How to Pay Attention & Learn Quickly

00:00:00.000 | [silence]

00:00:02.380 | When we pay careful attention,

00:00:04.220 | there are two neurochemicals,

00:00:05.980 | neuromodulators as they're called,

00:00:08.300 | that are released from multiple sites in our brain

00:00:11.580 | that highlight the neural circuits

00:00:14.860 | that stand a chance of changing.

00:00:18.020 | Now, it's not necessarily the case

00:00:20.260 | that they're going to change,

00:00:21.340 | but it's the first gate that has to open

00:00:23.400 | in order for change to occur.

00:00:24.980 | And the first neurochemical is epinephrine,

00:00:27.280 | also adrenaline.

00:00:29.180 | We call it adrenaline when it's released

00:00:30.820 | from the adrenal glands above our kidneys.

00:00:33.280 | That's in the body.

00:00:34.120 | We call it epinephrine in the brain,

00:00:35.580 | but they are chemically identical substances.

00:00:38.340 | Epinephrine is released from a region in the brainstem

00:00:42.660 | called locus coeruleus.

00:00:44.540 | Fancy name, you don't need to know it unless you want to.

00:00:48.060 | Locus coeruleus sends out these little wires we call axons

00:00:53.060 | such that it hoses the entire brain, essentially,

00:00:57.580 | in this neurochemical epinephrine.

00:00:59.940 | Now, it's not always hosing the brain with epinephrine.

00:01:02.300 | It's only when we are in high states of alertness

00:01:05.060 | that this epinephrine is released.

00:01:06.980 | But the way this circuit is designed,

00:01:08.560 | it's very nonspecific.

00:01:10.820 | It's essentially waking up the entire brain.

00:01:12.900 | And that's because the way that epinephrine works

00:01:14.980 | by binding particular receptors

00:01:16.580 | is to increase the likelihood that neurons will be active.

00:01:20.780 | So no alertness, no neuroplasticity.

00:01:24.740 | However, alertness alone is not sufficient.

00:01:28.160 | As we would say, it's necessary,

00:01:29.600 | but not sufficient for neuroplasticity.

00:01:32.060 | We know this is true also from the work of Hubel and Wiesel

00:01:35.780 | where they looked at brain plasticity

00:01:38.460 | in response to certain experiences

00:01:40.660 | in subjects that were either awake or asleep.

00:01:44.460 | And I hate to break it to you,

00:01:46.180 | but you cannot just simply listen to things in your sleep

00:01:49.500 | and learn those materials.

00:01:51.800 | Later, I'll talk about how you can do certain things

00:01:53.620 | in your sleep that you're unaware of

00:01:54.860 | that can enhance learning of things

00:01:56.580 | that you were aware of while you were awake.

00:01:59.380 | But that is not the same as just listening to some music

00:02:03.020 | or listening to a tape while you sleep

00:02:04.580 | and expecting it to sink in, so to speak.

00:02:08.140 | Epinephrine is released when we pay attention

00:02:11.740 | and when we are alert.

00:02:13.620 | But the most important thing for getting plasticity

00:02:16.120 | is that there'll be epinephrine,

00:02:17.500 | which equates to alertness,

00:02:19.500 | plus the release of this neuromodulator acetylcholine.

00:02:23.320 | Now, acetylcholine is released from two sites in the brain.

00:02:27.420 | One is also in the brainstem

00:02:29.900 | and it's named different things in different animals,

00:02:31.840 | but in humans, the most rich site of acetylcholine neurons

00:02:36.060 | or neurons that make acetylcholine

00:02:37.860 | is the parabigeminal nucleus or the parabrachial region.

00:02:42.860 | There are a number of different names

00:02:43.920 | of these aggregates of neurons.

00:02:45.260 | You don't need to know the names.

00:02:46.460 | All you need to know is that you have an area

00:02:47.740 | in your brainstem and that area sends wires,

00:02:51.660 | these axons up into the area of the brain

00:02:54.440 | that filters sensory input.

00:02:56.760 | So we have this area of the brain called the thalamus

00:02:58.820 | and it is getting bombarded

00:03:00.240 | with all sorts of sensory input all the time.

00:03:02.640 | Costello's snoring off to my right,

00:03:04.920 | the lights that are in the room,

00:03:07.040 | the presence of my computer to my left,

00:03:09.360 | all of that is coming in.

00:03:10.920 | But when I pay attention to something,

00:03:12.820 | like if I really hone in on Costello's snoring,

00:03:15.700 | I create a cone of attention

00:03:17.280 | and what that cone of attention reflects

00:03:20.220 | is that acetylcholine is now amplifying the signal

00:03:24.560 | of sounds that Costello is making with his snoring

00:03:29.160 | and essentially making that signal greater

00:03:31.700 | than all the signal around it.

00:03:33.200 | What we call signal to noise goes up.

00:03:35.400 | So those of you with an engineering background

00:03:37.040 | will be familiar with signal to noise.

00:03:38.640 | Those of you who do not have an engineering background,

00:03:40.360 | don't worry about it.

00:03:41.200 | All it means is that one particular shout

00:03:43.940 | in the crowd comes through,

00:03:45.480 | Costello's snoring becomes more salient,

00:03:47.680 | more apparent relative to everything else going on.

00:03:50.940 | Acetylcholine acts as a spotlight,

00:03:54.300 | but epinephrine for alertness,

00:03:56.540 | acetylcholine spotlighting these inputs.

00:03:58.980 | Those two things alone are not enough to get plasticity.

00:04:02.220 | There needs to be this third component.

00:04:03.820 | And the third component is acetylcholine released

00:04:06.300 | from an area of the forebrain called nucleus basalis.

00:04:09.740 | If you really want to get technical,

00:04:11.900 | it's called nucleus basalis of my nert.

00:04:14.820 | For any of you that are budding physicians

00:04:17.300 | or going to medical school, you should know that.

00:04:20.580 | If you have acetylcholine released from the brainstem,

00:04:23.560 | acetylcholine released from nucleus basalis and epinephrine,

00:04:27.880 | you can change your brain.

00:04:29.120 | And I can say that with confidence

00:04:31.120 | because Merzenich and Reckin's own,

00:04:33.320 | as well as other members of the Merzenich lab,

00:04:36.000 | Michael Kilgard and others,

00:04:37.500 | did these incredible experiments

00:04:39.820 | where they stimulated the release of acetylcholine

00:04:42.440 | from nucleus basalis, either with an electrode

00:04:45.200 | or with some other methods that we'll talk about.

00:04:47.600 | And what they found was,

00:04:49.160 | when you stimulate these three brain regions,

00:04:52.320 | locus coeruleus, the brainstem source of acetylcholine,

00:04:56.240 | and then the basal forebrain source of acetylcholine,

00:04:58.940 | when you have those three things,

00:05:00.820 | whatever you happen to be listening to,

00:05:04.540 | doing or paying attention to,

00:05:07.000 | immediately in one trial takes over the representation

00:05:11.780 | of a particular area of the brain.

00:05:13.640 | You essentially get rapid, massive learning in one shot.

00:05:17.740 | And this has been shown again and again and again

00:05:21.100 | in a variety of papers,

00:05:22.360 | also by a guy named Norm Weinberger from UC Irvine.

00:05:25.160 | And it is now considered a fundamental principle

00:05:28.080 | of how the nervous system works.

00:05:29.320 | So while Hubel and Wiesel talked about critical periods

00:05:31.600 | in developmental plasticity,

00:05:33.520 | it's very clear from the work of Merzenich

00:05:35.280 | and Weinberger and others,

00:05:36.560 | that if you get these three things,

00:05:38.840 | if you can access these three things of epinephrine,

00:05:42.120 | acetylcholine from these two sources,

00:05:44.620 | not only will the nervous system change, it has to change.

00:05:48.280 | It absolutely will change.

00:05:50.720 | And that is the most important thing

00:05:53.460 | for people to understand if they want to change their brain.

00:05:55.320 | You cannot just passively experience things.

00:05:58.120 | And repetition can be important,

00:06:01.000 | but the way to use repetition to change your brain

00:06:03.480 | is fundamentally different.

00:06:05.120 | So now let's talk about how we would translate

00:06:07.520 | all the scientific information and history

00:06:10.040 | into some protocols that you can actually apply,

00:06:12.440 | because I think that's what many of you are interested in,

00:06:14.280 | and I'm willing to bet that most of you

00:06:16.120 | are not interested in lowering electrodes

00:06:18.120 | into your nucleus basalis, and frankly, neither am I.

00:06:20.680 | So I'm not going to tell you what to do or what to take.

00:06:23.520 | I'm going to describe what the literature tells us

00:06:26.340 | and suggests about ways to access plasticity.

00:06:29.040 | We know we need epinephrine, that means alertness.

00:06:31.680 | Most people accomplish this through a cup of coffee

00:06:34.020 | and a good night's sleep.

00:06:35.160 | So I will say, you should master your sleep schedule,

00:06:38.880 | and you should figure out how much sleep you need

00:06:41.240 | in order to achieve alertness when you sit down to learn.

00:06:44.120 | All the tools and more science

00:06:47.200 | than probably you ever wanted to hear about sleep

00:06:49.560 | and how to get better at sleeping and timing your sleep,

00:06:51.800 | et cetera, and naps, and all of that

00:06:53.800 | is in episodes two, three, four, and five

00:06:55.840 | of the "Huberman Lab" podcast.

00:06:57.000 | So I encourage you to refer to those

00:06:58.740 | if your sleep is not where you would like it to be.

00:07:01.280 | Your ability to engage in deliberate focused alertness

00:07:05.480 | is in direct proportion to how well you are sleeping

00:07:08.280 | on a regular basis.

00:07:09.400 | I think that's kind of an obvious one.

00:07:11.280 | So get your sleep handled.

00:07:14.200 | But once that's in place, the question then is,

00:07:17.960 | how do I access this alertness?

00:07:20.000 | Well, there are a number of ways.

00:07:21.420 | Some people use some pretty elaborate

00:07:23.960 | psychological gymnastics.

00:07:25.480 | They will tell people that they're going to do something

00:07:28.440 | and create some accountability.

00:07:30.140 | That could be really good.

00:07:31.360 | Or they'll post a picture of themselves online

00:07:33.480 | and they'll commit to losing a certain amount of weight

00:07:37.120 | or something like this.

00:07:38.280 | So they can use either shame-based practices

00:07:42.760 | to potentially embarrass themselves

00:07:44.320 | if they don't follow through.

00:07:45.320 | They'll write checks to organizations that they hate

00:07:47.520 | and insist that they'll cash them

00:07:48.780 | if they don't actually follow through.

00:07:50.680 | Or they'll do it out of love.

00:07:53.320 | They'll decide that they're going to run a marathon

00:07:56.960 | or learn a language or something

00:07:59.120 | because of somebody they love

00:08:00.400 | or they want to devote it to somebody.

00:08:02.560 | The truth is that from the standpoint of epinephrine

00:08:06.080 | and getting alert and activated, it doesn't really matter.

00:08:08.880 | Epinephrine is a chemical

00:08:10.360 | and your brain does not distinguish

00:08:11.600 | between doing things out of love or hate, anger, or fear.

00:08:15.700 | It really doesn't.

00:08:16.540 | All of those promote autonomic arousal

00:08:19.520 | and the release of epinephrine.

00:08:20.760 | So I think for most people,

00:08:23.340 | if you're feeling not motivated to make these changes,

00:08:25.720 | the key thing is to identify not just one,

00:08:28.120 | but probably a kit of reasons,

00:08:30.220 | several reasons as to why you would want

00:08:32.120 | to make this particular change.

00:08:33.800 | And being drawn toward a particular goal

00:08:36.680 | that you're excited about can be one.

00:08:38.200 | Also being motivated to not be completely afraid,

00:08:42.680 | ashamed, or humiliated

00:08:43.720 | for not falling through on a goal is another.

00:08:45.840 | Just want to briefly mention one little aside there

00:08:47.960 | because I've got a friend who's a physician.

00:08:49.840 | He's a cardiologist who has a really interesting theory.

00:08:52.420 | This is just theory,

00:08:53.260 | but I think it will resonate with a lot of people,

00:08:55.320 | which is that you've all heard of this molecule dopamine

00:08:58.160 | that gives us this sense of reward

00:09:00.740 | when we accomplish something.

00:09:02.120 | Well, we also want to be able to access dopamine

00:09:04.840 | while we're working towards things.

00:09:06.040 | Enjoy the process, as they say,

00:09:07.760 | 'cause it has all sorts of positive effects.

00:09:09.800 | It gives us energy, et cetera.

00:09:11.320 | With my friend, what he says is,

00:09:13.400 | there's many, many instances where someone will come to him

00:09:16.740 | and say, "You know what?

00:09:17.580 | I'm going to write a book."

00:09:18.820 | And he says, "Oh, that's great.

00:09:20.360 | I'm sure the book's going to be terrific

00:09:21.600 | and you really should write a book."

00:09:22.920 | And then they never go do it.

00:09:23.920 | And his theory is if you get so much dopamine

00:09:26.200 | from the reward of people saying,

00:09:27.900 | "Oh yeah, you're absolutely going to be able to do that,"

00:09:29.920 | you might not actually go after the reward

00:09:32.420 | of the accomplishment itself.

00:09:34.040 | So beware these positive reinforcements also.

00:09:37.400 | So I suggest that everyone asks themselves,

00:09:40.440 | "What is it that I want to accomplish?

00:09:42.560 | And what is it that's driving me to accomplish this?"

00:09:45.680 | And come up with two or three things,

00:09:47.680 | fear-based perhaps, love-based perhaps,

00:09:50.460 | or perhaps several of those,

00:09:52.280 | in order to ensure alertness, energy,

00:09:56.280 | and attention for the task.

00:09:58.320 | (upbeat music)

00:10:00.900 | (rock music)

00:10:03.320 | (upbeat music)

How to Pay Attention & Learn Quickly | Dr. Andrew Huberman

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