LIVE EVENT Q&A: Dr. Andrew Huberman Question & Answer in Melbourne, AU

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

00:00:02.240 | where we discuss science

00:00:03.720 | and science-based tools for everyday life.

00:00:05.920 | I'm Andrew Huberman,

00:00:10.120 | and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology

00:00:13.160 | at Stanford School of Medicine.

00:00:15.280 | Recently, the Huberman Lab Podcast hosted a live event

00:00:18.060 | at the Plenary Theater in Melbourne, Australia.

00:00:20.720 | The event was called the Brain-Body Contract

00:00:22.880 | and featured a lecture,

00:00:24.080 | followed by a question and answer session

00:00:25.840 | with the audience.

00:00:26.880 | We wanted to make the question and answer session

00:00:28.760 | available to everyone, regardless if you could attend.

00:00:31.840 | So what follows is the question and answer session

00:00:34.300 | from the Plenary Theater in Melbourne, Australia.

00:00:37.120 | I also would like to thank the sponsors for the event.

00:00:39.540 | They are 8Sleep and AG1.

00:00:41.760 | 8Sleep makes smart mattress covers

00:00:43.520 | with cooling, heating, and sleep tracking capacity.

00:00:45.960 | And one of the key aspects to getting a great night's sleep

00:00:48.160 | is to control the temperature of your sleeping environment.

00:00:50.840 | And that's because in order to fall and stay deeply asleep,

00:00:53.720 | your body temperature actually has to drop

00:00:55.480 | by about one to three degrees.

00:00:57.100 | And in order to wake up in the morning feeling refreshed,

00:00:59.080 | your body temperature actually has to increase

00:01:01.240 | by about one to three degrees.

00:01:02.840 | 8Sleep makes it extremely easy to control the temperature

00:01:05.200 | of your sleeping environment at the beginning, middle,

00:01:07.760 | and throughout the night,

00:01:08.600 | and when you wake up in the morning.

00:01:10.140 | I've been sleeping on an 8Sleep mattress cover

00:01:11.980 | for nearly three years now,

00:01:13.480 | and it has dramatically improved my sleep.

00:01:15.860 | If you'd like to try 8Sleep,

00:01:17.120 | you can go to 8sleep.com/huberman

00:01:20.240 | to save $150 off their Pod 3 cover.

00:01:23.320 | 8Sleep currently ships to the USA, Canada, UK,

00:01:26.220 | select countries in the EU, and Australia.

00:01:28.560 | Again, that's 8sleep.com/huberman.

00:01:31.600 | The other live event sponsor, AG1,

00:01:34.080 | is a vitamin mineral probiotic drink

00:01:36.120 | that also contains adaptogens

00:01:37.760 | and other critical micronutrients.

00:01:39.740 | I've been taking AG1 daily since 2012,

00:01:42.600 | so I'm delighted that they decided

00:01:44.040 | to sponsor the live event.

00:01:45.520 | The reason I started taking it,

00:01:46.800 | and the reason I still take it every day,

00:01:48.560 | once or twice a day,

00:01:49.560 | is that it ensures that I meet all of my quotas

00:01:51.920 | for vitamins and minerals.

00:01:53.680 | And it ensures that I get enough prebiotic and probiotic

00:01:56.540 | to support gut health.

00:01:57.660 | Now, of course, I strive to consume healthy whole foods

00:02:00.320 | for the majority of my nutritional intake every single day,

00:02:03.740 | but there are a number of things in AG1,

00:02:05.700 | including specific micronutrients

00:02:07.380 | that are hard to get from whole foods,

00:02:08.960 | or at least in sufficient quantities.

00:02:10.820 | So AG1 allows me to get the vitamins and minerals

00:02:13.260 | that I need, probiotics, prebiotics,

00:02:15.140 | the adaptogens, and critical micronutrients.

00:02:18.060 | To try AG1, go to drinkag1.com/huberman,

00:02:21.940 | and you'll get a year supply of vitamin D3K2,

00:02:25.080 | and five free travel packs of AG1.

00:02:27.200 | Again, that's drinkag1.com/huberman.

00:02:31.000 | And now for the question and answer session

00:02:32.960 | from Melbourne, Australia.

00:02:34.660 | [upbeat music]

00:02:50.480 | - Hey, Dr. Huberman, some of your listeners

00:02:53.440 | are in or approaching our 50s.

00:02:55.480 | Okay, same.

00:02:56.780 | And are thinking of doing all we can to prevent dementia.

00:03:01.560 | Same.

00:03:02.840 | Do you have any additional thoughts or protocols

00:03:04.720 | or research we could focus on?

00:03:06.560 | Yes, so, for the next two and a half hours,

00:03:10.880 | no, I'm kidding, I'm not known for being succinct.

00:03:14.560 | I didn't go over too much earlier.

00:03:16.960 | So, okay, so, ground truths.

00:03:19.920 | So, let's start with ground truths,

00:03:21.240 | and then let's move to emerging.

00:03:25.040 | Let's maybe get to a little bit of speculation.

00:03:27.640 | Let's avoid conjecture.

00:03:29.000 | Ground truths.

00:03:30.860 | Blood circulation is good for the brain,

00:03:35.720 | perhaps most important for the brain.

00:03:37.880 | So, anything that is good for cardiovascular health

00:03:41.400 | is going to be good for brain health.

00:03:44.200 | It's not the only thing, but that's true.

00:03:46.120 | We know this.

00:03:47.200 | So, you hear these days a lot about zone two cardio.

00:03:50.680 | I don't know who gets credit for that.

00:03:51.880 | Peter Ortea talks a lot about it.

00:03:53.200 | I talk a lot about it.

00:03:54.240 | None of us invented the notion.

00:03:55.840 | But 150, probably more like 180 to 200 minutes

00:03:59.580 | of so-called zone two cardio per week

00:04:02.480 | is good numbers to shoot for.

00:04:06.000 | Some of us get more, some of us less.

00:04:07.880 | What is zone two cardio?

00:04:09.080 | Zone two cardio is cardiovascular exercise.

00:04:12.460 | Could be running, could be swimming, could be walking,

00:04:15.080 | depending on your level of fitness,

00:04:16.800 | which you can just barely maintain a conversation.

00:04:21.080 | Were you to push any harder or faster,

00:04:24.000 | you wouldn't be able to complete your sentences

00:04:25.920 | with much ease, okay?

00:04:28.640 | So, is this zone two cardio for me?

00:04:30.280 | No, but if I were to jog and try and have a conversation,

00:04:33.160 | at some point I would have a little bit of a hard time.

00:04:35.620 | That's zone two cardio.

00:04:37.140 | So, we know that's true.

00:04:40.560 | Why?

00:04:41.740 | Well, it seems to do a number of things

00:04:44.040 | at the level of release of growth factors,

00:04:47.800 | brain-derived nootrophic factor,

00:04:49.780 | at the level of different, let's call them,

00:04:54.480 | I realize the immunologists are gonna roll their eyes,

00:04:56.820 | but anti-inflammatory cytokines and things of that sort.

00:05:01.700 | You also have inflammatory cytokines

00:05:03.560 | and things of that sort.

00:05:06.640 | It does seem that increasing blood flow

00:05:09.360 | in and through the brain is important for brain health,

00:05:12.780 | which is not all that surprising.

00:05:14.520 | There are species of animals

00:05:15.800 | that spend part of their life swimming about,

00:05:18.400 | and then when they stop and stick to a rock or something,

00:05:23.320 | a good portion of the nervous system actually degenerates.

00:05:25.820 | But neurodegeneration and dementia

00:05:28.720 | are not necessarily the same thing,

00:05:31.080 | and this is something that we don't often hear about.

00:05:33.720 | The age-related decline in memory capacity,

00:05:37.440 | in particular working memory,

00:05:38.940 | can be related to reductions

00:05:41.580 | in dopamine transmission in the brain,

00:05:43.500 | so things that increase the catecholamines

00:05:45.620 | that we talked about earlier.

00:05:47.680 | This could be pharmacology, of course,

00:05:49.340 | but it doesn't have to be pharmacology.

00:05:50.980 | It could be anything that increases the catecholamines,

00:05:54.940 | and we talk about this on the podcast.

00:05:57.140 | We have zero-cost protocols

00:05:59.260 | that you don't have to sign up for.

00:06:00.380 | You can just go to our website

00:06:01.580 | and go to dopamine regulation,

00:06:03.540 | and it will list out ways to increase the catecholamines

00:06:06.100 | through zero-cost and very low-cost ways.

00:06:09.320 | They are known to improve working memory.

00:06:10.960 | Working memory, of course,

00:06:12.200 | the capacity to maintain a string of numbers

00:06:14.880 | or information for sake of kind of immediate goals,

00:06:17.580 | but not information that's passed to the longer-term memory.

00:06:21.180 | So that's different than neurodegeneration.

00:06:23.520 | That's simply reductions

00:06:26.080 | in the amount of neuromodulators,

00:06:27.640 | like dopamine, being deployed as we get older.

00:06:29.940 | So modulating dopamine through healthy, ideally, means.

00:06:36.720 | But I do think we are going to see an increase

00:06:40.600 | in the use of selective pharmacology for this purpose,

00:06:43.360 | and here I'm not recommending anyone do drugs

00:06:45.480 | or take drugs, prescription or otherwise,

00:06:48.480 | but it does seem that certain compounds,

00:06:52.800 | like nicotine, believe it or not,

00:06:55.640 | even though it increases vasoconstriction and blood pressure,

00:06:58.920 | can offset some of the age-related reductions

00:07:01.700 | in dopaminergic and cholinergic acetylcholine,

00:07:05.740 | cholinergic transmission.

00:07:07.140 | And you don't wanna smoke, vape, dip, or snuff.

00:07:12.380 | I'm not even recommending people take Zin patches,

00:07:14.340 | but I think there is some use cases

00:07:17.380 | for nicotine-provided you're doing it

00:07:20.420 | with your physician knows

00:07:23.640 | and you're not getting into blood pressure,

00:07:25.140 | dangerous blood pressure range,

00:07:27.220 | or supplementation with choline donors

00:07:29.260 | and things of that sort

00:07:30.700 | to increase acetylcholine and dopamine.

00:07:33.420 | Some people are starting to take things

00:07:34.860 | like modafinil and Adderall in older age.

00:07:38.260 | But keep in mind, these are not modafinil,

00:07:40.480 | but Adderall, Vyvanse, et cetera.

00:07:42.200 | These are amphetamines.

00:07:43.540 | They're amphetamines.

00:07:44.380 | I'm not recommending this,

00:07:45.380 | but I think that's where we're headed.

00:07:47.140 | I think you're gonna see a number

00:07:48.260 | of different cognitive enhancers

00:07:51.140 | that are used to offset some age-related cognitive decline,

00:07:55.620 | aka dementia.

00:07:56.460 | Now, in terms of, so we're going zone two cardio

00:07:59.540 | to prescription drugs.

00:08:00.740 | We're kind of bracketing here.

00:08:02.180 | And then behavioral protocols

00:08:04.180 | that can increase neuromodulators,

00:08:05.700 | such as the catecholamines.

00:08:07.220 | Now, in terms of other things

00:08:11.220 | that can perhaps decrease the likelihood

00:08:14.260 | of Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia

00:08:17.880 | as it relates to neurodegeneration,

00:08:20.300 | currently there are a lot of do nots.

00:08:23.540 | Don't hit your head too hard.

00:08:24.660 | If you hit it really hard, don't hit it again.

00:08:26.380 | Hit it hard.

00:08:27.200 | The so-called two-hit model, literally.

00:08:30.180 | You know, and we think of football or, I guess, rugby.

00:08:34.500 | That's a sport you guys play down here

00:08:35.820 | where they use the head as a battering ram.

00:08:37.960 | I've seen this, right?

00:08:40.380 | Big necks on those kids.

00:08:41.740 | And then there's boom.

00:08:42.820 | And they, yeah.

00:08:43.940 | But the problem is not necessarily just rugby

00:08:48.380 | or American football or,

00:08:51.100 | I was told that, someone told me I had to shout out

00:08:53.140 | an Australian football team, and I know it's a setup.

00:08:55.980 | So I'm not gonna do it.

00:08:57.340 | They're like, "When you're in Melbourne tomorrow,

00:08:59.060 | "you gotta say that your favorite team is blank."

00:09:01.500 | And I'm like, "This feels really dangerous."

00:09:04.620 | So I'm not gonna do it.

00:09:05.920 | I'm not gonna do it.

00:09:08.380 | But, what's that?

00:09:09.940 | Do it.

00:09:12.540 | I can't remember the name of the team, so.

00:09:14.740 | But I watched the document.

00:09:18.620 | What's that?

00:09:19.460 | But I still don't understand the rugby thing.

00:09:24.020 | Do they use the guy's head, or gal's head,

00:09:25.980 | as a battering ram?

00:09:27.180 | 'Cause they used to play at UCSD outside my lab.

00:09:31.180 | We had this big field, and my bulldog loved watching.

00:09:33.380 | He was like, "This sport makes sense."

00:09:36.140 | But they were just like, "Run."

00:09:38.060 | And then the, I never understood it.

00:09:40.220 | But, anyway.

00:09:42.900 | What's that?

00:09:43.740 | Got it.

00:09:48.160 | I need a translator.

00:09:50.060 | Sorry.

00:09:50.900 | (laughing)

00:09:53.140 | So, I need a translator.

00:09:55.040 | But I love the enthusiasm.

00:09:58.300 | So we think about head injuries and brain injuries

00:10:04.540 | mostly in the context of sport,

00:10:05.820 | but that's not where most of the head injuries occur.

00:10:07.400 | Most of them occur, construction workers,

00:10:09.460 | car accidents, TBI, things of that sort.

00:10:12.740 | There's some interesting data on hyperbaric chambers.

00:10:15.620 | This is getting really into the high-level stuff here,

00:10:18.620 | meaning most people don't have access to them.

00:10:20.540 | I look forward to learning more.

00:10:22.020 | These are playing with different concentrations of oxygen

00:10:24.540 | and in a little microenvironment

00:10:26.100 | for traumatic brain injury and neurodegeneration.

00:10:29.860 | I mean, do I think in five years

00:10:31.820 | that everyone's gonna be sitting in hyperbaric chambers

00:10:34.300 | in order to offset neuron loss?

00:10:36.420 | Probably not.

00:10:37.320 | I think it's not cost-effective.

00:10:39.300 | But I will say that most of the things

00:10:42.380 | that are good for the body are good for the brain,

00:10:44.860 | keeping kind of anything that plaques the arteries,

00:10:49.220 | capillaries, and veins of the brain,

00:10:50.620 | 'cause it's so heavily vascularized, minimal,

00:10:54.140 | and minding those neuromodulators.

00:10:57.180 | Obviously, drugs of abuse like methamphetamine

00:11:00.740 | can deplete dopamine neurons.

00:11:02.740 | The data on MDMA, by the way, I don't know.

00:11:05.380 | There's drug enforcement in the room.

00:11:07.580 | The data, you know where they have most of the safety data

00:11:10.560 | or lack of safety data in some cases on MDMA?

00:11:13.300 | Keep in mind, MDMA ecstasy is methylene deoxymethamphetamine.

00:11:17.620 | Methamphetamine, we know, causes neurodegeneration.

00:11:21.300 | No question.

00:11:22.580 | It also causes bad teeth.

00:11:23.980 | Do you know how?

00:11:25.100 | Do you know how?

00:11:25.960 | Turns people into mouth breathers.

00:11:27.620 | Dry mouth and the teeth degenerate.

00:11:30.720 | Yeah, we have an episode on oral health coming up.

00:11:32.580 | This is real.

00:11:33.660 | That's actually why the teeth degenerate

00:11:35.180 | is from excessive dry, and it limits saliva production.

00:11:38.700 | Saliva's very important for remineralization of the teeth.

00:11:41.700 | Shout out to the dentists in the house.

00:11:43.660 | So the thing about MDMA is interesting

00:11:48.660 | because it turns out that MDMA,

00:11:51.180 | because it also, it increases dopamine

00:11:53.740 | just as methamphetamine does.

00:11:56.100 | Remember, MDMA, methylene deoxymethamphetamine,

00:11:58.340 | but also huge increases in serotonin

00:12:00.820 | seem to be most of the effect of MDMA,

00:12:04.720 | the kind of empathogenic effect.

00:12:06.500 | There was a study done of people from the LDS,

00:12:12.500 | Latter-day Saints, sometimes referred to as Mormons.

00:12:15.740 | Why was a study on MDMA done

00:12:18.180 | with people from the LDS community?

00:12:20.540 | And I don't want to imply that everyone

00:12:21.780 | from the LDS community does MDMA, but why?

00:12:24.080 | They're a very interesting test population

00:12:26.200 | because they don't do other drugs.

00:12:28.240 | But for some reason, MDMA is not on the no-fly list.

00:12:32.380 | So it's a beautiful paper in which they took people

00:12:37.380 | who had only done as any drug,

00:12:40.100 | not even taking caffeine, right,

00:12:42.540 | either once or semi-frequent or very frequent use of MDMA,

00:12:47.060 | and they did a bunch of cognitive testing.

00:12:48.480 | And there were some attention issues

00:12:50.140 | when people had taken over what was a couple hundred doses

00:12:53.140 | of MDMA at the 80 milligram dose or more,

00:12:55.480 | but doesn't seem to be much neurodegeneration,

00:12:57.700 | which is not to say that it's all safe.

00:12:59.300 | There is an abuse and addictive potential there.

00:13:01.500 | The biggest issue seems to be contamination of batches.

00:13:05.260 | We have a fentanyl issue in the US.

00:13:06.860 | I don't know if it's happening down here as well.

00:13:08.980 | Very concerning.

00:13:10.180 | Okay, so the point here is that I think very soon

00:13:14.580 | you're going to hear about drugs,

00:13:18.560 | prescription drugs and supplements

00:13:19.980 | to augment the release of neuromodulators,

00:13:22.160 | not for sake of empathogenic states or psychedelic states,

00:13:24.920 | but to try and keep those dopaminergic neurons online

00:13:28.200 | to offset dementia, 'cause that's what the question's about.

00:13:30.260 | In fact, there's a Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist

00:13:32.420 | at Columbia University, whose name I won't tell you,

00:13:35.140 | or maybe I will, who, when I went to visit his office,

00:13:38.300 | chewed no fewer than five pieces of Nicorette

00:13:40.540 | in the course of a half an hour.

00:13:42.020 | And I'm like, what's going on?

00:13:43.420 | He's got a Nobel Prize, but this looks kind of pathologic.

00:13:45.780 | And I said, why?

00:13:46.620 | And he said, well, the nicotine is to offset

00:13:49.260 | age-related loss of dopaminergic and cholinergic neurons.

00:13:53.500 | I thought, really?

00:13:54.540 | He's like, yeah, when I quit smoking,

00:13:56.100 | 'cause I didn't want lung cancer, but this is him.

00:13:57.900 | This is an anecdote.

00:13:58.740 | I'm not suggesting you do this.

00:14:00.360 | I think there are a number of things that we can do,

00:14:02.100 | but protect those neuromodulators,

00:14:03.580 | keep perfusion, that is blood flow to the brain, strong.

00:14:06.420 | There's a case for cardiovascular exercise.

00:14:09.300 | And it does seem, it really does seem that exercise

00:14:13.620 | that engages the neuromuscular connections

00:14:15.740 | more than cardiovascular exercise,

00:14:17.260 | so not just resistance training,

00:14:18.660 | but anything that involves coordinated bodily training,

00:14:21.620 | learning new physical skills, dance, et cetera,

00:14:24.500 | really does seem to offset some of the loss

00:14:27.740 | of cognitive functioning in adults.

00:14:30.640 | So it's kind of interesting that physical exercise

00:14:32.700 | is great for cognition, and probably cognition

00:14:37.380 | may or may not help physical ability,

00:14:39.660 | but one probably can imagine

00:14:42.260 | why there's a bidirectional relationship there.

00:14:44.140 | Your nervous system doesn't really distinguish

00:14:46.440 | between physical and cognitive.

00:14:48.860 | It's all working as a bunch of functional units.

00:14:51.300 | I could go on and on about this,

00:14:52.600 | but hopefully that at least gets your,

00:14:55.300 | the gears turning around some things

00:14:57.640 | that perhaps you've heard about

00:14:58.700 | and some things that you haven't.

00:15:00.260 | And we'll do an episode on dementia

00:15:01.820 | and offsetting dementia in order to get into

00:15:03.580 | some of the fine details.

00:15:05.020 | Okay.

00:15:05.860 | Can we increase our willpower,

00:15:08.300 | just like training a muscle group,

00:15:09.420 | with your research into the AMCC?

00:15:11.380 | Ooh, I'm so glad that you mentioned the AMCC.

00:15:13.420 | I think of all the new areas of neuroscience research

00:15:18.060 | that are out there, I think the anterior mid-cingulate cortex

00:15:20.980 | is one of the most interesting structures

00:15:24.220 | and areas of research nowadays.

00:15:27.520 | You know, I think, if I have my way,

00:15:29.900 | then not only will most people have heard of dopamine

00:15:33.060 | and the amygdala, I guess you need a Star Wars character

00:15:36.140 | named after your brain part.

00:15:38.460 | Isn't there one?

00:15:39.380 | I only saw the first three.

00:15:40.620 | I'm of that generation.

00:15:41.740 | But isn't there an Amy Dalla or something?

00:15:43.940 | Yeah, right?

00:15:45.380 | Don't leave me hanging here.

00:15:46.260 | Is there or not?

00:15:47.100 | If I'm wrong, just say no.

00:15:48.860 | Okay.

00:15:49.700 | Anyway, the amygdala, thanks.

00:15:52.660 | The amygdala is a brain structure

00:15:55.900 | that is involved in threat detection

00:15:59.500 | and novelty detection, not just threats.

00:16:01.940 | The anterior mid-cingulate cortex

00:16:04.620 | is an area of the brain that we know is activated.

00:16:07.840 | Well, let me tell you the best experiment.

00:16:10.220 | The best experiment was done, in my opinion,

00:16:12.500 | by a neurosurgeon at Stanford, Joe Parvizzi.

00:16:16.420 | He's probing around in people's brains.

00:16:18.420 | They got a little piece of skull missing.

00:16:19.780 | He's stimulating in the brain.

00:16:22.220 | He's asking them questions.

00:16:23.260 | How do you feel?

00:16:24.080 | What's going on?

00:16:24.920 | What's going on?

00:16:25.900 | And he's got this electrode

00:16:26.980 | in the anterior mid-cingulate cortex.

00:16:29.180 | And the patient says,

00:16:33.140 | "I feel like something really bad's gonna happen,

00:16:37.020 | "like a storm's coming."

00:16:38.740 | He's like, "Okay, well, we can stop stimulating."

00:16:40.340 | He's like, "No, I'm going into the storm."

00:16:43.260 | He's like, "Oh, that's interesting."

00:16:44.660 | Stimulate a little bit further back,

00:16:46.500 | just by a millimeter or so,

00:16:48.220 | completely different subjective experience for the patient.

00:16:51.720 | That's interesting.

00:16:52.820 | Get a different patient in there,

00:16:53.980 | map to the anterior mid-cingulate cortex, stimulate.

00:16:57.260 | And the person says,

00:16:58.660 | "I feel like I'm gonna get out of my chair,

00:17:00.220 | "and I'm gonna do something hard."

00:17:02.580 | Wild, right?

00:17:03.660 | This is prior to any knowledge

00:17:05.460 | of what the anterior mid-cingulate cortex is doing.

00:17:08.140 | Make a long story short,

00:17:10.100 | people who successfully overcome a physical challenge,

00:17:14.500 | a cognitive challenge, that learn a new skill,

00:17:16.940 | that successful dieters, I don't really like that term,

00:17:22.660 | their anterior mid-cingulate cortex grows,

00:17:25.940 | or becomes more active under conditions

00:17:28.340 | that challenge the anterior mid-cingulate cortex.

00:17:30.220 | So this brain region seems to be the brain region

00:17:33.260 | that puts us in a forward center of mass,

00:17:35.820 | physically and sort of cognitively and emotionally.

00:17:38.780 | I often like to think that the nervous system,

00:17:40.860 | as sophisticated as it is,

00:17:42.540 | and psychology as sophisticated as it is,

00:17:45.220 | as it is, excuse me,

00:17:47.460 | can be binned into kind of three categories.

00:17:49.300 | Things that we like to eat or don't like to eat,

00:17:51.940 | or can kind of be binned into yum, yuck, or meh.

00:17:56.940 | That's kind of what the nervous system has to do,

00:17:59.780 | because ultimately you have to decide,

00:18:01.060 | do I wanna go toward it, so-called repetitive behavior,

00:18:03.700 | do I wanna get away from it?

00:18:05.180 | Well, I can do nothing.

00:18:06.940 | People, we're either like yum,

00:18:10.700 | or in some cases, yum, yuck,

00:18:14.860 | or in some cases, like, ugh,

00:18:17.220 | or like, meh, right?

00:18:19.420 | Yum, yuck, meh, yum, yum, meh.

00:18:21.180 | This is the sort of three tributaries

00:18:24.780 | that we have the option of moving down,

00:18:26.500 | not moving down, or moving away from.

00:18:29.180 | So the anterior mid-cingulate cortex,

00:18:31.580 | because it has inputs from so many different areas

00:18:34.420 | and outputs to so many different areas,

00:18:35.980 | it can access circuits related to dopamine, norepinephrine,

00:18:39.460 | it can access circuits related to memory and context.

00:18:42.740 | It's a hub.

00:18:44.020 | It's a hub that, by all views,

00:18:47.780 | through all lenses of the existing research,

00:18:50.900 | suggests that any time we do something truly challenging,

00:18:55.140 | in particular things that we do not enjoy,

00:18:57.620 | this is key, the anterior mid-cingulate cortex

00:19:01.300 | undergoes some sort of plasticity.

00:19:03.940 | Everything in the research data now points to the idea

00:19:07.620 | that the anterior mid-cingulate cortex

00:19:09.140 | is the seat of so-called willpower,

00:19:11.480 | which is linked to concepts like tenacity,

00:19:13.940 | or grit, and et cetera.

00:19:15.580 | And what I love about this research

00:19:17.580 | is that it comes from a bunch of different areas,

00:19:19.340 | human brain imaging, brain stimulation, et cetera.

00:19:23.460 | Here's what I don't like about the reality,

00:19:26.660 | but that we all need to accept,

00:19:27.860 | which is that the anterior mid-cingulate cortex

00:19:30.300 | is modifiable by experience, by leaning into challenges

00:19:34.120 | at any stage of life.

00:19:36.040 | That's great, we talked about that earlier, plasticity.

00:19:39.460 | But, lest we forget,

00:19:42.020 | plasticity goes in the other direction, too.

00:19:46.220 | It seems that when we don't engage in challenges,

00:19:49.400 | that the anterior mid-cingulate cortex,

00:19:52.980 | it doesn't atrophy, but it undergoes

00:19:55.780 | sort of a downshift in activation.

00:19:59.140 | Now, here's what's really, really interesting,

00:20:01.860 | and relates to the previous question.

00:20:03.700 | The anterior mid-cingulate cortex

00:20:07.100 | seems to be especially active at baseline,

00:20:12.040 | and available for plasticity in what are called super-agers.

00:20:15.940 | Super-agers, you know, we've all heard of blue zones.

00:20:18.440 | The super-agers are these people who are,

00:20:20.180 | they don't just exist in blue zones,

00:20:22.460 | they're spread around the world.

00:20:23.540 | These are people that seem, at least by cognitive measures,

00:20:26.960 | and other physiological measures of the body,

00:20:30.000 | seem to age extremely slowly.

00:20:33.620 | So they shouldn't really be called super-agers, right?

00:20:36.380 | They should be called super-non-agers, anyway.

00:20:39.820 | The anterior mid-cingulate cortex

00:20:41.620 | seems to be hyperactive in these super-agers,

00:20:45.500 | as they're called, and so it seems that

00:20:49.420 | not only do they maintain cognitive function later in life,

00:20:52.540 | but that seems to be related to

00:20:54.780 | their regular engagement in challenging things.

00:20:57.480 | So, remember for so many years, we heard,

00:20:59.100 | okay, like, nuns don't get dementia,

00:21:00.940 | and then there's all sorts of things you can imagine

00:21:02.540 | could be related to that.

00:21:03.580 | And then we're thinking, oh, maybe it's crossword puzzles.

00:21:08.180 | Maybe it's crossword puzzles.

00:21:09.860 | Maybe it's hanging out with other people.

00:21:11.660 | And then you know that person down the street,

00:21:14.100 | and she's cycling on the weekends like crazy,

00:21:16.100 | and she's 90, and she looks like she's 50,

00:21:18.380 | and she's sharp as a tack.

00:21:19.860 | It's probably leaning into challenge on a regular basis.

00:21:23.780 | Leaning into challenge on a regular basis,

00:21:25.460 | as opposed to one specific cognitive or physical thing,

00:21:28.540 | which means that if you love cycling,

00:21:30.780 | or you love the cold plunge,

00:21:32.120 | or you love a certain form of exercise,

00:21:34.160 | it's probably not doing that much

00:21:36.100 | for your anterior mid-cingulate cortex.

00:21:38.000 | But these superagers also live longer.

00:21:41.060 | And so there is this notion that

00:21:42.540 | because the anterior mid-cingulate cortex

00:21:44.800 | has connectivity to a lot of areas of the brain and body,

00:21:48.780 | that it is somehow linked to the will to live.

00:21:52.340 | And this is being examined now

00:21:53.820 | in so-called terminal cancer patients.

00:21:56.700 | So-called, you know, terminal cases.

00:21:59.840 | I don't like the language.

00:22:01.020 | Because there are these amazing instances,

00:22:03.000 | and physicians and oncologists

00:22:04.860 | have known this for a long time,

00:22:06.020 | that when people decide they're gonna fight cancer,

00:22:09.320 | they don't always win that fight, unfortunately.

00:22:12.780 | But oftentimes, it's the people

00:22:15.020 | who insist on fighting it psychologically,

00:22:19.880 | that they won't give in,

00:22:20.900 | that end up still living more months, more years,

00:22:25.300 | and in some cases, putting the cancer into remission.

00:22:28.420 | With, of course, other tools, right?

00:22:30.500 | I'm not saying you shouldn't use

00:22:31.620 | other tools to combat cancer.

00:22:33.140 | It's a very interesting structure,

00:22:34.640 | relates to the question on dementia.

00:22:36.420 | Hopefully that was informative.

00:22:38.780 | Julian, thank you.

00:22:40.220 | How would you recommend shift workers

00:22:41.540 | minimize the effects of disruption

00:22:42.900 | to their circadian rhythm?

00:22:43.880 | Oh, this is so important.

00:22:44.980 | You know why?

00:22:45.820 | Because like right now, 9.20, ah, 9.40 p.m.,

00:22:50.100 | we're kind of doing shift work right now.

00:22:51.880 | Most people are on a shift work schedule now in the world.

00:22:55.060 | This is true.

00:22:56.140 | We think of shift workers as only the people

00:22:57.700 | who are up in the middle of the night

00:22:58.540 | and sleeping during the day,

00:22:59.540 | but most people are doing shift work.

00:23:01.680 | The criteria for shift work is at least a two-hour,

00:23:06.060 | at least in the U.S., a two-hour variance

00:23:08.160 | in the sleep-wake cycle, more than three nights a week.

00:23:11.300 | Anyone here go to sleep every night, same time,

00:23:13.900 | wake up every morning, same time,

00:23:15.880 | never stay up later than that, more than two nights a week?

00:23:18.880 | Okay, most people are doing shift work nowadays.

00:23:21.480 | They're just on their phone or they're on their computer.

00:23:24.140 | And I'm not going to argue that's, you know,

00:23:27.340 | you shouldn't, many times that's me as well.

00:23:30.940 | So here's what we do know, and I could,

00:23:33.420 | we did a whole episode on shift work,

00:23:34.760 | but I'll try and summarize some of the key points.

00:23:37.220 | You want to have your cortisol elevated early in the day

00:23:42.700 | and then subside across the day.

00:23:44.340 | That's the ideal pattern of cortisol release.

00:23:46.460 | Cortisol is a great thing when it's high

00:23:48.180 | and then tapers off from early day into the later day.

00:23:51.940 | It's a bad thing if that cortisol peak is shifted late.

00:23:54.760 | That cortisol peak is coming every 24 hours.

00:23:57.260 | You don't have a choice.

00:23:59.020 | Question is, is it going to be early day

00:24:00.380 | or is it going to be late day?

00:24:01.740 | Late day cortisol peaks are associated

00:24:04.560 | with depression, anxiety.

00:24:05.820 | This was done by my colleague, David Spiegel

00:24:08.060 | and the great Robert Sapolsky at Stanford.

00:24:10.740 | I study about that.

00:24:11.840 | Robert, another great beard.

00:24:16.240 | Amazing.

00:24:19.640 | And I always thought it was to blend in

00:24:22.400 | with the species that he studies,

00:24:24.500 | 'cause he was like the baboon guy, you know.

00:24:27.220 | I haven't quite figured out how to master that one,

00:24:29.020 | you know, like the cuttlefish look,

00:24:30.560 | but I'm working on it, working on it.

00:24:33.720 | Maybe I just have to, no, never mind.

00:24:35.180 | There's a story about, you remember the earlier story?

00:24:38.740 | The cuttlefish, anyway, never mind.

00:24:41.200 | Again, this is why I don't like to speak

00:24:45.280 | too late in the day.

00:24:46.600 | I can get myself into trouble.

00:24:48.020 | But the point here is that having that cortisol peak

00:24:54.020 | early in the day sets you up for mood focus

00:24:56.640 | and alertness, immune system function

00:24:58.220 | in a really great way.

00:25:02.060 | Shift workers have a serious problem,

00:25:04.380 | which is that late peaks in cortisol

00:25:07.020 | are kind of paramount in all forms of shift work.

00:25:10.020 | And so what you need to do is to put yourself,

00:25:12.420 | ideally, in lighting conditions that limit

00:25:14.620 | the amount of blue light coming in at night,

00:25:17.740 | or when you're doing that shift work.

00:25:19.220 | Now, you have to do your work.

00:25:21.180 | And I think in the next two years,

00:25:23.620 | if I have my way, one idea that I'd like to

00:25:26.980 | embed in people's minds is we hear a lot now

00:25:29.340 | about how hyper-processed foods

00:25:30.900 | and highly-processed foods are bad for us,

00:25:32.900 | sort of empty calories.

00:25:34.020 | What are empty calories?

00:25:34.980 | It's foods that are very calorie-dense,

00:25:36.920 | but micronutrient-poor, right?

00:25:38.820 | That's what it really is.

00:25:40.340 | It's also the quality of food issues,

00:25:42.100 | and people get, like, let's please not have

00:25:44.020 | the seed oil debate.

00:25:45.060 | It's like, people get really into this,

00:25:47.220 | and it's unclear to me still, and okay.

00:25:50.040 | But we sort of think of empty calories

00:25:53.080 | like alcohol, sugar, et cetera.

00:25:55.520 | Calorie-dense, micronutrient-poor.

00:25:58.560 | Light can be viewed in much the same way.

00:26:01.360 | These days, we live in a very blue-light-rich world.

00:26:05.080 | Lot of blue light, so short-wavelength light,

00:26:07.480 | blue light, UV light.

00:26:08.920 | And by the way, in sunlight, especially down here,

00:26:11.560 | it's very UV-rich blue, which is great during the day,

00:26:14.940 | especially when it's offset, or sorry,

00:26:17.480 | when it includes long-wavelength light, full-spectrum light.

00:26:21.000 | By the way, for everyone that's obsessed with red light,

00:26:23.400 | and I love red light and red light therapies,

00:26:25.200 | remember, the best source of red light is the sun.

00:26:29.220 | It's full-spectrum light.

00:26:31.760 | It includes red.

00:26:33.080 | It's just there's a bunch of other stuff in there, too,

00:26:34.680 | so it doesn't look like a red light panel.

00:26:37.520 | That said, if you are going to do shift work,

00:26:39.880 | one of the best things you can do,

00:26:40.960 | and it's been shown to reduce cortisol levels at night

00:26:44.400 | while you're doing that shift work,

00:26:46.760 | is to filter out some of the blue.

00:26:48.640 | So that is a use case for blue blockers,

00:26:51.420 | or even for glasses that put you

00:26:55.440 | into more reddish conditions,

00:26:57.240 | provided you can still do the work you need to do safely.

00:26:59.800 | You will see a dramatic reduction in cortisol

00:27:02.960 | under those conditions.

00:27:04.620 | This blue and UV pathway,

00:27:07.320 | picked up by a certain set of neurons in the eye,

00:27:10.200 | the intrinsically photosensitive melanopsin cells, et cetera,

00:27:12.600 | is a real thing, and it's designed to activate you.

00:27:15.840 | This is why so-called seasonal affective disorder lamps,

00:27:18.080 | sad lamps, are basically bright blue-white-ish light.

00:27:23.080 | So when you're doing that shift work,

00:27:26.120 | if you can get into red or orange

00:27:27.960 | or amber light conditions, that's great.

00:27:30.320 | You can do this very inexpensively, by the way,

00:27:32.700 | by just getting some party lights.

00:27:34.080 | It doesn't have to be any fancy red light.

00:27:36.020 | This is not talking about red light panels.

00:27:38.760 | The other thing, of course,

00:27:40.640 | is when you get back to your non-work environment,

00:27:45.920 | you need to do some work to think about

00:27:47.600 | when is best to sleep, when is not best to sleep.

00:27:49.840 | You know, is it best to sleep all day and be up all night,

00:27:52.220 | or get that sunlight in the morning?

00:27:53.560 | And I talk about that in the shift work episode,

00:27:56.160 | and I'm tempted to go down that rabbit hole now,

00:27:58.440 | but I would just encourage you

00:27:59.400 | to take a look at that episode.

00:28:01.480 | And I'll just cue you all to a resource.

00:28:03.840 | The hubermanlab.com website allows you,

00:28:06.720 | thanks to our wonderful engineers,

00:28:09.160 | to put in multiple topics.

00:28:10.880 | So you could say shift work red light,

00:28:14.520 | or shift work dopamine, or shift work sunlight,

00:28:18.440 | and it will take you to the exact timestamps

00:28:20.240 | across all the episodes where those specific topics occur.

00:28:23.920 | It's all at zero cost,

00:28:25.240 | as opposed to having to go and peruse

00:28:26.920 | all these different episodes.

00:28:28.600 | A lot of people have said, "Why not shorter episodes?"

00:28:31.960 | It's like, well, the idea was to create

00:28:33.200 | a library of information that now AI is,

00:28:38.120 | and better engineering of websites,

00:28:40.280 | can allow you to just pull the relevant information

00:28:42.360 | just like you would a book.

00:28:43.840 | Well, I used to go to the library,

00:28:44.960 | for those of you like me old enough to remember,

00:28:46.480 | you actually took this thing called a book off a shelf,

00:28:48.640 | you Xerox copied it.

00:28:50.240 | In any event, it was very archaic and very expensive,

00:28:53.760 | and you'd always get the margin of the book in the middle,

00:28:55.680 | like the spine, it sucked.

00:28:57.520 | Now you can go to the website and just get that information,

00:28:59.920 | and then we also just launched

00:29:01.320 | an ai.hubermanlab.com website.

00:29:04.000 | Again, it's all zero cost.

00:29:04.920 | You can just say, "Hey, what should I do for shift work?"

00:29:07.360 | But I wanted to hear, to come here tonight,

00:29:09.360 | so I didn't tell you that until you got here.

00:29:10.960 | No, I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding.

00:29:12.800 | Okay, and there are a few other tools

00:29:15.560 | about adjusting eating schedules and whatnot for shift work,

00:29:18.800 | but hopefully that gets you going, Julia.

00:29:23.120 | Thank you.

00:29:24.480 | What's the difference between NSDR and meditation?

00:29:27.840 | Thank you for this question.

00:29:29.480 | I am a huge, huge, huge believer and proponent

00:29:34.400 | and practitioner of NSDR, non-sleep deep rest.

00:29:37.040 | What is non-sleep deep rest?

00:29:38.640 | Well, to be fair, yoga nidra,

00:29:40.480 | which translates to yoga sleep,

00:29:42.000 | is a thousand-year-old practice,

00:29:45.040 | thousands of year old practice

00:29:46.800 | in which you lie completely still, keep the mind awake.

00:29:51.800 | You're not thinking in a structured way.

00:29:53.400 | It's more of a body scan, directed relaxation, et cetera.

00:29:56.040 | I discovered this in 2015

00:29:58.160 | when I was doing some research for a book

00:29:59.600 | that I still can't manage to seem to finish

00:30:02.760 | on trauma and addiction.

00:30:05.320 | And I have a friend, very talented trauma therapist,

00:30:08.840 | who's managed to help people with all sorts of addictions.

00:30:12.520 | He'll be on the podcast in the not too distant future.

00:30:15.280 | And I went down to this clinic in Florida

00:30:18.200 | and everyone there spent the first hour of the day

00:30:20.880 | doing yoga nidra.

00:30:22.800 | This is pretty wacky.

00:30:24.520 | I was still in my pure scientist,

00:30:26.160 | quote unquote pure scientist, naive scientist lens.

00:30:29.600 | And I thought, what is this about?

00:30:30.800 | And he said, well, you know,

00:30:31.640 | so much of addiction is about an inability

00:30:33.640 | to regulate impulses, to deal with agitation,

00:30:37.080 | especially in the early days of trying to get sober

00:30:39.240 | or being sober.

00:30:40.600 | And it just helps people learn

00:30:42.760 | to self-direct their nervous system

00:30:45.120 | in terms of self-directed relaxation.

00:30:47.080 | It also seems to help with their sleep.

00:30:48.840 | It also has these components about time and sort of,

00:30:53.160 | 'cause he said, you know, it's kind of interesting.

00:30:54.600 | If you take a step back,

00:30:55.960 | you know, if you can tolerate craving for a second,

00:30:59.840 | you just did it, so why couldn't you do it

00:31:02.000 | for another second?

00:31:02.840 | If I can do it for another second, another second.

00:31:05.760 | It's not as if it necessarily increases linearly

00:31:08.320 | or over time.

00:31:10.680 | So, you know, what's going on?

00:31:12.080 | And so again, sort of our ability to realize

00:31:15.160 | and regulate our states across time

00:31:16.880 | and to realize there's this funny thing

00:31:18.960 | where when we feel terrible,

00:31:20.240 | we think it's gonna go on forever.

00:31:21.640 | And when we're happy,

00:31:23.120 | we're like certain it's gonna stop.

00:31:25.560 | There's like kind of asymmetry in our nervous system

00:31:27.280 | that we don't understand.

00:31:28.360 | We showed, he started talking about yoga nidra

00:31:30.240 | really seems to help addicts recover and stay sober.

00:31:33.160 | They do it regularly.

00:31:34.000 | I thought, well, this is cool.

00:31:35.000 | What is it?

00:31:35.840 | I'm a neuroscientist.

00:31:36.680 | We started studying it in my laboratory.

00:31:39.440 | We discovered that the brain goes into these states

00:31:42.600 | during yoga nidra that are similar to sleep,

00:31:46.720 | body still, mind alert.

00:31:49.320 | And that seems to be very beneficial,

00:31:52.080 | maybe even accelerates neuroplasticity and learning.

00:31:54.280 | And indeed there's evidence for that.

00:31:55.800 | And there's evidence that yoga nidra

00:31:57.080 | out from a laboratory out of Scandinavia,

00:31:59.760 | not my laboratory showing that it can increase dopamine

00:32:03.440 | levels in the striatum, basal ganglia by up to 60%

00:32:07.800 | using human positron emission tomography imaging.

00:32:10.720 | So we're talking about how to increase dopamine

00:32:12.360 | through non pharmacologic means.

00:32:14.920 | This is something about body still brain active,

00:32:17.440 | very, very powerful way to do that.

00:32:20.080 | I made up this term, this acronym non-sleep deep rest

00:32:23.360 | because I have tremendous respect for yoga nidra

00:32:26.600 | and the yoga traditions,

00:32:28.920 | but I was concerned for a lot of people, unfortunately,

00:32:32.880 | when they hear yoga nidra, it sounds esoteric

00:32:36.280 | and they're not gonna approach that practice.

00:32:37.840 | Also yoga nidra includes intentions

00:32:40.000 | and some things that are a little bit on the mystical side.

00:32:42.600 | And I knew I was gonna take some heat for it

00:32:45.400 | and I feel badly about it.

00:32:46.720 | But that bad feeling is offset by,

00:32:49.960 | I think when you call something non-sleep deep rest,

00:32:51.800 | it tells you what it is.

00:32:53.520 | And then more people are likely to come to the practice.

00:32:55.520 | And I felt like it was worth kind of putting myself,

00:32:59.760 | jumping on the grenade for that one.

00:33:01.800 | So non-sleep deep rest is very effective

00:33:05.520 | at restoring cognitive and physical vigor

00:33:09.080 | and can indeed offset some degree of sleep loss.

00:33:14.080 | It also gets you better at falling and staying asleep.

00:33:16.640 | And it's very simple and very easy to do

00:33:18.440 | and it's zero cost.

00:33:19.360 | And if you wanna try it,

00:33:20.800 | you can go onto YouTube and put NSDR in my last name.

00:33:23.680 | There's a woman named Kelly Boyes, B-O-Y-S,

00:33:26.080 | who has a much more pleasant voice than mine,

00:33:28.880 | who does them as well.

00:33:29.800 | These are all zero cost protocol.

00:33:31.080 | She's also in the waking up app.

00:33:32.760 | And there are many of them.

00:33:35.240 | Kamini Desai is another person

00:33:37.000 | who has wonderful yoga nidra scripts.

00:33:40.480 | So you can find these things

00:33:41.680 | and they're really about 10 minutes to 20 minutes,

00:33:44.080 | sometimes 30 minutes long.

00:33:45.480 | You can do it for an hour,

00:33:46.760 | but most people won't do that consistently.

00:33:48.200 | You don't have to do them every day.

00:33:49.280 | And they're very, very effective

00:33:51.440 | at restoring mental and physical vigor

00:33:54.000 | when you're feeling depleted

00:33:55.280 | and getting you to be a better sleeper.

00:33:59.240 | So I figure that's a zero cost tool

00:34:01.720 | that is grounded in good mechanistic science

00:34:04.360 | and makes sense logically, so why not?

00:34:07.400 | Meditation, typically,

00:34:09.560 | and there are many different forms of meditation,

00:34:11.560 | but if you're, let's just say kind of standard,

00:34:15.920 | if there were such a thing.

00:34:17.640 | Third eye meditation, closing your eyes,

00:34:19.200 | focusing your concentration on a point

00:34:21.360 | just sort of at your forehead,

00:34:22.520 | concentrating on your breathing,

00:34:23.560 | redirecting your attention to your breathing

00:34:25.320 | if your attention drifts.

00:34:27.280 | We know based on work from Wendy Suzuki's laboratory

00:34:30.680 | at New York University

00:34:32.040 | and some work out of the University of Wisconsin,

00:34:34.800 | can improve memory,

00:34:37.360 | can improve focus,

00:34:40.920 | and does seem to have some stress offsetting effects,

00:34:44.760 | but it's more of a focus exercise

00:34:48.240 | as opposed to an energy replenishing exercise.

00:34:51.120 | Now, some people meditate and feel better afterwards,

00:34:53.040 | they have more energy,

00:34:53.880 | but then it's sort of like, well, compared to what?

00:34:56.880 | I don't think that's the major effect of meditation.

00:34:59.160 | And while we're on these topics,

00:35:00.680 | I should just say that self-directed hypnosis

00:35:02.920 | of the sort that my colleague David Spiegel studies

00:35:05.360 | is more about solving a particular problem.

00:35:08.440 | So hypnosis is more about engaging neuroplasticity.

00:35:11.040 | Remember earlier we said that neuroplasticity in adulthood

00:35:13.920 | can be activated by focus followed by rest.

00:35:17.080 | It seems that in the self-directed hypnotic states,

00:35:20.680 | the brain enters kind of pattern of activity

00:35:23.720 | in which neuroplasticity can be accessed more quickly,

00:35:27.960 | we think, because the brain is both focused and relaxed

00:35:31.400 | in a particular way, merging that focus and rest state.

00:35:34.920 | And of course, the hypnotic script

00:35:37.000 | is not about getting you to do crazy things on stage,

00:35:39.360 | that's stage hypnosis,

00:35:40.480 | but self-directed hypnosis is, for instance,

00:35:42.800 | smoking cessation.

00:35:44.240 | By the way, the success with smoking cessation from hypnosis

00:35:47.320 | is far greater than the cessation with smoking

00:35:49.800 | from pretty much any other protocol.

00:35:52.200 | But unfortunately, it has the name hypnosis,

00:35:54.760 | which makes people think about stuff

00:35:56.200 | that people do on stage that's kind of wacky.

00:35:59.240 | So we need a new name for it,

00:36:01.600 | because unfortunately, names are a problem.

00:36:03.960 | Their names can be differentiators

00:36:06.240 | as opposed to integrators.

00:36:07.320 | They don't bring people...

00:36:08.200 | When people say, "I'm gonna hypnotize you,"

00:36:09.800 | or, "You should try hypnosis,"

00:36:11.160 | people are like, "Eh."

00:36:12.320 | Like, "Yum, yuck, meh?"

00:36:13.800 | They're like, "Yuck."

00:36:15.480 | So by the way, does everyone here remember

00:36:18.280 | how you know if you're highly hypnotizable?

00:36:20.720 | You know that the Spiegel eye roll test?

00:36:23.360 | It's not what teenagers do.

00:36:24.640 | David Spiegel and his father, psychiatrists,

00:36:28.640 | discovered the clinical application of hypnosis.

00:36:31.080 | It's a clinically-approved tool.

00:36:33.240 | There's brainstem neurons that cause elevations

00:36:37.800 | and alertness and focus,

00:36:39.600 | and they're associated with moving the eyes up.

00:36:41.640 | They're brainstem neurons that close the eyelids

00:36:43.760 | and essentially drive the eyes down

00:36:46.840 | that are associated with parasympathetic states,

00:36:48.680 | which is why you go like this when you're tired.

00:36:50.400 | You're out there, I'm sure.

00:36:51.760 | If you are capable of keeping your gaze upward

00:36:56.080 | and closing your eyelids,

00:36:57.840 | you score on a particular end

00:37:00.640 | of the so-called Spiegel eye roll test,

00:37:02.120 | which makes you highly hypnotizable

00:37:04.920 | because that state of hypnosis

00:37:07.280 | is one in which you're what?

00:37:08.360 | Alert, but very, very relaxed.

00:37:10.480 | So if you go to Spiegel's laboratory,

00:37:13.080 | they're gonna look at you,

00:37:13.920 | and they say, "Look up at the ceiling,"

00:37:15.560 | and then close your eyelids,

00:37:16.520 | and if you can still see the whites of,

00:37:19.200 | if they still see the whites of your eyes

00:37:20.600 | as your eyelids close,

00:37:22.360 | well, then you're in the highly hypnotizable realm.

00:37:25.360 | Kind of interesting, right?

00:37:26.320 | There's all nervous system-related,

00:37:27.960 | and you can see this stuff is,

00:37:29.400 | this is like real clinical tools.

00:37:32.000 | Okay, how do we stop ourselves

00:37:33.280 | from mindlessly scrolling on our phones?

00:37:36.240 | Hard questions.

00:37:38.160 | I didn't look at my watch 'cause I'm bored.

00:37:39.560 | I'm just thinking, how much time do you have?

00:37:44.380 | Well, on the way here to Australia,

00:37:47.100 | my, Rob, who you met earlier,

00:37:48.860 | my friend and podcast producer,

00:37:51.820 | he said, "Okay, you guys,

00:37:53.100 | "everyone's deleting social media from your phones

00:37:56.800 | "for the whole trip, the whole trip."

00:38:00.660 | And I'm like, "Mm, I don't know if I can go on this trip,

00:38:02.700 | "Rob, no, I'm kidding."

00:38:03.860 | We have one guy who's kept it on his phone

00:38:07.900 | so that we can post things, and we continue to.

00:38:12.520 | Honestly, I think that's what it takes.

00:38:14.480 | If it's social media that you're scrolling,

00:38:17.320 | I think you should do a delete and reinstall.

00:38:21.280 | If I'm honest, a delete and reinstall every day.

00:38:23.960 | Because I think,

00:38:27.360 | and then you have to limit the amount of time.

00:38:29.280 | And one of the members of my podcast team experienced this.

00:38:32.280 | He said, "I just picked up my phone a minute ago,

00:38:33.940 | "and I went to hit the Instagram tab,

00:38:36.520 | "and it wasn't there, and I know it's not there."

00:38:38.640 | And that's where I say, yeah, at some point,

00:38:40.760 | it becomes more compulsive than addiction.

00:38:43.160 | These are just reflexive behaviors.

00:38:44.920 | It's like walking in the refrigerator.

00:38:46.640 | I did it every day of my life, all day.

00:38:49.200 | I walk into people's homes

00:38:50.120 | and just look in the refrigerator.

00:38:52.080 | I don't even know.

00:38:52.920 | I get into people's cars, I look in the glove box.

00:38:55.520 | I just do this.

00:38:56.360 | I'm kinda like looking around.

00:38:57.440 | I'm not gonna steal anything.

00:38:59.020 | But it's like the teenage boy in me.

00:39:02.120 | You know, I just kinda like walk in,

00:39:03.320 | I'm gonna open your refrigerator.

00:39:04.960 | So I think it gets to the point of reflexive,

00:39:09.600 | and it's compulsive, and it might be addictive,

00:39:13.600 | but it can't be good when it's like that.

00:39:17.960 | But I think social media can be really useful.

00:39:20.200 | So I think if you're, you can set timers.

00:39:24.720 | You can try graying out the screen,

00:39:26.040 | getting rid of the color thing.

00:39:27.720 | There's all this stuff,

00:39:28.580 | but I think if there are particular apps

00:39:30.560 | that you're struggling with,

00:39:31.400 | I would just delete them from your phone and do a reinstall,

00:39:33.860 | because that's enough of a behavioral barrier.

00:39:37.680 | There are enough steps involved, enough sequencing

00:39:39.680 | to put the thing back on there each day and each time,

00:39:42.800 | maybe twice a day, that you're going

00:39:44.640 | to vastly reduce your use.

00:39:46.720 | To be honest, I think that's probably the best way to do it.

00:39:48.960 | And there are probably people in this audience

00:39:50.680 | that are thinking this seems crazy.

00:39:52.360 | Like just don't turn it on.

00:39:53.480 | Just don't open it.

00:39:55.560 | And look, if I was 65 years old, I'd say that too.

00:39:59.640 | But it doesn't work that way

00:40:03.640 | for certainly the younger generation.

00:40:06.420 | It doesn't.

00:40:07.260 | I know this 'cause I gave a talk

00:40:08.280 | at Santa Clara University a few years ago,

00:40:10.120 | and I was talking about limiting social media use and phones.

00:40:15.120 | And this kid came up to me afterwards.

00:40:16.720 | He said, "You don't get it."

00:40:18.360 | It's like you're like, back then I was like 43.

00:40:20.600 | He said, "You don't get it."

00:40:22.120 | He said, "For you, the phone was a thing

00:40:24.200 | "that you like integrated

00:40:25.360 | "into your like post '90s high school life.

00:40:27.800 | "Like you watched 'The Breakfast Club'."

00:40:29.880 | Or something, I don't know how he knew that movie.

00:40:31.680 | I was like, "You're right.

00:40:32.500 | "I did watch 'The Breakfast Club' a bunch of times."

00:40:36.200 | And he said, "But for us, it's like life."

00:40:41.040 | I was like.

00:40:42.080 | I rolled my eyes and I thought, wait, no, listen.

00:40:43.700 | I'm gonna listen 'cause no one knows what it's like

00:40:45.840 | to be 16 years old or 24 years old in 2024,

00:40:49.340 | unless you're 16 or 24.

00:40:51.100 | I'm like, okay, here we go.

00:40:53.180 | Listen, he said, "When my phone,"

00:40:54.700 | he said, "When my phone powers down,

00:40:57.300 | "I feel the energy drain out of me.

00:41:01.280 | "And when it comes back up,

00:41:02.700 | "I feel life energy come back into my body."

00:41:06.120 | And I thought, oh my goodness, like we are hosed.

00:41:09.200 | But that's the reality.

00:41:12.300 | And I'm of the mind, you know, I was a camp counselor.

00:41:15.520 | I worked with at-risk kids.

00:41:16.720 | I was a wild kid.

00:41:17.720 | And you learn something,

00:41:18.880 | especially when you work with kids like me.

00:41:21.280 | When I was a teenager, I was a hellion,

00:41:23.360 | is be a channel, not a dam.

00:41:26.380 | You cannot block this system that's emerged.

00:41:30.200 | This is here and it's here to stay.

00:41:31.940 | So I think things like deleting the app

00:41:34.040 | is putting it back on there is the only way to go.

00:41:36.520 | And we have to listen.

00:41:37.400 | I think we have to listen to understand that,

00:41:39.440 | you know, we, after all, adults created these technologies

00:41:42.760 | and these kids are using them.

00:41:44.280 | And I don't think we're gonna see a reversal.

00:41:46.760 | I don't.

00:41:47.800 | So we have to really, I think that what he said to me,

00:41:51.040 | as scary as it was to me, I think reflects the reality.

00:41:53.740 | It's part of their life energy.

00:41:55.440 | It's part of their connectivity.

00:41:57.440 | And we're gonna have to come up with better tools.

00:41:59.720 | And I doubt those tools are going to be

00:42:02.500 | to the effect of eliminating it.

00:42:04.860 | You could say, unfortunately, you know, all the adult,

00:42:07.780 | last I checked, I'm an adult

00:42:09.220 | and people in my life have argued differently.

00:42:11.380 | But I think we're gonna have to learn to be a channel,

00:42:14.520 | not a dam with this.

00:42:16.140 | I do.

00:42:16.960 | If resources and ethics were not an issue,

00:42:19.660 | what would your dream clinical trial to run?

00:42:22.900 | Oh my goodness, this is a hard question.

00:42:26.880 | (audience laughing)

00:42:29.880 | Okay.

00:42:32.760 | Dream clinical trial.

00:42:34.560 | What's that?

00:42:36.980 | Oh gosh, the accent is killing me.

00:42:41.060 | More cuttlefish, yeah, more cuttlefish.

00:42:44.560 | Like cuttlefish, I like the idea of more cuddling.

00:42:47.400 | Physical contact, so key.

00:42:52.140 | I think we're all still recovering from the years,

00:42:56.420 | we had a few years of just like no physical,

00:42:58.660 | like physical contact, so minimal.

00:43:00.940 | I mean, there's the classic Harlow experiments, right?

00:43:04.060 | The wire monkey versus the cloth monkey.

00:43:06.540 | I mean, primates go to the cloth monkey

00:43:09.620 | even if they don't get food there.

00:43:10.900 | I mean, it's such a critical component

00:43:13.060 | of, you know, how our nervous system forms.

00:43:15.660 | I think this is a, you know what?

00:43:20.340 | I'm gonna do something I've never done before.

00:43:21.500 | I'm gonna turn the question around.

00:43:23.400 | I actually would, seriously,

00:43:25.140 | I'm not trying to avoid answering this,

00:43:26.500 | but, you know, we've worked on all sorts,

00:43:28.420 | I've worked on cuttlefish,

00:43:29.260 | we've worked on respiration practices,

00:43:30.960 | we've worked on vision,

00:43:32.860 | we've worked on neural regeneration.

00:43:34.540 | You know, I've enjoyed working on a great number

00:43:38.420 | of different things.

00:43:39.260 | I'm sort of curious what people,

00:43:41.940 | like what do you think we need more of?

00:43:43.940 | I've never done this, but I really wanna know.

00:43:46.220 | I don't know how we're gonna do this

00:43:47.180 | in any kind of non-chaotic format, but what the hell.

00:43:49.840 | (audience laughing)

00:43:51.020 | It's late enough in the evening, we'll just do it.

00:43:54.160 | Like really, I mean, so now there's trials on psychedelics.

00:43:56.980 | Maybe we do this by kind of like,

00:43:58.500 | I'll throw out some options and then we'll do it.

00:44:00.380 | So right now it seems that psychedelics are a big thing.

00:44:03.440 | Do they increase plasticity?

00:44:06.740 | Yeah, I'm excited about it.

00:44:07.980 | I'm a convert, but I do think that one has to be careful

00:44:10.820 | and there are certain people in populations,

00:44:13.100 | like people who suffer from certain types of manic bipolar

00:44:17.620 | or schizophrenia that really need to avoid these things.

00:44:19.720 | Kids, I mean, being a kid is basically

00:44:22.100 | being in a psychedelic state.

00:44:24.240 | The lateral connectivity of the brain is extensive

00:44:27.680 | and I don't encourage it.

00:44:30.560 | I mean, the trials with MDMA and PTSD are incredible.

00:44:33.760 | What's happening with MAPS is incredible.

00:44:35.720 | 60 plus percent remission rates,

00:44:38.120 | done with licensed physicians, of course.

00:44:40.080 | I don't get cavalier with this.

00:44:41.800 | So, okay, so I'll just ask.

00:44:43.200 | So, I mean, it's gonna be hard to draw out the dissenters,

00:44:47.820 | but more work on psychedelics, psilocybin, et cetera,

00:44:51.280 | as ways to ameliorate depression.

00:44:53.120 | Are people like more like yum, yuck, or meh?

00:44:56.680 | Is it like yum, okay, or like yuck?

00:44:59.720 | Don't be afraid to say yuck.

00:45:01.000 | I like a good argument.

00:45:02.240 | Is anyone like yuck on psychedelics?

00:45:04.520 | Sorcery, it's sorcery.

00:45:06.360 | I heard that.

00:45:07.200 | Meh, okay.

00:45:09.480 | All right, interesting.

00:45:10.440 | Okay, so psychedelics get a strong push.

00:45:12.360 | I think we have enough evidence

00:45:14.240 | that changing patterns of respiration changes brain states,

00:45:18.000 | but I think that that's an interesting area.

00:45:21.880 | I don't know.

00:45:22.720 | Can you just shout it out?

00:45:23.880 | Just shout it out.

00:45:24.960 | All right, first over here, yes?

00:45:27.640 | Oh, God, the accent.

00:45:29.840 | You guys are so good.

00:45:31.000 | I love the accent.

00:45:32.920 | Listen, I don't drink anymore,

00:45:35.600 | but when I used to go to bars,

00:45:37.640 | I'll just say the Australian accent never fails.

00:45:40.960 | In the US, yeah?

00:45:42.160 | Time chambers.

00:45:46.480 | Time chambers.

00:45:47.600 | (audience member mumbling)

00:45:51.180 | Oh, hyperbaric chambers.

00:45:55.640 | Yeah, hyperbaric, that's an interesting one.

00:45:57.240 | Yeah, I mean, when I think of ways to modify physiology,

00:46:00.240 | you think temperature, light, neuromodulators, right?

00:46:04.760 | You think, by the way,

00:46:06.280 | anytime you wanna think about changing something

00:46:08.080 | in the body or brain,

00:46:09.040 | you think mechanical and chemical.

00:46:11.160 | So this is kind of,

00:46:12.640 | this is changing the chemistry of the brain and body

00:46:15.280 | through hyperbaric chambers.

00:46:16.300 | Thank you.

00:46:17.140 | I appreciate it.

00:46:17.980 | I think I,

00:46:18.800 | did we run into each other at the gym the other day?

00:46:20.640 | No, anyway, I think I recognize you.

00:46:24.360 | Okay, I'll get to you in one second, yeah?

00:46:30.480 | Yeah, love that.

00:46:33.160 | Okay, so protocols for childhood trauma, yeah.

00:46:36.000 | So, I mean, I think we're finally at the place

00:46:37.840 | where we, as a world,

00:46:40.240 | where this word trauma actually is meaningful,

00:46:43.440 | because we knew it before,

00:46:44.920 | but I think before, people thought if you hadn't,

00:46:47.040 | lived in a war zone, which obviously is trauma,

00:46:49.840 | now I think people appreciate that trauma

00:46:53.200 | is inherent to a lot of life.

00:46:55.660 | By the way, I love your shirt.

00:46:56.700 | I own that shirt.

00:46:57.540 | It's like, yeah, it's a Lonsdale shirt.

00:46:59.560 | It's against racism.

00:47:00.560 | Hey, I love that shirt.

00:47:02.760 | You know the history of that shirt, right?

00:47:04.400 | It's like Lonsdale was co-opted by some neo-Nazi groups

00:47:08.040 | as a brand.

00:47:08.880 | So Lonsdale came out with an against racism and hate shirt,

00:47:11.640 | which is like the best, like, to that, which is, yeah.

00:47:14.520 | So anyway, a little side note there.

00:47:16.600 | Not sponsored by Lonsdale,

00:47:18.100 | but rad shirt.

00:47:20.920 | Yeah, I think childhood trauma,

00:47:22.360 | you know, trauma can be best defined as an adverse event

00:47:25.980 | that changes the nervous system in a way

00:47:28.480 | that causes maladaptive functioning going forward.

00:47:30.920 | It's not every bad thing, right?

00:47:33.000 | But it certainly happens.

00:47:34.040 | And I think we need to learn to rewire the nervous system.

00:47:38.320 | Let's face it, whether or not psychedelics

00:47:40.000 | or it's talk therapy or it's hyperbaric chambers

00:47:42.720 | or it's cold plunges,

00:47:43.600 | what we're talking about is neuroplasticity.

00:47:45.380 | We're trying to rewire the nervous system.

00:47:47.200 | So I love that one.

00:47:49.100 | We need some very structured tools.

00:47:52.120 | And there's all sorts of stuff about SOAS release

00:47:54.200 | for trauma.

00:47:55.040 | And, you know, there's little bits,

00:47:56.100 | like little silos of things that are all very interesting,

00:47:58.800 | breath work, you know, release work.

00:48:00.580 | But so far there isn't like a structured framework

00:48:03.760 | for treating trauma.

00:48:05.000 | Different groups doing different things, EMDR, et cetera.

00:48:07.440 | I think they all have merit.

00:48:09.200 | Okay, there was the shouting out.

00:48:12.520 | Consciousness, the big C, yeah.

00:48:16.760 | In my house, Costello was the big C.

00:48:18.620 | He would always remind me of that.

00:48:19.700 | But consciousness, I think that now with AI,

00:48:24.060 | we have to ask ourselves like, what is consciousness?

00:48:27.460 | And I think we need a clear definition of what that is.

00:48:30.260 | Do you guys know this story of like,

00:48:31.860 | they were gonna solve consciousness a few years ago

00:48:33.980 | and they didn't do it.

00:48:35.580 | There was this bet in neuroscience

00:48:37.780 | that it was gonna be solved by 2015 or something like that.

00:48:42.680 | So I think we need, and it's not obviously,

00:48:44.360 | so we need better definition of what that means.

00:48:46.320 | But I think it's a very important problem indeed.

00:48:49.880 | So thank you.

00:48:50.860 | Maybe a--

00:48:51.700 | Free will, yeah, that's a tough one.

00:48:55.700 | That's one I usually avoid.

00:48:57.080 | Robert slammed me on that one on the podcast.

00:49:01.680 | What was it in the back?

00:49:02.880 | I heard it as an adaptive technique,

00:49:07.720 | but, oh, yeah.

00:49:11.000 | You know, we hear so much, I'm agreeing with you.

00:49:15.000 | We hear so much about ADHD these days

00:49:17.200 | without an understanding of what it really reflects,

00:49:20.120 | except in the extreme clinical cases.

00:49:22.560 | So I think a better understanding.

00:49:24.520 | I did two episodes of the podcast, by the way,

00:49:26.440 | on attention and ADHD.

00:49:27.680 | One focused mainly on behavioral and nutritional tools.

00:49:31.880 | It was positively received by about half of people.

00:49:34.280 | And then the other half were like, this is garbage.

00:49:37.320 | What about all the drugs that are useful?

00:49:38.960 | Then I did one about all the drugs that can be useful.

00:49:41.800 | People said, this is garbage.

00:49:43.560 | You're putting kids on meth.

00:49:44.880 | And I'm like, wait a second, hold on.

00:49:46.600 | We try and cover it all.

00:49:48.360 | So, because I favor balance.

00:49:52.540 | I heard excellent things.

00:49:54.880 | They were all male voices.

00:49:56.280 | We kind of got a sampling bias here,

00:49:58.120 | unless I've got a high frequency cutoff.

00:50:00.660 | Thank you.

00:50:01.500 | Something negotiation, sorry.

00:50:05.980 | (audience member speaking faintly)

00:50:08.180 | Science of negotiation.

00:50:12.100 | Yeah, so people being able to resolve differences better.

00:50:17.100 | Lord, please, yes.

00:50:19.940 | (audience laughing)

00:50:21.620 | Oh my goodness.

00:50:22.620 | I mean, this is, yes, thank you.

00:50:25.620 | If ever there was a call to action, it's like,

00:50:29.160 | you know, this is a big question, right?

00:50:31.980 | I'm a neuroscientist, not a historian,

00:50:34.060 | not a futurist or a politician, but thank goodness.

00:50:38.300 | Imagine what a terrible job I would do.

00:50:39.940 | I like being outdoors.

00:50:40.820 | I hate meetings.

00:50:42.300 | I like dressing like this.

00:50:43.980 | And I don't like the news.

00:50:46.940 | It'd be the worst.

00:50:48.740 | But yeah, if ever there was a need and a question,

00:50:53.580 | it's, you know, are we just gonna continue

00:50:56.060 | in these like iterative cycles of like,

00:50:58.380 | when the economy is good, things seem mostly good.

00:51:00.380 | And then a lot of people are still suffering.

00:51:01.900 | And then it's like these cycles of,

00:51:03.700 | or are we going to finally just sit back and go,

00:51:08.540 | okay, what are we good at as a species?

00:51:11.060 | What are we really bad at?

00:51:13.060 | What are we like kind of good at?

00:51:14.580 | And start coming up with some tools

00:51:16.020 | to try and function better on the whole,

00:51:17.840 | with the understanding that there are bad actors out there

00:51:20.960 | that are constantly trying to, you know,

00:51:23.380 | exploit and manipulate.

00:51:24.480 | But there are also a lot of good actors too.

00:51:26.380 | And by good actors, I don't mean actors

00:51:28.300 | in the stage acting sense.

00:51:29.900 | I mean, I think that, look, we're a smart species.

00:51:34.900 | We can think in past, present, and future terms.

00:51:38.140 | We can look at mechanism.

00:51:39.740 | We can communicate better with each other,

00:51:41.820 | better than any species, except maybe the cuttlefish.

00:51:44.500 | And so I think the question is, are we, you know,

00:51:48.060 | is there gonna be some sort of sitting back

00:51:50.500 | and finally just saying like enough?

00:51:53.380 | Like, let's just figure out a way to dialogue.

00:51:56.300 | And I love that.

00:51:59.460 | You know, it's a science way that there are problems

00:52:03.900 | and there are hard problems.

00:52:05.300 | And honestly, I think it's gonna come about,

00:52:09.620 | if it comes about, it's gonna come about through groups,

00:52:12.420 | not through individuals.

00:52:13.580 | I don't think we're gonna get like the world leader

00:52:15.820 | or world leaders of 12 people like, let's get it done.

00:52:19.300 | Let's get it done right this time.

00:52:21.400 | I think it's gonna be a more collective consciousness.

00:52:25.380 | You know, I'd like to see fewer individual leaders

00:52:28.100 | and more groups and panels leading things.

00:52:30.340 | But anyway, that's my bias in that, you know.

00:52:33.340 | Genetics?

00:52:37.220 | Genetics?

00:52:44.140 | Genetics.

00:52:46.700 | Love it.

00:52:48.620 | Yeah.

00:52:50.980 | Okay, well there's, okay, I'll say two things

00:52:54.020 | and then I think my team's gonna make me close out.

00:52:57.220 | Wait.

00:52:58.060 | Rad, okay, awesome.

00:53:07.940 | Now it's turning into like a science punk rock show.

00:53:10.340 | So the genetics, well I think the big things in genetics

00:53:15.340 | are we're soon gonna be in the place

00:53:17.580 | where we can do genetic, right now you can take human embryos

00:53:21.460 | and screen them for mutations by whole genome sequencing.

00:53:24.820 | It's very inexpensive compared to a few years ago.

00:53:27.260 | It's still expensive and you can do selection.

00:53:29.780 | You can select out based on lack of mutations.

00:53:32.860 | Maybe even based on over representation of certain genes.

00:53:36.260 | That's interesting, has some ethical considerations.

00:53:41.220 | But soon we'll be, you can do CRISPR.

00:53:43.980 | You could, in theory, you could modify the genome

00:53:48.580 | of adults and certainly babies.

00:53:52.140 | And so that's where we're headed.

00:53:53.540 | It's already being done in certain countries.

00:53:55.100 | It was done in China.

00:53:57.060 | It was not looked upon kindly

00:53:59.340 | by the international ethics committees.

00:54:01.300 | But it was done, a mutation in the HIV receptor.

00:54:06.340 | So those babies exist.

00:54:10.300 | So it's happening.

00:54:11.820 | It's gonna be interesting times.

00:54:13.860 | The microbiome, I think, is really exciting.

00:54:15.940 | Here's my big call to action is that

00:54:18.360 | there's a microbiome in the gut

00:54:19.620 | but there's also a microbiome on the skin

00:54:21.300 | and the nose and the mouth and the genitals.

00:54:23.940 | Like these, all these little niches.

00:54:26.140 | And well, I guess it depends.

00:54:27.460 | The little or not so little niches.

00:54:29.620 | Depends.

00:54:30.460 | I was thinking about the nostrils.

00:54:34.060 | The night's getting long.

00:54:37.020 | There I go again.

00:54:37.940 | They are all important and there's a lot more to understand.

00:54:43.820 | I think the gut microbiome is just one of the microbiomes.

00:54:47.340 | So, and female hormones, certainly important topic.

00:54:50.480 | It's received far less, sadly, far less attention

00:54:53.900 | than male hormone therapy or understanding.

00:54:57.220 | And things are starting to change there.

00:55:00.540 | It's been slow.

00:55:01.880 | Yeah, yeah, it's been, can you believe it?

00:55:04.780 | It was like, only like eight years ago

00:55:07.540 | that the National Institutes of Health in the United States

00:55:09.780 | was like, hey, maybe you should start

00:55:11.180 | studying female mice too.

00:55:12.780 | It's like, I mean, modern science is very far behind.

00:55:17.780 | We're very far behind.

00:55:19.980 | And I think it's a resource issue.

00:55:21.780 | It's also, there's a bunch of sociological considerations

00:55:26.780 | in science.

00:55:27.660 | Anyway, I'm trying to change the story there,

00:55:31.220 | but I'm but one person.

00:55:33.260 | And I hope to live a very long time.

00:55:35.260 | But should I get hit by a bullet, a bus, or cancer tomorrow,

00:55:40.040 | I want you to know that it's gonna be,

00:55:41.980 | or long time from now, to have natural causes.

00:55:44.980 | Sorry, I have a morbid sense of humor.

00:55:47.500 | I worked with the physicians.

00:55:48.820 | They all talk like that.

00:55:50.060 | I hope to live a very long time.

00:55:52.460 | But it's a collective effort.

00:55:53.820 | So I just want to, before we wrap,

00:55:56.260 | I want to say a couple of things.

00:55:58.020 | And we can get on with the rest of the night.

00:56:00.880 | First of all, it is a collective effort.

00:56:04.660 | You know, as I've mentioned several times this evening,

00:56:07.020 | I look no differently on the massage therapy

00:56:11.940 | versus chiropractic versus whole genome sequencing.

00:56:15.820 | It's just all different lenses to look at

00:56:18.580 | the same sort of set of goals through.

00:56:21.620 | And yes, there's a range of quality and rigor

00:56:24.060 | and communication styles and personalities.

00:56:26.420 | But if you can maintain some level of curiosity

00:56:29.220 | and discernment about what works for you

00:56:31.220 | or doesn't work for you,

00:56:32.100 | or where you think there's merit, that's great.

00:56:34.620 | But it's gonna be a wonderful thing

00:56:37.300 | when we can all start to dialogue

00:56:38.740 | and see where the points of convergence are,

00:56:40.500 | where you're basically talking about two different groups

00:56:43.000 | talking about the exact same thing

00:56:44.300 | through a different language.

00:56:45.140 | I think that's where things really can move forward.

00:56:48.380 | The discourse of public science and health communication

00:56:51.520 | obviously is something I'm very passionate about.

00:56:54.140 | I would love to see more podcasts, believe it or not,

00:56:56.740 | not just my podcast, but there are more podcasts.

00:56:59.820 | If you have something to say to the world, please say it.

00:57:02.280 | Please put it out there on social media.

00:57:03.900 | I do think that there's value there.

00:57:05.580 | So I'm encouraging every person,

00:57:07.780 | not just usually they go the young people,

00:57:09.840 | but like the every people to, you know,

00:57:13.580 | get information out there and to support the efforts.

00:57:16.860 | And I also wanna say thank you so much for coming out

00:57:19.580 | on a Saturday night here in Melbourne,

00:57:21.720 | and for listening to the podcast, and for, yeah,

00:57:27.220 | it really means a lot to me.

00:57:28.220 | Thank you, thank you. (audience applauding)

00:57:30.460 | Thank you, thank you, thank you so much.

00:57:34.160 | Thank you.

00:57:35.000 | Thank you.

00:57:38.580 | Thank you.

00:57:42.740 | I really appreciate it that the podcast

00:57:45.380 | is indeed a labor of love.

00:57:47.340 | I feel oh so blessed to do it.

00:57:48.980 | And my hope is that the tools, protocols, and information

00:57:53.020 | will radiate out as far and wide as possible.

00:57:56.020 | I don't need or want credit.

00:57:57.460 | I just want people to have the information.

00:57:59.500 | I really mean that, and to share it

00:58:01.920 | where you think it can be useful to people.

00:58:04.060 | And last, but certainly not least,

00:58:07.580 | thank you for your interest in science.

00:58:09.580 | (audience applauding and cheering)

00:58:11.660 | Thank you so much, thank you so much.

00:58:13.080 | Thank you.

00:58:13.920 | (upbeat music)

00:58:21.500 | (upbeat music)

00:58:24.080 | you

LIVE EVENT Q&A: Dr. Andrew Huberman Question & Answer in Melbourne, AU

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