Andrew Huberman: Sleep, Dreams, Creativity & the Limits of the Human Mind

Lex Fridman (01:16.640)

review it on our podcast, follow on Spotify,

Andrew Huberman (01:19.560)

support it on Patreon, or connect with me

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on Twitter at Lex Friedman.

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And now, here's my conversation with Andrew Huberman.

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Why do humans need sleep?

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Let's go with a big first question.

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Okay, well, the answer I'll start with

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is the one that I always default to

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when there's a why question,

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which is I wasn't consulted at the design phase.

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So I wriggle my way out of giving a absolute answer, right?

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But there's one mechanism that's very clear

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that's super important,

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which is that the longer we are awake,

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the more adenosine accumulates in our brain.

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And adenosine binds to adenosine receptors,

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no surprise there,

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and it creates the feeling of sleepiness

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independent of time of day or night.

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So there are two mechanisms.

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One is we get sleepy as adenosine accumulates.

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The longer we've been awake,

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the more adenosine has accumulated in our system.

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But how sleepy we get for a given amount of adenosine

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depends on where we are in this so called circadian cycle.

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And the circadian cycle

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is just this very, very well conserved oscillation.

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It's a temperature oscillation

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where you go from a low point.

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Typically, if you're awake during the day

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and you're asleep at night,

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your lowest temperature point will be like 3 a.m., 4 a.m.,

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and then your temperature will start to creep up

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as you wake up in the morning,

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and then it'll peak in the late afternoon,

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and then it'll start to drop again toward the evening,

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and then you get sleep again.

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That oscillation in temperature takes 24 hours.

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Plus or minus.

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Plus your temperature.

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Yeah, plus or minus an hour.

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And I don't,

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even though I wasn't consulted at the design phase,

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I do not think it's a coincidence

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that it's aligned to the 24 hour spin of the Earth

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on its axis.

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The fact that we tend to be bathed in sunlight

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for a portion of that spin,

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and in darkness for the other portion of that spin.

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So there are two mechanisms,

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the adenosine accumulation and the circadian time point

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that we happen to be at.

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And those converge to create a sense

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of sleepiness, awakefulness.

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The simple way to reveal these two mechanisms,

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to uncouple them, is stay up for 24 hours,

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and you will find that even though you've been,

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let's say you stay up midnight, 2 a.m., 3 a.m.,

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provided you're on a regular schedule,

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like that I follow, not like the kind that you follow,

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I will get very sleepy around 3, 4 a.m.,

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but then around 5 or 6 or 7 a.m.,

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which is my normal wake up time,

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I'll start to feel more alert,

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even though adenosine has been accumulating further.

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So adenosine is higher for me the longer I stay up,

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and yet I feel more alert than I did a few hours ago.

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And that's because these are two interacting forces.

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So adenosine makes you sleepy,

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and then just how sleepy or how awake you feel

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also depends on where you are

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in this temperature oscillation that takes 24 hours.

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Okay, so that's fascinating.

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So there's a bunch of oscillations going on,

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and then they kind of, through the evolutionary process,

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have evolved to all be aligned somewhat,

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and they interplay.

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So you said your body temperature goes up and down.

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There's chemicals in your brain that oscillate,

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and then there's the actual oscillation

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of the sun in the sky.

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So all of that together has some impact on each other,

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and somehow that all results in us

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wanting to go to sleep every night.

Lex Fridman (04:57.300)

Right, so, and we can get right into the meat of this,

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so I guess we just dove right in,

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but the temperature oscillation

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is the effector of the circadian clock.

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So every cell in our body has a 24 hour rhythm

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that's dictated by genes like clock, purr, BMAL.

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This is one of the great successes of biology.

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They give a Nobel prize to Rappert,

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I don't know if Rappert got it, forgive me,

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but sorry if you got it, Steve, congratulations.

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If you didn't, I'm sorry, I wasn't on the committee.

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Nonetheless, did beautiful work, Steve Rappert and others,

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but Mike Roshbosh and other people worked out

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these mechanisms in flies and bacteria and mammals.

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There are these genes that create 24 hour oscillations

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in gene expression, et cetera, in every cell of our body.

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But what aligns those is a signal

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from the master circadian clock,

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which sits right above the roof of the mouth,

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called the suprachiasmatic nucleus.

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And that clock synchronizes all the clocks of the body

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to this general temperature rhythm

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by way of controlling systemic temperature,

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which makes perfect sense.

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If you want to create a general oscillation

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in all the tissues and organs of the body, use temperature.

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And so that work on temperature,

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if people want to explore it further,

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was Joe Takahashi, who was at Northwestern,

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now at UT Southwestern in Dallas.

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And it is absolutely clear that humans do better

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on a diurnal schedule, sorry, Lex,

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than a nocturnal schedule, because you could say,

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well, provided I sleep and push adenosine back downhill,

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which is what happens when we sleep,

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adenosine is then reduced.

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And provided I am on more or less a 24 hour schedule,

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why should it matter that I'm awake when the sun's out

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and I'm asleep when the sun is down?

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But it turns out that if you look at health metrics,

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people that are strictly nocturnal do far worse

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on immune function, on metabolic function, et cetera,

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than people who are diurnal,

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who are awake during the daytime.

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And animals that are nocturnal, it's the opposite.

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And animals that are so called crepuscular,

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which tend to be active at dawn and at dusk,

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this is a beautiful system, I won't go down that rabbit hole,

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but these are animals whose visual systems operate best.

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They tend to be predators like mountain lions.

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They have optimized their waking times

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for the times when the animals they eat

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can't see well in those light conditions.

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But given the rod cone ratios in their eyes,

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that the mountain lion is picking off.

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It's like when you see a special forces

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and they are looking through night vision goggles

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and they have a clear advantage, right?

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They are seeing in the dark.

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That's basically what it's like to be a mountain lion

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as opposed to a bunny rabbit.

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Would you say that a lot of these cycles evolved

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in the predator prey relationships

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of the different throughout the food chain?

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So it's basically all somehow has to do with survival

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in this complicated web of predators and prey.

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Almost certainly, there had to have been a time

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in which humans being awake and active at night,

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as opposed to during the day,

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led to higher levels of lethality.

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And probably particular in kids,

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you imagine kids running around in the dark

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and getting that where there are a lot of animals

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that can see really well under those conditions

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and humans can't.

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And this would be all preelectricity.

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Even if you're carrying a torch,

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I mean, the range of illumination on a torch

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is nothing compared to what a nighttime predator,

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like a large cat or something can do.

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I mean, they basically, they can see everything they need to

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in order to eat us and not the other way around.

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So one fascinating thing you said

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is that blew my mind and we went right past it,

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which is the temperature is a really powerful,

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like if you were to think about the ways

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that different parts of the body,

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different systems in the body

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would communicate with each other,

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temperature would be a really good one.

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And that just, I mean, maybe it's obvious,

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but it kind of blew my mind just now

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that yeah, these systems are all distributed.

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And they have to kind of,

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they're not actually sending signals,

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but they're coordinating.

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They need some sort of universal thing to look at

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in order to coordinate.

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And temperature is a nice one to build around.

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And that way you could control the behavior

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of all these different systems

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by controlling the temperature.

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Right, it's attractive to think of a mechanism

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where this master circadian clock secretes a peptide

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or something that goes and locks to receptors

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in all the cells and gets it just right.

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But that leaves far too much room for variability,

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binding affinities, cells in a lot of parts of our body

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are at different stages of maturation.

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They're turning over liver cells and so forth.

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And for instance, we have a clock in our gut

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and in our liver such that if we were just take out

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your liver and put it on a table

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and just look at the expression of these genes,

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it would be in a 24 hour oscillation on its own.

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It's independent, but something has to entrain them

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and keep them all synchronized.

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And so it's not obvious that it would be temperature.

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Takahashi's great gift to biology was to show

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that all the stuff coming out of this master circadian clock

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at the end of the day, that's a weird statement,

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no pun intended, at the end of the day and the night,

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at the end of the story, it all boils down to making sure

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that the temperature of tissues oscillates

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in the same fashion.

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That's blowing my mind and thinking like

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what other mechanism could possibly exist

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to create that kind of oscillation.

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Well, you're Russian, it's cold in Russia

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for a lot of the year.

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The hibernation signal in certain animals

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is a remarkable signal.

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There are peptides secreted from this very same clock

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that in animals like ground squirrels or bears,

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they go into a kind of a torpor

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where everything, reproduction, metabolism,

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everything is reduced while they're in their cave.

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They don't actually stay asleep all of winter.

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That's a myth.

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And they actually do these very dramatic

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and periodic arousals from hibernation

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where they just shake and shake and shake.

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It looks like a seizure.

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And then they go back under into the torpor.

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That's from a peptide that's released.

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But that's different

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because that's about shutting down the whole system.

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It's clear that having these very regular oscillations

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every 24 hours is essential for everything

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from metabolism to reproduction.

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Is there an optimal temperature for sleep

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that I should mention?

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I think your latest episode,

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you and people should go check out

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helixsleep.com slash Huberman to support Andrew.

Andrew Huberman (11:29.420)

Thanks for the plug.

Lex Fridman (11:30.460)

I mean, the amazing thing about this stuff

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that you're creating,

Lex Fridman (11:34.940)

oh, and yes, you have a new podcast.

Andrew Huberman (11:37.020)

That's amazing.

Lex Fridman (11:37.840)

In this past month, you did a whole series on sleep,

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which people should definitely check out.

Lex Fridman (11:44.080)

There's some podcasts that come out

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that just make me want to be a better human being

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by just the quality.

Andrew Huberman (11:53.280)

Three Blue One Brown, Grant Sanderson is like that for me.

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Just like, wow, this is education is best.

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So Andrew symbolizes that, captures that brilliantly.

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So go support the sponsor

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so he doesn't stop doing the thing.

Lex Fridman (12:09.060)

So I think they have a cooling pad too.

Lex Fridman (12:11.820)

So the 8 Sleep Mattress sponsors me.

Lex Fridman (12:17.580)

They sent me a mattress and it's been,

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I've never, listen, I used to sleep on the floor.

Lex Fridman (12:23.280)

Sleep where you fall.

Andrew Huberman (12:24.540)

Sleep where I fall.

Lex Fridman (12:25.460)

I don't give a shit.

Andrew Huberman (12:26.340)

It doesn't really matter.

Lex Fridman (12:27.860)

But so like, I would have never bought a nice mattress

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because it's like, why?

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I'm fine.

Andrew Huberman (12:33.980)

This is a floor, it's fine.

Lex Fridman (12:35.740)

But it was a game changer to be able to control temperature.

Andrew Huberman (12:40.420)

Like for me, it's cooling.

Lex Fridman (12:43.060)

I don't know what the hell it is.

Andrew Huberman (12:44.500)

Well, you want the brain and nervous system

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and rest of the body needs to drop

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by about anywhere from two to three degrees

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in order to get into your deepest sleep

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and transition to sleep.

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That's really going to help.

Andrew Huberman (12:55.060)

You don't want to be cold that you're bothered

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and can't fall asleep.

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But that's why some people like it really cold in the room

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and under a warm blanket or with socks on,

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for some people that can be good

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because this temperature oscillation is such

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that as your temperature is dropping,

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that correlates generally with the most sleepy phase

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of your circadian cycle.

Lex Fridman (13:16.180)

So cool is better for falling and staying asleep

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and sleeping deeply.

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And then I guess like that's what 8 Sleep showed.

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They have like an app is it warms back up to wake you up.

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The idea that I haven't actually used it.

Andrew Huberman (13:29.620)

I'm like, this is stupid.

Lex Fridman (13:32.720)

People say it works,

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but I just keep it the same temperature throughout the night

Lex Fridman (13:36.900)

but warming it up, I guess wakes you up,

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which is fascinating.

Lex Fridman (13:42.600)

Yeah, because the wake up signal is,

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it's interesting to think about it's not just correlated

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with an increase in body temperature.

Andrew Huberman (13:49.020)

The increase in body temperature

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is triggering the release of cortisol from your adrenals.

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And that's the wake up signal.

Lex Fridman (13:55.380)

Do you think it's absolute temperatures we're talking about

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or is it just even relative?

Lex Fridman (13:59.220)

Just even just the decrease.

Andrew Huberman (14:00.820)

Well, everyone's gonna have

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slightly different basal temperature.

Andrew Huberman (14:03.300)

The idea that everybody should be 98.6.

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I mean, that's a myth.

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And there are theories that body temperature overall

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has been dropping in the last 50 years or so.

Andrew Huberman (14:12.020)

I doubt that's true for somebody who is athletic like you

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and is young and healthy.

Lex Fridman (14:17.340)

But basically the coldest period of that 24 hour cycle

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is when you are going to be sleepiest.

Andrew Huberman (14:24.820)

There's actually a period within that 24 hour cycle,

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it's a time point called your temperature minimum.

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And your temperature minimum tends to be about two hours

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before your typical wake up time.

Andrew Huberman (14:36.180)

I'm not talking about the wake up time

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in the middle of the night where you go use the bathroom

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or where you set an alarm to go catch a flight.

Lex Fridman (14:40.580)

I mean, if you were to just allow yourself

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to sleep without a clock for a few days,

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measure when you typically wake up,

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two hours before then is your temperature minimum.

Lex Fridman (14:48.620)

And that temperature minimum turns out to be

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a very important landmark in your circadian cycle

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because it turns out that if you get bright light

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in your eyes in the hours immediately

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before your temperature minimum,

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so two to four hours or anytime within the two

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or four hour window before that temperature minimum,

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you are going to what's called delay your circadian clock.

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The next day, that whole oscillation

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is going to move forward.

Lex Fridman (15:18.060)

It'll make you want to go to sleep later and wake up later.

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Whereas if you get bright light in your eyes

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in the hours after that temperature minimum,

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so let's say for me, typical wake up time is 6 a.m.,

Lex Fridman (15:28.660)

my temperature minimum somewhere around 4 a.m.

Andrew Huberman (15:30.780)

If I get bright light in my eyes, 5 a.m., 6 a.m., 7 a.m.,

Lex Fridman (15:34.560)

it's going to advance that oscillation

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so that I'll want to go to bed earlier

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and wake up earlier the subsequent nights.

Lex Fridman (15:41.780)

So you might say, wait, but most nights

Lex Fridman (15:44.100)

I go to sleep and wake up at more or less the same time.

Lex Fridman (15:46.380)

Why is that?

Lex Fridman (15:47.220)

And that's because the same thing

Andrew Huberman (15:48.860)

is happening on both sides.

Lex Fridman (15:49.980)

You are both advancing your clock a little bit

Lex Fridman (15:52.180)

and assuming that you're looking at light in the evening,

Lex Fridman (15:55.140)

you're also delaying your clock a little bit.

Lex Fridman (15:57.100)

So you get kind of captured in between

Lex Fridman (15:58.660)

and then your rhythm more or less oscillates

Andrew Huberman (16:01.140)

at the same period, as we say, as the spin of the earth.

Lex Fridman (16:05.020)

Unless you're like you where you're,

Andrew Huberman (16:07.020)

I get text messages from you sometimes at odd hours

Lex Fridman (16:10.140)

and if you're on the East Coast,

Andrew Huberman (16:12.060)

then I know that you had to have been pulling

Lex Fridman (16:14.180)

basically an all nighter.

Andrew Huberman (16:15.020)

Yeah, yeah, that's the interesting point

Lex Fridman (16:18.340)

about the messiness of sleep.

Lex Fridman (16:21.420)

So most people seem to perform the best

Lex Fridman (16:24.300)

when they have like a regular sleep schedule.

Andrew Huberman (16:28.060)

I perhaps am the same, but I don't know that.

Lex Fridman (16:32.420)

And I tend to believe that you can also perform

Andrew Huberman (16:36.700)

relatively optimally with chaos of sleep,

Lex Fridman (16:40.840)

of like a weird soup of like power naps

Lex Fridman (16:47.500)

and all nighters and all of that,

Lex Fridman (16:49.540)

as long as you're like happy doing what you love.

Lex Fridman (16:56.060)

And maybe you can tell me what you think about this.

Lex Fridman (17:01.780)

So I tend to, for myself, try to minimize stress in life.

Lex Fridman (17:06.540)

So what I found for myself with diet,

Lex Fridman (17:10.780)

with sleep is that if I obsess about it being perfect,

Andrew Huberman (17:15.420)

then I'll actually stress quite a bit when it's not.

Lex Fridman (17:18.620)

Like I'll feel shitty when I don't get enough sleep

Andrew Huberman (17:24.460)

because I know I should be getting more sleep

Lex Fridman (17:27.420)

as opposed to the actual physiological effects

Andrew Huberman (17:30.600)

of not getting enough sleep.

Lex Fridman (17:32.200)

I find if I just accept whatever the hell happens,

Andrew Huberman (17:35.100)

happens and smile and just take it all in,

Lex Fridman (17:39.420)

like David Goggins style, like if it sucks,

Andrew Huberman (17:42.620)

it's even better or what is it,

Lex Fridman (17:45.180)

Jocko's like good or whatever he says.

Andrew Huberman (17:47.300)

I think there are several things

Lex Fridman (17:49.900)

that you said that are important,

Lex Fridman (17:51.060)

but I agree that one can have a dysregulated sleep schedule

Lex Fridman (17:55.760)

and still be a happy person and productive.

Andrew Huberman (17:58.420)

Much of my life, I've pulled all nighters

Lex Fridman (18:00.200)

and slept weird schedules.

Andrew Huberman (18:03.220)

I think many people can probably relate to going to sleep,

Lex Fridman (18:06.520)

waking up four hours later, being up for an hour or two

Andrew Huberman (18:08.820)

on your computer, then going back to sleep

Lex Fridman (18:10.260)

and getting amazing sleep the next day functioning.

Andrew Huberman (18:12.860)

I think it's important that people have highlighted

Lex Fridman (18:17.020)

the importance of sleep and getting enough rest.

Andrew Huberman (18:20.880)

I do think it's gone too far

Lex Fridman (18:22.960)

and now I'm editorializing a little bit,

Lex Fridman (18:24.580)

but I think that we've created this anxiety about sleep

Lex Fridman (18:28.540)

that if we don't sleep enough, we're going to get dementia.

Andrew Huberman (18:30.820)

If we don't get sleep,

Lex Fridman (18:31.660)

then the reproductive access is going to completely crash.

Andrew Huberman (18:36.200)

There's a lot of evidence to the contrary and as well,

Lex Fridman (18:40.700)

just based on personal experience

Lex Fridman (18:42.240)

and based on the fact that sure,

Lex Fridman (18:44.680)

it may be that a solid eight hours

Andrew Huberman (18:46.760)

with no interruptions in there or nine or 10

Lex Fridman (18:50.480)

could do great benefit,

Lex Fridman (18:51.660)

but you can do really well if you do what you say,

Lex Fridman (18:54.460)

which is you wake up,

Andrew Huberman (18:55.960)

you don't want to start stressing about it,

Lex Fridman (18:57.500)

creating this meta stress about sleep.

Andrew Huberman (19:00.020)

Being happy is actually one of the most powerful things

Lex Fridman (19:04.240)

that you can do,

Andrew Huberman (19:05.080)

allowing yourself to go down that rabbit hole of stress

Lex Fridman (19:07.720)

for the following reason.

Andrew Huberman (19:10.000)

A lot of our fatigue is not due just to the buildup

Lex Fridman (19:13.140)

of adenosine or time of day,

Andrew Huberman (19:14.880)

the circadian thing we were talking about earlier.

Lex Fridman (19:16.500)

An additional factor is that effort is related

Andrew Huberman (19:21.420)

to the release of epinephrine,

Lex Fridman (19:22.600)

of adrenaline in our brain and body.

Andrew Huberman (19:25.360)

At some point, those levels get so high

Lex Fridman (19:28.720)

that we get stressed mentally,

Andrew Huberman (19:32.280)

we get stressed physically and we want to give up.

Lex Fridman (19:34.400)

There are good data published in Cell

Andrew Huberman (19:36.200)

showing that that signal, the epinephrine signal,

Lex Fridman (19:39.240)

eventually accumulates and there's a quit point.

Andrew Huberman (19:42.080)

Dopamine, the molecule of pursuit and reward

Lex Fridman (19:45.360)

and feeling good, resets our ability to be in effort.

Andrew Huberman (19:49.820)

In fact, a lot of people don't know this,

Lex Fridman (19:52.240)

but dopamine is actually what epinephrine is made from.

Andrew Huberman (19:56.640)

If you look at the biochemical cascade,

Lex Fridman (19:58.260)

it starts with tyrosine,

Andrew Huberman (19:59.540)

which is found in red meats and things of that sort.

Lex Fridman (1:00:00.640)

or something I've been thinking about doing,

Andrew Huberman (1:00:05.040)

haven't done yet of doing like 72 hours

Lex Fridman (1:00:07.660)

or some people do like five day fasts in general.

Lex Fridman (1:00:11.440)

So this will be for this particular run

Lex Fridman (1:00:13.600)

will be a 48 hour fast if I don't eat at all.

Lex Fridman (1:00:17.640)

What do you think about that for performance,

Lex Fridman (1:00:19.780)

for mood, for all those kinds of things?

Andrew Huberman (1:00:21.960)

I can speak a little bit to the science

Lex Fridman (1:00:23.720)

and a little bit of my own experience

Lex Fridman (1:00:25.320)

and then some anecdotes of people that have done very hard,

Lex Fridman (1:00:28.320)

very long duration things and what they've told me.

Lex Fridman (1:00:30.280)

So I just want to make sure I'm separating those out

Lex Fridman (1:00:32.220)

so people know my sourcing.

Andrew Huberman (1:00:34.120)

I think now none of this is about the actual

Lex Fridman (1:00:37.280)

longterm nutritional benefits of one thing or the other.

Lex Fridman (1:00:40.560)

But if you look at the science on intermittent fasting,

Lex Fridman (1:00:43.340)

it's pretty remarkable.

Andrew Huberman (1:00:45.120)

Before I was at Stanford, my lab was in San Diego.

Lex Fridman (1:00:47.080)

One of my colleagues was such in Panda at the Salk

Andrew Huberman (1:00:50.300)

is phenomenal biologist and researcher,

Lex Fridman (1:00:53.360)

wrote a book called the circadian code.

Andrew Huberman (1:00:54.960)

It's very, very good and kind of popularized

Lex Fridman (1:00:57.600)

intermittent fasting, although there were others

Andrew Huberman (1:00:59.440)

that had talked about this before.

Lex Fridman (1:01:01.840)

Ori Hofmechler talked about the warrior diet.

Andrew Huberman (1:01:04.240)

People probably might not know who Ori is,

Lex Fridman (1:01:06.840)

but he's sort of the originator

Andrew Huberman (1:01:08.720)

of this business of intermittent fasting

Lex Fridman (1:01:11.040)

eating once a day or limited.

Andrew Huberman (1:01:12.540)

Anyway, Sachin has published papers,

Lex Fridman (1:01:15.240)

peer reviewed papers in very good journals

Andrew Huberman (1:01:17.520)

like Cell and elsewhere,

Lex Fridman (1:01:18.920)

showing that limiting the consumption of calories

Andrew Huberman (1:01:22.200)

to eight, four, six, or eight, or even 10 hours

Lex Fridman (1:01:26.800)

of every 24 hour cycle

Lex Fridman (1:01:28.720)

and keeping that more or less correlated with the light

Lex Fridman (1:01:32.920)

with when the sun is out leads to less liver disease,

Andrew Huberman (1:01:37.640)

improved metabolic markers, less body fat, et cetera.

Lex Fridman (1:01:41.720)

In the mouse studies, they even gave the mice the choice

Andrew Huberman (1:01:43.800)

to eat whatever they wanted, as much as they want,

Lex Fridman (1:01:45.760)

as long as they restrict it to a certain period

Andrew Huberman (1:01:48.160)

within the 24 hour cycle, they did great.

Lex Fridman (1:01:51.480)

They maintained a healthy weight or even lost weight.

Andrew Huberman (1:01:53.740)

When they took the same amount of food

Lex Fridman (1:01:55.360)

and they stretched it out across the entire 24 hour cycle.

Lex Fridman (1:01:58.320)

So this is eating every hour or two hours,

Lex Fridman (1:02:00.320)

the animals got fat and sick.

Lex Fridman (1:02:02.320)

So it's pretty remarkable data.

Lex Fridman (1:02:04.560)

How much of that translates to humans isn't clear,

Lex Fridman (1:02:06.560)

but one thing that's really clear with humans is adherence.

Lex Fridman (1:02:10.240)

We could talk a lot about nutrition

Lex Fridman (1:02:11.880)

and some of the problems with the studies on nutrition

Lex Fridman (1:02:14.200)

is that what people will do in a laboratory

Andrew Huberman (1:02:16.160)

is often hard to do in the real world.

Lex Fridman (1:02:18.600)

Low carbohydrate diets just they tend,

Andrew Huberman (1:02:21.400)

because they tend to focus on foods

Lex Fridman (1:02:23.400)

that have high amino acid content like meats.

Andrew Huberman (1:02:27.000)

Generally people are less hungry on those

Lex Fridman (1:02:29.800)

than they are on calorie matched diets

Andrew Huberman (1:02:32.560)

of fruits and vegetables and carbohydrates,

Lex Fridman (1:02:34.720)

because when the insulin goes up,

Andrew Huberman (1:02:36.820)

you get hungry and you want to eat more.

Lex Fridman (1:02:38.520)

So this is not a push for carnivore

Andrew Huberman (1:02:40.720)

or a push against one thing or the other.

Lex Fridman (1:02:42.560)

It's just, there are a lot of factors,

Lex Fridman (1:02:45.140)

but we know for sure that when you're fasted

Lex Fridman (1:02:49.480)

or when you have low amounts of carbohydrate in your system,

Andrew Huberman (1:02:52.260)

complex carbohydrate, your alertness is going to go up.

Lex Fridman (1:02:55.440)

Fasting increases alertness and epinephrine

Andrew Huberman (1:03:00.000)

for the sole purpose of getting you to go out

Lex Fridman (1:03:01.880)

and find food.

Lex Fridman (1:03:02.800)

Can you imagine if our ancestors got hungry

Lex Fridman (1:03:04.980)

and they were like, oh, I'm too tired to go find food.

Andrew Huberman (1:03:07.240)

We wouldn't be here.

Lex Fridman (1:03:08.240)

It'd be like robots or something.

Andrew Huberman (1:03:09.520)

One of your alien buddies will be like running the planet.

Lex Fridman (1:03:13.920)

So I think that if you want to be alert,

Andrew Huberman (1:03:16.720)

fasting or keeping complex carbohydrates to a minimum

Lex Fridman (1:03:20.400)

is very valuable.

Andrew Huberman (1:03:22.120)

If you want to sleep and you want to be sleepy,

Lex Fridman (1:03:24.560)

ingesting foods that have a lot of tryptophan,

Andrew Huberman (1:03:27.400)

which is the precursor to serotonin,

Lex Fridman (1:03:28.920)

so complex carbohydrates like rice and grains,

Andrew Huberman (1:03:31.320)

turkey, white meats,

Lex Fridman (1:03:32.660)

those things do create a sense of sleepiness.

Andrew Huberman (1:03:34.700)

However, there is a caveat,

Lex Fridman (1:03:36.200)

and this is one problem with the once a day meal,

Andrew Huberman (1:03:40.400)

is that anytime you have a lot of food in the gut,

Lex Fridman (1:03:43.180)

you're increasing sleepiness

Andrew Huberman (1:03:44.640)

because you're diverting blood to the gut.

Lex Fridman (1:03:46.680)

It's going to trigger the vagus to signal to the brain

Andrew Huberman (1:03:49.720)

to shut down your system and utilize those nutrients,

Lex Fridman (1:03:53.560)

digest and utilize those nutrients.

Lex Fridman (1:03:55.280)

So I've done the once a day eating thing.

Lex Fridman (1:03:58.160)

The problem is I eat so much in that meal

Andrew Huberman (1:04:00.400)

that I'm exhausted.

Lex Fridman (1:04:02.200)

And so it doesn't always lend itself well to the schedule.

Lex Fridman (1:04:05.740)

But so in a six or eight hour eating block for me

Lex Fridman (1:04:08.280)

is a little bit better.

Andrew Huberman (1:04:10.080)

I do eat carbohydrates.

Lex Fridman (1:04:11.220)

I'm probably one of the few people left on the West coast

Andrew Huberman (1:04:13.160)

that actually consumes carbohydrates

Lex Fridman (1:04:14.720)

and we'll say that out loud.

Andrew Huberman (1:04:15.560)

I don't know people eat carbs anymore, that's weird.

Lex Fridman (1:04:17.840)

They don't.

Lex Fridman (1:04:18.680)

Where do you even find carbs these days?

Lex Fridman (1:04:20.040)

I like oatmeal.

Andrew Huberman (1:04:20.860)

I like rice.

Lex Fridman (1:04:21.700)

The other time is if people are doing very high intensity

Andrew Huberman (1:04:24.400)

weight train, they need to replenish glycogen.

Lex Fridman (1:04:26.480)

On the alertness side,

Andrew Huberman (1:04:27.760)

I do feel like it's probably person dependent.

Lex Fridman (1:04:30.200)

For me alertness, being alert makes my life better

Andrew Huberman (1:04:34.920)

in a lot of ways, more than just the alertness itself.

Lex Fridman (1:04:38.840)

Like for example, one of the things I discovered

Andrew Huberman (1:04:41.520)

with fasting is that when I was training twice a day

Lex Fridman (1:04:45.880)

in jujitsu, for example, and competing and so on,

Andrew Huberman (1:04:48.840)

I performed way better at things that you traditionally

Lex Fridman (1:04:52.320)

would say you need carbs for,

Andrew Huberman (1:04:53.920)

which is explosive movements and all that.

Lex Fridman (1:04:56.860)

I don't know if I actually perform better

Andrew Huberman (1:05:00.160)

in terms of like the force of the explosion,

Lex Fridman (1:05:05.560)

the explosiveness.

Lex Fridman (1:05:06.860)

What I do know is the alertness resulted

Lex Fridman (1:05:09.680)

in me doing the technique more precisely.

Andrew Huberman (1:05:13.500)

That's the dopamine and epinephrine system in action.

Lex Fridman (1:05:16.360)

And there are some other just purely physical aspects

Andrew Huberman (1:05:23.080)

to one diet versus the other that can be complicated.

Lex Fridman (1:05:25.920)

If you're ingesting carbohydrates, complex carbohydrates,

Andrew Huberman (1:05:28.640)

you're going to replenish glycogen, which is great,

Lex Fridman (1:05:31.080)

but they also tend to be bulky and fibrous.

Lex Fridman (1:05:33.480)

And I've never rolled jujitsu,

Lex Fridman (1:05:35.320)

but running when you have a lot of bulky fibrous food

Andrew Huberman (1:05:37.840)

in your gut or in your intestine, it can be a barrier.

Lex Fridman (1:05:41.160)

It can be uncomfortable.

Lex Fridman (1:05:42.560)

And so some people do really well on low carbohydrate,

Lex Fridman (1:05:45.260)

meat rich diets, because they're just not as bloated.

Andrew Huberman (1:05:48.400)

They're not carrying as much water and other stuff.

Lex Fridman (1:05:51.480)

Carbohydrate carries a lot of water molecules with it.

Lex Fridman (1:05:54.200)

So there are aspects to being able to train

Lex Fridman (1:05:56.040)

and being really explosive because you feel light.

Andrew Huberman (1:05:58.200)

One anecdote that really, again,

Lex Fridman (1:06:00.160)

I'm not encouraging any one particular kind of diet,

Lex Fridman (1:06:02.560)

but I have a friend who was in the SEAL teams.

Lex Fridman (1:06:07.140)

I happen to know a number of people in that community.

Lex Fridman (1:06:08.760)

And he told me that he did this very long fast.

Lex Fridman (1:06:11.420)

It was a fast that I think you get to eat a little bit

Andrew Huberman (1:06:14.060)

of soup or broth.

Lex Fridman (1:06:15.480)

And there's like a bar or something,

Lex Fridman (1:06:16.920)

but it's like a nine day thing.

Lex Fridman (1:06:18.720)

And he's a very strong athlete.

Lex Fridman (1:06:21.280)

And he said that on day six or seven,

Lex Fridman (1:06:24.680)

he was running up some hills or something

Andrew Huberman (1:06:27.300)

while he was on deployment.

Lex Fridman (1:06:28.560)

And he felt amazing.

Andrew Huberman (1:06:31.480)

He had kind of hit this other level.

Lex Fridman (1:06:33.080)

He was somebody who had boxed in the Naval Academy.

Andrew Huberman (1:06:35.280)

He was somebody who knows and knew high output.

Lex Fridman (1:06:40.360)

And he felt like he discovered the 13th floor,

Andrew Huberman (1:06:43.720)

that there was another floor to this performance space

Lex Fridman (1:06:46.660)

that he hadn't experienced except while he had fasted.

Lex Fridman (1:06:50.560)

And he said that that was a remarkable clarity of mind,

Lex Fridman (1:06:53.660)

energy, it's a little bit of what you described.

Andrew Huberman (1:06:55.440)

He described a kind of suppleness and explosiveness.

Lex Fridman (1:06:58.160)

So there's probably something there.

Lex Fridman (1:06:59.400)

On which day?

Lex Fridman (1:07:01.000)

At once he was in the fifth or sixth day of the fast.

Andrew Huberman (1:07:04.000)

See, this is the thing is I've never been there

Lex Fridman (1:07:06.360)

on the second, third, fourth, fifth day, that kind of thing.

Lex Fridman (1:07:09.920)

But when I just don't eat for 20 hours,

Lex Fridman (1:07:14.920)

many times through my training, the clarity,

Andrew Huberman (1:07:18.840)

it's like you feel like everyone is moving super slowly

Lex Fridman (1:07:23.160)

and you're able to like dominate people

Andrew Huberman (1:07:25.520)

you weren't able to before.

Lex Fridman (1:07:26.920)

It's like.

Andrew Huberman (1:07:27.760)

Well, you might've slipped into,

Lex Fridman (1:07:29.600)

or switched over rather into full ketosis.

Lex Fridman (1:07:32.520)

And ketogenic diets done properly can be great for people.

Lex Fridman (1:07:36.400)

The problem is if you do it wrong, you can really mess it up.

Andrew Huberman (1:07:38.480)

I tried it once and I basically got psoriasis.

Lex Fridman (1:07:40.880)

I thought my scalp was going to fall off.

Andrew Huberman (1:07:42.400)

I was like sloughing off all this.

Lex Fridman (1:07:44.320)

And then I stopped and I was taking the liquid ketones.

Lex Fridman (1:07:47.160)

And then all of a sudden I felt better again.

Lex Fridman (1:07:49.000)

But I was told that I just did it wrong.

Andrew Huberman (1:07:52.080)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (1:07:53.200)

That's right.

Lex Fridman (1:07:54.040)

So I think there's a right way and a wrong way

Lex Fridman (1:07:55.320)

and you have to get it right.

Andrew Huberman (1:07:56.760)

Definitely.

Lex Fridman (1:07:57.600)

And so I've experimented quite a bit with keto

Andrew Huberman (1:07:59.640)

to see how my body feels and doing it the right way

Lex Fridman (1:08:02.480)

and following all the instructions.

Andrew Huberman (1:08:03.800)

There's definitely a huge difference that,

Lex Fridman (1:08:07.560)

like for example, one of the things I discovered,

Andrew Huberman (1:08:09.360)

everyone knows who said this,

Lex Fridman (1:08:11.160)

but I tried this recently over the past year

Andrew Huberman (1:08:15.360)

is I started drinking when I don't feel great.

Lex Fridman (1:08:18.760)

If I'm fasting, a bone broth, a chicken bone broth.

Lex Fridman (1:08:22.960)

And for some reason, like magically it could be,

Lex Fridman (1:08:25.640)

this is the other thing, the mind, I don't know,

Lex Fridman (1:08:28.440)

but it makes me feel really good.

Lex Fridman (1:08:30.920)

Well, it could be the salt.

Lex Fridman (1:08:32.840)

So I mean, neurons, the action potential neurons,

Lex Fridman (1:08:35.560)

as you know, is sodium is rushing into the cell.

Andrew Huberman (1:08:37.360)

You need enough extracellular sodium

Lex Fridman (1:08:39.760)

in order for your brain and nervous system to function.

Lex Fridman (1:08:42.280)

And so salt, I mean, unless people have hypertension,

Lex Fridman (1:08:45.760)

salt is great.

Andrew Huberman (1:08:46.600)

There was an article in Science Magazine about a decade ago

Lex Fridman (1:08:49.080)

about how salt had been demonized

Lex Fridman (1:08:50.880)

and unless people have hypertension,

Lex Fridman (1:08:52.400)

provide you drink enough water, salt is great.

Andrew Huberman (1:08:54.600)

You need sodium, magnesium, and potassium to function

Lex Fridman (1:08:57.800)

and for your nerve cells to work.

Andrew Huberman (1:08:59.280)

I mean, people who overdrink water

Lex Fridman (1:09:00.960)

and don't consume enough electrolyte die.

Andrew Huberman (1:09:03.880)

Now, hydration is really important.

Lex Fridman (1:09:05.640)

I know David's really into hydration.

Andrew Huberman (1:09:07.280)

He's mentioned that a few times.

Lex Fridman (1:09:08.480)

I mean, hydrating properly is key.

Lex Fridman (1:09:11.400)

And so you definitely want to make sure

Lex Fridman (1:09:12.920)

that you're drinking enough water

Lex Fridman (1:09:14.280)

and getting enough electrolytes.

Lex Fridman (1:09:16.320)

We should have actually talked about that at the beginning

Andrew Huberman (1:09:18.200)

because that's going to keep

Lex Fridman (1:09:19.240)

your nervous system functioning well.

Lex Fridman (1:09:21.440)

And a lot of people, they'll get shaky or jittery

Lex Fridman (1:09:24.880)

when they're fasting and they'll think they need sugar.

Lex Fridman (1:09:27.920)

And if they just put some salt in some water,

Lex Fridman (1:09:30.000)

they feel fine.

Lex Fridman (1:09:30.960)

And like the other stuff, potassium, magnesium,

Lex Fridman (1:09:33.240)

whatever the other electrolytes are.

Lex Fridman (1:09:34.720)

But yeah, those three.

Lex Fridman (1:09:36.520)

I mean, salt, yeah.

Andrew Huberman (1:09:38.040)

Magnesium is good before sleep.

Lex Fridman (1:09:40.680)

Salt.

Andrew Huberman (1:09:42.080)

I mean, this is a vast space.

Lex Fridman (1:09:43.400)

And we're kind of talking about the overlap

Andrew Huberman (1:09:44.720)

between neurochemicals, hormones, and nutrition.

Lex Fridman (1:09:48.160)

And it's a fascinating space.

Lex Fridman (1:09:49.760)

And it's one that the academic community has gems

Lex Fridman (1:09:53.560)

within the textbooks.

Andrew Huberman (1:09:54.640)

It hasn't really made it into the public sphere yet.

Lex Fridman (1:09:57.680)

And I think that's because people get so caught up

Lex Fridman (1:09:59.760)

in the being, are you vegan or are you carnivore?

Lex Fridman (1:10:03.520)

And there's a vast space in between too

Andrew Huberman (1:10:05.920)

that people can explore.

Lex Fridman (1:10:06.800)

Like I'm not a competitive athlete.

Lex Fridman (1:10:08.240)

So I eat meat and I also eat vegetables and I eat fruits

Lex Fridman (1:10:12.840)

and it's just about timing them.

Lex Fridman (1:10:14.360)

But I tend to eat carbohydrates when I want to be sleepy.

Lex Fridman (1:10:16.280)

I eat them at night.

Lex Fridman (1:10:17.120)

And everyone said, that's the worst thing.

Lex Fridman (1:10:18.760)

You can't do that.

Andrew Huberman (1:10:19.760)

You sleep great after eating a big bowl of pasta.

Lex Fridman (1:10:21.800)

I'll tell you.

Lex Fridman (1:10:22.720)

And by the way, I should give you a big thank you

Lex Fridman (1:10:25.680)

for connecting me with Bell Campo Farms.

Andrew Huberman (1:10:29.520)

They sent me some meat, I think because of you.

Lex Fridman (1:10:33.200)

And it's delicious.

Lex Fridman (1:10:34.400)

So I really appreciate that.

Lex Fridman (1:10:37.200)

I mean, it also connected me with this whole world

Andrew Huberman (1:10:40.160)

of people who are doing farming in this ethical way

Lex Fridman (1:10:43.840)

and like really love the whole process.

Lex Fridman (1:10:46.080)

And from both like a human level,

Lex Fridman (1:10:49.560)

but also scientific level.

Lex Fridman (1:10:51.400)

And the result is, it's like ethical,

Lex Fridman (1:10:56.240)

but also it's delicious.

Lex Fridman (1:10:57.760)

And it makes you think about your diet

Lex Fridman (1:11:00.360)

in a whole new kind of way.

Andrew Huberman (1:11:01.840)

Yeah, I don't have any commercial relationship

Lex Fridman (1:11:04.520)

to Bell Campo, so I can be very clear.

Andrew Huberman (1:11:06.000)

I've known Anya Fernald,

Lex Fridman (1:11:07.440)

who is the founder and CEO of Bell Campo.

Andrew Huberman (1:11:10.800)

I've known her since the ninth grade.

Lex Fridman (1:11:12.600)

It is true that her parents are faculty members at Stanford,

Andrew Huberman (1:11:15.200)

they're colleagues of mine,

Lex Fridman (1:11:16.320)

but she's just a serious academic of nutrition,

Lex Fridman (1:11:18.760)

but also of sustainable agriculture,

Lex Fridman (1:11:21.320)

of all sorts of things.

Lex Fridman (1:11:22.720)

And also the meat just, it's awesome.

Lex Fridman (1:11:24.360)

It tastes really good.

Lex Fridman (1:11:25.200)

And no, I'm not getting paid to say that.

Lex Fridman (1:11:26.840)

And no, they're not a sponsoring my podcast.

Andrew Huberman (1:11:29.040)

It's just, I feel like if you're gonna eat animals,

Lex Fridman (1:11:32.200)

if that's in your framework and you're gonna eat animals,

Andrew Huberman (1:11:35.120)

knowing that the animals were raised as happy as could be

Lex Fridman (1:11:39.360)

until time of slaughter is at least important to me.

Lex Fridman (1:11:43.640)

And actually talked to her,

Lex Fridman (1:11:45.240)

so I will talk to her on this podcast actually.

Lex Fridman (1:11:47.640)

And she invited me like a week ago out to visit the farm

Lex Fridman (1:11:52.200)

in May or June or whatever.

Andrew Huberman (1:11:53.400)

Yeah, they have the farm up at the Oregon border.

Lex Fridman (1:11:54.920)

I haven't been there yet, but I've seen the pictures.

Andrew Huberman (1:11:56.720)

It looks awesome and I was like, yes.

Lex Fridman (1:11:59.560)

It looks beautiful.

Andrew Huberman (1:12:00.400)

Let me know when you're going.

Lex Fridman (1:12:01.360)

Yeah, let's go together.

Andrew Huberman (1:12:03.240)

You'll probably run there, but I'll drive there.

Lex Fridman (1:12:06.280)

Yeah, but all that said, I do want to,

Andrew Huberman (1:12:09.720)

cause a lot of people who are vegan write to me

Lex Fridman (1:12:13.400)

and I do want to seriously,

Andrew Huberman (1:12:14.640)

in the same seriousness that I approached keto,

Lex Fridman (1:12:17.200)

I do wanna go like on a few months

Andrew Huberman (1:12:19.920)

to switch to a vegan diet at some point to really try it.

Lex Fridman (1:12:23.320)

I haven't done it yet

Andrew Huberman (1:12:24.320)

cause I'm afraid I'm gonna function better.

Lex Fridman (1:12:26.880)

I'm Argentine by my dad's side.

Lex Fridman (1:12:30.120)

And I don't eat meat super often,

Lex Fridman (1:12:33.600)

but well, for most people it would seem often,

Lex Fridman (1:12:36.840)

but I do love steak, I do.

Lex Fridman (1:12:40.640)

So I'm afraid I'm gonna feel better.

Andrew Huberman (1:12:41.920)

There's a social element to steak, you're right.

Lex Fridman (1:12:43.760)

Cause coming from a Russian background,

Andrew Huberman (1:12:45.400)

like I can't imagine going to visit my folks,

Lex Fridman (1:12:49.240)

like my parents for Thanksgiving or something to say,

Andrew Huberman (1:12:52.080)

mom and dad, I don't eat meat.

Lex Fridman (1:12:55.600)

So instead of, you know.

Andrew Huberman (1:12:56.720)

Well, I think if you're gonna eat meat,

Lex Fridman (1:12:58.000)

getting it from sources that are compatible

Andrew Huberman (1:13:00.960)

with a continuation of the planet is good.

Lex Fridman (1:13:05.200)

I mean, there are some real problems

Andrew Huberman (1:13:07.200)

with the factory farm meat.

Lex Fridman (1:13:08.600)

You know, you drive up and down the five

Lex Fridman (1:13:09.920)

and you pass that point where there are all those cows.

Lex Fridman (1:13:12.360)

I mean, as somebody who loves animals,

Andrew Huberman (1:13:16.200)

it's clear that it's, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:13:19.520)

you wanna limit the amount of suffering of those animals.

Andrew Huberman (1:13:22.200)

Whenever I hear about, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:13:24.040)

we know people that hunt and that go and get their own meat.

Andrew Huberman (1:13:27.000)

I really admire that.

Lex Fridman (1:13:28.200)

I admire that people do that.

Andrew Huberman (1:13:30.080)

We don't tend to do that in the hills around Stanford,

Lex Fridman (1:13:32.640)

you know, there are mountain lions back there,

Lex Fridman (1:13:34.640)

but that's about it.

Lex Fridman (1:13:35.480)

And I'm certainly, I admire the vegan mindset

Andrew Huberman (1:13:40.280)

of just making that decision.

Lex Fridman (1:13:41.880)

You're just not gonna consume other beings,

Lex Fridman (1:13:44.160)

but you know, I haven't gone that way.

Lex Fridman (1:13:45.960)

But performance wise, I'm just curious because I was

Andrew Huberman (1:13:49.880)

surprised, I was certain that eating five, six,

Lex Fridman (1:13:53.400)

seven meals a day is the right thing to do

Andrew Huberman (1:13:55.320)

for if you wanna be perform your best

Lex Fridman (1:13:58.840)

when I was like 20 or whatever.

Lex Fridman (1:14:01.160)

And I would eat oatmeal, like I thought it's obvious

Lex Fridman (1:14:04.320)

I have to have a really, a lot of carbs in the breakfast.

Andrew Huberman (1:14:06.880)

I had a lot of preconceived notions.

Lex Fridman (1:14:08.920)

And then when I started eating like once a day,

Andrew Huberman (1:14:12.200)

this was at the peak of my competing in jiu jitsu,

Lex Fridman (1:14:14.800)

it was like, everything I know about nutrition is wrong.

Andrew Huberman (1:14:20.080)

You realize that like, you have to become a scientist.

Lex Fridman (1:14:22.680)

First of all, you have to read literature,

Andrew Huberman (1:14:24.320)

you have to learn, you have to experiment,

Lex Fridman (1:14:26.000)

but you also have to become a scientist of your own body.

Andrew Huberman (1:14:29.080)

In the same way, I have a lot of preconceived notions

Lex Fridman (1:14:32.040)

of what performance is like under vegan diet.

Lex Fridman (1:14:35.400)

And I want to do it right.

Lex Fridman (1:14:38.000)

Like seriously, not necessarily for the ethical reasons,

Lex Fridman (1:14:42.160)

but to see if it's performance wise, like can I,

Lex Fridman (1:14:45.880)

I remember there's like a fruitarian diet

Andrew Huberman (1:14:47.760)

where you eat fruit only.

Lex Fridman (1:14:50.000)

These extremes are like, they're pretty,

Andrew Huberman (1:14:52.520)

they're interesting cause people have this need.

Lex Fridman (1:14:55.440)

The extremes are informative though, right?

Andrew Huberman (1:14:57.200)

I mean, well controlled experiments,

Lex Fridman (1:14:58.840)

you eliminate as many variables as you can

Andrew Huberman (1:15:00.760)

except the one you're interested in.

Lex Fridman (1:15:02.040)

So people are running these experiments.

Andrew Huberman (1:15:04.520)

I think that it's hard to imagine getting,

Lex Fridman (1:15:09.480)

I know people say you can get enough amino acids

Andrew Huberman (1:15:12.520)

from plant based sources and I believe that.

Lex Fridman (1:15:15.200)

I think it probably takes a little more work.

Andrew Huberman (1:15:18.480)

One thing that's really clear is that the benefit

Lex Fridman (1:15:20.640)

of these omega three, omega six ratios,

Andrew Huberman (1:15:23.200)

like fish oils and things like that.

Lex Fridman (1:15:24.840)

There are some data that show that the getting

Andrew Huberman (1:15:27.160)

at least a thousand milligrams of the EPA,

Lex Fridman (1:15:30.080)

which is in high in fish oils, but other things too,

Andrew Huberman (1:15:32.240)

even some meats and other plants,

Lex Fridman (1:15:34.840)

it in double, you know, in matched placebo,

Andrew Huberman (1:15:40.120)

double blind controlled studies,

Lex Fridman (1:15:41.840)

placebo controlled double blind studies have shown

Andrew Huberman (1:15:43.840)

that those can offset antidepressive symptoms

Lex Fridman (1:15:47.080)

as much as some of the selective serotonin reuptake

Andrew Huberman (1:15:49.720)

inhibitors like Prozac and Zoloft.

Lex Fridman (1:15:52.440)

So that's pretty impressive.

Lex Fridman (1:15:54.280)

And in Scandinavia, people know, especially in winter,

Lex Fridman (1:15:57.640)

to consume a lot of those omega threes

Andrew Huberman (1:16:00.320)

because they're good for you, they're good for the brain.

Lex Fridman (1:16:03.000)

That's the other question.

Andrew Huberman (1:16:04.880)

Nutrition wise, what kind of stuff have you come across

Lex Fridman (1:16:08.320)

that's useful?

Andrew Huberman (1:16:09.160)

Like I basically only take fish oil,

Lex Fridman (1:16:12.440)

like you said, electrolytes.

Andrew Huberman (1:16:14.120)

Electrolytes with water, the David Goggins diet.

Lex Fridman (1:16:18.200)

Fish oil.

Andrew Huberman (1:16:19.040)

Plus fish oil.

Lex Fridman (1:16:19.960)

And then again, the sponsor, they made it so easier.

Andrew Huberman (1:16:24.240)

The sponsor of your podcast and mine,

Lex Fridman (1:16:26.640)

athleticgreens.com slash Huberman.

Andrew Huberman (1:16:28.840)

Great stuff.

Lex Fridman (1:16:29.680)

Support it.

Andrew Huberman (1:16:30.500)

I don't know, like it's great stuff for sure,

Lex Fridman (1:16:34.560)

but it also just takes away the headache of like,

Andrew Huberman (1:16:36.700)

I don't have to think about.

Lex Fridman (1:16:37.840)

Yeah, you're going to get a bunch of vitamins and minerals.

Andrew Huberman (1:16:40.280)

It does that.

Lex Fridman (1:16:41.360)

It sounds like a plug, but I have genuinely been buying it.

Andrew Huberman (1:16:44.840)

I'm like, you know, no discount, no affiliation

Lex Fridman (1:16:47.000)

or anything since 2012.

Andrew Huberman (1:16:48.560)

I think I heard about it on the Tim Ferriss podcast.

Lex Fridman (1:16:50.360)

I was like, oh, I'm going to try that stuff.

Lex Fridman (1:16:52.000)

And I liked it.

Lex Fridman (1:16:52.840)

I mean, when I was starting my lab,

Andrew Huberman (1:16:54.220)

I was working insane hours.

Lex Fridman (1:16:56.200)

I still work very long hours.

Lex Fridman (1:16:57.960)

And getting sick limits productivity.

Lex Fridman (1:17:01.960)

And I also wanted to train

Lex Fridman (1:17:03.240)

and I wasn't doing much training back then.

Lex Fridman (1:17:07.080)

Now I try and get, you know, three, four sessions in a week.

Andrew Huberman (1:17:09.720)

I'm not doing nothing like what you and David are doing

Lex Fridman (1:17:11.900)

or what, you know, Joe does,

Andrew Huberman (1:17:13.640)

or like you guys are way more regimented

Lex Fridman (1:17:15.640)

and consistent than I am.

Lex Fridman (1:17:17.920)

But I think that being healthy and feeling good

Lex Fridman (1:17:21.280)

is one of the great benefits to a career

Andrew Huberman (1:17:24.160)

is having energy and just being not sick.

Lex Fridman (1:17:28.120)

Can we take a step back to sleep for a little bit?

Lex Fridman (1:17:32.000)

And so people should definitely look through your podcast.

Lex Fridman (1:17:37.200)

The first five episodes were on sleep or no,

Andrew Huberman (1:17:41.680)

I guess the first opening episode wasn't.

Lex Fridman (1:17:43.960)

First one was sort of how the brain works generally

Andrew Huberman (1:17:46.180)

is to give people some background.

Lex Fridman (1:17:47.960)

And then we did four episodes on sleep,

Andrew Huberman (1:17:50.280)

including some stuff about food, temperature, exercise,

Lex Fridman (1:17:52.640)

jet lag shift work for the jet lag folks and shift work.

Andrew Huberman (1:17:56.120)

Yeah, take a masterclass on sleep.

Lex Fridman (1:17:57.640)

And then you're going on to a next topic

Andrew Huberman (1:18:01.900)

in the next few episodes, which is incredible.

Lex Fridman (1:18:04.280)

We'll, neuroplasticity, we'll talk about it.

Lex Fridman (1:18:06.880)

But on sleep, one of the cool things about the human mind

Lex Fridman (1:18:11.980)

when it sleeps is dreaming.

Lex Fridman (1:18:15.120)

What do you think we understand

Lex Fridman (1:18:17.360)

about the contents of dreams?

Lex Fridman (1:18:21.040)

Like what do dreams mean?

Lex Fridman (1:18:22.720)

All the stuff we see when we dream,

Andrew Huberman (1:18:25.380)

is there something that we understand

Lex Fridman (1:18:28.680)

about the contents of dreams?

Andrew Huberman (1:18:32.040)

Some of it is very concrete.

Lex Fridman (1:18:33.480)

So Matt Wilson, who, MIT guy, showed in rodents

Lex Fridman (1:18:38.960)

and it's been shown in nonhuman primates

Lex Fridman (1:18:40.600)

and now it's been shown in humans

Andrew Huberman (1:18:41.820)

that there is replay of spatial information during sleep.

Lex Fridman (1:18:47.440)

So initially what Matt showed was that

Andrew Huberman (1:18:50.440)

as these little rodents navigate through a maze,

Lex Fridman (1:18:52.960)

there are these cells in the hippocampus called place cells

Andrew Huberman (1:18:55.320)

that fire when the animal encounters a turn or a corridor.

Lex Fridman (1:18:58.760)

And that exact same sequence is replayed during sleep.

Lex Fridman (1:19:02.720)

And it turns out this is true in London taxi cab drivers.

Lex Fridman (1:19:07.480)

Before phones and GPS were what they are today,

Andrew Huberman (1:19:11.060)

the London taxi cab drivers were famous

Lex Fridman (1:19:13.400)

for knowing the routes through the city,

Andrew Huberman (1:19:15.880)

through these mental maps.

Lex Fridman (1:19:17.600)

And their analysis of their place cell firing during sleep

Lex Fridman (1:19:21.640)

and during wakefulness.

Lex Fridman (1:19:22.700)

And so we are essentially taking spatial information

Andrew Huberman (1:19:25.620)

about the location of things and replaying it during sleep.

Lex Fridman (1:19:28.160)

However, it's not replayed so that you remember it all.

Andrew Huberman (1:19:32.280)

It's replayed so that if there's a reason to remember it,

Lex Fridman (1:19:36.280)

the links to the emotional system,

Andrew Huberman (1:19:38.080)

to the components of the limbic system and hypothalamus

Lex Fridman (1:19:41.960)

that are relevant,

Andrew Huberman (1:19:43.200)

like you got into a car crash at a particular location,

Lex Fridman (1:19:45.460)

or you lost a bunch of money

Andrew Huberman (1:19:46.600)

because you were a cab driver, Uber driver,

Lex Fridman (1:19:48.800)

we'd say nowadays,

Lex Fridman (1:19:49.800)

and you were stuck at one particular avenue all day

Lex Fridman (1:19:52.260)

and frustrated,

Lex Fridman (1:19:53.420)

and you were getting yelled at by your spouse,

Lex Fridman (1:19:55.320)

that information gets encoded

Lex Fridman (1:19:57.440)

so that you never forget that at that particular time of day

Lex Fridman (1:20:00.440)

and that particular time of year,

Lex Fridman (1:20:02.200)

and this thing happened.

Lex Fridman (1:20:04.220)

So context starts getting linked to experience.

Lex Fridman (1:20:06.700)

So there's spatial information

Lex Fridman (1:20:08.340)

that's absolutely replayed during sleep.

Lex Fridman (1:20:10.720)

And we experience this sometimes as dreams.

Lex Fridman (1:20:13.460)

The dreams that happen early in the night

Andrew Huberman (1:20:15.200)

when slow wave sleep or non REM sleep dominates,

Lex Fridman (1:20:18.520)

tends to be sleep of very kind of general themes

Lex Fridman (1:20:22.460)

and kind of location.

Lex Fridman (1:20:24.640)

It can feel a little bit eerie and kind of strange.

Andrew Huberman (1:20:27.880)

Not so incidentally,

Lex Fridman (1:20:29.080)

the early phase of the night

Andrew Huberman (1:20:30.100)

is when growth hormone is released.

Lex Fridman (1:20:32.320)

In the 80s and 90s,

Andrew Huberman (1:20:33.480)

there was a drug that was very popular.

Lex Fridman (1:20:35.080)

It's very legal now called GHB.

Andrew Huberman (1:20:38.760)

You could actually buy it at GNC or a store then.

Lex Fridman (1:20:41.640)

I never took it, but it was a popular party drug

Lex Fridman (1:20:43.860)

and some famous celebrities died while on GHB.

Lex Fridman (1:20:47.960)

They were also on a bunch of other things,

Lex Fridman (1:20:49.400)

so it's not clear what killed them.

Lex Fridman (1:20:50.480)

But GHB was very big in certain communities

Andrew Huberman (1:20:54.080)

because it promoted a massive release of growth hormone

Lex Fridman (1:20:57.740)

and gave people these very hypnotic states.

Lex Fridman (1:20:59.920)

So people go to clubs

Lex Fridman (1:21:01.040)

and they were in these very hypnotic states.

Andrew Huberman (1:21:02.860)

It was part of a whole culture.

Lex Fridman (1:21:05.220)

That's early night.

Lex Fridman (1:21:07.140)

And those dreams tend to not have

Lex Fridman (1:21:09.920)

a lot of emotional content or load.

Andrew Huberman (1:21:12.720)

That phase of dreaming is associated

Lex Fridman (1:21:15.040)

with the occasional jolting yourself out of sleep

Andrew Huberman (1:21:18.320)

because it's somewhat lighter sleep.

Lex Fridman (1:21:20.120)

The dreams that occur during REM,

Andrew Huberman (1:21:22.420)

during rapid eye movement sleep

Lex Fridman (1:21:23.640)

and that dominate towards morning are very different.

Andrew Huberman (1:21:26.520)

They tend to have very little epinephrine

Lex Fridman (1:21:30.000)

is available in the brain at that time.

Andrew Huberman (1:21:32.040)

Epinephrine again being this molecule

Lex Fridman (1:21:33.400)

of stress, fear, and excitement.

Andrew Huberman (1:21:35.240)

You are paralyzed during these REM dreams.

Lex Fridman (1:21:38.120)

You cannot move.

Andrew Huberman (1:21:39.780)

There's intense emotion

Lex Fridman (1:21:41.720)

at the level of what you're feeling

Lex Fridman (1:21:44.500)

and there's so called theory of mind.

Lex Fridman (1:21:47.020)

Theory of mind is an idea that was put forward

Andrew Huberman (1:21:48.880)

by Simon Baron Cohen, Sasha Baron Cohen's cousin.

Lex Fridman (1:21:52.480)

I think on the podcast,

Andrew Huberman (1:21:53.320)

I mistakenly said that he was at Oxford.

Lex Fridman (1:21:55.800)

It's like the cardinal sin.

Andrew Huberman (1:21:56.880)

He's at Cambridge, forgive me.

Lex Fridman (1:21:58.300)

I'm not British.

Lex Fridman (1:21:59.580)

So the dreams in REM are heavily emotionally laden.

Lex Fridman (1:22:02.880)

And it's very clear that those dreams and REM sleep,

Andrew Huberman (1:22:05.840)

if you deprive yourself of them for too long,

Lex Fridman (1:22:08.580)

you become irritable and you start linking

Andrew Huberman (1:22:12.080)

generally negative emotions to almost everything.

Lex Fridman (1:22:15.660)

REM, the dreams that occur in REM sleep

Andrew Huberman (1:22:17.800)

are when we divorce emotion from our prior experiences.

Lex Fridman (1:22:21.800)

And it's when we extract general rules and themes.

Andrew Huberman (1:22:25.880)

MIT seems to have come up a lot today,

Lex Fridman (1:22:27.500)

but it's highly relevant.

Andrew Huberman (1:22:29.360)

Susumu Tonagawa, Nobel prize for immunoglobulin,

Lex Fridman (1:22:32.840)

but obviously fantastic neuroscientist as well,

Andrew Huberman (1:22:36.080)

has shown that the replay of neurons in the hippocampus

Lex Fridman (1:22:38.880)

and elsewhere in the brain is kind of an approximation

Andrew Huberman (1:22:42.200)

of the previous episode and a lot of fear unlearning

Lex Fridman (1:22:46.720)

of uncoupling emotion from hard or traumatic events

Andrew Huberman (1:22:50.800)

that happened previously occurs in REM sleep.

Lex Fridman (1:22:53.280)

So you don't want to deprive yourself of REM sleep

Andrew Huberman (1:22:55.080)

for too long.

Lex Fridman (1:22:55.960)

And those dreams tend to be very intense.

Andrew Huberman (1:22:57.680)

Now, epinephrine is low

Lex Fridman (1:22:59.400)

so that you can't suddenly act out your dreams.

Lex Fridman (1:23:02.280)

But what's interesting is sometimes people

Lex Fridman (1:23:04.880)

will wake up suddenly while in a REM dream

Lex Fridman (1:23:07.920)

and their heart will be beating really, really fast.

Lex Fridman (1:23:10.440)

That's a surge of epinephrine that occurs

Andrew Huberman (1:23:12.560)

as you exit REM sleep.

Lex Fridman (1:23:14.860)

So you were having this intense emotional experience

Andrew Huberman (1:23:16.920)

without the fear.

Lex Fridman (1:23:18.120)

You were essentially going through therapy in your sleep,

Andrew Huberman (1:23:20.600)

self induced therapy.

Lex Fridman (1:23:22.040)

It's like trauma therapy,

Andrew Huberman (1:23:23.120)

where you try and divorce the emotion from the experience.

Lex Fridman (1:23:26.040)

And then you wake up.

Lex Fridman (1:23:27.600)

And some people also have the other component of REM,

Lex Fridman (1:23:30.320)

which is atonia, which is paralysis.

Andrew Huberman (1:23:33.060)

Pot smokers experience this a lot more than non pot smokers.

Lex Fridman (1:23:36.840)

There's an invasion of paralysis into the waking state.

Andrew Huberman (1:23:40.200)

I'm not a pot smoker, but I have experienced this.

Lex Fridman (1:23:42.600)

And when you wake up and you're paralyzed for a second,

Andrew Huberman (1:23:44.960)

it's terrifying.

Lex Fridman (1:23:46.520)

But then you jolt yourself alert.

Lex Fridman (1:23:48.760)

So the REM sleep is important

Lex Fridman (1:23:51.460)

for kind of the self induced therapy

Lex Fridman (1:23:54.680)

and forgetting the bad stuff.

Lex Fridman (1:23:56.820)

It's good for uncoupling the emotions from bad experiences.

Lex Fridman (1:23:59.960)

And just there are two therapies.

Lex Fridman (1:24:02.200)

Eye movement desensitization reprocessing,

Andrew Huberman (1:24:04.560)

which is a eye movement thing that shuts down the amygdala

Lex Fridman (1:24:08.120)

during therapy, not during sleep.

Lex Fridman (1:24:09.880)

And ketamine, which is a dissociative analgesic.

Lex Fridman (1:24:13.120)

It's actually very similar to PCP.

Lex Fridman (1:24:15.320)

And ketamine is now being used as a trauma therapy

Lex Fridman (1:24:18.560)

when someone comes into the ER, for instance,

Lex Fridman (1:24:21.320)

and they were in a terrible car accident.

Lex Fridman (1:24:22.760)

I mean, these are horrible things to describe it.

Andrew Huberman (1:24:24.760)

They saw a relative impaled

Lex Fridman (1:24:26.040)

on the steering column or something.

Lex Fridman (1:24:28.080)

And they will give this drug

Lex Fridman (1:24:29.560)

to try and shut off the emotion system

Lex Fridman (1:24:31.760)

so that, because they're not gonna forget,

Lex Fridman (1:24:33.740)

let's be honest, you don't forget the bad stuff,

Lex Fridman (1:24:36.200)

but it is possible to uncouple the bad events

Lex Fridman (1:24:39.640)

from the emotional system.

Lex Fridman (1:24:41.560)

And there's all sorts of ethical issues

Lex Fridman (1:24:42.960)

about whether or not that's good or bad to do.

Lex Fridman (1:24:44.580)

But PTSD is a failure to uncouple the emotion

Lex Fridman (1:24:48.120)

from these intense experiences.

Lex Fridman (1:24:50.200)

So the goal of this kind of therapy

Lex Fridman (1:24:52.440)

is in the uncoupling for that to be permanent.

Andrew Huberman (1:24:55.600)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:24:56.440)

To separate.

Lex Fridman (1:24:57.600)

So they can recount the event

Lex Fridman (1:24:59.280)

and they can describe it

Andrew Huberman (1:25:00.360)

without it triggering the same somatic experience

Lex Fridman (1:25:03.120)

of terror and dread,

Andrew Huberman (1:25:05.160)

because terror, those feelings can be debilitating,

Lex Fridman (1:25:07.980)

obviously.

Lex Fridman (1:25:08.820)

And you're saying physiologically,

Lex Fridman (1:25:10.280)

in REM sleep, a similar process is happening.

Andrew Huberman (1:25:13.160)

That's right.

Lex Fridman (1:25:14.360)

Thematically, REM sleep is about experiencing

Andrew Huberman (1:25:17.360)

or replaying intense emotions

Lex Fridman (1:25:19.880)

without experiencing the somatic,

Andrew Huberman (1:25:22.160)

the physical component of the emotion,

Lex Fridman (1:25:23.600)

either the acting out

Andrew Huberman (1:25:24.800)

or the accelerated heart rate and agitation.

Lex Fridman (1:25:28.200)

Likewise with things like ketamine therapies.

Andrew Huberman (1:25:31.600)

That's the idea,

Lex Fridman (1:25:32.440)

is you're uncoupling the physical sensation

Andrew Huberman (1:25:34.360)

from the mental events.

Lex Fridman (1:25:36.040)

What is REM sleep and why is it so special?

Andrew Huberman (1:25:39.340)

Maybe we can comment on that.

Lex Fridman (1:25:40.600)

Rapid eye movement sleep.

Andrew Huberman (1:25:42.240)

Yeah, discovered in the 50s at the University of Chicago.

Lex Fridman (1:25:44.880)

It's intense brain activity,

Andrew Huberman (1:25:46.960)

high levels of metabolic activity,

Lex Fridman (1:25:49.040)

dreams in which people report a lot of the theory of mind.

Andrew Huberman (1:25:52.100)

We were talking about Simon Baron Cohen.

Lex Fridman (1:25:53.880)

Theory of mind was actually something

Andrew Huberman (1:25:55.880)

that he developed for the diagnosis of autism.

Lex Fridman (1:25:58.920)

If you take kids, most kids of age five, six, seven,

Andrew Huberman (1:26:03.280)

put them in front of a TV screen in the laboratory

Lex Fridman (1:26:05.560)

and you have them watch a video

Andrew Huberman (1:26:06.560)

where a kid is playing with a ball or a doll.

Lex Fridman (1:26:08.920)

And then the kid puts it into a drawer,

Andrew Huberman (1:26:10.840)

shuts the drawer and walks away.

Lex Fridman (1:26:12.160)

And another kid comes in and you ask the child

Andrew Huberman (1:26:14.120)

who's observing this little movie,

Lex Fridman (1:26:15.680)

you say, what does this second child think?

Lex Fridman (1:26:18.520)

And a typical kid would say,

Lex Fridman (1:26:21.720)

they want to play and they don't know

Andrew Huberman (1:26:22.920)

where the ball or doll is,

Lex Fridman (1:26:24.040)

or they're upset or they're sad, they want the doll.

Andrew Huberman (1:26:27.840)

Autistic children tend to say the doll's in the drawer.

Lex Fridman (1:26:32.440)

The toy is in the drawer.

Andrew Huberman (1:26:34.040)

They tend to fixate.

Lex Fridman (1:26:35.560)

They can't get on the event.

Andrew Huberman (1:26:37.320)

They can't get into the mind of that.

Lex Fridman (1:26:39.120)

They don't have a theory of mind.

Andrew Huberman (1:26:40.920)

Dreams in REM have a heavy theory of mind component.

Lex Fridman (1:26:44.120)

People are after me trying to get me.

Andrew Huberman (1:26:46.160)

You can assign motive to other people.

Lex Fridman (1:26:48.400)

I'm afraid, but it's because there's an expectation.

Andrew Huberman (1:26:52.600)

That doesn't tend to happen in slow wave sleep dreams.

Lex Fridman (1:26:55.180)

Now, all this of course is by waking people up

Lex Fridman (1:26:57.080)

and asking them what they were dreaming about,

Lex Fridman (1:26:58.640)

which from a standpoint of a AI guy

Andrew Huberman (1:27:01.520)

or a machine learning or a neuroscientist kind of like,

Lex Fridman (1:27:04.640)

but it's the best we've got.

Lex Fridman (1:27:06.320)

But brain imaging in waking states

Lex Fridman (1:27:08.980)

while people view a movie

Lex Fridman (1:27:10.320)

and then brain imaging while people are sleeping

Lex Fridman (1:27:12.340)

supports the idea that that's basically what's going on.

Lex Fridman (1:27:15.360)

So REM sleep is amazing

Lex Fridman (1:27:17.260)

and you're not going to get much of it

Andrew Huberman (1:27:18.600)

during your bout with Goggins,

Lex Fridman (1:27:21.360)

but you will afterward.

Lex Fridman (1:27:22.920)

Why, so to comment, why won't I?

Lex Fridman (1:27:26.560)

So is it not possible to get into it real quick?

Andrew Huberman (1:27:30.360)

Only if you're very, very sleep deprived,

Lex Fridman (1:27:32.900)

but because you're going to be at high muscular output,

Andrew Huberman (1:27:36.040)

that's going to bias you

Lex Fridman (1:27:37.000)

towards more slow wave sleep overall.

Lex Fridman (1:27:39.720)

And your body and brain are smart.

Lex Fridman (1:27:43.440)

They, it will know,

Andrew Huberman (1:27:44.720)

they will know that your main goal is to recover

Lex Fridman (1:27:49.300)

so you can keep going.

Lex Fridman (1:27:50.300)

So you can keep firing neuromuscular contractions

Lex Fridman (1:27:52.600)

and you can keep running so that you can,

Lex Fridman (1:27:54.840)

I mean, it's amazing to think like, why do we ever stop?

Lex Fridman (1:27:57.920)

Unlike weight training

Andrew Huberman (1:27:58.960)

where I can't do a 500 pound deadlift, I just can't.

Lex Fridman (1:28:03.140)

I could train for it,

Lex Fridman (1:28:03.980)

but I certainly can't do a 600 pound, I can't do that.

Lex Fridman (1:28:07.300)

What causes us to stop an endurance event

Andrew Huberman (1:28:10.860)

is usually not a physical barrier.

Lex Fridman (1:28:12.800)

It's almost always a purely mental barrier.

Lex Fridman (1:28:15.600)

And that's a very interesting problem.

Lex Fridman (1:28:17.800)

I mean, neuroscientists don't tend to think about

Andrew Huberman (1:28:19.680)

those sorts of problems

Lex Fridman (1:28:20.760)

because it sounds so non neuroscientific,

Lex Fridman (1:28:23.880)

but that's fundamentally related to the question of,

Lex Fridman (1:28:27.680)

what is pursuit?

Lex Fridman (1:28:29.520)

What is the desire to push and to carry on?

Lex Fridman (1:28:33.240)

Is there a neuroscientific answer

Lex Fridman (1:28:34.840)

for that question you think?

Lex Fridman (1:28:36.040)

I think the closest thing is this paper

Andrew Huberman (1:28:38.360)

from Janelia Farms, the Howard Hughes campus,

Lex Fridman (1:28:42.440)

showing that if you put animals

Andrew Huberman (1:28:45.440)

into a simulated environment

Lex Fridman (1:28:47.740)

where you can measure their effort,

Andrew Huberman (1:28:50.120)

the forces while they're running,

Lex Fridman (1:28:51.680)

and you can control the visual environment,

Lex Fridman (1:28:53.960)

and you can create a scenario

Lex Fridman (1:28:55.080)

where the animal thinks that its output is futile.

Andrew Huberman (1:28:58.120)

It knows it's running and it's actually running,

Lex Fridman (1:29:01.060)

but you change the frequency of the stripes

Andrew Huberman (1:29:03.000)

going by in their visual world,

Lex Fridman (1:29:05.000)

such that they think they're not getting anywhere,

Lex Fridman (1:29:07.280)

and eventually they quit.

Lex Fridman (1:29:09.280)

And the thing that determines whether or not they quit

Andrew Huberman (1:29:11.560)

is a threshold level of epinephrine in the brainstem.

Lex Fridman (1:29:14.520)

If you drop that level back down

Andrew Huberman (1:29:16.100)

or you give the animals dopamine, essentially,

Lex Fridman (1:29:19.360)

they keep going.

Andrew Huberman (1:29:20.440)

If you take dopamine down,

Lex Fridman (1:29:22.540)

they're like, this isn't worth it, it's helpless.

Andrew Huberman (1:29:26.120)

This isn't worth my time and energy.

Lex Fridman (1:29:27.720)

Well, this is where the difference

Andrew Huberman (1:29:28.880)

between humans and nonhuman animals is interesting,

Lex Fridman (1:29:32.840)

because it does feel like humans have an extra level

Andrew Huberman (1:29:35.360)

of cognitive ability that might be relevant here.

Lex Fridman (1:29:41.600)

Well, you can pull from different time references.

Lex Fridman (1:29:44.840)

So if you're in that moment,

Lex Fridman (1:29:46.640)

you're going to need a kit of things to pull from.

Lex Fridman (1:29:49.500)

So you can think this is in honor of someone else

Lex Fridman (1:29:52.720)

that passed away,

Lex Fridman (1:29:54.000)

and you will find a gas reserve that's amazing, right?

Lex Fridman (1:29:58.240)

Now, whether or not mice are like,

Andrew Huberman (1:30:00.140)

I remember my brother back in the other cage

Lex Fridman (1:30:02.360)

when I was a little mouse, we don't know.

Lex Fridman (1:30:05.080)

But it's very likely that they don't do that,

Lex Fridman (1:30:08.480)

that they're so present,

Andrew Huberman (1:30:09.660)

they're in the experience of there and then and now,

Lex Fridman (1:30:12.520)

that they aren't able to extract from the past,

Lex Fridman (1:30:16.000)

and they're not able to project into the future,

Lex Fridman (1:30:18.380)

like how great it's gonna feel

Andrew Huberman (1:30:19.760)

when I get to the end of this really lame VR corridor.

Lex Fridman (1:30:23.600)

I don't think they think about that.

Lex Fridman (1:30:25.080)

And think about like, if I quit now,

Lex Fridman (1:30:28.680)

how will that have,

Lex Fridman (1:30:29.720)

what kind of effect will it have on the rest of my life

Lex Fridman (1:30:31.740)

in the future difficult times?

Andrew Huberman (1:30:33.560)

Like if you allow yourself to quit

Lex Fridman (1:30:35.160)

in this particular moment,

Andrew Huberman (1:30:36.260)

you'll become a quitter more and more in life,

Lex Fridman (1:30:38.240)

and then you're going to not get the other nice,

Andrew Huberman (1:30:41.480)

the opposite sex mammals.

Lex Fridman (1:30:45.000)

That's pretty severe, you went there.

Andrew Huberman (1:30:46.920)

I don't know.

Lex Fridman (1:30:48.120)

You took it the whole way to evolution and back again.

Andrew Huberman (1:30:50.280)

I mean, but that's really it.

Lex Fridman (1:30:51.680)

I mean, our ability to time reference

Andrew Huberman (1:30:54.240)

in the past, present or future.

Lex Fridman (1:30:56.120)

I do believe that we can be in the present and the past,

Andrew Huberman (1:30:59.340)

or the present and the future, or only in the present,

Lex Fridman (1:31:02.420)

or only in the future, only in the past.

Lex Fridman (1:31:04.200)

But I don't think that we can really think

Lex Fridman (1:31:05.760)

about past, present and future all at once.

Lex Fridman (1:31:08.200)

And this has a similarity to covert attention.

Lex Fridman (1:31:10.880)

Like we can split our visual attention into two things.

Andrew Huberman (1:31:13.760)

We really can do a task, even though we can't multitask.

Lex Fridman (1:31:16.840)

Or we can bring those two spotlights of attention

Andrew Huberman (1:31:18.640)

to the same location.

Lex Fridman (1:31:20.100)

But it's very hard to split our attention in really well

Andrew Huberman (1:31:23.200)

into three domains, excuse me, into three domains.

Lex Fridman (1:31:26.580)

I think that that's very, very challenging.

Lex Fridman (1:31:29.280)

And our time referencing scheme tends to be just one

Lex Fridman (1:31:34.320)

or two time references.

Lex Fridman (1:31:36.960)

So Lisa Feldman Barrett, I'm not sure

Lex Fridman (1:31:39.800)

if you've done work together,

Lex Fridman (1:31:40.760)

but at least you're connected.

Lex Fridman (1:31:41.680)

I found out about her because of you,

Andrew Huberman (1:31:43.800)

on your podcast with her.

Lex Fridman (1:31:45.000)

And then I brought her on to Instagram,

Andrew Huberman (1:31:46.280)

doing an Instagram live about emotion.

Lex Fridman (1:31:48.360)

And it was fascinating.

Lex Fridman (1:31:49.480)

And she's a very spirited and very, very smart woman.

Lex Fridman (1:31:53.560)

Fearless and brilliant.

Lex Fridman (1:31:55.360)

So I love her, she's amazing.

Lex Fridman (1:31:57.920)

She kind of, she's not a scholar of hallucinogens

Andrew Huberman (1:32:02.160)

or dreams, but she had this intuition

Lex Fridman (1:32:04.720)

that there may be a connection between the kind

Andrew Huberman (1:32:09.320)

of dissociation that happens in dreaming

Lex Fridman (1:32:11.880)

and that happens in like psychedelics.

Andrew Huberman (1:32:16.920)

I, because of my previous conversation with you

Lex Fridman (1:32:21.880)

on this podcast, Matthew Johnson

Andrew Huberman (1:32:25.040)

from Johns Hopkins reached out and he said,

Lex Fridman (1:32:28.040)

but he commented, I think, on something that we commented

Andrew Huberman (1:32:32.720)

on, I don't even remember exactly what,

Lex Fridman (1:32:34.280)

but that there's not many studies.

Andrew Huberman (1:32:36.600)

It's not being psychedelics and not being rigorously studied

Lex Fridman (1:32:40.760)

in an academic setting, like with a full rigor of science.

Lex Fridman (1:32:44.680)

And he said, well, actually that's exactly what we're doing

Lex Fridman (1:32:48.040)

and they're extremely well funded now.

Lex Fridman (1:32:50.160)

And it's been a long battle to get it accepted

Lex Fridman (1:32:53.000)

as a serious scientific pursuit.

Andrew Huberman (1:32:55.760)

So, but, and I'd like to ask you a little bit about that,

Lex Fridman (1:33:00.000)

but do you have a sense about connection

Andrew Huberman (1:33:04.160)

between dreams and psychedelics or these different

Lex Fridman (1:33:07.680)

explorations of mind states that are outside

Lex Fridman (1:33:10.520)

of the standard normal one, that's the wake mindset?

Lex Fridman (1:33:14.480)

Yeah, I loved your discussion with Matthew.

Andrew Huberman (1:33:16.560)

I knew of the Hopkins group and the stuff they were doing,

Lex Fridman (1:33:19.320)

but I didn't know much about it at all.

Lex Fridman (1:33:21.800)

And I learned a ton from that podcast.

Lex Fridman (1:33:23.480)

I reached out to him just to say,

Andrew Huberman (1:33:25.640)

I love what you're doing.

Lex Fridman (1:33:26.480)

I think it's incredible.

Lex Fridman (1:33:27.360)

So yeah, your podcast has been a great source

Lex Fridman (1:33:29.280)

of serious academic and intellectual conversation for me.

Andrew Huberman (1:33:35.320)

I think what they're doing at Hopkins is amazing.

Lex Fridman (1:33:38.560)

He has a collaborator there actually

Andrew Huberman (1:33:40.520)

that had a very popular paper.

Lex Fridman (1:33:42.000)

I just throw out there for fun,

Andrew Huberman (1:33:44.440)

who is a postdoc at Stanford.

Lex Fridman (1:33:46.320)

Her name is Gul.

Andrew Huberman (1:33:47.840)

She's Turkish, I believe.

Lex Fridman (1:33:50.160)

And I apologize, her last name escapes me at the moment,

Lex Fridman (1:33:54.520)

but that's just a function of my brain.

Lex Fridman (1:33:57.200)

She had a paper showing that she put octopi on MDMA

Andrew Huberman (1:34:01.640)

on ecstasy and found out, this is published

Lex Fridman (1:34:04.000)

in current biology, it was a great journal,

Andrew Huberman (1:34:07.200)

showing that the octopi then wanted to spend more time

Lex Fridman (1:34:10.000)

with other octopi and they started cuddling.

Lex Fridman (1:34:12.560)

So they're colleagues out there.

Lex Fridman (1:34:14.800)

But the Hopkins project is super interesting

Andrew Huberman (1:34:19.080)

because I think they were initially supported mainly

Lex Fridman (1:34:21.680)

through private philanthropy.

Lex Fridman (1:34:23.200)

And now you're starting to see some more interest

Lex Fridman (1:34:25.480)

at the level of NIH about psychedelics.

Andrew Huberman (1:34:28.960)

It's a complicated space because the psychedelics

Lex Fridman (1:34:32.280)

are always looked at through the lens of the 60s

Lex Fridman (1:34:36.280)

and people losing their mind.

Lex Fridman (1:34:37.640)

And there's a, I always say,

Andrew Huberman (1:34:40.600)

you don't want a Ken Kesey out of the game.

Lex Fridman (1:34:42.600)

Ken Kesey was amazing, right,

Andrew Huberman (1:34:43.840)

part of the whole beat generation thing.

Lex Fridman (1:34:45.320)

And he was actually at the VA near Stanford.

Andrew Huberman (1:34:48.200)

That's where he eventually, in Menlo Park,

Lex Fridman (1:34:49.560)

he wrote One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,

Andrew Huberman (1:34:51.200)

or maybe that was about him.

Lex Fridman (1:34:52.360)

Anyway, the comments will tell me how wrong I am,

Lex Fridman (1:34:55.160)

but I think I'm tossing these words

Lex Fridman (1:34:57.040)

in the right general direction.

Lex Fridman (1:34:59.640)

But Huxley, Kesey, they did a lot of LSD

Lex Fridman (1:35:05.480)

and they all lost their jobs, right?

Andrew Huberman (1:35:08.320)

They lost their jobs at big institutions

Lex Fridman (1:35:10.040)

like Harvard and Stanford and elsewhere, or they left

Andrew Huberman (1:35:13.480)

because they made themselves the experiments.

Lex Fridman (1:35:18.040)

Hopkins, as far as I know, is one of the first places,

Andrew Huberman (1:35:21.160)

if not the first place, where whatever Matt

Lex Fridman (1:35:23.960)

may or may not be doing in his own life, I don't know.

Andrew Huberman (1:35:26.560)

It's really about the patients

Lex Fridman (1:35:27.760)

and whether or not the patients

Andrew Huberman (1:35:29.160)

in these institutional review board approved studies,

Lex Fridman (1:35:32.840)

whether or not they're getting better

Andrew Huberman (1:35:34.200)

in situations like depression.

Lex Fridman (1:35:35.800)

I think it's clear that there's a very close relationship

Andrew Huberman (1:35:40.240)

between hallucinogenic states and dreaming

Lex Fridman (1:35:43.280)

of the sort that were described for REM dreaming.

Lex Fridman (1:35:45.680)

And there's a terrific set of books

Lex Fridman (1:35:48.400)

and body of scientific literature

Andrew Huberman (1:35:49.880)

from a guy named Allan Hobson,

Lex Fridman (1:35:51.560)

who was an MD, is at Harvard Med,

Lex Fridman (1:35:53.680)

and he wrote books like Dream Drugstore.

Lex Fridman (1:35:56.360)

One of the first neuroscience books I ever read

Andrew Huberman (1:35:58.000)

was about hallucinations and how psychedelics

Lex Fridman (1:36:00.760)

and dreaming are very similar.

Andrew Huberman (1:36:02.280)

That was way back when I was in high school.

Lex Fridman (1:36:03.480)

I was just curious.

Lex Fridman (1:36:04.800)

And he really understood the relationship

Lex Fridman (1:36:07.040)

between LSD and REM dreams and how similar they are.

Andrew Huberman (1:36:10.960)

I think psychedelics, and Matt knows way more about this

Lex Fridman (1:36:14.520)

than I do, of course, but psychedelics

Andrew Huberman (1:36:17.400)

have some very interesting properties.

Lex Fridman (1:36:19.640)

They are certainly not for everybody, right?

Lex Fridman (1:36:21.640)

And kids, it's a problem.

Lex Fridman (1:36:23.920)

I think the major issues right now

Andrew Huberman (1:36:25.640)

around the psychedelic conversation is that it's clear

Lex Fridman (1:36:29.240)

that they can unveil certain elements of neuroplasticity.

Andrew Huberman (1:36:33.040)

They make the brain amenable to change,

Lex Fridman (1:36:35.520)

changing up space time relationships,

Andrew Huberman (1:36:37.400)

changing up the emotional load of an event

Lex Fridman (1:36:39.760)

and being able to reframe that.

Andrew Huberman (1:36:41.480)

It's clear that happens.

Lex Fridman (1:36:43.240)

But there's two major issues.

Andrew Huberman (1:36:45.160)

One is that people talk about plasticity

Lex Fridman (1:36:47.960)

as if plasticity is the goal,

Lex Fridman (1:36:50.200)

but plasticity is a state within which

Lex Fridman (1:36:52.200)

you can direct neurology.

Lex Fridman (1:36:53.640)

And the question is what changes are you trying to get to?

Lex Fridman (1:36:56.800)

So people are just taking psychedelics

Andrew Huberman (1:36:58.640)

to unveil plasticity without thinking about

Lex Fridman (1:37:02.160)

what circuits they want to modify and how.

Andrew Huberman (1:37:04.600)

I think that's a problem.

Lex Fridman (1:37:06.360)

I think there's great potential, however,

Andrew Huberman (1:37:08.440)

for people opening up these states of plasticity

Lex Fridman (1:37:12.240)

with psychedelics or otherwise,

Lex Fridman (1:37:13.520)

and directing the plastic changes

Lex Fridman (1:37:16.180)

toward a particular end point.

Lex Fridman (1:37:17.480)

And there's an absolutely spectacular paper

Lex Fridman (1:37:20.280)

out of UC Davis published as a full article in Nature

Andrew Huberman (1:37:23.800)

just a couple of months ago,

Lex Fridman (1:37:25.400)

showing that there are psychedelics

Andrew Huberman (1:37:28.380)

that are now can be modified.

Lex Fridman (1:37:30.100)

So chemists have gotten into the game now

Lex Fridman (1:37:31.880)

and modifying to take away the hallucinogenic component

Lex Fridman (1:37:34.440)

where you still get the neuroplasticity components.

Lex Fridman (1:37:37.760)

And for a lot of people it'd be like, oh, that's no fun.

Lex Fridman (1:37:40.460)

That's not giving you the wild experience.

Lex Fridman (1:37:43.140)

But I do think that that holds great potential

Lex Fridman (1:37:45.140)

for people that wouldn't otherwise orient

Andrew Huberman (1:37:47.760)

towards some of these drugs.

Lex Fridman (1:37:48.740)

So I think it's really marvelous what's happening

Lex Fridman (1:37:51.360)

and what's about to happen.

Lex Fridman (1:37:52.600)

And I think there is one drug in that kit of drugs

Andrew Huberman (1:37:57.500)

that's very unusual, like psilocybin, LSD,

Lex Fridman (1:38:00.880)

those promote heavy, heavy serotonin release

Lex Fridman (1:38:04.160)

and lateralized connections ramp up, et cetera.

Lex Fridman (1:38:06.940)

Matt talked about all that.

Lex Fridman (1:38:08.320)

But MDMA, ecstasy, is a very unusual situation

Lex Fridman (1:38:13.280)

where dopamine is very, very high

Andrew Huberman (1:38:16.120)

because of the way the drug is designed.

Lex Fridman (1:38:18.840)

Dopamine release, it goes through the roof.

Lex Fridman (1:38:21.100)

So people feel great and they want to move

Lex Fridman (1:38:23.880)

and they have a lot of energy.

Lex Fridman (1:38:25.320)

But serotonin levels are also high

Lex Fridman (1:38:27.640)

and that's a very unnatural state.

Lex Fridman (1:38:30.420)

And why MDMA may, and I want to highlight may,

Lex Fridman (1:38:35.040)

have particularly high potential

Andrew Huberman (1:38:38.280)

for the treatment of certain forms of depression

Lex Fridman (1:38:41.400)

is an interesting question.

Andrew Huberman (1:38:43.160)

Because never before, as far as we know in human history,

Lex Fridman (1:38:47.640)

has there been a possibility of opening up dopaminergic

Lex Fridman (1:38:51.440)

and serotonergic states at the same time,

Lex Fridman (1:38:53.080)

dopamine being the molecule pursuit and reward

Lex Fridman (1:38:55.180)

and more and more, and serotonin being one of bliss

Lex Fridman (1:38:58.640)

and being content right where you're at.

Lex Fridman (1:39:00.100)

So it's almost like those two things wrap back on themselves

Lex Fridman (1:39:02.400)

and create this very unusual state.

Lex Fridman (1:39:04.520)

And I think the bigger conversation

Lex Fridman (1:39:06.360)

is what to do with a state like that.

Lex Fridman (1:39:08.160)

Like is it about self love?

Lex Fridman (1:39:11.280)

Is it about developing love for another person?

Lex Fridman (1:39:13.480)

Is it about forgetting hate?

Lex Fridman (1:39:15.280)

Like these are powerful molecules.

Lex Fridman (1:39:17.240)

And I think if the academic community

Lex Fridman (1:39:19.240)

and the clinical community is going to move forward

Andrew Huberman (1:39:20.880)

with them in any serious way,

Lex Fridman (1:39:22.600)

I think there needs to be a conversation

Andrew Huberman (1:39:24.400)

about what they're being used for.

Lex Fridman (1:39:28.360)

Right, and coupled with that,

Andrew Huberman (1:39:30.480)

I think similar to what you're saying,

Lex Fridman (1:39:32.840)

like Matt has talked about,

Andrew Huberman (1:39:34.060)

as others have talked about,

Lex Fridman (1:39:35.820)

some of the biggest benefits of like progress,

Andrew Huberman (1:39:39.980)

whether it's like quitting smoking

Lex Fridman (1:39:41.360)

and all this kind of stuff is in the days after,

Andrew Huberman (1:39:45.280)

it's the integration of the experience.

Lex Fridman (1:39:47.600)

So maybe you open up the brain to the neuroplasticity,

Lex Fridman (1:39:50.680)

but then there's like work to be done.

Lex Fridman (1:39:52.320)

It's not, you shake up something in the biology of the brain

Lex Fridman (1:39:58.000)

but you have to do then it's work.

Lex Fridman (1:40:00.100)

Absolutely, a friend of mine who's a physician,

Andrew Huberman (1:40:03.440)

he says, who's quite open to this idea

Lex Fridman (1:40:06.600)

that psychedelics could play a real role in real medicine.

Andrew Huberman (1:40:10.400)

Says, better living through chemistry

Lex Fridman (1:40:12.240)

still requires better living.

Lex Fridman (1:40:14.440)

And I think it's a beautiful statement.

Lex Fridman (1:40:16.560)

I wish I had said it, but he gets the credit.

Lex Fridman (1:40:19.920)

But the plasticity window opens.

Lex Fridman (1:40:22.640)

And then as you said, what are you going to do in the two

Lex Fridman (1:40:24.640)

weeks, three weeks, four weeks afterward?

Lex Fridman (1:40:26.400)

Because that's the real opportunity.

Lex Fridman (1:40:28.300)

But those psychedelic experiences are really a case

Lex Fridman (1:40:30.680)

of an amplified experience inside of an amplified

Andrew Huberman (1:40:33.160)

experience so much so that everything seems relevant.

Lex Fridman (1:40:36.840)

And it's fascinating.

Andrew Huberman (1:40:39.800)

I mean, my hope is that the AI and machine learning

Lex Fridman (1:40:43.980)

and the brain machine interface and all that

Andrew Huberman (1:40:45.640)

will eventually be merged with the psychedelic treatments

Lex Fridman (1:40:49.620)

so that an individual can go in,

Andrew Huberman (1:40:52.320)

take whatever amount of whatever's safe for them,

Lex Fridman (1:40:55.000)

working with a clinician and really direct the plasticity

Andrew Huberman (1:40:57.600)

while maybe stimulating the medial frontal cortex

Lex Fridman (1:41:01.960)

or increasing the observer or decreasing the observer

Andrew Huberman (1:41:04.640)

in the brain or decreasing the amygdala.

Lex Fridman (1:41:06.480)

I mean, it's doable.

Andrew Huberman (1:41:07.960)

It's doable with transcranial magnetic stimulation

Lex Fridman (1:41:11.080)

and it's for shutting down activity

Lex Fridman (1:41:12.720)

and it's doable with ultrasound.

Lex Fridman (1:41:14.600)

Ultrasound now allows very focal activation

Andrew Huberman (1:41:17.440)

of particular brain regions through the skull,

Lex Fridman (1:41:19.940)

noninvasively.

Lex Fridman (1:41:21.040)

So it's approaching the same kind of therapy

Lex Fridman (1:41:23.960)

from different angles.

Andrew Huberman (1:41:24.880)

One AI is the computational size of injecting

Lex Fridman (1:41:28.440)

like the robotics injecting like maybe you can even think

Andrew Huberman (1:41:32.400)

about it as like electricity, the electrical approach

Lex Fridman (1:41:35.760)

versus then like the chemical approach.

Andrew Huberman (1:41:38.600)

Absolutely.

Lex Fridman (1:41:39.440)

And then the psychology is subjective, right?

Lex Fridman (1:41:42.800)

So it's gonna take some real understanding

Lex Fridman (1:41:45.960)

of what that person's lexicon is.

Andrew Huberman (1:41:49.540)

Like, you know, that wasn't a pun, sorry.

Lex Fridman (1:41:51.520)

I'm sorry, it's terrible, I'm like the worst.

Andrew Huberman (1:41:55.120)

That's the one thing I know from the feedback on my podcast.

Lex Fridman (1:41:57.380)

My jokes are terrible, but I never claimed to be funny.

Lex Fridman (1:42:02.180)

But somebody who they really trust

Lex Fridman (1:42:04.720)

and understands when somebody says, you know,

Andrew Huberman (1:42:08.160)

for a very stoic person, like I'm imagining

Lex Fridman (1:42:10.520)

you interviewed the great Dan Gable, right?

Andrew Huberman (1:42:12.760)

I don't know anything about Dan,

Lex Fridman (1:42:13.880)

but can you imagine like you ask Dan,

Andrew Huberman (1:42:15.520)

like, you know, how you feel about something

Lex Fridman (1:42:17.040)

while on one of these drugs?

Lex Fridman (1:42:18.320)

And like, I mean, his languaging might,

Lex Fridman (1:42:21.720)

if he says that was troubling,

Andrew Huberman (1:42:24.280)

it might mean that it was very troubling

Lex Fridman (1:42:26.000)

or not troubling at all.

Lex Fridman (1:42:27.360)

So people are, language is a poor guide

Lex Fridman (1:42:31.300)

because if I say I'm upset, how upset is that?

Andrew Huberman (1:42:33.720)

Well, that's very subjective.

Lex Fridman (1:42:35.360)

So you need, we need, can you build a tool for that?

Lex Fridman (1:42:38.400)

Can you build an AI tool for that?

Lex Fridman (1:42:39.720)

Yeah, deeper, yeah, well.

Andrew Huberman (1:42:40.840)

Maybe that's the eye, maybe that's our,

Lex Fridman (1:42:43.380)

that's what the eyes could reveal.

Lex Fridman (1:42:44.920)

So language is not just words, it's everything together.

Lex Fridman (1:42:47.400)

And that's one of the fascinating things about the eyes

Lex Fridman (1:42:50.480)

and the window to the soul.

Lex Fridman (1:42:51.520)

I mean, they express so much, the face, the eyes,

Andrew Huberman (1:42:54.360)

the body, I mean, Lisa talks about that,

Lex Fridman (1:42:57.600)

the communication of emotions, it's a super complex.

Andrew Huberman (1:43:01.120)

Perhaps it's a bit of a side fun tangent,

Lex Fridman (1:43:04.880)

but Matt, Matthew Johnson brings up DMT

Lex Fridman (1:43:10.400)

and the experience of DMT is from a scientific perspective,

Lex Fridman (1:43:16.200)

just a mystery in itself over its intensity

Andrew Huberman (1:43:20.360)

of what happens to the brain.

Lex Fridman (1:43:21.880)

And of course, Joe Rogan and others bring it up

Andrew Huberman (1:43:25.760)

as a very different special kind of experience

Lex Fridman (1:43:31.960)

and elves seem to come up often.

Lex Fridman (1:43:34.880)

I've never tried DMT, what allows for hallucinogenic states?

Lex Fridman (1:43:38.740)

And it, I mean, DMT is a really interesting molecule.

Andrew Huberman (1:43:41.960)

There are a lot of people experimenting now with DMT

Lex Fridman (1:43:46.960)

and the way they've described it is as a kind of a freight

Andrew Huberman (1:43:54.320)

train through space and time, very different

Lex Fridman (1:43:56.760)

than the way people describe LSD type experiences

Andrew Huberman (1:43:59.040)

or psilocybin where time and space are very fluid,

Lex Fridman (1:44:02.160)

but it tends to be a kind of a slower role, if you will.

Lex Fridman (1:44:06.740)

So it's clear that DMT is tapping into a brain state

Lex Fridman (1:44:10.240)

that's distinctly different than the other psychedelics.

Lex Fridman (1:44:13.860)

And you mentioned jujitsu and these other communities.

Lex Fridman (1:44:17.920)

I mean, I think it's interesting because jujitsu

Andrew Huberman (1:44:21.600)

is a nonverbal activity and people get together

Lex Fridman (1:44:24.260)

and talk about this nonverbal activity

Lex Fridman (1:44:26.360)

and they show great love for it in the same way

Lex Fridman (1:44:28.180)

that surfers, I've known some surfers in my time

Lex Fridman (1:44:32.020)

and they will get up at the crack of dawn

Lex Fridman (1:44:35.040)

and drive really, really far to sit in the water

Lex Fridman (1:44:37.140)

and wait for this wave to come.

Lex Fridman (1:44:38.200)

I have to imagine it's pretty fantastic.

Andrew Huberman (1:44:40.880)

I think that human beings now,

Lex Fridman (1:44:44.640)

some of whom are in the scientific community

Andrew Huberman (1:44:46.400)

are starting to feel comfortable enough to talk about

Lex Fridman (1:44:48.800)

some of these other loves and other endeavors

Andrew Huberman (1:44:51.360)

because they do reveal a certain component

Lex Fridman (1:44:54.080)

about our underlying neurology.

Andrew Huberman (1:44:55.960)

I'm fascinated by the concept of wordlessness,

Lex Fridman (1:45:01.040)

activities in which language is just not sufficient

Andrew Huberman (1:45:04.920)

to capture and in which feel so vital as a reset,

Lex Fridman (1:45:09.560)

as important as sleep.

Andrew Huberman (1:45:11.680)

I think that's one of the dangers of the phone

Lex Fridman (1:45:13.360)

is not that you're going to get into some online battle

Andrew Huberman (1:45:15.480)

or that you're always staring at the phone

Lex Fridman (1:45:16.680)

is that it's a words.

Andrew Huberman (1:45:17.960)

As we read things, we're hearing the script in our head.

Lex Fridman (1:45:20.800)

And I think getting into states

Andrew Huberman (1:45:23.500)

where we are in a state of wordlessness

Lex Fridman (1:45:26.480)

is very renewing and replenishing and just can feel amazing.

Lex Fridman (1:45:31.920)

And I believe also can help us tap into creative states

Lex Fridman (1:45:36.080)

and allow our neurology to access creative states.

Lex Fridman (1:45:38.600)

And sleep is one such wordlessness, period.

Lex Fridman (1:45:42.800)

So one of the most interesting things to me

Andrew Huberman (1:45:45.880)

are states that one can approach in waking,

Lex Fridman (1:45:48.360)

non sleep depressed, wordlessness through,

Andrew Huberman (1:45:51.800)

maybe it's jujitsu, maybe it's for some people surfing,

Lex Fridman (1:45:54.200)

maybe it's dancing, maybe it's just,

Lex Fridman (1:45:56.240)

I don't know, staring at a wall, who knows?

Lex Fridman (1:45:58.260)

But where the language components of the brain

Andrew Huberman (1:46:01.400)

are completely shut down.

Lex Fridman (1:46:03.240)

And it has to be the case that drugs are no drugs,

Andrew Huberman (1:46:06.560)

that the brain is entering and starting to states

Lex Fridman (1:46:10.640)

and starting to use algorithms

Andrew Huberman (1:46:12.120)

that are distinctly different

Lex Fridman (1:46:13.240)

than when we're trying to compose things

Andrew Huberman (1:46:15.540)

in any kind of coherent way for someone else to understand.

Lex Fridman (1:46:17.800)

There's no interest in anyone else understanding

Lex Fridman (1:46:20.200)

what you're experiencing in that moment.

Lex Fridman (1:46:22.360)

And that's beautiful.

Lex Fridman (1:46:23.560)

And I think it's not just beautiful because it feels good.

Lex Fridman (1:46:27.760)

I think it's beautiful because it's important

Lex Fridman (1:46:29.800)

and it's clearly fundamental to our neurology.

Lex Fridman (1:46:32.760)

And your sense is there's a connection between dreams

Lex Fridman (1:46:35.860)

and DMT and like psychedelic,

Lex Fridman (1:46:37.160)

like all of the, you can understand one

Andrew Huberman (1:46:41.680)

by studying the other.

Lex Fridman (1:46:42.680)

So for example, dreams are also very difficult to study,

Lex Fridman (1:46:46.240)

but they're more accessible.

Lex Fridman (1:46:48.240)

It's safer to study.

Lex Fridman (1:46:49.920)

And we're told we need to get more of it.

Lex Fridman (1:46:51.880)

Whereas with psychedelics, there's this big question mark.

Lex Fridman (1:46:54.380)

Is it gonna make everyone crazy?

Lex Fridman (1:46:56.300)

Is it gonna be legal?

Andrew Huberman (1:46:58.060)

I mean, it's kind of interesting how,

Lex Fridman (1:47:00.120)

if one looks on Instagram,

Andrew Huberman (1:47:02.400)

one could almost think that these drugs are already legal

Lex Fridman (1:47:04.800)

based on the way that people commute, but they're not yet.

Andrew Huberman (1:47:06.800)

There's still a lot of them are scheduled.

Lex Fridman (1:47:08.320)

And there's a lot of questions.

Andrew Huberman (1:47:10.480)

I mean, but nevertheless, it's like,

Lex Fridman (1:47:15.160)

my hope is that science opens up

Andrew Huberman (1:47:18.640)

to these drugs a little bit more.

Lex Fridman (1:47:21.800)

It's just, I have this intuition that,

Andrew Huberman (1:47:24.420)

like a lot of people share,

Lex Fridman (1:47:25.780)

that they would be able to unlock deeper understanding

Andrew Huberman (1:47:30.960)

of our own mind.

Lex Fridman (1:47:31.800)

It's any kind of, same as studying dreams.

Andrew Huberman (1:47:34.840)

Absolutely.

Lex Fridman (1:47:35.680)

Well, creativity is in the nonlinearities, right?

Lex Fridman (1:47:39.360)

But productivity is in the implementation of linearities.

Lex Fridman (1:47:43.120)

I mean, that's what is absolutely clear.

Andrew Huberman (1:47:45.760)

This is why I think we were talking earlier

Lex Fridman (1:47:47.320)

about why a formal rigorous training in something

Andrew Huberman (1:47:49.920)

where other people are looking at you

Lex Fridman (1:47:51.200)

and telling you, no, not good enough,

Andrew Huberman (1:47:52.640)

go back and do it again.

Lex Fridman (1:47:54.020)

There's real value to that

Andrew Huberman (1:47:55.320)

because otherwise it's just ideas.

Lex Fridman (1:47:57.080)

It's just vapors.

Andrew Huberman (1:47:58.560)

You know, one thing that Matt mentioned

Lex Fridman (1:48:01.240)

as the study that they're working on is,

Andrew Huberman (1:48:04.920)

as opposed to, I think most of the psychedelic studies

Lex Fridman (1:48:07.680)

they've done is on how to treat different conditions.

Lex Fridman (1:48:12.040)

And one of the things they're working on now

Lex Fridman (1:48:13.680)

is to try to do a study where, for creatives,

Andrew Huberman (1:48:18.160)

for people that don't have a condition

Lex Fridman (1:48:20.200)

that they're trying to treat,

Lex Fridman (1:48:21.040)

but instead see how this,

Lex Fridman (1:48:23.840)

how psychedelics can help you create.

Lex Fridman (1:48:26.000)

So like.

Lex Fridman (1:48:26.840)

Goodness.

Andrew Huberman (1:48:27.660)

If you take creatives and you give them more psychedelics,

Lex Fridman (1:48:29.740)

they're not gonna be able to get out of their room.

Andrew Huberman (1:48:31.680)

I don't know.

Lex Fridman (1:48:32.640)

Well, but this is the,

Andrew Huberman (1:48:34.400)

maybe you can speak to that, psychedelics or not,

Lex Fridman (1:48:37.320)

or dreams or tools in general, how to be better creatives.

Andrew Huberman (1:48:40.600)

That's an interesting,

Lex Fridman (1:48:42.080)

I don't often see studies of this nature

Andrew Huberman (1:48:44.680)

of like how to take high performers

Lex Fridman (1:48:47.000)

in the mental creative space

Lex Fridman (1:48:50.840)

and get them to perform even better.

Lex Fridman (1:48:53.680)

So it's not average people.

Andrew Huberman (1:48:55.640)

It's like masters of their craft, like taking,

Lex Fridman (1:48:58.860)

I mean, his examples was taking an Elon Musk,

Andrew Huberman (1:49:01.480)

which is in the engineering space and maybe musicians

Lex Fridman (1:49:04.240)

and all that kind of stuff and studying that.

Andrew Huberman (1:49:06.520)

That's a, I mean, that's weird.

Lex Fridman (1:49:09.520)

Usually the science, the scientific exploration there

Andrew Huberman (1:49:13.680)

has been done by the musicians themselves,

Lex Fridman (1:49:16.800)

as has been documented.

Lex Fridman (1:49:17.920)

Like jazz is like all nonlinearities, right?

Lex Fridman (1:49:21.380)

But if it's, but the people still have to know

Lex Fridman (1:49:23.660)

how to play their instruments, right?

Lex Fridman (1:49:25.760)

There's some early skill building that's critical.

Andrew Huberman (1:49:29.600)

I mean, when you mentioned someone like Elon,

Lex Fridman (1:49:32.120)

I mean, virtual, I mean, he's already a virtuoso, right?

Andrew Huberman (1:49:34.600)

Cause he, and in so many different domains,

Lex Fridman (1:49:36.440)

I've never met him, but it's clear, right?

Andrew Huberman (1:49:39.240)

He, it's not just that he's ambitious and bold and brave

Lex Fridman (1:49:42.880)

and all that, it's all that.

Lex Fridman (1:49:44.280)

And there's clearly a different way of looking

Lex Fridman (1:49:49.160)

at the same problems that everyone else is looking at.

Lex Fridman (1:49:51.560)

And people are probably banging their head

Lex Fridman (1:49:53.320)

against the refrigerator thinking like, think differently,

Andrew Huberman (1:49:55.200)

think it doesn't work that way.

Lex Fridman (1:49:56.800)

It involves, there's a certain anxiety in for the,

Andrew Huberman (1:50:00.400)

I'm not talking about for Elon, but I don't have no idea.

Lex Fridman (1:50:03.860)

But I think for somebody who's very structured,

Andrew Huberman (1:50:06.800)

very regimented, very linear,

Lex Fridman (1:50:08.600)

the anxiety comes from letting go of those linearities.

Lex Fridman (1:50:12.060)

And for the person that's very creative,

Lex Fridman (1:50:14.080)

the anxiety comes from trying to impose linearities, right?

Andrew Huberman (1:50:18.240)

The really creative artists or musician, they're,

Lex Fridman (1:50:21.680)

they seem nuts.

Andrew Huberman (1:50:22.840)

They seem like they can't get their life together

Lex Fridman (1:50:24.520)

because they can't.

Lex Fridman (1:50:26.040)

And they, you know, we look at people who are kind of

Lex Fridman (1:50:28.600)

pseudo Asperger's or Asperger's or some forms of autism

Lex Fridman (1:50:31.320)

and they are so hyper linear,

Lex Fridman (1:50:33.120)

but you take away those linearities and they freak out.

Lex Fridman (1:50:36.480)

And that's kind of the essence of some of those syndromes.

Lex Fridman (1:50:39.080)

So I think that the ability to toggle back and forth

Andrew Huberman (1:50:42.380)

between those states is what's remarkable.

Lex Fridman (1:50:44.120)

I mean, because we're here and we're having this discussion,

Andrew Huberman (1:50:46.400)

I mean, Steve Jobs is a good example.

Lex Fridman (1:50:48.180)

He probably the best example,

Andrew Huberman (1:50:49.980)

somebody who actually talked about his own process,

Lex Fridman (1:50:52.680)

about the merging of art and science,

Andrew Huberman (1:50:54.880)

art and engineering, humanities and science.

Lex Fridman (1:50:57.800)

Very few people can do that.

Andrew Huberman (1:51:00.080)

Well, you seem to have a capacity to do that.

Lex Fridman (1:51:03.240)

Like you know poetry and you are AI guy,

Andrew Huberman (1:51:06.320)

like you, there's nothing linear about poetry

Lex Fridman (1:51:08.680)

as far as I can tell.

Andrew Huberman (1:51:09.760)

I mean, I do wonder, just like we've been talking about,

Lex Fridman (1:51:12.660)

if there's any ways to push that to its limits

Andrew Huberman (1:51:15.160)

to explore further.

Lex Fridman (1:51:17.680)

I don't like leaning, this is why I'm bothered

Andrew Huberman (1:51:20.280)

there's not more science and psychedelics is,

Lex Fridman (1:51:22.400)

I haven't done almost,

Lex Fridman (1:51:24.720)

so I've eaten mushrooms a few times allegedly,

Lex Fridman (1:51:29.760)

but that's it.

Lex Fridman (1:51:31.720)

And the reason I don't do more,

Lex Fridman (1:51:33.500)

the reason I haven't done DMT is because it's illegal

Lex Fridman (1:51:36.400)

and it's like not well studied.

Lex Fridman (1:51:39.480)

And I'm in those things,

Andrew Huberman (1:51:42.480)

I'm not usually at the cutting edge, but I'm very curious.

Lex Fridman (1:51:45.280)

And it feels like there could be tools

Andrew Huberman (1:51:49.480)

to be discovered there, not for fun,

Lex Fridman (1:51:51.960)

not for recreation, but for like encouraging

Andrew Huberman (1:51:57.320)

whether you're a linear thinking to go nonlinear

Lex Fridman (1:52:00.000)

or it's nonlinear to go linear, like to shake things up.

Andrew Huberman (1:52:03.520)

You mentioned Dan Gable,

Lex Fridman (1:52:05.060)

the idea of Dan Gable on psychedelics is fascinating to me

Andrew Huberman (1:52:07.760)

because he's such a control freak.

Lex Fridman (1:52:11.200)

I mean, he likes control.

Andrew Huberman (1:52:12.200)

That I would show up for.

Lex Fridman (1:52:13.640)

That I would show up for.

Lex Fridman (1:52:15.240)

But like so much of these psychedelic experiences

Lex Fridman (1:52:17.640)

it feels like is for letting go.

Andrew Huberman (1:52:19.840)

That's right.

Lex Fridman (1:52:20.680)

You don't wanna resist.

Andrew Huberman (1:52:21.500)

That's supposedly where the growth is

Lex Fridman (1:52:23.920)

in giving oneself over to the process.

Lex Fridman (1:52:27.520)

And that's for people who are like master controllers.

Lex Fridman (1:52:31.360)

He's one of the greatest coaches of all time.

Andrew Huberman (1:52:33.140)

It's fascinating to see what that battle looks like

Lex Fridman (1:52:35.760)

of resistance and then of letting go.

Andrew Huberman (1:52:38.680)

Yeah, I mean, I can't wait to see where these studies take us.

Lex Fridman (1:52:44.020)

Well, it's clearly happening.

Andrew Huberman (1:52:45.560)

You know, I've asked there,

Lex Fridman (1:52:46.440)

I have a couple of colleagues at Stanford

Andrew Huberman (1:52:47.680)

who are doing animal studies.

Lex Fridman (1:52:49.360)

I've asked around, you know, it's,

Andrew Huberman (1:52:51.460)

there's a lot of discussion in the neuroscience community

Lex Fridman (1:52:54.240)

about what the perception of a laboratory is

Andrew Huberman (1:52:56.820)

if they work on psychedelics.

Lex Fridman (1:52:59.480)

I mean, I have to tip my hat to the folks at Hopkins.

Andrew Huberman (1:53:02.860)

They are pioneers.

Lex Fridman (1:53:04.080)

And as Terry Signowski,

Andrew Huberman (1:53:06.000)

he's a computational neuroscientist down at Salk says,

Lex Fridman (1:53:08.600)

I don't think he was the first person to say it.

Lex Fridman (1:53:09.920)

He says, you know how to spot the pioneers?

Lex Fridman (1:53:12.600)

They're the ones with the arrows in their backs.

Andrew Huberman (1:53:14.520)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:53:15.360)

And you know, it's an unkind world to a scientist

Andrew Huberman (1:53:19.920)

that's trying to do really cutting edge stuff.

Lex Fridman (1:53:22.020)

My colleague, David Spiegel who studies medical hypnosis,

Andrew Huberman (1:53:25.120)

he's got dozens of studies now showing that hypnosis

Lex Fridman (1:53:28.720)

can be beneficial for pain management,

Andrew Huberman (1:53:30.440)

anxiety management, cancer outcomes.

Lex Fridman (1:53:32.440)

And it's finally, you know,

Andrew Huberman (1:53:34.280)

at the point where there's so much data,

Lex Fridman (1:53:36.920)

but people hear hypnosis and they think of stage hypnosis,

Andrew Huberman (1:53:39.400)

which is like the furthest thing from what he's doing.

Lex Fridman (1:53:42.040)

And I think mind, body type stuff,

Andrew Huberman (1:53:45.720)

hypnosis, respiration and breathing.

Lex Fridman (1:53:48.440)

I think the hard science walk into the problem

Andrew Huberman (1:53:52.560)

is always going to be best to get the community on board.

Lex Fridman (1:53:55.920)

And then it's up to people like Matt

Lex Fridman (1:53:58.120)

and to really, you know, take it to the next level.

Lex Fridman (1:54:01.720)

And as I say, not Keezy out of the game

Andrew Huberman (1:54:03.800)

because Keezy basically was taking too much of his own stuff

Lex Fridman (1:54:07.300)

and he started dressing crazy of banana hats.

Lex Fridman (1:54:09.400)

And like, you see him, he had the magic bus.

Lex Fridman (1:54:11.720)

So, you know, the day I start driving to work

Andrew Huberman (1:54:14.320)

in the magic bus, that's the day I lose my job.

Lex Fridman (1:54:17.640)

I'm not into buses or wearing fruit, but.

Andrew Huberman (1:54:21.000)

You're going to get a phone call from me

Lex Fridman (1:54:22.320)

and I hope you do the same for me.

Lex Fridman (1:54:23.600)

It's like, dude, what are you doing?

Lex Fridman (1:54:26.680)

Well, what's interesting earlier,

Andrew Huberman (1:54:28.040)

we were talking about the challenge with David

Lex Fridman (1:54:29.520)

that you're about to do.

Andrew Huberman (1:54:30.560)

I mean, that is a psychedelic experience of sorts

Lex Fridman (1:54:34.600)

because you're biasing your mind

Andrew Huberman (1:54:36.240)

towards a pretty extreme neurochemical state.

Lex Fridman (1:54:38.720)

And you don't know what you're going to find there.

Lex Fridman (1:54:40.720)

And that's kind of the excitement,

Lex Fridman (1:54:42.160)

at least for me as an observer.

Andrew Huberman (1:54:43.640)

It's like, I want to know what the experience

Lex Fridman (1:54:47.680)

is like afterward.

Lex Fridman (1:54:49.520)

I want to know like, how was it?

Lex Fridman (1:54:51.120)

I mean, I'm sure you're going to get something.

Andrew Huberman (1:54:52.720)

Like you said, you're going to grow.

Lex Fridman (1:54:53.920)

The question is how.

Lex Fridman (1:54:54.860)

And not resisting.

Lex Fridman (1:54:55.820)

I mean, it's the same as with the psychedelic experience.

Andrew Huberman (1:54:57.840)

It's like not like giving yourself over completely

Lex Fridman (1:55:01.440)

to the experience and not resisting

Lex Fridman (1:55:03.360)

and going through the whole mental journey

Lex Fridman (1:55:05.020)

of whether it's anger or excitement or exhaustion,

Andrew Huberman (1:55:08.720)

the whole thing.

Lex Fridman (1:55:09.640)

That's, I mean, that's the entirety of the process

Andrew Huberman (1:55:16.600)

that David goes through when he does his own challenges

Lex Fridman (1:55:19.680)

and so on is that whole journey.

Andrew Huberman (1:55:21.440)

He finds purposely like missile seeks the limits

Lex Fridman (1:55:26.760)

of the mind that whenever the resistance is felt,

Andrew Huberman (1:55:30.600)

runs up against it and then goes to the full journey

Lex Fridman (1:55:33.360)

of going beyond it and seeing what's there

Andrew Huberman (1:55:35.760)

on the other side.

Lex Fridman (1:55:36.600)

Well, stress has these two sides,

Andrew Huberman (1:55:38.080)

the limbic friction of being tired

Lex Fridman (1:55:40.120)

and needing to get more energized.

Andrew Huberman (1:55:41.720)

That's one form of stress.

Lex Fridman (1:55:43.400)

And then there's the feeling too amped up

Lex Fridman (1:55:45.640)

and needing to calm down.

Lex Fridman (1:55:47.400)

The typical discussion around stress is one thing,

Lex Fridman (1:55:50.160)

but it's all limbic friction.

Lex Fridman (1:55:51.740)

It's just that when I say limbic friction,

Andrew Huberman (1:55:53.600)

that's not a real scientific term.

Lex Fridman (1:55:54.900)

I just mean the limbic system wanting to pull you down

Andrew Huberman (1:55:57.160)

into sleep or wanting to put you into panic

Lex Fridman (1:55:59.240)

and you using top down processing,

Andrew Huberman (1:56:01.720)

using that evolved forebrain to say,

Lex Fridman (1:56:04.920)

I'm not going to go to sleep

Lex Fridman (1:56:06.880)

and I'm not going to freak out.

Lex Fridman (1:56:09.120)

And those top down control mechanisms are,

Andrew Huberman (1:56:11.840)

I mean, when those get honed, that's beautiful

Lex Fridman (1:56:15.160)

because then you're increasing capacity for everything.

Andrew Huberman (1:56:20.880)

This month on the podcast,

Lex Fridman (1:56:22.360)

you're talking about neuroplasticity.

Andrew Huberman (1:56:23.760)

You mentioned a bunch already.

Lex Fridman (1:56:25.260)

Is there something you're looking forward to specifically,

Andrew Huberman (1:56:29.040)

like something maybe you're fascinated by

Lex Fridman (1:56:31.920)

that jumps to mind about neuroplasticity,

Lex Fridman (1:56:34.720)

this fascinating property of the brain?

Lex Fridman (1:56:37.620)

Yeah, I think that it's clear

Andrew Huberman (1:56:39.560)

there's one facet of neuroplasticity

Lex Fridman (1:56:41.800)

that is very well supported by the research data

Andrew Huberman (1:56:45.360)

that hardly anyone has implemented in the real world.

Lex Fridman (1:56:48.760)

And that's the release of acetylcholine from these neurons

Andrew Huberman (1:56:51.600)

in the forebrain called nucleus basalis.

Lex Fridman (1:56:53.720)

This is mainly the work of Mike Merzenich,

Andrew Huberman (1:56:56.000)

who used to be at UCSF

Lex Fridman (1:56:57.360)

and some of his scientific offspring,

Andrew Huberman (1:56:59.060)

Greg Reckensown and Michael Kilgard and others.

Lex Fridman (1:57:01.480)

What they showed was increases in acetylcholine,

Andrew Huberman (1:57:04.820)

this molecule associated with focus,

Lex Fridman (1:57:07.560)

in concert, meaning at the same time as some event,

Andrew Huberman (1:57:11.920)

motor event or music event or any kind of sensory event,

Lex Fridman (1:57:17.060)

immediately reorganizes the neocortex

Lex Fridman (1:57:20.540)

so that there's a permanent map representation

Lex Fridman (1:57:22.800)

of that event.

Lex Fridman (1:57:23.980)

And I absolutely believe that this can be channeled

Lex Fridman (1:57:27.440)

toward accelerated skill learning.

Lex Fridman (1:57:29.980)

And my friend and colleague, Eddie Chang,

Lex Fridman (1:57:31.480)

who's now the chair of neurosurgery at UCSF,

Lex Fridman (1:57:34.760)

but also a fine scientist in his own right,

Lex Fridman (1:57:37.720)

not just a clinician,

Andrew Huberman (1:57:38.760)

he's doing studies looking at rapid acquisition of language

Lex Fridman (1:57:42.560)

using these principles.

Andrew Huberman (1:57:43.680)

He trained with Merzenich.

Lex Fridman (1:57:45.760)

It's clear we have these gates on plasticity

Andrew Huberman (1:57:48.120)

in the forebrain,

Lex Fridman (1:57:48.960)

and they are gated by nicotinic acetylcholine transmission.

Lex Fridman (1:57:53.720)

And why that hasn't made it into protocols

Lex Fridman (1:57:56.880)

for motor learning, sport learning, language learning,

Andrew Huberman (1:57:59.520)

music learning, emotional learning, I don't know.

Lex Fridman (1:58:02.480)

I think part of the reason has been kind of cultural

Andrew Huberman (1:58:05.520)

is that scientists publish their paper and they move on.

Lex Fridman (1:58:07.840)

Merzenich talked a lot and still can be found

Andrew Huberman (1:58:11.000)

from time to time talking about

Lex Fridman (1:58:13.080)

how these plasticity mechanisms can be leveraged.

Lex Fridman (1:58:16.560)

But he had a commercial company,

Lex Fridman (1:58:18.860)

and so then people kind of backed away from him a little bit.

Andrew Huberman (1:58:21.240)

I think he was, to be honest,

Lex Fridman (1:58:22.720)

I think Merzenich was ahead of his time.

Lex Fridman (1:58:25.240)

And I think the timing is right now

Lex Fridman (1:58:27.320)

for people to understand these mechanisms of plasticity

Lex Fridman (1:58:30.360)

and start to implement them.

Lex Fridman (1:58:31.600)

Also, it all sounds like becoming superhuman

Andrew Huberman (1:58:34.160)

or optimizing or whatever, all that, yes.

Lex Fridman (1:58:37.080)

But also what about kids with language learning deficits

Lex Fridman (1:58:39.760)

or with dyslexia or just performance in school in general?

Lex Fridman (1:58:44.000)

I have a deep, interesting concern

Andrew Huberman (1:58:46.200)

for the future of science and mathematics

Lex Fridman (1:58:48.480)

and not just in this country, but all over the world.

Lex Fridman (1:58:51.640)

And more plasticity equals faster, better, deeper learning.

Lex Fridman (1:58:56.200)

And if we don't do this,

Andrew Huberman (1:58:58.080)

I don't think we're going to get the full reach

Lex Fridman (1:59:00.520)

out of all the machine learning tools either,

Andrew Huberman (1:59:03.000)

because everyone talks about these huge data sets,

Lex Fridman (1:59:06.000)

but those huge data sets funnel into human interpretation.

Andrew Huberman (1:59:09.480)

I mean, we don't just like stare at the numbers and bask.

Lex Fridman (1:59:12.380)

So the human brain, I think,

Andrew Huberman (1:59:14.660)

needs to leverage these plasticity mechanisms

Lex Fridman (1:59:17.600)

to keep up with the thing that's happening very, very fast,

Andrew Huberman (1:59:20.240)

which is technology development.

Lex Fridman (1:59:21.820)

So that's a long winded way of saying

Andrew Huberman (1:59:24.080)

basal forebrain, cholinergic transmission and plasticity,

Lex Fridman (1:59:27.000)

it allows for plasticity in adulthood

Lex Fridman (1:59:29.080)

and it allows for single trial learning, which is incredible.

Lex Fridman (1:59:33.360)

But how do we leverage that?

Andrew Huberman (1:59:34.920)

Like in the physical space taking actions

Lex Fridman (1:59:38.160)

or is there some chemicals that can stimulate neuroplasticity?

Lex Fridman (1:59:44.440)

Like what?

Lex Fridman (1:59:45.280)

I think it's the intersection of the two.

Andrew Huberman (1:59:46.720)

I think it's being engaged in a physical practice

Lex Fridman (1:59:48.880)

while enhancing pharmacology.

Lex Fridman (1:59:51.000)

And it has to be done safely.

Lex Fridman (1:59:52.260)

And this is full of open questions.

Andrew Huberman (1:59:54.120)

This is the very beginnings of it, like you're saying.

Lex Fridman (1:59:56.600)

Yeah, a pill that's safe

Andrew Huberman (1:59:58.960)

that increases nicotinic transmission.

Lex Fridman (20:03.240)

And tyrosine is eventually converted

Andrew Huberman (20:05.200)

through things like L dopa into dopamine.

Lex Fridman (20:07.480)

Dopamine is made into epinephrine.

Andrew Huberman (20:09.440)

So, I mean, this sounds kind of new agey,

Lex Fridman (20:11.760)

but happiness, joy and pleasure in what you're doing

Andrew Huberman (20:16.120)

creates a chemical milieu that provides more

Lex Fridman (20:20.340)

of the chemicals that allow for effort.

Lex Fridman (20:22.840)

And there's nothing new agey about that.

Lex Fridman (20:24.240)

It's in every biochemistry textbook.

Andrew Huberman (20:26.080)

It's in every decent neuroscience textbook.

Lex Fridman (20:28.140)

They just don't talk about the happiness part.

Andrew Huberman (20:29.600)

They just talk about the dopamine part.

Lex Fridman (20:31.400)

So, I think that limiting your stress

Lex Fridman (20:33.400)

and at least recognizing, okay,

Lex Fridman (20:35.200)

if you're pulling an all nighter

Andrew Huberman (20:36.240)

or you're somehow on messed up sleep,

Lex Fridman (20:39.580)

that there is going to be a point in that 24 hour cycle

Andrew Huberman (20:43.360)

where your brain is not trustworthy,

Lex Fridman (20:46.060)

where your mental state is not worth placing too much weight

Andrew Huberman (20:50.700)

on because you are near that temperature minimum.

Lex Fridman (20:53.360)

And near that temperature minimum,

Andrew Huberman (20:54.880)

which is correlates to that two hour,

Lex Fridman (20:57.280)

about two hours before you would normally wake up,

Andrew Huberman (21:00.360)

the brain is hobbling along.

Lex Fridman (21:03.860)

And anything you feel or think at that time

Andrew Huberman (21:06.880)

should not be given too much value.

Lex Fridman (21:09.420)

But if you can trick yourself into thinking

Andrew Huberman (21:11.760)

that's the pleasure point,

Lex Fridman (21:13.260)

you afford yourself a huge advantage.

Andrew Huberman (21:15.240)

There's a study done by a colleague of mine at Stanford

Lex Fridman (21:17.600)

that showed that positive anticipation

Andrew Huberman (21:20.560)

about the next day events actually is a powerful metric

Lex Fridman (21:26.320)

for creating quality sleep,

Andrew Huberman (21:29.400)

even if the sleep is very reduced.

Lex Fridman (21:31.640)

And you'll love this one.

Lex Fridman (21:32.960)

And a lot of people are going to,

Lex Fridman (21:35.040)

might be critical of this.

Andrew Huberman (21:36.000)

So, I just want to make sure that,

Lex Fridman (21:36.920)

so this is work done out of Harvard Medical.

Andrew Huberman (21:40.040)

It was Bob Stickgold's lab

Lex Fridman (21:42.720)

and Emily Hoagland did this study that showed

Andrew Huberman (21:45.960)

looking at Ochem, performance on Ochem scores.

Lex Fridman (21:48.840)

Okay, so organic chemistry at Harvard

Andrew Huberman (21:50.080)

is pretty tough subject, highly motivated,

Lex Fridman (21:52.600)

a number of very good control groups in this study.

Lex Fridman (21:55.960)

What she showed was that consistency of total sleep duration

Lex Fridman (22:00.000)

was far more important for performance on these exams

Andrew Huberman (22:04.200)

than total sleep duration itself.

Lex Fridman (22:06.800)

So it's not that just getting more sleep

Andrew Huberman (22:08.720)

allows you to perform better.

Lex Fridman (22:10.280)

Consistently getting about the same amount of sleep

Andrew Huberman (22:13.680)

is better for performance, at least on Ochem,

Lex Fridman (22:17.720)

than just getting more.

Andrew Huberman (22:19.780)

That's interesting.

Lex Fridman (22:20.620)

So that's referring to more

Andrew Huberman (22:22.800)

that there should be a consistent habit

Lex Fridman (22:25.440)

versus the total amount.

Andrew Huberman (22:27.880)

To me, like the entirety of the picture of sleep

Lex Fridman (22:31.160)

is similar to nutrition in that it feels like it's,

Andrew Huberman (22:38.400)

there's so many variables involved

Lex Fridman (22:40.040)

and it's so person specific.

Andrew Huberman (22:42.360)

So, you know, a lot of studies,

Lex Fridman (22:44.400)

I mean, this is the way of science,

Andrew Huberman (22:45.920)

has to look in aggregate the effects on sleep.

Lex Fridman (22:49.520)

It doesn't focus on high performers

Andrew Huberman (22:52.400)

which are individuals ultimately.

Lex Fridman (22:54.620)

Like the question isn't,

Lex Fridman (22:57.960)

so it's a very important question,

Lex Fridman (22:59.200)

is like what kind of diet fights obesity, reduces obesity?

Andrew Huberman (23:04.280)

It's another question,

Lex Fridman (23:05.440)

what kind of diet allows David Goggins

Lex Fridman (23:07.760)

to be the best version of himself?

Lex Fridman (23:09.240)

So these high performers in different avenues.

Lex Fridman (23:11.800)

And the same thing with sleep,

Lex Fridman (23:13.180)

like people that tell me

Andrew Huberman (23:15.640)

that I should get eight hours of sleep,

Lex Fridman (23:18.560)

it's like, it's, I mean, I get it

Lex Fridman (23:23.420)

and there may be right, but they may be very wrong.

Lex Fridman (23:26.320)

There's no evidence that eight is better than six,

Andrew Huberman (23:29.500)

that you could very well do better on six than on eight.

Lex Fridman (23:33.440)

There are a few other things that turn out to be

Andrew Huberman (23:36.140)

strong parameters for success in this domain.

Lex Fridman (23:38.440)

For instance, your entire life, waking or asleep

Andrew Huberman (23:42.160)

is broken up into these 90 minute ultradian cycles.

Lex Fridman (23:44.760)

If you look at ability to attend or do math problems

Andrew Huberman (23:47.520)

or do anything, you know, drive,

Lex Fridman (23:50.060)

performance tends to ramp up slowly within a 90 minute cycle

Andrew Huberman (23:54.020)

peak and then come down at the end of that 90 minute cycle.

Lex Fridman (23:56.720)

And in sleep, we go through these stage one, two, three,

Andrew Huberman (23:59.920)

four REM, et cetera, we'll talk more about that if you like,

Lex Fridman (24:02.420)

those on 90 minute ultradian cycles as well.

Andrew Huberman (24:05.440)

Ending your sleep after a 90 minute cycle

Lex Fridman (24:07.940)

at the near the end of a 90 minute cycle,

Andrew Huberman (24:10.820)

say at the end of six hours,

Lex Fridman (24:12.500)

in many cases is better for you

Andrew Huberman (24:14.960)

than sleeping an additional hour, seven hours

Lex Fridman (24:17.160)

and waking up in the middle of an ultradian cycle.

Lex Fridman (24:19.320)

And there are a few apps that can measure this

Lex Fridman (24:21.200)

based on body movements and things like that,

Andrew Huberman (24:23.240)

that have your alarm go off

Lex Fridman (24:25.800)

at the end of an ultradian cycle.

Lex Fridman (24:27.880)

And if you wake up in the middle of an ultradian cycle,

Lex Fridman (24:30.500)

sometimes not always you can be very groggy

Andrew Huberman (24:32.600)

for a long period of time.

Lex Fridman (24:34.260)

I certainly do better on six hours than I do on seven.

Andrew Huberman (24:37.560)

I happen to like an eight hour sleep, it feels great,

Lex Fridman (24:40.580)

but I haven't slept an entire eight hours

Andrew Huberman (24:43.020)

without waking up in the middle of the night at some point

Lex Fridman (24:45.180)

in, I don't know, forever.

Andrew Huberman (24:48.000)

I can't remember, it's probably some point in infancy.

Lex Fridman (24:51.640)

And I function well during the day.

Andrew Huberman (24:53.120)

I think that that's an important parameter

Lex Fridman (24:57.220)

is how do you feel during the day?

Andrew Huberman (24:58.940)

Almost everybody experiences some sort of dip in energy

Lex Fridman (25:02.040)

in the late afternoon

Andrew Huberman (25:03.000)

or what would correlate to their temperature peak.

Lex Fridman (25:05.160)

And that's a good time of day

Andrew Huberman (25:06.680)

to get either a 90 minute or less nap,

Lex Fridman (25:10.560)

or if you're not a napper or you can't nap,

Andrew Huberman (25:13.960)

feet elevated has been shown to be good for clear out

Lex Fridman (25:19.040)

of some of this, the glymphatic system

Andrew Huberman (25:22.080)

is this kind of like sewer system of the brain

Lex Fridman (25:23.560)

that you can clear stuff out.

Lex Fridman (25:24.760)

So legs elevated, or one thing that I'm a big proponent of

Lex Fridman (25:29.080)

and that my lab has been studying

Andrew Huberman (25:30.200)

is what I now call NSDR, non sleep deep rest.

Lex Fridman (25:34.300)

And this is just lying down.

Andrew Huberman (25:36.360)

There are some scripts that we're gonna put out there soon

Lex Fridman (25:38.480)

as a free resource.

Andrew Huberman (25:40.060)

There's some hypnosis scripts

Lex Fridman (25:41.280)

that my colleague David Spiegel has put out there

Andrew Huberman (25:42.840)

as a free resource,

Lex Fridman (25:44.080)

but non sleep deep rest is allowing your system

Andrew Huberman (25:46.640)

to drop into states of a real calm

Lex Fridman (25:49.940)

that allow you to get better at falling asleep later.

Lex Fridman (25:52.480)

And they can be very restorative

Lex Fridman (25:53.820)

for cognitive and motor function.

Andrew Huberman (25:55.620)

There's at least one study out of Denmark

Lex Fridman (25:58.040)

that shows that the basal ganglia,

Andrew Huberman (26:01.360)

which is an area of the brain

Lex Fridman (26:02.320)

that's involved in motor planning and action,

Andrew Huberman (26:04.300)

one of these 20 minute non sleep deep rest protocols

Lex Fridman (26:07.380)

resets levels of neuromodulators

Andrew Huberman (26:09.280)

like dopamine and the basal ganglia

Lex Fridman (26:10.820)

to the same levels that they were

Andrew Huberman (26:13.220)

right after a long night's sleep.

Lex Fridman (26:15.280)

So I also respectfully or semi respectfully disagree

Andrew Huberman (26:20.440)

with the idea that you can't recover lost sleep.

Lex Fridman (26:23.120)

What does that mean?

Andrew Huberman (26:24.080)

I mean, there's no IRS for sleep.

Lex Fridman (26:26.200)

So what does it mean to be in debt for sleep?

Andrew Huberman (26:29.220)

If you're falling asleep during the day and you're sleepy,

Lex Fridman (26:31.800)

like you're falling asleep, that's a good sign of insomnia.

Andrew Huberman (26:35.280)

It means you're not sleeping enough at night.

Lex Fridman (26:37.040)

If you're fatigued during the day,

Lex Fridman (26:38.720)

but you're not falling asleep,

Lex Fridman (26:40.240)

so you're just exhausted,

Lex Fridman (26:41.360)

but you're not finding yourself falling asleep in meetings

Lex Fridman (26:43.560)

and in conversation,

Andrew Huberman (26:45.080)

then chances are you're fatiguing your system

Lex Fridman (26:47.900)

through something else,

Andrew Huberman (26:48.840)

like a long run in the middle of the night in Austin

Lex Fridman (26:52.600)

or whatever it is that you're up to lately at 3 a.m.

Andrew Huberman (26:55.500)

Yes, there is a magic to the nap.

Lex Fridman (26:58.040)

And maybe you could speak to the,

Andrew Huberman (27:01.400)

because you mentioned these protocols

Lex Fridman (27:03.020)

that don't necessarily, so they're non sleep.

Lex Fridman (27:06.840)

But to me, the nap one or two a day

Lex Fridman (27:13.080)

can almost irrespective of how much sleep

Andrew Huberman (27:16.400)

I get the night before,

Lex Fridman (27:18.620)

have a fundamental change in my mood, in my performance.

Lex Fridman (27:22.200)

For the better or for the worse?

Lex Fridman (27:23.040)

For the better, for the better.

Andrew Huberman (27:24.040)

Yeah, likewise.

Lex Fridman (27:24.960)

So I do tend to kind of experiment with durations.

Andrew Huberman (27:29.780)

It's consistently surprising to me

Lex Fridman (27:33.520)

how like a nap of like 10 minutes,

Andrew Huberman (27:36.640)

I don't know, maybe you can speak

Lex Fridman (27:37.640)

to the perfect duration of a nap,

Lex Fridman (27:39.700)

but I find that it's like magic

Lex Fridman (27:43.120)

that a short nap does as much good

Lex Fridman (27:46.800)

and often better than a longer one, for me, for me,

Lex Fridman (27:50.200)

subjectively speaking.

Lex Fridman (27:51.040)

What would be a longer one?

Lex Fridman (27:51.960)

Longer than 90 minutes?

Andrew Huberman (27:53.360)

No, no, like 90 minutes,

Lex Fridman (27:54.880)

or a bit longer than 90 minutes, like two hours.

Andrew Huberman (27:57.080)

Yeah, that's starting to drop you into REM sleep.

Lex Fridman (27:59.780)

And even if it's a tiny amount of REM sleep,

Andrew Huberman (28:01.920)

people can come out of those naps kind of disoriented.

Lex Fridman (28:04.680)

I mean, remember, in sleep, space and time

Andrew Huberman (28:07.160)

are totally uncoupled.

Lex Fridman (28:08.280)

And so that's an odd state to reenter the world in

Andrew Huberman (28:12.400)

if you're not gonna stay there for a while,

Lex Fridman (28:13.960)

like for a good night's sleep.

Andrew Huberman (28:15.240)

I think a 20 minute nap is pretty fantastic.

Lex Fridman (28:18.920)

Would you say that's the,

Andrew Huberman (28:19.940)

if you were to recommend to the general,

Lex Fridman (28:21.960)

it's very weird to recommend anything

Andrew Huberman (28:24.720)

to the general populace,

Lex Fridman (28:25.920)

because obviously it's very person specific,

Lex Fridman (28:28.440)

but what's a good one will you say to friends?

Lex Fridman (28:31.440)

Is 20 minutes a good powder?

Andrew Huberman (28:32.800)

20 or 30 minutes.

Lex Fridman (28:34.140)

20 or 30 minutes,

Andrew Huberman (28:34.980)

because you're going, unless you're sleep deprived,

Lex Fridman (28:37.400)

you're going to stay out of REM sleep,

Andrew Huberman (28:40.080)

rapid eye movement sleep.

Lex Fridman (28:41.160)

If you're sleep deprived, you'll drop right into it.

Andrew Huberman (28:43.120)

If you've ever traveled and you're really jet lagged,

Lex Fridman (28:45.080)

you go to the hotel, you lay down for one second,

Andrew Huberman (28:46.960)

all of a sudden you're just like,

Lex Fridman (28:48.840)

you're in a psychedelic dream,

Andrew Huberman (28:52.340)

which can be pretty great too.

Lex Fridman (28:55.280)

But I think that 20, 30 minutes,

Lex Fridman (28:58.360)

and if you can't sleep, some people have trouble napping,

Lex Fridman (29:01.840)

then learning to relax the body

Andrew Huberman (29:03.760)

as much as possible,

Lex Fridman (29:04.760)

like trying to remove all expression from your face,

Andrew Huberman (29:07.160)

completely letting your body kind of float.

Lex Fridman (29:10.080)

If people have a hard time relaxing when they're awake,

Andrew Huberman (29:13.360)

there's some terrific clinically

Lex Fridman (29:15.680)

and research tested hypnosis protocols

Andrew Huberman (29:18.480)

that we could provide links to that are cost free

Lex Fridman (29:21.000)

and that teach you how to just completely

Andrew Huberman (29:24.520)

release the alertness button and you just start drifting.

Lex Fridman (29:28.000)

Now, the problem is if you don't have an alarm

Andrew Huberman (29:31.160)

or something to go off,

Lex Fridman (29:32.720)

the other day I did one

Lex Fridman (29:34.080)

and I'm almost embarrassed to say this,

Lex Fridman (29:35.760)

but there's a component of it

Andrew Huberman (29:36.680)

where you actually are supposed to let your hand float up

Lex Fridman (29:38.560)

because it's a hypnosis script.

Lex Fridman (29:40.480)

So they, it's my colleague, David Spiegel in the script,

Lex Fridman (29:43.160)

he says, let your hand float up.

Andrew Huberman (29:46.140)

I woke up an hour later and my hand was still floating.

Lex Fridman (29:49.000)

Yeah, and I was completely relaxed.

Lex Fridman (29:52.160)

So hypnosis is just a matter of going deep relaxation,

Lex Fridman (29:56.620)

narrowing of context, and it's all self imposed.

Andrew Huberman (29:59.560)

A lot of people think that hypnosis is like the stage thing

Lex Fridman (2:00:00.720)

I mean, I know a number of people that chew Nicorette.

Andrew Huberman (2:00:03.000)

Actually, I have a Nobel prize winning colleague

Lex Fridman (2:00:05.560)

at Columbia, not to be named,

Andrew Huberman (2:00:08.360)

who chews like six pieces of Nicorette

Lex Fridman (2:00:10.000)

in a half hour conversation with him.

Lex Fridman (2:00:11.880)

And he started doing that as a replacement for smoking

Lex Fridman (2:00:14.960)

because smoking is nicotine nicotinic stimulation

Andrew Huberman (2:00:18.180)

of the cholinergic system.

Lex Fridman (2:00:19.880)

So smokers have long known that increases focus

Lex Fridman (2:00:22.800)

and attention and learning.

Lex Fridman (2:00:24.120)

It's just that the lung cancer thing is a barrier.

Andrew Huberman (2:00:27.120)

Now I'm not suggesting people take Nicorette,

Lex Fridman (2:00:29.040)

but it's clear that we need better directed pharmacology.

Lex Fridman (2:00:32.760)

But you can imagine next time you go in

Lex Fridman (2:00:34.720)

for a learning bout, if it's really essential,

Andrew Huberman (2:00:37.440)

you might want to stimulate the nicotinic system

Lex Fridman (2:00:39.780)

if that's safe for you.

Andrew Huberman (2:00:41.560)

Again, I'm a doctor.

Lex Fridman (2:00:42.520)

So again, I'm not telling people to do this,

Lex Fridman (2:00:44.160)

but that's where it's going.

Lex Fridman (2:00:45.800)

Until we start merging machines

Andrew Huberman (2:00:47.480)

with pharmacology and behavior, we're just kind of walking

Lex Fridman (2:00:52.300)

around in the circle over and over again,

Lex Fridman (2:00:54.440)

and it's going to happen.

Lex Fridman (2:00:56.320)

Do you find computer vision, machine learning

Andrew Huberman (2:01:01.400)

from the perspective of tooling as an interesting tool

Lex Fridman (2:01:04.740)

for analyzing, for processing all the data

Andrew Huberman (2:01:08.840)

from the neuroscience world, from the neurobiology,

Lex Fridman (2:01:11.960)

biology, all the different data sets

Andrew Huberman (2:01:15.120)

that you could have about the mind, the eye,

Lex Fridman (2:01:17.160)

the everything that's neck and above,

Lex Fridman (2:01:21.080)

and also the central nervous system and all?

Lex Fridman (2:01:23.480)

Absolutely.

Andrew Huberman (2:01:24.720)

I think that computer science and engineering

Lex Fridman (2:01:27.640)

and chemistry, bioengineering, that's what's creating

Andrew Huberman (2:01:32.040)

the acceleration and progress in neuroscience right now.

Lex Fridman (2:01:35.660)

I think it's actually one place where science,

Andrew Huberman (2:01:38.680)

I'm very reassured, science has invited in psychologists,

Lex Fridman (2:01:43.280)

computational biologists, at least at Stanford, MIT,

Lex Fridman (2:01:46.080)

and other places too, of course, it's clear

Lex Fridman (2:01:48.800)

that it's a everyone's invited kind of party right now.

Andrew Huberman (2:01:53.120)

That the major issue in the field of neuroscience,

Lex Fridman (2:01:55.880)

at least through my view,

Andrew Huberman (2:01:57.160)

is that there's no conceptual leadership.

Lex Fridman (2:01:59.180)

No one is saying we need to work on

Lex Fridman (2:02:00.700)

and solve this problem or that problem.

Lex Fridman (2:02:02.760)

It's very fragmented right now.

Andrew Huberman (2:02:05.720)

Now, the good news is people are communicating.

Lex Fridman (2:02:07.840)

So computer scientists and people who work on AI,

Andrew Huberman (2:02:10.400)

machine vision are talking to biologists and vice versa,

Lex Fridman (2:02:13.640)

but it's very dispersed.

Andrew Huberman (2:02:15.640)

Is there a lot of different data sets in your work

Lex Fridman (2:02:18.920)

that you've just come across?

Andrew Huberman (2:02:21.120)

Is there a huge number of disparate data sets

Lex Fridman (2:02:23.760)

around neuroscience and so on?

Andrew Huberman (2:02:26.320)

Well, there's a lot of cell sequencing stuff.

Lex Fridman (2:02:28.120)

So the Broad over in Boston and then on this coast,

Andrew Huberman (2:02:32.520)

the Chen Zuckerberg Initiative,

Lex Fridman (2:02:37.000)

they did $3 billion to sequence every cell type

Andrew Huberman (2:02:40.840)

in humans and in animals and I think their goal

Lex Fridman (2:02:43.920)

is to cure every disease by some date,

Andrew Huberman (2:02:47.080)

I don't know, in the future.

Lex Fridman (2:02:50.680)

Huge data sets of gene expression and protein expression,

Andrew Huberman (2:02:54.560)

that's valuable.

Lex Fridman (2:02:55.760)

I think no one really knows how to think

Lex Fridman (2:02:58.280)

about neural circuits and what is a neural circuit?

Lex Fridman (2:03:02.920)

Is it one structure?

Lex Fridman (2:03:04.560)

Is it two structures communicating?

Lex Fridman (2:03:06.580)

I think this is where I actually think

Andrew Huberman (2:03:08.840)

that the robotics is going to tell us how the brain works

Lex Fridman (2:03:13.640)

because it's tempting to think that the brain

Andrew Huberman (2:03:16.240)

has all these cell types and circuits

Lex Fridman (2:03:18.660)

in order to solve specific problems.

Lex Fridman (2:03:20.800)

But it might be that the fundamental algorithm

Lex Fridman (2:03:23.120)

is to create cells and circuits

Andrew Huberman (2:03:24.960)

that can solve variable problems.

Lex Fridman (2:03:27.080)

We know in the retina, just a very simple example

Andrew Huberman (2:03:29.660)

is that we've always heard about like cones

Lex Fridman (2:03:31.640)

are for color vision and high acuity

Lex Fridman (2:03:33.360)

and rods are for night vision and non color vision.

Lex Fridman (2:03:37.520)

But at the dusk, dawn transition,

Andrew Huberman (2:03:40.840)

certain cell types switch to do completely different,

Lex Fridman (2:03:43.160)

have a completely different function

Andrew Huberman (2:03:44.460)

for viewing starry night

Lex Fridman (2:03:45.520)

versus what they do during the daytime.

Lex Fridman (2:03:47.960)

So neurons multiplex.

Lex Fridman (2:03:50.120)

And I think building machines that can multiplex

Lex Fridman (2:03:53.860)

and can evolve themselves is going to help us

Lex Fridman (2:03:57.060)

really understand what the brain is doing.

Andrew Huberman (2:03:58.600)

We need to tease out the fundamental algorithms.

Lex Fridman (2:04:01.520)

We know they're like motion detection

Lex Fridman (2:04:03.260)

and spatial vision and things like that.

Lex Fridman (2:04:05.160)

I think machines are going to be much faster at that

Andrew Huberman (2:04:07.420)

than our understanding of biology

Lex Fridman (2:04:11.040)

and how the brain does that.

Andrew Huberman (2:04:13.680)

Basically, I'll be out of a job

Lex Fridman (2:04:15.120)

and people like you will have a job.

Andrew Huberman (2:04:16.560)

Well, no, I think the main idea is that

Lex Fridman (2:04:19.620)

there won't be a job that's machine learning

Andrew Huberman (2:04:22.120)

or computer vision.

Lex Fridman (2:04:24.000)

It's just, it's a tool that neuroscientists

Andrew Huberman (2:04:27.420)

will use more and more and more

Lex Fridman (2:04:29.400)

and biologists would use.

Andrew Huberman (2:04:31.920)

I mean, this whole idea that it will just be a tool

Lex Fridman (2:04:35.320)

that allows you to start expanding

Andrew Huberman (2:04:39.240)

the kind of things you can study.

Lex Fridman (2:04:41.840)

Well, the next generation coming up,

Andrew Huberman (2:04:43.520)

I can say this because I now I'm blessed

Lex Fridman (2:04:45.200)

to have a bioengineering student.

Andrew Huberman (2:04:46.880)

They think about problems so differently than biologists do.

Lex Fridman (2:04:50.920)

We realized the other day we both came up

Andrew Huberman (2:04:52.440)

with a set of ideas around a certain project

Lex Fridman (2:04:54.440)

and we realized that her version of it

Andrew Huberman (2:04:56.360)

was the exact opposite of mine.

Lex Fridman (2:04:58.420)

And hers was far more rational.

Andrew Huberman (2:05:00.280)

It's just an engineering perspective.

Lex Fridman (2:05:01.680)

It's like, why would we do that last?

Andrew Huberman (2:05:03.600)

We should do that first.

Lex Fridman (2:05:04.920)

I think that the next generation is really interested

Andrew Huberman (2:05:08.120)

in solving practical problems.

Lex Fridman (2:05:09.840)

So a lot like computer science and engineering was

Andrew Huberman (2:05:12.120)

in the late nineties, it was like,

Lex Fridman (2:05:13.860)

you can go do a PhD in computer science and engineering,

Andrew Huberman (2:05:16.360)

maybe, or you go work for a company

Lex Fridman (2:05:18.280)

and actually build stuff that's useful.

Andrew Huberman (2:05:20.220)

I think neuroscientists and people interested

Lex Fridman (2:05:21.960)

in neuroscience are starting to think,

Lex Fridman (2:05:23.820)

how can I build stuff that's useful?

Lex Fridman (2:05:25.640)

And this statement is supported by the fact

Andrew Huberman (2:05:27.920)

that many people in my business leave their academic labs,

Lex Fridman (2:05:32.040)

fortunately not all of them,

Lex Fridman (2:05:33.400)

but they leave their academic labs

Lex Fridman (2:05:34.560)

and they go work for companies like Neuralink.

Andrew Huberman (2:05:37.520)

This is something I think we've spoken a few times offline

Lex Fridman (2:05:42.660)

about, I mean, speaking of computer vision,

Andrew Huberman (2:05:47.320)

I'm fascinated by the eye.

Lex Fridman (2:05:48.840)

I did a bunch of work on the eye.

Lex Fridman (2:05:50.800)

So there's the neuroscientists,

Lex Fridman (2:05:52.920)

there's a neurobiology way of studying the eye,

Lex Fridman (2:05:55.040)

and there's the computer vision way of studying the eye.

Lex Fridman (2:05:57.960)

And the computer vision way of studying the eye

Andrew Huberman (2:05:59.920)

of just like observing, noncontext sensing of humans

Lex Fridman (2:06:03.080)

is really fascinating to me

Lex Fridman (2:06:04.360)

and studying human behavior in different contexts,

Lex Fridman (2:06:06.760)

like in semi autonomous vehicles,

Andrew Huberman (2:06:09.600)

it seemed like there's a lot of signal

Lex Fridman (2:06:11.760)

that comes from the eye, that comes from blinking,

Andrew Huberman (2:06:15.240)

that's not fully understood yet.

Lex Fridman (2:06:16.960)

It's been in the lab, it's been used quite a bit

Andrew Huberman (2:06:20.160)

to study like the dilation of the pupil,

Lex Fridman (2:06:22.640)

all those kinds of things are used to infer workload,

Andrew Huberman (2:06:27.400)

cognitive load, all those kinds of things.

Lex Fridman (2:06:29.760)

But the pictures is murky.

Andrew Huberman (2:06:32.600)

It's not completely well understood,

Lex Fridman (2:06:34.400)

especially in the wild, how much signal you can get

Andrew Huberman (2:06:36.840)

from the eye, from the human face.

Lex Fridman (2:06:40.040)

I've downloaded Joe Rogan's,

Andrew Huberman (2:06:43.960)

all of the podcasts he's ever done, video.

Lex Fridman (2:06:47.100)

You have the YouTube bank.

Andrew Huberman (2:06:49.000)

I have the YouTube bank for a reason

Lex Fridman (2:06:51.920)

that this was before he went with Spotify.

Andrew Huberman (2:06:57.200)

You own the archive.

Lex Fridman (2:06:58.200)

There's PubMed, and then there's the Joe Rogan experience

Andrew Huberman (2:07:01.080)

owned by, or maintained by Lex.

Lex Fridman (2:07:04.760)

For my private collection.

Andrew Huberman (2:07:06.720)

No, the reason I did it,

Lex Fridman (2:07:08.440)

and I did a really rigorous processing of it,

Andrew Huberman (2:07:11.280)

which is like I extracted all of the faces,

Lex Fridman (2:07:15.780)

I did the really good blink track,

Andrew Huberman (2:07:17.840)

the pupil tracking and the blink detection

Lex Fridman (2:07:21.080)

for the entirety of the,

Andrew Huberman (2:07:22.520)

oh, I should say it's from episode like,

Lex Fridman (2:07:26.000)

I forget what it is, but it's like episode 900

Andrew Huberman (2:07:28.240)

when they switched to 1080p video.

Lex Fridman (2:07:31.360)

But it was like much crappier video.

Andrew Huberman (2:07:33.480)

It's still kind of.

Lex Fridman (2:07:34.320)

Did you log when there was marijuana consumption

Lex Fridman (2:07:36.580)

or when they were drinking?

Lex Fridman (2:07:38.760)

I mean, there's so many.

Andrew Huberman (2:07:39.600)

Because that's gonna, like just,

Lex Fridman (2:07:41.520)

it won't throw off the data,

Lex Fridman (2:07:43.040)

but it's relevant to the pupil data.

Lex Fridman (2:07:47.560)

So let's just put it this way.

Andrew Huberman (2:07:50.160)

There's a lot of fascinating

Lex Fridman (2:07:51.480)

computer vision problems involved,

Lex Fridman (2:07:53.160)

but I only kept long sequences of data

Lex Fridman (2:07:57.120)

where the eyes detected exceptionally well.

Lex Fridman (2:08:00.380)

And I also removed people that were wearing glasses.

Lex Fridman (2:08:04.160)

I removed, there's certain people that have a way

Andrew Huberman (2:08:08.680)

of moving their eyes and squinting

Lex Fridman (2:08:14.080)

where it's harder to infer like concrete blinks.

Andrew Huberman (2:08:21.040)

They'll kind of have a squint the whole time.

Lex Fridman (2:08:24.920)

And their blink is very light.

Andrew Huberman (2:08:27.560)

It's very tough to know what's an actual blink.

Lex Fridman (2:08:32.500)

So I wanted to.

Andrew Huberman (2:08:33.340)

Then you got those baseball cap wearing guys.

Lex Fridman (2:08:35.480)

There are certain people that go on podcasts

Lex Fridman (2:08:37.000)

and wear baseball caps and don't reveal their,

Lex Fridman (2:08:39.840)

I don't know if they realize it or not until it comes out,

Lex Fridman (2:08:42.360)

but their face is completely obscured from vision.

Lex Fridman (2:08:45.680)

And from a computer vision perspective,

Andrew Huberman (2:08:47.820)

people that wear makeup and usually women on their eyes,

Lex Fridman (2:08:51.320)

it complicates things.

Andrew Huberman (2:08:52.680)

Like eyelashes all complicate things.

Lex Fridman (2:08:54.800)

So you can clean stuff up

Andrew Huberman (2:08:57.200)

just so you have really crisp signal.

Lex Fridman (2:08:59.380)

You don't have to, you can deal with issues,

Lex Fridman (2:09:02.200)

but there's so many hours of Joe Rogan video.

Lex Fridman (2:09:04.960)

Anyway, I say all that because I was searching

Andrew Huberman (2:09:08.360)

for an interesting personal experiment for me

Lex Fridman (2:09:11.600)

because I saw in drivers when I was looking

Andrew Huberman (2:09:15.520)

at eye movement in drivers, it seemed to indicate,

Lex Fridman (2:09:19.280)

there seemed to be quite a lot of signal there

Andrew Huberman (2:09:21.640)

that indicates amount of cognitive load,

Lex Fridman (2:09:25.560)

but it's not clear if there's something conclusive,

Lex Fridman (2:09:28.840)

but if there is some signal, that's a really powerful one

Lex Fridman (2:09:31.920)

because eye movement can be detected in the wild.

Andrew Huberman (2:09:35.260)

Like you and I sitting here,

Lex Fridman (2:09:36.480)

I can detect eye movement really well.

Andrew Huberman (2:09:38.400)

Pupil dilation is a really crappy indicator.

Lex Fridman (2:09:41.400)

And it's luminance dependent.

Andrew Huberman (2:09:42.700)

Like if I turn toward a light, it's a route.

Lex Fridman (2:09:45.920)

People change size depending on level of alertness,

Andrew Huberman (2:09:48.760)

arouse autonomic arousal,

Lex Fridman (2:09:49.920)

but also overall levels of luminance.

Andrew Huberman (2:09:51.920)

It's very, very hard, but there are,

Lex Fridman (2:09:54.960)

I mean, you're sitting on a gold mine

Andrew Huberman (2:09:57.740)

because there is a lot of interest right now

Lex Fridman (2:10:00.920)

in measuring state through noncontact sensing.

Andrew Huberman (2:10:05.020)

Heart rate variability through changes in skin tone,

Lex Fridman (2:10:07.720)

just off a camera.

Lex Fridman (2:10:08.560)

Can you imagine that at the point where

Lex Fridman (2:10:10.260)

you just look at some video and you're like,

Andrew Huberman (2:10:11.560)

oh, they're getting more stressed or worked up

Lex Fridman (2:10:13.680)

and they're not based on a heat map

Andrew Huberman (2:10:15.200)

of some little patch on their face.

Lex Fridman (2:10:16.740)

Cause everyone's going to have this slight,

Andrew Huberman (2:10:18.920)

sort of compartmentalize it slightly differently,

Lex Fridman (2:10:21.000)

but you can learn it pretty quickly.

Andrew Huberman (2:10:22.480)

We know this when someone's like giving a talk

Lex Fridman (2:10:24.040)

and we see them starting to blotching on their neck.

Lex Fridman (2:10:27.400)

This is like the thesis defense response, right?

Lex Fridman (2:10:31.240)

We know it and it's a stressful situation

Andrew Huberman (2:10:34.040)

because not passing your thesis defense is rough.

Lex Fridman (2:10:37.560)

And we can see that,

Lex Fridman (2:10:38.760)

but cameras can pick that up really easily

Lex Fridman (2:10:40.800)

at much lower levels than the blatant blotching

Andrew Huberman (2:10:43.880)

kind of effect.

Lex Fridman (2:10:44.720)

And eye movements certainly are powerful indications

Andrew Huberman (2:10:49.200)

of the state of the autonomic system.

Lex Fridman (2:10:51.600)

So do you think there are things from a high level

Lex Fridman (2:10:55.600)

that you can pick up from eye movement and blinking?

Lex Fridman (2:10:58.800)

Well, blink frequency is going to increase

Lex Fridman (2:11:01.120)

as people get tired, right?

Lex Fridman (2:11:04.280)

I've actually been teased a lot online

Andrew Huberman (2:11:06.320)

cause I don't blink much when I'll do a post.

Lex Fridman (2:11:08.680)

And so I did a whole post about blinking,

Andrew Huberman (2:11:11.000)

about the science of blinking.

Lex Fridman (2:11:11.920)

There's some data, very strong data, not from my lab

Andrew Huberman (2:11:14.880)

that show that every time you blink,

Lex Fridman (2:11:16.680)

it resets your perception of time.

Andrew Huberman (2:11:18.400)

They have people do these kind of track

Lex Fridman (2:11:20.280)

a kind of a Doppler like thing.

Lex Fridman (2:11:22.480)

And anyway, blinking resets your perception of time.

Lex Fridman (2:11:25.320)

There's a dopaminergic mechanism

Andrew Huberman (2:11:26.880)

in the blink related circuitry of the brain.

Lex Fridman (2:11:30.560)

When people are very alert,

Andrew Huberman (2:11:31.400)

they tend to not blink very much.

Lex Fridman (2:11:32.520)

When we're sleepy, we tend to blink more

Lex Fridman (2:11:33.920)

and our eyes tend to close.

Lex Fridman (2:11:35.320)

Now, some people are more hooded

Andrew Huberman (2:11:37.040)

in the way their eyes sit.

Lex Fridman (2:11:38.440)

Some people are like this all the time.

Andrew Huberman (2:11:40.640)

There are some very famous people.

Lex Fridman (2:11:41.720)

I'm not gonna name them

Andrew Huberman (2:11:42.560)

because I might run into them at some point

Lex Fridman (2:11:44.840)

who were like accused of being sociopaths

Andrew Huberman (2:11:47.040)

cause they don't blink very often.

Lex Fridman (2:11:48.740)

But they might just have high levels of autonomic arousal.

Andrew Huberman (2:11:51.040)

They just don't blink very much.

Lex Fridman (2:11:53.340)

Also depends on how lubricated the eyes are.

Lex Fridman (2:11:54.980)

So I think within individual,

Lex Fridman (2:11:57.480)

you can get a lot of information.

Andrew Huberman (2:11:59.120)

I don't think we can say this person's blinking a lot.

Lex Fridman (2:12:01.740)

They're lying, this person or they're tired.

Andrew Huberman (2:12:03.720)

This person doesn't blink, they're stressed.

Lex Fridman (2:12:07.120)

I think if you understand that person's baseline,

Andrew Huberman (2:12:10.360)

you can get it.

Lex Fridman (2:12:11.180)

And presumably, well, having been

Andrew Huberman (2:12:13.200)

on the Joe Rogan Experience,

Lex Fridman (2:12:14.360)

I can say when you first sit down there,

Andrew Huberman (2:12:15.640)

if you've never been in there before.

Lex Fridman (2:12:17.040)

You're in my data set by the way.

Andrew Huberman (2:12:18.960)

Oh my.

Lex Fridman (2:12:19.800)

Well, I bet you I will admit to being,

Andrew Huberman (2:12:22.420)

first time sitting down there.

Lex Fridman (2:12:24.000)

I mean, Joe was incredibly gracious,

Andrew Huberman (2:12:25.720)

made me feel very comfortable there.

Lex Fridman (2:12:27.100)

But yeah, it's an intense experience.

Andrew Huberman (2:12:30.120)

It's a small space too.

Lex Fridman (2:12:31.280)

Anytime you enter a small space from a big space

Andrew Huberman (2:12:33.880)

in his old studio, you're familiar with,

Lex Fridman (2:12:38.060)

there's a breaking in period

Andrew Huberman (2:12:39.200)

where you're getting to know somebody.

Lex Fridman (2:12:40.820)

And so I'm sure my levels of autonomic arousal

Andrew Huberman (2:12:43.560)

front of the podcast were higher than later.

Lex Fridman (2:12:46.160)

But once you have a baseline established,

Andrew Huberman (2:12:48.360)

you can get a lot of data on somebody simply from blinks.

Lex Fridman (2:12:52.800)

Some people averting gaze too.

Andrew Huberman (2:12:54.780)

If you have both people, that's really powerful.

Lex Fridman (2:12:56.840)

This is the holy grail, another holy grail of neuroscience.

Andrew Huberman (2:13:00.060)

We've mainly looked at subjects in isolation.

Lex Fridman (2:13:03.000)

There hasn't been much brain imaging

Andrew Huberman (2:13:04.800)

of two people interacting

Lex Fridman (2:13:06.720)

or even in animal models of two mice

Andrew Huberman (2:13:09.120)

or two monkeys interacting.

Lex Fridman (2:13:10.400)

It's all like person scanner, bite bar.

Andrew Huberman (2:13:13.520)

I mean, if you've ever been in one of these scanners,

Lex Fridman (2:13:14.800)

you're like in a bite bar.

Andrew Huberman (2:13:16.240)

It's very medieval.

Lex Fridman (2:13:17.640)

And so you think in the interaction,

Andrew Huberman (2:13:19.640)

there's actually, you can almost study them

Lex Fridman (2:13:22.180)

as a single brain or as a single system.

Andrew Huberman (2:13:24.400)

The two brains are a single system.

Lex Fridman (2:13:26.320)

I think with AI.

Andrew Huberman (2:13:27.160)

Highly correlated.

Lex Fridman (2:13:28.000)

Yeah, maybe are your blinks triggering my blinks?

Lex Fridman (2:13:30.720)

Are your non blink epochs extending my non blink epochs?

Lex Fridman (2:13:35.240)

There's a fascinating space to explore there

Lex Fridman (2:13:38.100)

and no one's done it.

Lex Fridman (2:13:39.200)

And because everyone let the Joe Rogan experience archive

Andrew Huberman (2:13:43.760)

disappear, except for you.

Lex Fridman (2:13:45.280)

You grabbed, did you get the comments too?

Andrew Huberman (2:13:47.160)

Because I think the comments were almost as entertaining

Lex Fridman (2:13:49.680)

as the conversation.

Andrew Huberman (2:13:50.680)

You know what you just made me realize with the couplings,

Lex Fridman (2:13:53.080)

I have a better data set than the Joe Rogan podcast

Andrew Huberman (2:13:55.560)

with high resolution video,

Lex Fridman (2:13:56.960)

which is the raw video for this podcast.

Lex Fridman (2:13:59.580)

So for example, both cameras right now are recording

Lex Fridman (2:14:02.540)

you and I full feed.

Andrew Huberman (2:14:05.440)

The final result will switch cameras back and forth,

Lex Fridman (2:14:07.720)

but I have the full feed.

Lex Fridman (2:14:09.640)

So I can have the blinking for both you and I

Lex Fridman (2:14:11.900)

the whole time.

Andrew Huberman (2:14:12.740)

I bet you people trigger blinks and in one another,

Lex Fridman (2:14:16.360)

you know, and there's also like the simplest way

Andrew Huberman (2:14:19.300)

to think about the blinks and the attentional thing

Lex Fridman (2:14:21.560)

and the alertness is two fighters in the standoff.

Andrew Huberman (2:14:25.520)

There's this whole lore around who blinks first.

Lex Fridman (2:14:28.200)

It's like they blink first.

Lex Fridman (2:14:29.120)

Well, what are we really asking?

Lex Fridman (2:14:30.800)

They're asking whether or not one person can maintain focus

Andrew Huberman (2:14:35.120)

longer than the other person,

Lex Fridman (2:14:36.720)

which is an important parameter.

Andrew Huberman (2:14:39.440)

It's not the only parameter,

Lex Fridman (2:14:40.600)

but it's an important parameter.

Lex Fridman (2:14:42.680)

And so that blinking contest,

Lex Fridman (2:14:44.100)

even though they don't square off as a blinking contest,

Andrew Huberman (2:14:46.700)

it's well known that the first to blink

Lex Fridman (2:14:48.960)

is revealing something about their capacity

Andrew Huberman (2:14:51.280)

to hold attention.

Lex Fridman (2:14:53.540)

You've started an amazing podcast

Andrew Huberman (2:14:56.120)

that we've mentioned a few times.

Lex Fridman (2:14:57.980)

People should definitely check it out.

Andrew Huberman (2:14:59.840)

It's called the Huberman Lab Podcast.

Lex Fridman (2:15:02.540)

It does your, it's basically,

Andrew Huberman (2:15:07.060)

it embodies the personality of Andrew Huberman,

Lex Fridman (2:15:10.960)

which is like make science accessible,

Lex Fridman (2:15:15.760)

but also fascinating and giving it,

Lex Fridman (2:15:21.880)

like what do you call it?

Andrew Huberman (2:15:23.520)

You give tools for everyday life,

Lex Fridman (2:15:25.760)

meaning it kind of grounds it like,

Lex Fridman (2:15:28.940)

what the hell does this mean for my life?

Lex Fridman (2:15:32.160)

But then also does the beauty of science at the same time.

Lex Fridman (2:15:35.360)

So I love both the rigor and the openness

Lex Fridman (2:15:39.880)

of the whole thing,

Andrew Huberman (2:15:40.720)

plus the whole corrections things that we mentioned.

Lex Fridman (2:15:42.840)

Anyway, what's been the hardest part of this whole process?

Andrew Huberman (2:15:47.520)

You're one of, already one of the only,

Lex Fridman (2:15:52.420)

and one of the best science broadcasters out there.

Lex Fridman (2:15:56.540)

So in that process, what's been the hardest,

Lex Fridman (2:15:59.800)

what's been the most exciting part?

Andrew Huberman (2:16:01.480)

Wow, well, first of all,

Lex Fridman (2:16:02.960)

thanks for the kind words about the podcast.

Andrew Huberman (2:16:05.520)

It was inspired by you.

Lex Fridman (2:16:07.080)

I absolutely, that's no BS.

Andrew Huberman (2:16:11.540)

The last time we met to do an interview for your podcast,

Lex Fridman (2:16:14.760)

we talked a little bit about it

Lex Fridman (2:16:15.800)

and you gave me the subtle nudge

Lex Fridman (2:16:19.360)

that maybe there was a podcast there

Lex Fridman (2:16:21.720)

and I thought about it and I laughed

Lex Fridman (2:16:23.000)

and I was just like, I gotta do this thing.

Lex Fridman (2:16:24.760)

And you really gave me the encouragement to do it.

Lex Fridman (2:16:26.840)

And your podcast, this podcast has really forged the way.

Andrew Huberman (2:16:30.260)

You've been tip of the spear on serious scientific,

Lex Fridman (2:16:34.840)

intellectual, yet fun, accessible conversation.

Lex Fridman (2:16:37.600)

And so I, as your colleague and friend,

Lex Fridman (2:16:42.680)

but just even if those things weren't true,

Andrew Huberman (2:16:45.480)

like this podcast was and is the inspiration.

Lex Fridman (2:16:48.560)

There's no question.

Andrew Huberman (2:16:49.400)

Thank you so much.

Lex Fridman (2:16:50.220)

Yeah, I really, like 100%.

Lex Fridman (2:16:52.040)

And when I decided to do the podcast,

Lex Fridman (2:16:55.000)

the Huberman Lab Podcast,

Andrew Huberman (2:16:56.400)

I thought really long and hard about what would work best

Lex Fridman (2:16:58.940)

and would be most beneficial.

Andrew Huberman (2:17:00.320)

It turned out to be the hardest thing,

Lex Fridman (2:17:02.120)

which is to stay on a single topic

Andrew Huberman (2:17:04.440)

for three or four or more episodes

Lex Fridman (2:17:06.600)

before switching to a new topic.

Andrew Huberman (2:17:08.680)

Because I know from the experience of university

Lex Fridman (2:17:12.920)

and teaching in university, as you know as well,

Andrew Huberman (2:17:16.440)

that there's always the temptation

Lex Fridman (2:17:19.400)

to pivot to something else,

Lex Fridman (2:17:20.760)

but the drilling into something really deeply

Lex Fridman (2:17:23.540)

is where the gems reside.

Lex Fridman (2:17:25.860)

And the challenge has been how to make it interesting,

Lex Fridman (2:17:29.580)

how to keep people on board,

Lex Fridman (2:17:31.280)

how to give people tools along the way,

Lex Fridman (2:17:34.480)

but also stay close to the scientific data.

Andrew Huberman (2:17:37.680)

I like to think that we're headed in the right direction.

Lex Fridman (2:17:39.720)

It still needs to evolve, but that's been a challenge.

Andrew Huberman (2:17:43.960)

I think I also am challenged by the fact

Lex Fridman (2:17:47.780)

that there's a tremendous range of backgrounds of listeners.

Lex Fridman (2:17:50.800)

So some people have asked for more names,

Lex Fridman (2:17:53.520)

like more bits and parts of the nervous system

Lex Fridman (2:17:55.720)

and cellular molecular mechanisms

Lex Fridman (2:17:57.600)

and all that kind of thing.

Lex Fridman (2:17:58.480)

And other people have said,

Lex Fridman (2:17:59.380)

I don't understand any of that stuff,

Lex Fridman (2:18:00.960)

but I think I'm keeping up.

Lex Fridman (2:18:02.240)

And so unlike a university course

Andrew Huberman (2:18:04.120)

where there are prerequisites

Lex Fridman (2:18:05.300)

and everyone's coming to the table

Andrew Huberman (2:18:06.680)

with more or less the same knowledge,

Lex Fridman (2:18:08.400)

I have a very limited sense of what the audience knows

Lex Fridman (2:18:10.920)

and doesn't know.

Lex Fridman (2:18:11.960)

So that's why I incorporated the feature

Andrew Huberman (2:18:13.580)

of the comment section on YouTube,

Lex Fridman (2:18:15.840)

being a source of feedback.

Lex Fridman (2:18:18.120)

And I do kind of an office hours like episode

Lex Fridman (2:18:21.920)

every third or fourth episode

Andrew Huberman (2:18:23.220)

where I address common questions.

Lex Fridman (2:18:25.520)

And I think that the podcast space in my mind,

Andrew Huberman (2:18:29.140)

at least for the sort of podcasts I'm doing,

Lex Fridman (2:18:31.600)

needed a venue for the listeners

Andrew Huberman (2:18:34.520)

to be a more integral part of the experience

Lex Fridman (2:18:37.280)

as opposed to just commenting

Andrew Huberman (2:18:38.860)

on what they liked or didn't like.

Lex Fridman (2:18:40.540)

So while I like to hear what people liked and didn't like,

Andrew Huberman (2:18:42.680)

I also really like to hear about,

Lex Fridman (2:18:44.160)

hey, tell me more about temperature minimums

Lex Fridman (2:18:46.960)

and how they can be used to phase shifts

Lex Fridman (2:18:48.240)

or cadient rhythms or whatever it is.

Lex Fridman (2:18:50.240)

And I realized that I'm probably losing

Lex Fridman (2:18:51.960)

some people along the way,

Lex Fridman (2:18:52.920)

but hopefully at the end of each month,

Lex Fridman (2:18:56.280)

and because of the way that the episodes are archived,

Andrew Huberman (2:18:59.040)

people will come away feeling as if they've learned a ton

Lex Fridman (2:19:01.920)

and they have tools that they can implement.

Lex Fridman (2:19:03.760)

And perhaps most importantly,

Lex Fridman (2:19:04.960)

that they're starting to think scientifically

Andrew Huberman (2:19:07.640)

about the tons of other stuff that's out there.

Lex Fridman (2:19:10.760)

So that's been the challenge and it's still really early

Andrew Huberman (2:19:13.600)

days, but, and of course,

Lex Fridman (2:19:16.800)

there's also an intentional challenge.

Andrew Huberman (2:19:18.200)

I realize that people are busy.

Lex Fridman (2:19:19.440)

Not everyone has two hours to listen to a podcast

Andrew Huberman (2:19:22.200)

about jet lag and shift work and raising kids

Lex Fridman (2:19:25.560)

and sleep and that kind of thing.

Andrew Huberman (2:19:27.120)

I'm not raising kids,

Lex Fridman (2:19:27.960)

but I did a whole thing about babies and sleep with,

Andrew Huberman (2:19:30.360)

you know, and how parents can manage their sleep

Lex Fridman (2:19:32.480)

when kids aren't sleeping.

Lex Fridman (2:19:33.900)

So it's been, I'm hacking through the jungle

Lex Fridman (2:19:37.640)

of all this stuff, but, and I'll come right back to it.

Andrew Huberman (2:19:41.440)

My inspiration and my North star on this is getting

Lex Fridman (2:19:46.440)

to a point where the audience that listens to this feels

Andrew Huberman (2:19:53.860)

the same way that I do when I listen to your podcast.

Lex Fridman (2:19:56.420)

Thank you so much.

Andrew Huberman (2:19:57.260)

Like when I turn into your podcast,

Lex Fridman (2:19:58.940)

I'm going to embarrass you a little bit more

Andrew Huberman (2:20:00.080)

by complimenting you a little bit more,

Lex Fridman (2:20:02.980)

but not out of a sadistic thing,

Lex Fridman (2:20:05.620)

but just because when I tune into your podcast

Lex Fridman (2:20:08.160)

or Joe's podcast, I have the same sensation

Andrew Huberman (2:20:11.140)

that other people have.

Lex Fridman (2:20:11.980)

Like, I feel like I'm home of sorts.

Andrew Huberman (2:20:15.500)

I'm like, I'm familiar with the space

Lex Fridman (2:20:17.300)

and I'd like people to feel comfortable in the space

Andrew Huberman (2:20:20.420)

that is the Huber and Lab Podcast,

Lex Fridman (2:20:21.620)

whatever that ends up being.

Andrew Huberman (2:20:23.300)

Yeah, that's the magic of podcasting.

Lex Fridman (2:20:25.820)

It's like, I feel like I'm part of your life now

Andrew Huberman (2:20:28.060)

in a way that, as a fan, that I wouldn't be otherwise.

Lex Fridman (2:20:32.280)

And, you know, like I never was able to have that

Lex Fridman (2:20:35.660)

with Carl Sagan, for example, you know?

Lex Fridman (2:20:38.860)

And that's a whole nother level of connection

Andrew Huberman (2:20:42.180)

with a human being that gets you excited.

Lex Fridman (2:20:44.300)

And then I share your excitement

Andrew Huberman (2:20:46.260)

about different topics in neuroscience

Lex Fridman (2:20:49.900)

or just biology in general.

Lex Fridman (2:20:54.740)

And then I don't have to actually understand

Lex Fridman (2:20:56.860)

everything you're saying to really enjoy it.

Lex Fridman (2:21:00.860)

So that's the magic of podcasting is like,

Lex Fridman (2:21:03.700)

you can go through like 10 minutes

Lex Fridman (2:21:05.620)

and not understanding what the hell a person is saying,

Lex Fridman (2:21:08.320)

and then you enjoy the excitement

Lex Fridman (2:21:11.540)

and then you reconnect to a thing

Lex Fridman (2:21:12.980)

that you do understand what they're saying.

Andrew Huberman (2:21:15.340)

And, you know, that's, that personal coupled

Lex Fridman (2:21:19.920)

with the scientific rigor is magic.

Lex Fridman (2:21:22.580)

And finding the right, it's exploration.

Lex Fridman (2:21:24.940)

Like Joe found something that works for comedians,

Andrew Huberman (2:21:27.700)

which is like, you know, having a good laugh,

Lex Fridman (2:21:30.980)

but also every once in a while talking seriously

Andrew Huberman (2:21:34.060)

about difficult topics.

Lex Fridman (2:21:36.380)

The scientific space, it was unclear.

Andrew Huberman (2:21:40.280)

You haven't had guests on.

Lex Fridman (2:21:41.700)

Not yet, but maybe you'll come on as our first guest.

Andrew Huberman (2:21:45.060)

I was gonna invite my,

Lex Fridman (2:21:46.060)

I was gonna try to force myself in there.

Andrew Huberman (2:21:48.180)

I am, I'm officially inviting you now.

Lex Fridman (2:21:50.220)

Will you come on the podcast?

Andrew Huberman (2:21:51.140)

I would love to, I would love to.

Lex Fridman (2:21:53.260)

But it was hard.

Andrew Huberman (2:21:55.660)

It's still a little bit difficult to tell people

Lex Fridman (2:21:59.580)

that no, you don't get it.

Andrew Huberman (2:22:01.060)

We're not gonna talk for 10 minutes.

Lex Fridman (2:22:03.900)

We're gonna talk for three or four hours.

Andrew Huberman (2:22:07.300)

It's a different, for scientists,

Lex Fridman (2:22:09.020)

for like, they're like, what are we gonna talk about?

Andrew Huberman (2:22:12.340)

They think it's like the NPR interview.

Lex Fridman (2:22:14.180)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (2:22:15.020)

And they don't realize, first of all,

Lex Fridman (2:22:18.460)

I think at his best, if you're like at the level

Andrew Huberman (2:22:20.820)

of Joe Rogan, who I think is an excellent conversationalist,

Lex Fridman (2:22:26.060)

you just lose track of time.

Andrew Huberman (2:22:27.500)

It can be three, four, five hours

Lex Fridman (2:22:29.140)

and you lose track of time.

Andrew Huberman (2:22:30.340)

I'm still not there.

Lex Fridman (2:22:31.860)

I find that it's still painful.

Andrew Huberman (2:22:34.100)

Like the conversation is still challenging sometimes.

Lex Fridman (2:22:36.940)

You don't lose quite as much of track of time.

Andrew Huberman (2:22:39.300)

It's still an intellectual effort.

Lex Fridman (2:22:40.740)

And I think it might always be as it would be with you

Andrew Huberman (2:22:43.380)

because you're talking about difficult topics,

Lex Fridman (2:22:45.780)

maybe that require more brain.

Andrew Huberman (2:22:47.300)

You're not just shooting the shit with like a Brian Red Band

Lex Fridman (2:22:51.180)

or somebody like comedians or just joking.

Andrew Huberman (2:22:53.500)

What's like, remember those shows,

Lex Fridman (2:22:56.300)

like where those shows where someone would come out

Lex Fridman (2:22:59.260)

and like spin plates and they're running back and forth.

Lex Fridman (2:23:02.380)

Really good scientific discussion is like that.

Andrew Huberman (2:23:05.700)

You have to be maintaining three or four

Lex Fridman (2:23:07.980)

different logical arguments and jumping back and forth.

Andrew Huberman (2:23:10.740)

It's occasionally get into like a real streak of linearity.

Lex Fridman (2:23:13.900)

But as we found today that typically there's three

Andrew Huberman (2:23:17.260)

or four different things that we're bouncing back

Lex Fridman (2:23:18.620)

and forth from.

Lex Fridman (2:23:19.460)

And that requires a lot of updating of these,

Lex Fridman (2:23:21.820)

you know, forebrain circuits.

Andrew Huberman (2:23:23.020)

It's not a passive listening experience.

Lex Fridman (2:23:25.900)

But I like to think that the brain likes that.

Andrew Huberman (2:23:28.820)

I do want to ask just cause we all,

Lex Fridman (2:23:31.980)

I don't want to forget the question came up to me

Andrew Huberman (2:23:36.180)

is your podcast has the same kind of rigor

Lex Fridman (2:23:40.460)

that I think like a Dan Carlin podcast has

Andrew Huberman (2:23:43.300)

who's a history podcaster.

Lex Fridman (2:23:46.140)

Well, that's a definitely a compliment.

Andrew Huberman (2:23:47.900)

Thank you.

Lex Fridman (2:23:48.740)

Dan's way, you know, he's something for me to aspire to.

Andrew Huberman (2:23:52.220)

He goes through hell to prepare.

Lex Fridman (2:23:54.420)

He spends months preparing.

Andrew Huberman (2:23:56.260)

It feels like you've had to really prepare for your podcast.

Lex Fridman (2:24:01.100)

I definitely prepare hard.

Lex Fridman (2:24:02.940)

How does that?

Lex Fridman (2:24:04.540)

Are you okay?

Andrew Huberman (2:24:06.580)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:24:07.420)

I mean, how much effort does that take?

Andrew Huberman (2:24:09.500)

It feels like a conference presentation.

Lex Fridman (2:24:11.540)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:24:12.380)

So we record once a week and in the intervening time,

Lex Fridman (2:24:15.300)

I listened to many university level lectures.

Lex Fridman (2:24:21.380)

So NIH has a bank of lectures.

Lex Fridman (2:24:25.140)

I have some sources of recorded university seminars.

Andrew Huberman (2:24:28.980)

I'm trying to find the points of intersection.

Lex Fridman (2:24:32.020)

So like for four episodes on sleep,

Andrew Huberman (2:24:33.700)

it's not like I'm going to just regurgitate a popular book

Lex Fridman (2:24:36.580)

or take one lecture and just poach the content.

Andrew Huberman (2:24:39.380)

I'm going to find the overlap in the different elements.

Lex Fridman (2:24:43.500)

I also, so what I'll do is I'll generally read 10

Andrew Huberman (2:24:47.460)

or 15 papers and generally those are good reviews,

Lex Fridman (2:24:51.060)

annual reviews, any review of neuroscience,

Andrew Huberman (2:24:53.140)

annual review of physiology, those kinds of things.

Lex Fridman (2:24:55.540)

I'll chase a few references.

Andrew Huberman (2:24:56.820)

I'll listen to some YouTube videos,

Lex Fridman (2:24:58.300)

but of university level lectures.

Lex Fridman (2:25:00.460)

And then I throw all that on a whiteboard.

Lex Fridman (2:25:03.380)

Usually while I work out in the morning,

Andrew Huberman (2:25:05.780)

I'll just be working out.

Lex Fridman (2:25:06.860)

I have a gym in my house

Lex Fridman (2:25:07.900)

and I'll just put up all these random ideas.

Lex Fridman (2:25:10.260)

I want to cover that dreams, hallucination.

Lex Fridman (2:25:12.180)

And then I take that and I start to eliminate,

Lex Fridman (2:25:14.660)

I draw lines between the common points of intersection.

Lex Fridman (2:25:17.180)

And then from that, I distill out an outline.

Lex Fridman (2:25:21.380)

And then I basically think about what I want to say

Andrew Huberman (2:25:25.020)

on my walks with my dog.

Lex Fridman (2:25:27.220)

And I bother a couple of people and blab to them.

Lex Fridman (2:25:29.260)

So I would say each podcast, yeah,

Lex Fridman (2:25:31.140)

I put in 10 to 15 hours at least

Andrew Huberman (2:25:33.180)

of passive listening preparation

Lex Fridman (2:25:35.620)

and maybe five or six of active preparation.

Lex Fridman (2:25:38.700)

So I do prepare quite a lot,

Lex Fridman (2:25:40.900)

but it has a certain reward component for me.

Andrew Huberman (2:25:44.460)

To come up at the end with something

Lex Fridman (2:25:46.100)

that's somewhat crystallized for me is just so satisfying.

Andrew Huberman (2:25:50.180)

It feel like there's something about my dopamine circuits

Lex Fridman (2:25:52.860)

that just love that.

Lex Fridman (2:25:54.500)

And the only pain is that a year later

Lex Fridman (2:25:58.020)

after I've talked about the stuff a bunch of times,

Andrew Huberman (2:26:00.140)

it's so much more succinct, but that's life.

Lex Fridman (2:26:04.220)

At some point you got to pull the trigger.

Andrew Huberman (2:26:05.740)

Well, I don't know what you think,

Lex Fridman (2:26:08.380)

but for me, YouTube is,

Andrew Huberman (2:26:11.260)

that's why I'm sad that Joe left YouTube.

Lex Fridman (2:26:13.380)

There's a archival nature to YouTube that's kind of magical.

Lex Fridman (2:26:16.940)

And so I'm really glad you're now,

Lex Fridman (2:26:18.660)

you're doing a lot of educational content on Instagram

Lex Fridman (2:26:23.660)

and Instagram before,

Lex Fridman (2:26:25.380)

but now I'm doing this podcasting on YouTube.

Andrew Huberman (2:26:29.140)

It's like, you know, it's like Feynman lectures.

Lex Fridman (2:26:32.420)

Like, I'm not saying every podcast,

Lex Fridman (2:26:35.860)

but there will be, you will have some,

Lex Fridman (2:26:38.500)

I could already tell there'll be some lectures

Andrew Huberman (2:26:42.340)

which are like definitive, like really special ones.

Lex Fridman (2:26:47.340)

That's the hope.

Lex Fridman (2:26:48.180)

And there's some aspect that's archival to YouTube

Lex Fridman (2:26:51.740)

where at least I hope like 20 years from now,

Andrew Huberman (2:26:54.860)

some kid is gonna watch a lecture of yours

Lex Fridman (2:26:58.260)

and it'll create the next Nobel prize, right?

Andrew Huberman (2:27:02.860)

It'll create another dream that then becomes a reality.

Lex Fridman (2:27:08.300)

And then that's a special thing that YouTube provides.

Lex Fridman (2:27:12.580)

So I'm really excited that you're on YouTube.

Lex Fridman (2:27:14.060)

And at the same time,

Andrew Huberman (2:27:15.540)

I'm excited to see where this thing goes

Lex Fridman (2:27:17.420)

because it seems like change is the cliche thing,

Andrew Huberman (2:27:22.980)

that change is the only constant in these times

Lex Fridman (2:27:25.300)

because you're paving with this podcast,

Andrew Huberman (2:27:29.900)

with this creativity, what you were doing on Instagram

Lex Fridman (2:27:32.380)

as well, you're paving the new era

Andrew Huberman (2:27:34.900)

of what it means to do science.

Lex Fridman (2:27:37.180)

So actively doing research

Lex Fridman (2:27:39.460)

and actively explaining that research in new media.

Lex Fridman (2:27:42.540)

It's very interesting to see.

Andrew Huberman (2:27:44.740)

I'm genuinely inspired by you.

Lex Fridman (2:27:47.500)

We had this discussion last time

Andrew Huberman (2:27:49.140)

after the podcast recording,

Lex Fridman (2:27:51.540)

and it's clear that communication of science

Andrew Huberman (2:27:54.620)

cannot be left to the existing institutions.

Lex Fridman (2:27:58.740)

And I'm not talking about universities.

Andrew Huberman (2:27:59.860)

I just mean that the science section of newspapers is,

Lex Fridman (2:28:03.740)

sometimes there's some gems there,

Lex Fridman (2:28:05.180)

but generally it goes, you know?

Lex Fridman (2:28:08.100)

And I think you really have to know a field

Andrew Huberman (2:28:11.420)

in order to extract the best things from that field.

Lex Fridman (2:28:13.700)

And my hope is that other practicing scientists

Lex Fridman (2:28:16.740)

and people finishing their PhD and postdoc

Lex Fridman (2:28:19.060)

and people who are running labs or working at companies

Andrew Huberman (2:28:21.180)

will start to do this.

Lex Fridman (2:28:22.220)

I mean, how amazing would it be, for instance,

Andrew Huberman (2:28:24.140)

if someone at Neuralink was giving us hints

Lex Fridman (2:28:29.980)

about not necessarily what they're developing

Andrew Huberman (2:28:31.980)

because that's complicated for all sorts of reasons,

Lex Fridman (2:28:34.340)

but would talk to us about what the real challenges

Andrew Huberman (2:28:39.900)

of building futuristic brain machine interface are like

Lex Fridman (2:28:43.660)

and what it means to understand a clinical problem

Lex Fridman (2:28:47.020)

and address it.

Lex Fridman (2:28:47.860)

I mean, my hope is somebody there might eventually do that,

Andrew Huberman (2:28:50.700)

that somebody in the world of chemistry

Lex Fridman (2:28:53.700)

or synthetic materials or whatever it is

Andrew Huberman (2:28:55.940)

will do this in a way that I could understand

Lex Fridman (2:28:57.780)

because I don't have expertise in those.

Andrew Huberman (2:28:59.900)

I think it would be marvelous.

Lex Fridman (2:29:02.260)

And you were tip of the spear, you were out first,

Lex Fridman (2:29:05.120)

and I'm just happily trying to move along

Lex Fridman (2:29:09.820)

in the direction I'm going.

Lex Fridman (2:29:10.760)

But I think the future of science education is online.

Lex Fridman (2:29:15.540)

And I think that's gonna be scary

Andrew Huberman (2:29:17.380)

to a lot of existing institutions,

Lex Fridman (2:29:19.380)

but it's not about disrupting anything.

Andrew Huberman (2:29:21.540)

It's just about trying to do things better.

Lex Fridman (2:29:23.340)

Yeah, some of the best interviews,

Andrew Huberman (2:29:28.720)

some of the best investigative journalism

Lex Fridman (2:29:30.860)

is done by people inside the field.

Andrew Huberman (2:29:33.620)

Comes to mind a guy by the name of Elon Musk,

Lex Fridman (2:29:36.080)

who I love the possibility that he gets a Pulitzer

Andrew Huberman (2:29:40.740)

for that interview.

Lex Fridman (2:29:41.900)

But he grilled the crap out of Vlad,

Andrew Huberman (2:29:44.100)

the CEO of Robinhood.

Lex Fridman (2:29:46.380)

I'm not sure if you're familiar.

Andrew Huberman (2:29:47.220)

Oh, on Clubhouse the other night.

Lex Fridman (2:29:50.340)

Yeah, I saw you guys in there.

Andrew Huberman (2:29:51.860)

I was kept out, I wasn't quick enough.

Lex Fridman (2:29:53.780)

My thumbs don't go fast enough.

Lex Fridman (2:29:55.300)

So I was, and I wasn't about to sit in the waiting room.

Lex Fridman (2:29:57.500)

Have you tried that social network,

Lex Fridman (2:29:58.860)

by the way, the Clubhouse?

Lex Fridman (2:29:59.860)

I've gone in there a few times and checked some things out.

Andrew Huberman (2:30:03.020)

I'm there, I have a few questions about it

Lex Fridman (2:30:05.060)

that like if I'm in there,

Lex Fridman (2:30:07.920)

how one can participate or not participate.

Lex Fridman (2:30:11.660)

I like being a fly on the wall for those conversations.

Andrew Huberman (2:30:13.900)

I've been very curious as to what's going on in there.

Lex Fridman (2:30:15.740)

Oh, it's quite, I mean, I have a lot of thoughts.

Andrew Huberman (2:30:18.620)

Maybe it's useful to comment.

Lex Fridman (2:30:20.980)

I also have a Discord server

Andrew Huberman (2:30:23.380)

that has a few tens of thousands of people on it.

Lex Fridman (2:30:27.580)

And then they have also a voice chat capability.

Lex Fridman (2:30:31.860)

So there's these get togethers.

Lex Fridman (2:30:33.820)

And I was using it in the spring and summer,

Andrew Huberman (2:30:37.580)

like actively on those voice discussions.

Lex Fridman (2:30:40.700)

And it's anywhere from 10 to like 1,000 people

Andrew Huberman (2:30:44.980)

all together in voice.

Lex Fridman (2:30:46.540)

Like anyone can speak anytime, right?

Lex Fridman (2:30:49.180)

But there's this weird dynamic that people stay quiet.

Lex Fridman (2:30:52.300)

Only one person speaks at a time

Andrew Huberman (2:30:54.140)

because they're all like respectful.

Lex Fridman (2:30:55.560)

And it's a community of like fundamentally

Andrew Huberman (2:30:59.260)

respectful people, even though they're all anonymous.

Lex Fridman (2:31:01.860)

So like, except like me and a few others,

Andrew Huberman (2:31:04.940)

it's all anonymous people.

Lex Fridman (2:31:06.260)

It's so interesting and it works.

Lex Fridman (2:31:08.300)

But the magical thing to me about that community

Lex Fridman (2:31:14.220)

was how intimate voice only communication can be.

Andrew Huberman (2:31:18.540)

It felt as intimate as like a small get together

Lex Fridman (2:31:24.720)

at a home with close friends.

Andrew Huberman (2:31:27.740)

It felt like there's a calmness to it.

Lex Fridman (2:31:29.900)

And you're revealing things about, you know,

Andrew Huberman (2:31:33.700)

somebody suffering from depression or being suicidal.

Lex Fridman (2:31:37.140)

So those are the dark things or being super excited,

Andrew Huberman (2:31:39.700)

getting a new girlfriend or boyfriend.

Lex Fridman (2:31:42.140)

Like just the depth of human experience shared on voice

Andrew Huberman (2:31:46.580)

without video is, I was really surprised

Lex Fridman (2:31:49.860)

how intimate that is for human connection,

Andrew Huberman (2:31:52.060)

especially in this time of COVID, it replaced that.

Lex Fridman (2:31:54.460)

So just to give you some context, there's something there.

Andrew Huberman (2:31:59.100)

There's definitely something there.

Lex Fridman (2:32:00.140)

One thing that comes to mind is when like in Clubhouse,

Andrew Huberman (2:32:03.100)

you have your little icon.

Lex Fridman (2:32:04.300)

So they don't actually, you don't see your face moving.

Andrew Huberman (2:32:06.420)

I think when people see their own image,

Lex Fridman (2:32:08.800)

it puts them in a state of self consciousness

Andrew Huberman (2:32:11.540)

that is eliminated by just having an icon or an avatar.

Lex Fridman (2:32:15.620)

So like Zoom is dreadful because if I'm not used

Andrew Huberman (2:32:20.200)

to talking to people and seeing a little image of myself

Lex Fridman (2:32:22.440)

staring back at me in the mirror.

Lex Fridman (2:32:24.300)

And it's just, I know there are ways

Lex Fridman (2:32:26.580)

that you can adjust that, but it's really awful.

Lex Fridman (2:32:29.180)

And I think that when I get on Zooms now,

Lex Fridman (2:32:31.620)

I say hello and then I shut down the video component.

Lex Fridman (2:32:34.540)

And then I just talk in the end.

Lex Fridman (2:32:35.660)

I come back on just to show that still there, it's still me.

Lex Fridman (2:32:38.840)

But I think that voice only is really interesting.

Lex Fridman (2:32:42.140)

Eddie Chang would be an interesting person

Andrew Huberman (2:32:43.860)

to talk to about this because he understands so much

Lex Fridman (2:32:45.940)

about how inflection communicates

Andrew Huberman (2:32:48.300)

emotionality in deeper state.

Lex Fridman (2:32:50.140)

But there's a balance between, I think,

Andrew Huberman (2:32:52.740)

just like you said, this is the privacy

Lex Fridman (2:32:55.960)

somehow allows for the intimacy.

Lex Fridman (2:32:59.100)

So like being able to, as opposed to putting on an act,

Lex Fridman (2:33:03.260)

which I realize we do when we're visually

Andrew Huberman (2:33:05.340)

presenting ourselves in remote communication.

Lex Fridman (2:33:08.300)

But I think that there's so few places

Andrew Huberman (2:33:10.040)

where people can actually communicate

Lex Fridman (2:33:12.280)

without the fear of penalty.

Andrew Huberman (2:33:15.380)

That's woefully absent these days.

Lex Fridman (2:33:19.280)

And so maybe people are just relieved to be in a place

Andrew Huberman (2:33:21.860)

where they feel like I can say what I want

Lex Fridman (2:33:24.120)

or not say anything and it's okay.

Lex Fridman (2:33:26.460)

And so Clubhouse, to answer your kind of question is,

Lex Fridman (2:33:31.020)

there was a big improvement to me over Discord,

Andrew Huberman (2:33:33.180)

which is it has tiers, it has a stage where people,

Lex Fridman (2:33:37.820)

the person that created the room can invite people up

Andrew Huberman (2:33:40.340)

that would like to speak potentially,

Lex Fridman (2:33:42.660)

have the opportunity to speak.

Lex Fridman (2:33:43.860)

And then there's a bigger audience

Lex Fridman (2:33:45.940)

that don't get a chance to speak unless they

Andrew Huberman (2:33:48.420)

click raise their hand and they get called on.

Lex Fridman (2:33:51.060)

So there's like a tier system that allows

Andrew Huberman (2:33:54.580)

for there to be a group of like five, 10, 20, 30 people

Lex Fridman (2:33:59.260)

talking and a lot larger amount in the audience,

Andrew Huberman (2:34:03.380)

which in Discord was the problems that everybody could talk.

Lex Fridman (2:34:06.020)

And the other thing about Clubhouse is everybody

Andrew Huberman (2:34:09.300)

is strongly encouraged to represent themselves.

Lex Fridman (2:34:11.600)

So you're using your real name, it's not anonymous.

Lex Fridman (2:34:14.980)

And how many people were in that GameStop discussion

Lex Fridman (2:34:18.140)

the other day?

Andrew Huberman (2:34:18.980)

They currently limit rooms to 5,000.

Lex Fridman (2:34:23.320)

So I'm sure maxed out at 5,000.

Andrew Huberman (2:34:25.260)

There's a lot of overflow rooms.

Lex Fridman (2:34:27.620)

This is the cool thing about Clubhouse,

Andrew Huberman (2:34:29.420)

really big people were on there all tuned in

Lex Fridman (2:34:32.220)

and having a conversation, having all from,

Andrew Huberman (2:34:35.940)

all these different worlds being able to connect,

Lex Fridman (2:34:39.700)

even though without the niceties of like arranging

Andrew Huberman (2:34:42.640)

the meeting, you could just show up and leave,

Lex Fridman (2:34:44.740)

which is really nice.

Lex Fridman (2:34:45.820)

But the reason for my lessons from Discord,

Lex Fridman (2:34:50.280)

I'm going to mostly stay away from Clubhouse.

Lex Fridman (2:34:54.080)

And I think.

Lex Fridman (2:34:56.100)

Or go in there under another name.

Andrew Huberman (2:34:58.080)

Right.

Lex Fridman (2:35:00.160)

I'll pretend I know the actual, your actual name.

Andrew Huberman (2:35:02.600)

Yeah, it's, I've learned, it's quite addicting.

Lex Fridman (2:35:06.960)

It's a time sink.

Andrew Huberman (2:35:08.560)

It's so, the intimacy of it is you find yourself

Lex Fridman (2:35:12.600)

wasting quite a bit of time on there.

Andrew Huberman (2:35:14.160)

It pulls you in.

Lex Fridman (2:35:15.520)

Well, it's interesting.

Andrew Huberman (2:35:16.760)

They would in sort of going back to the podcast

Lex Fridman (2:35:20.800)

or earlier, we're talking about books

Andrew Huberman (2:35:22.480)

or creating a technology.

Lex Fridman (2:35:24.480)

One thing that's absolutely clear is that anything

Andrew Huberman (2:35:27.240)

that's easy to reproduce is probably not worth

Lex Fridman (2:35:31.200)

much effort and time.

Andrew Huberman (2:35:33.420)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (2:35:34.260)

Right?

Andrew Huberman (2:35:35.100)

I mean, most posts could be easily reproduced.

Lex Fridman (2:35:39.320)

You just repost them.

Andrew Huberman (2:35:40.280)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:35:41.120)

So now there are some original posts that for which

Andrew Huberman (2:35:44.180)

the attribution goes to the original person

Lex Fridman (2:35:46.200)

and it's clear it came from you.

Lex Fridman (2:35:48.000)

But anything that can be easily reproduced is,

Lex Fridman (2:35:50.400)

doesn't really expand us very much as individuals

Andrew Huberman (2:35:53.660)

or as groups.

Lex Fridman (2:35:55.280)

And most of what I see on social media is stuff

Andrew Huberman (2:35:57.900)

that is purely reproduced.

Lex Fridman (2:36:00.400)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (2:36:01.420)

But I think Clubhouse, I mean, it could be

Lex Fridman (2:36:05.840)

that some real magic emerges on there.

Lex Fridman (2:36:08.200)

So in moderation could be good.

Lex Fridman (2:36:10.220)

The magic is, this is another thing that I've found

Andrew Huberman (2:36:13.840)

through COVID that maybe you can think about is live.

Lex Fridman (2:36:20.400)

I used to be, not understand the appeal of live video

Andrew Huberman (2:36:24.560)

or live connection or like in this Clubhouse live events.

Lex Fridman (2:36:28.880)

Because Clubhouse is technically, for the most part,

Andrew Huberman (2:36:32.440)

it's not supposed to be recorded.

Lex Fridman (2:36:34.040)

Most people don't record most conversations.

Andrew Huberman (2:36:36.520)

It's a one time live event.

Lex Fridman (2:36:38.560)

And there's a magic to that.

Andrew Huberman (2:36:40.280)

There is.

Lex Fridman (2:36:41.120)

That's not captured by like your podcast

Andrew Huberman (2:36:44.640)

or my podcast produced video that's like recorded,

Lex Fridman (2:36:49.360)

like packaged up.

Andrew Huberman (2:36:50.960)

Well, anything can happen.

Lex Fridman (2:36:52.420)

It's that anything can happen.

Lex Fridman (2:36:54.200)

And that's the kind of thing like live concerts.

Lex Fridman (2:36:57.400)

I definitely, I love live music.

Lex Fridman (2:37:00.440)

And it's the idea that,

Lex Fridman (2:37:02.040)

cause you can always listen to the album.

Andrew Huberman (2:37:03.440)

Actually the album usually sounds cleaner and better,

Lex Fridman (2:37:05.840)

but it's just this idea that anything can happen.

Lex Fridman (2:37:08.300)

And then you listen to like the parts, I don't know,

Lex Fridman (2:37:10.740)

you like a Costello did something weird.

Andrew Huberman (2:37:13.800)

Your dog did something weird.

Lex Fridman (2:37:15.200)

And then you have to go, God damn it.

Andrew Huberman (2:37:17.040)

You have to go to the kitchen or something to get something.

Lex Fridman (2:37:19.760)

And then you come back and it's funny.

Andrew Huberman (2:37:22.280)

I watched live video like that of people

Lex Fridman (2:37:24.640)

and I'll be there for the whole time.

Andrew Huberman (2:37:26.400)

I'll wait for them to go to the kitchen and come back.

Lex Fridman (2:37:28.800)

It's not like I tune out.

Lex Fridman (2:37:30.680)

And that makes it like a richer experience for some reason.

Lex Fridman (2:37:33.480)

It's weird.

Andrew Huberman (2:37:34.320)

Well, it humanizes it.

Lex Fridman (2:37:35.400)

Yeah, humanizes it.

Lex Fridman (2:37:36.440)

And I think there is this weird effect of whether or not

Lex Fridman (2:37:39.120)

it's a podcast, Instagram or Twitter or anything else.

Andrew Huberman (2:37:41.320)

There's kind of like two people shouting into a tunnel

Lex Fridman (2:37:44.520)

and then a bunch of people with ears at the other end

Andrew Huberman (2:37:46.440)

of those tunnels and shouting some things back.

Lex Fridman (2:37:49.160)

You know, that's kind of the format we're in.

Andrew Huberman (2:37:52.080)

I think I'll check out Clubhouse again.

Lex Fridman (2:37:54.160)

I've gone in there a few times during the day

Lex Fridman (2:37:55.640)

and I was surprised to see how many people were in there

Lex Fridman (2:37:57.480)

in the middle of the day.

Lex Fridman (2:37:58.640)

I was like, aren't these people supposed to be working?

Lex Fridman (2:38:01.400)

But maybe that is their work.

Andrew Huberman (2:38:02.440)

Well, be very careful about the time sink of it.

Lex Fridman (2:38:07.080)

But yeah, if you want to, you and I go together,

Andrew Huberman (2:38:09.120)

we'll have a conversation on there.

Lex Fridman (2:38:10.800)

But one of the things you have to figure out,

Andrew Huberman (2:38:13.360)

I don't still know how to do it, but how to exit.

Lex Fridman (2:38:17.340)

Which is like.

Lex Fridman (2:38:18.180)

And you just do the, isn't there the leave quietly button?

Lex Fridman (2:38:20.320)

Yeah, no, but like when you and I are on stage

Andrew Huberman (2:38:22.600)

having a conversation, okay, you and I is harder.

Lex Fridman (2:38:27.800)

But like you really, if it's just you and I,

Andrew Huberman (2:38:31.240)

then it's the usual human communication of like,

Lex Fridman (2:38:33.740)

all right, I gotta go.

Andrew Huberman (2:38:35.280)

Like, but when it's like four people,

Lex Fridman (2:38:38.040)

you don't want to interrupt everyone

Lex Fridman (2:38:40.120)

and announce you're leaving.

Lex Fridman (2:38:41.000)

You just have to, I mean, there's a weird dynamic

Andrew Huberman (2:38:43.180)

that I haven't quite figured out of.

Lex Fridman (2:38:45.960)

The etiquette isn't clear.

Andrew Huberman (2:38:47.160)

The etiquette is not clear.

Lex Fridman (2:38:48.320)

Well, the etiquette on different platforms

Lex Fridman (2:38:52.060)

and how that changes is really interesting.

Lex Fridman (2:38:54.120)

You know, how YouTube has one etiquette,

Andrew Huberman (2:38:56.360)

which is kind of, it's a lot of harshness is tolerated

Lex Fridman (2:38:58.900)

on YouTube video comments.

Andrew Huberman (2:39:01.280)

Twitter seems a bit harsher than Instagram.

Lex Fridman (2:39:04.000)

Instagram, there's kind of, it seems to be a little.

Andrew Huberman (2:39:05.560)

People are nice.

Lex Fridman (2:39:06.400)

People are really nice.

Andrew Huberman (2:39:07.600)

People are really nice on Instagram for the most part,

Lex Fridman (2:39:11.300)

except for those phishing things.

Andrew Huberman (2:39:13.580)

I actually know someone who had their quite sizable account

Lex Fridman (2:39:16.920)

poached by those copyright.

Andrew Huberman (2:39:18.560)

They come in with those like,

Lex Fridman (2:39:19.760)

you violated copyright thing.

Andrew Huberman (2:39:21.800)

There's all sorts of harshness in there

Lex Fridman (2:39:23.520)

that if you think about it in the real world,

Andrew Huberman (2:39:25.360)

I like to think about Instagram as if it was the real world.

Lex Fridman (2:39:28.240)

Someone comes over and is basically saying like,

Andrew Huberman (2:39:30.280)

hey, can I hold your wallet and go into the bank

Lex Fridman (2:39:32.520)

and I'll get some money out for you?

Lex Fridman (2:39:33.660)

And like, but there's this trust

Lex Fridman (2:39:35.400)

based on the format it comes in

Andrew Huberman (2:39:37.260)

that it can almost get past your radar

Lex Fridman (2:39:39.220)

unless you're suspicious.

Andrew Huberman (2:39:40.960)

If you took comments, like, you know,

Lex Fridman (2:39:43.520)

you're posting a lot of comments and you said,

Andrew Huberman (2:39:45.480)

you just walk past 500 random people on the street

Lex Fridman (2:39:48.600)

and just listen to what they say,

Andrew Huberman (2:39:50.580)

it's like, that's ridiculous.

Lex Fridman (2:39:52.040)

I don't have time for that.

Lex Fridman (2:39:53.560)

But the comments somehow take on this importance

Lex Fridman (2:39:55.520)

and this relevance.

Lex Fridman (2:39:56.820)

And you feel, we feel obligated to give them value, right?

Lex Fridman (2:40:00.920)

And so the online communities,

Andrew Huberman (2:40:03.840)

the rules really are different.

Lex Fridman (2:40:06.720)

And they evolve with time, which is fascinating.

Andrew Huberman (2:40:08.200)

With Clubhouse, it's a new social network,

Lex Fridman (2:40:10.020)

so it's evolving and people are figuring it out as you go.

Lex Fridman (2:40:13.800)

And the same thing with podcasting on video

Lex Fridman (2:40:16.480)

and like scientific podcasting.

Andrew Huberman (2:40:18.200)

This is the cool thing when I look at what you've created,

Lex Fridman (2:40:22.040)

I'm learning, I'm thinking like,

Andrew Huberman (2:40:23.800)

hmm, that's interesting to do it this way.

Lex Fridman (2:40:26.400)

Because like, I have nobody to copy.

Lex Fridman (2:40:29.340)

Not many people to copy, you know what I mean?

Lex Fridman (2:40:31.280)

Well, you threw out an idea.

Andrew Huberman (2:40:32.560)

I'm not gonna put it out here now,

Lex Fridman (2:40:33.820)

cause I don't wanna,

Andrew Huberman (2:40:35.280)

cause knowing you, you'll hold yourself to it

Lex Fridman (2:40:37.160)

no matter what.

Lex Fridman (2:40:38.000)

But when we talked about this issue of the challenge

Lex Fridman (2:40:41.720)

of staying on a particular topic for a while,

Andrew Huberman (2:40:43.920)

I mean, you do have some cool stuff brewing in there.

Lex Fridman (2:40:46.200)

Oh, no, no, no.

Andrew Huberman (2:40:47.040)

That's separate from this format.

Lex Fridman (2:40:48.040)

And I love your interview format,

Lex Fridman (2:40:49.920)

but when you told me about that,

Lex Fridman (2:40:52.020)

I got really excited that you might go forward.

Andrew Huberman (2:40:54.000)

I'm not gonna tell your audience what it is,

Lex Fridman (2:40:55.920)

but I will say this, it is super cool.

Andrew Huberman (2:40:58.660)

I would have never thought about it.

Lex Fridman (2:41:00.160)

It's distinctly different than what I'm doing

Andrew Huberman (2:41:01.600)

or what Lex is currently doing.

Lex Fridman (2:41:03.280)

And if you decide to do that podcast,

Andrew Huberman (2:41:07.440)

I will be your first and your number one fan.

Lex Fridman (2:41:09.960)

And I know there are gonna be millions of other people

Andrew Huberman (2:41:12.080)

interested in that.

Lex Fridman (2:41:12.920)

It would be amazing.

Lex Fridman (2:41:13.920)

So if you decide to go forward with the idea,

Lex Fridman (2:41:18.180)

that would be awesome.

Andrew Huberman (2:41:19.280)

I was gonna say what it is,

Lex Fridman (2:41:20.220)

but now I'm not going to because,

Andrew Huberman (2:41:22.440)

cause that's even more interesting.

Lex Fridman (2:41:24.000)

I brought up the clubhouse thing actually in Elon,

Andrew Huberman (2:41:27.600)

because I just wanted to get your thoughts

Lex Fridman (2:41:31.840)

about something he's said a few times to me and in general,

Andrew Huberman (2:41:37.240)

is that he's under a huge amount of stress.

Lex Fridman (2:41:40.040)

And I'm thinking of doing a startup now

Lex Fridman (2:41:44.480)

and kind of thinking about all of this.

Lex Fridman (2:41:47.960)

Cause I enjoy podcasts, I enjoy science,

Lex Fridman (2:41:51.320)

but he says that his life is basically hell.

Lex Fridman (2:41:56.000)

It's very difficult.

Andrew Huberman (2:41:57.320)

He looks happy, but he's probably very good at.

Lex Fridman (2:41:59.840)

He's fulfilled.

Andrew Huberman (2:42:01.160)

He's fulfilled, but the stress levels,

Lex Fridman (2:42:04.240)

the constant fires that he has to put out.

Lex Fridman (2:42:08.480)

And he says that most people wouldn't want to be me.

Lex Fridman (2:42:11.640)

And that basically the reason he does what he does

Andrew Huberman (2:42:16.160)

is because there's probably something wrong with him.

Lex Fridman (2:42:19.920)

Like it's not, he can't help it, but do that.

Andrew Huberman (2:42:24.200)

Kind of beautiful in a kind of Russian masochistic way.

Lex Fridman (2:42:29.080)

Well, I just wonder the stress.

Andrew Huberman (2:42:31.640)

I mean, I'm sure you can imagine the kind of stress

Lex Fridman (2:42:35.440)

he's under because, so it's running three plus companies

Lex Fridman (2:42:39.880)

and there's constant, he says that every single meeting

Lex Fridman (2:42:45.840)

is not about like, should we install a coffee maker

Lex Fridman (2:42:49.920)

in the kitchen?

Lex Fridman (2:42:51.760)

It's like, this rocket is going to blow up

Lex Fridman (2:42:56.240)

and we're all fucked.

Lex Fridman (2:42:57.720)

I don't know what to do.

Lex Fridman (2:42:59.080)

And we have to, you have to fix,

Lex Fridman (2:43:01.240)

you have to fix real like big problems there.

Lex Fridman (2:43:04.040)

And like, how do you deal with that?

Lex Fridman (2:43:07.720)

What do you think about that kind of life?

Lex Fridman (2:43:09.320)

One, is there a way to walk through that fire?

Lex Fridman (2:43:13.920)

And two, should you walk through that fire?

Andrew Huberman (2:43:18.920)

Well, I mean, without knowing I've never met Elon,

Lex Fridman (2:43:22.120)

but certainly we have common friends in you

Lex Fridman (2:43:25.760)

and in other people that he worked with long ago

Lex Fridman (2:43:29.680)

in the PayPal days, all of whom speak very highly of him

Lex Fridman (2:43:34.000)

and show, express immense admiration

Lex Fridman (2:43:37.440)

for the number of things that he can maintain.

Andrew Huberman (2:43:40.080)

I think it's fair to say that he accomplishes more

Lex Fridman (2:43:43.160)

before 9 a.m. than most people do in a decade.

Andrew Huberman (2:43:48.160)

It's clear.

Lex Fridman (2:43:49.120)

And that what he does would dissolve most people

Andrew Huberman (2:43:51.560)

into a puddle of tears.

Lex Fridman (2:43:53.120)

Mostly because of this whole thing

Andrew Huberman (2:43:56.280)

about the brain working hard equates

Lex Fridman (2:43:59.600)

to thinking about duration path and outcome

Lex Fridman (2:44:02.080)

and anticipating outcomes given A, B, C, or D,

Lex Fridman (2:44:04.840)

a lot of very scripted linear thinking and prediction.

Lex Fridman (2:44:09.400)

And that is hard, it's stressful.

Lex Fridman (2:44:11.400)

It requires intense neurochemical output.

Lex Fridman (2:44:14.080)

And he's doing that for multiple projects.

Lex Fridman (2:44:16.200)

So presumably he's buffered himself

Andrew Huberman (2:44:18.360)

from the coffee maker issues and the little tiny issues,

Lex Fridman (2:44:21.160)

but he is himself, unless there's something I don't know,

Andrew Huberman (2:44:23.880)

he's walking around in a biological system.

Lex Fridman (2:44:26.280)

He is.

Andrew Huberman (2:44:27.120)

Yes, allegedly, yes.

Lex Fridman (2:44:29.280)

Yeah, allegedly.

Andrew Huberman (2:44:30.120)

So, and I don't wanna reveal too much here,

Lex Fridman (2:44:33.600)

but I have a common coworker and colleague

Andrew Huberman (2:44:39.160)

through some contract work I do that what I can tell you

Lex Fridman (2:44:42.760)

is that he's accessing the best resources

Andrew Huberman (2:44:45.200)

in terms of how to optimize his biology.

Lex Fridman (2:44:48.200)

And he's thinking about that, not just for himself,

Lex Fridman (2:44:51.720)

but for all of Neuralink.

Lex Fridman (2:44:53.240)

Because I think, I'm not trying to dodge the question,

Lex Fridman (2:44:55.960)

but I think there's the scale of the individual,

Lex Fridman (2:44:59.320)

but then there's the companies that he's creating.

Lex Fridman (2:45:02.560)

And you've got people there that you could imagine

Lex Fridman (2:45:05.120)

if they're working at 10% better capacity

Andrew Huberman (2:45:07.560)

or can focus 5% better for 20% of the day,

Lex Fridman (2:45:12.000)

you're looking at a enormous increase in productivity

Lex Fridman (2:45:15.560)

and a reduction in the time to reach goals,

Lex Fridman (2:45:17.880)

which will reduce the amount of stress presumably on Elon,

Andrew Huberman (2:45:21.120)

unless he goes and starts another endeavor.

Lex Fridman (2:45:23.800)

So I think it's certainly not healthy for most people.

Andrew Huberman (2:45:28.560)

It seems to be where he gets his dopamine hits.

Lex Fridman (2:45:31.040)

I'm also really struck by the fact that he has a family

Lex Fridman (2:45:34.160)

and he's got kids growing up and a relationship

Lex Fridman (2:45:38.000)

and all that, so it's super impressive.

Lex Fridman (2:45:40.960)

I think that, I don't know, how old is Elon?

Lex Fridman (2:45:44.880)

He's 40, I mean, pushing 50, I think 48.

Andrew Huberman (2:45:49.400)

Even more impressive.

Lex Fridman (2:45:51.320)

Because many people who've been at exceedingly high output

Andrew Huberman (2:45:55.480)

for a decade or more don't do well.

Lex Fridman (2:45:58.620)

Their system breaks down.

Andrew Huberman (2:46:00.000)

Well, this is what he was saying.

Lex Fridman (2:46:03.360)

Actually, I mean, I don't listen to all of his interviews,

Lex Fridman (2:46:06.800)

but on that live on the clubhouse,

Lex Fridman (2:46:09.640)

he mentioned that he was kind of worried,

Andrew Huberman (2:46:13.400)

it's interesting, he was worried that sometimes,

Lex Fridman (2:46:18.780)

what I think he said is,

Andrew Huberman (2:46:20.360)

I'm worried that at some point my brain is just going to fail

Lex Fridman (2:46:26.040)

because of the amount of load it's under,

Andrew Huberman (2:46:28.880)

like how much I have to think through throughout the day,

Lex Fridman (2:46:34.080)

like how many problems you have to think through.

Andrew Huberman (2:46:38.240)

Like, it's like puzzles, it's constant puzzle solving.

Lex Fridman (2:46:41.240)

I would be concerned about taking somebody

Andrew Huberman (2:46:43.880)

who's in that regime and suddenly putting them

Lex Fridman (2:46:46.000)

into a regime where they don't have enough

Andrew Huberman (2:46:47.640)

to bite down into.

Lex Fridman (2:46:48.520)

It's like my bulldog, Costello,

Andrew Huberman (2:46:49.800)

he's happiest when chewing and tugging

Lex Fridman (2:46:51.520)

at that big old neck of his,

Lex Fridman (2:46:53.200)

and he is just not going to become a retriever,

Lex Fridman (2:46:55.080)

he's not going to, he does well

Lex Fridman (2:46:57.560)

and gets his dopamine hits from chewing and pulling.

Lex Fridman (2:47:00.640)

And it seems like Elon has ended up where he is

Andrew Huberman (2:47:04.240)

by way of his natural leanings.

Lex Fridman (2:47:07.800)

Unless there's a backstory that's trauma based or something,

Lex Fridman (2:47:12.160)

and I don't even begin to think that there is,

Lex Fridman (2:47:15.240)

it seems that he has,

Andrew Huberman (2:47:16.800)

he's one of those rare individuals in history

Lex Fridman (2:47:18.680)

that has an immense drive to create

Andrew Huberman (2:47:21.240)

in all these different domains.

Lex Fridman (2:47:22.680)

I'm just saying the obvious here,

Lex Fridman (2:47:24.360)

but it seems like that's what makes him tick.

Lex Fridman (2:47:27.360)

I mean, you're doing an awful lot too.

Andrew Huberman (2:47:29.000)

Well, the problem is not really,

Lex Fridman (2:47:33.080)

the problem is I've been on the verge

Andrew Huberman (2:47:36.280)

of pulling the trigger on starting a company,

Lex Fridman (2:47:39.640)

which will increase the workload significantly.

Lex Fridman (2:47:43.160)

And I'm attracted to that because of a dream I have,

Lex Fridman (2:47:49.160)

but it's a little bit scary

Andrew Huberman (2:47:51.960)

because it can destroy you in a lot of ways.

Lex Fridman (2:47:56.380)

There's two sources of destruction.

Lex Fridman (2:47:59.120)

So one source is,

Lex Fridman (2:48:02.320)

I've, for the first time in my life,

Andrew Huberman (2:48:06.340)

a few months ago, I think,

Lex Fridman (2:48:10.420)

have gotten, this feels like such a noob thing to say it,

Lex Fridman (2:48:14.100)

but I've gotten some hate on the internet.

Lex Fridman (2:48:16.820)

No.

Lex Fridman (2:48:17.740)

I know, right?

Lex Fridman (2:48:18.580)

No.

Lex Fridman (2:48:19.420)

But like, I am such an idiot.

Lex Fridman (2:48:20.700)

I'm so naive to, it was,

Andrew Huberman (2:48:24.520)

I had the question that I guess a lot of people have

Lex Fridman (2:48:28.040)

when they get hate on the internet.

Andrew Huberman (2:48:29.360)

It's like, mom, why are these people

Lex Fridman (2:48:32.940)

making up stuff about me?

Lex Fridman (2:48:35.460)

That kind of feeling of like, why are you saying that?

Lex Fridman (2:48:39.020)

And the reason I mentioned that is like,

Andrew Huberman (2:48:43.420)

well, if you wanna go and start a business

Lex Fridman (2:48:46.340)

and do, as I think people should

Andrew Huberman (2:48:49.780)

when they start a big, ambitious business,

Lex Fridman (2:48:53.380)

really try to go big.

Andrew Huberman (2:48:54.980)

Like, what does success look like

Lex Fridman (2:48:58.040)

in terms of your emotional journey?

Andrew Huberman (2:49:00.740)

You're going to have a lot of people

Lex Fridman (2:49:02.560)

who make up stuff about you,

Andrew Huberman (2:49:05.080)

who say negative things.

Lex Fridman (2:49:06.680)

I mean, majority, hopefully, if you do a good job,

Andrew Huberman (2:49:09.260)

will be supportive and,

Lex Fridman (2:49:10.720)

but there's still going to be this army of people there.

Lex Fridman (2:49:13.480)

And like, that was scary to me

Lex Fridman (2:49:16.100)

because of how much emotional impact that had on me.

Andrew Huberman (2:49:20.520)

Well, and I also know a little bit,

Lex Fridman (2:49:22.880)

I have some glimpse into the fact

Andrew Huberman (2:49:24.240)

that you put your heart and soul into everything you do.

Lex Fridman (2:49:27.280)

You're not a, you're lighthearted about certain things,

Lex Fridman (2:49:30.600)

but you're even lighthearted

Lex Fridman (2:49:32.200)

about being full gas pedal 24 seven.

Andrew Huberman (2:49:35.980)

There's kind of this,

Lex Fridman (2:49:40.640)

Laird Hamilton always says,

Andrew Huberman (2:49:42.220)

the big wave surfers, he always says,

Lex Fridman (2:49:45.340)

bright light, dark shadow.

Lex Fridman (2:49:47.640)

And I think it's that intensity.

Lex Fridman (2:49:50.760)

And when you do that,

Lex Fridman (2:49:51.720)

and then suddenly people are starting to like,

Lex Fridman (2:49:54.760)

throw some paint on your picture,

Andrew Huberman (2:49:56.400)

you're like, wait, hold on, you know,

Lex Fridman (2:49:57.980)

you're going max capacity.

Lex Fridman (2:50:00.040)

But I think the company is interesting one

Lex Fridman (2:50:02.240)

because you've talked about doing this company before.

Andrew Huberman (2:50:05.080)

I've been afraid.

Lex Fridman (2:50:05.920)

I just not been pulling the trigger out of fear

Andrew Huberman (2:50:09.360)

because I enjoy this life.

Lex Fridman (2:50:10.440)

This is, it's starting to interrupt.

Andrew Huberman (2:50:12.560)

It's ultimately this question of taking a leap is like,

Lex Fridman (2:50:17.920)

say you're in academia, it's like you're at MIT,

Andrew Huberman (2:50:21.160)

you're, I really love doing research at MIT.

Lex Fridman (2:50:23.800)

I really love that life.

Lex Fridman (2:50:25.600)

Why take a leap out?

Lex Fridman (2:50:27.240)

You know, but I did because it's been a dream,

Lex Fridman (2:50:30.440)

but now accidentally along the way,

Lex Fridman (2:50:33.300)

I found this podcasting thing,

Andrew Huberman (2:50:35.760)

which is also really fulfilling.

Lex Fridman (2:50:37.880)

And you know, it's like, why take a leap?

Andrew Huberman (2:50:41.120)

Cause you have a huge lust for life.

Lex Fridman (2:50:44.180)

Yeah.

Andrew Huberman (2:50:45.020)

I mean, that's you.

Lex Fridman (2:50:45.840)

I mean, sometimes when I'm on the internet

Lex Fridman (2:50:47.460)

and I think, is this, you hear about it like,

Lex Fridman (2:50:49.400)

oh, it's addicting, you know, YouTube's addicting all that.

Andrew Huberman (2:50:52.080)

Actually, sometimes I think maybe that's true,

Lex Fridman (2:50:54.720)

but a lot of times I just think there's so much here.

Andrew Huberman (2:50:57.800)

There's a lot of garbage,

Lex Fridman (2:50:59.520)

but there's so many gems out there in the world now.

Andrew Huberman (2:51:02.800)

It's almost like, sure how you allocate time is key,

Lex Fridman (2:51:06.580)

but I think you can do it all.

Andrew Huberman (2:51:11.140)

Not, maybe not five more things, but all.

Lex Fridman (2:51:14.520)

And one thing, I just had this idea

Lex Fridman (2:51:16.240)

and this is not grounded in any scientific paper,

Lex Fridman (2:51:18.440)

but I think the answer might come to you

Andrew Huberman (2:51:20.280)

during this torture that you're about to get yourself

Lex Fridman (2:51:24.440)

through with David, because in those mental states,

Lex Fridman (2:51:26.880)

you're really asking the question, right?

Lex Fridman (2:51:29.320)

You're asking the question, where is my capacity?

Lex Fridman (2:51:32.640)

And am I even close to my capacity?

Lex Fridman (2:51:35.600)

And if I am, what's of the most value?

Andrew Huberman (2:51:38.000)

I think we find the answers to those things

Lex Fridman (2:51:40.320)

in those nonverbal, nonanalytic states.

Andrew Huberman (2:51:43.560)

It just comes to us.

Lex Fridman (2:51:45.920)

I hope you're right, and I hope it's a profoundly

Andrew Huberman (2:51:50.600)

fulfilling experience as opposed to one

Lex Fridman (2:51:52.400)

that leads to my demise, but.

Lex Fridman (2:51:54.520)

You have a will, right?

Lex Fridman (2:51:55.800)

It all goes to the hedgehog.

Andrew Huberman (2:51:59.200)

Yeah, exactly, to the hedgehog.

Lex Fridman (2:52:01.660)

Now it all makes sense.

Andrew Huberman (2:52:02.960)

Andrew, like we talked about offline and on this podcast,

Lex Fridman (2:52:06.920)

I do hope we write some stuff together,

Andrew Huberman (2:52:09.620)

do some research together.

Lex Fridman (2:52:10.800)

You're one of the most inspiring scientists,

Andrew Huberman (2:52:15.000)

speaking of communicating to the world.

Lex Fridman (2:52:18.840)

So I can't wait to see what you do with the podcast.

Andrew Huberman (2:52:22.400)

I'm already a huge fan.

Lex Fridman (2:52:23.600)

I've been telling everybody about it.

Andrew Huberman (2:52:26.300)

I can't wait to see you talk to Joe as well soon.

Lex Fridman (2:52:30.000)

And I can't wait to see what kind of paper

Andrew Huberman (2:52:32.600)

we write together.

Lex Fridman (2:52:33.440)

Thanks so much for talking to me.

Andrew Huberman (2:52:34.840)

Thank you, that project's gonna be a lot of fun.

Lex Fridman (2:52:37.020)

Can't wait, and thanks again for having me on.

Andrew Huberman (2:52:39.000)

Appreciate you, brother.

Lex Fridman (2:52:41.060)

Thanks for listening to this conversation

Andrew Huberman (2:52:42.620)

with Andrew Huberman, and thank you to our sponsors,

Lex Fridman (2:52:45.840)

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Andrew Huberman (2:52:47.860)

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Lex Fridman (2:52:49.840)

Magic Spoon Low Carb Cereal,

Lex Fridman (2:52:51.920)

and BetterHelp Online Therapy.

Lex Fridman (2:52:54.100)

Click the sponsor links to get a discount,

Lex Fridman (2:52:56.720)

and remember, now is the time to sign up to Master Class

Lex Fridman (2:53:00.020)

if that's something you've been on the fence about.

Lex Fridman (2:53:02.560)

And now, let me leave you with some words

Lex Fridman (2:53:04.680)

from Woodrow Wilson.

Andrew Huberman (2:53:06.640)

We should not only use the brains we have,

Lex Fridman (2:53:09.240)

but all that we can borrow.

Andrew Huberman (2:53:11.760)

Thank you for listening, and hope to see you next time.

Lex Fridman (30:01.960)

with the pendant and the chicken,

Andrew Huberman (30:03.920)

people fucking like chickens,

Lex Fridman (30:05.720)

but real hypnosis is self hypnosis.

Andrew Huberman (30:08.660)

You're learning to, it involves some shifts

Lex Fridman (30:11.560)

in the way that you, the hypnotic induction involves

Andrew Huberman (30:14.220)

looking up, closing your eyes, slowly deep breath,

Lex Fridman (30:16.760)

and then imagine yourself floating.

Lex Fridman (30:19.200)

And people vary on a scale of about one to four,

Lex Fridman (30:23.040)

four being the most easily hypnotized.

Andrew Huberman (30:25.640)

There are a few people who it's very hard for them

Lex Fridman (30:27.440)

to allow themselves to go into these states,

Lex Fridman (30:29.920)

but for most people, they just, they're gone.

Lex Fridman (30:33.000)

And it's nice if you can have access to those states,

Andrew Huberman (30:36.380)

because when you come out of it, you feel amazing.

Lex Fridman (30:39.320)

You feel like you slept the whole night,

Andrew Huberman (30:40.720)

at least most people report that.

Lex Fridman (30:42.600)

So refresh, alert.

Andrew Huberman (30:43.880)

Ready to go.

Lex Fridman (30:44.720)

I mean, basically you're ready.

Andrew Huberman (30:46.520)

Yeah, I know you have this interesting challenge coming up

Lex Fridman (30:49.600)

and I'm curious what you're going to do to reset

Andrew Huberman (30:51.560)

in the hours, the frequency of running is every four hours.

Lex Fridman (30:55.860)

It's not going to allow you to get any more

Andrew Huberman (30:57.460)

than a couple hours sleep in between.

Lex Fridman (30:59.360)

Couple hours.

Lex Fridman (31:00.200)

So we should tell it to people.

Lex Fridman (31:01.160)

I'd be curious to get your thoughts and advice on it.

Andrew Huberman (31:03.800)

I'm on March 5th, running 48 miles with Mr. David Goggins.

Lex Fridman (31:10.280)

So four miles every four hours and people should join us.

Andrew Huberman (31:14.680)

He's, that mad man is going to be live on Instagram

Lex Fridman (31:19.280)

starting at 8 p.m. Pacific on March 5th.

Andrew Huberman (31:23.360)

So.

Lex Fridman (31:24.200)

You're going to join him in person.

Andrew Huberman (31:25.100)

In person.

Lex Fridman (31:26.020)

Undisclosed location.

Andrew Huberman (31:27.200)

Undisclosed location.

Lex Fridman (31:28.960)

And I was trying to clarify like, okay,

Lex Fridman (31:31.040)

so we're going to like, there'll be like friendly people

Lex Fridman (31:35.400)

around or something.

Andrew Huberman (31:36.440)

No, it's just me and him.

Lex Fridman (31:37.520)

Friendly people.

Andrew Huberman (31:38.340)

I don't know.

Lex Fridman (31:39.180)

Like, I just feel it's very difficult to be

Andrew Huberman (31:42.520)

with David alone in a room.

Lex Fridman (31:45.600)

I imagine his, I mean, I've done some work with David.

Andrew Huberman (31:47.760)

His energy is infectious.

Lex Fridman (31:49.480)

Yeah.

Andrew Huberman (31:50.360)

That's an intense schedule.

Lex Fridman (31:53.040)

And the periodicity of those four hour,

Andrew Huberman (31:56.160)

every four hours, four miles means

Lex Fridman (31:58.240)

that there's no chance of catching

Andrew Huberman (31:59.600)

an extended block of sleep.

Lex Fridman (32:01.760)

So it's about three hours that you have

Andrew Huberman (32:04.120)

non exercising every time.

Lex Fridman (32:05.680)

And of course, it takes time to try to fall asleep

Lex Fridman (32:09.960)

and there's an intensity to the whole thing.

Lex Fridman (32:11.800)

I mean, it's probably impossible to get anything more

Andrew Huberman (32:17.020)

than two hours of sleep if you wanted to.

Lex Fridman (32:19.860)

So the optimal thing is probably from the sound of it,

Andrew Huberman (32:23.200)

I'd be curious to see what you think,

Lex Fridman (32:25.280)

but like it's getting a few 90 minute naps.

Andrew Huberman (32:29.160)

Okay, well, I thought about this a bit

Lex Fridman (32:31.440)

before we met up today.

Lex Fridman (32:33.440)

So I think there are two general approaches

Lex Fridman (32:35.800)

that could work.

Andrew Huberman (32:37.480)

Neither one necessarily better than the other.

Lex Fridman (32:40.300)

One would be just to hammer through the whole thing,

Andrew Huberman (32:44.800)

just to get your level of alertness and adrenaline ramped up

Lex Fridman (32:49.320)

so that you don't expect yourself to sleep.

Andrew Huberman (32:52.320)

There are certain advantages there.

Lex Fridman (32:53.680)

One is a subjective kind of emotional advantages,

Andrew Huberman (32:56.240)

which is if you can't sleep,

Lex Fridman (32:57.440)

you're not gonna be stressed about that.

Lex Fridman (32:59.520)

And if you do fall asleep, it's a bonus,

Lex Fridman (33:01.800)

provided you wake up and you don't look up

Lex Fridman (33:03.520)

and you realize David's been out running for half an hour

Lex Fridman (33:06.120)

and you're behind, right?

Lex Fridman (33:07.480)

But chances are, that's not the way it'll go.

Lex Fridman (33:09.100)

You set an alarm.

Lex Fridman (33:09.940)

So that's one approach.

Lex Fridman (33:12.640)

And I grabbed that from a couple of friends

Andrew Huberman (33:15.760)

who were in the SEAL teams and they'll say that,

Lex Fridman (33:18.880)

during BUDS, there's this infamous hell week

Lex Fridman (33:20.720)

and there's this five days,

Lex Fridman (33:23.040)

definitely five days of no sleep,

Andrew Huberman (33:25.040)

although there is a component where they offer a nap

Lex Fridman (33:27.320)

at one particular point.

Lex Fridman (33:29.200)

And a lot of people will say that it's worse

Lex Fridman (33:32.680)

to go down for that nap and then be woken up 20 minutes later

Andrew Huberman (33:36.480)

than to just stay up.

Lex Fridman (33:38.560)

So that's one option.

Andrew Huberman (33:39.620)

Let's call it the full blitz hammer through option.

Lex Fridman (33:43.420)

And if you happen to fall asleep, you do.

Andrew Huberman (33:45.320)

It's a bonus.

Lex Fridman (33:46.920)

The other one would be to really anchor

Andrew Huberman (33:49.880)

in these ultradian cycles.

Lex Fridman (33:51.120)

So coming back from a run,

Andrew Huberman (33:52.940)

unless you're thoroughly exhausted,

Lex Fridman (33:55.440)

you're probably going to have a few minutes

Andrew Huberman (33:56.860)

where you're going to want to stay awake.

Lex Fridman (33:58.760)

It's going to be hard to just immediately fall asleep.

Lex Fridman (34:01.340)

And getting as much sleep as you can

Lex Fridman (34:04.040)

in the intervening periods,

Andrew Huberman (34:06.140)

provided that you guys aren't posting constantly

Lex Fridman (34:08.640)

or doing something else.

Andrew Huberman (34:10.080)

There's a question of whether or not you want to nourish,

Lex Fridman (34:11.780)

whether or not you want to eat or not in that time.

Andrew Huberman (34:14.560)

Anytime we put food in our gut,

Lex Fridman (34:16.320)

I don't care if it's meat or oatmeal

Andrew Huberman (34:20.320)

or broccoli or cardboard,

Lex Fridman (34:22.640)

you're drawing blood into the gut.

Lex Fridman (34:24.440)

And so you are going to divert some energy

Lex Fridman (34:27.200)

towards digestion and it's going to make you sleepy.

Andrew Huberman (34:29.320)

There's a reason why the rest and digest,

Lex Fridman (34:31.080)

the parasympathetic nervous system is called that.

Lex Fridman (34:33.560)

So you could decide that you were only going to sleep

Lex Fridman (34:36.840)

in between certain blocks.

Andrew Huberman (34:39.720)

That would be another way to think about this.

Lex Fridman (34:42.760)

Because I did this last year.

Andrew Huberman (34:45.240)

I ran very slow.

Lex Fridman (34:47.260)

Some of it was walking.

Andrew Huberman (34:48.460)

I was listening to audio books.

Lex Fridman (34:49.520)

And one of the biggest mistakes I did is to overeat

Andrew Huberman (34:53.120)

during that time.

Lex Fridman (34:54.160)

It made the experience very unpleasant.

Lex Fridman (34:56.440)

So I have been considering basically eating almost nothing

Lex Fridman (35:00.220)

throughout the day.

Andrew Huberman (35:01.360)

Being fasted will increase alertness

Lex Fridman (35:03.520)

because high levels of epinephrine in your system

Andrew Huberman (35:05.960)

from fasting.

Lex Fridman (35:07.020)

You just think about fasting or being thirsty

Andrew Huberman (35:09.500)

before you get exhausted.

Lex Fridman (35:10.800)

People always think if I don't eat, I'm going to be tired.

Andrew Huberman (35:12.840)

No, the energy that you derive from food

Lex Fridman (35:15.800)

is going to be used from glycogen after a long storage

Lex Fridman (35:19.600)

and conversion process.

Lex Fridman (35:20.560)

So the food that you eat is going to consume energy

Andrew Huberman (35:23.440)

to digest.

Lex Fridman (35:24.720)

And so a lot of people feel better fasted.

Lex Fridman (35:26.880)

And presumably throughout history,

Lex Fridman (35:29.320)

people have fasted for long periods of time

Lex Fridman (35:31.080)

and had to stay up for two or three days.

Lex Fridman (35:32.760)

And God forbid, if a family member is sick,

Andrew Huberman (35:35.700)

you can stay awake in the hospital without any trouble.

Lex Fridman (35:38.160)

So that alertness system, it's all mental.

Andrew Huberman (35:42.680)

Actually, and then there's a third.

Lex Fridman (35:45.200)

So you could try and sleep or take care in between.

Lex Fridman (35:48.880)

And then there's a third approach.

Lex Fridman (35:51.400)

But I didn't come up with it, but David did.

Lex Fridman (35:54.480)

So I actually texted him earlier

Lex Fridman (35:57.160)

because I had a feeling that I heard

Andrew Huberman (35:58.920)

that you were going to do this challenge.

Lex Fridman (36:01.000)

So I asked David.

Lex Fridman (36:05.520)

So these are David Goggins words, not mine.

Lex Fridman (36:09.600)

One, being organized is super important.

Andrew Huberman (36:14.040)

Two, you want to waste as little time as possible.

Lex Fridman (36:17.760)

Three, you need to eat, sleep and rehab

Andrew Huberman (36:21.400)

in as little time as possible

Lex Fridman (36:22.760)

so you can sleep as much as possible.

Andrew Huberman (36:25.160)

Interesting.

Lex Fridman (36:26.000)

By the way, this is the first time I'm reading this.

Andrew Huberman (36:28.960)

Four, meal prep and gear prep, et cetera, are very important.

Lex Fridman (36:32.920)

That's consistent with everything I know about military.

Andrew Huberman (36:36.200)

They don't leave too much to chance.

Lex Fridman (36:39.600)

Five, again, these are David's words.

Andrew Huberman (36:42.520)

All that said, he's fucked on most all that

Lex Fridman (36:45.000)

because he'll be interviewing me before or after.

Andrew Huberman (36:47.480)

I will also be interviewing him.

Lex Fridman (36:49.600)

Oh, shit.

Andrew Huberman (36:51.280)

Five, long story short,

Lex Fridman (36:53.000)

the only thing that might help is a very special pill.

Andrew Huberman (36:55.640)

Ooh, this is interesting.

Lex Fridman (36:57.520)

They're called SIU pills.

Andrew Huberman (36:59.880)

Hard to get, but I believe he can get them.

Lex Fridman (37:02.120)

SIU stands for suck it up.

Andrew Huberman (37:06.040)

Tell him to grab his balls.

Lex Fridman (37:07.800)

He will find those pills there.

Andrew Huberman (37:09.360)

That's number six, all right.

Lex Fridman (37:13.160)

And then the last one, stay hard, brother.

Andrew Huberman (37:15.680)

Stay hard, brother.

Lex Fridman (37:17.680)

Amen.

Andrew Huberman (37:19.000)

That was one of the other things

Lex Fridman (37:21.080)

that I think makes this challenging

Andrew Huberman (37:22.800)

is that it'll be doing a podcast throughout.

Lex Fridman (37:25.920)

So first of all, I'll do a long one before and after,

Lex Fridman (37:28.640)

but also I'll have to come up

Lex Fridman (37:31.960)

with things to talk to him about.

Lex Fridman (37:34.360)

So it's a different thing to do something privately

Lex Fridman (37:40.280)

and then publicly.

Andrew Huberman (37:41.160)

I know it doesn't seem that way,

Lex Fridman (37:43.040)

but one of the hardest,

Andrew Huberman (37:46.560)

the hardest thing I had to do last time

Lex Fridman (37:49.400)

was to turn on the camera and talk to the camera

Andrew Huberman (37:52.440)

because last time I did it,

Lex Fridman (37:54.600)

I recorded every single time I did a leg,

Andrew Huberman (37:57.880)

I recorded something I'm grateful for.

Lex Fridman (38:00.120)

It's just kind of unrelated.

Andrew Huberman (38:01.800)

I'm not a fan of talking about how I'm feeling

Lex Fridman (38:05.120)

or how the run is going.

Andrew Huberman (38:06.760)

I want to do something totally unrelated to the run

Lex Fridman (38:10.400)

and with the run as the background,

Andrew Huberman (38:12.800)

sort of something I'm grateful for

Lex Fridman (38:14.240)

or just any kind of interesting discussion.

Andrew Huberman (38:16.760)

Gratitude, I mean, I hate the word hack,

Lex Fridman (38:20.240)

like, oh, it's a dopamine hack or it's a serotonin.

Andrew Huberman (38:22.680)

I don't like the word hack because A,

Lex Fridman (38:24.680)

it's disrespectful to hackers who do a real thing

Lex Fridman (38:27.240)

and B, a hack implies that it's some sort of trick

Lex Fridman (38:31.640)

that you're kind of gaming the system.

Lex Fridman (38:35.080)

You know, what works is mechanism, right?

Lex Fridman (38:38.000)

Biological mechanisms were designed to work

Lex Fridman (38:41.520)

and they were selected for to work

Lex Fridman (38:44.000)

under variable conditions.

Lex Fridman (38:45.920)

And as you know, and I know,

Lex Fridman (38:47.000)

and we have great appreciation for the fact

Andrew Huberman (38:49.360)

that the nervous system was designed

Lex Fridman (38:50.880)

to be an adaptive machine

Lex Fridman (38:52.320)

so that you don't have to sleep eight hours every night.

Lex Fridman (38:55.720)

You can do this thing.

Lex Fridman (38:57.840)

And things like gratitude allow you to tap

Lex Fridman (39:00.920)

into chemical resources.

Lex Fridman (39:03.520)

And that's not a hack.

Lex Fridman (39:04.960)

The fact that being grateful for something external

Andrew Huberman (39:07.400)

to the event happens to release serotonin

Lex Fridman (39:10.680)

and have a certain soothing effect or a dopamine

Lex Fridman (39:13.720)

and give you more epinephrine and let you go further,

Lex Fridman (39:16.920)

that's not a hack.

Andrew Huberman (39:18.040)

That's actually what allowed the human machine

Lex Fridman (39:21.000)

to evolve to the point that it is now.

Andrew Huberman (39:23.160)

Every time, you know, an inventor eventually

Lex Fridman (39:26.280)

created something that worked and felt great about it,

Andrew Huberman (39:28.720)

you can imagine that the first, you know,

Lex Fridman (39:31.160)

air flight felt pretty awesome

Lex Fridman (39:33.320)

and motivated those people to go on and do more.

Lex Fridman (39:35.840)

They didn't just go on, you know, yawn and go have a beer.

Lex Fridman (39:39.200)

So being able to access the genuine internal states

Lex Fridman (39:44.000)

of gratitude and reward works.

Andrew Huberman (39:46.800)

You can't trick the system.

Lex Fridman (39:48.600)

You can't pretend that you're grateful for something,

Lex Fridman (39:50.800)

but if you can identify or attach yourself

Lex Fridman (39:52.720)

to some larger goal or something

Andrew Huberman (39:55.200)

that's deeply gratifying to you,

Lex Fridman (39:57.160)

or place it in service to a relative that passed away

Andrew Huberman (40:00.840)

that you care a lot about, that's not a hack.

Lex Fridman (40:04.480)

That's accessing the deepest components

Andrew Huberman (40:07.160)

of your nervous system.

Lex Fridman (40:08.360)

And to steal your kind of lingo,

Lex Fridman (40:10.480)

you know, there's real beauty there, right?

Lex Fridman (40:12.320)

Yeah, but for an introvert like myself,

Lex Fridman (40:15.920)

and I think David, I don't know if he's an introvert,

Lex Fridman (40:17.960)

but like, he's not, despite the fact

Andrew Huberman (40:21.960)

that he has written a great book and he communicates,

Lex Fridman (40:24.720)

he puts himself out there,

Andrew Huberman (40:25.840)

he's not really a fan of communication.

Lex Fridman (40:28.600)

He's not, I don't know if he's energized

Andrew Huberman (40:31.280)

by speaking his mind.

Lex Fridman (40:33.760)

I don't know him well enough to know.

Andrew Huberman (40:34.960)

I mean, we've done a little bit of work together

Lex Fridman (40:36.800)

and, you know, we're in communication now and again.

Andrew Huberman (40:38.960)

He's obviously super impressive.

Lex Fridman (40:41.600)

I don't know.

Andrew Huberman (40:42.440)

It seems like he's a pretty private guy.

Lex Fridman (40:44.840)

Yeah, so like, you know, so I don't have access to that.

Lex Fridman (40:47.920)

So for me, I'll just speak to myself,

Lex Fridman (40:50.040)

and I think David is the same,

Lex Fridman (40:51.240)

but I'll speak to myself that it was a hugely draining thing,

Lex Fridman (40:55.200)

not to experience the gratitude,

Andrew Huberman (40:57.920)

experiencing the gratitude just like you're saying

Lex Fridman (41:00.400)

is really energizing, and it's a powerful thing.

Andrew Huberman (41:04.560)

It's a, it can lift up your mood.

Lex Fridman (41:08.360)

But to turn on the camera and have to use words,

Andrew Huberman (41:12.760)

which is very difficult to do,

Lex Fridman (41:14.160)

to explain like what you're feeling

Lex Fridman (41:18.360)

and do it in a way that you know

Lex Fridman (41:20.040)

a bunch of people will be watching is really draining.

Lex Fridman (41:23.640)

And one of the things I'm concerned about

Lex Fridman (41:26.200)

that in this whole process,

Lex Fridman (41:29.200)

how do I keep my mind sharp

Lex Fridman (41:32.200)

while also keeping the physical performance sharp?

Lex Fridman (41:35.840)

And that's a little bit scary

Lex Fridman (41:38.000)

because talking to David like actual intellectually sharp,

Andrew Huberman (41:42.640)

like thinking, being charismatic as much as I can be,

Lex Fridman (41:47.640)

and like being so maintaining a sense of humor too,

Andrew Huberman (41:51.320)

because I can be, I become with sleep deprivation,

Lex Fridman (41:54.360)

with exhaustion, you start being.

Andrew Huberman (41:56.840)

The Russian bear comes out.

Lex Fridman (41:58.080)

You start being such a,

Andrew Huberman (41:59.960)

like I become a David Goggins essentially like.

Lex Fridman (42:03.200)

Oh, it makes you irritable.

Andrew Huberman (42:04.440)

Sleep deprivation makes us irritable.

Lex Fridman (42:06.520)

Yeah.

Andrew Huberman (42:07.440)

It's clear so that in the early part of the night,

Lex Fridman (42:09.760)

we get a higher percentage of those old Tradian cycles

Andrew Huberman (42:12.640)

are occupied by slow wave sleep,

Lex Fridman (42:15.320)

sometimes just called non REM sleep.

Lex Fridman (42:17.120)

And those early night sleep bouts

Lex Fridman (42:21.280)

are great for muscular repair

Lex Fridman (42:23.640)

and for certain forms of learning,

Lex Fridman (42:25.480)

but REM sleep, the rapid eye movement sleep,

Andrew Huberman (42:27.960)

which it starts to accumulate

Lex Fridman (42:29.440)

and occupy more of those 90 minute old Tradian cycles

Andrew Huberman (42:32.400)

toward the late part of a sleep bout.

Lex Fridman (42:34.960)

So typically toward morning,

Lex Fridman (42:37.520)

but toward after you've been asleep a while,

Lex Fridman (42:40.440)

that's when you do the emotional processing.

Andrew Huberman (42:42.760)

That's when we recover the ability to feel refreshed

Lex Fridman (42:47.000)

and not irritated by things.

Lex Fridman (42:48.480)

And if you deprive people of REM sleep,

Lex Fridman (42:50.720)

they become selectively bad at uncoupling the emotion

Andrew Huberman (42:56.520)

from things that happened in the previous days.

Lex Fridman (42:58.320)

So the little things start to seem like big things.

Andrew Huberman (43:00.680)

I always know I'm REM sleep deprived when I'm irritable.

Lex Fridman (43:05.040)

And when I look at like the word the,

Lex Fridman (43:07.640)

and it doesn't look like it's spelled right.

Lex Fridman (43:09.040)

And I'm kind of pissed off about it.

Andrew Huberman (43:10.320)

Like something's off.

Lex Fridman (43:11.200)

And we actually are becoming slightly psychotic

Andrew Huberman (43:15.240)

when we're REM sleep deprived.

Lex Fridman (43:16.920)

You're not going to get a lot of REM sleep in this thing,

Andrew Huberman (43:18.760)

except as you fatigue more,

Lex Fridman (43:20.240)

if you do fall asleep,

Andrew Huberman (43:21.080)

you're going to drop more and more into REM

Lex Fridman (43:22.480)

so that those 90 minute cycles,

Andrew Huberman (43:24.120)

you won't have to go through stage one,

Lex Fridman (43:26.040)

stage two, stage three, and then REM,

Andrew Huberman (43:27.880)

you're just going to drop right into REM.

Lex Fridman (43:30.160)

So you can count on your system to compensate for you.

Lex Fridman (43:33.680)

But I think that just the knowledge

Lex Fridman (43:35.960)

that you tend to get irritable as the time goes on,

Andrew Huberman (43:38.440)

just that third personing of yourself,

Lex Fridman (43:40.280)

that awareness, the observer,

Andrew Huberman (43:42.120)

that can be very beneficial

Lex Fridman (43:43.360)

because there may be bouts during this event

Andrew Huberman (43:46.160)

when you just should probably say nothing.

Lex Fridman (43:49.160)

And maybe you just, I don't know,

Andrew Huberman (43:51.440)

smile and record or not smile or do whatever it is

Lex Fridman (43:55.560)

because you're going to be conserving energy.

Andrew Huberman (43:57.520)

If it feels like a grind,

Lex Fridman (43:58.800)

that's epinephrine being released.

Andrew Huberman (44:00.640)

That's epinephrine that you could devote

Lex Fridman (44:02.840)

to the physical effort.

Lex Fridman (44:04.560)

But humor is an amazing anecdote for this

Lex Fridman (44:06.840)

because it resets that,

Andrew Huberman (44:09.000)

it's that dopamine release

Lex Fridman (44:10.800)

that gives us that fresh perspective.

Lex Fridman (44:13.080)

And it's a real chemical thing.

Lex Fridman (44:15.360)

It's not a hack.

Andrew Huberman (44:17.200)

It's not a trick.

Lex Fridman (44:18.640)

It's not a visualization.

Andrew Huberman (44:20.320)

It's biology in action.

Lex Fridman (44:22.640)

Well, but I think the act of interviewing,

Andrew Huberman (44:28.080)

of conversation in these processes,

Lex Fridman (44:29.920)

even if you don't want to do it,

Andrew Huberman (44:32.200)

the right thing to do, even when you're feeling irritable,

Lex Fridman (44:35.520)

is to do the third person view

Lex Fridman (44:39.200)

and be able to express with words

Lex Fridman (44:41.080)

that you're feeling irritable.

Andrew Huberman (44:42.880)

Like express what you're going through.

Lex Fridman (44:45.920)

Use words, which I hate doing.

Andrew Huberman (44:48.880)

I honestly, I think my ultimate thing

Lex Fridman (44:50.720)

would be just to never say a single word to David Gagas

Lex Fridman (44:53.600)

and just go through hell.

Lex Fridman (44:55.280)

It doesn't matter what we do,

Lex Fridman (44:57.080)

but to do it quietly, to also express it.

Lex Fridman (45:00.280)

That's my ultimate hell.

Lex Fridman (45:01.800)

And I think that's...

Lex Fridman (45:02.640)

Well, he's definitely going to be,

Andrew Huberman (45:03.480)

if I know David at all,

Lex Fridman (45:04.680)

he's going to try and find your buttons.

Andrew Huberman (45:06.600)

Like he's going to, I mean,

Lex Fridman (45:08.840)

even though he knows he can complete this,

Lex Fridman (45:10.960)

and I believe that he trusts that you can complete it too,

Lex Fridman (45:13.880)

I believe you will complete it.

Andrew Huberman (45:15.920)

You know you will complete it, right.

Lex Fridman (45:17.320)

There's no question about that.

Lex Fridman (45:18.640)

But he's not going to make it easier for you.

Lex Fridman (45:20.280)

He's going to make it harder.

Andrew Huberman (45:21.400)

Well, I'm afraid.

Lex Fridman (45:22.240)

So I'm like, it's very difficult for me.

Lex Fridman (45:25.000)

So 48 miles is not easy.

Lex Fridman (45:26.880)

I have not been training that much.

Lex Fridman (45:28.320)

So I'm not ramping up,

Lex Fridman (45:30.200)

but it's not like going to kill me.

Andrew Huberman (45:34.120)

We'll see what happens.

Lex Fridman (45:34.960)

Of course, for him, he might always get bored

Andrew Huberman (45:37.240)

because I think the 48 miles for him is easy.

Lex Fridman (45:40.720)

I think...

Andrew Huberman (45:41.560)

I don't know that that ever gets easy.

Lex Fridman (45:45.640)

I have a friend, Casey Cordial, who works with David.

Andrew Huberman (45:48.400)

He does some physical rehab type stuff with him.

Lex Fridman (45:53.480)

And he took Casey on a 50 miler

Lex Fridman (45:55.960)

and Casey said it's like 16 miles and do it.

Lex Fridman (45:57.960)

He was just like, he had hit his wall,

Lex Fridman (46:00.720)

but he found it.

Lex Fridman (46:02.480)

They find it to get, you know, you find that portal.

Andrew Huberman (46:06.120)

There is one thing I want to mention.

Lex Fridman (46:07.480)

There's some very good physiology

Andrew Huberman (46:10.000)

that can perhaps support the actual running effort part.

Lex Fridman (46:12.920)

These are very new data.

Andrew Huberman (46:14.640)

We have a study going on with David Spiegel at Stanford,

Lex Fridman (46:17.880)

looking at how different patterns of breathing

Andrew Huberman (46:19.800)

can affect heart rate variability.

Lex Fridman (46:21.800)

Heart rate variability is good.

Andrew Huberman (46:23.400)

There's this interesting mechanism

Lex Fridman (46:25.160)

that I think most people might not realize,

Lex Fridman (46:27.040)

but that medical students learn that your breathing

Lex Fridman (46:29.220)

and your heart rate and your brain

Andrew Huberman (46:31.600)

are in this really remarkable interplay.

Lex Fridman (46:33.480)

It goes like this.

Andrew Huberman (46:34.400)

When you inhale, this isn't breath work.

Lex Fridman (46:36.320)

We're not going to do breath work.

Lex Fridman (46:37.440)

But when you inhale, the diaphragm moves down.

Lex Fridman (46:42.320)

The heart gets a little bigger

Andrew Huberman (46:43.360)

because there's a little more space in the thoracic cavity.

Lex Fridman (46:45.640)

And as a consequence, blood flows a little bit more slowly

Andrew Huberman (46:49.200)

through that larger volume.

Lex Fridman (46:50.760)

And there's a category of neurons, the sinonitrile node,

Andrew Huberman (46:53.760)

that sees that, that recognizes that slower rate

Lex Fridman (46:58.440)

through that larger volume.

Andrew Huberman (46:59.600)

It sends a signal to the brainstem

Lex Fridman (47:01.000)

and the brainstem sends a signal back to the heart

Andrew Huberman (47:02.760)

to speed the heart up.

Lex Fridman (47:04.360)

So every time you inhale, you're speeding the heart up.

Andrew Huberman (47:06.240)

When you exhale, the diaphragm moves up,

Lex Fridman (47:08.400)

the heart gets a little smaller, the volume is smaller,

Andrew Huberman (47:10.680)

blood flows more quickly through the heart,

Lex Fridman (47:12.640)

signal sent up to the brain,

Lex Fridman (47:13.840)

and the brain sends a signal back to slow the heart down.

Lex Fridman (47:17.860)

This is the basis of heart rate variability.

Lex Fridman (47:20.580)

So at any point, if you feel like your heart is racing

Lex Fridman (47:23.260)

and you feel like you're working too hard

Andrew Huberman (47:25.280)

per unit of effort,

Lex Fridman (47:27.440)

focus on making your exhales longer

Andrew Huberman (47:30.400)

or more intense than your inhales.

Lex Fridman (47:32.600)

If ever you feel like you're truly flagging,

Andrew Huberman (47:34.760)

you do not have the energy to get up,

Lex Fridman (47:36.640)

it's like, okay, it's time to go and you're exhausted,

Andrew Huberman (47:39.440)

you want to draw more oxygen into the system,

Lex Fridman (47:42.420)

get your heart rate going faster.

Andrew Huberman (47:44.360)

Now, some people when they hear this probably think,

Lex Fridman (47:46.160)

well, this is really obvious,

Lex Fridman (47:47.260)

but there's so much out there about breath work

Lex Fridman (47:49.020)

and how to breathe and all this stuff,

Lex Fridman (47:50.280)

but no one talks about how to do it in real time

Lex Fridman (47:52.480)

while you're exerting effort.

Lex Fridman (47:53.880)

So this is something like almost like second by second,

Lex Fridman (47:57.920)

you can adjust things just in real time

Andrew Huberman (48:00.720)

based on how you're feeling,

Lex Fridman (48:01.760)

but based on the heart rate.

Andrew Huberman (48:03.200)

That's right.

Lex Fridman (48:04.040)

The experience of the heart rate.

Andrew Huberman (48:04.960)

That's right.

Lex Fridman (48:05.800)

So one thing that could be very efficient

Lex Fridman (48:08.120)

and we're doing some work with athletes now,

Lex Fridman (48:10.160)

so these are unpublished data,

Lex Fridman (48:11.760)

but if you, while you're running,

Lex Fridman (48:14.340)

if you want to get into a nice cadence

Andrew Huberman (48:16.820)

of heart rate variability, do double inhales

Lex Fridman (48:21.980)

while you're running.

Lex Fridman (48:23.040)

What this will do is that when you do the double inhale

Lex Fridman (48:25.260)

has the effect of reopening the alveoli of the lungs,

Andrew Huberman (48:28.720)

your lungs are filled with tons of little sacks,

Lex Fridman (48:31.320)

when they tend to collapse as you fatigue

Lex Fridman (48:34.600)

and carbon dioxide builds up in the bloodstream.

Lex Fridman (48:36.480)

And that's when we start getting stressed.

Andrew Huberman (48:37.780)

If you've ever been sprinting and you start getting beat

Lex Fridman (48:39.800)

and you're going as hard as you can,

Lex Fridman (48:41.500)

what you really need to do is double inhale

Lex Fridman (48:43.240)

and reinflate these sacks in the lungs

Lex Fridman (48:45.080)

and then offload a lot of carbon dioxide.

Lex Fridman (48:47.160)

So when you're at a steady cadence and you're feeling good,

Andrew Huberman (48:49.740)

double inhale, exhale, double inhale, exhale

Lex Fridman (48:52.840)

is a terrific way to breathe

Andrew Huberman (48:54.920)

while you're in ongoing effort.

Lex Fridman (48:56.920)

By the way, any recommendations or differences

Lex Fridman (49:00.120)

in nose or mouth breathing?

Lex Fridman (49:03.000)

So nasal breathing, there's a lot of excitement now,

Andrew Huberman (49:05.880)

obviously about nasal breathing

Lex Fridman (49:07.080)

because of James Nestor's book, Breath.

Andrew Huberman (49:09.360)

There was also, if people are going to know about that book,

Lex Fridman (49:12.160)

I do feel like out of respect for my colleagues,

Andrew Huberman (49:15.680)

there was a book by Sandra Kahn and Paul Ehrlich

Lex Fridman (49:19.240)

at Stanford, both professors at Stanford

Andrew Huberman (49:20.900)

with a forward by Jared Diamond and Robert Sapolsky.

Lex Fridman (49:24.440)

So some heavy hitters in this book.

Lex Fridman (49:26.240)

And the book is called Jaws, A Hidden Epidemic.

Lex Fridman (49:28.880)

And it's all about how nasal breathing is better for us,

Andrew Huberman (49:32.640)

especially kids, than being mouth breathers

Lex Fridman (49:35.160)

under most conditions for sake of improving immunity.

Andrew Huberman (49:38.320)

It turns out there's a microbiome in the nose,

Lex Fridman (49:40.280)

like all sorts of good stuff

Andrew Huberman (49:41.520)

about nasal breathing preferentially.

Lex Fridman (49:43.840)

But when we exercise, you can do pure nasal breathing.

Lex Fridman (49:48.640)

But the problem is once you get up to kind of third

Lex Fridman (49:50.960)

and fourth and fifth gear effort,

Andrew Huberman (49:52.760)

you can't nasal breathe and be at maximum capacity

Lex Fridman (49:55.440)

unless you've been training it for a very long time.

Lex Fridman (49:57.480)

So I would say double inhale through the nose,

Lex Fridman (49:59.440)

offload through the mouth.

Lex Fridman (50:00.680)

So double inhale, exhale while you're in steady effort.

Lex Fridman (50:03.800)

And then if you really feel like you need to gas it

Lex Fridman (50:05.960)

and you're pushing, the data show that then

Lex Fridman (50:08.480)

just use whatever's there, right?

Andrew Huberman (50:10.840)

Just go into kind of default mode

Lex Fridman (50:12.580)

because bringing too much concentration to something

Andrew Huberman (50:15.760)

is also going to spend epinephrine.

Lex Fridman (50:17.920)

The goal is to get into that, I don't like the word,

Lex Fridman (50:20.420)

but the flow state where you're not thinking too much,

Lex Fridman (50:22.960)

you're just in exertion.

Lex Fridman (50:24.920)

So these are things that can help in the transitions,

Lex Fridman (50:28.200)

but I don't think there's any secret breathing technique.

Andrew Huberman (50:31.600)

Anyone who's been in the SEAL teams will kind of,

Lex Fridman (50:33.800)

they'll tell you like, there's no breathing technique, right?

Andrew Huberman (50:37.120)

There's tools that you can look to from time to time.

Lex Fridman (50:41.400)

And these double inhale exhales can be great

Andrew Huberman (50:43.160)

for setting heart rate variability very quickly

Lex Fridman (50:45.740)

and getting into a steady cadence while you're exercising.

Lex Fridman (50:48.280)

But if there's a sprint,

Lex Fridman (50:49.320)

like if suddenly you guys are sprinting,

Andrew Huberman (50:50.980)

ditch the double inhale, exhale, and just sprint.

Lex Fridman (50:54.880)

One thing that you mentioned,

Andrew Huberman (50:56.220)

he's probably gonna push my buttons.

Lex Fridman (50:58.540)

It's a good place to ask a question about anger.

Lex Fridman (51:01.200)

So I'll probably get pissed off at him at some point.

Lex Fridman (51:04.520)

I'm guessing.

Lex Fridman (51:05.820)

And do you have thoughts from a scientific perspective

Lex Fridman (51:12.000)

or also just the personal philosophical perspective

Andrew Huberman (51:14.600)

about the role of anger in all of this

Lex Fridman (51:16.560)

and in managing alertness, performance?

Andrew Huberman (51:20.720)

I think about this a lot

Lex Fridman (51:21.880)

because there's so much out there

Andrew Huberman (51:23.800)

about how important it is to do things

Lex Fridman (51:25.580)

from a place of love, you know.

Andrew Huberman (51:28.680)

I tweet about it all the time.

Lex Fridman (51:30.000)

And I think, and love is powerful, right?

Andrew Huberman (51:32.960)

It is interesting that autonomic arousal alertness,

Lex Fridman (51:35.860)

let's just use simple language,

Andrew Huberman (51:37.240)

alertness physiologically looks identical

Lex Fridman (51:41.160)

for love and excitement as it does for anger

Lex Fridman (51:45.720)

and frustration and wanting to defeat your opponent

Lex Fridman (51:49.840)

or whoever that opponent happens to be.

Andrew Huberman (51:52.380)

They're identical except that the love component

Lex Fridman (51:54.960)

does tend to be associated with the release

Andrew Huberman (51:57.600)

of neurochemicals of the serotonin and dopamine type

Lex Fridman (52:01.020)

that do have this replenishment component.

Andrew Huberman (52:03.920)

I don't think one wants to be in constant anger

Lex Fridman (52:06.400)

and friction, but I mean, I'll come clean a bit.

Andrew Huberman (52:10.380)

There've been portions of my career

Lex Fridman (52:11.600)

where some of my best work, my extra two hours,

Andrew Huberman (52:14.160)

my ability to nail a really hard deadline or problem

Lex Fridman (52:17.720)

has come from not wanting to get out competed

Andrew Huberman (52:21.320)

or from wanting to prove something.

Lex Fridman (52:24.720)

These days, I'm not oriented from that place

Andrew Huberman (52:29.280)

toward my work quite as often,

Lex Fridman (52:30.920)

but I think we should be really honest.

Andrew Huberman (52:33.000)

Anger is powerful provided it's channeled.

Lex Fridman (52:36.320)

It's very, very powerful and it can give you a ton of fuel

Lex Fridman (52:40.360)

and gas to push when otherwise you tap.

Lex Fridman (52:44.680)

Yeah, Joe Rogan has, aside from being a fan of his,

Andrew Huberman (52:49.440)

has been an inspiration to sort of be,

Lex Fridman (52:52.480)

to have a kind of loving view on the world

Lex Fridman (52:55.720)

and the way you approach the world to me.

Lex Fridman (52:58.200)

So I've tended to want to approach the world that way,

Lex Fridman (53:01.780)

but in the same way, David Goggins has been an inspiration

Lex Fridman (53:06.160)

to like, yeah, be angry at stuff and use it as fuel.

Andrew Huberman (53:13.280)

Like he almost conjures up artificial demons in his mind

Lex Fridman (53:17.680)

just so he can fight them.

Andrew Huberman (53:19.620)

You know, but at the same time I tried that

Lex Fridman (53:22.480)

because I did a challenge in the summer

Andrew Huberman (53:25.000)

of where for 30 days I was doing a lot of pushups

Lex Fridman (53:27.900)

and it was, over time, it was counterproductive for me.

Andrew Huberman (53:33.960)

Like I found that it was easier to just,

Lex Fridman (53:38.800)

like the rollercoaster that the emotional,

Andrew Huberman (53:42.120)

like being angry at stuff takes you can also be exhausting.

Lex Fridman (53:46.240)

Oh, absolutely, and it can take you down,

Andrew Huberman (53:48.720)

like the ups of it are good, but the downs are bad.

Lex Fridman (53:53.120)

And what I found is better to get,

Andrew Huberman (53:56.040)

to use it as a boost every once in a while,

Lex Fridman (53:57.800)

but mostly to get lost in the,

Andrew Huberman (54:00.620)

you're talking about the breath work,

Lex Fridman (54:01.880)

the like getting lost in the ritual of it,

Andrew Huberman (54:05.360)

like the beat like that,

Lex Fridman (54:07.200)

as opposed to going on the big rollercoasters of emotion.

Andrew Huberman (54:10.880)

Yet this brings us into the realm of neuroendocrinology.

Lex Fridman (54:14.720)

There's a fascinating relationship between

Andrew Huberman (54:16.360)

the hormone system and the nervous system.

Lex Fridman (54:18.260)

And, you know, hormones work in general on slower timescales.

Andrew Huberman (54:22.080)

The definition of a hormone is a chemical released

Lex Fridman (54:24.240)

at one location in the body,

Andrew Huberman (54:25.480)

goes and acts at multiple locations far away

Lex Fridman (54:28.260)

within the body.

Andrew Huberman (54:29.100)

Pheromone would be between two bodies.

Lex Fridman (54:31.880)

Neurochemicals like dopamine and serotonin

Andrew Huberman (54:33.880)

tend to work a little more quickly.

Lex Fridman (54:35.000)

There are hormones like adrenaline and cortisol

Andrew Huberman (54:37.360)

that can work very fast,

Lex Fridman (54:38.440)

but here I'm referring mainly to testosterone, prolactin.

Andrew Huberman (54:43.440)

Prolactin tends to be in men,

Lex Fridman (54:45.200)

and women tends to make people kind of lazy

Lex Fridman (54:47.340)

and want to take care of young.

Lex Fridman (54:49.740)

It tends to throw down body fat so we can stay up late.

Andrew Huberman (54:52.640)

It's secreted in response to having children.

Lex Fridman (54:54.940)

These are all in humans and in animals.

Andrew Huberman (54:58.240)

There's a very interesting relationship

Lex Fridman (54:59.840)

between testosterone and dopamine

Andrew Huberman (55:04.000)

that speaks directly to what we're talking about now.

Lex Fridman (55:07.600)

So dopamine and testosterone are closely related

Andrew Huberman (55:11.840)

in the pituitary system.

Lex Fridman (55:14.320)

And obviously testosterone comes from the adrenals

Lex Fridman (55:16.800)

and from the testes.

Lex Fridman (55:18.440)

But the major effect of testosterone

Andrew Huberman (55:21.920)

is to make effort feel good.

Lex Fridman (55:24.840)

That's what testosterone does.

Lex Fridman (55:26.240)

It has other effects too, right?

Lex Fridman (55:27.800)

Reproductive effects,

Andrew Huberman (55:28.720)

androgenizing parts of the body, et cetera.

Lex Fridman (55:31.520)

But it makes effort feel good.

Andrew Huberman (55:34.560)

The testosterone molecule is synthesized from cholesterol.

Lex Fridman (55:38.200)

Cholesterol can either be made into cortisol,

Andrew Huberman (55:41.200)

a stress hormone, or testosterone, but not both.

Lex Fridman (55:43.880)

So you have a limited amount of cholesterol

Lex Fridman (55:46.600)

and it gets diverted towards stress

Lex Fridman (55:49.000)

or this pathway where effort feels good.

Andrew Huberman (55:53.460)

That's the pathway you want to get into.

Lex Fridman (55:55.280)

The anger pathway,

Andrew Huberman (55:56.340)

if we were to just kind of play a mind experiment here,

Lex Fridman (56:00.240)

the anger eventually is going to divert

Andrew Huberman (56:02.640)

more of that cholesterol molecule to cortisol and stress,

Lex Fridman (56:06.320)

and you will be slowly depleting testosterone.

Andrew Huberman (56:08.720)

Now going into this,

Lex Fridman (56:10.600)

you'll have plenty of testosterone,

Lex Fridman (56:11.840)

but after a couple of days,

Lex Fridman (56:13.320)

there've been very interesting studies showing

Andrew Huberman (56:15.240)

that testosterone doesn't necessarily drop

Lex Fridman (56:17.680)

with sleep deprivation.

Andrew Huberman (56:19.160)

That's a bit of a myth.

Lex Fridman (56:20.320)

You need it to replenish testosterone.

Andrew Huberman (56:22.000)

You need sleep to replenish testosterone eventually.

Lex Fridman (56:24.480)

But the real question is,

Lex Fridman (56:25.840)

are you enjoying what you're doing?

Lex Fridman (56:27.920)

And here the work was,

Andrew Huberman (56:29.960)

some of the major work on this was done by Duncan French,

Lex Fridman (56:33.320)

who runs the UFC Training Center.

Andrew Huberman (56:34.880)

He did his PhD at UConn stores,

Lex Fridman (56:37.660)

did a really beautiful PhD thesis

Andrew Huberman (56:40.040)

looking at the relationship between stress hormones,

Lex Fridman (56:42.080)

testosterone, and dopamine.

Andrew Huberman (56:44.560)

Really interesting work.

Lex Fridman (56:45.920)

And the takeaway from all of this is,

Andrew Huberman (56:49.240)

if you can just convince yourself,

Lex Fridman (56:51.280)

or ideally if you can just enjoy yourself,

Andrew Huberman (56:54.400)

you are going to maintain

Lex Fridman (56:55.820)

or maybe even increase testosterone stores,

Andrew Huberman (56:58.400)

which will make effort feel good.

Lex Fridman (57:00.560)

And to me, aside from neuroplasticity

Andrew Huberman (57:03.360)

where everything becomes automatic after this experience,

Lex Fridman (57:06.480)

to me, that's the holy grail.

Andrew Huberman (57:08.880)

When effort feels good, life just gets way better.

Lex Fridman (57:12.720)

And we're not talking about achieving the reward.

Andrew Huberman (57:14.840)

I'm not talking about the end of this thing.

Lex Fridman (57:16.480)

I'm talking about the process of it feeling really good.

Andrew Huberman (57:19.600)

Yeah, there is a magic to,

Lex Fridman (57:23.320)

I don't know if you can comment on this,

Lex Fridman (57:24.720)

but I find myself being able to,

Lex Fridman (57:28.080)

if I just say I'm feeling good,

Andrew Huberman (57:30.120)

like this old hack of like smiling while you're running,

Lex Fridman (57:34.900)

if I just tell myself, I'm feeling really good right now,

Andrew Huberman (57:38.560)

no matter how I'm actually feeling,

Lex Fridman (57:40.760)

I'll start feeling way better.

Lex Fridman (57:42.080)

And the whole thing, there's a cascading effect

Lex Fridman (57:45.160)

that allows me to maximize the effort.

Andrew Huberman (57:48.840)

It's quite fascinating.

Lex Fridman (57:50.420)

It's weird.

Andrew Huberman (57:51.540)

Hormones are powerful.

Lex Fridman (57:52.860)

The relationship between thoughts and hormones

Lex Fridman (57:54.840)

and these physiological things is enormous.

Lex Fridman (57:57.080)

I had a colleague that a few years ago,

Andrew Huberman (57:58.880)

he was dying of pancreatic cancer.

Lex Fridman (58:01.520)

And I was interviewing him

Andrew Huberman (58:03.040)

just because he's an important figure in our community.

Lex Fridman (58:05.680)

And I was a friend.

Lex Fridman (58:07.040)

And there was one day where he told me,

Lex Fridman (58:09.400)

he said, I don't want to make it past the new year.

Lex Fridman (58:12.800)

And it was crushing for me to hear.

Lex Fridman (58:15.080)

And I knew that he had been on some androgen therapy

Andrew Huberman (58:18.440)

for a whole set of other things.

Lex Fridman (58:20.160)

And I said, have you taken your androgen cream?

Lex Fridman (58:24.700)

And he was like, no, I haven't done it.

Lex Fridman (58:25.860)

Go get it for me.

Andrew Huberman (58:27.300)

I have this on film.

Lex Fridman (58:28.240)

He takes it, he puts the androgen cream on.

Andrew Huberman (58:30.120)

I'm not suggesting people take androgens, by the way.

Lex Fridman (58:33.160)

10 minutes later, he says, you know what?

Andrew Huberman (58:35.760)

I think I want to live into the new year.

Lex Fridman (58:37.560)

And I'm going to write 12 letters of recommendation.

Andrew Huberman (58:39.880)

He went to MIT, by the way.

Lex Fridman (58:41.200)

He said, I'm going to write 12 letters of recommendation.

Lex Fridman (58:43.880)

And he did.

Lex Fridman (58:44.720)

And so there's something about these molecules

Andrew Huberman (58:47.160)

that in an ancient way, in all organisms,

Lex Fridman (58:50.480)

all mammals, as far as we know,

Andrew Huberman (58:52.720)

are linked to the will to live.

Lex Fridman (58:54.760)

They're linked to effort and making effort feel good,

Andrew Huberman (58:57.520)

which has been fundamental to the evolution of our species.

Lex Fridman (59:00.400)

I always say, people think that the opposite

Andrew Huberman (59:02.560)

of testosterone is estrogen, but it's not.

Lex Fridman (59:05.000)

The opposite of testosterone is prolactin,

Andrew Huberman (59:07.400)

which makes us feel quiescent

Lex Fridman (59:09.040)

and not in pursuit of things, et cetera.

Andrew Huberman (59:12.280)

Testosterone makes effort feel good.

Lex Fridman (59:14.660)

Estrogen makes emotions feel okay.

Lex Fridman (59:19.160)

And they are in mixed amounts in people,

Lex Fridman (59:24.000)

as I say, have all chromosomal backgrounds.

Andrew Huberman (59:26.360)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (59:27.200)

I mean, you also mentioned fasting potentially

Andrew Huberman (59:29.560)

through this two day thing.

Lex Fridman (59:31.560)

It'd be cool to get your thoughts about fasting in general.

Lex Fridman (59:35.080)

Do you think on a personal level

Lex Fridman (59:38.320)

and at a higher sort of level of studies

Andrew Huberman (59:41.160)

that you're aware of and physiology and so on,

Lex Fridman (59:44.580)

what do you think about intermittent fasting

Andrew Huberman (59:46.460)

of like not eating for 16 hours

Lex Fridman (59:48.800)

and then having an eight hour window

Andrew Huberman (59:51.620)

or something I've been doing a lot recently,

Lex Fridman (59:53.560)

which is eating only once a day.

Lex Fridman (59:56.480)

So that's 24 hour fast, I guess, one meal a day