Andrew Huberman

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The Science of Emotions & Relationships

Emotional regulation is about calibrating your interception and exteroception.

To be effective in the world, it is better to be exteroceptive. Paying attention to what's outside of your body and out of your head

Mindfulness is an effective way to practice extrocept and when you're in the environment that needs you to be extroceptive, you can tap into that

Valence - intensity
Bias - good or bad
Alertness - how much body perceives it

Reprogram Your Mind To DESTROY LAZINESS & Improve Focus TODAY! | Dr. Andrew Huberman

To deal with fear, crave something. Move. You need to create dopamine.

YOU NEED TO MOVE YOUR BODY. If you feel stuck, confused, indecisive, don’t think your way out of it, move your way out of it. Move toward something.

150 minutes of cardio a week

Crave the feeling of beating your fear. Pat yourself on the back for conquering your fear. Like cold showers

The reason we have a brain is to move the body
Dopamine - crave, motivation pursuit
Epinephrine -  agitation and to persist.
Serotonin - Make you feel good of what you have
Acetylcholine - Focus

Use the body to shift the mind

The mind is weak, the body is strong

Have an action committee

if you have pain, work above and below the area. knee? ankle and thigh

Duration, Path, Outcome

Rules and Structure are good tools for setting up DPO

journal and vent with no shame. nobody is going to read it. just vent

Master Your Sleep & Be More Alert When Awake | Huberman Lab Podcast #2

How to Increase Motivation & Drive

Motivation is fundamental to our daily life.

Motivation is tightly wound with our neurochemistry of movement.

There is a fundamental relationship between dopamine released in the brain and your desire to exert effort. You can actually control your schedule of dopamine release but it requires the appropriate knowledge. Understanding how dopamine works allows you to properly leverage it. Not understanding how it works makes you subject to it's whim which can pull you away from your goals

The pre-frontal cortex is the brake system for pleasure. Without it, we'd be purely a pleasure seeking animal

Motivation is a two part process which is about balancing pleasure and pain.

Dopamine is released in anticipation of something and it has the effect of creating the desire to move in the direction of that thing. Dopamine is about wanting and craving.

When you experience dopamine there is a mirror effect of low level pain in wanting whatever triggered that dopamine again. It's why you want another piece of chocolate or want to play another game of Madden

Over time, the amount of dopamine that triggers pleasure is diminished, but the pain is increased a bit. The pleasure won't feel as good. The craving will be worse.

Dopamine modulates motivation by increasing pleasure in order to reduce the pain of craving.

Serotonin is the hormone of bliss of what you already possess.

Extroception - Dopaine
Introception - Serotonin

So when you crave something a good mental trick is to shift within. And this is why meditation/mindfulness works wonders.

After orgasm, there is a dramatic decrease of dopamine and prolactin is released. Prolactin creates stillness and lethargy and lack of a desire to move to pursue more whatever released the dopamine (novelty in sexual partners increases dopamine)

Vitamin b6 and zinc are prolactin inhibitors if you want to go rounds with ya boo

The #1 thing that increases dopamine is novelty

DON'T VIEW LIGHT FROM THE HOURS of 10PM and 4PM: It messes up your dopamine systems

Dopamine does not control your ability to feel pleasure, it only increases your motivation to move towards pleasure. (Remove all your dopamine, you'll still be able to feel pleasure.)

Strategically blunt the impact of a reward to create an intermittent schedule of dopamine release in the pursuit of a long term goal. Celebrate your wins, but don't celebrate every win.

The Science of How to Optimize Testosterone & Estrogen | Huberman Lab Podcast #15

Reduce Anxiety & Stress with the Physiological Sigh 
Two inhales followed by an exhale

How to Learn Skills Faster | Huberman Lab Podcast #20

How To Build Endurance In Your Brain & Body

How to Lose Fat with Science-Based Tools

How to Optimize Your Brain-Body Function & Health

Control Pain & Heal Faster with Your Brain

Sleep on your side

Our subjective interpretation of a sensory event is immensely powerful for dictating our experience of the event.

Adrenaline blunts our feeling of pain.

Infatuation and obsession dramatically blunts us from pain. The longer the better. And these are major effects. The belief is that this stems from dopamine that is released through obsession

Wim Hof releases adrenalin. Also cold showers

8 hours sleep or at least 8 hours immobile
10 minute walk a day
ice is bad because it causes sludging of the blood. Instead you need heat to keep the blood moving to promote healing

inflammation is good. movement is good

Change Your Brain

The Human Brain is not optimized to making the best choices. It only wants to survive and replicate

Mind and body is intertwined. They are ultimately one

Sensation - sensing of stimuli
Perception - awareness of stimuli
feeling - feelings in the body and emotional interpretations. Bodily sensations merged with perception
thoughts - spontaneous and controlled
behavior

Brain wants to accomplish one thing. Take perceptions of the outside world and merge them with perceptions  from the inside world and link those in a way to operate upon our environment in an appropriate way (meaning if you can't change what happens, change your interpretation of what happened)

Impatience is a mismatch of what your internal perception is feeling compared to your external.

Your brain is constantly trying to figure out what's going on in the outside world and how am I matched to it.

Stress and agitation are brains tools to mobilize the organism to take a certain action to alleviate the stress

If you want to change your brain as an adult, bring focus to a particular perception of something that's happening during the learning process. When you do something and you think about it intensely, it marks the neurons fired for that thing for change during sleep. For people who want to change their brain, the power of focus is the entry point and the ability to access deep rest and sleep. Neuroplasticity queued during deep focus but occurs during deep sleep

Brain wants to offload as much as it can to reflexive behavior as possible. With focus the brain is trying to figure out the duration, path, and outcome of something that's happening. (Duration, Path, Outcome)

To truly change the brain, bring about the most intense concentration you can to something, and then later bring about the least amount of change you can (sleep)

You need to bring as much focus to a thought or an action pattern with a sense of urgency

The early stages of hard work and focus is going to feel like agitation, stress and confusion because that's neoepenephrin starting to kick in

If you set the goals within the goals you can have an unlimited amount of energy (anti-quit) in your pursuit of goals

Internal Rewards are EVERYTHING. You need to be able to self reward

Goggins uses his behavior to shift his internals (perception, feeling, thoughts)
You can't negotiate what you sense
Very hard to control perception
Feelings and thoughts are complicated

Through agitation and stress you can use that as a boost to move you into action

It really doesn't matter how you attack that agitation, stress, fear, pain. You just do it. Do the thing. Don't hesitate. That's your best bet is to act. You can't negotiate what you sense, and it's way too hard to control perceptions, thoughts and feelings.

Start with behaviors. It's foolish to do it any other way
Change behaviors, to change thoughts, to change feelings, to change perception. Mood follows action

Wim hof when you need to amp up
Physiological Sighs (two inhales + exhale no more than 3 times to relieve stress when you need to calm down)

the eyes are actually two pieces of brain outside the skull.

Mental focus follows visual focus.

Use your mind's eye, visualize exactly what you want to gain focus

our visual focus is linked to our time perception
narrow = time moves faster
broad = time moves slower

Going into panoramic wide visual field for a moment, restrengthens your ability to focus

Your eyes and breath are your keys to affecting your automatic nervous system.

Move
Breathe
Look
Stop Thinking

Gratitude is a good tool

Science of Muscle Growth, Increasing Strength & Muscular Recovery

Working through lactic acid is good for heart and liver

Anything from 30% - 80% (5-15 sets) of your max can be used to trigger hypertrophy (near to failure)

Hypertrophy is about isolation and mind muscle connection

Mid set contractions improve muscle hypertrophy

Testosterone training
6 sets of 10, 2 minute rest

rep speed
.5 seconds to 8 seconds.... doesn't matter!

2 minutes is best rest time

isolation before compound is good for hypertrophy

Optimize Your Learning & Creativity

Delay caffeine until the first two hours you are awake. If you don't it will result in a mid morning crash

Moments of high alertness are great for strategy implementation. When we already know how to do something

Creativity comes to us in a state of calm or even slightly drowsy

Match your state to your work
Very alert - You'll be good at doing things / You won't be good at saying no to things: Eliminate Distractions
Clear Calm - You'll be good at doing things / You have energy to say no
Low alertness - Won't be good at action

Any large meal or heavy carbs will make you sleepy
Fasting = Alertness (That's why you wake up easier when you are well fasted)
Eating = Calm (Rest and Digest)

Drink water on 
waking up
Exercising
Mid Day
4pm

Use post afternoon naps

Visualization has power if you can be very linear on how you visualize something

How To Build Endurance In Your Brain & Body

Cardio exercise is important for focused work, learning

Limitations of Endurance
Neurons
Muscle
Hear
Blood
Lungs

Epinephrine is the readiness, alertness molecule. Quitting occurs when a constant release of epinephrine stops.

Epinephrine requires glucose and electrolytes to continue

Muscle 
3-5 sets of 12-100 reps of pushups, 30 - 180 seconds of rest
Isometrics, Planks, wall sits
Pull ups
Neither should have major eccentric load (lowering of psuhup/pullup)
Kettlebell swings

Endurance 
at least 12 minutes of steady state cardio

HiiT
3-12 sets of 30 seconds on, 10 seconds off OR 20 seconds on, 100 seconds off
each week add 1-2 more sets
1 v 1 mile. run a mile 8 minute then 8 minute rest 3 times

You're wasting energy ruminating over decisions. Either do it or don't.

Test your recovery with the c02 tolerance test
four breaths inhale, exhale
then big inhale
then slow controlled exhaled
if exhale is 45-60 or longer, you're probably recovered

Maximizing Productivity, Physical & Mental Health with Daily Tools

MORNING
-Wake up at the same time every day, record wake time (2 hrs before was temperature minimum) 
-Walk outside for 10-60 minutes (leads to focused alertness)
-Drink 32 oz water with 0.5 tsp salt
-Delay coffee until 90-120 minutes after waking
-Delay food until ~12pm
-Work ritual: 90-minute deep work period starting 4 hrs after waking (keep computer at eye-level, play white noise) 
-1 hr workout (cycles of 3 days of lifting, 2 days of cardio then 3 days of cardio, 2 days of lifting)
AFTERNOON
-Lower-carb lunch (mostly meat and vegetables, add bread/rice/oatmeal if you exercised). Try to not eat much past 80% full. Get omega 3s.
-Walk 5-30 minutes after lunch.
-Some form of relaxation practice.
-Another 90-minute deep work session.
-Walk 10-30 minutes around 4-5pm
EVENING
-Eat high-starchy carb dinner with some protein to improve sleep 
-Take a hot shower/20 minute sauna before sleep
-Go to sleep at the same time every day in a dark, cool room

Weekends / Late Nights
Always wake up same time. Keep schedule the same

How to Learn Skills Faster

Perform as many repetitions as possible when you're first trying to learn a skill

Deliberate breath (regardless of the pattern) makes the mind visible.

Later

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfURDjegrAw&ab_channel=AndrewHuberman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJ0IBzCjEPk&ab_channel=AndrewHuberman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqPGXG5TlZw&t=1184s&ab_channel=AndrewHuberman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntfcfJ28eiU&ab_channel=AndrewHuberman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaE9XyMMAHY&ab_channel=AndrewHuberman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LG53Vxum0as&t=4088s&ab_channel=AndrewHuberman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPX8g8ibKFc&ab_channel=AndrewHuberman

How Meditation Works & Science-Based Effective Meditations

Key Takeaways
In the 1960s and 1970s, meditation and psychedelic use were talked about as one in the same practice
To get better at falling asleep or manage lost sleep, try yoga nidra or non-sleep deep rest at some point during the day
If your goal is to increase focus, and mood, and deliberately control shifts in interoception/exteroception, traditional meditation is beneficial
A wandering mind is an unhappy mind: what people are thinking at any given moment is a better predictor of happiness than what people are doing – being fully engaged in what you’re doing is the strongest predictor of happiness
Choosing the right meditation for the moment: test whether you are in an interoceptive or exteroceptive state; then, choose the meditation that allows you to go against the grain of your natural state to train your body, brain, and increased neural plasticity for trait changes
Meditation tip: instead of dwelling on your ability to remain focused, think about your ability to refocus – that’s where the training and magic happens
Key question to ask before meditation: do you want to be more relaxed or more alert through the meditation practice
How long should you meditate? Just like exercise, the best form of meditation is the one you do consistently
Turning focus on breathing pattern can in itself be a form of meditation practice
General rule of breathwork: if inhales are longer than exhales, you will shift into more alert state; if you focus on longer, more vigorous exhales you will relax
Three main considerations of meditation practice: (1) exteroceptive versus interoceptive focus; (2) breathing pattern; (3) continuum between interoception and dissociation
Practice to start meditation:
Close your eyes and try to put 100% of focus on the third eye or breathing for three breaths;
Open eyes and visually focus on one body part or area for three breaths;
Look at something in the environment for three breaths;
Focus on something further for three breaths;
Acknowledge you are a small body in a large world for three breaths;
Step back to interoception for three breaths
Remember, pay attention to breathing the whole time
Introduction
Dr. Andrew Huberman, Ph.D. is a Professor of Neurobiology and Ophthalmology at Stanford University School of Medicine. His lab focuses on neural regeneration, neuroplasticity, and brain states such as stress, focus, fear, and optimal performance.
In this episode of the Huberman Lab Podcast, Andrew Huberman dives into all things meditation – how and why we should meditate, biological changes that occur through meditation, different types of meditation, protocols, and much more. 
Host: Andrew Huberman (@hubermanlab)

The Neuroscience Of Meditation
Benefits of meditation last beyond the actual practice itself
Meditation isn’t just one thing – like exercise, different meditation practices have a specific focus or goal
You can dial up or down particular areas of the brain with different meditation practices
Left dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex can control bodily senses and interpret emotions, bodily signals, and make decisions accordingly
You can consciously adjust the acuity of your attention because of the ability to engage the left prefrontal cortex 
The “third eye” is the prefrontal cortex, not the pineal gland as once thought
Anterior cingulate cortex interprets bodily signals (e.g., how fast you’re breathing, heartbeat, appropriateness of heart rate); gets input from the heart, gut, other parts of brain, lungs, etc.  
Insula interprets signals in the brain and body and gathers information from the external environment
Brain tissue does not have sensory neurons
Awareness of Mind, Body, & Environment
Mindfulness: being present in our bodily sensations, breathing, and thoughts in the moment
Meditation practice involves generally stopping and closing your eyes which majorly shifts your body – exteroception (external stimuli) is turned off and we turn focus to the level of the skin and inside the body (interoception)
Measure & improve interoceptive awareness: without using an instrument or physically measuring pulse, estimate the number of heartbeats per minute
It’s not always beneficial to have high levels of interoception – people with high levels of anxiety are also usually keenly aware of the bodily state in maladaptive ways
Meditation practice trains you for interoceptive practice – if you are prone to anxiety, walking or moving meditation may be more beneficial to avoid intrusive interceptive thoughts
Default mode network: a collection of brain areas active when we’re not really doing anything or not focused on a task; areas responsible for mind wandering
A wandering mind is an unhappy mind: what people are thinking at any given moment is a better predictor of happiness than what people are doing – being fully engaged in what you’re doing is the strongest predictor of happiness
Dissociation: you can see and react to what’s going on but the bodily emotional response is shut down
Interoceptive vs dissociative continuum = feeling everything vs feeling nothing – we want to be in the middle; meditative practice can teach us to deliberately move along continuum based on circumstances or necessity
Deciding On A Meditation Practice
Test whether you are interoceptive or exteroceptive at the moment: stop, close your eyes and assess whether you are focused on an internal state or something external to you – this will change throughout the day, test before each practice
Then, choose the meditation that allows you to practice working against the default state – train the thing that you do less easily
The friction allows you to change neural circuitry
Exteroceptive bias meditation – focusing on something in the environment around you
Interoceptive bias meditation – focusing on the internal state and breathe
Any time your mind wanders, it’s just an opportunity to improve – your ability to refocus is where the magic is; you will refocus quicker and easier over time
Even a 3-minute daily meditation practice is beneficial
Key question to ask before meditation: do you want to be more relaxed or more alert through the meditation practice
Where to start: close your eyes and try to put 100% of the focus on your third eye or breathing for three breaths; open your eyes and visually focus on one body part or area for three breaths; then look at something in the environment for three breaths; then focus on something further for three breaths; acknowledge you are a small body in the large world for three breaths; then back to interoception for three breaths – pay attention to breathing the whole time
Breathwork
Active exhale and focus on breathing forces interoception
Tummo or Wim Hof style breathing: this is rapid, deliberate hyperventilation – this will make you feel alert and liberate adrenaline
Cyclic hyperventilation: deep inhale through nose immediately followed by deep exhale through mouth x 25-30 then fully exhaling until lungs are empty and repeating – cycle for 5 minutes
To increase heart rate – inhale longer and/or more vigorously than exhale
To slow the heart rate down – exhale longer and/or more vigorously than inhale
Cyclic breathing: inhale, repeatedly exhale with different patterns to slow or control breathing deliberately
Box breathing: inhale-exhale-inhale-exhale, repeat for equivalent duration
In many breathwork practices, you actively inhale and actively exhale
Physiologic sigh: double inhale through the nose followed by long exhale through the mouth
Meditation Effects
Positive effects of meditation on mood: being present correlates to happiness
Be cautious with meditation time: meditation too close to sleep may actually disrupt it since it’s a practice of focus
It’s a controversial finding but regular meditation may reduce sleep needs and allow people to function better cognitively and physically via cortisol management
Yoga nidra can reduce cortisol and enhance neuromodulators as much as or more than traditional meditation
To get better at falling asleep or falling back asleep in the middle of the night, try yoga nidra or non-sleep deep rest at some point during the day
If your goal is to increase focus, mood, and deliberately manage interoception/exteroception, traditional meditation is beneficial

Biology of Habit Formation

Habits organize our behavior into reflexive actions. They can be simple or complex (multistep)

Habits mean our nervous system has learned something

70% of waking behavior is made up of habitual behavior

Goal Based Habits - Habits designed to deliver an outcome each time you do it

Identity Based Habits - Habits that align with your identity

Limbic Friction - The strain that is required to overcome anxiousness/distracted or lethargy (Wired or Tired). It's an idea of how much activation energy is needed to perform a behavior

Linchpin habits make other habits easier

Habit Strength = Context dependence + Limbic Friction Needed

You're seeking automaticity

Getting into the mindset of procedural memory helps get around limbic friction
Think about all the steps (step by step) start to finish. Increases the chances of performing the behavior in the future
Visualization is everything!!
Think about the events that precede and follow the habit and it's effort needed to execute the habit. Think about the effort of starting and startup costs and then how you will feel accomplished after

Task Bracketing
Basal Ganglia is involved in action activation and action suppression (No/No-Go)
Start and End of a task. Framing the events just before we initiate a habit and right before ending it
Task bracketing affects if it's context dependent or not

Dopamine is a motivation molecule

Use a replacement behavior AFTER the bad habit. For example, if you bite your nail,  when you find. out you did that, immediately. Tack on good habits

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Dunk (exclude from study)

Andrew Huberman

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