LIVE EVENT Q&A: Dr. Andrew Huberman at the Chicago Theatre
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Welcome to the huberman lab podcast, where we discuss science and science space tools for everyday life. Recently, the huberman lab hosted a alive event at the chicago theater in chicago, illinois. The event consisted of lecture entitled the brain body contract, followed by question and answer session.

We wanted to make sure that the question and answer session was available to everybody, regardless of who could attend in person. I also want to make sure to thank the sponsors of that event, which were ag one in eight sleep. Eight sleep make smart matches covers with cooling, heating and sleep tracking capacity. One of the key things to getting a great night sleep is to make sure that the temperature of your sleeping environment is correct, and that's because in order to fall and stay deeply, you sleep, your body temperature actually has to drop by about one to three degrees, and in order to wake up feeling refreshed and energize, your body temperature actually has to increase by about one to three degrees.

With eight sleep, you can program the temperate of your sleeping environment in the beginning, middle and end of your night, and has a number of other features, like tracking the a rapid, I move in a slow wave sleep that you get things that are essential to really darling in the perfect night sleep for you. I've been slept on in eight sleep matters covered for well over two years now, and IT has greatly improved my sleep. I fall asleep far more quickly.

I wake up far less often in middle the night when I wake up feeling far more refresh ed than I ever did. Priority, using a sleep mattress cover. If you like to try eight sleep, you can go to eight sleep.

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The reason I started taking A G one and the reason I still drink ag one once or twice a day is that IT provides all of my foundational nutritional needs. That is, IT provides insurance that I get the proper amounts of those vitamins, minerals, probiotics and fiber to ensure optimal mental health, physical health and performance. If you'd like to try A G one, you can go to drink A G one dock com slash huberman to claim a special offer. They're giving away five free travel packs plus a year supply of vitamin d 3k two again， that drink A G one dot com slash huberman to claim that special offer. And now without further a do the question and answer session from our live event at the chicago theater in chicago, illinois.

I turned seven soon. Was your best advice to keep my brain healthy in all, terrific question.

The advice I would give to you as somebody about to reach seventy, as the same advice I give to anybody, which is that essentially all of the things that improve cardiovascular health and perfusion of your bodily tissues are going to improve functionality of the brain, because, of course, the brain, as A A rich consumer of fuel, requires very good portals to deliver those fuels. And that capitals, microcap, aries and arteries and so forth, need to be cleaning clear. That's the big one.

This is why I think the prescription now is that's generally accepted in here. I'm borrowing from my friend Peter ratio, but about one hundred and fifty or maybe as much as two hundred minutes of so called zone to cardio per week movement that you can just barely Carry out a conversation is going to be very useful. One thing that's often not discussed, that load bearing exercise of some sort is gonna Better, provided your body can tolerate IT.

But you should do something you can do consistently over. There was long durations um without injuring yourself but there's a very interesting literature about how load bearing movements actually generate the release of hormones hormones from bone that actually cross the blood brain barrier and may influence health of neurons in brain area such as the hippocampus. And there are extending from preclinical data in animals to humans.

But there are some human data starting to emerge that that's true. It's also true. And there's wonderful paper out just today or yesterday from doctor and galpin lab and collaborators talking about how if you look at cognitive health is highly correlated with things that relate to strength.

And that is not to say that you should just do streng training exercises, but we know that all people, truly, all people, should be doing some sort of resistance training two or three times per week, you know. And we know that grip strength and increasing a symmetry and grip strength between the two hands is one of the indicators of deficits in control from the brain out to the periphery, and its correlated with cogniac decline. There's also some interesting data about how when our the feet become floppy and kind of flashed or the lack of ability to extend one's toes, i'm still work.

I'm been wearing this two spreader thing as if anyone tried those, those heard, those hurt. I broke this foot a bunch of times. But but i'll tell you, when you get Better at spreading your toes, it's really exciting.

And it's really exciting for several reasons. It's really exciting because there's a more stability in your feet. You can run and move and do things Better without pain.

But in addition to that, believe IT or not just says one of the first things that are going to do when you come and into this world, scrape the bottom of your foot and look for the babinski reflex, which is a neural transmission. Reflects as all reflects are. But it's testing that essentially the health of the nervous system that over time you gain there many correlated ts of dementia, many, many college of dementia.

But an inability to finally control the extremities is certainly one of them. So um string training, cardio askar training. These are kind stereotyped answers for your question. And yet those are really the prime movers against cardiovascular and three of ocular disease. And then of course, there's i'd be remissions ed and throwing something that was a little bit more edgy because that's what I do.

There are interesting gata about the use of drugs to increase a eof calling transmission, right? I mean, I was visiting a noble prize winner at columbia to learn about his incredible work some years ago, and saw that he chewed no fewer than five pieces of nick read dump, something I don't recommend during this short meeting. And I said, what is this all about? He said, well, you know, I don't smoke anymore because I don't want lung cancer but um you know he said, nick ti is a protective against parkins's and alzheimer.

How can that be and he said, well, you know, decreases in their modulation the open minister of calling car leader with the cognition of decline keep your brain sharp and so on and so forth. So i'm not encouraging people to take nickey IT increases blood pressure of constriction um but it's an interesting consideration. You know some of them emerging colony gic and dopa energia drugs are ways to increase the seat of calling and dopa are certainly intriguing.

And I won't tell you who that person is, but his name is Richard to axle. Next question, yeah. How can I optimize sleep while working twenty four hours shifts as a firefighter, twenty four hours on, forty eight hours off? okay.

And this proud, I also pertains to new parents and IT probably also pertains to anyone that's going through a particular particularly stressful time where you're microwaving throughout the night. So not just firefighters. So what do we know? We know, based on really good data, that shift work is bad for us.

It's just bad where a dire al species were not not ternate. But thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Shift workers because you're essentially keep us all safe and make the world around. And and so we need you and we want you healthy. So one of the main things is that you can make sure that you stay on the same sleep wake schedule schedule, excuse me, for at least two weeks.

It's the swing shift that's really the worst you can tell your boss, I said that and if they won't agree and you're doing this twenty four hour on, twenty four hour off, there are couple of things that are really important. First of all, the main way to wake up your nervous system, even though IT might not feel like a triple espresso, is going to be that light exposure to the eyes. And if you can't get IT from sunlight is going to be from any bright artificial light.

I'm not a huge proponent of the daylight simulators are very expensive if you can simply buy in nine hundred looks L E D far more inexpensively. I don't have any relationship to any company that, that sells these, but you can find them on amazon or or wherever you happen to prefer to purchase things. Or you can just get really close to a bright light anytime you're trying to wake up, even if you don't feel that IT helps you wake up very much, mostly for the military and suppression, because bright light will very acutely suppress melatonin.

And then the real question from shift workers always seems to be, should I catch up on sleep? Or is that going to be problems? I just stay up into the next cycle. And the answer there is a little bit nuance, but the best answer I can give across the board is if this is a pattern that you're going to be in regularly over, say, months or years, then get whatever sleep you can.

Get whatever sleep you can if it's something that you're doing somewhat acute like you're traveling to europe and you're just going to force yourself to stay up a day and a half, then in that case, I would say no need to, to get the maximum male sleep, just trying to stay with a local schedule. We have an entire episode about shift work that somehow maybe didn't get as much recognition as IT should have for shift workers and will try and get this out in Better form. We don't always succeed in top carding things in a way that gets them out to the most people.

One thing I will say, this is an opportunity to announced that our website, he room, loved up as completely revamp. So it's highly search able. We will take you to exact time stamps and is and now you can segregate out time stamps from newsletters from all the stuff.

So thanks to a lot of effort by my amazing team, you can now navigate that site with a real precision. So if you want to A D, H D, ada, all kids, yes, no. For instance, IT will take you to precise time stamps that will address those issues.

Next question, please, how does hip knows its therapy work? Well, this is a very interesting topic to me because my colleague, associate chair psychiatry at stanford, David speel, is world expert in p nosis. And its neural underpinnings, and it's used for clinical applications.

His father was a pnoc s also a psychiatrist. And when people hear hip notis m they think of stage hip notis m and being up on stage and doing things you don't want to in front of other people. But really, it's when we're out about clinical applications or wellness applications of hip nosis, we're trying about self directed hip nosis.

I really wish there was a Better name because don't think hip nosis is going to would have be very far as a field, Frankly, because everyone thinks hip nosis and IT would be like if psychodeviant. Xy, we're just called the drugs right. We were taught in the eighties that drugs are bad and that your brain on drugs looks like an almond and that's bad.

And if you like almonds, they're still bad. And drugs, drugs of abuse are bad. And and actually, I hope we can talk briefly about psychiatrically at some point, because I do think there's a little bit of a run away train around the topic of psychiatric s now I think we need to be very careful how we approach that entire landscape.

But hypnosis essentially works by allowing someone to place their own brain into this very unique state. Earlier, we are time about neth plasticity, and we talked about the fact that neural plasticity involves intense focus, followed by deep rest in the form of the sleep or non sleep. Deep pressed, maybe even rick rubin's IT, and just kind of lay in there hibor.

This is different because hypnosis is in a state in which your focus is very narrow. The context is very narrow, but you're very, very relaxed. So maybe the urban example of being brain active and body very still is a bit more like keep nosis.

To be fair, why would you be the case that David speel and his dad have literally a tool that is approved by the psychiatric association, major american psychiatric association, where they can figure out how hitting tizer you are by having you look up and try and close your eyes lies, while continuing to look up the so called speaker ee role test sounds pretty wanky, right? This is like tiktok level wacky. Well, the reason is you have crony al nerves.

So they sit more, less near your neck that allow you to direct your focus, your eyes upward, and then your ukrainian nerves that have your eyes go down. And the ones that the criminal nerves that drive your eyes up are associated with alertness and eyes open, no surprise. And the kronion nerves associated with pointing your eyes down and closing rio lids are associated with what with drawers in a sleep and lack of alertness.

There's over a push pull in the onomea ervine system. And special speakers, daddy and him figured out, because their genius, that if somebody can maintain up where gaze while closing the islands, two things happen. One, you'll see the Whites of their eyes and free, creepy. Two, that means they are highly hit, noticeable, because that is a reflection of the probability that they can enter a brain state in which they are both very awake and very relaxed. Prety cool.

Now, if that sounds kind of wacky, because you're just looking at the prophet, keep in mind that one of the primary entry points for diagnosing concussion is to shine a light in one eye and have that pupil construct and then see whether not the other pupil constructs this. All all consensually pupil lary reflects, although technically i've been bothered by this from day one, IT should be called the nonconsensual. People reflect because the other eye doesn't have a choice if everything's working.

In any case, if you have a hard hit to the head, you'll see that you shine light in one other people conflicts, and the other one stays really die late in the go. Okay, get this person in the emergency room. Because there's been a severing of the connections between the two sides of the brain.

So looking in the eyes and trying to deduce what might be happening more centrally within the covers of the skull in the brain is not a new thing. IT is a primary diagnostic tool in neurology. It's also how your parents knew that you were taking drugs when you came in the door because your people's were like that big.

And that reflects a difference in automated ic arslan and basically stimulants as people dilate their peoples. There's also why the story about mela Donna, people intentionally dilating their pupils to trick people into thinking that they were attracted to them. Thought about this one a lot to like not a precursor, a good relationship, like someone's using their physiology to pretend that they are attracted.

The other person thinks that they are attracted, that they might become attracted to. Anyway, it's a recipe for failure. Almost as bad as most of the dating apps. I would know i'm not on him, but from what I hear. okay.

So where were we? Pip nosis, when you are in a state of elevated attention, but very relaxed, guess what? Neural plasticity occurs much faster because you're essentially mary, the two states that are Normally divorced, which are heighten levels of attention first and then depressed, you are essentially putting the number of system into a more, I wouldn't all IT hyper plastic state, but a more plastic state.

And for people that are highly hit and advisable, the success rates at, for instance, smoking sensation, pain relief are pretty impressive. Speel lab has polish a number of these, so I think self IT nosis is is a very interesting tool. I just hope that they remain IT so that IT stands a chance of getting off the ground.

I mean, one of the things that you learn as a public facing educator is that what things are called has a great impact on whether or not they achieve any kind of use in the world. Hence why I decided to swallow the the difficult pill of partially renaming yoga edra as non sleeve depressed. I don't like to do that.

Yoga edra has more than one thousand year history, but it's when people hear yoga edra unless they are very open minded, they hear magic carpet, they hear levitation. And it's unfortunate that's not how I feel. But for years I talk about yoga media is so cool.

It's like sleep stay but it's and like yeah like yoga edra okay. And but if you come from a culture where that's discussed, they're all about IT, so non sleep deep pressed you know I felt like are right leave my name out of IT. You know i'll be dead eventually I mean, i'm in this line of a devisers, right? I'm like approaching fifty, like i'm winning in my my land age.

But should I be fortunate enough to live past bullet cancer or car crash far in then you know ndr hopefully we will persist and I don't need a piece of IT is just the hope is that people will learn to put themselves in the brain states that can be adapted for them. So be nice if something someone could come up with something other than hip notes, as I think speaker would agree, super interested in psychiatric as medicine to be done with somebody with experience worried about unlocking mental health conditions. Yeah, you should be.

What does the research say and what are your thoughts? okay. Barbarie question. We like that psychedelics. Well, let's just back up a little bit and acknowledge one thing that's more important than psychedelics or anything else when IT comes to rearing the brain, which is that ultimately, rewiring of the brain is about shifts in neuromodulators. The opp means serotonin empac nor ean ehnes to calling.

And it's no coincidence that, you know, sss selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors have been one of the major entry points for attempts to treat things like depression over the last twenty thirty years or more. When I was in college, there was that when the book listening to prove that came out a prior to that, there's a long history of drugs, prescription drugs, in that case, to change levels neuromodulators like serotonin, or C2Colin or dop amine, in an attempt to cure or treated disease. But keep in mind, despite the varied success of sr.

s. And the topic into itself, that there's a strong belief, and there has sin for a long time, that if ssr work IT wasn't because the depressed brain is deficient in serotonin, but rather because increasing serotonin offered the opportunity to increase neuroplasticity races. A different way of thinking about IT.

And that's a segway for saying that when you say psychiatric, that's a broad category of drugs. Nowadays, people even lump kedem ine into that. And although technical, is not a psychiatric, but that are classic, if you will, psychiatrically are SSD my surjeet ID ethmoid. And so A K mushrooms, although comes in other sources as well.

The major effect of Sullivan is to stimulate a particular seton's receptor which has elevated density, particular brain areas and indeed there are many recent clinical trials, many lets to say um as a twelve to twenty goodsized clinical trials done IT diversity locations on the planet, many of johns hopkins and ucsf, some in switzerland, showing that enhancing and here you knows, amusing the mechanistic language. Enhancing the transmission of the release of serotonin and activating particular seton's receptors leads to an opportunity for more. What neural antics.

Now I say that that way, not to add a bunch of word suit, but because the real question is whether not the experience that one has while under the influence of psychodeviant s is critical to the clinical outcome or growing idea, just as a hypothesis, I think is equally interesting, is that it's the serotonin itself and that the things you see, the things you hear, the things you experience, are not relevant. Now I have some experience with psychedelics. I had a bad time on psychiatry ics as a teenager.

I was also pretty weight d youth, but i've had a bad trip on last for years. I was scared that people were going to dose me with us. After that, I was so bad. I think across the board, we can say kids doing psychedelics just seems like a bad idea that brains are already hyper plastic. If you have a pretty position to bipolar type issues or schizophrenia, a IT can exacerbate those issues.

And certainly, certainly, certainly, if you don't have adequate support in the form of somebody that can guide you through the sessions as well as the processions, which are not done with psychiatric as well as the so called integration afterwards, IT can be a really slippery slope. I know examples of people really suffering in the aftermath of psychedelic journey. Now there are few interesting points as well.

And IT wouldn't be fair. I if I didn't say that several, if not many, individuals who have had so called treatment resistance depression, at least in these clinical trials, have reported feeling far Better after caliban therapy. But that solicited on therapy was done with several processions, then the psychiatric sessions, several after sessions.

And it's not always the case that things turn out well. So I think it's early days. What is interesting and I think important, is to recognize that suicide on, and the structure of Sullivan is very similar to satan in itself, very similar.

But IT activates particularly receptive. A lot of people don't realize how similar to sell a tone in IT is and that microdot solicit an, I should say, the data microdot ing suicide and something that's increasingly popular is not particularly compelling. It's not clear what IT does.

It's not clear if it's of at of any use. And I think the danger here is that we end up in a situation as we did with, Frankly, with cannabis. And by the way, i'm not somebody who demonizes cannabis. I think that has its uses for certain people, but very high t hc concentration cannabis can be a problem, especially with people ever previous position of psychosis.

And anyone that tells you that cannabis is intrada tive just say, great, I don't smoke weed for a week let's see how you do yeah and let's go on a plain trip together right? And how are you sleeping and you so I think the chronic cannabis users are starting to take note of some of the issues that causes. But again, there are some some clinical applications now when IT comes to this sort of the the high speed train psychodeviant x like d mt.

And so that's far, far less data available there. And then md ma assisted synthroid y for the treatment of ptsd. There are the data, I think are more robust, and I think we're likely to see legalization or at least decriminalizing in the next few years.

But keep in mind that md ma is mEthanol, dioxys, meh and fedex. So for people that, like dopa energies states, it's a particularly compelling a state to be in so much so that they could overindulge edna. And then there is the issues of purity.

And I could do a five hour podcast on this right now. So I think the important point is approach with caution and kids, absolutely not. And I think it's an exciting landscape, very exciting.

And were as a discussion like the one we just had, we ve got to me fired a few years ago. I mean, stanford has big programs now, a lot of philanthropy, federal grants and many laboratories focused on the study of psychodeviant s. So you know, I would say stay tuned.

But keeping mind that newer increasing neuromodulator levels very acutely, whether not it's with a prescription drug or whether not it's with psychodeviant s, is really what lies at the heart of the recovery, the potential recovery, I should say, or the negative effects that happen to occur in anyone that that embarks on the psychiatric journey. Do people who meditate need less sleep than people who don't? H, that's interesting.

Well, we know that from a study by wendie. Is zoom I, who I believe if and why you made the right choice, and I think they did, is now the deny version sciences of M Y U. SHE ran a memory lab for a long time.

Is SHE has data showing that even ten I think it's thirteen, but as long as ten minutes of meditation, we sitting still breathing, focusing on you're breathing, directing one detention, the third I center said we don't have a third eye, the piano thought to be the third die but I don't know why you'll say it's a light sensitive tissue deep in the brain, but may that's why they call the third die. But in any case, that type of practice has been shown to increase memory focus A K learning. But there's some interesting footnotes in those papers which point to the factor that when people meditate too close to bedtime, often times they have trouble sleeping.

Because basically meditation as a focusing exercise, it's a perception exercise. I don't think a meditation is anything mystical. It's it's a self directed shift in your perception to what to your interaction tion, to your internal state as opposed anything beyond the confines of your skin. There's nothing mystical about that.

And then in that state, your brain starts to generate patterns of activity that are distinct from when you're sharing your attention between what's going on internally, what's going out, what's happening out the world, right? I think we need to demystify what people have clock as mystical. And when I say clock, I don't think that the people that meditate for thousands of years thought that there was anything mystical about IT.

But sometimes what we experience there can feel mystical. So if you have travelled sleeping, I recommend doing some sort of, some sort of non sleep deep breath practice like nsd R A K yoga edra. Although those are different, nsd r generally lacks the the intention, peace and the ones that I put IT in the world.

We've stripped away the intentions and we've stripped away any kind of language that would make you think that um there was some sort of um not to say like cultural aspect to IT, which you again is is is admittedly dly a bit unfair to the origin practice of yogananda. But the problem again is that in yogananda you're going to be doing intentions and hearing language that for some people, not all might divorce you from the the wish to do IT. In any case, non sleep depressed on at any time of day.

But especially if you fall a sleep in the middle, the night is going to be useful for helping you fall back to sleep, where as meditation again is going to enhance your level of focus. So I don't think it's a good practice if you, if you have trouble sleeping. Now to finally answer a question, if you meditate, can you afford to sleep less? My friend matt Walker would say no.

However, many of us can't sleep as much as we want to. In many of us are not like map where we can wake up without alarm clock. They all just keep sleeping and sleeping unless I went to Better like eight o'clock.

This is actually interesting. And there's an a simec tear sleeps needs if you go to bed member, that old adage every hour before midnight is worth too after. Well, turns out that for people that are meant to be early risers, going to bed at eight, you'll wake up at three or four feeling great.

You go to bed at eleven, you feel groggy. And there are good reasons to explain that. But matt would say that you need your sleep period.

I'm more of the camp based on my read of the data. And yes, we are allowed to disagree and still be friends. It's allowed.

In fact, matt's going to do a series on sleep with our podcast, even has a traffic podcast of a zone where we maybe debate a little bit of this that there are ways that you can at least replace the feeling of wakefulness that you would have lost if you don't sleep enough. And for me, really, that's why nsd r became such a an attractive tool to do for ten or thirty minutes each morning. If I didn't sleep enough the night before, I first learned about yoga.

Ej, actually, an addiction recovery center trauma, a recovery center in florida in twenty seventeen. I, A friend as super talented trauma therapist who was also treat addiction that i've sent many, many people too. And he has this kind of seeming, you like, wizzart ability to get people who have been addicts and opp attics.

And one of the tools he uses is a yoga edra every morning for thirty minutes and eventually an hour, which seems like a lot. But then he also has these. People wake up very early, maybe an hour before they would Normally wake up and go into that liminal state between sleeping wakeful ness.

Now my experience is that ten to twenty minutes of n sdr yogananda a is sufficient to offset some sleep loss and allow the speed of function of many people report the same. We have a study going with the sleep laboratory at stanford to explore this. And more deaths than what I can tell you, because i'm involved in some of this work, is that there are several military units because they have no opportunity to get sleep because they're working that have to rely on tools like this in order to be able to function at their highest level.

And i'm sure they will tell you, as I will, that they d prefer to get eight to ten hours of sleep. But guess what, they can't. And so I think that's an important takeaway that we don't get to pick how much we sleep unless you're going to be completely neurotic about your sleep, which makes you kind of a less interesting person in life, is what i'm told going to bed at eight is great, like summer most of the time, but you got to stay out.

Everyone's in a while. I mean, after they released chip empire on netflix, I discovered the nsd r is a very valuable tool because and by the way, chm empire and succession have a lot of parallels. And if you watch one up, if I serve I interleaved chin empire succession, chm empire succession, you start to realize, like, wow, like we're pretty similar.

And then you look at the world differently. I promise your podcast has positively changed the lives of so many people, including me. How has IT change your life? Okay, wasn't expecting that one.

Thank you, Samantha. Well, first of all, I mean, as this a little eleven year old told me, I mean this this is essentially what i've done my whole life. I'm a fairly private person, believed not.

I'm prety introverted. I spent a long time alone, and I think that's required for me to I basic of four modes. Format one, i'm either reading myself through sleep. And nsd r to do one of the other three modes.

Maybe there's a fifth mode or i'm in one of these other three modes, which is i'm either forging ing for information, organizing that information or dispersing that information or getting ready to do IT all over again. And then there's this relaxation vacation thing that that they keep telling me about. But then I went to italy and then like rick and I, like just I hung out there and and I didn't feel like work.

I also discovered some really great podcast. I don't know. I think one of the coolest podcast out there, if you like rock and roll, which I love, is a history of five hundred songs by into hickey's podcast on rocking and role.

I like the nerdy podcast like a graduate on education and rocks and role is so cool. And you learn a lot about music and history and the mobs involved in all that stuff. And from what I was told, like ocp onions to sit there, right? His exit was there, you know, so is weird, right? Any that is this.

And like, so I don't know, I feel about all that, but they told me that. So I think the podcast has been wonderful as an opportunity to share things that I love. If I had my way would be more like this, although more of a dialogue, Frankly, it's changed my understanding of kind like what the world is like.

I certainly get critique, and that's good. But again, I was raised by iconic class, and particularly my postdoc devor been barrasso. Unfortunately, he was, when I mentioned as dead, because I worked tom.

And but he, he really encouraged all of us in his lab and and and often we were very close friends. I spent the last year of his life recording interview with him. There's actually documentary coming out about ben, and then i'm gna release the audio interviews with band, which he approved, by the way.

And you'll get to realize that the history of what you see is often not what the dead person really did or said. It's going to be fun. So I can't wait to they released this documentary and then then gets to have his voice infusions.

And there will be a cool documentary. But as some of you know, that like what appears to be and what was in the historical narrative is not necessarily what what really happened, but that's just life. So I supose the short answer is that, you know, I feel very honored with the opportunity, very, very honored.

And you know, it's a chAllenge yet times, I suppose that the major chAllenges are when things are taken out of context, like little, little clips and things that sort being misunderstood doesn't feel good, but luck. At the end of the day, I feel like the luckiest person in the world because I get to spend my time learning. So it's either in forging ing a organizing room, dispersing information that I also want and that I find incredibly useful, if or if not, that certainly informative, and at times in chanting as well.

So I try to focus on the positive, and I have a number of practices that help me do that. And I am somebody who engages on social media. I'm not a posting ghost kind of person.

I want to understand, I think that cottle fish are super interesting, but human beings are super interesting to, and I have a strong drive for for mastery. But also, I do have a strong sense of justice, and that can be problematic at times. I define the justice as feeling like there's something for us to do about something like seeing something upsets us, that excites us is great. But then if you have a strong sense of justice, you feel like there's something you need to do about IT. And not everybody feels that.

And then, of course, a desire to understand, and I think for reasons very personal to me, that relate most sage just having kind of incredible array of experiences in life, many of which were like shocking, disturbing, exciting and chanting that I won't understand and so yes, it's changed things but not like, I don't know I got one truck when watch know it's not to say that I don't care about having things. There are few things I really love but like mostly like i'm just thinking about the podcast, we ve got a record on monday which is about whilst wer in tenacity and if I don't stop myself giving right now. So what do you feel is the next big thing to come to the forefront in the health space? Thanks for this question.

One is non protein of mino assets. I I love these debates online because I know that there's something there is so cool because I grew up and seeing these debates and you know, there's something interesting there because people are debating about IT. But the debate isn't what's interesting.

It's almost always the thing that people aren't talking about is sure to surface at some point. And you right now, there's this obsession, ally, like sea oils, like sea oil, sea oils. And I can't demonize c oils. All the data say that if you separate out their chloric low, there's nothing inherently bad about seat oils. And I don't know it's still in emerging literature, but there was a scientists at stanford, at rubinstein who are passed away of at a ripe old age of brilliant scientists who talked about, and I had a lot of discussions with when I was a post, talk about non protein menu assets. Turns out his son, as a neuroscientist, that ucsf, other son's physician, ucsf.

So another one of these low performing families, and all wonderful people and ed had data that unlike a lot of animals like birds um there are certain menu assets which are non protein of menu assets that exist in fairly high density and seeds and nuts which is not to say that seeds and nuts are bad. I'd omens this evening. Okay, so please.

But non protein amino assets are similar enough to mayan protein amo assets that if they are consumed in abundance and perhaps especially in liquid form, that they may again may cause is about the future. This is about what we know. This is about where I think there's an interest in growing interest.

They may be able to incorporate into certain proteins of our tissues of our body that potentially ed thought could lead to missing ding of those proteins and may explain certain forms of neurogenetic and other neurocognitive chAllenges. So I think non protein of many assets are going to be an important discussion. Now there are lots of non protein mini assets that are not um that don't come from foods.

But I think the discussion around non protein and assets from foods is going to be very interesting. So that's one area. The other area and perhaps you picked up on this hole but tonight is that I like the nuts and bolts stuff around stressed neuroplasticity, but the high level stuff, you know I think you know the relationship between you know structured thought, abstract thought, i'm not interested in the free will discussion.

I just feel like that's a career ender. I'm friends with Robert is a pool ski and he's got great book coming out about this. I'm called determined so obviously doesn't believe in free will, but he's far smarter than I ever could be. And IT just feels like I don't know that there's an end point with that one. But if anyone could find you be Robert, he is also smart.

But I think that the higher level stuff, creativity, abstract reasoning and thought defining and and Better understanding the different states that we can go into and waking and and I confess um without a hint of sheep sh is about IT that I also think the notion of of spirituality and the belief and other things that are beyond our current and conscious understanding is super interesting um I think that you know as as a species we are we've been chAllenging, conflicted from go at least that's what the historical scripture tells us and that sort of inherent to our experience that life is chAllenging and perplexing and and also wonderful and so I think a Better understanding of of how to navigate all that. I mean this like this stuff in our skills, except for the eyes, which, by the way, or the two pieces of brain that are not in your school, that retinas have to point that out. You know it's it's tRicky and we're trying to use that very tissue to understand IT.

And so i'm intreat by the possibility that there are certain aspects of self that maybe you're not intended to be explored because they are not really of us, right? Brains interacting with one another is an interesting area, certainly for scientific exploration, but i'm i'm fascinated by and excited about the possibility that you, at some point our species will both understand the mechanics of our emotions, mechanics of our thought process, creativity and so on. But that we will also allow room for the for the stuff that we can't explain with science, and to allow room for that in our in our life experience because I also believe that can be powerful. And while understanding things in great detail and putting mechanism and utility around that and applying that is wonderful, it's the it's the stuff of my life, which is obvious. I also think that there is great value in not trying to control and understand everything and enjoying the, the, the mystery of things that that are clearly greater than us.

How do you baLance having fun with having such a rich knowledge and passion in neuroscience and optimization? Fun people asked me like, what do you do for fun? I think people think I do all of the protocols.

It's like, sure, I get my sunlight, I drink my water and I do them. but. A fun.

I like learning. I like learning. I like, I do enjoy physical movement. I like learning for me that okay. So for me it's the little things I don't know. Maybe i'm weird, certainly been told that like the other day there is a frog in my swimming and he's just like singing there like and and I was just like spend some time looking at them back in fourth and and then I had all sorts of ideas about like, like what's he doing and what's he thinking and then I thinking how all of sacks used to spend time imagining experience, experiencing life as a bat through only echo location.

He talked about this, and I thought, and why would he do that is, and that kind of cute is like, delightful man, right? Yet, at six hundred pound, three White squad when the state, california, of squatting changes. But like also like pretty, he was a bad is that we were do did met and fetinia raise motor yclad, you know, like hung out with movie stars, but then also was like a recluse and like rocks. Okay, that's a weird scientist.

Been around a lot of those, but you know, in discussions with people that knew him, I mean that that exercise of, and like seeing something you thought was cool, like a bat, you know, allowed him to also use theory of mind to think, I think like what would would be like to have locked in syndrome and only be able to, like, blink your eyes to communicate, and and gave him an incredible compassion and sensitivity for other people that then he transmuted into the form of, like, these wonderful books. So for me, fun is really about doing the things that I do systematically today. But then when something excites me, I know that feeling, I know IT physically in my body.

And you just follow that trail like a weird, right? Like a weirdo, just like barris was a weird, and barber chapman was weird. And like, like, I think everybody y's a little weird. If you allow yourself to just see the things that you think you're really cool and there are bunch of things that I think you're really cool that and chat me that a bunch of other people love to.

And I know that because I like I see we're all watching that video or something like that um but I think for me fun is is in the practice of trying to stay open to the like. The little things the little things that kids say are always delighted because they're not filtering through all the bullshit that we felt there are our life experience through. But also just, yeah, I like reading and learning, exercising.

I mean, I like like to think i'm not a very wooden person, but at the same time, I mean, I didn't see the bar by movie. Disrespect to barby know I go to movies, I do that kind of thing. I don't know what what else is there to do at some point.

You know what else is there to do anyway? I mean, i'd delight in certain things as that you know know far too much about, but fun is a relative term. I was a hard question.

no. Thank you. Thanks for the past. thanks. Do you believe time changes due to daylight savings time is worth the potential loss of productivity? Look, daylight saving time at anti health.

Okay, this is where I i'll get like it's just, just dumb. It's just dumb. It's just so dumb. It's IT makes no sense.

I mean, the director of the chronobiology unit at the national institutes of mental health, my good friend, longtime friend and brilliant scientist, sammer haiti, will tell you it's a stupid idea. It's anti biology and IT, increase car crashes, increase heart attacks, increased depression. It's just it's like kids don't like to wake up early anyway.

Parents don't like to wake up early, especially with kids that don't like wake to up early IT makes no sense. And then there's all these arguments about, you know is that really about trying to trunk the late, you know, you want more light IT in the evening, so there's a less crime like this, so the unsubstantial completely unsubstantial. So the daylight saving thing is just stupid, basically trying get as as much light in your eyes, ideally from sunlight, sunlight early in the day.

And by the way, if you're worried about car act, that's a serious concern. After all, I have an appointment of theology. You karate macular gy generation.

We guess what? The chair of automotive, gy IT from stanford, when I came on the podcast, verify this when the sun is low in the sky, you're not really at risk of that. So when the scum is over heading like you're in beaming your eyes like trying yeah, it's a problem.

But we're going about viewing low solar angle sunlight in the morning and in the evening. And if those clouds do IT anyway, in fact, do IT longer. And if you can do that, look at some artificial light inside daylight.

Savings is is just open. Now, you know, what happens here is, as the night goes on, the amount of gabon, my brain starts to diminishing. And then I just kind of go to short form.

We've thought about podcasting in the middle. That's why when I won on lexis podcast recently, the more recent one, he did IT at eight clock at night, and he cry. He made me cry.

He didn't cry. He made me cry, I was so tired and then I can't think. And I asked me on my dog and the time of the dog.

So, you know, his goal was to get me to cry. We have this friendship now. He, he's delightful.

What should I, as one thousand nine year old college student, be doing to maximized the years of neuroplasticity? I have left. I get this question. I'm like omy and such a great question.

Sk, I don't i'm assuming yeah I don't know who you are reached what you're doing, but you're nineteen so the whole thing is your brain hyper plastic life as a psychiatric experience without psychiatrically gosh people also and say, like if you could go back to your nineteen year old itself, what would you do and and that's a tRicky one. They're movies about that, right? You know, I would definitely worry less.

Yeah, I would worry less. I would have more fun. I, I would certainly was. I started latching on to practices.

And the understanding of science as a way for me was going like, my world felt very unstable. And for me, that brought stability. But you want to avoid rigidity.

So do you want to be the one nineteen year old who was like, I got to get to sleep, you know, got to go back to bed at eight, thirty and nine? I enjoy life. But I would say when you're one thousand, learn how you learn, learn how to focus, learn how to rest.

Basically, you can stress and focus as much as you want, as long as you can still fall asleep at night and sleep well and fall back to sleep if you wake up. Now we hear stress as bad dresses good, dressed as bad. Dresses good, dresses bad, unless you're getting enough sleep, in which case stress is called learning in life.

Now, obviously don't doing the dangerous avoided psychological and physical danger. But I think as a nineteen year old, I mean, my direct advice would have some cardio accused activity you like, have some resistance training activity you like, developed some sort of self awareness practice like journal could be meditation, surround yourself with people that you like, avoided people you don't like. I mean, that sounds so straight forward, but then we can all look into our personal history and like what I spent all this time trying to resolve this thing that like you that you didn't like them, it's simple you didn't like him.

They weren't into cuttle fish or fair. Its you didn't like him was your kind of person, right? And that's not a box you can check on the dating apps.

They tell me, right. The favorite thing, I think be very, very small subset of people, I think you know that know itself thing is huge. Learn, learn to tap into that early feeling of like this feels right.

This doesn't feel right. Learn to be a bit of a of a rudder for yourself. And in journal, I saw a stacks of things that I wrote across the years.

Most of IT is terrible, but you will find if you go back, that you kind of knew Better all along, even if you didn't do Better along that voice in your head. Don't do that. Do that.

This person's, like everyone else, is crazy about this person, but not me. But this is like, you know, like, I don't want to sound sentimental, but you have to have to, you have to find your heart right or at least not lose IT. You have to make sure that you're in touch with that piece of yourself that wasn't judging and just felt good.

And as long is not something itself destructive, I think that's the most important thing. And then yeah have tools and practices in place because they work. And when you're nineteen and your neural neuropathy through the roof, you can do a lot less and get a lot more. But don't worry about hating twenty five and IT all being over.

Certainly that's not the case, but you can cramb in a lot early on, is you I still regretted not learning an instrument, the date on people that learn an instrument even later in life, but certainly at nineteen, is that IT greatly increases your ability to learn all sorts of things. So, learning instrument, how can we transform the american education system to be more effective? Oh, so in ten seconds.

So when i'm in charge and I just get there a little while back, I did an interview with with a major media outlet and they were very gracious and then they said, like, what's next and was like, i'm onna run for was like, you know, I was sort of, look, it's not out of the question, but but Frankly, I think that i'm so poorly suit for that. It's obvious I was so poorly suit for that. So IT wasn't a joke.

But I was, you know, I think as I spent some time afterwards like us, that should really go talk to people who do that for a living. And and but I am very interested in potentially informing policy. If I would ever be asked, I certainly respond.

And and my stance on this is you know much in the same vain as the podcast because keep in mind the podcast, yes, like suggested I start one. But IT was really during the the those days of the the deep twenty, twenty, twenty twenty one pandemic where by the way, I wasn't allowed to talk about vaccines. So I didn't and also I don't have any expertise in IT.

So I was not well suit to do IT, but I also decided it's a topic that enough people are talking about. So my response in life and in general, when people say what about something is I like what I go out of opinions about that. But this isn't the venue OK.

But during the pandemic, I realized there was a lot of circadian disruption, anxiety, stress, bunch of things happening with visual systems and biological systems that I felt there were tools that that people could perhaps benefit from. So I just started putting that information into the world, and I was really surprised, really surprised that people that I knew from the news science community, for instance, at N I M H, or know in government positions, weren't talking about this stuff. So I just keep doing IT. And I think that IT made clear to me that the education system is not one thing. It's it's tough, especially when talking about kids like what to do is a tRicky thing.

But that the education system, in my mind, should at least involve some sort of discussion early on about this thing called the brain, this thing called the body, how they work, how you can do certain things to moderate your stress level, you're sleep, the importance of not just the importance of sleep in nutrition and avoiding social isolation, and you all these important things, but giving people some levers and knobs to to manuvre within themselves and know zero cost tools as a way to do that, that trans and social economic boundaries, ideally a trans and language as well, because you not just trying at the united states. And of course, within the united states, there are many different culture, speaking different languages. But and maybe A, I will soon allow us to put out the podcast into a bunch of different languages.

I think I will. So I think that the education system should start, in my opinion, with IT, with teaching kids how to understand themselves, what to do in difficult scenarios that's really anchored in in the real pillars of biology and and psychology and trying to take some of the mystery out of trying to navigate the the tough business of growing up. I mean, if you think it's tough being an adult, which IT can be, certainly it's really tough growing up, as we all know.

And I think that more tools, more tools, more protocols, more tools, more tools, more protocols to but that's obviously a bias, a bias opinion. And no one's ever asked me like, hey, what should we be teaching kids but if they ask, you can tell I am not going to shut up. So I think that was our last question.

Thank you all for coming tonight. I want to forgive me for going long. I do want to say um thank you since here.

Thank you for make your way out here, especially on a weekday night. Thanks for your hospitality, my incredible team. I want to thank them and certainly last but not least, thank you for your interest in science. 再见 much。