light exposure during the evenings.
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Dim the lights or limit altogether artificial lights.
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Lot of reasons for that.
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I covered that in the master sleep episode.
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I covered that in the optimize health using light episode.
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You can find those at hubermanlab.com.
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They're asking them to do that here.
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And they asked participants to keep a regular schedule
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for their daily meals, not eating on the hour consistently,
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you know, at 9 a.m., noon, 3 p.m. exactly,
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but within, again, about 15 to 30 minutes,
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they're always eating at the same times.
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That was also important.
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And again, that's because we have these so-called
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food-entrained circadian clocks.
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When you eat tells your body when to be alert
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and when you're not eating, when to be asleep.
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And they were told to not drink any caffeine
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after 3 p.m. in the afternoon,
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another theme that we've talked about on this podcast.
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They were also told not to take naps after 4 p.m.
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Naps are an interesting feature of the sleep-wake cycle.
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To be very brief about this and to pull from the episode
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that I did with world sleep expert
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from University of California, Berkeley, Matt Walker,
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naps are great for many people,
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but don't nap if it interferes with your nighttime sleep.
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And in this study, they told them don't nap after 4 p.m.
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And if you are a napper, don't nap for more than 90 minutes.
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10 minute naps are fine, 20 minute naps are fine,
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zero minute naps are fine,
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but don't nap for more than 90 minutes
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and don't nap after 4 p.m.
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And to exercise during the morning.
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Now this one can be a bit controversial
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because I know a lot of the PTs out there
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and a lot of the online, you know,
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gym rats and people who, and runners too for that matter,
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will say, well, according to body temperature and research,
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it's best to exercise in the afternoon.
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Look, it's better to exercise sometime as opposed to no time
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but if you're focused on how to shift your schedule earlier,
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meaning get up early and go to sleep earlier,
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this study had people exercise in the early part of the day,
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certainly before 2 p.m. and ideally before noon.
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So again, this is a really important study
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because it combines a lot of different variables
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to arrive at this very impressive shift
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where people can get up two to three hours earlier
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and then pretty consistently and reflexively
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start going to bed two to three hours earlier,
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feeling more alert during the day.
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Again, improvements in cognitive performance,
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mood and physical performance, grip strength, et cetera.
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Very few studies are able to or willing to tackle
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so many variables and combine them in one study.
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This paper I think does a marvelous job of doing this
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and is incorporating things that individually
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each have some support for them in animal studies
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and previous human studies.
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But as far as I know, this is one of the few studies
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that really combines all these different features
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Eating times, keeping those consistent,
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getting maximal sunlight exposure earlier in the day,
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getting up at a consistent time,
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going to sleep at a consistent time and on and on.
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It's a really marvelous study for that reason.
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And I think for any of you that are night owls
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and any of you that want to reinforce your early waking
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and early to bedtimes, and I think for most all of you
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who fall into that general middle category
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of tend to go to sleep somewhere between 10 p.m.
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and midnight, because that's most people
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and tend to wake up sometime between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m.,
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well, maybe you want to become more of an early riser
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or maybe you're going to travel
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or the seasons are changing and you want to shift your time
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or you have a new job, et cetera,
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or something that's actually very common
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in terms of relationship struggle.
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You want to match your wake sleep times
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or maybe you want to offset your wake sleep times
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from a significant other.
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These sorts of approaches that I described here
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and that are supported by the data in this paper
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are absolutely powerful and science supported.
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And I'm certain that if you were to apply them
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that you would see essentially the same effects
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that were observed here.
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Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize
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that this podcast is separate from my teaching
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and research roles at Stanford.
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It is, however, part of my desire and effort
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to bring zero cost to consumer information about science
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and science-related tools to the general public.
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In keeping with that theme,
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I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast.
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Our first sponsor is Athletic Greens, now called AG1.
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AG1 is an all-in-one vitamin mineral probiotic drink
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that also includes adaptogens
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and digestive enzymes for health.
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Now, the probiotics are particularly important to me
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because there is now a wealth of data
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showing that our gut microbiome,
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that is trillions of little micro-bacteria
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that are good for us, impact our immune system,
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our hormones, and the so-called gut-brain axis,
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the connections between our gut and our brain
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that go in both directions, gut to brain and brain to gut,
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that control things like our mood,
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our ability to think clearly and focus,
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and overall brain health.
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If you'd like to try Athletic Greens,
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Today's episode is also brought to us by Thesis.
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And frankly, I'm not a big fan of the word nootropics.
link |
I've said that on various podcasts and on social media posts
link |
and the reason I'm not a fan of the word nootropics
link |
is it means smart drugs.
link |
But as a neuroscientist,
link |
I know that we don't have circuits in the brain
link |
or chemicals in the brain for being smart.
link |
We have circuits in the brain for focus
link |
and for task switching and for creativity.
link |
And oftentimes those circuits differ from one another,
link |
although they collaborate to create things
link |
that we think of as intelligence or focus
link |
or creativity, et cetera.
link |
Thesis understands this,
link |
and for that reason has developed custom nootropics
link |
that are matched to your particular goals
link |
and to your particular biology.
link |
They give you the opportunity to try several different blends
link |
over the course of a month
link |
and discover which ones work best for you
link |
and which ones don't.
link |
In addition to that personalization,
link |
they take it a step further by offering free consultations
link |
with a coach to help you optimize your experience
link |
and dial in your perfect formulas.
link |
I've been using Thesis for about eight months now,
link |
and I can confidently say that their nootropics
link |
are the best that I've ever used.
link |
My go-to formula is the clarity formula
link |
or the motivation formula when I'm going to work or workout,
link |
meaning I'm going to do focus cognitive work
link |
or I'm going to exercise.
link |
I also like their energy formula prior to exercise.
link |
To get your own personalized nootropic starter kit,
link |
go online to takethesis.com slash Huberman.
link |
You can take a three-minute quiz that will help match you
link |
to the best custom nootropics to start with,
link |
and Thesis will send you four different formulas
link |
to try in that first month.
link |
Again, that's takethesis.com slash Huberman
link |
and use the code Huberman at checkout
link |
to get 10% off your first order.
link |
Today's episode is also brought to us by InsideTracker.
link |
InsideTracker is a personalized nutrition platform
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that analyzes data from your blood and your DNA
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to help you better understand your body
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and help you reach your health goals.
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I've long been a believer in getting regular blood work done
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for the simple reason that many of the things
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that impact your immediate and long-term health
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can only be measured from a quality blood test.
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And nowadays with the advent of modern DNA tests,
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you can also get insight into, for instance,
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what is your biological age
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With InsideTracker, there's an additional advantage
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over other blood tests and DNA tests.
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you get information back about hormones, lipids, et cetera,
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With InsideTracker, they have a very simple,
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easy to use personalized platform that tells you
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what sorts of changes to make in your nutrition,
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possible changes to supplementation,
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behavioral changes, et cetera,
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that will allow you to bring the numbers
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related to your hormones and your lipids, et cetera,
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into the ranges that are optimal for your mental health,
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physical health, and performance goals.
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If you'd like to try InsideTracker,
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you can go to insidetracker.com slash Huberman
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to get 20% off any of InsideTracker's plans.
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That's insidetracker.com slash Huberman to get 20% off.
link |
Let's talk about how to optimize
link |
and indeed how to control your brain chemistry
link |
for sake of health and performance.
link |
Now, in order to do that,
link |
we all need to be on the same page about some basic facts.
link |
Some of those basic facts involve learning
link |
some basic biology.
link |
And I promise that even if you don't have a biology
link |
or chemistry background,
link |
everything I'm about to say
link |
should be accessible and clear to you.
link |
The important thing to know is that your brain
link |
and your spinal cord
link |
and the rest of your so-called nervous system
link |
control all the organs of your body
link |
and that all the organs of your body feed back,
link |
meaning they communicate through chemicals
link |
and other means to your nervous system.
link |
Now, your nervous system plays a particularly important role
link |
in generating everything from sleep to wakefulness,
link |
creativity, stress, calm, et cetera,
link |
by way of a particular type of cell-cell interaction.
link |
And that's called synaptic communication.
link |
What is synaptic communication?
link |
Well, in order to understand that,
link |
let's dial back a little bit further
link |
and try and understand for a moment
link |
what makes up your nervous system.
link |
In its simplest form, your nervous system
link |
is made of nerve cells that we call neurons.
link |
Neurons communicate with one another through chemicals.
link |
They release certain chemicals that make other neurons
link |
more or less likely to be electrically active.
link |
What do we mean by electrically active?
link |
We mean, as it sounds,
link |
electricity passing down through cells
link |
and then literally causing electricity in other cells.
link |
The simplest way to think about this
link |
is maybe when you were a kid or maybe even still now,
link |
you would wear socks and you'd shuffle along the floor
link |
to generate some static electricity
link |
and then you'd touch someone
link |
and you'd shock them with your finger.
link |
I'm a younger brother,
link |
so I'd occasionally do that to my sister.
link |
I had friends, we would do that to one another.
link |
I know it's kind of silly and childish,
link |
yet it illustrates the principle
link |
that we can generate electricity
link |
and pass electricity to other beings
link |
or in the case of neurons, from one neuron to the next.
link |
The way neurons do that is that in between the neurons,
link |
they're little spaces.
link |
Those little spaces are called synapses
link |
and neurons literally vomit.
link |
Well, they don't literally vomit,
link |
but they release little packets
link |
of so-called transmitter chemical
link |
into that space we call a synapse.
link |
It travels across the synapse.
link |
It attaches to the cell on the other side, the other neuron.
link |
And then depending on what that chemical is,
link |
it either makes that next neuron more electrically active
link |
or less electrically active, so-called excitation.
link |
It either excites the next neuron
link |
to be electrically active also,
link |
or it inhibits, it prevents the next neuron
link |
from being electrically active.
link |
So again, very simply, we have nerve cells
link |
that communicate with one another
link |
through electricity and chemicals
link |
that inspire that electricity.
link |
And the little gaps between neurons are called synapses.
link |
If you can understand that,
link |
I'm certain you can make it through the rest of the episode
link |
and that you will get all the depth
link |
and important detail that you need to know.
link |
But I want to go just a little bit further
link |
and explain that neurons don't just talk one-to-one.
link |
There are trillions of neurons in your nervous system
link |
that allow you to be happy, to be in love, to be sad,
link |
to be in grief, to remember things and so on.
link |
And what you do at any moment,
link |
what you feel and what you think,
link |
relates to which so-called neural circuits are active.
link |
So a lot of times we think about brain areas
link |
and we've all seen these pictures of the brain
link |
where someone was in a FMRI scanner
link |
or they were in a brain scanner of some sort
link |
and they saw a picture of something
link |
and a certain area of the brain lights up as it's called.
link |
That lighting up of the brain really reflects the activity
link |
of hundreds, if not thousands,
link |
maybe even millions of neurons in that region.
link |
Those images of brain areas lighting up
link |
and indeed talking about brain areas lighting up
link |
can be a little bit or a lot misleading
link |
because in fact, no single brain area
link |
controls any one single perception
link |
or behavior or feeling state.
link |
Rather, we have so-called neural circuits,
link |
chains of neurons, chains of specific neurons, that is,
link |
that create different states of mind
link |
that lead to specific behaviors,
link |
that lead to specific emotional states.
link |
And those neural circuits are made up
link |
of lots of different brain areas
link |
that light up in particular sequences.
link |
And when I say light up, excuse me,
link |
what I mean is that particular brain areas
link |
either excite or prevent the excitation,
link |
that is, they inhibit other brain areas
link |
in a particular sequence.
link |
Much like keys on a piano played in a particular sequence
link |
makes up a particular song,
link |
particular brain areas activated or made silent
link |
in a particular sequence leads to a particular behavior,
link |
like getting up out of a chair
link |
or a particular feeling state,
link |
like being particularly happy one day when you wake up
link |
or particularly depressed,
link |
whether or not that depression is caused by a life event
link |
or whether or not it arises spontaneously.
link |
So we have neurons, we have synapses,
link |
and we have neural circuits.
link |
And vitally important is the fact
link |
that which neural circuits are active
link |
and which neural circuits are likely to be less active
link |
at any given moment
link |
depends on two major categories of chemicals.
link |
It depends on hormones
link |
and it depends on so-called neuromodulators.
link |
Now, we're mainly going to focus on neuromodulators today
link |
because those are the things
link |
that if you can learn to control them,
link |
and indeed there are tools to control them,
link |
then you can control which neural circuits
link |
are more likely or less likely to be active in you
link |
at any given moment.
link |
And in doing so, you can control whether or not
link |
you are going to be alert and focused or deeply asleep.
link |
You can control whether or not
link |
you are going to be in a creative state
link |
or whether or not you're going to be in a state of mind,
link |
more fit, more capable that is of doing focused work
link |
or math or more so-called linear types of work
link |
where there's a correct answer.
link |
There's a specific thing to follow
link |
and you're simply going to plug and chug as it were
link |
through a particular set of steps
link |
in order to accomplish something.
link |
Or for instance, whether or not
link |
you're going to be in a more relaxed and creative state
link |
where you're thinking about new ideas
link |
or new ideas are just seem to be
link |
spontaneously coming to mind.
link |
All of that can be controlled to a considerable extent
link |
by leveraging these so-called neuromodulators.
link |
What are neuromodulators?
link |
Neuromodulators are particular chemicals
link |
that make it likely that certain neural circuits
link |
will be active and not others.
link |
And the four neuromodulators
link |
that we're going to talk about today
link |
that are of the utmost importance for your goals
link |
are dopamine, epinephrine, also called adrenaline,
link |
serotonin, and acetylcholine.
link |
That's dopamine, epinephrine, serotonin, and acetylcholine.
link |
Today, I'm going to teach you
link |
how each of those different categories
link |
of neuromodulators work and the things that you can do
link |
to control those neuromodulators,
link |
that is increase them or decrease them
link |
through behavioral tools and supplementation
link |
in ways that allow you to access the brain and body states
link |
that you want at the times that you want.
link |
Just very quickly,
link |
I want to talk about how neuromodulators are able to work
link |
regardless of whether or not it's dopamine or serotonin
link |
or epinephrine, et cetera.
link |
There are many features of how neuromodulators work,
link |
but for sake of today's discussion,
link |
we only need to focus on two of those features.
link |
And those are fast acting features
link |
and longer slower features
link |
or what we call baseline features.
link |
What am I talking about when I say faster or baseline?
link |
Well, consider that at any given moment,
link |
whether or not you're asleep or awake,
link |
whether or not it's morning or afternoon or night,
link |
you have some amount of dopamine being released
link |
in your brain and body, some amount of serotonin,
link |
some amount of epinephrine,
link |
and some amount of acetylcholine.
link |
It is rarely, if ever the case,
link |
that you have zero dopamine or zero serotonin.
link |
So often we hear about someone being dopamine depleted,
link |
or these days you hear a lot about that anyways,
link |
or you'll hear that people's serotonin is bottomed out.
link |
In reality, none of these neuromodulators
link |
ever disappear completely,
link |
but they tend to be present at different levels
link |
or different relative levels.
link |
Another important thing to point out
link |
is that they don't work alone.
link |
In fact, as you'll soon learn,
link |
dopamine and epinephrine are close cousins
link |
that collaborate in terms of creating states
link |
of focus and motivation, for instance,
link |
or in creating states of energy
link |
and the pursuit of particular goals.
link |
When I say they're close cousins,
link |
what I mean is that they tend to impact
link |
some of the same neural circuits,
link |
and believe it or not,
link |
dopamine and epinephrine are chemically related too.
link |
I'll just tell you right now that epinephrine
link |
is actually derived from dopamine chemically.
link |
Epinephrine, that is adrenaline,
link |
is made from the molecule dopamine.
link |
Now, dopamine and serotonin can also work together
link |
to impact certain circuits in the brain,
link |
but in large part, they operate on separate circuits.
link |
And acetylcholine, which you'll soon learn
link |
is involved in states of focus and can actually open up.
link |
It can literally create states in the mind
link |
in which your brain is more plastic
link |
and able to change and learn more quickly.
link |
Well, acetylcholine can do that on its own,
link |
but rarely does it do it on its own.
link |
More typically, it gets assistance
link |
from some of the other neuromodulators.
link |
Now, that might seem like it complicates the picture,
link |
but it actually makes the picture far simpler
link |
because what we can say for sure
link |
is that the fast actions of dopamine,
link |
or the fast actions of epinephrine,
link |
serotonin, or acetylcholine are actions that occur
link |
on the order of seconds or minutes
link |
or up to about an hour or so.
link |
Whereas the slower actions of those neuromodulators
link |
tend to occur on the order of hours, days, or even weeks.
link |
Now, perhaps surprisingly, I'd like to focus
link |
on the slow actions of the neuromodulators first,
link |
because those slow actions of the neuromodulators
link |
are happening in you and in me and in everyone right now.
link |
And they set the backdrop, the context,
link |
in which the various tools to manipulate dopamine,
link |
epinephrine, serotonin, or acetylcholine will work.
link |
What do I mean by the context or the backdrop
link |
Well, it's fair to say that most people
link |
are awake during the daytime and asleep at night.
link |
I do realize that there are people
link |
who are going to be doing shift work
link |
or they're raising young children,
link |
or that might have a sick person at home
link |
that they're tending to, et cetera,
link |
or even have insomnia, they're tending to them.
link |
So schedules of sleep and wakefulness will vary,
link |
but in general, everybody,
link |
regardless of whether or not you're nocturnal
link |
or you're so-called diurnal, you're awake during the day,
link |
pretty much everybody follows a schedule
link |
in which from zero to nine hours after waking,
link |
that is from the time you wake up
link |
until about nine hours later,
link |
the neuromodulators dopamine and epinephrine
link |
tend to be at their highest levels
link |
that they will be at any point in the 24 hour period,
link |
in any period of the day.
link |
So we can call this zero to nine hour period
link |
phase one of the day, just for simplicity.
link |
And I've referred to this before in a previous episode,
link |
but not in this exact context.
link |
From nine to about 16 hours is what we will call phase two.
link |
And that's when dopamine and epinephrine levels
link |
tend to subside a bit compared to the earlier phase one
link |
part of the day, and serotonin levels start to increase.
link |
And then phase three of the 24 hour cycle,
link |
which is from about, and again,
link |
about the zero approximates,
link |
from about 17 hours after waking
link |
until about 24 hours after waking
link |
is phase three of the day.
link |
And during that time, there is chaos
link |
in terms of which neuromodulators
link |
are most present in the brain.
link |
And why chaos, what I mean is that during sleep,
link |
you have incredible peaks in acetylcholine
link |
and drops in acetylcholine.
link |
You have incredible peaks in dopamine
link |
and drops in dopamine.
link |
You have incredible peaks in serotonin
link |
and drops in serotonin.
link |
Most often, you are not going to see much,
link |
if any, release of epinephrine, adrenaline.
link |
And that's because epinephrine, also called adrenaline,
link |
tends to wake us up and put us into action mode behaviors.
link |
And that's simply not happening during sleep.
link |
But for the other three neuromodulators,
link |
across the night, it's sort of chaos.
link |
You've got peaks and drops and peaks and drops
link |
in different combinations
link |
than you would ever see in wakefulness.
link |
And this plays important roles in dreaming,
link |
important roles in some of the reparative functions of sleep.
link |
The point is that during that phase three,
link |
the levels of neuromodulators are all over the place,
link |
but it's not random, right?
link |
I say it's chaos, but it's organized
link |
according to the specific reparative goals of sleep,
link |
the specific metabolic roles of sleep, et cetera.
link |
We're not going to focus too much on phase three today,
link |
because phase three of the 24 hour cycle,
link |
that 17 to 24 hour period,
link |
is one in which you ought to be deeply asleep,
link |
whether or not you're nocturnal or diurnal, right?
link |
17 hours after waking, you ought to be asleep.
link |
And there are a lot of episodes of this podcast,
link |
and indeed today I started talking about
link |
two particular studies related to sleep.
link |
There are a lot of tools to enhance sleep, et cetera.
link |
And of course, there are things that you can do
link |
in the late portion of phase two of the day
link |
in order to enhance your transition time
link |
into and depth of sleep.
link |
But you can't really do much during sleep, right?
link |
You're not taking supplements,
link |
you're not doing breathing practices.
link |
There are things to fall back asleep,
link |
but you're not really doing much during sleep.
link |
So we're mainly going to focus
link |
on what we're calling phase one and phase two.
link |
Phase one being this dopamine epinephrine dominated
link |
phase of our day, and phase two being this more serotonergic
link |
or serotonin dominated portion of the day.
link |
And then you might say, well, what about acetylcholine?
link |
Forgot about acetylcholine.
link |
Well, we didn't forget about acetylcholine.
link |
Acetylcholine is under control more in terms
link |
of what we happen to be doing at any given moment,
link |
whether or not we're focusing or not focusing,
link |
whether or not we're learning or not learning.
link |
And here I'm referring to acetylcholine specifically
link |
in the context of the brain and thinking,
link |
because as some of you are probably shouting out there,
link |
right, if you're exercise physiologists
link |
or you know anything about how the brain controls movement,
link |
acetylcholine is used at the nerve to muscle synapse, right?
link |
So neurons don't just control other neurons electrically.
link |
The way you're able to move in fact is
link |
because neurons are controlling the electric activity
link |
of muscles, literally the contraction of muscle fibers,
link |
and that control is exerted
link |
through the release of acetylcholine.
link |
So acetylcholine is working at muscles as well,
link |
but we're not focused on that today.
link |
We're focused on what we can do during phase one of the day
link |
and what we can do during phase two of the day
link |
to control the specific neuromodulators,
link |
dopamine, epinephrine, serotonin, and acetylcholine
link |
toward particular end goals.
link |
And as I've been harping on for the last five
link |
or 10 minutes or so, it is important to understand
link |
that in the early phase one part of the day,
link |
again, zero to nine hours,
link |
dopamine and epinephrine already dominate
link |
the neuromodulator landscape.
link |
That is, they are already elevated
link |
and then they will taper off in phase two.
link |
Whereas in phase two of the day,
link |
serotonin tends to dominate
link |
more than dopamine and epinephrine.
link |
And so if you think about that,
link |
what it means is that if your goal is to increase serotonin
link |
in order to get some particular effect
link |
on your mental performance or physical performance or health,
link |
or if your goal is to increase your dopamine
link |
or epinephrine to get some particular effect
link |
on your mental health, physical performance, et cetera,
link |
well, then you need to consider what the background level
link |
of dopamine or epinephrine or serotonin happens to be.
link |
Because in doing so, you will know which tool to select
link |
and how hard you need to push on that tool, right?
link |
If your levels of dopamine are already riding pretty high
link |
because it's the early part of the day,
link |
well, then it doesn't take a whole lot more
link |
to get dopamine to a level in which it can, for instance,
link |
change your level of motivation.
link |
Whereas if you are in the late part of the day,
link |
let's say eight or 9 p.m.
link |
and you have a lot of serotonin
link |
swimming around in your system
link |
and you really need to be focused and alert,
link |
well, you can do that by leveraging
link |
the dopamine and epinephrine system
link |
and indeed the acetylcholine system too,
link |
but you're going to have to resort to tools
link |
that can do that far more potently
link |
and that can do that in a much more sustained way
link |
if you're going to access the state that you want.
link |
So again, it's really important to understand
link |
what the backdrop of these neuromodulators is,
link |
the so-called baseline, and that they vary across the day
link |
if you're going to be able to leverage tools
link |
to optimize your brain chemistry.
link |
Anyone that tells you do this protocol
link |
in order to increase your dopamine, do this protocol
link |
or take this supplement to increase your serotonin,
link |
they can be telling you the absolute truth,
link |
but if you don't consider the backdrop
link |
over which that supplement or behavior
link |
is going to have its effect,
link |
well, then you can't really predict the effect it will have,
link |
but if you can understand these backdrop baseline elements
link |
to how neuromodulators work,
link |
well, then you're in a terrific position
link |
to leverage the best tools in the immediate and short-term
link |
and that is on the order of seconds, minutes, and hours.
link |
Before we dive into the more pointed, directed effects
link |
of specific tools on neuromodulators,
link |
I'd like to just briefly mention hormones
link |
because they are also important for understanding
link |
the background and the context
link |
and these baseline levels of neuromodulators.
link |
Now, here I'm going to paint with a bit of a broad brush,
link |
but what I will say is accurate
link |
even though it might not be exhaustive.
link |
What I mean by that is everything I'm about to say is true,
link |
but it doesn't cover every example in detail
link |
and nuanced possibility out there.
link |
Hormones have many different effects on the brain and body
link |
and not unlike neuromodulators,
link |
some of those effects are very fast,
link |
some of them are very slow.
link |
In fact, certain hormones, for instance,
link |
the steroid hormones like estrogen and like testosterone
link |
and corticosterones, and here, of course,
link |
I'm referring to the steroid hormones for what they are.
link |
They are indeed steroid hormones,
link |
but I'm not talking about steroids
link |
that people inject for sports performance
link |
or for physical augmentation.
link |
I'm talking about the steroid hormones
link |
that you make naturally
link |
because indeed you make these naturally.
link |
Well, the steroid hormones
link |
can actually control gene expression.
link |
They can change the identity of cells
link |
and the genes and proteins that cells express.
link |
This is why during puberty, for instance,
link |
testosterone and estrogen are released into the body,
link |
growth hormone is released into the body,
link |
and bodies and voices and personalities and brains
link |
change tremendously because literally
link |
there is a transformation of the breast tissue,
link |
of the testicular tissue, of the ovarian tissue,
link |
of the bones, of the muscles,
link |
of the tissues and cells that control hair growth.
link |
Gene expression changes in all those cell types
link |
and the child becomes an adolescent, becomes a young adult.
link |
That's what puberty really is.
link |
In fact, puberty is perhaps the most dramatic transformation
link |
that we go through in our entire lifespan
link |
in terms of our aging,
link |
because indeed it reflects a very rapid,
link |
I should mention, period of aging,
link |
and transformation of the identity of cells.
link |
So steroid hormones and other hormones
link |
can have very slow, long-lasting actions in that way.
link |
They can also have very fast actions.
link |
So for instance, adrenaline, epinephrine,
link |
released from the adrenal glands
link |
can immediately make your heart beat faster,
link |
can immediately change the circumference
link |
of your blood vessels and arteries and capillaries
link |
and change the way blood flows.
link |
It can change the way you see the world, literally.
link |
It does change the way you see the world
link |
through your visual system.
link |
And that all happens on the order
link |
of hundreds of milliseconds or seconds.
link |
These are extremely fast actions.
link |
Corticosteroid also can have fast actions and slow actions.
link |
But since this isn't a discussion about hormones per se,
link |
and we've done entire episodes like the optimized
link |
testosterone and estrogen episode,
link |
you can find that at hubermanlab.com
link |
or the interview with the incredibly knowledgeable
link |
and clear and really wonderful tutor
link |
of actionable information, Dr. Kyle Gillette,
link |
who is also on this podcast.
link |
You can learn a lot about hormones there.
link |
Today, we want to think about hormones
link |
as they relate to these neuromodulators,
link |
the dopamine, serotonin, epinephrine, and acetylcholine.
link |
And in general, testosterone tends to collaborate
link |
with and increase the action of dopamine.
link |
That's not always the case, but in general,
link |
when testosterone goes up, dopamine goes up.
link |
And sometimes even vice versa,
link |
when dopamine goes up, testosterone go up.
link |
And this is true for both males and for females.
link |
In general, when corticosterones like cortisol
link |
and some related steroid hormones increase,
link |
epinephrine levels go up.
link |
And in general, when hormones like oxytocin
link |
or prolactin are increased, levels of serotonin go up.
link |
We can't draw a direct link between any one hormone system
link |
and acetylcholine.
link |
Acetylcholine kind of sits off in a category
link |
of its own in that way.
link |
But again, in general, testosterone and dopamine
link |
tend to collaborate in the same direction.
link |
Cortisol and epinephrine tend to collaborate
link |
in the same direction.
link |
Oxytocin and prolactin, which are hormones,
link |
and serotonin tend to collaborate in the same direction.
link |
And then we have poor old lonely acetylcholine
link |
off on its own, but it's not poor and lonely.
link |
It actually has incredibly potent effects on its own.
link |
So it's really that it just doesn't need much help
link |
from the hormone systems,
link |
or at least not the steroid hormone systems
link |
in order to have its tremendous effects.
link |
Now, a lot of what people think about and will do
link |
when trying to improve mental health and physical health
link |
is they will try and increase or decrease
link |
certain categories of hormones of the sort that I mentioned,
link |
testosterone, estrogen, oxytocin, prolactin, and so on.
link |
But oftentimes the effects of those manipulations
link |
in hormones that are going to be most salient
link |
are not going to be due to the direct effects
link |
of those hormones.
link |
Sometimes it could be,
link |
but oftentimes it's going to be due to their effects
link |
on the brain and nervous system
link |
by way of how those hormones impact neuromodulators.
link |
So for instance, there are various things
link |
that people can do, both men and women,
link |
to increase their testosterone and estrogen
link |
in the appropriate ratios.
link |
I talked about one such approach in a previous episode,
link |
and that is to get sunlight onto a large portion
link |
of one's skin each day.
link |
Believe it or not, this actually works,
link |
and it works because your skin
link |
is actually an endocrine organ, a hormone secreting organ.
link |
It's a beautiful study.
link |
I've covered it on this podcast before.
link |
We will provide a link to this study again,
link |
but it had people spend at least 20 minutes or so,
link |
closer to 30 minutes each day,
link |
trying to maximize sunlight exposure
link |
to as much of their skin as they could
link |
in terms of still maintaining decent exposure,
link |
meaning not overexposing themselves in a cultural way,
link |
meaning wearing enough clothes that they were decent,
link |
but still getting a lot of sun exposure
link |
a couple of times per week or more.
link |
What they found was that people's testosterone
link |
and estrogen levels went up, feelings of wellbeing went up,
link |
feelings of well, or I should say,
link |
increases in libido were observed as well.
link |
They subjectively reported more passion, et cetera.
link |
Testosterone and estrogen did indeed both go up.
link |
And again, I want to highlight that increases in estrogen,
link |
not just testosterone, are related to increases in libido
link |
in both men and women.
link |
This is why you never want to crush your estrogen
link |
down to zero, whether or not you're male or female,
link |
if you want to maintain some sort of healthy libido.
link |
And general feelings of wellbeing unrelated to libido.
link |
Well, many of those effects we know
link |
are not due to direct effects of testosterone and estrogen,
link |
but rather are due to the effects of testosterone
link |
and estrogen on the neuromodulators, dopamine and serotonin,
link |
because much of libido and feelings of wellbeing
link |
and feelings of relaxation,
link |
but also desire, motivation, et cetera,
link |
originate because of the activation of neural circuits
link |
that dopamine controls and promotes,
link |
and that serotonin promote and control.
link |
So this is very important to understand
link |
as we move toward more specific discussion of the chemicals
link |
that we call neuromodulators,
link |
because hormones are controlling those neuromodulators
link |
in a very slow modulatory way.
link |
So yes, I said it, hormones modulate neuromodulators.
link |
I sort of said it twice on purpose.
link |
And this is a dramatic and potent effect.
link |
So I'll just give you one more example.
link |
The hormone prolactin tends to be antagonistic.
link |
It tends to reduce amounts of dopamine,
link |
or at least when prolactin levels are high,
link |
dopamine levels tend to be lower.
link |
You observe this after the birth of a new child,
link |
you observe this postcoitally after mating in all species,
link |
humans and animals.
link |
When prolactin is elevated, serotonin tends to be elevated.
link |
And when prolactin is elevated, levels of dopamine
link |
and the effects of dopamine tend to subside.
link |
Now, as I move toward explaining
link |
what each of the four categories of neuromodulators do,
link |
this will start to make more and more sense
link |
as to why this would be.
link |
I always say I wasn't consulted at the design phase,
link |
meaning I didn't design these circuits.
link |
And if anyone tells you that they did,
link |
you should back away quickly
link |
because none of us designed these circuits.
link |
This is the way that evolution and nature
link |
created these systems.
link |
And they tend to work in a bit of a seesaw fashion,
link |
prolactin up, dopamine down, right?
link |
Dopamine up, prolactin down.
link |
In general, that is the way they work.
link |
So if we are to take a look at how each of these
link |
neuromodulator systems functions on its own,
link |
while understanding that they never truly function
link |
on their own, we can start to really make sense
link |
of the landscape of tools that are available to us
link |
and which tools are going to be most powerful to select
link |
if our goal is, for instance, to be focused,
link |
or if our goal is to be less stressed,
link |
or if our goal is to be highly motivated
link |
and highly focused for sake of learning.
link |
All of that is indeed possible
link |
if you understand these four neuromodulators
link |
and you understand that while there are many tools
link |
ranging from pharmacologic to behavioral
link |
that can tap into these neuromodulator systems
link |
that can kind of press on the gas of dopamine,
link |
pull back on serotonin and so on,
link |
but that there are particular tools,
link |
both behavioral and supplementation-based,
link |
and to some extent, prescription drug-based too,
link |
and we'll touch on a few of those.
link |
If you understand that and why they work,
link |
well then you can create a sort of kit,
link |
a grab bag of things that you can use in any context,
link |
or I should say that you can look to,
link |
depending on the context you're in,
link |
and create the states of body and mind that you want.
link |
Now, once again, painting with a somewhat broad brush,
link |
but nonetheless, an accurate brush,
link |
we can say that dopamine, when elevated above baseline,
link |
tends to increase states of motivation,
link |
both mental and physical motivation,
link |
drive, and to some extent, focus.
link |
I've said it many times before, and I'll say it again,
link |
there's a lot of misconception about dopamine.
link |
Many people out there think that dopamine
link |
is all about pleasure, you hear about dopamine hits,
link |
or people chasing dopamine,
link |
or the need to have a dopamine fast, et cetera.
link |
Dopamine is not about pleasure,
link |
dopamine is about motivation, craving, and pursuit,
link |
for goals or for things that are outside
link |
our immediate possession and experience.
link |
The motivation and pursuit of a mate,
link |
the motivation and pursuit to mate,
link |
the motivation and pursuit of food,
link |
the motivation and pursuit of a career goal,
link |
et cetera, et cetera.
link |
Things we do not yet have, but that we want,
link |
and we get into sort of a forward center of mass
link |
and a pursuit of, and that pursuit can be physical,
link |
that pursuit can be cognitive,
link |
it can be both cognitive and physical,
link |
and it can involve talking about something, right?
link |
Because in some professions,
link |
pursuit of things involves talking.
link |
I think about lawyers, they talk a lot
link |
in pursuit of winning cases and money, et cetera,
link |
putting people in jail or keeping people out of jail,
link |
et cetera, that's done with their mouths,
link |
not with their bodies.
link |
Athletes in a state of motivated training
link |
or in motivated competition use their bodies,
link |
which all this is obvious, of course,
link |
but perhaps what is not so obvious is that one molecule,
link |
not working alone, but predominantly one molecule, dopamine,
link |
is responsible for all of those motivated states,
link |
which again underscores the power of these neuromodulators.
link |
So dopamine, we can think of,
link |
at least in the context of today's discussion,
link |
as controlling and indeed promoting motivation,
link |
drive, and pursuit, and to some extent, focus.
link |
Epinephrine and a closely related molecule
link |
called norepinephrine, and again,
link |
I want to emphasize that epinephrine is adrenaline
link |
and adrenaline is epinephrine.
link |
Norepinephrine is noradrenaline
link |
and noradrenaline is norepinephrine,
link |
but today we're going to just simply talk
link |
about epinephrine and norepinephrine.
link |
That category of neuromodulator is mainly responsible
link |
for generating our energy,
link |
our level of fuel and baseline level
link |
of forward center of mass, as I like to call it.
link |
You can also think of it as how high your RPM are.
link |
Now we're not a car and the car analogy sort of falls apart
link |
as we go further into the biology,
link |
but it's a decent one for now.
link |
When epinephrine levels are high, we tend to feel agitated,
link |
we tend to feel like we want to move,
link |
we tend to feel like we can't shut down our thinking
link |
and our anticipation of what's going to happen next.
link |
And when epinephrine levels are very, very low,
link |
we actually have less physical energy,
link |
we tend to have less mental energy
link |
in terms of generating thoughts very quickly
link |
and so on and so forth.
link |
And as I mentioned before,
link |
dopamine and epinephrine are closely related,
link |
so much so that we know for a fact
link |
that epinephrine is actually manufactured
link |
from the molecule dopamine.
link |
So that's why I'm talking about these two neuromodulators
link |
in very close juxtaposition
link |
because they do indeed collaborate with one another.
link |
But for sake of today's discussion,
link |
we can just think of epinephrine as increasing energy.
link |
Adrenaline increases energy and our state of readiness.
link |
It also, I should mention, activates our immune system.
link |
Contrary to popular belief
link |
that stress inhibits our immune system,
link |
epinephrine is deployed,
link |
it's released at great levels in our brain and body
link |
when we are stressed,
link |
and that actually protects us
link |
against infections of multiple kinds,
link |
at least in the short term.
link |
That and all the details of that and tools related to that
link |
were covered in our episode on the immune system,
link |
if you want to check that out.
link |
Now, the neuromodulator serotonin
link |
creates a number of different states in the brain and body,
link |
but for sake of today's discussion,
link |
we're going to think about the predominant states
link |
and those are states of contentness,
link |
being happy, feeling fairly relaxed, feeling soothed,
link |
and to some extent, even some relief from pain
link |
Serotonin is associated with a feeling of satiety,
link |
of having enough of what we already have.
link |
Now, when serotonin is very, very high,
link |
people can even be sedate.
link |
They can be completely amotivated,
link |
no motivation to seek out things like food or sex or work,
link |
Whereas when serotonin levels are very low,
link |
people can actually exhibit agitation
link |
and high levels of stress.
link |
So the levels matter here,
link |
but again, for sake of today's conversation,
link |
when we leverage serotonin,
link |
where you are really leveraging a neuromodulator
link |
that tends to increase the activity of neural circuits
link |
in the brain and body that make us feel relaxed and happy,
link |
and it tends to decrease the activity of neural circuits
link |
that make us rabidly in pursuit of things
link |
that we don't have, right?
link |
The opposite of content and sated is motivation,
link |
desire, and hunger and thirst for things that we don't have.
link |
So serotonin is the molecule of peace.
link |
It is the molecule of contentness.
link |
It is the molecule of having enough,
link |
at least for the time being,
link |
or the feeling that we have enough for the time being.
link |
Now, acetylcholine is a fourth category of neuromodulator
link |
that, as I mentioned earlier, is somewhat, not totally,
link |
but somewhat distinct from any direct control
link |
by the major hormone systems of the body,
link |
or at least the major steroid hormone systems.
link |
And acetylcholine, we can say,
link |
is mainly associated with states of focus.
link |
And we can go a step further and say that
link |
it's mainly associated with steps of focus
link |
as they relate to learning and encoding new information,
link |
so-called neuroplasticity.
link |
Now, neuroplasticity,
link |
or the brain and nervous system's ability
link |
to change in response to experience,
link |
can be impacted by an enormous number of different chemicals,
link |
not just acetylcholine.
link |
But acetylcholine has a particularly potent ability
link |
to open up the thing that we call neuroplasticity
link |
to allow plasticity to happen in one moment,
link |
whereas in a previous moment, it could not occur
link |
because acetylcholine had not been released in the brain
link |
or in the spinal cord.
link |
So acetylcholine is involved in focus and in learning,
link |
but it is not necessarily always associated
link |
with learning in the context of highly motivated,
link |
really ramped up states.
link |
It can be, but acetylcholine can also be released
link |
and can encourage the learning and neuroplasticity
link |
associated with calm states.
link |
For instance, if somebody has a newborn child,
link |
we know that they are flooded with oxytocin,
link |
which has actually even been called the love hormone,
link |
although it does many things in addition
link |
to control feelings of romantic attachment
link |
and attachment to children, et cetera.
link |
It does all of that, but it does a lot more as well.
link |
But when people have a new child,
link |
they also tend to be hyper-focused on that child,
link |
not just its wellbeing, but they narrow all their thinking,
link |
all their vision, all their hearing to that child
link |
and their obvious adaptive reasons for wanting to do that.
link |
I recall a family dinner we had,
link |
gosh, this was over 10 years ago,
link |
we had a couple over, my mom was in the habit
link |
of inviting people over who didn't have places
link |
to go on the holidays, because that's just who she is,
link |
and I think it's quite nice.
link |
So we brought over this couple, they had a newborn,
link |
I think this baby had been born
link |
maybe two or three weeks before,
link |
and it was seated, not seated, it was lying down,
link |
it couldn't see, it was like a potato bug,
link |
it barely holds head up,
link |
but it was lying in a little bassinet on the floor
link |
as we ate dinner, and it was almost hilarious,
link |
it actually was hilarious, we laughed a lot about this,
link |
that the entire meal,
link |
they were basically staring at this baby,
link |
they were so clearly in love with the baby
link |
and so flooded with oxytocin and also prolactin,
link |
that they couldn't take their focus off this baby,
link |
it was actually really wonderful and endearing to see,
link |
but in addition to that, I'd be willing to bet,
link |
had I been able to do a little bit of micro dialysis,
link |
which is the ability to measure the amounts
link |
of neuromodulator at a given location in the brain,
link |
had I been able to do that experiment on them,
link |
in that moment, I would have found
link |
that levels of acetylcholine were exceedingly high
link |
because they were so hyper-focused on this child,
link |
not just in love with, but focused on that child,
link |
and without a doubt, the neural circuits
link |
related to focus and plasticity were heavily engaged,
link |
again, for obvious adaptive reasons
link |
related to child rearing and learning the coos and cries
link |
and pain signals and pleasure signals of one's offspring.
link |
So we have dopamine associated with motivation,
link |
drive, and pursuit, and to some extent, focus.
link |
We have epinephrine and norepinephrine associated
link |
with energy of having a forward center of mass,
link |
mentally and or physically.
link |
We have serotonin, which is associated
link |
with a peaceful, content, sated state of being.
link |
And we have acetylcholine,
link |
which is associated with focus and in particular focus
link |
as it relates to learning and encoding new information.
link |
So let's say you want to be more motivated.
link |
You want to be more in pursuit of goals,
link |
and you want to have more energy and to be more focused.
link |
There are many ways to go about that.
link |
In fact, there's a near infinite cloud of opportunities,
link |
everything from prescription drugs to illicit drugs,
link |
which I certainly do not recommend, supplements, nutrition.
link |
You can listen to particular music.
link |
You can do all sorts of cognitive, behavioral,
link |
nutritional supplementation tricks,
link |
or you can just understand that what you're really after
link |
are increases in dopamine above baseline that you control.
link |
And there are ways to control them that are quite potent.
link |
And science tells us which tools are going to be
link |
the most potent and the most versatile for you.
link |
So I'm going to share those tools with you now
link |
with the caveat that each one of those tools
link |
could be its own entire podcast episode
link |
and that we've done it near entire episodes
link |
on each of these tools or small collections of these tools.
link |
So I'm going to cover these in somewhat superficial manner.
link |
We can provide links to previous episodes
link |
that relate to each of these tools in detail,
link |
but I'll give you enough detail about them
link |
that would allow you to incorporate them into your routine
link |
should you choose.
link |
Let's say you want to increase dopamine
link |
for sake of increasing motivation.
link |
The first thing to do is to understand
link |
what the natural behavioral tools are for increasing dopamine
link |
and to do those as consistently as possible.
link |
Again, these are tools that you'll want to do
link |
nearly every day, if not every day.
link |
And I know I'm sounding like a broken record on this one,
link |
but here again, we come to sunlight
link |
and I should say not just the desire to,
link |
but really the need for viewing the maximum amount
link |
of sunlight that one can reasonably get
link |
given schedules and locations in the world,
link |
time of year, et cetera, in the early part of the day.
link |
Within the first hour of waking,
link |
ideally, but certainly in the first three hours of your day,
link |
you are going to want to maximize sunlight exposure
link |
Never look at the sun or any other light so bright
link |
that it's painful to look at.
link |
And yes, of course, blinking is fine,
link |
but no, take sunglasses off,
link |
go outside once the sun is out
link |
and get some natural light in your eyes.
link |
And if it's appropriate,
link |
or I should say in a way that's appropriate,
link |
maximize the amount of sunlight exposure to your skin,
link |
but please don't get burned.
link |
Please do wear sunscreen if you're prone to getting burned.
link |
Typically, early day sunlight is not going to burn you,
link |
at least not most people,
link |
unless you're extremely fair skinned.
link |
So don't get burned,
link |
do what you need to in order to protect yourself from burn.
link |
There's some emerging controversy about sunscreen
link |
and which ones are safe and which ones aren't safe.
link |
We have not done an episode on that yet,
link |
but I find it to be an important and interesting topic.
link |
Daria Rose, Dr. Daria Rose, I should say,
link |
has a podcast called the Daria Rose Podcast
link |
and did an episode all about sunscreens which are safe,
link |
which are not safe by interviewing an expert on that.
link |
So I refer you to that podcast as it relates to sunscreen,
link |
but get some natural light exposure in your eyes.
link |
And if you wake up before the sun comes out,
link |
turn on as many bright lights inside
link |
as you can turn on reasonably,
link |
given your electric bill, et cetera.
link |
Get a lot of bright sunlight exposure early in the day
link |
and get a lot of sunlight exposure to your skin
link |
in the early part of the day
link |
in a way that doesn't burn you,
link |
meaning burn your skin or blind you.
link |
Please, please don't do anything that harms your vision,
link |
like stare into bright light that's painful.
link |
What does that do?
link |
Well, it sets in motion
link |
a number of different biological cascades.
link |
Some are very fast.
link |
There are fast actions of sunlight that will trigger,
link |
for instance, dopamine release
link |
from different parts of your brain
link |
and your endocrine system.
link |
And we now know that it increases levels of genes
link |
related to thyroid hormone
link |
and actually increases certain dopamine receptors.
link |
So there's a wonderful paper.
link |
We will provide a link to this paper
link |
that shows that sunlight exposure
link |
can actually increase the amount of so-called DRD4.
link |
This is a particular type of dopamine receptor,
link |
the dopamine receptor 4.
link |
The genes for dopamine receptor 4
link |
are actually under photic control.
link |
So if you get sunlight exposure to your eyes,
link |
and it does have to be to your eyes
link |
in the early part of the day,
link |
you increase the amount of dopamine receptor that you have,
link |
which allows whatever circulating dopamine
link |
happens to be there to have a greater effect on motivation
link |
and I should say also on mood and feelings
link |
of being in pursuit
link |
and generally in craving and pursuit of things in life.
link |
Now there's another way to increase the effect
link |
of whatever dopamine happens to be circulating
link |
in your brain and body.
link |
And this again relates to increasing the number
link |
or the efficacy of the receptors for dopamine.
link |
Now here we're not talking about the dopamine receptor 4,
link |
but a different category of dopamine receptors,
link |
the D2 and D3 receptors,
link |
which are expressed multiple places in your brain and body
link |
and bind dopamine,
link |
meaning dopamine parks in them like a parking spot
link |
and allows dopamine to generally increase the activity
link |
of the neurons and cells
link |
that express those dopamine receptors.
link |
How do you do that?
link |
Well, it turns out that regular ingestion of caffeine
link |
at safe and appropriate levels about 100 to 250 milligrams
link |
is going to increase the number of D2
link |
and D3 dopamine receptors.
link |
I talked a little bit about this on a previous episode.
link |
Again, we'll provide links to these studies,
link |
but this is an important finding, I believe,
link |
because this is not about the acute,
link |
the immediate effects of caffeine on alertness,
link |
although those occur too.
link |
When you drink caffeine,
link |
it's going to increase your levels of adrenaline
link |
and so-called epinephrine,
link |
which will increase your energy levels.
link |
It's going to decrease levels of something called adenosine,
link |
which builds up while you're sleepy.
link |
It's going to make you feel less sleepy,
link |
more alert, more energetic.
link |
That's sort of obvious,
link |
but what's less obvious is that it's increasing the number
link |
and efficacy of dopamine receptors
link |
so that whatever dopamine happens to be around
link |
in your system is going to have more of a potent effect.
link |
So how much caffeine should you drink?
link |
That's going to vary from person to person.
link |
Some people are very sensitive to caffeine, others are not.
link |
I tend to be fairly insensitive to caffeine
link |
because I've been drinking it for a long period of time,
link |
but after one or two cups of espresso or coffee,
link |
I feel like I've had enough.
link |
I tend to drink my caffeine early in the day,
link |
which is what I'm going to recommend that you do,
link |
not drinking caffeine past two and certainly not 4 p.m.
link |
if you're on a typical schedule
link |
and you want to be able to sleep that night,
link |
even if you can fall asleep,
link |
having too much caffeine in your system is not good
link |
because it disrupts the architecture of sleep.
link |
And now knowing about all the metabolic variability
link |
across the night, according to different stages of sleep,
link |
it should be even more obvious
link |
as to why disrupting the architecture of sleep
link |
will be bad for you.
link |
So limit that caffeine intake to early in the day
link |
and don't go ballistic if you're not,
link |
certainly don't go ballistic in any case,
link |
but for most people,
link |
anywhere from 100 to 400 milligrams of caffeine
link |
is going to have this effect.
link |
And this effect again is a slow accumulating effect
link |
by drinking caffeine consistently day to day.
link |
I get my caffeine mainly from yerba mate tea.
link |
I want to emphasize that it's probably a good idea
link |
to stay away from the smoked mate,
link |
as there's some evidence those can be carcinogenic,
link |
but I brew my own yerba mate tea,
link |
or sometimes I'll drink coffee or espresso
link |
or sometimes both, frankly,
link |
as long as I'm hydrating enough and I'm getting enough salt,
link |
then I tend to feel fine with that much caffeine.
link |
The other way to increase dopamine
link |
and to make sure that your baseline levels of dopamine
link |
are high enough is to make sure that you're eating
link |
sufficient numbers of tyrosine-rich foods.
link |
You can look up which foods include tyrosine.
link |
Tyrosine is a precursor to dopamine.
link |
It's an amino acid that is a direct pathway
link |
to dopamine synthesis.
link |
And tyrosine foods include things like certain meats,
link |
Parmesan cheese, very high in tyrosine, for instance.
link |
In fact, there's something called the cheese effect,
link |
believe it or not.
link |
I don't want to go too far off topic,
link |
but the cheese effect is kind of interesting
link |
because certain people will take antidepressants
link |
that are so-called MAO inhibitors,
link |
monoamine oxidase inhibitors.
link |
Anytime you hear ASE, that's an enzyme,
link |
they will take these inhibitors that prevent
link |
the breakdown of dopamine and other so-called catecholamines
link |
which allow more dopamine to be in circulation.
link |
But if these people eat certain cheeses,
link |
including Parmesan cheese, and there are other foods,
link |
of course, that include not just tyrosine,
link |
but one of the derivatives of tyrosine called terramine,
link |
that generates what's called the cheese effect,
link |
which is people get potent migraines, headaches,
link |
blood pressure goes up.
link |
Well, because they've got a lot of tyrosine in their system
link |
and dopamine in their system,
link |
and they've got less of the enzyme that removes
link |
that dopamine or limits its action.
link |
And so they have an excess of dopamine
link |
and dopamine has effects on blood pressure, et cetera.
link |
So the cheese effect is something to avoid.
link |
If you are somebody who's taking drugs that tap into
link |
or manipulate the dopamine pathway,
link |
either for Parkinson's or depressions,
link |
obviously you're going to want to be careful about adjusting
link |
up or down levels of dopamine too potently.
link |
So mind the cheese effect if you're taking an MAO inhibitor.
link |
There's a lot of information about this online.
link |
For most people, eating foods like Parmesan cheese,
link |
eating foods like certain meats and certain vegetables
link |
also can increase tyrosine levels,
link |
which will increase dopamine synthesis.
link |
So these are ways of modulating more or less the baseline
link |
of dopamine that you are able to produce
link |
and the ways that dopamine can have its action
link |
by way of binding to receptors more potently.
link |
Now, there are other ways to increase dopamine
link |
in a more acute or directed way,
link |
ways to spike your dopamine to enhance your state
link |
of motivation, mood, focus, and so on.
link |
And in thinking about the vast landscape of tools
link |
that can do that, we have one category of tools,
link |
which are the really, really bad things
link |
that I don't recommend anybody do.
link |
In fact, I recommend nobody do ever,
link |
which are things like cocaine, methamphetamine, et cetera.
link |
They are incredibly destructive for lives
link |
because of the way that they so potently increase dopamine
link |
and then the crash in dopamine that occurs later.
link |
I mean, they can indeed and often do ruin lives.
link |
So we're leaving those off the table.
link |
There are of course, prescription drugs that many people in,
link |
especially people who have clinically diagnosed ADHD,
link |
attention deficit hyperactivity disorder,
link |
rely on and in fact benefit from in many cases,
link |
things like Ritalin, Adderall, Vyvanse.
link |
Nowadays, there's also a lot of interest
link |
in use of things like modafinil or modafinil.
link |
I covered all of those in the episode on ADHD,
link |
and you can find that at hubermanlab.com
link |
and the other places this podcast is found.
link |
Prescription drugs aside,
link |
because they require a prescription and a discussion
link |
that's in depth and appropriate with your physician,
link |
healthcare provider,
link |
there are supplements that can very potently
link |
increase dopamine as well.
link |
Perhaps not to the extent
link |
that some of those other prescription drugs can,
link |
but certainly to a degree that will impact
link |
and increase dopamine and motivation
link |
and the other states dopamine is associated with.
link |
And the two main categories of supplements
link |
that are very effective in raising dopamine,
link |
and here I should provide the caveat
link |
that anytime you're going to add or remove anything
link |
from your supplementation protocols,
link |
please talk to a physician
link |
who is knowledgeable on these topics.
link |
If you're somebody who has or is taking drugs
link |
for depression or mania,
link |
please be very cautious about manipulating your dopamine
link |
I don't just say that to protect us,
link |
I say that to protect you.
link |
But if we were to look at the supplement landscape
link |
and ask which supplements increase dopamine,
link |
there are a vast number of them,
link |
but the three main ones,
link |
the most effective ones that are readily available out there
link |
without a prescription are macuna prurines.
link |
This is actually the outside of a velvety bean
link |
that has been extracted and put into a supplement.
link |
Macuna prurines is actual L-DOPA.
link |
It's 99% L-DOPA, which is a prescription drug
link |
that is given for Parkinson's and for other purposes
link |
where increasing dopamine is important.
link |
I don't recommend macuna prurines.
link |
I'm not saying that no one should take it,
link |
but I don't take it and I don't recommend it
link |
because it tends to so potently
link |
and acutely increase dopamine
link |
that there's a pretty substantial crash afterwards.
link |
So I avoid it and I don't generally suggest
link |
that anyone take it unless there's really a clinical need
link |
or they're working very closely with somebody
link |
that can really monitor that.
link |
The other two supplements that can increase dopamine
link |
in a short-term way, but in a significant way,
link |
So you can buy that as a supplement amino acid.
link |
I sometimes take this.
link |
I would say I probably take it about once a week maximum
link |
for workouts or workouts.
link |
I'll take it in dosages of anywhere from 500 milligrams
link |
to 1,000 milligrams.
link |
People vary tremendously in their sensitivity
link |
to supplementing L-tyrosine.
link |
I know people that can take two grams.
link |
I know people that can barely take 100 milligrams.
link |
I know people that the best dose for them is zero milligrams.
link |
So there's a lot of variation there
link |
depending on sensitivity
link |
and their natural baseline levels of dopamine
link |
and whether or not they're doing a lot of other things
link |
to support dopamine.
link |
But nonetheless, taking L-tyrosine will lead
link |
to fairly substantial increases in dopamine
link |
within about 15 to 45 minutes.
link |
And it lasts for about 30 minutes to two hours.
link |
And then there's kind of a tapering off.
link |
Some people experience a little bit of an emotional
link |
or, and, or I should say energetic crash.
link |
Some people don't.
link |
And then the other supplement that I certainly use
link |
and that I know a number of other people use
link |
is more fast acting, but more potent,
link |
which is phenylethylamine.
link |
This relates to the so-called PEA molecule, P, P-E-A.
link |
And phenylethylamine increases dopamine
link |
and some metabolites related to dopamine
link |
in ways that really increase energy
link |
and feelings of wellbeing and motivation.
link |
And again, it's fast acting.
link |
So my particular protocol,
link |
the one I use is I'll take phenylethylamine
link |
at dosages of about 300 to 600 milligrams
link |
along with some L-tyrosine,
link |
or I'll take it on its own with a molecule,
link |
or I should say a compound
link |
that we'll talk about a little bit later
link |
as it relates to acetylcholine alpha GPC.
link |
But tyrosine and phenylethylamine taken alone or together
link |
will make you feel more motivated and more alert,
link |
more willing and able to lean into
link |
particular motivated behaviors,
link |
whether or not they're physical or cognitive.
link |
If you'd like to learn more about these compounds
link |
and their supplementation and their effects,
link |
I encourage you to check out
link |
the ever valuable website, examine.com.
link |
It's zero cost to access and they provide references
link |
and some more details about these sorts of compounds
link |
and other related compounds.
link |
Now, if we were going to look at behavioral tools
link |
for potently increasing dopamine,
link |
that too is a vast landscape.
link |
And we know based on hundreds, if not thousands of studies,
link |
that things like winning at some sort of competition
link |
or succeeding in reaching a goal
link |
can certainly increase dopamine.
link |
We talk a lot about this in the episode
link |
on dopamine motivation and drive, but leaving that aside,
link |
there are certain behavioral protocols
link |
that are unrelated to your overall goals and motivations
link |
that can increase dopamine in a very sustained way.
link |
And without question,
link |
the most potent behavioral tool for doing that
link |
is going to be deliberate cold exposure.
link |
Deliberate cold exposure has been talked about a lot here
link |
and elsewhere in terms of its ability to do things
link |
like reduce inflammation as a way to test
link |
and improve resilience because uncomfortable cold,
link |
provided it's applied safely,
link |
is a great way to learn to be more resilient
link |
because you're essentially staying
link |
or forcing yourself to stay in a circumstance
link |
where your system is flooded with adrenaline.
link |
But one lesser known aspect of deliberate cold exposure
link |
is one that's been demonstrated quite convincingly in humans.
link |
It comes from a study published in the year 2000.
link |
I'll link to this study.
link |
I love this study, by the way.
link |
I covered it many times on this podcast
link |
because I love it so much and I think it's truly important.
link |
And that's the study from Sramak et al.
link |
entitled Human Physiological Responses to Immersion
link |
into Water of Different Temperatures.
link |
I'm not going to go into this into a ton of detail
link |
for sake of time, but basically what they show
link |
is that putting people into cold water,
link |
and I should mention the water that they used in this study
link |
They had a bunch of different conditions,
link |
but they had people that got into, for instance,
link |
60 degree Fahrenheit water for up to two hours,
link |
had them sitting there in a lawn chair up to their neck,
link |
had very long sustained increases in dopamine transmission
link |
and dopamine circulation in their brain and body.
link |
And also some of the other catecholamines.
link |
As I mentioned before, dopamine tends to collaborate
link |
with epinephrine and vice versa.
link |
Now you don't need to put yourself
link |
into 60 degree Fahrenheit water
link |
to get these kinds of sustained increases.
link |
And you certainly don't need to do it for two hours.
link |
We have strong reason to believe,
link |
based on subsequent studies,
link |
in fact, published just this last year,
link |
that getting into much colder water of say 50 degrees
link |
or 55 degrees or even 45 degrees Fahrenheit
link |
can potently increase dopamine and epinephrine as well.
link |
And that you don't need to expose yourself
link |
to that cold water for nearly as long.
link |
So perhaps even as short as one minute
link |
or even 30 seconds exposure to really cold water
link |
can lead to these potent long lasting increases in dopamine.
link |
Many people will ask which protocols to follow.
link |
For instance, will a cold shower suffice?
link |
Very likely yes, if your shower gets cold enough.
link |
Do you need ice floating in the bath?
link |
No, it's all about the temperature
link |
and not whether or not there's ice present or not.
link |
How long to stay in there?
link |
There are a lot of details
link |
that we don't have time to go into this episode.
link |
Please see the episode on the use of deliberate cold
link |
for health and performance.
link |
You'll find that at hubermanlab.com.
link |
We have a newsletter related to this.
link |
It gets into a lot of detailed protocols.
link |
But in general, we can say that the way to evoke dopamine
link |
and epinephrine release using cold water
link |
is to ideally you would do cold water immersion.
link |
If you can't, you'd use cold shower.
link |
But you want to use a temperature that is safe,
link |
meaning you're not going to have a heart attack,
link |
but that is uncomfortable
link |
such that you really want to get out
link |
and then staying in for anywhere from one minute
link |
to 10 minutes, depending on how cold adapted you are,
link |
and then getting out and drying off
link |
and going about your day
link |
unless you have some other protocol
link |
that you're trying to extract from the cold.
link |
So this is a cold exposure protocol
link |
specifically aimed at increasing dopamine.
link |
For some people out there, you might think,
link |
this is kind of silly,
link |
using cold water to increase dopamine.
link |
But when you look at the data in humans
link |
on the effect of cold water exposure
link |
to stimulate long lasting,
link |
very significant increases in dopamine and epinephrine,
link |
I think you'll agree that this is a really potent tool
link |
that provided it's given safely and gone about safely
link |
is giving you the kinds of increases in dopamine
link |
that you would seek using prescription pharmacology.
link |
Now, it shouldn't be used as a replacement
link |
for prescription pharmacology,
link |
although people have done that to success.
link |
One of the previous guests on the Huberman Lab podcast
link |
was Dr. Anna Lemke,
link |
our director of the Dual Diagnosis Addiction Clinic
link |
She has an amazing book called Dopamine Nation,
link |
all about dopamine and both its uses healthy
link |
and its perils in things like addiction.
link |
And she describes a patient of hers
link |
that used deliberate cold exposure
link |
to try and maintain dopamine levels
link |
while coming off of drugs
link |
that were increasing dopamine so potently
link |
that they were putting him down the path of addiction.
link |
So the use of cold water for increasing dopamine
link |
It's, I would say, a power tool.
link |
In fact, it's the kind of thing
link |
that if you want to increase dopamine
link |
for sake of motivation,
link |
it might be your first go-to
link |
provided you're also doing the things
link |
to maintain dopamine baseline,
link |
like sunlight exposure in particular,
link |
making sure you're getting sufficient amounts of tyrosine
link |
containing foods and so on.
link |
And now just very briefly,
link |
I want to point to a few quick tools
link |
that good peer-reviewed data tell us can be leveraged
link |
in order to make sure that you have sufficient dopamine
link |
when you want it or that it's available
link |
for it to be released
link |
by any number of the tools I provided thus far.
link |
And those are sufficient number of B vitamins.
link |
So it turns out that B vitamins,
link |
in particular B6 or vitamin B6,
link |
can potently reduce prolactin levels.
link |
And again, prolactin and dopamine
link |
tend to work in kind of push-pull fashion.
link |
That said, you should be cautious
link |
about taking excessive levels of B6.
link |
It is a vitamin that if you take too much,
link |
you'll likely excrete it through your urine,
link |
but there is evidence
link |
that having excessively high levels of B6
link |
or supplementing with excessively high levels of B6
link |
can cause some peripheral neuropathy,
link |
some death of nerves in the periphery.
link |
If you want to know what dosage levels are relevant there,
link |
just simply look it up online.
link |
There's a lot of information about this,
link |
but you do want to make sure
link |
that you're getting enough B6, B12, et cetera,
link |
such that you can keep prolactin levels in check.
link |
And if you suspect that you have a dopamine deficiency,
link |
please talk to your doctor
link |
and talk to them about ways
link |
you might adjust that prolactin down
link |
and thereby dopamine up.
link |
The other way to ensure that dopamine levels stay high
link |
or put differently that you don't quash
link |
whatever dopamine you have in your system
link |
is to really avoid bright light exposure to your eyes
link |
between the hours of 10 p.m. and 4 a.m.
link |
Or another way of putting this,
link |
because I realize people sleep at different times, et cetera,
link |
is to avoid bright light exposure to your eyes,
link |
not just blue light, but all colors of light,
link |
in phase three, that is 17 to 24 hours after waking up,
link |
because that's really when you should be asleep
link |
or trying to get asleep if you're having trouble sleeping.
link |
Work from Samir Hattar's lab,
link |
the director of the Chronobiology Unit
link |
at the National Institutes of Mental Health,
link |
again, a previous Huberman Lab podcast guest,
link |
tell us that bright light exposure
link |
in phase three of your circadian cycle,
link |
17 to 24 hours after waking,
link |
can have dramatic effects in reducing dopamine levels
link |
by way of activating a neural circuit
link |
involving something called the habenula.
link |
Want to get into too many details right now,
link |
but really try and keep the lights dim
link |
in the middle of the night or off if you can do that safely.
link |
It's really going to help
link |
if you're turning on your phone brightly,
link |
if you're turning on bright lights,
link |
it's not just going to negatively impact melatonin,
link |
the hormone that helps you fall and stay asleep,
link |
it's also going to negatively impact dopamine levels,
link |
not just that night, but the subsequent day.
link |
So that more or less summarizes our coverage
link |
of ways to use behavior and supplementation and nutrition
link |
to increase dopamine and dopamine receptor efficacy
link |
and number, and to keep sufficient amounts of dopamine
link |
in your system day to day for motivation, mood, and focus.
link |
And of course, keep in mind those things
link |
that can suppress dopamine, the bright light exposure,
link |
elevated prolactin, and so on.
link |
My hope is that by understanding those tools
link |
and how they work and understanding
link |
that dopamine does certain things and not others,
link |
that you can assemble a versatile kit of behaviors
link |
and other things that you can do
link |
in order to adjust your dopamine levels
link |
according to your particular goals.
link |
I want to just briefly return to the fact, however,
link |
that all of that is riding on that phase one,
link |
phase two background,
link |
meaning it's probably going to take less cold water exposure
link |
or I should say less time doing cold water exposure
link |
early in the day to get a big increase in dopamine
link |
than it would later in the day,
link |
because later in the day,
link |
your baseline levels of dopamine are lower
link |
and you've got more serotonin circulating.
link |
That should make sense to you now as to why that's the case.
link |
And does that mean that you should really modify
link |
your protocols dramatically?
link |
Probably not, but you might keep that in mind
link |
that if, for instance,
link |
you need to be in a highly motivated focused state
link |
in the late part of the day for whatever reason,
link |
it might take a few or more of these tools in combination
link |
in order to accomplish that.
link |
Whereas if you're somebody
link |
who feels pretty good during the day,
link |
but you're kind of lacking motivation
link |
and you want to increase dopamine levels
link |
and you don't yet need to
link |
or want to resort to prescription drugs or supplementation,
link |
well, then you might layer in a couple behavioral protocols,
link |
paying attention to, of course,
link |
the things that you might be doing
link |
that would also potentially suppress dopamine.
link |
So again, that kit of tools is designed for you
link |
to play with if you choose, if it's safe for you,
link |
to apply them, then do that.
link |
Consider doing them individually,
link |
not trying to hit all the tools all at once, right?
link |
I mean, why throw all those tools
link |
at your dopamine system at once?
link |
Better would be to have those tools in your kit
link |
and be able to deploy them
link |
depending on whether or not you're on travel,
link |
whether or not you're eating well or less well,
link |
whether or not you're sleeping well or less well,
link |
that's highly individual.
link |
And I like to think that in having those tools in hand,
link |
you'll be able to adjust them and apply them
link |
in the ways that allow you to access
link |
the dopamine increases that you're after.
link |
So next I'd like to talk about epinephrine,
link |
also called adrenaline.
link |
I want to point out that epinephrine is released
link |
both in the brain and the body.
link |
In fact, there's a barrier between brain and body
link |
that prevents the epinephrine
link |
that's released from your adrenal glands
link |
from crossing the blood-brain barrier.
link |
So your brain has a separate site called the locus coeruleus.
link |
This is a collection of neurons in the back of the brain
link |
that kind of sprinkler the rest of the brain
link |
with epinephrine and essentially wakes up
link |
whatever neural circuits happen to see,
link |
or I should say wake up any circuits
link |
where that epinephrine happens to arrive, right?
link |
And generally increase the excitability of those networks.
link |
That's why we say epinephrine increases energy.
link |
I'm not talking about caloric energy,
link |
although that's distantly related to this,
link |
but really energy and the desire to move,
link |
the feeling that we can think,
link |
the feeling that we can be alert.
link |
In fact, if you look at somebody
link |
and their eyelids are wide open,
link |
that's because of a lot of adrenaline in their system.
link |
If their pupils are really big
link |
and their eyes are really wide open in general,
link |
that means they have a lot of epinephrine circulating there.
link |
Whereas when we're tired and we're kind of hood-eyed
link |
and we're just sort of sleepy
link |
or our pupils are really small,
link |
in general, that's because levels of epinephrine
link |
and also dopamine, remember they work together,
link |
levels of epinephrine and dopamine tend to be lower.
link |
This is also why when people take any drug,
link |
like again, not recommending this amphetamine or cocaine
link |
or any stimulant, their pupils tend to be huge,
link |
their eyes tend to be wide open,
link |
they don't blink very often,
link |
and the opposite is true when people take sedatives.
link |
So it all starts to make sense
link |
when you think about the basic actions of these things.
link |
For many people, increasing adrenaline or epinephrine
link |
might seem like a crazy idea.
link |
Most people probably associate this molecule with stress
link |
and they would like to be less stressed.
link |
And we've done entire episodes about stress,
link |
how to master stress, how to leverage stress,
link |
how to conquer stress.
link |
There are a lot of great tools to do that
link |
that are behavioral, supplementation-based.
link |
Please see the episode on mastering stress for those tools.
link |
But there are people, including me,
link |
that want to increase our levels of epinephrine
link |
at least early in the day.
link |
I'm somebody who wakes up rather slowly.
link |
In fact, right after waking up,
link |
I rarely want to bounce out of bed.
link |
I try and push myself to do that.
link |
I'm always impressed by these choco-willink types
link |
that are up at 430 or up at five and already into action.
link |
I tend to be kind of thinking about thinking about
link |
maybe being in action early in the day.
link |
But I try and push myself to get into action,
link |
which itself can increase epinephrine.
link |
I should mention that any physical activity,
link |
any physical activity, walking, running,
link |
weightlifting, swimming, even talking for that matter,
link |
is going to increase levels of epinephrine.
link |
Locus coeruleus is a brain structure
link |
that is tightly coupled with behaviors
link |
in a bi-directional way.
link |
That is when you are in action,
link |
you increase the amount of epinephrine
link |
released from locus coeruleus, you wake up the brain.
link |
And conversely, when locus coeruleus is active,
link |
the brain wakes up.
link |
So it's reciprocal.
link |
It goes both directions.
link |
So I saw a funny tweet actually earlier today.
link |
It was something like going to the gym gives you energy,
link |
but you need energy to go to the gym.
link |
Sounds like a pyramid scheme to me,
link |
which made me chuckle,
link |
but of course overlooks the fact that indeed,
link |
if you have energy,
link |
you are more likely to be willing to get
link |
into physical movement or cognitive movement
link |
and thinking hard or thinking a lot about something.
link |
But also it is absolutely scientifically proven
link |
that being in action increases levels of epinephrine.
link |
This is why exercising early in the day
link |
gives you more energy for rest of day.
link |
You still might experience a little bit of a crash
link |
especially if you're getting up extra early,
link |
or if you're drinking caffeine too close to waking.
link |
I've talked about this before.
link |
If you drink too much caffeine close to waking,
link |
you're going to have an afternoon crash.
link |
Better to push that caffeine intake out
link |
about 90 to 120 minutes after waking.
link |
I know this is really painful for certain people,
link |
but caffeine does increase epinephrine.
link |
Caffeine does other things to limit sleepiness.
link |
And by pushing it out 90 to 120 minutes after waking,
link |
you will avoid the afternoon crash to a large degree.
link |
And if you get up and you exercise
link |
or even do any movement of any kind,
link |
a hundred jumping jacks or a walk if you can't do that,
link |
anything like that will increase the total amount
link |
of epinephrine that you secrete into your bloodstream
link |
and in your brain and will get you more energy,
link |
not just in that moment, but throughout the day.
link |
So keep that in mind.
link |
Exercise does indeed give you energy.
link |
It burns caloric energy,
link |
but it gives you neural energy by way of increasing
link |
epinephrine transmission from locus coeruleus.
link |
And presumably if the exercise is intense enough,
link |
adrenaline epinephrine release from the adrenals
link |
within your body as well.
link |
So we have exercise and we have caffeine as potent tools
link |
for increasing epinephrine and thereby energy.
link |
Another potent tool that's purely behavioral,
link |
but is known to work based on excellent studies in humans.
link |
And actually my laboratory has been doing similar types
link |
of studies that are soon to be published.
link |
We hope is so-called cyclic hyperventilation.
link |
Some of you may be familiar with Wim Hof breathing.
link |
There's also Tummo breathing,
link |
which is very similar Kundalini breathing.
link |
All of those styles of breathing involve
link |
cyclic hyperventilation,
link |
deep inhales and either passive exhales or active exhales,
link |
but repeating inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale
link |
in a very deep and repetitive way.
link |
If you were to do that right now,
link |
doesn't matter if you do it through your nose or mouth,
link |
although ideally you would do the inhale through your nose
link |
and the exhale through your mouth.
link |
If you did that for 25 repetitions,
link |
25 inhales and exhales, you would feel more alert.
link |
You'd also feel more warm, why?
link |
Because you increased epinephrine adrenaline release
link |
in the brain and body.
link |
It works the first time and it works every time
link |
to increase epinephrine and thereby energy.
link |
And in fact, there are protocols
link |
and great scientific studies
link |
of using cyclic hyperventilation for periods of minutes,
link |
if not longer, where for instance,
link |
you would do 25 big inhales and exhales
link |
followed by a brief breath hold with your lungs empty,
link |
then repeat 25, then brief breath hold, excuse me, exhale,
link |
hold your lungs empty,
link |
and then repeat again for a third round if you like.
link |
If you do that over and over, you're going to be very alert.
link |
You're going to have more energy.
link |
You're going to feel like you want to move around
link |
In fact, you might even feel agitated.
link |
So people with a lot of anxiety or prone to panic attack
link |
might want to be cautious in how they train
link |
and embark on that type of breathing,
link |
might want to approach it a little more carefully
link |
or avoid it altogether.
link |
But for most people, cyclic hyperventilation
link |
is simply going to get you more energized
link |
and feeling like you want to move,
link |
feeling like you can think more clearly
link |
and you will be more wide-eyed and alert
link |
because you are releasing adrenaline.
link |
And the cold water exposure protocol
link |
that I talked about earlier,
link |
and that's covered in our episode on cold
link |
and in the newsletter on cold.
link |
Well, that, as I mentioned earlier,
link |
potently increases dopamine, but also epinephrine.
link |
So that's another terrific tool,
link |
whether or not it's applied by cold shower or cold immersion
link |
or some other thing like cryo,
link |
that is going to make you more alert
link |
because it releases adrenaline.
link |
Now, we can't really say that there are foods
link |
to increase epinephrine.
link |
Rather, there are foods that include a lot of tyrosine
link |
that will increase dopamine.
link |
And remember, dopamine is the molecule
link |
from which epinephrine is synthesized.
link |
So we can't really point to a particular food
link |
or categories of food for increasing epinephrine.
link |
I think caffeine and things like it
link |
will increase epinephrine.
link |
There are, of course, prescription drugs
link |
that will increase epinephrine.
link |
And of course, there are all sorts of so-called beta blockers
link |
that will block the receptors for epinephrine
link |
to make you feel calm for public speaking
link |
or for various heart conditions, et cetera.
link |
That's really the domain of physicians
link |
and should really be worked out with your cardiologist,
link |
with a physician, et cetera.
link |
I think the tools of exercise
link |
and should you want very potent increases in adrenaline,
link |
high-intensity exercise,
link |
as well as the tools of caffeine, cyclic hyperventilation,
link |
and deliberate cold exposure,
link |
really combined to give you a nice little kit,
link |
I would say a versatile kit,
link |
of ways to increase epinephrine
link |
for sake of having more physical and mental energy.
link |
So next is the neuromodulator acetylcholine.
link |
And as I mentioned earlier,
link |
acetylcholine is associated with states of focus.
link |
And those states of focus
link |
can be high-energy states of focus.
link |
So the ones that are accompanied
link |
by high levels of dopamine and epinephrine
link |
and where we're really excited about
link |
and really lasered in on something,
link |
or they can be the calmer, more relaxed states of focus,
link |
like reading a book or practicing music
link |
or listening very carefully to somebody
link |
in a way that's relaxed and calm.
link |
And yet nonetheless, where we have a narrow cognitive
link |
and typically a narrow visual aperture,
link |
and typically also a narrow auditory aperture,
link |
that is our auditory system and our visual system
link |
and our thinking can be very broad.
link |
It can be all over the place,
link |
or it can be very narrow and it can be very focused.
link |
Acetylcholine is released from two major sites in the brain,
link |
nucleus basalis, which is in the forebrain,
link |
and extends connections out to many different brain areas
link |
to offer the opportunity to release acetylcholine locally
link |
and more or less in a chemical way,
link |
highlight those particular neurons and synapses
link |
for strengthening for plasticity later.
link |
And it is released from sites in the back of the brain
link |
in a way that can increase the so-called fidelity
link |
of information coming in through our eyes,
link |
our ears, our nose, et cetera.
link |
What do I mean by fidelity?
link |
Well, we are constantly being bombarded
link |
with sensory information through all of our various senses.
link |
And acetylcholine released from this area
link |
in the back of the brain has the ability
link |
to increase the extent to which say visual information
link |
or just visual and auditory information
link |
would make it through to our consciousness,
link |
whereas all the other types of sensory information
link |
that are coming in are filtered out.
link |
So your brain, because it's taking in all this information,
link |
needs to decide what to pay attention to.
link |
And in this way, we can say that acetylcholine
link |
has a lot to do, not just with focus and air quotes,
link |
but literally attention,
link |
which neural signals become relevant to our consciousness.
link |
There's a whole discussion to be had there,
link |
and we don't have time for that.
link |
Rather, I'd like to focus on what are the tools
link |
that one can use to maintain healthy baselines
link |
of acetylcholine and increase acetylcholine
link |
for sake of learning any type of information,
link |
physical, cognitive, or otherwise.
link |
Now, it turns out there've been a lot of studies,
link |
including many quality peer-reviewed studies
link |
carried out in humans,
link |
looking at what happens when you increase acetylcholine
link |
levels in the brain,
link |
and you accompany that with the attempt to learn.
link |
And what you find almost always
link |
is that people experience increased focus,
link |
that when measured,
link |
the neuronal responses become more specific,
link |
so less broad scale activity in the brain
link |
and more specific neural circuit activity,
link |
and that this triggers immediate and long-lasting changes
link |
in the way those circuits work,
link |
even when acetylcholine is not being deployed,
link |
so-called neuroplasticity,
link |
the circuits literally change.
link |
The work of Michael Silver at Berkeley,
link |
the work of Mike Merzenich at UCSF,
link |
the work of Michael Kilgard down in Texas,
link |
all of those laboratories see this again and again and again.
link |
Increase acetylcholine before and during learning,
link |
and there's a much higher probability
link |
that the learning will quote unquote sink in,
link |
that the information will be retained
link |
because those neural circuits change.
link |
Now, ways to increase acetylcholine in a potent way
link |
include, again, nutrition and supplementation.
link |
It is important to have baseline levels of acetylcholine
link |
be sufficiently high as well.
link |
And for that, really the ideal situation
link |
is to regularly ingest foods
link |
that provide enough of the precursors
link |
for acetylcholine to be made.
link |
If you go online and you were to do a search
link |
of which foods contain a lot of choline,
link |
which is related to the synthesis of acetylcholine,
link |
you would get some interesting information back.
link |
For instance, beef liver
link |
is the most potent source of choline.
link |
I know nowadays there's kind of a growing micro trend,
link |
if you will, of ingesting beef liver, even raw liver,
link |
which to be honest,
link |
the thought of ingesting raw liver of any kind
link |
activates my area of postrema,
link |
which is the area of the brain that triggers nausea.
link |
In fact, I'm starting to salivate a bit,
link |
not because I'm hungry,
link |
but I think the whole concept makes me ill.
link |
Nonetheless, cooked liver or raw liver for that matter,
link |
or liver of any kind seems to contain a lot of choline.
link |
I realize most people,
link |
most people are not going to be running out
link |
and ingesting large amounts of beef liver.
link |
Eggs contain a lot of choline, beef contains choline,
link |
soybeans contain choline.
link |
So there are vegan or non-meat sources.
link |
Chicken, fish, mushrooms, kidney beans,
link |
these sorts of things contain a lot of choline
link |
and there are other vegetables that contain choline.
link |
So depending on your dietary preferences and needs,
link |
you can select certain foods to ingest
link |
to get enough choline to synthesize
link |
enough baseline acetylcholine.
link |
In the realm of supplementation,
link |
there are some excellent tools for increasing acetylcholine
link |
in the acute short term,
link |
meaning over the course of about 30 minutes
link |
out to about two hours or maybe even four hours.
link |
And the number of different molecules that can do that
link |
that are available without a prescription,
link |
at least in the US, is pretty vast.
link |
The most common of those molecules is actually nicotine.
link |
Nicotinic acetylcholine receptors are abundant
link |
throughout the body and brain.
link |
They're in various brain circuits.
link |
They are on muscle and yes, smoking nicotine
link |
either by vaping or cigarette
link |
will activate those nicotinic receptors.
link |
But of course, smoking is a terrible thing.
link |
It will also activate things like lung cancer.
link |
So I definitely don't recommend that.
link |
It also activates addiction because of the ways
link |
that it triggers activation of the dopamine circuit.
link |
So I think that triggering activation
link |
of acetylcholine related pathways by ingesting nicotine
link |
by way of inhalants is generally a bad idea.
link |
However, some people will chew Nicorette
link |
or other nicotine type gums.
link |
I've never done that,
link |
but I have friends who actually rely on that.
link |
These are typically former smokers
link |
that are trying not to smoke,
link |
but still want to get some of the focus enhancement
link |
that they experienced from nicotine.
link |
Some people are very sensitive to nicotine,
link |
and this is important.
link |
Some people are very sensitive to ingested nicotine.
link |
So nowadays there are nicotine dipped toothpicks.
link |
There of course is nicotine gum
link |
and other sources of nicotine.
link |
Some people can take that and feel fine.
link |
Some people take it and feel absolutely terrible.
link |
I confess I've never actually tried nicotine
link |
in any of those forms.
link |
So I don't know how they work for me,
link |
but some people do use them as cognitive enhancers.
link |
In fact, I know one Nobel prize winning neuroscientist
link |
who's quite well known in our field
link |
for chewing Nicorette all day long.
link |
He insists that it really helps him with his focus
link |
and he is exceedingly smart and productive.
link |
Although I'm sure there are other reasons for that.
link |
Supplements that I have used and do use
link |
for increasing acetylcholine
link |
are things like Alpha-GPC or Hooperzine.
link |
Alpha-GPC is in the choline pathway
link |
such that more acetylcholine is synthesized
link |
after you ingest it.
link |
That's the general logic or framework of how it works.
link |
Whereas Hooperzine is mainly in the enzymatic pathway.
link |
It tends to adjust how much acetylcholine is broken down
link |
and lead to net increases in acetylcholine.
link |
I will often take 300 milligrams of Alpha-GPC
link |
prior to workouts or prior to cognitive work bouts.
link |
But when I say often, I tend to do this anywhere
link |
from three to four times a week, typically not every day.
link |
Although there are people,
link |
including people who are trying to offset
link |
age-related cognitive decline
link |
that will take 300 milligrams of Alpha-GPC
link |
three times a day every day,
link |
which closely mimics some of the studies
link |
that have been done on humans
link |
looking at offsetting age-related cognitive decline
link |
using things like Alpha-GPC.
link |
I should point out that there have been a few studies,
link |
a few, not many, but these studies emphasize
link |
that people who take a lot of Alpha-GPC chronically
link |
over time may be at increased risk for stroke.
link |
I think the data are still out on that
link |
and we need more data.
link |
But for me, in terms of thinking about
link |
the risk benefit profiles,
link |
taking 300 milligrams of Alpha-GPC
link |
most certainly does increase my ability of focus.
link |
I've noticed that I tend to take it alongside caffeine
link |
and phenylethylamine, so I take that in combination
link |
either before workouts or work bouts,
link |
really sharpens my focus.
link |
And again, I'm doing that three, maybe four times per week.
link |
And I'm careful to do that in the early part of the day
link |
so that it does not disrupt my sleep.
link |
Although I have taken Alpha-GPC in the second half
link |
of the day and I had no trouble sleeping at all.
link |
I don't know what the exact half-life is
link |
of the given form that's typically in supplementation.
link |
It's actually hard to get that information,
link |
but typically the focus effects wear off
link |
after about two, maybe four hours maximum.
link |
Now, one thing that I don't think
link |
has ever been discussed before,
link |
certainly not on this podcast,
link |
is that if you take Alpha-GPC even semi-regularly,
link |
you may notice that a particular feature
link |
of your blood work will increase,
link |
and that's TMAO, which is sometimes associated
link |
with increased cardiovascular risk.
link |
This may, again, may relate to some of the potential risk
link |
of very high levels of Alpha-GPC ingestion over many years,
link |
increasing stroke risk.
link |
Again, those studies looked at people
link |
who've been taking it for up to a decade.
link |
But in any case, one way to prevent the increase in TMAO
link |
if you're taking Alpha-GPC at all
link |
is to take 600 milligrams of garlic
link |
because it contains something called allicin.
link |
This was a trick that was handed off to me
link |
by Dr. Kyle Gillette,
link |
who again was a guest on this podcast some time ago
link |
talking about hormones and hormone health.
link |
Turns out that ingestion of 600 milligrams of allicin
link |
alongside or even just same day as Alpha-GPC
link |
can really clamp those TMAO levels
link |
that would otherwise increase if you're taking Alpha-GPC.
link |
And indeed, I've done the blood work
link |
and that turns out to be the case.
link |
I saw a spike in TMAO.
link |
I started taking 600 milligrams of garlic
link |
and those TMAO levels came down.
link |
And last as it relates to acetylcholine,
link |
but certainly not least,
link |
just as acetylcholine can increase focus,
link |
focus can increase acetylcholine.
link |
I talked a lot about this in the episode on focus,
link |
but there are behavioral tools
link |
that you can use to enhance focus.
link |
Things like staring at a particular visual target
link |
at the same distance at which
link |
you're going to perform some work
link |
and doing that for 30 to 60 seconds,
link |
narrowing in a very deliberate way your visual field,
link |
and then moving into a focused work bout.
link |
That behavioral practice of narrowing your visual aperture
link |
will increase the amount of acetylcholine transmission
link |
in particular neural circuits
link |
that will then make it easier to focus.
link |
How do we know that?
link |
Well, I covered in that episode
link |
some of the peer-reviewed studies
link |
that relate to protocols that are now actively being deployed
link |
in schools in China and elsewhere,
link |
where kids are doing deliberate visual focus exercises
link |
in order to increase their mental focus.
link |
And while they're not doing micro dialysis
link |
or brain imaging on those kids in real time,
link |
the cognitive effects and indeed the performance effects
link |
in terms of academic ability and output
link |
are pretty impressive.
link |
So acetylcholine increases focus.
link |
We talked about some dietary
link |
and some supplementation based ways
link |
to improve acetylcholine,
link |
or I should say increase acetylcholine.
link |
And that does in fact lead to increases
link |
in one's ability to focus.
link |
This is why a lot of the prescription drugs
link |
for the treatment of Alzheimer's,
link |
age-related cognitive decline,
link |
and indeed even some of the drugs
link |
that tap into treatments for ADHD
link |
also involve the acetylcholine system.
link |
So there's nothing surprising or heretical here,
link |
but it is important to point out
link |
that your behavioral ability to focus
link |
is also related to your ability to access
link |
and deploy acetylcholine.
link |
So never do we want purely pharmacologic treatments
link |
to be the only way that people are increasing
link |
a given neuromodulator.
link |
I always say behaviors first,
link |
then nutrition, then supplementation.
link |
And then if there's a need, certainly a clinical need,
link |
then prescription drugs, et cetera,
link |
of course administered through a physician.
link |
So let's discuss serotonin.
link |
Serotonin, as I mentioned earlier,
link |
is associated with brain and body states
link |
of wellbeing, of comfort, of satiety.
link |
And therefore it should come as no surprise
link |
that a lot of the prescription drug treatments
link |
for things like depression
link |
involve increasing levels of serotonin
link |
in the brain and body.
link |
That said, anytime you talk about prescription drugs
link |
for serotonin, we also want to acknowledge
link |
that there are often side effects
link |
associated with increasing serotonin.
link |
In particular, if serotonin levels go too high,
link |
that is if the dosages of those treatments go too high,
link |
people will, for instance,
link |
feel reduced appetite, reduced libido,
link |
increased lethargy, et cetera.
link |
And there's a so-called serotonergic syndrome.
link |
All of that can and should be considered
link |
with a well-trained physician.
link |
So because there are prescription drugs
link |
controlling the dosage, deciding what dosage to take,
link |
deciding which SSRI to take,
link |
and whether or not to come off those drugs,
link |
how to come off those drugs.
link |
Again, all of that should be handled
link |
with a licensed physician.
link |
That said, there are behavioral tools,
link |
nutritional tools, and supplementation tools
link |
that can tap into the serotonin system,
link |
not to the same degree in potency,
link |
but nonetheless in ways that can still impact
link |
our feelings of wellbeing in positive ways.
link |
So let's focus first on the behavioral tools.
link |
And some of these might make people chuckle a little bit,
link |
but I want to point out that a lot of these tools
link |
In fact, they are power tools for modulating serotonin.
link |
And we know that based on human neuroimaging studies,
link |
human and animal micro dialysis studies,
link |
and other studies that really have evaluated
link |
circulating levels of serotonin
link |
and the particular brain circuits that release serotonin
link |
when people do certain things.
link |
What sorts of things?
link |
Well, for instance, physical contact,
link |
in particular with loved ones,
link |
this can be romantic love, this can be children,
link |
so your own children, or your spouse,
link |
even if it's not sexual contact,
link |
friend to friend contact, even friend to animal contact.
link |
As a former dog owner, I hope to have another dog soon
link |
because unfortunately Costello passed away,
link |
but there is something really comforting and wonderful
link |
about petting your dog.
link |
And certainly given that many of the studies on serotonin
link |
and these other neuromodulators were done on animal models,
link |
we also know that serotonin is being evoked in the dog
link |
and of course in the child
link |
and in the significant other, et cetera.
link |
So things like holding hands, believe it or not,
link |
hugs, cuddling, et cetera,
link |
can increase serotonin transmission
link |
and they make people feel good.
link |
This shouldn't really come as a surprise.
link |
There's also gratitude.
link |
And we did an entire episode about gratitude.
link |
There's a lot of misunderstanding about gratitude.
link |
Oftentimes when people hear gratitude, they think,
link |
oh, gratitude, this is just being thankful for what you have
link |
and it's kind of a weak sauce effect,
link |
meaning it's kind of like maybe a little serotonin goes up
link |
or maybe there's a little bit of increased feelings
link |
Nothing could be further from the truth.
link |
It turns out, first of all,
link |
that receiving, not giving gratitude,
link |
is what has the most potent effects on increasing serotonin
link |
and activity of the brain circuits that involve serotonin
link |
and that lead to increases in feelings of wellbeing.
link |
So this is interesting.
link |
Receiving much more than giving gratitude
link |
is what activates those serotonergic pathways.
link |
So the takeaway from that is both give and receive gratitude
link |
and of course do it in an authentic way.
link |
The other thing about gratitude
link |
that's somewhat counterintuitive
link |
is that observing others giving and receiving gratitude
link |
is immensely powerful for evoking serotonin
link |
and the activity of serotonergic circuits in you,
link |
So receiving and observing gratitude
link |
turns out to be the most potent way
link |
to increase serotonin in the brain and body.
link |
And these, again, are dramatic effects
link |
that are quite long lasting and not the sorts of effects
link |
that are going to lead to side effects,
link |
at least there's no reason to think they would.
link |
Now, what about nutritional approaches
link |
to increasing serotonin?
link |
Well, just as we have tyrosine as an amino acid precursor
link |
upstream of dopamine synthesis,
link |
we have the amino acid tryptophan,
link |
which is upstream of serotonin synthesis.
link |
And one simply has to go online
link |
and put in tryptophan-containing foods
link |
and you will discover that there are a lot of foods
link |
that are enriched in tryptophan
link |
that can lead to net increases in the amount of serotonin
link |
available in the brain and body.
link |
The most kind of famous or infamous of these
link |
is white meat turkey, the so-called tryptophan effect,
link |
where people get very sleepy after eating white meat turkey
link |
and it is indeed highly enriched in tryptophan.
link |
Although typically the getting sleepy after eating turkey
link |
is most often associated with the Thanksgiving meal
link |
and the Thanksgiving meal, at least in the US,
link |
is often associated with people vastly overeating.
link |
And so I do want to point out
link |
that if you fill your gut with food,
link |
no matter what that food is,
link |
there's going to be a diversion of blood to your gut
link |
that's going to make you feel sleepy
link |
because there's a diversion of blood away from other tissues.
link |
So if you eat a lot, you're going to get sleepy, period,
link |
whether or not you eat turkey or some other substance.
link |
Nonetheless, there are a number of foods
link |
that contain a lot of tryptophan
link |
and that some people will leverage
link |
in order to try and increase
link |
the total amount of circulating serotonin available to them
link |
in order to have a modest increase
link |
in overall mood and wellbeing.
link |
So what are some of these foods?
link |
These are things like milk, in particular, whole milk,
link |
I know a number of people choose not to drink milk
link |
because they're lactose intolerant.
link |
I'm raising my hand because I'm one such person.
link |
Although when I was a kid, I did enjoy milk.
link |
Canned tuna, turkey, as we mentioned before,
link |
high in tryptophan, oats.
link |
I am a consumer of oatmeal, so that resonates with me.
link |
Cheese, and here I read,
link |
although not as high in tryptophan
link |
as meat and other dairy sources,
link |
certain cheeses like cheddar cheeses
link |
can be rich in tryptophan.
link |
Certain nuts and seeds, certain breads.
link |
Chocolate, I know a number of people
link |
will be relieved to hear that.
link |
I know chocolate lovers are always looking
link |
for an excuse to eat chocolate.
link |
I confess I've never really liked chocolate,
link |
except, dare I say, I like the smooth 100% chocolates.
link |
I know many people gag when they hear 100%.
link |
I actually really liked them.
link |
And some fruits can be highly enriched in tryptophan.
link |
Things like bananas and apples and things of that sort,
link |
although not nearly to the degree of things
link |
like turkey, canned tuna, and milk.
link |
I'm sure there are other excellent sources of tryptophan
link |
from the diet, including vegan sources.
link |
So please peruse the internet to try and find the sources
link |
that are compatible with your nutritional program,
link |
if indeed your goal is to increase tryptophan.
link |
Now, there are supplements that can increase tryptophan
link |
and can do so quite potently.
link |
One of the ones that has received increasing attention
link |
as of lately is Sissus quadranglearis, complicated name.
link |
When taken in dosages of about 300 to 600 milligrams
link |
can pretty dramatically increase serotonin levels.
link |
In fact, anywhere from 30% to 39% increases
link |
in circulating serotonin, that's a big increase.
link |
And I can provide a link to that study.
link |
The study was focused not so much on serotonin,
link |
but was focused mainly on treatment of obesity
link |
and appetite and weight loss.
link |
And it should come as no surprise that serotonin,
link |
if increased, might lead to decreases in appetite.
link |
A cautionary note, Sissus quadranglearis
link |
may need to be cycled.
link |
How quickly to cycle it,
link |
meaning do you do two weeks on, two weeks off,
link |
whether or not you need to do more rapid cycling,
link |
like two days on, two days off, is a matter of debate.
link |
There are not a lot of data on this just yet.
link |
There are a lot of opinions about this on the internet,
link |
but again, not a lot of quality peer review data.
link |
Nonetheless, Sissus quadranglearis has been shown
link |
to importantly increase serotonin in humans.
link |
And for people that are seeking to increase serotonin,
link |
maybe in particular, for sake of appetite and weight control,
link |
that might be a useful compound.
link |
I know many people also take 5-HTP,
link |
one of the precursors to serotonin,
link |
in dosages of anywhere from 300 to 500 milligrams.
link |
Typically, people are doing this in anticipation of sleep,
link |
meaning in the final hour of wakefulness
link |
before going to sleep.
link |
I myself have tried 5-HTP prior to sleep,
link |
and all I can tell you is that it led to very deep sleep
link |
for about one to three hours,
link |
and then I woke up and I could not fall back asleep.
link |
I ran that experiment twice
link |
before I decided to abandon 5-HTP as a sleep aid,
link |
and that's why I've never put it into our sleep kit,
link |
or at least my sleep kit.
link |
And when I refer to the sleep kit,
link |
that's something you can find at HubermanLab.com.
link |
This is a zero-cost resource
link |
where you can see behavioral tools
link |
and also supplementation tools
link |
that can improve the transition time into
link |
and the depth of sleep,
link |
and none of those rely on 5-HTP supplementation.
link |
That said, I know a number of people
link |
use 5-HTP supplementation outside of sleep,
link |
or I should say during the daytime,
link |
to try and increase serotonin,
link |
and it will indeed increase circulating serotonin.
link |
But again, people vary in their sensitivity
link |
to these sorts of things.
link |
Some people might find, for instance,
link |
that 300 milligrams of 5-HTP is just far too much.
link |
It blunts their appetite, might even reduce libido.
link |
There aren't a lot of very well-controlled studies
link |
and so it has to be figured out on an individual basis
link |
if you decide to approach it at all.
link |
Now, one molecule that I've found
link |
to be particularly interesting and useful,
link |
and this is one that I haven't talked about yet
link |
on this podcast, is inositol, in particular, myoinositol.
link |
Myoinositol can have the effect of increasing serotonin
link |
and other neurochemicals,
link |
but primarily, at least in terms of the neuromodulators
link |
discussed today, serotonin.
link |
I've been taking 900 milligrams of myoinositol
link |
every third night or so
link |
as a test of its ability to improve sleep,
link |
and I have to say, the depth and quality of sleep
link |
that I've been obtaining on myoinositol
link |
is pretty remarkable.
link |
In fact, I've used it alone,
link |
and in combination with the magnesium-3-N-8
link |
apigenin-theanine sleep kit that I've talked about,
link |
and that's included in that, again, zero-cost kit
link |
that's available as a PDF on our website.
link |
So myoinositol is known to increase circulating levels
link |
It has been explored extensively in both animal models
link |
and in humans for its daytime use for treating anxiety.
link |
It does seem to reduce anxiety,
link |
and for all sorts of things.
link |
It's been explored for bipolar disorder.
link |
We're going to do an episode
link |
about bipolar disorder coming up.
link |
It's been explored for the treatment of migraine.
link |
It's been explored for ADHD.
link |
It's been explored for a huge number
link |
of different conditions of brain and body.
link |
Again, I've been using the 900 milligrams of myoinositol
link |
in the 30 to 60 minutes before sleep to improve my sleep,
link |
and it has been doing that very dramatically,
link |
especially when I take it alongside the rest
link |
of those sleep kit supplements.
link |
A quick note about myoinositol
link |
for sake of increasing serotonin.
link |
If you look at the human studies on myoinositol
link |
that are out there,
link |
and in particular focus on the human studies,
link |
what you'll find is that the dosages that are often used
link |
are tremendously high.
link |
It's like five grams, eight grams,
link |
18 grams of myoinositol taken throughout the day.
link |
I don't know how people stomach that,
link |
and in fact, many people drop out of those studies
link |
because of gastric discomfort,
link |
and yet I also wonder how people tolerate it
link |
because it has somewhat of a sedative effect,
link |
and it's kind of anti-anxiety effect,
link |
and I can't even imagine,
link |
given my experience with 900 milligrams,
link |
what one would experience taking multiple
link |
or many more grams per day.
link |
So I certainly am not encouraging that,
link |
and the only reason I mentioned myoinositol
link |
is that it has a known effect of increasing serotonin.
link |
At least in my experience,
link |
it does not lead to this falling deeply asleep
link |
and waking back up.
link |
Actually to the contrary,
link |
if I wake up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom
link |
or I wake up in the middle of the night
link |
for whatever other reason,
link |
I find it far easier to fall back asleep
link |
if I've taken 900 milligrams inositol prior to sleep.
link |
So for me, it's proving to be a quite useful compound.
link |
I'm not aware of having any serotonergic deficiency overall.
link |
I don't consider myself depressed.
link |
And of course, I should mention that no supplement,
link |
either added or withdrawn from your protocol,
link |
should ever be used as a direct replacement
link |
for prescription drug treatments
link |
that your physician has given you.
link |
You should always talk to your physician
link |
anytime you remove or add something to your drug protocol
link |
or prescription protocol, of course.
link |
So we've got behavioral protocols that,
link |
as silly as it feels to say,
link |
have been shown to potently increase serotonin,
link |
things like physical contact, cuddling, holding hands
link |
with people that you love, of course, right?
link |
I think if there were people that you despised,
link |
it would have the opposite effect for obvious reasons,
link |
but also receiving gratitude and observing gratitude,
link |
very potent increases in serotonin.
link |
And things like cystis quadrangularis,
link |
things like 5-HTP may have their uses, right?
link |
They're very potent at increasing serotonin,
link |
but they do seem to have the need to cycle them
link |
and they are nuanced.
link |
Some people respond well to them.
link |
Others, like myself, don't.
link |
And of course, always be on the lookout for dramatic
link |
or even subtle decreases in appetite or libido
link |
or things that you might not want
link |
if you are going to be tinkering
link |
with your serotonergic levels and pathways.
link |
And then myoinositol actually is proving
link |
to be quite useful to me.
link |
And whether or not that's because of its effects
link |
on serotonin or through some of its other effects
link |
on maybe reducing anxiety,
link |
which certainly I experience
link |
if I wake up in the middle of the night,
link |
I don't like waking up in the middle of the night,
link |
but on myoinositol, I sort of seem to not really care
link |
that I woke up and I fall right back asleep.
link |
So the direct source of the positive effects
link |
that I'm getting aren't clear,
link |
but nonetheless, I thought I'd pass it along
link |
as a useful tool because it is out there
link |
and it is available over the counter
link |
and provided you're taking the appropriate safety steps
link |
in considering whether or not to use it or not,
link |
I think it might be a useful tool.
link |
And of course, as with all the other neuromodulators
link |
we discussed, you have both a baseline of serotonin
link |
and the ability to give or provide yourself peaks
link |
of serotonin through these various protocols.
link |
The dietary interventions of the sort that I mentioned,
link |
meaning eating foods that are enriched in tryptophan,
link |
those are mainly going to adjust
link |
your baseline levels of tryptophan.
link |
For instance, if you really want to be sleepy,
link |
sure, you could eat some white meat turkey
link |
in hopes that that tryptophan will convert to serotonin
link |
and make you sleepy, et cetera.
link |
But in general, those are going to be
link |
pretty long lasting effects,
link |
especially given the fact
link |
that not all of the tryptophan you will ingest
link |
is going to be converted into serotonin in your brain.
link |
It's going to have other effects
link |
on other tissues and organs of your body.
link |
Nonetheless, if you want to increase serotonin,
link |
providing the appropriate baseline context
link |
is going to be useful.
link |
And again, this is a general theme
link |
of all four of these neuromodulators,
link |
dopamine, epinephrine, acetylcholine, and serotonin.
link |
You want to make sure
link |
that you have sufficient baseline levels of those things
link |
through things like diet, regular behaviors,
link |
and then you have the opportunity to use supplementation,
link |
and if it's appropriate for you,
link |
prescription drugs and certain behavioral protocols
link |
to try and get these potent increases,
link |
these acute increases in whichever the neuromodulators
link |
you happen to want to leverage for your particular goals.
link |
So that brings us to the end
link |
of at least this exploration of the neuromodulators,
link |
dopamine, epinephrine, acetylcholine, and serotonin.
link |
Some of you who are regular listeners of this podcast
link |
might be saying, well, we've heard all this before, right?
link |
You had an episode on dopamine.
link |
You had an episode on anxiety.
link |
You had an episode on sleep.
link |
And indeed that's true.
link |
But what I've tried to provide today is a framework
link |
that cuts through all those episodes
link |
and at the same time builds out a new
link |
and what I believe to be a really important theme
link |
and principle, which is that whether or not
link |
you're using nutritional tools or supplementation
link |
or prescription drugs or any other sort of protocol
link |
to try and create a desired effect of focus or energy,
link |
motivation, relaxation,
link |
you're playing with the same neurochemical ingredients,
link |
just as in the realm of nutrition, you have macronutrients,
link |
you have proteins, carbohydrates, and fats
link |
that can be adjusted in different ratios
link |
and arranged at different times
link |
in order to achieve certain desired effects.
link |
Well, when it comes to your neurochemistry
link |
and your ability to perform mentally,
link |
to perform physically, and your overall wellbeing,
link |
you are dealing with a small handful
link |
of especially potent molecules.
link |
And I acknowledge that there are many neuromodulators,
link |
there are indeed many neurotransmitters,
link |
glutamine, glycine, GABA, et cetera.
link |
But today we focused on the main four,
link |
meaning the most potent and most widespread neuromodulators
link |
in the brain and body that give you access
link |
to particular brain states and body states
link |
of the sort that most people desire.
link |
So what I'm hoping is that rather than decide
link |
that any one tool is the most useful
link |
or that any one neurochemical is most useful
link |
for that matter, that the information
link |
that I've provided today allows you a kit of versatile tools
link |
that allows you to figure out what levels of dopamine
link |
and augmentation of dopamine are appropriate
link |
and necessary for you.
link |
What levels of acetylcholine
link |
and tools for manipulating acetylcholine
link |
are going to be most useful for you,
link |
and so on and so forth.
link |
Because at least at this stage in time,
link |
that is June, 2022, there is no simple at-home test.
link |
In fact, there is no simple laboratory test
link |
that allows us to know whether or not
link |
our dopamine levels are high
link |
and our serotonin levels are low.
link |
We can look at somebody and their behavior.
link |
We can look at ourselves and our own mood and behavior,
link |
and we can infer what those levels may or may not be.
link |
But unfortunately, we don't have a really good test
link |
of dopamine levels or serotonin levels
link |
that would allow us to say, okay, this person
link |
or I need to increase dopamine twofold
link |
in order to achieve the kind of motivation that we want.
link |
Unfortunately, that doesn't exist.
link |
Rather, we are confronted with a situation
link |
where we understand generally
link |
what these different neuromodulators do,
link |
the different mental states and physical states
link |
that they tend to put us into, and we reviewed those.
link |
And we know that there are really potent tools
link |
to adjust those neuromodulators, if not alone,
link |
but in certain combinations.
link |
That is, ingestion of caffeine will tap into
link |
and support dopamine and epinephrine.
link |
Increasing dopamine and epinephrine
link |
alongside increasing acetylcholine
link |
will allow us to access certain brain states.
link |
That is focused, alert, energized brain states,
link |
great for learning and plasticity of all kinds,
link |
whereas augmenting serotonin is going to put us
link |
into a more relaxed state and so on and so forth.
link |
And I'd like you to keep in mind
link |
that there is no negotiating the fact
link |
that we all have different phases of our 24-hour cycle
link |
during which those very same neuromodulators
link |
tend to be naturally higher or naturally lower.
link |
And I reviewed that at the beginning of the episode.
link |
So my wish for you is that you will take this information,
link |
experiment with it as you see fit for you and in a safe way,
link |
and as you go forward to really try and gain intuition
link |
and understanding as to not just how these protocols work,
link |
but how any protocol that you might encounter,
link |
supplement-based, drug-based, behavioral-based,
link |
how those might tap into
link |
these different major neuromodulator systems,
link |
and from that, to be able to better predict and evaluate
link |
whether or not they're going to be useful to you,
link |
detrimental to you,
link |
or whether or not they should be used in combinations
link |
that would be more useful to you.
link |
If you're learning from and are enjoying this podcast,
link |
please subscribe to our YouTube channel.
link |
That's a terrific zero-cost way to support us.
link |
In addition, please subscribe to the podcast
link |
on Spotify and Apple.
link |
And on both Spotify and Apple,
link |
you can leave us up to a five-star review.
link |
If you have feedback for us,
link |
or you have topics or guests that you'd like us to cover
link |
on the Huberman Lab Podcast,
link |
please put that in the comments section on YouTube.
link |
We do eventually read all those comments,
link |
and that's the best place to give us that sort of feedback.
link |
In addition, please check out the sponsors mentioned
link |
at the beginning of today's episode.
link |
That's the best way to support this podcast.
link |
During today's episode, we talked a lot about supplements.
link |
While supplements aren't necessary for everybody,
link |
many people derive tremendous benefit from them.
link |
As mentioned at the beginning of today's episode,
link |
we partnered with Momentous Supplements
link |
because they're extremely high quality,
link |
they ship internationally,
link |
they are available in the dosages
link |
and single ingredient formulations
link |
that are ideal for building a supplementation protocol.
link |
You can find all those at livemomentous.com slash Huberman.
link |
If you're not already following us on social media,
link |
we are Huberman Lab on Twitter and Huberman Lab on Instagram.
link |
There, I cover science and science-based tools,
link |
some of which overlap with the content
link |
of the Huberman Lab Podcast,
link |
but much of which is distinct
link |
from the content of the Huberman Lab Podcast.
link |
And if you're not already subscribing to our newsletter,
link |
we have a neural network newsletter, as it's called.
link |
It comes out about once a month.
link |
We provide summaries,
link |
we provide protocols based on podcast episodes.
link |
All of that is zero cost to access.
link |
You just go to HubermanLab.com, go to the menu,
link |
click on newsletter, and you can sign up.
link |
We do not share your email with anybody
link |
and our privacy policy is there.
link |
In fact, if you want to see previous newsletters,
link |
they are available without having to sign up in PDF form,
link |
also at HubermanLab.com under the newsletter tabs,
link |
things like a toolkit for sleep
link |
and a neuroplasticity super protocol,
link |
all available as immediately downloadable PDFs.
link |
So I'd like to thank you once again for joining me today
link |
in our discussion about these incredibly powerful molecules
link |
we call neuromodulators and the things we can do and take
link |
in order to control them so that we can enhance
link |
our mental health, physical health, and performance.
link |
And last, but certainly not least,
link |
thank you for your interest in science.