How to Enhance Focus During Peak Performance | Josh Waitzkin & Dr. Andrew Huberman

00:00:00.000 | Do you believe in optimal levels of arousal for different aspects of practice or game?

00:00:09.840 | Autonomic arousal is something I've worked on for many years and one of the most impressive

00:00:14.760 | features I think of our brains as humans.

00:00:17.960 | First would be our ability to think into the past, present, or future or combination of

00:00:22.600 | those two.

00:00:23.640 | If other animals do that, they don't do it nearly as well and they certainly don't create

00:00:27.360 | technologies to bridge those different time scales.

00:00:30.800 | That's number one.

00:00:31.800 | But the other one is our visual and temporal aperture of focus.

00:00:37.920 | So when we are in a state of elevated arousal, our visual aperture shrinks, I'm sure you're

00:00:42.440 | familiar with this, and we slice time more finely, much, you know, it's like a higher

00:00:47.800 | frame rate.

00:00:48.800 | Right.

00:00:49.800 | Which is why people who, for instance, see a devastating traumatic car crash report experiencing

00:00:55.660 | things in slow motion, right, because their frame rate is high, like a slow motion video.

00:01:02.200 | Whereas when we are relaxed, our frame rate is larger bins of time.

00:01:09.040 | And I feel like so much of the discussion around things like flow and optimal states

00:01:14.680 | for learning have to do with assuming that there's one optimal state of arousal.

00:01:21.920 | But I feel like in every endeavor I've ever been involved in, it's about learning the

00:01:27.200 | transitions between the arousal states that allows us to, you know, pull back a little

00:01:32.200 | bit as things, as you said, like get tense, just relax just a little bit to be able to

00:01:37.440 | maybe see a different perspective or ratchet up our level of tension or AKA arousal in

00:01:44.680 | order to be able to fine slice the, you know, the micro expressions of a competitor.

00:01:50.580 | I mean, these two cameras on the fronts of our skull and the rest of our brain are really

00:01:57.400 | devoted to this process of, you know, shrinking or expanding the aperture of our consciousness.

00:02:03.200 | And it can be talked about in terms of space, just vision, like tunnel vision versus panoramic

00:02:07.680 | vision.

00:02:08.680 | It can be talked about at space time, you know, tunnel vision, fine slice, panoramic

00:02:12.960 | vision, broader slice.

00:02:15.640 | But then when you start getting into like the, then you map that onto the past, present

00:02:19.080 | and future mapping, and that's where I feel like we're into the game of skill learning

00:02:24.960 | and chess and strategy.

00:02:27.640 | So forgive me for the kind of, you know, top contour neuroscience description, but that's

00:02:31.680 | how I see the human primate as so different than all the other creatures in the world.

00:02:40.200 | That's how we're different because we can learn chess or ballet, foil, you know, Gibbons

00:02:46.120 | are pretty amazing at what Gibbons do.

00:02:49.240 | But if they're trying to learn other stuff that they've been failing so far.

00:02:53.240 | I spent a lot of time playing with frame rates.

00:02:57.480 | And I had this experience that I wrote about in that slowing down time chapter of The Art

00:03:01.520 | of Learning where I, when I had these experiences both in chess and in fighting, one time I

00:03:08.600 | was fighting against a super heavyweight dude in a competition and my hand shattered.

00:03:13.960 | And like I broke my hand right here.

00:03:16.600 | And it was interesting because the fight was very intense, reasonably hard, and my hand

00:03:22.760 | broke and instantly time slowed down.

00:03:25.160 | And he was moving in slow motion.

00:03:27.260 | And I was able to just so easily play with someone with like a broken hand compared to

00:03:31.580 | what had been a war before.

00:03:32.980 | - We know what that is.

00:03:33.980 | - Right, we do know what that is.

00:03:34.980 | - That's adrenaline.

00:03:35.980 | - Adrenaline.

00:03:36.980 | - Yeah.

00:03:37.980 | - Adrenaline and that tunnel vision, and then the frames are fat.

00:03:39.680 | - I mean, if I inject you with just a little bit of adrenaline, it stays in your periphery,

00:03:44.240 | but it activates systems in your brain in parallel to that.

00:03:47.500 | And you're gonna experience an immediate dilation of your pupils.

00:03:52.840 | You'll have more tunnel vision.

00:03:53.840 | I mean, every process is sped up in the direction of higher frame rate.

00:03:58.600 | - So then the question then became for me, and this would be fun to talk, I've never

00:04:01.560 | spoken to a scientist about this process.

00:04:03.560 | Like how do I learn to do that at will, right?

00:04:07.000 | And then how can I train, 'cause I can't just pump myself with adrenaline all the time,

00:04:10.160 | although maybe I can learn to have that physiological response.

00:04:13.480 | - You can deploy it.

00:04:14.480 | - Right, so then how can I deploy it, right?

00:04:17.080 | What are triggers for having that chemical change?

00:04:19.200 | And then also, how can I train so that I have the experience of more frames than my opponent?

00:04:27.020 | And so Marcelo Garcia, he's known as the king of the scramble, he spends his whole time

00:04:31.280 | in transition.

00:04:32.280 | So if you're training jujitsu with most people, they're always finding a position and holding

00:04:35.960 | it.

00:04:36.960 | And so Marcelo, one of the unique things about his training life for most of his life was

00:04:40.320 | that he never held positions.

00:04:41.920 | He was always moving.

00:04:42.920 | He was always in the in between.

00:04:44.320 | And it's true in most arts is that people think that the art is the positions that they

00:04:47.960 | see, but the real high level art is the space in between the positions.

00:04:53.120 | So if we have this position leads to this position, that's gonna be like, there's gonna

00:04:56.600 | be no frames in between for most people.

00:04:58.420 | For some people, there might be four frames.

00:05:00.360 | But if I have 100 frames, then I can play in pockets that you don't see.

00:05:04.160 | And so if you're living your life in the training process in the in between, in the transition,

00:05:08.900 | if you're always, the way that manifests in actual, like, for example, jujitsu training

00:05:13.280 | or submission grappling training is if you're not holding positions, you're always moving

00:05:16.580 | and you're spending all of your time in the in between, while people who are holding position

00:05:20.760 | are always static.

00:05:21.960 | So if you go to a jujitsu school and you sit and watch, it's interesting to look for this

00:05:24.380 | one thing.

00:05:25.880 | Notice the amount of time static versus in motion.

00:05:30.080 | Marcelo was always in motion.

00:05:31.080 | There's a beautiful clip of him that you got people can look up.

00:05:34.320 | It's an art de suave.

00:05:35.320 | It was an old documentary back in the day, like 25 years ago, I think it was.

00:05:39.740 | It's on YouTube.

00:05:40.740 | It's like an eight minute clip of him training as an, I think, an 18 year old.

00:05:44.480 | And you watch him just like in the early days of him learning this transitional approach,

00:05:48.000 | and he's just never stopping.

00:05:50.200 | He's always allowing the person, but you have to get past the egoic dynamics.

00:05:53.720 | Because you can't, you're giving up on dominating people all the time.

00:05:57.540 | Because when you're in a dominant position in jujitsu, you want to hold it because you've

00:05:59.960 | won.

00:06:00.960 | You don't want this bullshit passing between men who are fighting, or women who are fighting

00:06:04.520 | each other.

00:06:05.520 | We want to dominate.

00:06:06.520 | But if you release that, and you're thinking about the learning process, and you stop holding,

00:06:11.440 | then you're moving.

00:06:12.440 | And you're getting nonstop exposure to the in between.

00:06:15.800 | So if you spend your life training in the in between, then you have more frames than

00:06:18.560 | other people do.

00:06:19.560 | That's a lot of what illusionists are doing.

00:06:21.360 | They spend all of their time training in the spaces that other people don't look at.

00:06:26.620 | And so it's not magic.

00:06:27.780 | It's brilliant training.

00:06:28.980 | It's the art of illusion at the in between.

00:06:32.460 | And a lot of the things that you can do, a high-level martial artist can do to a lower-level

00:06:36.220 | martial artist, or someone who doesn't train, that feels mystical.

00:06:39.300 | It's all about that principle manifest in interesting ways.

00:06:44.620 | And in general, for me, and this goes back to the question you asked two or three brilliant

00:06:49.920 | expansive questions ago around intense moments.

00:06:56.140 | A lot of what my training has been is having some serendipitous intense moment, and then

00:07:02.240 | learning, and then it becomes a beacon.

00:07:04.880 | So for example, there was a moment I was playing in a world chess championship in Calicut,

00:07:11.020 | India.

00:07:12.020 | And I was deep into a calculation, couldn't find the solution, and there was an earthquake.

00:07:18.360 | And everything started, like, in the actual world, everything started shaking, right?

00:07:22.660 | But I experienced the earthquake from the inside of the chess position.

00:07:26.600 | And I knew there was an earthquake, but I also was lost.

00:07:28.860 | My brain was lost in the labyrinth.

00:07:33.300 | And I found the solution.

00:07:35.500 | And then I got up and left, vacated, because we had to leave the playing hall.

00:07:38.460 | Then we came back, and I made my move and went on to win.

00:07:41.220 | And it was so interesting, because it was like, and then the earthquake, like, and a

00:07:45.460 | lot of what happens in chess is that you're reaching so deep into the complexity, like,

00:07:49.100 | into the cupboard, but the solution is right here at the front, and all you have to do

00:07:52.460 | is come back out and surface.

00:07:53.460 | One of the best ways, by the way, to prevent, to minimize chess blunders with, like, talented

00:07:59.500 | young players or players of any level, any age, is to shift the order of decide, make

00:08:06.180 | the move, and then write it down, because you notate your chess games, to decide, write

00:08:11.880 | it down, and then make the move.

00:08:14.740 | Write it down is a resurfacing, and you have common sense, look at the position.

00:08:18.580 | Almost all chess blunders, you realize you blundered instantly.

00:08:20.780 | You can think for 20 minutes, make your move, you know instantly you blundered, because

00:08:24.740 | there's not that surfacing, right?

00:08:26.220 | But then you can learn to just do the surfacing before making the actual move.

00:08:30.580 | It's true with human decision making in general.

00:08:32.780 | Right, we realize that the screw up right as we complete it.

00:08:37.660 | Yeah, because, like, we're caught up in all of our bullshit, we make the move, and then

00:08:40.500 | we've left our thought process, and like, oh, that was just absurd, right?

00:08:44.180 | And we see it.

00:08:45.180 | I mean, you think about, I mean, you think about the heartbreaking literature, you know,

00:08:50.180 | studies in how people who have jumped off a bridge relate to at the moment after they've

00:08:54.020 | jumped off the bridge, those who have survived, right, the interviews afterwards.

00:08:56.820 | Yeah, they report wishing they hadn't jumped.

00:08:59.180 | Right.

00:09:00.180 | Immediately.

00:09:01.180 | Like, they jump, and then they wish they hadn't jumped.

00:09:03.180 | Such an important message.

00:09:04.180 | You know, we hear all this stuff about suicide prevention, and, you know, but just that knowledge.

00:09:07.820 | I mean, I don't know how conscious of that sort of thing people are as they're headed

00:09:12.340 | down the trench.

00:09:13.340 | I mean, what, of suicidal depression, but these apertures that we're talking about,

00:09:20.020 | these time-space apertures where frame rate is set and visual aperture is set, I think

00:09:24.900 | for most people, we experience them as sort of notches.

00:09:30.340 | So it's like, you know, you're in a high state of arousal, and you have high frame rate,

00:09:33.500 | you know, and then, and just like being like a ball bearing down in a trench, you can't

00:09:38.000 | really see out the other side.

00:09:39.180 | You're literally in there at a certain frame rate of, let's say, an argument, an intense

00:09:42.660 | argument with somebody where you want to win, and you're frustrated with them, and the whole

00:09:46.300 | situation, and you're in the trench.

00:09:49.220 | Whereas when you're relaxed, it's more, you know, a broad concave or a flat table where

00:09:53.100 | the ball bearing can move around at will.

00:09:55.620 | It sounds like Marcello and people that train these different transition states is you're

00:10:00.900 | really learning to access the different frame rates, but from a place of like, kind of like

00:10:08.100 | a little dimple in a table, and then being able to move to the next one as a dimple and

00:10:13.880 | kind of moving from dimple to dimple as opposed to like these trenches of brain states.

00:10:19.500 | And I think that, I think about this a lot, a lot, because I feel like most bad decisions

00:10:24.980 | are made from a high frame rate, high arousal state.

00:10:29.140 | Most of the terrible things that humans have done to one another, you know, I suppose their

00:10:33.720 | sociopathy and like, you know, preplanned things, but they tend to be associated with

00:10:38.580 | high arousal states where people regret what they did, all second degree murder, for instance.

00:10:45.060 | In any event, I think the ability to move through these different arousal states at

00:10:50.300 | will is possible.

00:10:53.380 | You asked earlier, like, how would one do that?

00:10:55.580 | Well, the beautiful thing about the visual system in these different frame rates and

00:10:58.860 | states of arousal is that it works in both directions.

00:11:01.780 | So when you're in a higher state of arousal, your visual aperture shrinks, you go to a

00:11:04.740 | higher frame rate.

00:11:06.340 | But it's also true that if you shrink your visual aperture, you go to a higher frame

00:11:09.540 | rate.

00:11:10.540 | The converse is also true.

00:11:11.540 | If you deliberately, for instance, as we're looking across one another right now, if I

00:11:15.820 | start to take in the fullness of the picture here, the walls, et cetera, there's a natural

00:11:20.780 | relaxation of the autonomic arousal systems or parasympathetic activity goes up.

00:11:26.440 | And what's incredible is that any time we view a horizon, that naturally happens because

00:11:33.440 | you're not setting to a single fixation point.

00:11:36.000 | So anytime you see a horizon, you relax and it's not a coincidence.

00:11:39.580 | So the visual system can drive it inward and your autonomic arousal can drive it toward

00:11:44.820 | your visual system.

00:11:46.940 | The other thing is there's a really beautiful paper that came out about two years ago which

00:11:51.020 | showed that people who do a biofeedback game where they're watching a little, you know,

00:11:55.480 | it's like a more kind of like a sine wave and they're deliberately trying to increase

00:12:00.520 | their level of arousal as the curve goes up for those that are just listening.

00:12:06.480 | Within a few days, they can learn to control their pupil size, which sets their arousal

00:12:13.440 | and their aperture for a segmenting time.

00:12:17.740 | So you can learn this through biofeedback.

00:12:19.640 | And I think that the script for that is available online.

00:12:21.840 | I haven't tried it yet, but if you ever heard of these yogis that could control their pupil

00:12:24.940 | sizes even independently of one another, that's amazing because it's not supposed to be able

00:12:29.680 | to occur, but you can.

00:12:31.800 | So you can learn to, you know, I guess the poor man's version of this would be look in

00:12:36.200 | the mirror, stare at yourself and try and ramp up your level of autonomic arousal, watch

00:12:39.960 | your pupils get bigger, and then try and relax yourself and make them smaller.

00:12:43.920 | That practice it seems in biofeedback allows people to do it without staring into the mirror,

00:12:48.600 | so to speak.

00:12:49.760 | So it can be done.

00:12:51.520 | It's just that it hasn't been parsed by science that finely until recently.

How to Enhance Focus During Peak Performance | Josh Waitzkin & Dr. Andrew Huberman

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