AMA #5: Intrusive Thoughts, CGMs, Behavioral Change, Naps & NSDR

00:00:00.000 | - Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast,

00:00:02.260 | where we discuss science and science-based tools

00:00:04.900 | for everyday life.

00:00:05.900 | I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology

00:00:12.260 | and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine.

00:00:15.340 | Today is an Ask Me Anything episode or AMA.

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00:01:42.500 | And now without further ado, I will answer your questions.

00:01:45.620 | And as always, I will strive to be as thorough as possible,

00:01:49.420 | as clear as possible, and as concise as possible.

00:01:53.340 | Our first question is about abstaining from thoughts.

00:01:56.540 | And in answering this question,

00:01:57.860 | we're going to skirt right up against a topic

00:01:59.660 | that I've covered before on the podcast,

00:02:01.380 | which is obsessive compulsive disorder,

00:02:03.700 | which is a very serious disorder.

00:02:05.200 | I mean, it can have a range of severity,

00:02:06.780 | but people with true OCD suffer a lot from obsessions.

00:02:11.740 | These are intrusive thoughts and compulsions,

00:02:15.060 | which are the behaviors typically associated

00:02:17.860 | with those thoughts.

00:02:19.060 | I think it's really important that we define OCD

00:02:21.540 | really clearly so that we can make sure

00:02:24.180 | that we're talking about intrusive thoughts

00:02:26.980 | and the desire to abstain from thoughts versus OCD

00:02:29.900 | and where there might be some overlap there.

00:02:31.920 | The functional definition of OCD

00:02:34.580 | that really pertains to the disorder,

00:02:37.360 | obsessive compulsive disorder, OCD,

00:02:40.340 | as opposed to, you know, we call people neurotic,

00:02:42.860 | or we say, you have OCD,

00:02:44.100 | or I'm so OCD about this or OCD about that,

00:02:46.540 | that's become kind of common use of the acronym OCD.

00:02:50.740 | But true OCD is a situation

00:02:53.540 | in which the engaging in a particular compulsive behavior

00:02:58.540 | does not serve to reduce the intensity

00:03:03.580 | or the frequency of the obsessions.

00:03:05.280 | In fact, it makes it worse, okay?

00:03:06.940 | So the typical thing that we hear these days is,

00:03:10.060 | oh, you're so OCD, or he's so OCD,

00:03:12.420 | or she's so OCD, or I'm so OCD.

00:03:15.380 | Now, if someone is OCD in that sense, okay,

00:03:18.580 | so not the clinical disorder,

00:03:20.180 | but OCD in the sense that, you know, they're really clean,

00:03:22.220 | they're really fastidious,

00:03:23.080 | they need everything perfect.

00:03:24.780 | However, that person can achieve some level of calm

00:03:28.380 | and comfort that's fairly long lasting

00:03:30.500 | if everything's clean and perfect.

00:03:32.080 | Well, then that's not obsessive compulsive disorder.

00:03:34.220 | This is really important to understand

00:03:36.100 | as we venture into answering the question

00:03:37.680 | about intrusive thoughts

00:03:39.340 | and the desire to abstain from certain thoughts.

00:03:41.940 | A person with true OCD will keep cleaning and cleaning

00:03:45.900 | or washing their hands

00:03:46.980 | or arranging things at perfect right angles,

00:03:50.140 | but the more they do it, the more their anxiety goes up.

00:03:53.700 | A person who has more typical,

00:03:55.500 | gosh, we don't really even have a language

00:03:58.280 | for this nowadays, unfortunately,

00:03:59.820 | but the sort of person that's extremely particular,

00:04:03.540 | they need things a certain way,

00:04:05.060 | and they're very driven to resolve things and do things

00:04:07.960 | to make sure that things are done in a certain way

00:04:11.000 | or handled in a certain way.

00:04:13.080 | Well, if that person can experience relief

00:04:15.360 | from engaging in, let's say, exercise or from cleaning,

00:04:18.760 | right, you'd say you're so OCD about exercise.

00:04:20.840 | Well, but if exercising for an hour

00:04:23.280 | or even two hours in the morning

00:04:24.540 | makes somebody really calm in the rest of the day

00:04:26.440 | and they don't need to exercise,

00:04:27.800 | well, then they're not necessarily true OCD.

00:04:31.260 | They don't necessarily have a disorder related to exercise.

00:04:34.880 | However, if they're exercising for two hours in the morning

00:04:37.600 | and then they find they can't concentrate on other things

00:04:40.120 | and their desire to exercise just increases and increases

00:04:42.820 | and becomes intrusive for them,

00:04:44.780 | disrupting their quality of life throughout the day,

00:04:48.200 | well, then that's falling under the umbrella

00:04:50.820 | of what we would call a true disorder, okay?

00:04:52.760 | So we want to highlight that

00:04:54.440 | because the question is about a desire

00:04:57.120 | to abstain from thoughts,

00:04:58.200 | and the question is in your discussion with Dr. Anna Lemke,

00:05:02.160 | and I should just mention Dr. Anna Lemke

00:05:03.640 | is the director of our dual diagnosis addiction clinic

00:05:06.280 | at Stanford University School of Medicine.

00:05:08.280 | She's the author of this incredible book, "Dopamine Nation,"

00:05:10.800 | that I think everybody should read.

00:05:12.620 | I do believe everyone should read that book.

00:05:14.440 | So important for the addict and non-addict alike

00:05:18.040 | because it deals with basically the state of our life.

00:05:20.800 | Nowadays, we're living in this dopamine-rich world

00:05:23.060 | where we can quickly become dopamine depleted,

00:05:25.460 | which is terrible, leads to depression.

00:05:27.680 | In addition to things like addiction in some folks, et cetera,

00:05:30.300 | Anna was a guest on the podcast.

00:05:31.680 | You can find her episode at hubermanlab.com.

00:05:34.240 | Just put Anna.

00:05:35.520 | I think she's the only guest we've had thus far

00:05:37.400 | whose name is Anna, so it'll just pop up there.

00:05:40.080 | The entire website is searchable,

00:05:41.680 | but if you want to listen to that episode

00:05:43.820 | or watch that episode, you can access it, hubermanlab.com.

00:05:47.760 | The question is, in your discussion with Dr. Analemke,

00:05:50.240 | you were talking about abstaining from people's drug

00:05:53.020 | of choice for 30 days to reset the dopamine reward pathway.

00:05:56.080 | And indeed, that is the prescriptive

00:05:57.640 | that Dr. Analemke gives for most all addictions

00:06:01.020 | and for people that are suffering

00:06:02.240 | from mild or even severe depression

00:06:04.900 | related to dopamine-seeking behaviors,

00:06:07.920 | social media, video games, sex, food, et cetera.

00:06:11.440 | However, of course, in the instance of food

00:06:14.320 | or in some other addictions, you can't abstain for 30 days.

00:06:18.280 | That would be terrible to abstain for food for 30 days.

00:06:21.200 | I'm sure people have done it, but it is not healthy to do.

00:06:24.360 | Certain things like alcohol and drugs,

00:06:26.040 | people can abstain for 30 days

00:06:27.560 | in efforts to never go back to them again.

00:06:30.240 | There are cases of severe alcohol or opiate dependence

00:06:33.720 | where people can't go cold turkey or they risk dying,

00:06:36.960 | so there they need to really work with a physician.

00:06:40.120 | But the 30-day reset of the dopamine system

00:06:44.100 | is something that's very real

00:06:45.340 | and that pertains to most people.

00:06:47.240 | That is, it's going to be very effective

00:06:48.720 | for most people struggling with either behavioral,

00:06:51.400 | what are sometimes called process addictions

00:06:53.120 | or other types of addictions,

00:06:54.360 | including substance abuse issues.

00:06:57.240 | The question continues,

00:06:58.120 | "You said you were going to ask Ana how to abstain

00:07:00.580 | if your drug of choice is a thought or narrative

00:07:04.080 | as opposed to a substance or a behavior."

00:07:06.240 | The question continues, "As far as I can tell,

00:07:09.800 | your discussion with Ana moved on

00:07:11.160 | before you asked her the question.

00:07:13.360 | Would you be able to discuss strategies

00:07:15.100 | for abstaining from addictive thoughts and narratives?"

00:07:18.020 | Okay, so let's talk about intrusive thoughts

00:07:19.580 | and let's start off by asking ourselves,

00:07:21.300 | what is a thought?

00:07:22.420 | Okay, in the realm of neurobiology, we have sensations,

00:07:25.440 | which are the processes by which our neurons, nerve cells,

00:07:30.240 | convert light photons, sound waves,

00:07:34.060 | touch, mechanical pressure, et cetera,

00:07:37.380 | into electrical signals and chemical signals

00:07:39.900 | that head into our nervous system,

00:07:42.300 | including our brain, and then our brain,

00:07:44.560 | at least we think, makes sense of them

00:07:46.560 | and help us navigate the world that we're in.

00:07:49.240 | Okay, so the sensation part is a pure transformation

00:07:52.960 | of mechanical information or, in some cases,

00:07:56.100 | chemical information, like smell.

00:07:57.600 | Chemicals, literally, volatile chemicals

00:08:00.040 | floating around in the world are brought into your nose

00:08:02.380 | and your neurons in your olfactory bulb,

00:08:04.720 | convert those into electrical and chemical signals

00:08:06.760 | that your brain can understand.

00:08:09.680 | Perceptions are your idea

00:08:13.380 | of what those signals out in the world are,

00:08:17.400 | either because you're paying attention to them

00:08:19.160 | or for some other reason,

00:08:20.200 | you decide that a stop sign in front of you is red

00:08:24.200 | and that the sign behind it is white

00:08:28.140 | and that the sky is blue or cloudy, those are perceptions.

00:08:31.680 | Okay, so we have sensations and perceptions.

00:08:34.220 | Then we have emotions,

00:08:37.620 | which are these things that include the mind and body

00:08:39.700 | that are related to neuromodulators

00:08:42.600 | like dopamine, serotonin, et cetera,

00:08:44.200 | although those chemicals do other things as well.

00:08:46.380 | And then, of course, we have behaviors, actions,

00:08:48.240 | everything from me moving my pen on a piece of paper

00:08:50.400 | to walking, running, et cetera.

00:08:52.360 | Thoughts are a fifth category of neural functioning

00:08:59.100 | that we really need to define,

00:09:01.720 | but that doesn't have as strict a definition

00:09:04.600 | as sensations, perceptions, or feeling, or action.

00:09:09.020 | But thoughts are real, right?

00:09:10.320 | We all know this, thoughts are real.

00:09:11.820 | And one way that we can define thoughts

00:09:14.100 | is that thoughts are perceptions

00:09:17.120 | that include data from the past, present, or future, okay?

00:09:22.120 | Or combinations of past and present,

00:09:27.220 | or present and future, or future and past, okay?

00:09:30.480 | I'm not trying to give an overly complicated definition here,

00:09:32.880 | but if we are going to answer a question

00:09:35.580 | about how to abstain from thoughts

00:09:37.200 | in a really direct and actionable way,

00:09:39.540 | we really need to address what are thoughts.

00:09:41.860 | So thoughts are perceptions that are generated internally,

00:09:45.080 | right, we don't need any external sensation

00:09:47.620 | in order to have a thought, we can close our eyes,

00:09:49.480 | we could be in sensory isolation for that matter,

00:09:52.180 | we can even be floating with no gravity,

00:09:54.000 | and we can have a thought.

00:09:55.360 | Thoughts tend to run pretty much automatically

00:10:00.440 | in the background all the time,

00:10:01.660 | some people refer to this as chatter

00:10:03.420 | in the back of our minds, in a very unstructured way.

00:10:06.720 | And then if we force our thoughts to be structured,

00:10:09.880 | because we decide they need to be,

00:10:11.440 | or if something in our environment captures our perception,

00:10:16.440 | then our thoughts tend to be structured.

00:10:18.540 | Let me give you an example.

00:10:19.740 | If I'm just walking around,

00:10:21.860 | if there were a way in which we could broadcast my thoughts

00:10:24.900 | onto a screen, I hope we wouldn't do that,

00:10:27.600 | but those thoughts would be a mixture

00:10:30.280 | of semi-complete sentences and gibberish.

00:10:33.440 | However, if somebody stops me and says,

00:10:35.580 | "Hi, good to see you, what are you doing today?"

00:10:38.560 | And I start answering, well, then my thoughts

00:10:40.180 | are suddenly being driven by an external stimulus,

00:10:43.180 | their question, and some internal ideas,

00:10:46.080 | memory of who I am and what I'm doing that day,

00:10:48.720 | so past and present and so on,

00:10:50.240 | and so thoughts become structured.

00:10:52.200 | So when we have a question about how to abstain from thoughts

00:10:55.780 | we need to be additionally specific and really pinpoint

00:10:59.320 | that what we're trying to do is to abstain

00:11:02.160 | from thoughts we don't want, presumably,

00:11:05.400 | either because they are too repetitive and distracting,

00:11:08.760 | or because what's contained in those thoughts is disturbing.

00:11:12.080 | Okay, this is important because it gives us two answers

00:11:15.960 | to the questions that are highly divergent.

00:11:18.200 | One answer to the question of how to abstain

00:11:21.720 | from intrusive thoughts, thoughts that we're addicted to,

00:11:24.840 | is if those thoughts are merely on loop all the time

00:11:29.780 | and we can't stop them,

00:11:31.600 | but the thoughts themselves aren't particularly disturbing,

00:11:33.960 | so think about a song you can't get out of your head,

00:11:36.880 | or you keep recounting some event,

00:11:39.160 | but the event itself isn't very disturbing,

00:11:41.200 | it's just intrusive because it's there.

00:11:43.760 | Well, in that case, the data really point

00:11:45.400 | to trying to anchor your thoughts to some external stimulus,

00:11:49.040 | so getting into action, getting into activities

00:11:52.180 | that really draw your attention away from that thought.

00:11:55.120 | Now, you may still hear it scrolling in the background,

00:11:57.320 | so you might be sitting in class still hearing

00:11:58.980 | that loop of thoughts in the background.

00:12:01.280 | That's something that over time ought to wane,

00:12:03.540 | it ought to disappear,

00:12:05.520 | if we try and bring more and more attention

00:12:08.700 | to whatever it is that's in our environment,

00:12:11.740 | whatever it is that we happen to be learning

00:12:14.840 | or doing physically, et cetera.

00:12:17.800 | Things like mindful meditation,

00:12:20.180 | doing a 10 or even just five minutes a day practice

00:12:23.560 | of sitting with eyes closed or lying down with eyes closed

00:12:25.960 | and really focusing on one's breath,

00:12:27.900 | focusing one's attention on the,

00:12:30.000 | sometimes it's called the third eye center,

00:12:31.580 | but in science, we'd say just the region

00:12:34.140 | right behind the forehead,

00:12:34.980 | you're directing your attention there,

00:12:36.340 | has been shown to increase focus for singular topics

00:12:40.480 | and can improve memory

00:12:41.600 | and do a bunch of other things as well.

00:12:42.740 | Those are data from Dr. Wendy Suzuki's lab

00:12:44.820 | at New York University.

00:12:46.080 | She was a guest on the podcast as well.

00:12:47.720 | My laboratory has run studies on mindful meditation as well.

00:12:51.240 | So what you're really trying to do

00:12:52.300 | is learn how to focus better on one thing

00:12:54.360 | and by focusing on that one thing,

00:12:56.320 | you focus off these repetitive thoughts.

00:12:58.860 | Now, I have a feeling that this question was asked

00:13:01.360 | and that many people upvoted this question

00:13:03.180 | because the issue isn't just thoughts that are intrusive

00:13:07.200 | because they're there and on repeat,

00:13:08.820 | but because the thoughts themselves are actually troubling.

00:13:13.820 | This could be recounting a trauma,

00:13:16.080 | someone harmed you, you observed something

00:13:18.140 | that was disturbing, you felt wronged,

00:13:22.120 | you felt someone else was wronged,

00:13:24.580 | you can't seem to get your mind off of something

00:13:27.780 | and your emotions tend to follow and so it's uncomfortable.

00:13:30.660 | I have a feeling this is the root of the question.

00:13:33.160 | In that case, the approach is very different.

00:13:37.020 | What we know from essentially all of the quality scientific

00:13:39.660 | and clinical studies is that those sorts

00:13:42.820 | of intrusive thoughts are very much like a trauma.

00:13:46.540 | Now, we have to be clear in defining what trauma is.

00:13:48.600 | I'll use the definition that Dr. Paul Conte,

00:13:50.700 | another incredible guest that was on our podcast,

00:13:54.420 | a psychiatrist, Stanford Harvard trained psychiatrist,

00:13:57.060 | I think one of the world's foremost leaders

00:13:59.140 | on the issue of trauma and psychiatry

00:14:01.300 | and psychology generally.

00:14:02.600 | He defines trauma as an event or something

00:14:07.180 | that fundamentally changes the way

00:14:08.860 | that your nervous system works

00:14:10.300 | such that you function less adaptively going forward

00:14:14.300 | from that event, okay?

00:14:15.540 | So not every bad occurrence in your life is a trauma.

00:14:19.560 | That's good news.

00:14:21.040 | The bad news is many people have traumas

00:14:23.360 | and traumas change the way that our nervous system works

00:14:25.740 | so that we don't function as well as we could.

00:14:28.580 | So in that sense, intrusive thoughts that are disturbing

00:14:33.140 | are in many ways traumas and are reinforcing that trauma.

00:14:36.860 | Now, we know that almost counter-intuitively

00:14:40.340 | in order to deal with trauma,

00:14:43.100 | you have to get very close to that trauma.

00:14:45.380 | You don't have to re-expose

00:14:46.560 | and I would hope you would not re-expose yourself

00:14:48.480 | to the very same trauma.

00:14:49.500 | But we know that one of the best ways to deal with traumas

00:14:53.220 | is to get very clear about the narrative

00:14:55.560 | around those traumas.

00:14:56.620 | Now, this can be done with a therapist, ideally,

00:15:00.660 | but not everyone has access to therapy

00:15:02.540 | or can afford therapy.

00:15:05.000 | There's a range of quality of therapists for that matter.

00:15:08.220 | So we're always referring to

00:15:10.080 | the desire for people to do great therapy

00:15:12.400 | with really great, meaning, excellently trained people.

00:15:16.540 | But it turns out that if you want to

00:15:18.940 | extinguish an intrusive thought,

00:15:21.180 | one of the best ways to do that

00:15:23.040 | is to journal about that particular thought extensively.

00:15:26.720 | So rather than the earlier strategy for intrusive thoughts

00:15:29.960 | where they're just on loop and intrusive

00:15:32.280 | because they're on loop and present,

00:15:34.340 | but their content isn't disturbing,

00:15:35.940 | when a thought is disturbing and intrusive,

00:15:38.280 | we know that it's very useful to script out as much detail

00:15:44.340 | about that particular thought

00:15:46.740 | and the things around it as possible.

00:15:49.060 | Obviously, you want to do this in a way

00:15:50.540 | that is fairly structured.

00:15:53.380 | So you ideally would use complete sentences.

00:15:56.380 | So the reason for doing that is that

00:15:58.860 | thoughts, as I mentioned earlier, can often be fragmentary.

00:16:01.520 | So they pop up in our mind almost,

00:16:04.140 | we seemingly spontaneously,

00:16:05.700 | they're inhibiting our ability to focus

00:16:08.300 | or be present to work or family or other things or sleep.

00:16:11.820 | Writing things down in a lot of detail

00:16:14.860 | does seem to have this quality of

00:16:17.060 | both reducing the emotional load

00:16:20.180 | of whatever it is that that thought is about,

00:16:23.380 | as well as diminishing the frequency

00:16:25.780 | of those intrusive thoughts over time.

00:16:28.060 | So this is far and away different

00:16:30.100 | than the strategy I mentioned

00:16:31.280 | for the other types of intrusive thoughts.

00:16:32.900 | And really it's far and away different

00:16:35.100 | from the 30-day abstinence approach

00:16:37.300 | that Dr. Analemki was talking about

00:16:39.080 | for substance or behavioral addictions.

00:16:41.380 | Now, of course, this process of abstaining from thoughts

00:16:44.720 | or removing the addictive nature of certain thoughts

00:16:48.800 | can definitely take some time.

00:16:50.740 | So a good example there would be superstitions.

00:16:53.460 | You know, I'll come clean here,

00:16:54.660 | and I've talked about this before on a few podcasts,

00:16:57.180 | that when I was in college,

00:16:58.380 | I developed a sort of a knock on wood superstition.

00:17:01.820 | Anytime I'd say something that I didn't want to happen

00:17:04.060 | or did want to happen,

00:17:04.980 | I'd say knock on wood, and I'd knock on wood.

00:17:06.540 | And then I started suppressing the behavior,

00:17:09.740 | mostly because it was a little embarrassing.

00:17:11.260 | And then I started just telling myself in my head,

00:17:13.820 | knock on wood, knock on wood, knock on wood.

00:17:14.980 | And it was clearly a little bit of an OCD type thing.

00:17:18.580 | But again, OCD in air quotes here,

00:17:21.160 | I think it qualified as OCD in the sense that

00:17:25.220 | the more I did it, the more I wanted to do it.

00:17:27.660 | So I needed to go cold turkey on the thinking,

00:17:30.820 | but how can you go cold turkey on a thought?

00:17:32.780 | You couldn't.

00:17:33.620 | What I was told to do and what worked very well for me

00:17:36.280 | was to just write down the worst possible outcome

00:17:39.940 | that I was concerned about.

00:17:42.240 | So to really get close to the nature

00:17:44.820 | or the underlying basis of that intrusive thought.

00:17:47.320 | And I raised this because a lot of times

00:17:49.320 | the intrusive thought is not,

00:17:51.260 | okay, I'm thinking about a car accident,

00:17:53.020 | or I'm thinking about a breakup,

00:17:54.500 | or I'm thinking about an exam that I have.

00:17:56.800 | That can be intrusive,

00:17:58.100 | but a lot of times it's some kind of nebulous,

00:18:02.780 | abstract set of words or ideas or images

00:18:06.740 | around something that happened

00:18:08.220 | that we saw or heard or experienced.

00:18:10.820 | And by putting a lot of clear structure

00:18:13.600 | to what the thought is exactly,

00:18:15.980 | and to putting some thought and structure onto paper

00:18:19.100 | about what that pattern of not healthy thinking relates to,

00:18:25.820 | people often achieve tremendous relief

00:18:28.260 | in a fairly short amount of time.

00:18:29.560 | Sometimes just in one session of writing it down,

00:18:31.400 | sometimes they need to write it down multiple times.

00:18:33.620 | What you're essentially trying to do

00:18:34.940 | with a intrusive thought or a trauma of any kind

00:18:38.020 | is you're trying to turn a disturbing story,

00:18:41.300 | that is a story that evokes a lot of emotion

00:18:44.220 | and captures, it kind of hijacks your nervous system,

00:18:47.920 | into what is essentially a known but repetitive

00:18:52.020 | and kind of old boring story

00:18:54.380 | where the emotional load has been depleted.

00:18:56.940 | And there, of course, I have to highlight the fact

00:18:59.040 | that getting sufficient rapid eye movement sleep,

00:19:01.800 | we also know is very important

00:19:04.060 | for removing the emotional load of traumatic experiences

00:19:07.400 | and intrusive thoughts.

00:19:08.420 | So you really want to strive

00:19:09.380 | to get the best possible sleep you can

00:19:11.100 | that includes sufficient rapid eye movement sleep.

00:19:14.140 | And we have multiple zero cost resources

00:19:16.620 | for that at HubermanLab.com.

00:19:17.940 | We have the episode on Master Your Sleep.

00:19:20.220 | We have the episode on Perfect Your Sleep.

00:19:21.860 | We have the toolkit for sleep,

00:19:23.320 | all of which are timestamped

00:19:25.360 | and all of which can be accessed to completely zero cost

00:19:27.900 | to try and get your sleep as good as possible,

00:19:30.700 | including lots of rapid eye movement sleep.

00:19:32.940 | So in order to remove intrusive and addictive thoughts,

00:19:37.300 | ask yourself, is this OCD of the classic sense?

00:19:40.420 | If it is, you should see a psychiatrist.

00:19:42.380 | They won't necessarily prescribe medication,

00:19:44.100 | but there are tools for true OCD

00:19:46.300 | that are very effective in many cases.

00:19:50.040 | And we did the episode on OCD,

00:19:51.420 | which I invite you to listen to as well.

00:19:53.480 | You want to ask yourself, are the thoughts disturbing

00:19:58.360 | or merely intrusive and repetitive?

00:20:00.660 | If they're merely intrusive and repetitive,

00:20:03.020 | well then learning to focus your attention on other things

00:20:05.680 | and getting better at focusing on single things

00:20:08.040 | through an exercise like mindfulness meditation

00:20:10.860 | can really help.

00:20:11.700 | And indeed, perhaps the best use of mindfulness meditation

00:20:15.860 | is to improve your level of focus.

00:20:18.520 | It does have other benefits as well,

00:20:20.000 | but that's going to be the major one

00:20:21.400 | that one will experience,

00:20:22.240 | even with these very short five or 10 minute a day

00:20:24.020 | meditations, great data on that

00:20:25.580 | from the scientific literature.

00:20:26.920 | And then if those intrusive thoughts

00:20:30.200 | are not only intrusive, but they're also disturbing,

00:20:32.920 | in that case, you really want to put as much structure

00:20:35.660 | and thought, believe it or not,

00:20:38.340 | into what those thoughts are really about,

00:20:41.180 | write them out on paper in complete sentences,

00:20:43.860 | and maybe do that multiple times

00:20:46.340 | until the underlying emotions

00:20:49.200 | related to those thoughts really start to diminish.

00:20:51.580 | And by doing that,

00:20:52.580 | you're essentially doing your own form of trauma therapy,

00:20:56.200 | for lack of a better way to put it.

00:20:57.900 | And again, the data really point to the fact

00:20:59.900 | that getting close to the specific details

00:21:03.420 | around those intrusive thoughts

00:21:04.660 | is going to be the best way to extinguish them.

00:21:07.580 | Thank you for joining for the beginning

00:21:09.140 | of this Ask Me Anything episode.

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00:21:27.700 | Just to remind you why we launched

00:21:28.900 | the Huberman Lab Podcast premium channel,

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00:21:31.980 | First of all, it's to raise support

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00:21:46.080 | and to fund research.

00:21:47.540 | In particular, research done on human beings,

00:21:49.600 | so not animal models, but on human beings,

00:21:51.660 | which I think we all agree is a species

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00:21:55.660 | And we are going to specifically fund research

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00:23:18.980 | And as always, thank you for your interest in science.

00:23:21.840 | (upbeat music)

00:23:24.420 | (upbeat music)

AMA #5: Intrusive Thoughts, CGMs, Behavioral Change, Naps & NSDR

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