Welcome to the huberman Lab podcast, where we discuss science and science based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew huberman. And I'm a professor of neurobiology and Ophthalmology at Stanford school of medicine.
Today, we are going to talk about science, based, protocols
for Sleep
mood learning nutrition, exercise of various kinds strength, and endurance and hypertrophy. And we are going
to talk about some protocols.
That relate to creativity.
We're going to talk about behavioral, protocols supplement, based. Protocols, all signs back by quality peer review, literature. The
reason that we're holding this episode now, is that in the recent previous episodes, we've
covered some pretty intense and in-depth topics. We've talked about vision and how we see, and how to get better at seeing and how to maintain Vision. We've talked about Hearing and Balance. We've talked about chemical sensing and we had a guest episode that covered a lot of information about new and emerging Technologies.
Knowledge. He's in Neuroscience as well as mental health, that was the interview episode with dr. Karl deisseroth.
So, given that we've covered so much detailed
information in the previous 27 episodes of The huberman Lab podcast,
I decided that we would hold
office hours office hours in the University setting. Our, when students come to the professor's office, where you meet
Outdoors on campus or in the classroom, to review the material
and questions from lecture in more detail
now, unfortunately.
Only we don't have the opportunity to meet face-to-face in real life, but nonetheless, you've been sending your questions, putting them in the comments section
on YouTube, Etc.
And I prepared a number of answers to the questions that have
shown up most frequently.
Now, in order to provide context and structure
to the way that we will address these questions,
I've arranged the science and science based
protocols, that relate to various aspects of life, such as mood.
Sighs sleep, waking anxiety, creativity Etc, into the context
of a day, selecting the unit of a day in order to deliver this
science information. And protocols is not a haphazard decision on my part.
It's actually the case that every cell
in our body, every organ in our body and our brain is modulated or changes across the 24-hour day in a very regular, and predictable Rhythm. And it's no coincidence that the Earth spins once on its axis,
Every 24 hours,
these two things are coordinated by virtue
of genes and different proteins, and things that are expressed in every cell of your
body. And so, selecting the unit of the day, is not just a practical one, but it's one that's related
to our deeper biology.
You may have heard in my interview episode with
dr. Karl deisseroth
that he himself in order to juggle, a tremendous
workload, a full-time clinical practice, a lab of 40 plus people.
People family of five children, Etc.
Breaks up his life into units of days. And so today we are going to
further dissect the day as a unit that one can manage and manage extremely well. And in fact can optimize. So we're basically going to talk about
how to leverage science based
protocols, and when I say science I mean quality, peer reviewed science, published in excellent journals. We're going to talk about how to take that science, convert it into specific, protocols that break up along the course of a single day.
And direct certain types of behaviors in order to optimize the various features of life. I will couch this in the context of what I do across a daily 24-hour Rhythm. That doesn't mean that you have to follow this schedule at all, or even in part. It's just by way of example, any number of the different things that I described could be applied to any number of different schedules or Frameworks. But if there's one truth that applies to all of us, is that we all have to exist within the context of this 24-hour Rhythm that, we
All possess. So that's what we'll focus on before we begin. I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to Consumer information about science and science related tools to the general public in keeping with that theme. I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast. Our first sponsor
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let's talk about how to apply quality peer reviewed science to your day
and how to optimize everything from
sleep to learning creativity meal timing Etc. As I
And earlier I'm going to do this in the context
of my day and what I typically do,
however the specific
protocols for any number of different things, sleep relaxation, meal, timing exercise, Etc,
any one, or all of. Those could be rearranged to suit your specific
needs. I'm going to tell you what I do from morning until waking and even what I do while I sleep in order to optimize my sleep.
So let's start with getting up in the morning. Now for me, I tend to wake up.
Sometime around 6:00 a.m. 6:30 sometimes as
late as 7 a.m. I don't typically sleep much later than 7:00 a.m.
the first thing I do, after I wake up is I take the pain that's on my nightstand and the pad of paper on my nightstand and I write down the
time in which I woke up. Now
I do sleep with my
phone in my room, I realized this is considered a sin and has certain
hazards associated with it, but I put my phone on airplane
mode about an hour before I go to
sleep. And then I set my alarm.
I'm typically for 6:30 a.m. and some days, the alarm wakes me up, other days, I wake up before the alarm. And yes, some days. The alarm goes off
and I hit snooze a few times. And then, usually, by 7 a.m., I am up and out of bed,
the reason for writing down, what time I wake up, is because, I want to know that average wake up time
That average wake up time in forms, what's
called, like temperature minimum, it tells me when my body temperature was lowest,
the temperature. Minimum is the time in
each 24-hour cycle that your body temperature is lowest.
I don't sleep with a
thermometer in my mouth or elsewhere, and I don't think you should either.
Instead, I know that the lowest
temperature that my body will be at
across the 24-hour cycle tends to be
Two hours before my typical wake up time and I want to know that number. It's called our
temperature minimum. So if you're somebody that typically wakes up at 8 a.m. then your temperature minimum is sometime around 6. A.m. remember the temperature. Minimum is a time in the 24-hour
cycle. I don't care what my actual temperature is. I
care when my lowest temperature is, and I know that that lowest temperature is
approximately two hours before my average wake up time.
I'm
so I highly recommend that you write down when you wake up or
track that in some way that works for you
and use that
as a reference point, to determine your temperature. Minimum
we will return to the temperature minimum, and how you can leverage the temperature. Minimum for several things,
shifting your clock shifting, your circadian, sleep schedule, and wake schedule, also for shifting, your eating schedule, Etc,
we will return to that but even if you don't
Travel even if you don't care about things like jet lag.
Even if you sleep
fabulously all year round, never have a poor night's sleep,
knowing your temperature, minimum that time when your temperature is at, its lowest point is a valuable thing to know. The second thing I do after I wake up is to get into forward
ambulation, which is just nerd speak for taking a walk. I have a dog and as many of, you know,
he's a bulldog and he doesn't really like to walk especially not in the morning but
For humans. And for Animals, there's a phenomenon whereby when we generate our own Forward,
Motion forward, ambulation visual images, pass by us, on our eyes, so called optic flow.
And for those of you that are low vision or no vision the same
phenomenon occurs in the auditory system, sounds passed by us in so called auditory
flow.
Getting into a mode of forward ambulation and especially experiencing visual
flow, has a powerful effect on the nervous system.
The effect it has is essentially to quiet or reduce the amount
of neural activity in this brain structure called the amygdala
amygdala means, almond. And many of you have probably heard about the
amygdala for its role in anxiety and fear and threat detection and
indeed
The amygdala is part of the network in the
brain that generates feelings of fear and threat and anxiety, does a bunch of other things, too. But that's one of its primary
functions. There are now at least half a dozen quality papers published in quality peer reviewed journals that. Show that forward, ambulation walking or
biking or running
and generating optic flow. In particular has this incredible property of lowering
activity in the amygdala and thereby reducing levels of anxiety. There are two papers. I'd
like to highlight in particular that relate
to this phenomenon. The first one was published in the journal neuron and the title of this paper is whole brain functional ultrasound imaging. That just means
they have a cool technique to evaluate the activity of structures in the brain across the entire
brain reveals brain modules for visual motor integration.
What they found in this study, and I
should mention the first authors Ma say, this comes from Baton rouge's group. This was work done in mice, but I will talk about other species in a moment.
What they found was essentially that when these mice walk forward and their eyes move from side to side, which is a natural consequence of moving forward. So called optic flow is Flowing, past their eyes. Many brain areas are activated increase in their level of firing, but the amygdalin particular reduced its levels of
firing.
That's a very interesting finding but it is in mice. However, another paper eye movement intervention enhances Extinction via amygdala deactivation was published in the Journal of
Neuroscience, a strong
journal. And shows that again these eye movements, these lateral eye movements from side to side reduce activity levels. In this fear
/ threat / anxiety Center in the brain, the
amygdala,
Now, those are eye movements, they didn't specifically look at forward ambulation and yet other papers have looked at forward. Ambulation and we know that forward ambulation walking forward, generates the sorts of eye movements that
cause optic flow and reductions in amygdala
Activation. So for me, this process of taking a walk each morning
isn't about exercise, it's not about burning calories, it's not about any of that. It's really about getting into optic flow and
reducing the levels of
Activation. Now, I
don't have anxiety.
At least I don't have chronic anxiety or generalized anxiety. I
tend to have a lot of energy, but at these points in the morning, I'm not very
energetic sometimes. I'm sort of shuffling more than I'm walking. In fact in Costello is almost always shuffling and I'm almost always trying to drag him first thing in the morning,
but that walk is a particularly important protocol each day, because it really serves to push
my Neurology in the direction that I'd like it to go, which is alert.
But not anxious, and it's
kind of a fine line. Sometimes, especially as events surface throughout the day emails come in text messages, come in, get bombarded. With a number of things. I want to be alert and responsive. I want to be able to focus but I don't want to
feel anxious or reactive to these things. So the
forward ambulation and this optic flow is the way that I ensure
based on quality peer review data that my amygdala activation is slightly suppressed.
Now, at the same time, I
So want the alertness, I want alert and focused. I don't just want to be sleepy or super, super relaxed. I want to have a high degree of focus and alertness because
I'm soon going to move
into about of work. I need to lean into the day. So in order to do that,
I make sure that
the walking is done outdoors. I might be sort of a
duh, but many people get up and start moving around their house, their
apartment, and they don't go anywhere and just walking around
inside it will generate
Some optic flow but
nothing like the sort of optic flow that you can generate in larger environments like out-of-doors environments if you can't get Outdoors doing it indoors is perfectly fine but it's not going to have the same magnitude of positive
affect. Now, in order to get the alertness, I Do It Outdoors
because I also want some light in my eyes. I
know many of you have heard me talk about this ad nauseam on various podcasts in this podcast, but getting sunlight in your eyes. First
thing in the morning is absolutely,
Idle to mental and physical health. It is perhaps the most important thing that any and all of us can and should do in order to promote metabolic well-being. Promote the positive function of your hormone system, get your mental health steering in the right direction, their number of reasons for this,
but before I get into those reasons, let me just emphasize what the protocol is the protocol is get Outdoors, ideally with no Sunglasses. If
you can do that safely. Even if there's cloud
cover
More
photons. Light information are coming through that cloud cover, then would be coming from a very bright indoor
bulb. So getting Outdoors
is absolutely key. How long should you do this? It's going to depend on the brightness of the environment, it's going to depend on a number of different
factors. 2 minutes would be a minimum. 10 minutes would be even better and if you can 30 minutes would be fantastic. Now, it's a very bright day or, you know,
you live in a place where there's bright sunlight, clear day on a snow field, you would only need something like 60 seconds, but
People aren't living in those sorts of conditions. So
getting outside for a 10-minute walk or a 15-minute walk,
will basically ensure that you're getting adequate stimulation of these neurons in the eye that are called the melanopsin intrinsically photosensitive ganglion cells. I know that's a mouthful.
These are neurons that don't care
about shapes of objects or the motion of objects. These are neurons that convey to the brain that it's daytime, and it's time to be alert.
And it sets in motion, a huge
number of biological Cascades within every cell and or
One of your body from your liver, to your gut, to your heart, to your brain. It really sets things down the right path.
Early in the day, we experienced a natural and healthy bump in a hormone
called cortisol.
Cortisol comes from the amygdala that cortisol, as I mentioned is healthy and normal and promotes wakefulness.
It actually promotes a healthy immune system. So I know you've heard that stress and cortisol disrupt, the immune system but
not the short little pulse of cortisol
that you get each morning. It's very important.
That pulse of cortisol arrived early in the day I want to emphasize this again. It's very important that that pulse of cortisol arrived early in the day and that pulse of cortisol is going to happen once every 24 hours, no matter what it's going to happen and you get to time it. How do you time it primarily by when you view bright sunlight or bright light of another kind? And we'll talk about that in a moment.
So you want that cortisol pushed early, if you wake up before the sun,
Comes out, it's fine to turn on artificial lights but then you would
want to get outside as soon as you can to get this art, this scuse me, natural light stimulation of your eyes, and it does have to be to your eyes,
just to really drill down into the details for a moment. You don't want to stare directly at the Sun or any light that. So bright, that it feels painful if it's if you
feel like you have to close your eyes or
blink, please do you don't want to damage your
retinas. The point here is to get the sunlight indirectly.
It's
Going to essentially be scattered everywhere through the cloud cover. But, you know, from
looking at a, at a flashlight directly into that. Flashlight versus looking at the beam that flashlight generates on the ground that if you're standing in the shade, you're going to get less of that sunlight than you are if you're out in an open
field. So this is why the time outside it's going
to need to vary depending on your particular
environment. But do your best to do this every day if you miss a day. No big deal. But try not to miss more than one
day.
Otherwise your mental and physical health will start to suffer
and doing this each day cost nothing. It's just time. You can combine it with the forward,
ambulation, with the walk, and the optic flow that I talked about before. And that's what I do each morning to generate a sense of alertness in my body and brain to generate a sense of
calm yet alert. And that's also what I do with Costello, with my Bulldog, people have asked me do these same mechanisms, apply to animals. Well
the reality is many of these mechanisms were
Discovered in animals and then were tested in humans and verified that they also exist in
humans. Not always sometimes
it was the reverse where they were tested first in humans and then brought to animals. But indeed your dog, your horse, you know, I don't know what other animals are out there. They need this. Now, if you have a hamster or a nocturnal animal,
the reason why they like to run on their wheels
at night is because they're nocturnal. They don't like being in the light light actually causes them to freeze, right? Actually the
If you are into a
queria you like fish, they always say, don't overfeed your fish. You'll kill the fish. That's true. But guess what? The fastest way to kill a fish is
to keep the lights on 24 hours a day.
They also need circadian, say, circadian rhythms these 24-hour rhythms. So we'll do an entire month at some point about pet health, but meanwhile, get that morning sunlight. So we now we have our first protocol, which is to write down the time of day that you wake up. The second protocol
is to get take a
walk first thing in the morning and the third protocol.
Is woven in with that walk. At least for me, which is to get that sunlight exposure.
Now, if you can't get sunlight exposure, you absolutely can't. I don't necessarily recommend buying one of these
Dawn alarm lights. The I know I'm sorry to say this but they're just vastly over priced relative to what they are. They're basically a bright LED. I instead use, I have a pad, that's a 930 Lux light pad. I think it was
designed for drawing. Those are available.
At a fraction of the cost that a that a morning light simulator would provide and yet it's really bright enough. At least for me, I tend to put it on my desk while I work
each morning. So here's a principle that you can leverage if you want to be alert view,
bright lights, and make those lights above you. They tend to or in
front of you, if you want to go to sleep soon, or you don't want to be awake for whatever
reason, trying to eliminate your exposure to light. And this is
again is not about exposure of the sea.
In
to light, this is about exposure of your eyes of your neural retinas to light. For those of you that are concerned about blue light, I want to emphasize that blue light is precisely. The wavelength of light that is optimal for stimulating these neurons in your eye which set your circadian rhythms
properly. So you don't want to Shield
yourself from Blue Light early in the day or throughout the day, or anytime you want to be awake. Fact that could have a number of
detrimental consequences. Fortunately, all those
consequences are going to be reversible.
Oil after a short period of time of making sure that you don't wear your blue blockers during the day, please,
the time to wear blue blockers if you do.
Is that night and in the evening, when you're headed towards sleep, my colleagues Hammer hot. Our who is
head of the chronobiology unit at the National Institutes of mental health? Has spoken about this before on my Instagram we held in Instagram live and I said Sam, what do you think about blue blockers and he said I don't think that's a good idea at all. Unless it's really late at night in your in a bright environment, you're trying to limit the amount of bright light that that impacts the eyes.
Eliminating specific wavelengths of
light, in sammer's opinion, and
also
In
my opinion is not a natural
thing for the visual system in the brain to
experience. Some people get headaches
while they work, on the computer all day or staring at screens, and so they get blue blockers thinking that's going to protect them from their headaches.
However, any protection that you get from headaches from Blue blockers
is going to be
minimal in comparison to what's really going on there. Which is that people are viewing devices and screens up close for
too many hours throughout the 24 hour cycle.
A better remedy would be to step away from
that computer from time to time and to make sure that you can look far off into the distance, ideally a distance longer than 20 feet like viewer Horizon. Go out on a balcony, things of that sort, take a walk around, get into optic flow.
So if you're into blue blockers, make sure you're only wearing
them in the late evening. And at night,
I personally don't wear blue
blockers at all. I prefer to just control my light viewing Behavior by doing this. I do the other form of circadian control, which is to dim the lights.
And I do that because dimming the lights and setting
them lower in the environment, sets up the brain and body for sleep. Much better than simply just wearing some blue light blue blockers. Scuse
me and please know if you do wear
blue blockers that if the light in your environment is bright enough, it doesn't matter if you're blocking out the blues, these
cells in the, I will respond to other wavelengths of
light. So
I have no Vendetta against the blue blockers.
And, you know, I fully expect the Blue Block in East, has to come after me with I guess blue blockers.
Yes, but as you do that, please
understand that the biology points in the direction
of get a lot of bright light throughout the day including blue light. And at night just limit the total amount of overall light that you're exposed to including from screens. So then Costello and I get back from our walk, sometimes that
walk was 10 minutes. Sometimes it was 60 Minutes depending on how slowly
Costello is walking that day. Indeed many mornings, I'm the guy carrying his Bulldog back up the hill, my neighbors know me so well. They know Costello so well that they've since stopped pulling over
Asking if the dog is okay, sometimes they'll ask if I'm okay.
Nonetheless, we get back.
I give him his food. I give him his water and I give me my water.
I'm a big believer
based on quality peer review data that
hydration is essential
for mental performance. Now, I confess, I don't really like drinking big glasses or big jugs of water first thing in the morning. I don't know why, but my thirst doesn't tend to kick in first thing, you may be different.
Either way, I forced myself, essentially, to drink at
least 16 and most days, 32 ounces of water.
I also put a little bit of
sea salt in the water.
As many of, you know, neurons require ionic flow. What that means is neurons need sodium. They need magnesium and they
need potassium. In order to function,
we do tend to get dehydrated at night
even if the day is not very hot, I try and top off or I try and make
sure that I'm hydrated early
The day before I begin any work. So I make myself drink
this water
with a little bit of sea salt. How much sea salt if you really want to get detailed at you? I suppose it's about half a teaspoon. It's not much.
That's what I do and I drink that more or less room temperature. I find that drinking really cold water.
First thing in the day kind of, like cramps up my insides. So I don't do that at that point. I start thinking about and fantasizing about and craving caffeine, but I don't drink that caffeine yet.
I purposely
Ali delay, my caffeine intake to 90 minutes to a hundred twenty
minutes after I wake up. Of course, I know when I wake up because I wrote it down, although it's pretty easy to commit to memory.
The reason I delay caffeine is because one of the
factors that induces a sense
of sleepiness is the build-up of adenosine,
or as some people call it a Dano. Seen in our system,
the build-up of adenosine accumulates the
longer we are awake. So when
I wake up in the morning, when you wake up in the morning, your adenosine levels are likely to be very low. However, caffeine is an adenosine blocker. It's actually a competitive antagonist for you aficionados. It's or parks in the receptor that adenosine normally would park at, and prevents adenosine from acting on that receptor. That's why you feel more alert because it's essentially blocking the effect of this sleepiness factor that we all create called adenosine.
The reason for delaying caffeine intake 90 minutes to two hours after waking is, I want to make sure that I don't have a late
afternoon or even early afternoon Crash from
caffeine. One of the best ways to ensure a caffeine crash is to drink a bunch of caffeine block all
those adenosine receptors. And then
by earlier late afternoon, when that caffeine starts to
wear off and gets dislodged from The receptors,
a lower level of adenosine is able to create
Greater level of sleepiness. It took me years to figure
this out. I used to wake up and I think, oh, I don't want to drink caffeine too close to bedtime. So I'm going to start drinking my caffeine really early. I let my cortisol naturally come up in the morning. I avoid drinking caffeine until about 90 minutes or two hours after waking and when I do that, I find that. I don't experience the afternoon. Crash at least, I don't experience that crash. Unless I do something foolish, like, ingest far too much food at launch, or I stay up all night the night.
Before but provided I don't do anything foolish, like that. Delaying caffeine or 90 minutes
to two hours optimizes. This relationship between adenosine and wakefulness and sleepiness. In a way,
that really provides a nice consistent
Arc of energy throughout the day and brings energy down as I'm headed toward sleep and falling
asleep. My primary objective early in the day is to get into a mode of being focused
yet alert so that I can get work
done.
I found that the best way for me to achieve that state is through
fasting. So I don't eat anything until about 11 a.m. or 12 noon. I'm not absolutely religious about it. There are days when I'll have a few Brazil nuts, or Spoonful or three of almond
butter, for instance, but most
days I'm not doing
that. I'm just not eating anything. I'm drinking some caffeine caffeine source for me is yerba mate. Guan Yu citee.
Those are my preferred sources tend to avoid coffee these days.
Occasionally, I have a cup but most often I stick to the t's,
I drink water as much as I feel like I need
to and want to.
And I also drink my athletic greens, which is compatible. At least for me with fasting,
let's talk about
why fasting Works to create this heightened state of alertness. Yet calm brain state.
Fasting increases levels of
adrenaline, also called epinephrine in the brain and body.
And when our levels of epinephrine and adrenaline are increased, we learn better, we can focus better. There's terrific data supporting that you don't want epinephrine
AKA adrenaline too high. That feels like stress and panic, you get jittery, you
can't focus but in its optimal range. Adrenaline really provides a heightened sense of focus and the ability to
Meaning bring in and retain remember information. And so, since my job is mainly a cerebral one where I'm writing grants and working on papers Etc, I fast in the early part of the
day, I mentioned ingesting things like why you saw her yerba mate. Or in my case, athletic greens,
many people ask. In fact, there's a whole community and discussion boards, Etc. And YouTube comments on the internet about what breaks a
fast and what doesn't the
fact of the matter is, that's going to be highly.
All because it's going to depend on how sensitive
your blood sugar is in other and more accurately. It's going to depend on things like your insulin sensitivity.
So for instance, if you're somebody who gets up in the morning hydrates and goes out
for a 6-mile run,
you could probably eat a
jar of almond butter
and still be what's called fat fasted. Your insulin levels will still be very low because even though
that is a large volume of almond butter, even to me and
Costello
That large number of calories, come from a source, that doesn't
increase blood sugar, very much and Insulin very much. Now, I'm not
suggesting you do that. But what I just described is a vastly different situation than somebody that ate their last meal at 2 a.m. and that meal was essentially a feast and for that person fasting until 10:00 or 11:00 a.m. their blood, sugar might still actually be pretty high
or even low ish. Such that they might eat one almond and it would bump them out of fasting.
And so you get the idea, it's going to depend on your
recent eating history, your blood sugar history, your glycogen stores
Etc. So if anyone tells you that breaks a faster that doesn't that's kind of silly would one grain of sugar, break your fast. No, would an entire table. Spoon of sugar break your fast. Yes, you'll get a big blip in blood, sugar, and Insulin from that. However, how long that lasts? How long it breaks her fast will depend on how glycogen depleted you are and a number of other factors. So, for me, I just keep it fairly
Simple. Ian just water caffeine from yerba
mate and Guai yousa. And I drink my athletic greens with some lemon juice
in it, that constitutes
My fasting and there are days when I do all those things there days
when I do, none of those things. Although, most days I would say about, 355 days, out of the year, I'm ingesting water, caffeine and athletic greens
during this period of fasting early in the day and that's the period of time. When I do my work
one. Interesting fact about yerba mate.
Yeah, and why you settees is that they increase release of
something called glp-1.
Glp-1 is related to glucagon. Glucagon is a hormone that you can sort of, think
about as opposite, to insulin and blood sugar. It's more complex than that,
but GOP one has a couple of positive properties one. Is it
increases lipolysis and mobilization of body fat stores a burning of fat? In fact, there are now a number of clinical trials that are achieving good success and there are drugs out there only available by
prescription.
Action. Which mimic glp-1 and are being used to treat quite successfully certain types of diabetes and obesity. I'm not diabetic. Nor am I trying to shed a ton of body fat, but I figure as long as I'm fasting
and as long as I like yerba mate and why you, so, which I do they're delicious, I'll tell you which type I use in a
moment I might as well increase my glp-1 because it's probably not as good as getting out and doing some cardio work. But nonetheless if I'm fasted increasing glp-1 in my system
Mmm, I'm going to be alert from the caffeine the adrenaline Etc. And
I'm going to be burning body fat while I'm doing my
work. So for me, it's just an efficient biochemical
irrational, or I should say grounded and quality, biochemistry sort of approach
yerba mate comes in a lot of different forms. There are a lot of different brands out there at cetera. I don't have any relationship whatsoever
in a business sense to any of these
Brands. Some of them are very
smoky eye just because of
Something in my genetic makeup or I don't know. Maybe it was some sort of Y chromosome Associated lesion early in life
but I don't like Smoky flavors. So I'm not a gouda
cheese guy. I don't like
Smokey stuff. You may love it but I tend to avoid
Smoky tasting mate has
instead. There's a particular brand that I just found on the internet called Anna
Park. I don't know, Anna. I don't know. She has a park and I certainly don't want Anna
Park is. But for me, that's the best tasting yerba mate. Again, I don't have any relationship to them.
But it's affordable
in the context of of
yerba mate. And it's the one that I
use and I should mention
along the lines of affordability and glp-1 is, there's a nice feature of yerba mate, which is if you put it in a filter or a metal strainer and you pour
hot water over it and then drink
it. Keep the the leaves. The Yerba mate leaves can be used over and over again. It seems that the glp-1
stimulating aspects of mate, actually are
enhanced with
subsequent poor.
Over. So, there's something interesting about these teas that my tea
Aficionado friends. Tell me allows the tea to release more of some of the beneficial
compounds by reusing the tea leaves. Now, eventually, it'll grow mold and other sorts of disgusting things. You don't really want to run that experiment. I would say you can use it for a day or two before it starts to go bad, but that's a feature that will extend the life of whatever your bramante you happen to use if you decide to use it. And that's certainly what I do
next. I want to talk about what I'm
doing while I'm drinking.
All this yerba mate because I'm not just sitting there thinking about all the glp-1 circulating in my system. I'm working
a couple of things for optimizing workspace that are
grounded in neuroscience and Physiology. I've talked before about the fact that, when our eyes are directed upward, literally when our eyelids are open, no surprise there. And when our eyes are directed upward,
it creates a state
of heightened alertness.
And this has a relationship to the brainstem neurons that create
Alertness and their
control over the muscles of the eye and believe you're not the eyelids. Now, it's not the case that if you are absolutely exhausted and you need to feel more alert, that looking upward is going to make you feel Wide
Awake, although it will help
support your levels of
alertness. The point here is that you can optimize your
workstation in a physical way
that leverages this
aspect of the visual system and your level of alertness
since most of us want to be awake.
While we're working, try and position your screen, or your
tablet, whatever device you happen to be working on, at least at eye level, and ideally slightly higher. If you think about it, most people are not doing this. Most people are looking down at their computer tablet, or are angling their eyes at their screen about 30
degrees. That is not going to
support heightened states of alertness and optimal attention. In fact, the opposite relationship between I position
And alertness is also true. When we look down when our eyelids are slightly closed, it tends to decrease our levels of alertness and increase our levels of sleepiness.
I really want to emphasize this that there is a bi-directional or reciprocal relationship between the brain stem areas that control alertness
and the eyes, meaning, how alert you are controls, how open or close your eyes are no surprise there.
But also that how open and upward directed, your eyes are will
increase your levels of alertness and if your eyes are pointed
And your eyelids are hooded
like they're slowly closing like Costello's are always our you'll feel more sleepy. Especially if you're somebody who tends to have that
mid-morning sleepiness or mid morning crash.
So, what I do is I have a standing desk but
I also prop the computer up such that, it's at least at eye level.
And I haven't figured out yet how to
develop a work station, where the computer
is above me? I think the only way to really do
that is actually the Tilt one's body back, but
See, that's not a good idea, either.
They have done studies recording, from areas of the brain associated with alertness areas, like Locus
coeruleus in the so called reticular activating
system. They found is that depending on how
reclined you are or upright. You are, you will decrease with reclining, an increase with sitting forward your levels of alertness,
so body
posture and whether or not you're upright or reclining will impact your levels of alertness in the predictable ways.
And where you position your eyes, whether or not your eyes are up, right? So to speak looking up or directly forward or looking down, will dictate whether or not you are feeling more alert or more sleepy respectively.
So, try and arrange a workstation or a position of your
body and your chair or your standing desk, whatever it
is that allows you to work
with a heightened state of
alertness. This is really, really key for me. Because I found that when I would sit down, not only when my
hip flexors start to get
Or if you'll tighten the back Etc.
But if I was staring down at my screen all day
or even for short periods of the day, I would start to feel sleepy and I can figure out what was going on. I also thought maybe I need glasses, I do wear readers at night,
but it was really a problem and simply by getting
the screen directly in front of me at eye level, it's been completely transformative.
So we're now at the description of my day and these protocols in
which I would do a 90-minute bout of work
now why 90 minutes?
Well, the brain is going through these 90 minutes so called ultradian
Cycles throughout the entire day and
night, every 90 minutes we shift over from being very
alert to being less Alert in the back to alert again, here's how it works.
At the start of one of these 90-minute ultradian Cycles. My brain is not quite engaged in whatever it is. I'm trying
to do oftentimes I have things jumping into my mind. I've got distractions Etc. I'll
talk about how to deal with those distractions in a moment but
I set a timer for 90 minutes and I try and get a
strong bout of work done, inside of that, 90
minutes with the full understanding that the entire 90 minutes is not going to
be uniform in terms of my ability of focus. There will be kind of Peaks and valleys with in
that, but that 90 minutes is about what the brain can handle in terms of a dedicated
effort for high degree of focus.
Some people can push a little bit further, some people can't handle more than 10 minutes, but that's what I'm striving toward.
You'd be amazed how much you can get done
in 90 minutes if you are focused.
So how do you increase that focus and how do you use the the timer feature? Well you can combine those. I use a program called Freedom. It shuts me out of the internet completely so that means no checking the markets. No, checking social media. No checking, you know the news, no, checking email, none of
that. I get a dedicated bout of work done.
I confess I don't allow myself to go to the restroom and that period of time. Here's an interesting little tip that's grounded in physiology. You have a direct neural connection from your
bladder to your brain stem areas that increase alertness. This is why when you have to go to the bathroom,
when you have to urinate, it is extremely
agitating, right? It can be very, very agitating.
I'm not encouraging you to get so agitated by
filling your bladder so much and resisting going.
The bathroom that you are uncomfortable in Camp, Focus, but
I generally will just drink liquids and work away and work away, and I won't walk away
to go use the bathroom, unless I absolutely have to serve odd that we're talking about this, but this is one way in, which I've learned to funnel my attention into whatever it is I'm doing because
as you all know the moment you sit down to do some serious work and you flip off the internet, all of a sudden it's as if the phone has a
voice, it starts calling you. It's almost as if the restroom has a voice
but we all are familiar with the fact that if
If we are focused
on something that we all that just kind of melts away. So the goal is to get into what I call the tunnel to really get into a tunnel of quality work. The brain loves that state but it's very hard for many of us to access.
My phone is
absolutely off, it's not on airplane mode, it's absolutely off during this time.
If I've been struggling with that and I confess, you know, there are times when for whatever reason something going on in life, it's been harder to put away the phone. I will sometimes put in my
car, I used
Joke that I used to throw it up on the roof or
something like that. Look, I've done and I suggest people do whatever they need
to in order to, in self regulate that activity.
And if you're somebody that feels that you absolutely need to be on your phone and on the
computer for this work bout or the work that you do. Well, that's a different matter altogether. This is just simply how I work so
I will do 90 minutes and I do set a
timer and I turn on the program. Freedom, locks me out of the
internet. If someone Rings it on the doorbell,
I will often shout not coming in.
Doorbell, leave it
there. I mean, unless there's a real emergency, I'm
not going to step away from that work. I learned how to do this when I was a graduate student under different conditions, where I used to slice brains on what's called a microtome. So he's to spend time just cutting very thin slices. It's like a deli slicer but for a brain of
various types of brains
and of section through a lot of brains and we had a
rule, which is that when the blade hits the brain, you don't stop pulling. Even though it's very, very slow.
Even if a nuclear bomb goes off, even if a fire alarm goes
off now, I don't want anyone, you know, burning to a crisp because they didn't step away from their workflow, that would be
foolish. But that's the mentality that I've embedded in myself that there is nothing more important
than what I'm doing in that 90 minute
block. And that's what works for me. You can try various other things
that's what works for me.
In addition, I use low-level White Noise. This is something that is supported by quality peer reviewed data.
Ah, we covered this on the episode on Hearing and Balance, but it turns out that white noise which is essentially all frequencies of sound,
we're all frequencies of sound that we can
perceive mixed up, kind of randomly. There's no structure to it turned on at a low volume,
not with headphones. Most of the time,
puts the brain into a
state that's optimal for Learning and workflow. And I covered two papers during
that episode one, that showed that indeed brain areas in
Alden attention, brain areas involved in focus and cognition and memory. Those are engaged to a greater degree when there is low levels
of white noise, playing in the background.
The other paper that's really interesting. Did brain Imaging and show the areas of the brain that are associated with dopamine release
or increase by low levels of white
noise dopamine release has Associated, not just
with pleasure but with motivation and
craving. So everything about this 90-minute
block from the low levels of white
noise to
the position of my computer. How I'm standing where my eyes are position is geared towards putting me in this tunnel of work, and I have to say that while it can be a challenge to try and achieve this state
and this tunnel of work,
some days, you start to get kind of addicted to it. It feels really good.
It's like a workout for the mind and it
is something that as you exit, that 90 minutes, you really feel like you've
accomplished a lot because often you have
and it's just feels deeply satisfying and I'm convinced that that's because of the
release of neuromodulators.
Dopamine and the norepinephrine that's
circulating in your system. And I want to be clear that I'm not perfect about this. 90 minutes occasionally I get drawn away.
Occasionally something will happen or I'll go use the restroom or Costello will have a need, or somebody will have a need that I'll that I will have to respond
to but I really try to achieve this most, if not every
day that I'm alive because for me, that work session is kind of holy, it's where I got where I set up a relationship. Not just
between me and the work that
I'm doing but between me and my ability to
control my own State of Mind using these various supports of the White Noise Etc.
But really those supports are peripheral
to the fact that I'm creating this space. I'm funneling my brain into a state rather than allowing whatever events and contexts on social media. And elsewhere might be occurring in the world that would yank me out of what for me is my purpose and my mission in life which is to do the sorts of work that I do.
There's a powerful way.
But you can place the timing of this 90-minute
work bout in an optimal way.
You have access to a very important piece of data that dictates when
this bout should start more or less. And when it should end,
That piece of data is your temperature minimum if you're somebody who wakes up on average at 7:00, a.m. well then your temperature minimum is 5 a.m. and you can be reasonably sure when underscore reasonably but you can be reasonably, sure that your best work is going to be done anywhere from four
to six hours after your temperature minimum. So for me, I tend to wake up around 6:30 a.m. that means my temperature minimum is
at 4:30, a.m.
you can add five hours to that. So that means
that
A 90-minute worked out, could fall at 9:30
a.m. and it would be fairly optimized or I could do it at 10:30 a.m. or I could do it at 8:30 am somewhere in there. All right, that we can't say that. It's exactly 6 hours after your temperature
minimum, you will find it. However, there is a precise and best
time for you to do this
90-minute work about whether or not it's five or six hours. After your temperature, minimum is going to vary from person to person. How do I know this? How do I know this?
ation should between temperature
minimum and focus cognition, well
temperature, minimum defines the trough that the
nadir as they say of the of your temperature, across the 24-hour cycle, and immediately, after that, your temperature will start to rise that temperature, rise is actually what triggers
the initial cortisol
release that you experience and wakes you up further and then of course, that sunlight that you're getting is going to further enhance that healthy release of cortisol that cortisol will
then provide
Fuel. If you will, for that increase in temperature in your body, will continue to increase in
temperature throughout the day toward the afternoon.
What you're trying to
do in this, in this idea of optimizing this 90-minute work bout to a particular time of day is catch the portion of the steepest, slope of that temperature rise. Now, again,
you're not working walking
around with a they thermocouple or thermometer in some
orifice of your body. So you don't have
accurate information about temperature.
You can make very good guesses about when your body
temperature is rising fastest by virtue of that temperature minimum.
So, again, just to be clear, it's a 90-minute work bout. That's about what the brain can handle for a very intense work
bout, do understand again that they're going to be portions of that 90-minute that your brain is flickering in and out of focus. Other portions we're going to be entirely focused that's entirely
normal, but when to place that 90-minute worked out when to start it and when to end, it will depend on that temperature minimum
If you're somebody who wakes up at
8 a.m. each morning your temperature, minimum
6 a.m. chances are, you're going to want to start this work bout somewhere
around 10 a.m. or 11 a.m.
now, some people wake up and feel very alert first thing in the morning. They can really do their
best work first thing in the morning.
Please, if that's you continue to do that leverage that time use that time but if you're somebody who struggles to find Focus, definitely let your physiology and
this rise in your body temperature, support your efforts to focus
rather than trying to
do your best work at times of day when your physiology is actually directing your body and your brain toward defocus and towards being more lethargic, it
just is setting yourself up for Success when you try and
capture this Rising phase of your temperature.
So up until now, we've been emphasizing practices that allow you to optimize your level of alertness and your levels of mental focus.
Data going back to the 1990s supports, the idea that physical movement of particular kinds can support brain health and brain function, both in the immediate term and in the long term. Now, this is at a profound impact on the field of Neuroscience but frankly it's also had a
profound impact on how I structure my day.
So after I've
finished a bout of work this 90-minute bout of work, I forced myself some days other days I want to but I forced myself.
Did you some sort of physical exercise that is going to be supportive of my
brain health and brain function and organ health and bodily function in general.
So I just briefly want to touch on what the
structure of that exercise. Looks like
how its structured within the day and how its structured across the weeks in fact, based on the scientific data and what the scientific data say is best or optimal in order to promote longevity of the brain ability to focus as well as cardiovascular health and all the
other
things that we know exercise
supports. Now, there are various forms of
physical activity or what we call
exercise but those can generally be batched into two categories. First is strength and hypertrophy work. So physical movements that are designed to make you stronger and or make your muscles
larger.
There's also endurance work, physical exercise, and movements that are designed to allow you to do
more work overtime, or to extend the amount of time that you can do work of any kind, both physical, and
mental. And we did two full podcast episodes on the
details, and the science, and the protocols related to these topics,
we did an episode on the science of strength, and
hypertrophy of building strength and
muscle building and that included.
A lot of protocols and we did an episode on endurance how to build
any one or all of the four types of endurance, which are muscular endurance anaerobic, aerobic, long-distance endurance etcetera. So if you're
interested in the specifics of those protocols, please see those episodes.
However right now I just want to emphasize how the data impact my day and how I structure my day in a way that I can incorporate physical movement in a way that
supports my brain and health.
Basically after I finish that cognitive work bout that 90-minute worked out, I do some form of physical
exercise for about an hour.
The data all point to the fact
that working out hard for
longer than an hour, can actually be detrimental because
of the way that it raises cortisol and
cortisol can
Good thing. If it's appropriately, timed and in the appropriate low levels, but you don't want to have your cortisol levels up
throughout the day or have big spikes of cortisol repeatedly. So keeping
workouts relatively short can definitely help with that. And certainly, if you're training hard, 60, Minutes or Less, should be more than sufficient. And for many people, including myself, 45
minutes or 15 minutes is probably even more optimal.
The basic design of this physical
exercise is that it be
approximately 60 minutes. So maybe 60 plus or minus 15 minutes should be well within the margins of keeping
hormonal, Health proper. And not going too long nor making the workout. So short that it's not
beneficial and essentially what the data tell us is that in order to optimize cardiovascular and brain
health and other systems of the body, we want
to exercise at least 5 days per week. I
know that seems like a lot, it certainly is a lot for
certain people.
Some of you you compulsive,
exercisers my gasp at the idea of taking two days off. I personally find that taking two full days off per week is actually both beneficial to my exercise
training performance as well as
pleasant. I like those rest days.
But essentially the structure of the exercise regimen that works for sake of supporting health is going to be one in which there's a three to two ratio where for a 12-week, period or so, maybe 10 to 12 weeks.
Three of those five workouts per week, emphasize
strength and hypertrophy and the other to emphasize endurance.
Then after 10 or 12 weeks, one switches over to a 10 or 12 week regimen of doing a three to two ratio where you're prioritizing endurance
work. So, primarily the sorts of workouts that are described in the endurance episode and those protocols and the other two days you're focusing on strength and hypertrophy
work merely to maintain
strength and hypertrophy to not lose the strength and hypertrophy that you've created.
And there are a lot of data now supporting the fact that maintaining muscular health and bone health
is supported by resistance training weight training, a various kinds of can also be done with bodyweight if you don't have access to
equipment. And of course, that doing cardiovascular endurance, work is very beneficial, both to the
muscles of the body, the organs of the body. But also to the brain,
many of you have probably heard that doing physical exercise
of various kinds can support the production of new neurons in the brain. Frankly.
Those
data are specific to
research animals. As far as
we know, increases in neuron number are not
supported by exercise in
humans. There is a little bit of data that supports that maybe a few neurons might get
created by running or weight, lifting, or things of that
sort in human beings. But they're still a host of other reasons to have
this hour or so per day where one is doing physical exercise, and those include
increased blood flow to the brain. Remember the brain
In Oregon to, it's the most metabolic lead to more demanding organ in your body, and it's receiving, those
metabolic factors. It's receiving its fuels, by way of vasculature of blood, vessels, and capillaries, and veins, and things of that sort. So
movement is very
crucial to get your brain to function properly.
Movement of various kinds is very important to get your brain to function properly
resistance training, turns out to be as important as endurance training because of the way that it stimulates, the release of particular hormones, actually
from Bones things like osteocalcin, which can positively impact brain function and can support the health of existing neurons as opposed to increasing the number of neurons,
turns out increasing the number of neurons may not actually be as beneficial as we think it all sounds great. More neurons. More neurons, certainly more neurons is better than
Fewer neurons and losing neurons
but incorporating new neurons into existing brain. Circuitry is actually very challenging for the brain to do. I make sure that after that work about, I get this
one hour or so of exercise. Five days per week
because of the ways that it supports my General Health. And there are now hundreds of studies supporting the fact that both endurance work and strength training
or hypertrophy training
done in combination, meaning, not
necessarily
The same workout but done across the
week, is immensely beneficial for the production of things like
brain, derived neurotrophic factor for limiting inflammatory cytokines like
il-6 for promoting
anti-inflammatory cytokines like
il-10, provided that exercises of the proper duration and that it's not so intense
that you're actually creating damage to the various systems of the body
now, where is the threshold between optimal
sub threshold? And
Detrimental. This is it. This is a complicated theme if we don't put some structure around it. So let's put a little bit of structure around it. We already said that about 60 minutes. So, 60 minutes plus or minus 15 minutes is going to be optimal for all these health benefits? What about the structure of the actual workouts? Well, we need to address this issue of intensity, A good rule of thumb based on the literature,
and I discussed this with dr. Andy Galpin, prior to the strength and hypertrophy and endurance episodes and their literature
sure that's published in quality peer reviewed journals, really points to the fact
that Approximately 80% of the resistance training. You do should be resistance training. That doesn't go to what they call
failure where you can't actually move the resistance anymore.
The other 20% can be
of the higher intensity to failure type training. Now, with respect to endurance,
work one can build up endurance without having to
log long, long mileage, or extensive mileage in the pool or
or by running that's because there are these other forms of endurance that can build up for instance, the
capillary beds within the muscles building up the capillary beds within the muscles, will allow more
oxygen utilization within the muscles and thereby will increase your endurance both of the muscles but also will improve brain metabolism and the way that
the heart functions of cardiovascular function,
that 80/20 rule of less than failure and work to failure in the resistance exercise regime can be
Transported or translate to the endurance exercise Portion by focusing on that thing that we're familiar with which is the
burn when we're running hard or cycling hard, will experience a
kind of burning of the muscles that's associated
with the lactate system during the episode on during site pointed out, that that burn is not lactic acid. Contrary to Common belief, it is not lactic acid, its associated with lactate metabolism. And
again, about 80% of the endurance, work should not
incorporate that.
So called burn, but if 20%
of that work or so I should say approximately 20% of that work
does include the so-called burning sensation that burning sensation actually triggers the activation of release of
certain compounds and molecules from
glia this brain cell type that
supports neuron health and actually, the
lactate system is its own form of fuel for the brain. And so there's increasing interest in generating the latch.
Tate or
pushing past that lactate
threshold for small portion, 20 percent or so of
endurance. Work in order to support brain health and function. So, what does all this all look like as a protocol?
Well, as I mentioned before this 3 to 2 ratio. So maybe you spend ten weeks or so or 12 weeks or so focusing. Mainly
on endurance were three workouts per week on endurance
work, eighty percent of those
workouts, meaning, 80% of the time, you're below that burn threshold. You are not experiencing a burning sensation, but that for
20% of it, you are that based on the scientific data, should support lactate metabolism, brain health Etc, as well as cardiovascular health and oxygen utilization. All the forms of endurance that we're aware
of. And then the other two workouts would involve
resistance training again, with this 80/20 split where 80% of the work is not to failure in 20% is
and then maybe after 10 12 weeks you switch where you start emphasizing strength and hypertrophy work for three of the
workouts and endurance work for.
Two of the workouts.
Now, of course, some of you will be able to train six days a week or you'll compulsively need to train seven days a week. If you decide to do that, please be aware that this court is all threshold, is a real thing. So for me the three to two ratio works out perfectly because I like
two full days off a week.
When I take those really depends on my schedule and how I'm feeling sometimes, it's two days in a row sometimes, they're interspersed throughout the week but in reviewing the scientific literature for those two episodes of the podcast and in talking to people are really
informed.
In the
world of resistance training and endurance training and how that relates to brain health and body Health. This seems to be the
most rational and grounded protocol, so that's the one that I follow.
So on any given day, I finished that work block
and I train I do some sort of resistance or endurance training. I put those on Alternate days or different days rather. So, we've now talked about the arc that
spans all the way from waking to morning bout of focused work to physical training.
I've not mentioned ingesting anything or nutrients, one of the most common questions I get
her. What should I eat for my brain?
Well, ironically
enough, one of the best things you can do for your brain is, do not eat. But of course, we all have to eat sooner or later and eating is wonderful. I absolutely love eating. I even enjoy the mere Act of
chewing but the question of what to eat is an important one, as it relates to brain health and brain function. Before we talk about that, I want to emphasize that training.
I stood actually has some immediate and long-term benefits
prior to having my lab at Stanford. I was down in San Diego at UC San Diego and had an appointment. The Salk Institute, a biological studies at a
colleague there by the name of such and Panda. He wrote a wonderful book called
the Circadian code. He runs a serious biology laboratory, focusing on metabolism, circadian, rhythms and so forth. As well as the effects of fasting.
Sachin and his book, the Circadian code describe how engaging in physical exercise
while fasted can amplify the effects of that exercise, not just for sake of increasing, the percentage of things like body fat, burned etcetera, but for seller Health Liver Health and health of other organs.
So where possible I
do strive to do my workout without eating anything first. However, some days, I'm very very
hungry and so I
You ingest water,
which contains electrolytes so that means, sodium, magnesium,
potassium for the simple reason that sodium magnesium. Potassium are required
for neurons to function properly. It's part of the way they generate electrical activity.
As well ingesting
electrolytes for me can quell hunger and this points to a whole other topic. We could do another episode on at some point, which is many times people think that their blood sugar is low and
actually that's not the case. And frankly, one wouldn't want their blood sugar to be high. You don't want your blood sugar too
low, but you also don't want it too high. Very low blood sugar is terrible but lowish blood sugar tends
to give us a sense of mental Clarity and focus relate to this adrenaline. So phenomenon.
Talked about earlier, in order to be able to focus on exercise or work or anything else, you need sufficient electrolytes. And so many people find that if they simply ingest some
water with salt, maybe a 99 milligrams, potassium tablet of a sudden, they feel very mentally, clear and able to do physical work and mental work.
So, what I do is prior to this
morning exercise, although it's now late morning in this way. I'm describing it and typically it does occur late morning.
I'll have some water with either.
So, a little baby, half a teaspoon of sea salt with a 99 milligrams, potassium tablet, or these days. I'm fond of taking what's called, element, L, M. And T element. I learned about this from
Lex Friedman's podcast. I know many of you are familiar with Lex. Excellent podcast, excellent scientist. I don't have any business relationship to element. They're not a sponsor, the podcast,
but element is a product that essentially contains
electrolytes sodium potassium, as well as magnesium malate, which has been shown to offset things like
Late onset muscle, soreness
that form of magnesium, doesn't
make people drowsy. It's not an actual aortic, like some other forms of magnesium and acting. Silly otic is just one that reduces anxiety
so whether or not it's element or whether or not, you're just putting a little bit of salt into
some water and ingesting that prior to training and that can be an excellent way to ensure that you're able to complete the physical exercise even though you haven't eaten anything.
And I confess some days, I will
eat a little bit before by work out, just because I can't seem to resist eating
I want to mention the use of stimulants before physical training.
This has certain benefits and certain drawbacks,
the benefits are. Sometimes it can facilitate motivation. Because things like, caffeine can increase. The release of dopamine can increase the release of epinephrine can reduce that adenosine level in the blood stream. So some people use caffeine before training in ways that benefit them. It can also increase fat
oxidation and kind of fat, metabolism things, if that's your goal.
I'm not a particular fan of ingesting stimulants before training because of a whole set of problems associated with most
forms of stimulants in the form of energy drinks, Etc. I'm not a fan of energy drinks. I did a
decent portion of a previous episode on food and mood on
energy drinks. And some of the detrimental things they contain
rather. I try and train simply by ingesting the
caffeine sources. I mentioned before God uses a mate. Some
Your lights, some water occasionally, I'll have an espresso or a cup of coffee before I train and
on rare
occasions I should emphasize rare occasions. If I really need help increasing my motivation or I decide I want to push extremely hard. I
will ingest something like
Alpha GPC Alpha GPC supports the release of a neuromodulator called acetylcholine. So 300 milligrams of LPG, PC has been shown to increase
physical performance, but also cognitive performance. Some people might not be interested in ingesting, anything to improve their physical.
Performance or anything at all, but they might be addressing how they can
improve cognitive performance and focus. And Alpha GPC is a non-stimulant way to approach that again, definitely check with your doctor before taking anything or stopping to take anything. But
Alpha GPC has been shown in various studies to improve cognitive performance. And in people who have age-related cognitive decline it there have been some positive benefits reported
in quality, peer review, journals, if you want to
explore those references please go to examine.com go.
Go. Please put in Alpha GPC. Go to the human effect Matrix and there you can
find details of those studies references to PubMed Etc. So let's talk about food timing. First, as I mentioned, I eat my first meal sometime around noon plus or minus an hour for the reasons we've discussed
the volume of food is also important.
If you eat a large volume of anything because it diverts blood to your gut,
you will feel lethargic and you will have less blood going to your brain. That seems like a simple and trivial
fact, but if you want to be able to think you can't
ingest large volumes of anything into your gut. So, the
discussion about what foods give you energy is kind of moot. If
you eat enormous volumes of that food, now, the volumes are going to depend on
you and your needs and your activity levels. I'm going to discuss.
What I do in terms of food content. But I'm not going to
discuss food volume. I sort of know where that mostly full like, 80% full line is and I usually eat a little bit past that frankly and I'm able to maintain a decent degree of alertness into the afternoon and that's my goal. And I think that's the goal of
most people to not work
out in the morning, or do some work and then just collapse into a slumber that lasts all
afternoon. But to be able to
generate alert calm Focus States throughout the day.
So, for lunch, I do emphasize slightly
lower carbohydrate or low carbohydrate intake for the simple reason, that
adrenaline and dopamine and their
associate neuromodulators are going to support alertness. So, for me, I fast up until
about noon,
then I eat a lunch that consists of some sort of protein thing, like a some meat, or some chicken, or some salmon, and some vegetables, Etc. And if I've exercised,
Sicily, which I do, as I mentioned five days a week
then I will ingest some
starches, all ingest some red or bread, scuse me or rice, or oatmeal, and butter and nuts, and things like that. I will consume the various food groups as they say, but
I will keep the total amount of carbohydrate a little bit on the low side,
or if I haven't trained, I won't have any carbohydrate at
all. Not because I'm ketogenic, not because I'm
aunt or carbohydrate. Not because I'm on a pure carnivore, diet.
Far
from it but because starches
cause the release of serotonin in the brain and lend themselves to a state of sleepiness.
Now, I should mention that about 25% of individuals have genes that encode for
enzymes, that allow them to eat large amounts of carbohydrate and not suffer from this lethargy. This kind of sedation from carbohydrates, but I don't have that Gene.
And so for me, eating a noon wish me.
All that is not enormous but is decent in size but that is mainly Protein, healthy fats
and lowish carbohydrates are no. Carbohydrates is what allows me to achieve heightened states of alertness throughout the day, which is what I need for my purposes.
So just knowing that meets and nuts support alertness provided, you don't eat too much of them that
vegetables are healthy for us and therefore we should eat them and I happen to like them as
well. And that carbohydrates tend to have a kind of
sedative like quality to them.
That should help you and have guide your food choices in an intelligent way that's grounded in the scientific literature as it relates to alertness.
Now what about components of
foods that are not about alertness but are about mood.
We did an entire episode on mood and food and it's very clear based on. Now, dozens of studies, that ingesting, sufficient levels of omega-3 fatty acids is going to support
healthy mood and even can act as an antidepressant.
More than a dozen Studies have shown that ingesting. At least 1,000 milligrams per day of the EPA form of essential. Fatty acid is as effective as prescription
antidepressants in relieving depression.
And if you're somebody who
requires prescription antidepressants, Prozac, Zoloft Etc,
it can allow people to take lower doses of those medications, which in many cases is a positive thing or a good thing to do
because of the side effect profiles that
Many of those drugs carry.
So I find these data remarkably compelling. I mean here we have a food or a substance from food that can improve our mood and our sense of well-being. And it does that by way of increasing
certain neuromodulators in the brain in particular dopamine, but also some other related neuromodulators.
So if you're eating fatty salmon regularly, if you're eating Krill
regularly, meaning if you're a whale
if you're in
Testing foods that tend to have a lot of Omega-3s, you probably don't need to supplement with omega-3. Most people are not ingesting
sufficient levels of Omega-3s
and I'm certainly one of those people despite an effort to eat good foods and Whole Foods Etc. And unprocessed Foods, I've made the choice to ingest at least a thousand
milligrams per day of EPA. I do that in the form of fish oil and the EPA DHA
combination fish oil. But the, but the threshold of a thousand milligrams is not a thousand milligrams of
fish oil, it's a thousand milligrams.
Mg of EPA.
Now for those of you that don't want to consume fish oils and preferred to get your Omega-3s from non-animal sources. There are non-animal sources,
various forms of algae etcetera, you can just look that up online and you should be able to find that. There are also a number of foods that include these essential
Omega-3s. We did an episode on food and mood where I go into more detail than you could ever want on that as well as some additional recommendations. We also did an episode on thyroid
function, this hormone that's important for metabolism
And that pointed to the importance of getting sufficient iodine, which you
should naturally, get from the salts, you're ingesting provided. You're ingesting enough. Salt I'm not somebody who eats a lot of kelp,
but or seaweed, although I don't
mind the taste of seaweed. I don't
ingest it regularly, but ingesting sufficient selenium or selenium has been shown to be
important for proper, thyroid production, thyroid function, which is why I tend to eat a few Brazil nuts, each day, typically with my lunch, or sometimes before my workout doesn't really.
Matter.
The point is that the volume of the amount, the content, and indeed the ratios of protein, too fat too carbohydrates, are going to impact how you feel and they're going to impact your brain health. And of course, the timing we know that allowing periods of 12 hours or more each 24-hour cycle where you're
not ingesting. Anything is beneficial for your brain and body Health. That's what such him Panda and his colleagues work, has shown over and over again, in these quality
studies. So,
People ask me, you know what should I eat for my brain more often than not. It's really a question of how you're structuring your day when you're eating for the
first time, how long you're allowing yourself to fast each 24-hour
cycle and also whether or not you're getting sufficient Omega-3s, whether or not you're getting sufficient selenium, to support things
like thyroid function, which has an impact both on the metabolism of the body but also the metabolism in the brain. And when I
say metabolism, I don't just mean burning energy.
E, I
actually mean the rebuilding of things. So in the
episode on growth hormone and thyroid hormone, we talked about how metabolism means not just the
breakdown of fats and carbohydrates, but also the building up
the repair of muscle tissue. The repair of bone, the reinforcing a bone end, the repair and the build-up of brain tissue. And so those are the things that I emphasize because they are so strongly
supported by the scientific data done in
mice, studies done in humans
And basically, there's a lot of biochemical evidence
that supports everything that I just
described along the lines of health and well-being, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention hormones, hormones have broad effects on the
body and brain, we did an entire month on hormones. If you
want to hear about any of those hormones in detail,
we talked about testosterone and optimizing testosterone, estrogen Etc,
the sex steroid hormones,
which include testosterone and estrogen.
Which of course, are present in varying ratios,
but in both men and women and in kids, they are manufactured from cholesterol. We hear about
cholesterol is this terrible thing, but they are actually made from
cholesterol. And so if you don't get sufficient levels of
cholesterol that can be problematic for your hormones and that can be problematic for your brain and your body health.
So, without going into too much detail, I'll just point to a couple things that I do that,
at least from my
Woodwork, and from my subjective experience, have been very beneficial for me. That some of you might want to consider
first of all, I'm not shy about my love for
butter, I will eat Pat's of butter directly. I believe if people are going to eat cheese without a cracker, I will eat butter without a cracker butter is high in cholesterol.
So I don't eat a ton of it but at least for me and for my
lipid profiles it's fine, butter has cholesterol which is a precursor to the sex steroid hormones and men and women need testosterone.
Own and estrogen in order to feel good and to be able to think you do not want your estrogen too low or your testosterone too
low. So I eat butter in order to ensure that I get sufficient cholesterol, but are also has some other things that are beneficial, various small fatty acids, that are that are interesting
in terms of their effects on metabolism, etcetera. You can look those up a benefits of butter, but again,
volume is important in. You can't overdo it,
Costello. Incidentally loves butter as well
along.
The lines of hormones and testosterone, get a lot of questions about this. I think, because
a lot of online communities are sort of
obsessed with testosterone, and I just want to emphasize that, yes, having sufficient levels of testosterone is vitally important for brain
function, and having sufficient levels of estrogen will allow your brain to actually function. It
turns out that estrogen is
one of the main ways in which the brain maintains longevity and maintains its ability to
think. So, we should all
Be
seeking optimal testosterone levels for ourselves, both testosterone and estrogen,
and many of the things that we've discussed up until now, morning, sunlight,
exercise fasting, those can
support testosterone and estrogen, in meaningful and positive ways.
I get a lot of questions about hormone optimization. We did an entire month on this
topic. We did an entire episode on testosterone and estrogen optimization just want to briefly
Highlight two things that could be relevant. And then, if you want more details, please go see that episode. The first is that testosterone can exert its various functions, only in
its Unbound form, free testosterone.
We all make a particular binding. Protein called sex hormone-binding
globulin, that essentially binds up testosterone, prevent it from being
free. This sounds like a terrible thing. But actually, it's a good thing because it allows testosterone be transported to the various tissues, including the brain. Where can
it
Exert its various functions
for those that have lower than desired levels of testosterone or too much sex hormone-binding globulin. It turns out that 400 milligrams per day
of something called tongue. Got a lie, which is a form of ginseng, can actually help increase levels of free testosterone, many people experience a positive subjective effect in some objective effects as well. Meaning increases in free testosterone when they do blood analysis.
There are some data on that not a ton in the peer-reviewed literature zand again always approach these with a sense of caution and definitely
talk to your doctor. If you want to learn more about that you can go to examine.com. There's a lot there's a lot of
information there. Listen about that. The other compound that's relevant. Both to men and women, or I should say people that are trying to optimize testosterone and or estrogen is Fado Gia for doji. Aggressiveness is a actually, an herb that increases the levels of what's called luteinizing hormone. Luteinizing, hormone is a hormone that's released from
Hypothalamus within the brain that travels to the gonads either, the ovaries are the testes to stimulate the release
of estrogen or
testosterone. And for doji aggressive, as has been shown albeit, in a limited number of studies to increase levels of luteinizing hormone, and
thereby levels of testosterone and estrogen in ways that some people find beneficial. So, I just want to mention those two. And again, if you want a lot more information about hormone optimization, please see the episodes on hormone
optimization
A key aspect to the midday meal. If you want that meal to benefit, you is to take a brief
walk afterwards. It turns out that brief walks of five to thirty minutes. After ingesting, food
can accelerate metabolism and actually can
accelerate and improve nutrient utilization, which is
essentially the same as metabolism. But nonetheless, that's something that I do after I finish my noon meal, I do force
myself to stand up and go outside and take a brief walk that off.
It's me again into optic flow. It also has another benefit, which is that I am giving my brain and thereby my body, more
information about light and time of day, which is always better than less information about light and time of day,
much of our circadian rhythm and our health rhythms and all of our cognitive rhythms Etc, or supported by our cells, knowing
where they are in time. And light, is the primary site Gaber that's German for timekeeper, is the
primary way in which
Each the body learns
information or about what function should be turned on, and what function should be turned off.
So, getting that Morning, Light pulse but then also leaving the
house or apartment or workplace and getting out for a few minutes. After lunch is beneficial for
metabolism, beneficial for nutrient, utilization and beneficial for
all the organs and tissues of the body because you're getting that outside light exposure. Now, I'd like to shift our attention towards science supported protocols,
that increase the effectiveness
and our
In everything
and by everything I mean, sleep, I mean, physical performance. I mean, mental performance,
I mean, less anxiety, all the things, truly all the
things and that is something
called non sleep. Deep rest, non sleep, deep rest or NSD are
is an acronym that I coined as an umbrella term to Encompass
many protocols that all have been shown in one form or another to support better brain and body.
ADI function.
Now these protocols
have names that you've heard before things like meditation, things like Yoga Nidra and things like hypnosis,
all of these protocols and these
activities. However, share something in
common which is they involve a deliberate and directed shift in one
state,
and the shift tends to be toward a state of deeper relaxation.
We certainly don't have time now to dissect out the literature on all of these, there is ample literature I should say, there is robust and ample literature. Supporting the fact that a regular meditation practice is beneficial
but meditation itself as many forms Transcendental Meditation, loving kindness meditation, third eye
meditation, walking meditation. Yoga Nidra is a practice, I've talked about many times before which involves simply lying down. It doesn't solve any movement, no down, dogs are up dogs or anything. It just involves lying on your back and doing some
Long, exhale, breathing, there, a lot of Yoga, Nidra, scripts, out there that are quite good. But there's one NSD r-type
protocol that
has been shown by the greatest number of scientific studies to promote, not just states of deep relaxation. Not just states of heightened Focus, but also
to accelerate plasticity and learning within the brain. And that's hypnosis,
and I become increasingly excited and interested in hypnosis as a tool.
Cool. And not just a tool of any kind, but a tool that really can be directed toward particular goals and outcomes. And I think that's really what sets hypnosis apart as an NST, R non-slip depressed protocol from things like naps or things like Yoga Nidra or things like meditation. And I certainly believe and understand that meditation
naps in Yoga Nidra can be directed toward less, anxiety, Etc. But
hypnosis is unique in that. It's
Very directed. The Essence of hypnosis is for the person you to guide your brain toward a
particular outcome or change.
So I'd like to point out a particular resource. It's a completely zero cost resource, which is
reverie.com. That's our EV, ER i.com. Rev.com obviously is a website
where there are links to an app that's available in Apple and Android. This is a hypnosis app, but this isn't just any hypnosis app. This is a hypnosis app that contains multiple hypnosis
Protocols that are all backed by
very high quality
science. The science was done by my colleague and our associate chair of Psychiatry at Stanford school of medicine. That David Spiegel is responsible for that work. I'm not associated with that scientific
work. They've examined what brain areas get activated during hypnosis?
What the outcomes are for various hypnosis
protocols and within reverie? You will find
hypnosis protocols for
enhancing your focus and Hansen creativity reducing pain. Getting better at
In reducing anxiety. Most of these are about 10 or 15 minutes long. Some of them are extremely brief one minute long. They have a one-minute hypnosis that you can do those one minute hypnosis scripts work. Best if you've been doing the 10 and 15 minute ones regularly or semi-regularly, it's a really wonderful resource for which there is
a lot of peer-reviewed published
data.
One study I'd like to emphasize in particular is giong at all jie, A and
G that is a reference. You can find on the reverie.com website under our research
and the title of this paper is brain activity and functional connectivity associated with hypnosis. And it was
published in the journal cerebral cortex.
What this paper essentially shows is that specific areas of our brain that are involved in executive function, which is associated with our ability
to focus as well as What's
called the default mode Network. Which,
Sort of the way that your brain Idols does your brain, tend to idle a tanning at a level of high anxiety or calm,
as well as activation of a brain area called the insula.
That's ins Ula. The
insula is extremely interesting. Hypnosis has been shown to activate the insula, which can enhance our sense of interoception, our sense of internal state which might sound like a annoying thing. You don't want to
be thinking about your heartbeat or your breathing. But what's
really interesting about hypnosis is that it increases areas of the
The brain are responsible for deep relaxation, focus and self-awareness, this interoception simultaneously, and that's very unusual compared to other states and in other states of any kind. So, I've made it a practice a daily practice. In fact, that after
lunch and after this
walk I do a brief 10-minute hypnosis script because of what I found is that in contrast to naps and in contrast to other forms of NST R it really allows me to enter a state of deep relaxation.
Station but also to then exit that state in a very focused and deliberate way that allows me to lean into my afternoon, in an alert way, in a way that I can function and do mental work and interact with people at cetera. So there's no brain fog, there's no grogginess and I want to emphasize that the hypnosis that I'm referring to here and that reverie provides is not stage. Hypnosis
isn't you being programmed to squawk like a chicken or do anything against your will? This is you
teaching your brain? How to access these fields?
Focused relaxed interoceptive States. This is also an extremely valuable aspect to hypnosis because it can increase plasticity, the brain's ability to change in response to experience. It's essentially opening up Pathways that allow you to change your brain in the ways that you want
and it's very directed toward particular outcomes.
So I am an as you can probably tell I'm very
enthusiastic about hypnosis as an optimal, NS TR protocol and so I do that every single day.
Days that I don't manage to do it
for whatever reason I forget or interference from email
or etcetera. But that is essentially how I
enter my early afternoon. I do
this post-launch post
walk and SDR in the form of a reverie hypnosis. Again a completely
zero cost resource to you, there
are excellent data. All those data can be found on the reverie site and you can also
learn a lot more about hypnosis and what sorts of hypnosis
protocols might be optimal
for you.
So if you are looking for a science back to zero cost very effective tool
for getting better at focusing better, at sleeping better at all. The things that I believe people want, I do believe that is the best tool that one can access at this point in time. So
then after I exit hypnosis usually have cost a little scratch behind the ear and then I make sure that I hydrate
Hydration again, is vitally important for brain function. It's vitally important for all bodily functions and I often forget to do it. So I've just sort of linked, the drinking of
water to my hypnosis practice as soon
as I'm done, I hydrate. And then I tend to focus on another work about. So this would be for me sometime around
2:30 or 3:00 o'clock in the
afternoon. When normally I would be quite sleepy and passing out. However, the protocol of Shifting my morning caffeine to 9
It's two hours after waking as well
as the use of this hypnosis protocol has really allowed me
to move through the afternoon in a way that I don't experience. That dip in energy. Every once
in a while, I'll feel kind of sleepy or kind of out of it, but I've been really pleasantly surprised at the extent to which one can avoid that
afternoon. Dip, if you do certain things properly prior to the arrival of 2 or 3 p.m. Now, if
you're a napper and you want to nap, no big deal
naps can be
Wonderfully.
Beneficial here are the rules around napping.
According to the Sleep signs, Stanford has an excellent Sleep Clinic. I consulted with Jamie's. A'ight, sir, my colleague in the Stanford sleep laboratory, as well as Matt Walker out at Berkeley whose name. I'm sure. Most of you are
familiar with wrote this wonderful book. Why we sleep naps should be 90 minutes or less. And 20-minute naps are
fine, but not longer than 90 minutes. And
there are essentially two varieties of people people, for whom napping, interferes
with falling,
Sleep later that night and staying asleep. And people for
whom the nap, does not interfere.
You have to decide who you are and if you're somebody who
can nap and not have any trouble falling asleep and staying asleep later that night, well, by all means nap. Just make it 90 minutes or less. Again, these 90-minute Cycles are really a vital constraint that we should all have a if
it's 91 minutes, don't worry, you won't dissolve into a puddle of tears. But if you're starting to
sleep for an hour or more in the afternoon, that can be problematic,
if you're somebody who can
An nap for 1020 minutes that's probably better than getting a full 90 minutes cycle, unless you didn't get enough sleep the night before, but you really have to figure out what's right for you.
There's a lot of variety there, but that's essentially what the science
says. Now whether or not you nap or whether or not you do not nap, icky protocol for Sleep, health and wakefulness and metabolism. And Hormone Health is
viewing light in the
afternoon. So here's the reason for doing
this.
as we progress into the evening hours,
there's a phenomenon
where our retina, our
eyes become very sensitive to light such that if we view bright lights or even not so
bright lights between
the hours of 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. that is strongly disruptive very disruptive
for our dopamine production, it can really screw up our sleep and it's actually been shown in data from
David burson's Lab at
Brown University, one of the foremost
circadian. Biology Laboratories as well as summer tars laboratory at the National Institutes of
mental health that viewing bright light or even not. So bright light between these hours of 11:00 p.m. and 4 a.m. or even 10 p.m. and 4:00
a.m. can disrupt learning and
memory can disrupt the immune system and can disrupt
mood in very long lasting ways.
There are ways to offset
that. However, what I call your Netflix inoculation, for those
of you that like to stay up late on the tablet or computer or watching Netflix, getting a little bit of afternoon light in your eyes. Somewhat counter-intuitively, can prevent
this disruption of bright light later in the evening,
at least
somewhat. What do I mean by that?
Well if you view light as the sun, is
starting to go down. So if you step outside around
4 p.m. 5 p.m. again, what time
exactly will depend on time of year and where you are located on our planet
but as the Sun starts to head down, you don't necessarily have to see the sunset. It be lovely if you could sunsets are beautiful, but if you can get outside and see the sun, is
it arcs down? Or if you
can't see the sun directly, get some sunlight in
your eyes in the afternoon hours, so maybe four pm ish, and do that for 20-30 minutes, maybe reading outside or taking a walk.
I walk the dog again that's my protocol in order to get that evening light. What
it does is it lowers the
sensitivity of your retina in the late evening hours which allows you to buffer yourself against the negative effects of bright light later at
night. Now it won't allow you
to blast your eyes with bright light. You still need to dim the lights in the evening, but
there's a very nice study that was published in scientific reports that illustrates that. If one does this, if you go outside,
View sunlight in the
evening hours for
anywhere, from five to
30 minutes, and I realized that people have a range of
constraints on their schedule. But from 5 to 30 minutes, what happens is that your melatonin Rhythm stays appropriate? Now we haven't talked too much about melatonin but melatonin is a hormone that is inhibited by light. It's actually prevented
by light and
melatonin is the hormone that allows you to fall
asleep easily.
Now, I'm not talking about
Out supplementing, melatonin.
I'm talking about melatonin that you naturally produce from your pineal.
So the protocol is very simple. Get outside in the afternoon or evening. For 10 to 30 minutes, take your sunglasses off, get some bright light, get some natural light in your eyes. If you can't do that, probably better to just
stay with standard artificial lights
inside. Don't crank them up but just start to dim
them. Again, this would be a time to avoid blue blockers. People are popping on Blue Block.
Is it four o'clock in the afternoon because you're worried that blue light is going to disrupt your sleep, well, you're making your eyes more
sensitive to any light that you might see later in the evening, blue light or otherwise. So, get that afternoon light.
So what you'll probably notice is that the
optimal protocols for optimizing your brain, and body health
and performance and sleep. Etcetera are actually really simple, but just because they're simple does not mean that they are not powerful. In fact,
they are very powerful because they leverage the most powerful.
Gee that exists, which is your nervous system.
You know, we always think about Technologies as devices. And indeed there's some wonderful devices out there. Some people are really into tracking their sleep and their sleep time. If you're into that great, that's not something that I personally do. Although I keep telling myself that I should do that, there are devices that can control brain, waves and things of that sort. But we are talking about today are really basic things that we can all do that. Can
steer our neurology, and our biology in the directions that are going
Support workflow that are going to support hormones that are going to support
brain function. So this afternoon light viewing is yet, another example of leveraging, a technology that you were born with, and that you will die with, and that you will have your everyday in between, in order to tweak the hormones of your system. In this case, the hormone melatonin, so that it's released at the appropriate
times, and not at the wrong times,
because we know that when hormones and systems of the body are well, aligned with the 24-hour.
Jewel,
beautiful things happen and when they are
misaligned terrible things happen. Sometimes those terrible things are subtle at first, but disrupting your circadian rhythms is really
bad for every system in your body getting it right. And as you can tell getting it right, doesn't take
much can really serve to quote, unquote optimized you when I say, optimize it, me puts you into a
better mood overall better state for learning Etc. So get that afternoon light as well.
So at some point in the evening,
I eat that thing that we call
dinner and while it
feels sort of strange to talk about my dinner, the reason I want to talk
about my dinner and what I ate for dinner is that for me dinner of course is about eating. I'll mention again, I love eating but also about optimizing the transition to sleep and sleep. So obviously I eat foods that I enjoy, I'm not one of these people that will eat anything or avoid eating. Anything simply to benefit from that, I do.
Enjoy food, very, very
much. And so my dinner generally is
comprised of things that are going to support rest and deep sleep. And that means starchy carbohydrates. It's absolutely clear. That one of the major ways that we can increase serotonin, which helps in the transition to sleep, is by ingesting starchy carbohydrates. Now, I realize that starchy carbohydrates
are kind of a demonized term, nowadays, everyone's anti carbs, but, you know, we really should distinguish between
Fine, sugars, and complex carbohydrates. And we did an episode about this. We talked about how refined sugars disrupt not just metabolism, but they actually
disrupt some of the neurons in the gut that sends fatty acids and amino acids from fats and proteins, but those
same neurons can actually respond to sugar and create a situation where you actually start craving more sugar because those neurons in your gut communicate via a nerve pathway for you afficionados, called the vagus nerve
and a little cluster of neurons.
All the NoDoz ganglia and odos C
notice ganglia sort of right
next to your the corner of
your jaw and can trigger the activation in the release of dopamine in your brain which basically makes you crave more sugar independent of how something tastes. So when I say carbohydrates, what I really mean is,
starchy carbohydrates, non refined sugars
and in the episode about food and mood and Metabolism as well. I referenced a really spectacular lecture
by dr. Robert lustig, who is a pediatric?
Going to chronologist at UCSF UC San
Francisco.
Absolutely spectacular talk, you can find it on YouTube
easily, where he talks about the science of refined sugars, and this isn't in any kind of conspiracy or paranoid way. This is really the medical and scientific literature so my dinner is carbohydrates and
some protein. So maybe some chicken or fish, or something like that, maybe some eggs or sometimes, just pasta or just rice and vegetables.
And that's because I enjoy those foods. But also
because
I want to increase the amount of serotonin in my brain so that I can actually fall asleep that night, many people, who are on low carbohydrate diets, struggle with falling, and staying asleep. And that's because it's hard to achieve heightened levels of Serotonin, which are necessary to enter sleep. I should also mention that melatonin and serotonin fall in the same pathway. They are related hormones and neuromodulators.
We won't go into their biosynthesis now. But essentially what we're talking about is a system that's biasing us.
To rest and relaxation as opposed to wakefulness
you might ask. Well, can't I just take serotonin, can't? I just take 5-HTP or a precursor to serotonin or tryptophan and indeed, you can however many people including myself find that when they supplement with serotonin in the evening or at night,
that can cause problems in the architecture of the structure of sleep can cause a lot of people including me to fall asleep, very fast sleep, very deeply for three or four hours and then wake up and have a terrible time falling back asleep.
And that effect at least for me as can last several days. It's really disruptive. So I don't like to supplement with anything that is
directly dopamine or a precursor to dopamine at any time or directly serotonin or a precursor to serotonin rather. There are other things
that can enhance the transition to sleep safely which we will talk about in a few minutes.
But the evening meal, consists largely of carbohydrates for that specific purpose of generating a sense of calm. And of course, carbohydrates are delicious and
Because I'm doing some physical training and presumably you are as well. I
hope you are because it's so beneficial to one's Health.
That's also going to replenish my glycogen stores, which is the one of the primary fuel sources for moving ones muscles and moving
around, and doing exercise, as well as for the brain and for cognitive
function. So, low carbohydrates throughout the 24-hour period, are
not something that are
attractive to me. I realize that some people will do much better on a low carbohydrate or even ketogenic diet. But for me,
me and I do believe for most people, creating a situation of may be fasting and
then low carb or no carb diets for states of alertness and
focus at one portion of the day and then injesting
starchy carbohydrates for sake of inducing. Rest and relaxation
is a at least
scientifically rationally based protocol. It's grounded in real neurochemistry, it's grounded in things that we can point to and say ah
this food
Since this thing can support my brain, not
directly, because it's a magic substance that's going to make all my neurons, you know, extremely robust, but rather it's going to
support sleep, which is
perhaps the foundation of all mental and physical health. In fact, we can point to sleep as
the primary way in which we can ensure our overall
health, including our brain health.
So let's talk about sleep and how to access sleep, how to fall asleep easily and how to make sure that the sleep we have is of
sufficient duration.
Ation and quality one way to do that is to leverage the drop in temperature. That's necessary to fall and stay asleep.
So, they mention earlier in the early parts of the day after waking our body temperature is
rising and that continues throughout the
day and then sometime late in the afternoon or temperature Peaks. And then it
starts to drop that drop in
temperature of 123 degrees is vitally important for us
to be able to fall asleep easily.
One way that we can decrease our transition time into sleep is to accelerate that drop in temperature.
And one way to accelerate that drop in temperature, somewhat
counter-intuitively is to use
hot baths hot showers or if you have access to one a sauna.
Now this is counter-intuitive because you'd say
well hot bath so it's going to heat me up. But
actually if you are to get into a sauna or a hot shower
hot bath and then get
out your body is going to engage particular mechanisms for.
Pulling itself off that are going to allow you
to drop your temperature more quickly and fall asleep more easily. And this is why many people find that falling asleep after a nice hot shower or bath, or
sauna is
really, really easy. And really terrific, it's sort of a natural state that follows hot baths, saunas, and showers.
So how would you do this? Well, we did an entire episode on this topic as well. The use of sauna for
sake of growth hormone release, if you want to check that out and all the details you can look at the
Oh, Don growth hormone.
You will experience a growth hormone release from sauna hot bath and hot shower
provided they're done for sufficient duration, and sufficiently high temperature for all the details of that. Please go to that episode. It's all laid out there. It's all time-stamped. It's all captioned in English and Spanish etcetera,
but basically what we're talking about is 20 minutes in the
sauna or if you're one of those folks who's
really chasing growth hormone release you could do 20 minutes, then get out of the sauna for 10 minutes and just cool off at room temperature.
Get back into the sauna then get out and then shower dry off and head to bed
shorter. Balance, Asana will work, also the longer bouts of sauna cooling. Sauna cooling have been shown to lead to huge increases in growth hormone and growth hormone. Of
course, is involved both in
muscle growth, but also growth and Metabolism of all tissues
fat metabolism and repair a various tissue. So it's not just about growth. You hear growth hormone, you
think hypertrophy, but the enhancement of metabolism, and
health and repair in a
Our
of tissues. So that's one way, you can leverage heat toward the transition to sleep,
by the ways in which exposure to heat actually cools off your
body. Now, let's talk about actually getting to sleep and let's talk about behavioral protocols first. It is absolutely true that keeping the room
very dark is beneficial
some people including myself have thin eyelids and it doesn't take much light to wake up the brain and body. So keeping a room very dark is essential. The other thing is keeping the room cool. You've probably heard.
This before keep the room cool get under warm blankets but rarely is it discussed? Why
keeping the room cool is useful.
The reason keeping the room cool is useful for getting into and staying asleep. Is that throughout the night? There are phases of sleep
where you are paralyzed so called REM sleep, that's a healthy paralysis. So you can presumably so you can't act out your
dreams but there are portions of the night where you can move and one of the more important movements that you do in the middle of the night is put your hand out or your foot out.
Out or you take your face out from under the covers as a means to cool yourself and you do this while you were
asleep. If you are in a cool
room, you can put yourself under the blankets to stay warm and then, if you want to
cool off, you can simply remove a limb or you can toss the covers off entirely
However, if you are in a room that's too warm, it's very hard to cool off. You would need a bucket of ice water or to get up and turn on the air-conditioning or something of that sort or turn on the
fan. So, it's a simple. But non-trivial way in which we can improve our entrance to sleep and staying asleep. So, keep the room cool or cold and get under warm blankets. And if you want to understand more about why putting a handout or a foot
out, is valuable for cooling.
I did an episode on the role of cooling in something called heat dumping or bringing heat into the
body, through the Palms, the face, and the bottoms of the feet. You know, you've got these
portals, these
radiators, if you will that allow
us to bring heat into the body and to dump heat don't want to go into the details now but that episode is entitled
supercharge. Your exercise with cold is based on work that was done by Craig Heller's Lab at
Stanford University. Absolutely incredible data.
Showing that the proper use
of Palmer cooling. So the Palms are the upper half of the face or the bottoms of the
feet can
vastly. I mean, vastly increase the volume of one of exercise that one can do and still recover from that exercise and derive benefits from it. But this method of
cooling, for exercise is grounded in a basic physiological, function
of our palms, the bottoms of our feet and our
face, which is to dump heat,
or to allow cool to pass into the body.
So that's why in the middle of the night.
As long as you're not in REM sleep, if you get too warm, you put your foot out,
or you put your arms out here, actually allowing cooling of the body
through what are called a va's. Arteriovenous. Anastomoses is the technical name
that are in the Palms, the upper half of the face in the bottoms of the feet and that's a very efficient way to cool off your body. So you do that subconsciously.
Now, there are things that one can take to enhance the transition to sleep. I am not a fan of
Melatonin for enhancing the transition to sleep for a couple of reasons. One dosages of melatonin are far too high and most supplements melatonin can have some negative effects on the
sex steroid, hormones testosterone and estrogen. That's a serious concern. Third melatonin is role during puberty or around, puberty
is to suppress the onset of puberty so that's concerning. I don't know. That people should be
taking this hormone that has all these other effects.
The other reason is that melatonin will Aid the transition to sleep but it won't keep you asleep.
Sleep, in many people to take melatonin find that. They fall asleep more quickly,
but then they wake up, unable to fall back asleep,
three compounds. That can be very beneficial
for aiding the transition to sleep, and for which there are wide safety margins. Although please do check with your physician before, taking anything or
specific forms of magnesium, something called apigenin and theanine magnesium comes in many forms. Magnesium, malate has been shown to improve
recovery from sore muscles,
for instance.
Him citrate is an excellent laxative. For instance, magnesium three and eight. That's thre Ona t-38, and magnesium by glycinate have Transporters that allow them to cross the
blood-brain barrier more readily than other forms of magnesium. And
they're within the brain, they promote the release of a neurotransmitter called Gaba, which is an inhibitory neurotransmitter, which shuts
off the forebrain to some extent. It doesn't shut off completely. But
it essentially shuts down
thinking rumination planning and
What we call Executive function.
So, for many people taking 300 to 400 milligrams of magnesium, by glycinate or magnesium 3 and 8 and they're, I'm referring to the elemental magnesium for you afficionados. Many people find that doing that 30 to 60 minutes before, sleep can Aid
them in falling asleep. Can really help them fall asleep faster and stay asleep?
Some people, however, achieve some gastrointestinal
discomfort from magnesium and therefore should avoid it.
Magnesium, three, and eight, and, and magnesium by glycinate for many people work. However, and when coupled with apigenin and theanine provide a sort of synergy or I sleep cocktail that seems to be very effective in aiding the transition to sleep. So apigenin is the substance that's found in chamomile and 50 milligrams of apigenin Taken 30 minutes before sleep can act as a another way
to shut off the forebrain and reduce
And reduce anxiety and allow people to fall and stay
asleep. I did a podcast with dr. Daria Rose. She's got excellent podcast
that I highly recommend. You check out covers a number of different Health scientific and other
subjects and she's a PhD in Neuroscience. Terrific scientist etcetera she's a big fan of apigenin as am I and then the third compound is theanine th EA ni NE
Theanine is a compound that can also increase Gaba, but also increases activation of something called chloride channels. Chloride channels are another way in which neurons turn
themselves off or turn each other off. Not turn each other off, in the way that were, typically her like that turns me off. But turn them off and shut them down lower their lower their levels of activity.
So, magnesium, 3 & 8 are by glycinate apigenin and theanine in combination
can be very effective for aiding the transition to sleep.
And I
Not everyone wants to take supplements. I certainly am not pushing any of these. I would hope that everybody be able to fall asleep easily and stay asleep for the
duration of time that they want without any
supplemental help. But I do think it's important to point out. Some things that lie somewhere between doing nothing and taking prescription drugs. Because many of the prescription drugs associated with sleep and you all know what those are carry. Other side
effects, they can create bad dreams often
very disturbing dreams. They
Can be addictive or at least habit-forming, they can create grogginess in the morning. Some are safer than others. There's a variety of them out there but for those that want to explore
supplements and how they can impact sleep
this combination of about 300, 400 milligrams of magnesium, three, and a tour or by glycinate 50 milligrams of apigenin. And a hundred to two hundred milligrams of theanine alone or in combination have been beneficial to many people and their excellent studies to support those statements. Again, I suggest you go to examine.com and look up
The human effect Matrix for each of those compounds and you can explore them, one of the more
interesting aspects to magnesium 3 and 8. And by glycinate, is that it seems to have some neuroprotective effects as well. There aren't many studies on it, but the few studies that are there point to the fact that magnesium 3, and 8, and magnesium by
glycinate can also support neuron health. And neuron longevity was just an added bonus in my opinion.
Now, what if you wake up in the middle of the night, this is a very common occurrence and there are two general themes
around wake
A up in the middle of the night that one can
use tools to counteract. The First theme is, if you're somebody who is tired in the evenings, and you're kind of pushing yourself to stay awake. So, you're going to the party or you're pushing yourself to study or work when in fact you'd like to get into bed at 8:30 or 9:00 and then you're falling asleep around 10:30 11:00 and waking up at 2:30 or 3:00 in the morning and you
can't fall back
asleep. Chances are that your melatonin pulse was initiated early in the night? So,
That melatonin pulse started probably around 8:30 or
9 but you're staying up, you're battling that melatonin
and then sometime around 2:30 or 3:00 in the morning that melatonin is no longer present at sufficiently high levels
in your blood stream and you're waking up. You're getting your morning cortisol pulse shifted into those wee hours of the morning.
You may not like this advice but one of the things that you can do to offset that is to Simply go to bed
earlier by going to bed earlier. You're
Going to get the longer duration of sleep. But I realized that there are social reasons and work related reasons why going to bed at 8:30 or
9 is not necessarily
beneficial to your
life. So, in that case, you might be one of the rare individuals for whom getting a little bit
more, bright light in the evening, could be a good thing. So this would be around the hours of 7:00 or 8:00
p.m. And then that way causing that pulse in melatonin to be delayed because again, light inhibits melatonin
Now, the other thing is many, people wake up in the middle of the night because of
anxiety, or because they have to use the restroom.
It's perfectly fine to flip on the lights, but keep the lights dim. But if you flip on those lights, try and flip them off as soon as
possible and try and get back into bed. And if you have trouble falling
asleep again and you absolutely need to
sleep. That's where these NS D are these non sleep deep breaths? Protocols can really be beneficial even though
the the NS the non-slip part might make you think that
they will prevent you from falling asleep
rather than trying to fight your mind trying to fight
anxiety, which is always a terrible thing to do. I always say it's very hard to control the mind with the Mind, look to the body. And that's what NST R scripts, do
things like Yoga, Nidra. Even the sleep hypnosis done in the middle of the
night. If you wake up and want to fall back asleep, often times will help you fall back asleep
immediately. And if they don't, they will at least put your brain and body into a state of deep relaxation that more closely
mimics.
Sleep state that you ought to be in. Then the awake ruminating stressing about the fact that you're not sleeping state.
So if you wake up in the middle of the night, really try and get back to sleep. And if you can't do that
by doing, for instance, long, exhale breathing, which can
work use some other tool
of the body to shift the mind and the tools that I'm recommending, our of the non sleep deep rest for ID.
So now we've essentially traveled around the clock, so to speak from the time where one wakes up until the time.
I'm
they start working until the time they exercise. He launched
do an NST,
R head to sleep, get to sleep. Maybe wake up. Get back to sleep Etc.
I want to emphasize that although people schedules vary, most people are doing more than one or two workouts
per day and indeed I'm doing more than one or two workouts per day.
I really emphasize that morning 90-minute work block because I think most people would agree that there's a
Portion of each day in which we need to do the
hardest thing or the most important thing, or the thing that demands the most of our cognitive
self. I position that early in the day and I position everything around that in order to ensure that it
happens and that it happens with the highest degree of
efficiency. And yes I make sure that it
happens every day and that
brings about two other important points. First of all,
We do have this thing called
weekends, and I tend to take one day off per week, not both much to the dismay of people in my life and Costello,
but nonetheless, there is something called weekend drift, which is that we can be very regimented on a Monday or a Tuesday. And then even if we're good about maintaining a schedule Wednesday Thursday Friday,
Etc, most of us, I would hope would alter their schedule somewhat on the weekends in order to recover and get some additional rest.
And I want to emphasize, I
absolutely do that. I take
one day per week, where I go full Costello, where I
essentially do nothing in a structured way. At least if I have my way, I'm
not making any plans.
I'm completely
free to explore what I want to do. And when I want to do it,
that's not the way life works out. Oftentimes there are social engagements and
other things that get in the way, or that I enjoy, and that breaks up the day. But I do take rest, I don't think that one has to follow the same schedule every single day. However,
I do think there are a few things that people should do every
single day if possible
and those are get morning sunlight because if you don't your circadian rhythms and your health
Etc and your mood are going to start to
drift and to try and get sleep on a regular basis and of course, some of the greatest of things in life happen, after 10 p.m. and some of those even involve sleepless nights
of various kinds, I
certainly don't want to discourage people
from having a social life or from having a
Robust party life, if that's your thing or for for enjoying life because that's certainly one of the main things that we should all be pursuing is to enjoy life.
The only point I want to make about sleep, is that if you happen to
stay up late, it's still best to get up at your regular. Wake up time. It's
a very simple solution
to a problem that a lot of people have, which is they stay up till 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning and then they tend to sleep late. And then it's to disrupt the
Rhythm try on most days and most nights.
Time to wake up at more or less the same
time and try to go to sleep at more or less the same time. In fact, I was talking to Matt Walker about this recently and he was also surprised to
see these new data and I was surprised to see these new
data that emphasize that if you get a poor night's sleep or if you're up late the previous night for good reasons,
many people feel like they just want to go to
bed early the next night, but it
turns out that's not the best
thing to do for your immediate and long-term Health,
try and stay up to the point where you would normally
stay up and then get to sleep.
Go to bed a couple hours earlier, it's probably not going to kill you,
but try to not go to bed for instance at 6
p.m. because you were up the entire night before that can really be disruptive.
The other thing I want to emphasize is that even though that morning
90-minute work block is so vital. Of course there's a second work block and in fact, I described one in the afternoon after the NS TR. For me, that's reverie
hypnosis, there's a 90-minute work Block in which I drop in again in a no.
No, internet connection, no phone, kind of way to complete some work. That's important
to me. So combined, that's just three hours of focused work, which may not seem like a lot,
but if you were to dissect your day and kind of look at
the ark and structure of your day,
I'd be willing to bet that if we added up the total period of
time in which you were in what Cal Newport would call Deep work really focused dedicated work that it would probably amount to about three or four
hours if you can squeeze.
In
another 90-minute work block, or if you can get for 90-minute word
blocks? Well, then more power to you, but I think most people find that one or two of these really deep focus.
90-minute work blocks are about what one schedule, and even mind can handle.
And, of course, throughout the day, there are other
things happening outside of those 90 minute work blocks. I'm checking my text messages, I'm checking my email, I'm responding to various demands, I'm working and tending to life. So while I've carved some
Some
boundaries or delineate, some boundaries around those
work blocks. And I'm certain
that if you do to, you will benefit from them. They are certainly not the only
periods of time each day in which I or I believe other people should be trying to learn or trying to
focus and I want to emphasize that even though my job
is to discover knowledge and distribute knowledge because I'm a
scientist, I realized that 90-minute work
blocks of the sort that I'm describing
May not apply specifically to the kinds
of work. You do if you're an artist or a sculptor where you build Furniture, whatever it is that you happen to you teach children or they teach you, whatever
it happens to be. Of course,
please adapt and modify what I've described today in ways that best serve you and your schedule. What I've
tried to do is provide you a picture of the 24-hour schedule that I
follow and why I do certain things at particular times and why I do those particular things and I've
really tried to emphasize
Is the scientific rationale behind those things. The
peer reviewed data in some cases, I pointed out the specific papers. In other cases, I've
referred to large bodies of work that support these practices. When I say large bodies of work,
I'm a big fan of looking to the scientific literature and asking. Where is the center
of mass for a particular topic.
For instance, where is their
fifty or a hundred or a thousand papers that for instance support Morning Light viewing in order to
Optimized melatonin secretion later that in the day cortisol secretion early in the day mood metabolism. Etc.
If one were to put into PubMed light metabolism and mood, you would literally get tens of thousands maybe even hundreds of thousands of studies. So when I say the center of mass would have really tried to do is examine the literature and figure out where there's a
sort of a directive protocol that emerges from all these various studies that used you know in some cases
In many cases humans and explore different. What we
call dependent variables, some studies were, looking at effects on blood sugar, other on
mood. So I hope that makes
clear. Why the rationale behind what I provided
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