The video explores the realm of self-motivation, sharing insights into starting and maintaining a new routine. It highlights various techniques such as writing down goals, establishing personal commitment contracts, and keeping oneself accountable without heavily relying on external support. The speaker emphasizes the importance of internal motivation and the concept of making the effort itself a reward, which is essential for sustaining motivation over time.

It suggests that while external validation or accountability can be beneficial, creating a system that fosters self-driven motivation is more effective. Techniques include minimizing distractions such as mobile phones, implementing fear-setting as a motivational tool, and developing an internal 'closed loop' motivation system. This approach empowers individuals to take control and responsibility for their growth and development, helping them maintain consistency.

Main takeaways from the video:

Please remember to turn on the CC button to view the subtitles.

Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. incremental [ˌɪnkrəˈmɛntl] - (adj.) - Relating to or denoting an increase or addition, especially one of a series on a fixed scale. - Synonyms: (gradual, progressive, step-by-step)

I do believe in incremental approaches to these things.

2. accountability [əˌkaʊntəˈbɪləti] - (n.) - An obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one's actions. - Synonyms: (responsibility, liability, answerability)

First of all, be very careful who you announce and what you announce to people in terms of starting a new routine unless they are going to really be on you about accountability.

3. incremental Approaches [ˌɪnkrəˈmɛntl əˈproʊtʃɪz] - (n. phrase) - Methods that involve gradual progress or steps towards a goal or task. - Synonyms: (gradual methods, step-by-step strategies, progressive tactics)

I do believe in incremental approaches to these things.

4. cyclical [ˈsɪklɪkl] - (adj.) - Occurring in cycles; recurrent. - Synonyms: (recurrent, periodic, repetitive)

And when you complete each one, that's your reward to yourself, that you were accountable. There's no external reward. Why do I say this? The work itself should become the reward. We know this from all the work on growth mindset that we've talked about. Carol Dwecks wonderful work and David Yeager's wonderful work. He was a guest on the podcast. I've done solo episodes about their work, about growth mindset, that ultimately the work becoming the reward is how you're going to sustain motivation over time. So when you sign off that you did the work and that's the reward, well, then there's a this kind of cyclical relationship between what you've promised yourself you would do what you did and rewarding yourself for the work.

5. reinforcement [ˌriɪnˈfɔrsmənt] - (n.) - The action or process of strengthening. - Synonyms: (support, fortification, bolstering)

Seek social support and reinforcement for other areas of your life that you need and be a source of social support.

6. autonomic nervous system [ɔːtəˈnɒmɪk ˈnɜːrvəs ˈsɪstəm] - (n. phrase) - The part of the nervous system responsible for control of the bodily functions not consciously directed, such as breathing, the heartbeat, and digestive processes. - Synonyms: (involuntary nervous system, reflex system, subconscious system)

There's another feature of training, which is like sunlight, like meals, like socialization, physical exercise provides an entrainment mechanism that is a predictive mechanism for your so-called autonomic nervous system that makes it such that at a given hour of the day that you normally train.

7. neuroplasticity [ˌnʊroʊˌplæsˈtɪsəti] - (n.) - The ability of the brain to change continuously throughout an individual's life, as in forming new pathways and connections. - Synonyms: (brain adaptability, cerebral flexibility, neural restructuring)

neuroplasticity and learning is triggered by focused attention, which is supported by having slept well the night before.

8. catecholamines [ˌkætəˈkoʊləˌmɪnz] - (n.) - Hormones made by the adrenal glands, such as dopamine, epinephrine, and norepinephrine, that are released into the bloodstream in response to physical or emotional stress. - Synonyms: (adrenal hormones, stress hormones, biogenic amines)

That's probably related to the increase in the various catecholamines, dopamine, epinephrine and norepinephrine associated with physical activity.

9. hyperoxygenation [ˌhaɪpərˌɒksɪˈdʒeɪʃən] - (n.) - An excess of oxygen in the blood, used during some treatments or therapies. - Synonyms: (oxygen saturation, oxy-hemostasis, oxygen enrichment)

But then there are things that also seem to perhaps improve outcomes from traumatic brain injury, such as hyperbaric chamber. So hyperoxygenation treatments, if you have access to those.

10. metabolism [məˈtæbəlɪzəm] - (n.) - The set of life-sustaining chemical reactions in organisms to convert chemical energy from nutrients into energy for cellular processes. - Synonyms: (biological processing, bodily functions, biotransformation)

There's some really interesting evidence that 5 grams, maybe 10 grams, depending on your body weight of creatine monohydrate per day, can enhance creatine phosphate metabolism in the forebrain and enhance brain function under conditions of high altitude or TBI.

How To ACTUALLY Stop Procrastinating and Motivate Yourself - Andrew Huberman

It's about self motivation. Do you have any suggestions or steps to self motivate to start a new routine? I do, I do, I do, I do. First of all, be very careful who you announce and what you announce to people in terms of starting a new routine unless they are going to really be on you. About accountability in general, talking to people about our goals, less effective in my opinion. And there's some research to support this then just simply making the decision, writing it down. Simple, you know, old school like me, eight and a half by eleven paper. Write down what the goal is. Give yourself a check for each day that you do it or the times of day that you do it. Sometimes signing your signature as if you have a contract with yourself can help. These are all different tricks. Some people will say, should you reward yourself for completing something? Sure. Should you scare yourself into doing something? Sure. There's data to support that. Also, I covered this in the episode with Emily Balcetis and about goal seeking and habits that I did. Solo episodes. We have a newsletter on this. Here's the deal. There are going to be multiple barriers to starting a new routine. I do believe in incremental approaches to these things. Right now I'm working on some bonus chapters of my book and while I'm pretty motivated person, I'm excited to share that information with the world. I must say that setting aside time to do these bonus chapters has been challenging because I've got a lot else going on. So rather than tell people that I'm doing that, I actually have a contract with myself that I sign each time I complete anywhere from a ten to 60 minutes writing block. So a contract with yourself can really help. I think it's far more valuable than stating to the world what you're going to do. I don't know why that tends to work, but we know why stating to the world what you're going to do often wears off because typically, and this reflects both good and bad things about human behavior and psychology, typically people will support you by saying, great, you're going to do great, the book's going to be great, or your new exercise program is going to be great, you're going to do. And they're just supporting you, supporting you, supporting you. And that support turns out to be sufficient to create this mindset like that. You could do it at any point where you've got the support you need. Sometimes a little bit of additional friction. What Tim Ferriss would call fear setting, is a good idea. You think about worst outcomes. If you don't do the thing. But let's face it, you can't lie to yourself and believe it. So if you know that not doing the thing isn't going to markedly change your life for the worse, well, in that case, you need some additional support.

You need some additional motivation. So you could use all sorts of tools and protocols, like a cold shower, to increase epinephrine, adrenaline and dopamine, and get more motivated than do something you could. And I think this is probably the best tool anyone could apply, which would be to put away your phone, turn it off, put it in the other room. I now have a box for my phone that I've dedicated to keeping my phone in when I'm busy doing other types of work for which the presence of the phone would be an intrusion, it would limit my work output. I do think that the contract with self is going to be the best way. You say, I am going to do 30 minutes of whatever resistance training three times a week, and then you're going to sign off by the end of the week. And when you complete each one, that's your reward to yourself, that you were accountable. There's no external reward. Why do I say this? The work itself should become the reward. We know this from all the work on growth mindset that we've talked about. Carol Dwecks wonderful work and David Yeager's wonderful work. He was a guest on the podcast. I've done solo episodes about their work, about growth mindset, that ultimately the work becoming the reward is how you're going to sustain motivation over time. So when you sign off that you did the work and that's the reward, well, then there's a this kind of cyclical relationship between what you've promised yourself you would do what you did and rewarding yourself for the work. No additional external reward. The work becomes the reward. So I like the idea of being a bit of a, what we would call closed loop system on motivation, rather than going out and seeking excessive support from others. And I say this not to isolate. I encourage healthy relationships, etcetera. But if we start seeking external validation or pressure in order to do what we know we want to do, or would love to be able to do without external support, we limit ourselves. And when that support isn't there, we tend to, you know, be far less productive and move toward our goals far less well. So it's an internal process of reshaping your psychology. There's also some deeper psychology around this stuff of, you know, agency and what you feel you deserve. You know, you deserve I'll tell you this because I believe everyone deserves to be able to better themselves through these kinds of self directed actions. And I also like the idea of a closed loop because you can be really honest with yourself at the end of a week, you know, did you do your three sessions? Did you sign off three times? Keeping some of that reward system and validation internal really helps you become stronger also to be able to support other people if they need your support. Whereas if you have a committee of people that you rely on, that you need to hear from, you need their support in order to be motivated.

Well, that can be great. Coaches can be great, and support systems are wonderful. I don't think it's nearly as effective as being your own committee, your own chair and secretary in this case, and member of your own committee. And then, of course, seek social support and reinforcement for other areas of your life that you need and be a source of social support. But also encourage people to be in this kind of self cyclical loop of motivation and to really impart the principles of growth mindset, which is really what we're talking about. Make the effort, the reward. What has your process been for the writing of your book? Slow? I have a saying that I say in my lab, or that I have said for many years in doing science, when I was a graduate student, a postdoc, and then in my lab. And by the way, because sometimes people ask about this, I still have research funds for human studies. I closed my animal lab, focusing mainly on teaching, which I'll be doing again this year. I'm teaching in the spring, maybe in the winter as well, to undergraduates. And I may get re involved in some human clinical studies on vision, an area that I've loved for many years. But in any case, there's a saying that I always would reiterate to my students in postdocs, which is, I go as fast as I carefully can. Okay? So I believe in a sense of urgency. I like to sit down to write and think, okay, I'm going to go as fast as I carefully can. It's that right balance between urgency and precision. Okay. Going fast is rarely good in its own right. Going too slow isn't good either. So there's that place where I feel like I'm just pushing myself a little bit. But then you have to be careful, right? So as fast as you carefully can. So the process has been slow, but I've been going as fast as I carefully can. Any recommendations on overcoming obstacles and how did you deal with them? Yes, put that phone away. Put it in the other room. If you have to generate accountability measures, do it. When I used to write grants in my laboratory in San Diego, you can ask my lab. I used to walk in and say, okay, I'm giving my phone to somebody. And if I ask for it back before 05:00 p.m. today, you each get $1,000. And I did not have $1,000 to give everyone in my lab, pretty big lab, and I didn't have the money. So you may have to create some barriers. And, gosh, about an hour and a half in, I'd think, okay, gosh, I was supposed to respond to this person today. They're gonna think that I've dropped off the map. Oh, my goodness. And then I'd remember, I have an office phone. Someone really needed to get ahold of me. If it was an emergency, they'd let me know. And if I couldn't be reached that way, someone would find me.

I realized, for people with kids, et cetera, this might not be feasible. But if you have to do that, you do that. Set stakes. Okay, give someone a check for an exorbitant amount of money that you can't afford to give away, but that you do have in your bank account. Give them that check and say, you know, if I don't stop writing for the next hour, then you can tear up the check. Otherwise you can go cash it so you can put some fear in there. But again, as I mentioned earlier, better to generate these kind of incentives with yourself. So I like to put my phone away. I like to take about ten minutes to transition into the writing, and then I actually set rules for myself. I don't allow myself to get out of the seat, even to use the bathroom. It's true, I've never gone to the bathroom in my seat, but I resist the temptation to get up until the timer goes off. That's how I did it as an undergraduate. That's how I did it. Writing grants, that's how I've done it. Writing fellowships as a graduate student. And that's how I write the book now. And I find that after about 2030 minutes, I don't want to stand up. I'm super happy. And then if an interruption comes, then I get frustrated because I want to keep writing. So give it a try. Set some high stakes incentives for yourself. I mean, don't make them too high, but set some high stakes incentive. The basic structure of the foundational fitness protocol is three resistance training sessions per week and three cardiovascular training sessions per week. And then one complete rest day. Now, that might sound like a lot to some of you, but in fact, none of the workouts is particularly long. I think the longest workout in that entire foundational fitness protocol is about 60 minutes, maybe 75 minutes if you're moving slowly through the gym because somebody else is in the way, or because you're, you know, checking your phone a little too often, as we all sometimes do that sort of thing. But the basic structure is as follows. For me, the foundational fitness protocol starts as day one on Monday, but you could start it as day one on any day of the week, frankly. So day one for me is to train legs. So that's quadriceps, hamstrings and calves, and tibialis work the front of the shin. For those of you that don't know, I'm a big fan of doing tibialis work. Then the next day is a complete day off, during which you could do if you wanted something like deliberate heat or deliberate cold exposure, or both. But you don't have to. It's just nice to have a complete day off after training legs, because if you train legs properly, oftentimes it can be a bit tiring and the next day you're recovering. Then the following day is either a cardiovascular training session of about 20 to 30 minutes of, say, a jog at a slightly more rapid clip than one would consider. Zone two cardio. Zone two cardio is where you can carry out a conversation. So a little bit faster than that, or if you're not feeling like your legs are recovered enough to do that, you could do the resistance training work on that day. The resistance training work that falls in the middle of the week is, believe it or not, torso.

I know that for some of you that are into more kind of bodybuilding type routines, training your entire torso on one day might seem like a lot, but really that day just involves some pushing. So some overhead shoulder press type workouts or dips, maybe some bench presses, if that's your thing, as well as some pulling. So some rows and some pull ups or chin ups, things of that sort, again, all tailored to you so that you're not doing anything that aggravates any preexisting injuries and you're not going to do anything that's going to induce injuries. Okay, so there's some pushing and pulling, maybe a little bit of neck work if you need some additional neck strength, that sort of thing. So with legs on Monday, rest on Tuesday, that falls either on Wednesday or Thursday, depending on how recovered your legs were. Then the next day, which for me typically falls on a Friday, is a high intensity interval training session. Although really it's just about vo two max. It's about getting maximum heart rate where you're breathing really, really hard, and that's a very short workout. The total duration of that workout is anywhere from eight to 15 minutes total. So for me, it involves getting on an airdyne bike. Those are those bikes with some resistance because there's a fan. Although you could do this on a row or basically anything where you can exert yourself to get your heart rate way, way up and breathe very, very hard, where you're not going to injure your musculoskeletal system, you're not going to do any soft tissue damage. So you need to figure out what that is for you. Again, the PDF explosion, how to select that. For me, it typically means getting on the airdyne bike and pedaling very hard for about 20 seconds, then resting 10 seconds. 20 seconds hard, 10 seconds rest, 20 seconds hard, for a total of about eight cycles. By the end of which I'm breathing extremely hard. My heart rate is way, way up, and then I'll just shower and head about my day, and then the following day, which typically, for me, falls on a Saturday. Although, again, we're going to talk about flexibility and how to build flexibility into the schedule. The Saturday workout is typically things like biceps, triceps, some calves, maybe a bit more neck work, and some abdominal work. Excuse me. So basically small body parts that can recover pretty quickly. And that workout typically takes only about 45 to 50 minutes, maybe 60 minutes maximum. And then the following day, which is, of course, Sunday, is a day in which I try and get outside and move as much as possible. So I'll typically do the longer Sunday cardio workout, either a ruck, so a backpack with a weight in it. By the way, if you don't own a rucksack, you can just put a, you know, a gallon water jug in there full, and then, you know, drink it as you go. It'll lighten as you go. Or you could get a weight vest if you have the resources to do that. There's some great weight vests out there of varying weight. You can throw a kid on your shoulders. If you got a kid that wants to be carried on your shoulders, you can do it alone, listening to an audiobook, listening to music, or in total silence.

I've done all these various versions, by the way, you can do it with family members or with friends. I'll sometimes do this with my significant other. One of the great things about this long Sunday workout is that it's extremely flexible in terms of how social you are or whether or not you do it in isolation, whether or not you do it on concrete or on dirt, it's very versatile. For instance, if I have friends over and I want to spend time with them, but I also want to get outdoors and do this workout. And if they're interested in getting some outdoor movement as well, we'll all just head out for a hike. And if they are less fit than I am or tend to move more slowly, well, then I'll throw on a, you know, a ten or 15, maybe even 30 pound backpack so that I get a good workout out of it. And if they're faster than I am and they're the sort of person who, you know, is a triathlete, I've got some friends who are triathletes and they want to move at a really fast clip, well, then I'm not bringing any weight pack and I'm just going to ask them to, you know, wait up for me because I'm going to have a hard time keeping up, but I'll have to really push myself as I go along. So a lot of versatility. I don't measure my heart rate during any of these workouts, by the way. That's not my preferred way to do things. I know other people like to measure heart rate as they go. I find it's just really nice to get out once a week, if possible, out of doors and just move my body as much as possible so that I head into the week knowing that I got some really terrific outdoor time in nature while benefiting my cardiovascular vascular system and often while socializing with important people in my life as well. One important feature of flexibility that I haven't talked about yet is flexibility within a day. So for me, just personally, again, this is my personal preference. This is by no means dogma. I prefer to get my workouts done first thing in the morning. So I like to get up, hydrate, get some electrolytes in my system, get some caffeine in my system if I'm going to work out. That's right, I said it. I do believe if you experience a crash in energy in the afternoon, delaying your caffeine by about 90 minutes or so after waking can be very beneficial. I know there's some controversy around that, but almost everybody that tries it finds that that's the case. Again, no obligation to do that. It's just a suggestion to, you know, perhaps experiment with if you have an afternoon crash. But for me, and I think for most people, if you're going to work out first thing in the morning and you like caffeine before or a workout, drink caffeine first thing in the morning. That's certainly what I do. If I'm going to work out that day, I like to have my workouts done before 09:00 a.m. and ideally before 08:30 a.m. so that I can move into my work day.

However, there are days where that simply doesn't happen. And then the question is, is it okay to move a workout from its typical time, like for me, 07:30 a.m. or so, to the afternoon? And the answer is yes, there's simply no reason why. That's nothing. Okay. It's not going to cause a significant diminishment in performance. If anything, the data point to the fact that for sake of physical performance and output, workouts in the afternoon are probably more beneficial. I don't know about that result. I mean, that's certainly what the data say. I know for me, I'm most alert and have the most amount of energy first thing in the morning. And so that's when my workouts tend to be best. But if I can't make a workout in the morning, I'll sometimes do it in the afternoon around two or 03:00 p.m. making sure, however, that I don't consume so much caffeine before that workout that it's going to disrupt my sleep. Now, there's another feature of training, which is like sunlight, like meals, like socialization, physical exercise provides an entrainment mechanism that is a predictive mechanism for your so called autonomic nervous system that makes it such that at a given hour of the day that you normally train. So for me, around 07:30 a.m. or so, you'll notice that there's going to be a in physical and mental energy. That's right. If you work out at a given time pretty consistently, your autonomic nervous system will start to anticipate that timing, and you'll start to feel an increase in energy around that time. That is not an imagined thing. It's a real thing. It's a short term entrainment, as we call it. This is something that I'll probably visit in a future full length episode of the Huberman Lab podcast. But what you'll notice is that around the time that you normally train or run or whatever you want to call it, you start to feel an increase in energy, and you can leverage that by going ahead and training. But if you don't have the opportunity to train, then I do think it's a good idea to still get that training session in at a later time during the day if you have the opportunity. Otherwise, you may have to slide it to the day before or the day after, as we talked about a few minutes ago. Or you may have to skip entirely. The point here is that it's always going to be best to complete the workout if you can complete the workout safely and without disrupting your nighttime sleep. I think that's really the biggest takeaway. I personally am not going to compromise sleep and my overall health in order to get workouts in. Every once in a while, I'll force myself to wake up especially early, meaning I'll cash out a couple hours of sleep that I would normally get. So I'll normally get up around, I don't know, 06:00 a.m. or 630. Kind of depends on when I went to sleep.

But sometimes I'll give up 2 hours of sleep to get a workout in in the morning. If I'm going to fly that day, I will sometimes do that. However, if I'm very fatigued, if I had exposed to colds and flus, I'm feeling kind of run down, then I won't do that. I'll prioritize sleep. Most of the time I prioritize sleep, but there are those occasions in which I'll prioritize the workout. Each and all of us have those options. And my suggestion is to really look at things on a case by case, meaning you as an individual and on a daily basis, taking into account what happened the day before, how stressed you are, how much sleep you're getting, how much exposure to colds and flus, and to pay attention to how hard you've been training recently. You know, if you're on a family vacation and you want more time with family, are you really going to compromise time with family in order to get your workouts in? I think that would be probably a bad idea. You know, if I'm honest, I think you want to prioritize social life. That's super important. But then, of course, you don't want to prioritize social life to the detriment of your physical health. So it's all a bit of give and take. And what I've tried to describe here is, again, a recap of the foundational fitness protocol. The places where there's some flexibility you can move workouts back a day or forward a day if you like. You could double up if you like, especially if you're getting great rest and you're well fed, etcetera. And you can also move the workout up or down in the day, depending on how much energy you have, how much sleep you've gotten, and of course, how, you know, rigid you are with yourself. Some people are just really rigid. They are completely in the non negotiable stance they get their workout in, no matter what, because they feel as if they don't, then they're going to be grumpy or they're going to fall off schedule. Other people like me, try to get the workouts done. I would say anywhere from 85% to 95% of the time. I get those workouts done. Occasionally I skip them, typically because life stress, travel, or some sort of low grade illness, you know, a cold or a flu or something of that sort. I get those pretty rarely, but they do happen. So that's really how I answer this question of how to build flexibility into one's fitness schedule. I should also mention that I'm a big believer in periodization. So I will do four month blocks of training heavier with the weights. So that's in the three to five repetition range. Then another three to four month block will follow where I'm training slightly less heavy. So I'll typically be using anywhere from five to eight repetition range. And then for the next four month block, I'll be using somewhere between eight and 15 repetition range. Every once in a while, I'll mix it up so that, you know, if I've been training heavy a lot, I might do a lighter workout. Or if I've been training lighter, I might do a heavy workout.

Again, not super rigid. I personally find that by being strict and rigid about the scheduling, about the reps and the sets, etcetera, for most of the time, meaning about 85% to 95% of workouts. And across the year that things just work out great. You'll make constant progress without having to drive yourself and everybody else crazy with extreme rigidity and compulsion around training. And then, of course, you can enjoy those days off. You can enjoy the flexibility in your schedule. Because, yes, physical fitness is wonderful, but unless you're an athlete, especially a professional athlete, really, physical fitness is about being able to lean into other aspects of life with more vigor. At least that's what it's about for me, and I think that's what it's about for most people. The top three most impactful things schools could do to raise student capacity for learning. What a great question. Well, I'll add a fourth, because I don't want to. I don't want to try and wriggle out of the question by just saying sleep again. But I think trying to get kids to sleep enough is going to be key. So that means off phones and iPads in the middle of the night. That means starting school a little bit later.

I don't know if that ever going to work, but that would be a marvelous thing for learning, because as you know, or we all should know or remember, neuroplasticity and learning is triggered by focused attention, which is supported by having slept well the night before. But the actual rewiring of neural connections occurs when it occurs during sleep, it occurs during deep sleep and rapid eye movement sleep. That's when the reorganization of neural connections occurs. The strengthening of synapses, the weakening of other synapses. And there's a small, small, small, perhaps infinitesimally small percentage of neuroplasticity that is the consequence of the addition of new neurons. So most neuroplasticity is not that most neuroplasticity is the reorganization of existing neural connections, but nonetheless, that happens during sleep. So getting kids to sleep enough, nap enough, sleep late if they need to, is actually a great thing. But who knows if schools will change their protocols. What else can we do? What can schools do? Well, I'm a big fan, as you know, of non sleep deep breaths.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if in every school it started the day with a five minute meditation or non sleep deep rest, where kids would do some quiet, focused breathing, bringing their attention back to their breathing, bringing their attention back to the spot just before, behind their forehead, just before beginning a learning session. Why? Why? Is it about mysticism? No. Is it about trying to understand consciousness? No. It's about a study done by Wendy Suzuki's laboratory at New York University. She's their current dean of letters and science as well. As far as I know, she is a neuroscientist. She has a spectacular record in the field of neuroscience and psychology, and her laboratory shows that even a very brief meditation session in that particular study, it was about 13 minutes per day, can significantly improve working memory, which is the ability to keep information online in one's mind active. It can increase other forms of memory, it can increase focus, it can decrease stress, and it is a zero cost tool.

So I think, unfortunately, we think of meditation as a mystical tool to explore consciousness, and it can be. But if you think about it, exercise can also be an ultra marathon to run 242 miles or something to win a trophy, or it can be something to improve cardiovascular health. So, similarly, meditation is just a perceptual exercise. I think that if kids learn that they can bring their perception internally to what we call interoception, as opposed to looking at things externally, understand that they have some control, some regulation over their focus and attention, bringing their attention back to them, to interoception whenever it drifts. Well, then they get better at focus over time, and it improves learning in the long term, but also in the bout of learning that they go into immediately after. So, you know, if I had a magic wand, every classroom would begin a session of learning with five minutes or maybe even three minutes of what is typically known as third eye or focused meditation, with no interest in mysticism, pure interest in improving the bout of learning. I think another thing that schools should include to increase capacity for learning is they should include micro gaps. So we know that if you take gaps in information delivery, so, for instance, if I were to just pause now and then continue, it seems like kind of an odd interruption, and then every once in a while, at random, introduce a short ten second pause or so, what do we know happens?

We know based on now a number of different really high quality papers that have looked at musical learning, mathematical learning, concept learning, physical skill learning, that those little micro gaps allow for very rapid replay of the information that's relevant, for whatever reason, in reverse, in the brain, very quickly, within the hippocampus and the neocortex, areas of the brain critical for encoding and storage of memories. And these little micro gaps and the rapid replay of the information one is trying to learn at 20 to 30 times the normal rate, increases the number of repetitions. You're basically getting 30 repetitions for doing nothing. This is exactly what happens in what? In rapid eye movement sleep, when you learn something, like maybe you learned something today. In our discussion thus far, you go to sleep at night. There's a very strong chance that if we were to record from your brain, we would see that the same areas of your brain that were active during specific portions of this discussion, which arguably is more of a lecture than a discussion. But those brain areas would repeat at 20 to 30 times speed within a very compressed time, and then you'd go back to a different pattern of brain activity. What is going on? Well, in rapid eye movement sleep, the brain is rehearsing.

It's generating repetitions of certain forms of behavior and certain forms of learning of cognitive information at high speed. You're generating more repetitions. And this is critical for the learning process. We know this from animal studies, we now know this from humanity studies as well. So if in the classroom, teachers would just say, okay, we just finished discussing, I don't know, the cell cycle or the Krebs cycle. Now let's take a moment. And students are not checking their phone at that time or reviewing the material at that time. They just got 20 to 30 repetitions of, and by the way, at a subconscious level, they're not aware of it, of the material they had just been exposed to. And so you introduce these, excuse me, at random, you could do anywhere from one to five of these per hour. You could do as many as 10 /hour you're just introducing these brief microrest intervals. There's a beautiful literature to support this. And the third thing that's very important is I think it's very, very clear that physical activity, in particular cardiovascular training, any kind of physical activity, running, jogging, swimming, etcetera, is going, going to facilitate learning, especially if the learning is done immediately after that activity. That's right, if the learning is done immediately after the activity.

And that's probably related to the increase in the various catecholamines, dopamine, epinephrine and norepinephrine associated with physical activity. The making coding of new memories, encoding of new information more readily accessible. So this is a call for including PE class, and where even just some basic movement, even walks or things of that sort, we can look at this through the other lens and say, what are the worst things for learning? Terrible sleep. Being delivered information like through a fire hose with no pauses. And forgive me if from time to time I tend to do that. Maybe I should start introducing micro gaps into the podcast. But you can always just pause it, go back to it. I feel like real life provides that there is the strong, strong incentive for including some physical movement each day. And then I suppose if we were going to include another one, we'd say that kids and teachers should have a discussion about optimal learning protocols. They should understand where their thresholds are, after which their attention falls off. There's really no point in trying to learn information if you're not focused on what you're trying to learn. And then there's a whole discussion to be had about caffeine. There's a whole discussion to be had about nutrition as it relates to maintaining alertness to throughout the day.

Anyone that's ever gone into a lecture on a college campus, or a high school or elementary school, even after lunch, you'll see that people's brains are just kind of idling there in the background. It's the rare student that's wrapped with attention even after a big lunch, even after running around outside. So structuring of the day properly is essential. And of course, get that sleep at night. How are you managing to achieve your key health pillars while in Australia and any other place you've enjoyed doing so, all while working so hard? Well, thanks for the question. I'll answer this question in the context of what I think we all can and should and really will do, because if you're a premium channel subscriber, I'm certain that you're taking your health seriously. So first off, I think there's a bit of a misconception about the protocols on the Huberman Lab podcast, being that we are all, including myself, super, super regimented about them, to the point where we don't enjoy other things in life. And that's simply not true. So I view the protocols of the Huberman Lab podcast as science based, actionable, low cost, zero cost, minimal cost in almost all situations. There are a few exceptions to that, but really designed to mesh with the rest of life and enhance mental health and physical health, which of course means remaining social, staying on typical sleep schedules, etcetera. So the big ones for me when arriving here were of course, to get morning sunlight as often as possible.

I saw a beautiful sunrise this morning over Sydney, but even on the overcast days, we've had a few rainy overcast days to really make it a point to get outside and to get that morning sunlight. Also, our crew did travel in with a red light, not a red light panel, although I do have a couple red light panels, those little portable ones that I use from time to time. The red lights I'm referring to, in reference to answering this question, are the red lights, which are just red light bulb, that we actually travel with a little red light bulb unit. It's just like a small screw in unit. You plug it in here with an adapter, of course. And then in the evening we've switched off the lights and the place where we're staying. And it just brings the overall levels of cortisol down low very quickly, and it makes it very easy to get to sleep each night. It makes a big, big difference. And this is a very low cost tool. You could essentially purchase any red light, even red party lights, and put those up and then switch off the regular overhead lights. It makes a big difference. It's probably even cost saving. We've also stayed fairly regimented about exercise. So the morning took a great jog down to the ocean, jumped in the ocean. If you don't have access to an ocean on vacation, just getting outside and getting some movement early in the day can help shift your rhythm.

Really, the quad fecta of shifting your circadian rhythm in a new place or becoming an early riser if you want to do that, is morning sunlight movement, social engagement, and in my case, caffeine. Although some people would opt for eating breakfast, I just happen to prefer to eat a little bit later the day. So when you combine those things, you are really amplifying that morning cortisol increase that I've talked about on the podcast morning catecholamine release. So dopamine, epinephrine and norepinephrine, and those act in synergy to create more early day and daytime mood, focus and alertness and enhance the transition to nighttime sleep. But of course, that dimming of the lights and maybe even red light in the evening really, really can help. And so those are the biggies. And then of course, if you want to shift your circadian rhythm really quickly to be on a local schedule, it helps to hop on the local meal schedule. But for me, that always means skipping breakfast. I'm not a big breakfast eater. I like lunch, an afternoon snack sometimes, and dinner. So when you do all of those things, it makes it very easy to stay with the health pillars. And of course, stress control is important. We're doing lives, there's a lot of work to do. So there's a daily, for me, non sleep, deep rest or yoga nidra protocol. I have followed your sleep advice and I have seen a huge improvement. Great. Happy to hear that. Wonderful.

But I still wake up at night and only get five or 6 hours. Is that enough? Can you please give more advice if possible? Well, first of all, thanks for tuning into the sleep advice. So the question of whether or not five or 6 hours is enough really depends on person context. And by context, I mean it can even change across the course of the year. By life circumstances, the criteria for insomnia are very clear. Insomnia is excessive daytime sleepiness due to lack of sleep at night, excessive daytime sleepiness due to lack of sleep at night. So if you're not falling asleep during the day and you feel reasonably good throughout the day, maybe you only need a brief ten minute to 30 minutes nap in the afternoon. Some people nap, some people don't like to. Napkin doesn't matter. But if you feel pretty good throughout the day and you have enough mental and physical energy and focus to complete the activities you need to complete, then I wouldn't worry so much about five to 6 hours, and I wouldn't obsess over, you know, these scary things that we hear, oh, if we're not getting seven to 8 hours, that we get dementia, etcetera, because that's not necessarily the case. Everyone has different sleep needs. The other thing, and this is perhaps the most important thing for everybody listening to this really to think about is QqrT, which is quality, quantity, timing, excuse me, quality, quantity, regularity, and timing. Qqrt.

QqrT, which is an acronym coined by the great Matt Walker, author of the book why we sleep. He has her own terrific podcast in his own right. There's a series on the Huberman Lab podcast coming out soon. QqrT is what you really need to think about when you think about your I sleep, so you want to think about the quantity. How much are you getting? Well, you, Reema, who asked this question, are getting five to 6 hours a night. Okay, what about the quality of that sleep? Is it consistently five to 6 hours with no breaks, or is there a break in the middle? One trip to the restroom in the middle of the night is considered normal and healthy for most people. If you're making multiple trips to the restroom in the middle of the night, you're waking up multiple times throughout the night on a regular basis. That's something to try and overcome. So the quality piece is important. Also, whether or not you remember your dreams or you don't, you want to make sure that you're getting ample amounts of slow wave sleep, which dominates the first half of your sleep night, and rapid eye movement sleep, which dominates the second half of your sleep night. Because they have different roles in recovery of brain and body, namely slow wave, aka deep sleep, is responsible for growth hormone release. Rapid eye movement sleep, responsible for the unpacking or the uncoupling of emotions to prior day and previous day experiences, and in that way acts as a kind of scrubbing out or a therapy for your emotional state.

So are you feeling emotionally rested when you wake up? As a good indication of whether or not you're getting enough rapid eye movement sleep, some people like sleep trackers, using their aid sleep or their whoop or their aura ring or something like that. I'm a fan of sleep trackers, but I think that relying too heavily on sleep scores can be risky. There are data from Ali Crumb's lab at Stanford showing that if people receive a poor sleep score even though they sleep well, their performance will drop. If people get a good sleep score, even though their sleep was lousy, their performance is maintained or even enhanced. So you don't want to take any one sleep score and over interpret it. You want to look at the average and compare that to your subjective experience of sleep. Maybe, I would say go about halfway through your day. If you can bear to do it, before looking at your sleep score and see how you feel, then look at your sleep score as opposed to the other way around. That might be a good way to adjust for that belief effect I just mentioned. But if you're getting enough quantity, let's say you get five to 6 hours, and quality, you're sleeping through that bout, maybe with one epoch of waking up. And then the regularity of your sleep is that you're going to sleep more or less at the same time each night, plus or minus an hour on, let's say, five to six days per week. Because sometimes we like to stay up on a weekend night and have some fun or something like that. And then the timing, you know, where that sleep is falling in your 24 hours schedule is really key.

And here's what we're learning as a field, that for many people who are early to bed, early to rise types, if they go to bed around 09:00 p.m. 930 and they only get 6 hours of sleep, they feel great. Whereas if they get the equivalent amount of sleep but go to bed at 11:00 p.m. or midnight, they feel lousy. Similarly, if you're a night owl, you're somebody that really prefers to go to bed around one or 02:00 a.m. and wake up around, let's say, 10:00 a.m. if you take that equivalent amount of sleep and you go to bed earlier, you're going to feel not so good. So getting the timing of your sleep in the 24 hours cycle correct and fairly consistent, that's the R part of QqRT, correct. Is going to be beneficial. So I wouldn't worry so much about five to 6 hours only. Here's what I would do, Rema. I would take that five to 6 hours, and before getting out of bed each morning, I would do a ten to 30 minutes NSDR non sleep deep rest protocol, which, which will allow you to feel deeply rested and frankly, to recover whatever bits of sleep that you perhaps miss during the night. I found that to be a tremendously beneficial practice, waking up if I don't feel thoroughly rested, doing a ten to 30 minutes NSDR, then getting out of bed and continuing the day. And if you don't have time to do that, do that ten minute, maybe 20 minutes NSDR later in the day at any point, and I think you'll see, see terrific results, not just because you're recovering some sleep that you lost, perhaps during the night, or maybe you just need five to 6 hours, but also because you'll get better at falling and staying deeply asleep through the practice of NSDR in the morning or at some point throughout the day. I wouldn't recommend anything else elaborate unless you're feeling really exhausted during the day, in which case then I would move to some of the more advanced sleep tools.

What can be done to improve brain function for people that have been negatively impacted by things such as poor sleep, poor diet, and TBI early in life? James? Yeah, this is a great question, and I get this a lot. I think that it reminds me that a lot of the conversation that we have on the podcast is about the good things that happen when you do things right and the bad things that happen when you do things wrong. And while I think that's an important conversation, what I've frankly failed to do enough. And that's why I'm grateful for this question, because it gives me the opportunity to talk more about the fact that your system is very robust. There is neuroplasticity, and also, as my graduate advisor used to say, time machine's broken, which is not to say you're out of luck. But I wouldn't spend any extra energy thinking about how many seed. Not seeds, excuse me, how many. I have to be careful. The seed oil debate is still a debate. It's unclear how many trans fats you were exposed to in childhood. You know, we know trans fats are bad. Everyone agrees they're bad, governments agree they're bad. This is perhaps one of the few things everybody agrees on in the nutrition space. Trans fats are bad.

When I was growing up, trans fats were abundant in foods. There were probably fewer of certain things that we have more of now that are bad. You know, we ate a lot of trans fats. We had margarine in our fridge. There were other things that were probably weren't good for us that we consumed. And every once in a while I'll think, gosh, if I had only been eating grass fed meats and fruits and vegetables and healthy grains, as I do now back then, imagine how much healthier I'd be. But I really don't spend too much time on it, and I don't think you should either. I think the most important thing to remember is that biological systems, unless they're really damaged, you know, you're talking about, you know, a major injury, and even then they're very robust. You can overcome years, decades of poor use or misuse of those systems. That said, if you have the opportunity to take care of them now, I highly suggest you do so. For instance, if you haven't slept well for years, now's the time to get it right. I wouldn't worry about the past, truly. You can always rescue some of your health and health span and lifespan. Poor diet, same thing. Just, it's a just do it kind of thing. Just hop on, hop on the train of getting things right 80% to 90% of the time. TBI, traumatic brain injury.

Well, the episode of the Huberman Lab podcast, it's out right now with Doctor Mark Desposito. He's an MD and neurologist, originally trained at University of Pennsylvania, now at University of California, Berkeley. We talk about TBI. You know, there are a lot of different forms of TBI, different origins. You know, everything from bomb blast to car accident to construction work to just, you know, slipped on the stairs at a party. I know someone that slipped on some wet floor at a party and, you know, has a brain injury. What? What do we know? Well, you get back to the basics. Sleep is going to be important, but there are some things like transcranial magnetic stimulation, certainly things that reduce brain inflammation, like glymphatic outflow. So glymphatic outflow is this washing of the brain at night that removes debris, very, very important in the weeks and months after traumatic brain injury to get adequate sleep for that reason. But then there are things that also seem to perhaps improve outcomes from traumatic brain injury, such as hyperbaric chamber. So hyperoxygenation treatments, if you have access to those, even things like elevating the feet slightly when you sleep by about five to 15 degrees, is known to increase lymphatic flow during sleep, which can we believe, by way of increased clearance of a bunch of basically debris reactive oxygen species within the cells, but also debris outside the cells, in the extracellular space. So between neurons, there isn't just empty space, there's all this, like, heavily glycosylated stuff, which basically just means this kind of, like, spongy carbohydrate stuff that fills in the spaces, the clearance of some of the metabolites and some of the debris that's accumulated there by just sleeping with feet slightly elevated, definitely not falling asleep in a chair upright. That's the worst thing for glymphatic flow, things like that.

Some people go kind of bonkers on all things anti inflammation. They start taking tons of curcumin and they kind of get obsessed with inflammation as the enemy. I wouldn't do that. In fact, there's some negative effects of things like curcumin, turmeric. If you take it in high doses, like limiting the amount of dehydrotestosterone production, which is not good, you don't want that, male or female. You don't want to take too much turmeric or curcumin. There are real issues with that, to say nothing of the studies that have shown lead contamination in a lot of turmeric. So you want to check the sourcing very carefully. If you do consume any turmeric, a little bit is probably fine. Cooking with it is fine. But we're here, we're talking about supplementation and, you know, just really not trying to turn inflammation into this terrible thing to the point where you're starting to do other things that are potentially damaging. There's some really interesting evidence that 5 grams, maybe 10 grams, depending on your body weight of creatine monohydrate per day, can enhance creatine phosphate metabolism in the forebrain and enhance brain function under conditions of high altitude or TBI. I take five to 10 grams of creatine, just creatine monohydrate powder. Frankly, any creatine monohydrate powder should be sufficient. There are other forms of creatine, they are not any better. Creatine monohydrate is the least expensive. Fortunately that mixed in water, you take it with or without food.

Some people ask, does creatine make your hair fall out? No, it does not make your hair fall out. But some people do experience an increase in DHT with, with creatine monohydrate and their can be a DHT hair loss link. So if you think you're losing your hair from taking creatine, then stop and see. Do the control experiment. It should grow back, but five to 10 grams of creatine monohydrate, something to explore, hyperbaric chamber, something to explore, excellent sleep, definitely do that. And I just wouldn't obsess over past ills or wrongs to the extent that it impacts your ability to try and correct those in the present. I would say that about most everything. But then again, I understand that as humans, because we can remember the past, the present and the future, that sometimes, you know, it's difficult to let go of the mistakes of past that we made, but that's just simply being human, and I don't have a solution to that. If you find that you work out in the morning and then you're really, really sleepy in the afternoon and the next day, you might be working out too long or too hard, so maybe ratchet back the intensity a little bit or the duration. It's amazing how great we can feel when we work out to, like 80% to 90% of our maximum output and duration. We did this the other day, you know, you know, we went out for a little jog, run, bounding, skipping, jumping jack thing and stopped at like 80% to 90% of maximum and then went about the rest of the day and evening feeling great.

If you do this, you know, consistently, you'll find you have more energy, and there's actually a lot of solid physiology and physics to support why that is. As opposed to if you go to the gym and you do every set to failure or even every exercise, you include one set to failure and you're grinding out four straps, or you're. I don't know what kind of exercise you're doing, or you're running more and more distance each day or with more intensity, you know, it. It's understandable how one gets kind of drawn to or addicted to that burn or the effort. But keep in mind that is stress. You're. You're stressing the body to produce a certain kind of adaptation, either endurance or strength or hypertrophy or et cetera, adaptation. So, you know, there's. There's real beauty in learning to love working out hard, but to leaving the gym or ending the run with ten to 20% of the gas in the tank and knowing that you can come back and do more and you actually kind of want to do more, there's. It increases vigor, as opposed to taking yourself over that cliff, even a slight ten to 20%, and then finding that you're. You're kind of depleted. And this is something that we don't hear enough about because we, most people that are into fitness are into pushing themselves.

It's also true for work. I think some of the best advice I ever got in the professional landscape was when I was a graduate student at UC Berkeley and an excellent nurse by the name of Bob Knight said, the key is to figure out how much can you work each day consistently. If that's 4 hours a day, fine. If that's 8 hours a day, fine. We're talking with weekend breaks because that was in the era of weekend breaks, maybe a weekend every once in a while where you have a deadline, but by thinking about what you personally can really do consistently while maintaining sleep and mental health and physical health, you're going to go a lot further than doing, like, for instance, what I did, which is, you know, maniac and working hundred hour weeks as a graduate student and then ending up sick four times a year and missing out on a bunch of days when I could have been in lab. So these days, I try and get as much focused work done as possible, but try and make that as consistent as possible, if not from every day to the next over time. You know, figure out what those averages are and don't be ashamed of those averages. I would say declare those averages to people so they know what to expect. And the fact that you can do more does not necessarily mean that you should do more. Because I think one of the best pieces of advice I ever got in the world of fitness is more important than training hard.

More important than doing any particular exercises. More important than anything is to not get hurt. Because if you get hurt, you can't train. So I love that you're doing NSDR after training. I love that you're making that part of your practice. But maybe also throttle back a little bit because you said I have to do it after training. Training. Maybe throttle back a little bit on the duration or intensity of exercise and see how you feel. What can we do to optimize the function of our gut brain axis? That's very simple. Get enough sleep. In addition to that, avoid excessive intake of antibiotics. But if your doctor prescribes them, take them imab, lever and antibiotics. Okay, before the Internet jumps. I mean, I'm not anti bi, I'm not anti antibiotic. I always want to say that I'm not anti antibiotic. I am not pro antibiotic, but I am pro probiotics.

I'm probiotic. So I think you should ingest one to four servings of low sugar fermented foods per day. So sauerkraut, kimchi, natto, or kefir or otherwise, whatever you like and fits with your nutrition preferences and plan. I think it's also very important that you don't overuse antiseptics like antiseptic mouthwash and hand rinses and all that stuff. This was all discussed on a podcast episode I did with Doctor Justin Sonnenberg on the Uberman Lab podcast, which is just to say that Justin, who's a professor at Stanford and is amazing, even said that he lets his kids eat lunch when they've been playing outside without washing their hands before eating lunch because he wants the probiotic makeup of their gut to be diverse, including from outside. Now I'm presuming that's not a public park. I'm assuming it's their yard. So we're not talking about gross stuff being on their hands. We're talking about a little dirt here and there. Turns out owning a pet increases the diversity of your microbiome. Lots of things like that. I mean, you don't want to go around, you know, licking people's pets. It's okay to let them lick you depending on what your preferences are, but don't lick them. But when you interact with people, you shake their hands or pets, you're increasing the diversity of your microbiome. When you eat low sugar fermented foods, you want to make sure also you get enough fiber, both prebiotic and probiotic fiber. So fruits and vegetables.

The fiber debate for me just like makes me roll my eyes. I mean, it's so clear that fiber is good for us for gut motility and for offsetting cancers of the gut. I mean, I realize there are the people out there who are really into elimination diets where they just only eat meat, but I mean there's just so much good data on, on fiber, especially from fibrous vegetables. It just seems like. What? Yes, I mean, it's almost silly that we have the debate, frankly, but I'm sure someone out there who's pure carnivore will be shouting,

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