Focus Toolkit: Tools to Improve Your Focus & Concentration

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

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

00:00:04.880 | for everyday life.

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

00:00:11.600 | and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine.

00:00:14.420 | Today, we are discussing focus and concentration

00:00:17.480 | and tools for improving your focus and concentration.

00:00:20.720 | This is a topic that I've covered previously

00:00:22.520 | on the Huberman Lab Podcast, but in different contexts.

00:00:25.280 | For instance, we had a very popular episode on ADHD,

00:00:27.920 | attention deficit hyperactivity disorder,

00:00:30.120 | which of course relates to the topic of focus

00:00:32.100 | and how to improve focus.

00:00:33.520 | We've also talked a lot about dopamine motivation and drive.

00:00:36.440 | In fact, that's the title of your previous,

00:00:38.580 | also quite popular episode of this podcast.

00:00:41.200 | But never before have we had a single episode

00:00:44.180 | solely devoted to the tools

00:00:45.920 | to improve focus and concentration.

00:00:47.920 | The rationale for recording this episode

00:00:49.960 | is to provide people one location where they can go

00:00:52.560 | and quickly access the specific tools

00:00:54.460 | for increasing focus and concentration

00:00:56.480 | that are known to be the most powerful tools

00:00:59.060 | and the most up-to-date tools.

00:01:00.760 | In fact, today's episode is going to include

00:01:02.940 | description of several peer-reviewed studies

00:01:05.380 | and the tools that emerge

00:01:06.520 | from those scientific peer-reviewed studies

00:01:08.360 | that point to new and fortunately even briefer protocols

00:01:12.040 | than I've described before.

00:01:13.360 | So what I'm basically describing here

00:01:15.080 | is tools that in a very short amount of time

00:01:18.080 | will allow you to significantly increase

00:01:20.200 | your focus and concentration abilities.

00:01:22.580 | Those tools will include behavioral tools,

00:01:24.600 | nutrition-based tools, supplement-based tools,

00:01:27.000 | brain machine interface-based tools,

00:01:28.940 | and for those of you that are working with physician,

00:01:31.420 | prescription drug tools.

00:01:33.120 | Today's episode ought to benefit anybody,

00:01:35.160 | young or old or anything in between,

00:01:37.360 | whether or not you have ADHD or not.

00:01:40.000 | Today's episode is going to give you tools

00:01:41.720 | that you can apply in your daily life.

00:01:43.560 | Most all of them are completely zero cost

00:01:45.640 | and those tools will allow you

00:01:47.920 | to tap into the neurochemistry

00:01:49.640 | and the neural circuits within your brain and body

00:01:51.800 | that peer-reviewed science has reliably shown

00:01:54.440 | can significantly improve your focus

00:01:56.680 | and concentration abilities.

00:01:58.480 | Just to give you a little teaser of the kinds of tools

00:02:00.200 | that I'm going to provide you on today's episode,

00:02:02.320 | a previous guest on the Huberman Lab Podcast

00:02:04.100 | was Dr. Wendy Suzuki.

00:02:05.400 | Dr. Suzuki is a professor of psychology and neuroscience

00:02:08.660 | at New York University or NYU as it's commonly referred to.

00:02:12.080 | She's also the Dean of Arts and Sciences at NYU.

00:02:15.800 | Her laboratory made a very important discovery

00:02:18.200 | which was that a very brief, just 12,

00:02:20.960 | actually 13 if you really count the intro,

00:02:23.520 | but 13 minute daily meditation

00:02:25.980 | performed for a period of about eight weeks

00:02:28.640 | significantly increased people's focus

00:02:30.880 | and concentration abilities.

00:02:32.160 | And the great news is you didn't need all eight weeks.

00:02:34.400 | It was just that's how long that you ran the study.

00:02:36.560 | So during today's episode,

00:02:37.700 | I will describe that protocol in detail.

00:02:39.840 | I'll also provide you an even briefer alternative

00:02:42.360 | to that protocol that you can use if, for instance,

00:02:45.160 | you find yourself with only three minutes or four minutes

00:02:47.600 | or five minutes a day to meditate.

00:02:49.760 | The great news is there's quality peer-reviewed science

00:02:51.920 | to support that form of meditation

00:02:54.160 | for improving focus and concentration.

00:02:56.840 | And that falls under the bin of these zero cost tools

00:02:59.920 | that you can really use to tap into the neurochemistry

00:03:02.000 | and neural circuits that really allow you to take control

00:03:04.480 | of your cognitive abilities and improve them over time.

00:03:07.520 | I'll also provide you important details

00:03:09.080 | about that protocol and other protocols.

00:03:10.680 | For instance, contrary to popular belief, it is not,

00:03:14.120 | I repeat, it is not a good idea

00:03:15.960 | to do a focused-based meditation within the four hours

00:03:19.960 | before bedtime.

00:03:20.840 | Many people, including some of the subjects in that study

00:03:23.600 | performed by the Suzuki lab,

00:03:26.040 | found that when they did a focusing meditation protocol,

00:03:30.040 | even if it was very calming,

00:03:31.640 | it led to difficulties in falling and staying asleep.

00:03:34.880 | So that runs counter to a lot of what we heard

00:03:36.600 | about meditation being great for sleep.

00:03:38.320 | It turns out meditation might be great for sleep.

00:03:40.200 | It certainly is great for improving focus capacity,

00:03:42.800 | but I highly recommend that if you're going to apply

00:03:44.660 | a focused meditation tool

00:03:46.520 | in order to improve your focus and concentration,

00:03:48.840 | that you make sure that that's performed

00:03:50.600 | not within four hours prior to bedtime.

00:03:53.580 | So that's just a brief example

00:03:54.860 | of the sorts of tools and protocols

00:03:56.680 | and details about the tools and protocols

00:03:58.520 | that I'll provide on today's episode.

00:04:00.540 | I should mention that we have provided links

00:04:02.780 | in the show note captions

00:04:04.020 | so that you can quickly go to the studies that we describe,

00:04:06.620 | as well as some of the behavioral tools

00:04:08.200 | and other tools that we'll cover,

00:04:10.600 | things like the use of binaural beats, supplements, et cetera.

00:04:13.360 | Our goal here again is to provide you

00:04:15.080 | the maximum number of tools for focus and concentration

00:04:18.220 | that you can pick from and choose from

00:04:19.560 | and apply in your life

00:04:20.740 | and try and eliminate as much of the legwork required

00:04:23.700 | to seek out and apply those tools.

00:04:26.020 | I'm pleased to announce that the Huberman Lab Podcast

00:04:27.900 | is now partnered with Momentus Supplements.

00:04:30.220 | We partnered with Momentus for several important reasons.

00:04:32.440 | First of all, they ship internationally

00:04:34.140 | because we know that many of you are located

00:04:36.060 | outside of the United States.

00:04:37.840 | That's valuable.

00:04:38.920 | Second of all, and perhaps most important,

00:04:40.940 | the quality of their supplements is second to none,

00:04:43.480 | both in terms of purity and precision

00:04:45.160 | of the amounts of the ingredients.

00:04:47.100 | Third, we've really emphasized supplements

00:04:49.720 | that are single ingredient supplements

00:04:51.920 | and that are supplied in dosages

00:04:54.000 | that allow you to build a supplementation protocol

00:04:56.960 | that's optimized for cost,

00:04:58.800 | that's optimized for effectiveness,

00:05:00.680 | and that you can add things and remove things

00:05:02.820 | from your protocol in a way

00:05:04.140 | that's really systematic and scientific.

00:05:05.840 | This is really hard to do

00:05:07.180 | if you're taking blends of different supplements

00:05:09.060 | or if the dosages are such that you can't titrate

00:05:11.800 | or that is adjust the dosages of a given supplement.

00:05:15.180 | So by using single ingredient supplements,

00:05:17.820 | you can really build out the supplement kit

00:05:19.480 | that's ideal for you and your specific needs.

00:05:22.580 | If you'd like to see the supplements

00:05:23.760 | that we partner with Momentus on,

00:05:25.080 | you can go to livemomentus.com/huberman.

00:05:28.180 | There you'll see those supplements.

00:05:29.320 | And just keep in mind that we are constantly expanding

00:05:31.780 | the library of supplements available through Momentus

00:05:34.480 | on a regular basis.

00:05:35.420 | Again, that's livemomentus.com/huberman.

00:05:38.140 | Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize

00:05:39.720 | that this podcast is separate

00:05:41.040 | from my teaching and research roles at Stanford.

00:05:43.220 | It is, however, part of my desire and effort

00:05:45.320 | to bring zero cost to consumer information about science

00:05:47.780 | and science-related tools to the general public.

00:05:50.500 | In keeping with that theme,

00:05:51.600 | I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast.

00:05:54.320 | Our first sponsor is Thesis.

00:05:56.220 | Thesis makes custom nootropics.

00:05:58.040 | And to be quite honest, I don't like the word nootropics

00:06:00.360 | because the translation of nootropics is smart drugs.

00:06:03.800 | And as a neuroscientist, I can tell you,

00:06:05.960 | there is no neural circuit in the brain

00:06:07.780 | for being smart.

00:06:08.800 | Rather, there are neural circuits

00:06:10.700 | that are responsible for focus,

00:06:12.060 | neural circuits for creativity,

00:06:13.880 | neural circuits for task switching,

00:06:15.360 | and so on and so on.

00:06:16.800 | Fortunately, Thesis understands this

00:06:18.720 | and has developed custom nootropics

00:06:20.280 | that are tailored to your specific goals

00:06:21.940 | and your specific needs.

00:06:23.520 | They use only the highest quality ingredients,

00:06:26.360 | things of the sort that we'll talk about in today's podcast,

00:06:28.840 | things like alpha-GPC, phosphatidylserine,

00:06:31.320 | ginkgo biloba, et cetera.

00:06:32.960 | However, I should mention that they are customized to you.

00:06:35.380 | So you can go to Thesis, take a brief quiz,

00:06:37.760 | and you can get a nootropic starter kit

00:06:40.180 | that will allow you to try various nootropics

00:06:42.120 | and determine which ones you like and work for you

00:06:43.900 | and which ones don't.

00:06:44.900 | I've been using Thesis nootropics customized for me

00:06:47.220 | for close to six months now,

00:06:48.480 | and can confidently say that their nootropics

00:06:50.380 | have been a total game changer.

00:06:52.180 | My go-to formula is the Clarity formula.

00:06:54.560 | I like to use that before cognitive work,

00:06:56.220 | and I use the Energy formula before my workouts.

00:06:58.680 | To get your own personalized nootropic starter kit,

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00:07:16.780 | Element is an electrolyte drink

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00:07:27.060 | Electrolytes are key to cellular function,

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00:09:37.480 | Okay, let's talk about focus and concentration

00:09:40.280 | and how you can improve your focus and concentration

00:09:43.020 | using science-based protocols.

00:09:45.600 | Now, because today's episode is mainly focused on tools

00:09:48.340 | and not so much the underlying mechanisms,

00:09:50.780 | I'm mainly going to focus on what to do and when

00:09:52.840 | and how to do it.

00:09:54.120 | But I just want to take about three minutes

00:09:56.460 | and briefly describe a model that is a visual image

00:09:59.580 | that you can put in your mind

00:10:01.340 | that will help you incorporate the tools that I'll provide

00:10:04.400 | and that generally will help you understand

00:10:06.580 | at a mechanistic level how focus and concentration work.

00:10:10.480 | So what I want you to imagine is an arrow.

00:10:13.640 | And an arrow, of course, has an arrow head

00:10:15.820 | and it has the shaft of that arrow.

00:10:18.160 | And in the context of the neuroscience

00:10:20.400 | of focus and concentration,

00:10:22.360 | the neurochemical system that really represents

00:10:25.440 | the shaft of that arrow, right, the straight line,

00:10:28.360 | is epinephrine, also called adrenaline.

00:10:30.760 | And today I'll refer to adrenaline

00:10:32.460 | and epinephrine interchangeably.

00:10:34.200 | It turns out that epinephrine/adrenaline

00:10:36.460 | are released within your brain from a little location,

00:10:39.340 | a little cluster of neurons called locus coeruleus,

00:10:41.260 | but you do not need to remember that name,

00:10:43.340 | and from your body from the adrenal glands.

00:10:46.400 | And the release of epinephrine from those two locations

00:10:50.600 | overall increases energy, it increases alertness.

00:10:54.400 | It does not alone increase focus, okay?

00:10:57.520 | So the reason I've assigned epinephrine, adrenaline,

00:11:01.320 | as the shaft of the arrow is that if focus is the arrow,

00:11:05.560 | there is no focus without epinephrine.

00:11:08.640 | So things, whether or not they're behavioral

00:11:11.240 | or psychological or supplements or drugs

00:11:15.080 | that increase epinephrine allow focus to occur.

00:11:18.440 | They are necessary for focus,

00:11:20.200 | but they are not sufficient for focus.

00:11:22.540 | That is, they are required,

00:11:23.640 | but they are not enough to create focus.

00:11:26.220 | So we're going to need epinephrine in the equation.

00:11:28.680 | Without epinephrine, there is no focus or concentration.

00:11:33.200 | Now, the arrowhead on this metaphorical arrowhead

00:11:37.540 | that represents focus and concentration

00:11:39.660 | is going to be represented or related to the mechanisms

00:11:42.980 | of acetylcholine, a different neurochemical

00:11:46.060 | that also exists in the brain and body.

00:11:47.520 | In fact, in the body, it's responsible

00:11:49.000 | for the contraction and movement of your muscles.

00:11:51.600 | But today we're talking about acetylcholine

00:11:53.300 | not in that context, but rather in the context

00:11:55.280 | of it's released within the brain.

00:11:57.040 | Acetylcholine is released from a couple

00:11:58.660 | of different locations in the brain.

00:12:00.060 | And the best way to think about it is it's like a spotlight.

00:12:03.400 | It highlights specific neurons, nerve cells

00:12:06.500 | that should be active or more active, I should say,

00:12:09.000 | than the other neurons in the environment.

00:12:10.900 | So the reason I've assigned the arrowhead to acetylcholine

00:12:15.440 | and acetylcholine to the arrowhead is that if you have

00:12:18.820 | an arrow with a very big arrowhead that's really broad,

00:12:22.100 | really blunt, imagine a mile wide arrowhead,

00:12:24.600 | that's not very focused on any one location.

00:12:26.540 | It's not really pointing to any one location, is it?

00:12:29.200 | But with a narrow, really tightly focused arrowhead,

00:12:33.440 | well, that's focused on one location.

00:12:35.420 | So we have alertness, epinephrine,

00:12:37.740 | and then we have the actual direction

00:12:40.600 | in which our concentration and focus is placed.

00:12:43.660 | And that's, at least in this mental model,

00:12:46.040 | I'm creating acetylcholine.

00:12:47.700 | And then in order to have ongoing focus,

00:12:51.920 | we need another neurochemical.

00:12:53.460 | And it turns out that that third neurochemical is dopamine,

00:12:56.580 | a molecule often associated with pleasure and reward,

00:13:00.000 | but it's really the molecule of motivation.

00:13:03.200 | So here, I want you to imagine in your mind an arrow

00:13:05.480 | with an arrowhead, think acetylcholine in the arrowhead,

00:13:08.300 | a shaft or a line behind that arrowhead,

00:13:10.600 | which is epinephrine, also called adrenaline,

00:13:13.080 | and then behind it, a sort of an engine

00:13:15.240 | that keeps that focus moving forward, right?

00:13:17.420 | Because we don't just want to be focused for a moment,

00:13:19.680 | we want to be able to focus for 10 minutes or for an hour,

00:13:22.480 | maybe even for two hours.

00:13:24.160 | It turns out there's an optimal duration to focus.

00:13:26.140 | I'll teach you that in just a little bit.

00:13:28.040 | But these three neurochemicals together,

00:13:29.940 | acetylcholine, epinephrine, and dopamine,

00:13:32.100 | really allow you to get focused, to focus very precisely,

00:13:37.100 | and in fact, increasingly precisely over time

00:13:40.600 | to really narrow and narrow and narrow your focus

00:13:42.500 | progressively within a single bout of focus,

00:13:45.380 | and to continue to do that

00:13:46.980 | and to be able to do that repeatedly whenever you want.

00:13:49.560 | So here, I'm purely talking in metaphor

00:13:51.780 | and in models and mental models of arrows,

00:13:53.960 | but in a moment or two,

00:13:54.800 | I'll start transitioning to discussing tools

00:13:57.140 | in which I'll talk about increasing dopamine

00:13:59.300 | and acetylcholine or increasing epinephrine and dopamine

00:14:02.520 | in various combinations with various approaches.

00:14:05.220 | And what I'd like you to conceptualize

00:14:07.320 | is how those are contributing

00:14:09.080 | to creating a very narrowly pointed arrow

00:14:11.740 | that has the capacity to continue moving forward

00:14:14.040 | over and over so that you can focus as sharply

00:14:16.660 | and as long as you like.

00:14:18.580 | And of course, for those of you

00:14:19.580 | that want to get really down in the weeds

00:14:21.580 | of how dopamine works,

00:14:22.780 | we have an entire episode about dopamine motivation and drive

00:14:25.620 | that really gets into neurotransmitter release

00:14:27.940 | and dopamine baselines and thresholds

00:14:30.020 | and all of that sort of thing.

00:14:31.640 | We also have episodes on focus,

00:14:34.500 | much longer episodes, I should say, on focus,

00:14:36.620 | that incorporate a lot of the biology of acetylcholine.

00:14:39.140 | It turns out acetylcholine

00:14:39.980 | is also involved in neuroplasticity, et cetera.

00:14:42.140 | And epinephrine, of course, relates to stress

00:14:44.860 | and our capacity to deal with and buffer stress

00:14:46.940 | and on and on.

00:14:48.380 | Those episodes are all available to you

00:14:50.220 | in their long form at HubermanLab.com.

00:14:52.980 | You can find them very easily.

00:14:54.020 | They are all timestamps.

00:14:55.160 | You can navigate to the particular topics

00:14:56.860 | most of interest to you.

00:14:57.960 | I mentioned this all not as a diversion

00:15:00.020 | from what we want to cover today,

00:15:01.400 | but I know that some of you are hungry

00:15:02.740 | for a lot more mechanism,

00:15:04.180 | but today's episode is really mainly focused on the tools.

00:15:06.880 | I will, of course, touch on mechanism,

00:15:09.220 | but if you really want to do the deep dive on mechanism,

00:15:11.420 | go to HubermanLab.com and you'll have more

00:15:13.780 | than you ever could want about those mechanisms.

00:15:16.800 | Let's jump into the tools for concentration and focus.

00:15:20.380 | If you want to think about tools of any kind

00:15:23.700 | to modify your biology or physiology in any way,

00:15:26.920 | whether or not it's for cognitive function

00:15:28.200 | or you want to get better at exercising

00:15:29.700 | or you want to build muscle

00:15:30.560 | or you want to improve your hormones,

00:15:32.160 | you need to think and understand tools

00:15:35.540 | in the context of modulation and mediation.

00:15:38.960 | What do I mean by that?

00:15:39.840 | Well, it's quite simple, really.

00:15:42.480 | Mediation is how specific types of chemicals

00:15:45.960 | and cells and circuits and organs

00:15:47.940 | control very specific things in your brain and body,

00:15:51.080 | whereas modulation is the ability of chemicals

00:15:54.400 | and cells and circuits to adjust how different things change,

00:15:58.940 | how different things work in your brain and body,

00:16:01.040 | but to do it more broadly.

00:16:02.660 | What do I mean by this?

00:16:03.500 | Let me give an example.

00:16:04.780 | For instance, I'm going to tell you now

00:16:07.560 | that one of the most important things

00:16:10.040 | to build and maintain your focus and concentration

00:16:14.020 | is to optimize your sleeping behavior.

00:16:17.320 | That is to get enough quality sleep,

00:16:20.020 | I would say 80% of the nights of your life.

00:16:22.080 | Not everyone can get optimal sleep

00:16:23.860 | 100% of the nights of their life.

00:16:25.220 | Nobody, truly nobody achieves that.

00:16:28.280 | However, sleep has been shown to relate

00:16:31.060 | to cognitive performance, physical performance,

00:16:33.780 | hormone output, and so many other things,

00:16:36.660 | including immune system function.

00:16:38.380 | What we can reliably say is that sleep modulates

00:16:42.520 | just about every process in your brain and body.

00:16:45.880 | So you have to get great sleep.

00:16:47.120 | There's simply no tool that's going to allow you

00:16:50.260 | to overcome chronic sleep deprivation

00:16:53.060 | and allow you to remain focused.

00:16:54.560 | No pill, no device, no supplement, no protocol whatsoever.

00:16:58.840 | There are tools to overcome one night

00:17:01.000 | or maybe two nights of sleep deprivation,

00:17:02.600 | and we'll talk about those,

00:17:04.040 | but at a fundamental level,

00:17:06.560 | we need to do the things that modulate

00:17:08.600 | our focus and attention in powerful ways,

00:17:11.200 | and sleep really is that thing.

00:17:13.200 | So we've done two episodes, one called Master Your Sleep,

00:17:16.200 | and the other episode is Perfect Your Sleep.

00:17:18.920 | The Perfect Your Sleep is a little bit more

00:17:20.260 | like this episode, more focused on protocols.

00:17:22.120 | Master Your Sleep includes protocols and mechanism.

00:17:24.440 | Again, you can find those at HubermanLab.com.

00:17:26.200 | We also have a sleep toolkit,

00:17:28.020 | a distilled list of things to do

00:17:29.440 | in order to optimize your sleep.

00:17:30.720 | I highly recommend that you download that.

00:17:32.800 | You can go to HubermanLab.com,

00:17:34.040 | go to the Neural Network Newsletter.

00:17:35.360 | It is listed there.

00:17:36.200 | If you want, you can sign up for the newsletter,

00:17:37.680 | but you don't have to.

00:17:38.560 | You can simply download the PDF of that toolkit

00:17:41.080 | for zero cost.

00:17:42.900 | Why do I say sleep modulates focus and attention?

00:17:45.960 | Well, I'll give an analogy.

00:17:47.920 | If right now someone pulled a fire alarm in this building,

00:17:50.840 | or if we had a fire in this building,

00:17:52.140 | my attention would drift.

00:17:54.120 | It would not be on recording this podcast.

00:17:56.240 | It would be on something else.

00:17:57.800 | But would I say that the fire alarm mediates attention?

00:18:01.120 | I mean, fire alarms are not really involved in attention.

00:18:03.520 | No, rather, they modulate my attention.

00:18:06.680 | The noise in the room modulates my attention.

00:18:08.920 | That's quite a bit different

00:18:10.320 | than a tool that I'll provide later,

00:18:11.680 | and I'll just give you a little hint of now.

00:18:13.220 | In fact, I'll give it to you now,

00:18:14.600 | which is that 40 hertz binaural beats

00:18:17.720 | have been shown in a number of peer-reviewed studies

00:18:20.040 | to increase focus and concentration.

00:18:22.420 | And if you'd like to access 40 hertz binaural beats

00:18:25.360 | in order to improve your focus and concentration,

00:18:27.740 | you can do that.

00:18:28.580 | You can actually get it at zero cost.

00:18:30.200 | You can go into the App Store.

00:18:32.240 | For instance, the Apple App Store.

00:18:34.040 | This is also available for Android phone.

00:18:35.660 | There's an app called Brainwave, and you can go there.

00:18:37.940 | You can dial in 40 hertz,

00:18:39.580 | and it'll play these binaural beats.

00:18:41.500 | It's been shown in multiple quality peer-reviewed studies

00:18:43.920 | that playing a pattern of sound waves to one ear,

00:18:46.280 | doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, and the other ear,

00:18:48.040 | which is slightly offset in frequency,

00:18:49.660 | meaning not quite the same frequency,

00:18:50.980 | so more like doo, doo, doo, doo, doo,

00:18:52.580 | that that combination of frequencies

00:18:54.240 | played to the different ears

00:18:56.340 | actually get integrated within deep brain centers

00:18:59.280 | and can increase focus and concentration

00:19:01.420 | in part by increasing levels

00:19:03.980 | of the neurochemical dopamine and acetylcholine,

00:19:06.340 | which we talked about a little bit earlier

00:19:07.740 | in this aero model of focus.

00:19:09.900 | So we'll provide a link to that app.

00:19:12.860 | I don't have any relationship to that app I should mention,

00:19:15.740 | but it's an excellent one.

00:19:16.780 | It's one that I've used for many years.

00:19:18.140 | There are also additional functions within the app,

00:19:20.560 | such as for sleep and for other things,

00:19:22.700 | but the 40 hertz, four zero HZ,

00:19:26.220 | is the way it reads out.

00:19:27.420 | 40 hertz stimulation has been shown

00:19:29.400 | to improve focus and concentration.

00:19:31.460 | Here is my recommendation in the way that I use it.

00:19:33.580 | I would not use 40 hertz binaural beats

00:19:36.340 | every time I'm doing a bout of work.

00:19:38.620 | What I tend to do is use it

00:19:39.900 | for about five minutes prior to that work

00:19:43.060 | and then turn it off and then do the work,

00:19:45.160 | and I'll talk about other tools to use during that work,

00:19:47.780 | whether or not it's reading or math or even just emailing

00:19:50.000 | or something where I require a bunch of focus for awhile.

00:19:53.380 | However, there are times in which I'm in an area

00:19:56.340 | or I'm in a state of mind

00:19:57.380 | where I'm feeling very distractible,

00:19:58.620 | and then I'll keep the 40 hertz binaural beats

00:20:00.400 | on the entire time I'm doing that bout of cognitive work.

00:20:04.260 | I'll also sometimes use the 40 hertz binaural beats

00:20:06.380 | prior to a workout, in particular weight workouts,

00:20:08.400 | where I really want to be able to focus on

00:20:09.860 | and contract specific muscles.

00:20:11.460 | This is a very useful tool,

00:20:13.020 | again, supported by quality peer-reviewed science,

00:20:15.620 | zero cost available out there,

00:20:17.600 | not just in the Brainwave app, but in multiple apps.

00:20:20.540 | I think many of you will benefit from it.

00:20:22.980 | Some of you might not experience it immediately

00:20:25.300 | as a total dropping into a tunnel of focus

00:20:28.420 | in the same way that you might with, say,

00:20:30.460 | the sorts of neurochemicals that we'll talk about later,

00:20:33.180 | like alpha-GPC and some of these other things

00:20:35.300 | that change neurochemicals directly.

00:20:37.580 | But nonetheless, 40 hertz binaural beats

00:20:39.980 | are a very powerful tool.

00:20:41.320 | Again, zero cost non-pharmacologic tool

00:20:43.580 | that tap into your own endogenous, meaning within you,

00:20:46.820 | or exists within you, physiology,

00:20:49.040 | in order to increase acetylcholine

00:20:50.620 | and some other neurochemicals,

00:20:51.980 | and they have been shown to work quite well.

00:20:54.580 | Okay, so assuming that you are sleeping well

00:20:56.640 | 80% of the nights of your life,

00:20:58.020 | or at least working on the various protocols and tools

00:21:01.740 | to sleep well and sufficiently long,

00:21:04.540 | 80% of the nights of your life,

00:21:06.500 | and you are interested in additional tools

00:21:09.420 | that are sound-based in order to improve

00:21:12.380 | your ability to concentrate and focus.

00:21:14.460 | There are quality peer-reviewed studies

00:21:16.860 | supporting the idea that white noise or pink noise,

00:21:20.260 | and believe it or not, there is something called pink noise.

00:21:22.120 | It has to do with the specific frequencies of sound

00:21:25.180 | that are in the noise.

00:21:27.560 | Well, white noise and pink noise have been shown

00:21:30.100 | to not improve concentration per se,

00:21:33.360 | but to improve people's ability

00:21:34.980 | to transition into concentrated states.

00:21:37.900 | So I don't tend to use white noise and pink noise

00:21:40.060 | while I work, but I know a number of people that do.

00:21:42.380 | I know people that also use what's called brown noise.

00:21:45.120 | The folks I know from the engineering

00:21:47.040 | and computer science side get really into these details

00:21:49.820 | of white noise, pink noise, brown noise.

00:21:51.660 | You can find white noise, pink noise, or brown noise

00:21:54.140 | and listen to it through headphones or in the room.

00:21:57.260 | There is indeed some data to support the fact

00:22:00.480 | that white noise and to some extent pink noise

00:22:02.680 | and brown noise can support the release

00:22:04.540 | of particular neurochemicals,

00:22:05.620 | but more data showing that they can amplify the activity

00:22:09.300 | of neurons in the so-called prefrontal cortex,

00:22:11.940 | this front area, sort of the bumper behind your forehead,

00:22:14.900 | that is directly related to your ability

00:22:18.020 | to direct your own focus

00:22:19.660 | and remain focused on certain things.

00:22:21.940 | So you have the option of either using binaural beats before

00:22:26.540 | but not during your work, that is 40 hertz binaural beats

00:22:29.340 | or 40 hertz binaural beats

00:22:31.060 | throughout your attempt to focus.

00:22:33.980 | You also have the option of not using binaural beats

00:22:36.880 | but using white noise, pink noise, or brown noise.

00:22:39.420 | Again, there are a lot of zero cost apps.

00:22:41.500 | You can find also white noise, pink noise,

00:22:43.620 | and brown noise on YouTube.

00:22:45.340 | Again, these are tools that really have been shown

00:22:48.060 | over and over in humans to allow people to focus

00:22:51.460 | with more depth and to decrease the transition time

00:22:54.620 | into focus.

00:22:55.540 | This is a really key point.

00:22:56.620 | A lot of people are challenged

00:22:58.060 | with getting into a mode of focus.

00:23:00.660 | None of us, however, should be expected to just sit down

00:23:03.880 | and drop directly into a state of focus.

00:23:05.740 | I think that's completely an unfair request of ourselves.

00:23:09.600 | I mean, for instance, you wouldn't expect yourself

00:23:11.100 | to go out on the track or go out for a run and not warm up.

00:23:14.240 | You might jog for a few minutes or even walk

00:23:16.000 | before you would jog and then jog before you would run,

00:23:18.380 | right, I would hope you would do that.

00:23:20.020 | And if you're doing resistance training,

00:23:21.740 | I doubt that you go over and load up the bar of the machine

00:23:23.780 | with the maximum amount of weight that you can move

00:23:25.380 | and then just drop right into that, you always do a warmup.

00:23:27.140 | And I think it's very important to understand mental work,

00:23:29.660 | focus, and concentration as requiring that warmup.

00:23:32.640 | What is that warmup?

00:23:34.140 | Well, you know what that warmup is.

00:23:36.340 | That warmup is the ramping up or the increase

00:23:40.100 | of epinephrine, adrenaline, acetylcholine, and dopamine.

00:23:45.100 | The way that neurochemicals work is we don't just get

00:23:48.300 | to flip switches in our brain because we decide to.

00:23:50.340 | That's a fantasy.

00:23:51.180 | That's sort of the limitless movie or, you know,

00:23:54.420 | movies and ideas that suddenly, you know,

00:23:55.860 | you're going to flip a switch on your arm

00:23:56.980 | and all of a sudden you're going to be in a laser focus.

00:23:58.840 | That is just not the way that your nervous system works.

00:24:01.420 | There's a gradual dropping into any state,

00:24:03.820 | whether or not that state is sleep, right?

00:24:05.220 | You go from shallow sleep to deep sleep

00:24:06.720 | and then out eventually.

00:24:08.540 | Focus too, you go from shallow focus

00:24:11.860 | to increasingly deep focus.

00:24:13.740 | That is in our metaphor of the arrow, it's very broad.

00:24:18.700 | It's pointed at a lot of things.

00:24:19.780 | And over time, as we drop into focus,

00:24:21.520 | that arrow is narrowing and narrowing and narrowing.

00:24:24.220 | In fact, probably better to think about it narrowing

00:24:26.800 | and then sometimes oscillating and getting wider again.

00:24:29.940 | You know, we might hear something down the hallway

00:24:31.700 | or more typically our phone will buzz or we'll think,

00:24:34.240 | oh, I wonder what so-and-so is doing

00:24:35.520 | or I had to contact them about something.

00:24:37.620 | Your focus is dynamic.

00:24:39.920 | It is not what we call a step function.

00:24:41.700 | It's not like you go from unfocused to focused

00:24:43.620 | and then you drop into your maximal focus.

00:24:45.900 | By understanding that it's dynamic,

00:24:48.040 | by understanding that you are going to be continually

00:24:50.300 | going in and out of progressively but varying levels

00:24:54.460 | of focus, you will greatly release the pressure on yourself

00:24:58.900 | to feel focused all the time when you want to be.

00:25:02.160 | This is very key.

00:25:03.000 | People who are very good at focusing understand this

00:25:05.540 | and understand that they can't expect themselves

00:25:09.260 | to just immediately focus and then snap into

00:25:11.900 | or out of focus, okay?

00:25:13.220 | So be patient with yourself and also understand

00:25:15.900 | that focus is an ability that you can improve your ability

00:25:19.100 | to focus by engaging the neural circuits responsible

00:25:22.020 | for focus repeatedly over time

00:25:24.300 | through so-called neuroplasticity,

00:25:25.620 | the ability of your nervous system to change

00:25:27.780 | in response to experience.

00:25:28.820 | And that has a couple of different components,

00:25:30.660 | but put very simply, what we repeat gets etched

00:25:33.900 | into our nervous system and becomes easier over time.

00:25:36.500 | And the more emotionally important

00:25:39.980 | or vital something feels to us,

00:25:41.660 | the more likely it is to trigger neuroplasticity.

00:25:43.580 | We're going to talk a little bit more

00:25:44.500 | about how to increase neural circuits for focus later,

00:25:46.620 | but right now, what you have in hand is

00:25:48.740 | the key importance of sleep.

00:25:49.940 | And I, again, will direct you to Hubermanlab.com

00:25:52.700 | and the Neural Network Newsletter

00:25:53.820 | to really work on optimizing your sleep.

00:25:57.420 | We've also got two auditory sound-based tools

00:26:01.060 | for improving focus.

00:26:01.900 | There's 40 hertz binaural beats used before

00:26:04.140 | or during bouts of focusing concentration.

00:26:06.580 | And if you don't like those, or even if you do,

00:26:09.300 | you might alternate them with or occasionally use white

00:26:11.660 | noise, pink noise, or brown noise,

00:26:13.060 | also readily available at zero cost.

00:26:15.220 | The question I often get is how long should I try to focus?

00:26:18.300 | Well, the research literature point to the key importance

00:26:20.820 | of so-called ultradian cycles.

00:26:22.540 | You've all probably heard of circadian cycles

00:26:25.280 | or circadian biology.

00:26:26.180 | Circa, the day, circadian is about 24 hour cycle.

00:26:30.700 | Well, our brain and body operate within that day

00:26:33.820 | or within each and every day, I should say,

00:26:36.680 | with 90 minute ultradian cycles.

00:26:39.360 | So my suggestion would be anytime you're going to sit down

00:26:41.940 | and try and focus, you're going to try and do a focused bout

00:26:44.520 | of physical exercise or skill learning or musical learning,

00:26:47.660 | or maybe you're even just having a conversation.

00:26:49.300 | Maybe you're a therapist or you're attending therapy

00:26:51.260 | or a class, how long should it be?

00:26:53.180 | And the ideal duration is about 90 minutes,

00:26:56.020 | not exactly 90 minutes,

00:26:57.580 | but we can reliably say 90 minutes or less, okay?

00:27:00.900 | It doesn't have to be the full 90 minutes,

00:27:02.840 | but trying to push yourself to be able to drop

00:27:04.740 | into two hours of focus or three hours of focus

00:27:07.540 | while possible is not really in line with what we know

00:27:11.820 | about the underlying biology.

00:27:13.260 | Everything from our sleep states

00:27:15.100 | or the different stages of sleep

00:27:16.780 | and our waking states is divided

00:27:18.460 | into these 90 minute cycles or so-called ultradian cycles.

00:27:21.500 | So what I like to do is set a timer for 90 minutes.

00:27:24.200 | I acknowledge and accept the fact

00:27:26.180 | that under most conditions,

00:27:27.900 | unless I'm really pressed for a deadline

00:27:29.940 | and I'm optimally caffeinated, et cetera,

00:27:32.140 | the first five to 10 minutes of that 90 minutes

00:27:34.620 | are a transition time.

00:27:35.740 | It's like the warmup for focus,

00:27:37.100 | but I do include it in that 90 minutes.

00:27:39.100 | And then I really try and drop into doing focused

00:27:42.480 | mental work or learning of some sort.

00:27:44.480 | Again, this could be physical as well, motor skill learning,

00:27:47.120 | or I think we're running or lifting weights, et cetera,

00:27:49.680 | and really try and drop into that

00:27:51.280 | across the full 90 minutes, again, accepting the fact, okay?

00:27:54.880 | It's not just an idea,

00:27:55.760 | the fact that occasionally our focus will flicker.

00:27:58.800 | It will jump out of focus.

00:28:00.120 | And then a big part of being able to focus

00:28:01.840 | is to go back to focusing.

00:28:03.080 | The way I'd like you to conceptualize this perhaps

00:28:05.400 | is that arrowhead suddenly getting very, very broad,

00:28:07.800 | that you're focusing on many things,

00:28:09.080 | or that arrow shifts to a different location in the room.

00:28:12.260 | The key is to be able to shift it back.

00:28:14.240 | And to narrow it once again.

00:28:15.520 | And that's an active process.

00:28:17.400 | So much so that it requires a lot of metabolic energy.

00:28:20.360 | Your brain is the chief consumer of metabolic energy.

00:28:25.360 | The calories that you consume

00:28:26.840 | is so-called basal metabolic rate.

00:28:28.180 | Most of that isn't related to movement

00:28:29.700 | or heartbeat or breathing.

00:28:30.680 | It's related to brain function.

00:28:32.520 | Your brain is a glutton with respect to caloric need.

00:28:35.880 | So understand that at the end of 90 minutes,

00:28:37.800 | or maybe even after 45 minutes,

00:28:39.400 | you might feel rather tired or even exhausted.

00:28:42.080 | And it's very important that after about a focus,

00:28:45.140 | that you take at least 10 minutes,

00:28:46.880 | and ideally as long as 30 minutes,

00:28:48.960 | and go through what I call deliberate defocus.

00:28:51.620 | You really want to focus on somewhat menial tasks

00:28:54.220 | or things that really don't require

00:28:55.800 | a ton of your concentration.

00:28:57.880 | This is starting to become a little bit of a movement

00:29:00.040 | out there in the kind of pop psychology

00:29:02.180 | and optimization world.

00:29:04.000 | This idea of not looking at your phone

00:29:06.260 | as you walk down the hall to the bathroom.

00:29:07.600 | Certainly not looking at your phone in the bathroom.

00:29:09.100 | And I should mention, by the way,

00:29:10.520 | this is a particular annoyance of mine.

00:29:12.680 | Have you noticed that wait times for restrooms

00:29:15.600 | in public places has increased substantially

00:29:17.560 | in the last 10 years?

00:29:18.800 | The reason for that is not digestive, okay?

00:29:21.640 | It's not the gut microbiome.

00:29:23.160 | I mean, it might be the gut microbiome,

00:29:24.640 | but chances are it's because people are on their phones

00:29:26.460 | in the bathroom.

00:29:27.300 | So you're doing yourself and everybody else a favor

00:29:30.040 | by staying off your phone in the restroom,

00:29:32.440 | staying off your phone while walking down the hall.

00:29:35.360 | Try and give yourself some time to deliberately decompress,

00:29:38.440 | to let your mental states idle,

00:29:41.200 | to not be focused on any one thing.

00:29:43.040 | That period of idling is essential

00:29:46.020 | for your ability to focus.

00:29:47.400 | Much in the same way that rest between sets

00:29:49.480 | of resistance training or rest between exercise

00:29:52.560 | is vital to being able to focus and perform

00:29:55.240 | during the actual sets or during the actual bouts

00:29:57.760 | of running or cycling or whatever

00:30:00.080 | your particular form of exercise might be.

00:30:02.200 | So deliberate decompression is key.

00:30:04.360 | And I know this is hard because we're all being drawn in

00:30:06.800 | by the incredible rich array of sensory information

00:30:11.160 | available on our phones and other devices,

00:30:13.480 | but I can't emphasize this enough.

00:30:15.400 | Our ability to focus is not just related

00:30:17.940 | to what happens during the entry and movement

00:30:20.820 | through those focus bouts,

00:30:21.880 | but after those focus bouts,

00:30:23.760 | we really need to deliberately decompress.

00:30:25.540 | And of course, the ultimate decompress,

00:30:27.320 | the time in which we are not directing our thinking

00:30:29.400 | and our action is during sleep.

00:30:30.840 | And so it's no wonder,

00:30:32.260 | or I should say it holds together logically

00:30:34.240 | that that deep long lasting duration

00:30:37.440 | of not controlling where our mind is at

00:30:39.960 | is in fact the ultimate form of restoration

00:30:42.480 | even if we have very intense dreams.

00:30:44.320 | So take that period after each 90 minute

00:30:46.680 | or less focus bout, right?

00:30:47.880 | Remember those focus bouts don't have to be full 90 minutes.

00:30:50.160 | Let's say you do 45 minutes of work.

00:30:51.880 | You're just done with it,

00:30:52.720 | set it down and go do something for maybe five, 10,

00:30:55.320 | maybe even 30 minutes that is functional for your day, right?

00:30:59.280 | Just not just walking around in circles

00:31:00.940 | or staring up at the sky, although if you can do that,

00:31:02.920 | do that, but most of us have other things to do,

00:31:05.280 | but do things that are rather automatic

00:31:06.920 | or reflexive for you and try not to do any focused reading,

00:31:10.440 | try not to bring your vision into a tight location

00:31:13.280 | such as your phone and try and deliberately decompress

00:31:16.420 | because that will allow you to drop into

00:31:18.880 | intense bouts of focus again,

00:31:20.600 | repeatedly and repeatedly throughout the day.

00:31:22.640 | I'm often asked how many ultradian cycles

00:31:25.160 | one can perform throughout the day.

00:31:26.780 | That depends on how well you slept,

00:31:28.760 | how well you are nourished,

00:31:29.880 | which we'll talk about in a moment

00:31:31.320 | and how well trained up your focus capacity is.

00:31:34.520 | And here's the paradox.

00:31:37.040 | If you are very trained at focusing,

00:31:39.560 | if you're very good at dropping into focus,

00:31:41.600 | you're actually going to need

00:31:42.760 | more deliberate decompression and defocus.

00:31:45.280 | And I recommend only doing about two,

00:31:47.400 | maybe three deep work sessions per day.

00:31:51.080 | So not one 90-minute session

00:31:53.320 | then expecting yourself to do another one

00:31:55.120 | and another one, another one,

00:31:55.940 | but rather one deep work 90-minute session

00:31:58.340 | and maybe another in the afternoon.

00:32:00.100 | A lot of people get surprised by this and say,

00:32:01.820 | "Wait, how many people can afford

00:32:03.360 | to just work three hours a day?"

00:32:04.640 | I'm not saying just work three hours a day.

00:32:06.080 | I'm really talking about the hard mental work.

00:32:08.360 | And again, somewhat paradoxically,

00:32:11.120 | the more you can concentrate,

00:32:12.600 | the more deeply you can concentrate,

00:32:14.380 | the fewer deep work concentration bouts

00:32:16.840 | you can actually perform each day.

00:32:19.200 | It makes sense, however,

00:32:20.440 | if you think about it in the context of say,

00:32:21.800 | resistance training,

00:32:22.620 | if you are stronger and stronger in the gym

00:32:25.360 | or you're an endurance athlete

00:32:26.720 | and you can run ultra marathons a hundred miles or so,

00:32:30.540 | you are essentially cutting a deeper cut

00:32:33.760 | into your recovery capacity

00:32:36.000 | than somebody who's not very skilled at those things

00:32:38.260 | or can't perform as much intense work.

00:32:40.700 | So the intensity of the work scales directly

00:32:43.560 | with how long you need to rest after that work.

00:32:46.080 | I, at this stage of my life,

00:32:47.620 | am pretty good at dropping into

00:32:49.540 | and maintaining focus bouts of concentration

00:32:52.180 | provided the landscape of my life is right.

00:32:54.040 | I don't have some burning stressful thing

00:32:55.600 | that's essential or an emergency that I'm tending to

00:32:58.040 | and that I put my phone away or turn it off.

00:33:00.340 | I can do three 90-minute focus bouts per day,

00:33:03.880 | but that's about it.

00:33:04.920 | And then in between those focus bouts,

00:33:06.880 | I'm doing other things that require less focus.

00:33:09.260 | Some of you may be able to perform four.

00:33:11.140 | What I highly recommend is that you try doing at least one,

00:33:15.060 | that is one 90-minute or less bout

00:33:18.520 | of focused concentrated work per day.

00:33:21.520 | And yes, that means the weekends too.

00:33:23.080 | And on the weekends,

00:33:23.920 | I like to read a book with my phone nowhere in sight,

00:33:26.520 | not on a device, that's what I do.

00:33:28.720 | Or I'll listen to an audio book sometimes

00:33:30.360 | while taking a walk,

00:33:31.360 | but really concentrating on what I'm trying to learn,

00:33:34.200 | what I'm hearing and what I'm seeing.

00:33:35.960 | So again, a daily 90-minute bout is one to start with.

00:33:39.120 | And I would say after about four weeks of that,

00:33:40.820 | if you're able to stay concentrated

00:33:42.120 | and work through the agitation,

00:33:43.460 | then I would consider increasing the number of focus bouts.

00:33:46.600 | Again, this is not to say that you should go to your teacher

00:33:49.440 | or your PhD advisor or your parent or your friends

00:33:52.600 | and say, listen, I can't really concentrate

00:33:54.320 | or think about anything for more than 90 minutes per day.

00:33:56.740 | That's not what I'm saying.

00:33:57.580 | These are deep focus bouts.

00:33:58.880 | These are bouts of work or I should say mental work

00:34:02.640 | or physical work where you're really forcing yourself

00:34:05.100 | to focus and refocus,

00:34:06.160 | to sharpen the head of that arrowhead,

00:34:07.840 | to redirect it to what you're trying to concentrate on.

00:34:09.940 | And it is indeed hard work.

00:34:11.480 | I would even think about it more or less like a workout

00:34:14.120 | of any kind.

00:34:15.180 | Before we continue with today's discussion,

00:34:16.920 | we're going to take a brief pause

00:34:18.520 | to acknowledge our sponsor, Athletic Greens,

00:34:21.040 | also called AG1.

00:34:22.800 | I started taking Athletic Greens way back in 2012.

00:34:26.100 | So I'm delighted that they've been a sponsor

00:34:27.940 | of this podcast.

00:34:29.520 | Athletic Greens contains vitamins, minerals, probiotics,

00:34:32.340 | digestive medicines, and adaptogens.

00:34:35.080 | So it's got a lot of things in there.

00:34:36.360 | And that's actually the reason I started taking it.

00:34:38.000 | And the reason I still take it once or twice a day,

00:34:40.680 | essentially covers all of my nutritional bases.

00:34:42.800 | And the probiotics in particular are important to me

00:34:45.040 | because of the critical importance

00:34:46.380 | of what's called the gut brain axis.

00:34:47.980 | That is neurons and other cell types in the gut,

00:34:51.220 | in the digestive tract that communicate with the brain

00:34:53.740 | and the brain back to the digestive tract

00:34:56.020 | in order to control things like mood,

00:34:58.340 | immune function, hormone function, and on and on.

00:35:01.380 | Whenever somebody has asked me

00:35:02.800 | what's the one supplement they should take,

00:35:04.980 | I always answer Athletic Greens.

00:35:06.620 | I gave that answer long before I ever had this podcast.

00:35:09.020 | And it's the answer I still give now

00:35:10.780 | for all the reasons that I detailed just a moment ago.

00:35:13.580 | If you'd like to try Athletic Greens,

00:35:14.940 | you can go to athleticgreens.com/huberman

00:35:17.820 | to claim a special offer.

00:35:18.920 | They'll give you five free travel packs

00:35:20.340 | that make it really easy to mix up Athletic Greens

00:35:22.100 | while you're on the road,

00:35:23.100 | plus a year supply of vitamin D3K2,

00:35:25.920 | which are also very important for a huge number

00:35:28.120 | of bodily factors and brain factors

00:35:30.240 | that impact your immediate and long-term health.

00:35:32.140 | Again, that's athleticgreens.com/huberman

00:35:34.760 | to claim that special offer.

00:35:36.320 | I'd like to call your attention

00:35:37.300 | to a new and extremely useful tool

00:35:39.460 | for learning and applying science-based protocols

00:35:42.100 | for mental health, physical health, and performance.

00:35:44.460 | It's called Virtusan, V-I-R-T-U-S-A-N.

00:35:47.420 | And it's an app.

00:35:48.420 | And inside the app, you'll find what are called journeys.

00:35:51.200 | Each journey is aimed at a specific goal,

00:35:53.580 | such as improving your sleep, or tracking your sleep,

00:35:56.780 | or improving your ability to focus and concentrate,

00:35:59.940 | or improving your nutrition, or specific exercise programs.

00:36:04.640 | The Virtusan app makes a lot of the protocols

00:36:07.080 | that you've seen here on the Huberman Lab Podcast

00:36:09.140 | and elsewhere very easy to understand

00:36:11.600 | and access and practice.

00:36:13.060 | And in fact, it tracks your progress

00:36:15.100 | with each of these protocols.

00:36:16.780 | I and several other researchers

00:36:18.260 | have been directly involved

00:36:19.620 | in developing the specific journeys and protocols

00:36:22.060 | that you'll find within the Virtusan app.

00:36:23.820 | In fact, a lot of it involves direct video tutorials

00:36:26.580 | from me and others that you'll recognize

00:36:28.580 | from social media and from podcasts.

00:36:30.580 | Everything that you'll find within the Virtusan app

00:36:32.740 | is geared towards giving you the latest science

00:36:34.860 | in simple, straightforward protocols

00:36:37.220 | to allow you to improve your mental health,

00:36:38.860 | physical health, and performance.

00:36:40.900 | If you want to check it out,

00:36:41.780 | you can go to the app store under Virtusan.

00:36:44.260 | Again, that's spelled V-I-R-T-U-S-A-N,

00:36:47.100 | or you can go to virtusan.com/huberman.

00:36:50.580 | Again, that's virtusan.com/huberman.

00:36:53.280 | I mentioned the topic of nutrition a little bit ago,

00:36:55.980 | and of course, nutrition is a complicated topic.

00:36:58.100 | In fact, one of the quickest ways

00:36:59.480 | to get yourself into a battle online

00:37:01.580 | is to say something definitive about nutrition.

00:37:03.940 | I just want to clearly state my stance about nutrition.

00:37:06.360 | I fully support and applaud those of you

00:37:08.320 | that are vegans for whatever reason,

00:37:09.740 | those of you that are pure carnivore for whatever reason,

00:37:11.940 | and those of you that are omnivores for whatever reason.

00:37:14.060 | I happen to be an omnivore.

00:37:15.420 | My goal is always to eat high quality,

00:37:17.240 | minimally or non-processed foods,

00:37:19.140 | and to eat things in moderation.

00:37:20.380 | So I do eat some meat from sustainable sources

00:37:23.260 | or from organic sources.

00:37:24.700 | I eat some starches and I eat vegetables and I eat fruits.

00:37:27.920 | I try not to eat sugars,

00:37:29.220 | and I don't really like highly processed foods

00:37:30.780 | at this point in my life.

00:37:31.780 | That's me, that's what I do,

00:37:33.000 | but I'm certainly not dictating what people should eat.

00:37:35.340 | I know certain people are ketogenic,

00:37:36.940 | and I can say that for people who achieve ketosis

00:37:40.060 | and can get into ketosis, yes, indeed,

00:37:42.340 | there is a mental state associated with ketosis

00:37:44.820 | that will allow your brain to function

00:37:46.780 | and to think really clearly

00:37:48.060 | that many people find very attractive

00:37:49.860 | and keep them going back over and over again

00:37:52.140 | to a ketogenic diet.

00:37:53.460 | I'm somebody who, for instance,

00:37:54.540 | has not been in ketosis many times in my life,

00:37:57.020 | at least not deliberately so,

00:37:58.680 | but I actually will ingest liquid ketones from time to time

00:38:01.340 | because of the further cognitive enhancement

00:38:03.660 | or physical enhancement that I experience

00:38:05.320 | on top of nutrition that does include some carbohydrates.

00:38:08.740 | So there are a lot of different ways to approach all this.

00:38:11.100 | Whether or not you're a vegan, omnivore, vegetarian,

00:38:13.500 | carnivore, et cetera, the point is this.

00:38:16.540 | Your ability to focus, and in fact,

00:38:18.360 | your ability of neurons to encode specific information

00:38:21.900 | in your environment, that is to represent

00:38:23.840 | what's out there in the world,

00:38:25.140 | is actually related to your blood glucose level.

00:38:28.100 | Now, here I'm setting aside the discussion of ketosis

00:38:31.620 | and ketogenic diets for the moment,

00:38:33.880 | but there's a beautiful study

00:38:34.900 | that was published in Neuron not long ago

00:38:36.460 | that showed that the tuning,

00:38:37.500 | that is the precision with which neurons in the brain

00:38:40.340 | will represent things in our environment

00:38:42.380 | is actually much greater

00:38:44.740 | when there is sufficient glucose in the brain.

00:38:47.020 | Translated into English, this means that when we are fasted

00:38:50.060 | or when our blood glucose is very low,

00:38:52.020 | we aren't able to perceive and think about things as clearly.

00:38:56.040 | Now, there's a twist to this, however.

00:38:57.740 | Many people who practice intermittent fasting,

00:38:59.820 | and I should say I practice

00:39:00.840 | a sort of pseudo-intermittent fasting.

00:39:02.440 | I generally eat my meals

00:39:03.640 | between the hours of 11 a.m. and 8 p.m.,

00:39:05.860 | although sometimes there's some wiggle around that.

00:39:07.900 | Occasionally I have an early breakfast.

00:39:09.260 | I'm not super rigid about it,

00:39:10.700 | but I know there are a number of people

00:39:12.060 | who are doing longer fasts

00:39:13.220 | or they're eating in a six-hour window.

00:39:15.660 | We did an entire episode about fasting.

00:39:17.840 | You can, again, find that at hubermanlab.com.

00:39:19.980 | We'll likely have Sachin Panda,

00:39:21.780 | who's an expert in intermittent fasting on the podcast.

00:39:24.800 | Intermittent fasting

00:39:26.260 | has a lot of different potential benefits.

00:39:29.060 | For some people, it's a convenient way

00:39:30.460 | to restrict their calories.

00:39:31.460 | For other people, it's a convenient way to avoid eating.

00:39:33.660 | That is, it's easier to not eat than to eat a small portion,

00:39:36.300 | so they opt for intermittent fasting,

00:39:38.500 | and so on and so forth.

00:39:39.880 | But one of the things that you hear very often

00:39:41.720 | is that some people like being fasted

00:39:43.420 | because they like the clarity of mind that it provides.

00:39:46.660 | Here's the situation.

00:39:48.060 | Neurons, unless you're in a ketogenic diet,

00:39:50.020 | really thrive on glucose.

00:39:51.540 | They love glucose.

00:39:53.140 | And as I mentioned before,

00:39:54.680 | your ability to think and perceive things

00:39:56.520 | is actually enhanced

00:39:57.860 | by having sufficient glucose in your bloodstream.

00:40:00.060 | So why would it be that some people experience

00:40:02.460 | a heightened state of mental clarity when they are fasted?

00:40:05.100 | I've certainly experienced that before.

00:40:06.940 | Well, I should say that provided you're well hydrated enough

00:40:09.540 | and you have enough electrolytes in your system,

00:40:11.500 | what tends to happen is that when you ingest food,

00:40:14.120 | there's a shift in your nervous system

00:40:15.660 | towards so-called parasympathetic mode.

00:40:17.700 | That is, the more relaxed,

00:40:19.200 | you probably heard it as rest and digest,

00:40:20.780 | although it does other things, the more relaxed mode,

00:40:22.880 | that can indeed make us very sleepy.

00:40:24.540 | If we have too many carbohydrates,

00:40:25.820 | it actually can make us quite sleepy.

00:40:27.440 | However, if we have any food, if we have enough of it,

00:40:31.140 | that is, if our gut is full, it diverts blood to our gut,

00:40:34.060 | and we become sleepy and we can't focus as well.

00:40:36.460 | So a lot of people really like fasting

00:40:38.400 | in the state of being fasted for focus and concentration,

00:40:41.700 | because they don't have as much

00:40:43.940 | of that parasympathetic activation.

00:40:45.900 | They're just not as sleepy.

00:40:46.960 | And in fact, under those conditions,

00:40:48.560 | half as much caffeine will give you just as much lift

00:40:51.340 | as twice as much caffeine will give you

00:40:53.500 | on a full belly of pasta.

00:40:54.740 | And that's just the way that caffeine

00:40:56.020 | interacts with blood glucose.

00:40:57.360 | So what I'd like you to imagine

00:40:58.940 | is if you had a measure of focus from zero to 10,

00:41:02.300 | these are arbitrary units, 10 being maximally focused

00:41:04.800 | and zero being not focused at all.

00:41:06.960 | Imagine a U-shaped function, right?

00:41:10.020 | Where if you're very fasted,

00:41:11.860 | you're going to have a high degree of focus and concentration.

00:41:14.840 | But then if you ingest some food and your belly is full,

00:41:17.360 | your focus and concentration is reduced.

00:41:19.700 | But having enough blood glucose

00:41:22.220 | and maybe even elevated blood glucose

00:41:24.300 | will increase cognitive function.

00:41:25.820 | So there are two ends of the spectrum.

00:41:27.060 | On one end of the spectrum,

00:41:28.320 | blood glucose is relatively low and you're fasted,

00:41:31.140 | and you can think and behave in a very concentrated way.

00:41:34.700 | And on the other end of the spectrum,

00:41:36.300 | you have a lot of blood glucose,

00:41:37.720 | or I should say sufficient blood glucose.

00:41:39.160 | You never want your blood glucose to be too high.

00:41:41.460 | And that allows your neurons to encode and perceive

00:41:45.200 | and basically allow you to think really clearly.

00:41:47.440 | So you sort of have to pick your condition.

00:41:49.520 | What do you want for your bouts of focus and concentration?

00:41:52.780 | I actually do both.

00:41:53.820 | So what I do is, as I mentioned before,

00:41:55.340 | I eat my meals sometime around 11 AM, my first meal,

00:41:57.960 | typically, unless I'm very hungry when I wake up.

00:42:00.080 | And so I will do my workout in one bout of focused work.

00:42:04.500 | I always think of this as my hard work early in the day.

00:42:07.540 | And I do that fasted.

00:42:08.940 | I'll be consuming water with electrolytes,

00:42:11.220 | maybe Element or other electrolytes,

00:42:12.660 | maybe some caffeine as well

00:42:14.700 | in the form of Yerba Mate or coffee.

00:42:17.160 | That's my first focus bout of 90 minutes or less.

00:42:20.340 | That is essentially done fasted.

00:42:21.820 | And then I'll eat.

00:42:22.900 | And then I do notice after I eat,

00:42:24.740 | I actually have a diminished capacity to focus.

00:42:26.900 | But then again, in the afternoon,

00:42:28.220 | I will do another 90 minute bout of focus.

00:42:30.180 | And I'll talk about some of the tools I use

00:42:31.720 | to make sure that that bout of focus is optimal

00:42:34.100 | for getting the most amount of focused work done,

00:42:37.440 | whether or not it's mental work or physical work,

00:42:39.300 | although I tend to do my physical work early in the day

00:42:41.540 | and my mental work both early and late in the day.

00:42:44.540 | So to make this very simple or as simple as I can for you,

00:42:48.340 | being fasted is great for focus and concentration

00:42:52.040 | provided you're not thinking about food the entire time.

00:42:55.120 | And being fed is terrific for focus and concentration,

00:42:58.240 | actually can improve neuronal function

00:43:00.520 | provided that you didn't eat too much food.

00:43:02.960 | So one way to manage this is if you're going to have a lunch

00:43:06.240 | to make sure that you don't stuff yourself at lunch,

00:43:08.400 | that you're not overeating and to not get quite so full

00:43:11.760 | that you put your nervous system

00:43:13.700 | into this parasympathetic mode

00:43:15.160 | and make it hard to focus in the afternoon.

00:43:17.240 | I know a lot of people experience a dip

00:43:18.600 | or even a crash in energy in the afternoon

00:43:20.320 | that make it really hard to focus.

00:43:21.920 | For that reason, I'll just remind people of a tool

00:43:23.920 | I've talked about many times before,

00:43:25.640 | which is based on the biology of adenosine

00:43:27.360 | and caffeine, et cetera,

00:43:28.600 | which is to delay your first caffeine intake

00:43:31.120 | to 90 to 120 minutes after waking up.

00:43:33.680 | I know that can be painful for certain people.

00:43:35.700 | I violate that rule

00:43:36.880 | when I'm working out very early in the morning,

00:43:38.780 | I'll drink my caffeine before my workout,

00:43:41.260 | which often occurs within 30 to 60 minutes of waking.

00:43:45.200 | But in general, unless I'm working out very early,

00:43:47.920 | I will ingest my caffeine 90 to 120 minutes

00:43:50.960 | after I wake up.

00:43:52.500 | So again, I want to emphasize

00:43:53.900 | that if you hear somebody out there say,

00:43:56.060 | "Being fasted is optimal for focus and concentration."

00:43:59.640 | Well, that is true in one context

00:44:02.220 | and perhaps ideal for a certain part of the day.

00:44:04.800 | And other people will say,

00:44:06.200 | "No, you know, neurons run on glucose.

00:44:07.980 | You need glucose in your bloodstream

00:44:09.860 | in order to get those neurons to be tuned,

00:44:12.380 | that is to respond with electrical activity

00:44:14.540 | in the optimal way when you're reading something

00:44:16.940 | or when you're trying to perform exercise."

00:44:18.220 | Well, that's also true.

00:44:19.300 | And of course you can incorporate both.

00:44:21.340 | I, in fact, as I just described,

00:44:23.820 | incorporate both fasted states and fed states

00:44:27.100 | in order to optimize my concentration and focus.

00:44:30.900 | And as a brief note about ketosis,

00:44:33.220 | for those of you that actually manage

00:44:34.780 | to transition into ketosis

00:44:36.220 | and are maintaining a ketogenic state,

00:44:38.660 | that, as I mentioned earlier,

00:44:40.700 | can enhance brain function, concentration, and focus

00:44:44.860 | because of the way in which ketones can be used

00:44:47.460 | as a so-called optimal fuel for neurons.

00:44:50.860 | The ketogenic diet was originally designed, if you will,

00:44:54.220 | for epilepsy, it has a whole relationship to epilepsy

00:44:57.020 | and controlling epileptic seizures.

00:44:58.740 | And it can, in fact, allow people

00:45:00.980 | to achieve focus concentrated brain states.

00:45:03.340 | So in the future, I'll do an episode about ketosis

00:45:05.380 | and be sure to circle back on how to optimize ketosis

00:45:07.580 | for focus and concentration.

00:45:08.800 | Although I have to believe

00:45:09.780 | that most of the people listening to this

00:45:11.140 | are probably not in ketosis or following a ketogenic diet.

00:45:14.020 | So that's why I mainly focused on fasted states

00:45:17.420 | and fed states.

00:45:18.860 | And just to make sure that I'm thorough,

00:45:20.740 | a fasted state to me would be a state

00:45:22.660 | in which you haven't ingested any calories,

00:45:25.240 | but may have ingested caffeine

00:45:27.100 | or maybe even a small amount of artificial sweetener

00:45:29.180 | or something like that,

00:45:30.540 | but really haven't ingested any significant number

00:45:33.000 | of calories in the previous four to eight

00:45:35.620 | or maybe even 12 hours.

00:45:36.860 | And again, there's tremendous variation here,

00:45:38.720 | depending on how long people have fasted,

00:45:40.420 | whether or not we're talking about the state

00:45:41.660 | right after people wake up, et cetera.

00:45:43.420 | Again, if you're interested in intermittent fasting,

00:45:45.140 | both for sake of mental and physical health and performance,

00:45:48.680 | check out our episode on fasting at hubermanlab.com.

00:45:51.500 | I also want to touch back on this idea

00:45:53.180 | of which foods can increase focus.

00:45:55.580 | You know, in the episode on ADHD that I did,

00:45:58.420 | I touched on this quite a bit

00:46:00.380 | as it relates to elimination diets.

00:46:02.200 | You know, there's a whole industry

00:46:04.200 | and a ton of interest for obvious reasons

00:46:06.520 | into what sorts of things kids and adults

00:46:08.960 | should and shouldn't eat

00:46:09.900 | in order to reduce symptoms of ADHD.

00:46:12.020 | I think that the sum total of those data

00:46:14.920 | point to the fact that reducing simple sugar intake

00:46:17.300 | and certainly highly processed foods,

00:46:19.300 | so ice cream, candy, chips, et cetera,

00:46:22.020 | those sorts of things really does seem to improve symptoms

00:46:24.520 | of ADHD in both children and adults.

00:46:26.940 | But once you move past that and you start to say,

00:46:28.960 | well, which foods can improve concentration and focus?

00:46:31.840 | Well, foods that, for instance, include a lot of tyrosine,

00:46:35.420 | which is a precursor to dopamine,

00:46:36.880 | and now you know why dopamine is important in this context,

00:46:40.160 | are certainly going to increase concentration and focus.

00:46:42.720 | So things like Parmesan cheese, certain meats, certain nuts,

00:46:46.040 | you can look up which foods

00:46:47.440 | contain high amounts of tyrosine.

00:46:48.960 | There are also some fruits and vegetables

00:46:50.720 | that include higher amounts of tyrosine.

00:46:52.620 | But to be quite direct, it doesn't matter

00:46:56.580 | whether or not you're ingesting foods

00:46:59.120 | that are rich in the precursor amino acids

00:47:01.740 | to dopamine, acetylcholine, et cetera,

00:47:04.020 | if you're consuming large amounts of those foods.

00:47:07.040 | That is, one can look and see, for instance,

00:47:09.940 | that a steak includes a lot of the precursors

00:47:13.460 | to acetylcholine.

00:47:14.720 | It has amino acid precursors to dopamine as well,

00:47:17.640 | and there are other foods that will do that as well.

00:47:19.540 | But if I were to ingest, say, two ribeye steaks,

00:47:22.560 | that's a lot of meat,

00:47:24.040 | and it will direct a lot of blood to my gut,

00:47:26.860 | and it will cause me to be sleepy,

00:47:29.120 | and that will create challenges in me

00:47:31.440 | being able to achieve states of focus and concentration.

00:47:33.980 | So the simple way to put this is if you eat too much

00:47:36.560 | or you eat a very large volume of food,

00:47:38.680 | you are going to diminish your focus and concentration.

00:47:42.400 | Okay, the key is to eat enough that you're nourished

00:47:44.960 | for the certain activities, mental and physical,

00:47:47.480 | that you need to perform.

00:47:48.940 | But if you're eating large meals,

00:47:50.520 | you are going to diminish your concentration and focus,

00:47:53.700 | period.

00:47:54.540 | I know many people are curious as to whether or not caffeine

00:47:57.160 | can improve focus and concentration, and indeed, it can.

00:48:01.720 | There is an immense amount of data supporting the idea

00:48:05.000 | that caffeine, provided it's consumed

00:48:06.720 | in the appropriate dosages,

00:48:08.240 | can improve mental performance and physical performance,

00:48:11.160 | and it largely does that

00:48:12.960 | through improvements in focus and concentration.

00:48:16.120 | The dosage of caffeine, of course,

00:48:18.560 | is going to depend on how caffeine-adapted you are,

00:48:21.280 | how much caffeine tolerance you have,

00:48:23.480 | and that is going to vary tremendously

00:48:26.440 | depending on whether or not you ingest that caffeine

00:48:28.920 | with or without food, as I mentioned earlier.

00:48:31.400 | But there is a kind of general range

00:48:33.600 | in which we can talk about caffeine

00:48:35.600 | as being useful for focus and concentration,

00:48:37.800 | and the range is basically from 100 milligrams to 400 milligrams.

00:48:42.320 | I want to caution everybody out there.

00:48:44.040 | If you're somebody who suffers from anxiety or panic attacks,

00:48:47.700 | and you're not used to ingesting caffeine,

00:48:49.400 | and you run out and ingest 400 milligrams of caffeine

00:48:52.080 | in the form of espresso or yerba mate

00:48:53.960 | or an energy drink or in pill form,

00:48:56.380 | that is going to be very uncomfortable for you.

00:48:58.420 | You're going to be sweating profusely.

00:48:59.880 | Your heart rate is going to increase.

00:49:01.140 | You're going to be quite panicked, in fact,

00:49:04.080 | or at least anxious.

00:49:05.440 | So be cautious with your use and adopting of caffeine

00:49:09.220 | if you're not already caffeine-adapted.

00:49:11.480 | But most people do quite well to ingest

00:49:13.280 | 100 to 200 milligrams of caffeine

00:49:15.440 | prior to doing some focused work.

00:49:17.620 | And again, I recommend delaying your caffeine intake

00:49:20.320 | to 90 to 120 minutes after waking

00:49:22.480 | unless you are using that caffeine

00:49:24.340 | to really jolt your system before a workout.

00:49:28.160 | Caffeine can, of course, be ingested in various forms,

00:49:31.020 | even pill form, but most people ingest it

00:49:32.920 | in the form of coffee or my particular favorite way

00:49:35.680 | to ingest caffeine is yerba mate.

00:49:37.880 | It is important, and I should note

00:49:40.040 | that you should actively avoid the smoked versions

00:49:43.420 | of yerba mate as they contain a lot

00:49:44.920 | of carcinogenic cancer-promoting compounds.

00:49:47.380 | There's some great yerba mate brands out there.

00:49:49.720 | The most cost-effective way to consume it

00:49:52.460 | would be to use the loose leaf tea

00:49:53.860 | and to pour water over that.

00:49:55.960 | There's one particular brand that I like.

00:49:57.660 | I don't have any affiliation to them whatsoever,

00:50:00.100 | but I've been using it for years.

00:50:01.160 | It's Anna Park, it's an organic brand that is sold.

00:50:04.160 | I buy mine on Amazon, but you can find it elsewhere

00:50:06.320 | on the internet as well.

00:50:07.360 | Again, I don't have any affiliation to them.

00:50:09.000 | It's just very cost-effective, very clean.

00:50:10.720 | It doesn't have the smoked flavor.

00:50:12.560 | At least the one that I buy is not the smoked variety,

00:50:14.500 | so none of the carcinogenic compounds are in there,

00:50:16.860 | at least that I'm aware of.

00:50:18.320 | And I like the way it tastes,

00:50:20.160 | and it provides a very even lift and stimulant

00:50:23.960 | that I think certainly works for me

00:50:25.640 | and that a number of people I know

00:50:27.100 | that I've suggested to also enjoy.

00:50:29.440 | Yerba mate or caffeine also have other additional benefits.

00:50:34.320 | In particular, the caffeine in yerba mate and coffee

00:50:38.000 | and other sources of caffeine

00:50:39.120 | are known to increase the density and efficacy,

00:50:42.280 | that is the number and the function of dopamine receptors.

00:50:46.720 | And this has been shown in humans several times.

00:50:49.340 | So by ingesting caffeine pretty regularly,

00:50:51.280 | you're actually increasing the ability of dopamine

00:50:53.600 | to have this effect of increasing motivation and drive.

00:50:57.920 | I tend to ingest caffeine only early in the day.

00:51:00.400 | I tend to cut off my caffeine intake

00:51:01.980 | somewhere around one or 2 p.m.

00:51:03.660 | to ensure that I can get into a good night's sleep.

00:51:05.840 | But I realized that there are people out there

00:51:07.240 | that ingest caffeine as late as two or three in the afternoon

00:51:09.920 | and can still sleep fine.

00:51:11.320 | I will caution those of you

00:51:12.580 | that think that you can drink caffeine

00:51:13.920 | in the evening or nighttime and still fall asleep.

00:51:16.660 | All of the research points to the fact

00:51:18.560 | that the architecture of your sleep

00:51:20.000 | and the depth of your sleep is disrupted

00:51:21.640 | even if you're able to fall and stay asleep.

00:51:24.340 | The sleep you're getting is simply not as good

00:51:26.000 | as the sleep you would get if you were to shut off

00:51:28.320 | your caffeine intake at least eight hours before bedtime

00:51:31.240 | and ideally more like 10 or even 12 hours before bedtime.

00:51:33.940 | But of course there are practical constraints as well.

00:51:36.780 | Okay, so caffeine is increasing dopamine's function

00:51:41.020 | by changing the number and efficacy of dopamine receptors.

00:51:45.280 | But of course it also increases our wakefulness,

00:51:47.120 | our alertness.

00:51:48.280 | And that is largely through the neurochemical systems

00:51:51.200 | related to adenosine, which is a molecule

00:51:53.280 | that builds up in our brain and body

00:51:54.680 | the longer we are awake.

00:51:55.700 | It's part of the sleepiness system, if you will.

00:51:58.560 | It makes us feel fatigued or tired.

00:52:00.780 | And caffeine also operates on the epinephrine,

00:52:05.140 | the adrenaline system.

00:52:06.460 | In fact, if we ingest too much caffeine

00:52:08.060 | we'll sometimes get the jitters.

00:52:09.820 | Those jitters are really the sympathetic

00:52:12.880 | as it's called nervous systems bias toward movement.

00:52:15.760 | And our pupils will dilate.

00:52:18.240 | They actually get broader.

00:52:19.480 | Now, somewhat paradoxically when our pupils get bigger,

00:52:23.880 | the pupils of our eyes, that is,

00:52:25.980 | our visual world actually narrows.

00:52:27.820 | It becomes more tunnel-like.

00:52:29.340 | A lot of people don't realize this.

00:52:30.280 | When our pupils are really small, that means we are relaxed.

00:52:32.680 | So if you ever see someone with really tiniest

00:52:34.200 | or pin-sized pupils, they are very relaxed.

00:52:36.820 | If their pupils are very big, they're very dilated,

00:52:39.280 | well then they are very amped up.

00:52:42.000 | They are very, very alert.

00:52:44.080 | Caffeine increases alertness by increasing epinephrine,

00:52:47.400 | adrenaline release both in the brain and within the body.

00:52:51.040 | And so that's another way that it facilitates focus

00:52:53.840 | and concentration.

00:52:55.760 | Now, there are other ways to increase epinephrine

00:52:58.120 | in the brain and body besides caffeine or other stimulants.

00:53:01.000 | And in fact, that has been studied.

00:53:02.900 | There's an excellent study that was carried out

00:53:05.320 | not that long ago on how stress itself

00:53:08.080 | can increase our ability to focus and concentrate.

00:53:11.160 | That's right, how stress itself

00:53:12.680 | can increase focus and concentration.

00:53:14.600 | You know, most people think of stress

00:53:15.860 | as impairing our ability to focus,

00:53:18.060 | but that's actually not true.

00:53:19.300 | When we are stressed, it involves the deployment,

00:53:22.240 | the release of adrenaline, epinephrine,

00:53:24.640 | and that adrenaline both changes our visual field.

00:53:27.920 | In other words, it narrows our vision

00:53:29.700 | to a more tunnel-like focus.

00:53:32.080 | That is, it makes the arrow in our metaphor

00:53:35.220 | of the arrow more sharp,

00:53:37.400 | and it improves our concentration.

00:53:40.280 | This makes sense given what we know about stress.

00:53:42.320 | When we're stressed, we tend to be stressed

00:53:43.520 | about a specific thing.

00:53:44.440 | We start anticipating or wondering or thinking about

00:53:46.940 | what's going to happen next, what led up to this?

00:53:48.840 | How is this going to impact me?

00:53:49.900 | How do I feel right now?

00:53:51.360 | It really narrows the context of our thinking

00:53:53.840 | and our behavior.

00:53:55.120 | So one of my favorite studies that really illustrates

00:53:57.120 | how stress can improve concentration and performance

00:54:00.460 | is one that was published not that long ago,

00:54:02.160 | and I will provide a link to this in the show notes.

00:54:04.560 | It's a paper published in the journal

00:54:06.420 | Experimental Psychology in 2020.

00:54:08.820 | The title of the paper is, not surprisingly,

00:54:11.040 | "Acute Stress Improves Concentration Performance."

00:54:14.060 | First author, DeGroote, D-E-G-R-O-O-T-E.

00:54:18.320 | And this study involved taking a number of subjects

00:54:21.240 | and stressing them out or not prior to a cognitive

00:54:25.320 | or concentration task.

00:54:27.000 | And there are a lot of data in this paper,

00:54:28.660 | but I'm just going to hone in on one specific set of data.

00:54:31.760 | And I should mention as I go there that they measured things

00:54:34.200 | like cortisol, a stress hormone, they measured anxiety.

00:54:37.320 | It was a quite thorough study.

00:54:38.840 | And what they found was that concentration performance

00:54:42.000 | improved manifold, I should say,

00:54:44.720 | from there was a greater than doubling of concentration

00:54:48.080 | and performance in the stress group.

00:54:50.480 | And stress in this context was provided

00:54:52.640 | using a standard way of inducing stress.

00:54:55.200 | What they basically do is they bring subjects

00:54:56.720 | into the laboratory and they have to either do something

00:55:00.680 | fairly mundane in the control group,

00:55:03.160 | or they have to do a simulated job interview

00:55:06.400 | and arithmetic task,

00:55:07.560 | and they're being evaluated as they're doing this.

00:55:09.360 | So this isn't intense psychosocial stress.

00:55:12.560 | They're not watching anything disturbing.

00:55:14.140 | They're not being traumatized in any kind of way.

00:55:16.000 | This is fairly low levels of stress

00:55:18.400 | that rates their levels of epinephrine,

00:55:20.680 | and we know this from this study,

00:55:22.560 | and other levels of cortisol and other stress hormone

00:55:25.220 | modestly within their brain and blood.

00:55:28.240 | But that even modest increase in these stress hormones

00:55:31.360 | and their reported psychological levels of stress

00:55:34.600 | really enhance their focus and concentration.

00:55:37.500 | This may come as surprising 'cause you,

00:55:39.720 | like many people think,

00:55:40.560 | "Gosh, stress really diminishes cognitive performance,"

00:55:42.800 | but that's absolutely wrong.

00:55:44.080 | Stress improves cognitive performance.

00:55:46.480 | Now, of course, there are other ways to increase

00:55:48.600 | stress levels and to do that in healthy ways

00:55:50.600 | to improve concentration and performance,

00:55:52.760 | and one of the best ways to do that,

00:55:54.820 | because it's so sure fire and it's generally safe,

00:55:58.060 | provided you do it safely, is deliberate cold exposure.

00:56:01.700 | This is something I've talked about on the podcast before,

00:56:04.440 | but deliberate cold exposure can be achieved

00:56:06.280 | by getting into a cold shower for one to five minutes.

00:56:09.320 | If you're not used to it,

00:56:10.200 | you probably want to start with one minute,

00:56:11.960 | or you can get into an ice bath,

00:56:13.660 | or nowadays there are a number of different

00:56:15.040 | commercial sources of circulating cold water,

00:56:17.160 | or if you have access to a body of cold water,

00:56:19.840 | like a lake or a pool or an ocean,

00:56:22.240 | we know that getting into cold water or under cold water

00:56:26.320 | greatly increases epinephrine levels

00:56:28.720 | and dopamine levels in the brain and blood.

00:56:31.320 | There's a beautiful study that was published

00:56:32.920 | in the European Journal of Physiology

00:56:35.020 | that showed that the increases in dopamine are massive,

00:56:37.720 | you know, near doubling or more of dopamine levels

00:56:40.760 | that are very long-lasting for hours,

00:56:42.960 | and epinephrine and indeed cortisol levels

00:56:46.120 | are also increased, and in ways that support

00:56:49.800 | not just immune system function, because they do that,

00:56:53.760 | and mood, because it does that,

00:56:55.360 | but they can really improve concentration and focus.

00:56:57.980 | I touched on this a little bit in an episode about memory,

00:57:01.200 | that there is an age-old practice,

00:57:03.960 | really dating back to medieval times,

00:57:06.040 | of putting people into cold water

00:57:08.520 | right after they learn something

00:57:10.200 | in order to spike, to increase their epinephrine,

00:57:12.800 | as a way to consolidate those memories.

00:57:14.820 | For the sake of today's discussion,

00:57:16.360 | if you're interested in ways to improve focus

00:57:18.920 | and concentration, you need to increase your epinephrine,

00:57:23.040 | your adrenaline levels.

00:57:24.920 | Cold water exposure is one of the most efficient ways

00:57:28.580 | to do that.

00:57:29.920 | This is not a biohack.

00:57:31.600 | I don't like the word hack, I know it's commonly used,

00:57:34.380 | but a hack is something where you're using one thing

00:57:36.720 | for a different purpose than it was originally intended for.

00:57:38.900 | And here, I'm not referring to the shower

00:57:40.480 | or the cold bath, I'm referring to epinephrine.

00:57:42.520 | Epinephrine is a neurochemical

00:57:43.880 | that will place your vision into more of a tunnel mode,

00:57:47.520 | which will allow you to focus on cognitive work

00:57:49.440 | or physical work in a more specific way.

00:57:51.480 | You're not going to be as distractible.

00:57:53.080 | And it's very easy to achieve by getting into a cold shower

00:57:56.480 | or a cold body of water for a brief period of time.

00:58:00.020 | People always ask how long to get under or into cold water

00:58:04.760 | and how cold to make it.

00:58:05.920 | Here's the thing, it should be uncomfortably cold,

00:58:07.900 | but safe to stay in for one to five minutes, okay?

00:58:11.060 | So uncomfortably cold that you really want to get out,

00:58:13.060 | but safe to stay in,

00:58:13.900 | not so cold that it's going to give you a heart attack

00:58:15.880 | and not so warm that it's comfortable

00:58:17.680 | that it doesn't create that adrenaline release.

00:58:20.060 | Cold water exposure, I should say deliberate cold water

00:58:22.500 | or non-deliberate cold water exposure

00:58:25.000 | reliably increases epinephrine levels.

00:58:28.060 | It is incredibly useful as a tool for this.

00:58:31.180 | And it is in fact zero cost or even negative zero cost.

00:58:35.840 | How could it be negative zero cost?

00:58:37.120 | Well, you can certainly save on your heating bill

00:58:39.200 | by taking a cold shower.

00:58:40.480 | So that's one way.

00:58:41.640 | And for those of you that have access to devices

00:58:44.160 | or locations where you can get into cold water,

00:58:46.120 | you can submerge, well, then that can work.

00:58:48.440 | For those of you that don't, maybe you take a cold bath,

00:58:51.120 | you get in up to your neck,

00:58:52.080 | that's going to be most efficient.

00:58:53.200 | For those of you that can't do that,

00:58:54.640 | you'll get under a cold shower.

00:58:55.740 | Again, it should be uncomfortably cold

00:58:59.380 | to the point where you want to get out,

00:59:00.800 | but that you can safely stay in for one to five minutes.

00:59:04.120 | How long should you do it before a work about?

00:59:06.000 | Well, if you get into really cold water,

00:59:08.640 | it's uncomfortably cold

00:59:09.620 | and get out after about three minutes,

00:59:11.000 | you're probably good to go, dry off and get to work.

00:59:14.400 | Some of you might think this is a little bit silly

00:59:16.480 | as a tool for focus and concentration,

00:59:18.540 | but if you look at the data on epinephrine

00:59:21.600 | and how powerfully it can increase focus,

00:59:24.100 | I think you'd be very impressed.

00:59:26.040 | I mean, it certainly can increase one's ability

00:59:28.480 | to attend to specific visual stimuli.

00:59:30.280 | So for reading or math work, et cetera,

00:59:32.720 | it's going to be very useful.

00:59:34.160 | And of course, you don't want to make it so cold

00:59:35.480 | that you're shivering and chattering the whole time.

00:59:37.960 | And of course you could,

00:59:39.040 | if you like combine this with 40 Hertz binaural beats,

00:59:41.320 | there's no reason why you couldn't combine

00:59:42.860 | the two protocols.

00:59:44.060 | But the point here is that a lot of people would love to,

00:59:46.880 | and I think ought to leverage the health promoting

00:59:50.260 | and powerful effects of increasing epinephrine

00:59:52.600 | on focusing on concentration

00:59:54.540 | and running out and getting stressed by a life event

00:59:57.000 | or getting into an argument or something like that,

00:59:59.200 | simply as a way to increase focus and concentration

01:00:01.480 | doesn't seem that adaptive to me.

01:00:03.060 | So deliberate cold exposure

01:00:04.300 | is a straightforward way to do that.

01:00:05.840 | It doesn't involve anyone else.

01:00:07.300 | I suppose you could do it with somebody else,

01:00:08.580 | but it doesn't require anyone else.

01:00:10.280 | And again, there are zero low

01:00:12.740 | and even negative cost ways to approach that.

01:00:14.960 | If you'd like to know how long the positive effects

01:00:17.800 | of epinephrine last toward improving focus and concentration,

01:00:21.580 | well, if we look to that study from DeGroote et al,

01:00:23.540 | the acute stress improves cognitive performance study,

01:00:26.260 | they measured concentration before and 30 minutes

01:00:29.560 | after the stress was induced.

01:00:32.400 | And there does appear to be a quite long lasting,

01:00:34.760 | really up to an hour or more effect

01:00:37.240 | of increasing epinephrine.

01:00:39.440 | So how might you apply these sorts of protocols

01:00:42.200 | early in the day or later in the day?

01:00:44.560 | Well, one suggestion or one potential protocol

01:00:47.180 | would be if you're going to sit down and do some work,

01:00:49.600 | if you're already feeling alert and focused,

01:00:51.400 | no need to reach to this tool,

01:00:52.720 | but if you're feeling like your focus and alertness

01:00:55.120 | isn't quite where you'd like it to be,

01:00:56.760 | you could take a three minute very cold shower

01:00:59.000 | or submerge yourself in cold water for three minutes.

01:01:01.040 | You might have a cup of coffee as well

01:01:02.760 | and then sit down and do that work,

01:01:04.060 | maybe even throw in the 40 Hertz binaural beats.

01:01:06.660 | All of that would be layering in the different systems,

01:01:09.800 | the different neurochemicals,

01:01:11.340 | such as acetylcholine, epinephrine and dopamine

01:01:15.060 | that are going to lend themselves to a really terrific

01:01:17.180 | 90 minute or less workout.

01:01:19.320 | Now I'd like to discuss some of the purely behavioral tools

01:01:22.160 | that quality peer reviewed science say

01:01:24.220 | can improve focus and concentration significantly.

01:01:27.880 | At the beginning of today's episode,

01:01:29.700 | I talked about the study from Dr. Wendy Suzuki's lab,

01:01:32.420 | where they explored a 13 minute meditation

01:01:35.220 | done every day for a period of eight weeks.

01:01:38.160 | That meditation led to significant improvements

01:01:40.660 | in focus and concentration ability,

01:01:42.840 | as well as other aspects of cognitive performance.

01:01:45.480 | It also improved mood and reduced stress.

01:01:48.540 | So you might be wondering what exactly is this meditation?

01:01:51.300 | The meditation is very simple

01:01:52.960 | and it's one that anyone can perform.

01:01:55.220 | What you would want to do is set a timer

01:01:57.400 | for about 13 minutes.

01:01:58.860 | I don't think it has to be exactly 13 minutes,

01:02:00.820 | but since that's what they included in the study,

01:02:03.340 | you would set a timer for 13 minutes,

01:02:05.760 | you would sit or lie down, close your eyes,

01:02:09.100 | and you would simply focus on your breathing.

01:02:12.240 | Most people are going to benefit

01:02:13.480 | from only doing that breathing through their nose,

01:02:15.900 | but if you have some sort of obstruction

01:02:18.100 | or inability to breathe just through your nose,

01:02:19.720 | you could probably also do it by breathing

01:02:21.140 | through your nose and mouth or just your mouth.

01:02:23.420 | But ideally you would do just nasal breathing

01:02:25.900 | for a period of 13 minutes,

01:02:27.180 | concentrating on that breathing and concentrating,

01:02:30.060 | meaning bringing your awareness,

01:02:32.220 | your so-called interoceptive awareness,

01:02:34.380 | if you wanted to get really technical about it,

01:02:37.040 | your interoceptive awareness to a point

01:02:39.340 | just about an inch inside of your forehead.

01:02:42.220 | Now, of course, that might sound kind of gory

01:02:44.020 | to some of you who've never actually been

01:02:45.940 | inside your forehead,

01:02:47.860 | but just about an inch behind your forehead

01:02:50.200 | is where you would want to place your concentration

01:02:52.340 | while also concentrating on your breathing.

01:02:54.820 | Now, here's the thing about meditation

01:02:56.980 | that all studies of meditation show,

01:02:59.820 | which is that unless you are a very experienced meditator,

01:03:04.080 | your concentration, your focus will drift

01:03:07.020 | away from your breathing and away from that location

01:03:10.460 | about an inch inside your head, inside your brain,

01:03:14.160 | about just behind your forehead.

01:03:16.480 | That will happen maybe every 10 seconds,

01:03:20.140 | every 20 seconds, maybe even every five seconds.

01:03:22.660 | But an important part of such a meditation practice

01:03:25.700 | to improve concentration and focus

01:03:27.640 | is that you are continually refocusing

01:03:31.180 | back to that specific location

01:03:32.720 | and refocusing back on your breath.

01:03:35.420 | This is something that, again, is not often discussed.

01:03:37.900 | People think that if you do a meditation

01:03:39.540 | and you're supposed to concentrate on your breath,

01:03:41.420 | that if your mind drifts,

01:03:42.440 | that somehow you failed in that meditation,

01:03:44.340 | but actually that's not the case.

01:03:46.160 | A huge component of improving your ability

01:03:49.640 | to focus and concentrate by way of neural plasticity,

01:03:52.740 | rewiring of the circuits for focus and concentration

01:03:55.860 | is the repeated return to a state of focus

01:03:59.520 | from a state of non-focus or diminished focus.

01:04:03.220 | So think about it like trying to drive down the freeway

01:04:06.600 | and staying between the lane lines, excuse me,

01:04:09.520 | and every once in a while,

01:04:10.560 | because there's a bit of drift on the vehicle,

01:04:13.020 | maybe the wheels aren't aligned correctly

01:04:14.500 | or there's something else wrong with the chassis

01:04:16.320 | or the steering device,

01:04:17.360 | it starts to drift right a little bit.

01:04:19.080 | Then you hit the rumble strip and then you pull back

01:04:21.440 | to the center.

01:04:22.380 | That's really what a focused meditation practice is about

01:04:25.880 | as opposed to expecting yourself

01:04:28.360 | to stay between the mental lane lines, so to speak.

01:04:31.360 | So if you're somebody who's going to do a practice

01:04:33.440 | of the sort that I described,

01:04:34.800 | 13-minute meditation practice every day,

01:04:37.340 | you'd want to sit or lie down, close your eyes,

01:04:39.360 | start to concentrate on your breath,

01:04:40.760 | focus your attention on a location

01:04:42.980 | about an inch behind your forehead,

01:04:45.280 | and then fully expect that at some point

01:04:48.120 | you'll be thinking about something else,

01:04:49.820 | and that's a cue to focus back to that location

01:04:52.820 | just about an inch behind your forehead

01:04:54.280 | and back to your breath.

01:04:56.200 | By doing that repeatedly over and over,

01:04:57.780 | what you're really training up

01:04:59.400 | is the network within your brain

01:05:02.160 | that indeed includes that prefrontal cortex

01:05:04.520 | that you're focusing on, as well as some other structures,

01:05:06.600 | the infratemporal cortex, indeed the hippocampus,

01:05:09.240 | a structure associated with memory,

01:05:10.880 | and other components of the neural circuit

01:05:13.220 | that are involved in directing our mental focus

01:05:16.060 | and concentration.

01:05:17.120 | Again, I can't emphasize the importance of this practice

01:05:20.360 | being one of focusing and refocusing.

01:05:22.860 | In fact, I would prefer to call such a practice

01:05:25.180 | a refocus-focused meditation or a constantly refocusing,

01:05:29.620 | or maybe you all can come up with a better name for it.

01:05:31.940 | I'm certainly not that good at naming things.

01:05:33.880 | But this sort of meditation practice

01:05:36.020 | has been shown in the study by the Suzuki Lab

01:05:38.400 | and other studies to really improve people's ability

01:05:42.720 | to focus and remain focused,

01:05:45.300 | so much so that in the beautiful book, "Altered States,"

01:05:49.120 | they describe a number of different meditation practices,

01:05:51.460 | some a little bit longer than the one that I described,

01:05:54.720 | one that's 17 minutes, another one that's 30 minutes.

01:05:57.000 | Some people meditate as long as 60 minutes a day,

01:05:59.000 | although that's quite a long time in my opinion.

01:06:01.080 | The point here isn't how long you focus

01:06:03.840 | or somehow trying to achieve total focus

01:06:06.840 | for the entire 13-minute or 17-minute

01:06:09.720 | or 60-minute bout of meditation.

01:06:12.400 | While that would be wonderful,

01:06:13.740 | and I think many people aspire to do that,

01:06:15.840 | that's a lot of hard mental work.

01:06:17.320 | I think for most people out there, including myself,

01:06:19.720 | a relatively short meditation practice of about 13 minutes

01:06:24.200 | in which you fully expect

01:06:26.720 | your focus and concentration to drift,

01:06:28.720 | but that you are continually refocusing

01:06:30.640 | is going to be the most effective, yes, indeed,

01:06:33.320 | the most effective at teaching yourself

01:06:36.040 | to focus and stay concentrated.

01:06:37.720 | In fact, I invite you to interpret every time

01:06:40.540 | that you focus off that location about one inch

01:06:43.840 | behind your forehead as an opportunity to refocus

01:06:46.340 | and think about the refocusing as the trigger

01:06:49.320 | for teaching your neural circuits

01:06:51.000 | how to focus for extended periods of time.

01:06:53.600 | And as a bonus to that sort of meditation practice,

01:06:56.340 | the study from Wendy Suzuki's lab also showed

01:06:58.880 | that people experience improvements in sleep

01:07:01.160 | and improvements in memory.

01:07:02.600 | So not just improvements in mood and reduction in stress

01:07:05.040 | and improvements in focus and concentration,

01:07:07.460 | but all these other positive benefits

01:07:09.120 | from just doing that 13 minute a day meditation practice.

01:07:12.240 | It's one that I've started to adopt

01:07:14.060 | and have felt tremendous benefit from

01:07:15.760 | and that I encourage many of you to try as well.

01:07:18.180 | The one cautionary note is the one that I mentioned

01:07:20.060 | at the beginning of the episode,

01:07:21.160 | which is because the refocus, as I'll call it,

01:07:24.760 | meditation does involve a significant amount of effort

01:07:28.520 | and engagement of these prefrontal cortical circuits,

01:07:31.100 | it is disruptive to sleep if performed too closely to sleep.

01:07:35.040 | So if you are going to do that practice,

01:07:36.640 | I recommend that you not do it within the four hours

01:07:39.500 | prior to your bedtime.

01:07:40.780 | Earlier, I mentioned that I would talk about ways

01:07:42.640 | to improve focus if you are sleep deprived.

01:07:45.440 | This is something that I'm all too familiar with.

01:07:47.760 | I put a lot of effort into optimizing my sleep.

01:07:50.240 | That's something that with each passing year,

01:07:51.800 | I put more and more effort into again,

01:07:53.640 | because sleep is so vital for mental health,

01:07:55.720 | physical health, and performance of all kinds.

01:07:58.080 | But certainly in my role as a student,

01:08:00.840 | in my role as a professor, and in my role in life,

01:08:03.940 | I've had numerous times in which I simply

01:08:06.860 | did not get enough sleep or my sleep was terrible

01:08:09.800 | for whatever reason, and yet I still had work demands

01:08:12.540 | and social demands, et cetera.

01:08:14.240 | One practice that is very effective

01:08:17.060 | at allowing you to focus better than you would otherwise

01:08:20.960 | under conditions of sleep deprivation

01:08:23.020 | is so-called non-sleep deep rest or NSDR.

01:08:26.280 | This is also referred to sometimes as yoga nidra.

01:08:29.100 | Yoga nidra actually means yoga sleep.

01:08:31.100 | Yoga nidra is a practice of lying down

01:08:33.280 | for about 10 to 30, sometimes even as long as 60 minutes.

01:08:37.280 | You listen to a script, it's an audio script,

01:08:39.720 | that takes you through a progressive deep relaxation.

01:08:42.400 | It involves a body scan, some long exhale breathing.

01:08:45.220 | It is very restorative in the sense that one tends

01:08:48.040 | to emerge from yoga nidra or NSDR feeling greatly refreshed

01:08:52.320 | compared to how you felt prior to it.

01:08:54.900 | There is also terrific neuroimaging data

01:08:57.240 | from laboratories in Denmark showing that there's

01:09:00.640 | a restoration of dopamine levels

01:09:02.280 | in the so-called basal ganglia after NSDR, AKA yoga nidra.

01:09:06.500 | Whether or not you call it yoga nidra or NSDR,

01:09:09.220 | which is what I refer to it as, non-sleep deep rest,

01:09:11.840 | you can find these scripts at zero cost, multiple places.

01:09:15.400 | You can find, there are certain apps

01:09:17.180 | that are NSDR or yoga nidra apps.

01:09:20.040 | There is a NSDR protocol that was put out there by Made For,

01:09:24.420 | which is on YouTube that you can access for free.

01:09:27.140 | There is a NSDR, or I should say a number of NSDR protocols

01:09:31.040 | through the Virtusan app.

01:09:32.860 | There are, again, a number of different places

01:09:34.720 | that one can access NSDR protocols.

01:09:38.000 | I do NSDR for 10 to 30 minutes per day every single day,

01:09:42.240 | not just on days where I'm sleep deprived.

01:09:44.520 | If I happen to be sleep deprived,

01:09:45.820 | I would extend that NSDR to 30 or 60 minutes.

01:09:49.280 | And when you do that NSDR will depend

01:09:51.200 | on when you have time for that NSDR.

01:09:53.400 | When I haven't slept well, what I'll try and do

01:09:55.180 | is find a quiet place where I can do NSDR

01:09:57.660 | for 30 or ideally 60 minutes.

01:10:00.240 | Sometimes I will fall back asleep during that NSDR.

01:10:02.580 | That's fine if you do that,

01:10:04.760 | but most people will stay awake during the NSDR.

01:10:07.900 | And then I'll emerge from that and go about my day.

01:10:10.260 | If in the afternoon I'm very fatigued

01:10:12.400 | because of lack of sleep, I might do another NSDR

01:10:15.440 | of 10 to 30 or 60 minutes, and then another workout.

01:10:18.840 | Again, NSDR is something I do every day.

01:10:21.420 | I talk a lot about this in the episodes related to sleep

01:10:24.240 | because it can help you get better

01:10:25.560 | at falling and staying asleep at night,

01:10:28.020 | in addition to feeling restorative

01:10:31.000 | in that immediate timeframe of the day

01:10:32.700 | in which you do NSDR.

01:10:33.960 | So it's immensely beneficial at various times

01:10:35.960 | and for various purposes.

01:10:37.540 | But here within the context of trying to concentrate

01:10:40.100 | and focus when you're sleep deprived,

01:10:42.260 | NSDR, AKA yoga nidra, is an immensely beneficial practice.

01:10:46.940 | There's growing amounts of quality science

01:10:49.420 | pointing to the neurochemical replenishing effects,

01:10:52.780 | as I mentioned before, dopamine,

01:10:54.460 | but also the potential for NSDR to replace sleep

01:10:58.360 | that you've lost.

01:10:59.300 | I would never want anyone to try and use NSDR

01:11:01.380 | as a total replacement for sleep,

01:11:03.100 | but under conditions in which you cannot control your sleep,

01:11:05.740 | NSDR is going to be the best way that I am aware of

01:11:08.660 | to restore your ability to focus and concentrate

01:11:11.680 | for whatever purpose.

01:11:13.060 | And if you emerge from your NSDR

01:11:14.860 | and then drink some caffeine,

01:11:15.940 | you'll notice an even greater capacity

01:11:18.940 | for focus and concentration

01:11:20.180 | for all the reasons directly related to caffeine.

01:11:22.700 | So again, NSDR is a general tool

01:11:25.720 | for enhancing your ability to sleep.

01:11:28.260 | And it's a tool that you can use in order to compensate for,

01:11:31.820 | at least to some degree, compensate for lost sleep

01:11:34.740 | when you need to focus and concentrate.

01:11:36.660 | One thing that really contrasts NSDR and yoga nidra

01:11:39.860 | with the sort of focus meditation

01:11:41.700 | that I talked about a few minutes ago,

01:11:42.960 | the 13-minute meditation,

01:11:44.760 | is that during the 13-minute meditation,

01:11:46.660 | you're actively trying to refocus and focus,

01:11:48.920 | whereas during NSDR and yoga nidra,

01:11:50.660 | you're actually trying to defocus.

01:11:52.780 | So you can think of the 13-minute meditation

01:11:54.800 | for refocusing and focusing as directly tapping into

01:11:59.220 | and mediating improvements in the circuitry

01:12:01.700 | for focus and concentration,

01:12:02.940 | whereas you can think of NSDR and yoga nidra

01:12:05.960 | as modulating your brain and body state

01:12:08.780 | to allow you to focus and concentrate better.

01:12:12.220 | Now, another tool that you can use

01:12:14.060 | to directly tap into the circuits for focus and concentration

01:12:17.260 | and to greatly accelerate neuroplasticity,

01:12:20.380 | the improvements, or I should say the changes

01:12:23.160 | in those circuits that will allow you to focus

01:12:24.820 | and concentrate better is hypnosis.

01:12:27.220 | A lot of people hear hypnosis

01:12:28.500 | and they think stage hypnosis,

01:12:29.820 | people squawking like chickens

01:12:31.020 | and doing things against their will,

01:12:32.620 | but actually hypnosis is a atypical

01:12:35.940 | but highly accessible brain state

01:12:37.500 | that's been studied with a lot of rigor

01:12:40.520 | at Stanford University School of Medicine

01:12:42.620 | by my colleague, Dr. David Spiegel.

01:12:44.340 | He's been a guest on this podcast previously.

01:12:46.540 | Hypnosis is a unique brain state

01:12:48.200 | because it's one in which you are deeply focused

01:12:51.100 | and yet deeply relaxed.

01:12:52.640 | So to just sort of set up the array of practices here

01:12:55.180 | so you can think about them logically,

01:12:56.920 | the focus refocus meditation is based on

01:13:00.260 | and focused on focus, no pun intended.

01:13:02.620 | NSDR and yoga nidra are aimed at deep relaxation.

01:13:06.820 | Hypnosis is this atypical, very powerful brain state

01:13:10.400 | in which you combine high levels of focus

01:13:13.300 | and deep relaxation.

01:13:15.660 | Now, it's a little bit of a tough one

01:13:16.920 | to just take oneself into,

01:13:18.540 | but fortunately there's a tool

01:13:20.060 | based on a lot of quality peer-reviewed research

01:13:22.220 | from the Spiegel Lab and other labs,

01:13:23.740 | and that is the Reverie app, R-E-V-E-R-I.

01:13:26.660 | The Reverie app is available for no cost,

01:13:30.260 | at least for a period of time,

01:13:31.360 | and then I think they place certain elements of it

01:13:33.500 | behind a paywall, but you can try at zero cost.

01:13:37.100 | It's available for Apple soon, I think,

01:13:38.820 | also to be available for Android,

01:13:40.700 | and they have specific hypnosis protocols

01:13:43.340 | that you listen to, and these are very brief protocols,

01:13:46.500 | follow the instructions,

01:13:48.020 | you're listening to a particular audio script

01:13:49.780 | of David Spiegel himself, and some progressive breathing,

01:13:53.040 | and actually some eye movements

01:13:54.620 | that are directly linked to the neural circuits

01:13:56.840 | that allow for these highly focused, deeply relaxed states,

01:13:59.820 | and there are components within the Reverie app

01:14:02.200 | specifically geared towards

01:14:03.440 | improving focus and concentration.

01:14:06.020 | So again, there's meditation for focus,

01:14:08.980 | there's deliberate decompression, NSDR, yoga nidra,

01:14:12.040 | which take you into deep relaxation,

01:14:13.540 | and then hypnosis is this very special,

01:14:16.300 | very directed state of highly focused and highly relaxed,

01:14:20.900 | or I should say deeply relaxed,

01:14:22.500 | that allow access to the neural circuits

01:14:24.660 | for focus and concentration,

01:14:26.340 | and allow you to tune those up and to improve those

01:14:29.180 | very significantly in a very brief amount of time.

01:14:32.060 | And again, some of those hypnosis scripts

01:14:33.900 | are as short as eight minutes,

01:14:35.140 | some are as long as 13 minutes.

01:14:36.860 | So what we're really talking about here

01:14:38.660 | are zero cost tools that directly tap

01:14:41.140 | into the neural circuits, the components within your brain,

01:14:44.140 | that allow for deep relaxation,

01:14:45.940 | allow for deep focus, and improve your ability

01:14:49.260 | to focus and concentrate over time simply by repeating these.

01:14:53.020 | How often do you need to repeat the Reverie hypnosis

01:14:56.700 | for focus and concentration before you see benefits?

01:14:58.940 | Well, that will vary from person to person.

01:15:01.420 | I tend to use it once every third or fourth day,

01:15:04.000 | and I've experienced tremendous benefits from it.

01:15:06.580 | I don't think I'm unique in that sense,

01:15:08.060 | they have a lot of data to support this Reverie app

01:15:10.860 | and the protocols within it.

01:15:13.280 | How long do you have to do NSDR

01:15:15.220 | before you experience those benefits?

01:15:16.660 | There, I would say the first time and every time,

01:15:18.340 | because it's so deeply relaxing that you emerge from it

01:15:20.580 | feeling quite restored relative to how you went into it.

01:15:23.980 | And as I mentioned earlier in the study on meditation,

01:15:26.980 | it took about eight weeks to see the effects

01:15:28.780 | that they observed in that study,

01:15:30.460 | but they didn't observe shorter time points.

01:15:32.460 | So I highly encourage people to explore meditation

01:15:36.020 | geared towards focus and refocus,

01:15:37.420 | also NSDR, non-sleep deep rest, aka yoga nidra,

01:15:40.580 | and the Reverie app, specifically the hypnosis

01:15:43.120 | within the Reverie app that's geared towards

01:15:45.660 | improving focus and concentration.

01:15:47.320 | All of these have terrific science to support them.

01:15:49.740 | This is not woo science or hacks

01:15:52.100 | or just something that people came up with.

01:15:53.860 | This is all grounded in work

01:15:55.460 | from some of the best universities in the world,

01:15:58.180 | from excellent groups who've looked

01:15:59.980 | at underlying neural mechanisms

01:16:01.440 | and measured things with a lot of rigor,

01:16:03.160 | et cetera, et cetera.

01:16:04.140 | These tools are available to you.

01:16:05.380 | I highly recommend that you use them.

01:16:07.500 | And if you're interested in the optimal time of day

01:16:09.860 | to do these, we already mentioned

01:16:11.380 | that the focus, refocus meditation

01:16:14.400 | shouldn't be done too close to sleep.

01:16:16.440 | The Reverie hypnosis app can be done at any time.

01:16:20.320 | Really, in fact, there's a component

01:16:21.960 | of falling back asleep in there.

01:16:23.720 | In other words, a hypnosis specifically geared

01:16:25.400 | toward helping people teach themselves to fall back asleep

01:16:27.960 | when they wake up in the middle of the night.

01:16:29.420 | NSDR, I always say, can be done first thing in the morning,

01:16:31.880 | in the afternoon, or any time of day.

01:16:33.520 | And in fact, I'll sometimes do that

01:16:34.880 | in the middle of the night if I happen to wake up

01:16:36.420 | and need to get back to sleep.

01:16:38.100 | So really these tools can be applied

01:16:40.020 | most any time of day, except for that one caveat

01:16:42.800 | about the focus, refocus meditation

01:16:44.580 | not being done too close to sleep.

01:16:46.540 | Now there's another set of behavioral tools

01:16:48.480 | that can really help enhance one's ability to focus.

01:16:51.400 | And those are visual-based tools.

01:16:54.180 | In fact, the tools I'm about to describe

01:16:55.840 | are actually being employed in a number of schools

01:16:58.760 | in China and elsewhere in order to teach children

01:17:01.660 | to focus better and for longer periods of time.

01:17:04.740 | The key principle here is that

01:17:08.340 | much of our cognitive focus,

01:17:10.620 | our ability to think about something in a very specific way

01:17:13.120 | and stay focused on it, to read or to follow a

01:17:16.660 | line of conversation or math or music, et cetera,

01:17:20.240 | is going to be directed by our visual system.

01:17:24.020 | Our visual system has two forms of attention and focus.

01:17:26.540 | One is overt focus, which is very straightforward.

01:17:29.440 | If I'm looking at the tip of my pen,

01:17:30.780 | for those of you who are listening right now,

01:17:31.820 | I'm looking at the tip of my pen, that's overt focus.

01:17:33.860 | I'm focusing on it with my eyes.

01:17:35.780 | And of course, the rest of my brain then will follow

01:17:38.220 | and start to analyze the details of what I'm seeing,

01:17:40.700 | the contours of the pen, et cetera.

01:17:42.620 | It seems sort of obvious when you first hear it,

01:17:44.660 | but our cognitive focus tends to follow

01:17:47.220 | our overt visual focus.

01:17:49.540 | That's also why they put blinders on horses.

01:17:51.760 | That's also why sometimes wearing a hoodie or a hat

01:17:54.960 | or limiting your visual field in some way

01:17:57.940 | can help you enhance your cognitive focus.

01:18:00.320 | It can help limit distraction.

01:18:01.660 | You're just not seeing as much.

01:18:03.860 | It's also why when we ingest caffeine or any kind of

01:18:06.180 | stimulant or we are stressed and our pupils dilate

01:18:08.860 | and our vision becomes more tunnel-like,

01:18:10.540 | less panoramic, but more tunnel-like,

01:18:12.620 | they say a soda straw view of the world,

01:18:14.220 | or you're looking through a tunnel,

01:18:16.220 | your focus, your visual focus,

01:18:18.140 | is actually driving your cognitive focus.

01:18:19.920 | Your cognitive focus is narrower than it would be

01:18:23.100 | if you were seeing the whole scene that you're in.

01:18:24.980 | So when you hear this, it sounds obvious,

01:18:26.420 | but for many people, including many scientists,

01:18:28.600 | it's just not obvious that this would be the case.

01:18:30.420 | However that is the case,

01:18:31.880 | your visual focus drives your cognitive focus.

01:18:34.780 | So what is a practice that has been studied

01:18:38.160 | in various laboratories and that's being employed

01:18:40.420 | in various schools is to have children or adults

01:18:44.100 | visually focus on one location for a given period of time.

01:18:48.560 | How long?

01:18:49.580 | Anywhere from 30 seconds to three minutes.

01:18:52.300 | And believe it or not, three minutes is a long time

01:18:53.940 | to maintain visual focus at one location.

01:18:57.040 | If you were to try that right now,

01:18:58.140 | you'd probably find it to be a bit of a strain,

01:19:00.160 | but if you want to try it, you can.

01:19:01.800 | Keep in mind, you, yes, are allowed to blink,

01:19:05.100 | but also keep in mind that meditation refocusing practice

01:19:08.700 | that we talked about earlier,

01:19:10.280 | that the refocusing is the key component

01:19:13.560 | of teaching yourself or your brain.

01:19:16.260 | You are your brain, your brain is you,

01:19:17.420 | but to teach yourself how to focus better.

01:19:19.860 | So if you're going to incorporate this practice,

01:19:23.180 | what you would want to do is pick a location.

01:19:25.360 | It could be on a wall,

01:19:26.460 | it could be on your computer in front of you,

01:19:28.220 | although I would encourage it to not be the contents

01:19:30.140 | of your computer screen.

01:19:31.020 | You might just want to blank your screen.

01:19:32.660 | You might want to put a piece of paper

01:19:33.860 | with a cross hatch there, any sort of visual target,

01:19:36.660 | or you can imagine a visual target,

01:19:38.140 | and then focus your visual attention on that target

01:19:40.540 | and try to breathe normally, try and stay relaxed,

01:19:43.040 | and certainly allow yourself to blink

01:19:44.420 | so that your eyes don't dry out.

01:19:45.880 | This is not a test of how long you can go without blinking.

01:19:49.240 | By focusing on that particular location

01:19:51.920 | and by forcing yourself to refocus on that location,

01:19:54.460 | anytime your gaze, your vision drifts from that location,

01:19:58.740 | you are encouraging the circuits for focus

01:20:02.140 | to get better at focusing for longer and longer

01:20:04.340 | and at refocusing when your focus drifts off

01:20:06.840 | of that location.

01:20:08.060 | This is incorporating neural circuits,

01:20:09.600 | including the prefrontal cortex,

01:20:11.040 | things like the frontal eye field.

01:20:12.580 | For those of you curious about the underlying biology,

01:20:15.080 | this practice is recruiting certain elements

01:20:18.000 | of your so-called prefrontal cortex,

01:20:19.500 | also the frontal eye fields,

01:20:21.460 | which are locations not far from the prefrontal cortex

01:20:24.140 | that are involved in deliberately directing your gaze

01:20:26.620 | to particular locations in space, not outer space,

01:20:30.100 | although you could do this by focusing on stars, I suppose,

01:20:32.820 | but in visual space.

01:20:35.100 | Now, I mentioned before that this is overt visual focus

01:20:39.040 | and attention.

01:20:39.880 | You are overtly looking at that location,

01:20:42.020 | but one also very powerful practice

01:20:44.380 | for improving focus and concentration

01:20:48.080 | is to use covert focus.

01:20:50.620 | Covert focus is where my gaze,

01:20:53.180 | my eyes are focused on one location, such as my pen,

01:20:56.300 | but my focus is actually directed elsewhere

01:20:59.740 | in the room or location that I'm in.

01:21:01.500 | My mind and to some extent,

01:21:04.060 | my peripheral vision is focused in this case on the door,

01:21:07.380 | just to my left in the room that I'm in.

01:21:09.340 | That takes a little bit more effort.

01:21:10.740 | This is something that all old world primates,

01:21:12.760 | of which we are old world primates, are able to do.

01:21:15.620 | And it probably evolved as part of the mechanism

01:21:18.040 | by which animals could evaluate their scene,

01:21:21.860 | evaluate predators, evaluate other primates,

01:21:25.820 | while not necessarily staring at them directly

01:21:28.620 | so they can obtain information.

01:21:30.340 | We can obtain information

01:21:31.460 | without having to direct our gaze

01:21:32.860 | specifically to one location.

01:21:34.220 | Maybe we can obtain information from multiple locations.

01:21:37.120 | Indeed, we can.

01:21:38.780 | Without getting too far down the rabbit hole

01:21:41.460 | of how vision and cognition relate,

01:21:44.660 | because we've done episodes on that previously,

01:21:47.220 | and simply focusing on the tools that can be incorporated

01:21:51.700 | to improve focus and concentration,

01:21:53.380 | here's what I recommend.

01:21:55.140 | Set yourself a low bar at first,

01:21:57.860 | and set a timer,

01:22:00.060 | and try to focus on one location for 30 seconds,

01:22:03.560 | and that's it for that day.

01:22:05.140 | The next day, you might add five seconds,

01:22:07.160 | and then the next day, five seconds after that.

01:22:09.300 | If you miss a day, no big deal.

01:22:11.180 | Simply do the practice for the same amount of time

01:22:14.520 | that you did the last time that you did the practice,

01:22:16.700 | and then gradually try and increase the amount of time

01:22:19.800 | that you can focus on one visual location overtly

01:22:23.100 | by looking directly at that location.

01:22:24.940 | If you like, and if you feel you have the ability,

01:22:28.020 | you can try and do this through covert attention and focus

01:22:30.860 | by looking straightforward, for instance,

01:22:32.780 | and attending to something in the corner of the room,

01:22:34.580 | and trying to do that for 30 seconds.

01:22:36.800 | You'll find that that's quite a bit harder,

01:22:38.460 | and then extending that by five seconds

01:22:40.580 | every time you do the practice.

01:22:42.360 | This is something that I don't think you necessarily

01:22:44.260 | have to build up to being able to do for a full hour

01:22:46.340 | in order to extract the benefits.

01:22:47.740 | In fact, the best way to think about this practice

01:22:50.520 | is as a means to get into a focused state.

01:22:53.400 | If you remember back about an hour or so ago,

01:22:56.640 | I was talking about how focused states

01:22:59.040 | are not a drop all the way in and then exit type phenomenon.

01:23:03.500 | We don't just drop into a focused state

01:23:05.160 | the same way we don't drop into the peak performance

01:23:07.200 | of a workout, we warm up.

01:23:08.860 | So what I recommend is having a 30 second

01:23:12.440 | to three minute period at the beginning of about a focus

01:23:17.440 | where you're going to do work or physical work,

01:23:19.600 | and anchoring your vision to one location

01:23:23.500 | somewhere in the room,

01:23:24.800 | or if you want to do it covertly, you can do that.

01:23:26.880 | Setting a timer and trying to do that

01:23:28.520 | for anywhere from 30 seconds to three minutes.

01:23:30.720 | What you're doing when you exercise that practice

01:23:34.960 | is you are ramping up neural activity

01:23:38.160 | within the neural circuits

01:23:39.680 | that create focus and concentration.

01:23:41.920 | Then I would stop looking at that location

01:23:44.520 | or that covert location,

01:23:45.720 | and then I would move to the work that you're trying to do,

01:23:47.520 | either mental work or physical work.

01:23:49.720 | And if about halfway through your 90 minute bout

01:23:52.480 | or at some point in your 90 minute bout of work or exercise,

01:23:55.200 | you feel that your concentration is drifting,

01:23:57.080 | rather than look at your phone

01:23:58.360 | and scroll through the thousands of contexts

01:24:01.080 | that exist within social media or your phone,

01:24:03.400 | try just picking a location again on the wall,

01:24:05.800 | focusing back on that location,

01:24:07.680 | using that as a ramp up to then direct your focus

01:24:10.840 | back towards if your weight training sets and reps

01:24:13.200 | that you might be performing.

01:24:14.100 | If you're running, you might do this,

01:24:16.420 | or cycling, you might do this

01:24:18.020 | by focusing on a particular location

01:24:19.700 | and really homing in on that location physically.

01:24:23.000 | And this is a practice that a lot of athletes use in fact.

01:24:25.680 | And if you're say doing musical practice or math,

01:24:28.520 | well then you'd want to focus on something

01:24:30.200 | other than the task that you're trying to perform.

01:24:32.520 | But again, using visual focus as a way to ramp up

01:24:35.960 | and increase your overall ability to focus and concentrate,

01:24:39.720 | and then applying that to whatever it is

01:24:41.460 | that you're trying to learn or perform.

01:24:43.480 | Next, I'd like to talk about compounds

01:24:45.080 | that can improve concentration and focus.

01:24:47.720 | And these are most often consumed as supplements,

01:24:50.140 | although some of them I should mention

01:24:51.720 | can also be derived from food.

01:24:54.000 | Again, I just want to remind you that there are things,

01:24:56.920 | in this case compounds,

01:24:58.000 | that can modulate a biological mechanism,

01:25:00.660 | that is can modulate focus and concentration.

01:25:03.440 | And there are compounds that can mediate,

01:25:06.760 | can directly contribute to concentration and focus.

01:25:11.380 | One of the key compounds that supports concentration

01:25:14.480 | and focus because it generally supports mood concentration

01:25:17.880 | and focus and brain function in general

01:25:20.800 | are the omega-3 essential fatty acids.

01:25:23.340 | I've talked about the omega-3 essential fatty acids

01:25:25.920 | in a variety of contexts, in particular depression,

01:25:27.840 | but also ADHD, there are interesting data on that.

01:25:31.320 | And it's really clear that getting somewhere

01:25:33.160 | between one and three grams of EPA,

01:25:36.400 | that is one to three grams of EPA essential fatty acid

01:25:39.840 | per day can improve outcomes,

01:25:43.000 | that is can improve mood and can improve cognitive function.

01:25:46.740 | And while there's some debate about

01:25:48.680 | whether or not I can improve cardiac function,

01:25:50.680 | it's very clear, at least to me,

01:25:52.720 | that ingesting one to three grams

01:25:54.840 | of EPA essential fatty acids per day is beneficial.

01:25:58.000 | But again, in the context of focus and concentration,

01:26:00.920 | it's in modulating the neural circuits and brain function

01:26:04.840 | that are going to support focus and concentration.

01:26:07.160 | It's not as if taking one to three grams

01:26:09.760 | of EPA essential fatty acids per day

01:26:12.100 | is going to tap directly into only the circuits

01:26:15.480 | for focus and concentration.

01:26:17.000 | That said, and as discussed on the episode

01:26:20.720 | of the Huberman Lab podcast with Dr. Rhonda Patrick,

01:26:23.580 | and on the episode on ADHD that I did,

01:26:26.660 | and on the episode on depression that I did,

01:26:28.600 | I make it a point to ingest

01:26:30.280 | one to three grams of EPAs per day.

01:26:33.580 | You can get those EPAs from other sources

01:26:36.720 | besides supplements, of course,

01:26:39.000 | but supplements are going to be the easiest way to do that.

01:26:41.240 | You could do that through liquid form,

01:26:42.640 | fish oil, cod liver oil.

01:26:44.260 | Some people who are vegan opt for other sources of EPAs.

01:26:47.260 | You can find those out there, certainly.

01:26:48.840 | Some people even use prescription EPAs

01:26:50.720 | to get the dosage really high.

01:26:53.120 | Dr. Rhonda Patrick talked about this in the episode with me.

01:26:55.740 | That's actually something that she does.

01:26:57.180 | I don't take the prescription form.

01:26:58.480 | I get them through pill form

01:27:00.440 | through our supplement affiliate, which is Momentus.

01:27:03.640 | But there are a number of different quality sources

01:27:05.980 | of EPAs out there.

01:27:07.840 | And some of those quality sources also include things

01:27:09.940 | like fatty fish, algae, and things of that sort.

01:27:12.660 | So I'll leave it to you as to whether or not you supplement

01:27:14.920 | with omega-3 fatty acids

01:27:16.340 | in order to get that one to three grams per day,

01:27:17.960 | or whether or not you do it through food.

01:27:19.480 | But I would encourage you to try and reach that threshold

01:27:22.640 | because there are a number of known positive effects

01:27:25.440 | for mood and brain function generally.

01:27:27.700 | The other thing that can positively modulate brain function,

01:27:31.080 | and that actually works as a fuel for neurons to function

01:27:35.120 | and can improve cognitive performance,

01:27:36.760 | and particularly within the brain circuits,

01:27:38.900 | such as the prefrontal cortex that are involved

01:27:40.840 | in concentration and focus, is creatine.

01:27:43.340 | I know many people are familiar with creatine monohydrate

01:27:45.900 | for its effects on muscle growth and strength

01:27:48.960 | and performance, but it's quite clear

01:27:50.840 | that the bulk of scientific studies have examined the role

01:27:53.880 | of creatine in the clinical context

01:27:55.700 | and as its role in improving cognitive performance.

01:27:58.520 | So my read of the literature has led to a practice

01:28:00.720 | in which I ingest five grams per day

01:28:03.080 | of creatine monohydrate,

01:28:04.680 | the sort of standard form that's available in.

01:28:07.520 | This is generally available as a powder.

01:28:09.420 | That's certainly how I take it.

01:28:10.520 | I take the creatine powder.

01:28:11.960 | I'll mix it with water or with my athletic greens

01:28:14.300 | or some sort of electrolyte drink.

01:28:16.060 | Whatever liquid happens to be convenient to ingest that in,

01:28:18.940 | the time of day doesn't really seem to be important.

01:28:20.820 | Some people are strong believers

01:28:22.000 | in consuming creatine post-workout.

01:28:25.140 | While that might be beneficial,

01:28:26.460 | I simply take it in the morning or post-workout.

01:28:29.740 | It sort of depends on when I remember to take it.

01:28:32.300 | But that five grams of creatine per day,

01:28:34.740 | in my case, really isn't geared towards muscle growth

01:28:37.260 | or strength or performance

01:28:38.740 | as much as it's geared toward tapping

01:28:40.760 | into the creatine phosphate system within the brain

01:28:43.620 | and specifically the benefits of creatine

01:28:46.940 | for prefrontal cortical networks.

01:28:48.300 | Again, modulating, not directly mediating,

01:28:50.740 | but modulating and generally supporting the brain networks

01:28:54.880 | that are going to allow me to generate focus

01:28:57.160 | and concentration.

01:28:58.240 | So much like sleep, much like omega-3 fatty acids,

01:29:01.960 | creatine monohydrate, five grams a day,

01:29:04.000 | seems to generally support brain function,

01:29:06.180 | which will generally support concentration and focus.

01:29:09.760 | Now, in terms of compounds

01:29:11.300 | that more specifically mediate concentration and focus,

01:29:14.640 | we have to go back to that aero metaphor model

01:29:16.760 | that we talked about at the beginning of the episode

01:29:18.760 | that included epinephrine, adrenaline, acetylcholine,

01:29:22.940 | which acts as this attentional spotlight.

01:29:24.980 | In fact, acetylcholine and elevated levels of acetylcholine

01:29:28.280 | have been shown over and over again

01:29:30.040 | through beautiful work from Mike Merzenich's lab at UCSF

01:29:33.120 | and the Kilgard lab down in Houston

01:29:36.100 | and a number of other labs,

01:29:37.320 | including Norm Weinberger's lab at UC Irvine again,

01:29:41.320 | to improve or even directly gate neuroplasticity

01:29:46.320 | by increasing focus directly.

01:29:49.400 | That's a lot of word soup,

01:29:50.440 | but basically what happens is

01:29:51.760 | if acetylcholine transmission is increased

01:29:54.260 | even transiently within the brain,

01:29:56.060 | there's a greater opportunity

01:29:57.600 | for neuroplasticity to take place.

01:29:59.520 | And the reason there's a greater opportunity

01:30:01.880 | for neuroplasticity, AKA learning, to take place

01:30:05.180 | is by way of the increased focus

01:30:08.080 | that spiking acetylcholine can provide.

01:30:11.000 | As I mentioned earlier,

01:30:11.840 | there are a number of different foods which contain choline.

01:30:14.040 | You can look those up online.

01:30:15.560 | Choline acting as an amino acid precursor to acetylcholine,

01:30:18.840 | but of course there are compounds,

01:30:19.960 | there are supplements that can further

01:30:21.520 | and more acutely increase acetylcholine,

01:30:23.400 | and indeed I use these myself.

01:30:25.080 | The most effective one I've found is alpha-GPC.

01:30:28.640 | Alpha-GPC consumed at dosages of 300 milligrams

01:30:33.060 | to 600 milligrams prior to a workout

01:30:35.880 | or prior to a workout greatly increase

01:30:38.880 | one's ability to focus and concentrate,

01:30:40.600 | at least that's been my experience.

01:30:42.000 | And there are some good data in humans.

01:30:44.260 | So how would I use alpha-GPC?

01:30:46.240 | I would use alpha-GPC by taking it about 10 to 20 minutes

01:30:49.960 | prior to any time I want to focus

01:30:52.600 | or concentrate very deeply.

01:30:54.700 | I've taken as much as 600 milligrams at one time,

01:30:57.860 | although I find that 300 milligrams is enough for me

01:31:00.100 | and I tend to be quite sensitive to supplements

01:31:02.700 | and caffeine in general.

01:31:04.060 | So I'll sometimes take it alongside yerba mate

01:31:07.460 | or with yerba mate or with coffee prior to a workout

01:31:10.800 | or prior to a bout of work

01:31:12.800 | in which I'm focusing on mental work.

01:31:15.260 | So it could be reading, writing, could be math,

01:31:17.220 | could be data analysis, could be anything

01:31:18.900 | where I need a lot of focus and concentration.

01:31:21.020 | Now, a number of people have contacted me

01:31:22.620 | about a recent study suggesting that alpha-GPC

01:31:26.900 | when taken chronically over many years

01:31:28.660 | could increase one's vulnerability to stroke.

01:31:32.180 | I've looked at those data and my read of the data

01:31:35.700 | is that they're not very conclusive,

01:31:37.620 | although anytime you see something like that,

01:31:40.500 | you know, a study that's pointing to the fact

01:31:42.240 | that a given compound might increase

01:31:44.180 | the propensity for stroke,

01:31:45.780 | you obviously want to be concerned.

01:31:47.380 | So we have to ask ourselves how, by what mechanism that is,

01:31:50.700 | could alpha-GPC be increasing the susceptibility to stroke?

01:31:54.740 | And it seems to be related to increases in TMAO,

01:31:57.960 | which is a marker related to the cardiovascular system.

01:32:01.860 | And one known way to offset increases in TMAO

01:32:06.180 | that are associated either with alpha-GPC

01:32:08.480 | or increases due to other things,

01:32:11.540 | so ingestion of particular food compounds

01:32:13.900 | actually can increase TMAO,

01:32:15.680 | is to offset that by taking 600 milligrams of garlic.

01:32:20.160 | Now, I've been taking alpha-GPC pretty consistently

01:32:23.080 | for a number of years.

01:32:23.940 | I do not take it every day.

01:32:25.260 | I would say I take it about four days per week,

01:32:27.360 | again, prior to workouts or bouts of cognitive work.

01:32:30.420 | I have not seen my TMAO spike,

01:32:33.020 | and I've evaluated that by way of blood tests,

01:32:36.420 | but nonetheless, I take 600 milligrams of garlic

01:32:39.380 | in capsule form anytime I eat anyway,

01:32:42.500 | and I do that for general cardiovascular function,

01:32:44.660 | and there's some interesting data

01:32:45.660 | on immune system function, et cetera, for garlic.

01:32:48.660 | So I've been consuming 600 milligram capsules of garlic

01:32:52.600 | for some period of time.

01:32:53.740 | Some days, I'll ingest just one 600 milligram capsule.

01:32:56.580 | Other times, I'll take two.

01:32:57.880 | But based on this recent study and the concerns about TMAO,

01:33:02.460 | I make it a point to always ingest a 600 milligram capsule

01:33:05.900 | of garlic anytime I take alpha-GPC,

01:33:09.100 | which, again, for me is about four days per week.

01:33:11.660 | So in our model of attention and focus,

01:33:14.540 | you can now clearly see why taking alpha-GPC,

01:33:16.940 | which increases acetylcholine transmission,

01:33:19.100 | would be beneficial for concentration and focus

01:33:21.560 | and why taking it with a double espresso

01:33:24.340 | or why taking it with yerba mate

01:33:26.700 | would further increase concentration and focus

01:33:29.780 | because, as I mentioned earlier,

01:33:31.660 | caffeine is going to increase epinephrine.

01:33:34.580 | It's also going to increase the density

01:33:36.320 | of dopamine receptors,

01:33:37.980 | and the alpha-GPC is going to increase acetylcholine,

01:33:40.140 | this spotlighting for cognition,

01:33:41.620 | this ability to really amplify the activity

01:33:44.520 | of specific neural networks,

01:33:45.940 | which is largely what's happening

01:33:47.600 | when you're trying to focus

01:33:49.260 | and pay attention to something specifically.

01:33:51.660 | So if one wants to increase the amount

01:33:53.660 | of dopamine transmission in the brain and body

01:33:56.460 | for sake of increasing concentration and focus,

01:33:59.400 | one of the most efficient ways to do that

01:34:01.400 | is by ingestion of the amino acid L-tyrosine.

01:34:04.420 | Again, L-tyrosine can be derived from food sources.

01:34:06.820 | I invite you to look up those various food sources

01:34:08.720 | on the web.

01:34:09.560 | Simply go to a web browser and put in foods

01:34:11.100 | that contain a lot of L-tyrosine,

01:34:12.420 | and you'll get a rich array of choices to select from.

01:34:15.460 | But in my case, I use L-tyrosine in capsule form.

01:34:19.480 | I will take 500 milligrams of L-tyrosine,

01:34:22.100 | 300 milligrams of alpha-GPC, and a cup of coffee.

01:34:25.140 | I'm careful to do this early in the day,

01:34:27.220 | certainly not after two or 3 p.m.

01:34:28.900 | because I don't want to diminish my ability

01:34:31.020 | to fall and stay asleep that night.

01:34:33.020 | Do this early in the day before a workout

01:34:34.740 | or before a bout of concentrated mental work.

01:34:39.060 | Again, I tend to do this about four days per week,

01:34:41.740 | so certainly not every time I sit down to do work.

01:34:45.740 | And I should also mention

01:34:47.720 | that I still tend to do the behavioral tools.

01:34:49.660 | I'll tend to use five minutes of binaural beats

01:34:51.780 | or binaural beats throughout the work session,

01:34:53.980 | sometimes do an ice bath or a cold shower before.

01:34:56.820 | I don't want to give the impression

01:34:58.320 | that I combine every tool that I've talked about today

01:35:01.740 | for a given workout.

01:35:02.900 | I mean, that would be pretty wild too.

01:35:04.900 | Take a cold shower, pop an L-tyrosine,

01:35:07.060 | take an alpha-GPC, drink two espresso,

01:35:09.260 | listen to binaural beats.

01:35:10.360 | That to me seems like a very inefficient way

01:35:13.440 | to go about life.

01:35:14.820 | In fact, I make it a point to try and use tools

01:35:18.920 | to increase my ability to concentrate and focus,

01:35:21.800 | but not to combine more than two or three of them

01:35:24.060 | at any one time.

01:35:24.900 | And when I say two or three,

01:35:25.800 | what I mean is I will use supplements

01:35:27.180 | like alpha-GPC, L-tyrosine, and caffeine together

01:35:30.060 | before certain work bouts.

01:35:31.800 | I might use the visual practice

01:35:33.700 | of focusing on a given location for a minute

01:35:35.500 | before I begin that work bout.

01:35:37.640 | I might combine those.

01:35:38.940 | Then another time I might take a cold shower

01:35:41.720 | prior to doing some work.

01:35:43.100 | Other days, I confess, I've slept very well,

01:35:45.800 | or my enthusiasm about what I'm about to work on

01:35:48.700 | is such that I don't require any of these tools.

01:35:51.480 | Again, there's no requirement,

01:35:53.820 | there's no pressure to use any of these tools,

01:35:55.780 | behavioral, supplement-based, or otherwise.

01:35:59.040 | It's simply a matter of using the tools

01:36:02.000 | that are going to allow you to achieve the states

01:36:03.740 | you want to achieve and to improve your ability

01:36:06.620 | to go into those states without any help at all.

01:36:09.260 | And this is what I find particularly attractive

01:36:11.760 | about supplements.

01:36:12.600 | It's not so much that they put you into the ideal state

01:36:15.180 | for that work, and then you accomplish that work,

01:36:18.140 | and then you always rely on those supplements.

01:36:20.460 | I prefer to look at supplements of the sort

01:36:22.700 | that I just described as a route

01:36:24.700 | into a deeper trench of focus and concentration

01:36:28.060 | that I use as a tool to teach myself

01:36:30.780 | to focus and concentrate more deeply,

01:36:32.380 | such that I don't need those tools every single time

01:36:35.540 | I try and focus and concentrate.

01:36:37.260 | I think this is an important point

01:36:39.380 | because I think that many people think of supplements

01:36:41.860 | as a crutch or a way of simply getting into a state

01:36:46.860 | for which no other tool will suffice or replace.

01:36:50.840 | But in that context, I want to remind you

01:36:53.340 | of the larger context of pharmacology,

01:36:55.180 | which is the vast landscape of prescription pharmacology

01:36:58.660 | for ADHD, for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

01:37:01.880 | Now, I covered that landscape in intense detail

01:37:05.380 | on the episode on ADHD and focus.

01:37:08.420 | And just to summarize, there is, of course,

01:37:11.860 | Adderall, Ritalin, Vyvanse, Modafinil, R-modafinil,

01:37:16.000 | a number of different compounds,

01:37:17.660 | all of which generally increase dopamine transmission

01:37:21.100 | in the brain, so increasing dopamine,

01:37:22.700 | and all of which generally increase epinephrine,

01:37:25.260 | adrenaline transmission in the brain and body.

01:37:27.940 | And many of those compounds have been of tremendous benefit

01:37:32.520 | to children and even some adults who suffer from ADHD.

01:37:35.480 | So properly prescribed at the appropriate dosage,

01:37:38.900 | those compounds can really help people

01:37:41.920 | with clinically diagnosed ADHD.

01:37:44.760 | The way they help those people is a bit surprising, however.

01:37:48.260 | You might think, well, they turn on the brain chemicals

01:37:50.820 | that allow those people to concentrate and focus.

01:37:53.380 | That's true, but they also have the benefit

01:37:56.600 | of teaching those brain circuits how to engage.

01:38:00.500 | And that's one of the reasons why somewhat paradoxically

01:38:04.160 | giving a stimulant like Ritalin or Adderall

01:38:07.460 | to a kid that legitimately needs it,

01:38:09.960 | obviously you don't want to do this without the oversight

01:38:12.700 | and careful evaluation of a psychiatrist,

01:38:15.820 | but giving that to a kid who has severe ADHD,

01:38:19.540 | you would think would make them more rambunctious,

01:38:22.220 | less able to focus, and more distractible overall.

01:38:24.780 | After all, Ritalin, Modafinil, R-modafinil,

01:38:28.340 | all these things are stimulant.

01:38:29.480 | So you take a kid who has

01:38:30.680 | attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

01:38:33.320 | and give them these drugs that increase transmission

01:38:36.220 | of dopamine and epinephrine, and you think,

01:38:37.880 | wow, it's going to make them even more distractible

01:38:39.760 | and hyperactive, and indeed it has the opposite effect.

01:38:42.220 | It doesn't necessarily make them feel calm,

01:38:44.440 | but it makes them feel that they can focus.

01:38:47.460 | They really can anchor their attention.

01:38:49.460 | And the idea is that it's teaching those neural circuits,

01:38:52.660 | or those neural circuits rather, are teaching themselves

01:38:55.320 | to engage and to focus and concentrate.

01:38:57.700 | And the ideal situation is one in which

01:38:59.580 | the total dosage of those compounds, those drugs,

01:39:02.480 | can be reduced over time as those circuits

01:39:04.700 | learn to come online through purely behavioral tools.

01:39:07.220 | Now, oftentimes there's a maintenance of those drugs

01:39:09.700 | over long periods of time,

01:39:10.900 | although there is a common practice nowadays

01:39:12.720 | of trying to diminish the dosage overall.

01:39:15.360 | That's in the context of ADHD and prescription medication,

01:39:18.020 | and I acknowledge that a lot, indeed,

01:39:21.220 | 80% or more of college students, say the statistics,

01:39:25.940 | are using prescription drugs when they are not,

01:39:29.460 | in fact, prescribe those prescription drugs.

01:39:32.040 | So basically what I'm saying is there are a lot of people

01:39:34.380 | using drugs designed for ADHD and narcolepsy

01:39:37.300 | because those drugs will effectively

01:39:40.340 | increase focus and concentration,

01:39:41.940 | but I strongly discourage the use

01:39:45.060 | of powerful prescription drugs

01:39:46.980 | that have not been prescribed to you.

01:39:48.220 | First of all, it's illegal.

01:39:49.100 | Second of all, it's quite dangerous

01:39:50.820 | to hit the accelerator of those neural circuits

01:39:53.800 | with such vigor because it can increase dependency

01:39:57.240 | and they can have a number of other side effects

01:39:58.860 | outside the context of clinically diagnosed

01:40:01.040 | and prescribed ADHD medication.

01:40:04.800 | But in the context of supplementation,

01:40:07.360 | the increase in dopamine, acetylcholine, and epinephrine

01:40:12.360 | that one can achieve from, say,

01:40:14.080 | 500 milligrams of L-tyrosine,

01:40:15.640 | 300 milligrams of alpha-GPC, and a cup of coffee

01:40:20.200 | is going to be substantially less

01:40:22.360 | than one would see for prescription drugs.

01:40:24.060 | So you're getting a modest effect

01:40:26.500 | that can similarly teach those brain circuits

01:40:29.860 | for focus and concentration, how to engage better.

01:40:33.020 | But as a general backdrop to all of this,

01:40:35.820 | I always say, and I'll say it again and again,

01:40:38.380 | probably until the day I die,

01:40:39.940 | which hopefully is a long time from now,

01:40:41.320 | but regardless, it'll be the same message,

01:40:43.920 | I always believe that behavioral tools should come first.

01:40:47.380 | Behavioral tools should come first.

01:40:48.660 | Then focus on nutrition.

01:40:50.240 | In fact, I would say behavioral and nutrition tools,

01:40:52.500 | and of course, get excellent sleep.

01:40:55.140 | Then focus on supplementation.

01:40:57.560 | And then, and only if those are failing

01:41:01.820 | to bring your brain and body to the state you need to be in

01:41:04.580 | to perform well in school and work and life, et cetera,

01:41:07.980 | do I recommend that people lean on prescription drugs.

01:41:12.220 | Now, there's a caveat to that,

01:41:13.280 | which is under conditions like severe eating disorders,

01:41:17.220 | obsessive compulsive disorder, bipolar disorder, depression,

01:41:21.380 | where people are truly at risk of suicide

01:41:25.520 | or severe mental health effects

01:41:27.480 | or behavioral health effects,

01:41:29.140 | and they're really, their lives are at risk

01:41:31.920 | and their overall mood and wellbeing is at risk.

01:41:34.400 | It's often the case that people cannot access

01:41:37.040 | the brain states required to shift themselves purely

01:41:40.340 | with behavioral tools, nutrition, et cetera.

01:41:42.180 | So again, for the typical person who's not suffering

01:41:45.840 | from one of the psychiatric disorders that I mentioned before

01:41:48.780 | or other psychiatric disorders, schizophrenia, et cetera,

01:41:51.960 | I strongly encourage you to look to behavioral tools first,

01:41:56.760 | nutrition, then supplementation,

01:41:59.600 | then and only if there's a remaining need

01:42:02.920 | to prescription drugs.

01:42:04.800 | This contrasts very much with the typical scenario

01:42:07.400 | I hear about these days where college students

01:42:09.860 | or other people will say,

01:42:10.800 | "Oh yeah, I hear that there's this drug, you know,

01:42:13.400 | Ritalin or Vyvanse that can immediately put me

01:42:15.760 | into a state of heightened focus and concentration."

01:42:17.880 | Now, listen, if you have ADHD, by all means,

01:42:21.000 | talk to a physician, talk to a great psychiatrist

01:42:23.440 | and figure out whether or not that's right for you.

01:42:25.280 | But if you don't, again, behavioral tools,

01:42:27.640 | nutrition, supplementation, and in particular,

01:42:31.880 | those behavioral tools are going to be the ones

01:42:33.840 | that are going to allow you to teach your neural circuits

01:42:36.660 | how to focus and concentrate better.

01:42:38.120 | And I cannot overstate the importance of that,

01:42:40.240 | that the behavioral tools, and to some extent,

01:42:42.160 | the supplementation combined with behavioral tools

01:42:45.360 | really allow you to train up your neural circuits

01:42:48.620 | so that you can focus and concentrate

01:42:51.160 | to the depth and the degree and the duration

01:42:53.520 | that's going to best serve your mental and physical goals.

01:42:56.440 | Now, there's one other compound

01:42:57.680 | that I've used from time to time and that I continue to use

01:43:00.920 | in order to increase focus and concentration.

01:43:03.880 | And I will use this in combination

01:43:06.120 | with the other supplements that I talked about before,

01:43:08.000 | and that's phenylethylamine.

01:43:09.760 | Phenylethylamine is in the dopamine synthesis pathway,

01:43:12.800 | so it increases dopamine transmission

01:43:14.720 | and tends to function a little bit differently

01:43:16.560 | than L-tyrosine.

01:43:17.780 | So every once in a while, I'll swap out L-tyrosine

01:43:20.840 | and put in 500 milligrams of phenylethylamine.

01:43:23.860 | Or sometimes, if I really want to push a little bit harder

01:43:27.200 | on the dopamine system,

01:43:28.880 | and I'm going to be doing a long bout of intense work,

01:43:32.180 | I will take the 300 milligrams of Alpha-GPC,

01:43:35.040 | the 500 milligrams of L-tyrosine,

01:43:37.360 | I'll generally take that with some caffeine.

01:43:39.840 | And I should mention,

01:43:40.760 | I don't go past about 100 or 200 milligrams of caffeine

01:43:43.560 | 'cause I don't really like feeling too jittery.

01:43:45.340 | That's not really my goal.

01:43:46.320 | It's the goal to be alert,

01:43:48.360 | but not so alert that I really can't focus on anything.

01:43:51.320 | I'm not interested in having an anxiety attack after all.

01:43:54.480 | But I'll sometimes either swap in,

01:43:56.780 | or I will add that 500 milligrams of phenylethylamine.

01:44:00.080 | Phenylethylamine is in the PEA pathway.

01:44:03.380 | I've talked about this in a previous podcast

01:44:05.140 | on dopamine motivation and drive.

01:44:07.800 | And it's a very short-lived compound,

01:44:10.520 | so what I'll tend to do is take it once

01:44:12.880 | at the beginning of the work bout,

01:44:13.940 | and sometimes in the middle of the work bout,

01:44:15.920 | I'll take another 500 milligram capsule.

01:44:18.120 | But what I just described

01:44:19.160 | with combining all of those compounds,

01:44:21.200 | Alpha-GPC, L-tyrosine, phenylethylamine, and caffeine,

01:44:24.860 | that's a fairly rare occurrence that I'll combine all four,

01:44:28.280 | and really only under conditions in which I have to do

01:44:30.440 | an intensely challenging bout of mental or physical work.

01:44:34.820 | I would say the frequency at which I combine

01:44:36.600 | all four of those things

01:44:38.200 | is probably about once every two weeks,

01:44:40.840 | and typically more like once a month.

01:44:43.120 | Again, being careful to do that

01:44:45.240 | in the early part of the day,

01:44:46.280 | certainly before the noon hour,

01:44:48.400 | so that I am in no way going to disrupt my sleep.

01:44:50.960 | I realize that many of you are probably wondering about,

01:44:53.120 | or hoping that I'll discuss things like lion's mane,

01:44:55.960 | or the racetams, or some of the other compounds

01:44:59.500 | that are known to powerfully modulate

01:45:01.440 | the dopamine, epinephrine, and acetylcholine systems.

01:45:04.360 | To be quite direct,

01:45:06.080 | there are far too many of these compounds

01:45:08.000 | to review in a single episode,

01:45:09.800 | and they all generally tap into the same set of processes.

01:45:13.560 | Again, epinephrine, that shaft of the arrowhead

01:45:16.520 | that we're thinking of as focus,

01:45:18.360 | acetylcholine, which is the arrowhead itself,

01:45:20.520 | and then dopamine,

01:45:21.980 | which is the sort of propeller behind the arrow

01:45:24.640 | that allows it to continually drive forward

01:45:26.900 | through a bout of mental or physical work.

01:45:29.560 | There is a wonderful site,

01:45:31.720 | I've mentioned it several times before on this podcast,

01:45:34.260 | that is examine.com.

01:45:36.540 | That wonderful site, that is examine.com,

01:45:39.120 | has recently been updated.

01:45:40.560 | They've changed their format.

01:45:42.460 | It was terrific before.

01:45:43.920 | It provided links to relevant studies.

01:45:46.700 | It talked about specific compounds.

01:45:48.220 | It talked about the magnitude of effect.

01:45:49.800 | It talked about the human effect matrix.

01:45:51.320 | It really focused on human studies

01:45:52.680 | with links to those studies, and on and on.

01:45:55.380 | The new revamped version of examine.com is even better.

01:45:59.000 | It's really next, next level.

01:46:00.640 | I really applaud them for doing such a terrific job

01:46:03.480 | in organizing the information.

01:46:04.720 | There are a lot of interesting pages

01:46:06.920 | that you can read there about different compounds,

01:46:08.780 | so you can put in any compound,

01:46:10.040 | ginkgo biloba, phosphatidylserine, alpha-GPC,

01:46:14.120 | and you're going to get a rich array of information

01:46:16.160 | about those compounds,

01:46:17.360 | and if you were to put in a specific goal state,

01:46:19.900 | that is focus or concentration or sleep

01:46:23.760 | or hormones like testosterone, et cetera,

01:46:26.180 | you're going to get a rich array of compounds, supplements,

01:46:30.900 | as well as links to the studies on those compounds,

01:46:33.000 | and some details about those particular studies.

01:46:34.960 | It's an absolutely phenomenal site.

01:46:36.720 | It's one that I rely on and that I know thousands,

01:46:39.280 | if not millions of other people rely on,

01:46:41.420 | and I encourage you to check it out.

01:46:42.780 | Again, the URL is examine.com.

01:46:46.000 | So today we've talked about a number of different tools,

01:46:48.560 | and to some extent, some mechanisms

01:46:50.240 | involved in concentration and focus,

01:46:52.720 | and really the goal has been to provide you

01:46:54.700 | an understanding of the neurochemical systems

01:46:56.740 | and a little bit about the neural circuits

01:46:58.580 | that can allow you to achieve states of attention and focus.

01:47:03.040 | In contrast to previous episodes

01:47:04.480 | of the Huberman Lab Podcast,

01:47:05.640 | where I've covered these topics in tremendous depth

01:47:08.740 | as it relates to mechanism and also focused on tools today,

01:47:11.880 | I largely focused on tools.

01:47:14.640 | We talked about behavioral tools,

01:47:16.760 | like a meditation that's 13 minutes long,

01:47:20.400 | done daily specifically to improve your ability to focus,

01:47:23.140 | and in fact, there are data to support that it will.

01:47:25.680 | Talked about hypnosis.

01:47:26.740 | We talked about visual focus, overt and covert.

01:47:29.680 | We talked about various supplements,

01:47:31.380 | such as Alpha-GPC, phenylethylamine, L-tyrosine,

01:47:35.080 | supplements that I use to directly modulate

01:47:37.640 | the neural circuits for concentration and focus.

01:47:40.200 | We also talked about creatine, the Omega-3s.

01:47:42.480 | Talked about the importance of sleep,

01:47:43.800 | which modulates our ability to function mentally

01:47:46.900 | and physically overall, so optimize that sleep.

01:47:50.520 | And we talked about a number of other protocols

01:47:52.940 | that you can incorporate.

01:47:54.160 | My hope in giving you all this information

01:47:55.860 | in one single location is that you will be able to pick

01:47:59.120 | and choose which of these protocols

01:48:01.340 | you would like to incorporate into your attempts

01:48:03.920 | to improve your focus and concentration.

01:48:05.920 | Again, I don't recommend doing all of these protocols

01:48:09.440 | all at once.

01:48:10.600 | What I recommend is picking a handful of them,

01:48:12.600 | maybe one or two, maybe three or four,

01:48:14.880 | and trying them in different combinations

01:48:17.200 | at different times of day and for different purposes,

01:48:19.220 | for mental work, for physical work, et cetera,

01:48:21.040 | and find what is best for you.

01:48:22.800 | Once again, the goal is to teach your brain, that is,

01:48:26.820 | to increase neuroplasticity in the neural circuits

01:48:30.160 | that allow you not just to focus,

01:48:31.800 | but to refocus your attention.

01:48:33.840 | And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention

01:48:36.460 | that it's also critical to be able to defocus.

01:48:39.300 | I highly encourage people to take a period of time each day

01:48:43.000 | to daydream, to walk down the hall

01:48:44.840 | without looking at your phone,

01:48:46.620 | to not have to incorporate more sensory information,

01:48:49.940 | to not place increasing demands on yourself to focus,

01:48:52.720 | and see and realize how having a period

01:48:55.760 | of deliberate decompression and defocusing

01:48:58.760 | can allow your brain to focus so much better

01:49:01.320 | when you do decide to return to about a focused,

01:49:04.740 | concentrated work or physical work.

01:49:07.200 | So I want to thank you for joining me for this discussion

01:49:09.600 | about tools for focus and concentration.

01:49:12.800 | If you're learning from and/or enjoying this podcast,

01:49:15.120 | please subscribe to our YouTube channel.

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01:49:35.160 | bringing on the Huberman Lab Podcast,

01:49:37.160 | please put all that in the comment section on YouTube.

01:49:40.200 | We do read all those comments.

01:49:42.460 | Please also check out the sponsors mentioned

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01:49:45.960 | That's the best way to support this podcast.

01:49:48.200 | During today's episode and on many previous episodes

01:49:50.440 | of the Huberman Lab Podcast, we discuss supplements.

01:49:53.180 | While supplements aren't necessary for everybody,

01:49:55.300 | many people derive tremendous benefit from them

01:49:57.460 | for things like sleep and enhancing focus

01:49:59.560 | and hormone augmentation and so forth.

01:50:01.760 | As mentioned at the beginning of today's episode,

01:50:03.700 | the Huberman Lab Podcast is now partnered

01:50:05.400 | with Momentous Supplements

01:50:06.540 | because they are of the very highest quality,

01:50:08.940 | they ship internationally,

01:50:10.160 | and they have single ingredient formulations in dosages

01:50:13.200 | that will allow you to construct the best,

01:50:15.840 | most biologically and cost-effective

01:50:17.640 | supplementation protocol for your needs.

01:50:19.940 | If you're interested in the supplements

01:50:21.480 | covered on the Huberman Lab Podcast,

01:50:23.460 | you can go to Live Momentous, spelled O-U-S,

01:50:26.200 | so livemomentous.com/huberman.

01:50:29.000 | If you're not already following us on social media,

01:50:31.160 | we are Huberman Lab on Twitter

01:50:32.600 | and we are also Huberman Lab on Instagram.

01:50:34.720 | Both places, I talk about science and science-related tools,

01:50:37.760 | some of which overlap with the contents and topics

01:50:40.760 | of the Huberman Lab Podcast,

01:50:42.240 | much of which is unique from the content

01:50:44.240 | and it's certainly the format covered

01:50:45.600 | on the Huberman Lab Podcast.

01:50:46.720 | Again, that's Huberman Lab on Instagram

01:50:48.520 | and Huberman Lab on Twitter.

01:50:50.200 | The Huberman Lab Podcast has a newsletter

01:50:52.480 | in which we provide summaries and essential protocols

01:50:55.560 | from the Huberman Lab Podcast episodes.

01:50:57.840 | You can access it totally free of charge

01:50:59.800 | by going to HubermanLab.com,

01:51:01.680 | go to the menu and click on newsletter, provide your email.

01:51:04.940 | We do not share your email with anybody

01:51:06.900 | and you'll receive our monthly newsletter.

01:51:08.640 | There are also examples of previous newsletters there

01:51:10.960 | that you can download as PDFs right away

01:51:12.920 | without even having to sign up.

01:51:14.500 | So thank you once again for joining me

01:51:15.960 | for today's discussion all about the mechanisms

01:51:18.220 | and especially the tools

01:51:19.600 | for enhancing concentration and focus.

01:51:22.200 | And last, but certainly not least,

01:51:24.380 | thank you for your interest in science.

01:51:26.320 | (upbeat music)

01:51:28.900 | (upbeat music)

Focus Toolkit: Tools to Improve Your Focus & Concentration | Huberman Lab Podcast #88

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