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

welcome to the huberman Lab podcast

where we discuss science and

science-based tools for everyday

[Music]

life I'm Andrew huberman and I'm a

professor of neurobiology and

Opthalmology at Stanford School of

Medicine recently the hubman Lab podcast

hosted a live event at the ICC theater

in Sydney Australia the event was called

the brain body contract and featured a

lecture followed by a question and

answer session with the audience we

wanted to make the question and answer

session available to every one

regardless if you could attend I also

would like to thank the sponsors for the

event they are eight sleep and ag1 eight

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huberman the other live event sponsor

ag1 is a vitamin mineral probiotic drink

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critical micronutrients I've been taking

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that they decided to sponsor the live

event I started taking ag1 and I still

take ag1 once or twice a day because it

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Whole Foods that I eat as well as

adaptogens and micronutrients those

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drink a1.com huberman

and now for the live event at the ICC

theater in Sydney

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

Australia does having an afternoon sleep

affect your quality of sleep at night um

great question I can keep this one

pretty brief um we just recorded a six

episode series that will be aired later

this year uh with the one and only

Mighty Matt Walker who wrote The

Marvelous book why we sleep and uh we

went into this topic in depth the

business of naps is the following keep

them shorter than 90 minutes so you

don't disrupt your nighttime sleep don't

do them at all if it disrupts your

nighttime sleep so if you're somebody

that for whom even 10 minutes of napping

disrupts your nighttime sleep don't do

that

if you're somebody who wakes up from

naps feeling groggy that's what's called

Sleep inertia this is what gave rise to

the ever famous napino of having some

coffee and then taking a nap or an

espresso and then taking a nap again I

get obsessed with gnomen clature why

didn't they call it a Espress espresso

nap I don't know

naps are wonderful if they're shorter

than 90 minutes don't interfere with

nighttime sleep but I in particular am a

big fan of as many of you know this

business of non-sleep deep rest of

putting the body into what body still

mind awake and we know based on several

studies from the University of

Copenhagen that that actually

replenishes levels of dopamine in

certain key areas of the brain that

restore mental and physical

Vigor and do not disrupt nighttime sleep

but rather enhance one's ability to fall

and stay asleep or to fall back asleep

so not only are these states of body

still mind

awake very beneficial it seems or I

should say perhaps for creativity

because that was all anak data but we

know from real data from laboratory data

on many subjects peer-reviewed Etc that

body still mind alert is actually an

effective means to improve one's sleep

and perhaps even make up for sleep that

one has lost so I encourage you if

you're a napper great and if you have

challenges with sleep in any way that

you think might be related to your

napping activity that you consider short

10minute or maybe 20 minute non-sleep

deep breast protocols by the way they're

completely zero cost and very soon we

will be releasing to our YouTube clips

Channel a 10minute 20 minute and 30

minute non-sleep deep rest protocol that

I've narrated if you don't like my voice

we can there are many out there of more

pleasant voices but um what might be of

particular interest to you is that the

visual is of um the beautiful sunrise

over Sydney so you know it'll bring you

home as well um sunrises here absolutely

spectacular do you believe in the

placebo effect absolutely and there's

probably a joke there but I can't come

up with it on the Fly um how would I

know if it's real that um something like

that um so the placebo effect is real um

our belief about what we've taken or

what is happening to us has a powerful

effect on our physiology it's not purely

psychological the whole business of

psychosomatic even that word is starting

to fall away as we start to understand

that our beliefs have a powerful effect

on what happens to us physiologically so

much so that for instance my colleague

Ali

Crum a tenar professor at Stanford's

Department of psychology who's been a

guest on the podcast who studies

mindsets has done beautiful experiments

on stress showing that if you watch a

short video about stress and you learn

all the terrible things that stress can

do to your cognition your sleep and your

well-being well that indeed that happens

and that if you watch a short video

about how stress can be performance-

enhancing by sharpening your mental

acuity your access to

particular memory stores Etc that indeed

that happens so-called belief effects

why belief effects not Placebo effects

well Placebo effects tend to be more

General belief effects tend to be around

specific types of information but the

placebo effect has recently been shown

to extend to a dose dependent placebo

effect one of the more remarkable papers

I think published in the last few years

most people are unaware of I talked

about this in a journal Club episode of

The hubman Lab podcast with the one and

only Peter

Atia described a paper where people took

either zero I believe it was

.25 milligrams half a milligram or a

gram of nicotine which is known to be a

cognitive enhancer please don't smoke

dip Huff or snuff nicotine that's erous

in those forms but and taking nicotine

can increase blood pressure Vasa

constriction Etc but nicotine is a

cognitive enhancer it is a cognitive

enhancer and I can't help but tell you

one story about this before I get back

to placebo effect don't worry I always

make my way

back you can see why living with me as a

child was so challenging

um nicotine I was told by a very very

famous Nobel laurate member M of the

Neuroscience Community because I visited

his office I won't tell you who it is at

Columbia University I met with him and

he was telling me about what he studies

but I noed he chewed no fewer than six

pieces of Nicorette during the course of

that conversation and I had to just stop

him at one point and say why are you

consuming all this nicotine and he said

well it's what's going to allow me to

Stave off Parkinson's and Alzheimer's of

course and I don't want to smoke and I

said really and he said yeah there's

some evidence that keeping levels of

neuromodulators like dopamine

acetylcholine elevated despite the

increases in blood pressure that are

caused by consuming nicotine May indeed

offset Parkinson's and Alzheimer's I'm

not telling you this as a clinical trial

I'm telling you this as anic data he is

a Nobel Prize winner he's still very

very sharp in his 80s the point here is

that in a study of nicotine and

cognition where people's cognition is

indeed enhanced by nicotine everybody

knows that and agrees upon that people

who were told they had a higher dose of

nicotine performed better in this

cognitive task when in fact they

consumed

zero and people who performed

moderately who were then told that they

had consumed a higher dose of nicotine

performed better than those that simply

consumed the moderate dose and were told

they had a moderate dose in other words

everyone gets the same dose either zero

or moderate but depending on what you're

told your performance changes

accordingly and that's cool but what's

really cool about the study is they

actually recorded from brain centers of

these individuals and the levels of

activity in particular areas of the

brain that are relevant for cognition

changed according to what the people

believe so there you go placebo effect

is changing neural activity it's not all

just through what you think is happening

what you think is happening is the

reflection of neural activity and then

you go well of course but I think it's

an important study so I believe in the

placebo effect and it is dose dependent

and that raises all sorts of scary

concerns about the placebo effect but

it's also pretty darn cool because what

it means is that our belief system

including our understanding of the

mechanisms that are likely driving

certain effects of drugs or protocols or

what have you is going to play a

powerful role in whether or not we get

the effect that we want and perhaps

that's the most important thing provided

that you're going about it

safely how do I enter the rest and

digest State and exit my constant fight

ORF flight State well the fastest way is

going to be physiological size probably

repeated two or three times in a row if

you don't experience that the first time

the second would be to combine that with

panoramic Vision I must say and I don't

want to sound like a like a repeating

record here but there are certain things

that if we're not doing on a regular

basis our nervous system is just going

to idle at a higher let's just call it

autonomic RPM which is not you know real

science language but if you've ever felt

kind of wired and tired from lack of

sleep you know what this is about the

key thing is to get enough sleep each

night you know so much so that I think

we can safely say that stress is not bad

for us provided you sleep well at night

now the challenge is for most people

including myself if you stress a lot

sleep doesn't come easily or you wake

from sleep in the middle of the night

and here again is where zero cost

behavioral protocols are truly in my

opinion unless there's some dire

clinical

need the most effective and best

practice and this non-sleep deep rest

which by the way is indeed a renaming or

a partial renaming of Yoga Nidra which

stands for yoga sleep and again I have

tremendous reverence for the yogic

Traditions it's just that I had to make

a decision a few years ago when I'd been

introduced to Yoga Nidra in 2015 I was

down at a trauma Treatment Center an

addiction treatment Center in Florida

run by a friend of mine essentially

observing what they were doing with

these addicts That Couldn't recover no

matter what their effort and they were

able to recover to get sober and stay

sober and people were getting over other

sorts of traumas through the use of many

Protocols of course talk therapy Etc but

they would start their day with 30

minutes to an hour of yoga NRA and I

thought what's Yoga Nidra learned its

yoga sleep you lie down you do a

self-directed relaxation it also

involves intentions Etc and I thought

this is really powerful and I spent a

lot of time in my laboratory working on

it and understanding it and there are

other studies as well that now explain

how these states of keeping the Mind

active while the body is still as a

self-directed practice is immensely

powerful for a number of reasons and the

reason I decide to call it non-sleep

deep rest

nsdr was not to rob it of the official

name of yoganidra but because

unfortunately

unfortunately names like yoganidra

or proprietary names or thing when we

name protocols after

people it acts as a separator it often

deters people from trying things because

it sounds esoteric so I went with a

description of the

thing that relates to what the thing is

supposed to do non-sleep deep rest or

what it's all about so um you know I

actively avoided calling it huberman

breathing um or something like that

because that's not my interest my

interest is in people using these tools

and I have taken some heat for that one

um I'm not interested it was not an

attempt to appropriate something it was

really an attempt to just try and

distribute valuable tools because I see

a lot of suffering and it seems like a

useful thing to do so I would encourage

anyone that feels like they enter a

stressed State too much to learn

self-directed relaxation first and

foremost so do nsdr anywhere from three

to five times a week 10 minutes a day as

a zero cost tool as a way to be able to

better access better sleep at night and

then if the figh ORF flight State

persists then of course things like

physiological SI Etc um should be

incorporated and then of course of

course of course I believe in modern

medicine there are excellent

pharmaceutical tools prescription drugs

that can be used for that but of course

there's the intermediate stuff things

like theanine and magnesium that you

know for all the world can be useful in

some context but they're not the be all

end all you know as much as I might

reference supplements on the podcast

from time to time I don't think they're

the place to start I think one should

always use behavioral tools first and

I've said this many times before um but

I think it's worth saying again our

muscles need rest days from the gym in

order to grow back stronger yes

definitely true um is the brain designed

to be consistently learning and

developing or does does it need periods

of rest from consuming new information

or is the rest when we sleep great

questions thank you Timothy um yes

indeed our

muscles get stronger grow after a proper

stimulus is applied to them in the time

after we provide that stimulus which

typically is resistance but since not

everyone's interested in that it's also

the case that an endurance

adaptation

occurs after we embark on the run the

hike the swim Etc there's something kind

of interesting and I just want to take a

moment and just um mention that there's

something kind of interesting about

resistance training is that the one form

of training that because of the enhanced

blood flow to the muscles while we do it

gives us a window into what the

adaptation might look

like once it occurs if we allow proper

rest whereas with endurance training

it's very different right you go further

and or you run up a hill until your legs

burn and you want to vomit up a and then

the next time you do it you don't feel

quite as bad right the adaptation occurs

of course in a very similar way to

resistance training different mechanisms

but there's a delay and adaptation you

get better it's just that with

resistance training you can kind of

sense the change before the change

occurs because of the enhanced blood

flow of the muscles with endurance

training you sense the limit of your

ability and then you exceed that limit

subsequently now in terms of cognitive

learning the same thing is basically

true if you want to get really technical

about it the computational biology the

modeling of this says that if you want

to learn something probably setting the

difficulty of what you're trying to

learn to about 85% correct trials 15%

error trials is probably ideal what does

that mean it means if you're trying to

learn a new piano piece you know or

you're trying to teach that to a child

if they're not starting from scratch let

them play something that they know

pretty well and then introduce a small

percentage maybe 10 to 15 maybe 20% you

don't have to be exact about this of

Novel material that's hard for them to

learn but yes it is the focused

deliberate attempt to learn something

that creates that sense of underlying

agitation that is the trigger the

stimulus for

neuroplasticity this makes sense if you

could complete something if you could do

something a scale on of Music a physical

task speaking a new language if you

could do that why would your nervous

system ever change and how does your

nervous system know if it's supposed to

change right your nervous system doesn't

know successful trial versus failure

trial right I've tried many times to

learn other languages and I'm you know

modestly terrible at Spanish but if I

were to try and get better my nervous

system doesn't know when I'm failing has

no idea what it knows is the release of

certain neurom

modulators namely adrenaline and

norepinephrine and a few others as well

that are associated with the underlying

agitation of like I'm failing at this

I'm not able to remember that Spanish

class because I didn't attend in high

school and this is really difficult and

that agitation the frustration is the

stimulus but when we say frustration

it's the neurochemicals that when they

bathe the surrounding neurons those

neurons go oh something needs to change

for next time and lo and behold the

stimulus for neuroplasticity has

occurred but the actual rewiring of the

neurons either the Improvement or the

reduction in the strength of synapsis of

connections between neurons and in rare

instances the addition of new neurons

for neuroplasticity occurs yes when we

sleep in states of deep rest or

non-sleep deep rest although there's

less data to support that but the actual

rewiring occurs away from the stimulus

so there's really two important

principles here one is that agitation

and stress and the neurochemicals that

underly agitation and stress that is the

stimulus for Learning and goodness do I

wish they had taught me that in school I

mean they taught me all sorts of things

in school but they didn't teach me that

they didn't teach me the physiological

side Lord knows I would have done better

in life if I had those tools instead

they told me look you know if you drive

drunk you could die that was good

information but they didn't tell us

about all the other stuff so I wish they

told us about the stimulus and rest

thing and somehow they have permission

to talk about the rest all right what's

my take on

hallucinations goodness gracious my take

on

hallucinations is um I've taken them um

clearly um well here's the the real

story on Hallin first of all um I'm I'm

very open about most everything I've

done you know um trying to keep context

appropriate but um I I had the

unfortunate experience of taking LSD and

Sil sibin when I was all too young and

those were bad experiences some of them

were bad in the moment some of them were

bad after the moment it is something I

do not recommend and I'm not saying that

to be politically correct I'm not saying

that because it's true the reality is

that being a child an adolescent or a

teenager is a psychedelic

experience and your brain is still

wiring up in all sorts of interesting

ways and everything seems chaotic and

even if you're one of those rare kids

that seems to have everything roded up

appropriately you don't want to throw

massive amounts of neuromodulators in

there haphazardly and start tampering

with the wiring that's my deep belief

okay you that's my deep

belief however

it does appear that at least for adults

who are not suffering from particular

psychiatric challenges namely forms of

psychosis right this is real I mean one

in 100 people experiences schizophrenic

symptoms Etc it's a very high number if

you think about it um certain forms of

bipolar depression that the clinical

trials on psychedelics and here I'm

assuming when you say hallucinogens

you're referring to psychedelics are

very very compelling the psychiatric

Community is now being forced to look at

these data because the data are very

compelling what do we know about these

data and yes I've participated in two

such clinical trials one on high do

psilocybin high dose meaning more than

two grams taken twice by the way this is

with the support of medically trained

therapists and the use of psychedelics

such as psilocybin mostly psilocybin not

so much LSD do you know why most of the

trials are on psilocybin and not LSD I

do but I'm curious if you know it's not

to what's that LSD is too long that's

right that people need to go

home people need to go home the

technicians need to go and LSD is a long

ride it's a long ride so the the thing

about cybin is that the you know the

sort of Journey the trip is you know

somewhere on the order of anywhere from

you know 3 to 7 hours which can fit into

a reason able work day for a technician

clinician um and LSD can be many many

hours longer the kind of um Mount

Everest of psychedelics which is under

investigation by a colleague of mine at

Stanford School of Medicine Nolan

Williams is ibigan iboga which is 22

hours long it has cardiac effects this

is not something to to get Cavalier with

this is something only to be done in a

clinical context with medical experts

there and iboga is very interesting from

what I'm told I have not participated in

iboga trial iboga allows for or induces

a state in which you do not hallucinate

at all with eyes open but the moment you

go eyes closed you get a

highresolution

accurate picture of Prior events in your

life but you have agency you have

volition inside of those pictures and

you're able to change your behavior and

resculpt your Rel relationship to those

experiences like wow and the state of

Kentucky in California recently excuse

me the state of Kentucky in the United

States thank goodness Kentucky isn't

inside of California that would be civil

war the state of Kentucky recently took

the $40 million settlement from the

opioid thing right you've all heard

about that the opioid crisis and applied

that money to iboga trials so this stuff

is happening this stuff is really

happening now in the US in any event

psilocybin these two

sessions medically supported two

sessions um has been shown to be pretty

effective in the treatment of major

depression not completely effective

sometimes there's adverse outcomes but

far more effective than the other

pharmaceutical treatments that it's been

compared to so that's interesting and

psilocybin is serotonin if you look at

the structure of psilocybin and it looks

like serotonin so we're talking about is

a massive dose of

Serotonin and psilocybin appears to bind

near selectively to a particular

serotonin receptor and the outcome seems

to be enhanced or more more broad

connectivity between brain areas that

normally are not communicating with one

another probably not the growth of new

connections but the let's say the

unveiling of the ability for certain

brain areas to communicate with with one

another whereas they couldn't prior

different ways of thinking about the

same problems which is logically sound

if you think about ways to deal with

depression depression is characterized

by a number of things of course but one

of the Hallmark features of depression

in addition to sleep challenges is a

lack of positive anticipation of the

future and it does seem that these macro

do cocin trials are helpful for that

turns out that the micro doing of

psilocybin has not been shown to be

Terri effective which is not to say it

isn't but the trials don't support that

although there aren't many Trials of

that yet so it appears you know if you

had to pick between micro and macro

dosing go

macro um but be careful um go be careful

and and set in setting is important

safety is important and certainly not

for children and as long as and or

adolescence or teenagers I really again

want to want to reemphasize that the the

other thing is as long as we're talking

psychedelics and hallucinogens we should

probably just touch on MDMA for a moment

first of all MDMA ecstasy um has a

number of challenges or potential

problems that need to be highlighted

first of all um contaminants you know we

have a fentanyl crisis in the US so

contaminants so Purity is essential

second of all it is methylene dioxy

methampetamine

and the methamphetamine part often gets

people thinking like whoa it seems

however that the inclusion of the

methylene dioxy component increases

serotonin dramatically and it is the

increase in

serotonin perhaps or at least it's now

thought in addition to the increase in

dopamine caused by the methampetamine

component combined that provides some

sort of neuroprotective effect the early

reports that MDMA ecstasy is neurotoxic

quote unquote puts holes in your

brain was flawed by and indeed that

paper was retracted the researchers did

that study in Earnest but then later

discovered that when they reached for

the MDMA on the Shelf they actually

grabbed the

methamphetamine but the news agencies

didn't report that retraction now our

best evidence that

MDMA taken in the appropriate clinically

supported context can act as an

empathogen can help people develop

empathy for themselves and help relieve

trauma and indeed the clinical trials

show that at the proper dosing and the

proper frequency with the proper support

there's up to 60% and as high as 67%

remission of PTSD

remarkable with support okay not just

taking Molly and like dancing in the

desert we're talking about we're talking

about in the eye mask we're talking

about going inward we're talking about

relaying your experience we're talking

about talking about the challenging

experience or experiences with someone

who's qualified to help you deal with

all of that Etc and someone to drive you

home because you feel like a puddle

afterwards talking about all of that

we're not talking about eye gazing with

your partner telling them how much you

love them you're talking about empathy

for self love for self which is a

concept that frankly I've often

struggled with I thought you know people

would say you got to love yourself I'm

like what is that like what is that I

love my Bulldog I love my friends I love

cuttlefish but like what is that and I

think through the use of MDMA you can

there seems to be this ability to

develop imp pathogenic states to

yourself but of course the reason for

the clinical trials insisting that

people stay in the IM askk and

communicate their experience maybe

popping out of it every once in a while

and talking with somebody in a trusted

sort a trusted person in a way that can

be helpful towards dealing with the

trauma is that the problem with having

that much serotonin and that much

dopamine in your system is that you can

become empathic toward anything so we've

all known people that take MDMA listen

to a particular soundtrack and they're

like I'm going to become a musician I

love music and again I'm not

recommending anyone do MDMA but

in recent years I've really changed my

stance on psychedelics 5 years ago 10

years ago I never would have had this

discussion certainly not with a

microphone in front of my face anything

being recorded would have worried about

losing my job at Stanford or elsewhere

but we now have many Laboratories at

Stanford and elsewhere that are doing

work that is federally funded on these

compounds and if you think about these

compounds while they have been used

recreationally are simply ways to adjust

levels of neuromodulators in the brain

serotonin dopamine Etc that's really all

they are although they do it very

potently and therefore caution needs to

be

applied and as long as we're on that

topic I should mention that ketamine

everyone's excited about ketamine when I

was growing up I was taught that there's

a compound that's really dangerous it's

called PCP ven cycline they are the same

compound they don't tell you this

ketamine and PCP same thing and I

learned about PCP as the compound that

was going to make criminals like punch

light poles and beat up 12 cops and yeah

I watched too much chips when I was

growing up for those of you old old

enough to remember is like Ponch and

John they the motorcycles with the

shorts my sister watched it too but for

completely different reasons so PCP was

like this demonized drug but ketamine

and all this stuff about ketamine is now

legal in the US I don't know its status

here in Sydney so I'll see if I get

arrested on the way out but you know

ketamine is potentially addictive people

talk about the khole ETC weird name by

the way um the whole business with

ketamine is again it's a potent MDMA n

methylaspartate blocker which blocks

neuroplasticity in the short term

expands it in the long term so the way

to think about these compounds these

drugs is by way of their mechanism and

so it should be no surprise that they're

able to induce neuroplasticity but the

goal is not plasticity this is very very

important the goal goal is not

plasticity the goal is plasticity

directed toward a particular positive

outcome anytime you have plasticity you

have the potential for maladaptive

plasticity as well and so that's an

additional cautionary note as I often

say on the podcast I don't say that just

to protect me although I am a little bit

worried now about what I just said over

the last five minutes I'm say that to

protect you next question before I get

myself in trouble what about

what DMT

yeah dimethyl trip to me the yeah it

leads to less uh to um lower threshold

for impulsivity like screaming out what

about

DMT just kidding I don't sorry um so I'm

just joking I'm just joking you seem

like you could take it so I got yeah so

um so I've never done DMT but I've heard

it's a highspeed freight train into your

Consciousness behind the circuit board

and Back Again

um so there are a few great studies on

DMT in iasa just as long as we're

expanding into the the full trip down to

the Jungle um and the the data are

interesting it's it's harder to

know what's going on in these very short

trip massive neuromodulator release um

uh type drug scenarios um Robin Card

Harris at the University of California

San Francisco is somebody who's looking

at DMT um more extensively and and I I

don't want to avoid giving you an answer

but I I do want to avoid giving you a

wrong answer that's not informed one

thing I'll say and this is just rarely

do I plug anything related to the

podcast but we we are actually providing

some support to Robin and others

laboratory for the study of things like

DMT one of the things that we do at the

podcast and this is not a request for

anything we do take a significant

portion of the proceeds from our premium

channel and we fund studies of exciting

things like DMT we're supporting Robin's

lab this coming year I've pulled

together some other donors to provide

support for all human studies no animal

studies and the goal is really to fill

in important blanks like the study of

DMT um as well as other things we're

we're currently funding the um Eating

Disorders laboratory at the at Columbia

University Eating Disorders by the way

um anorexia nervosa in particular the

most deadly of all psychiatric disorders

a really um tragic challenge there um so

I just mentioned that getting funding

for science on really um kind of Next

Level stuff is hard for reasons that are

would take up the whole night so that's

one thing that I'm really trying to do

in the next few years and again this is

not a request but to you know pull

together donors and get them to give

money to Laboratories to do the kind of

stuff that's going to feed back to the

general public very quickly because I

think we're all getting a little tired

of the like okay Mouse study which are

great you know but in 10 years this

might lead to a blank for Alzheimer's or

blank for autism I think we're all

getting a little tired of that narrative

so we're trying to accelerate the

process okay the yeah thank you the um

and it's not a sole effort it's just I

do happen to know a lot about the way

that funding me mechanisms can get a

little bit clogged and so just trying to

you know clear some of those clogs um

the brain and gut axis is this a thing

it is most definitely a thing so I think

one of the more exciting areas is the

so-called gut brain axis we all now here

about the gut microbiome I must say down

here y'all are really evolved in this

Dimension the other day I noticed

probably from jet lag and travel and I

don't know maybe I swam in some stuff

that had too much chlorine or something

I was getting like some little like skin

thing on my face I was like all right

I'll go go get some triple antibiotic

ointment like I do back home clean it up

because I forgot mine so I go to the

pharmacy here what you call the chemist

I go to the pharmacy

and and

the guy behind the counter says well you

don't first of all you can't get triple

antibiotic ointment here you need a

prescription like all right well this is

going to get tricky now I got to forge a

prescription and and I'm just kidding

don't do that don't do that um and he

says but you know have you considered

whether or not maybe your skin

microbiome is struggling because of the

lack of sleep the jetl and maybe you

were exposed to some chlorine or

something I thought you know that's a

logical way to think about it cuz cuz we

just did an episode on oral health where

I'm telling everybody hey like avoid

these like high alcohol astringent

mouthwashes that kill your oral

microbiome because all the dentists and

periodontists are telling me yeah

they'll make your breath fresh but

actually it's Wrecking your gut

microbiome and it's bad for so I take

the probiotic you guys have amazing

probiotics here and in a day boom it's

done now I didn't do a control clinical

trial I don't know whether or not that

was really what did it but it's an

interesting idea this I we know for

instance that we have a distinct

microbiome niches different bacteria

that live in our nasal passages on the

surface of our eyes on the surface of

our skin in the urethra in essentially

every orifice mucus membrane but

everywhere in and around our body and

that these little

microbiota are provided they are

supported they do many things but among

them the gut microbiome which of course

start in the mouth as the oral health

episode um describes with a lot of

protocols as well the the gut

microbiome when it's well supported

creates certain fatty acids that are the

precursors or catalysts for the

production of certain neurotransmitters

in the brain and it is now oh so clear

that enhancing the diversity of Flora of

microbiota in the gut and

mouth is great for the nervous system so

much so that some of the studies on on

relief from certain neuros psychiatric

conditions are being achieved through

and I know it's not pleasant but

microbiota transfer between individuals

socalled fecal transplants which always

makes me a little bit uncomfortable to

think about never had one but you know

it's pretty interesting you know despite

the discomfort of thinking about that

process at least for me the the whole

business of taking the gut microbiota

from one individual that's not suffering

from something and putting it into

another individual and seeing Rel from

certain symptoms of given conditions is

really compelling so I think that we

should all be thinking about ways to

support our gut brain AIS it's very

clear that the best lowcost no

supplement way to do that is going to be

to

consume one to four servings of some

fermented food no beer doesn't count low

sugar fermented foods I suppose beer

does count but it comes with some other

issues um such as you know kimch or

Sauer krauts or kefir or you know every

culture seems to have its own uh

probiotic Prebiotic foods and that's

going to be the best way and it's clear

that it has immense benefit and then

when you don't have access to those

Foods doing things like taking a pill

probiotic now and again is probably not

a bad idea if you're traveling or you're

sleep deprived the the the challenge

with that sort of thing is

that it's a generalized effect of

supporting multiple systems in the brain

and body body so it's going to be a long

time maybe never before you see a really

nice clean study that says that okay

increasing the amount of lactobacillus

in the gut by taking you know X number

of milligrams of lactobacillus improves

your cognition you're not going to find

that study why because in science it's

important and in health to distinguish

between moderating effects and mediating

effects lots of things can moderate a

given feature of your brain or health so

for instance if uh you know God forbid a

fire alarm went off tonight it would

moderate our tension or excuse me

modulate modulate Kies in California now

I'm saying moderate

modulate your attention but it doesn't

mediate attention on a normal basis you

know the fire alarm isn't involved in

your attention whereas certain other

things mediate those mechanisms of

attention so when you improve sleep

you're going to see positive effects on

any number of things when you sleep

deprive people you're going to see

deficit in any number of things these

are not Direct effects these are

indirect effects likewise with the

microbiome so I think gut microbiome

sits in the various what I call pillars

of mental health physical health and

performance these are the things that we

should try and tend to on a regular

basis to give buoyancy to our mental

health physical health and performance

but I wouldn't get too caught up in

wondering which exact microbiota are

important I think diversity of the

microbiome is key if you're taking

antibiotics you want to do something to

counter that through pill probiotics Etc

and and certainly antibiotics aren't bad

but the overuse of antibiotics um

certainly can be and um good on you for

having uh chemists that know better than

to just hand me a bottle of triple

antibiotic ointment quality of sleep

going to bed early compared to sleeping

late but still for eight hours depends

depends on whether or not your

chronotype which for a long time I did

not think was real but based on newer

data it's absolutely clear our real

whether or not you feel best going to

bed early waking up early

we're going to bed at a more typical

time of 10: p.m. to say wake up or 11:00

p.m. and waking up at 7:00 a.m. I see

that you know for any folks leaving they

like early to bed right I get it I'm not

offended it's fine the um I get it it

would not be the first time that people

uh I always say if nothing else the

podcast will cure insomnia because the

episodes are very very long um you know

for some people they just feel

spectacularly better going to sleep

early and waking up early spectacularly

better I'm one such person other people

feel much better staying up late waking

up late the total duration of sleep is

important the regularity of sleep it

turns out is becoming a very important

variable or it has always been an

important variable but the data are

pointing to the fact that if you are

somebody who feels best going to sleep

around 11:00 p.m. and waking up at 7:00

a.m. trying to keep that to bedtime

within plus or minus 1 hour anytime you

can except on a time and on night when

there's a lecture at the ICC theater is

a good idea but in general five nights

out of the week you want to go to sleep

within plus or minus an hour of the same

bedtime that's kind of the general goal

and in the Sleep series with Matt Walker

he talks about the quality quantity

regularity and timing qqr T quantity

quality regularity and timing of your

sleep being the four key features of

your sleep to try and dial in but of

course life isn't about optimizing

everything it's good to get out and

party every once in a while stay up all

watch the sunrise and just live life

also so I think sometimes people get the

impression because I wear the same shirt

all the time that I do everything in a

hyper regimented way but actually it's

quite the opposite I try and do things

regularly and as consistently as

possible so that deviations from those

protocols don't impact me negatively

much at all that's the idea I have ADHD

and I'm struggling to focus what would

be the best way to go about regaining my

focus Nick okay so I think that nowadays

many many people people struggle with um

issues with Focus I think we have our

dos and our do Nots and I'm obviously

not a psychiatrist and I can't diagnose

you Nick from a question on a on a slide

but there I just want to start off by

saying that there are indeed people who

truly struggle with Focus to the extent

that they have clinically diagnosable

ADHD and I've did two episodes on ADHD

and focus one that was mainly focused on

behavioral tools and nutrition

and to some extent supplementation and

when I put out that episode about half

of the comments out there were how could

you you don't respect modern science you

have no um Integrity how could you

suggest that people use these tools it's

all about prescription drugs and the

other half were like yes finally some

tools and some acknowledgement that

these things actually matter and can

help maybe even in conjunction with

pharmaceutical AIDS and then we did a

second episode which is about the

prescription drugs and it was the exact

reverse people writing to me in droves

saying thank you so much I've been

prescribing these drugs or I've been

giving these prescription drugs to my

child rather it's really been helping

but I'm embarrassed to tell everybody

because then people demonize me and tell

me I'm poisoning my kid that they're on

meth and then the other half saying how

could you the pharmaceutical industry

big Pharma is out to get us all I must

say that um and I'm happy to be in this

role um or not happy but I'm willing to

be in the role of try and cover it all

and give people options I don't tell

people what to do I don't prescribe

anything I profess many many things and

you should do is you decide is best for

you but just know what you're doing and

here's the deal that drugs like adderal

viant Etc are indeed amphetamines that's

true um in the young brain they can help

enhance some of the neurom modulators

that allow

for elevated activity in areas like the

prefrontal cortex and elsewhere that

allow for more focused attention and

less impuls ity because the main

function of the prefrontal cortex as you

may all recall is to

say to the particular areas of the brain

that want to move or cause us to move or

cause us to blurt things out like DMT or

whatever it is and sorry I didn't mean

to pick on you I we'll do DMT together

we'll do some MDMA also and then we'll

like be we like we heart heart medicine

um

so the reality is that there are

neurochemical tools that can help help

with ADHD but there are also behavioral

tools and in countries outside of the US

namely in China there are extensive

efforts to train young people to focus

for longer periods of time and believe

it or not they're not doing that through

any D at least in these experiments

through any Draconian approach they

actually have them do what they have

them focus on visual targets the longer

you focus on a visual Target we know the

longer you bring about the activation of

certain neural circuit in the brain that

allow for better focus and while not

everything is about Vision it is

certainly the case based on those

studies and the data I've looked at them

quite extensively that even a short

period of time of learning to entrain

one's focus on a fixation points this

would be the Virgin side movement this

is the Cuttlefish ready to eat or mate

not the Cuttlefish swimming around

looking for potential predators in

panoramic mode doing that for a short

period of time of even a minute or 3

minutes can allow one to bring online

the neural circuits

that allow for enhanced focus in the

subsequent 10 to 20 minutes which is a

pretty reasonable bout of work if you

think about it and here's another

important Point none of us none of us

ADHD sufferers or otherwise should

expect ourselves to be in perfect

trenches deep trenches of focus all the

time that's an unreasonable request for

your nervous system you can build up a

capacity to focus and of course we can

all Focus best on things that we really

enjoy in fact children and adults with

ADHD are known to have tremendous

focusing capacity if they're focusing on

something they really enjoy this has

been shown over and over again which

means that the capacity to focus is

there it's just that the threshold to

focus is higher which means that it's

harder to access and these visual

fixation they're not even experiments

you can literally just place a visual

Target on the wall you know one to three

feet away force yourself to stare at

that visual Focus point and then move

into your work and you'll notice that

your mind will flit away from whatever

it is you're trying to focus on but with

some training you can build up an

enhanced capacity to focus it does

require you flip your phone over you

turn it off you leave it in the other

room you remove distractions some people

even find children will find if they

wear a brimmed hat and a hoodie which

basically took me through most of high

school for other reasons if you do that

you can create a more narrow tunnel of

vision this is the reason they put

blinders on horses so it sounds somewhat

um medieval it some sounds somewhat

primitive or crude but once again again

what we're really talking about is

removing the expectation that focus is

like a square wave function where you

know you you sit down you open your book

and boom you're focused I mean you

wouldn't expect that of physical

performance would you there's a warm-up

there's some Dynamic stretching there's

perhaps some just getting your mind in

the groove you know this sort of thing

neural circuits are not

onof it's not a square wave function

takes some time to ease into a motive

focus and so um my suggest question Nick

is that you and others that struggle

with Focus think about the do Nots the

distractions that clearly are

intervening in our ability to focus

nowadays but also as you think about the

things to explore which may include

these pharmaceutical tools of course

prescribed by a licensed physician but

that you consider that perhaps the

expectations that you're placing on

yourself to focus are too immediate and

that you should train these up more

gradually over time which is not to say

that you should settle on having limited

Focus but that this is a skill that you

can develop like any other skill that

your nervous system is capable of

plasticity throughout the lifespan we

absolutely know that and given that uh

I'm presuming I don't know why I'm

presuming that you're a young person but

even if you're not that you can increase

your ability to access these narrow

trenches of focus even for things that

don't Delight you but I hope you are you

are also doing some things that Delight

you so I was told that's the final

question I'm going to take that very

seriously um and somewhat unfortunately

for me because I could go all night um

really enjoyed tonight thank you very

much thank you thank you so much

I just thank you thanks so

much thank

you truly thank you I really uh

appreciate this opportunity to connect

with you all thanks for coming out the

fact that people come out to listen to a

bunch of Science and uh and uh Health

discussion is greatly appreciated you

know all the tools all the protocols all

the mechanisms all the information while

some of it a very very small fraction of

it was was developed or discovered in my

laboratory virtually everything that I

cover on the podcast I've talked about

tonight are the great discoveries of

other people who deserve the credit and

I've tried to give credit where where um

where credit is due the most important

thing to me of course is that um as you

each learn and try these different tools

and protocols as you see fit for you

that it would be wonderful if you'd pass

them on to other people um please please

please remove my name from that passage

this is not about me or the podcast it's

really about um the one uh thing we know

to certainly be true about our species

is that we can communicate information

to one another handoff tools and that um

in the case where these tools can help

relieve suffering wonderful in the case

where these tools can help improve

mental health physical health and

performance we uh we need to I believe

and and should do that for one another

and last but certainly not least thank

you for your interest in science

[Applause]

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