LIVE EVENT Q&A: Dr. Andrew Huberman at the ICC Sydney Theatre

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

00:00:02.240 | where we discuss science

00:00:03.680 | and science-based tools for everyday life.

00:00:05.880 | 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

00:00:18.240 | at the ICC Theater in Sydney, Australia.

00:00:21.120 | The event was called the Brain-Body Contract

00:00:23.280 | and featured a lecture,

00:00:24.480 | followed by a question and answer session with the audience.

00:00:27.320 | We wanted to make the question and answer session

00:00:29.200 | available to everyone, regardless if you could attend.

00:00:32.240 | I also would like to thank the sponsors for the event.

00:00:34.660 | They are 8Sleep and AG1.

00:00:36.920 | 8Sleep makes smart mattress covers

00:00:38.660 | with cooling, heating, and sleep tracking capacity.

00:00:41.120 | Now, I've spoken many times before on this podcast

00:00:43.280 | about the fact that sleep is the critical foundation

00:00:45.840 | for mental health, physical health, and performance.

00:00:48.180 | Now, one of the key things

00:00:49.120 | to getting the best possible night's sleep

00:00:50.800 | is to control the temperature of your sleeping environment.

00:00:53.280 | And that's because in order to fall and stay deeply asleep,

00:00:56.240 | your body temperature actually needs to drop

00:00:58.120 | by about one to three degrees.

00:00:59.600 | And in order to wake up feeling refreshed and alert,

00:01:01.840 | your body temperature actually has to increase

00:01:04.040 | by about one to three degrees.

00:01:05.520 | 8Sleep mattress covers make it extremely easy

00:01:08.040 | to control the temperature of your sleeping environment

00:01:10.320 | and thereby to control your core body temperature

00:01:12.880 | so that you fall and stay deeply asleep

00:01:14.680 | and wake up feeling your absolute best.

00:01:16.640 | I've been sleeping on an 8Sleep mattress cover

00:01:18.460 | for about three years now,

00:01:19.880 | and it has completely transformed the quality of my sleep

00:01:22.480 | for the better.

00:01:23.320 | 8Sleep recently launched their newest generation

00:01:25.360 | of pod cover, the Pod 4 Ultra.

00:01:27.440 | The Pod 4 cover has improved cooling and heating capacity,

00:01:30.720 | higher fidelity sleep tracking technology,

00:01:32.960 | and the Pod 4 cover has snoring detection

00:01:35.200 | that will automatically lift your head a few degrees

00:01:37.220 | to improve airflow and stop your snoring.

00:01:39.440 | If you'd like to try an 8Sleep mattress cover,

00:01:41.380 | you can go to 8sleep.com/huberman

00:01:44.440 | to save $350 off their Pod 4 Ultra.

00:01:47.880 | 8Sleep currently ships to the USA, Canada, UK,

00:01:51.020 | select countries in the EU, and Australia.

00:01:53.360 | Again, that's 8sleep.com/huberman.

00:01:56.560 | The other live event sponsor, AG1,

00:01:59.040 | is a vitamin mineral probiotic drink

00:02:01.080 | that also contains adaptogens

00:02:02.740 | and other critical micronutrients.

00:02:04.720 | I've been taking AG1 daily since 2012,

00:02:07.580 | so I'm delighted that they decided to sponsor the live event.

00:02:10.460 | I started taking AG1,

00:02:11.640 | and I still take AG1 once or twice a day

00:02:14.100 | because it gives me vitamins and minerals

00:02:15.880 | that I might not be getting enough of

00:02:17.280 | from whole foods that I eat,

00:02:18.940 | as well as adaptogens and micronutrients.

00:02:21.880 | Those adaptogens and micronutrients are really critical

00:02:24.220 | because even though I strive to eat most of my foods

00:02:26.820 | from unprocessed or minimally processed whole foods,

00:02:29.740 | it's often hard to do so,

00:02:30.780 | especially when I'm traveling and especially when I'm busy.

00:02:33.640 | So by drinking a packet of AG1 in the morning,

00:02:35.880 | and oftentimes also again in the afternoon or evening,

00:02:39.200 | I'm ensuring that I'm getting everything I need.

00:02:41.180 | I'm covering all of my foundational nutritional needs.

00:02:44.020 | And I, like so many other people that take AG1 regularly,

00:02:47.020 | just report feeling better.

00:02:48.580 | And that shouldn't be surprising

00:02:49.860 | because it supports gut health,

00:02:51.140 | and of course, gut health supports immune system health

00:02:53.780 | and brain health.

00:02:54.780 | And it's supporting a ton of different cellular

00:02:56.860 | and organ processes that all interact with one another.

00:03:00.340 | So while certain supplements are really directed

00:03:02.100 | towards one specific outcome,

00:03:03.660 | like sleeping better or being more alert,

00:03:05.820 | AG1 really is foundational nutritional support.

00:03:09.180 | It's really designed to support all of the systems

00:03:11.480 | of your brain and body that relate to mental health

00:03:13.700 | and physical health.

00:03:14.720 | If you'd like to try AG1,

00:03:16.000 | you can go to drinkag1.com/huberman

00:03:19.380 | to claim a special offer.

00:03:20.820 | They'll give you five free travel packs with your order,

00:03:23.220 | plus a year supply of vitamin D3K2.

00:03:25.860 | Again, that's drinkag1.com/huberman.

00:03:30.180 | And now for the live event at the ICC Theater

00:03:33.040 | in Sydney, Australia.

00:03:34.580 | (upbeat music)

00:03:37.160 | Does having an afternoon sleep

00:03:52.120 | affect your quality of sleep at night?

00:03:54.720 | Great question.

00:03:55.560 | I can keep this one pretty brief.

00:03:57.520 | We just recorded a six episode series

00:04:00.380 | that will be aired later this year

00:04:02.020 | with the one and only Mighty Matt Walker,

00:04:04.740 | who wrote the marvelous book, "Why We Sleep."

00:04:07.780 | And we went into this topic in depth.

00:04:11.820 | The business of naps is the following.

00:04:15.500 | Keep them shorter than 90 minutes,

00:04:17.280 | so you don't disrupt your nighttime sleep.

00:04:19.320 | Don't do them at all.

00:04:20.340 | If it disrupts your nighttime sleep,

00:04:22.900 | so if you're somebody for whom even 10 minutes of napping

00:04:25.580 | disrupts your nighttime sleep, don't do that.

00:04:28.580 | If you're somebody who wakes up from naps feeling groggy,

00:04:33.100 | that's what's called sleep inertia.

00:04:35.100 | This is what gave rise to the ever-famous nappuccino

00:04:39.500 | of having some coffee and then taking a nap,

00:04:41.820 | or an espresso and then taking a nap.

00:04:44.720 | Again, I get obsessed with nomenclature.

00:04:46.500 | Why didn't they call it espresso nap?

00:04:49.040 | I don't know.

00:04:50.180 | Naps are wonderful.

00:04:54.100 | If they're shorter than 90 minutes,

00:04:55.220 | don't interfere with nighttime sleep.

00:04:57.520 | But I, in particular, am a big fan of,

00:05:00.860 | as many of you know, this business of non-sleep deep rest,

00:05:03.700 | of putting the body into what?

00:05:05.900 | Body still, mind awake.

00:05:08.380 | And we know, based on several studies

00:05:11.140 | from the University of Copenhagen,

00:05:12.520 | that that actually replenishes levels of dopamine

00:05:16.060 | in certain key areas of the brain

00:05:18.140 | that restore mental and physical vigor

00:05:20.220 | and do not disrupt nighttime sleep,

00:05:23.620 | but rather enhance one's ability to fall and stay asleep

00:05:27.220 | or to fall back asleep.

00:05:29.080 | So not only are these states of body still, mind awake

00:05:32.980 | very beneficial, it seems,

00:05:35.380 | or I should say perhaps for creativity,

00:05:37.700 | 'cause that was all anechoic data,

00:05:39.400 | but we know from real data,

00:05:41.860 | from laboratory data on many subjects,

00:05:44.720 | peer-reviewed, et cetera,

00:05:46.320 | that body still, mind alert is actually an effective means

00:05:50.700 | to improve one's sleep

00:05:52.500 | and perhaps even make up for sleep that one has lost.

00:05:54.780 | So I encourage you, if you're a napper, great,

00:05:57.700 | and if you have challenges with sleep

00:06:00.060 | in any way that you think might be related

00:06:01.580 | to your napping activity,

00:06:03.540 | that you consider short 10-minute

00:06:05.820 | or maybe 20-minute non-sleep deep rest protocols.

00:06:08.080 | By the way, they're completely zero cost,

00:06:09.600 | and very soon we will be releasing

00:06:12.080 | to our YouTube Clips channel

00:06:14.420 | a 10-minute, 20-minute, and 30-minute

00:06:16.200 | non-sleep deep rest protocol that I've narrated.

00:06:19.000 | If you don't like my voice,

00:06:20.320 | there are many out there of more pleasant voices,

00:06:22.680 | but what might be of particular interest to you

00:06:25.000 | is that the visual is of the beautiful sunrise over Sydney,

00:06:28.720 | so it'll bring you home as well.

00:06:31.100 | Sunrises here are absolutely spectacular.

00:06:33.240 | Do you believe in the placebo effect?

00:06:35.640 | Absolutely, and there's probably a joke there,

00:06:38.840 | but I can't come up with it on the fly.

00:06:41.080 | How would I know if it's real?

00:06:42.360 | Eh, eh, eh, eh, something like that.

00:06:44.520 | So the placebo effect is real.

00:06:48.160 | Our belief about what we've taken

00:06:52.580 | or what is happening to us has a powerful effect

00:06:56.420 | on our physiology.

00:06:57.740 | It's not purely psychological.

00:06:59.580 | The whole business of psychosomatic,

00:07:01.640 | even that word, is starting to fall away

00:07:03.540 | as we start to understand that our beliefs

00:07:05.900 | have a powerful effect

00:07:07.580 | on what happens to us physiologically,

00:07:09.320 | so much so that, for instance,

00:07:11.460 | my colleague Ali Crum,

00:07:13.300 | a tenured professor at Stanford's Department of Psychology

00:07:17.220 | who's been a guest on the podcast who studies mindsets,

00:07:19.540 | has done beautiful experiments on stress,

00:07:22.300 | showing that if you watch a short video about stress

00:07:25.220 | and you learn all the terrible things

00:07:26.500 | that stress can do to your cognition,

00:07:28.060 | your sleep, and your well-being,

00:07:29.680 | well, that indeed that happens,

00:07:31.560 | and that if you watch a short video

00:07:33.660 | about how stress can be performance-enhancing

00:07:35.660 | by sharpening your mental acuity,

00:07:37.180 | your access to particular memory stores, et cetera,

00:07:41.220 | that indeed that happens.

00:07:43.900 | So-called belief effects.

00:07:45.540 | Why belief effects, not placebo effects?

00:07:47.420 | Well, placebo effects tend to be more general.

00:07:50.420 | Belief effects tend to be

00:07:51.700 | around specific types of information,

00:07:54.400 | but the placebo effect has recently been shown

00:07:58.280 | to extend to a dose-dependent placebo effect.

00:08:02.180 | One of the more remarkable papers, I think,

00:08:03.820 | published in the last few years,

00:08:04.920 | most people are unaware of,

00:08:05.940 | I talked about this in a journal club episode

00:08:08.540 | of the Huberman Lab podcast

00:08:09.520 | with the one and only Peter Atiyah,

00:08:11.480 | described a paper where people took either zero,

00:08:16.700 | I believe it was 0.25 milligrams,

00:08:21.200 | half a milligram or a gram of nicotine,

00:08:23.400 | which is known to be a cognitive enhancer.

00:08:25.040 | Please don't smoke, dip, huff or snuff nicotine.

00:08:28.960 | It's cancerous in those forms,

00:08:31.860 | and taking nicotine can increase blood pressure,

00:08:33.920 | vasoconstriction, et cetera,

00:08:35.000 | but nicotine is a cognitive enhancer.

00:08:37.320 | It is a cognitive enhancer,

00:08:38.960 | and I can't help but tell you one story about this

00:08:41.720 | before I get back to placebo effect.

00:08:43.400 | Don't worry, I always make my way back.

00:08:45.360 | Now you can see why living with me as a child

00:08:49.440 | was so challenging.

00:08:50.740 | Nicotine, I was told by a very, very famous Nobel Laureate,

00:08:59.160 | member of the neuroscience community,

00:09:01.820 | because I visited his office,

00:09:03.440 | I won't tell you who it is,

00:09:05.040 | at Columbia University.

00:09:07.120 | I met with him, and he was telling me

00:09:10.160 | about what he studies,

00:09:11.880 | but I noticed he chewed no fewer than six pieces of Nicorette

00:09:15.240 | during the course of that conversation,

00:09:16.720 | and I had to just stop him at one point and say,

00:09:18.960 | "Why are you consuming all this nicotine?"

00:09:21.600 | And he said, "Well, it's what's going to allow me

00:09:23.800 | "to stave off Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, of course,

00:09:27.060 | "and I don't wanna smoke."

00:09:28.160 | And I said, "Really?"

00:09:29.000 | And he said, "Yeah, there's some evidence

00:09:30.160 | "that keeping levels of neuromodulators

00:09:32.120 | "like dopamine and acetylcholine elevated

00:09:34.360 | "despite the increases in blood pressure

00:09:38.920 | "that are caused by consuming nicotine

00:09:41.360 | "may indeed offset Parkinson's and Alzheimer's."

00:09:43.480 | I'm not telling you this as a clinical trial.

00:09:45.340 | I'm telling you this as anecdata.

00:09:46.880 | He is a Nobel Prize winner.

00:09:48.000 | He's still very, very sharp in his 80s.

00:09:50.400 | The point here is that in a study of nicotine and cognition,

00:09:54.540 | where people's cognition is indeed enhanced by nicotine,

00:09:58.080 | everybody knows that and agrees upon that,

00:10:00.540 | people who were told they had a higher dose of nicotine

00:10:04.260 | performed better in this cognitive task

00:10:08.160 | when, in fact, they consumed zero.

00:10:10.940 | And people who performed moderately,

00:10:14.520 | who were then told that they had consumed

00:10:18.140 | a higher dose of nicotine performed better

00:10:20.320 | than those that simply consumed a moderate dose

00:10:23.540 | and were told they had a moderate dose.

00:10:24.860 | In other words, everyone gets the same dose,

00:10:27.100 | either zero or moderate,

00:10:29.020 | but depending on what you're told,

00:10:30.020 | your performance changes accordingly.

00:10:31.940 | And that's cool, but what's really cool about the study

00:10:35.620 | is they actually recorded from brain centers

00:10:38.860 | of these individuals and the levels of activity,

00:10:41.140 | in particular areas of the brain

00:10:42.540 | that are relevant for cognition,

00:10:43.900 | changed according to what the people believe.

00:10:46.220 | So there you go.

00:10:47.520 | Placebo effect is changing neural activity.

00:10:50.060 | It's not all just through what you think is happening.

00:10:53.300 | What you think is happening

00:10:54.580 | is the reflection of neural activity,

00:10:56.060 | and then you go, "Well, of course."

00:10:57.660 | But I think it's an important study.

00:10:59.660 | So I believe in the placebo effect,

00:11:02.020 | and it is dose-dependent,

00:11:03.740 | and that raises all sorts of scary concerns

00:11:06.900 | about the placebo effect,

00:11:08.520 | but it's also pretty darn cool

00:11:10.980 | because what it means is that our belief system,

00:11:14.260 | including our understanding of the mechanisms

00:11:16.460 | that are likely driving certain effects of drugs

00:11:19.100 | or protocols or what have you,

00:11:22.340 | is going to play a powerful role

00:11:24.660 | in whether or not we get the effect that we want.

00:11:27.520 | And perhaps that's the most important thing,

00:11:29.300 | provided that you're going about it safely.

00:11:31.900 | How do I enter the rest and digest state

00:11:33.860 | and exit my constant fight-or-flight state?

00:11:35.420 | Well, the fastest way is gonna be physiological size,

00:11:37.700 | probably repeated two or three times in a row

00:11:39.620 | if you don't experience that the first time.

00:11:41.940 | The second would be to combine that with panoramic vision.

00:11:44.940 | I must say, and I don't wanna sound

00:11:46.500 | like a repeating record here,

00:11:49.620 | but there are certain things

00:11:51.380 | that if we're not doing on a regular basis,

00:11:52.980 | our nervous system is just going to idle at a higher,

00:11:55.840 | let's just call it autonomic RPM,

00:11:58.580 | which is not real science language,

00:12:01.460 | but if you've ever felt wired and tired from lack of sleep,

00:12:05.940 | you know what this is about.

00:12:07.420 | The key thing is to get enough sleep each night,

00:12:10.220 | so much so that I think we can safely say

00:12:13.140 | that stress is not bad for us,

00:12:15.260 | provided you sleep well at night.

00:12:17.180 | Now, the challenge is, for most people, including myself,

00:12:19.380 | if you stress a lot, sleep doesn't come easily

00:12:21.580 | or you wake from sleep in the middle of the night.

00:12:23.440 | And here again is where zero cost behavioral protocols

00:12:28.440 | are truly, in my opinion,

00:12:31.920 | unless there's some dire clinical need,

00:12:34.460 | the most effective and best practice.

00:12:37.840 | And this non-sleep deep rest, which by the way,

00:12:40.720 | is indeed a renaming or a partial renaming of yoga nidra,

00:12:45.640 | which stands for yoga sleep.

00:12:46.760 | And again, I have tremendous reverence

00:12:48.280 | for the yogic traditions.

00:12:50.040 | It's just that I had to make a decision a few years ago

00:12:53.040 | when I'd been introduced to yoga nidra in 2015.

00:12:56.180 | I was down at a trauma treatment center,

00:12:58.500 | an addiction treatment center in Florida

00:13:00.700 | run by a friend of mine,

00:13:01.680 | essentially observing what they were doing

00:13:04.220 | with these addicts that couldn't recover

00:13:06.860 | no matter what their effort.

00:13:08.140 | And they were able to recover to get sober and stay sober.

00:13:12.260 | And people were getting over other sorts of traumas

00:13:15.500 | through the use of many protocols, of course,

00:13:18.000 | talk therapy, et cetera.

00:13:19.460 | But they would start their day

00:13:20.500 | with 30 minutes to an hour of yoga nidra.

00:13:22.820 | And I thought, what's yoga nidra?

00:13:24.000 | I learned it's yoga sleep.

00:13:25.360 | You lie down, you do a self-directed relaxation.

00:13:27.440 | It also involves intentions, et cetera.

00:13:28.980 | And I thought this is really powerful.

00:13:30.480 | And I spent a lot of time in my laboratory

00:13:32.600 | working on it and understanding it.

00:13:34.320 | And there are other studies as well

00:13:35.720 | that now explain how these states of keeping the mind active

00:13:40.080 | while the body is still as a self-directed practice

00:13:43.800 | is immensely powerful for a number of reasons.

00:13:46.240 | And the reason I decided to call it non-sleep deep rest,

00:13:48.920 | NSDR, was not to rob it of the official name of yoga nidra,

00:13:53.920 | but because unfortunately, unfortunately,

00:13:57.860 | names like yoga nidra, or proprietary names,

00:14:01.460 | or when we name protocols after people,

00:14:04.380 | it acts as a separator.

00:14:07.500 | It often deters people from trying things

00:14:10.740 | because it sounds esoteric.

00:14:12.000 | So I went with a description of the thing

00:14:14.660 | that relates to what the thing is supposed to do,

00:14:18.020 | non-sleep deep rest, or what it's all about.

00:14:20.200 | So I actively avoided calling it Huberman breathing

00:14:24.380 | or something like that because that's not my interest.

00:14:26.140 | My interest is in people using these tools.

00:14:27.940 | And I have taken some heat for that one.

00:14:30.020 | I'm not interested.

00:14:31.220 | It was not an attempt to appropriate something.

00:14:33.380 | It was really an attempt to just try

00:14:34.580 | and distribute valuable tools

00:14:35.740 | because I see a lot of suffering

00:14:37.540 | and it seems like a useful thing to do.

00:14:39.140 | So I would encourage anyone that feels

00:14:41.660 | like they enter a stressed state too much

00:14:44.260 | to learn self-directed relaxation.

00:14:46.480 | First and foremost, so do NSDR,

00:14:50.380 | anywhere from three to five times a week,

00:14:51.860 | 10 minutes a day as a zero cost tool,

00:14:55.080 | as a way to be able to better access,

00:14:57.420 | better sleep at night.

00:14:58.500 | And then if the fight or flight state persists,

00:15:01.660 | then of course, things like physiological size, et cetera,

00:15:05.700 | should be incorporated.

00:15:06.540 | And then of course, of course, of course,

00:15:08.060 | I believe in modern medicine,

00:15:09.540 | there are excellent pharmaceutical tools,

00:15:12.040 | prescription drugs that can be used for that.

00:15:13.640 | But of course, there's the intermediate stuff,

00:15:16.060 | things like theanine and magnesium

00:15:17.700 | that for all the world can be useful in some context,

00:15:21.580 | but they're not the be all end all.

00:15:23.580 | As much as I might reference supplements

00:15:25.660 | on the podcast from time to time,

00:15:27.260 | I don't think they're the place to start.

00:15:28.500 | I think one should always use behavioral tools first.

00:15:31.500 | And I've said this many times before,

00:15:33.540 | but I think it's worth saying again.

00:15:35.780 | Our muscles need rest days from the gym

00:15:37.820 | in order to grow back stronger.

00:15:39.140 | Yes, definitely true.

00:15:41.140 | Is the brain designed to be consistently learning

00:15:43.100 | and developing or does it need periods of rest

00:15:45.220 | from consuming new information?

00:15:46.860 | Or is the rest when we sleep?

00:15:48.020 | Great questions, thank you, Timothy.

00:15:49.900 | Yes, indeed, our muscles get stronger, grow,

00:15:56.020 | after a proper stimulus is applied to them

00:15:58.620 | in the time after we provide that stimulus,

00:16:02.180 | which typically is resistance.

00:16:04.540 | But since not everyone's interested in that,

00:16:06.740 | it's also the case that an endurance adaptation

00:16:09.380 | occurs after we embark on the run,

00:16:14.260 | the hike, the swim, et cetera.

00:16:15.780 | There's something kind of interesting,

00:16:16.820 | and I just want to take a moment and just mention

00:16:19.140 | that there's something kind of interesting

00:16:20.460 | about resistance training is that it's the one form

00:16:23.180 | of training that, because of the enhanced blood flow

00:16:26.220 | to the muscles while we do it,

00:16:27.820 | gives us a window into what the adaptation might look like

00:16:31.300 | once it occurs, if we allow proper rest.

00:16:34.340 | Whereas with endurance training, it's very different, right?

00:16:36.700 | You go further and/or you run up a hill

00:16:40.980 | until your legs burn and you want to vomit up a lung,

00:16:43.580 | and then the next time you do it,

00:16:44.860 | you don't feel quite as bad, right?

00:16:46.500 | The adaptation occurs, of course, in a very similar way

00:16:49.860 | to resistance training, different mechanisms,

00:16:52.020 | but there's a delay in adaptation, you get better.

00:16:55.260 | It's just that with resistance training,

00:16:57.060 | you can kind of sense the change before the change occurs

00:17:00.260 | because of the enhanced blood flow to the muscles.

00:17:02.000 | With endurance training, you sense the limit

00:17:05.260 | of your ability, and then you exceed

00:17:07.440 | that limit subsequently.

00:17:09.220 | Now, in terms of cognitive learning,

00:17:10.900 | the same thing is basically true.

00:17:13.380 | If you want to get really technical about it,

00:17:15.700 | the computational biology, the modeling of this says

00:17:18.400 | that if you want to learn something,

00:17:20.320 | probably setting the difficulty

00:17:22.300 | of what you're trying to learn to about 85% correct trials,

00:17:26.420 | 15% error trials is probably ideal.

00:17:30.220 | What does that mean?

00:17:31.060 | It means if you're trying to learn a new piano piece,

00:17:33.420 | you know, or you're trying to teach that to a child,

00:17:35.380 | if they're not starting from scratch,

00:17:36.740 | let them play something that they know pretty well

00:17:39.900 | and then introduce a small percentage,

00:17:41.700 | maybe 10 to 15, maybe 20%, you don't have to be exact

00:17:44.460 | about this, of novel material that's hard for them to learn.

00:17:48.700 | But yes, it is the focused, deliberate attempt

00:17:53.700 | to learn something that creates that sense

00:17:56.220 | of underlying agitation that is the trigger,

00:18:00.140 | the stimulus for neuroplasticity.

00:18:04.060 | This makes sense.

00:18:04.940 | If you could complete something,

00:18:07.780 | if you could do something, a scale of music,

00:18:11.460 | physical task, speaking a new language,

00:18:13.460 | if you could do that,

00:18:15.020 | why would your nervous system ever change

00:18:16.740 | and how does your nervous system know

00:18:18.340 | if it's supposed to change, right?

00:18:20.140 | Your nervous system doesn't know successful trial

00:18:22.600 | versus failure trial, right?

00:18:24.920 | I've tried many times to learn other languages

00:18:27.020 | and I'm, you know, modestly terrible at Spanish,

00:18:29.660 | but if I were to try and get better,

00:18:31.940 | my nervous system doesn't know when I'm failing.

00:18:34.840 | It has no idea.

00:18:35.680 | What it knows is the release of certain neuromodulators,

00:18:39.860 | namely adrenaline and norepinephrine

00:18:42.740 | and a few others as well,

00:18:44.580 | that are associated with the underlying agitation

00:18:47.060 | of like, oh, I'm failing at this.

00:18:48.740 | I'm not able to remember that Spanish class

00:18:51.020 | 'cause I didn't attend in high school

00:18:52.820 | and this is really difficult.

00:18:54.260 | And that agitation, the frustration is the stimulus.

00:18:57.560 | But when we say frustration, it's the neurochemicals

00:19:00.000 | that when they bathe the surrounding neurons,

00:19:02.820 | those neurons go, oh, something needs to change

00:19:05.760 | for next time.

00:19:06.620 | And lo and behold,

00:19:08.740 | the stimulus for neuroplasticity has occurred.

00:19:11.140 | But the actual rewiring of the neurons,

00:19:13.580 | either the improvement or the reduction

00:19:16.780 | in the strength of synapses, of connections between neurons,

00:19:19.580 | and in rare instances,

00:19:20.900 | the addition of new neurons for neuroplasticity occurs,

00:19:23.980 | yes, when we sleep in states of deep rest

00:19:28.460 | or non-sleep deep rest,

00:19:30.220 | although there's less data to support that,

00:19:32.520 | but the actual rewiring occurs away from the stimulus.

00:19:36.100 | So there's really two important principles here.

00:19:38.340 | One is that agitation and stress

00:19:41.500 | and the neurochemicals that underlie agitation and stress,

00:19:44.320 | that is the stimulus for learning.

00:19:47.500 | And goodness, do I wish they had taught me that in school.

00:19:51.340 | I mean, they taught me all sorts of things in school,

00:19:53.180 | but they didn't teach me that.

00:19:54.160 | They didn't teach me the physiological side.

00:19:55.900 | Lord knows I would have done better in life

00:19:57.820 | if I had a couple of those tools.

00:19:59.300 | Instead they told me, look, you know,

00:20:02.120 | if you drive drunk, you could die.

00:20:03.940 | That was good information.

00:20:05.860 | But they didn't tell us about all the other stuff.

00:20:07.340 | So I wish they told us about the stimulus and rest thing,

00:20:10.820 | and somehow they had permission to talk about the rest.

00:20:13.260 | All right, what's my take on hallucinogens?

00:20:15.820 | Goodness gracious.

00:20:17.420 | My take on hallucinogens is I've taken 'em, clearly.

00:20:22.420 | Well, here's the real story on hallucinogens.

00:20:28.860 | First of all, I'm very open about most everything I've done,

00:20:33.300 | you know, trying to keep context appropriate,

00:20:35.740 | but I had the unfortunate experience

00:20:39.620 | of taking LSD and psilocybin when I was all too young,

00:20:43.100 | and those were bad experiences.

00:20:44.940 | Some of them were bad in the moment.

00:20:46.440 | Some of them were bad after the moment.

00:20:48.580 | It is something I do not recommend,

00:20:50.080 | and I'm not saying that to be politically correct.

00:20:52.380 | I'm not saying that because it's true.

00:20:54.260 | The reality is that being a child, an adolescent,

00:20:56.760 | or a teenager is a psychedelic experience,

00:21:00.940 | and your brain is still wiring up

00:21:03.860 | in all sorts of interesting ways,

00:21:06.460 | and everything seems chaotic,

00:21:08.420 | and even if you're one of those rare kids

00:21:10.780 | that seems to have everything rowed up appropriately,

00:21:15.080 | you don't want to throw massive amounts

00:21:17.440 | of neuromodulators in there haphazardly

00:21:20.500 | and start tampering with the wiring.

00:21:22.180 | That's my deep belief, okay?

00:21:24.660 | That's my deep belief.

00:21:26.700 | However, it does appear that at least for adults

00:21:32.300 | who are not suffering from particular psychiatric challenges

00:21:36.900 | namely forms of psychosis, right, this is real.

00:21:40.020 | I mean, one in 100 people

00:21:41.660 | experiences schizophrenic symptoms, et cetera.

00:21:44.420 | It's a very high number if you think about it.

00:21:46.660 | Certain forms of bipolar depression,

00:21:49.460 | that the clinical trials on psychedelics,

00:21:52.380 | and here I'm assuming when you say hallucinogens,

00:21:54.180 | you're referring to psychedelics,

00:21:55.480 | are very, very compelling.

00:21:58.520 | The psychiatric community is now being forced

00:22:01.140 | to look at these data because the data are very compelling.

00:22:03.580 | What do we know about these data?

00:22:05.020 | And yes, I've participated in two such clinical trials,

00:22:08.900 | one on high-dose psilocybin,

00:22:10.980 | high-dose meaning more than two grams taken twice.

00:22:14.420 | By the way, this is with the support

00:22:16.420 | of medically trained therapists,

00:22:19.980 | and the use of psychedelics such as psilocybin,

00:22:24.600 | mostly psilocybin, not so much LSD.

00:22:26.700 | Do you know why most of the trials

00:22:27.900 | are on psilocybin and not LSD?

00:22:29.580 | I do, but I'm curious if, you know, it's not to,

00:22:32.080 | what's that?

00:22:34.780 | LSD's too long, that's right.

00:22:36.740 | That people need to go home.

00:22:39.500 | People need to go home, the technicians need to,

00:22:41.340 | and LSD is a long ride.

00:22:43.680 | It's a long ride.

00:22:47.380 | So the thing about psilocybin is that the,

00:22:50.580 | you know, the sort of journey, the trip is,

00:22:53.100 | you know, somewhere on the order of anywhere from,

00:22:55.300 | you know, three to seven hours,

00:22:56.860 | which can fit into a reasonable workday

00:22:59.340 | for a technician, clinician,

00:23:00.940 | and LSD can be many, many hours longer.

00:23:04.320 | The kind of Mount Everest of psychedelics,

00:23:08.500 | which is under investigation by a colleague of mine

00:23:10.700 | at Stanford School of Medicine, Nolan Williams,

00:23:12.860 | is Ibogaine, Iboga, which is 22 hours long.

00:23:16.940 | It has cardiac effects.

00:23:18.220 | This is not something to get cavalier with.

00:23:21.380 | This is something only to be done in a clinical context

00:23:23.820 | with medical experts there.

00:23:26.180 | And Iboga is very interesting.

00:23:27.860 | From what I'm told,

00:23:28.700 | I have not participated in an Iboga trial.

00:23:30.980 | Iboga allows for or induces a state

00:23:35.140 | in which you do not hallucinate at all with eyes open,

00:23:39.740 | but the moment you go eyes closed,

00:23:41.140 | you get a high-resolution,

00:23:43.820 | accurate picture of prior events in your life,

00:23:48.820 | but you have agency,

00:23:51.180 | you have volition inside of those pictures,

00:23:53.220 | and you're able to change your behavior

00:23:55.940 | and re-sculpt your relationship to those experiences.

00:24:00.420 | Like, wow.

00:24:01.260 | And the state of Kentucky in California recently,

00:24:03.740 | excuse me, the state of Kentucky in the United States,

00:24:06.620 | thank goodness Kentucky isn't inside of California,

00:24:09.060 | that would be civil war.

00:24:10.560 | The state of Kentucky recently took

00:24:15.300 | the $40 million settlement from the opioid thing, right?

00:24:20.300 | You've all heard about that, the opioid crisis,

00:24:23.460 | and applied that money to Iboga trials.

00:24:25.740 | So this stuff is happening.

00:24:27.780 | This stuff is really happening now in the US.

00:24:30.660 | In any event, psilocybin,

00:24:32.180 | these two sessions, medically supported two sessions,

00:24:37.700 | has been shown to be pretty effective

00:24:40.780 | in the treatment of major depression.

00:24:43.580 | Not completely effective.

00:24:44.860 | Sometimes there's adverse outcomes,

00:24:46.900 | but far more effective than the other

00:24:49.460 | pharmaceutical treatments that it's been compared to,

00:24:53.340 | so that's interesting.

00:24:54.180 | And psilocybin is serotonin.

00:24:56.860 | If you look at the structure of psilocybin,

00:24:58.540 | it looks like serotonin.

00:25:00.460 | So what we're talking about is a massive dose of serotonin,

00:25:03.620 | and psilocybin appears to bind near-selectively

00:25:07.060 | to a particular serotonin receptor,

00:25:08.720 | and the outcome seems to be enhanced

00:25:10.940 | or more broad connectivity between brain areas

00:25:15.340 | that normally are not communicating with one another.

00:25:18.300 | Probably not the growth of new connections,

00:25:21.020 | but the, let's say, the unveiling of the ability

00:25:26.020 | for certain brain areas to communicate with one another,

00:25:29.340 | whereas they couldn't prior.

00:25:30.460 | Different ways of thinking about the same problems,

00:25:34.740 | which is logically sound

00:25:37.020 | if you think about ways to deal with depression.

00:25:38.940 | Depression is characterized by a number of things,

00:25:41.180 | of course, but one of the hallmark features of depression,

00:25:43.220 | in addition to sleep challenges,

00:25:45.460 | is a lack of positive anticipation of the future,

00:25:48.620 | and it does seem that these macro-dose psilocybin trials

00:25:53.220 | are helpful for that.

00:25:54.180 | Turns out that the micro-dosing of psilocybin

00:25:56.980 | has not been shown to be terribly effective,

00:25:58.980 | which is not to say it isn't,

00:26:01.260 | but the trials don't support that,

00:26:03.540 | although there aren't many trials of that yet.

00:26:06.060 | So it appears, you know, if you had to pick

00:26:08.340 | between micro- and macro-dosing, go macro.

00:26:11.620 | But be careful.

00:26:14.420 | Go, be careful, and set-in setting is important.

00:26:16.960 | Safety is important, and certainly not for children.

00:26:19.540 | And as long as, or adolescents or teenagers.

00:26:22.740 | I really, again, want to reemphasize that.

00:26:25.460 | The other thing is,

00:26:27.620 | as long as we're talking about psychedelics and hallucinogens

00:26:29.660 | we should probably just touch on MDMA for a moment.

00:26:32.180 | First of all, MDMA ecstasy has a number of challenges

00:26:36.780 | or potential problems that need to be highlighted.

00:26:38.900 | First of all, contaminants.

00:26:41.260 | You know, we have a fentanyl crisis in the U.S.,

00:26:43.420 | so contaminants, so purity is essential.

00:26:46.100 | Second of all, it is methylenedioxymethamphetamine.

00:26:49.700 | And the methamphetamine part

00:26:52.360 | often gets people thinking like, whoa.

00:26:54.060 | It seems, however, that the inclusion

00:26:56.600 | of the methylenedioxy component

00:26:59.480 | increases serotonin dramatically,

00:27:01.540 | and it is the increase in serotonin, perhaps,

00:27:06.200 | or at least it's now thought,

00:27:09.000 | in addition to the increase in dopamine

00:27:10.800 | caused by the methamphetamine component

00:27:12.960 | combined that provides some sort of neuroprotective effect.

00:27:16.480 | The early reports that MDMA ecstasy is neurotoxic,

00:27:20.880 | quote unquote, puts holes in your brain,

00:27:23.420 | was flawed, and indeed that paper was retracted.

00:27:28.360 | The researchers did that study in earnest,

00:27:31.100 | but then later discovered that when they reached

00:27:33.380 | for the MDMA on the shelf

00:27:35.160 | they actually grabbed the methamphetamine.

00:27:37.560 | But the news agencies didn't report that retraction.

00:27:42.760 | Now, our best evidence that MDMA,

00:27:45.540 | taken in the appropriate clinically supported context,

00:27:49.080 | can act as an empathogen,

00:27:50.880 | can help people develop empathy for themselves,

00:27:53.920 | and help relieve trauma,

00:27:55.660 | and indeed the clinical trials show that

00:27:57.960 | at the proper dosing and the proper frequency

00:27:59.600 | with the proper support,

00:28:00.880 | there's up to 60% and as high as 67% remission of PTSD.

00:28:05.880 | Remarkable.

00:28:08.360 | With support, okay, not just taking Molly

00:28:11.040 | and like dancing in the desert.

00:28:12.840 | We're talking about, we're talking about in the eye mask,

00:28:15.960 | we're talking about going inward,

00:28:17.120 | we're talking about relaying your experience,

00:28:18.720 | we're talking about talking about the challenging experience

00:28:20.880 | or experiences with someone who's qualified

00:28:22.680 | to help you deal with all of that, et cetera,

00:28:24.520 | and someone to drive you home

00:28:25.800 | 'cause you feel like a puddle afterwards.

00:28:28.660 | Talking about all of that.

00:28:29.580 | We're not talking about eye gazing with your partner,

00:28:32.160 | telling them how much you love them.

00:28:33.200 | You're talking about empathy for self, love for self,

00:28:35.680 | which is a concept that frankly I've often struggled with.

00:28:38.700 | I've thought, you know, people would say

00:28:39.540 | you gotta love yourself.

00:28:40.460 | I'm like, what is that?

00:28:42.300 | Like what is that?

00:28:43.140 | I love my bulldog, I love my friends, I love cuttlefish,

00:28:45.860 | but like what is that?

00:28:47.100 | And I think through the use of MDMA, you can,

00:28:50.140 | there seems to be this ability

00:28:51.780 | to develop in pathogenic states to yourself,

00:28:54.340 | but of course the reason for the clinical trials

00:28:56.780 | insisting that people stay in the eye mask

00:28:58.420 | and communicate their experience,

00:28:59.620 | maybe popping out of it every once in a while

00:29:01.300 | and talking with somebody in a trusted person

00:29:04.820 | in a way that can be helpful

00:29:06.060 | towards dealing with the trauma

00:29:07.620 | is that the problem with having that much serotonin

00:29:10.680 | and that much dopamine in your system

00:29:12.900 | is that you can become empathic toward anything.

00:29:16.740 | So we've all known people that take MDMA,

00:29:19.700 | listen to a particular soundtrack,

00:29:21.260 | and they're like, I'm gonna become a musician.

00:29:23.620 | I love music.

00:29:25.180 | And again, I'm not recommending anyone do MDMA,

00:29:27.540 | but in recent years,

00:29:29.500 | I've really changed my stance on psychedelics.

00:29:31.820 | Five years ago, 10 years ago,

00:29:33.080 | I never would have had this discussion,

00:29:35.100 | certainly not with a microphone in front of my face,

00:29:37.580 | anything being recorded,

00:29:39.380 | would have worried about losing my job

00:29:41.980 | at Stanford or elsewhere.

00:29:44.180 | But we now have many laboratories at Stanford and elsewhere

00:29:47.720 | that are doing work that is federally funded

00:29:50.980 | on these compounds.

00:29:51.940 | And if you think about these compounds,

00:29:53.360 | while they have been used recreationally,

00:29:55.780 | are simply ways to adjust levels of neuromodulators

00:29:59.340 | in the brain, serotonin, dopamine, et cetera.

00:30:01.140 | That's really all they are,

00:30:02.860 | although they do it very potently

00:30:04.220 | and therefore caution needs to be applied.

00:30:07.000 | And as long as we're on that topic,

00:30:10.300 | I should mention that ketamine,

00:30:11.500 | everyone's excited about ketamine.

00:30:13.620 | When I was growing up,

00:30:15.820 | I was taught that there's a compound

00:30:17.940 | that's really dangerous.

00:30:19.620 | It's called PCP, vancyclidine.

00:30:23.140 | They are the same compound.

00:30:25.180 | They don't tell you this.

00:30:26.020 | Ketamine and PCP, same thing.

00:30:27.820 | And I learned about PCP as the compound

00:30:29.860 | that was gonna make criminals like punch light poles

00:30:32.140 | and beat up 12 cops.

00:30:33.660 | And yeah, I watched too much "Chips" when I was growing up.

00:30:36.300 | For those of you old enough to remember,

00:30:37.700 | it was like "Punch" and "John."

00:30:38.580 | They were on the motorcycles with the shorts.

00:30:40.100 | My sister watched it too,

00:30:40.940 | but for completely different reasons.

00:30:42.860 | So PCP was like this demonized drug,

00:30:47.460 | but ketamine and all this stuff about ketamine

00:30:50.380 | is now legal in the US.

00:30:52.140 | I don't know its status here in Sydney,

00:30:53.580 | so I'll see if I get arrested on the way out.

00:30:55.620 | But, you know, ketamine is potentially addictive.

00:30:59.500 | People talk about the K-hole, et cetera.

00:31:01.400 | Weird name, by the way.

00:31:03.640 | The whole business with ketamine is, again,

00:31:06.200 | it's a potent MDMA, N-methyl-D-aspartate blocker,

00:31:10.320 | which blocks neuroplasticity in the short term,

00:31:13.740 | expands it in the long term.

00:31:15.040 | So the way to think about these compounds, these drugs,

00:31:17.920 | is by way of their mechanism.

00:31:19.720 | And so it should be no surprise

00:31:20.900 | that they're able to induce neuroplasticity,

00:31:23.700 | but the goal is not plasticity.

00:31:26.280 | This is very, very important.

00:31:27.640 | The goal is not plasticity.

00:31:29.120 | The goal is plasticity directed

00:31:31.460 | toward a particular positive outcome.

00:31:34.340 | Anytime you have plasticity,

00:31:35.660 | you have the potential for maladaptive plasticity as well.

00:31:39.980 | And so that's an additional cautionary note.

00:31:42.180 | As I often say on the podcast,

00:31:43.460 | I don't say that just to protect me,

00:31:44.940 | although I am a little bit worried now

00:31:46.200 | about what I just said over the last five minutes.

00:31:48.460 | I say that to protect you.

00:31:50.420 | Next question before I get myself in trouble.

00:31:53.140 | What about what?

00:31:53.980 | DMT.

00:31:57.900 | Yeah, dimethyltryptamine.

00:32:00.180 | Yeah, it leads to lower thresholds for impulsivity,

00:32:04.940 | like screaming out, "What about DMT?"

00:32:07.340 | (audience laughing)

00:32:08.660 | Just kidding.

00:32:09.500 | I don't, sorry.

00:32:10.760 | So I'm just joking.

00:32:15.100 | I'm just joking.

00:32:15.940 | You seem like you could take it, so I got, yeah.

00:32:17.980 | So I've never done DMT,

00:32:21.380 | but I've heard it's a high-speed freight train

00:32:24.340 | into your consciousness,

00:32:26.060 | behind the circuit board and back again.

00:32:28.220 | So there are a few great studies on DMT in ayahuasca,

00:32:33.860 | just as long as we're expanding

00:32:35.140 | into the full trip down to the jungle.

00:32:37.380 | And the data are interesting.

00:32:41.500 | It's harder to know what's going on

00:32:45.900 | in these very short trip,

00:32:49.040 | massive neuromodulator release type drug scenarios.

00:32:55.040 | Robin Cardart-Harris

00:32:57.320 | at the University of California, San Francisco

00:32:58.920 | is somebody who's looking at DMT more extensively,

00:33:03.120 | and I don't want to avoid giving you an answer,

00:33:06.080 | but I do want to avoid giving you a wrong answer

00:33:08.480 | that's not informed.

00:33:09.600 | One thing I'll say, and this is just,

00:33:11.840 | rarely do I plug anything related to the podcast,

00:33:13.920 | but we are actually providing some support

00:33:16.400 | to Robin and others' laboratory

00:33:18.080 | for the study of things like DMT.

00:33:19.740 | One of the things that we do at the podcast,

00:33:21.360 | and this is not a request for anything,

00:33:22.880 | we do take a significant portion of the proceeds

00:33:25.200 | from our premium channel,

00:33:26.680 | and we fund human studies of exciting things like DMT.

00:33:30.480 | We're supporting Robin's lab this coming year.

00:33:32.820 | I've pooled together some other donors

00:33:34.780 | to provide support for all human studies,

00:33:36.800 | no animal studies.

00:33:37.920 | And the goal is really to fill in important blanks,

00:33:40.580 | like the study of DMT, as well as other things.

00:33:44.180 | We're currently funding the eating disorders laboratory

00:33:47.660 | at Columbia University.

00:33:48.820 | Eating disorders, by the way, anorexia nervosa in particular,

00:33:52.400 | the most deadly of all psychiatric disorders,

00:33:54.800 | a really tragic challenge there.

00:33:57.920 | So I just mentioned that.

00:33:59.640 | Getting funding for science on really

00:34:03.040 | kind of next level stuff is hard

00:34:07.600 | for reasons that would take up the whole night.

00:34:09.920 | So that's one thing that I'm really trying to do

00:34:11.580 | in the next few years.

00:34:12.420 | And again, this is not a request,

00:34:13.600 | but to pool together donors

00:34:16.380 | and get them to give money to laboratories

00:34:18.600 | to do the kind of stuff that's gonna feed back

00:34:20.360 | to the general public very quickly,

00:34:22.320 | because I think we're all getting a little tired

00:34:23.880 | of the like, okay, mouse study, which are great,

00:34:26.440 | but in 10 years, this might lead to a blank for Alzheimer's

00:34:29.640 | or blank for autism.

00:34:30.680 | I think we're all getting a little tired of that narrative.

00:34:33.040 | So we're trying to accelerate the process.

00:34:35.040 | Okay, yeah, thank you.

00:34:37.000 | And it's not a sole effort.

00:34:39.700 | It's just, I do happen to know a lot about the way

00:34:41.860 | that funding mechanisms can get a little bit clogged.

00:34:45.140 | And so just trying to clear some of those clogs.

00:34:48.440 | The brain and gut axis, is this a thing?

00:34:50.340 | It is most definitely a thing.

00:34:52.820 | So I think one of the more exciting areas

00:34:55.220 | is the so-called gut-brain axis.

00:34:57.300 | We all now hear about the gut microbiome.

00:34:59.580 | I must say, down here,

00:35:01.340 | y'all are really evolved in this dimension.

00:35:04.220 | The other day I noticed, probably from jet lag and travel,

00:35:07.780 | and I don't know, maybe I swam in some stuff

00:35:10.060 | that had too much chlorine or something.

00:35:11.100 | I was getting like some little like skin thing on my face.

00:35:13.500 | I was like, all right, I'll go get

00:35:14.920 | some triple antibiotic ointment like I do back home,

00:35:17.620 | clean it up, 'cause I forgot mine.

00:35:20.100 | So I go to the pharmacy here, what you call the chemist.

00:35:24.000 | I go to the pharmacy, and the guy behind the counter

00:35:29.000 | says, well, first of all,

00:35:32.420 | you can't get triple antibiotic ointment here.

00:35:34.500 | You need a prescription.

00:35:35.660 | I'm like, all right, well, this is gonna get tricky now.

00:35:37.580 | I gotta forge a prescription.

00:35:39.140 | And I'm just kidding, don't do that, don't do that.

00:35:42.760 | And he says, but you know, have you considered

00:35:46.880 | whether or not maybe your skin microbiome

00:35:49.580 | is struggling because of the lack of sleep,

00:35:51.340 | the jet lag, and maybe you were exposed

00:35:52.840 | to some chlorine or something.

00:35:53.860 | I thought, you know, that's a logical way to think about it.

00:35:57.620 | 'Cause we just did an episode on oral health

00:35:59.620 | where I'm telling everybody, hey, like,

00:36:00.860 | avoid these like high alcohol astringent mouthwashes

00:36:04.340 | that kill your oral microbiome,

00:36:05.620 | 'cause all the dentists and periodontists are telling me,

00:36:07.420 | yeah, they'll make your breath fresh,

00:36:08.620 | but actually it's wrecking your gut microbiome

00:36:11.420 | and it's bad for, but, so I take the probiotic.

00:36:13.740 | You guys have amazing probiotics here.

00:36:15.340 | And in a day, boom, it's done.

00:36:16.940 | Now, I didn't do a controlled clinical trial.

00:36:19.440 | I don't know whether or not that was really what did it,

00:36:22.220 | but it's an interesting idea.

00:36:23.500 | This, we know, for instance,

00:36:25.340 | that we have a distinct microbiome niches,

00:36:28.320 | different bacteria that live in our nasal passages,

00:36:31.040 | on the surface of our eyes, on the surface of our skin,

00:36:34.300 | in the urethra, in essentially every orifice,

00:36:37.300 | mucous membrane, but everywhere in and around our body,

00:36:40.380 | and that these little microbiota are,

00:36:43.900 | provided they are supported, they do many things,

00:36:47.500 | but among them, the gut microbiome,

00:36:49.680 | which of course starts in the mouth,

00:36:51.820 | as the oral health episode describes,

00:36:55.380 | with a lot of protocols as well,

00:36:57.480 | the gut microbiome, when it's well-supported,

00:37:01.380 | creates certain fatty acids that are the precursors

00:37:04.820 | or catalysts for the production

00:37:06.360 | of certain neurotransmitters in the brain.

00:37:08.800 | And it is now oh so clear that enhancing the diversity

00:37:14.200 | of flora of microbiota in the gut and mouth

00:37:19.200 | is great for the nervous system.

00:37:24.680 | So much so that some of the studies on relief

00:37:28.800 | from certain neuropsychiatric conditions

00:37:31.080 | are being achieved through, and I know it's not pleasant,

00:37:33.720 | but microbiota transfer between individuals,

00:37:36.520 | so-called fecal transplants,

00:37:38.280 | which always makes me a little bit uncomfortable

00:37:41.080 | to think about, never had one,

00:37:42.920 | but it's pretty interesting,

00:37:45.360 | despite the discomfort of thinking about that process,

00:37:48.160 | at least for me, the whole business

00:37:51.120 | of taking the gut microbiota from one individual

00:37:53.760 | that's not suffering from something

00:37:55.200 | and putting it into another individual

00:37:56.880 | and seeing relief from certain symptoms

00:37:58.700 | of given conditions is really compelling.

00:38:02.480 | So I think that we should all be thinking

00:38:05.680 | about ways to support our gut-brain axis.

00:38:07.600 | It's very clear that the best low-cost,

00:38:10.840 | no-supplement way to do that is going to be

00:38:14.360 | to consume one to four servings of some fermented food.

00:38:18.600 | No, beer doesn't count.

00:38:19.800 | Low-sugar fermented foods, I suppose beer does count,

00:38:22.640 | but it comes with some other issues,

00:38:24.440 | such as kimchi or sauerkrauts or kefirs.

00:38:30.080 | Every culture seems to have its own probiotic,

00:38:33.580 | prebiotic foods, and that's gonna be the best way.

00:38:36.800 | And it's clear that it has immense benefit.

00:38:39.580 | And then when you don't have access to those foods,

00:38:41.720 | doing things like taking a pill probiotic now and again

00:38:45.480 | is probably not a bad idea if you're traveling

00:38:47.600 | or you're sleep-deprived.

00:38:48.960 | The challenge with that sort of thing

00:38:52.080 | is that it's a generalized effect

00:38:55.400 | of supporting multiple systems in the brain and body,

00:38:57.800 | so it's going to be a long time, maybe never,

00:39:01.520 | before you see a really nice, clean study

00:39:05.600 | that says that, okay, increasing the amount

00:39:07.400 | of lactobacillus in the gut by taking X number

00:39:10.420 | of milligrams of lactobacillus improves your cognition.

00:39:13.340 | You're not gonna find that study.

00:39:14.660 | Why?

00:39:15.500 | Because in science, it's important, and in health,

00:39:18.700 | to distinguish between moderating effects

00:39:20.780 | and mediating effects.

00:39:22.140 | Lots of things can moderate a given feature

00:39:25.820 | of your brain or health.

00:39:27.220 | So, for instance, if, God forbid,

00:39:29.300 | a fire alarm went off tonight,

00:39:30.780 | it would moderate our tension, or excuse me, modulate,

00:39:34.420 | modulate, Kentucky's in California,

00:39:36.260 | now I'm saying moderate, modulate your attention,

00:39:40.400 | but it doesn't mediate attention.

00:39:41.840 | On a normal basis, the fire alarm isn't involved

00:39:44.240 | in your attention, whereas certain other things

00:39:46.800 | mediate those mechanisms of attention.

00:39:49.600 | So, when you improve sleep, you're going to see

00:39:52.800 | positive effects on any number of things.

00:39:54.500 | When you sleep-deprive people, you're gonna see

00:39:57.000 | deficits in any number of things.

00:39:58.520 | These are not direct effects, these are indirect effects,

00:40:00.740 | likewise with the microbiome.

00:40:01.960 | So, I think gut microbiome sits in the various,

00:40:04.920 | what I call pillars of mental health,

00:40:06.480 | physical health, and performance.

00:40:07.600 | These are the things that we should try

00:40:08.720 | and tend to on a regular basis to give buoyancy

00:40:11.880 | to our mental health, physical health, and performance.

00:40:14.320 | But I wouldn't get too caught up in wondering

00:40:17.080 | which exact microbiota are important.

00:40:20.480 | I think diversity of the microbiome is key.

00:40:22.520 | If you're taking antibiotics, you wanna do something

00:40:24.440 | to counter that through pill probiotics, et cetera.

00:40:27.120 | And certainly, antibiotics aren't bad,

00:40:29.280 | but the overuse of antibiotics certainly can be,

00:40:32.760 | and I'm good on you for having chemists

00:40:36.000 | that know better than to just hand me

00:40:38.720 | a bottle of triple antibiotic ointment.

00:40:41.720 | Quality of sleep, going to bed early

00:40:42.880 | compared to sleeping late but still for eight hours.

00:40:44.920 | Depends, depends on whether or not your chronotype,

00:40:49.680 | which for a long time I did not think was real,

00:40:51.640 | but based on newer data, it's absolutely clear or real,

00:40:54.240 | whether or not you feel best going to bed early,

00:40:56.480 | waking up early, or going to bed at a more typical time

00:40:59.700 | of 10 p.m. to say, wake up, or 11 p.m.

00:41:03.000 | and waking up at 7 a.m.

00:41:04.400 | I see that, you know, for any folks leaving there,

00:41:06.200 | though, I'd like early to bed, right?

00:41:07.840 | I get it, I'm not offended, it's fine.

00:41:09.940 | I get it, it would not be the first time that people,

00:41:14.080 | I always say, if nothing else,

00:41:15.360 | the podcast will cure insomnia

00:41:17.120 | because the episodes are very, very long.

00:41:19.740 | You know, for some people, they just feel

00:41:21.560 | spectacularly better going to sleep early

00:41:24.120 | and waking up early, spectacularly better.

00:41:27.560 | I'm one such person.

00:41:28.600 | Other people feel much better staying up late,

00:41:31.040 | waking up late.

00:41:32.540 | The total duration of sleep is important.

00:41:34.960 | The regularity of sleep, it turns out,

00:41:37.120 | is becoming a very important variable,

00:41:39.920 | or it has always been an important variable,

00:41:41.460 | but the data are pointing to the fact that

00:41:44.200 | if you are somebody who feels best going to sleep

00:41:46.440 | around 11 p.m. and waking up at 7 a.m.,

00:41:49.960 | trying to keep that to bedtime within plus or minus one hour

00:41:53.660 | any time you can, except on a time,

00:41:56.760 | and on a night when there's a lecture at the ICC Theater,

00:41:59.320 | is a good idea.

00:42:00.840 | But in general, five nights out of the week,

00:42:02.960 | you wanna go to sleep within plus or minus an hour

00:42:05.200 | of the same bedtime.

00:42:06.040 | That's kind of the general goal.

00:42:07.960 | And in the Sleep Series with Matt Walker,

00:42:09.800 | he talks about the quality, quantity,

00:42:12.200 | regularity, and timing, QQRT,

00:42:15.280 | quantity, quality, regularity, and timing of your sleep

00:42:18.480 | being the four key features of your sleep

00:42:20.800 | to try and dial in.

00:42:21.800 | But of course, life isn't about optimizing everything.

00:42:24.760 | It's good to get out and party every once in a while,

00:42:26.680 | stay up all night, watch the sunrise,

00:42:28.560 | and just live life also.

00:42:30.240 | So I think sometimes people get the impression

00:42:32.120 | because I wear the same shirt all the time

00:42:34.320 | that I do everything in a hyper-regimented way.

00:42:37.040 | But actually, it's quite the opposite.

00:42:38.760 | I try and do things regularly

00:42:41.380 | and as consistently as possible

00:42:42.800 | so that deviations from those protocols

00:42:45.880 | don't impact me negatively much at all.

00:42:48.360 | That's the idea.

00:42:50.080 | I have ADHD and I'm struggling to focus.

00:42:51.880 | What would be the best way to go about regaining my focus?

00:42:53.980 | Nick.

00:42:54.820 | - Okay, so I think that nowadays,

00:42:56.320 | many, many people struggle with issues with focus.

00:43:01.320 | I think we have our do's and our do nots.

00:43:04.640 | And I'm obviously not a psychiatrist

00:43:06.520 | and I can't diagnose you, Nick,

00:43:08.400 | from a question on a slide.

00:43:10.440 | But I just wanna start off by saying

00:43:12.000 | that there are indeed people who truly struggle with focus

00:43:17.000 | to the extent that they have clinically diagnosable ADHD.

00:43:19.840 | And I did two episodes on ADHD and focus,

00:43:23.000 | one that was mainly focused on behavioral tools

00:43:25.980 | and nutrition and to some extent, supplementation.

00:43:30.320 | And when I put out that episode,

00:43:31.620 | about half of the comments out there were, how could you?

00:43:35.660 | You don't respect modern science.

00:43:38.260 | You have no integrity.

00:43:41.140 | How could you suggest that people use these tools?

00:43:44.180 | It's all about prescription drugs.

00:43:45.760 | And the other half were like, yes,

00:43:47.280 | finally, some tools and some acknowledgement

00:43:49.220 | that these things actually matter and can help,

00:43:51.380 | maybe even in conjunction with pharmaceutical aids.

00:43:54.560 | And then we did a second episode,

00:43:56.740 | which was all about the prescription drugs

00:43:58.260 | and it was the exact reverse.

00:44:00.220 | People writing to me in droves saying, thank you so much.

00:44:04.380 | I've been prescribing these drugs

00:44:06.220 | or I've been giving these prescription drugs to my child.

00:44:08.420 | Rather, it's really been helping,

00:44:09.640 | but I'm embarrassed to tell everybody

00:44:11.480 | because then people demonize me

00:44:13.540 | and tell me I'm poisoning my kid, that they're on meth.

00:44:16.220 | And then the other half saying, how could you?

00:44:18.380 | The pharmaceutical industry, big pharma is out to get us all.

00:44:21.560 | I must say that, and I'm happy to be in this role.

00:44:24.700 | We're not happy, but I'm willing to be in the role of,

00:44:27.020 | I try and cover it all and give people options.

00:44:29.100 | I don't tell people what to do.

00:44:30.860 | I don't prescribe anything.

00:44:32.460 | I profess many, many things.

00:44:34.220 | And you should do as you decide is best for you,

00:44:37.180 | but just know what you're doing.

00:44:38.180 | And here's the deal, that drugs like Adderall,

00:44:40.820 | Vyvanse, et cetera, are indeed amphetamines.

00:44:43.860 | That's true.

00:44:45.300 | In the young brain, they can help enhance

00:44:48.060 | some of the neuromodulators that allow

00:44:50.140 | for elevated activity in areas like the prefrontal cortex

00:44:54.420 | and elsewhere that allow for more focused attention

00:44:56.300 | and less impulsivity because the main function

00:44:58.300 | of the prefrontal cortex, as you may all recall,

00:45:00.300 | is to say shh to the particular areas of the brain

00:45:04.140 | that want to move or cause us to move

00:45:06.380 | or cause us to blurt things out like DMT or whatever it is.

00:45:09.600 | And, sorry, I didn't mean to pick on you.

00:45:12.660 | We'll do DMT together.

00:45:13.800 | We'll do some MDMA also, and then we'll like,

00:45:15.460 | we would like heart medicine.

00:45:18.020 | So the reality is that there are neurochemical tools

00:45:24.740 | that can help with ADHD, but there are also behavioral tools

00:45:30.580 | and in countries outside of the U.S., namely in China,

00:45:35.160 | there are extensive efforts to train young people

00:45:39.860 | to focus for longer periods of time.

00:45:42.340 | And believe it or not, they're not doing that

00:45:43.820 | through any, at least in these experiments,

00:45:46.220 | through any draconian approach.

00:45:47.740 | They actually have them do what?

00:45:49.540 | They have them focus on visual targets.

00:45:51.420 | The longer you focus on a visual target,

00:45:53.420 | we know the longer you bring about the activation

00:45:56.140 | of certain neural circuits in the brain

00:45:58.100 | that allow for better focus.

00:45:59.860 | And while not everything is about vision,

00:46:02.260 | it is certainly the case based on those studies

00:46:05.140 | and the data, I've looked at them quite extensively,

00:46:07.480 | that even a short period of time of learning

00:46:09.760 | to entrain one's focus on a fixation points,

00:46:11.980 | this would be the virgin's eye movement,

00:46:13.380 | this is the cuttlefish ready to eat or mate,

00:46:15.200 | not the cuttlefish swimming around looking

00:46:17.100 | for potential predators in panoramic mode,

00:46:19.860 | doing that for a short period of time

00:46:21.400 | of even a minute or three minutes

00:46:23.900 | can allow one to bring online the neural circuits

00:46:27.460 | that allow for enhanced focus

00:46:29.100 | in the subsequent 10 to 20 minutes,

00:46:30.820 | which is a pretty reasonable bout of work

00:46:32.940 | if you think about it.

00:46:34.140 | And here's another important point.

00:46:35.740 | None of us, none of us, ADHD sufferers or otherwise,

00:46:40.120 | should expect ourselves to be in perfect trenches,

00:46:42.700 | deep trenches of focus all the time.

00:46:45.780 | That's an unreasonable request for your nervous system.

00:46:48.960 | You can build up a capacity to focus,

00:46:50.820 | and of course, we can all focus best

00:46:53.660 | on things that we really enjoy.

00:46:54.860 | In fact, children and adults with ADHD

00:46:56.940 | are known to have tremendous focusing capacity

00:46:59.620 | if they're focusing on something they really enjoy.

00:47:02.100 | This has been shown over and over again,

00:47:03.560 | which means that the capacity to focus is there,

00:47:05.460 | it's just that the threshold to focus is higher,

00:47:07.820 | which means that it's harder to access.

00:47:10.120 | And these visual fixation,

00:47:11.980 | they're not even experiments.

00:47:12.980 | You can literally just place a visual target on the wall,

00:47:15.700 | you know, one to three feet away,

00:47:17.500 | force yourself to stare at that visual focus point

00:47:20.340 | and then move into your work.

00:47:21.980 | And you'll notice that your mind will flit away

00:47:23.840 | from whatever it is you're trying to focus on.

00:47:26.740 | But with some training,

00:47:27.740 | you can build up an enhanced capacity to focus.

00:47:29.780 | It does require you flip your phone over,

00:47:31.540 | you turn it off, you leave it in the other room,

00:47:33.220 | you remove distractions.

00:47:34.780 | Some people even find,

00:47:35.780 | children will find if they wear a brimmed hat and a hoodie,

00:47:38.420 | which basically took me through most of high school.

00:47:40.820 | For other reasons, if you do that,

00:47:43.900 | you can create a more narrow tunnel of vision.

00:47:46.540 | This is the reason they put blinders on horses.

00:47:49.380 | So it sounds somewhat medieval,

00:47:52.660 | it sounds somewhat primitive or crude.

00:47:55.780 | But once again, what we're really talking about

00:47:58.260 | is removing the expectation

00:48:01.460 | that focus is like a square wave function

00:48:03.720 | where, you know, you sit down,

00:48:05.300 | you open your book and boom, you're focused.

00:48:07.380 | I mean, you wouldn't expect

00:48:08.220 | that of physical performance, would you?

00:48:10.580 | There's a warmup, there's some dynamic stretching,

00:48:12.620 | there's perhaps some just getting your mind in the groove,

00:48:16.180 | you know, this sort of thing.

00:48:17.500 | Neural circuits are not on/off.

00:48:20.580 | It's not a square wave function.

00:48:22.500 | It takes some time to ease into a mode of focus.

00:48:24.780 | And so my suggestion, Nick,

00:48:27.540 | is that you and others that struggle with focus,

00:48:30.160 | think about the do-nots,

00:48:31.340 | the distractions that clearly are intervening

00:48:34.700 | in our ability to focus nowadays.

00:48:36.580 | But also as you think about the things to explore,

00:48:38.460 | which may include these pharmaceutical tools,

00:48:40.820 | of course, prescribed by a licensed physician,

00:48:43.260 | but that you consider that perhaps the expectations

00:48:47.380 | that you're placing on yourself to focus are too immediate

00:48:51.260 | and that you should train these up more gradually over time,

00:48:55.240 | which is not to say

00:48:56.080 | that you should settle on having limited focus,

00:48:58.940 | but that this is a skill that you can develop

00:49:01.660 | like any other skill,

00:49:02.620 | that your nervous system is capable of plasticity

00:49:04.640 | throughout the lifespan.

00:49:05.620 | We absolutely know that.

00:49:07.460 | And given that I'm presuming,

00:49:11.440 | I don't know why I'm presuming that you're a young person,

00:49:13.780 | but even if you're not,

00:49:15.240 | that you can increase your ability

00:49:17.660 | to access these narrow trenches of focus,

00:49:21.260 | even for things that don't delight you.

00:49:23.940 | But I hope you are also doing some things that delight you.

00:49:27.780 | So I was told that's the final question.

00:49:29.980 | I'm going to take that very seriously.

00:49:31.900 | And somewhat unfortunately for me,

00:49:35.460 | 'cause I could go all night,

00:49:37.220 | I've really enjoyed tonight.

00:49:39.780 | Thank you very much.

00:49:41.200 | Thank you.

00:49:42.040 | [audience applauding]

00:49:42.860 | Thank you so much.

00:49:43.700 | Just thank you so much.

00:49:50.060 | Thank you.

00:49:53.540 | Truly thank you.

00:49:56.100 | I really appreciate this opportunity

00:49:58.420 | to connect with you all.

00:49:59.700 | Thanks for coming out.

00:50:00.580 | The fact that people come out to listen

00:50:02.440 | to a bunch of science and health discussion

00:50:06.360 | is greatly appreciated.

00:50:08.400 | All the tools, all the protocols,

00:50:09.760 | all the mechanisms, all the information,

00:50:11.840 | while some of it, a very, very small fraction of it

00:50:14.480 | was developed or discovered in my laboratory.

00:50:17.040 | Virtually everything that I cover on the podcast

00:50:19.480 | and I've talked about tonight

00:50:20.360 | are the great discoveries of other people

00:50:22.760 | who deserve the credit.

00:50:23.720 | And I've tried to give credit where credit is due.

00:50:27.560 | The most important thing to me, of course,

00:50:29.240 | is that as you each learn and try these different tools

00:50:33.200 | and protocols as you see fit for you,

00:50:35.520 | that it would be wonderful

00:50:36.400 | if you'd pass them on to other people.

00:50:39.000 | Please, please, please remove my name from that passage.

00:50:41.540 | This is not about me or the podcast.

00:50:44.020 | It's really about the one thing we know

00:50:47.280 | to certainly be true about our species

00:50:49.180 | is that we can communicate information

00:50:51.120 | to one another, hand off tools,

00:50:53.300 | and that in the case where these tools

00:50:55.700 | can help relieve suffering, wonderful.

00:50:57.680 | In the case where these tools can help improve

00:50:59.360 | mental health, physical health, and performance,

00:51:01.480 | we need to, I believe, and should do that for one another.

00:51:05.440 | And last, but certainly not least,

00:51:07.840 | thank you for your interest in science.

00:51:09.580 | (audience applauding)

00:51:12.740 | (upbeat music)

00:51:15.320 | (upbeat music)

LIVE EVENT Q&A: Dr. Andrew Huberman at the ICC Sydney Theatre

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