AMA #4: Maintain Motivation, Improve REM Sleep, Set Goals, Manage Anxiety & More

00:00:00.000 | [upbeat music]

00:00:00.840 | Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast,

00:00:02.280 | where we discuss science and science-based tools

00:00:04.880 | for everyday life.

00:00:05.900 | I'm Andrew Huberman,

00:00:10.040 | and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology

00:00:12.840 | at Stanford School of Medicine.

00:00:14.600 | Today is an Ask Me Anything or AMA episode,

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00:01:16.780 | Without further ado, let's get to answering your questions.

00:01:19.760 | And as always, I will strive to be as accurate as possible,

00:01:22.720 | as thorough as possible, and yet as concise as possible.

00:01:27.080 | Our first question is about motivation, in particular,

00:01:30.040 | how to maintain motivation over long periods of time.

00:01:33.700 | This was a question asked by Martin Zokov.

00:01:36.440 | He wrote, "I alternate between periods

00:01:39.040 | "of two different states that vary from a few weeks

00:01:41.820 | "to a couple of months.

00:01:43.360 | "I have extremely high motivation in one state

00:01:46.340 | "where I can do multiple things, side projects,

00:01:48.680 | "making music, as well as my main things,

00:01:51.040 | "or really low motivational states

00:01:53.800 | "where I can barely do anything,

00:01:55.140 | "and I only look for short-term entertainment."

00:01:57.280 | I'm guessing short-term entertainment comes in the form

00:01:59.880 | of video games, social media,

00:02:01.920 | and just kind of doing generally unproductive things,

00:02:05.160 | as we all do from time to time.

00:02:07.040 | He goes on to write, "What would be the best set

00:02:09.100 | "of protocols to normalize those extremes

00:02:11.340 | "into a more stable and consistent state?"

00:02:14.160 | Well, first off, this is an excellent question.

00:02:16.500 | I say that because it's a question that I hear a lot,

00:02:19.320 | and I think that many people are interested in knowing

00:02:22.840 | how motivated they ought to feel,

00:02:25.080 | and I think a lot of people also feel

00:02:26.880 | a lot less motivated than they would like.

00:02:29.140 | Now, here, the question was specifically

00:02:30.720 | about how to not go from these extremes

00:02:32.800 | of days or weeks of high motivation

00:02:34.880 | to days or weeks of low motivation,

00:02:37.160 | but before we do that, we need to take a step back

00:02:39.080 | and acknowledge that just as with anxiety

00:02:42.080 | or happiness or sadness,

00:02:44.820 | we as human beings don't have an objective window

00:02:48.040 | into how other people experience motivation.

00:02:50.680 | In fact, most of the time,

00:02:51.520 | we don't even realize how we experience motivation.

00:02:54.300 | We just know whether or not we feel a high barrier

00:02:57.440 | or a low barrier to leaning into work

00:03:00.220 | and getting things done.

00:03:01.080 | In fact, I have a good friend who did many years

00:03:03.600 | in the special operations community

00:03:05.080 | and then went on to the finance community

00:03:06.960 | and then now works in health and wellness community.

00:03:09.360 | He has a great kind of mental image for all of us to adopt.

00:03:13.200 | It's certainly one that I've adopted,

00:03:14.460 | which is for anything in our life,

00:03:17.520 | we can either be back on our heels,

00:03:19.200 | flat-footed or forward center of mass.

00:03:21.160 | Back on our heels, meaning really struggling,

00:03:22.920 | flat-footed meaning that we're doing okay

00:03:24.880 | or forward center of mass,

00:03:26.040 | meaning that we feel as if we're really tackling things

00:03:29.560 | and that we are in control of our environment

00:03:32.140 | or at least to some degree.

00:03:33.880 | So I place that imagery in your mind

00:03:35.440 | because I'll return to it a little bit later in the question

00:03:37.480 | when we get into some of the underlying circuitry and tools.

00:03:39.920 | In the meantime, I want to remind everybody

00:03:42.340 | what the basis of motivation is.

00:03:44.840 | Now, there are many neurochemicals and neural circuits

00:03:47.520 | involved in what we call motivation,

00:03:49.880 | but a central theme of the neuroscience of motivation

00:03:54.300 | is that the neuromodulator dopamine is involved.

00:03:57.580 | Now, dopamine does other things besides control motivation.

00:04:00.760 | In fact, it controls light adaptation in the retina.

00:04:03.840 | That is your eye.

00:04:04.840 | It controls a number of different things

00:04:06.520 | in terms of movement.

00:04:08.480 | It controls all sorts of things,

00:04:10.200 | but it is strongly related to the motivation pathways.

00:04:14.020 | How do we know that?

00:04:14.880 | Well, there are experiments on animals and humans

00:04:16.840 | which show that even in the absence of dopamine

00:04:20.620 | or in the presence of very low dopamine, I should say,

00:04:23.800 | people and animals can still experience pleasure.

00:04:27.040 | However, when dopamine levels are too low,

00:04:30.200 | people's ability to pursue pleasure

00:04:33.480 | or their willingness to pursue pleasure,

00:04:35.640 | in particular, their willingness to undergo effort

00:04:38.680 | to pursue pleasure or any goal of any kind,

00:04:41.880 | not just pleasure, any goal of any kind,

00:04:44.440 | is strongly regulated by the levels of dopamine.

00:04:47.040 | So if dopamine levels are too low,

00:04:49.060 | people simply will not put in the effort

00:04:51.340 | to obtain or reach a goal.

00:04:54.560 | If dopamine levels are adequately high,

00:04:56.840 | they will put in that effort.

00:04:58.220 | And if dopamine levels go too high,

00:05:00.000 | you actually see something that is pathologic,

00:05:02.240 | which is that people consider every goal a reasonable goal.

00:05:06.680 | This is often seen in the manic phase

00:05:08.360 | of a manic bipolar person.

00:05:10.080 | So for instance, somebody with manic bipolar

00:05:12.760 | who's in the manic episode,

00:05:14.280 | dopamine levels are very, very high,

00:05:15.880 | and they will think every idea is a great idea,

00:05:17.700 | and they will have tons of energy to do that,

00:05:19.440 | so much so that they're not sleeping.

00:05:21.000 | So obviously that's not what we want.

00:05:22.840 | What we want and what the question asker, Martin,

00:05:25.720 | is asking about is how to keep dopamine levels

00:05:29.440 | in a range that allow us to lean into effort,

00:05:32.960 | but that we don't expend our ability to stay motivated.

00:05:37.200 | And we can really trace that back to a biochemical/neural

00:05:41.120 | circuit statement,

00:05:42.000 | which is we really want to control our output of dopamine

00:05:46.920 | and the baseline levels of dopamine

00:05:49.080 | from which that output is taken.

00:05:51.400 | In other words, we want to think about dopamine

00:05:53.400 | as a reservoir or residing in a reservoir.

00:05:56.840 | That reservoir can be depleted, so it's exhaustible,

00:06:00.280 | it's depletable, but it's renewable as well.

00:06:04.120 | And one of the best analogies that I've ever heard

00:06:07.760 | was by a previous guest on the Huberman Lab podcast,

00:06:10.320 | Dr. Kyle Gillette, who's a medical doctor,

00:06:12.620 | obesity specialist, expert in hormones.

00:06:14.640 | We did a episode on optimizing hormones in males

00:06:18.340 | with Dr. Kyle Gillette.

00:06:19.240 | You can find that at HubermanLab.com

00:06:21.400 | or anywhere you can find podcasts.

00:06:23.740 | Dr. Gillette offered an analogy

00:06:25.640 | of the baseline levels of dopamine as a wave pool.

00:06:29.760 | And I really like this.

00:06:30.840 | So if you think about this pool full of dopamine,

00:06:33.320 | and here we're just talking about the dopamine

00:06:35.100 | that resides in the circuits of the brain

00:06:36.640 | that control motivation,

00:06:38.020 | but that pool of dopamine you can imagine

00:06:40.320 | is just sitting there not doing much of anything

00:06:42.480 | while you're asleep.

00:06:43.680 | In fact, while you're sleeping,

00:06:44.820 | you're replenishing those dopamine levels.

00:06:46.640 | I'll tell you another tool in a moment

00:06:47.940 | to replenish those dopamine levels.

00:06:49.800 | But if you were to pursue a goal,

00:06:52.040 | really, really go forward center of mass

00:06:54.680 | for many, many hours or many, many days in some cases

00:06:57.640 | and pursue a goal or multiple goals,

00:06:59.700 | and you're really driven to do a ton,

00:07:01.480 | what you're effectively doing is generating waves

00:07:03.740 | in that wave pool.

00:07:05.240 | And if those waves are too big,

00:07:07.880 | well, then the waves can't keep repeating themselves.

00:07:11.080 | So think about the wave as the motivation

00:07:13.400 | and the depth of the pool as the reservoir of dopamine.

00:07:16.480 | And if those waves are too big,

00:07:18.560 | too much excitement, too much motivation,

00:07:20.300 | too much center of mass for a given period of time,

00:07:23.160 | then the water in this wave pool sloshes out

00:07:26.120 | of the wave pool, lowering the reservoir.

00:07:28.320 | And then there are really three ways

00:07:29.800 | that you can replenish that reservoir.

00:07:31.520 | And you want to maintain or replenish that reservoir

00:07:35.360 | if it's been depleted.

00:07:36.760 | How do you do that?

00:07:37.660 | Well, first of all, quality sleep.

00:07:40.160 | So when I say quality,

00:07:41.120 | I mean where you're getting enough slow wave sleep

00:07:42.660 | and rapid eye movement sleep.

00:07:43.800 | So for some people, six hours,

00:07:45.080 | for some people, eight hours.

00:07:47.040 | Some people might even need a little bit more

00:07:48.520 | or a little bit less.

00:07:49.840 | We have episodes, the perfect your sleep episode,

00:07:52.080 | the master your sleep episode.

00:07:53.280 | We have a toolkit for sleep,

00:07:54.320 | all available at zero cost at Hubermanlab.com, links, et cetera.

00:07:57.360 | So check those out for getting your sleep right.

00:07:59.320 | But sleep is really when you replenish

00:08:01.860 | that reservoir of dopamine.

00:08:03.400 | So you cannot ignore sleep.

00:08:05.440 | I'll come back to this in a moment.

00:08:06.940 | The second science supported tool

00:08:09.460 | that's really been shown to replenish dopamine,

00:08:11.480 | in particular dopamine within the pathways

00:08:13.900 | that regulate motivation,

00:08:15.760 | is a practice I've talked about before on the podcast

00:08:17.900 | called non-sleep deep breaths,

00:08:19.200 | sometimes called yoga nidra,

00:08:20.680 | although yoga nidra is a little bit different.

00:08:22.440 | There are two studies out of Denmark

00:08:24.960 | that have explored yoga nidra in the context of dopamine.

00:08:28.680 | The first one simply involved

00:08:30.320 | having people do a yoga nidra practice.

00:08:32.220 | Again, this doesn't involve any movement,

00:08:34.060 | but it involves people, potentially you,

00:08:36.560 | doing anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes,

00:08:39.220 | although there are now data showing

00:08:40.440 | that as short as 10 minutes of a non-sleep deep rest,

00:08:43.520 | AKA yoga nidra protocol,

00:08:45.760 | leads to dramatic, really dramatic increases

00:08:49.000 | in striatal dopamine reserves.

00:08:50.840 | So it essentially is replenishing the dopamine reserve pool.

00:08:54.480 | This is why I'm such a fan of using NSDR, AKA yoga nidra,

00:08:58.480 | at least once a day,

00:08:59.660 | and especially under times when you're engaging

00:09:01.520 | in a lot of high output.

00:09:02.960 | And when I think, especially at times

00:09:05.160 | when you're engaging in a lot of high output,

00:09:07.020 | this is a mistake many people make.

00:09:09.800 | They push, push, push, push, push.

00:09:11.640 | They're in pursuit of a goal.

00:09:12.680 | Then they hit that point where they're exhausted.

00:09:15.040 | Then they start doing all the dopamine reserve pool

00:09:18.880 | replenishing tools, such as yoga nidra or NSDR.

00:09:22.360 | The real key is to always tap off that

00:09:26.240 | or refill that reservoir once a day

00:09:29.600 | before it's completely depleted.

00:09:31.880 | Now, this gets into some of the biochemistry of dopamine

00:09:34.040 | and the relevant circuits,

00:09:35.660 | but it takes a lot longer to restore the dopamine reservoir,

00:09:40.660 | think of it still as a wave pool,

00:09:43.040 | but that reservoir from a place of complete depletion

00:09:46.300 | than it does of partial depletion.

00:09:47.940 | So there's an asymmetry in the way this is done.

00:09:50.040 | So it's not as if you drink a glass of water,

00:09:52.480 | you fill the glass of water at a certain rate

00:09:54.120 | and it fills up to a certain level

00:09:55.800 | and the rate is constant.

00:09:56.820 | Think about it as once the level of dopamine in your reserve

00:10:01.240 | is depleted past a certain point,

00:10:03.400 | it takes a lot more effort, much more sleep,

00:10:06.340 | much more NSDR, things of that sort

00:10:08.800 | to replenish that reservoir.

00:10:10.960 | Now, oftentimes what people will do

00:10:12.640 | when they start feeling less motivation

00:10:14.780 | is they will start relying on things like Adderall,

00:10:17.800 | Ritalin, in some cases, illegal substances

00:10:20.700 | that can increase dopamine.

00:10:22.920 | You know what those are.

00:10:23.760 | Please don't ever lean to those.

00:10:25.740 | They are extremely dangerous.

00:10:28.380 | They really are because of their ability

00:10:30.420 | to potently release dopamine.

00:10:32.120 | And guess what?

00:10:33.280 | Deplete that reservoir even further.

00:10:35.720 | We've talked about some supplements on the podcast

00:10:37.560 | that can replenish dopamine, L-tyrosine in particular.

00:10:41.120 | Macuna purines is actually 99% L-DOPA,

00:10:43.720 | the precursor to dopamine.

00:10:45.400 | I don't necessarily recommend Macuna purines.

00:10:48.480 | It tends to make people very dopaminergic,

00:10:51.280 | drive, drive, drive, drive, drive, motivate it

00:10:52.440 | and then crash, again, depleting that pool.

00:10:54.880 | L-tyrosine is a little bit milder,

00:10:56.680 | but I really encourage people to lean first

00:10:59.220 | on the behavioral tools such as NSDR.

00:11:01.500 | And by the way, there's a NSDR script,

00:11:03.980 | totally zero cost that you can find

00:11:05.600 | by putting my name and NSDR into YouTube.

00:11:08.840 | That one works quite well

00:11:10.400 | if you're looking for a short NSDR.

00:11:12.680 | There's some other NSDRs.

00:11:14.060 | You can simply look on the internet or YouTube

00:11:16.400 | and just put NSDR and you'll find NSDR.

00:11:18.720 | Or if you prefer to do

00:11:20.080 | the more classic yoga nidra type approach,

00:11:22.380 | there are a lot of different yoga nidra options

00:11:24.120 | to choose from on YouTube.

00:11:25.920 | Many people think NSDR or yoga nidra

00:11:28.280 | are simply meditation with a body scan.

00:11:31.320 | That's not true.

00:11:32.880 | Meditation is a focus exercise, okay?

00:11:35.920 | Most meditations are focus exercise.

00:11:37.840 | NSDR restores energy through the dopamine system

00:11:42.800 | and newer data are starting to show

00:11:44.540 | that it can actually recover lost sleep,

00:11:46.720 | so if you're not sleeping enough.

00:11:48.360 | But to return to NSDR, aka yoga nidra, as a practice,

00:11:52.580 | yes, it's been shown in laboratory studies in humans,

00:11:55.360 | by the way, to restore dopamine levels.

00:11:57.680 | There's another study, lesser known,

00:11:59.720 | from that same group that was published in 2011,

00:12:03.060 | which is entitled, "Dopaminergic stimulation

00:12:05.560 | "enhances confidence and accuracy

00:12:07.840 | "in seeing rapidly presented words."

00:12:09.480 | This was a cognitive task.

00:12:11.380 | They explored yoga nidra, aka NSDR,

00:12:16.240 | in the context of increasing striatal dopamine.

00:12:18.360 | They already knew that it did that, so that's great.

00:12:20.560 | They confirmed that result.

00:12:22.020 | But what they also found is that doing NSDR

00:12:25.000 | could restore confidence in cognitive ability

00:12:28.200 | and performance in these cognitive tasks, okay?

00:12:30.440 | So this is a really powerful, zero-cost tool

00:12:33.000 | for re-upping or replenishing that dopamine reserve, okay?

00:12:36.680 | So this is something to do every day,

00:12:39.220 | especially when you're not feeling depleted.

00:12:41.720 | So the question, again, was about how to make sure

00:12:44.360 | that you don't go through these cycles of extreme motivation

00:12:46.820 | and then lesser motivation.

00:12:48.160 | Well, get your sleep right.

00:12:49.400 | I would say 80% or more of the nights of your life.

00:12:51.400 | Hopefully the nights that it's not good

00:12:53.160 | are for good reasons that you're enjoying yourself,

00:12:54.900 | but hey, life happens.

00:12:56.480 | So 100% of the time,

00:12:57.960 | it's just not reasonable to expect of yourself.

00:13:00.260 | Do NSDR once a day for either 10 minutes.

00:13:04.320 | If you have the time to do 20, 30 minutes or an hour,

00:13:06.580 | you will see even more positive effects.

00:13:09.380 | It has been shown in these research studies

00:13:11.020 | to replenish dopamine, levels of confidence,

00:13:12.840 | cognitive ability, et cetera, and sense of motivation.

00:13:16.000 | And I said there were three tools.

00:13:17.280 | And the third tool that really can allow you

00:13:20.460 | to keep the dopamine AK motivation circuitry

00:13:24.760 | tuned up properly is to really start paying attention

00:13:28.520 | to peaks in dopamine and be very careful

00:13:32.380 | about layering in too many things

00:13:35.160 | that can stimulate the dopamine system.

00:13:36.800 | I talked about this quite a bit

00:13:38.000 | in the episode that we did on ADHD

00:13:40.920 | and building and maintaining focus.

00:13:43.460 | There are many things out there nowadays

00:13:46.600 | that will deplete the dopamine system.

00:13:48.880 | For instance, and by the way,

00:13:50.720 | none of what I'm about to list is necessarily bad.

00:13:52.880 | I actually use some of these things.

00:13:55.060 | For instance, caffeine will increase dopamine receptors

00:13:58.580 | that will allow whatever dopamine is available

00:14:00.560 | to be more potent.

00:14:01.700 | Okay, so caffeine is great for some people,

00:14:03.620 | less good for people with anxiety.

00:14:04.940 | Don't drink it too late in the day

00:14:05.920 | 'cause it'll interfere with your sleep

00:14:07.640 | and so on and so forth.

00:14:09.200 | But many people will combine caffeine

00:14:12.400 | with music that they particularly like.

00:14:15.120 | Music's great.

00:14:15.960 | Music can stimulate dopamine release.

00:14:17.500 | We know this, it can enhance motivation,

00:14:19.180 | especially if it's the kind of music

00:14:20.240 | that really puts you in the groove

00:14:21.280 | for the particular type of work you're going to do.

00:14:23.100 | For me, I like to listen to either loud, fast music

00:14:26.060 | or Glenn Gould classical piano, so one or the other.

00:14:29.040 | I know what's right for me for a given time.

00:14:30.860 | You'll know what's right for you

00:14:31.880 | for a given time in your preferences.

00:14:33.640 | But what will happen is people will start consuming caffeine

00:14:36.040 | at higher and higher levels.

00:14:37.760 | Again, caffeine isn't necessarily bad,

00:14:39.280 | but they'll start doing that

00:14:40.120 | and they'll start layering it in

00:14:41.180 | or stacking very potent music, potent for them,

00:14:45.520 | plus things like L-tyrosine.

00:14:47.500 | Again, none of these things are terrible on their own.

00:14:50.040 | In fact, they can be very beneficial.

00:14:51.580 | Sometimes they'll start taking mucuna purine.

00:14:53.480 | Sometimes they'll start relying on things like Adderall,

00:14:55.580 | Ritalin, and pretty soon what's happening

00:14:57.440 | is they're getting these big waves

00:14:58.820 | in that dopamine wave pool, big peaks.

00:15:01.160 | And within a few days, or maybe even within a few hours,

00:15:03.760 | they're depleted and they're at that low.

00:15:05.660 | And then as Dr. Anna Lemke, who was a guest on the podcast,

00:15:09.020 | talked about in terms of addiction,

00:15:10.420 | but also in her wonderful book, "Dopamine Nation,"

00:15:14.200 | what happens is after those big peaks in dopamine,

00:15:17.440 | the reservoir, the baseline in dopamine,

00:15:19.560 | drops below its initial level.

00:15:22.120 | So it's as if the reservoir got deeper and it's emptier

00:15:24.660 | and it takes much, much longer to fill.

00:15:27.160 | Okay, so to be quite specific,

00:15:29.720 | what I'm recommending is get your sleep right,

00:15:32.880 | ideally every night of your life,

00:15:34.140 | but for as many nights of your life as possible.

00:15:36.560 | That's clearly replenishing dopamine and sense of motivation.

00:15:39.740 | Do all the things associated with that.

00:15:41.220 | Morning sunlight, lack of artificial light

00:15:43.680 | at certain hours of the night, et cetera.

00:15:45.280 | All of that's in the toolkit for sleep

00:15:46.620 | and other episodes I mentioned before.

00:15:48.780 | Have a practice that is research-supported

00:15:52.480 | to replenish dopamine and incorporate that practice

00:15:55.040 | any time of day.

00:15:55.880 | Again, NSDR can be done morning, afternoon, or evening,

00:15:59.480 | or middle of the night if you wake up

00:16:00.680 | and you need to get back to sleep.

00:16:01.760 | It can be very beneficial for that,

00:16:03.440 | but do it as a consistent practice

00:16:05.920 | so that dopamine reservoir remains tapped off.

00:16:10.040 | And as a third point, please be wary of,

00:16:13.940 | or at least aware of these peaks in dopamine

00:16:17.000 | and the fact that layering in a lot of things

00:16:19.000 | that stimulate dopamine,

00:16:20.080 | well, that can be wonderful for your wedding,

00:16:22.120 | a birth of a new child,

00:16:23.320 | going to a sports event with a bunch of friends,

00:16:24.920 | celebrating a big anniversary.

00:16:26.120 | Yes, please do celebrate

00:16:28.400 | and enjoy the wonderful events of life.

00:16:30.840 | But please also understand and expect there will be a lull,

00:16:33.960 | a sort of postpartum low,

00:16:35.760 | maybe not full-blown depression, that follows that

00:16:38.600 | unless you incorporate some tools and practices

00:16:41.020 | to replenish that dopamine.

00:16:42.600 | Does that mean you should never combine caffeine,

00:16:44.440 | L-tyrosine, music, and a workout in time with friends?

00:16:47.280 | No, absolutely not.

00:16:49.040 | But don't expect to do that

00:16:50.680 | and then go do an intense bout of work

00:16:52.640 | and then get up the next morning and do it all over again

00:16:55.200 | for more than a few days

00:16:56.480 | before you find yourself pretty depleted, okay?

00:16:58.560 | So rather than give you a specific schedule

00:17:00.360 | of do seven days of this and four days of this,

00:17:02.560 | what I encourage you to do

00:17:04.160 | is for at least five days a week,

00:17:05.840 | maybe give yourself some time off on the weekends,

00:17:07.600 | maybe not.

00:17:08.420 | But for at least five days a week,

00:17:10.480 | get into a consistent routine

00:17:12.420 | that is, I should say, neurobiologically consistent as well

00:17:16.600 | with how the dopamine,

00:17:17.920 | AKA circuits that control motivation work.

00:17:20.440 | And I assure you that you will find yourself

00:17:22.960 | in a more regular groove of focus and attention

00:17:25.740 | and alertness and motivation when you need to.

00:17:27.960 | And provided you're doing all the things I described

00:17:31.160 | and hopefully paying attention to other things

00:17:32.680 | like nutrition and social connection too, of course,

00:17:35.640 | you'll find a much more even pattern of motivation over time.

00:17:40.220 | One last thing before I conclude the answer to this question.

00:17:43.600 | When I was in graduate school,

00:17:45.640 | I got some wonderful advice from an excellent neurologist.

00:17:49.540 | His name is Robert Knight.

00:17:50.460 | He used to be at University of California, Berkeley.

00:17:52.040 | I think he's retired now,

00:17:53.100 | but is still active in the scientific community.

00:17:56.160 | And I asked him what he was doing that weekend.

00:17:58.820 | I don't know why this came up.

00:17:59.780 | And he said, "Oh, I'm going fishing.

00:18:00.900 | I like kind of mindless recreation."

00:18:02.860 | I said, "Well, that's great.

00:18:03.700 | Fishing's fun, I'm not particularly into fishing myself,

00:18:06.840 | but I've done a few times and I enjoy it."

00:18:08.740 | And he said, "You know the most important thing

00:18:10.600 | for a science or medicine career or any demanding career?"

00:18:14.120 | I said, "What?"

00:18:14.960 | I was all ears, I was super hungry to get in the mix

00:18:18.060 | and do research and publish papers.

00:18:19.700 | And he said, "Figure out how many hours a day

00:18:22.620 | you can do real work consistently."

00:18:26.320 | That means five days a week.

00:18:28.420 | For some people, six or seven.

00:18:29.860 | But five days a week, I think for most people,

00:18:31.940 | it was going to be a bit healthier overall

00:18:34.180 | for your social life and family, et cetera.

00:18:35.940 | And he said, "Figure that out and know that that number

00:18:39.820 | is what you should apply over and over and over again,

00:18:43.180 | but update that number about every four or five years."

00:18:46.900 | And I said, "Okay, so does that mean that over time

00:18:49.100 | I'm working more and more or less and less?"

00:18:50.660 | And he said, "Ah, here's the deal.

00:18:52.480 | As you get better at your profession,

00:18:54.920 | you will find that you can do more potent work,

00:18:58.320 | more directed work in a shorter amount of time,

00:19:01.600 | but that does not mean that you can continue to expand

00:19:05.020 | the amount of time that you're doing focused work.

00:19:06.580 | In fact, the opposite."

00:19:07.840 | So this follows a sort of general principle

00:19:09.760 | that's also present in resistance training,

00:19:12.420 | weightlifting, right?

00:19:14.380 | The analogy there is that people always imagine

00:19:17.260 | that as you get better and better at resistance training,

00:19:19.700 | that you should do more and more volume,

00:19:21.120 | just keep adding volume.

00:19:22.120 | And there's some evidence to support that,

00:19:23.820 | more volume for hypertrophy as opposed to less, et cetera.

00:19:26.240 | We've done episodes on this.

00:19:27.280 | However, there's a different school of thought

00:19:29.500 | that works exceedingly well,

00:19:30.800 | and it runs in the exact opposite direction,

00:19:32.480 | which is as you get better

00:19:34.440 | at controlling muscular contractions,

00:19:36.800 | or let's say for in an endurance sport,

00:19:38.660 | as you get better at regulating your stride

00:19:41.760 | and breathing and all those things,

00:19:43.240 | you actually can do more, quote unquote,

00:19:46.480 | adaptation stimulating damage

00:19:49.340 | during a given training session.

00:19:50.800 | So you want to train less, not more over time,

00:19:53.560 | because beginners don't actually have the ability

00:19:55.680 | to get much done in a lot of time

00:19:57.660 | or a short period of time,

00:19:59.040 | whereas experts can come in there and really nail it.

00:20:02.240 | So I think that advice that Robert Knight was really key,

00:20:05.240 | and it's something that I've followed throughout my career.

00:20:06.920 | So at one period of my life,

00:20:08.360 | I won't mention the hours that I worked in graduate school,

00:20:10.160 | they were pretty insane, to be honest.

00:20:11.980 | I had family members get a little concerned,

00:20:13.380 | actually lived in the laboratory,

00:20:14.880 | even as a junior professor.

00:20:16.600 | I don't suggest people do that by the way,

00:20:18.700 | but I enjoyed it at the time.

00:20:20.340 | And the key thing is that you figure out

00:20:23.220 | what you can do consistently

00:20:24.840 | and still maintain mental health and physical health.

00:20:27.120 | That's key as well.

00:20:28.480 | And do that, and then every couple of years or so

00:20:31.240 | update that typically by reducing the total amount of time

00:20:35.000 | that you're doing that high potency work.

00:20:36.940 | I think that combined with the other tools

00:20:39.000 | that I described before for generating

00:20:40.760 | ongoing dopaminergic circuits,

00:20:42.340 | keeping that reservoir full,

00:20:44.440 | ought to give you consistent motivation.

00:20:46.280 | Again, it's an art and a practice and a science,

00:20:49.240 | so don't expect to get it perfect the first time around,

00:20:51.400 | but I wish you all luck,

00:20:52.360 | and I'm certain that these tools work.

00:20:54.520 | Thank you for joining for the beginning

00:20:56.120 | of this Ask Me Anything episode

00:20:58.040 | to hear the full episode and to hear future episodes

00:21:01.400 | of these Ask Me Anything sessions,

00:21:03.020 | plus to receive transcripts of them

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00:21:08.520 | and premium tools not released anywhere else,

00:21:11.520 | please go to hubermanlab.com/premium.

00:21:14.640 | Just to remind you why we launched

00:21:15.840 | the Huberman Lab Podcast Premium Channel,

00:21:18.080 | it's really twofold.

00:21:18.920 | First of all, it's to raise support

00:21:20.840 | for the standard Huberman Lab Podcast Channel,

00:21:23.320 | which of course will still be continued to be released

00:21:26.380 | every Monday in full length,

00:21:28.060 | we are not going to change the format

00:21:29.460 | or anything about the standard Huberman Lab Podcast,

00:21:33.040 | and to fund research,

00:21:34.480 | in particular research done on human beings,

00:21:36.520 | so not animal models, but on human beings,

00:21:38.580 | which I think we all agree is a species

00:21:40.380 | that we are most interested in,

00:21:42.580 | and we are going to specifically fund research

00:21:45.580 | that is aimed toward developing further protocols

00:21:48.200 | for mental health, physical health, and performance,

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00:21:54.560 | but through all channels, Huberman Lab Podcast

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00:22:00.160 | to your burning questions in depth,

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00:22:18.840 | So this is a terrific way

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00:23:03.040 | Again, that's HubermanLab.com/premium.

00:23:05.940 | And as always, thank you for your interest in science.

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AMA #4: Maintain Motivation, Improve REM Sleep, Set Goals, Manage Anxiety & More

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